Dan Riker

Terrific article on the Republican Party's seemingly last stand.

2012-02-27T08:43:00.001-05:00

Here is a terrific article from New York Magazine on the Republican Party and its desperate effort to hang on to power while realizing that time, and demographics, are against it.

Understanding the economic problems in Europe - the basics from Paul Krugman

2012-02-27T08:13:00.000-05:00

If you want to understand what has happened to the European economy, read Paul Krugman. His column today is especially insightful.

In summary, the problem in Europe is monetary. It is not the result of spending too much on the social safety net. It is not over-spending by irresponsible governments. It is not having too much debt. It is not having the monetary mechanisms to deal with the problem, and not facing its own reality.

Conservatives in the U.S. try to use the European financial situation to support their opposition to spending on social programs. As usual they are wrong because they will not look at the facts. They believe something with no evidence to support their beliefs. They want to impose their economic ideas on the nation without any evidence that they work - in fact, with much evidence that they don't work.

They believed Iraq had WMD, and went to war with that belief without any evidence to support it. They haven't changed. They damaged our economy. Now they want to impose economic policies on the U.S. that clearly will only make the situation worse. The evidence is right there, in Europe, for all to see. Why don't the Republicans see it?

Or, are they really that dishonest?

On reading “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair

2012-02-25T12:45:00.000-05:00

I recently read “The Jungle”by Upton Sinclair. I know I should have read it decades ago, but somehow it slipped past me. Of course, I knew about it, and its impact. No novel since Uncle Tom's Cabin has had so profound an effect on American life. Its impact was even more immediate than Uncle Tom's Cabin. It brought about dramatic reforms in food and drug regulation. It vividly showed the end result of pure laissez faire capitalism.

Sinclair was a socialist and the book ends with a chapter devoted to the advocacy of socialism. President Theodore Roosevelt met with Sinclair shortly after the book was published. He said the only thing he didn't like about the novel was that last chapter. However, he sent a team of investigators to Chicago and they verified much of what Sinclair described in The Jungle. The result was a public outcry and dramatic reform.

I am not a socialist. I don't think we humans are capable of the selflessness required. I think reasonably regulated free enterprise - not laissez faire capitalism - generally is the best system for most business activities. However, I think there are activities that can and should be managed without a profit motive. Among those are health and old age insurance. I will write more on this subject in the near future.

Meanwhile, I offer a section of the last chapter of the Jungle for consideration in light of the recent statements and activities of various people professing Christian religious principles:

And what was the use, he asked, of confusing Religion with men's perversions of it? That the church was in the hands of the merchants at the moment was obvious enough; but already there were signs of rebellion, and if Comrade Schliemann could come back a few years from now--
"Ah, yes," said the other, "of course, I have no doubt that in a hundred years the Vatican will be denying that it ever opposed Socialism, just as at present it denies that it ever tortured Galileo."
"I am not defending the Vatican," exclaimed Lucas, vehemently. "I am defending the word of God--which is one long cry of the human spirit for deliverance from the sway of oppression. Take the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Job, which I am accustomed to quote in my addresses as 'the Bible upon the Beef Trust'; or take the words of Isaiah--or of the Master himself! Not the elegant prince of our debauched and vicious art, not the jeweled idol of our society churches--but the Jesus of the awful reality, the man of sorrow and pain, the outcast, despised of the world, who had nowhere to lay his head--"
"I will grant you Jesus," interrupted the other.
"Well, then," cried Lucas, "and why should Jesus have nothing to do with his church--why should his words and his life be of no authority among those who profess to adore him? Here is a man who was the world's first revolutionist, the true founder of the Socialist movement; a man whose whole being was one flame of hatred for wealth, and all that wealth stands for,--for the pride of wealth, and the luxury of wealth, and the tyranny of wealth; who was himself a beggar and a tramp, a man of the people, an associate of saloon-keepers and women of the town; who again and again, in the most explicit language, denounced wealth and the holding of wealth: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth!'--'Sell that ye have and give alms!'--'Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of Heaven!'--'Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation!'--'Verily, I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of Heaven!' Who denounced in unmeasured terms the exploiters of his own time: 'Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!'--'Woe unto you also, you lawyers!'--'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' Who drove out the businessmen and brokers from the temple with a whip! Who was crucified--think of it--for an incendiary and a disturber of the social order! And this man they have made into the high priest of property and smug respectability, a divine sanction of all the horrors and abominations of modern commercial civilization! Jeweled images are made of him, sensual priests burn incense to him, and modern pirates of industry bring their dollars, wrung from the toil of helpless women and children, and build temples to him, and sit in cushioned seats and listen to his teachings expounded by doctors of dusty divinity--"
"Bravo!" cried Schliemann, laughing. But the other was in full career--he had talked this subject every day for five years, and had never yet let himself be stopped. "This Jesus of Nazareth!" he cried. "This class-conscious working-man! This union carpenter! This agitator, law-breaker, firebrand, anarchist! He, the sovereign lord and master of a world which grinds the bodies and souls of human beings into dollars--if he could come into the world this day and see the things that men have made in his name, would it not blast his soul with horror? Would he not go mad at the sight of it, he the Prince of Mercy and Love!

Midnight in Paris – Memories of Paris

2012-02-25T09:41:00.000-05:00

I've only been to Paris three times, and it has been quite a while since the last time, but Woody Allen's movie, Midnight in Paris, evoked wonderful memories. If you are a fan of Paris in the 1920s, or of Paris at any time, then this definitely is the movie for you.

So far, I have only seen two of the other movies nominated for best picture this year, Moneyball and The Help, and thus I have no opinion how Midnight in Paris stacks up, but it wouldn't surprise me if Allen won the best screenplay award. (And he did!) This is a classic Woody Allen movie, with smart, sophisticated dialog from beginning to end. And, as he so many times made New York a character in his movies, this time it is Paris.

It is Paris now, and Paris in the 1920s, and in the 1890s. It is Paris in the rain, Paris at night, and Paris in bright sunlight. If you have been there, then you know. There is no other city like it. It is a city to walk in – the greatest walking city I know. It is a city with a great cultural heritage, great appreciation for the arts, and for the great pleasures of life. Allen shows all this, and more.

The movie caused me to think about my first night in Paris in 1973. My wife, Jan, and I had just registered a little family-run hotel on Rue de la Harpe, on the Left Bank, a street of ancient origin with some buildings dating from the time of Louis XV, a street populated by demonstrating college students at night, perhaps much like it was in the time of Abalard. At least we could think that when I pushed open the windows and the music and sounds wafted up from the street. It was magical.

We were waiting for another couple from home who were meeting in Paris, and went down to the street to look around. We stopped in a little cafe a half block away, one with paper covered tables, the paper used by the waiters to write down the orders. Wine was poured from carafes into water glasses. While we both had studied French in college – my wife was a French history major – neither of us was very fluent. I am a terrible linguist because I have no ear. I can't mimick sounds. However, I could read French fairly well then. So, working together, we could get around. However, we made the mistake of beginning to order in English. The waiter didn't understand. So we ordered in French.

It wasn't very busy and the waiter kept coming back to us, engaging in some conversation, and eventually he started dropping some words of English. By the end of the evening he was using American slang. It was just the beginning of a memorable visit.

I was working for United Press International in Washington at that time, and we had dinner with Gerry Loughran, the Paris bureau manager, and Aline Mosby, one of UPI's most famous foreign correspondents. I remember the dish Jan and I had, Coquilles St. Jacguesa la Provencal. It was great. That was the night that the Yom Kippur War began. Loughran had been the Beirut bureau manager just before his Paris assignment, and we heard the next day that he had gotten a plane out of Paris early that morning to go cover the war. I had to return to Washington and help cover the downfall of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who I had known when he was Baltimore County Executive and Governor of Maryland. A short time later I tried to get a transfer to Paris, but was turned down.

I would have loved to have lived there for a while. We went back in 1976, with Jan's parents. Her father had been in the Army in Europe in World War II, and had not been back there since. We took our daughter there about fifteen years later. Each time it was wonderful. Midnight in Paris made the memories come back.

The people who are the magical, historical, characters in the movie, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Zelda, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, Dali and others, are all quite familiar to us, key players in our education, and cultural upbringing. Allen seems to assume they are to most. I am not sure that is the case, anymore. I noticed that the IMDb website I linked to above has a section explaining who some of these people are, and asking if anyone has read Fitzgerald and Hemingway.

Paris of the 1920s is a long time ago for today's young people, almost as long ago as the Civil War is to Woody Allen's generation. Yet, it seems so possible for it still to linger in the culture, in the mind and in the air of Paris. Allen captures that, and he made me yearn to see it again.

Updated: The United States is producing nearly as much oil as Saudi Arabia, but if you want lower gasoline prices we'll have to let Iran have the bomb.

2012-02-23T13:41:00.000-05:00

I am updating this post to incorporate a link to a story about Koch Industries that argues they are involved in driving up gasoline prices through speculation in the oil market. Here is the link. I think my major points are not affected by this story. It reinforces my point about market speculation.

Is it surprising to you to find out that oil production in the U.S. is approaching that of Saudi Arabia? You wouldn't know that from listening to the Republic demagoguery about gasoline prices and oil drilling. However, in 2010 the United States daily oil production was about 9.6 million barrels, compared to Saudi Arabia's 10.5 million. The United States now is third in oil production. Russia is slightly ahead with 10.1 million barrels a day.

The Republican candidates for President have been charging President Obama with being opposed to the oil industry. Newt Gingrich actually accused him of wanting higher gasoline prices. However, oil production in the United States has increased under President Obama, and in 2010 was 16% greater than in was in 2006. It probably is more now because a huge number of drilling permits were granted in the last couple of years. You can see complete world data on oil production here.

The Republicans also have lambasted Obama for not approving the Keystone oil pipeline that would transport Canadian heavy crude oil from oil shale deposit mining in Canada through the heart of America's Midwest to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The oil industry has been touting this pipeline in television commercials as a boon to America, that it would provide thousands of jobs, and provide more energy at lower cost. Those appear to be blatant lies. It will do none of those things. It appears to be one gigantic, and potentially dangerous, boondoggle.

Most of the jobs that will be provided will be temporary laboring jobs. The oil will be refined into diesel fuel and other products and sold overseas, not in the United States. The oil companies apparently will be able to utilize some tax loophole and will not have to pay income taxes on the profits. And it will increase, rather than decrease, fuel prices in the Midwest. For the details of all of this see Key Facts on Keystone XL.

The fact is that the higher gasoline prices we are experiencing today are directly the result of the tensions with Iran over that country's nuclear program. Iran has cut off oil supplies to France and some other nations, and has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked. If that happened, it would cut off approximately 25% of the world's oil supplies. A number of major countries, including China and several European nations, have been buying oil and stockpiling it in case a war happens. That is driving up the price of oil.

In addition, speculators are buying oil futures, driving their prices up. The price of oil worldwide is set by commodity market pricing, much the same way as corn, pork belly, and other commodity futures are priced. Contracts for future delivery are bought and sold in the marketplace. Prices are established on a per barrel basis and that's what nearly everyone pays. This is an oversimplification of a very complex process, but not a distortion. It is the reason why increased oil supplies in the United States do not cause gasoline prices to decline. The oil is priced just like the oil everywhere else in the world, and is sold to whoever is willing to pay the price. In fact, systems are in place between the oil suppliers and the refiners (and many are just different subsidiaries of the same companies) that automate the process to keep it as efficient as possible.

There is no inherent financial benefit to American consumers to have increased oil production inside the U.S. However, there are other benefits. The oil industry is huge and is one of the nation's largest employers, with many mid-range to highly paid positions. Oil bought by American refiners from American producers (again, this often is simply a transfer from one subsidiary to another) reduces our imports. That is important for two reasons. It theoretically keeps money inside the U.S, and it means less money goes to nations who may not be very reliable allies, and, in some cases, provide assistance to our enemies.

So there are good business and strategic reasons for having a dynamic oil industry inside the U.S. But we do not have the oil reserves to meet anywhere near our demand. We have to import the majority of our oil, and that is never going to change so long as our demand is as high as it is. We will continue to be subject to the effects of world oil prices and gyrations that periodically occur.

There is very little the President of the United States can do about the price of gasoline. The Republicans know this, but they are desperate to find anything they can use to criticize the President. It is bad politics to make an issue out of this since they have no solution. We have strategic oil reserves, which occasionally Presidents release to increase the supply of oil, and lower prices. But the total of our reserves is only a couple of months of supply. While that may help to overcome a sudden drop in supply, such as the blocking of the Straight of Hormuz, it is not something that can be used to solve a longer term problem.

If we want to see a significant reduction in gasoline prices in the near future, about the only thing we could do is to persuade the world that it would be OK for Iran to make nuclear weapons. Right now there doesn't seem to be much of a chance of that happening. And if there is a war with Iran, and oil shipments from the Middle East are disrupted, we will see significantly higher gasoline prices.

“no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

2012-02-22T09:04:00.000-05:00

“no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Article 6, The Constitution of the United States

The main body of the Constitution contained few protections of individual freedom, and this is the principal one. The Bill of Rights was adopted to provided greater individual freedom under the Constitution, and the first item in that Bill of Rights was the 1^st Amendment, guaranteeing the five freedoms essential to democracy: speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. It was abundantly clear to the founders that freedom of religion and the separation of church and state were critical to individual freedom and democracy. Rick Santorum, and many other contemporary politicians, are violating essential principals of our nation.

Santorum's extremist religious and social positions, which he argues at every opportunity, are out of bounds in political dialog. They violate our basic rights of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. He has disqualified himself for public office because he could not honestly take the oath of office that requires him to uphold the Constitution.

The founders were not far removed from the era of the wars of religion. The Constitution was adopted only one hundred years after England's “Glorious Revolution” when William of Orange became King, and the conflicts between Catholicism, the Church of England, and Puritanism, essentially came to an end, but there was an attempt to restore the Catholic Stuarts in the mid 1700s, with Bonnie Prince Charlie. It failed in part because the English were sick of religious conflict, and they never have engaged in it since.

Many of the American colonies had theocratic governments, particularly those in New England, with the exception of Rhode Island. Many colonies were settled by people seeking religious freedom, but only for themselves. They persecuted and punished people who did not attend church. Those who believed in other religions, such as the Quakers, were publicly stripped and whipped, and some were hanged. The founder of Vermont, and Revolutionary War hero, Eathan Allen, was a deist who was prosecuted by the Puritan church and driven out of Connecticut. The leaders of the American Revolution and the drafters of the Constitution were very aware of the evils of religious conflict and the danger it represented to freedom and democracy. And because of what they did with the Constitution, the United States has been mercifully free of internal religious violent conflict.

We continue to see the results of religious extremism in the world. What the Taliban did in Afghanistan, particularly their treatment of women, shocked the world. The 9-11 attacks were the result of Islamic extremism. Today, we still are fighting that in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we face a potential conflict with Iran that could be far greater. And today, in the United States, we are seeing Republicans attacking women's rights, religious freedom and personal privacy, in many of the same ways as did the Taliban. It is very hard to believe this is going on in the cradle of democracy and human freedom.

I wrote a novel, A Light Not of This World, in which the implications of religious extremism are taken to the ultimate in the not too distant future. Islamic terrorists attack the United States with atomic bombs. In the aftermath, the President speaks to the American people, and in the course of that speech in which he describes extremist Islam as “the religion of Hell,” he talks about the meaning of religious freedom and separation of church and state:

“We are both one people and many peoples. Immigrants from other countries created our nation, and we have continued to grow and prosper from the strength and the character of the many peoples who came to these shores, and still are coming, seeking freedom and opportunity.

“You can be from anywhere on earth, but when you come here and become a citizen, you become an American. No other nation on earth offers to freely share its heritage, its wealth, its culture, but most of all, its name and its identity, with all who come.

“Our Declaration of Independence set forth the principal that has guided this country ever since: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'

“No government can take away these freedoms and they cannot be bargained away. They are inherent in us as human beings. People who do not have freedom, yearn for it. America is the proof. Freedom is the powerful force that binds us together as Americans.

“America’s only demand is that its citizens abide by its laws. Our laws, derived from our Constitution, permit no discrimination against any citizen on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin. All citizens are free to believe, or not believe, in any religion they wish, and they may practice their religion up to the point where their practice infringes on the rights of others, or the laws of the land. This freedom of religion, freedom of belief, is fundamental to human liberty.

“We take our freedom for granted because it is so much a part of our culture and our heritage. We take freedom for granted so much that sometimes we lose sight of its foundation. Freedom depends on mutual respect. Each of us must respect the rights of others. Each of us must allow others to enjoy their freedom. And nowhere is it so important as it is with religion.

“The history of religion is a history of both goodness and evil. Religions have raised people from the darkness and given hope to millions. But throughout history millions of people have died in wars over religion. Millions of people have been persecuted because they believed in a religion opposed by others, or suppressed by governments.

“The foundation of freedom of religion in the United States is the separation of church and state. By providing that the government cannot impose any religious belief on the citizens, and by providing a clear right of individual citizens to the freedom of religion, our founders guaranteed that our nation would never suffer the internal repression and the destruction that the wars of religion brought to so many other countries and peoples for the past two thousand years.”

So when Rick Santorum talks about “theology” and birth control and who is a good Christian, and who isn't, he is stepping over the line, the line that is fundamental to our individual freedom. When the Virginia legislature adopts laws that permit discrimination against individuals who wish to adopt children on the basis of their religion, or force women to undergo state-sanctioned rape to get a legal abortion, they have stepped far over the line. They have acted unconstitutionally. They have violated basic freedoms of our citizens.

It is time for all of us to speak up against these people. They are dangerous and do not deserve to hold public office.

The Housing Bubble and the American Economy - The Worst May Not be Over

2012-02-16T17:07:00.002-05:00

Since the housing bubble reached its peak in June of 2006 the value of American homes has dropped an average of about 30%, causing trillions of dollars of wealth to disappear, and leaving millions of homeowners, perhaps 25 per cent or more, “under water,” holding mortgages that are greater than the value of their homes. Foreclosures are continuing, tens of thousands of homes are vacant, and values in many areas of the country continue to decline.

Under almost any other circumstances a loss of wealth of this magnitude would have spurred a massive governmental response. However, what happened to the housing market, and the ramifications of this loss of wealth, are so poorly understood, and so often misinterpreted, that no popular support has yet developed for any substantial government remedy, if one could be devised. With very little chance that the money lost from the devaluation of housing across America will be recovered anytime soon, if ever, the nation faces the prospect of the housing crisis dragging down the economy for many years to come.

This has been both the biggest, and most unique, financial bubble in history. No financial bubble has ever caused trillions of dollars in losses. What makes this bubble unique is that it has negatively affected nearly every homeowner in America, not just the ones with questionable mortages, or those who faced foreclosure. Even the most financially secure families who never had any problems making their mortgage payments have suffered substantial financial losses. Home values have declined in even the most affluent areas. There never has been a financial bubble with this many innocent victims, something that never has been clearly understood.

Instead, one commentator'st rant against the government helping homeowners in trouble probably did more than anything else to poison the chances that the innocent victims would ever receive any substantial help. His attitude became the nation's attitude: most of the people who were in trouble with their mortgages deserved whatever happened to them. No one else should have to pay to help them out. That attitude has proven to be suicidal.

This is but one example of the ignorance, and poor judgment, that has governed the response to the collapsing housing values and massive number of foreclosures. The very fact that there have been tens of thousands of foreclosures is proof of the poor judgment of the banks. They accelerated the decline of home values. While certainly there were many mortgages that never should have been made, and homeowners who never could afford them, there were vastly more who were caught in this crisis through no fault of their own, and had no way out except through foreclosure.

The flood of foreclosed homes onto the market drove values down dramatically, leaving millions of homeowners holding mortages greater than the value of their homes. Millions of others who were not under water lost huge amounts of their equity. Millions either could not sell their homes at all, or the price they could sell them for would not leave them enough money to buy another home. In some of the hardest hit areas, entire neighhoods were nearly emptied of homeowners, leaving a handful who had paid their mortgages on time now living in ghost towns of houses of little, or no value.

The devastation of the American middle class caused by the housing bubble has yet to be fully calculated. We know that for millions of families, the equity in their homes represented the lion's share of their net worth. Much, if not all, of that net worth has been wiped out. Young people have time to recover, but it may take many years. The older the person facing this situation the worse it is. Those in the greatest danger are the ones who have passed their peak earning years, may be close to retirement, or may already be retired, and living on less income, but have not yet moved out of their family home. Now the prospect of selling the family home and using the profit to pay for a smaller retirement house, or an apartment in a retirement community, may no longer be feasible. What is going to happen to these people?

The housing bubble and the damage it has done to the economic and psychological fabric of America may eventually be seen as just as significant as the explosion of suburbs in the 1950s. It may well mark the end of the middle class era of affluence.

We still are living through the effects of this disaster. Whether, and how, the housing bubble may be causing our economy not to rebound as fast as it should has been the subject of a lively debate among several prominent economists and James Bullard, the President of the St. Louis Fed. You can read all it through the various links on Professor Mark Thoma's Economist's Views blog.

Without getting into the particulars, I think Mr. Bullard has raised an issue that still has not gotten the attention, and study, that it deserves. An asset that millions of families had counted on, for education of children, for a bigger and better house, for retirement, or whatever, was wiped out. Trillions of dollars of net worth disappeared. Nothing like that has ever occurred before. The housing bubble has to have caused enormous changes in the financial behavior of millions of Americans, and those changes in behavior have had, and will continue to have, an impact on our economy.

The government is beginning to try to address the issue of under water mortgages, but only on a very limited scale, not dissimilar from previous anemic efforts to help troubled homeowners. It is not likely to have much impact on the problem, which is not going away. If anything, it may get worse as more baby boomers reach retirement, and no longer have the financial assets they expected to have, and no longer have the income to afford their present homes.

For years we all have heard stories about children of baby boomers moving back into their parents homes because they could not afford to live on their own. In the coming years it may become a necessity because the parents will not be able to afford to live on their own.

The National Economy for the past 20 years

2012-02-14T13:53:00.001-05:00

Here is a fascinating chart that I picked off a comment on Professor Mark Thoma's blog, Economist's View, an outstanding source of brilliant conversation and argument over contemporary economic issues.

This chart breaks down the various major categories of our Gross Domestic Product annually since 1992. Some observations:

-- Personal consumption is up about 3%, all of it in the services area, and I bet nearly all of that in medical care.

-- The amount invested in housing last year was less than half of what was invested in 2005. Since housing is one of the biggest drivers of our economy, this may account for a fair amount of the unemployment and slow economic growth.

-- Government expenditures - federal, state and local - were exactly the same 20.1 % of GDP in 2011 as they were in 1992. Federal expenditures were slightly lower. Defense spending was slightly lower, from 5.9% in 1992 (right after the first Gulf War, and the end of the Cold War) to 5.5% in 2011 when both Iraq and Afghanistan wars still were in process.

-- The net export negative (imports exceeded exports) increased from -.5% in 1992 to -3.8% in 2011 but were down from the peak of -5.8% in 2006.

Religious Freedom and the Contraception Controversy

2012-02-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

When employers contract with health insurance providers such as Blue Cross, Aetna, United Health Care and others, they do not negotiate the specifics of what is covered and what isn't. Insurance companies offer various plans from basic to very comprehensive coverage, with tiers of costs both to the employer and to the employees. Typically the levels are based on the amounts of co-payments, the deductibles, the maximum coverages, what dependents will cost, and what extras may be included such as eye care, or dental insurance. The decision by the employer almost always is financial: getting the best care possible for what can be afforded.

Whether specific types of treatment are included in an insurance plan is a result of its comprehensiveness. The question is how much of the cost of care is covered by the plan, amd how much is borne by the employee? There is no discussion between the employer and the insurance company over specific coverages, such as, for example, contraception, or blood transfusions, or providing life-extending care to brain-dead accident victims.

What caused the controversy over contraception was the requirement in the new health care law that contraception be made available free of charge, without any co-payments. The societal object of the law was to make birth control available to lower income women who could not afford the co-payments. The orginal proposed regulation made the employers bear the direct cost of providing birth control services. It did not apply directly to churches, but it did to their other activities such as operating hospitals, schools and charities. That set off a storm because the Roman Catholic Church opposes birth control. It was quickly discovered that many, if not most, of Catholic hospitals and universities were providing health insurance that included birth control, but with co-pays. The fact that the new regulations would eliminate the co-pays put the churches in the position of directly subsidizing an activity that violates their religious doctrine.

The Administration solved the problem by changing the regulation so that providing birth control with no co-payments became a requirement of insurance providers, not of employers. I say this solved the problem because most reasonable people, including many Catholic organizations, quickly accepted it as a proper approach. The bishops continue to object, along with Republicans eager to find anything, regardless of how silly or ridiculous it is, to use to criticize the President. The Republicans now say they will try to pass legislation allowing all employers to opt out of providing such coverage. Such a law, if passed, would wreck health insurance as we know it. Fortunately, it probably will not pass.

The First Amendment to the Constitution establishes our right to freedom of religion, and the argument is being made that this regulation infringes the freedom of religion of those who object to birth control. This interpretation is wrong for a variety of reasons.

First, the proposed regulation does not impair the “free exercise” of any religion. It does not prevent the Catholic Church from opposing birth control, or punish it for doing so. The free exercise of religion provision protects all citizens, and all beliefs. It does not permit any one religion to impose its doctrines on those who believe in other religions, or in no religion. It would be unconstitutional for a church that engages in an activity such as operating a hospital, or a university, where people of all faiths are employed and served, to force all its employees and the people it serves to abide by its doctrines. That would violate their freedom of religion.

Second, when a church operates an enterprise with employees that provides services to the public, it must comply with all federal, state and local laws regulating employment, working conditions, health and safety that apply equally to its facilities and those of others engaged in similar activities. If it were allowed to opt out of certain laws or regulations because of its doctrines, then government would be providing such institutions with a preference not available to those not religiously affiliated. That would violate the establishment of religion clause of the Constitution.

Third, as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff pointed out in a recent column, if the Catholics were allowed to refuse to provide coverage for birth control, why couldn't the Jehovah's Witnesses object to blood transfusions, or Christian Scientists object to all medical treatment? What is fair for one religion is fair for all, but it then becomes absurd.

Finally, as Kristoff and others also have pointed out, there are other provisions of the Constitution that apply, especially the Equal Protection clause of the 14^th Amendment. If women employees are denied access to birth control, but men can obtain treatment for ED, then women are being treated unequally, and that is unconstitutional.

The Administration can be faulted for not being more sensitive initially to the issue that the original regulation raised, but the nimble and clever response, coupled with a recognition of the initial error shows that sensible and mature people are running our government. Now it is the turn of their opponents to be sensible and mature.

The Republican War on Birth Control - It's Really Hard to Believe. Rachel Maddow nails them.

2012-02-12T16:34:00.003-05:00

Rachel Maddow's essay in the Washington Post today.

Taliban in Peace Agreement with Pakistan?

2012-02-12T16:31:00.002-05:00

A peace agreement reported between the Taliban and Pakistan.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/02/halt_attacks_on_paki.php

Despite its close ties to the Pakistan intelligence service, the Taliban has killed more Pakistani soldiers than it has NATO soldiers.

The 10th Amendment does not say what Ron Paul thinks it says.

2012-01-11T17:21:00.000-05:00

During the recent Republican Presidential debates we have heard quite a bit out of Ron Paul about liberty and the Constitution, and how almost everything the federal government does is unconstitutional. He is one of those people who believe that the federal government only has those powers that the Constitution specifies. He, and substantial numbers of people who agree with him, rely on the 10^th Amendment. However, they have completely misinterpreted it. It actually does the opposite of what they say.

The Constitution is undoubtedly the finest work ever done by a committee, but, as the work of a committee, it had flaws. The authors knew that, and they all said so at the time. Benjamin Franklin was said to have burst into tears because of all of its flaws, only to say it was the best they could do. It has turned out to be damn good. But it never was intended not to be changed, not to be interpreted. It was and is not Biblical. It was a work of compromise and pragmatism, with a significant amount of idealism built in.

The men who wrote the Constitution were the most educated men of their time. Most of them were trained lawyers. They knew how to use the language, and they knew the meaning of words, particularly in a legal document. They definitely knew what the word “expressly” meant when applied to the powers of the federal government. The new Constitution was written to correct the flaws in the Articles of Confederation and one of that document's major flaws was that the national government only had the powers “expressly” enumerated. That was one of the major flaws of the Articles of Confederation that prevented the nation from initially having a viable national government. The authors of the Constitution knew this, and when the same word was proposed to be included in the 10^th Amendment, it was voted down.

The documentary record shows that the authors of the Constitution considered, and rejected, limiting the federal government's powers only to those specified. Professor Garrett Epps, of the University of Baltimore School of Law (my law school alma mater), wrote in his blog on the Atlantic.com site last July that documentary evidence exists of Madison's rejection of the use of the term “expressly” because he said a government could not function properly without “implied” powers. The great Chief Justice John Marshall was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention that ratified the Constitution and he remembered the debate about the “expressly” term and its rejection. Later, in maybe the most important Supreme Court decision he wrote that the federal government had”implied” powers which enabled it to do things that were not enumerated in the Constitution, such as creating a national bank.

The argument that the 10^th Amendment reserved to the states the powers not specifically assigned to the federal government is wrong for another reason. The last phrase of the 10^th Amendment modifies everything that precedes it. The Amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The term “people” had a very specific use in the Constitution. The authors regarded the people as the source of sovereignty of all government, local, state or federal. That the “people” of the time were only white men of property is one of the flaws of the Constitution, but nevertheless it was a powerful principal. Government's powers come from the governed, the people, and, in the end, the people have all the power.

The use of the term “people” as having a very specific meaning can be seen in the Preamble: “We the people of the United States ...” The original draft of the Preamble said “We the states, and the states were listed. That was rejected. The people were the source of sovereignty, of the power, of all governments. This was reinforced with the requirement that the Constitution be ratified by the people – not the state governments. Amendments could be ratified by state legislatures, but not the original Constitution. States had to have constitutional conventions to approve the Constitution. The people had to approve it.

And so, in the 10^th Amendment, powers are reserved to the states, “or to the people.” I think that phrase turns the entire Amendment upside down. The people rule through elections – the President, Congress, state legislatures, governors, etc. If the representatives of the people in Congress want the federal government to exercise certain powers that are not specified in the Constitution, they have the right to grant those powers, so long as they don't conflict with other provisions of the Constitution.

My interpretation probably is broader than most, but I think it is based on a correct reading of the text, combined with the clear intent of the authors as shown in various ways.

There is more evidence of the original intent in the Preamble as well. In that brief statement the intents of the authors are clear. The intents are to have “a more perfect union” with a national government that has police power (“insure domestic tranquility”), military power (“provide for the common defence”), economic power (“promote the general welfare”), and the power to insure that future generations share in the benefits of the great nation (“secure the blessings of Libery to ourselves, and our Posterity.”).

I don't see how this can be read in any way other than as a clear intent for the national government, as the instrument of the “people” to have broad powers, many of them implied, to act on behalf of the welfare of the “people,” with virtually no limitations except those that are expressly provided in the Constitution, i.e. no restrictions on freedom of press, speech, religion, etc.

People who read the opposite into the 10^th Amendment are not reading, or understanding, the actual words.

Happy New Year

2011-12-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

I've been tied up for several weeks, so no new posts.

Happy New Year!

Rick Perry would eliminate the weather service, the patent office and disposal of nuclear waste. Really?

2011-11-12T08:47:00.001-05:00

In his wretched performance in the CNBC debate this past week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (eventually) said he would eliminate the cabinet departments of Commerce, Energy and Education. Let's take a brief look at what he proposes to eliminate.

First of all, the total of the budgets of these three cabinet departments is approximately $100 billion, or less than 10% of the current deficit. Of that $100 billion, about $70 billion is in the Education Department, and much of that money is distributed through student loans and grants, and direct monetary grants to state and local school education programs and school districts. So the first thing that stands out is that state and local governments would lose billions of dollars in federal aid - just what they need during this time of severe financial constraints on their budgets and tax revenues.

Let's look at the departments separately and their major functions.

Commerce

A budget of about $9 billion.

Major functions:

Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Bureau of the Census
Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
International Trade Administration (ITA)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security
Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
National Weather Service (NWS)
National Ocean Service (NOS)
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps (NOAA Corps)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property
Patent and Trademark Office (PTO)
Economic Development Administration (EDA)
Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA)
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

-- So, it appears Gov. Perry is proposing to eliminate the weather service and all the technologies it provides for commercial weather forecasting, including our local television forecasts.

-- How would he propose to conduct the census, which is a requirement of the Constitution?

-- Gov. Perry proposes to eliminate the patent office, and the protections that inventors and businesses enjoy from proection of their intellectual property.

-- Gov. Perry proposes to eliminate the function of negotiating international trade agreements.

And so on...

Energy

A budget of approcimately $24 billion

Functions and operations:

Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Office of Environmental Management
Office of Fossil Energy
Office of Legacy Management
Office of Nuclear Energy, Science & Technology
Under Secretary of Energy for Science
Office of Science
Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security
National Nuclear Security Administration
Office of Secure Transportation
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
Energy Information Administration
Bonneville Power Administration
Southeastern Power Administration
Southwestern Power Administration
Western Area Power Administration
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
[edit] FacilitiesAs the lead energy research and development agency in the United States, the Department of Energy operates a number of science laboratories. They are as follows:
Albany Research Center
Ames Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory
Bannister Federal Complex
Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory - focuses on the design and development of nuclear power for the U.S. Navy.
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Center for Functional Nanomaterials (under design or construction)
Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (under design or construction)
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
Center for Nanoscale Materials (under design or construction)
Environmental Measurements Laboratory (now affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security)
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory
Kansas City Plant
Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory - operates for Naval Reactors Program Research under the DOE - DOE facility, not a National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
National Energy Technology Laboratory
National Petroleum Technology Office
Nevada Test Site
New Brunswick Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Office of Fossil Energy[1]
Office of River Protection[2] (Hanford Site)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Pantex
Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories
Savannah River National Laboratory
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Y-12 National Security Complex
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository

-- So what happens to nuclear waste disposal?
-- What happens to the efforts to control the spreading of nuclear technologies to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists?
-- What happens to all the scientific research?

Education

Budget of approximately $70 billion (a budget that tripled under President George Bush).

The Department of Education is the smallest, in terms of personnel, of any of the Cabinet-level departments. It has only 5,000 employees. Nearly all of its budget is distributed in grants and loans to college students, and direct monetary grants to states and local school districts.

What real savings would be achieved?

What would happen to the security of nuclear facilities?

How would states and local school districts make up the differences in lost federal money?

From where would college students obtain financial aid?

In the end, what would be the real savings from the federal budget?

What other agendas are at work here?

-- Republicans, until George Bush, always opposed the Education Dept. Destroying the Education Dept., which promotes minority and disabled rights, among many other things, has been a high priority of the right-wing and the racists.
-- There seems to be an organized movement to destroy public education, in particular in favor of privately-operated charter schools. Money is flowing into the charter school movement from some very wealthy individuals. Is there an effor to convert public education into a profit-making private enterprise benefitting only the wealthy?

Gov. Perry has much to explain.

Coming to a Congressional District near you - maybe yours - Gerrymandering

2011-10-23T13:33:00.000-04:00

It's as old as the Republic - Gerrymandering, named after Elbridge Gerry, who was responsible in the late 18th Century for the first imaginative drawing up of election districts for political purposes. Now state legislatures across the country are redrawing their congressional districts, something they are required to do every ten years.

Maryland has come up with one of the most creative works of redistricting that one could imagine. One district is partly in the Washington suburbs and partly in the suburbs north of Baltimore. Several other districts have discontinuous segments. It seems to me that redistricting like this should be unconstitutional.

For a very interesting, and interactive, map, produced by the State of Maryland showing the new boundaries compared with the old ones, which also were silly, follow this link:
http://www.mdp.state.md.us/Redistricting/redistrictingIMap.shtml

It's not regulation that is preventing business expansion, it is lack of demand.

2011-10-23T12:53:00.002-04:00

Bill Maher speculated Friday night how good President Obama might have been on domestic issues if he had as free a hand as he has had in foreign policy. This came in a discussion of Obama's successes in killing off terrorists and dictators, getting the U.S. out of Iraq and helping the rebels win in Libya without it costing the life of a single American soldier. Much of what Obama has done in foreign policy he has been able to do without any Congressional approvals, or interference.

Domesticially, however, things are frozen. Obama cannot get any of his economic plan through Congress. The Republicans have made it crystal clear: they are not going to vote for anything - even things they previously have proposed and/or supported - if it does anything to help Obama get re-elected. Clearly, they believe that if they can prevent Obama from doing anything to improve the economy, he could be defeated for re-election next year. So, they intentionally are prolonging the economic problems, the high unemployment, and the housing market depression for purely political reasons. I sure hope the American people understand this, although the polls don't seem to indicate that.

On Meet the Press today (Sunday) former General Electric CEO Jack Welch argued that there are things Obama could do, and most of them involved suspending enforcement of various kinds of regulations. He argued that the economy boomed after World War II because there were few regulations, and private enterprise had much greater freedom. This echoes the continuing refrain from the Republicans that business is too constrained by government regulation. While there is no doubt that government bureaucracy creates mountains of paperwork for anyone dealing with the government, Welch and the Republicans have to know the truth that it isn't regulation that is constraining growth.

Jack Welch was a hero to my generation of business executives. He was held up as the example of the great CEO. General Electric was the great American company, and one of the best managed companies in the nation. It still is a great company, and probably still is very well managed. Given the failure rate of American companies during the past 30 years, this is not an insignificant achievement. He came of age in that post-war period and he should know what really caused the post-war boom. It had nothing to do with a lack of regulation. It had everything to do with demand and capability.

The United States was the only major industrial nation not severely damaged by World War II. We had the factories and the work force to supply the world with goods of every kind. And in the fifteen years following the end of World War II, that is what we did. Our factories ran at full production. The modern American middle class was built, as were the suburbs, the highway systems, and shopping centers. It was boom time for America while the rest of the world rebuilt.

The world did rebuild, and when they rebuilt they built with newer technologies and more efficient methods. By the 1970s, Japan and Germany were successfully challenging American autos, electronics and other products. Heavy industries such as steel and autos were hit hard by better quality and lower prices from foreign competitors. And when the major shift to digital communication and entertainment technologies, wireless teleophones and personal computers occurred during the 1980s and 90s, the U.S. was left far behind. Virtually everything was manufactured outside the U.S.

That remains the case today, except during the past ten years, because of the Internet, cheap digital communications, and low cost educated labor, it has been possible to move service jobs overseas as well. It is less expensive to operate a call center, or a customer care center in India, or the Philippines, than it is in the U.S.

Regulations do have something to do with the shift of jobs overseas, but more so for the manufacturing done in third world countries where labor laws are very limited. Many countries do not restrict child labor, do not set minimum wages, or regulate working conditions. Something close to slave labor can be employed in some parts of the world. In fairness, Welch was not suggesting that we do away with our regulations in those areas. His emphasis was on environmental and general bureaucratic regulation. I do not believe, and I do not think there is any evidence to support the belief, that these types of regulations are having a material depressing effect on our economy.

The fact is that American businesses are doing very well right now. They are sitting on trillions of dollars in capital from accumulated profits. They do not need to expand their businesses in the U.S. because demand is not growing. They are expanding outside the U.S. where there is demand. That cash they are accumulating most likely will be used to buy other companies, to further consolidate industries, and cause even more unemployment in the U.S.

The only way that the American economy is going to be turned around is if demand increases so that businesses expand and hire more people. However, demand is not going to increase unless unemployment decreases. Without some additional economic incentive, businesses are not going to do much hiring so long as demand is flat. That is why a government jobs program is so important to our economic recovery. And the fact the Republicans will not approve any jobs program means te economy is not going to improve before the 2012 election.

The political party and philosophy that led us into this economic disaster now are preventing us from getting out of it. Only the people can get us out of this mess. It must be done at the ballot box.

Michael Moore - American Patriot - Speaks in Washington 10-2-2011

2011-10-03T12:13:00.000-04:00

The great American, Michael Moore, spoke in Washington a couple of times over the weekend. We went to see him last night at the 6th & I Historic Synagogue in Washington's Chinatown. It was a book reading and signing event sponsored by the wonderful bookstore, Politics & Prose. With close to 1,000 people in attendance, it was more like a pep rally for progressives. It was great. Michael was great.

I took a couple of photos, but they turned out to be quite poor. It was hard to move around and I couldn't get a good camera position. They do give some idea of the event:

If you haven't seen it, check out Moore's website, where he has a great deal of information about the Wall Street protests, which are beginning to expand to other places in the U.S.

Moore is a great speaker because he is so natural, so much himself. He told stories. He preached. He criticized Obama, but also said he has to be re-elected. He told people to get involved in Democratic politics, and help to get better candidates selected for public offices at all levels. He told how he and a small group of friends took over the local Democratic Party in his town in Michigan. He urged others to do the same in their areas.

Moore's basic message is that the majority of Americans are liberals. Many don't think of themselves as liberals, but they support liberal causes. He says the Republicans know they are in the minority and are likely to lose elections in the future - if the Democrats, and liberal-leaning others, vote. That's why, he says, the Republicans are so actively trying to suppress voting in many states. Talking Points Memo today has an article that claims that as many as five million Democratic votes are threatened by Republican voter suppression actions.

Moore believes that if liberals and progressives vote, the Republicans can be defeated. He is concerned about the amount of corporate and financial institution money flowing into both parties. He says the rich have decided they don't have enough, but they also are very scared that through the ballot box Americans will stop them from stealing the rest of the country.

Moore is promoting his new book, "Here Comes Trouble," which sounds like a delightful read. It is a collection of non-fiction short stories about his younger years, including the time he and a Jewish friend went to Germany in 1985, slipped past all security, and staged a protest in front of President Reagan over his honoring dead SS veterans from World War II. It is a great and funny story.

Moore is a cheer leader, and a comic, but he also is a very serious commentator who thinks deeply about the country and our problems. He has a real feel for what has happened in the country, and he relates his perceptions in a way that rings so true.

If you get a chance to see him, you definitely should do it.

You can read my new novel, THE BLUE GIRL MURDERS for free

2011-09-22T23:57:00.000-04:00

The site authonomy.com, run by Harper Collins UK, has books you can read for free, and rate. The top rated books are read by Harper editors and some are purchased for publication. Help me get my new novel published. Go to http://www.authonomy.com/books/37291/the-blue-girl-murders/

You can read my novel, and, I hope, give it a high rating.

Why Older People Are Going to Fight Any Reductions in Medicare and SS.

2011-09-15T12:01:00.002-04:00

If you have little or no savings, which is the case with most of us, and if you live on a fixed income from retirement and/or Social Security, any increase in the cost of anything you have to buy means you can't buy something else. Any decrease in that fixed income means you have to buy less. These are simple facts.

Many lower and middle income people receiving Social Security supplement it through working fulltime, or partime. Many, like us, are self-employed. We'll keep working as long as we physically are able to do so. The Social Security payments are not enough to support us. And whoever outlives the other will have a much harder time financially. If we couldn't work, things would be desperate. That is the case with many older Americans, and the situation is getting worse.

I am very pissed with people who call Social Security and Medicare "entitlements," or make it sound like we are on the dole. Governor Perry is just wrong when he describes Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. In no way is it such. Since Social Security is the U.S. government's biggest creditor, so long as the U.S. is not bankrupt, Social Security is in no danger.

We pay into these programs our entire working lives. I have to draw Social Security for another ten years at least before I recover what I put into it, not counting interest. Unless one of us develops a lingering serious illness, we might never recover what we have paid into Medicare, and what we still are paying. Medicare is not free. It is not a "benefit." It is an insurance program.

A monthly payment into Medicare is deducted from each of our Social Security payments each month. Medicare only covers 80 per cent of major medical expenses, and there are many things it doesn't cover. If you don't have a lot of money saved for emergencies, such as a major operation, then you have to have supplemental coverage. Our plan costs $300 per month. We also pay $65 a month for the Medicare drug plan, and we spend about $135 a month on the co-payments for the few prescriptions we have. So our monthly medical insurance and prescription medications cost is about $700.00, which is a third of our combined Social Security payments.

Any increase in those costs is not offset by any increase in income. The cost of the supplemental plan increases every year, but Social Security benefits do not. So, without any change in the programs, things get tougher as we get older and less able to supplement our income.

Older people who are not wealthy, and who may not have much savings, are facing tough times now. Any change in the cost or coverage of Medicare, or any decrease in Social Security payments, will just exacerbate an already grim situation. We are not going to accept this. There is going to be a fight.

Younger people should not accept it. It is not necessary. There are many ways to stabilize these programs without cutting their benefits, or increasing their costs. There is no problem with Social Security at the present time. Just lifting the cap on payments into Social Security would solve the problem it may have in another fifteen years. Something similar could be done with Medicare. Benefits also could be indexed to income with benefits diminishing above some threshold, such as $250,000 in income.

With most private employers no longer offering pension programs, some having replaced them with 401Ks that have much greater risks, and some just having no programs, the future economic security of most of the people of the United States depends to a very large extent on the Medicare and Social Security programs. Anyone who proposes to cut either one has no interest in the well being of the nation.

The earthquake and Emergency Preparedness

2011-08-24T00:54:00.001-04:00

I was standing by our kitchen table just before 2 P.M. Tuesday afternoon when the house started to vibrate. My immediate reaction was that something had happened with our heating system. But seconds later the vibrations turned into shaking, and there was a roar passing by. For a moment it felt and sounded like a helicopter was landing on the house.

We've had a couple of other much small earthquakes during the past 30 years, but nothing like this. Our house held up just fine, but if it had been only slightly stronger we probably would have had damage.

Late tonight as more reports came in, it appears there is a lot more damage throughout the region than originally believed. The Washington Monument has a crack and will be closed indefinitely. Many school buildings have been damaged.

Wolf Blitzer on CNN argued that the quake showed how poorly prepared this region is for a major catastrophe. That was one of the things I researched for my novel, A Light Not of This World. I was looking at preparations for nuclear terrorism, and discovered there really aren't any. Almost all emergency prepararedness is oriented to specific life-threatened events that occur in a limited area. There really aren't any plans that deal with a catastrophe over a large area, especially if communications are disrupted, as they were today when wireless systems were overloaded.

This isn't surprising. As individuals we often decide to ignore some risks because preparing for them is just too time-consuming, too expensive, too inconvenient, or requires giving up something we choose not to give up, Really good emergency preparedness is expensive. The odds of it being needed are low. So we have chosen to take the risk that it won't be needed.

Things were a mess in the Washington area today, but, as of tonight, no one died. Nothing probably will change. The chance that we will have another earthquake of this magnitude in our lifetimes probably is extremely low. The chance that we might have some other kind of major catastrophe, like a dirty bomb, or a fission bomb, also is low. But if it it happens, not being prepared will cost us a huge amount.

It boils down to a balancing of risks. The principal reason I am opposed to nuclear power is that even though the risk of an accident is extremely low, if there is a major nuclear event, the damages caused are so great they wipe out all the value the nuclear plant ever provided, and then some. One of the generators at the North Anna nuclear power facility failed today. What if they all had failed? What if a meltdown occurred, and the entire central Virginia area was turned into an area like those in the Ukraine and in Japan that will be unusable and uninhabitable forever? Did these plants provide anywhere near the benefit that would justify this? Of course not.

What we should know now is that black swans occur with far more regularity than most are willing to believe. Or to put is more simply, shit happens. The Boy Scouts are right. Be prepared.

Globalization: How Did That Work Out? Part II on the Republican Party

2011-08-21T16:51:00.001-04:00

Deregulation, Oligopolies, Oligarchies and Political Paralysis

Once upon a time we were deluged with the promises of Globalization, and how the United States would dominate the world economy. The half-life of that idea has expired. Now we know how it worked out. Not so well for most of us.

There were several facets to the concepts behind globalizaton, among them lowering trade barriers, opening up markets, and deregulation of most industries, including elimination of restrictions on foreign ownership. The general idea was that work would be done where it could be done most efficiently. Those who provided the "value added," the planning, marketing and systems, primarily Western corporations, would reap the greatest rewards. The United States could lose much of its outmoded and inefficient industrial base while dramatically growing its high tech sectors. That was the idea. It didn't work out that way.

The tap root of globalization is the explosion of communications technologies and services that began in the early 1980s with the breakup of the Bell System in the United States and the deregulation of telecommunications around the world. In the following years, a multi-billion dollar industry, competitive long distance, exploded and fueled dramatic breakthroughs in digital communications technologies. Digital wireless technologies followed. The combination of digital fiber optic cables and inexpensive wireless technology led to a worldwide revolution in communications. Today modern digital communications have eliminated "long distance" as a factor in business operating costs. Long distance companies no longer exist. The worldwide digital networks support high speed Internet almost everywhere and everything from customer service centers in India, to computer manufacturing operations in Taiwan, business operations anyplace where labor costs are less than they are in the U.S.

Deregulation of telecommunications was so successful that it spurred deregulation as a philosophy that soon was applied to other industries. In the mid 1990s, the regulations that separated investment banks from consumer banking were eliminated. These restrictions were put in place in the 1930s to guard against the excesses that led to the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression. Their absence led in part to the massive bank problems that caused our present recession. We ignored the lessons of history.

The electrical power industry also was deregulated and then there was the Enron scandal, and now we have far higher energy costs with no appreciable benefit, except to the shareholders of the deregulated companies that control the industry.

Two other important changes occurred. We stopped restricting foreign ownership of American companies, and we stopped enforcing the anti-trust laws. Mergers and acquisitions received routine approvals. Industries that once were distinguished by substantial competition, such as consumer banking, telecommunications, cable television, publishing, newspapers, radio and television, and many others, soon became dominated by small numbers of enormous companies, in some cases with substantial, or majority, foreign ownership.

The biggest money-making activities of Wall Street became financing mergers and acquisitions, and creating increasingly sophisticated financial instruments for trading. The dollar volume in the buying and selling of mortgage-related securities dwarfed the IPO market. Huge amounts of money were being made, but not being re-invested in the American economy. The vast majority of capital went into non-economically-productive securities that provided no value to their underlying assets, and to mergers and acquisitions that almost always led to huge layoffs and closings of business operations in the U.S.

So today we have a multitude of industries now controlled by oligopolies. The wireless industry is a great example. When the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T is completed, only three major carriers, Verizon, Sprint and At&T, will be left out of an industry that just a few years ago had more than twice that in nearly every market. It probably is only a matter of time before Sprint is taken over by Verizon.

An oligopoly of the wireless service providers almost certainly will result in higher costs and less technological advancement. It is hardly surprising that most of the innovations now being developed for wireless are coming from outside the industry, from companies like Apple and Google.

The oligopolies of industries support oligarchies of the super wealthy and powerful around the world. These people are so wealthy, and so powerful, that they are independent of any nation. We have major industries in the United States today that have no inherent loyalty to the United States. Their loyalty is their shareholders, many of whom are outside the U.S. Their decisions are entirely based on what is best for their businesses, regardless of what impact those decisions have on the United States. We are not alone. Almost every nation has the same problem, except, maybe, China, which seems to have closely linked its economic health to its international policies.

Globalization did flatten the earth, to borrow from Thomas Friedman. It made it possible for a business to move its operations to less expensive areas, while still selling its products to the people of what was its home country. As ownerships changed, and oligopolies developed, major companies and industries no longer had national identities. If conditions in one of its areas of operation became difficult, it could just move to another location. The effect on the middle and working classes of the United States, as well as some other countries, has been devastating.

Globalization, and all that has accompanied it, flattened the growth of income of most Americans. Since 1980 there has been virtually no increase in the average income of Americans, except for the wealthiest. In fact, in real terms, there has been a decline in the incomes of millions. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans, especially the oligarchs (but in fairness, also the sports and entertainment industry stars) has grown dramatically. Virtually all of the increase in the net worth of the nation has gone to the wealthiest, most to the top one per cent.

It now appears that the oligopolies and the oligarchs have captured one of our two major political parties. In the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court made it even more possible for corporate interests to buy politicians. Now, untold millions of dollars can be funneled to pro-corporate politicians, especially those in the Republican Party. But money also is going to many Democrats. The entire political system is being corrupted by money.

We now have a political party in control of the House, with, through the filibuster, blocking control of the Senate, saying it will oppose any increase in taxes. Most of the Republican congressmen and senators have signed an incredibly outrageous pledge never to vote for any tax increase for any reason. A majority of the Republicans want an Amendment to the Constitution requiring a balanced budget, one of the most irresponsible ideas either party ever has advocated.

Our political system is paralyzed. Our government is unable to respond to the current economic crisis. See, it doesn't matter to those who now own the Republican Party. Their interests no longer align with those of the American people. They do not care if the majority of Americans are destitute. Maybe they would like that. Labor in the U.S, then would be very cheap.

The Republican attack on union rights all over the country plays right into this strategy. By wiping out the unions the oligarchs then can re-establish some business operations, when they feel like it, or need to because of conditions elsewhere, without having to worry about all the things the unions prevent them from doing.

The Republican effort to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government, and to strip it of its ability to regulate the environment, food, water and working conditions, also plays right to the interests of the oligarchs. With no regulation to speak of, industries could operate in the U.S. as they currently do in many other countries.

We are witnessing the takeover of the United States by interests that have little, or no loyalty to the United States, and care little about the welfare of its people.

There is only one way this can be stopped. The American people have to do it. We have to do it at the ballot box. We cannot elect any more Republicans, at any level, anywhere. They cannot be allowed to control any governments. They no longer serve the interests of the American people. They have been bought and they intend to stay bought.

The Republican Party today is the greatest threat to American security, prosperity and freedom.

2011-08-19T00:36:00.000-04:00

The Republican Party today is the greatest threat to American security, prosperity and freedom. I know that is an extreme statement, but think about it. The Republican control of Congress - absolute in the House and effective in the Senate - means that the federal government can do nothing to improve the nation's economic malaise, which threatens to become another recession, maybe a true depression. The nation is in deep trouble and the Republicans are making sure that things will not get better.

President Obama is going to make a major proposal in September designed to create jobs and improve the economy. The Republicans already have told him to mail it in. They are not interested in doing anything that will improve the economic situation. They will not even approve proposals by the President that they originally proposed. They will oppose anything the President wants.

The primary goal of the Republicans, as they have said many times is to prevent the President from being re-elected. They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to achieve that goal. As a result we have an absolute stalemate in Washington. At a time when government intervention in the economy is desperately needed, our government is paralyzed. It will remain paralyzed unless the American people return control of Congress to the Democrats next year, and re-elect the President. Anything short of that will be a disaster for the nation.

This is not the time when trying to control the deficit should be a priority. Our deficit today, as a percentage of our national economy is less than it was in World War II, and we came out of that in great shape. We can do that again, but we can only do it by getting our economy growing again, by getting our people back to work.

Cutting government expenses will depress the economy. It will put more people out of work. It will take dollars out of the economy. We need an influx of cash into the economy, an enormous influx of cash. With consumers not spending, and businesses not spending, only the government can make that happen. It is very simple economics.

The Republican emphasis on debt reduction really is just a smokescreen. Their real goal is to dismantle the Great Society, to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid and cut Social Security. That would turn our country into an economic basket case with millions of destitute people. We would have the Great Depression all over again, only worse. Does the Republican Party really hate the American people this much? Where do their ideas come from? They are not American.

We have seen similar strategies in states where they have control. In those states they have adopted draconian measures to gut union rights, benefits to the poor, voting rights, abortion rights, and public services including education, police and fire protection. They cut taxes for the rich, and for corporations, but raise costs for the poor and the middle class.

During the worst economic situation in the United States since the Depression, the Republican Party at both the national and state levels is doing everything it can to make the situation worse. They appear to be intentionally undermining the economic wellbeing of the majority of the American people. They are destroying the ability of millions of people to improve their lives. They are strangling the American dream for millions. Only in the Civil War did the nation faced an internal threat of such magnitude as the Republican Party now represents.

In another post I will explore some theories of why the Republicans have adopted this strategy.

What Obama must do to avoid losing to a Republican next year.

2011-08-04T00:34:00.000-04:00

Because we've become addicted to the evening news/talk shows, primarily those on MSNBC, but also Keith Olbermann on Current, we usually wind up the evening feeling quite frustrated. The truth seems so obvious that we wonder if we are on the same planet as President Obama and his advisers. We cannot understand what Obama is thinking as he continues to coddle the Republicans, who certainly have given him no encouragement.

Tonight, our very favorite, Bill Maher, was on the Ed Show on MSNBC, and among the subjects discussed was whether Obama is trying to avoid looking like "an angry black man," for fear of alienating a portion of the white population. Maher said that Obama should stop trying to get the conservatives to like him because they never will. He said that Obama just has to accept that 40 per cent of the population wouldn't vote for him if he personally had saved each of them from drowning.

Ariana Huffington was on Lawrence O'Donnell's show, and she lambasted Obama about as violently as anyone has done. The progressives are extremely angry with Obama and for good reason. As Maher pointed out, he blew it when he took office and didn't initiate an aggressive program to turn the economy around. Now he can't do anything. The Republicans want the economy to remain bad. They are doing everything they can to insure that. There isn't any chance that any Obama program designed to improve the economy will get through this Congress.

Maher said he thought there was a very good chance that Obama could be defeated for re-election next year. I agree with him. Much will depend on whether the Republicans nominate someone who isn't a certifiable lunatic. If they pick someone who at least on the surface appears to be sane there is a good chance they can win.

That election result might be the most disastrous for the nation of any in history, Obama must be re-elected. I write this as someone who is extremely pissed off with the Prez. But he is so much better for the nation than any Republican, that it is no contest. So, it is critical that he be re-elected. However, his re-election is gravely at risk.

So, if I were Obama, this is what I would do:

I would tell the American people that the economy is not going to improve in the near future. If anything, it will get worse. I would explain that the Republican policies begun by George Bush, remain in effect because even though the Democrats control the Presidency, the Republicans control Congress. The Republicans have a majority of the House and enough of the Senate to block all action there.

Obama has to assume that a large number of Americans really do not understand how our government works, that he must explain over and over that without control of Congress he can do little to solve domestic problems. He has to spell this out in stark terms.

He has to say that as long as the Republicans have any way of blocking action in Congress it will be impossible to raise taxes on the rich and do anything about improving the economy. Things will not improve unless the Democrats get control of Congress.

I would mount an aggressive campaign against the Republicans on all levels. I would point out that the Republican strategy is the same at the state level as it is at the federal level. They are completely controlled by the big corporations and the extremely wealthy. They are out to destroy union rights and to undermine the middle class. They want to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicare, the three most important, most successful, and most popular programs of the federal government.

They will employ every dirty tactic imaginable to undermine democratic voting processes. They have no interest in basic human rights, or even in the rights guaranteed individuals under our Constitution. They are a radical insurgent political movement design to place all power and nearly all wealth in the hands of the very few.

Wisconsin is a great example of what the Republicans will do when they get control of both the legislative and executive branches of government. There is a master plan of Republican Party strategy. It is being played out in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, in addition to what we have seen in Congress.

Obama should say he has had it, that he attempted to work with the Republicans, but their true colors have been exposed. The only way that the United States will get out of its economic morass is to give absolute control of the government to the Democrats.

Republicans must be defeated at all levels in the 2012 elections.

The greatest danger from the debt limit legislation is from how it was coerced.

2011-08-02T13:05:00.001-04:00

The debt limit deal approved by the Senate today is another chapter in the serial we have been watching unfold, the story of the steady destruction of the American method of government. We are becoming a banana republic. The most important governmental decisions effectively are being made at gunpoint, by blackmail, hostage-taking, and threats of mass destruction of our economy and many of our institutions.

In a matter of days, with no public hearings, no time to contemplate their impact, or to rationally consider alternatives, our President and Congress have agreed to make massive cuts in the federal budget, and to set in motion mechanisms that could lead to even larger cuts in the future, including cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This decision was made because a gun was pointed at the American economy. The debt limit would not be raised unless massive cuts were agreed to. If the debt limit were not increased, the nation faced default on its debt, and economic calamity would have followed.

Some people say that economic calamity would not have occurred. There are members of Congress, and candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination, who were opposed to raising the debt limit under any circumstances. Some argued that default could be avoided because the government could pay the interest on the debt by simply not paying for other programs. Since the government currently is operating at a deficit of 40% - only 60% of current operating costs are covered by tax revenues - it simply would have to cut 40% of its operations and/or expenses. And since close to 80% of all federal government expenses are for the military, Social Security, Medicare, massive cuts would have to made in those areas instantaneously.

If opponents to raising the debt limit under any circumstances had prevailed, and if default on debt obligations were to be avoided, a 40% across the board cut in federal expenses would have been required immediately. Virtually all non-vital government operations would have been shut down. Tens of thousands of people would have been laid off. Social Security payments either would have been held up, or would have been reduced substantially. There would have been chaos beyond measure. Elected officials of the U.S. government, one of them seeking the Presidency, actually wanted this to happen.

Last year Americans in dozens of Congressional districts elected candidates who wanted to see this happen, and these newly elected representatives went to Washington with the avowed intent of trying to make it happen. They want to destroy the federal government as we know it. They want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with consumer protections, environmental controls, food inspection, and almost every regulation of any kind of business.

These are fanatical ideologues whose beliefs are like an extremist religion, excluding facts and reason, and with no knowledge or appreciation of history or economics. In fact, they scorn people with demonstrated knowledge and experience. These are people who feel no bond with the nation, and its citizens. They feel no responsibility for the general welfare of the nation. They act like characters from an Ayn Rand novel. Americans elected these people to public office. What were those Americans thinking? Is this what they really wanted? Do we really have that many citizens who hate their government and want our method of governance destroyed? Is there really a strong base of support for cutting Medicare and Social Security? That is exactly what will happen unless things are changed politically.

Numerous scholars of American history have written that one of the most significant aspects of American political life has been the absence of the fanatical ideology that led to periodic violent upheavals in other countries. The one exception was the question of slavery, which only could be settled by the enormous violence, death and destruction of the Civil War. Since then, ideology has not been the dividing line between the major political parties. The stability of the nation was maintained through governmental decisions based on majority rule, with respect for minority rights.

Alexis de Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, the single most important book ever written about the American political system, fretted about the possibility of the "tyranny of the majority" crushing the rights of minorities. For the most part, that has not happened in America. Our political party system based on mutual responsibility and respect usually maintained a balance between majority rule and minority rights. When it didn't, then there were decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that addressed the rights of minorities, and the oppressed.

Our governmental system was brilliantly designed by our founders to insure stable government in a democratic form, but with sufficient checks and balances to insure that a "mob," or a fanatically ideological movement as we have today in the Republican Party, could not run roughshod over the rights of others. Our governmental institutions sometimes have made decisions much more slowly than many would have liked, but, most of the time, the decisions made reflected a majority of public opinion and had a solid basis of sustainable support. What happened this week undermines our governmental system and threatens to replace responsible representative government with political terrorism.

The first indication of the change in tactics by the Republican Party was its dramatically increased use of the filibuster in the Senate. The Senate, which once had the nickname of "the world's most deliberative body," can be stopped from voting on a bill by the objection of one senator. No vote then can be taken on that bill unless 60 Senators vote to end debate on it, i.e. to end the filibuster.

Until recently, the filibuster was only used occasionally. After the Democrats gained control of both the House and the Senate it became a tool of coercion by the Republicans. During the first two years of Obama's Presidency the filibuster became the Republican Party's primary method of stopping nearly everything the President wanted. It was used more extensively than any other time in history.

The abuse of the filibuster was the first weapon of coercion the Republicans employed to block the Democratic agenda, and replace it with their own. It was the use of the filibuster last December that enabled the Republicans to force Obama and the Democrats to accept an extension of the Bush tax cuts, which continue to be the single biggest cause of the growing national debt. The Republicans blocked everything else in the Senate, including the critically important nuclear agreement with the Russians. We saw the first act in what now has become the SOP for the Republicans. They will block and hold hostage anything that is critical to the country in order to further their own agenda, no matter what the potential damage to the nation. They will shut down the government, allow the nation to default on its debt, not pay unemployment benefits, and restrict medical care, and commit any other outrage they think serves their purpose.

Even though the Republicans have proven to be terrible managers of the government when they have had control, running up the vast majority of the national debt, they have proven to be enormously effective in opposition, completely stalling Obama's agenda as President. We never will know if Democratic Party principles might have gotten the nation out of the recession because they never have been applied. Republican policies, proven to be disastrous to our economy, continue to govern.

The greatest damage to the nation is not in the legislation being adopted this week. It is in the method by which it was coerced. The President is not blameless. His actions have made it all the more likely that our government will continue to be run like a banana republic. After facing Republican coercion last December, and the threat to shut down the government over the budget earlier this year, the President anticipated something similar over the debt limit. Instead of taking action that might stop the coercive tactics of the Republicans, he played the game by their rules. He proposed a gigantic deal, including huge budget cuts and increases in taxes. Not only was this stupid. It was dead wrong.

For the President to indicate any willingness, whatsoever, to agree to any cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, was stupid beyond belief. The American people, in overwhelming numbers, believe in, depend on, and support these programs. The Republicans could be in desperate shape in next year's elections if they are the only party favoring cuts. They needed Obama to join them so that the Democrats could not attack them. The Republicans handed Obama an almost certain overwhelming victory next year, but he fumbled, and gave the ball back to them.

It also is wrong to consider cuts in these programs, except possibly for the indexing of benefits. Some increases in withholding might solve the problem of the increased costs the programs will bear as the baby boomers pass through. It especially is wrong to consider cuts when the tax burden today, especially on the rich, is the lowest it has been in almost anyone's lifetime.

We need to spend money to get the economy going. It is such basic economics that I am continuously amazed by the ignorance of others. When businesses are not spending money, and when individuals are not spending money, then the government has to spend money, lots of money. This was all learned in the 1930s during the Great Depression. That learning seems to have been lost. We are a people who know very little of our history.

So this entire piece of legislation is dead wrong. We should not be cutting expenses. We should be spending more. If anything these cuts will make the deficit worse because they will lower government revenue.

We need to forget about the deficit right now. We need to get the economy moving. If we get the unemployment rate down to normal levels the increases in government revenues from taxes probably will eliminate the operating deficits.

The President could have avoided this mess. He could have stood up to the Republicans and demanded that they behave properly, the way responsible public officials generally have behaved in our nation's history. They are bullies. Bullies will continue to bully until someone stands up to them. He could have said from the beginning he would consider nothing but a clean debt increase bill. If none was provided, then he could have used the 14th Amendment to raise the limit himself.

I know there is a debate among legal scholars over the 14th Amendment, but the fact is, no one could have stopped him from using it. The Republicans would have learned that he has a backbone, that he has courage, will take a stand and will stick to it. That is what we need from our President. That is what we have a right to demand.

Our government must return to operating as a representative democracy, acting responsibly, and making decisions free of coercion from irrational and irresponsible ideologues. We cannot afford the debacle of incompetent and irresponsible governance we have just witnessed. The fundamentals of our national democracy are in grave danger.

As citizens who elect representatives to manage our government we can force the change that is needed. We must do a more responsible job of selecting our public officials. We must elect Democrats. The Republican Party is owned by the wealthy. It has abandoned the American middle class, and has nothing but contempt for the poor, the ill, and the aged. No Republican deserves any support at any level for any office.

Obama's Presidency hinges on his decision on the debt limit.

2011-07-30T15:56:00.002-04:00

Almost always during a Presidency there is a moment that is defining and is remembered long afterwards. In the next three days Barrack Obama's Presidency will rise or fall on one decision.

If, as it now appears likely, Congress does not approve any bill to raise the debt limit, the decision whether to allow the destruction of the American economy will be Obama's. He can choose to invoke the 14th Amendment and declare the debt limit law in violation of the Constitution - and face possible impeachment action by his rabid enemy Republicans - or he can start shutting down large portions of the federal government while the stock and bond markets collapse. It will do him no good to try to blame the Republicans. He is the President, and he has the power to prevent this catastrophe. The American people will not forgive him if he does not use it.

It's a stark choice. There are no others. The Republicans effectively control Congress, with a majority of the House, and enough votes to block action in the Senate. They have vowed continuously to prevent him from being re-elected. Now the opportunity is within their grasp. They are not going to do anything to let him off the hook. They are making him decide which action to take. And since Obama is proving to be one of the most timid Presidents in modern history, they could be right in assuming he will not take the daring and courageous action of invoking the 14th Amendment.

The Republican Party is not just out to destroy Medicare as we know it, they are out to destroy the United States as we know it. This brilliant column by John B. Judis, Editor of The New Republic, lays out part of the case. This is not a political party in the traditional sense anymore. It is a radical right wing ideological movement oriented to the overthrow of the American democracy, and the destruction of individual rights of all kinds. The Republicans use brown shirt tactics; they are dishonest in their words and advertisements; they are coercive in their legislative behavior; and they are intolerant of any dissent. They are like the fascists of the 1920s and 30s who overwhelmed weak democracies. For a modern equivalent, we need look no further than the Taliban. The Republicans have become our Taliban, and, if anything, they are more dangerous to the American democracy.

President Obama will have to forego running for re-election if he allows the United States to default on its debt, if he does not unilaterally lift the debt limit by invoking the 14th Amendment, and employ the other powers implicit in his office to prevent an economic disaster. There will be no chance of him being re-elected. I can't imagine the Democratic Party leaders and other elected officials standing by him if he fails to exercise the leadership and courage now required.

This is his moment.

Guest Blogger: Jan Riker: Why as a Progressive I may not support Obama

2011-07-27T13:26:00.000-04:00

In response to a telephone call from the Obama campaign, Jan wrote the following letter to the campaign.

Thank you for inviting me to send you a note about my disappointment with President Obama, and why I, as a progressive, am not inclined to support him for re-election. I would like to give you some background about myself to put my concerns in perspective.

I am a 66-year old married woman, with one daughter who is married and lives in Portland, Oregon. My father was a World War II vet and a trainman for the B & O Railroad; my mother was a homemaker. I graduated from college in 1966, thanks to scholarships and federally backed student loans, married in 1967, and graduated from law school in 1979. Prior to law school, I was executive director of a statewide “blue ribbon” citizens group in Maryland to promote modernization of local government, director of public relations for The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and assistant administrator of the Columbia Medical Plan, a Hopkins-sponsored HMO. After graduating from law school, I opened my own practice. My husband, also a law school graduate, was a journalist for UPI and then an executive for MCI, where he became involved with cellular telephone service.

In 1995, we started a company to purchase cellular licenses through an auction held by the FCC for small entrepreneurs. We raised money through private investors, working with J. P. Morgan, and won 43 licenses, including Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Honolulu. Our investors included Japanese and Korean investors, and Siemens, Ericcson and Westinghouse, and Las Vegas businessmen. All told, we raised almost $ 1 billion in debt and equity, and were set to do an IPO, with DLJ, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Cowan as our underwriters. Unfortunately, the market crashed for telecom stocks in the late 1990’s, we couldn’t do an IPO, and under SEC rules, we were barred from raising money privately. We went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as did virtually every other company that won licenses in that FCC auction, paid our creditors in full, and started over again, having used virtually all of our personal resources in that venture. Now my husband and I live on his pensions and our Social Security, and our small internet used book business.

As you can see, we’ve had a bit of experience with Wall Street and venture capitalists, as well as economic stress. We depend on our Social Security and Medicare, and when my mother was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease, she depended on Medicaid.

The safety nets that the federal government established to assure Americans a certain minimum level of security and dignity, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, have been life savers for us. In this serious economic recession, we have seen our small business revenues cut in half and our home mortgage fall “under water,” with our mortgage significantly exceeding our home’s value.

My husband and I supported President Obama with donations and volunteer time in his election campaign, thrilled with the prospect of his being elected. We believed that he would be an activist president, who would take the country out of the quagmire George W. Bush and the Republicans had created. I expected that he would tackle the severe recession with investments in the country, creating jobs and hope. When nobody else is spending and investing, the government has to. We learned that lesson in the Great Depression. Instead, the President has tried to outdo the most extreme Republican conservatives in cuts to federal spending. The result will be a deeper economic recession, greater hardship for millions of people, and even greater disparity in wealth, as economic experts such as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman have said repeatedly.

The wealth and income disparity in our country have grown to alarming proportions, as the most recent statistics on median net worth demonstrate. The power of huge, multi-national corporations cannot be balanced by individuals. We have learned that government must be an active participant in creating a safety net for those caught in an economic disaster through no fault of their own. The Democratic Party has been the leader in promoting and maintaining those ideals of our society that every person deserves a certain level of financial stability and dignitythat this is not only morally right, but necessary for a stable democracy. If the Democratic Party leaders turn their backs on their ideals, if they do not speak loudly for the individual against the almost uncontrolled power of corporatism, who will?

President Obama should be encouraging his progressive base to get out and get loud. Where would the civil rights movement or the anti-war movement have gone without courageous people marching in the streets, standing up for their values? We need leaders! Compromise is necessary, but there are some things that cannot be compromised without losing too much. And if you are going to compromise, don’t apologize for the ideals you are compromising.

There are Congressional leaders who I admire greatly, including Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, and my own Representative, Elijah Cummings. I will work for and support those progressive leaders. I fear that President Obama takes the progressive support for granted, believing that we have nowhere else to go, and that we will vote for him because we certainly don’t want a Republican in office. We may focus instead on other elected offices, especially Congress, and build from the ground up for the future. If President Obama is just a facilitator for the ultra-conservative right, how will his re-election help the country? The polls are clear the “Tea Party” conservatives are a distinct minority, and most Americans want a leader who will stand up to them.

The road the government is following today will lead to a deeper recession. In November, 2012, if the economy is no better or, indeed, worse than today, it won’t matter how much President Obama “compromised” with the Republicans, trying to be the reasonable man, or that he killed Bin Laden. He will lose because he will be blamed for the government’s failure to help create jobs, to make a meaningful impact on the disastrous housing market, and to curb the rapaciousness of Wall Street and the ultra-powerful corporate interests. We will weep for a man who had promised greatness, but lacked the courage, and for a nation that had an opportunity, but lacked the leader.

Thank you for reading to the end, and for giving me the opportunity to express my deep concerns.

Regards,

Jan Riker

Politicized religious extremism threatens the stability of our nation.

2011-07-14T07:16:00.000-04:00

More than any other time than I can recall, people with extremist religious views are intruding on our culture and politics. We know about the Taliban, and their extreme view of Islam. They shocked the world with the horrors they inflicted on the people of Afghanistan when they controlled that government. The extremist religious right in the United States is our version of the Taliban. Their dominance of the Republican Party is beginning to threaten the stability of the nation. Their use of government to impose their extremist views violates our fundamental principles.

We are seeing this in action today in the crisis over the debt limit, where religious views have infected Congressional Republicans, so that they view compromise, a fundamental principle of a democracy, as immoral. and in many states where Republican governors and legislatures are imposing fundamentalist religious beliefs on their populations. The actions of these religious extremists endanger the nation.

It is time to stand up and openly oppose them. It is time for mainstream religious leaders to challenge the views of the extremists. Let's start saying publicly that these people are wrong. Their beliefs are twisted, and have no basis in reason. Despite the fact that many of them cloak themselves in what they call a Christian religion, their views are as alien to Christianity as are the views of the Taliban.

It is time for rational people to challenge the views of these extremists. There are no angels or demons. There is no Devil. If there is a God, then it is far beyond our capability to understand. There certainly is no substantive proof in our world, and in our experience. People who claim to be in direct communication with God are mentally, or psychologically challenged, as is anyone who claims to hear voices that no one else can.

There are no ghosts, or vampires, or witches, or werewolves, or leprechauns. There is no sun goddess. There are no goddesses of any kind. This is all superstition and myth. None has any rational basis, and there are no proofs of their existence.

Belief in any of this is irrational. It is a matter of faith, which, by definition, is irrational. It is nothing more than believing something exists that you cannot prove, and which you cannot see, hear, or measure.

Human beings have believed in the supernatural from the time we have any records of ourselves. Religion exists in every culture in the world. Brilliant humans, indeed, geniuses, believe in God, and in religion. But it is just that, a belief. The only real aspect is the fact that people believe, that faith exists, and is a very powerful force, a force that has been used for great good as well as for great evil.

Because religion requires faith, it is the suspense of reason, a leap beyond reason. Religion cannot withstand the application of reason. When religion is applied to government, irrational behavior results that often is coercive and destructive.

Religion and a free society can co-exist, as they successfully have done in the Untied States, so long as religion is kept in its place, so long as religion does not become part of our government and our politics. If it does, then it threatens our basic freedoms, our inalienable rights.

Our founders brilliantly understood this concept. They saw in Europe the devastations caused by religious wars. They tried to insure that religious wars would not occur in the United States. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. It is among our most important freedoms, but its importance seems not to be understood, or fully appreciated by many of our people today.

In my novel, A Light Not of This World, following a devastating horror that is the result of religious extremism, in this case Islamic terrorism, the President speaks to the American people about religion and the importance of separation of church and state:

“Our Declaration of Independence set forth the principal that has guided this country ever since: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

"We take our freedom for granted because it is so much a part of our culture and our heritage. We take freedom for granted so much that sometimes we lose sight of its foundation. Freedom depends on mutual respect. Each of us must respect the rights of others. Each of us must allow others to enjoy their freedom. And nowhere is it so important as it is with religion.

We now are seeing Republican politicians trying to interject their religious views into the politics and government of our nation, and, especially, extreme religious views not shared by huge numbers of our population. They have no right to impose their views on the rest of us.

We have a pluralist society with followers of every religion, as well as millions who do not believe in any. No one has any right under our system of government, under our Constitution, to impose any religious views on the rest of us.

We now are seeing a huge effort to impose religious views that are so extreme that even the vast majority of Christians do not believe in them.

It is time for the nation to rise up against this. This is dangerous to our fundamental freedoms, and to the welfare of the nation.

Call out these people. Deny them respectability. Defeat the politicians who have these extremist views.

A memoir of the dawn of the space age.

2011-07-08T19:53:00.001-04:00

In 1957 I was in 9th grade at Lake Shore Central in Angola, NY. The Soviets had put their man in space, catching the U.S. off-guard. It probably is impossible for people today to understand what a huge impact the Soviet lead had on the.U.S. It caused a re-examination of our education system with greater emphasis placed on math and science. Across the country Americans found it intolerable to be second to the Russians.

A group of us in my freshman high school class decided that we would tackle the gap in our space program head-on. We formed the Lake Shore Rocket Club, and set out to launch our own space craft. We did research on rocket science, including designs of the crafts, propulsion systems, and fuels.

We first wanted to have a liquid-fueled rocket, but we found it impossible to acquire the components of the fuel. I went to the town's drug store and asked to buy hydrogen peroxide. No, not the 5% stuff they had on the shelf, but the pure stuff. No, they didn't have it, and if they did, they couldn't sell it to me.

We tried making solid fuel, but ran into some of the same supply problems. Basically we tried to make gunpowder, and were not successful. Finally, we decided that the only available fuel to us was the flammable ends of kitchen matches. We bought many boxes of the wooden matches, and then divided up the responsibility of scraping the ends off the wood. One of our club members, Bill Strombell, set a bureau on fire in his bedroom, and came close to burning down his house.

Despite the various obstacles, eventually we built our rocket, and we set it off. That matchstick fuel flamed brightly and sent the rocket at least 200 feet into the air. It was brief, but when I saw the last shuttle going up today, its flame was similar. So far as I know none of the members of the rocket club pursued careers in rocket science. We just were there at the beginning, and until today, the space program always has been part of our lives.

Like the efforts of a group of naive boys trying to build a rocket, the space program always represented man's effort to reach beyond his grasp, to explore the unknown, to rise to any challenge, and to succeed beyond our wildest dreams. Yes, it cost a lot of money, and it took some lives. But it improved the lives of hundreds of millions through the technologies that produced many advances, and it kept us dreaming about the future.

The end of the space program is but one symptom of the self-imposed malaise that has infected our society and limited our possibilities. Now we no longer are reaching beyond our grasp. We are trying to limit everyone else's reach. We no longer want to be first in anything. We no longer crave greatness. We celebrate ignorance, irrationality, and narrow-mindedness. We now think small. We no longer are willing to pay for anything that might benefit others. We no longer build things. We no longer do great things.

The space program died today. There was one last big bang, but barely a whimper aferwards. We don't even appreciate what we have lost.

How to grill a steak, perfectly, everytime, guaranteed.

2011-06-01T12:59:00.001-04:00

After many years of trial and error, I think I have figured out how to grill a steak almost perfectly every time. Many of you may already know the proper way to grill a steak, but others may not. My little primer here not only will save you the years of trial and error, but I guarantee spectacular results.

START WITH GOOD STEAKS. My favorite is rib steak. It has the best flavor. It has more fat so it is juicier. It usually is an even thickness, unlike my next favorite steak, the porterhouse, which is hard to get in an overall even thickness. The steaks should be between 1 and 1½ inches thick. 1¼ is about perfect. Anything less than an inch thick probably will wind up too well done, if you like your steaks rare to medium rare. Anything over 1½ inches is a roast. Steaks are enormously better if they never have been frozen. If you are going to use frozen meat, be careful how you defrost it. Meat will lose a lot of its juices in the defrosting process unless it is done slowly. Even with the best method of defrosting, I think the meat still loses something.
Coat the steaks with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt (I use sea salt or kosher salt because they are a little less intense), and with pepper. Don’t ruin your steaks by putting anything else on them. No garlic, no Worcestershire Sauce – nothing else! There are no flavorings that will improve the natural taste of these steaks when they come off the grill. You won’t want to use any steak sauces, either. Let them sit out for an hour or so before grilling. You can cover them if there are creatures around that might like a taste.
Clean out most of the old ashes from your grill. Whatever grill you use must have a tight-fitting cover I use a Weber 22-inch. I covet a larger one, but this one works well, and it is at least 15 years old, and while it is nearing the end of its useful life, what comes off it tastes as good as ever, maybe better. Clean the grilling surface. I use a wire brush and Comet. When it gets to the point that it looks crappy no matter how hard you brush it, buy another one. I think I am on my third, or fourth. Some people put olive or canola oil on the grill. I’ve never noticed it making any difference because the oil burns off. So I don’t do it anymore.

I like to use the better grades of charcoal, but standard Kingsford works well enough so I really can’t tell the difference. NEVER USE CHARCOAL LIGHTER FLUID. NEVER USE THE CHARCOAL SOAKED WITH LIGHTER FLUID. That fluid is toxic and its taste gets into the food. You can get your charcoal going just as fast, and much more safely, by using one of those cylinder-shaped charcoal starters. You put three sheets of newspaper balled up in the bottom, fill it with charcoal and set the paper on fire. I use the society section of the Sunday New York Times. That seems to be the one section of the paper that isn’t getting thinner. If you do your newspaper reading on-line now, like many people, use some of those junk mail fliers that are printed on newsprint. I don’t know if any other paper works in these things. When the flames rise above the charcoal at the top of the cylinder, dump it into one side of your grill. Leave room on the other side for a drip pan. It will keep the grill cleaner. I didn’t use one this time and there was a little flameup at the end from the grease catching fire under the steaks. So it is a good idea to use one. Cover the grill and check back in about ten minutes. Your charcoal should be very hot, and mostly covered with a white ash. You are ready to grill.

Until recently I added my wood chips before searing the steaks. However, I discovered by accident – the way many great discoveries are made – that it is better to sear the steaks and then add the wood chips. The wood chips cause a drop in the temperature of the charcoal, and also burst into flames almost immediately. Sear the steaks over the extremely hot coals about one minute on each side – really no longer than that. You’ll have some good flames in no time, but your steaks won’t get burned if you stick to the time limit on searing. After searing the second sides, move them to the other side of the grill, over the drip pan. Add a couple of handsful of wood chips to the charcoal and cover the grill, with the opening in the top positioned over the steaks. I like mesquite for beef, hickory for pork, but I can go either way, and the end result still is great. Despite what is written on the package, don’t bother to soak the chips. The wet chips dampen down the charcoal, and the dry chips smoke just as well. For in a couple of moments smoke will start pouring out of the opening of the cover. Your neighbors may think your house is on fire. Depending on the winds, the area around the grill will become very smoky very fast. It’s a good time to do something in the kitchen, but don’t stay there long.
Open the grill after seven minutes, exactly, and turn the steaks over, still leaving them over the drip pan. Close the lid and leave them another six to seven minutes, depending on their thickness. The ones in the pictures were a good 11/4 inches thick, maybe slightly more, and I left them 6 ½ minutes. The steaks came off the grill with hot red centers – perfectly cooked for us, and they nearly exploded with juices when cut into. They were great.

One of these steaks is a lot of meat, so go easy on the accompaniments. A salad and/or a green vegetable is about as much as I can handle. A potato dish is traditional, but we don’t eat potatoes because of their carb content, and in this case it is just too much. You can eat steaks like this without gaining weight, or increasing your cholesterol if you maintain a controlled carb diet by avoiding as many starches and sugars as you can. However, that red meat demands a good red wine, a big Cabernet or Zinfandel.

The big rib bones may be OK for your dog, but not the little ones. We usually give one to ours, but we take it away once she gets the meat off. We try to get it away before she starts eating the bone. That might be a little tricky with some dogs.

Why no sales of A Light Not of This World since bin Laden was killed?

2011-05-19T13:04:00.001-04:00

I have been wondering whether there is any significance to the fact that my novel, A Light Not of This World, which tells the story of a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States a few years in the future, has not sold a single copy since Osama bin Laden was killed.

It is not as if sales fell off a cliff, but March and April were the best months for sales I have had. Sales never have been very good, but they were picking up. Then, they stopped. Not a one since bin Laden's death.

While it is most likely that all of you who know me, or know of me, and who were interested enough in the novel to buy it, have already bought it. It also is possible that potential readers decided the book was made out-of-date by bin Laden's death.

Or maybe people have decided that with bin Laden's death, the threat of terrorism is over. Certainly, there has been much commentary on-line, and on the air, along those lines. Already pressure is mounting to accelerate the withdrawal from Afghanistan. There are people who believe the "war on terror" - a term no longer officially used - has been won. Bring the troops home. Let the Taliban have Afghanistan. Nobody else wants it enough to fight for it, including the Afghan government we have supported.

If those are the thoughts spreading through our population, and they seem to be, and if they result in official actions consistent with them, then we well could be in for some kind of nasty surprise at some point in the future. A Light Not of This World had not been made out of date by bin Laden's death.

What I tried to show in the novel is how a very small, but very well organized, group of terrorists could penetrate our defenses, live among us for an extended period of time, and carry out an enormously sophisticated series of devastating attacks. Everything they do is frighteningly feasible, with or without bin Laden, and I assumed that by the time of the events in the novel, and it is assumed by the terrorist characters in the story, that bin Laden had died, or had been killed. Even though bin Laden set the plan in motion for the nuclear attacks - something we know he was trying to do (to the extent of obtaining advice from Pakistani nuclear scientists on how to make atomic bombs) - bin Laden is not a live character in the novel.

The novel also assumed that the U.S. would reduce its forces in Afghanistan over a period of years, and that the Taliban would be close to regaining control of the country at the time of the story. In the novel, the Taliban also disrupts Pakistan so severely that the chronically weak civilian government once again is replaced by a military junta, which then is struggling with a civil war. Both events seem even more possible than they did when I wrote the novel.

The killing of bin Laden is a major blow to al-Qaeda and to Islamic radicalism. Bin Laden brought money and support into his movement from very wealthy and powerful friends of himself and his family. There is no leader of radical Islam today who has that same kind of power and influence. However, if the Taliban regains control of Afghanistan, and if Pakistan continues to deteriorate, possibly with more of its territory falling under the control of the Taliban and its allies, international terrorism once again will have a safe haven. Then, it might well only be a matter of time before another bin Laden-type leader emerges to plan and execute sophisticated attacks on the West.

The democratic revolts in the Middle East are a very hopeful development, and, I think, far more damaging to radical Islam than the death of bin Laden. There is a hint of the possibility of a popular rebellion against tyrannical Islamic governments in A Light Not of This World with what the U.S. causes to happen in Iran. But neither I, nor anyone else, anticipated the extent of the popular movements throughout the Middle East.

However, events are not fully played out. The situations in all the affected country remain highly uncertain. It is critically important that the U.S. do everything possible to assist the installation and development of strong democratic governments, including providing them with enormous amounts of financial assistance. That kind of investment would do far more to protect our future from radical Islam than anything we could do militarily.

Meanwhile, nothing has happened so far that eliminates the possibility that events could occur some years in the future similar to those in A Light Not of This World.

My 2nd novel, SENECA POINT, A Brandon Webster Mystery, is published.

2011-05-17T11:51:00.000-04:00

SENECA POINT, A Brandon Webster Mystery, has been published in hardcover and in the Kindle e-book edition. A paperback edition and editions in all the other e-book formats will be available shortly. I will have more information here shortly.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget

2011-04-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

This is the best budget proposed so far. It raises revenue, it cuts defense, it spends money on economic expansion. It's what we need.

Progressive Caucus Budget

They may not be wearing brown shirts but their actions tell us who they are.

2011-04-19T11:34:00.001-04:00

There are so many things to be outraged about right now that sometimes it is hard to stay focused on any one of them. However, greed and the lust for power sometimes overplay their hands. Maybe this is one of those times. I hope it is.

In Michigan the people last year elected a Republican governor and Republican legislature and they proceeded to enact, among other things, a law that permits the governor to take control of local governments and throw the elected local officials out of power. Basically the state can take over, and by so doing it takes away the rights of the local citizens, and, as it turns out, also their property. When have we seen this before?

How about 1933 in Germany? The Nazi Party came to power in an elected coalition government (the Nazis did not receive a majority of the votes) but Hitler proceeded to take away the rights of the other parties, and the citizens, and before long, their property as well.

So after enacting this law what is the first thing it is used for? To steal the most valuable piece of property owned by the citizens of Benton Harbor, a small city with a population that is primarily poor and black. Their lakeside park, which was given to the town in a bequest many years ago, is to be incorporated into a luxury development and golf course. To accomplish this corrupt act of theft, the Governor has used his new power to seize control of the town and oust the local officials.

It is difficult to imagine a more blatantly corrupt act by a public official. I hope that legal action soon brings a stop to this action, and I hope the citizens of Michigan can recall this governor.

Watch Rachel Maddow's video for the completely story.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/19/6495617-seriously-mad-in-benton-harbor

Royal Wedding nonsense.

2011-04-19T10:27:00.000-04:00

I find it incredible that the American television networks and other media are devoting enormous resources to covering the royal wedding. What a joke. They appear to be putting more resources into coverage of this event than they have devoted to the earthquake in Japan, the oil spill in the Gulf, the wars, or the economy and budget mess - all of which are important. This wedding is of no importance. It is simply an entertainment event and should be treated as such.

Yes, there may be interest in it, but somehow I doubt that an enormous number of Americans are going to get up at 3 AM to watch it. It could be covered quite adequately by rebroadcasting the BBC's coverage.

The government bailout of the auto industry and the long arm of the Koch brothers

2011-04-19T08:47:00.000-04:00

I ran across this article on the RealClearPolitics site today. It purports to show how the bailout of the auto companies, GM and Chrysler, was illegal and unnecessary, and not nearly the success that President Obama and others have said it has been.

It is an interesting article, and it raises some intriguing questions. The author understands the intricacies of the bankruptcy laws and he argues that they were manipulated by the government to benefit certain interest groups at the expense of others, specifically the United Auto Workers, dealerships, and American vendors of some materials used in auto manufacturing. He also argues that the TARP law was improperly, and illegally, applied to these cases. I am not going to dispute the legal issues involved because a legal challenge to the GM Chapter 11 outcome was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court. That was not dispositive of the legal issues, but it does make them somewhat irrelevant.

The argument of the author, a professor at George Mason University, is that if the companies had been allowed to go through normal Chapter 11 proceedings they could have emerged as leaner, meaner companies with greater prospects for future growth. He would have had them shed their UAW pension liabilities, buy cheaper products from foreign producers, and shut down more dealerships.

It is speculative as to what kind of companies might have emerged from a typical Chapter 11 proceeding because ones of this magnitude could have had highly unexpected results. Massive Chapter 11 proceedings with hbigh-powered law firms representing all the various powerful interest groups can sometimes get out of control with unanticipated results. The author concedes that it is possible Chryslter might not have survived such a proceeding.

The government had the companies go through highly controlled and limited Chapter 11 proceedings to ensure that unanticipated results did not occur. The government also had many interests it was trying to protect. That unfunded pensions of autoworkers were preserved to some extent was a meritorious goal. Otherwise the Pension Guarantee Corporation, a government entity, would have had to take them on. That some dealerships were protected had merit from the standpoint of the economies of their communities. That American producers of some materials were protected is in our national interest. The author does not see the merit in any of these results. His view is more of a pure "market forces" result.

There are times when the government does have a responsbility to intervene to protect the American economy, and I believe this was one of them. I also believe that the evidence, the subsequent success of the companies, provides ample proof of the success of the intervention.

It is noteworthy that the author is associated with the Mercator Institute, a think tank at George Mason that has received substantial funding from the Koch Brothers, the rich and powerful supporters and funders of right-wing Republicans and the Tea Party movement.

Obama takes stands he can't back away from - transcript of the speech.

2011-04-14T08:15:00.000-04:00

The two most important things Obama said yesterday were his statement that the Ryan plan to abolish Medicare would not happen as long "as I am President" and that he won't again agree to another extension of the Bush tax cuts. He has not been this definitive previously and it sets the stage for quite a donnybrook with the Republicans.

His speech was remarkable for its combative words. Here is the full transscript:

"What we've been debating here in Washington for the last few weeks will affect your lives in ways that are potentially profound. This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. Its about the kind of future we want. It's about the kind of country we believe in. And that's what I want to talk about today.
"From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America's wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.
"But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. And so we've built a strong military to keep us secure, and public schools and universities to educate our citizens. We've laid down railroads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. We've supported the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed repeated technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs and entire industries. Each of us has benefitted from these investments, and we are a more prosperous country as a result.

"Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. 'There but for the grace of God go I,' we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I'll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.
"For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who've done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year.
"Now, at certain times – particularly during periods of war or recession – our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities. And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn't going to hurt if it's temporary.
"But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon. They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid. Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation.
"To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation's deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.
"As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America's finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.
"But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn't pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts – tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.
"To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our national checkbook, consider this: in the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.
"Of course, that's not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more. In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets. It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.
"So that's how our fiscal challenge was created. This is how we got here. And now that our economic recovery is gaining strength, Democrats and Republicans must come together and restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s. We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt. And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.
"Now, before I get into how we can achieve this goal, some of you might be wondering, 'Why is this so important? Why does this matter to me?'
"Here's why. Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond. That means we'll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China. And that means more of your tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on all the loans we keep taking out. By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. Just the interest payments.
"Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That's it. Every other national priority – education, transportation, even national security – will have to be paid for with borrowed money.
"Ultimately, all this rising debt will cost us jobs and damage our economy. It will prevent us from making the investments we need to win the future. We won't be able to afford good schools, new research, or the repair of roads and bridges – all the things that will create new jobs and businesses here in America. Businesses will be less likely to invest and open up shop in a country that seems unwilling or unable to balance its books. And if our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, it could drive up interest rates for everyone who borrows money – making it harder for businesses to expand and hire, or families to take out a mortgage.
"The good news is, this doesn'' have to be our future. This doesn't have to be the country we leave to our children. We can solve this problem. We came together as Democrats and Republicans to meet this challenge before, and we can do it again.
"But that starts by being honest about what's causing our deficit. You see, most Americans tend to dislike government spending in the abstract, but they like the stuff it buys. Most of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that we should have a strong military and a strong defense. Most Americans believe we should invest in education and medical research. Most Americans think we should protect commitments like Social Security and Medicare. And without even looking at a poll, my finely honed political skills tell me that almost no one believes they should be paying higher taxes.
"Because all this spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats alike, and because nobody wants to pay higher taxes, politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse –that tackling the deficit issue won't require tough choices. Or they suggest that we can somehow close our entire deficit by eliminating things like foreign aid, even though foreign aid makes up about 1% of our entire budget.
"So here's the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans' benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What's left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That's 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.
"Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won't solve the problem. So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget. A serious plan doesn't require us to balance our budget overnight – in fact, economists think that with the economy just starting to grow again, we will need a phased-in approach – but it does require tough decisions and support from leaders in both parties. And above all, it will require us to choose a vision of the America we want to see five and ten and twenty years down the road.
"One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party's presidential candidates. It's a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.
"Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known throughout most of our history.
"A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That's what they're proposing. These aren't the kind of cuts you make when you're trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren't the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can't afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that's deeply pessimistic.
"It's a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can't afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can't afford to send them. Go to China and you'll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can't afford any of this.
"It's a vision that says America can't afford to keep the promise we've made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you're a 65 year old who's eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn't worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you're on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.
"This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone's grandparents who wouldn't be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down's syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we'd be telling to fend for themselves.
"Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can't afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can't afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that's who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that's paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm President.
"The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. As Ronald Reagan's own budget director said, there's nothing 'serious' or 'courageous' about this plan. There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There's nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don't have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.
"The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share. We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness. We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare. We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.
"This is who we are. This is the America I know. We don't have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit investments in our people and our country. To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I'm President, we won't.
"Today, I'm proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It's an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It's an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.
"The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week – a step that will save us about $750 billion over twelve years. We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We'll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We'll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.
"The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America's interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America's national security is America's debt.
"Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America's missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it's complete.
"The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government's health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government's health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.
"Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare's purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care – not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.
"Now, we believe the reforms we've proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional one trillion dollars in the decade after that. And if we're wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.
"But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.
"That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans' guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.
"The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.
"Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn't itemize.
"My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans – a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years. But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further. That's why I'm calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple – so that the amount of taxes you pay isn't determined by what kind of accountant you can afford. I believe reform should protect the middle class, promote economic growth, and build on the Fiscal Commission's model of reducing tax expenditures so that there is enough savings to both lower rates and lower the deficit. And as I called for in the State of the Union, we should reform our corporate tax code as well, to make our businesses and our economy more competitive.
"This is my approach to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next twelve years. It's an approach that achieves about $2 trillion in spending cuts across the budget. It will lower our interest payments on the debt by $1 trillion. It calls for tax reform to cut about $1 trillion in spending from the tax code. And it achieves these goals while protecting the middle class, our commitment to seniors, and our investments in the future.
"In the coming years, if the recovery speeds up and our economy grows faster than our current projections, we can make even greater progress than I have pledged here. But just to hold Washington – and me – accountable and make sure that the debt burden continues to decline, my plan includes a debt failsafe. If, by 2014, our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy – or if Congress has failed to act – my plan will require us to come together and make up the additional savings with more spending cuts and more spending reductions in the tax code. That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road.
"So this is our vision for America – a vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future; where everyone makes sacrifices but no one bears all the burden; where we provide a basic measure of security for our citizens and rising opportunity for our children.
"Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn't even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It's just an article of faith for them. I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don't need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn't need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn't be here without. That some of you wouldn't be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that's done so much for them. Washington just hasn't asked them to.
"Others will say that we shouldn't even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered. I'm sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December. It's also why we have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit – so that we can keep making the investments that create jobs. But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don't begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.
"Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn't make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed. I understand these fears. But I guarantee that if we don't make any changes at all, we won't be able to keep our commitments to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher health care costs than those who came before.
"Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe that government can make a difference in people's lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works – by making government smarter, leaner and more effective.
"Of course, there are those who will simply say that there's no way we can come together and agree on a solution to this challenge. They'll say the politics of this city are just too broken; that the choices are just too hard; that the parties are just too far apart. And after a few years in this job, I certainly have some sympathy for this view.
"But I also know that we've come together and met big challenges before. Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill came together to save Social Security for future generations. The first President Bush and a Democratic Congress came together to reduce the deficit. President Clinton and a Republican Congress battled each other ferociously and still found a way to balance the budget. In the last few months, both parties have come together to pass historic tax relief and spending cuts. And I know there are Republicans and Democrats in Congress who want to see a balanced approach to deficit reduction.
"I believe we can and must come together again. This morning, I met with Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress to discuss the approach I laid out today. And in early May, the Vice President will begin regular meetings with leaders in both parties with the aim of reaching a final agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit by the end of June.
"I don't expect the details in any final agreement to look exactly like the approach I laid out today. I'm eager to hear other ideas from all ends of the political spectrum. And though I'm sure the criticism of what I've said here today will be fierce in some quarters, and my critique of the House Republican approach has been strong, Americans deserve and will demand that we all bridge our differences, and find common ground.
"This larger debate we're having, about the size and role of government, has been with us since our founding days. And during moments of great challenge and change, like the one we're living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous. That's a good thing. As a country that prizes both our individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most important debates we can have.
"But no matter what we argue or where we stand, we've always held certain beliefs as Americans. We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can't just think about ourselves. We have to think about the country that made those liberties possible. We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community. And we have to think about what's required to preserve the American Dream for future generations.
"This sense of responsibility – to each other and to our country – this isn't a partisan feeling. It isn't a Democratic or Republican idea. It's patriotism.
"The other day I received a letter from a man in Florida. He started off by telling me he didn't vote for me and he hasn't always agreed with me. But even though he's worried about our economy and the state of our politics, he said,
'I still believe. I believe in that great country that my grandfather told me about. I believe that somewhere lost in this quagmire of petty bickering on every news station, the "American Dream" is still alive. . .
'We need to use our dollars here rebuilding, refurbishing and restoring all that our ancestors struggled to create and maintain. . . We as a people must do this together, no matter the color of the state one comes from or the side of the aisle one might sit on.'
"I still believe as well. And I know that if we can come together, and uphold our responsibilities to one another and to this larger enterprise that is America, we will keep the dream of our founding alive in our time, and pass on to our children the country we believe in. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America."

Just to keep in mind when most of the deficit occurred.

2011-04-10T13:47:00.000-04:00

The shutdown drama was just the first act of what could be a three-act tragedy.

2011-04-10T10:44:00.000-04:00

The government shut down drama was just the first act in what could be a three-act tragedy due to the incredible behavior of our electorate in many congressional districts last November. The second act will be the battle over raising the debt limit. The third act will be the fight over the 2012 budget and Rep. Ryan's proposal to abolish Medicare and Medicaid.

Once again, as they did in December, the Republicans outmaneuvered the Democrats and humiliated President Obama. He doesn't seem to realize it, and the situation has been made even more embarrassing by his efforts to take credit. The Republicans managed to get him to agree to billions of additional cuts just to save a few hundred million dollars of support of Planned Parenthood. It was a clever bluff that he should have seen through from the beginning. I'm not saying they wouldn't have happily cut off that funding, but I really doubt they would have shut down the government over that issue. They have figured him out. They knew that just threatening to do it, and making Obama believe they would do it, would get them enormous additional concessions.

The liberal intelligentsia and most progressives now are very disillusioned with Obama. He has not turned out to be the instrument of change that he promised to be. He is a pragmatic Chicago politician and right now he is focused on winning re-election. He is trying to appeal to the "independents," you know, the people who until just before the election pay absolutely no attention to politics, and know nothing of the issues, but whose votes often determine the outcome. One thing that is known about this segment of our electorate is that it is not ideological. It reacts to the issues of the moment and to aspects of the personalities of the candidates that it either likes, or dislikes. It can swing from left to right with hardly giving a thought to the ramifications. It is almost impossible to predict this far in advance where the independent vote will go. They are watching "Dancing with the Stars," and not paying attention.

We progressives are paying attention and we are pissed. However, Obama knows we have no place to go, other than not to vote. While the Republicans have the Tea Party element keeping the pressure on to follow an ultra-conservative agenda, and opposing those inside the party, including office holders, who do not meet their requirements for sufficient fanaticism, there is no progressive movement performing the same function inside the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party does not seem to have changed much since Will Rogers said he didn't belong to an organized political party because he was a Democrat.

The smartest thing the Republicans could do in the next Presidential election would be to find a candidate who is as bland and inoffensive as possible, someone who would not frighten anyone, but is reasonably intelligent and competent. That would dampen the Democratic turnout. Fortunately for Obama, there does not seem to be such a person with sufficient standing inside the Republican Party to get the nomination.

So while the odds seem to favor Obama's re-election, we have to be very nervous about the upcoming battles over the debt limit and the 2012 budget. What will the Republicans force Obama to give up? Is there any hope that he will finally stand up to them?

Saving Medicare/Medicaid - A Simple and Obvious Alternative

2011-04-06T09:51:00.002-04:00

The Republicans are proposing to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid because, they say, the costs of these programs are out of control and will significantly increase the national debt in the future. These are two of the three most important social programs in the United States, the other being Social Security. They are extremely popular and despite some problems Medicare has had with fraud, they are very efficiently run, far more efficiently run than private insurance companies.

The Republicans plan to replace Medicare with credits that older people then will use to buy private insurance. Medicaid would be replaced by block grants to the states that then could decide whether to provide assistant to lower income citizens.

Arizona's callous attitude towards its citizens in need of transplants this past year is an indication of what might happen on a larger scale if the Republican plan were implemented. The bizarre situation could develop where some states offer much better assistance than others and become destinations for those in need.

Both of these proposals are DOA now, and certainly the Republicans know this. The Democratic-controlled Senate will not approve either proposal. These are markers the Republicans are laying down now for the future, for the time when they believe they will control both houses of Congress and the Presidency. It is a bold move by the Republican Party because it could backfire if the Democrats are effective in showing the American people an alternative.

There is a simple, and obvious alternative: raise the Medicare withholding tax now.

The Medicare withholding tax is 1.45% of wages, paid by both the employee and the employer. Some projections I saw today indicate that around 2018 receipts from the Medicare withholding tax will be running about 15-20 per cent behind expenses, with the gap expanding. The numbers are large, getting into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

So, why not raise the withholding tax today by 20% or so, from 1.45% to 1.75%? That is a .3% increase in taxes across the board, which hardly would be noticed by anyone. If my math is correct, and I am not claiming to be an expert here, such a move would immediately eliminate the losses in Medicare and keep Medicare in the black for the foreseeable future.

The Republicans try to argue that we do not have a revenue problem, that we have a spending problem. This is a lie. Their solution is to cut the spending by killing Medicare, one of the most successful government programs ever devised. It simply isn't necessary and if it happens there will be a calamity in this country.

Anyone not employed by a company with a solid group medical package knows that buying private insurance in the marketplace is tricky and expensive. As one gets older it gets much tougher. It is equally tough for small businesses - especially mom and pop and family-run businesses where profits are very slight. When we operated retail used bookstores and had a group medical insurance plan that covered employees who wanted it, the cost of the plan was higher than our rent.

The Republican plan guarantees that millions of older citizens will be under-insured, many by substantial amounts, because they will not be able to get anything like the medical coverage they now can get through Medicare, Medicaid and the supplemental programs. Consider that right now Medicaid is saving families who have members with Alzheimers from utter destitution. Much of the costs of treating and taking care of an individual with this horrible disease are not covered by any conventional medical insurance plan. IF Medicaid did not exist, untold numbers of families would suffer economic ruin. The elimination of Medicare as it now exists, and the destruction of Medicaid would guarantee a massive increase in poverty while shortening the lifespans of millions of Americans.

There is no way to describe this proposal other than to say it is evil. However, saying that will not kill it. The dark forces behind it will not give up. The Democrats must boldly propose a solution, and the obvious and simplest solution is to increase the withholding so that the revenues are generated to cover its cost. This can be done without causing any severe hardship, or costing any jobs.

We do have a revenue problem in this country. We do not want to face up to the fact that we have to pay for our wars, for our health, for our old age insurance, for our security and for the many other programs that only government can provide. All of the budget cuts the Republicans have been proposing do not come close to reducing the deficit the way an end to the Bush tax cuts would have done. We have given hundreds of billions of dollars to our rich and the Republicans propose to pay for it by cutting, or eliminating programs for the under privileged, the aged, children, education, consumer protection, environmental protection, etc. This is unconscionable. Where is our outrage?

Libya Part 2

2011-03-31T07:44:00.002-04:00

Our undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today seem to have so little interest in the U.S. that days go by without any news of them on network television. They do not rank high on the list of concerns of American voters. However, even though no specific sacrifices have been required of American citizens, we have paid a very high price in soaring deficits, and tens of thousands of broken lives, for the misadventure in Iraq, and the prolonged mission in Afghanistan. As a result, one would think that the President's explanation of another military adventure would be a major event.

While it got substantial news coverage, the President's address to the nation on Libya supposedly was scheduled at 7:30 EDT, while many people on the West Coast were still at work, because it was not considered important enough for ABC to pre-empt its 8 PM show, "Dancing with the Stars." If this is the point to which we have come, that an explanation by the President to the nation of a major military action is less important than a vapid television show watched by less than 10% of the population, then the limits on Presidential military power may be even weaker than anyone believes.

The President made it clear that he was making the decisions. He "consulted" with Congressional leaders, but his team was the only one on the field. While I am disappointed with the President's performance on domestic issues and his lack of "fire" when dealing with the Republican opposition, I think he has been very effective in foreign policy.

Obama doesn't talk down to us. He doesn't pander. He treats us with respect, like adults with some brains and some understanding of how the world works. I appreciate that, but, apparently, not everyone else does. He is getting raked over the coals for not providing answers to questions that either cannot be answered, or shouldn't be answered.

He very clearly explained why we intervened in Libya and what our strategy is going forward. The shift to NATO has drawn some joking because the U.S. basically controls NATO. What many commentators do not seem to realize is that the U.S, pays only 28% of the costs of NATO. So which is better, the U.S. managing the operation and paying nearly 100% of the costs, or NATO, whose military activities are under the command of Americans, and paying only 28% of the costs?

He also has drawn fire for the stance he has taken on regime change. We aren't targeting Gadhafi. We want him out, but we will not be the ones to put him out. This is a position the U.S. had to take to get the support of the 22-member Arab League, among others. Considering that some of the member countries of the Arab League are dealing with large protests and have dictatorial governments, it is fairly remarkable that we got their support. It has been a key element of Obama's foreign policy to improve relations between the Islamic world and the U.S., and he seems to be succeeding.

It also is critically important to Libya's future that Gadhafi be removed by his own people. It is a matter of pride and of face. Obama and Clinton and others in his Administration seem to understand this. Their sophistication and diplomatic skill in putting together this coalition has been a remarkable and refreshing contrast to what went before. It has been quite a while since we have seen this kind of elegant and effective, world-class leadership.

There are those who do not care about this. Obama is being criticized for working with the United Nations to develop a strategy that garnered substantial international support. These are the extremists who talk about American "exceptionalism," and believe the U.S. can, and should, rule the world. Some of these people have advocated withdrawing from the United Nations. Some are among those who got us into the Iraq disaster, and seem to have learned nothing from it. They represent a dark element of American politics, deeply rooted in our past, and probably something we will have to live with for the foreseeable future. We just are fortunate they no longer are in power.

Obama has the sophistication and common sense to understand that the biggest and baddest guy on the block doesn't have to boast, doesn't have to push people around, and that if he does, sooner or later, everyone will either gang up on him, or walk away when he needs help. He also understands more than any President of recent memory what the United States represents to the oppressed of the world, including the oppressed Muslims, which is most of them.

The revolt of the Arab masses against tyranny and oppression is a landmark event in world history. It never has happened before. It is the greatest opportunity the United States will ever have to overcome the hostility and suspicion that the "war on terror" has generated among Muslims. If secular democracies emerge from this tumult they could be the effective alternative to al-Qaeda, and the oppression of Islamic fundamentalism. And it is important to note that there has never been a war between democracies.

Much has to happen yet, especially in Libya, for these revolts to produce secular democracies, but it is in our strategic vital interest that this happen.

Libya - For once we may be doing it right, Part 1

2011-03-30T09:31:00.002-04:00

Obama's actions are not unconstitutional.

From the Halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli

For more than 200 years American military forces have been sent into dozens of conflicts around the world, yet only five times has Congress declared war on another country. President Obama now is being attacked from the left and from the right for our involvement in the civil war in Libya. How ironic it is that the first time a President sent American military forces outside the U.S, without approval of Congress, they also were sent to Libya.

In 1805 a force of about 200 U.S. Marines, supported by about 1,500 Muslim mercenaries and a U.S. Navy fleet, attacked Libya and won the first land battle fought by American forces outside North America. President Thomas Jefferson authorized the mission with the intent of replacing the leader of the piratical Barbary state with the man's brother, an American ally. It was the first time U.S. forces had engaged in combat with another nation's forces with neither a declaration of war, nor an authorization by Congress. It has happened many times since.

The Constitution names the President the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but the power to "declare war," as well as the budgetary power to finance wars, is granted to Congress. Congress has only declared war five times: The War of 1812; The Mexican War; The Spanish-American War; World War I; and World War II.

The argument that President Obama has no Constitutional power to intervene in Libya because only Congress has the power to declare war simply fails by the weight of historical evidence, which effectively has defined, and limited, that term "declare war" so that it does not mean "wage war." For the past 70 years Congress has been willing to pay for the wars that Presidents have waged without requiring any declaration of war.

This is because to "declare" a war against another country is a very big deal. It is a statement of extreme hostility and intent to do great harm to that enemy nation and its people. It almost always has required that the war be the nation's highest priority and that citizens make sacrifices, including giving their lives, if necessary. And in World War I and II a great number of lives of citizen soldiers were lost.

There has not been a conflict among nations since World War II that either the President, or the Congress, has deemed of sufficient magnitude, or danger to the nation, to require a formal declaration of war. No draft has been employed since the Vietnam War. None of the conflicts since World War II has required rationing of resources, or any significant sacrifices of the nation's civilian population. For all practical purposes, the prospect of a major conflagration on the scale of World War II vanished with the end of the Cold War.

Congress did pass the War Powers Act over the veto of President Nixon in 1973. Many, including every President since, have questioned its Constitutionality because it appears to limit the President's authority to act as the nation's Commander-in-Chief, a power specifically granted the President in the Constitution. This act forbids the President to use American military forces outside the U.S. except in emergencies, or to defend against attack. It also requires the President to report any use of American forces overseas within 48 hours. Congress then must approve such use within 60 days, or such use must be discontinued.

Rather than challenging the Act in court, Presidents have chosen to act "consistent" with it, but not always in strict compliance. In return, Congress has seldom stood up to a President who has initiated military action overseas.

The argument that what Obama has done is unconstitutional does not hold up to any serious scrutiny. Furthermore, I don't think most of those making the argument are really serious about it, either. They have other purposes.

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2011-03-27T15:47:00.001-04:00