dropdeadpolitics

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing.  It infects the mind and slowly takes hold altering opinions and beliefs despite what history said.  I know many people who think the world and our nation is getting worse.  The percentage of Americans who think the country has gotten off track is growing, and while some of that can be attributed to the current economic times we’re facing, it seems consistent with the effects of nostalgia.  Politicians evoke it all the time.  Nostalgia itself isn’t the problem.  I look back on my childhood and remember the good times and smooth out some of the roughness of the bad times.  We all do it.  The problem is when we apply it to our history and our politics.

Politicians love nostalgia, particularly the conservative ones.  They like to convince their base that things are changing too fast and would be better if they were just like they used to be.  The entire notion of conservatism is not founded on nostalgia, but on preserving traditions and the status quo.  Of course no rational minded conservative would preserve things that are violations of human rights even if they used to be practiced.  The irrational ones do, but they are the ones besides themselves with nostalgia.  And politicians, who are smarter and know better, understand that getting the votes of those people requires an emotional plea recalling a “better time” when things weren’t so different like they are today.  Of course liberals do it too.

The governor of Virginia recently let loose a bit of nostalgia that’s landed him in hot water.  The favorite nostalgic game many Americans like to play is that of the Confederacy during the Civil War.  Those who like to be nostalgic claim the war wasn’t about slavery but state’s rights…to have slaves that is.  There was no single bigger issue than slavery at the time of the Civil War and even at the time of the Revolution slavery was an issue.  We simply delayed the argument for nearly a hundred years is all.  The Confederacy is looked back upon as a romantic fight for what they believed in.  Sure it was misguided, but they were defending their home from a more powerful aggressor and we Americans sure do love the notion of such a fight.  So are the Muslim terrorists we’re fighting today, and yet I doubt many of those who look back with nostalgia on the Confederacy would afford Al Qaeda the same kind view.  Maybe in another hundred years or so?  I won’t hold my breath.

But this is where nostalgia gets us into trouble.  The South in particular has been very good at remembering the past the way they’d like to.  Pleasant plantation life, fine warriors like Robert E. Lee, and a host of other things that have some basis in truth but lack the complete picture.  Lee was brilliant, but also foolish.  He took risks that no commander should’ve and he finally paid for them at Gettysberg and in ma.  And yet if you were to tell that to a Southern Nostalgist (no, it’s not a word but it should be) they’d argue all day how wrong that assessment of Lee is.  It is however historically accurate.  The Confederacy gets very good treatment by historians and those in the South despite the simple fact that they were fighting to deny human beings their rights.  That’s the simple truth of it, but of course they claim the truth isn’t so simple.  And yet on other things, such as fighting Muslims terrorists, it is that simple.  That’s the first rule of nostalgia.  The simple rules that apply to others don’t apply to their own nostalgic version of history.

As for the world getting worse, I frankly don’t see it.  In fact, I think the world is getting better.  I know many of us like to think that the 1950’s were great times for America, but ask black people about how great those times were and you’ll get a different story.  Today we are living closer to the high ideals laid out in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.  We are still not there, but closer than we were when we allowed slavery to exist, or giant corporations to form trusts that could abuse the market and the government and in turn the people.  Women didn’t used to be able to vote.  They could be beaten with a switch no thicker than a man’s thumb (hence the origin of the phrase ‘rule of thumb’).  We used to allow children to work twelve hours a day or more and pay them next to nothing for it.  We used to have no safety net for the poor, elderly, or unfortunate.  And we used to have standards of living that were much lower.  We didn’t understand diseases the way we do now nor have the medicines and medical procedures to cure them.  We didn’t understand our universe the way we do now and as a result we’ve seen great advancements in both our technology and our humanity.  We still have a long way to go of course, but I just don’t see how things are getting worse.

Arizona is going about illegal immigration the wrong way.  The recent bill to pass the state Senate, that has already passed the House, is headed to the governor.  He should veto it.  The bill doesn’t address the actual problem.  Rather it merely addresses the symptoms.  It’s a common push by conservatives who think that tough enforcement of the law against illegal immigrants is the answer.  It’s not.

Immigration works like a flowing fluid.  When you have air in a balloon, it’s at a higher pressure than the air outside the balloon.  Let the end go and the air rushes out to fill the massive void in the room.  This is referred to as a pressure gradient.  There is an economic gradient that drives immigration, both legal and illegal, in the United States.  It’s not as simple as we have jobs and they want jobs, that’s just what’s visible on the surface.  The real issue is why are there jobs that illegal immigrants are sought after for.  This is the heart of the issue as it seems as Americans we have reached a point where we are refusing to do certain jobs.  I can’t say if it’s declining work ethic or being sold on an American dream that is all gains and no hard work, but somehow we’ve lost our willingness to do these jobs.  I know some will shout back at me that we haven’t.  But that’s frankly wrong.  If we were lining up to pick lettuce in Arizona, then there would be no illegal immigrants filling those tasks.  If we were so eager to clean houses, then why is there room in the labor market for illegal immigrants in that industry as well?

The answer isn’t a lack of work ethics a lone.  I’ve seen plenty of hard working people out there.  The other part of the answer is our culture.  We have a nasty habit of praising certain job types and looking down on others.  When someone tells you they clean houses for a living, you know it’s hard to hold back the judgment.  In fact, it’s hard not to pity people who do what many of us consider ‘menial’ jobs.  Career snobbery is part of the problem.  No one ever judges someone for being a lawyer or a vice-president of a failing bank or a doctor.  Of course the irony being that none of those professionals could function without someone to take out their garbage, clean their offices, watch their children, or pick the crops that become their food.  Without someone doing those ‘menial’ jobs, society would cease to function.  And yet we tend to think that such jobs aren’t necessary or are less important.  That’s wrong, they are vital.  More so than a lawyer.  Who cares about the law if you spend all your day growing food to last you the year?

The other part of this problem is in two parts.  One is the American Dream, and the other is the undervaluing of labor.  Our government and our corporate plutocracy is hard at work selling us on the American Dream.  Everyone should own their own home, right?  Look how well that one worked out for us.  We think America is a house in the suburbs with two kids and a dog, two cars in the garage, and never having to say no to the things we want.  Within reason of course.  We subscribe to the more is better policy, like most humans do, and our society embraces that natural instinct to horde.  Wal-Mart’s slogan is “save money, live better.”  In other words, buy a bunch of cheap crap and you’ll have a better life.  That cheap crap of course is made overseas because even labor in Mexico is too expensive for them.  How ironic is it that Wal-Mart passes itself off quite successfully as an American institution with nearly 90% of it’s products are made in China?  What’s even better is that so many of the ignorant citizens of this country actually buy into it.  And so we push a lifestyle that involves a too big house to hold our too much stuff so we can pretend to be happy.  And we all know you don’t get the too big house and too much stuff picking lettuce in Arizona.  Why?  Because the owners of those fields would rather undercut their competition anyway possible so they do it by cutting their biggest expense which is of course labor.  And in order to do that, they cut wages to the point that most Americans refuse to take the job given they can do slightly better at McDonald’s, though we have plenty of snobbery when it comes to working in fast food too.  This underpriced wage makes it that much easier for illegals to fill the void.  It’s simple economics.  If you have a job that needs doing and you offer five bucks an hour and no one applies, you aren’t paying enough.  Food tends to be a high demand item.  Not being able to sell it, especially since almost all our food comes from large industrial farms that have plenty of means to move their product, is rare.  What that means is you can offer 7 bucks an hour and raise your price of the lettuces, which would be much less than two dollars a head, and fill the job.  Assuming seven dollars is a high enough wage.  Remember, your potential American employees are looking for that too big house with too much stuff from Wal-Mart to fill it.  They might not take anything less than ten dollars an hour.  And we wonder why illegal immigrants flood the nation in spite of stricter laws designed to keep them out?

So how do we fix it?  First, we stop with the right wing, conservative clinging to an idea that doesn’t work.  They simply don’t want to address the real problem because doing so would hurt their donors, the business community.  So they attack the people who have no political clout, the illegal immigrants.  We have to realize that this is our problem too, not just theirs.  We have to start accepting that unadulterated consumerism isn’t equal to freedom and liberty.  It’s the opposite.  That’s how slaves are made.  We need to start accepting that our lettuce and other goods and services in industries that are hiring cheap illegal labor are going to get more expensive if we hire Americans to do the same work.  There’s no getting around it.  The labor market demands a certain wage and that is what it is.  We will have to live with a medium sized house that is properly furnished and outfitted.  I know, not very American of me.  We need to be willing to look at the issues actual root causes, not the ones that we see on bumper stickers or the ramblings of the likes of Tom Tancredo of Colorado.  We have to be willing to address our own faults that contribute to the problem instead of trying to blame it completely on the immigrants themselves.  Finally, we need to remove race and talk of culture from the issue.  Immigration isn’t about either.  It’s about economics.  If the culture and race aspects distract us, they will take over until we find ourselves divided over which group said what instead of unified in stopping the economic gradient that creates the influx of immigrants.

Barack Obama announced that he will lift the drilling ban on coastal regions in the Gulf and off the coast of Virginia.  I know this will upset environmentalists and rightly so.  But the measure will include other things such as a clamp down on drilling in sensitive areas in Alaska, fuel standards for trucks and cars, and the purchase of hybrid vehicles for federal fleet.  Barack Obama has proven he can compromise, but the question is will those on the left accept it?

I know what liberals are thinking.  They’re thinking we had eight years (but it was really only six) of Republican rule in Congress and the White House.  They forced their stuff on us, tax cuts, wars, Patriot Acts, and now it’s our turn.  While that may sound fair, it’s far from mature.  And the reality is, liberals voted for some of those things that were allegedly all Republican ideas.  Apparently both sides enjoy shoving things down throats, which raises a number of awkward questions that are beyond the scope of this discussion.   As liberals, we like to think that we are the champions of the environment but that’s a bit of a myth.  There are many conservatives who do quite a bit for the environment.  Some, such as Teddy Roosevelt, have been thrown out of the conservative camp as a result of it by talking heads like Hannity and others, but the reality is conservatives have their fair share of environmentalists.  Even George W. Bush, Mr. Oil himself, has many green technologies at his Crawford Ranch.  The house has solar panels, geothermal pumps, and the recycling of water from the house to use for irrigating the landscaping around the home.  How many of us liberals have homes like that?  Not that many.   You could argue we don’t have his money, but if the cause is so important to us wouldn’t we find the resources to do what we could?  My point simply is that those of us on the left aren’t the only ones worried about and taking action to help the environment.

As for compromise, Obama has a history of it.  He did it back in the Illinois state legislature and was praised for it by republicans there.  Anyone voting for the man with the expectation that he would be a crushing conqueror of right wing policy simply didn’t know enough about whom they were voting for.  The health care bill is a prime example of a compromise.  You know how I know?  Because no one’s happy with it.  Those on the right didn’t get what they wanted in reform and those on the left didn’t either.  They each got pieces of it, but not all they wanted.  And so they will whine about that, but the truth is, that’s compromise.  And this proposal is reeking of compromise as well, both on energy policy but also as a bit of a peace offering over health care.  Liberals may question angrily why Obama would do this, but we must remember that not every American is a liberal and liberals alone didn’t vote Obama into office.  He cannot cater his policy specifically to us and get re-elected.  The alternative to Obama in 2012 isn’t promising for liberals anyway.  The president is an office that was supposed to be above the partisan bickering by design.  We’ve since altered that design under the guise of democracy, but the truth is Obama is playing the executive role that all good presidents realize they must do.  They must compromise.  There is no such thing as a mandate that lets them steamroll their agenda over opposition.

The 2010 elections are racing towards us and the Democrats are worried.  But the truth is, the Republicans aren’t really on solid footing either.  Their reputation still hasn’t recovered from 2006 and while Karl Rove is predicting victory, he also predicted victory in 2006.  The Republican strategy is to oppose him at every turn and force his agenda to crash and burn.  Well they lost on health care, they lost on the jobs bill, and to make matters worse, Obama is now stealing their thunder on energy independence.  He’s not the stubborn ideologue they were hoping.  You can’t blame Republicans for assuming he was, after all so many of them are these days.  Obama’s compromise may anger some of us on the left, but it’s necessary to keep the right from forcing their agenda…uh…down our throats?

162,000 new jobs were created in March, the most in three years. This is a tremendous turnaround compared to the 600,000 we were losing every month when Obama first took office. This is just one month but the importance of these numbers cannot be overlooked. It appears we are emerging from the longest and deepest economic down turn since the Great Depression and a large part of that success has to be attributed to the policies Obama has managed or initiated since taking office.

September 2008 looked to be the start of an economic fall that could have lead to a second Great Depression. During that time stocks plummeted, major financial institutions crumbled and the country was on the brink of economic disaster. The Bush administration in close consultation with Obama and McCain came up with TARP, Troubled Asset Relief Program designed to buy up toxic assets that were threatening to bring down our economy.

Once Obama won the election he immediately put together an economic team to manage the TARP program making sure to maximize the tax payers investment ensuring that “too big to fail” institutions were strengthened. The program was met with a populace outrage and became very unpopular as these institutions paid out billions in bonuses to the very employees who helped create the economic crisis. The bonuses were in bad taste but amounted to a fraction of the overall picture. TARP may not have been popular but most economists agree that it helped stave off another depression.

Once Obama was President he went to work and passed the biggest economic recovery package in our history without a single GOP vote. This package gave 95% of Americans a tax cut, extended unemployment benefits, patched up state budgets and invested in domestic initiatives all in attempt to soften the impact of the recession. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that it has created or saved nearly 2 million jobs in 2009 with half the money yet spent. The stimulus is still infusing billions into our economy and is designed to help fuel growth as the private sector recovers from the recession.

We still have a long way to go until our economy fully recovers but it is clear we heading in the right direction. 5.6% GDP growth and now the strongest job numbers in 3 years are good indicators that our economy is strengthening. Hopefully we can string together several months of job growth and bring down the unemployment rates. The new jobs will bring additional revenue to the federal government and go a long way towards helping bring our deficits under control.

All these policies were enacted by Democrats without any GOP support. The GOP decided to play politics, betting against the American people and against a recovery in the hopes of using the bad economic situation to win seats in the November mid term races. It appears that this strategy will backfire as the the economy is growing, creating jobs and get stronger each day. Combine that with their obstruction over the health reform bill and it’s clear that the GOP does not have much to run on. They peaked in popularity last summer and miscalculated that that momentum could be sustained through the mid term elections. They felt emboldened by the polls and dug themselves in ideologically, painting themselves into a political corner with no escape.

In one of the more ironic developments, former Bush speech writer David Frum was terminated from the American Enterprise Institute for daring to speak ill about the GOP tactics to obstruct the health care bill leaving him and his family without health care. While he appealed to the GOP to act in a more constructive manner, Frum still did not agree with the bill. Now Frum may be in a position to reap the benefits of the new reform bill that his ideology is strongly against.

Could the Dems have found a Neo Con ally with a strong voice to help sell the bill that was passed? As the provisions roll out and people reap the benefits of the bill while seeing the lies the GOP has been parroting for months as false the bill will certainly gain in popularity.

Representative Paul Ryan, a rising star in the Republican Party has been attacking the recent health care reform bill as a deficit killer. He claims that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers mask greater costs therefore Obama’s pledge to only sign a deficit reducing bill was broken. Ryan, known to be a budget expert and fiscal hawk is clearly playing politics and I will debunk his entire argument while putting the numbers into perspective. The GOP has a habit of distorting the truth so with just a little digging it is easy to expose their tricks and knock down their house of cards.

Ryan claims that the infamous “doc fix” should be addressed in this bill and added to the total cost of the bill. The “doc fix” is an issue that predates this bill and has nothing to do with the reform that was passed. This is an obvious attempt to conflate two separate issues and trick the American people into thinking the two are one in the same simply because the word “doctor” is referenced.  The doc fix originally came out of negotiations with the American Medical Association. The maneuver would “fix” payments to doctors at a single level or increase them over 10 years.  In 1997, a law was passed that mandated the payments Medicare makes to doctors be cut every year. The doc fix did not pass the Senate in 2009, though it has been suggested that the Democratic Party made a deal with the AMA that the doc fix would eventually be passed; in exchange, the AMA supposedly threw its support behind the health care reform bill. The doc fix has been estimated to cost several trillion dollars over 10 years.

How can Ryan say that a $208 billion dollar problem, years in the making should be added to the costs of a completely separate and new initiative to reform insurance and expand coverage? If the bill never passed then the $208 billion would still need to be addressed so that cost is a constant that can’t be added into a new bill that does not address the issue. If you took the “doc fix” out of the equation like it should be then the program still lowers the deficit using his own numbers but less than the Democrats claim. The whole deficit argument hinges on tricking people into thinking the “doc fix” has anything to do with this bill.

Ryan claims that if you included the “doc fix” along with other accounting discrepancies in the bill that the real 10 year deficit of the bill would be $59 billion or $5.9 billion per year for the next ten years.  (As if $59b to expand coverage to 95% of Americans wouldn’t be worth it anyway) Since the “doc fix” is estimated to cost $208 billion over 10 years yet Ryan claims if it were included in the bill that it would result in a $59 billion deficit over the same 10 year span it is easy to see that the bill does indeed cut the deficit evidenced by it mitigating the $208 billion dollar costs.

Lets for arguments sake concede that it should be part of the new bill and the costs should be folded in and that all of Ryan’s other objections to the accounting are correct. Ryan inadvertently proves with his own numbers that the reform bill does indeed lower our deficits. Let’s examine addressing the “doc fix” with and without the health care bill. Either way it costs the same $208 billion but because of the other deficit reducing factors of the reform bill the overall deficit per year is smaller.

Included with health care reform:

10 year deficit: $59 billion
yearly deficit: $5.9 billion

Without health care reform just fixing “doc fix”:

10 year deficit: $208 billion
yearly deficit: $20.8

This little kindergarten math proves several things:

1. The “doc fix” is an issue either way
2. The reform bill does bring down the deficit offsetting the cost of the “doc fix”
3. Ryan and the GOP are full of crap

As you can see the “doc fix” issue needs to be addressed either way but the deficit reducing properties of the health care reform bill(using Ryan’s numbers) actually helps to pay for that preexisting condition lowering the yearly deficit but close to $15 billion a year!

It’s clear that the GOP and Ryan are politically motivated to attack and discredit this historic reform at all costs. Many of their supporters have bought this political trickery hook, line and sinker.  It’s a shame that so many are fooled by such a transparent political gimmick but my above critique easily exposed it for the nonsense that it is. I also find it beyond funny that the GOP just had the reins of power and passed every single major initiative without even the attempt to pay for it. A trillion dollar entitlement program, 2 tax cuts and 2 wars all on the credit card all supported in lockstep by the GOP. Now they want to take a bill that is paid for and parse it to death trying to distort its costs. How anyone can take these guys seriously amidst their record and obvious political motivations is beyond me.

In conclusion, the bill is now law and while not perfect it does move us in the right direction. The “doc fix” issue will be addressed either way but the passage of the deficit reducing insurance reform bill has gone a long way towards paying that problem while expanding coverage to nearly 31 million Americans. It banned insurance companies from dropping coverage and excluding people with preexisting conditions all while lowering our deficits. It’s an historic bill and monumental achievement for President Obama and the Democrats and the GOP can go into the 2010 midterm elections as the bitter do nothing party to their own peril.

Did the Republicans peak too soon? Time will tell but their momentum going into the 2010 midterm elections was certainly stifled by the tremendous political victory Obama and the Democrats achieved with the passage of the historic health care reform bill. The GOP had been taking advantage of the sour mood most of the country is feeling due to a weak economy and anemic job market.  They decided to play defense and try to stop every piece of the Obama agenda in order to claim he is a failed President.

The GOP has enjoyed political momentum and poll numbers for months but that is all changing now that the Democrats have achieved the biggest political victory in decades. America likes winners and likes ideas, two things the GOP is devoid of.  The GOP will pay a political price for their attempts at obstruction and demonization of a bill the majority of Americans now favor. The GOP was banking on successfully stopping the Obama agenda but that is not how it played out and they were left holding all the political liability. Now the GOP vows to run on “repeal, replace and reform”. History shows that once a bill is passed it becomes more and more popular leaving the GOP on the wrong side of history…once again.

This obstruction has been combined with the GOP’s willingness to play to their angry and radical base further moving them out of the American mainstream. They have allowed their party to be hijacked by a small fringe group partially comprised of racists and xenophobes. The GOP has not spoke out against this small but vocal minority allowing their rhetoric to ostracize many moderates.  The overblown rhetoric about death panels and Communist takeover will be shown to be outright lies now that reform has passed.

Obama seems to be a master at peaking just at the right time. During the Democratic primary everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to take the nomination easily. Many of the Obama supporters including myself got a bit worried asserting that Obama was not fighting hard enough. Obama just sat back and made his move right in time to win the Iowa caucus propelling him to the eventual nomination. Once in the general election, Obama sat back and allowed McCain to waste his political momentum after the pick of Sara Palin only to turn up the intensity once again at the exact right moment to sustain him through the election. President Obama laid forth an ambitious agenda that included comprehensive health care reform, something his own advisors thought was political suicide. Obama waited and allowed the GOP to work itself into a frenzy during the summer knowing that the intensity could not be sustained. Once the opposition had lost their momentum Obama went to work in series of political events designed to recapture the momentum. One State of the Union, several town hall meetings and a health care forum later and we have comprehensive health care.  Obama’s rope a dope strategy once again worked to perfection, pouncing just as the opposition lost its steam.

It appears this strategy will be employed just in time to stem the losses in the 2010 midterm elections. History shows that this should be a huge year for the GOP but they may have squandered any chance of retaking the majority.  Combine that with a weak economy and the GOP should have a cakewalk this November. I ask again…has the GOP peaked too soon? Obama and the Democrats plan on riding this victory into November and in all likelihood have saved their majority.  The can credibly appeal to the American people on actual legislative victories that have expanded coverage and protected the rights of millions of patients all without the help of a single Republican.

In conclusion, Obama seems to be a master at picking and choosing the right time to put the political pedal to the floor.  While the GOP may pick up seats it will pale in comparison to what they hoped and what history shows they should have achieved.  The GOP is in danger of having a complete failure on their hands if they are not careful how they proceed the next few months. America does not like angry pessimistic politicians and for months that is all the GOP has offered. It is impossible to know exactly how events will unfold by November but it is clear that 2010 has started off great for Obama and the Democrats.  Obama’s rope a dope strategy has once again scored a knockout and it remains to be seen whether the GOP has the ability for a rematch.