Category Archives: Government

Looking For Anonymity.

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When a GOP congressman was asked if he would vote for a “clean” resolution to end the government shutdown, he said, “Sure, I’d vote for it. I think probably 140 of my colleagues would vote for it if it was a secret ballot.”

Hmmmm….

In other words, GOP representatives are willing to do the right thing as long as nobody finds out! Why? Who are they afraid of? The obvious answer is the Tea Party. Traditional Republicans are terrified by the wacko wing of the party and the billionaire benefactors (aka the Koch brothers) who finance them. Traditional conservatives are now afraid they will be “primaried.”

In other words, they are cowards.

That may seem harsh, but if your actions…or, in this case, inactions…are going to damage the nation and millions of its citizens, shouldn’t you be able to muster enough courage to risk your job? If you know right from wrong, shouldn’t you do the right thing regardless of the consequences? After all, what good is holding onto your job if you’re embarrassed to tell people what you really think?

In reality, such an attitude goes beyond mere cowardice. It’s quite clearly treasonous.

These people were elected to represent their consituents. They took a pledge to uphold the Constitution. So where in the Constitution does it say that you place your job above the nation? Where does it say that you should refuse to fund the government; a government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

These same cowards have been led to the edge of a cliff. They have no way forward. But they refuse to retreat…at least not if anyone can see them. So they’re looking for cover. The only question remaining is whether or not they’ll screw up the courage to do the right thing. Or if they’ll follow their wacko leaders off the cliff like lemmings.

Whichever direction they choose, the future of our nation hangs in the balance.

How To Shut Up Teapublicans.

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John Boehner, Ted Cruz, et al are fond of blaming President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid for the government shutdown. In doing so, they claim that the Democrats “refuse to negotiate.”

Negotiate what?

The only thing Teapublicans want to “negotiate” is the Affordable Care Act, a bill that was duly passed by both houses of Congress, signed into law by the President and found to be constitutional by the US Supreme Court. That simply cannot be negotiated. It can be repealed. But that would take an act of both houses of Congress and the signature of the President, and that’s simply not going to happen.

So how about this? What if Obama and Reid offer to delay some aspects of the Affordable Care Act for a year in exchange for Teapublican agreement to pass a strict gun control bill that will ban all semi-automatic weapons and a bill to provide federally-funded abortions for any woman who needs one? I’m sure a majority in the Senate would agree to that, as well as the President.

What’s that you say? That’s unreasonable? Really?

It’s no more unreasonable than what Teapublicans are asking. So tell you what. When Teapublicans finally decide that they want to negotiate the federal budget in good faith, they should pass a temporary funding bill to restart the government. Then they should sit down with Democrats to discuss the budget like adults. That means both sides need to compromise.

Until then, the President and Senator Reid should stand pat.

A Failure Of Journalism.

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The impasse in Congress that has shut down our federal government is not only the result of a political failure. It’s the result of a journalistic failure. As evidenced by statements from NBC’s Chuck Todd, too many reporters believe that their job is simply to report the positions of both sides and let the public decide which side is telling the truth.

Few make any attempt to bring perspective to the debate by fully explaining the issues or determining which side is telling the truth. As a result, politicians are able to lie with impunity.

This so-called journalism is completely counter to what I was taught in journalism school. Moreover, it’s a disservice to the great newsmen of the past. The great Edward R. Murrow exposed the excesses and cruelty of Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt. Murrow exposed the plight of migrant workers. And Walter Cronkite effectively brought an end to the Vietnam War by reporting the reality of the war from the combat zone.

Indeed, Cronkite once said, “My job is not merely to report the facts. My job is to report the truth.”

Of course, there are a few writers who have reported the reality of our dysfunctional Congress. In their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein explain how the issues are very much one-sided, caused by a growing extremism of the right. Fareed Zakaria, Bill Moyers and Charlie Rose have done an excellent job of thorough and unbiased reporting. Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and others have also reported in depth. But their audiences pale in comparison to the national mass media. And their articles require a willingness to read with an inquisitive and open mind.

That’s probably expecting far too much of today’s Twitter-fed millennials and older generations fueled by Faux News Channel and Rush Limbaugh who refuse to let facts get in the way of a good political fight. They tend to view politics as a blood sport and they have already chosen sides. Cronkite and Murrow combined probably couldn’t change their minds!

In reality, the only way out of this mess is for the news media to realize what their predecessors did. That being a reporter and a journalist is a privilege. And that the position comes with a responsibility. Not just to report the news…but to give it context so that the audience can readily understand the truth. The whole truth.

Why You Can’t Negotiate With Terrorists.

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Long ago, our law enforcement agencies learned that you can’t negotiate with terrorists, especially those who take hostages. The reason is that their demands are always unreasonable and they never live up to the negotiated agreement.

House Republicans are no different.

The President and Senate have been negotiating the federal budget for more than four years, trying to strike a fine balance between keeping our fragile economic recovery going and bringing deficits under control. Under President Obama, the deficit has dropped faster than at any time in history. And Democrats reluctantly agreed to make permanent the $70 billion in cuts to the federal budget that were part of the sequester. But after agreeing to the cuts, Speaker of the House betrayed the Senate Majority Leader by allowing the defunding of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be included in the budget bill.

When the President and Senate refused to agree to the measure, the House offered a ”compromise” by attaching an amendment that would delay “Obamacare” for one year. Some compromise.

Since House Republicans have already voted to repeal or defund “Obamacare” more than 40 times, what assurance is there that they won’t vote to repeal the law another 40 times over the coming year?

After all, terrorists seldom live up to their word. And if they are willing to take our government and economy hostage once, they’re likely to do it again. Indeed, this is at least the third time in my lifetime that Republicans have shut down the government.

Republicans and their Tea Party parasites are always quoting the Constitution. It’s time they actually read it. Not just the 2nd and 10th Amendments…but the entire Constitution. If they would, they’d find that the House is only one part of the federal government, and it doesn’t have veto power. If they want to have a bill passed, they have to find agreement with the Senate and gain the signature of the President.

Only the President has veto power.  And the House doesn’t have the votes to override a presidential veto.

That means the House terrorists have only one option – to fund the government, at least temporarily, and then demonstrate that they can negotiate in good faith.

I, for one, don’t think they’re capable of that.

House Teapublicans Throw A Snitfit.

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Recognizing that out-of-control medical costs represented a growing threat to the health of Americans and the health of our nation, then-candidate, Barack Obama, vowed to overhaul our health care system if elected president in 2008.  Almost immediately after being sworn into office, President Obama challenged the Democratic-led Congress to deliver a health care reform bill for his signature.  After much debate and many Republican-sponsored amendments, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act promising to contain health care costs and to provide health insurance to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans. The president signed the bill into law. More than a year later, a conservative Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional. And in 2012, the public showed its approval by re-electing President Obama and Senate Democrats.

That’s how democracy works. Or, at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Despite all of this, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives refuses to accept the law, having voted to repeal or defund it 41 times. In a final lack of defiance, they refused to fund it as part of their government funding resolution despite statements by Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, that the bill would be “dead on arrival” in the US Senate and statements by President Obama that he would veto the bill.

They passed the bill anyway, trying to place the blame on President Obama and Democrats.

In response, Congressional Republicans claimed to compromise by passing a spending bill that would delay funding of “Obamacare” for a year. Apparently, they believed that Democrats would be stupid enough to think that the delay was any more than a public relations attempt to deflect blame for the government shutdown.

So here we are. Our entire government has come to a standstill because of a Teapublican tantrum against a health care law their own party proposed during the 1996 presidential campaign to counter President Bill Clinton’s universal health care initiative.

Ironically, the Teapublican snitfit has not affected the implementation of “Obamacare.” Millions of Americans have signed up for health insurance exchanges since the government shutdown. Moreover, although the budget passed by the House does not fund “Obamacare,” it includes the savings which will be realized by the law.

Without “Obamacare,” the government budget being pushed by Republicans doesn’t add up! In other words, it’s ideological. But not mathematical. Indeed, it has been estimated that the government shutdown will cost taxpayers $10 billion per week! And that doesn’t even include losses by individuals.

Obviously, House Teapublicans need a time-out.

How long will Teapublicans whine, scream and cry before voters lose patience and slap them on their considerable behinds? No one knows. While tens of thousands of government workers go without paychecks, the congressmen behind the shutdown will continue to collect theirs. And, if you think that they will feel threatened by their constituents, think again. Most congressional districts have been so gerrymandered, they will likely be re-elected no matter how bad their behavior.

Despite this, there is reason to hope. Yesterday, it was announced that 17 moderate Republicans are willing to vote for a clean bill that would fund the federal government and “Obamacare.” Assuming that all House Democrats would vote for such a bill, that’s enough votes to end the government shutdown. But it requires Speaker Boehner standing up to the Tea Party parasites in his caucus and bringing the bill to a vote.

In other words, don’t hold your breath.

An Ugly GOP Strategy Gets Even Uglier.

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As long ago as the late sixties and early eighties, Republican leaders developed a unique election strategy. They intentionally made politics so messy; so reprehensibly ugly; so divisive that many moderate voters became disgusted with the whole political process and tuned out. The idea was that by diminishing the votes of moderates, the primaries and elections would be decided by the most rabid conservative base.

At the same time, they attacked the mainstream news outlets in order to create distrust of the media and objective reporting. This allowed partisan talk show hosts and conservative pundits to confuse voters and control the political message.

It worked.

This strategy was at the heart of many GOP victories over the past 40 years. It was never more obvious than in the events leading up to the 2010 mid-term elections. And it would have worked again in 2012 if not for an energized  Democratic majority and a bartender who captured Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent.

Not content with demoralizing and repulsing a large number of moderates, the GOP and its Tea Party parasites have set about passing voter ID laws designed to diminish the participation of other segments of the electorate…including the poor, the elderly and minorities. The fewer of these Democratic-leaning voters who participate, the easier it will be for conservatives to win elections.

Combine these strategies with the financial backing of large corporations and wealthy contributors such as the Koch brothers, and we might see a conservative landslide in 2014.

Given the changing demographics of our nation and the coming minority majority, these cynical GOP strategies can’t work for long and Teapublicans know it. But they can create a lot of mischief in the meantime. You need only look at the ultra-conservative bills that have been pushed through states with a Teapublican majority in the legislature and a Teapublican governor.

Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas and others have acted like States Gone Wild with their anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-union, anti-minority and pro-gun legislation. Many of their measures are unpopular with a majority of their citizens. But the majority is helpless to do anything to stop the bills or overturn them until there’s a change in state governments. And change is unlikely anytime in the near future because of Teapublican gerrymandering designed to keep them in power for years.

The only chance for change is for moderates to become re-engaged; to tune out the relentless negative campaign ads; to look beyond the headlines; to ignore the sound bites; to approach elections by studying the candidates and their policies with the same attitude as studying for a college final; then vote!

A Textbook Example Of What Not To Do With Public Education.

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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Arizona will spend 17 percent less per student on education this year than it did in 2008 before the Great Recession. That’s despite the fact that, according to the National Education Association (NEA), Arizona ranked dead last for expenditures per student for public K-12 schools for a number of years!

Only Oklahoma and Alabama have cut more state funding for education since 2008.

Thanks to the education-hating Arizona State Legislature (many legislators are on record stating that public education is socialism), schools are so hard up, they have to regularly go begging to the voters in their districts for tax overrides…special assessments on top of local property taxes.

Most Arizona school districts are desperate for money!

In my own district, the president of the school board admits that starting teacher salaries are so low, teachers who have families automatically qualify for food stamps and other public assistance. Class sizes have grown to 30-40 students. Many districts don’t have money to replace leaky roofs and buy school buses. And, despite their low salaries, most teachers are forced to buy many of the school supplies for their classes.

Imagine what would happen without these overrides.

What happened to the money? Much of it was stripped from the state’s budget and used to lower taxes for the wealthy and for large corporations. Some of it was redirected to charter schools. And some of the money was directed to Student Tuition Organizations (STO), the largest of which is operated by a state legislator. STOs provide tax credits (not deductions) for donations to private and public schools. In other words, the funds are never collected by the state and the tax credits come directly out of the state’s general fund.

Oddly, the tax credits for private schools are more than double those for public schools. And the operator of an STO gets a 10 percent management fee and there is no requirement that they even have to award tuition scholarships to students! (Is it any wonder the legislator who sponsored the orginal bill operates the largest STO?)

The sad fact is, over the past 5 years, the Arizona legislature has been far more concerned about protecting guns than educating children.

Demanding A 50 Year Cover-Up For Doing Your Job?

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Our nation was built on representative government.  But our representatives are so concerned with re-election that many are now afraid to do what’s best for our nation. So much so, that they try to hide their actions from the very people they represent.

The on-going debate over the federal tax code is a case in point.

Before many senators were willing to venture opinions on the tax code, they needed to be assured by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that any suggestions would be kept secret for 50 years! Exactly what, or who, are they afraid of?

In a word, you.

Thanks to the Baucus-Hatch declaration, senators may now solicit favors from the K Street lobbyists without fear of repercussions. They are now free to recommend tax loopholes for their largest campaign contributors and special interests without fear of discovery by the people they are supposed to represent. By the time anyone finds out, they’ll be dead and forgotten.

Not exactly representative government, is it?

In one declaration, Baucus and Hatch have exposed everything that’s wrong with our government. And it’s not just a problem with the federal government. Such secrecy and tricks are used and abused by governments at all levels…city, county and state.

Those with money can buy access to those who make the laws. After all, it takes money to run for office these days…lots of it. So defense contractors, the American Medical Association, health insurance, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Wall Street, multinational corporations, billionaires, the NRA and others write our laws. They write the very regulations that will govern them, and because they write them, they feel free to break them.

No money.  No access.

Only a very few politicians have demonstrated through their actions that they are immune to such power.  Senators Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and a very small number of others have stood on priniciple. They seem willing to do the right thing and explain their decisions to those who elected them.

Far too many others say one thing in public and do something far different behind closed doors. The Baucus-Hatch declaration…along with Senators Baucus and Hatch…needs to go.

Another Debt Ceiling Debacle?

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Teapublicans are always fond of relating government budgets to your household budget. It’s a lousy analogy. But let’s use it for the purposes of the debt ceiling debate.

Imagine if your family, concerned about its spending and debt, had a meeting and decided that you no longer wanted to pay any debts above…let’s say, $10,000.  And let’s say that your family couldn’t agree on spending cuts. For example, the father just doesn’t want to stop collecting expensive guns and driving luxury cars, the mother doesn’t want to give up health insurance and the 401K, and the kids don’t want to give up school and food.  So your family agrees to stop paying the mortgage, the utilities and the credit card companies.

What do you think would happen?

The mortgage company would foreclose on your home, the utilities would cut off electricity, water and gas, and the credit card companies would cut off any new purchases in addition to adding large penalties and interest to your outstanding balance.  Moreover, your family would be unable to borrow money from anyone else. And, if someone else was willing to risk loaning your family money, it would be at exhorbitant interest rates.

Does that sound like something you want to intentionally do to your family? No? Then why would you want to do that to your country?

What we have is a Republican Party that doesn’t want to give up the world’s most lavish military budget or tax cuts and welfare for our largest corporations. The Democratic Party doesn’t want to give up Social Security, Medicare, and access to health care and food stamps for the working poor. And the Tea Party parasites don’t want to spend anything because they don’t like the government anyway.

During the 2012 presidential election, we had a national debate about the direction of our nation and its budget. On these issues, the voters overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party.  The results of that election should direct the conversation about government spending. Most important, there should be a conversation with all parties sitting down together and having an adult conversation about our nation’s future.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party parasites don’t want to do that, and the gutless Republican leaders are kowtowing to them.

A Recipe For Failure.

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Since 2009, many conservatives have believed that Barack Obama is an anti-American socialist who was born in Kenya and, therefore, is an illegitimate president. Many in Congress refuse to recognize him as president, let alone negotiate with him. Even after he was re-elected in overwhelming fashion, they refuse to accept the results believing that he bought votes by offering “stuff” to the 47 percent they claim do not pay taxes.

On the other hand, Democrats in Congress believe that Tea Party conservatives were elected based on an avalance of misinformation and spending from billionaire ideologues. They also believe that many were the beneficiaries of conservative gerrymandering.

So where does this leave us?

It leaves us with a government that simply doesn’t function. If it were not for presidential orders, the government would be at a complete standstill. Congress and the president cannot agree on a budget, on foreign policy, on military action, on job creation…they cannot even agree on laws that have already been passed. The House continues to vote to repeal “Obamacare” without hope of actually doing so. Why? Merely because conservatives in Congress want everyone to know how much they dislike President Obama.

Conservatives in both the House and the Senate refuse to negotiate a budget deal. They merely want to dictate. In 2011, that led to an impasse over the debt ceiling that damaged the credit rating of government bonds, collapsed the stock market and brought economic recovery to a standstill. In 2012, it led to sequestration which created further problems.

Now conservatives in the House are threatening to pass a budget that will defund “Obamacare” and, unless they get their way, they not only threaten to refuse to raise the debt ceiling. They plan to shut down the government entirely.

In an attempt to reach some form of compromise, President Obama reached his hand across the aisle. In return, conservatives merely extended their collective middle finger.

Given the circumstances. it’s not at all clear which side will win. But I do know that we will all lose.