John Oliver On Chicken Farmers June 17, 2015June 14, 2015 Yesterday’s clip was only two minutes. This one is 18. But time flies when you’re having fun — who can fail to have fun watching John Oliver? — and I cannot help noting that, even if you have never heard Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur or Congressman Steve Womack, it will be immediately obvious to you from the context which political party each belongs to. And to me, that says something.
Someday Saving A Few Minutes Every Time You Fly June 16, 2015June 15, 2015 I am not at the Paris Air Show, but if I were I would be at the double-decker WheelTug booth watching people gawk. There’s a nosewheel spinning with the LED-lighted WheelTug hubcab to catch attention (and so ground personnel, someday, will instantly know when a jet is being powered by WheelTug rather than by jet exhaust). There’s an elaborate airport model, at 1/72 scale, kind of like a kid’s model train layout, only with a plane instead of a train moving around. Who can resist stopping to look at that? And, for those sufficiently intrigued to stay and watch a 6-minute video, there’s this simulation that you can watch without having to go to Paris. It shows how WheelTug — we hope — will save between 8 and 20 minutes each time a plane unloads and loads passengers. Every extra minute on the ground costs airlines a good chunk of money — I’ve seen estimates from $30 a minute to upwards of $100 — so that could mean anywhere from $518,000 in savings per year for a plane that makes 6 flights a day ($30 times 8 minutes times 7 flights for each of 360 days) to $4.3 million ($100 times 20 minutes times 6 flights for each of 360 days) . . . before figuring any savings on fuel, engine maintenance, and foreign object damage . . . and before assigning any value to the environmental benefits (less fuel, fumes, and noise), the increased passenger satisfaction, or the increased airport capacity (more flights without having to build more terminals). Multiply these benefits over 5,000 short-haul jets (say), and you have annual savings on the order of $3 billion to $25 billion a year. Will WheelTug ever actually pull this off and realize some share of those savings? Will all commercial jets, not just 5,000 of them, someday have the capability to maneuver independently without having to wait for a tug? (And without violating WheelTug patents?) This is what shareholders in WheelTug grandparent Borealis, currently valued at $40 million or so, are patiently waiting to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54P0_W42SDE&feature=player_embedded
Three Things: June 13, 2015June 13, 2015 This is Monday’s post to give you extra time to . . . File your second quarterly estimated tax payment, if you have substantial income from which tax is not already withheld. Watch Hillary’s kick-off. I am enthusiastically neutral among all of our fine Democratic candidates, but that doesn’t mean I’m not elated and uplifted when one of them hits it out of the ballpark, as Hillary did at Four Freedoms Park this morning. It’s a speech of real significance, as we citizens plot our collective course forward, that every American should the take the time to hear. Urge your Representative, if he or she is not on board with the President’s trade agenda, to reconsider. How so many of his traditional allies could be on the other side of this is something that I tried to fathom and explain Thursday. It would be a tragedy if we fell into the trap of sticking with status quo — which shafts workers and the environment — rather than improve it, as the TransPacific Partnership would surely do. Friday’s vote in the House to kill what’s been 10 years in the making just has to be reversed. (A true lemon-from-lemonade solution would be for the Republicans to “give” Democrats some of the job-creating infrastructure spending that they’ve been blocking and/or an economy-boosting hike in the minimum wage: a face-saving way for current TPP opponents to declare partial victory for workers, even as, in fact it would be total victory for everyone . . . because we need all three: TPP, infrastructure, and a higher minimum wage.) # Two items I’ve not previously addressed in those two TPP links: * Secrecy. There’ve been 1,700 briefings on Capitol Hill and with labor leaders. But as one administration official explained it to me, “What we haven’t done – and what we shouldn’t do – is publicly announce our bottom-lines to the negotiators on the other side of the table. And there’s a very good reason we won’t do that. We’re trying to drive a hard bargain, so we can get the best deal possible for the American people, and we won’t be able to do that by undermining our own position at the negotiating table with our foreign counterparts by showing the other players our cards.” Once the deal is done, Congress and the American people will have months and months to scrutinize every word before it is voted up or down. * ISDS. Investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms, around for decades, can be found in over 3,000 agreements worldwide, of which the US is party to 50. Some have been poorly conceived. The adminsitration is working to keep the ISDS mechanism in this trade agreement from being one of those. But I’m told that despite our being party to 50 such agreements already, “the United States has faced only 17 ISDS cases and we haven’t lost any of them.” # Despite the current crappy status quo — where Fords and Chevy’s made in Detroit are hit with a 30% import duty but Fords and Chevy’s made in Mexico enter the same Asian countries duty-free — U.S. exports supported 11.7 million American jobs in 2014. And those jobs an average pay better than non-export jobs. If we succeed in leveling the playing field, we’ll create more high-paying American jobs. This is a big deal. As is moving the uneforceable labor and environmental “side agreements” of NAFTA into the enforceable trade agreement itself. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be better than what we have today? Much. Read those two links and, if you agree, call your Congressman — and have a great weekend, what’s left of it!
Fast Track and Trade June 11, 2015January 18, 2016 MY BIG INSIGHT Which I’m sure is not original with me, and doubtless bears the name of some 1920’s economist or social scientist — “Mannheimer’s Paradox” “Hoffa’s Conundrum” — but I don’t care, I think it’s really relevant. Here it is: Imagine you are a labor leader and that, somehow, you have divine powers of prognostication. These powers tell you for a certainty that the TransPacific Partnership will, by generally boosting U.S. exports and the economy as a whole, add a million new good jobs over five years at the same time as it will cost a hundred thousand good jobs. Net gain: nine hundred thousand good jobs. What do you do? It seems to me that you have little choice but to oppose the deal. Why? Because those million hired will be at best vaguely aware of the connection between the trade deal and their employment, whereas those hundred thousand fired will — understandably — be in great, vocal pain looking for someone to blame. And they will blame you. Better to have the first million remain unemployed, but no one blaming you. (Better still: blaming NAFTA.) Now, obviously, neither you nor I have divine powers of prognostication. And it could conceivably be that any new trade deal the President signs off on will cost a million jobs and create only 100,000 (I will shortly argue why this makes no sense). But just before we get to that, I want to cement the point: It’s completely plausible that if there were a trade deal that would, on balance, be greatly beneficial to American workers . . . (and to business owners and, for that matter, to others around the world, as it called for higher labor and environmental standards and imposed enforcement mechanisms that NAFTA lacked) . . . a rational labor leader who wanted to keep his job would oppose it. And that the progressive groups and politicians that (quite properly) generally support labor would not want to take the other side. And so you could quite plausibly have the situation I think we have today: a trade deal that on balance will be a really important improvement to the status quo, good for America and its workers — as argued here a few weeks ago — but that finds labor and its allies largely opposed. Why should we stick with NAFTA “as is” when the TransPacific Partnership (whose 12 nations will include Canada and Mexico) improves on its two most objectionable features: the non-enforceability of its labor and environmental protections? Why should we stick with a situation where Fords and Chevy’s made in America face a 30% import duty in countries that allow those same Fords or Chevy’s — if made in Mexico — to enter duty free? How can that possibly help union members in Detroit? FAST TRACK One objection to the TPP (TransPacific Partnership) is the TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) — known as fast track. It’s all being done in secret, to be rushed through via an unprecedented abrogation of power by the President, apparently at the behest of his corporate overlords. (But wait? I thought he was a pro-labor community organizer?) In fact, reported the New York Times a couple of months ago: The bill would make any final trade agreement open to public comment for 60 days before the president signs it, and up to four months before Congress votes. If the agreement, negotiated by the United States trade representative, fails to meet the objectives laid out by Congress — on labor, environmental and human rights standards — a 60-vote majority in the Senate could shut off “fast-track” trade rules and open the deal to amendment. “We got assurances that U.S.T.R. and the president will be negotiating within the parameters defined by Congress,” said Representative Dave Reichert, Republican of Washington and a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. “And if those parameters are somehow or in some way violated during the negotiations, if we get a product that’s not adhering to the T.P.A. agreement, than we have switches where we can cut it off.” To further sweeten the deal for Democrats, the package includes expanding trade adjustment assistance — aid to workers whose jobs are displaced by global trade — to service workers, not just manufacturing workers. Mr. Wyden also insisted on a four-year extension of a tax credit to help displaced workers purchase health insurance. And as for being unprecedented? Every president since FDR, with the exception of Nixon, has been granted this authority. Tomorrow: More Facts and Misconceptions (Or Maybe a Puppy Video: You Never Know.)
15 Minutes A Flight; $15 An Hour June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 BOREF I know. Quiet. But WheelTug should have a good presence at the Paris Air Show in a couple of weeks; hope springs eternal; and in the meantime, this bit of a recent interview with Boeing’s CEO caught my eye: Q. It seems what airlines want is still a bit beyond the realm of physics. A. We live in a more-for-less world, and our customers challenge us. Some innovation will be required, because that market will want something that can fly a long distance and be able to load and unload passengers in 15 min. Now, let’s see. How would you be able to load and unload 200 passengers that fast? Within the realm of physics, you’d probably need to load and unload from both the front AND the back doors, cutting the time in half. But you can’t do that unless you can park the plane parallel to the gate (instead of nose in) and run jet bridges to both doors. And you can’t do that if you taxi in with an engine on, because the exhaust, as you turn the plane sideways, would occasionally knock over other planes or people or vehicles. So you need “e-taxi.” So — one might argue — you need WheelTug. The beat goes on. THE $15 MINIMUM WAGE It’s coming, at least in high-cost cities (there being considerable logic to its being higher in Los Angeles, CA than in Lumber City, GA) and that is a good thing for all most everybody. From a Bloomberg opinion post: What we know about the minimum wage is that modest increases have a negligible effect on employment, and usually work as a net economic positive to the region that passes them. The groundbreaking research by economists David Card and Alan Krueger has been confirmed by lots of subsequent research. This has become a pet subject for me, discussed many times before (see this, this and this) . . . Taxpayers would benefit, because right now we’re subsidizing employers who pay poverty wages. (Read the Bloomberg piece for the fascinating economics of a McDonald’s franchise.) And the economy as a whole would get a boost — which begins a virtuous cycle of rising sales, profits, and tax revenues; shrinking unemployment, poverty, and deficits. (I.e., the Clinton and Obama years.) And if, yes, hamburger prices went up a bit and business-owner profits shrank a bit (at first) as the pendulum swung back a bit from record-wide inequality, that would be a price worth paying. In the long run, the more robust middle class and higher economic growth rate would more than make up for any short-term hit to burger buyers and business owners.
Outrageous Drug Prices – II June 9, 2015June 8, 2015 SOLAR ROADWAYS – KOREAN STYLE According to this, the solar roadways that have so intrigued me are hogwash. I hope that’s wrong; but in the meantime, the Koreans seem to have come up with something that does work: solar panels that double as highway medians and triple as a sort of lean-to to protect bike riders from sun and rain. Check it out. OUTRAGEOUS DRUG PRICES – II As posted kast month, it’s not just the patented drugs that carry crazy prices. The makers of generics just keep hiking prices, too — “an average of 448 percent between July 2013 and July 2014” — a single year! — according to Senator Bernie Sanders, citing federal records at a hearing covered by ABC News. Our own Chris Brown of Aristides Capital offers what may be a partial solution: “It’s not a cure all but it would certainly help incrementally. Why don’t the two of us start a generic drug company making lower-cost versions of generics which have gone goofy in price (like the digoxin that one of these articles mentions)? Well, part of the reason is that — aside from having to buy a factory and get it compliant, etc. — the FDA user fees to get a new generic approved are in the 7 figures. That is a nice, large barrier to entry for would-be additional entrants to the market. Seems like we could just write a regulation that, if there were fewer than five generic versions of a drug being manaufactured, or if the price had gone up by x% over the prior 12, 24, or 60 months, those FDA user fees would be waived for any new applicant wishing to compete. “Of course, CMS (Medicare and Medicaid) being able to negotiate drug prices would be even better and even more important. But there may be too many politicians friendly to pharma for that to ever happen. CMS should not only have the ability to negotiate, but we should also have an absolute standard in terms of $ we are willing to spend for quality-adjusted life-year saved. If a drug is priced at a cost above its benefit to society, it’s not in the common interest to pay for it. Doing so takes money that could provide more benefit. I’m sure there would be screams of socialism and death panels, but hopefully somehow the message can be equally loud that it is not the role of government to collect extra taxes so that the shareholders of Valeant can continue to grow wealthy off the backs of the middle class.” I love good ideas. I’ll try to think of someone who knows someone to suggest this to.
Two Minutes: It’s All The Same Thing June 8, 2015June 7, 2015 Give it up for my friend (and hero) Mark Plotkin, of the Amazon Conservation Team. Cute frog; important message.
Sinners in Texas and Mecca June 5, 2015June 4, 2015 NBC has picked up on the Parvez Sharma documentary I’ve told you about, “A Sinner In Mecca” — I commend the interview to those interested in Islam — which one projection puts at 3.5 billion followers out of the 9.5 billion humans expected to share the planet by 2050. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow reported two nights ago on the situation in Texas. Yes, there’s Rick Perry’s “oops” moment (and the footnote that he’s now the first ever to run for president while under indictment — but who cares? he’s not gonna be the nominee). And, yes, there’s a piece of Barbara Jordan’s wonderful 1976 keynote to the Democratic National Convention (if only she’d lived to see 2008!). But the important part begins 10 minutes in, showing how Texas Republicans sprang into action when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and — that very day — set about making it harder for likely Democratic voters to vote. You have a student ID or a Medicaid ID? No good. A concealed handgun permit? Step right up! Watch. Wait til you see how hard it’s become for some people to vote. This is America? Have a great weekend — but watch. # And if you have time, watch Secretary Clinton’s address yesterday in Houston on this same topic, calling for reform. In large part: . . . like every woman who has run for national office in this country in the last four decades, I stand here on the shoulders of Barbara Jordan and so does our entire country. And boy do we miss her. We miss her courage, we also miss her humor, she was funny and most of all her irresistible voice. I remember talking to her and Ann Richards one time. And between the two of them, forget trying to get a word in at all. And they were telling me about how they would love to go to the University of Texas women’s basketball games. Right, and Barbara would be there by that time in her wheelchair and Ann would be holding court right next to her. And Barbara would be yelling directions like she was, you know, the coach. “Why are you doing that? Jump higher! That’s not a pass!”, you know all of those kinds of sideline comments. And so Ann was telling me this, with Barbara right there and I finally turned to her and said, “Barbara, encourage these young women, don’t just criticize them.” And Barbara turned around and said to me, “When they deserve it, I will”. We sure could use her irresistible voice. I wish we could hear that voice one more time. Hear her express the outrage we feel about the fact that 40 years after Barbara Jordan fought to extend the Voting Rights Act, its heart has been ripped out. And I wish we could hear her speak up for the student who has to wait for hours to vote… For the grandmother who’s turned away from the polls because her driver’s license expired… For the father who’s done his time and paid his debt to society but still hasn’t gotten his rights back. Now we know, unfortunately, Barbara isn’t here to speak up for them and so many others. But we are. And we have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what’s really going on in our country – because what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other. Because since the Supreme Court eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, many of the states that previously faced special scrutiny because of a history of racial discrimination have proposed and passed new laws that make it harder than ever to vote. North Carolina passed a bill that went after pretty much anything that makes voting more convenient or more accessible. Early voting. Same-day registration. The ability of county election officials to even extend voting hours to accommodate long lines. What possible reason could there be to end pre-registration for 16-and 17- year olds and eliminate voter outreach in high schools? We should be doing everything we can to get our young people more engaged in democracy, not less. In fact I would say it is a cruel irony – but no coincidence – that Millennials, the most diverse, tolerant, and inclusive generation in American history, are now facing so much exclusion. And we need look no further than right here in Texas. You all know this far better than I, but if you want to vote in this state, you can use a concealed weapon permit as a valid form of identification – but a valid student ID isn’t good enough? Now, Krystal Watson found out the hard way. She grew up in Louisiana but came to Marshall, Texas to attend Wiley College. Krystal takes her responsibilities as a citizen so seriously that not only did she register to vote in Texas where she was living and would be for a number of years, she even became a deputy registrar to help other people vote as well. But this past year, when she showed up at her local polling place with a Wiley College ID, she was turned away. Experts estimate that hundreds of thousands of registered voters in Texas may face similar situations. And while high-profile state laws like those in Texas and North Carolina get most of the attention, many of the worst offenses against the right to vote actually happen below the radar. Like when authorities shift poll locations and election dates. Or scrap language assistance for non-English speakers – something Barbara Jordan fought so hard for. Without the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act, no one outside the local community is likely to ever hear about these abuses, let alone have a chance to challenge them and end them. It’s not a surprise for you to hear that studies and everyday experiences confirm that minority voters are more likely than white voters to wait in long lines at the polls. They are also far more likely to vote in polling places with insufficient numbers of voting machines. In South Carolina for example, there’s supposed to be one machine for every 250 voters. But in minority areas, that rule is just often overlooked. In Richland Country, nearly 90 percent of the precincts failed to meet the standard required by law in 2012. Instead of 250 voters per machine, in one precinct it was more than 430 voters per machine. Not surprisingly, people trying to cast a ballot there faced massive delays. Now there are many fair-minded, well-intentioned election officials and state legislators all over this country. But this kind of disparity that I just mentioned does not happen by accident. Now some of you may have heard me or my husband say one of our favorite sayings from Arkansas, of course I learned it from him. “You find a turtle on a fence post, it did not get there on it’s own.” Well all of these problems with voting did not just happen by accident. And it is just wrong, it’s wrong to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit American’s right to vote. Its counter to the values we share. And at a time when so many Americans have lost trust in our political system, it’s the opposite of what we should be doing in this country. This is the greatest longest lasting democracy in the history of the world, we should be clearing the way for more people to vote, not putting up every roadblock anyone can imagine. Yet unfortunately today, there are people who offer themselves to be leaders whose actions have undercut this fundamental American principle. Here in Texas, former Governor Rick Perry signed a law that a federal court said was actually written with the purpose of discriminating against minority voters. He applauded when the Voting Rights Act was gutted, and said the lost protections were “outdated and unnecessary.” But Governor Perry is hardly alone in his crusade against voting rights. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker cut back early voting and signed legislation that would make it harder for college students to vote. In New Jersey, Governor Christie vetoed legislation to extend early voting. And in Florida, when Jeb Bush was governor, state authorities conducted a deeply flawed purge of voters before the presidential election in 2000. Thankfully in 2004 a plan to purge even more voters was headed off. So today, Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of? I believe every citizen has the right to vote. And I believe we should do everything we can to make it easier for every citizen to vote. I call on Republicans at all levels of government with all manner of ambition to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they’re so scared of letting citizens have their say. Yes, this is about democracy. But it’s also about dignity. About the ability to stand up and say, yes, I am a citizen. I am an American. My voice counts. And no matter where you come from or what you look like or how much money you have, that means something…. In fact, it means a lot. I learned those lessons right here in Texas, registering voters in south Texas down in the valley in 1972. Some of the people I met were, understandably, a little wary of a girl from Chicago who didn’t speak a word of Spanish. But they wanted to vote. They were citizens. They wanted to exercise all the rights and responsibilities that citizenship conveys. That’s what should matter because when these rights are denied, it doesn’t just hold back the aspirations of individual citizens. It holds back our entire country. That’s why, as a Senator, I championed a bill called the Count Every Vote Act. If it had become law, it would have made Election Day a federal holiday and mandated early voting opportunities. Deceiving voters, including by sending flyers into minority neighborhoods with false voting times and places, would have become a federal crime. And many Americans with criminal convictions who had paid their debt to society would have finally gotten their voting rights back. Well today, with the damage to the Voting Rights Act so severe, the need for action is even more urgent. First, Congress should move quickly to pass legislation to repair that damage and restore the full protections that American voters need and deserve. I was in the Senate in 2006 when we voted 98 to zero to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act after an exhaustive review process. There had been more than 20 hearings in the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Testimony from expert witnesses. Investigative reports documenting continuing discrimination in covered jurisdictions. There were more than 15,000 pages of legislative record. Now that is how the system is supposed to work. You gather the evidence, you weigh it and you decide. And we did 98 to nothing. We put principle ahead of politics. That is what Congress needs to do again. Second, we should implement the recommendations of the bipartisan presidential commission to improve voting. That commission was chaired by President Obama’s campaign lawyer and by Governor Mitt Romney campaign’s lawyer. And they actually agreed. These are common sense reforms, including expanding early, absentee, and mail voting. Providing online voter registration. Establishing the principle that no one should ever have to wait more than 30 minutes to cast your vote. Third, we should set a standard across our country of at least 20 days of early in-person voting everywhere – including opportunities for weekend and evening voting. If families coming out of church on Sunday before an election are inspired to go vote, they should be free to do just that. And we know that early in-person voting will reduce those long lines and give more citizens the chance to participate, especially those who have work or family obligations that make it difficult to get to the polls on Election Day. It’s not just convenient — it’s also more secure, more reliable, and more affordable than absentee voting. So let’s get this done. And I believe we should go even further to strengthen voting rights in America. So today I am calling for universal, automatic voter registration. Everyone, every young man or young woman, in every state in the union should be automatically registered to vote when they turn eighteen – unless they actively choose to opt-out. But I believe this would have a profound impact on our elections and our democracy. Between a quarter and a third of all eligible Americans remain unregistered and therefore unable to vote. And we should modernize our entire approach to registration. The current system is a relic from an earlier age. It relies on a blizzard of paper records and it’s full of errors. We can do better. We can make sure that registration rolls are secure, up-to-date, and complete. When you move, your registration should move with you. If you are an eligible voter, and want to be registered, you should be a registered voter – period. Now, Oregon is already leading the way modernizing its system, and the rest of the country should follow. The technology is there. States have a lot of the data already. It’s just a matter of syncing and streamlining. Now, all of these reforms, from expanded early voting to modernized registration, are common sense ways to strengthen our democracy. But I’ll be candid here, none of them will come easily. It’s going to take leadership at many levels. Now more than ever, we need our citizens to actually get out and vote for people who want to hear what is on their minds. We need more activists working to expose abuses, educate Americans about their rights, and hold authorities accountable for protecting them. Some of the worst provisions in recent laws have been blocked or delayed by tireless advocates raising the alarm and filing legal challenges. But they can’t do it alone. We need more grassroots mobilization efforts like the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina to build momentum for reform. We need more Justices on the Supreme Court who will protect every citizen’s right to vote, I mean the principle underlying our Constitution, which we had to fight for a long time to make apply to everybody, one person, one vote and we need a Supreme Court that cares more about protecting the right to vote of a person than the right to buy an election of a corporation. But of course, you know what we really need? We need more elected leaders from Houston to Austin to Washington who will follow in the footsteps of Barbara Jordan and fight for the rights and opportunities of everyday Americans, not just those at the top of the ladder. And we need to remember that progress is built on common ground, not scorched earth. You know, when I traveled around the world as Secretary of State, one of the most frequent questions I was asked was: How could you and President Obama work together after you fought so hard in that campaign? People were genuinely amazed, which I suppose is understandable, considering that in many places, when you lose an election or you oppose someone who wins you could get imprisoned or exiled – even killed – not hired as Secretary of State. And it’s true, I was surprised when the President asked me to serve. But he made that offer, and I accepted it, because we both love our country. So my friends, here at this historic institution let us remember that America was built by people who knew that our common interest was more important than our self-interest. They were fearless in pursuit of a stronger, freer, and fairer nation. As Barbara Jordan famously reminded us, when the Constitution was first written, it left most of us here out. But generations of Americans fought and marched and organized and prayed to expand the circle of freedom and opportunity. They never gave up and never backed down. And nearly a century ago on this very day, after years of struggle, Congress finally passed the 19th amendment to give women the right to vote in the United States. So that is, that is the story of progress, courageous men and women, expanding rights, not restricting them. And today we refuse, we refuse to allow our country or this generation of leaders to slow or reverse America’s long march toward a more perfect union. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to fight just as hard as those who came before us did. To march just as far. To organize just as well. To speak out just as loudly. And to vote, every chance we get for the kind of future we want. That’s what Barbara Jordan would do. That’s what we should do in honor of her. Thank you, and may God bless you.
Sam Brownback’s Republican Model June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 But first . . . BARNEY I love this review of Barney Frank’s book, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, by Garry Wills. It concludes: I had a glimpse of [Barney’s] parliamentary skills when I served with him on a committee set up to oppose Reagan-era cuts in funding for the publication of historical documents. Frank was the one who moved the conversation along, softened disagreements, or raised practical difficulties. He was not the chairman of the committee (William Leuchtenburg was) and his old undergraduate role model, Arthur Schlesinger, was on the panel, but the unobtrusive leader was clearly Barney. I said to him after the meeting that I was sorry I would never be able to vote for him as the first gay president of the United States. After reading this book, I am sorrier than ever. And second . . . THE EQUALITY MAP The map for, say, Irish or Jewish or African-American equality under the law would be pretty boring: all one color. The map for LGBT equality under the law is still rather mottled. Click here to see it, and click again, once there, to choose a specific state or issue. And now . . . THE REPUBLICAN MODEL Katrina vanden Heuvel quotes Sam Brownback in the Washington Post and takes off from there: “My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See, we’ve got a different way, and it works,’ ” Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said in 2013. Brownback was talking about the massive supply-side tax cuts at the center of his policy agenda, which he had promised would provide “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Instead, it led to a deep hole in the state budget, a downgrade in the state’s credit rating and weak economic growth compared with neighboring states. As top income earners and business owners pocketed their tax cuts, Kansas’s poverty rate went up. The failure of Brownback’s plan has made headlines not only because of its consequences in Kansas but also because of its potential impact on national politics. Brownback explicitly intended his plan to inform the policy debate in 2016 and beyond, but his gambit didn’t work as planned. As The Post’s editorial board wrote last year, “Mr. Brownback’s Kansas trial is rapidly becoming a cautionary tale for conservative governors elsewhere who have blithely peddled the theology of tax cuts as a painless panacea for sluggish growth.” However, Kansas’s budget woes have overshadowed another important element of Brownback’s red-state experiment: his refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. In the latest issue of The Nation, features editor Kai Wright reports on the devastating consequences of that decision. As Wright explains, Kansas has some of the most restrictive Medicaid eligibility requirements in the country. The program is available only to non-disabled adults earning less than 32 percent of the federal poverty level, and most childless adults don’t qualify, regardless of income. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to raise that threshold to 138 percent, but Brownback declined to implement the Medicaid expansion. As a result, thousands of poor Kansans who would qualify for Medicaid in other states remain uninsured. Brownback has often characterized his opposition to expanding Medicaid and other poverty programs, in Wright’s words, as a “moral rejection of dependency.” Last June, for example, Brownback told the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal Web site that Kansas had not expanded Medicaid because “We’re trying to push people that are able-bodied right now to get a job.” Similarly, Brownback pledged in his State of the State address this year to continue “helping people move from dependence on the government to independence.” But, in practice, Brownback’s resistance to Medicaid expansion is causing some people to move from independence to desperation. Wright spoke with several Kansans who are suffering because of Kansas’s severe eligibility requirements. Far from the right-wing caricature of lazy moochers, they are hard workers who aren’t looking for a handout. One woman, RaDonna, is too sick to hold down food, let alone a full-time job. Yet, as a childless adult, she doesn’t qualify for Medicaid — and the state rejected her application for disability benefits. While RaDonna now lives with her sister, Cathy, she insists on helping with the laundry and dishes to earn her keep. “She can’t do the whole sink full of dishes without stopping and sitting down for a while,” Cathy says. The stories from Kansas are heartbreaking, but unfortunately they are not unique. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “Nationally, nearly four million poor uninsured adults fall into the ‘coverage gap’ that results from state decisions not to expand Medicaid.” Republicans have full control of the legislature in all 21 states that have not expanded the program. As with his tax cuts, Brownback’s stance toward Medicaid expansion is a reflection of the Republican Party’s national agenda. In fact, the roster of likely Republican presidential candidates includes three governors — Scott Walker, Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal — who also opted out of the Medicaid expansion. Likewise, former Florida governor Jeb Bush expressed opposition to expanding Medicaid in Florida. And another prospective candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, has come under attack from his fellow Republicans for embracing the expansion in his home state. For most Republican leaders, opposing Medicaid expansion is simply a matter of ideological faith. “Why is more people on Medicaid a good thing?” Walker asked last year. Echoing Brownback, he added, “I’d rather find a way, particularly for able-bodied adults without children, I’d like to find a way to get them into the workforce. I think ideologically that’s a better approach, not just as a conservative but as an American. Have more people live the American dream if they’re not dependent on the American government.” More recently, Walker framed his position in religious terms. “My reading of the Bible finds plenty of reminders that it’s better to teach someone to fish if they’re able,” he said. This “real live experiment,” as Brownback once put it, has resulted in the pain and suffering of many Kansans. And yet, instead of acknowledging those consequences as a warning sign, the Republican presidential candidates have embraced them as a blueprint. It’s all part of the same GOP pattern — a continued retreat away from reason and toward a blind ideology — one that always comes with a body count. Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s archive or follow her on Twitter. And remember, as regards Obamacare: this is not burdening the average American voter with higher taxes to support the lame and the sick and the poor (worthy though some readers of the Bible might find such a scheme). No, the seceret sauces here are, first (and admittedly hard to quantify), reforms in incentives and efficiency that bend the health care inflation curve downward; and, second (and easy to quantify), tens of billions of dollars a year from a 3.8% surtax on dividends and capital gains beyond the first $250,000 that still leaves the tax rate on investment income lower than it was when Ronald Reagan left office. The average voter, needless to say, does not have annual investment income in excess of $250,000, and so is untouched by this financing mechanism. Hurray for the folks who do have millions each year in investment income, both because they are, most of them, truly lovely people; and because sharing a bit of their good fortune this way allows us to relieve suffering (in states that have not rejected Medicaid expansion) and make the nation healthier.
An Informed Citizenry . . . June 3, 2015 “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” — Thomas Jefferson Which leads to the question: “Are Americans Too Stupid for Democracy?” (Turns out, we don’t exactly lead the pack in our attention to national and world affairs.) And to the related question: what if even an informed, newspaper-reading citizenry isn’t getting the truth? This latter is explored in Charles Lewis’s compelling 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity. What if — as in the case of the events leading up to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that gave us the Vietnam War or the events leading up to our invasion of Iraq (planned long before 9/11) — we’re being misled? What if, as is demonstrated in Merchants of Doubt, the same scientists paid to mislead the public about the dangers of tobacco are being paid to mislead the public about the looming catastrophe that is climate change? What if — 880,000 TV spots designed to disparage it at a cost of $418 million notwithstanding — Obamacare is on balance a very good thing? What if it’s the middle class, not the wealthy, who are the job creators? What if, when 91% of the publc and 74% of NRA members favor universal background checks, we required them? What if, when the Senate voted 68-32 for comprehensive immigration reform and the House would have passed it on for the President to sign had there been a vote, there had been a vote? What if we borrowed at today’s historic-low interest rates to rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure? What if we worked to make it easier to vote, not harder — and almost everybody did? I’m an optimist not a cynic. But I do think it behooves us all to . . . pay attention. And that you might find both those books of interest.