Race to the Bottom

The year 2010, the end of the first decade of this new century, may very well go down in American history as the year the varying political constituencies tried to see who could reach bottom first. It was not the incalculable amounts of money spent or the seemingly interminable campaigning, which were painful enough. It was not the polarizing rhetoric or the negative attacks politicians hurled at one another or even the persistent commitment to ridiculing one’s political opponent. It was, in the end, the fact that America’s politicians and their spin doctors completely disregarded the intelligence of the American electorate and the never-ending claims of anger driven by personal attacks that sullied this year’s political season.

We have been told by pundits, again and again how frustrated and angry we are, so instead of responding to that frustration and anger, politicians chose to stoke the fire, fueling the fears that are directly attributable to the current jobless rate, and in doing so, offered few solutions. I think I finally understand Mario Cuomo when he said that politicians campaign with poetry and govern with prose.

This of course is not the sole fault of the politicians. Something is very wrong when candidates are judged not by policy initiatives and creative ideas designed to resolve the frightening economic, social and international challenges, but instead are assessed by how effectively they perform on TV and who has the best sound bite.

It is of course critical for politicians to be skilled in reaching out to the American public so as to generate interest and support for their respective campaigns, but somehow we have sunk to the depths of indecency when our leaders invoke hatred, racism, sexism, fear of anyone different and what seems even more shameful is that we seem to encourage them in their pursuit of “take no prisoners” politics.

We all suffer when even before the votes are counted, the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate declares that it is his Party’s agenda between now and 2012 to make sure that Obama is a “one-term President.” I can understand that Senator McConnell of Kentucky wants a Republican to occupy the White House in 2012, but shouldn’t he be more committed to helping to govern in a way that will result in millions of Americans returning to the workplace? Shouldn’t he be more preoccupied with completing the drawdown in Iraq and ending the horrific war in Afghanistan? Shouldn’t he be more concerned with America’s crumbling infrastructure and failing public education system? Maybe it is just me, but I am more frightened by the words of Senator Jim DeMint, Republican from South Carolina who just months before the final vote on healthcare reform declared that he wanted the vote to be the President’s “Waterloo” thereby denying healthcare coverage for 30 million Americans than I am of the cost of providing access to healthcare for those Americans. Why is it right to spend billions on fighting two wars on the other side of the world, but it is wrong to help 30 million Americans right here have access to healthcare?

President Obama came into office immediately taking on the critical challenges of a failing economy, rising unemployment, and a desperately dysfunctional healthcare system, all within the first eighteen months of his new administration. Overly ambitious? Foolish? A formula for a mid-term election rout? Perhaps all of those things. The rise of the Tea Party was fueled in part by a small but raging opposition to the bank bailouts and the Troubled Assets Recovery Program (TARP) and let’s not forget the derisively put “Obamacare.” It is no small irony that the bailouts and TARP were on President Bush’s watch, something we seem to have forgotten due to some kind of national memory loss. Blamed for an anemic stimulus and unemployment at 10%, Democrats took what President Obama himself called a “shellacking” in this year’s mid-term election. Just two years after the President’s historic election, one of my favorite news magazines, The Economist, blared on its cover immediately following the mid-terms a picture of a posse: “The Republicans Ride In.”

Fighting between the left and the right will never be over. I don’t mean just the cable show battles, but the struggle between those who advocate government to play a major role in bettering society and those who consider such collective action as threats to individual liberties and freedoms; between those who are wary of unbridled and powerful economic interests and those who ally themselves with the forces of unrestrained capitalism, between those who champion tolerance and diversity and those who will fight to the death to protect and advance their version of American fundamentalism.

And yet, it is not always so black or white, us versus them or good against bad (take your pick on what is good or bad). Believe it or not, there are issues and even moments in American history that have transcended and defied the usual divides. Unless we somehow find our way and locate common ground we can all stand firmly on, compromises notwithstanding, then politics in American will devolve into one long, hideous war and on Election Day 2012, it could become even more hideous and last a lot longer.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—an Embarrassment

What will be the future of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a military policy restricting the service of lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel?

In 1778, General George Washington ordered the dishonorable discharge of Lt. Frederick Gotthold, a Navy Ensign, on sodomy charges. This action on the part of Washington was a continuation of British policies prohibiting gay sex in the armed forces. The policy has been more or less continuously enforced ever since. In 1992, President Bill Clinton promised to end the ban, but ultimately negotiated a compromise with Congress that became known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT)” which prohibits gay sex but also prohibits any extensive investigation of same.

As it is laid out in USC 10 £ 654, the policy reads, “A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense if the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts.”

Over 13,000 United States military personnel have been discharged under the policy since 1994. A 2006 study conducted by the University of California at Santa Barbara estimated that since its implementation, DADT has cost the U.S. military $363.9 million. The authors of the study emphasized that this estimate is conservative and does not take into consideration strategic vulnerabilities or possible casualties resulting from the discharge of relatively scarce personnel such as Arabic translators.

President Obama has supported repealing DADT since the beginning of his presidential campaign, as has every leading Democratic candidate since 2000. George W. Bush supported the policy and his predecessor Bill Clinton signed it into law.

According to a May 2005 Boston Globe poll, 79% of Americans—including 58% of self-identified conservatives—supported allowing lesbians and gay men to serve openly in the military. I should however, in the interests of full disclosure, share with you that the shift in public opinion has been gradual; only 63% supported lesbian and gay military personnel in a 2004 Gallup poll and 40% in a 1993 Gallup poll.

The most common argument against allowing lesbians and gay men to serve openly in the military is that it would negatively impact unit cohesion, as homophobic personnel would not want to serve in close quarters with lesbian and gay personnel. Military Times, a conservative leaning magazine to which many military personnel subscribe, found that 10% of readers polled stated that they would actually leave the armed forces if lesbian and gay men were allowed to openly serve.

The reality however, is that the inclusion of lesbian and gay personnel has had no discernibly negative impact on unit cohesion in other countries that allow gay and lesbian personnel to openly serve, such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel, France and Russia. A 2008 study by the University of California at Santa Barbara, chaired by four retired military officers (including a vice-admiral and a brigadier general), found no legitimate basis for the argument that allowing gay personnel to serve would undermine unit cohesion.

From a strictly constitutional perspective, the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause reads: “No state shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” Because the policy of DADT results in lesbians and gay men being part of an identifiably targeted group, and no compelling basis can be stated to justify discrimination against lesbian and gay personnel, DADT would appear to be unconstitutional under this clause. That said, the U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to enforce the equal protection clause in cases involving lesbians and gay men.

While the policy has often been described as an executive branch decision, 10 USC £ 654 must either be struck down by a federal court or repealed by Congress. The Military Enhancement Readiness Act, legislation currently before Congress, would end the ban and advocates have suggested attaching it to the 2011 defense reauthorization bill, but a 2010 repeal is beginning to seem more likely, given the voracious appetite of the war in Afghanistan.

Compromise = Victory

After months squabbling, posturing and pointing fingers, both Houses of Congress are edging towards some kind of resolution regarding the Bush tax cuts. Millions of Americans are out of work, but I think most of us can agree that many of the people who sit in both Chambers of the Congress deserve their jobs the least.

President Barack Obama has structured a compromise with the Republicans who for the better part of a year have fought tooth and nail to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of us. President Obama had been arguing that with the economy gasping for air, that it made absolutely no sense to keep providing tax breaks to those who need it the least. Even billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have expressed their support for the President’s position, but the Republican Party, hell bent to be the party of the rich, has put it all on the line to ensure that the wealthiest Americans get to keep all their money and the poorest Americans get to keep less.

Faced with the ethically bankrupt decision of the Republicans to allow unemployment insurance to expire for millions of Americans, especially so close to the holiday season, the President rightly spoke of how the GOP was in reality holding jobless Americans hostage so he had no choice but to strike a compromise. It reminds me of that age-old TV storyline where a kidnapper is holding a child hostage demanding a huge ransom for her safe return. Obviously, the parent will give the kidnapper whatever they demand knowing that in the end, the kidnapper will pay for their misdeed.

One could easily have the expectation that the Republicans along with their allies, the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, will surely pay a price at the polls in 2012 for taking such a public stand in support of the rich. They gained control of Congress because of a populist uprising, consisting primarily of Tea Partiers and other Americans who called themselves patriots.

The reality however, is that there is absolutely nothing patriotic about ensuring that the gap between the rich and poor widens to the point that America becomes an aristocracy. There is no justification for giving the rich tax cuts since despite what Republicans are saying they are not the ones who are creating jobs. Less than two percent of all tax returns for small businesses are filed by those earning over $250,000 per year and the rest of us can no longer afford to make them richer than they already are.

By securing this compromise, President Obama has shown Americans that the Republicans really have no desire to control the deficit. By turning their backs on an opportunity to reduce the deficit by taking back a tax break from those who did not need in the first place, The GOP is demonstrating that they only want to control the deficit on the backs of America’s middle class and America’s poor.

This is what President Obama had to say earlier this week about the compromise: “Republicans will block a permanent tax cut for the middle class unless they also get a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, regardless of the cost. We saw that in two different votes that were taken this weekend. And without a willingness to give on both sides, there is no reason to believe this stalemate won’t continue well into next year. This would be a chilling prospect for the American people, whose taxes are currently scheduled to go up on January 1st.”

I hope that as we get closer to November 2012, the American people will remember that the Republican’s first order of business after their mid-term election victory was to fight for tax cuts for the rich—the same rich who are not investing in the American economy but who along with banks are hoarding their wealth.

The President made the right decision to compromise and while thus far in his administration, having values when dealing with Republicans and weak-kneed Democrats afraid to govern has proven to be a liability, this is a political and moral victory for President Obama.

Awwww--the US Government is just like your family

So, your mortgage is overdue and you are lying awake at 3 a.m. wondering where the heck the money is going to come from this month when the hallway smoke alarm goes off. Now what should you do? Well, if you are like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, those erstwhile members of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission who decided to make a splash while the President was visiting Asia, you would probably leap out of your bed, ignore the fire, run outside and plant a For Sale sign in the front yard.

Problem solved!

Let’s just ignore the fact that 9.6 million of our fellow citizens are flat out of work and more than 25 million other Americans are either out of work, trying to make ends meet with one or more part-time jobs, or maybe, they have simply given up. And if that were not enough, it is projected that Social Security will have exhausted its reserves by 2035. It must be a national emergency.

Those who are supposedly in the know seem to think there is an emergency. While watching CNN earlier this week, I watched John King and Ali Velshi comfort each other by showing their enormous wisdom when they shared with the rest of us that “deficit reduction will be the single biggest political issue over the next two years.”

John King wowed us all by stating that “The American people are ahead of their government and their politicians on this, because Ali, as you know, over the past two or three years every family in America has had to make incredibly difficult choices and do things they didn’t want to do. And so they look at Washington and they say why won’t you do things that you don’t want to do, why don’t you do something about this and be grown-ups?”

Of course, it is obvious that the thing to do is to immediately cut government spending, reduce demand which will result in putting more people out of work. Hey, the Republicans have promised us that if we just do that, prosperity will be here again.

As much as I like the guy, President Obama is just a little responsible for this government/family analogy. During his 2010 State of the Union Address when he first announced the formation of the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission he said, “Families across the country are tightening their belts and making touch decisions. The Federal Government should do the same.”

I mean after all, the United States government is just like your family. Can your family run deficits? Except for mortgages, auto loans, college loans, credit cards of course. Otherwise your family is exactly like the Social Security Administration, the Federal Reserve, the Pentagon, all those agencies. So get off your butt and go out and build some bridges, shore up the infrastructure, build some highways and high speed rail. Just make sure that you pay as you go.

Getting back to the deficit reduction commission: Just before Bowles and Simpson decided to beat their own panel to the punch and made the decision to speak out before the commission had even voted, CBS News conducted a survey to find out what Americans want from the new Congress to focus on beginning next January after they are sworn in. Fifty-six percent said “economy and jobs.” Believe it or not, the second biggest issue was “healthcare” at fourteen percent. And dragging up the rear was the “Budget deficit/national debt” at a staggering six percent!

The best way to cut the deficit is---hands? That’s right! The best way to reduce the deficit is through good old fashioned economic growth. The deficit we are burdened by today was caused almost entirely by the Bush tax cuts and the recession—to say nothing of the cost of waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously.

As my favorite economist, Dr. Dean Baker recently wrote on his website, “Anyone who bothered to sit down and look at the numbers would see that there was not a big deficit problem by any realistic measure until the housing bubble collapsed.”

For almost two years prior to the bubble collapse, Dean Baker warned often about the dangers of the then growing housing bubble. So, by the same mentality that made most of us discount those early naysayers to our invasion of Iraq, Baker just is not taken as seriously as those who scream on the radio and write in Op-Ed pages from coast to coast scare talk about deficit burden. And this, even after Dr. Baker was proven ultimately correct about the housing bubble all along and despite the fact that he writes in very easy to understand language so that we can all get it without getting a headache struggling through economic language that would drive Adam Smith to drink.

For the immediate future, Dr Baker writes that “people who want lower deficits in the current slump want more people to lose their jobs.” OK—maybe some of them don’t really want people to lose their jobs, but that would be the impact nonetheless. More importantly, further out into a more distant future, a huge part of the U.S. debt problem is due to Medicare (already the trumpets are being sounded by doctors threatening to leave Medicare if rates are cut). During the healthcare debate, Baker wrote that “Per person costs are projected to rise from a bit more than twice the average of other wealthy countries to three or four times the average per person cost. If healthcare costs increase as projected, it will have a devastating impact on the economy.”

What is the solution that Bowles-Simpson and company offer? “Establish a process to regularly evaluate cost growth.”

Man, what will they think of next?

The Un-Friendly Skies of the Transporation Security Agency

For many years after its creation, TSA was a really expensive theatre production playing in a city near you. For what has now seemed like forever, when flying, you had to take your shoes off, and if you had a backpack you had to take that off as well and then sort your backpack’s contents in order of importance into seven or eight different containers.

Then, when you inevitably set off the metal detector, because you left your belt on to keep your pants up you have to walk through again, this time with an under-paid, bored TSA agent looking at you as if you were Osama bin Laden.

Thankfully, technology has come to the rescue and those days of cheap theatre are over—or are they? With a recent budget increase, TSA now has state-of-the-art theatre props for their production. Instead of a cranky, overly sensitive metal detector, the TSA has now installed full-body scanners that while they can search every nook and cranny of your person, could also give you cancer after multiple scans over a period of years.

In theory, this new technology seems like a fantastic way to stop the terrorists from doing what they do. Unfortunately, these new scanning machines are also a huge invasion of privacy and more importantly, they can be dangerous to your health.

Each time you fly the now un-friendly skies of TSA, you must first pass through these new fangled scanners where you will be subjected to a small dose of radiation. Admittedly, it is similar to the dosage you receive when x-raying your leg or foot after an accident—they pose no real risk by themselves. The challenge however, is that repeated use of these scanners can statistically increase your risk for cancer over your lifetime. And what is even more frightening is that this small dose of radiation is considerably more dangerous to young children.

If you happen to be someone who never takes these kinds of cancer scares seriously, you must at least see how the privacy of everyone passing through one of these scanners is unreasonably compromised.

These scanners, which are supposed to make us all safer, actually take a full body image and then displays it to a so-called “security enforcement officer.” These images show everything—never mind mom’s warning about dirty underwear—these scans expose every oddly shaped toe, every meal eaten during the past week and of course, the male genitals. This last bit of unsettling consequence of the full body scan if nothing else, probably lends credibility to the old saying that “Men can read maps better than women. Cause only the male mind could conceive of one inch equaling a hundred miles.”

This, for me, extends far beyond any definition of a reasonable policy. While I support the government’s right to sometimes pry, this is something that I think we can all agree crosses the line.

One strange and troubling aspect of all this is that despite the insistence of the TSA that all these images are immediately deleted from their system, there have been several instances of these images being obtained by groups not affiliated with the government, one of those being a privacy watchdog. A positive feature of the system is supposed to be that the stations we all pass through to be scanned are remotely monitored, which means that at the very least, they are after all transmitted over the internet somehow.

As it should be, one does have the option to refuse the health risks associated with radiation scanning and privacy invasion. The alternative to avoiding these scanners is a rather aggressive pat down by a TSA officer. So, instead of getting hit with a dose of radiation, the passenger who enjoys their right to privacy is then given the opportunity to have a perfect stranger feel them all over with gloved hands. Previously, pat downs were accomplished with the back of the hand, but with the adoption of these new security measures, TSA agents have become more aggressive fortified in their behavior by new security regulations that suggest using the palm of one’s hand and getting very personal between the legs is a new standard.

This, naturally is designed to force you into the body scan process because after all, who wants some stranger groping them between their legs, tea baggers notwithstanding.

The TSA of course insists that these pat downs are performed by a professional workforce and that there is absolutely no intent on the part of any TSA officer to take advantage of the situation. Yeah right.

So my friends, if you are flying this weekend, or for Christmas or for any reason in the coming months. I would advise you to not fly unless of course the distance is so great that other modes of transportation would take forever to get you where you want or need to go.

Apparently, from now on purchasing a plane ticket is enough to make you immediately a suspected terrorist. With all the rights we continue to relinquish in the name of national security or even our own security, soon folks will be judged solely by the ethnicity of their clothing or appearance or their skin color. But that could never happen—could it?

Here we go!

It’s happened. The Republicans gained 61 seats in the United States House of Representatives and damn near took control of the United States Senate. So, what’s next?

Republicans and their tea-party allies are gearing up to do two things: Repeal the healthcare legislation passed in the last Congress and limit President Obama to a one-term presidency. And the way they have determined to do this is to scare the American people into voting for their side and the best way to do that is to convince us that our role as a superpower is finished unless we put them in control of both the White House and Congress.

The vanguard of the tea party movement are the deficit hawks who must believe that they are in the home stretch of their efforts to repeal this year’s healthcare legislation since they appear to be pulling out all the stops. The strategy of pointing to the deficit as the reason for all our ills is gaining momentum because opponents of any kind of government spending program—except defense—are turning up the heat by resorting to the infamous standbys of racism and xenophobia.

The latest salvo from the right is an ad sponsored by Citizens against Government Waste. This ad is being widely shown on television in addition to being available at their website. It depicts a classroom in the year 2030 in which a group of Chinese students are learning from their teacher the reasons that great countries throughout history have ultimately declined. The list includes the Roman Empire, the British Empire and of course, the United States.

This is not the first time that the Right Wing in this country has appealed to racism and xenophobia. The China threat is a common thread running through all their media offerings, but this new ad takes this despicable strategy to a whole new level.

At the risk of insulting your intelligence, I just want to make the point here that the amount that our country owes to China and other foreign countries is determined by the trade deficit—not the budget deficit. So the connection makes absolutely zero sense, even at the most basic level. Cutting the budget deficit will in no way reduce or remove the amount the United States owes China if the trade deficit between our two countries remains the same.

The trade deficit in turn is the result of an over-valued dollar. A high dollar makes imports cheap. This causes us to buy more imports. A high dollar also makes our exports more expensive so foreigners will buy less of our exports. High imports and low exports are what cause a trade deficit. This is why Ben Bernanke this past week decried China’s policy of under-valuing their currency.

So, if one is upset about the extent to which China and the rest of the world are gobbling up U.S. debt and other American assets, then they should be angry about our over-valued dollar or how that policy plays right into China’s strategy of under-valuing their own currency. Blaming the budget deficit for what is going on in the international marketplace is just an effort to use racism and xenophobia to support an argument that cannot stand on its own merits.

We should all feel insulted because the merits of the arguments presented in this ad would be laughable if they were not being taken so seriously by millions of Americans.

It is critical for us to understand that the borrowing that took place to finance the stimulus created no debt burden since it largely came from the Federal Reserve Board. This means that the government sold bonds to the Fed, which in turn refunded the interest it received back to the Treasury. Last year, the Fed refunded $77 billion to the Treasury, almost 40 percent of the government’s net interest burden!

The reality is that America has no short-term deficit challenge. If the budget deficit was smaller we would have higher unemployment. How does having more parents lose their jobs help our kids?

Over the long term, America is projected to face a deficit problem only because of its healthcare system. If per person healthcare costs in the United States were comparable to costs in any other industrialized or wealthy country, America would be looking at huge budget surpluses in the distant future, not deficits—and the little bit of reform we managed to squeeze out of the last Congress could all disappear if a Republican attempt to repeal that legislation is successful.

This my friends, is why honest people talk about ways to continue to fix the healthcare system, continue to stimulate the economy, end unemployment, strengthen our efforts to continuously reform the financial system, bring our soldiers home from Iraq and Afghanistan and to develop and pass a comprehensive and fair immigration policy—while the rest produce racist ads about exploding budget deficits.

Finally it's over--but what happened!?

Now that the mid-term elections are finally over, President Obama may not feel like it, but he is a man for whom fortune has smiled upon. The new kid on the block from Illinois who joined the United States Senate in 2005 could have never expected to become President in less than four years. Though he has never lacked in self-confidence, I am sure that he thought that his chance to run would come much later than it actually did.

One of the conditions that made it possible for Barack Obama to be swept into office was the financial panic following the utter collapse of Lehman Brothers just two years ago in September, simultaneously exposing John McCain’s limitations in his understanding of basic economics. Obama was not only better at communicating with the electorate, be also had that distinct coolness about him that projected him as the man with the plan for the times that were becoming increasingly troubled by the hour. At his inauguration, President Obama enjoyed comfortable majorities in both Houses of the US Congress and the President himself literally basked in an international display of goodwill. People like me began to wonder whether the Republicans who had been soundly thrashed in 2006 in President Bush’s own mid-term election (lame duck administration that it was) and then profoundly beaten at the polls in 2008 would ever recuperate.

So, how is it possible that just 21 months later, the Democrats were thoroughly repudiated at the polls and the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives and damn near seized control of the United States Senate? The first response is that the same “perfect storm” that blew Barack Obama into office has now come close to wrecking his presidency. As with most things however, there is definitely more to it than simply that. To really understand what has happened, it is important for us to review the past two years in three distinct, different issues: the legacy he inherited from George Bush, the vicious struggle over healthcare reform and the chasm that exists now between the American people and the man whom they voted for in 2008 to engender hope while bringing change to a nation reeling from economic distress and all of the accompanying symptoms of a national malaise.

Thanks George.......

We all knew, even as we pulled the lever, that if elected, Barack Obama would, as the Economist said, ‘inherit the in-box from hell.” Our banking system was near collapse, the economy in general needed critical resuscitation and there were two unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If that was not enough, there was also fear over the state of the environment.

Since his election, Obama has had to find solutions to not only these crises, but new ones, as they often do, erupt, such as a BP oil rig exploding and filling the Gulf of Mexico with more than 170 million gallons of crude oil. Nevertheless, the Obama administration tackled some huge economic problems almost before they had cleaned the trash from the mall after the inauguration—and had experienced some apparent success.

At the top of the list was the immediate need to stabilize our financial system. As the Bush administration slipped into oblivion, the President somehow managed to talk a reluctant and almost unwilling Congress into enacting the Trouble Assets Recovery Program (TARP) using $700 billion of taxpayer money to keep the system from sinking. Not only did Senator Obama vote for the TARP, he had to finish the job that Bush started as President Obama. In doing so, his administration resisted the notion to assume public ownership of the banks and instead had his economic advisers devise a system of “stress tests,” a controversial approach that took time to finally kick in but ultimately, appeared to work. So much so in fact, that American banks today are better capitalized than they have been for decades.

The rest of the economy however, was also clamoring for attention. The banks which had been lending to almost anyone, suddenly stopped lending and the ability of consumers to, well, consume, evaporated. Two weeks before the presidential election, the Fed forecast that the rate of unemployment which was then 6.6%, would continue to rise for the next two years and that in 2010, the nation would only witness a moderate recovery.

During the transition, President-elect Obama launched the argument for a stimulus bill that would increase public spending while at the same time, cutting taxes. The American Recovery and Re-investment Act (ARRA) that he signed into law in February 2009 allocated $787 billion, almost all to be spent in two years: roughly one-third in tax cuts, one-third in new spending and one-third in transfers to the states whose budgets had hemorrhaged to the point where state governments had begun to eliminate services, such as police and fire protection as well as the almost wholesale firing of school teachers.

To add to the nightmare, President-elect Obama had to figure out what to do regarding GM and Chrysler. These former bastions of Detroit were now tottering on the edge of extinction, poised to implode and take more than a million jobs in the process. President Bush, in the last days of his presidency threw them a lifeline, but it would be up to President Obama to make the excruciating decision to bail them out. The Obama administration provided GM with $50 billion in return for just a little over 60% of its shares. It wasn’t all easy however, the firm had to declare bankruptcy and fire its management team. As with the banks, this appears in hindsight to have been a good call: both GM and Chrysler (now under new ownership) are back in profit mode and the federal government is preparing to dispose of its ownership status.

Unfortunately (to say the least), not much has changed. Despite the fact that the banking system has been pulled back from the brink of oblivion and the car industry has truly recovered, the stimulus, the Recovery Act in other words, has failed to put even a small dent in the unemployment of millions of Americans. While the economy is not shedding jobs at nearly the rate prior to November 2008, new jobs aren’t being produced either and the rate of unemployment stubbornly hovers at 10%.

Republicans of course, claim that this is proof that the stimulus has been nothing more than one grand failure. Worse, the Republicans have seemed to conveniently forgotten how this whole mess started. Republican campaign ads during the recent mid-terms accused the Obama administration of causing ‘massive unemployment, higher taxes, higher prices’ and anything else they could think of—all conditions that began to manifest themselves between 2000 and 2008. Don’t get me started.

There were, believe it or not, liberal economists such as Drs. Dean Baker and Paul Krugman who argued that the stimulus was not nearly large enough, that the President was being too careful. But at the time, it just did not seem that way. The stimulus combined with the TARP looked like the White House was playing fast and loose with the American taxpayers money.

The land of the free and the home of the brave—just as long as you don’t get sick........

Seven months ago, in what may have been the proudest moment of his presidency, President Obama finally signed into law a legislative act designed to reform America’s system of taking care of its people. The lack of universal healthcare in America has long caused the rest of the world’s industrial nations to at the very least look at us askance, wondering why we could not extend the best medical care in the world to all of our citizens.

That all changed at the stroke of a pen. This new legislation compels all of us to purchase health insurance or be fined. Poorer buyers will get a subsidy and in return for acquiring more than 30 million previously uninsured customers, many of them both young and healthy, insurance companies are compelled to offer more generous coverage. The most critical thing for most of us is that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage due to a pre-existing condition. They are also not allowed to put a cap on how much health care they will pay for over one’s lifetime.

The Republicans, who by now were proudly touting themselves as the “Party of No” fiercely opposed the initiative, and as it struggled through the House, some Democrats were concerned that not one Republican would join with them. Unfortunately, the fear of death panels and all the other cockamamie visceral attacks that came from the Right ensured that no Republican would cross the aisle. In addition, a new political force had begun to make its presence known, the so-called tea partiers, a name selection that must have our founding fathers rolling in their graves. The fact that President Obama relinquished control over the development and passage of the healthcare legislation to congressional Democrats didn’t help matters either and so a bill the Obama administration had hoped to sign into law by the summer of 2009 did not actually become the law of the land until the spring of this year, having failed to garner the vote of even one Republican in either House.

Sadly, the defeat of the Democrats at the polls this past week did not happen due to the merits or even the deficiencies of the healthcare reform bill. The unsettling truth is that despite all of the hullabaloo, and more importantly despite its importance, health care is just not what is most on voters’ minds today. When asked in poll after poll which issue would impact their vote this past Tuesday, 35% of the electorate asked chose the economy and jobs while only 10% chose healthcare. The irony may be that the reason why American voters didn’t choose healthcare is because President Obama’s victory in getting the legislation passed may have taken that issue out of the limelight. And to be truthful, at a time of economic distress, it is no wonder that most Americans are more concerned about how to survive than they are concerned about getting sick.

Where have all the flowers gone.................

Two months ago, Gallup published a poll in which it listed five of the Obama administration’s main achievements and asked respondents whether they approved of them. A majority (61% to 37%) approved of one: the reform of the financial regulations passed this past summer. Every one of the other four was rejected: the rescue of the financial system (61% to 37%); the stimulus (52% to 43%); the bail out of the auto industry (56% to 43%) and healthcare reform (56% to 39%).

There is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind. The mid-terms election has ignited the struggle of President Obama to save his presidency. On the campaign trail these past few weeks, there has been a slight resurgence of the candidate Obama as he connected at least with his base, which in itself is quite a victory. At a speech in Chicago just hours before the election, he put into words the strategy of the Party of No, describing Republicans as folks who while understanding that they had created a huge economic disaster, could distance themselves from ownership of the failing economy by just saying “No!” to everything Obama and the Democrats tried to do. And by saying no to even the kind of policies they have historically supported like helping small businesses or cutting taxes, they could be angry with those who are struggling.

There is no doubt in my mind that while this is simply a too-easy perspective of why things have gone wrong politically for the President and the Democrats, there is also admittedly some truth. What’s more, the kind of attacks that have sprung from the mouths of the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are more filthy and visceral than any I have seen in six decades. Even the anger from the Left towards George Bush, a president the Left vilified, pale in comparison and despite what they say, there is also no denial that at the very least, the attacks against Obama are not at least tinged with racism.

Of course, the Republicans take an opposing view to this assessment. Republicans claim they have voted against every White House initiative because they felt they needed to assume the posture of a “principled opposition” and resist the notion of squandering Americans hard-earned tax dollars.

Finally, I bet if you close your eyes for a moment and think back to February of 2009 when Rick Santelli, a former Chicago trader, publicly screamed at news of a plan to help homeowners who had become delinquent on their mortgage, “This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills” you will realize that it was at that moment that the tea party movement was born. As my mother used to say, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better honey.”

Like many who supported Barack Obama in 2008, I expected so much more than what I have gotten these first two years of his presidency, namely, stronger healthcare reform with a public option, comprehensive immigration reform, action on first saving and then improving the environment and most importantly, an immediate exit from Afghanistan.

Tuesday for some may have been the beginning of the end to that dream, but it is my hope and prayer that somehow, these next two years will provide opportunities for the President to have the kinds of accomplishments that will help put Americans back to work, secure the peace and become the kind of leader I still think he is, one who because of his own inherent diversity can help to heal the racial, social and economic divide that threatens to destroy us from within unless we can learn to once again desire to help one another and maybe just a little more importantly, trust one another again.

President Obama after November 2, 2010

There has been a lot of speculation these past few months regarding what will happen in this country after the upcoming November 2nd election. Whatever happens on Tuesday, it is highly probably that the Republican Party will garner enough seats to change the dynamics in both Houses of Congress. Ironically, it was President Obama who ran on a platform of change in 2008 and despite the achievements of the Obama administration against almost insurmountable odds, it appears that is the Republicans, who are about to effect real change,

With the possibility looming that Congress is poised to be shaken up in ways not witnessed for at least 15 years and perhaps as long as 50 years, there has been some discussion on House and Senate Majority leadership changes. Some have questioned the ability of House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner’s to become Majority Leader with so many young Turks coming into the House fresh from their tea party financed success. Also, should Senator Harry Reid lose his close election in Nevada, who would replace him as Democratic leader in the Senate?

For media talking heads, these kinds of inside the beltway maneuverings are interesting, but in reality don’t have much of an impact on the real work of the Congress. For the vast majority of Americans, Congressional leadership roles are far less critical than the White House and its possible reaction to the events of this coming Tuesday. Most Americans are waiting to see how President Obama will respond to what some say is an admonition of his first two years as President. Some, in fact, even refer to this mid-term election as a repudiation of his presidency.

There is really only one of two strategies that President Obama can implement and he has two great historical precedents to look to. First, there was President Clinton. Following this example, the President would have to identify and prioritize those issues where cooperation with the Party of No is possible and despite their visceral unwillingness to compromise, yield results nonetheless. I was talking with a colleague last night and we both agreed that Bill Clinton may be the best politician this country has ever produced. One of his many gifts was his ability to compromise with Republicans without necessarily sacrificing deeply held principles or the core beliefs of the Democratic Party.

Then, there was President Truman whose strategy was pure offense. He attacked the GOP Congress for obstructing his administration’s priorities and sending irresponsible legislation to the White House in an effort to force the President into vetoing them.

Just before I sat down to write this post, I was on the phone with my best friend who shared a wonderful Thomas Jefferson quote with me. Jefferson is reported to have once stated, “Democracy is not like two foxes and a chicken deciding what to have for dinner.” I have written many times this past year that President Obama and the Democratic Congress have attempted to work with Republicans in an almost conciliatory manner. At the beginning of the Obama presidency, I understood the strategy. It would be so much better for the country if Republicans and Democrats could work together to solve the many challenges facing all of us in January 2009.

Once the Republicans decided however to become the Party of No, to reject anything and everything that came out of the Obama administration, the White House and the Democrats should have made the decision right then to eat the chicken. Instead, they allowed it to live and worse yet, permitted that chicken to lay eggs, multiply and move right into the house.

The President’s recent combative posture on the campaign trail, suggesting that a Republican controlled Congress would lead to “hand-to-hand combat” and telling Latino voters on one occasion to “punish their enemies” at the polls, signals that the President has decided to follow the Truman example as opposed to the Clinton one.

Admittedly, President Obama’s interaction with a Congress with more Republicans than now—possibly even a majority—will only be revealed once the 112th Congress has been sworn in. There is enough evidence however, to make the point that the President will make the Republicans in Congress and not policy the issue. And remember, despite national polls, and mistaken journalists, Harry Truman squeaked into a second term—he won!

Despite their victory in 2008 creating a 59-seat majority in the Senate and a 255-seat majority in the House, the Democrats have been unable to successfully pass the agenda they were propelled into office by. Millions of Americans voted for change in 2008, not for a mamby pamby approach to governance. Of course, seeking Republican cooperation and collaboration was the right thing to do initially. But the moment it became apparent that the Republican Party was not going to “roll up its sleeves” with their Democratic counterparts and work in some measure of unison to solve our Nation’s problems, then the Democratically controlled Congress and White House should have made the decision right there and then to seize the moment and govern—even if the change that Americans had demanded had to be accomplished unilaterally.

Resorting to the Clinton model appears to have replaced the initial desire for conciliation. The pressure however, will also be on Republicans to compromise with the White House, but they will just as likely continue their ways of obstruction. The mandate of a 2010 mid-term election that returns the GOP to Congress in significant numbers after two election cycles that produced historical routes for the Republican Party will foster a climate of no compromise. The last two years of Congressional discord will pale considerably with what will happen the next two years.

I wish I could say something positive about what is on the political horizon in our country, but I can’t. To be honest—I am scared to death.


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"Did I Say That?"

I was all set to write about the phone call from Ginny Thomas to Anita Hill this past week where Ms. Thomas asked for an apology regarding her decades-old testimony at the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Then, Juan Williams spoke.

This is tough. My initial reaction to the firing of Juan Williams was “ What is the difference between Juan Williams saying he is uncomfortable when he sees fellow airline passengers in “Muslim garb” and a white person saying, “When I see a black person walking towards me I get uncomfortable and cross to the other side of the street.”

It appears that the right wing’s annoying habit of resorting to the visceral has finally begun to infect the left as they are seemingly sliding into a posture of exhibiting an untoward inclination to suppress the speech of those with whom they do not agree.

This disturbing new impulse of the left manifests itself in myriad ways from screaming uncivilly at Karl Rove in a California bookstore to a bastion of liberalism, NPR, firing a commentator who violates their sensibilities.

As it is the case with reactionaries, the ever growing anger on the left that manifests itself in crude and insulting behavior is not true of all liberals—certainly I hope it is not true of yours truly, but earlier this week, the impulse to silence or censor a line of thought that differs from the liberal mainstream managed to win the hour in a place where I at least, have always thought was an environment where people could speak fearlessly, National Public Radio.

Late this past Wednesday night, when I like many other Americans were engaged in an activity that shows what is really important these days, the Giants-Phillies playoff game. NPR issued a statement announcing its termination of commentator Juan Williams for his comments on the Bill O’Reilly during a discussion of how Muslims are described or referenced in the context of terrorism.

Prophetically in a manner that he could not have imagined, Juan Williams prefaced his remarks on the O’Reilly show by saying, “Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.” It was at that point in the discussion that Mr. Williams confessed his own fears at observing fellow airline passengers in “Muslim garb” boarding the same airplane he was about to fly on. To his credit, Juan Williams added quickly that he felt it is terribly unfair to hold all Christians accountable for the horrific behavior of the Wichita “mob” that boycotts the funerals of fallen U.S> troops or the would-be Koran burner from Florida. Williams also quoted, of all people, former President George Bush who once said that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are “not a war with Islam.”

Not good enough, Vivian Schiller NPR CEO and Ellen Weis, NPR’s VP for news, announced the firing of Juan Williams stating that “Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret.” The statement went on to say, “However, his remarks on the O’Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

Immediately after the firing of Juan Williams, conservatives, jumped into the controversy with both feet. First, Sarah Pailin weighed in, calling for NPR to lose its federal funding. Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a political rival of Sarah Pailin, voiced that same sentiment and added his own caveat, “I will not longer accept interviews from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a statement laden with his usual theatrics calling for a congressional investigation into NPR. “The U.S. Congress should investigate NPR and consider cutting off their money. Every listener to NPR should be enraged that there’s this kind of bias against an American.”

These conservative criticisms emanating from the right, however genuine they may be, as usual lack any real factual substance. To begin with, less than six percent of NPR member stations fund their budgets with federal, state and local money combined. As for Mr. Gingrich believing that Americans would be shocked to discover liberals at NPR, everything suggests that much of NPR’s listening audience, who happen to be for the most part left of center, are probably delighted that Juan Williams is “outta there.” They never understood (me included) how Juan Williams could be commentating on both FOX News and NPR in the first place.

By the way, this was not the first time that comments by Williams on Fox News, with whom he has always been employed simultaneous with his contract at NPR, angered NPR listeners. A 2009 appearance on FOX echoed sentiments that appeared in his column at that time comparing Michelle Obama to black 50s radical Stokely Carmichael.

When all has finally been said and done regarding this episode, a better resolution might have been for NPR’s executives to give Mr. Williams a choice—them or Fox News. For his part, Juan Williams has, since his firing, slammed NPR for its “one-party rule” and “one-sided thinking that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing.” And, full disclosure, Juan Williams has been signed to a $2 million contract with Fox News and tonight, he will actually stand in for Bill O’Reilly.

As always, it never really had to come to this. There are other liberal media bastions where the issue of bias in the media is dealt with more responsibly. Shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show come to mind. While these shows annoy conservatives who say the same things liberal say about Fox in that the hosts are actually skilled partisans who are skilled in the art of twisting the words of those they are not in agreement with.

Right now, at this moment, I am desperately trying to come up with something I can say to get Fox to give me a $2M contract.

"Free at last. Thank God Almighty I am free at last!"

Those words uttered by the late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. some 42 years ago, embody the series of events that will no doubt feature significantly on the calendar of the Chilean people as well as the entire global mining community. October 13, 2010 is a day that finally brought to an end the ordeal of 33 miners who were cut off from the earth’s surface after 700,000 pounds of rocks collapsed on top of them on August 5th sealing the men more than 2,300 feet underground.

Before the dust from the collapse had settled, the Chilean authorities were already making frantic efforts to determine the fate of the miners. On August 22nd, the first in a series of many miracles happened when the miners announced to the rescue workers searching for them that they had indeed survived.

Thus began a race against time as the Chilean government began to amass expertise and resources, all designed to facilitate the rescue of the 33 trapped miners. Now, all those efforts have yielded hugely positive results, beginning with the emergence of miner Florencio Avalos, the first miner to be rescued on Tuesday night and ending with the appearance of Luis Urzua, the 54-year old shift foreman that as any captain of a ship would insist on being the last to leave, rose through the tiny hole that housed the ascent of the rescue capsule dubbed “Phoenix) and emerged into the cool, fresh and clean air of the Chilean desert.

For once, the world was united in helping Chile get through this mine disaster as experts from the US and other developed countries brought their expertise and experience to bear on this disaster and while the amount of money and energy that went into the rescue operation may run into hundreds of millions of dollars, they cannot compare with even one life that came out of the mine.

As united as the planet was on the surface, the miners themselves employed survival strategies, even before they knew that their chance of rescue was imminent. Tactics such as team work, fortitude, resilience and courage helped the miners stay alive, 69 days underground. In addition, the support of their families and friends cannot be discounted as hundreds of them camped at nearby Camp Hope praying and waiting for their husbands, brothers, sons, fathers and uncles to re-join them at the surface.

Ultimately, the San Jose Mines in Chile stretched the thinking and operational capacity of those involved in the rescue. Their sense of purpose will hopefully provide a set of best practices as it is almost inevitable that a mining disaster will occur again. More importantly, a lesson learned from this disaster must be that a response to mining disasters from the entire global community is now the rule as opposed to the exception.

In the days and weeks to come, no one knows how these humble working men will cope with the pressures of instant fame after emerging to find themselves at the center of a news story that has captured the attention of the entire world. As some point soon, they will be called upon to share the details of their ordeal. The subsequent reality that their private lives will disappear with full disclosure is virtually guaranteed. But for now, even the most intransigent problems seem capable of solution.

On the evening of October 12th, Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera invited Bolivian Premier Evo Morales to share in the occasion by greeting Bolivian miner Carlos Manamie at the surface. Their two countries have been at odds for decades, beginning with a territorial dispute in the late 19th century. At this time, the two countries do not even recognize each other diplomatically however it seems that the two leaders have now reached enough of a level of friendship that the burying of a hatchet that was grabbed by both countries almost 200 years ago is entirely possible. For last night when the last miner emerged from the doorstep to hell, anything seems possible.

The Never Ending Foreclosure Crisis

In a study released just last week, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) analyzed the demographics of the current foreclosure crisis and determined that foreclosure in America has disproportionately impacted black and Latino families. The study proved that in the final analysis, a home owned by a black family is 76% more likely to go through foreclosure than a white family. In addition, the CRL study also pointed to troubling evidence that the current foreclosure crisis will destroy a generation of wealth in communities of color while simultaneously exacerbating the existing income and equity gap between white and non-white families.

The CRL study estimated that some 2.5 million homes were foreclosed upon between 2007 and 2009, the “vast Majority” of which were owner-occupied homes with mortgages originated between 2005 and 2008. By the time the current foreclosure relaxes its tentacles on the American economy, as many as 10 million homes will have been through the foreclosure process. In total, this crisis will have cut across demographic and income groups, from mobile homes to “McMansions” and from homes with subprime loans to homes with vanilla mortgages.

But in the end, the crisis will have hit communities of color with a particular viciousness, even adjusting for income. Approximately eight percent of black or Latino homebuyers who took out a mortgage or refinanced between 2005 and 2008 lost their homes between 2007 and 2009 respectively, compared with 4.5 percent of white homebuyers. Since 2007, 17 percent of Latino homeowners, 11 percent of black homeowners and seven percent of white homeowners have either lost their home to foreclosure or are in imminent danger of becoming homeless.

Even more frightening, the CRL study showed that “Racial and ethnic disparities in these estimated foreclosure rates hold even after controlling for differences in income patterns between demographic groups.” Ironically the skew is worse for high-income black and Latino homeowners than for low-income black and Latino homeowners.

Our nation’s newspapers, airwaves and the internet have been overflowing with stories of politicians and government officials screaming for the heads of mortgage bankers and promising one kind of investigation or another to get to the bottom of how this all could have possibly happened.

Generally speaking, not counting the extremists on either end of the political spectrum, there are two competing views on the role of government in these matters. One group maintains that it is the government’s role to redistribute as much income as possible upward to the richest people in the country.

Then there are those of us who believe that government should do everything it can to stimulate and sustain a strong economy that serves an overwhelming number of Americans.

Those who support the first group in both political parties have been firmly in control of government for the past few decades. This is the reality because the way the foreclosure crisis has been managed thus far, proves that point.

By now, we all know what happened. It does not take a master economist to understand the story of the foreclosure crisis in America today. All one has to be is a homeowner and you either know how this nightmare began through personal experience, or you are haunted by the specter of foreclosure from month to month as you struggle to pay your mortgage at all, let alone on time.

The underlying truth is that banks mostly, made trillions of dollars of bad mortgage loans that were then used to buy or refinance houses at “bubble-inflated” prices. With the collapse of that bubble, more than 20% of all mortgages today are underwater—meaning they are worth less than what the homeowners owe on them. Consequently, many homeowners today are struggling to pay mortgages on houses in which they have no equity and have no real prospect of ever acquiring any equity.

Now, let’s return to those two competing viewpoints on the role of the government in this crisis. If the market is allowed to do its thing, millions of homeowners will go belly up on their mortgages, leaving banks and other investors with huge losses.

The most vulnerable in this scenario are the larger banks because they actually own hundreds of billions of dollars in second mortgages. If these second mortgages begin defaulting in significant number, they will not even be worth the paper they are written on because the holder of a second mortgage cannot recoup their investment until the first mortgage is paid in full. If the home is already under water, then legal costs and sales commissions are likely to consume a large share of the sale price, which would not leave enough money on the table to pay for the first mortgage in full. That of course, leaves nothing for the holder of the second mortgage.

Those who believe that government should be doing everything it can to redistribute income and wealth upward, thereby assisting banks in the process, truly want the government to make it possible for people to keep paying on underwater mortgages. Unfortunately, this will frustrate these homeowners because they will be paying a mortgage without accumulating equity, and they will ironically be paying more to retain the title of homeowner than they would have to pay to rent a similar house. It does however help the banking industry’s bottom line. Every month underwater homeowners stay in their homes paying the mortgage, the banks are receiving income that they would not otherwise have access to.

Back in 2004 when I was working for a federal government contractor in Washington, DC I had as a colleague a very bright young man who worked with me on a HUD contract. As the foreclosure crisis was beginning to spread across the land, we talked about a plan that would allow folks facing foreclosure to instead of being evicted and thereby de-stabilizing whole communities, banks should consider renting to the homeowner, allowing the family to stay in the house until their situation stabilized. We played around with the concept, but never really did anything about it.

As it turns out, we were not the only ones thinking along those lines. Since then, Representatives Raul Grigalva and Marcy Kaptur have introduced legislation called “right to rent.” This bill (HR5028) would allow homeowners to retain occupancy of their homes as renters for a period up to five years following a formal foreclosure. During this five year period, the family would pay the bank the Fair Market Rent (FMR) as determined by a third-party assessment of the property.

The Grigalva and Kaptur bill would not only provide a sense of security to homeowners struggling with all the ramifications of foreclosure, it would also prevent whole neighborhoods becoming de-stabilized due to large numbers of foreclosed and abandoned homes on every street. The best part of this bill is that it requires absolutely no new
government agency to manage it and so would be budget neutral.

In fact, the only problem with this bill is that it would require a paradigm shift in how we all perceive the role of government in a crisis such as this one. It would mean that government would have to become a force that is responsible for helping ordinary people as opposed to the rich and powerful and the institutions they hide in.

The Unthinkable

If Republicans win one or both houses of Congress, all hell will break loose.

Most of us remember myriad hardships created in late 1995 and early 1996 when the Federal Government was shut down during the Clinton administration—and that was under a Democratic administration!

Conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who is sometimes featured on CNN, said early in September that he is “almost giddy thinking about a government shutdown next year. I cannot wait!” Also last month, Dick Morris ranted at the Americans for Prosperity conference that “There’s going to be a government shutdown, just like in ’95 and ’96 but we’re going to win this time and I’ll be fighting on your side.”

A Republican majority in both houses will also see the first attempt on their part to facilitate their long-standing threat to defund the health care law. The logical end point of that ensuing fight with President Obama will lead to a government shutdown, or at least a partial one. Right now, top conservatives are salivating at that possibility.

It is critical for all of us to take a deep breath and think about what the consequences of a government shutdown—even a limited one—would mean for the economy and more importantly, for the country.

Donna Shalala, who served as the Secretary of Health and Human Services during the last government shutdown which ran from December 16, 1995 through January 6, 1996, warns that “It was a mess frankly and devastating to the civil service.” One of Secretary Shalala’s Clinton administration cabinet colleagues, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich shared that “Almost all employees are sent home. Most have no idea when they’ll be paid again.”

And almost as manna from heaven for Republican protagonists who constantly rail against the federal government in general and federal employees specifically, a 2004 report of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) stated, “Government shutdowns have necessitated the furloughing of several hundred thousand federal employees and affect all sectors of the economy.”

Deep down, Republicans probably realize they can’t repeal the health care law, at least not in the foreseeable future, but they have pledged repeatedly that they will do all they can, in the words of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, “ensure that a trillion dollar takeover of our health care in this county does not occur.” The overall strategy of the Republican Party will be to attack the appropriation of federal dollars, promising that if they gain control of the legislative process in this country, they will defund as Congressman Cantor states, “every bit of the regulation process.”

Even with President Obama’s veto of any attempt by Congress to repeal healthcare reform, Congress only has to target the annual appropriations legislation that funds the Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services. If Republicans fail to fully fund those departments to budget forcing the President to veto that legislation—look out—government shutdown, here we go.

The initial and the most devastating consequence of a government shutdown are furloughs, hundreds of thousands of workers sent home without compensation. For a government shutdown to happen now, it would send shock waves through an already staggering economy. Social Security payments, Medicare reimbursements and Medicaid dollars to states would cease immediately despite the fact that millions of Americans and every state government in our country depend on these services.

In the same CRS report cited above, “New patients were not accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center; the Center for Disease Control and Prevention ceased disease surveillance (information about the spread of diseases such as AIDs and the flu were unavailable); hotline calls to NIH regarding diseases were not answered; and toxic waste clean-up work at 609 sites stopped, resulting in 2,400 Superfund workers being sent home.”

As we are all painfully aware, today’s economy is in much worse shape than it was 15 years ago. The impact of massive amounts of federal employees suddenly out of work and American beneficiaries without income, will impact us in a more devastating fashion than it did under President Clinton.

A Democratic victory on November 2nd will most assuredly cause an increase in all of the hatred, loathing and disgust that has permeated Republican rhetoric these past 23 months, not including the 2008 campaign. In those heady days that immediately followed his inauguration, President Obama was roundly criticized by primarily the Right Wing in this country for taking on too many challenges facing America at one time. Of course, no one can convince me that if he had failed to do so that the criticism would instead have been that he was not doing enough to resolve the crippling number of challenges facing America today.

And yet, in the face of tremendous opposition, this White House managed to get Congress to pass the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act (ARRA) also known as the stimulus. This was the first shot fired to jolt the economy in the short term while also facilitating the long-term reform of health care, education, energy and our financial system. We cannot, as a country, allow this momentum to be stymied by a political party whose rallying cry is “No!”

That said, America is at a critical juncture in its modern history and it is up to you and me, and all of the millions of Americans who demanded change in 2008 to stand together, brush off the negativity and even disappointment that enough has not yet been accomplished, and vote to keep both Houses of Congress Democratic else we revert back to the Republican policies of the eight years leading up to 2008 that has brought about such anger and despair today.

Tea Anyone---Round Two

Back on February 1, 2010 I wrote a blog entitled, Tea Anyone? I wrote then that “Our country’s newest craziest political weirdos, the Tea Party or Tea Baggers as they like to call themselves, are going main stream. Initially I thought that this fringe group made up mostly of folks driven mad by our county’s election of its first black President, would get some headlines, make a fuss and hopefully wreak havoc on the Republican Party since it was Republicans who first recognized them as “credible.”

Well, look at what has happened.

The signs of a coming change in national leadership were never more evident than in 2006 when the Democratic Party took control of both the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate. The 2008 national elections, the second straight election in which the Republicans suffered a staggering defeat, left the Republican Party drained of many of its loyal supporters, those Republicans who had in the past towed the party line for the most part, even if they disagreed on some individual social issues. What remained was like crud at the bottom of a coffee pot—an angry, hateful base that resented, loathed and to some extent feared President Barack Obama and that fervently believed that the GOP had lost power because it had lost its conservative way. This new Republican base quickly branded itself the Tea Party movement and they committed themselves to ridding the GOP of those responsible for the ascendancy of a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President.

It was the Tea Party movement that convinced Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, a 30 year Republican United States Senator that he could not win the nomination of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and so he subsequently switched to the Democratic Party. It was this same movement that brought to an end, the senatorial career of Robert Bennett, an 18 year Republican Senator from Utah as that State’s GOP refused Senator Bennett the party’s nomination and it was the Tea Partiers who caused Charlie Crist, Florida’s Republican governor and current candidate for the Senate to flee the Republican Party in order to survive to the general election—knowing he could not withstand the onslaught of Mark Rubio, the Tea Party favorite in the Florida Republican primary. The Tea Party movement also got Rand Paul, son of libertarian U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky, who has so infamously stated that he would have probably not voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the nomination of little-known Joe Miller in Alaska, victorious over incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.

And it was this same Tea Party that earlier this week engineered the utterly improbable victory of Christine O’Donnell, a right wing politician who has equated lust with adultery and claimed that her political opponents are constantly stalking her, into winning Delaware’s Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. In doing so, she abruptly ended the stellar career of Mike Castle, two-term governor and Delaware’s U.S. Congressman for nine straight terms.

Right up to the closing of the Delaware polls, few felt that the Tea Party crowd could actually pull this one off. The race moved to the top of the Tea party’s list when Senator Murkowski crashed and burned in Alaska and with that unexpected victory, which had cost the Tea Party Express more than $600,000, all energy went into Delaware, where Mike Castle possessed many of the same establishment credentials as Murkowski.

As the Tea Party Express pulled into Delaware, the Republican establishment reacted aggressively at the nerve of the outsiders, albeit it a little too late in the primary campaign. In the end however, it was not just the Delaware Republican establishment that rallied to the defense of both Mike Castle and Michelle Rollins (the Delaware GOP pick for Congress), it was the national Republican establishment as well, particularly the likes of Karl Rove, the so-called genius behind the George W. Bush presidencies.

In the final analysis however, none of that mattered as the Castle and Rollins candidacies were poised for disaster when on the Sunday before the election, polls showed Christine O’Donnell climbing ahead, 47 to 44 percent. Glenn Urquhart was also polling well in the race for the House and we all know what finally happened, Mike Castle and Michelle Rollins won in New Castle County while downstate, they received a political drubbing, costing them both the nomination in their respective races.

Now that the political dust has settled, the national Republican infrastructure will have to make the ultimate decision—whether to support O’Donnell and Urquhart with financial resources. The polling firm that showed O’Donnell ahead just days before the vote has measured her support in the upcoming general election at 29-50 percent. Only 31 percent of Delaware voters think she is qualified to hold office and she is running 26 points behind New Castle County Executive and Democratic Senate nominee Chris Coons.

O’Donnell’s supporters will argue (almost gleefully) that she will catch the country by surprise again in November just as she did in the Republican primary. Sure enough, the worst mistake the Coons campaign could ever make would be to not take O’Donnell seriously or to view her as a candidate without any credibility. As someone who was a distant second to Mike Castle prior to the Republican primary however, no one understands how quickly events can turn against you as Chris Coons does, so that will probably not happen.

More importantly, the sentiment among general election voters seems to match up with how these voters view the Tea Party movement as a whole: visceral enthusiasm, hostility towards almost everyone but themselves and a generally isolationist mentality. Running in last week’s primary that was closed to all voters but Republicans allowed O’Donnell to campaign in a voting universe just barely narrow enough for her to pull off a victory. The November electorate will expand across the whole of the political spectrum, and even though there are a large number of angry voters out there in both parties, it is still difficult to imagine that someone with Christine O’Donnell’s image challenges, which will only get worse as the media continues to shine even more light on her, can pull of a general election victory.

To regain control of the Senate, Republicans will need to win 10 currently held Democratic seats in November. And even if they manage to convince Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman to caucus with them, and then only require nine seats to win the majority, they have been counting Delaware since Mike Castle announced his intention to run for the Senate and we all know now that just ain’t gonna happen. Color me not ready to take anything for granted and willing to work for Chris Coon’s election…….and happy, at least for Delaware!

Today is U.S. Constitution Day. Why Celebrate It?

Before we get started, I need to correct something from last week’s blog. In that blog I mentioned U.S. Congressman John Boehner, mistakenly spelling his last name. I spelled it “Boehm.”
My apologies…….

OK, few people know what today is. That is a shame, because it is the anniversary of a remarkable event in history: the signing of the United States Constitution.

On September 17, 1787, thirty-nine of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, held in the summer heat of Philadelphia for four long months (imagine how long it might have taken had they had air-conditioning) signed the document for which they had labored so hard to produce. During both the drafting of the Constitution and the ensuing debates over its ratification, the struggle to procure the new system of government was not an easy one. In the end however, America came down in support of what has endured as the oldest working constitution in the world today.

Because of that fact, the U.S. Constitution has a long history behind it—it is part of our American tradition and we should be proud of it. We should not respect the Constitution however simply because it is tradition. There are, after all, bad traditions. Rather, as American citizens we have a duty to understand the Constitution as fully as possible—which means understanding the principles upon which it was written.

Today, there are primarily two different understandings of our Constitution. There are those who view the Constitution as a “living document” and that what is good about the Constitution is that it is infinitely malleable, allowing itself to change as circumstances change. This interpretation was described most succinctly by the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan who wrote, “The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.”

This interpretation has been the constitutional vehicle by which most of the social and welfare programs, as well as affirmative action and other “group rights” have been implemented. The problem with this view is that it means, ultimately, that the Constitution has no meaning. Or, rather, it means whatever we want it to mean. But then, why should anyone be bound by someone else’s understanding of the Constitution, be that someone else a judge, a Congress, or even a President?

In opposition to this idea of an “evolving Constitution” and the subsequent expansion of governmental power, some legal scholars and yes, politicians (who tend not to be very scholarly at all) have advanced the notion for a jurisprudence of “original intent.” This argument postulates that until we consciously change (or abolish) the Constitution through the amendment process, we are bound by the intentions of those who wrote and ratified the Constitution two hundred years ago—we cannot simply make the Constitution anything we darn well please.

Naturally, this position immediately raises the question: What then were the intentions of the framers of the Constitution? Here, most proponents of “original intent” have not a clue. Former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, for example, has written that the liberty and rights of individual human beings have no “intrinsic worth.” And, that great bastion of strict Constitutional interpretation, Justice Scalia said in a 1997 speech that under the Constitution, minorities have rights “only because the majority determines that there are certain minority positions that deserve protection,” implying of course that if the majority so chooses, the minorities must forfeit any or all of their protections. This, in my mind at least, asserts no more than might as the measure of right, or as we used to say as kids, “Might makes right.” Whatever can be said of such arguments, in my mind at least, they certainly bear little resemblance to the arguments made by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
For me, our Constitution was based on the idea of an unchanging human nature. That concept is best captured in the Declaration of Independence and its statement that all human beings possess equal rights by nature. The idea of equal natural rights is not only the grounds for government by consent, but also sets the limit for what the government may rightfully do. If rights precede the formation of government, the primary goal of government is to secure those rights. It cannot grant them, nor can it violate them. To achieve this, government must, in the end, protect all of us, equally, under the law.

Speaking of the Declaration’s statement of human equality, Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, fitly spoken which has proved an apple of gold to us. The Union, and the Constitution, is the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple—not the apple for the picture.”

The fact that slavery was offered protection under the Constitution meant that the Constitution, and more generally the American Revolution, was incomplete. It was the principles of the Declaration however, enshrined in the Constitution, which made the elimination of slavery a moral and political necessity. In fact, only by understanding the Constitution in the light of the moral truths expounded in the Declaration of Independence can we distinguish the true principles of the Constitution from its compromises.

The “self-evident” truth of human equality and its corollary principle of individual natural rights is the basis in nature for the reasonableness and goodness of the Constitution. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, the Constitution serves justice by its “inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of individuals.” It is this unchanging truth that infuses a political document like the U.S. Constitution with goodness and makes the Constitution deserving of our respect and reverence.

Here We Go Again….It’s the Deficit...No, No….It’s Unemployment

On September 6, 2010 President Obama’s former Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wrote an editorial published in the New York Times entitled, “One Nation, Two Deficits.” He began his editorial with these words, “The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term.”

Peter Orszag, as President Obama’s first budget director helped to shape the 2009 American Recovery and Re-Investment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus and the health care legislation that finally passed both Houses in early 2010. He also promoted and carried out an effort by the White House to pry away from Congress some of the responsibility for making bad decisions, especially when it comes to the budget. We have all witnessed the tremendous legislative tug-of-war since the first day that President Obama assumed office, between the party of “No” and the party of in the words of Boss Godfrey of Cool Hand Luke fame, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Peter Orszag spends a considerable amount of time talking about the soon-to-be-expired tax cuts for the wealthy. He argues that “In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.”

His arguments however, seem to be based only on political calculations, particularly as regards the difficulty of getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on anything. His plan of extending the Bush tax cuts for an additional two years is attractive to almost everyone who is set to have their taxes increased by the expiration of the cut—a relatively small part of the American population compared to those of us who are struggling every day to make ends meet. Ironically, these tax cuts are set to end automatically, while almost every other action or outcome requires a vote in Congress.

What seems to be missing from Orszag’s editorial however is the raging policy debate which asks the question, “Why isn’t the economy actually recovering, despite the stimulus and near-zero interest rates?" Orszag seemingly assumes a strong traditional recovery will be underway by 2013. If you can’t raise taxes now because of the crimp that puts in American spending and consumption, then on what basis is it logical to think that the recovery will be in full swing in just two years? With all things being equal, I just don’t see our economy being much better by then. I wish it were so, but this economic recovery will simply not just materialize out of thin air.

On April 2, 2010 I wrote a blog, The Reality of Debt, so I won’t re-argue why debt in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but I will state that sadly enough, various political demagogues and Wall Street interests have mounted what appears to be an extremely successful campaign to convince Americans that despite persistent massive unemployment for the foreseeable future, more than 15 million Americans underwater on their home mortgages and two unnecessary wars, what we really should be worried about is America’s national debt.

It has not helped that the majority of the American media has failed to understand the basic economics or the plain math of the issue. President Obama and economic advisors (the ones John Boehm wants the President to fire) forecasts unemployment at 10, 9.2 and 8.2 percent respectively for 2010 through 2012. The rate, in their estimation, does not fall to the 5.2 percent rate it considers full employment until 2018.

The difference between 10 percent unemployment and 5.2 percent is more than seven million people without a paycheck. That also does not count the increase in millions of people involuntarily working part time, or millions who leave the labor force because they simply cannot find any work.
This state of affairs would be unacceptable in any civilized society, but it is even more outrageous in the world’s richest country. It means millions of ruined lives that will persist for decades to come in the form of increased poverty, lower educational levels, mental illness, suicide, crime and a whole host of other societal ills.

So, when we go back to the original questions, “Why has the economy not yet recovered, even with the stimulus and near-zero interest rates?” it is because the stimulus package for one thing, was too small. This fact fits the data: In 2009, taking into account the spending cuts and tax increases of state and local governments, the 700 million dollar plus stimulus was less than one percent of GDP. That is why the stimulus is estimated at only having saved somewhere around two million jobs—and that is while we are as a country down more than eight million jobs since the recession began. Consequently, the bottom line is that we NEED MORE STIMULUS not less. As heretical as it might sound, this is not the time to be worrying about deficits or national debt.

As I wrote in April and in one or two other blogs devoted to this concept of debt, there simply is no short-term challenge with running even large deficits in this economy, as weak as it is. Remember, investors, while they decry the expiration of tax cuts to the wealthy, are simultaneously buying up even long-term U.S. Treasury bonds at almost unbelievable low interest rates. These investors, despite their hand wringing, don’t really believe that our government is risking our national wealth with this level of debt. Right now, interest payments on the debt that Senator Mitch McConnell keeps screaming about is just 1.4 percent of GDP.

One real debt generator however is our military. On an annual basis, we are spending around five percent of our GDP on just the Defense Department budget. Prior to September 11, 2001, the Congressional Budget Office had predicted just 2.4 percent for 2009. The difference is more than twice the long-term shortfall in our Social Security system. It is just possible that we should focus on protecting our airports and seaports from existing terrorists rather than creating new enemies by occupying other countries or burning the books of their faith.

It isn’t the debt that threatens our future. Please, think about it.

For Many Americans, Labor Day Means Looking for a Job

Labor Day was created by the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It celebrates every year, the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and security of our country.

The very first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City on Tuesday, September 5, 1882. Two years later, the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday date for then and forever and through the years since, America has given increasing importance to the meaning and spirit of Labor Day.

On February 21, 1887, Oregon became the first state in the Union to pass a law commemorating Labor Day and it was not long before four additional states: Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York created the Labor Day Holiday by legislative enactment. By 1894, 31 additional states had adopted the holiday and on June 28th of that year, the U.S. Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year Labor Day and a legal national holiday.

Labor Day September 6, 2010 is rich with irony. As we head into the Labor Day weekend, just released unemployment data puts the national unemployment rate at 9.6%. Consequently, this year’s Labor Day holiday may be less a celebration of a brief respite from work and more a cruel reminder that, despite glimmers of hope in the U.S. economy, there remains scant opportunity for many to rejoin the workforce any time soon. Very few of us are not touched by someone—a friend, relative or former colleague—who has not lost a job amid this crippling recession.

Against a backdrop of vanishing paychecks and dwindling savings, despair and depression are rampant. Today’s unemployed American is experiencing anxiety, helplessness and depression barely lessened by unemployment benefit extensions and the frustration and sadness actually increases in intensity the longer the period of unemployment goes on. In addition, those of us who are fortunate and blessed enough to still be employed work with the specter of unemployment hanging over us like some kind of sword of Damocles. Simply put, not being able to support yourself by your own labor is not the condition most of us desire and we will put forth considerable effort to be employed. Those unemployed who live outside of this country have understood what it means to be jobless and to have no hope of acquiring work for many decades. Some have gone to great lengths to be employed, sometimes risking life and limb such as illegally crossing the Arizona border from Mexico to enter the United States in search of work.

The American notion of success is often based solely upon the capability of individuals, says Ellie Wegener, Director and founder of the Employment Support Center, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that leads support groups for the unemployed. “It’s the backfire of individualism, which this country is great at,” she says. “Here your success or your failure depends on you, so when people lose their job, they think it’s because they are a failure. They need to regain their self-esteem, or they will never get a job.”

So, going back to that first Labor Day in 1882, it was less a celebration of the dignity of work than a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour day, down from the then prevailing 10 to 12 hours. Compared to then, American workers have come a long way. Now however, it is not so much a celebration of work or of humane working conditions, it is also a time for those of us still employed to feel grateful and for those of us who are not, to continue the labor of finding work.

Job creation has been an historic strength of the American economy. Its capacity to remain so will increasingly frame the upcoming political debate that will ultimately drive the 2010 and 2012 elections. This debate will be ugly because it will mostly be between those who fear budget deficits and those who favor more economic stimulus and between those who see meager wage gains as impending recovery and those who see them as encouraging hiring. On Labor Day 2010, future jobs are the nation’s huge question mark.

There is enough in the U.S. Constitution for Everybody

On August 28, 1963, my parents, my brother and three sisters and me walked several dozen Washington, DC city blocks as participants in the March on Washington. I was 14years old and the oldest.

That day has many memories, many of them embedded in a large poster in my office of Martin Luther King, Jr. waving to the crowd in what I think is the moment immediately after he had just delivered his now famous oratory, “I Have a Dream.” I like to point out to colleagues when they notice the poster (it is kind of hard not to—it is approximately 36” x 48”) that my brother and I are somewhere in the trees in the background where much to the consternation of my mother we had climbed upon our family claiming that particular spot on the mall.

So, this Sunday marks the 47th anniversary of that day. The occasion, however, will be marked by an orator of a decidedly different stripe standing at the foot of the memorial’s steps: Glenn Beck, front man of the populist conservative Tea Party movement.

The event is a rally for Beck and his supporters, dubbed “Restoring Honor,” where the talk show host will present his “100 Year Plan for America” and which will include an address by former Alaska governor and lipstick wearing pit bull, Sarah Palin.

It requires extreme blindness or extreme dishonesty to deny that our politics today is more racially and ethnically polarized than it has been in a long time. Virtually every Fox TV News and right wing, talk-radio broadcast relies on scaring economically anxious white Americans into ignoring the prime cause of their economic insecurity—plundering by Wall Street bankers, and focusing instead on some contrived menace from racial and ethnic minorities: New Black Panthers preventing them from voting, ACORN stealing their elections, black women like Shirley Sherrod treating them unfairly, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice persecuting them, Muslims who want to conquer their country and then celebrate over their Christian corpses while simultaneously building a mosque on hallow ground and don’t forget those invading, marauding Latinos coming to steal their property and kill them while their socialist allies in the U.S. Government led by a Muslim President disarm white victims all over the country.

OK, maybe that is a little over the top—but man do I feel better. I encourage comments to these postings it is just that when folks disagree—and they do disagree—their narrative is so visceral that I decided to try it on for size. Don’t worry, it doesn’t fit me.

Anyway, my real disappointment is with weak-kneed Democratic politicians who have given the field to these rabble rousers. When the desperate Harry Reid isn’t feeding the paranoia by demanding that the Park 51 Community Center move, some other noted Democrat like the Governor of New York is trying to give away state land in an effort to have the Muslims build their community center elsewhere.

From the beginning of this administration, the American right decided to play hardball. Masterfully exploiting ethnic and racial resentments, the most telling example of this strategy was last year’s pronouncement by Glenn Beck on national TV that President Obama is a “racist” who “has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

The Republican Party which had presided over an extreme economic failing had little to offer other than stoking the flames of fear. Of course, the real problem is that much of the anxiety and anger being exploited by the Right are actually very real and justifiable. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, one of the more partisan Democratic pundits around, explained in his column today that he “feels sorry for many of the people who will be at Glenn Beck’s rally” on Sunday. He points out very correctly that the very growth of the Tea Party movement clearly demonstrates that millions of us feel “alienated from their government, distressed about the economy and frightened of the future.” Unfortunately however, instead of honest and productive discourse, we have hucksters who exploit their alienation and see their fear and anger as marketing tools.

As hard as this is for me to say, this is the great failing of the Obama presidency which was proven most recently by the way the White House conducted itself in the immediate aftermath of the release of the Sherrod video. What that sorrowful episode did was make it possible for the growing accusation that it is his administration to blame for the intensifying economic crisis, despite the real historical and undeniable fact that the unraveling began under the Bush administration. It seems as though it was years ago, but it was only October of 2008 when the economic crisis was so severe that candidate John McCain suspended his own campaign for President so that he could attend to the crisis. That is the very same crisis that had its initial explosion during the Bush presidency, and it is an explosion that we have yet to recover from.

It is heartbreaking for me to come to the realization that this country is poised to return to power the very same Republican Party—in an even more warped and primitive form—that almost destroyed us over the last decade. But nothing is more foolish, as I have learned these past two years, than underestimating the danger that come from this potent mix of economic sleight of hand and aggressive fanning of racial and ethnic resentment.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin want to address the nation from the very same steps that Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on 47 years ago as he delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Let them, they have the constitutional right to assemble and to speak freely. But as we listen to them rant and rave, it should only remind us of how much work still needs to be done.