What now?

John McCain's campaign went down in flames with the race-baiting of his activist's alleged attack. This preludes the blog's title: The New Democratic Majority.

I, for one, am a little worried about the Democrat's controlling the government. It can, if mismanaged, lead to 2002-2006 (and after-effects). The Dems need to stick to a few basic priorities and punish any fraud, mismanagement or ethics violations with force, not encourage them with impunity. Key issues and good governance should be the motto of the new government.

First, the focus should be on the economy. The stock market is the bi-polar predecessor to the old codger that is the economy. We are in a period of serious deleveraging by companies and households. The stock market exaggerates things, but in this case, we have the "PERFECT STORM" raging. One only has to look to Japan to see how painful the economy can get.

The stock markets may recover quickly, or at least stop falling, but don't start blaming that for continued economic malaise. Reducing credit exposure among $300 million is a long, difficult process, especially when accompanied by millions more across the world.

What is needed is strong leadership into the darkness and an understanding that other campaign promises can be filled to the benefit of the world financial system...through hard good companies. Health care, the number one issue, is on the top of this list. Health care adds $1,500 to the cost of every car in Detroit. Sure, we also need to make sure they make cars that people want, but providing healthcare to their workers (and retirees) is a giveaway worth at least a significant uptick in the CAFE standards).

An orderly withdrawal from Iraq with some redeployment to Afghanistan would help both countries, as well as ours. It would also help reduce the off-budget spending that we accumulate in fighting both wars. This reassessment of our military will also lead to the source for savings (apart from the miniscule savings we could realize from eliminating earmarks). Many military projects are earmarks in disguise; projects congressmen and congresswomen want but the military doesn't need. We need regular maintainance and competitive upgrades of our military capacity, but we get much more wasteful spending called that. What we need o do is find the useless programs and cut them and redirect some of the spending towards paying our soldiers a good wage, providing them with healthcare and supporting their families with more generous hazard pay when we send them abroad.

That is the recipe for a better Republic, through good times and bad.

Housing

The current crash gives time to think about solutions going forward. Some argue that home ownership should be supported by more bailouts of the housing industry and home owners. I desagree. Home ownership should be encouraged to a degree but not as much as it is. Currently home ownership is seen as a benefit in and of itself and is treated as so by the tax code. Mortgage interest tax credits are fucking screwing the non-home-owning poor and contributing to sprawl. I don't have data to contribute to my point, but I want to present my argument regardless.

Tax credits for mortgage interest bring many people into the realm where the tax credits make a difference. Otherwise the tax credits don't mean shit. Many tax credits which give low-income people (as people like I, who made $30 grand last year) a tax break don't do squat because itemizing our taxes doesn't do anything for us.

Instead, we get the ideal of one day in the future owning a home. Bucolic goodness. Fuck it. Promoting home ownership as a good in and of itself creates sprawl. Cities with lax regulation see housing booms while cities with more reasonable urban planning see housing inflation in sympathy. That is the race to the bottom. Promoting home ownership creates sprawl, which is harmful. Limit your homes and create equal tax breaks for renters.

I get housing at a reasonable cost, and I provde a meaningful return for my landlord while avoiding sprawl (I live near city center on public mass transit). No tax break for me! Fuck that!

Politics as usual

I like the renewable energy tax credits in the rescue (aka bailout) package passed by Congress but their inclusion in this bill makes me cringe and die a little bit. They are worthwhile but completely irrelevant to the bill (the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008"). The structure and actions of the government have become inimical to the ideas of our nation's founding principles.

Our nation was founded on the ideas of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (property was a controversial term in the late 18th century). We were supposed to be a Republic. We elected our representatives directly and they tended to the business on our behalf. This system broke down over time.

Under 14th Amendment rulings, the corporation received personhood without the campaign contribution limits applicable to living beings (U.S. citizens). Their 1st Amendment rights to 'free speech' are greater than mine and they rule the Congress. They also have greater resources (at least most do) to pursue their prosperity through legislative mandate than I do.

It pervades every Congressional discussion. The original rescue bill failed to pass but once it was made amenable to our elected representatives through give-aways, ($150 billion of them) it passed. It's enough to make me cynical.

Fabric of our democracy

In a routine interview on Hardball, we see a new McCarthy. Actually more of a new Salem witch trials. Representative Bachmann (R-MN) produces a screed that places her outside the regular liberal-conservative bounds. In said screed, she calls Barack Obama and unnamed Democratic members of Congress "un-American". In an election where the Republican candidate is more than 10 points behind, this desperation move is predictable.

In addition to spreading racial innuendos (e.g. comparisons of Barack Obama as Osama bin Laden) the McCain campaign is resorting to the Mcarty-ite tactics of labeling one's opponent 'anti-American'.

Enough to make me sick to my stomach. I, like many Americans, want this election to revolve around the starkly different policies of the candidates. A desperate man will do anything to win.

InTrade.com

I like the markets...and InTrade is a pretty good predictor of politics given the 2004 election. Obama has soared in the polls on Intrade (essentially gambling website on politics and other things). The state-by-state electoral map looked close to even before the first Obama-McCain debate -- 290-260, or close to that. Now the "leaning" polls (which show electoral votes if the probabilities of today were the votes of 11/4) shows 338-200. Even the "average" votes which defy the electoral college and divide votes proportionally to the 'odds' on the state show Obama leading 314-224. Either way, the gambling markets show a Obama landslide.

In the age of Bush elections, this is a landslide. Bush "beat" Gore 271-266 in 2000 and Kerry 286-251 in 2004. There has not been a competitive election since the Bush fraud in 2000 (1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980 both had winners with more than 350 electoral college votes out of 538 (# of reps + # of senators + 3 to Washington DC) or 65%). In this polarized stalemate, it takes 300 electoral votes to create a 'rout' (along with the popular vote) which is what the InTrade markets suggest is happening. It's not predicting a rout in the pre-2000 way, but in the 'new reality' that Bush created of 50%+1, 300+ electoral college votes is significant.

I will be happy if Obama takes the presidency regardless, but I will be sadly disappointed to see him win the electoral college without capturing the popular vote. The electoral college (the largest impediment to third paries, a shame) ranks people a different types of "fractional voters". In a state with 100,000 people, each person is 0.00001% of the population. In a state with 10,000,000 people, each person is 0.0000001% of the population. The electoral college system tries to iron this out using the proportionately represented votes plus the equally represented votes to make up the electoral college (plus 3 good will votes for DC, which has equal taxation but no representation). However, this creates issues for both parties: Using 2003 data on population except for 2000 data for DC, each electoral college vote represents 167,081 people in Wyoming, while each represents 650,545 in Texas and 645,172 in California.

This means that electorally, one vote in Illinois is worth 28% of a Wyoming vote while a Delaware vote is worth 61% of a Wyoming vote and an Arizona vote 30% of a Wyoming vote and an Alaskan vote is worth 77% of a Wyoming vote. Not that those statistics mean anything; voting is majority rules in each state, but it is still worth considering alternatives to the electoral system that are more reasonable.

The discrepancies described above are probably built into the markets if these 'efficient market' people are to believed so it's a wonder they're still so cheerily pro-McCain.

Paying Taxes is Patriotic

TPM.com: "Overall, the 2007 return shows that last year the couple had an adjusted gross income of $166,080 and paid $24,738 in taxes — about a 15 percent rate after deductions. In 2006, the records show, the Palins earned $127,869 as adjusted gross income, with taxes paid listed at $11,944 — less than a 10 percent rate."

Fuck, I have made between $20,000 and $30,000 a year in the last 5 years since I graduated from college and I fork over 25% of my pay in taxes. Taxes aren't too low, they're to low on those rich fucks who can hire creative Enron accountants.

If I controlled things, we would allow the Alternative Minimum Tax to hit people down to $100,000 a year where deductions are low and then at that point slash the deductions and garbage then take every tax dodge where there's a discrepancy between standard and AMT and get rid of it as long as it doesn't affect those earning under $150k. Those tax breaks should have a limit of $150k.

I hope to be rich and all that and I want to pay my taxes that I owe to keep the infrastructure good (it's shitty now) and keep the possibility of starting a business. Fuck the Palinites, PAYING TAXES IS PATRIOTIC.

Housing bust

If anyone cares, I predicted the subprime bust at least 3 years ago. It was accidental, but I still say through the hoopla. My concern (unlike the markets today) was for the housing consumer. The subprime bubble, which was predicated on nothing but appreciating home values (another fucking bubble that people still are unaware of). Low-income consumers were opting to buy houses they couldn't afford using crafty loan products they weren't told would explode upon them. From an outside perspective (I rent...the housing values bottom out an average of about 7 years after they peak which is also the year I turn the average age people buy their first house, late 20s) it should have been obvious to anyone paying attention. I was fresh out of college when Air America launched (actuallly, add a couple of years, I was 24). All the ads were for either 'interest-only' loans or for 'negative amortization' loans. Either way, the loans were exploitative. Either you relied upon a stable housing market or you bet on your house price rising above its current value. Only they probably didn't tell you that. The crafty mortgage lenders only gave you enough info along the lines of 'you can afford this house' without even verifying how much you earned. Somehow, income and expense were no longer linked from the housing perspective even though most people spend between 33 and 50% of their income on housing (I spend about 34% and, again, I rent). If people with sub-prime mortgages are depending on housing price growth (not to mention the interest rate jumps after 2 years) to fund their house, it's no wonder they got burned. It's a con. Simple as that; mortgage originators wanted volume, low-income folks wanted houses, details were ignored, and, what?, the loans turned out to be no good? Go figure.

I feel I should comment

I was out of town when the Virginia Tech shootings happened, but I think I should comment on it. A good liberal like me should have a post on why gun control is the logical outgrowth of this, but this is self-evident except to the caller to NPR earlier today who believed it wouldn't have happened if everyone was armed.

My point is one of confusion and a lack of understanding. I believe myself to be a good person and understand morals (although I don't belong to a religion that prescribes a set of morals). I don't understand how someone could put a gun to their head and pull the trigger and the confusion deepens. How anyone could decide to go out and kill others, whether in Iraq, Virginia, Belfast, Sarejavo, Rwanda, Congo, etc., etc. The urge to kill is something that is unnatural to humans unless their live is threatened or some mental disease is involved. There are some people who are easily swayed to a tactic and will 'drink the kool-aid,' to use the anniversary of the Jonestown people.

I think peace is our natural state and other events (war, occupation, stirring of ethnic hatred, actions to prevent others' killing) are the main reasons people kill. It seems so unnecessary and it should allow us to reflect on the effect our decisions make in our lives. Specifically, we need to realize that every action we take should be (it won't be) based on rational ideas. No one can control the heat-of-the-moment actions, but living life based on reason (whether guided by religious principles or not) is important. We are not just multi-cellular beings being driven by the market, materialism, religion, etc. We act because we choose to act and any denial of this fact denies our intelligence (whether we believe it came from evolution or as a gift from a deity).

WE HAVE CONTROL OVER OUR OWN ACTIONS.

Don Imus is an idiot

He's an idiot, but he doesn't need to be suspended. What he said was insensitive and stupid, but it still remains within the bounds of the First Amendment and should be protected. I've never heard his show, but political radio shows spew lies, gossip and spin (and hateful speech too!) in the name of the truth and never get held to account. The right to free speech is protected by the Constitution and is one of the best rights to have and should never be abridged. A private company can do what it wants, but it should uphold the right to say what you will, even if that is repulsive because sometimes (not in this case) what is seen as repulsive or offensive is what needs to be said (again, not in this case). Condemn what he said, but protect the right to say it.

The New Democratic Majority

I've been really busy with my work and band, but I've been trying to keep up with politics at the same time and I see hope with limits. First, the limits relate to money in politics. There has been so much money already in the 2008 campaign. It blows my fucking mind that candidates for the election in the 2008 election raised $20 million in the first quarter of 2007. How is that democratic? Most money came from fucking corporations that shouldn't have any rights to give money to campaigns outside the limits of the individuals. If they want to be considered individuals under the 14th amendment, they should be subject to the limits of individuals: $2,000 to a candidate per year.

Although the doom and gloom bullshit from the campaign finance front, we are moving towards a forced withdrawal from Iraq. First, we shouldn't have gone in. Second, we're in and we see a civil war so fucking get out. We need to send the U.N. in and get our troops out. Blue helmets will be able to do the job of peacekeeping better than we can (we should also get rid of Saudi Arabia, they're the source of Bin Laden and many people blowing up our troops in Iraq). We need to get Israel out of their 'occupied territories' (as they are recognized under international law). Get the division official agreed upon and minimize those that support terrorism. They do nothing valuable and destroy any promise that could come from the area. Anyone who blows themselves up for a cause represents a failed cause and anyone who then goes and destroys the area from which suicide bombers come just create new animosities. Extremists are the ROOT OF ALL HARM IN THE WORLD. Go for the Aristotilian mean instead...that is the path to peace.

Immigration Policy

The biggest potential pitfall the Democrats could have in Congress is if they allow the protectionist wing to rule and approach bipartisanship as an opportunity to ally with the far-right protectionists to hurt immigrants and try to strip them of their rights. The danger here is that the bigotry and unintelligence of the anti-immigrant groups could be unintentionally strengthened by labor groups trying to reduce the wage impact of immigration.

Undoubtedly, there is a small but politically sensitive impact of immigration. However, the way to deal with this is not to rail against 'illegal immigrants taking our jobs' or 'freeloading immigrants steal our tax dollars' or 'illegal immigrants take our money and send it out of the country'. The approach is to recognize that immigrants, particularly from Mexico and the rest of Latin America, are coming to the country and we should welcome them with our minimum wage, relatively low tax burden and stringent working condition regulations, providing them with the carrot and save the carrot for business that violate these regulations.

Immigrants will not significantly affect employment or wages if they are properly documented and should not all be lumped as 'criminals' for breaking the overly strict immigration laws that only let in a fraction of those who want to come in. If we open the borders and keep track of those who enter (perhaps in exchange for some benefits such as possibility of citizenship or Unemployment Insurance or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits), then the 'border enforcement' work will be focused on those with harmful intent.

The issue of remittances is silly (although I have heard suggestions that it is somehow 'robbing our country'). The money remitted to countries-of-origin is money earned by the workers and has proven to be a very efficient way to assist with development because there aren't the administrative costs associated with filtering through (sometimes corrupt) governments.

In the end, the U.S. has been successful despite occasional bouts of opposition to immigrants and the rise of hate groups relying on ignorance and flirtations with bigotry towards those who are difference. Immigrants are a huge part of this success and are one of the factors that separates us from Europe, which has committed itself at least in the short term to 'Fortress Europe' (Japan is even more xenophobic). Proper documentation for immigrants will allow them to accomplish their goals of helping themselves and their families without resorting to trying to keep them out or simply depriving them of services. The latter policy is one of ghettoization and is the most harmful and potentially beneficial to xenophobes and racists.

Priorities

All the focus in the past few weeks has been on Iraq and extricating ourselves from an untenable situation. This is important...vital even, but it is a situation that will require the Bush Administration to change (it is their problem after all). The Baker report suggested that American troops be out of Iraq by early 2008, which I think is too late. There is no point in holding out until 2008 to make a hasty withdrawal from Iraq. The endgame will be the same regardless, but the losses of U.S troops between now and then could be substantial and even one will be one too many. The real focus for the Democrats should be on the domestic front. Health care and crime, those are the issues the Democrats should tackle (with a war on tax cuts in their too, but that's another post).

Time magazine has two interesting articles, one on health care and one on crime.

The healthcare article focuses primarily on the growth of specialist outpatient clinics and their detrimental role on traditional hospitals. The outpatient clinics take the specialist work (the most profitable) and leave the more expensive inpatient and emergency work along with the uninsured patients. This causes hospitals to lose a lot of money they use to subsidize the less profitable aspects of their business. This is bad for health care, particularly for the less well off, but it is an added incentive to introduce single-payer, national health insurance. Keep the hospitals reserved for immediate care and those without the money to pay for the the specialized care and fund everybody. This would allow the government to pay for health insurance for all by funding the hospitals that never turned anyone away, while separating the high-income people, who would go to the specialized outpatient care. The only (and primary) challenge for the government would be to keep the care at a high enough level to provide quality health coverage for all. But, if you provide health insurance for all, there will be a natural public constituency to keep the pressure on politicians to provide adequate funding to keep the public insurance running. The hospitals could run as they are, but they would be removed the (very large) burden of providing care to those who could not afford treatment and work towards illness prevention as a way to make it sustainable in the long run (currently poor people cannot afford prevention and just show up in the emergency rooms when they need care, greatly increasing the costs to the hospitals through no fault of their own). If that was instituted, be prepared to see money freed up from hospitals and government programs like Medicaid.

In terms of crime, the answer is clear. Since Bush came into office, the Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) budget has been cut by 45% (according to the Time article). Money is being doled out to homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and tax cuts to the rich) at the expense of policing efforts that were significantly reducing crime in the 1990s, particularly in mid-sized cities that rely on federal aid for a significant portion of their budgets. The result has been (surprise) a resurgence in crime in mid-sized cities. The COPS program worked, not through enforcement, per se, but by integrating the police force into the communities in which crime was most prevalent. This gained the communities' trust and created an environment in which the community was best able to assist police in fighting crime. Crime was down because the community was involved, not because the police arrested more people, more prisons were built or because potheads went to jail for longer. The community is where the crime prevention occurs. The police are a last resort, so where the community begins to trust the police, they will be more likely to help the police fight the criminals. The 'war on drugs' created more criminals than it deterred.

Medicare drug prices

One of the first priorities of the Democrats once they regain control of Congress is to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. The Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage bill passed with an express prohibition on Medicare negotiating prices with drug manufacturers. What this created was an implicit subsidy of pharmaceutical companies. There was no reason for the plan to do this except to provide a hand out to the pharmaceutical companies. The idea of using bargaining power to lower drug prices is not new or limited to government agencies; Walmart announced it was negotiating $4 drug prices based on it's size as a purchaser. The Veterans Administration and many European governments and the Canadian government also negotiate significantly lower prices with pharmaceutical companies.

If the Democrats accomplish this legislation, which 77% of Americans support, it would give them a good boost in their negotiating power with the President for other progressive policies and stifle the talking heads and Republican operatives who relentlessly assert that Democrats have no ideas, just criticisms of Republican policies. It would also help the U.S. fiscal situation by reducing the costs associated with the Medicare prescription drug program.

The New Democratic Majority

I have had another (anonymous) blog before (for 1-1/2 years!), but I thought since it became somewhat non-anonymous thanks to The Google, I'd start a new blog. My efforts were spurred somewhat by the (surprising, to me at least) Democratic takeover of the House & Senate. I thought the Dems would pick up maybe 10 seats in the House and 2 in the Senate and I was proved wrong (fortunately). Many of my friends have considered me the most conservative of the group of (admittedly liberal) friends, mostly because of my economics views, but I am a big liberal when it comes to how we treat the poor, mostly because of my Unitarian Universalist beliefs. The new blog will be less technocratic (hopefully, because I'm a dork and a wonk and I love policy discussions, but I want to shy away from that because my job encourages these impulses).

The new Democratic majority has some good intentions but the following should be considered:

• End the war...enough said, our brothers & sisters do not need to die to end a civil war; send in the Blue Helmets (with our support, but under a foreign commander)
  
• Free trade (not preferential trade; I don't subscribe to the right-winger takeover of the term) does benefit people as long as there are social programs to help the transition
• In the same line, China is not to be feared, but accepted and recognized
• Our commitments (as Americans) to the international conventions should be paramount (especially Kyoto & the Geneva conventions)
• Universal health insurance is a necessity to protect our workers and protect our competitive advantage.
• Minimum wages do make a difference in ordinary workers' lives (not just 'high-schoolers'). It makes a living wage possible with little if no impact on unemployment.
  
• Whatever your views, preservation and sustainability of the natural environment is valuable in a social and economic way.
  
• RELIGION HAS TO BE KEPT SEPARATE FROM POLITICS. I consider myself devoted to my faith (Unitarian Universalist), and to preserve the integrity of all religion, it cannot be drawn into politics (although it should be a lobby on governmental affairs)
• Politics need demonetization; money and corporate influence play too much of a role in politics and hurt the democratic process. Corporations should, if they value their Railroad-era protections, subject themselves to individual campaign limits. If they are persons under U.S. law, they should not donate amounts exceeding those allowed by me or Joe Worker.
  
• Education needs to be held as sacred; funded & enhanced and devoid of religious indoctrination.
• While this re-emphasizes an earlier point about the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. should actually condemn torture and desist from using the controversial interrogation tactics. I have met individuals unfairly targeted (and jailed) by the U.S. in the so-called "Global War on Terror" whose only crime was being Muslim. I have also met people tortured under U.S. policy in Latin America (the person I met was subjected to what is now euphemized as 'waterboarding').
  

These are just my suggestions, but the voters tend to agree (given the recent election results). Before the Clinton impeachment hearings, I would have said, "impeach the [m.f.]". Now, I say we should not only because the Republicans have made impeachment a political decisions, rather than a legal decision. Make Bush comply to the will of the people (e.g. increase the minimum wage and tie it to increases in Congressional pay, percentage-wise). But more importantly, don't forget that money makes whores of us all if there is enough of it. The individual conscience is the light of humanity and it, and it alone, should lead decision-making.