Although most of the problems in today's society are complicated and controversial, there is one fix that should be undertaken nationwide: updating and refitting public buildings. Furthermore, this is a solution that can be done unilaterally by individual states, counties, or municipalities, because we all know the federal government is unlikely to get it done. Currently, public buildings are bleeding tax dollars away because of inefficient heating or cooling, improper insulation, outdated electrical and plumbing systems, and a host of other deficiencies. Simply put, refitting public buildings with state of the art architecture and infrastructure will save millions of dollars over the long term, create thousands of jobs in the short term, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is a proposal everyone should be on board with, regardless of political bent.
Because of the large deficit and debt, spending has become a dirty word in Washington, unless it is accompanied by "cuts." This is the primary impediment to smart reforms that would make government drastically more efficient. As any businessman knows, you've got to spend money to make money, and public policy is no different. Were the government run like a business, it would incur short term debts (especially considering the favorable borrowing rate) in order to trim costs in the long term. In fact, this is exactly what occurred with the stimulus packages passed by Bush and Obama. The stimulus bills incurred short term debts and averted a deep depression, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Therefore, it is logical to spend again in order to avert the second recession that is predicted to occur after the fiscal cliff.
Nevertheless, a large stimulus is not on the table, nor is it likely to make it through Washington's gridlock. The $50 billion dollar stimulus that Obama included in his latest proposal to Boehner and the GOP is not being taken seriously by conservatives, who view it as an overreaching bargaining chip rather than a pragmatic solution to underemployment. The stimulus I am proposing is even more modest, pays for itself within a few years, and creates jobs immediately.
There are thousands of public buildings across the nation, so in order to simplify the discussion, I'll only discuss hard numbers with respect to public schools. There are, of course, many things that could be done to improve the efficiency of all public buildings, but schools are the hearts of their communities and are the best place to start. The utility savings can be passed directly on to the students, whose schools are woefully underfunded, without sacrificing a dollar in educational spending.
First, simply bringing in engineers to public schools to analyze waste and suggest efficiency reforms can save thousands of dollars annually. The process is known as commissioning, which brings in private contractors to assess the school's energy use. For the average public school, commissioning saves $14,000 annually, with an initial cost ranging from $5,000 to $40,000, depending on the conditions of the school. Poorly constructed schools have a higher commissioning cost, and would likely lead to higher annual energy savings. Even assuming high initial cost and low average savings, the cost of commissioning is fully paid off in 3-4 years.
The previous example also stimulates the economy, by creating good, high-paying jobs that did not exist before. The next example is quite obvious, and does not require much of an initial investment from the schools: change your lightbulbs. Changing outdated incandescent lights to modern fluorescent lights saves thousands of dollars, at an average rate of $20 per lamp, per year. At that rate, the initial investment is paid back in 1-3 years.
Other quick and easy solutions include adding weather stripping to windows and doors, adding a second pane to windows to reduce energy loss, and painting the roofs of schools a lighter, more reflective color to reflect sunlight and reduce the need for cooling. Repainting the roofs of schools saves, on average, 15-20% of a school's cooling costs for the year. These last three suggestions can be done during routine maintenance. For example, if a window breaks or is scheduled to be replaced, insuring that it is replaced with a more energy efficient window is an easy way to slowly phase in the savings, without much of an initial investment. Similarly, if the roof is old and needs repairs or replacement, do so with reflective paint. The savings on the cooling bill will pay for the paint within the next few years.
I see no reason why we should not immediately and aggressively institute these reforms. The costs are so low compared to the major drivers of the deficit and debt, yet the benefits are very high with respect to those costs. Furthermore, these benefits compound upon themselves as time goes by: every year that passes causes inefficient construction to become more inefficient, thereby wasting more and more money. The sooner we act, the greater savings we gain. Refitting public schools creates jobs in the construction sector, which is still struggling after the housing bubble collapsed, as well as creates architecture and engineering jobs. The savings accrue nearly instantaneously, and the environmental impact of reducing our carbon footprint cannot be overstated. Students will attend schools that are properly heated and ventilated, and can take pride in knowing that their school is part of the solution, and not the problem, when it comes to global warming. Refitting schools is something that every school district should do - it saves them money - regardless of what occurs at the county, state, or federal level. It's a no-brainer, and the kind of common sense solution we really need.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Taxes and Income Inequality
In today's political discourse, it is rare that we find areas of widespread agreement. Surprisingly, one thing most people agree on is an economic issue: economic growth is the best way to reduce the debt and deficit. Frustratingly, this consensus in goals has not led to any consensus in policy, mostly because politicians are too busy arguing whether or not wealthy people deserve 65 or merely 60% of their annual income. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why keeping top marginal tax rates low is still an issue, much less a priority, in the tough economic times that we are in. If the government has a budget shortfall to the point where it can no longer operate, then it is time to raise taxes. The argument that raising taxes on "job creators" will tank the economy does not hold water. Here are two graphics to illustrate my point:
The first is simple: a chart that maps national GDP growth and top marginal tax rates from 1946 until 2011. Simply put, there is no correlation between tax rates and GDP growth. The GDP (marked in red) bounces up and down irrespective of the marginal tax rate. When taxes were at their peak in the 1950's, economic activity was more robust than it is today. The argument that raising taxes on the wealthy will destroy the economy is unhistorical. Another way to put that: it's a flat out lie.
The second chart is a little more intimidating, but it isn't too bad. It maps top marginal tax rates (MTR) against the portion of income that the richest 1% earn annually. The black lines represent the share of annual income held by the richest 1% and the red lines show the top marginal tax rate. The two lines are in inverse correlation to each other: when tax rates are high, income inequality is low. When tax rates are low, as they were in the antebellum period before WWII and as they are now, income inequality skyrockets.
These two graphs give historical evidence that we should, just like was done in "traditional America," raise tax rates on the wealthy. When tax codes were more progressive, prior to the Reagan years, economic inequality was low, but economic activity was booming. As the tax code was reformed to become more regressive, the economy continued to grow, but fewer and fewer dollars trickled down to the masses.
How bad is it now? Income inequality is still burgeoning, despite the economic slowdown. This chart shows how income distribution changed from 2010-2011, illustrating that the richest among us continue to get richer, while the rest of the population sees their incomes decline. To put a historical perspective on it, this chart shows the annual incomes of families, broken down into quintiles and the top 5%. Things have steadily gotten worse, and the gap between rich and poor is still growing.
This data suggests that trickle-down economics do not work for the people. Trickle-down economics only serves Wall Street fatcats who are adept at making money out of money. It is anti-democratic to argue that the best possible economic system is one in which we entrust our homes and savings to a set of oligarchs; furthermore, it is not supported by facts or history. Since the recession, corporations have frequently posted record profits and passed on the gains to their executives (presumably for doing such a good job at blowing up the economy and cutting jobs). If raising taxes on the wealthy will make these greedy bastards quit working as they claim, then that is all the more reason to do so. They have been wrong in their economic predictions in the past, and the smart money says that they will be wrong again. Raise taxes. It's the right thing to do.
The first is simple: a chart that maps national GDP growth and top marginal tax rates from 1946 until 2011. Simply put, there is no correlation between tax rates and GDP growth. The GDP (marked in red) bounces up and down irrespective of the marginal tax rate. When taxes were at their peak in the 1950's, economic activity was more robust than it is today. The argument that raising taxes on the wealthy will destroy the economy is unhistorical. Another way to put that: it's a flat out lie.
The second chart is a little more intimidating, but it isn't too bad. It maps top marginal tax rates (MTR) against the portion of income that the richest 1% earn annually. The black lines represent the share of annual income held by the richest 1% and the red lines show the top marginal tax rate. The two lines are in inverse correlation to each other: when tax rates are high, income inequality is low. When tax rates are low, as they were in the antebellum period before WWII and as they are now, income inequality skyrockets.
These two graphs give historical evidence that we should, just like was done in "traditional America," raise tax rates on the wealthy. When tax codes were more progressive, prior to the Reagan years, economic inequality was low, but economic activity was booming. As the tax code was reformed to become more regressive, the economy continued to grow, but fewer and fewer dollars trickled down to the masses.
How bad is it now? Income inequality is still burgeoning, despite the economic slowdown. This chart shows how income distribution changed from 2010-2011, illustrating that the richest among us continue to get richer, while the rest of the population sees their incomes decline. To put a historical perspective on it, this chart shows the annual incomes of families, broken down into quintiles and the top 5%. Things have steadily gotten worse, and the gap between rich and poor is still growing.
This data suggests that trickle-down economics do not work for the people. Trickle-down economics only serves Wall Street fatcats who are adept at making money out of money. It is anti-democratic to argue that the best possible economic system is one in which we entrust our homes and savings to a set of oligarchs; furthermore, it is not supported by facts or history. Since the recession, corporations have frequently posted record profits and passed on the gains to their executives (presumably for doing such a good job at blowing up the economy and cutting jobs). If raising taxes on the wealthy will make these greedy bastards quit working as they claim, then that is all the more reason to do so. They have been wrong in their economic predictions in the past, and the smart money says that they will be wrong again. Raise taxes. It's the right thing to do.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Balanced Deficit Reduction
The most crippling aspect of American politics is that policy proposals are treated as negotiations rather than as rational plans for a road forward. For example, both political parties claim they are championing a "balanced" approach to deficit reduction because both have adopted mutually disagreeable policy concessions. This view neglects the fact that policy is not an "either-or" situation and that there is a multitude of other options on the table that are not even part of the discussion.
First off, cuts to Social Security should not even be part of the discussion. Although income tax rates have fallen to historic lows over the past few decades, for many middle and low income workers the payroll tax (which funds Social Security) has made up the difference in their tax burden. As a result of the increased payroll tax, Social Security is financially sound until 2033, even after factoring in the stagnant world economy and sluggish recovery. Social Security may make up a large portion of government spending, but it is not a driver of the deficit or the debt. The people have paid for this program, and it should not be cut. Deficit hawks who propose cuts to Social Security would turn it into a Ponzi scheme and rob future retirees of their benefits.
Therefore, if Republicans want to bargain with Social Security cuts, they must advance a rational position as to why slashing Social Security spending would be good for the country as a whole. If the program is paid for, it is not a driver of long term debt, and should not be on the negotiating table. Democrats should ignore this red herring and hold strong to their positions. Abandoning an irrational policy proposal should not count as a concession; it is simply what reasonable lawmakers should do. It is what they are elected to do.
On the other side, raising the top marginal tax rate is something that Republican lawmakers will not accept. The idea that the rich are the job creators and the drivers of our economy is an idea that I detest and thoroughly disagree with. Nevertheless, it is a foundational tenet of conservative economics, and is not a position they will retreat from. Grover Norquist's despicable pledge and the reelection hopes of Republican Congressmen further complicate the issue. The fact of the matter is that Republicans will not retreat from a tax policy that favors the wealthy, because they fervently believe that such a tax policy is best for all Americans.
And this is where the talking heads and politicians are stuck. Democrats will not give up cuts to Social Security, and Republicans will not give up historically low tax rates for high-income individuals. Because of the myopic view that politics is a dichotomy, politicians claim that a balanced approach must involve concessions on both of those points. That view is consigning ourselves to a policy that no person will fully support, and that will likely fail.
There are other options on the table that both conservatives and liberals should agree upon that would lead us out of the financial crisis, but they are not being discussed. For instance, the tax code is horribly complicated and biased toward special interest groups and lobbyists. We now have a bipartisan consensus that removing loopholes and simplifying the tax code would be good for the country, and in the process could raise revenues. Opt for tax reform rather than raising the tax rates. Although most liberals would prefer the latter approach, political reality makes that move impossible. So take the next best thing and remove the many tax breaks that only the wealthy can enjoy, like carried interest, off-shore hiring incentives, and tax havens like the Cayman islands and Delaware. (Many large corporations claim their center of operation is in Delaware because of the preferential tax code there, even though their stated address is most often only a PO box. This policy robs every other state of valuable tax revenue and is just plain stupid. Corporations should pay the taxes of the state in which they operate, not where they collect their mail.)
As for ways to cut spending, there are many. First, prison reform would save billions of dollars every year. Literally billions. Currently there is a major push, especially in the south, to privatize prisons, which leads to worse conditions for prisoners and higher costs for taxpayers. Imprisonment is not a profitable enterprise, and should not be subject to free market pressures. It is immoral to make money off of another's incarceration; doing so is simply modern slavery. America is the most incarcerated country in the world, home to only 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. That does not sound like the "land of the free" to me.
A second, related strategy would be to end the war on drugs. Federal law currently classifies marijuana as a schedule 1 drug, which lumps it in with meth and heroin. When questioned on whether marijuana is as dangerous as other schedule 1 drugs, the DEA chief could only respond with the line "We believe that all illegal drugs are dangerous." This is stupid, and leads to hundreds of thousands of drug arrests a year - destroying the future employment chances of many otherwise-successful individuals. Many employers will not hire a felon, regardless of how qualified he or she may be. The fact of the matter is that marijuana is not a dangerous substance, has medical benefits, and is not a gateway drug. Legalization (or at least decriminalization) would save billions of dollars a year in law enforcement costs. It would also help to curb the power of Mexican drug cartels, because marijuana could be purchased through safer, legal channels. Legalization also creates another taxable commodity, rather than leaving all of the profit in the black market. The reality is that people will smoke pot regardless of its legal status, so failing to tax it is just leaving money on the table. I see no benefit in marijuana prohibition, and I see great gains in its legalization and taxation.
Another avenue to save money is to reduce America's imperial footprint abroad. We have over 150 active military bases worldwide, while no foreign country boasts such a privilege inside our borders. This costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually in operational costs and does not make us any safer. We can begin the process of closing these bases and finally realize that the Cold War ended 20 years ago. It's time to come home, and start some nation building in the USA.
There are many other proposals that I have read that do not involve raising marginal tax rates or deep cuts to entitlement programs, but the conversation is stuck on that one point. What needs to occur is public pressure to change the discussion, because both sides have dug their heels in so far on this particular issue that no progress can be made. Take the modest concession of tax reform and run with it, then cut federal spending in ways that do not impact the elderly, the disabled, the poor, or the infirm. To me, prison and drug reform is a no-brainer that saves millions of dollars and keeps families and communities more stable. Similarly, reducing the imperial presence of America abroad reduces our negative image and saves billions of dollars. It is hard to characterize America as the "Great Satan" if we turn our sights inward and work to build a better country. There is perhaps no move that would improve homeland security so much as bringing the troops home - and there is a lot of nation building to be done stateside. Let's get out of this ridiculous back and forth on tax rates and start discussing a path forward. The tax code isn't everything, and there is a lot of other work to be done.
First off, cuts to Social Security should not even be part of the discussion. Although income tax rates have fallen to historic lows over the past few decades, for many middle and low income workers the payroll tax (which funds Social Security) has made up the difference in their tax burden. As a result of the increased payroll tax, Social Security is financially sound until 2033, even after factoring in the stagnant world economy and sluggish recovery. Social Security may make up a large portion of government spending, but it is not a driver of the deficit or the debt. The people have paid for this program, and it should not be cut. Deficit hawks who propose cuts to Social Security would turn it into a Ponzi scheme and rob future retirees of their benefits.
Therefore, if Republicans want to bargain with Social Security cuts, they must advance a rational position as to why slashing Social Security spending would be good for the country as a whole. If the program is paid for, it is not a driver of long term debt, and should not be on the negotiating table. Democrats should ignore this red herring and hold strong to their positions. Abandoning an irrational policy proposal should not count as a concession; it is simply what reasonable lawmakers should do. It is what they are elected to do.
On the other side, raising the top marginal tax rate is something that Republican lawmakers will not accept. The idea that the rich are the job creators and the drivers of our economy is an idea that I detest and thoroughly disagree with. Nevertheless, it is a foundational tenet of conservative economics, and is not a position they will retreat from. Grover Norquist's despicable pledge and the reelection hopes of Republican Congressmen further complicate the issue. The fact of the matter is that Republicans will not retreat from a tax policy that favors the wealthy, because they fervently believe that such a tax policy is best for all Americans.
And this is where the talking heads and politicians are stuck. Democrats will not give up cuts to Social Security, and Republicans will not give up historically low tax rates for high-income individuals. Because of the myopic view that politics is a dichotomy, politicians claim that a balanced approach must involve concessions on both of those points. That view is consigning ourselves to a policy that no person will fully support, and that will likely fail.
There are other options on the table that both conservatives and liberals should agree upon that would lead us out of the financial crisis, but they are not being discussed. For instance, the tax code is horribly complicated and biased toward special interest groups and lobbyists. We now have a bipartisan consensus that removing loopholes and simplifying the tax code would be good for the country, and in the process could raise revenues. Opt for tax reform rather than raising the tax rates. Although most liberals would prefer the latter approach, political reality makes that move impossible. So take the next best thing and remove the many tax breaks that only the wealthy can enjoy, like carried interest, off-shore hiring incentives, and tax havens like the Cayman islands and Delaware. (Many large corporations claim their center of operation is in Delaware because of the preferential tax code there, even though their stated address is most often only a PO box. This policy robs every other state of valuable tax revenue and is just plain stupid. Corporations should pay the taxes of the state in which they operate, not where they collect their mail.)
As for ways to cut spending, there are many. First, prison reform would save billions of dollars every year. Literally billions. Currently there is a major push, especially in the south, to privatize prisons, which leads to worse conditions for prisoners and higher costs for taxpayers. Imprisonment is not a profitable enterprise, and should not be subject to free market pressures. It is immoral to make money off of another's incarceration; doing so is simply modern slavery. America is the most incarcerated country in the world, home to only 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. That does not sound like the "land of the free" to me.
A second, related strategy would be to end the war on drugs. Federal law currently classifies marijuana as a schedule 1 drug, which lumps it in with meth and heroin. When questioned on whether marijuana is as dangerous as other schedule 1 drugs, the DEA chief could only respond with the line "We believe that all illegal drugs are dangerous." This is stupid, and leads to hundreds of thousands of drug arrests a year - destroying the future employment chances of many otherwise-successful individuals. Many employers will not hire a felon, regardless of how qualified he or she may be. The fact of the matter is that marijuana is not a dangerous substance, has medical benefits, and is not a gateway drug. Legalization (or at least decriminalization) would save billions of dollars a year in law enforcement costs. It would also help to curb the power of Mexican drug cartels, because marijuana could be purchased through safer, legal channels. Legalization also creates another taxable commodity, rather than leaving all of the profit in the black market. The reality is that people will smoke pot regardless of its legal status, so failing to tax it is just leaving money on the table. I see no benefit in marijuana prohibition, and I see great gains in its legalization and taxation.
Another avenue to save money is to reduce America's imperial footprint abroad. We have over 150 active military bases worldwide, while no foreign country boasts such a privilege inside our borders. This costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually in operational costs and does not make us any safer. We can begin the process of closing these bases and finally realize that the Cold War ended 20 years ago. It's time to come home, and start some nation building in the USA.
There are many other proposals that I have read that do not involve raising marginal tax rates or deep cuts to entitlement programs, but the conversation is stuck on that one point. What needs to occur is public pressure to change the discussion, because both sides have dug their heels in so far on this particular issue that no progress can be made. Take the modest concession of tax reform and run with it, then cut federal spending in ways that do not impact the elderly, the disabled, the poor, or the infirm. To me, prison and drug reform is a no-brainer that saves millions of dollars and keeps families and communities more stable. Similarly, reducing the imperial presence of America abroad reduces our negative image and saves billions of dollars. It is hard to characterize America as the "Great Satan" if we turn our sights inward and work to build a better country. There is perhaps no move that would improve homeland security so much as bringing the troops home - and there is a lot of nation building to be done stateside. Let's get out of this ridiculous back and forth on tax rates and start discussing a path forward. The tax code isn't everything, and there is a lot of other work to be done.
Friday, October 26, 2012
The King of Debt
The only consistant theme throughout Romney's presidential candidacy has been his unwitting descent into irony. He argues vehemently that he is a fiscal conservative who will get the country's fiscal house in order and that he will stop borrowing money from China. He argues that the pending debt crisis is not merely an economic issue, but a moral one, for we should not saddle our children with the debts of our generation. On the other hand, it is apparently perfectly moral to slash public funding, which creates the jobs and opportunities of today, in order to perpetuate some anti-tax, pro-growth pledge.
First of all, public spending does create jobs. After the stimulus bill was passed, the trend of job losses was reversed. No, the economy did not make an abrupt about-face and grow at a rate above 3% of GDP, but that is a wholly unrealistic expectation. I get the feeling that there were no possible gains that would have been high enough to satisfy the unbridled rage of the conservative right. Obama was dealt a terrible hand, managed to keep the ship afloat for four years, and now has the difficult task of convincing voters that it would have been much worse had he not acted.
And it would have been. This is not a "blame-Bush" argument, although there is much that he should be blamed for. What I ask is that people view the Obama presidency and the Obama economy in light of what occurred before. When the economy is shedding jobs at record rates, the housing market collapses, and the global credit and banking industries utterly fail, how can one president rectify the situation in only four years? The only possible answer when the private sector fails is for the public sector to step in and insure that the system doesn't fall apart completely.
Here's the thing: Mitt Romney has fulfilled this role of financial savior many times in the past - in fact, it's what he has built his fortune upon. His fortune, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, is built almost entirely upon debt. Instead of running on this expertise, however, Romney is hamstrung by the radical right to pledge not to increase taxes or the debt. If Romney wanted to run an honest candidacy based upon his real experience, he would highlight how he has successfully used public funds and debt to turn around failed enterprises. He borrowed hundreds of millions to right the Salt Lake City Olympics, used millions of dollars as governor of Massachusetts, and skillfully used leveraged buyouts at Bain Capital.
But that is not what he is running on. The image that Romney is running on is a lie, albeit a very hazy one. Any time that an issue is staked out clearly, Romney shakes his Etch-A-Sketch one more time and shifts his position. He should run on his experience with leveraging debt, but he is afraid to alienate a base that refuses to listen to basic tenets of economics, biology, physics, or philosophy. Instead, he has adopted a message that offers no solutions, only criticisms.
Remember this: it is always easier to critique than it is to offer your own, better solutions. Obama came into a country that was failing on nearly every account. Health care costs were skyrocketing (yes, before Obamacare), public education was failing, the private sector economy self-imploded, and I don't even need to mention our abysmal foreign policy. Four years later, the country has not descended into socialism, is not being run by a radical Muslim, and Christmas is still very much alive. The hyperbolic commercials about "1000 years of darkness" and "not being able to survive 4 more years of an Obama presidency" are way off. Obama has not made things worse, he has just been unable to live up to the unreasonably high expectations he set for himself.
The bottom line is that when the United States can borrow money for less than the rate of inflation, this is free money. It is not a debt crisis. Lendors are literally giving us free money, because the United States is the driver of the world economy. It is in their best interest to keep the US afloat, because without us, their economies would also fail. They are also betting that we will eventually grow our way out of this crisis, and they are giving us the money to use. Romney could have ran on a platform of sensible debt management, and argued that his business experience uniquely qualified him for the position. Instead, he is running a campaign solely of criticism and generalities, and I see no reason to believe things would improve under his stewardship. If he is not going to use the free money that is being provided to the federal government, I do not want him in the White House.
Mr, Romney, you are wrong. We do need more firemen, police officers, teachers, and other public employees. Those are jobs, just like any private sector position. And those jobs are created by public funds. So don't try to convince me of your myopic view of the nation, where John Galtian millionaires create every last bit of fortune that they have out of thin air. The answer is clear: borrow money, at the absurdly low rates it is being offered, and hire public sector workers. I find it appalling that we would cut education and social welfare funds in the name of some self-imposed fiscal cliff. That is a moral choice, and it affects our kids. Perhaps if they stay uneducated, then they will buy this big lie that the neo-cons are offering. Maybe they're just playing the long game. I don't see any other way that their policies or politics make sense.
First of all, public spending does create jobs. After the stimulus bill was passed, the trend of job losses was reversed. No, the economy did not make an abrupt about-face and grow at a rate above 3% of GDP, but that is a wholly unrealistic expectation. I get the feeling that there were no possible gains that would have been high enough to satisfy the unbridled rage of the conservative right. Obama was dealt a terrible hand, managed to keep the ship afloat for four years, and now has the difficult task of convincing voters that it would have been much worse had he not acted.
And it would have been. This is not a "blame-Bush" argument, although there is much that he should be blamed for. What I ask is that people view the Obama presidency and the Obama economy in light of what occurred before. When the economy is shedding jobs at record rates, the housing market collapses, and the global credit and banking industries utterly fail, how can one president rectify the situation in only four years? The only possible answer when the private sector fails is for the public sector to step in and insure that the system doesn't fall apart completely.
Here's the thing: Mitt Romney has fulfilled this role of financial savior many times in the past - in fact, it's what he has built his fortune upon. His fortune, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, is built almost entirely upon debt. Instead of running on this expertise, however, Romney is hamstrung by the radical right to pledge not to increase taxes or the debt. If Romney wanted to run an honest candidacy based upon his real experience, he would highlight how he has successfully used public funds and debt to turn around failed enterprises. He borrowed hundreds of millions to right the Salt Lake City Olympics, used millions of dollars as governor of Massachusetts, and skillfully used leveraged buyouts at Bain Capital.
But that is not what he is running on. The image that Romney is running on is a lie, albeit a very hazy one. Any time that an issue is staked out clearly, Romney shakes his Etch-A-Sketch one more time and shifts his position. He should run on his experience with leveraging debt, but he is afraid to alienate a base that refuses to listen to basic tenets of economics, biology, physics, or philosophy. Instead, he has adopted a message that offers no solutions, only criticisms.
Remember this: it is always easier to critique than it is to offer your own, better solutions. Obama came into a country that was failing on nearly every account. Health care costs were skyrocketing (yes, before Obamacare), public education was failing, the private sector economy self-imploded, and I don't even need to mention our abysmal foreign policy. Four years later, the country has not descended into socialism, is not being run by a radical Muslim, and Christmas is still very much alive. The hyperbolic commercials about "1000 years of darkness" and "not being able to survive 4 more years of an Obama presidency" are way off. Obama has not made things worse, he has just been unable to live up to the unreasonably high expectations he set for himself.
The bottom line is that when the United States can borrow money for less than the rate of inflation, this is free money. It is not a debt crisis. Lendors are literally giving us free money, because the United States is the driver of the world economy. It is in their best interest to keep the US afloat, because without us, their economies would also fail. They are also betting that we will eventually grow our way out of this crisis, and they are giving us the money to use. Romney could have ran on a platform of sensible debt management, and argued that his business experience uniquely qualified him for the position. Instead, he is running a campaign solely of criticism and generalities, and I see no reason to believe things would improve under his stewardship. If he is not going to use the free money that is being provided to the federal government, I do not want him in the White House.
Mr, Romney, you are wrong. We do need more firemen, police officers, teachers, and other public employees. Those are jobs, just like any private sector position. And those jobs are created by public funds. So don't try to convince me of your myopic view of the nation, where John Galtian millionaires create every last bit of fortune that they have out of thin air. The answer is clear: borrow money, at the absurdly low rates it is being offered, and hire public sector workers. I find it appalling that we would cut education and social welfare funds in the name of some self-imposed fiscal cliff. That is a moral choice, and it affects our kids. Perhaps if they stay uneducated, then they will buy this big lie that the neo-cons are offering. Maybe they're just playing the long game. I don't see any other way that their policies or politics make sense.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Elmer Fudd Politics
I am sick and tired of hearing over and over again that Obama is the most divisive president in American history. Like most things for which he is blamed, Obama holds little responsibility for the divisiveness in American politics but makes an easy and convenient scapegoat. The reality is that the electorate is more divided than it has been since the Civil War, because it is more profitable and politically convenient to sow the seeds of derision than it is to govern.
It is always easier to disagree with someone than it is to offer a better alternative, and this has been the weapon of choice of the GOP since 2010, when the Tea Party revolution hit Washington. In fact, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader (who bears a striking resemblence to a turtle), came up with this whopper: "Our top priority is making sure President Obama is a one-term president." The top priority was not bipartisanship, nor was it entitlement reform, regulatory reform, foreign policy, education reform, or anything that is useful. To McConnell, the idea of Obama is so terrible and terrifying that there is nothing more important or pressing than to deny him a second term.
Indeed, here's McConnell on bipartisanship: "We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off those proposals. Because we thought - correctly, I think - that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the 'bipartisan' tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there's a broad agreement that that's the way forward."
To offer a course of complete non-cooperation as the best course for the American people is insulting. Politicians campaign over and over again (as Obama did in 2008) that they will change the tone in Washington, focus less on partisan bickering, and discuss the "real issues." How can we have a real discussion when one side threatens every bill with fillibuster, and refuses to even get its "fingerprints" on any policy proposal? Perhaps we would have had improved legislation from this failed Congress if Republicans had been willing to work their ideas into a Democratic plan. Presenting a bill as bipartisan does not mean there wasn't disagreement, it just means that the call to action is stronger than ideological ties.
Few people have been as critical of President Obama as Rush Limbaugh, whose fire and brimstone doomsday speeches border on madness. To Limbaugh, anyone, literally anyone, would make a better president than Obama in his second term. As he put it, "We are voting against Obama, Mitt Romney might as well be Elmer Fudd." Elmer Fudd is so incompetant that he can't catch a rabbit he has been hunting for decades, yet, according to Rush, he would do a better job of running this country than Obama. I'd turn his comment around and say that I'd much rather have Elmer Fudd as president than Mitt Romney, because I think that incompetance would be a better alternative than wilfully destroying the social safety net.
I don't support Obama on everything that he is done, and I think that he has screwed up in a number of places. For many people, their reality today is not as rosy as it was four years ago, due to the recession and painful recovery. But - and this is a huge but - he was handed a situation that was impossible to solve in only four years. When the stock market crashed in 2008, housing prices came crashing down, incomes fell, and millions lost their jobs. Obama naively set himself higher expectations than he could possible hope to accomplish in one term, yet that is a sin nearly every politician is guilty of. Mitt's purposeful mendacity is on a completely different plane than Obama's failed campaign promises.
The saddest thing of it all is that the GOP's chosen course of Elmer Fudd politics has succeeded. America's two party system consists of a center-right Democratic party and a far-right Republican party that crowd out any hope for a substantive policy discussion. Obama has bent so far to the right in an attempt to appease his detractors that he has alienated a good portion of his supporters. Compared to Bush, Obama has drilled for more oil, coal, and natural gas, assessed fewer EPA fines, continued No Child Left Behind's accountability measures, championed charter schools, kept Guantanamo open, stayed in Afghanistan, and extended the Bush tax cuts for all wage brackets. Whatever his secret intentions may be, Obama's record shows him to be anything but the radical socialist that conservative pundits make him out to be.
Of course, after slandering him for being a socialist, fascist, atheist, anti-American, Muslim, the talking heads turn around and call him divisive too. And that's why I watch Fox News: the incredible irony of it all.
It is always easier to disagree with someone than it is to offer a better alternative, and this has been the weapon of choice of the GOP since 2010, when the Tea Party revolution hit Washington. In fact, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority leader (who bears a striking resemblence to a turtle), came up with this whopper: "Our top priority is making sure President Obama is a one-term president." The top priority was not bipartisanship, nor was it entitlement reform, regulatory reform, foreign policy, education reform, or anything that is useful. To McConnell, the idea of Obama is so terrible and terrifying that there is nothing more important or pressing than to deny him a second term.
Indeed, here's McConnell on bipartisanship: "We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off those proposals. Because we thought - correctly, I think - that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the 'bipartisan' tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there's a broad agreement that that's the way forward."
To offer a course of complete non-cooperation as the best course for the American people is insulting. Politicians campaign over and over again (as Obama did in 2008) that they will change the tone in Washington, focus less on partisan bickering, and discuss the "real issues." How can we have a real discussion when one side threatens every bill with fillibuster, and refuses to even get its "fingerprints" on any policy proposal? Perhaps we would have had improved legislation from this failed Congress if Republicans had been willing to work their ideas into a Democratic plan. Presenting a bill as bipartisan does not mean there wasn't disagreement, it just means that the call to action is stronger than ideological ties.
Few people have been as critical of President Obama as Rush Limbaugh, whose fire and brimstone doomsday speeches border on madness. To Limbaugh, anyone, literally anyone, would make a better president than Obama in his second term. As he put it, "We are voting against Obama, Mitt Romney might as well be Elmer Fudd." Elmer Fudd is so incompetant that he can't catch a rabbit he has been hunting for decades, yet, according to Rush, he would do a better job of running this country than Obama. I'd turn his comment around and say that I'd much rather have Elmer Fudd as president than Mitt Romney, because I think that incompetance would be a better alternative than wilfully destroying the social safety net.
I don't support Obama on everything that he is done, and I think that he has screwed up in a number of places. For many people, their reality today is not as rosy as it was four years ago, due to the recession and painful recovery. But - and this is a huge but - he was handed a situation that was impossible to solve in only four years. When the stock market crashed in 2008, housing prices came crashing down, incomes fell, and millions lost their jobs. Obama naively set himself higher expectations than he could possible hope to accomplish in one term, yet that is a sin nearly every politician is guilty of. Mitt's purposeful mendacity is on a completely different plane than Obama's failed campaign promises.
The saddest thing of it all is that the GOP's chosen course of Elmer Fudd politics has succeeded. America's two party system consists of a center-right Democratic party and a far-right Republican party that crowd out any hope for a substantive policy discussion. Obama has bent so far to the right in an attempt to appease his detractors that he has alienated a good portion of his supporters. Compared to Bush, Obama has drilled for more oil, coal, and natural gas, assessed fewer EPA fines, continued No Child Left Behind's accountability measures, championed charter schools, kept Guantanamo open, stayed in Afghanistan, and extended the Bush tax cuts for all wage brackets. Whatever his secret intentions may be, Obama's record shows him to be anything but the radical socialist that conservative pundits make him out to be.
Of course, after slandering him for being a socialist, fascist, atheist, anti-American, Muslim, the talking heads turn around and call him divisive too. And that's why I watch Fox News: the incredible irony of it all.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Society is More Than Just its Economy
I was having a discussion with a few of my good friends a while back, and I asked "Why don't we have a presidential candidate running a campaign on social issues?" They responded with the same old logic that has been dictating the political discussion for a long time, "It's the economy, stupid." It's true that this election is largely a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy and a debate on the proper role of government in regulating and stimulating the economy, but it is not true that the economy is the only thing that is going on. For many people, other issues like abortion, gay rights, woman's rights, civil rights, immigration reform, voting rights, foreign policy, campaign financing, free speech, internet freedom, and so on are equally as important as Obama's stewardship of the American economy. I find it insulting, as they trumpet time and time again, that these issues are nothing but a "distraction" from the "real" issue, which is always: creating jobs, and growing the economy.
I'm sure many of you saw the video of the veteran who got the chance to sit down with Romney at a campaign stop in a diner. He asked a simple question: if Romney would support same-sex marriage. Romney flat-out declined, and the veteran told reporters after the exchange that he definitely wouldn't vote for Romney. When pressed on why, he said "Because I'm gay, that's why." He went on to say that he didn't see the difference between his loving relationship and that of any other two individuals, and to think that his civil rights were being infringed upon after his years of service to this country is unjust. To say that same-sex marriage is just a "distraction" from the "real" issues facing this country is a disservice to all of those people who just want to same privileges afforded to heterosexual couples to be extended to all couples. My argument for gay marriage has always been simple: Christianity, or any religion for that matter, does not own the concept of marriage. Jews get married, Muslims get married, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans get married, and they don't have to double-check with Christian leaders if it is fine by them. Hell, even nihilists, pedophiles, and murderers can get married, and those acts are sinful according to the Bible. So why the special prohibition against homosexual marriage? It isn't wasting political capital to talk about this issue, and it has literally zero effect on the economy, so don't tell me that now is not the time. Don't just kick the can down the road, address the issue.
Another issue I would like to have an open debate about is the DREAM act. To me, it seems like a pretty simple idea: If you were brought here through no choice of your own, if you did not get in trouble, completed high school, and decided to serve your country or pursue your dreams in higher education, the United States has a vested interest in helping you do so. It is not a costly program, it does not open the floodgates to millions of illegal immigrants, and it provides amnesty to people who, although here illegally, did not choose to be here. There are two principles of American society that I think apply here. One is that "All people are created equal" and have the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It does not include a clause that says "only if you were born on American soil, or if your parents did not commit a crime." The crime of the parents should not indict the virtue of the child. The second principle is enshrined on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/ Send these, the homeless, tempest toss'd to me,/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door." I'm not sure that Romney's policy of "self-deportation" is in keeping with this sentiment.
I don't think that Obama is on the right side of all social issues, and I think he's gone the wrong way on some foreign policy questions, such as drone strikes, execution of American citizens abroad, or expansion of privacy invasions. But I do think that he is more closely aligned with my vision of a just and free society than what Romney is advocating for. Social issues matter to me, because they are the issues on which the government plays a clear role. The debates on the proper role of government in promoting economic growth are a never-ending quagmire, and it is difficult to wade through the muck to get an idea of who knows what they are talking about. I want a society where everyone can marry the love of their life, where good residents can become good citizens, and where discrimination based upon race, gender, ethnicity, or creed is expressly prohibited by law. I have seen Obama make moves in the right direction down these paths, and I hope that a second term will make further gains. I fear that a Romney presidency would be socially as well as economically regressive, and that confirms my support for Obama in November.
I'm sure many of you saw the video of the veteran who got the chance to sit down with Romney at a campaign stop in a diner. He asked a simple question: if Romney would support same-sex marriage. Romney flat-out declined, and the veteran told reporters after the exchange that he definitely wouldn't vote for Romney. When pressed on why, he said "Because I'm gay, that's why." He went on to say that he didn't see the difference between his loving relationship and that of any other two individuals, and to think that his civil rights were being infringed upon after his years of service to this country is unjust. To say that same-sex marriage is just a "distraction" from the "real" issues facing this country is a disservice to all of those people who just want to same privileges afforded to heterosexual couples to be extended to all couples. My argument for gay marriage has always been simple: Christianity, or any religion for that matter, does not own the concept of marriage. Jews get married, Muslims get married, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans get married, and they don't have to double-check with Christian leaders if it is fine by them. Hell, even nihilists, pedophiles, and murderers can get married, and those acts are sinful according to the Bible. So why the special prohibition against homosexual marriage? It isn't wasting political capital to talk about this issue, and it has literally zero effect on the economy, so don't tell me that now is not the time. Don't just kick the can down the road, address the issue.
Another issue I would like to have an open debate about is the DREAM act. To me, it seems like a pretty simple idea: If you were brought here through no choice of your own, if you did not get in trouble, completed high school, and decided to serve your country or pursue your dreams in higher education, the United States has a vested interest in helping you do so. It is not a costly program, it does not open the floodgates to millions of illegal immigrants, and it provides amnesty to people who, although here illegally, did not choose to be here. There are two principles of American society that I think apply here. One is that "All people are created equal" and have the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It does not include a clause that says "only if you were born on American soil, or if your parents did not commit a crime." The crime of the parents should not indict the virtue of the child. The second principle is enshrined on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,/ Send these, the homeless, tempest toss'd to me,/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door." I'm not sure that Romney's policy of "self-deportation" is in keeping with this sentiment.
I don't think that Obama is on the right side of all social issues, and I think he's gone the wrong way on some foreign policy questions, such as drone strikes, execution of American citizens abroad, or expansion of privacy invasions. But I do think that he is more closely aligned with my vision of a just and free society than what Romney is advocating for. Social issues matter to me, because they are the issues on which the government plays a clear role. The debates on the proper role of government in promoting economic growth are a never-ending quagmire, and it is difficult to wade through the muck to get an idea of who knows what they are talking about. I want a society where everyone can marry the love of their life, where good residents can become good citizens, and where discrimination based upon race, gender, ethnicity, or creed is expressly prohibited by law. I have seen Obama make moves in the right direction down these paths, and I hope that a second term will make further gains. I fear that a Romney presidency would be socially as well as economically regressive, and that confirms my support for Obama in November.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
DNC, Grow a Spine
While I may disagree with the GOP on most policy issues, I have to give them a great deal of credit for one thing: their political strength and solidarity. The Dems, on the other hand, splinter and bicker about the correct route forward, and often lose the political battle through their divisiveness. Then, whether or not it is a fair criticism, the Democrats are blasted in the media for being ineffective, divided, and for not leading the country forward. Paul Ryan, in his speech at the RNC, repeated the ability of conservatives to lead, and I have to agree with him. When the Republican party comes up with a new talking point or policy position, it is astonishing how quickly they can rally the whole of their base behind it. Two examples I'd like to use to illustrate this point are Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge and the sudden panic about deficit reduction. Republicans have historically opposed raising taxes; indeed, Reagan and George HW Bush ran on pledges of lowering taxes. Remember Bush's campaign slogan: "Read my lips. No new taxes,"? The difference between Republicans 20 years ago and today is that, when confronted with the reality of balancing a budge and running a country, they used to raise taxes. Reagan raised taxes over 10 times after initially lowering them, because he realized that the growth that may be stimulated through tax cuts does not compensate for the lost revenue. The elder Bush also reversed his campaign pledge and raised taxes when confronted with the realities of government. Today however, an unelected radical, Grover Norquist, has the Republican party held hostage to some pledge that most people think is naive at best, sinister at worst. What Norquist has on his side are big monied interests that will put huge resources into elections to insure that Republicans who reneg on the pledge will not be reelected. But the public message is that "We can't raise taxes on job creators. Ever. Under no circumstance." The point is that the party was able to rally behind a single message, and Democrats cannot compete with that sort of solidarity. Similarly with the debt panic, which is really a rather new thing. Since the Tea Party revolution 2 years ago, it has suddenly become impossibly urgent to reduce the debt, and do so now. This is a remarkable departure from past Republican positions, who freely racked up deficits because, as Dick Cheney once said "The deficit doesn't matter." Apparently it only becomes an issue under a Democratic president. Regardless, the Republican party has demonstrated a remarkable agility in rallying behind a new talking point.
In contrast, Democrats can't agree on anything, and the latest, most embarrassing example occurred during the DNC last week. After being blasted by conservative commentators for not proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and for not praising God in their convention platform, Democrats scripted a change to the party platform. The convention president, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, proposed an amendment to the DNC platform that would include mentions of God in the faith section, and include a nod to Israel in the foreign policy. The method of amendment was by a vocal vote, in which a two-thirds majority would be needed for ratification. He asked once, and the yeas and nays were nearly equal. That should have been the end of it. There was no super majority to ratify the amendment, and thus it should have been dropped. Instead, he asked again if there should be an amendment to the party platform. For a second time, the yeas and nays almost perfectly counterbalanced each other. But again, the DNC leaders refused to yield. Instead, he asked a third time, received exactly the same response and then claimed "in the opinion of the chair" that there was the requisite super majority needed to ratify the amendment. What a bunch of BS. If anything, the nays grew in intensity as the question was repeated. Perhaps most disturbing about it all was that the ratification was pre-scripted on the teleprompter, so Villaraigosa knew exactly what to say after the vote was taken. It was the most awkward and slimy moment of the DNC convention, bar none.
Here's the thinking of the DNC heads: "Oh crap, the Republicans have the religious vote locked down, and we can't appear weak on Israel, so we better do something quick." They tried it, and the Democratic base voted it down. To try to save face, they stole a page from Romney-Ryan's book and just flat out lied. It's downright embarrassing, and anyone who believes that our political parties are not run by special interests should take notice. It doesn't matter what the average person really wants, because both parties only pay attention to special interests and talking heads on television and try to run damage control. The stupidest thing about it all is that it won't sway a single voter over to the Democrat side in November. Look, the Christian Right is a united front, and simply amending your party platform to include a mention of God isn't going to change any of that. Whether or not your party's platform more closely corresponds to Christian teachings is irrelevant, apparently. The sides are dug in, and all that the Dems have done is piss off a whole bunch of their constituents. Furthermore, I really liked the language that the DNC had on faith without any explicit mention of God because there should not be a specific endorsement of any religion in a political party platform. Instead, they wrote: "We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships with faith-based and other non-profit organizations to serve those in need and advance our shared interests. There is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution, and a full commitment to both principles is essential for the continued flourishing of both faith and country."
That paragraph doesn't take anything away from Christianity, but it also doesn't privilege it above other faiths. What is does do is respect the rights of Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and any other person of faith as equally protected and valid. What the DNC did was slimy and embarrassing, and goes against their own principles of inclusion and "one person, one vote." If they had a backbone, they would have accepted the amendment as dead, and defended that action in the media. They could argue that they don't endorse one faith above any other, and that all faithful individuals have a place within their party. They could argue that, as a democratic institution, they believe that the voice of the people is the guiding force of their party. What we have instead is just a farce. You didn't win any votes with this decision, and you probably lost a lot more than you'll gain. Great job, morons.
In contrast, Democrats can't agree on anything, and the latest, most embarrassing example occurred during the DNC last week. After being blasted by conservative commentators for not proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and for not praising God in their convention platform, Democrats scripted a change to the party platform. The convention president, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, proposed an amendment to the DNC platform that would include mentions of God in the faith section, and include a nod to Israel in the foreign policy. The method of amendment was by a vocal vote, in which a two-thirds majority would be needed for ratification. He asked once, and the yeas and nays were nearly equal. That should have been the end of it. There was no super majority to ratify the amendment, and thus it should have been dropped. Instead, he asked again if there should be an amendment to the party platform. For a second time, the yeas and nays almost perfectly counterbalanced each other. But again, the DNC leaders refused to yield. Instead, he asked a third time, received exactly the same response and then claimed "in the opinion of the chair" that there was the requisite super majority needed to ratify the amendment. What a bunch of BS. If anything, the nays grew in intensity as the question was repeated. Perhaps most disturbing about it all was that the ratification was pre-scripted on the teleprompter, so Villaraigosa knew exactly what to say after the vote was taken. It was the most awkward and slimy moment of the DNC convention, bar none.
Here's the thinking of the DNC heads: "Oh crap, the Republicans have the religious vote locked down, and we can't appear weak on Israel, so we better do something quick." They tried it, and the Democratic base voted it down. To try to save face, they stole a page from Romney-Ryan's book and just flat out lied. It's downright embarrassing, and anyone who believes that our political parties are not run by special interests should take notice. It doesn't matter what the average person really wants, because both parties only pay attention to special interests and talking heads on television and try to run damage control. The stupidest thing about it all is that it won't sway a single voter over to the Democrat side in November. Look, the Christian Right is a united front, and simply amending your party platform to include a mention of God isn't going to change any of that. Whether or not your party's platform more closely corresponds to Christian teachings is irrelevant, apparently. The sides are dug in, and all that the Dems have done is piss off a whole bunch of their constituents. Furthermore, I really liked the language that the DNC had on faith without any explicit mention of God because there should not be a specific endorsement of any religion in a political party platform. Instead, they wrote: "We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships with faith-based and other non-profit organizations to serve those in need and advance our shared interests. There is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution, and a full commitment to both principles is essential for the continued flourishing of both faith and country."
That paragraph doesn't take anything away from Christianity, but it also doesn't privilege it above other faiths. What is does do is respect the rights of Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and any other person of faith as equally protected and valid. What the DNC did was slimy and embarrassing, and goes against their own principles of inclusion and "one person, one vote." If they had a backbone, they would have accepted the amendment as dead, and defended that action in the media. They could argue that they don't endorse one faith above any other, and that all faithful individuals have a place within their party. They could argue that, as a democratic institution, they believe that the voice of the people is the guiding force of their party. What we have instead is just a farce. You didn't win any votes with this decision, and you probably lost a lot more than you'll gain. Great job, morons.
Friday, September 7, 2012
There is no Silver Bullet
I've argued a lot for a more progressive tax code in order to save this country from our debt crisis, because I've always felt that a flat tax is not a fair tax, and that to take more from those who can least afford it is not the way to get our fiscal house back in order. In response, I hear time and time again that taxes on "job creators" will stifle innovation, lose millions of jobs, and wreck our economy. The silver bullet that they propose instead is one that has been tried time and time again, and has failed to deliver each time. Lowering taxes on the wealthy does not drive the economy, it does not provide for the poor, and it sure as hell does not equate to prosperity for everyone. Our top marginal tax rates, whether personal income, corporate income, or capital gains are at the lowest levels they have been since the 1930's. How low is low enough? When will the magic of tax breaks cast its spell?
In response to a debt reduction plan that defies arithmetic, democrats proposed a plan offering a balanced approach to debt reduction. A combination of spending cuts and tax increases, democrats argued, would be the best way to continue providing necessary services to those in need while bringing our finances back from the brink of insolvency. Let me remind you of a moment from the republican debates a few months back. When asked if they would accept 10 dollars of spending cuts for 1 dollar of revenue increases, each and every prospective republican candidate refused the offer. These candidates don't negotiate, they stonewall. Again I ask, how low is low enough? Why have we not seen results from tax cuts? I can see the effects these revenue cuts have taken all across Oregon, my home state. Schools are cutting teachers and cramming more children into classrooms badly in need of repair, roads and bridges are going years without adequate repair, and policemen and firemen are losing their jobs. Food assistance for the starving is underfunded, care for the elderly and the disabled is being cut, all in hope that somehow, sometime, the economy will boom, and everything can be paid for again. This is not a reasonable approach to deficit reduction, it is placing the burden of Wall Streets failure upon the backs of those who had no part in its crash.
Look, when the government employs people, that's not throwing tax dollars away, that's putting tax dollars back into the economy. Teachers, firemen, police officers, social workers, and government employees are consumers, just like any person from the private sector. Every dollar spent on a teacher is a dollar invested in the next generation, and a dollar that will get spent in the market, or reinvested by the teacher. Government jobs are real jobs, held by real people, and they have a real impact for millions of middle and low class people across America. To those who proclaim that we are robbing our children of their futures by overspending, and in the same breath advocate for deeper spending cuts for education, I say: how dare you. Education is the key to one's future. If we forget that, it won't be a fiscal deficit we have to worry about, but a knowledge deficit. When the next generation of Americans grows up, it is our duty to have provided them with the skills they will need to succeed in that work force. Austerity fails to do so.
Whenever a plan is advertised as "good for the economy," I wonder, for whom is it really good? Government jobs are primarily filled by individuals in the middle and lower classes, and cutting government jobs most acutely affects those who can least afford it. On the other hand, financial analysts argue that if their taxes are cut further, GDP will surely rise. Well, GDP growth is at best a crude measurement of the health of the economy. If the richest tenth of our population is doing great, GDP will rise, regardless of the conditions felt by the other 90% of citizens. Lowering the highest marginal tax rates and relaxing financial regulations will just further entrench money in financial centers, but won't bring any relief to struggling counties in the Mississippi delta, in the Appalachians, or in rural middle-America towns. They simply won't see the prosperity come raining down, and if they do, it will be a trickle. With an eye to the future, and with a plan that will immediately create jobs, the government should boost infrastructure and education spending that will lower unemployment and bring us out of this depression. Yes, there are cuts to be made, and government waste to be reduced. But we cannot rob this next generation of the infrastructure and education that we enjoyed, simply because our financial institutions became "too big to fail." That would be economically unsound, and morally unjust.
In response to a debt reduction plan that defies arithmetic, democrats proposed a plan offering a balanced approach to debt reduction. A combination of spending cuts and tax increases, democrats argued, would be the best way to continue providing necessary services to those in need while bringing our finances back from the brink of insolvency. Let me remind you of a moment from the republican debates a few months back. When asked if they would accept 10 dollars of spending cuts for 1 dollar of revenue increases, each and every prospective republican candidate refused the offer. These candidates don't negotiate, they stonewall. Again I ask, how low is low enough? Why have we not seen results from tax cuts? I can see the effects these revenue cuts have taken all across Oregon, my home state. Schools are cutting teachers and cramming more children into classrooms badly in need of repair, roads and bridges are going years without adequate repair, and policemen and firemen are losing their jobs. Food assistance for the starving is underfunded, care for the elderly and the disabled is being cut, all in hope that somehow, sometime, the economy will boom, and everything can be paid for again. This is not a reasonable approach to deficit reduction, it is placing the burden of Wall Streets failure upon the backs of those who had no part in its crash.
Look, when the government employs people, that's not throwing tax dollars away, that's putting tax dollars back into the economy. Teachers, firemen, police officers, social workers, and government employees are consumers, just like any person from the private sector. Every dollar spent on a teacher is a dollar invested in the next generation, and a dollar that will get spent in the market, or reinvested by the teacher. Government jobs are real jobs, held by real people, and they have a real impact for millions of middle and low class people across America. To those who proclaim that we are robbing our children of their futures by overspending, and in the same breath advocate for deeper spending cuts for education, I say: how dare you. Education is the key to one's future. If we forget that, it won't be a fiscal deficit we have to worry about, but a knowledge deficit. When the next generation of Americans grows up, it is our duty to have provided them with the skills they will need to succeed in that work force. Austerity fails to do so.
Whenever a plan is advertised as "good for the economy," I wonder, for whom is it really good? Government jobs are primarily filled by individuals in the middle and lower classes, and cutting government jobs most acutely affects those who can least afford it. On the other hand, financial analysts argue that if their taxes are cut further, GDP will surely rise. Well, GDP growth is at best a crude measurement of the health of the economy. If the richest tenth of our population is doing great, GDP will rise, regardless of the conditions felt by the other 90% of citizens. Lowering the highest marginal tax rates and relaxing financial regulations will just further entrench money in financial centers, but won't bring any relief to struggling counties in the Mississippi delta, in the Appalachians, or in rural middle-America towns. They simply won't see the prosperity come raining down, and if they do, it will be a trickle. With an eye to the future, and with a plan that will immediately create jobs, the government should boost infrastructure and education spending that will lower unemployment and bring us out of this depression. Yes, there are cuts to be made, and government waste to be reduced. But we cannot rob this next generation of the infrastructure and education that we enjoyed, simply because our financial institutions became "too big to fail." That would be economically unsound, and morally unjust.
Monday, September 3, 2012
False Equality
I am always surprised at the rhetorical lengths politicians will go to in order to promote a policy, but this "We Built It" crap is nonsense. The worst of it all, is that Republicans play the victim and argue that there is equally hyperbolic and offensive attacks from the other side. It isn't even close. Yes, the Democrats have launched offensive advertisements, and Democratic politicians have painted pictures of Romney as callous, uncaring, immoral, etc. I could not agree with you more on that point: many Democrats and Liberals are lying bastards, who will say anything to get their way. I despise those sorts of people, who manipulate the facts and distort reality in order to promote a policy. There are many instances where unions have distorted facts and lied in order to influence a policy change. That is wrong, and I agree with you. I only hope you can grant me the same outrage when I point it out in your own rhetoric, and illuminate the falsehoods you are perpetuating.
Please, take a second and really think about what words you are chanting, wearing on your shirts, displaying proudly online. Think if you truly, in your heart of hearts, believe what you are saying and accept the implications of the statement. To chant "We Built It" is to imply that the other party does not support the same thing. The president's statement, "You Didn't Build That," was simply not about small businesses, or about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, or about demonizing success. That is absolutely false, and bears no relation to reality. Why would the president demonize success? He is very successful, ultra-competitive, and is running an election campaign - why would he deliberately demonize any demographic, especially one so prominent as "successful people." Success is such an amorphous term anyway. There is no single definition of a successful person; I'm sure President Obama considers himself successful. What do you even mean by that, "demonizing success?" Do you really think Barack Obama hates achievement, and wants all of America to, I don't even know what, be welfare slaves? If you mean the kind of achievement that I would better characterize as capitalist rapaciousness, then I agree wholeheartedly with the criticism. Not everyone rates success or achievement solely through one's (offshore) bank account or one's trust fund, in fact, most people will never enjoy the security of said trust fund, or savings account.
That is not to say that having a savings account, working hard, or achieving is wrong, or evil, or immoral. I am not saying that at all. Perhaps my greatest dream in life is owning a house, starting a family, having a stable, respectable job. I believe that was what the American dream was all about in the first place. In my mind, a society that can provide a reasonable and sustainable path to that dream is the greatest society that we can have in place. And I believe that nearly every liberal, democrat, even most socialists would agree that providing a route to such success is a function of a good government. I recognize there are radical elements out there who would do away with the notion of private property in all, and I disagree with those individuals. The president does too. He is not an anarchist, or a radical Muslim jihadist, who is the product of some half-century old communist scheme to elect a radical president at this precise moment. The whole birther thing is an entirely different story - who the fuck cares? What does it matter, in his policy, if he is born in Kenya? But I'll have to leave that issue for another day.
It isn't a false equality of rhetoric at all. One side says the other is unamerican, unpatriotic, atheist, muslim anarchist, communist, etc, and the other says the other are greedy bastards, who do not want to share the wealth. How can you honestly equate the two? Greed, need I remind all your Christian conservatives out there, is a sin. In fact, if I remember correctly, greed and avarice are some of the seven deadly sins. It isn't unamerican to decry greed and avarice, it is at the very center of our moral fabric. Don't pretend for an instant that Mitt Romney is not a greedy man. Why do you need $250 million dollars? And you think only paying 13% on your taxes is somehow a fair rate, and that a more progressive tax code would somehow destroy innovation and wreak havoc on the entire economy. The man has amassed a fortune amounting to a quarter of a billion dollars; do you really think he would not have been pretty damn successful with a 20% tax rate, or, God forbid, something a little bit higher than a janitor pays? If you raise taxes on the wealthy, why would they just say "to hell with it all" and stop working entirely? From the party of individual achievement in the face of obstacles, arguing that a higher tax rate would crush peoples urge to strive smacks of utter bullshit. I thought that the poor should rise up themselves, even though times are tough. But when the wealthy are asked to pay a bit more, suddenly it becomes impossible to achieve in a harder tax climate.
And finally, look around you as you chant "We Built It." How many objects and services that you enjoy every day did you really build? With your bare hands, with no help from the government in any shape or form. Did you, for instance, build the Tampa convention center, or the roads to get there; did you lay the cable for the electrical infrastructure; did you fight, and die in battle, to protect your liberty to chant those words; or did the government play some role. If you started a business, who educated your employees? Do they drive on streets to get to work, or take public transportation? You didn't build that. Did you settle the town you grew up in, or did the government build up that city, invest millions of dollars and countless hours of union and public manpower to build it? You didn't build that. Think about it, there is honestly no way you can disagree with the role the government plays in a good society. I don't want to destroy society when I say that there should be a more progressive tax code, I want to raise the funds necessary to keep those roads maintained, and keep those schools open, and keep those teachers employed. Don't be a lemming, and accept some terrible talking point as your political mantra. Please, just take a second, and just think about it.
Please, take a second and really think about what words you are chanting, wearing on your shirts, displaying proudly online. Think if you truly, in your heart of hearts, believe what you are saying and accept the implications of the statement. To chant "We Built It" is to imply that the other party does not support the same thing. The president's statement, "You Didn't Build That," was simply not about small businesses, or about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, or about demonizing success. That is absolutely false, and bears no relation to reality. Why would the president demonize success? He is very successful, ultra-competitive, and is running an election campaign - why would he deliberately demonize any demographic, especially one so prominent as "successful people." Success is such an amorphous term anyway. There is no single definition of a successful person; I'm sure President Obama considers himself successful. What do you even mean by that, "demonizing success?" Do you really think Barack Obama hates achievement, and wants all of America to, I don't even know what, be welfare slaves? If you mean the kind of achievement that I would better characterize as capitalist rapaciousness, then I agree wholeheartedly with the criticism. Not everyone rates success or achievement solely through one's (offshore) bank account or one's trust fund, in fact, most people will never enjoy the security of said trust fund, or savings account.
That is not to say that having a savings account, working hard, or achieving is wrong, or evil, or immoral. I am not saying that at all. Perhaps my greatest dream in life is owning a house, starting a family, having a stable, respectable job. I believe that was what the American dream was all about in the first place. In my mind, a society that can provide a reasonable and sustainable path to that dream is the greatest society that we can have in place. And I believe that nearly every liberal, democrat, even most socialists would agree that providing a route to such success is a function of a good government. I recognize there are radical elements out there who would do away with the notion of private property in all, and I disagree with those individuals. The president does too. He is not an anarchist, or a radical Muslim jihadist, who is the product of some half-century old communist scheme to elect a radical president at this precise moment. The whole birther thing is an entirely different story - who the fuck cares? What does it matter, in his policy, if he is born in Kenya? But I'll have to leave that issue for another day.
It isn't a false equality of rhetoric at all. One side says the other is unamerican, unpatriotic, atheist, muslim anarchist, communist, etc, and the other says the other are greedy bastards, who do not want to share the wealth. How can you honestly equate the two? Greed, need I remind all your Christian conservatives out there, is a sin. In fact, if I remember correctly, greed and avarice are some of the seven deadly sins. It isn't unamerican to decry greed and avarice, it is at the very center of our moral fabric. Don't pretend for an instant that Mitt Romney is not a greedy man. Why do you need $250 million dollars? And you think only paying 13% on your taxes is somehow a fair rate, and that a more progressive tax code would somehow destroy innovation and wreak havoc on the entire economy. The man has amassed a fortune amounting to a quarter of a billion dollars; do you really think he would not have been pretty damn successful with a 20% tax rate, or, God forbid, something a little bit higher than a janitor pays? If you raise taxes on the wealthy, why would they just say "to hell with it all" and stop working entirely? From the party of individual achievement in the face of obstacles, arguing that a higher tax rate would crush peoples urge to strive smacks of utter bullshit. I thought that the poor should rise up themselves, even though times are tough. But when the wealthy are asked to pay a bit more, suddenly it becomes impossible to achieve in a harder tax climate.
And finally, look around you as you chant "We Built It." How many objects and services that you enjoy every day did you really build? With your bare hands, with no help from the government in any shape or form. Did you, for instance, build the Tampa convention center, or the roads to get there; did you lay the cable for the electrical infrastructure; did you fight, and die in battle, to protect your liberty to chant those words; or did the government play some role. If you started a business, who educated your employees? Do they drive on streets to get to work, or take public transportation? You didn't build that. Did you settle the town you grew up in, or did the government build up that city, invest millions of dollars and countless hours of union and public manpower to build it? You didn't build that. Think about it, there is honestly no way you can disagree with the role the government plays in a good society. I don't want to destroy society when I say that there should be a more progressive tax code, I want to raise the funds necessary to keep those roads maintained, and keep those schools open, and keep those teachers employed. Don't be a lemming, and accept some terrible talking point as your political mantra. Please, just take a second, and just think about it.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Dinesh D'Souza is an idiot.
I'm not sure how many of you have heard about Dinesh D'Souza's new movie, 2016: Obama's America, but it looks like a piece of jingoistic garbage to me. After hearing that it is setting box office records for documentaries, I decided I had to check out the trailer. Here's what I found:
"Obama has a dream, a dream from his father: that the sins of colonialism be set right, and America be downsized... America has a dream, from our founding fathers: that together, we must protect liberty, and America must grow, so with it, liberty grows."
Whenever I hear statements like this, about how America is some bellwether of liberty, my first reaction is always confusion. Dinesh D'Souza is a very successful man; he's been a writer and intellectual for many years, he's a Dartmouth graduate, and currently heads Kings College in New York. For someone with that storied of an academic career, making such a sensational and ahistorical comment is perplexing. The way I see it, either D'Souza is ignorant of American imperial history, or he's maliciously misrepresenting the facts in order to elect Romney. Because I don't like to pin evil motives on people without good evidence, I'm going to opt for the other possibility, that D'Souza is an idiot.
Just off the top of my head, here's a brief history of how when America grows, so with it, liberty grows:
1492: White people "find" America. Within decades, a once glorious civilization is reduced to less that 10% of its former size. The extent of disease and famine ravishing the native communities cannot be fully known, but most historians estimate that untold millions of indigenous people lost their lives in a very short period of time. Using alcohol and unfair bargaining techniques, settlers systematically rob native peoples of their lands. Contract after contract is signed with the United States, and each is subsequently broken by "the land of the free." This theft of land comes to a head under Andrew Jackson, the man who I consider to be the most reprehensible president of all time, who made a name for himself killing natives in order to drive them away from valuable farmland in the south. (Doesn't that sound a lot like "protecting American interests?" The same rationalizations are around today) I'm sure you are familiar with the Cherokee nation's Trail of Tears, a grueling march in which many suffered and perish. And to even think of glorifying General Custer and his "brave" last stand. Custer provoked violence, and got himself into a stupid situation. I cannot do the tragic history of American indigenous peoples true justice, but if you are unfamiliar with the extent of our nation's actions, a little research will be sobering.
Remember how glorified the battle of the Alamo was made out to be in school? Why do you think the Mexican army was attacking the Alamo in the first place? Because they hate "American exceptionalism?" Absolutely not. The lone star republic robbed the Mexican government of hundreds of square miles of land, upon which lived many Mexicans and indigenous peoples. The Texans basically just declared that a vast swath of land was their right, and then proceded to kill and rob the owners of that land. So much for America's sacred property rights.
Beyond the actions of a rogue state like Texas (who wants to take responsibility for Texans, anyway?), America has been far from a liberating force in Mexico. From sacking cities to stealing Arizona, New Mexico, California, and more, America has been the exact opposite of liberators. Even in the 20th century, American naval vessels were bombarding coastal towns in the Gulf of Mexico to dissuade the Mexican government from impeding American trade. What harbingers of peace and liberty.
But Manifest Destiny was not enough for America. After the frontier was closed, and we had taken all the land we could from Mexico, Spain, France, England, and millions of indigenous peoples, we had to turn our sights abroad. Why do native Hawaiian's resent so many white tourists? Because they represent the conquest over a once-free people. We have holdings in Guam, in the Philippines, in the US Virgin islands, in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in nearly every island group in the Caribbean and South Pacific. Do you think that we gained those lands because the natives invited us to liberate them? America was an imperial nation, plain and simple. Anyone who tells you different either does not know their history, or is purposefully distorting the facts. There is no gray area.
In WWI, America passed the Alien and Sedition acts, perhaps the least free laws that have ever been on the books. Speaking out against the war effort, or even just making anti-American proclamations, was enough to get you jailed. In the case of Saccho and Vanzetti, it got them hung. The sheer amount of propaganda that was released in order to stir up a desire for war is staggering - it reeks of fascism. As a nation, we declared an official stance of neutrality only to continue selling arms to both sides of the war. Today I read that America's arms sales have skyrocketed, to over $66 billion per year, by far the highest in the world. Some things never change, do they? The most pressing reason we entered the war was that the side we were most heavily invested in, the British especially, were losing. We needed to hedge our financial bets. Think of it in terms of a bailout: the British war profits were "too big to fail."
In WWII, America acted astonished when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, but there is insurmountable evidence that the White House had been repeatedly warned of Japanese aggression. Because of our colonial holdings in the Pacific ocean, Japan was cut off from valuable resources like oil, steel, and rubber, all vital to an industrializing economy. The Japanese made clear that they were being hemmed in by ABCD, or the Americans, British, Chinese, and Dutch. They claimed that the colonial powers represented an existential threat to their nation and, after repeated warnings, attacked America. It was then, and only then, that we entered the war in Europe. We did nothing when the Alsace-Lorrain was conquered, nor when France was pummeled, nor when Eastern Europe was decimated. Once again, it was only when American economic interests were threatened that we took action.
After WWII, having secured our place as one of the two largest world powers, we quickly antagonized the other. The Soviet Union was a terrible regime also, but was it really so much worse than America? Think back on the Cold War, how often did Communists attack Americans? When were we, unprovoked, threatened with invasion or bombing? Then consider all of the times we enacted a policy of intervention, citing fears of a "domino effect" or worrying about "regional stability?" The Cuban missile crisis was provoked by the Bay of Pigs boondoggle, the Korean war was never declared and never ended, Vietnam is a tragedy of epic proportions, and the even more extensive bombing of Laos and other Southeast Asian nations is appalling. And at home, McCarthyism, Red scares, and xenophobia is the name of the game. Thousands of artists, playwrights, musicians, academicians, and regular citizens were rounded up on charges of sedition. So much for free speech, I suppose.
I can't write an article on American imperialism without mentioning NAFTA and our continued rape of everything else in the Western hemisphere. NAFTA is free trade only by name, and is prejudiced against those who can least afford it. Low-income people, especially from Mexico, resent this agreement because it has done nothing to improve their prospects. The profits are all being bled back to wealthy individuals in the United States. The history of CIA interference in Central and South America is disgusting, and much of it is still classified and unknown. We have overthrown and opposed many popularly elected leaders in the last 50 or 60 years, and replaced them with brutal dictators and imposed regimes that are more friendly to American economic expansion. I'm no expert on this part of history, but what I have read is truly horrifying. We have become the agents of oppression and have opposed the popular will of millions of peoples only to more thickly line our pocket books.
I won't even get into the last 20 years of our history, except for one comment. I have never understood how pre-emptively striking another nation is morally defensible. How does the need to protect one nation's interests supercede the sovereignty of the other? To millions of people, Americans do not represent liberty, equality, or brotherhood, but rather guns, bombs, and civil unrest. Mission accomplished.
Now, I'd like to repeat: I did no extra research for this blog post, but simply wrote down what I could remember about America's bloody past in this world. If you want to know where I am drawing most heavily from, check out Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States of America," Kenneth Davis's "Don't Know Much About History," and James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me." They lay out, in much more extensive detail, exactly how despicable our nation's past has been.
So, Mr D'Souza, as America has grown, has liberty grown?
"Obama has a dream, a dream from his father: that the sins of colonialism be set right, and America be downsized... America has a dream, from our founding fathers: that together, we must protect liberty, and America must grow, so with it, liberty grows."
Whenever I hear statements like this, about how America is some bellwether of liberty, my first reaction is always confusion. Dinesh D'Souza is a very successful man; he's been a writer and intellectual for many years, he's a Dartmouth graduate, and currently heads Kings College in New York. For someone with that storied of an academic career, making such a sensational and ahistorical comment is perplexing. The way I see it, either D'Souza is ignorant of American imperial history, or he's maliciously misrepresenting the facts in order to elect Romney. Because I don't like to pin evil motives on people without good evidence, I'm going to opt for the other possibility, that D'Souza is an idiot.
Just off the top of my head, here's a brief history of how when America grows, so with it, liberty grows:
1492: White people "find" America. Within decades, a once glorious civilization is reduced to less that 10% of its former size. The extent of disease and famine ravishing the native communities cannot be fully known, but most historians estimate that untold millions of indigenous people lost their lives in a very short period of time. Using alcohol and unfair bargaining techniques, settlers systematically rob native peoples of their lands. Contract after contract is signed with the United States, and each is subsequently broken by "the land of the free." This theft of land comes to a head under Andrew Jackson, the man who I consider to be the most reprehensible president of all time, who made a name for himself killing natives in order to drive them away from valuable farmland in the south. (Doesn't that sound a lot like "protecting American interests?" The same rationalizations are around today) I'm sure you are familiar with the Cherokee nation's Trail of Tears, a grueling march in which many suffered and perish. And to even think of glorifying General Custer and his "brave" last stand. Custer provoked violence, and got himself into a stupid situation. I cannot do the tragic history of American indigenous peoples true justice, but if you are unfamiliar with the extent of our nation's actions, a little research will be sobering.
Remember how glorified the battle of the Alamo was made out to be in school? Why do you think the Mexican army was attacking the Alamo in the first place? Because they hate "American exceptionalism?" Absolutely not. The lone star republic robbed the Mexican government of hundreds of square miles of land, upon which lived many Mexicans and indigenous peoples. The Texans basically just declared that a vast swath of land was their right, and then proceded to kill and rob the owners of that land. So much for America's sacred property rights.
Beyond the actions of a rogue state like Texas (who wants to take responsibility for Texans, anyway?), America has been far from a liberating force in Mexico. From sacking cities to stealing Arizona, New Mexico, California, and more, America has been the exact opposite of liberators. Even in the 20th century, American naval vessels were bombarding coastal towns in the Gulf of Mexico to dissuade the Mexican government from impeding American trade. What harbingers of peace and liberty.
But Manifest Destiny was not enough for America. After the frontier was closed, and we had taken all the land we could from Mexico, Spain, France, England, and millions of indigenous peoples, we had to turn our sights abroad. Why do native Hawaiian's resent so many white tourists? Because they represent the conquest over a once-free people. We have holdings in Guam, in the Philippines, in the US Virgin islands, in Puerto Rico, in Cuba, in nearly every island group in the Caribbean and South Pacific. Do you think that we gained those lands because the natives invited us to liberate them? America was an imperial nation, plain and simple. Anyone who tells you different either does not know their history, or is purposefully distorting the facts. There is no gray area.
In WWI, America passed the Alien and Sedition acts, perhaps the least free laws that have ever been on the books. Speaking out against the war effort, or even just making anti-American proclamations, was enough to get you jailed. In the case of Saccho and Vanzetti, it got them hung. The sheer amount of propaganda that was released in order to stir up a desire for war is staggering - it reeks of fascism. As a nation, we declared an official stance of neutrality only to continue selling arms to both sides of the war. Today I read that America's arms sales have skyrocketed, to over $66 billion per year, by far the highest in the world. Some things never change, do they? The most pressing reason we entered the war was that the side we were most heavily invested in, the British especially, were losing. We needed to hedge our financial bets. Think of it in terms of a bailout: the British war profits were "too big to fail."
In WWII, America acted astonished when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, but there is insurmountable evidence that the White House had been repeatedly warned of Japanese aggression. Because of our colonial holdings in the Pacific ocean, Japan was cut off from valuable resources like oil, steel, and rubber, all vital to an industrializing economy. The Japanese made clear that they were being hemmed in by ABCD, or the Americans, British, Chinese, and Dutch. They claimed that the colonial powers represented an existential threat to their nation and, after repeated warnings, attacked America. It was then, and only then, that we entered the war in Europe. We did nothing when the Alsace-Lorrain was conquered, nor when France was pummeled, nor when Eastern Europe was decimated. Once again, it was only when American economic interests were threatened that we took action.
After WWII, having secured our place as one of the two largest world powers, we quickly antagonized the other. The Soviet Union was a terrible regime also, but was it really so much worse than America? Think back on the Cold War, how often did Communists attack Americans? When were we, unprovoked, threatened with invasion or bombing? Then consider all of the times we enacted a policy of intervention, citing fears of a "domino effect" or worrying about "regional stability?" The Cuban missile crisis was provoked by the Bay of Pigs boondoggle, the Korean war was never declared and never ended, Vietnam is a tragedy of epic proportions, and the even more extensive bombing of Laos and other Southeast Asian nations is appalling. And at home, McCarthyism, Red scares, and xenophobia is the name of the game. Thousands of artists, playwrights, musicians, academicians, and regular citizens were rounded up on charges of sedition. So much for free speech, I suppose.
I can't write an article on American imperialism without mentioning NAFTA and our continued rape of everything else in the Western hemisphere. NAFTA is free trade only by name, and is prejudiced against those who can least afford it. Low-income people, especially from Mexico, resent this agreement because it has done nothing to improve their prospects. The profits are all being bled back to wealthy individuals in the United States. The history of CIA interference in Central and South America is disgusting, and much of it is still classified and unknown. We have overthrown and opposed many popularly elected leaders in the last 50 or 60 years, and replaced them with brutal dictators and imposed regimes that are more friendly to American economic expansion. I'm no expert on this part of history, but what I have read is truly horrifying. We have become the agents of oppression and have opposed the popular will of millions of peoples only to more thickly line our pocket books.
I won't even get into the last 20 years of our history, except for one comment. I have never understood how pre-emptively striking another nation is morally defensible. How does the need to protect one nation's interests supercede the sovereignty of the other? To millions of people, Americans do not represent liberty, equality, or brotherhood, but rather guns, bombs, and civil unrest. Mission accomplished.
Now, I'd like to repeat: I did no extra research for this blog post, but simply wrote down what I could remember about America's bloody past in this world. If you want to know where I am drawing most heavily from, check out Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States of America," Kenneth Davis's "Don't Know Much About History," and James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me." They lay out, in much more extensive detail, exactly how despicable our nation's past has been.
So, Mr D'Souza, as America has grown, has liberty grown?
Friday, August 17, 2012
Welfare Reform
Recently, welfare reform has returned to the forefront of our national political discussion and has just as quickly been turned from an opportunity for substantive discouse into little more than a shouting match over the airwaves. The question is not whether welfare needs to be reformed, but how it can be reformed so that the government can continue providing benefits to millions of struggling Americans. Entitlement spending, in the forms of welfare, social security, and health coverage, is growing exponentially, and the fear is that future costs will tank the national economy. The fear of fiscal calamity is very real and rational - most models and projections agree that, if changes are not made, social spending will soon overwhelm the national deficit. The question is, then, how should welfare be organized to maximize its impact?
Like many issues about which conservatives are passionate, they argue about welfare based upon principle. Welfare without a work requirement, conservatives argue, is nothing more than a free handout, and free handouts are unfair to the productive members of society. They argue that it is unfair to use the success of one to pay for the failure of another. They claim that welfare benefits encourage out-of-wedlock births, drug use, and engender a culture of dependency upon the government. In a surprising twist of illogic, I have even heard it argued that welfare is a form of modern slavery, as though each welfare check comes pre-packaged with shackles and chains. I'd like to combat these principles of "fairness" with a few principles of my own.
There are few words so fundamentally American as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..." The Declaration of Independence is the foundational document of our democracy, and guides the moral compass of our nation. Where else should one begin when discussing principles of welfare? The first thing I would like to point out is that the rights are "inalienable," meaning that no person can lawfully dispossess a citizen of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In regard to welfare, what is more fundamental to life than food and shelter? The government's role is to safeguard our rights, therefore it follows that the government should ensure that every citizen has daily sustenance. There are no qualifications or conditions attached to these rights; they are inalienable, fundamental. We do not hold it to be self-evident that man has the right to food if and only if he works, or that man can only be free if he is a productive member of society. In my mind, there is little else a government should be doing if its population is starving. What else could be more democratic than ensuring that each man, woman, and child has enough food to make it to the next morning?
The argument that welfare is a form of modern slavery is spurious at best. No chains can bind so tightly as the confines of poverty - welfare provides a helping hand out of that cycle. Think back on your own life: have you ever been bailed out by another? Have you ever called your parents for a few extra bucks to make the next rent check? Did doing so enslave you? Nobody makes it through this world alone, and to muddy the issue by throwing around accusations of slavery is plainly dispicable. Slavery is the theft of one's human rights, whereas welfare is a temporary form of assistance to those who are already struggling. If someone is already living in conditions of poverty, would you begrudge them the food on their plate?
Conservatives often argue that the government fulfills many unnecessary roles that would be better filled by the private sector - one such program is welfare. They argue that, were the government to get out of the way, private charities would step in to fill the void. I have never understood this claim. Poverty has already run rampant, so where are the private charities currently? Whether or not welfare exists as a government program should have no bearing on the private charitable contributions of Americans. If Americans are as generous as conservative think tanks argue, then they should already be working to solve poverty, rather than waiting for welfare to be gutted. I contend that it is utterly irresponsible to argue that private charity can step up to fill the void that the federal government's millions of dollars currently fill. I'm all for private charity and for volunteerism, but that charitable impulse exists independent of government action. If you feel truly charitable, do something charitable. Do not blame the policies of others for your inaction.
The final point I'd like to make is also, to me, the strongest. Regardless of the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births (which are a function of changing social standards), increased drug use among welfare recipients (drug use is widespread across all socio-economic statuses, especially if you consider alcohol use and abuse), or a degradation of the work ethic (a whole separate issue in itself), welfare reform impacts the children of these struggling families the most. If we believe that "all men are created equal," then we should ensure that every child is guaranteed sustenance and shelter every day of their life, without any consideration of their parent's actions. If my dad is a deadbeat drug dealer and criminal who never worked a day in his life, why should I have to suffer as a child? You can make whatever argument you want about the moral implications of free handouts, or about the social implications of welfare without a work requirement, but in the end, it is the children who suffer most acutely from reduced benefits. I think that welfare needs to be expanded, that more people need (and deserve) food assistance, that housing for low-income individuals needs to be more readily available, and that there is no higher purpose for the government than to address these issues. Forget foreign wars, forget missions to Mars, let us fix the very real problems in our homeland. People are starving, children are dying, and all our political leaders can do is point fingers at each other. Nothing is of such paramount importance, and nothing deserves the focused attention of our nation as poverty reduction.
Like many issues about which conservatives are passionate, they argue about welfare based upon principle. Welfare without a work requirement, conservatives argue, is nothing more than a free handout, and free handouts are unfair to the productive members of society. They argue that it is unfair to use the success of one to pay for the failure of another. They claim that welfare benefits encourage out-of-wedlock births, drug use, and engender a culture of dependency upon the government. In a surprising twist of illogic, I have even heard it argued that welfare is a form of modern slavery, as though each welfare check comes pre-packaged with shackles and chains. I'd like to combat these principles of "fairness" with a few principles of my own.
There are few words so fundamentally American as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness..." The Declaration of Independence is the foundational document of our democracy, and guides the moral compass of our nation. Where else should one begin when discussing principles of welfare? The first thing I would like to point out is that the rights are "inalienable," meaning that no person can lawfully dispossess a citizen of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. In regard to welfare, what is more fundamental to life than food and shelter? The government's role is to safeguard our rights, therefore it follows that the government should ensure that every citizen has daily sustenance. There are no qualifications or conditions attached to these rights; they are inalienable, fundamental. We do not hold it to be self-evident that man has the right to food if and only if he works, or that man can only be free if he is a productive member of society. In my mind, there is little else a government should be doing if its population is starving. What else could be more democratic than ensuring that each man, woman, and child has enough food to make it to the next morning?
The argument that welfare is a form of modern slavery is spurious at best. No chains can bind so tightly as the confines of poverty - welfare provides a helping hand out of that cycle. Think back on your own life: have you ever been bailed out by another? Have you ever called your parents for a few extra bucks to make the next rent check? Did doing so enslave you? Nobody makes it through this world alone, and to muddy the issue by throwing around accusations of slavery is plainly dispicable. Slavery is the theft of one's human rights, whereas welfare is a temporary form of assistance to those who are already struggling. If someone is already living in conditions of poverty, would you begrudge them the food on their plate?
Conservatives often argue that the government fulfills many unnecessary roles that would be better filled by the private sector - one such program is welfare. They argue that, were the government to get out of the way, private charities would step in to fill the void. I have never understood this claim. Poverty has already run rampant, so where are the private charities currently? Whether or not welfare exists as a government program should have no bearing on the private charitable contributions of Americans. If Americans are as generous as conservative think tanks argue, then they should already be working to solve poverty, rather than waiting for welfare to be gutted. I contend that it is utterly irresponsible to argue that private charity can step up to fill the void that the federal government's millions of dollars currently fill. I'm all for private charity and for volunteerism, but that charitable impulse exists independent of government action. If you feel truly charitable, do something charitable. Do not blame the policies of others for your inaction.
The final point I'd like to make is also, to me, the strongest. Regardless of the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births (which are a function of changing social standards), increased drug use among welfare recipients (drug use is widespread across all socio-economic statuses, especially if you consider alcohol use and abuse), or a degradation of the work ethic (a whole separate issue in itself), welfare reform impacts the children of these struggling families the most. If we believe that "all men are created equal," then we should ensure that every child is guaranteed sustenance and shelter every day of their life, without any consideration of their parent's actions. If my dad is a deadbeat drug dealer and criminal who never worked a day in his life, why should I have to suffer as a child? You can make whatever argument you want about the moral implications of free handouts, or about the social implications of welfare without a work requirement, but in the end, it is the children who suffer most acutely from reduced benefits. I think that welfare needs to be expanded, that more people need (and deserve) food assistance, that housing for low-income individuals needs to be more readily available, and that there is no higher purpose for the government than to address these issues. Forget foreign wars, forget missions to Mars, let us fix the very real problems in our homeland. People are starving, children are dying, and all our political leaders can do is point fingers at each other. Nothing is of such paramount importance, and nothing deserves the focused attention of our nation as poverty reduction.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Case For Renewable Energy
My last post was about the dangers of doubling down on natural gas and coal production as our primary sources of electricity, while this post will focus on the benefits of a push toward renewable energy. I think that now is precisely the time to begin an earnest national effort to revolutionize US energy production; every year we wait just diminishes our gains from making an early investment. The arguments about global warming and the environmental benefits of renewable energy have been made time and time again, by folks who are much more knowledgeable about climate change, so I'll skip them for now. The environmental preference for renewable energy is well-established, but changing our national energy production is always derailed by economic concerns. I'll present my case for making a change to renewables solely through an economic lens in order to show how skewed the current system is, and how certain simple policy changes will redefine the energy industry.
First, proponents of conventional energy production point to the fact that oil, coal, and gas are cheaper to produce than renewable energy. If this were the case, why do those corporations get extremely special treatment in the tax code? It isn't a fair fight in a free market when one side gets local, state, and national tax incentives due to the extremely influential energy lobbyists. I'll give you a quick smattering of some statistics I dug up: the federal government provides about $2 billion in subsidies to conventional energy companies annually, from 1918-2009 that average federal subsidy was about $4.8 billion. It is impossible to argue that the oil companies would have such a stranglehold upon energy production without the billions dollars of preferential treatment they have received from the federal government. The American Coalition for Ethanol estimates that, when local and state tax breaks are factored in, the total tax subsidies for oil companies ranges from $133-280 billion pro annum. All this is occurring at a time when the 3 largest domestic oil companies posted a combined profit of $80 billion dollars. To put the icing on the cake, Exxon paid only a 2% tax rate last year, even though it is the third largest American corporation and continues to post massive profits. I wonder how many other industries could benefit from a 2% tax rate and billions in tax subsidies? It's no wonder that oil and other conventional fuels are currently more viable, because we built the system that way.
Here's how we can balance the scales: make it a profitable venture to start a renewable energy company. People worry that expensive initial costs will not be offset by the energy savings in the future, so we should provide huge incentives to entrepreneurs and small business owners to start renewable energy companies and implement environmentally friendly practices into their businesses. There are some strides being made in this direction that are promising: federal tax deductions of up to 30% for solar and wind power, and 10% for some other renewable sources. I would like to see those deductions go way up, perhaps in the form of federal subsidies so that the business owner doesn't have to deal with the burden of the upfront costs. I've heard the argument that the reason the tax code favors the wealthier segment of the population is because it encourages innovation by promising huge rewards. Thus, people will take a gamble because they hope to strike it big. I think a better system would not raise the ceiling for accomplishment, but would raise the floor, so that if one fails, they don't fall so hard. Make it easy to start a business, to acquire tax credits, to grow your company, and above all, make it less painful to fail. This can be accomplished through business tax credits and incentives for renewable energies, as well as fixing and augmenting the social safety net (much easier said than done, I realize).
On the other side of the tax code, we should tie the tax breaks of the energy companies to renewable incentives. I don't think the best way to achieve energy independence from conventional sources is to go cold-turkey, because that would result in massive blackouts, inefficient distribution, and the loss of thousands of jobs. The results would be catastrophic, if we simply pulled the plug on conventional energy sources. So make it profitable for the big companies to change. If we say, just as an example, Exxon can pay a low tax rate (although 2% is way too low,) as long as they meet such-and-such green standard, then green technologies become more economically viable. One way to do so is link tax subsidies to research and development in renewable energy sources, or to provide a matching tax break whenever a company implements solar or wind power instead of oil. Make it the same upfront cost to build a conventional oil rig as it would be to install a massive solar plant, and more companies will make the change.
Aside from the tax code, which is broken in all sorts of places, we have quite the stagnant job market. There is no time like the present to improve the infrastructure of America, and this creates many jobs on a national scale. The transition to green energy production provides employment opportunities at every turn. We need construction workers to build new plants, install new equipment, retrofit schools and public buildings, etc. The market for engineers expands greatly, as new technologies need to be improved and made more widely available. There are a number of administrative and inspector positions to ensure that environmental standards are being met, and managerial positions will open up to manage new divisions of conventional energy companies. I don't see how a massive investment in renewable energy would be bad for the economy, because it boosts private and public sector hiring, thereby growing the tax base and the number of consumers. The way to get ourselves out of this recession is by putting America back to work.
At the very least, there is one policy that everyone should agree on: refitting our schools and public buildings to make them more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Many public buildings were constructed decades ago, with outdated standards for energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. What better way to create jobs in every school district across the country than to renovate our public schools? This would put thousands of people back to work in every state, thereby increasing tax revenues greatly. Furthermore, green schools would pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time, when one factors in the savings on heat, gas, and electricity. Something as simple as replacing the windows to let in less air, or to refit the insulation to save on heating and cooling bills would save millions of public dollars every year. In short, going in and fixing up our schools saves public money through lowered operational costs, puts thousands of Americans back to work, grows the tax base, and puts a renewed sense of pride back in our schools. It would be a point of national pride to say that we have the most environmentally friendly public schools in the world. I have thought long and hard about this particular policy piece, and I cannot think of a good argument against it. Renovating our schools and public buildings is a policy proposal that should gain national consensus - in fact, I think there are few issues that could garner such broad-based support. It's time we led the charge to creating a more environmentally friendly world. It will never happen without our support.
First, proponents of conventional energy production point to the fact that oil, coal, and gas are cheaper to produce than renewable energy. If this were the case, why do those corporations get extremely special treatment in the tax code? It isn't a fair fight in a free market when one side gets local, state, and national tax incentives due to the extremely influential energy lobbyists. I'll give you a quick smattering of some statistics I dug up: the federal government provides about $2 billion in subsidies to conventional energy companies annually, from 1918-2009 that average federal subsidy was about $4.8 billion. It is impossible to argue that the oil companies would have such a stranglehold upon energy production without the billions dollars of preferential treatment they have received from the federal government. The American Coalition for Ethanol estimates that, when local and state tax breaks are factored in, the total tax subsidies for oil companies ranges from $133-280 billion pro annum. All this is occurring at a time when the 3 largest domestic oil companies posted a combined profit of $80 billion dollars. To put the icing on the cake, Exxon paid only a 2% tax rate last year, even though it is the third largest American corporation and continues to post massive profits. I wonder how many other industries could benefit from a 2% tax rate and billions in tax subsidies? It's no wonder that oil and other conventional fuels are currently more viable, because we built the system that way.
Here's how we can balance the scales: make it a profitable venture to start a renewable energy company. People worry that expensive initial costs will not be offset by the energy savings in the future, so we should provide huge incentives to entrepreneurs and small business owners to start renewable energy companies and implement environmentally friendly practices into their businesses. There are some strides being made in this direction that are promising: federal tax deductions of up to 30% for solar and wind power, and 10% for some other renewable sources. I would like to see those deductions go way up, perhaps in the form of federal subsidies so that the business owner doesn't have to deal with the burden of the upfront costs. I've heard the argument that the reason the tax code favors the wealthier segment of the population is because it encourages innovation by promising huge rewards. Thus, people will take a gamble because they hope to strike it big. I think a better system would not raise the ceiling for accomplishment, but would raise the floor, so that if one fails, they don't fall so hard. Make it easy to start a business, to acquire tax credits, to grow your company, and above all, make it less painful to fail. This can be accomplished through business tax credits and incentives for renewable energies, as well as fixing and augmenting the social safety net (much easier said than done, I realize).
On the other side of the tax code, we should tie the tax breaks of the energy companies to renewable incentives. I don't think the best way to achieve energy independence from conventional sources is to go cold-turkey, because that would result in massive blackouts, inefficient distribution, and the loss of thousands of jobs. The results would be catastrophic, if we simply pulled the plug on conventional energy sources. So make it profitable for the big companies to change. If we say, just as an example, Exxon can pay a low tax rate (although 2% is way too low,) as long as they meet such-and-such green standard, then green technologies become more economically viable. One way to do so is link tax subsidies to research and development in renewable energy sources, or to provide a matching tax break whenever a company implements solar or wind power instead of oil. Make it the same upfront cost to build a conventional oil rig as it would be to install a massive solar plant, and more companies will make the change.
Aside from the tax code, which is broken in all sorts of places, we have quite the stagnant job market. There is no time like the present to improve the infrastructure of America, and this creates many jobs on a national scale. The transition to green energy production provides employment opportunities at every turn. We need construction workers to build new plants, install new equipment, retrofit schools and public buildings, etc. The market for engineers expands greatly, as new technologies need to be improved and made more widely available. There are a number of administrative and inspector positions to ensure that environmental standards are being met, and managerial positions will open up to manage new divisions of conventional energy companies. I don't see how a massive investment in renewable energy would be bad for the economy, because it boosts private and public sector hiring, thereby growing the tax base and the number of consumers. The way to get ourselves out of this recession is by putting America back to work.
At the very least, there is one policy that everyone should agree on: refitting our schools and public buildings to make them more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Many public buildings were constructed decades ago, with outdated standards for energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. What better way to create jobs in every school district across the country than to renovate our public schools? This would put thousands of people back to work in every state, thereby increasing tax revenues greatly. Furthermore, green schools would pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time, when one factors in the savings on heat, gas, and electricity. Something as simple as replacing the windows to let in less air, or to refit the insulation to save on heating and cooling bills would save millions of public dollars every year. In short, going in and fixing up our schools saves public money through lowered operational costs, puts thousands of Americans back to work, grows the tax base, and puts a renewed sense of pride back in our schools. It would be a point of national pride to say that we have the most environmentally friendly public schools in the world. I have thought long and hard about this particular policy piece, and I cannot think of a good argument against it. Renovating our schools and public buildings is a policy proposal that should gain national consensus - in fact, I think there are few issues that could garner such broad-based support. It's time we led the charge to creating a more environmentally friendly world. It will never happen without our support.
Friday, July 27, 2012
I'm an Energy Voter, Too
Frequent viewers of the network news stations may have become aware of the recent "I'm an Energy Voter" ads that have started popping up in support of domestic coal energy. The ads capitalize on public discontent with large petroleum companies, then dangle coal power in front of the viewer as a sort of magical fix to all of America's energy concerns. By using the attention grabber of "Coal: America's Power," and by saying increasing coal production will "create jobs," the commercials brush over environmental and health concerns, acting as though coal production would bring nothing but good to everyone. This is simply not the case.
Coal is an extremely dirty source of energy, and is the exact opposite of the sort of energy we should be pursuing. For example, in 2006, coal accounted for 49% of US energy production, but was responsible for 83% of CO2 emissions by energy production, meaning the ecological impact of coal is many times greater than other sources of power. Less than half of domestic energy production accounted for over four fifths of CO2 emissions, yet large energy companies are pushing for increased coal production. If coal production accounted for an even greater share of domestic energy production, the environmental impact would be vast, and irreversible. It isn't only in carbon emissions that coal falls short of safety expectations, it also puts out dangerous quantities of sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which are extremely hazardous to our health and the well-being of ecosystems near to the plants. This is not just a climate change issue - coal is one of the largest culprits of smog creation, primarily composed of poisonous sulfur oxide and nitrous oxides. There is nothing that effects everyone so broadly as air quality, and nothing that is more important to protect.
Around the same time that I began noticing the coal advertisements, I also started hearing more and more about the benefits of natural gas. Large companies, like Shell, are touting their natural gas interests because it has "50% fewer emissions than coal," and represents a clean and sustainable source of power for years to come. While natural gas is certainly a better energy choice than coal, one method of extraction which has gained a lot of attention in the news lately, hydraulic fracking, is environmentally devastating. Fracking is the process of shooting large quantities of high-pressure water into the ground in order to unearth natural gas supplies that are otherwise unreachable. There are widespread concerns of atmospheric and groundwater contamination, with residents reporting undrinkable or flammable water near most large fracking sites. The natural gas industry denies these claims, arguing that there has not been any direct causal relation between the actual fracking process and groundwater contamination. But that is precisely where the industry's verbal sleight of hand may go unnoticed. They claim that the actual fracking process, or the injection of the water into the soil, has not yet been linked to environmental damage, and the science is still unclear on the matter. There are, however, many associated processes that go along with fracking, such as construction, operation, flowback (when the fracking fluid and natural gas comes flowing back out of the earth), and frequent blowouts in the distribution pipes, all of which have been linked to severe environmental damage by independent researchers. The most recent study (2012) commissioned by the EPA initially held that fracking was a dangerous process, before industry lobbying caused the EPA to narrow their scope to the water injection process. This is dishonest, and unfair. Residents of counties near hydraulic fracking operations have reported undrinkable, sometimes even flammable, water, and the ecological impacts will only become known in the years to come. The hydraulic fracking process also releases dangerous methane gasses, carbon dioxide, and other hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 20 times as harmful as CO2 in trapping atmospheric heat. The fracking process has been shown to release from 4-8% of the extracted methane into the atmosphere, which would have a devastating impact on global climate change. What is more disturbing about the whole affair is that court documents related to the fracking suits are sealed after the suits are resolved. Taking the evidence as a whole, there is more than reasonable suspicion that the gas industry is aware of enivonmental effects of fracking, yet is suppressing this information in the name of profit. In light of similar scandals in other corporate-dominated industries (BP underreporting scope of Deepwater Horizon leaks, LIBOR scandals in London, Big Pharm suppression of life-saving drugs), I believe that the natural gas industry is wilfully ignoring the health of residents so they can reap even greater profits.
Beyond the environmental impacts, pursuing greater coal and natural gas production will not serve the interests of the American people. New technologies allow further distribution of natural gas by liquifying it, then shipping it around the world. The market for natural gas abroad is very profitable, with prices per ton sometimes 4 or 5 times as high as they are domestically. The largest and most profitable market is in Asia. If energy industry lobbyists get their way, all that will happen is a great increase in energy exports, a fattening of industry executives' pocketbooks, and ecological havoc across this great nation. Similarly with the Keystone XL pipeline. Even if you don't believe in global warming, (although nearly every credible scientist does) the Keystone pipeline won't do you a lick of good, and likely will do a lot of bad. Everyone should have the right to clean air and water. Nothing should be supreme to that right, not even electricity production, and especially not profit. The answer to America's energy problems is not more of the same, but a complete and total green revolution. But that deserves a post in its own right, so I guess I'll just leave it at that.
Coal is an extremely dirty source of energy, and is the exact opposite of the sort of energy we should be pursuing. For example, in 2006, coal accounted for 49% of US energy production, but was responsible for 83% of CO2 emissions by energy production, meaning the ecological impact of coal is many times greater than other sources of power. Less than half of domestic energy production accounted for over four fifths of CO2 emissions, yet large energy companies are pushing for increased coal production. If coal production accounted for an even greater share of domestic energy production, the environmental impact would be vast, and irreversible. It isn't only in carbon emissions that coal falls short of safety expectations, it also puts out dangerous quantities of sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which are extremely hazardous to our health and the well-being of ecosystems near to the plants. This is not just a climate change issue - coal is one of the largest culprits of smog creation, primarily composed of poisonous sulfur oxide and nitrous oxides. There is nothing that effects everyone so broadly as air quality, and nothing that is more important to protect.
Around the same time that I began noticing the coal advertisements, I also started hearing more and more about the benefits of natural gas. Large companies, like Shell, are touting their natural gas interests because it has "50% fewer emissions than coal," and represents a clean and sustainable source of power for years to come. While natural gas is certainly a better energy choice than coal, one method of extraction which has gained a lot of attention in the news lately, hydraulic fracking, is environmentally devastating. Fracking is the process of shooting large quantities of high-pressure water into the ground in order to unearth natural gas supplies that are otherwise unreachable. There are widespread concerns of atmospheric and groundwater contamination, with residents reporting undrinkable or flammable water near most large fracking sites. The natural gas industry denies these claims, arguing that there has not been any direct causal relation between the actual fracking process and groundwater contamination. But that is precisely where the industry's verbal sleight of hand may go unnoticed. They claim that the actual fracking process, or the injection of the water into the soil, has not yet been linked to environmental damage, and the science is still unclear on the matter. There are, however, many associated processes that go along with fracking, such as construction, operation, flowback (when the fracking fluid and natural gas comes flowing back out of the earth), and frequent blowouts in the distribution pipes, all of which have been linked to severe environmental damage by independent researchers. The most recent study (2012) commissioned by the EPA initially held that fracking was a dangerous process, before industry lobbying caused the EPA to narrow their scope to the water injection process. This is dishonest, and unfair. Residents of counties near hydraulic fracking operations have reported undrinkable, sometimes even flammable, water, and the ecological impacts will only become known in the years to come. The hydraulic fracking process also releases dangerous methane gasses, carbon dioxide, and other hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 20 times as harmful as CO2 in trapping atmospheric heat. The fracking process has been shown to release from 4-8% of the extracted methane into the atmosphere, which would have a devastating impact on global climate change. What is more disturbing about the whole affair is that court documents related to the fracking suits are sealed after the suits are resolved. Taking the evidence as a whole, there is more than reasonable suspicion that the gas industry is aware of enivonmental effects of fracking, yet is suppressing this information in the name of profit. In light of similar scandals in other corporate-dominated industries (BP underreporting scope of Deepwater Horizon leaks, LIBOR scandals in London, Big Pharm suppression of life-saving drugs), I believe that the natural gas industry is wilfully ignoring the health of residents so they can reap even greater profits.
Beyond the environmental impacts, pursuing greater coal and natural gas production will not serve the interests of the American people. New technologies allow further distribution of natural gas by liquifying it, then shipping it around the world. The market for natural gas abroad is very profitable, with prices per ton sometimes 4 or 5 times as high as they are domestically. The largest and most profitable market is in Asia. If energy industry lobbyists get their way, all that will happen is a great increase in energy exports, a fattening of industry executives' pocketbooks, and ecological havoc across this great nation. Similarly with the Keystone XL pipeline. Even if you don't believe in global warming, (although nearly every credible scientist does) the Keystone pipeline won't do you a lick of good, and likely will do a lot of bad. Everyone should have the right to clean air and water. Nothing should be supreme to that right, not even electricity production, and especially not profit. The answer to America's energy problems is not more of the same, but a complete and total green revolution. But that deserves a post in its own right, so I guess I'll just leave it at that.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
On U.S. Military Primacy
The United States holds a special place in world politics, that of the strongest global power - economically, politically, and militarily. This position, however, is not revered by the rest of the world, but resented; not lauded, but despised. It is time for the United States to relinquish her stranglehold upon the world. I urge this not only in view of the antagonized world, but also as a matter of national self-interest.
To oversimplify history, the 18th century was the birth of the idea of the United States, while the 19th and 20th were the failed actualizations thereof. Americans gloriously cast off the tyranny of one empire, then immediately donned the mantel of empire themselves. In the 19th century, rich white men exploited natives, robbing them of life and land, Africans, removing them from their homeland in slavery, and women, by refusing them enfranchisement and education. This was a systematic process designed to retain the status quo: wealthy Caucasians perched upon the backs of the repressed lower classes. After fully colonizing the mainland, the American empire set its sights abroad. The frontier was proclaimed "closed." In other words, the natives had been dispossessed of their land, and there was nobody remaining on the mainland to steal land from.
The 20th century was a procession of ever-increasing imperial dominance, all under the guise of democracy and freedom. The Spanish-American War of 1898 was the precursor to this sort of imperial conquest. Much of the scholarship around the war has been done on the Yellow Journalism of the time that may have whipped up the war fever. This journalism vilified the Spanish for their atrocities against the Cuban revolutionaries, and painted the American soldiers as heroic protectors of liberty against a repressive regime. This formula of journalism and vilification would remain mostly unchanged until today, only with ever greater perfections of the exact recipe. American imperialism did not slow after this first sortie, but rather accelerated. The United States took interest in the Philippines, opposing popular revolt there, attempted to install a puppet government in Cuba, stole Hawaii from the natives, and claimed sole possession of the Western Hemisphere in the Monroe Doctrine. This is not to mention the clandestine actions taken in Central and South America by the CIA and other secret government arms. These actions were all taken either to create business opportunities or to protect those already illegally and immorally fashioned. And all of this was done under the auspices of liberty and democracy.
Then there was WWI. America, citing isolationism as the political paradigm, while maintaining a Western Hemisphere empire, claimed neutrality in the war. This ostensible neutrality is undermined by the American dollars flowing to both sides of the conflict in Europe. Quite simply, we were hedging our bets. Loaning out huge sums of money to both Germany and Britain seemed like the best way to ensure profit. It was only when Britain, where the preponderance of American money way, was poised to lose, that the United States intervened in the war. American armed forces entered the conflict, using the sinking of the Lusitania as a pretext, to protect their business interests. We entered the war a small nation and emerged a global power.
Turning to WWII, there was a clear moral action to be taken. There can be no denial that Hitler and the Nazis were immoral, aggressive and evil. Thus, the United States had a moral obligation to come to the defense of the attacked nations. This, however, is not how it happened. Instead, we practically begged the Japanese to attack us, giving a pretext for further United States domination of East and South-East Asia. Japan made it clear to both the United States and the international community that they were being squeezed industrially and militarily by Western Colonial powers. They felt the pressure of ABCD: Americans, British, Chinese and Dutch economic interests. Instead of placating the Japanese's concerns, we vigorously pursued further colonization of the Philippines in particular and of the entire Pacific in general. We ignored warnings from the Japanese, much as we ignored German warnings that the Lusitania would be sunk if it came into German waters, then acted shocked when the warnings were actualized. Then, of course, the United States war machine was reinstituted to bring us out of the Great Depression.
The Cold War will be remembered by posterity as one of the darkest events in American history. Much as how terrorism provides pretext for war and infringement of civil liberties today, communism was vilified in all apparitions, real of manufactured. I only need to mention McCarthyism to show the end result of the route we are on again today. However, as appalling as McCarthyism was from a civil liberties perspective, it pales in comparison to the havoc we wrecked abroad. Wars of attrition in Vietnam and Korea were waged with no conceivable end gain. We came in bearing the banner of democracy, yet instituted wars and regime change against the will of the people. How is that democracy? Instituted military action against the will of a people is the most fundamentally undemocratic action a nation can take, and the United States used the pretext of Communism to take this action many times in the Cold war. War can only be justified if the moral benefits outweigh the costs. There is no possible argument that can support Cold War military actions on moral grounds. Similarly, clandestine actions in South and Central America, creating America-friendly regimes and puppet governments, were disgusting and wrong. They were not enacted to defend Capitalism as a bringer of wealth nor the free market as a method for freedom and self-determination, but rather to protect specific American corporate interests. We murdered thousands, wasted American lives and resources, overthrew sovereign nations, and forever blighted our reputation abroad, all in the aim of defending corporate profits. Colonialism per se had been replaced by corporationism.
The question, then, is "why?" Why would a nation undertake, so often and so avidly, such immoral actions? It is all in the name of profit. Not even profit for many, but profit for few. A massive invested capital interest in was in WWI, and the profits reaped led to the Roaring Twenties. The Roaring Twenties were not, however, a time of great prosperity for all Americans. It was a time of fabulous profits and speculating on Wall Street, which did little else than sow the seeds of its own demise when the stock market inevitably crashed. The Great Depression that ensued left many Americans unemployed, and putting men in uniform and women in factories provided a perfect employment solution. If poor men died in combat for a rich man's war, then that was actually good for the system, as there would be less expense in veteran's benefits and one fewer person seeking employment upon coming home. Once this gigantic war machine was set in motion, it needed ever-increasing conflicts to sustain itself. With the gradual ceding of sovereign powers back to Axis powers after WWII, American soldiers were no longer explicitly needed abroad. This would mean a massive homecoming of workers and a vast reduction of arms and munitions production. Thus, the economy would suffer doubly. The solution, find an enemy, and do so quickly.
The solution was ingenious in that it provided an enemy that was an idea, not a place or people. Not only was this enemy a military threat, it was an economic, ideological, theological and secretive threat. The secrecy of the Kremlin fueled the fears over what exactly the Russians were doing and how far their influence really spread. The logic of the times was to always assume the absolute worst scenario, regardless of how improbable that may be. The constant klaxon call was that Communism was threatening to come to America. Thus, the free market was threatened at a paradigmatic level. So it was in the interest of the United States economy to defeat Communism as an idea as well as a foreign force. It was also profitable to produce munitions for what was labeled a moral struggle, and it was better to keep young men away from home, in the military, where they could learn discipline and unquestioning obedience of superiors.
Regardless, the Cold War is over, and logically the United States war machine should have shut down. However, American military spending has continued to increase even in the absence of any superpower enemy. What has now been substituted as the face of the enemy are terrorists: people so foreign to the bible-thumping, good-ole American perspective that they are easily vilified. This is a beautiful model as far as the military-industrial complex is concerned. This is not a war of equally matched superpowers clashing on the battlefield; it is a ridiculous struggle of hopelessly out-matched guerilla warriors, who are defending what is held most sacred to them. They cannot win, but neither can we - and therein is the crux of the plan. It is the perfect model of endless military consumption. Bombs explode in the desert, bullets pepper the landscape, tanks and military vehicles endlessly traverse the desert, and every action increases the profit margin of the military industrial complex.
This is a never-ending sustainable conflict. The enemy can always fade into the shadows providing the military with ever more need to develop new scouting and tracking devices, to launch more surveillance missions, and above all to hold a constant military presence worldwide. Military researchers and developers are happy, industrial producers are happy, fat cat politicians with defense industry-funded campaigns are happy, but hundreds of people lose their lives. This is all done in the name of spreading democracy and in the sacred American national security.
The plan is flawless from the perspective of the military industrial complex. However, from the point of view of the American people, the so-called "War on Terror" is the most detrimental action, whether analyzed morally, economically or politically. As stated before, a war is only justified if the moral benefits outweigh the moral consequences. Consider for example, how many Iraqi and Afghani citizens have been killed in order to protect American "national security." Why is our national security supreme to their sovereignty? We have invaded two sovereign nations preemptively, illegally, without world support, and with little regard toward collateral damage. The message sent to the world, and the one received by the Middle East, is one of hypocrisy and arrogance.
Economically this war is bankrupting the government in order to sustain the military industrial complex. If military spending were cut to a fraction of its current turgid state, education, police, health care, and welfare could all easily be paid for. There would be no need for a partisan discussion of a welfare state or a descent into socialism, because the services would be covered by the surplus. It is only in times where money is scarce that such humanitarian projects are objected to.
Politically the "War on Terror" has destroyed America's reputation worldwide. Not only in the Middle East, but all across the world, nations are calling for an end to war. They call the wars illegal, immoral, and wrong. In today's ever-increasing globalization, we cannot afford the censorship of our historical allies, or the preclusion of emerging allies, based on our marriage to a faulty military system and ill-advised wars. Demilitarization and an immediate end to warfare are the only solutions to save face on the global scope.
Ironically, even from a national security perspective, our actions abroad are counterproductive. Recent polls have shown a lack of knowledge in the young Afghan population about the attacks on 9/11. This means that these people have no knowledge of even the pretext used as to why their homes are being destroyed. The perception from the region, rightfully so, is that the United States is a repressive foreign power exercising its might in the region in pursuit of self-interest. This broad-based belief, coupled with civilian casualties and constant military presence will of course breed unrest. There need be no mastermind behind the scenes pulling the strings of the Middle East to brew unrest, because the seeds of unrest are constantly being sown by the occupying power. A surge or further military action represents America's lack of confidence in the people to govern themselves as well as poses a security risk to the civilians. If a foreign standing army was in the United States, regardless of how well-intentioned they would claim to be, American people would revolt, and rightfully so.
There are currently over 700 active American military bases worldwide. This includes tens of bases in Japan, where war has been finished for well over half a century. While the United States maintains such a large military base abroad, there are zero foreign military bases on American soil. Why? Because a foreign military base on American soil would be an affront to American sovereignty. This shows the supreme arrogance and hypocrisy of the American military.
The solution is simple: demilitarization. This would reduce expenditures, release the stranglehold the military-industrial complex has had over our nation, and save face internationally. The only way we can lead arms reductions talks is by enacting arms reductions ourselves. Other nations have laid the conditions that they will disarm only if the United States does so first. So the solution is simple: disarm. Be a leader through action, not through empty promises. The road to peace is never through war. Let us cast down our military might, and welcome a more secure and peaceful age.
It is difficult for other nations to accede to American demands when the United States does so as if from on high and rarely takes the same actions herself. The route to smoother international relations, and hence a greater, not lesser, geopolitical role, is to renounce supremacy and end the hypocrisy. America will remain the most powerful and richest nation on earth, but will not do so despite the international community, rather, with the support thereof. America will not need to defend her interests through military actions, but rather through strengthened cooperation among her allies. I call for an immediate end to war and disbanding of military bases abroad, as well as a substantial arms reduction. The protection of American interests by the rifle is self-destructive and immoral. Protect the nation morally and lawfully at the negotiation table, not on a fabricated battlefield.
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