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GOP: SNAP is a terrible program that works too well.  

11/2/2013

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Benefits for SNAP (the federal food stamps program) went down Friday, and will decrease again drastically if Congressional Republicans have their way.  So far, budget negotiations have not been about whether to increase or decrease food stamp benefits, they have only been about how many billions to cut.  And the GOP is defining the debate by telling the timeworn fairy-tale of the Government-Spending Money-Trap Moral-Decay Monster.

If you are hearing it said that SNAP benefits must be cut; to address rampant waste, fraud and abuse - a classic chapter in this tale - be aware that in fact, the federal food stamp program, maintained in the US since the Depression, proves decade after decade to be a model of integrity and efficiency, operating with about a 3% level of waste and fraud, almost unheard of for a program this size.  While it's a cinch to sound credible accusing a government program of being rife with abuse and fraud, if they were asked (come on, Democrats!), Republicans would be unable to prove anything of the kind about SNAP. 

"We want to work with our Democratic colleagues in Congress to implememnt reforms in the SNAP program to cut back on waste, fraud, and abuse."
 - Rep. Steve King, (R), Iowa   

      

"We want to ensure that truly vulnerable families receive the support they need in a more efficient and effective manner."
 - Rep. Steve Southerland, (R) FL

If you’re hearing it said that SNAP has become bloated, serving people who fall far outside the realm of "the truly needy", be aware that in fact, eligibility criteria are based on income and federal poverty guidelines using the same formulas as always.  We aren't spending more because people who make more are now getting benefits.  There are simply many more people who don’t make enough to get by.

This Republican tale-telling does a disservice to the general public, but also to hard right conservatives with real philosophical objections to an economic model that uses tax revenue for social spending.  Why aren't they asking to be heard right now, too?  Where are the voices of those who want a safety net, but want it realized by components of the free market that include charity and philanthropy; those who believe that hunger, even on the scale it exists in this country today, could be addressed effectively with for-profit ventures that don't involve government contracts?  Ideas driven by authentic concerns, with solutions more creative than “just cut it so bad people can’t use it,” would at least encourage a more substantive dialogue.  

"Why does the safety net need reform?  Because people are getting tangled up and stuck in it.  The House addresses this by ending benefits for individuals that, quite honestly, don't qualify for them."
 - Rep. Randy Neugebauer, (R) TX
 

"Asking people to work in return for food stamps is not any kind of cruel and unusual punishment.  The dignity of work has been a pretty common theme throughout all the ages."
 - Rep. Mike Conaway, (R) TX

My own feelings about the latter economic philosophy are obvious, but I’d sure rather have an argument in those honest terms than one relying on specious claims of fraud, cheap phraseology about who is or isn’t deserving; or, worst of all, more muck from the Myth of the Moocher Class.  Republican House members are espousing and exploiting a fear of the moocher that is only barely still acceptable among their constituency, and not at all among its representatives.  It’s based on lingering stereotypes that sprang from gut provincialism, festering in a time before comprehensive information about class norms was widely accessible.  When leaders with the resources of the modern day member of Congress internalize and articulate those fears, at televised hearings, in tones utterly dripping with frankness and reason, as though they have no way of knowing otherwise, it is hard to forgive.  
Democrats in Congress must keep telling the real story.  It is simply not true that people receiving food stamps sit around idle, gorging on luxury foods billed to taxpayers, growing ever more fond of being poor, losing their incentive to work, purposely making less than their earning potential so they will qualify for benefits.  Ever since social safety-net programs were introduced, such a picture has been painted.  It has developed for some into preoccupation with a fear that millions of Americans will find living at this level, with means and status so low that they qualify for food stamps, is tempting enough to vanquish any motivation to succeed.  

Even before we had a chance to study and answer such questions, some could see it was an unrealistic concern.  Nutrition assistance in the US is a bare-bones benefit.  There are purchasing restrictions, and the allowances are modest. There is social stigma associated with using food stamps.  These benefits don't provide people with anything they want out of life, except survival.  There's nothing enjoyable about making so little money you qualify for food stamps.  

But because this question has been a fundamental concern for some, and does have huge policy implications, it has been rigorously studied and explored.  These questions have always been asked, and there are now decades of research to answer them.  There is no evidence that negative societal outcomes, or the degradation of character, can be associated with food assistance.  In fact, there is plenty of evidence to show otherwise.  Such information is easy enough for the layperson to find.  Members of the US Congress cannot be excused for ignoring the literature - wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary – addressing these fears.  Let them at least put up applicable research and shoot it down.  Let them explain why their fears are unabated.  But they can’t pretend it is legitimate to wonder - in the face of more than half a century of accumulated knowledge in behavioral and social psychology – if maaaybe receiving free supplemental nutrition coupons is so intrinsically rewarding that eventually, long-suffering productive citizens will be unable to lure legions of their fellow Americans away from the seductions of poverty. 

Finally, if you hear it said that a 5% reduction in benefits isn’t all that painful, truly consider the source.  A favorite chapter in the fairy-tale is about how easy it is to live on so little.  If we want to know about the impact of cuts, there are plenty of reliable sources.  Perhaps we should be hearing testimony from program administrators trained to do needs-assessments and impact studies.  Or from case managers who work directly with needy families. But sure, sometimes anecdotal evidence can help us understand how policy decisions may be felt by those affected.  Just make sure you are hearing less from those who want to experiment and speculate on the impact of a 5% funding adjustment, and more from those who will open their own cabinets to see 5% less food.  

"Food stamps have played and will continue to play an important role in taking care of out most needy Americans.  But the program exists to help lift up those who have hit bottom, not keep them there."
 - Rep. Martha Roby, (R) AL

I was reflecting on that impact as I did my own shopping yesterday.  I have more grocery money to work with than I used to.  I still have to mentally add up the price of each item I put in my cart to make sure I have enough to cover my total, and it gets tight.  But it’s nothing like the distress I used to feel grocery shopping when our family was young.  I can still get a knot in my stomach remembering it.  Slogging through the aisles with hungry kids in tow, trying to solve the problem of how to get enough food with not enough money.  I remember the frustrated, primal longing to nourish my family.  I remember trying to appear cheerfully reassuring while churning with feelings of dread, anxiety and inadequacy that were almost unbearable.  I remember all of this going on in the aisle of a grocery store while reaching for a jar of peanut butter.  

It came back in waves yesterday, thinking about the food stamp cuts as I shopped.  When I went to check out, I saw that there were small signs posted at each register informing or reminding shoppers with SNAP cards that their benefit reductions were effective immediately.  The sign explained that cashiers would be glad to check the balance on their cards.  My heart sank realizing there were lots of moms and dads and others who would arrive at the register to see this just after completing the exhausting experience I described.  Because I wasn’t unique - when every item you pull off the shelf or pass up has repercussions for your own hunger or that of your dependents, whether young, elderly or disabled; groceries become more than boxes and cans of food.  There really is both a physical and emotional impact.  

So they will get to the front of the store after the selecting, subtracting, second-guessing, and strategizing, to realize that regardless of how well they'd done, they went over by 5%.  To use the figure the Associated Press is reporting as an example, that’s a reduction of about $36 dollars for a family of four.  That means taking back out of the cart $36 worth of fruit, beans, cereal, meat, and juice.  Kids, perhaps, in tow.  This is not a fairy-tale.

As the nation debates food stamp funding, let's keep it honest.  The program works.  It does what it sets out to do.  It helps poor people get basic food they can't otherwise afford.  The program has low overhead, and measurable positive outcomes.  If you think there is a better way to get food into empty tummies, lay out your plan.  If you think doing so is not an appropriate function of government, make your case.   But don't just sit and spin a scary yarn, or sit silent while others in your party do so.  We don’t need the fairy-tale; the true story is harrowing enough.

-Julie Boler

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Real Voter Impersonator Wives of Texas

10/28/2013

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PictureShhh! Voter Impersonator working.
Whew - that was close!  
An insidious loophole in Texas election law, potentially allowing fraudulent voters to impersonate real, innocent voters, has been slammed shut. At last no more is the Reign of the Voter Impersonator Wives of Texas, characterized by their slithering into polling places using all manner of middle names to cheat the citizens of Texas out of a fair vote! Neutralizing this glaring threat to election integrity, a married woman using her maiden name as a middle name on her driver's license, and her given middle name on her voter registration card, will no longer be allowed to cast a ballot.


When I first heard that the new Texas voter ID requirements presented a snag to married women whose voter registration records did not reflect their married names, I thought it was an unfortunate and unnecessary but minor hurdle for women who had married recently, but had not yet changed the last name on their voter registration card to reflect their new last name.  I figured that it would require the completion of a task by election day that was going to be attended to anyway.

Using my name as an example, I'll explain what I first understood to be the requirement of the new law.  Before I was married, the name on my voter registration card, and on my driver's license and other documents, was Julie Ann Hammerstein.  After I got married, I updated the name on my driver's license to reflect my new last name, Boler. In Texas, the proper form to use on the driver's license would then be be Julie Hammerstein Boler.  If I had completed this change on my driver's license, but had neglected to update the last name on my voter registration records, my driver's license last name would not match my voter records last name, and I would be refused a ballot.  
So I thought.  Knowing that a few recently married women would probably arrive at the polls on election day not knowing about the new requirement, and not be allowed to vote; and knowing that refusing these women a ballot was a pointless exercise in the solving-a-nonexistent-problem phenomenon that is the trendy new strict voter ID requirement, I was a little chagrined.  I hoped that word would get out in time for most newly-wedded women to complete their name change "to-do's" before election day.  And I hoped that Texas precinct officials would have leave to verify new last names with a glance at other paperwork for those who hadn't been informed in time.  After all, there isn't really a Voter Impersonator Wives threat.  

I had the details of the requirement wrong, though.  Using my name again, let's look at how it actually works.  When I was married 28 years ago, I duly updated my voter registration information from Julie Ann Hammerstein, to Julie Ann Boler.  I also updated my driver's licence to reflect my new last name, this time choosing to use a format required by law in some states - Julie Hammerstein Boler.  (Married women who change their last names find that some legal documents require one version, some another, and some leave it up to the woman.)  Under the new voter ID law in Texas, if I have complied with DMV law and used "Hammerstein" as my middle name on my driver's license, but on my voter registration card have used "Ann" because it was left up to me, I would be turned away from the polls.  
Same last name, different middle names, both legally correct.  Same address of course; your address dictates your polling place. Disqualified from voting in this election.  

And what does this rule protect against?  Voter Impersonator Wives!  Just think, people. Without this rule, this could happen in America, right under our noses: a woman who looks exactly like me, has the same address as me, and has the name Julie Ann Boler on her driver's license, could waltz into my polling place and vote fraudulently in my place.  

I have to say, if there is a woman out there who could pull that off, she has earned my ballot.  I would hand it over to her myself.



- Julie Boler
 









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We Get To Carry Each Other

7/23/2013

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PictureMoral Monday protest, Raleigh, NC
Before leaving my house today to join in the North Carolina “Moral Monday” demonstration in downtown Raleigh, I saw MSNBC correspondent Craig Melvin do a story on the protests.  He interviewed Jotaka Eaddy, NAACP Senior Director for Voting Rights, asking her opinion about the interesting demographics of the arrestees.  


The crowds at these rallies have been overall fairly diverse, and people of a variety of races and cultures have joined the smaller group of hearty souls volunteering to be arrested.  But by the numbers, the latter group – the arrestees – has been a remarkably white, older, middle- or upper-middle class set.  During the news segment, video footage of Moral Monday arrests ran on a split screen opposite the interview.  Melvin observed that while the protests have been led by the NAACP, an organization created to support people of color, a lot of white folks have joined in.  Viewers were shown arrests of a few of them; a 60-ish, carefully-coiffed lady in a tailored silk blouse; a woman in her early 30’s in business attire; an older, bearded professorial-looking gentleman, who, incidentally, was wearing a grey hoodie to signify his allegiance to Trayvon Martin’s cause. 

Eaddy’s answer to the question about this profile of demonstrators was perfectly fine.  She explained how the new voting restrictions will affect voters across demographic lines; not just minority and poor voters, but young voters, seniors, and the disabled as well.  College students will have a harder time voting under the law, and elderly and disabled people of any race or economic status are statistically less likely to possess one of the strictly defined, government-issued photo ID’s required under the bill.  Indeed, injustice aside, the law is poorly conceived logistically, and may impact all voters.  Early voting days are well-used in North Carolina.  If we eliminate them, we will see longer lines on election days. 

But truth be told, many of the people volunteering to be arrested at the General Assembly building during these demonstrations are among those least likely to be affected by the pending bill.  They are professional, educated, employed or retired.  They likely already possess a valid North Carolina driver’s license.  If not, they are likely able to obtain the official documents they need to apply for a state ID.  In fact, it’s their ordinary access to resources and services that allows them to choose to go to jail for political reasons.  They are likely to have some professional, civic, or academic familiarity with the workings of the justice system, as well as access to money for bail and legal fees, free time or flex-time, and support networks. 

That doesn't mean it isn't hard to do this; it takes guts for anyone.  Some arrestees risk professional or familial censure.  Some of them are facing down fears of panic that can arise from sitting in a jail cell.  All of them are agreeing to an utter loss of freedom.  And nobody is making them do it.

So why are they there?  Why do they put their bodies on the line; offering their wrists up to be cuffed, climbing on a prisoner transport bus, staring into the glare of the mugshot light; fingertips inked for prints, and file into a jail cell to await release on to a downtown street in the wee hours of the next morning? 

They go to show allegiance to fellow citizens who will be affected by this bill.  They go in solidarity with those who will soon learn that although they are eligible, registered voters, state lawmakers have chosen to proactively and tangibly discourage them from voting.  

These arrestees exemplify an impressive combination of compassion, insight, and rage. Realize, the oldest of them have witnessed a better way than this.  They have been here during a time - over the last half-century - during which their country learned in fits and starts how to improve access to the polls.  They have seen, over these decades, legions of leaders from both parties strive to make it more possible for everyone to participate in the democratic process.  They have seen both conservative and liberal politicians say, this is critical.  Everyone must have a part in selecting their representatives.  It is essential to the integrity of our system.

Now our arrestees see something very different - something sinister – taking hold in powerful places.  They see conscious efforts to dismantle those decades of good work.  They watch public servants making cynical, short-sighted, and destructive policy decisions.  And they are wise enough to know the damage will be real, and it will hit hardest those who are least able to stand up to power. 

Understand what our arrestees understand: that strict voter ID requirements and reduced voting hours serve no legitimate purpose, and could potentially affect over 300,000 NC voters.  Understand that there will be folks who have counted on expanded voting hours in past elections, who will struggle to make it to the polls, or will be unable to wait hours on Election Day for their turn to vote.  Understand that there will be registered voters who will arrive at the polls on Election Day without possession of an accepted form of ID, who will be turned away.

Understand that there is simply no justification for strict ID requirements.  We have years of evidence showing that protecting the ballot from fraud is simply and effectively done without such requirements.  The threat of voter fraud has proven to be insignificant.  Of course, to the legislators currently in office in North Carolina, "insignificant" is too high a risk.  They have made it clear that they would rather see a number of eligible voters turned away from the polls than a single fraudulent vote cast.  Even still, a higher level of ballot security can be achieved without disenfranchising anyone.  The threat of fraud is so low that high-enough security standards are easily met by requiring voters to provide more readily obtainable forms of ID, such as voter registration cards, medical cards, work ID’s, bank cards, student ID’s, nursing home residence papers, even utility bills or other official mail.  It would be hard to even quantify how low a risk there is that someone would determine to impersonate another voter, arrive at the right polling place at an opportune time, present any card or document in their victim’s name, be handed a ballot, and cast a fraudulent vote. 

It is an understanding of this undemocratic solution to a non-existent problem that has infuriated and mobilized our arrestees.  They see that despite having been presented with copious research and personal testimony on such hazards to be faced by legitimate voters, our state legislators are stubbornly voting this bill into law. 

Our arrestees are standing up in the name of those who can’t.  They are saying with their actions that if these lawmakers want to marginalize some of the very people they represent; people who can’t afford to go to jail to prove a point, then they themselves will go.  Enthusiastically, they will go. 

Think about that.  How does it make you feel, knowing there are those whose own right to vote is not threatened by this bill, who are carving out space in their lives to be arrested protesting it?  I’ll tell you how it makes me feel.  It makes me feel teary.  It makes me feel awe, and gratitude.  It gives me a lump in my throat, and hope.  Today it made me think about a piece of music I cherish; the plaintive and stirring U2 song, “One”.    

Some of the lyrics of the song could be said to reflect on how things go wrong between people.  Listening to it today, the first few verses made me think about the mentality leading to the creation of the malevolent legislation we're seeing.  I hear the way these guys talk about the constituents they don’t care for.  I see how they choose to govern those who have so little - by starving them of support, tampering with their rights - while expecting them to participate as fully and effectively as anybody else in American society.  From the song: “Will it make it easier on you now, you got someone to blame… You act like you never had love, and you want me to go without…you ask me to enter, then you make me crawl… Did I ask too much?  more than a lot?  You gave me nothing and that's all I've got.”

Of course, most of the song is explicitly about who we as a people should be.  It’s about how we are different from each other, but we share "one love, one blood, one life."  And that "we get to carry each other."  

We get to.  
We get to carry each other.  
We get to carry each other, people.

*************************************************************************
One

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say

One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's 
Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
Well we hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One.  One.


post by Julie Boler
4 Comments

School for Scandal

5/13/2013

3 Comments

 
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Let's get this straight: 
Benghazi talking points?  
Not a scandal.  
IRS practicing politics?  
A scandal.  
A scandal for the president?  
Neither one.


Important questions about the 2012 attack on the American mission compound in Benghazi, Libya, include who the perpetrators were, how the attack was allowed to happen, and what we can learn from it that will help us improve security there and elsewhere in the future.  Also legitimate are questions about chain of command at the State Department, and whether Congress is adequately funding security for foreign posts.

The rest of the current inquiry is nonsense.  Within days after the attack, UN Ambassador Susan Rice was sent on a round of interviews about what was known so far about the attack.  I personally viewed her accounting of the tragedy on one Sunday morning news show after another.  She qualified everything she shared by emphasizing we weren't sure about all the details yet.  I watched as she listened in on one program while Libyan President Mohammed el-Magariaf stated emphatically that this was a terrorist attack.  Rice didn't object to this statement; she simply reiterated that there was still a lot to be learned.  

In short order, as more information emerged, the White House was completely, proactively forthcoming.  It was directly from the Oval Office that we learned this was a planned attacked, carried out by organized and well-armed extremists.  That angle was pursued at the direction of the White House, and turned out to be supported by evidence.  This evidence wasn't dragged out of the Administration by the press, or discovered through exhaustive Congressional hearings.  It was only later, when it became clear that there was nothing about this tragedy that could be pinned on the Obama administration that Republicans began clutching at the straw of the tenor of statements immediately communicated after the event.  Unfortunately for them, no wrong-doing occurred there either.

Routing a memo to a dozen people to hammer out wording before going forward is a scintillating and suspect process to exactly no one who has worked in any office, ever.  The changes supplied by the White House itself could be characterized as minimal, and as more cautious than advantageous for their image; caution well-warranted considering the fact that attacks on the embassy in Cairo occurred simultaneously and were NOT connected to terrorists.  

If you'll remember, standing in stark contrast to that caution was the tone of the statements made on this issue by then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was perfectly comfortable tossing out sweeping, irresponsible, anti-Administration accusations, before all of the parts of this tragedy had even stopped moving.  If nothing else struck fear in the hearts of voters imagining such a man sitting in the Oval Office, that kind of impulsive, short-sighted, and self-serving behavior should have.

As for officials in the Internal Revenue Service targeting Tea Party-associated groups for special scrutiny, well, that news is chilling.  Any hint of such activity on the part of low-level agents would be inexcusable.  In this case it sounds like there were IRS employees with significant authority directing activity against these groups – activity that amounts to harassment.  Any American who cares about free speech should be concerned about this.  A full inspector general's report due out later this week will provide more detail.  We need to know how far-up knowledge of this activity went, and whether Congress was purposely misled.  As high as accountability lies, heads should roll.  But hopes that anyone close to president will bear responsibility are sure to be dashed.  

Those opportunistic members of the GOP who are thinking that either of these issues could provide a way out of their real task - redeveloping a political party that represents honest conservative principles - will have to go, once again, back to the drawing board.

 - Julie Boler

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The "They Lose, We Win" theory of governing.

5/4/2013

9 Comments

 
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This post is a response to a recent editorial in the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer, a conservative political writer and commentator.  His column is brief, and this post will make more sense if you read it.  I'll wait.

Okay.  So, if you don't know this guy, I can tell you, he is an unpleasant man. 
FOX News loves him as a guest; he contributes a unique blend of erudite and yet intensely sophomoric and hostile commentary on governmental atrocities committed by our President.  Attacking Barack Obama is his fetish.

The first thing I thought when I read this column is that I would rather think the best of others and be a million times disappointed in life, than go through it with as morose and contemptuous an attitude as Krauthammer’s.  His column reveals much more about himself than it does about Mr. Obama.  

With an air of triumph and pride, he delineates the Republican Party’s successes in their ongoing mission to obstruct at every turn the sitting President of the United States.  Their explicitly stated goal has always been to stand against anything the president supports, because he supports it.  One assumes the objective is for Obama to be seen, currently, and by history, as a failed president.  With this column, (rather prematurely, as we are currently in year 4.4 of the Obama era), based on a couple of GOP victories on high-profile votes, Krauthammer has decided to break out the champagne.  


Never mind that the country is hurting because of these victories.  Never mind that its citizens appear to be gradually catching on to the fact that they were won at great expense to all.  Writing with the same tone as would someone expressing an admirable and legitimate position, Krauthammer crows about recent punches Republicans have landed on the president’s jaw.  Not punches thrown in the name of principle or policy, mind you, but thrown because, well, they just hate that guy.

Let's look at some of what Mr. Krauthammer has to say:


"...the victor (a reelected Obama) is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination..."

Mr. Krauthammer, you realize that you folks are the only ones who see it that way, right?  No Democrat I know has any desire for a Caesar in the White House.  On the domestic front, far from wanting to dominate others, we want to empower fellow citizens to each reach a place where they can grow, succeed, and be happy.  We want everyone to have doctors and medicine.  We want to learn to walk ever more lightly on the earth. We don’t want domination internationally, either; you’re projecting.  We want to support fledgling democracies across the world in their efforts toward self-determination.  We want to find peaceful agreement with opposing countries, not destroy them.  I wish you could know what it feels like to be in a party that is for something, rather than against everything.  It can be exhilarating.  It might even wipe that perpetual scowl off your face.

Let’s go on.  What else, Mr. K.?

"...Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown..."

(Eye roll.)  Again...

"Thus emboldened, Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union addresses into a left-wing dream factory, (including) his declaration of war on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low)…”

Er…  You frighten me, Mr. Krauthammer.

"Obama sought to fracture and neutralize the congressional GOP..."

Wait, Obama did what?  I think Republicans sought to... oh, never mind.  

"Obama cried wolf, predicting the end of everything we hold dear if the sequester was not stopped. It wasn't. Nothing happened."  

Yeah?  Tell that to the people who...  oh, never mind.  

"...Obama’s spectacular defeat on gun control..."

So, "spectacular" is the word that springs to mind for you there, Mr. K.?  I would have gone with "insanely immoral."  Because Republicans didn't oppose this bill in favor of another bill, one with a different approach to protecting the American people from random violence.  There was no pretense of a greater motivation for voting down this bill than a political strike against President Obama.  Mr. K., even if this bill had passed, it would be a time for sober optimism that it might stem the flow of blood.  To call its defeat “spectacular” is obscene.

And do understand, sir: it was a defeat for Obama only in the cheapest political sense.  The real defeat was for the gun-violence victims' families, traveling home from Washington after the vote, to Newtown and Chicago and Tucson and Aurora.  The real defeat will be felt, (terrifyingly enough) by people who don't even know it yet.  Maybe me.  Maybe someone I know.  It’s a defeat for the next victims of mass or otherwise indiscriminate shootings that could have been prevented by this bill.

"For Obama, gun control was a political disaster. He invested capital. He went on a multi-city tour. He paraded grieving relatives. And got nothing...  Obama failed even to get mere background checks."

You usually hear the somewhat unsophisticated label "pervert" applied to someone with socially frowned-upon sexual proclivities.  I don't normally use the word myself.  But what can one say reading this stuff?  "He paraded grieving relatives. And got nothing."  Charles Krauthammer is a pervert.   

Finally, Krauthammer wraps up his column with a sarcastic, school-boy taunt; his take on the Obama Presidency to date: 

"From king of the world to dead in the water in six months. Quite a ride."

Republicans are a tribe.  They have retreated into a national yet somehow provincial horde.  They defend their holdings with all their might.  They see the rest of us as constant threats to their sovereignty and survival. 

Democrats are a party of many tribes.  In the current iteration of the two parties, we are simply the one more comfortable with a broad mix of folks, a wide diversity of opinion within the party, and the ability to think of unlike groups as potential members of coalitions, coming together around overlapping concerns.

Republicans are starting to understand that such a conglomeration, with varying backgrounds, needs and priorities but with a firm set of shared ideals, is likely to keep growing; in size and therefore power.  Their response is to reluctantly edge open the gate to their compound, remain inside, and beg others to come in and join the tribe.  Their strategy is to tell these others that they would benefit from coming inside the compound and hating everyone outside it.  They’ll even accept those who look like outsiders, as long as they agree to mimic and obey tribal customs and dictates.

Welllll, GOP, good luck with that.  You have quite a cheery spokesperson in Charles Krauthammer.  Most of us are honestly hoping you will ditch him and his ilk, pass through the gate, leave the tribe behind, and join the rest of us.  Not to be Democrats, necessarily.  Just come out here away from that tribe.  With us, you can believe anything you want, live the way you prefer, and promote anything you believe in.  That's how we roll out here.  We just ask that you don't sacrifice the good of the people for the will of that angry little tribe.

Then maybe you can get back to making real contributions on important matters.  From a sane conservative perspective, if you like.  On important matters like the economy, defense policy, governmental effectiveness and transparency, tax policy, and so on.  You're needed.

In the meantime, I just hope the rest of us can survive the tribe.

Julie Boler


9 Comments

Republican Report: if we say we hate them nicely, they will love us more.

3/17/2013

1 Comment

 
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The Republican Party released a report today, the Growth and Opportunity Project, (GOP - get it?!) examining the current status of the Party, identifying steps it must take to increase popularity and win elections on the national level. Extensive polling went into the report, which also closely evaluated how a number of campaigns had been been conducted in 2012. Many experts and consultants were called on to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the party.

Two major conclusions were reached. The first was that the GOP desperately needs to attract more minority voters, female voters, and young voters. This issue comes as no surprise, of course, and was widely discussed throughout the the 2012 campaign season. But this report surely marks the first time Republicans are officially, publically telling other Republicans, "This problem is real, this problem is important, and this problem must be fixed immediately."


The second major conclusion outlined in this report is that Republicans must get better at messaging. The party lags behind in its use of digital communication, social media, data analytics, targeted marketing, and other ultra-modern campaign tactics. This conclusion will also come as no surprise to anyone watching the 2012 election unfold, but again, hats off to the party for picking apart what happened and sharing it - not just as an internal memo - but as a public report.

Here is why identifying these two major areas of concern and even developing action plans to address them, as the report also does, will do absolutely nothing to save the Republican Party from continuing to fail on the national level.  It is clear from reading the report carefully, that they believe by fixing the second problem, they will have fixed the first as well.



Their anxiety about reaching other constituencies, or shall we say, Constituencies of Others, is palpable. To be sure, they want those votes. But their problem-solving, their ideas for solutions, have absolutely nothing to do with policy. There is not a trace of evidence that any time was spent examining why the GOP has alienated entire groups of Americans. Instead there is one lament after another about how Republicans are perceived, whether they are trusted and believed, whether they are thought sincere and welcoming, and how they can begin to do a better job to show that they "care."


In two places it's clear the authors of the report where simply unable to hide the obvious in their conclusions. They acknowledge that Republicans will surely lose the vote of the "Hispanic" (<the report's word of choice - I don't know, you tell me) community if they don't embrace "comprehensive immigration reform. And they explain that their findings reveal that for some young voters, "the treatment and the rights of gays" can determine whether they want to be a member of a certain party.


Not to worry; within hours of the the release of the report, one of its authors, Sally Bradshaw, made clear that the report doesn't specify anywhere that comprehensive immigration reform includes a pathway to citizenship. And her colleague 

In response to the report, prominent members of the Party spoke out today, saying they sure do understand what the report tells them, and yup, they've just got to get better at reaching out to those women, and those communities of color.  But as soon as they say the words "reach out" they accidentally flip to the "messaging" piece, and conflate them completely.  Outreach is apparently about saying the same off-putting things, but saying them better.  

The theory seems to be that their platform is actually very welcoming to minorities and youth, but it just didn't get out during the last campaign season.  They believe they just didn't use the right methods to communicate that the GOP "embraces civil rights" for poor people, black people, Latinos, women and younger voters.

But, no.  Their message got out there all right.  It got out too well.  

Women heard loud and clear that the uterus should fall under the control of the "small government party."  

Young people, the least homophobic demographic in the country, heard loud and clear that the civil procedure used by local government entities to certify marriage should fall under the control of "the party of liberty and the constitution," and should be defined by religious principles.  

Latinos heard loud and clear, from the Republican that the Party had nominated for President, that the Party considered "self-deportation" a legitimate approach to immigration reform.  

And black voters?  If black voters had any doubts about their status in the eyes of Republicans, they didn't need to look any further than the massive, hostile, naked efforts to disenchfranchise them by use of regressive voting policies.  It is a matter of record, of hard numbers, that black Americans are vastly, disproportionately affected by restrictive voter registration drives, cutting early voting hours, and requiring voters to obtain a strictly-defined, government-issued photo ID, in order to cast a ballot.

Coming out of their reading of this report, Republican Party officials have pledged to spend $10 million on an effort to to reach out to minority communities and portray "a more welcoming message."  They plan to update their digital capacities, and use social media more.  Said the Republican Party head, Reince Priebus, “The way we communicate our principles isn't resonating widely enough."  

Reince, Reince.  It's not the WAY you are communicating the principles, it's the principles!


The report itself puts strong emphasis on gay rights as a factor for young voters. 

Perhaps the ten million dollars they have put aside for outreach should not go to young, female, and minority voters.  Perhaps it would be better spent educating their own party.  

They could teach Republican citizens about the difference between their personal views and public policy.  

They could remind Republicans in Congress about constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection.  

They could spell out more clearly to Party leaders that marriage is actually a civil certification, caried out under the auspices of local governments.  It can then be celebrated with a wedding, or not, in whatever way the couple chooses.  
They could inform Republicans across the land that voter impersonation is not a viable threat to democracy, but voter repression is.  That even the bipartisan Help America Vote Act, proudly signed into law by George W. Bush, recommends that states allow voters to ID themselves at polling places with a wide variety of more readily available forms of ID, including work badges, medical cards, and current utility bills. 

And they could ask their Republican state officials to knock it off with the forced ultrasounds.

Then that 10 mil might start getting them somewhere.  

1 Comment

Wanted: a much more loyal Loyal Opposition

2/6/2013

2 Comments

 
PictureElection Night 11/6/13
Yes, liberals are giddy.  After eight years of Bush, and many more during which the very word "liberal" was considered slander, we gloat too much about our victories.  We appear to wish death upon the GOP.  In our less realistic moments, perhaps we do.


But we also know that a robust two-party system is vital to the integrity and effectiveness of the democracy.  We know that the push-pull of different political orientations; the vigorous debate that must transpire to get at a truth; and the balance created by having a variety of viewpoints represented over time - those things comprise the genius of the great American experiment.

That is why the failure of the current Republican Party to offer intelligent and helpful debate is felt by some of us as a loss. 

Liberals do feel giddy about this uniquely gifted president, his improbable success, and his ability to brilliantly, unapologetically promote bedrock liberal principles.
But contrary to popular conservative opinion, we don't worship President Obama.  Governing is a human endeavor.  We don’t expect or perceive perfection.  It is a task too complex and critical to leave subject to the fallibility of one person's leadership, or to ask one party to shoulder alone.
At no time has everyone on the left been unified in evaluating the president's effectiveness or judgment.  Even amongst ourselves we have a diversity of opinion on matters of national importance.  We don’t have all the answers.  So it’s actually a matter of unfairness for the entire Republican Party to get so bogged down in wound-licking and reactionary dogma that even its smartest members cede the voice of their party to the wing nuts.   It isn't fair.

Gun violence is complicated.  Poverty is complicated.  Drone use is complicated.  Questions about the ideal purview of government are complicated.  Questions about the proper role of the Intelligence community in Defense endeavors are complicated.  The modern economy is complicated. 

So when particularly sobering problems emerge, forcing our giddiness to evaporate, even those of us on the left who are generally highly partisan and self-righteous about our ideas recognize the need for all hands on deck.  It then becomes infuriating to see the disarray, shallowness, and nastiness that presently rule the GOP.
PictureNBC reporter Michael Isiskoff
On Monday, NBC investigative journalist Michael Isikoff broke the news about a memo that reveals the Obama administration’s communication failures and programmatic ambiguity regarding its use of drones to combat homeland security threats.  Critical questions about how and when drones may be used against American citizens are unanswered.  
Questions like, how exactly is it determined that an American citizen has become an enemy combatant?  Would such a person have an opportunity to surrender before being assassinated?  Can such a person be killed on American soil?  As Isikoff pointed out Monday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show, the administration has been effectively unable to say that current guidelines don’t allow for an American citizen, living in a US city, to be killed in bed at night by government operatives.  But because what passes on the right these days for reason is actually a paranoid, lunatic fringe-type thinking, we can’t have a real discussion about it.

The most obstinate partisan must acknowledge the fact that no matter how much you trust the people in power now, within a few years the people in power will be a whole new group of folks, with the same power. 

I have tremendous faith in this administration.  I trust Barack Obama.  But participatory government is our duty in this country, so we should ask these questions, and they should answer.  No administration can get everything right.  I believe the President when I hear him express his intent to improve the transparency and codification of these processes.  I believe him when he describes the challenge of managing on-going and imminent threats while simultaneously trying to draft publicly vetted rules of engagement for a frontier mode of defense.  (A mode of defense that, in my mind, has great promise as a tool to help us delay or avoid full-scale war.) 
Vigorous debate on this subject has occurred on the left.  Some of us are puritanical pacifists, deeply opposed to drone use on principle.  Some of us have taken on, to our own surprise, a pragmatic hawkishness, feeling that drones may be evil compared to no drones, but they are downright benevolent compared to full-scale air raids and ground invasions.
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MQ-9 Reaper Drone
I have found it hard to broach this topic outside liberal zones, in politically-mixed groups.  I am stopped by a feeling of protectiveness about the President that springs from the relentless, unwarranted, vindictive scrutiny of him by the right.  I'm not talking about the honest pressure for transparency and ethical rigor that can and should come from an opposition truly loyal to the cause of democracy.  That kind of pressure is good. That kind of pressure is what we need.  
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I’m talking about a scrutiny wherein vast swaths of a party's most vocal members hijack an entire 24-hour news cycle to explore whether the barrel of a skeet rifle held by the president looks authentic or photo-shopped.  I’m talking about a party that reelects members to Congress who use perfectly good congressional floor time to question whether this president was born in the US, or whether he is a secret Socialist, or whether there are people in his State Department with nefarious ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.    
A party that has allowed high-ranking members to go uncensured for meeting the very night of Mr. Obama’s first inauguration to strategize ways to oppose him at every turn, including voting against his favored legislation even if it is in sync with their own positions.  A party still represented by both elected and unelected officials who openly, repeatedly vowed during his first term to put the welfare of the republic at temporary risk if it helped the cause of "making Obama a one term president."  A party that recently reelected a national chair who claimed during his first tenure that Obama's presidency would cause "an end to our way of life in America." 
These examples illustrate the hyper-critical and one-dimensional Republican view of Mr. Obama; they don’t even touch on all the other Stupid Republican Tricks that expose a readiness to abandon our time-tested system of judiciously prosecuting policy proposals.  Tricks like putting creationists on the House Science Committee, proffering "self-deportation" as a legitimate immigration reform device, employing a willful misinterpretation of the "you didn't build that" Obama campaign quote as a major campaign theme, or deeming the taunting of Iran a useful foreign policy approach.  

These doings, along with many others, all demand that countless hours of pointless, inane, mental energy be spent on faux issues or backwards policies while pressing problems are at hand.

Shouldn't thoughtful criticism be the responsibility of everyone?  

Yes, citizen members of the party in power should be expected to push themselves to critique and challenge their chosen administrations, publicly and forcefully.  But we should also be able to rely on the opposition party to be constructively skeptical and civilly unsympathetic.

Republicans.  Pull your selves together.  We need your help on this drone thing.

2 Comments

All Economic Policy is About Redistribution.

9/20/2012

0 Comments

 
PictureBarack Obama, 1989 & the late Hazel M. Johnson, Chicago, IL
We're finally getting somewhere. 
Thank goodness for a 1998 videotape of a Barack Obama
who was so impolitic (read: thoughtful)
as to use the taboo word redistribution. 

Such language!

It triggers antisocial-ist spasms on the right.


But if you listen more carefully to this old Obama speech, you'll hear him then, as he does now, also extolling the values of the free market. You'll hear him boosting competition, and supporting a healthy marketplace.    

What is this, some kind of crazy mixed message??  No, mixed economy.  A.k.a, the economic system we use in the US today.

Here's a longer excerpt than the one making the rounds on the right.  Classic Barack. 

"I think the trick is figuring out, how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution; because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody's got a shot. How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities."

More than the one word...  But that's okay!  Let's discuss redistribution.  We should! 

Because every time we change the tax code, we're engaging in it.  Every time we shape trade agreements and levy user fees, we're deciding who gets what.  When we impose fines, or print money, or repair a stretch of train rail, we are making judgements about how best to distribute the wealth of this country. 

And we need to talk about it like grownups.  So everyone please, just calm down and talk.

(Okay, okay, we can start with me.  I'll calm down after November 7th, promise.)

Here's the thing.  In broad strokes, it's working pretty well. Neither side on this issue is about to take over. We don't live in anything like a socialist country, and we don't have a laissez-faire economy.    

Can we acknowledge that, and move on to talking about levels of government intervention and investment?  Can we respectfully examine whether a specific program or regulation is effective or wasteful?  Maybe we could do a less emotional cost/benefit analysis of a proposal for revenue, or one for cutting expenses.  We could have a rational conversation about whether a major facet of democracy, say providing an education to the populace, is better administrated on a large scale - as we do with Defense - because of its scope;
or on the local level - like libraries, or zoning, in order to be more responsive to community concerns.   
Most of us have both visceral and thoughtful philosophies about these issues.  Probably because wealth is power, and absolute lack of it is impotence.  And most of us spend our lives floating somewhere between the two extremes, hoping for more of the one, and fearing the other.
But right now in this country it's the visceral aspect of our individual philosophies that is holding sway in our dialogue.  We are all responsible, myself included.  The benefit is that the visceral can get people saying what they mean - like in a family fight.  But to get anywhere constructive, everyone has to settle in after the shouting and figure out, with a commitment to working it through together, how we get everybody's needs met.

Democrats and Republicans need relationship counseling.  The first thing we would probably be told is to develop some ground rules.  And if I had to start us off with just one, it would be this:

Agree that there is no correlation between character flaws and income level.  This is just my own theory, and yes, I have the seen studies to the contrary, in both directions.  I think the very exercise of trying to quantify it is flawed. 

If you presented me with research that found more people at one income level guilty of bad behavior than at another, I would immediately ask, "what intrinsic problems for people at that income level might be leading to your results, and how on earth do you control for that?!"

  • For example, if a low-income person is observed demonstrating focus on short-term goals, and displaying a lack of confidence in upward-mobility, wouldn't that be based on learned realities?  Are they realistic? What might change them?

(Obviously, I'm making these examples up for argument's sake!  I'm using the stereotypes for shorthand.)

  • If a wealthy person appears oblivious or indifferent to the toll taken by the long-term daily grind on poor people, isn't it the cumulative effect of endless obstacles that is impossible to grasp without direct experience?

  • If a middle-income person shows a tendency to provincialism, couldn't that be due to the competitive aspects of achievement, and the tenuousness of social status and material comfort at that income level?

On top of all this, observable attitudes and behaviors that appear to reflect someone's income experience could be more a function of personality, or family history. 

And more flamboyant attitudes and behaviors are incorrectly seen as representative. 

And context gets ignored. 

So the woman on welfare who gets up at 5 am to go to work stocking shelves is invisible, as is the heiress that puts on sweats to go cook meals at the Rescue Mission.

What if we could stipulate that class does not dictate moral superiority - at any level. 

And when we find ourselves thinking it does, we take ownership of our prejudices and bend over backwards to overcome them. 

Then we can decide how to distribute the pie without slinging apple-filling at each other.
0 Comments

If you must speak in cliches...

9/19/2012

0 Comments

 
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Try this one:
Poor people just want a hand up,
not a hand out.

Conservative pundits are very stressed right now, fretting about how to position themselves on Mitt Romney's comments at a May fundraiser in Florida.  In a just released video, recorded by a hidden camera, the Republican presidential candidate is seen wringing his hands, convinced that almost half the country is belligerently dependent on the government. 


His supporters don't know how to spin it.  Not because they disagree with what Romney said, but because they're afraid he won't get elected and put his ideas into action. 

Some think he got the numbers wrong.
Okay...so if it's not 47%, what's the right number?  It doesn't matter.  It wouldn't matter if he said 37%, or 27%.  He mis-characterized the group of people he's talking about. Who cares if he got the head count wrong?

Some think he sounded mean and stupid. 
That he could have found a more graceful way to phrase it.  But it's the idea, that liberals want people to stay dependent, that is mean and stupid.  It's the idea that people receiving public assistance are happy with their lives, and want to reelect this President so he can keep their checks coming in while they do nothing, that is mean and stupid.  It's better that he said it in such an ugly way.  It's ugly.

Some think he didn't really mean it. 
Mitt Romney doesn't really mean this?  "... there are 47 percent who are with (Obama), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it."

If Mitt Romney doesn't mean that, it's only because he doesn't "mean" anything.  It's because he doesn't think deeply about anything, and doesn't care much about who we are in this country. That's the only way that excuse works; if he didn't mean what he said in that videotape, it's not because he means something more hopeful, caring, and respectful of his fellow citizens.

The best Republican response is from the irrepressible Grover Norquist. 
Not surprisingly, he's in the I-like-what-Romney-said-just-not-how-he-said-it camp. He merely wants the campaign to get their wording right. He was relieved to talk to an operative who assured him they had sorted out their responding rhetoric. "I went up to the campaign and I said, What’s your take on this? And I got back the perfect answer: 'We’re working to provide opportunity, while the other team is trying to teach dependence.' And (Norquist chortles,) we win that fight in America.  If this was Bulgaria in 1957, I’m not sure we’d win the debate. In the United States, we win that debate."

Thing is, though, the other team is not "trying to teach dependence."  What we are trying to do is give people a hand up, not a.. well, you know the saying.  We try to explain this over and over.  And yet, here we are again.  Now it's Communist Bulgaria.

To review: 

  • Believing that government must play a role in guaranteeing that people have food and shelter, when they otherwise wouldn't, is not teaching dependency. 
  • Believing the government should play a role in providing for its citizens' education, health care, and infrastructure, is not teaching dependency. 
  • Believing government can play a role in teaching illiterate adults to read, so they can get jobs and pay taxes and support their families - is not teaching dependency.
  • Believing government can play a role in helping ex-convicts re-enter society - so they can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting - is not teaching dependency.
  • Believing government can provide job-training to low income youth - so they can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting - is not teaching dependency.
  • Believing government can contribute funds to agencies that teach budgeting, treat addiction, and counsel the homeless - so that more people can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting is not teaching dependency.

These things have nothing to do with teaching dependency.  Quite the opposite.  To use Grover's words, we're working to provide opportunity.

0 Comments

Mitt Romney references the great American unwashed..

9/17/2012

2 Comments

 
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Mitt Romney has made plain what we've always presumed his dark fantasy to be: he believes nearly half of this country comprises a maladjusted, useless, huddled mass. 

Mitt, you have so much to learn about the country you love and want to lead.  Let me see if I can help you down your path of discovery.


  • Actually, each and every person on this earth is "... entitled to health care, food, and housing." Applying that to everyone on earth, that's my opinion. But at least for those who live in the US, it's settled law. It's the "life" part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  • Even if this imaginary group - this mass of whining, irresponsible parasites - existed, rest assured, you and your fellows at that fundraiser would be the last folks on earth we would turn to for help.  You aren't at any risk of misleading "dependent" people into thinking you would throw us a crumb.
  • It doesn't exist, this scary group you describe.  Mitt, you patriot, you celebrator of the American people, you don't know your own country.  And you're missing out.

Your vision of the poor people in this country embarrasses you.  Shouldn't you know, at your age, and with your breadth of life experience, that there are whiny, irresponsible parasites at every income level.  Yes, sir, there are individuals who walk around feeling entitled to be handed something they haven't earned.  One can find them living as inner-city thugs, middle-management loafers, and, well, high-level corporate predators. 

But the underclass you envision as dependent is made up of the hardest working people you'll ever find.  You are actually talking about the backbone of the country, Mitt. 

I would have thought a finance guy would take a look at the numbers before making such proclaimations: If you had stopped to compare the number of people on some kind of assistance with the number of people hunting for work, holding down part time jobs, holding down several jobs, working jobs and going to school, working jobs and raising kids, you'd have realized the only way it adds up is when working people still aren't making enough to eat.  They don't stop working when they get food stamps, Mitt. 

You're talking about the people that wait for the bus and catch rides and go to their service industry jobs and hospital jobs and day care jobs and maintenance jobs and food service jobs.  

Think about what you're saying, Mitt - that half the country is sucking off the other half.  You don't know what you're talking about.  But you're talking about us, and we're offended.

2 Comments

Don't try to fight me on this one.

6/22/2012

0 Comments

 
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I will try to assume that GOP Senator Jeff Sessions, (R - AL), doesn't understand that the specter of the hungry child is real. 
He can't knowingly accept the existence of actual hunger in this country, and still say that it is a colleague's proposal to end that hunger that is immoral.

I'll try to assume that those who decry the rising cost of the federal food stamp program as the problem, rather than the rising need for food stamps, are simply confused.

I have to believe that they truly aren't processing the fact that they are trying to reduce the deficit by forcing desperate people who come to agencies looking for help to literally go away hungry.

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It's hard to figure how this lack of resourcefulness, and inability to prioritize humanely, could exist in the US Senate.  Even with my own unsophisticated research into other ways to find that money, it wasn't hard to do.  Simply exploring tax breaks for corporations and investors, it was easy enough to find several ways to more than make up for the $4 billion Congress is currently trying to pull from the food stamp program. 


So I cannot fathom that Republicans in Congress just can't think of any other way to locate deficit-reducing funds than to sneak them off the kitchen table of a poor American family; and worse, that they think it is an acceptable option.


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Here are just three ways we could adjust the tax code to save more than enough money to make up for what Republicans are suggesting we rob from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, (SNAP), a.k.a. food stamps. 

  •  1. Get rid of the rule that allows stock holders to "lease" their holdings to banks for several years, avoiding capitol gains taxes on those funds.  This costs the Treasury billions of dollars a year, far more than the amount we supposedly are being forced to glean from the food stamp program.
  •   2. End the practice of allowing corporations to use one value for their stocks for tax deductions and use another value to sell.  This is sort of like the Blue Book value vs the market value of a used car.  You report one to the IRS, and one to potential stock holders, and can actually come out ahead by showing the loss.  Billions lost to the treasury.
  •   3. Close the loophole that allows huge, profitable corporations to pass out massive numbers of stock options to executives then claim those as losses to lower their taxable net profits, and even go into a loss, meaning future taxes are plunged even lower.  More billions.
 
These are just three quick examples to show that there is money that can be moved around without touching food stamps.  I know this is a simplistic way to look at it - it's almost silly to set up my argument this way,  I do it to illustrate a point, and there are surely countless easier and more immediate ways to shift funds to avoid cutting spending on a program that literally keeps people from dying. 

There is no better way to ensure we feed the hungry in this country than keeping SNAP funded.  There is no more direct, efficient way to cause people to have food in their mouths.  This is a matter of giving people who don't have enough to eat a debit card they can use to purchase food.  This is about beans, apples, ground beef and milk - it is not theoretical, it is not a legitimate question of policy. 

The program isn't intended to replace efforts to help people get back to work so they don't need food stamps.  Feeding people should not be questioned in discussions about how to improve the economy over time.  I have no problem debating the merits of closing tax loopholes.  I understand there is an argument to made by some on the Right that reducing benefits and advantages enjoyed by the wealthy could stifle investment.  My point here is that there is no legitimate reason to suggest that the only way to reduce the deficit would be to take it out of the food stamp program, or that it would be okay to do so if even if there was no other way.  What could be more urgent than this? 

There is no comparison between a wealthy investor feeling the pinch of government overreach, and a 3 year old feeling the pinch of an empty stomach. 

This is what is really at stake.  Something I'll have to assume that Republicans in Congress would care deeply about, if they only understood. 
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0 Comments

How about a little bit of both - on teaching folks to fish.

5/13/2012

9 Comments

 
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Let's be fair and assume that conservatives and liberals agree on this; we should feed the hungry.  And that we all look forward to a time when fewer will face hunger.  The axiom "give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime" resonates with people from all political persuasions.  The majority of us even agree that the government has some role in providing that initial fish, if you will, so while we do argue about the scope of programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security, you don’t hear many calling to shut them down completely.

Most of us would also concur that in the long run, we’d rather teach someone to fish, allowing as many folks as possible to participate actively in our social and economic systems. 

You wouldn’t know it by listening to the zealots of any ilk, but most of us, across parties and ideologies, want the same things.  For example, you don’t find mainstream Republicans rejecting interstate roads, safety standards for pharmaceuticals, or a federal court system.  You won’t find most Democrats claiming they don’t enjoy material comforts, appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, or want young people to aspire to their highest goals, whether that means becoming an artist or a wealthy CEO. 

Most of us, left or right, are neither radical socialists, or robber barons.  

It's when we we turn to the question of how to lift millions of poor-but-able adults out of poverty, our viewpoints do start to diverge.  What should we expect of the individual, despite their circumstances and external barriers to success?  What role should government play?  We know that escaping really tough beginnings is statistically unusual.  And I would hope most people know that many, many people in living in poverty labor hard to improve their lot - research bears that out as well.

Again extending the benefit of the doubt, I truly believe that most of us, left or right, want as many folks as possible to be happy, healthy, and productive.  There is plenty of altruism among every political sector, and there is also a healthy self-interest in seeing the country thrive.  So how do we get there?

The conservative “bootstraps” ideal clashes with the liberal “intervention” ideal, and, stoked by opportunistic punditry and entrenched suspicion, animus has flourished.  It’s a complex area, and stereotypes have evolved to the point of of mythology.  We default to lashing out, with “why can’t these people just get a job??” versus “why do you people hate the poor??”  We fall prey to cynical voices, shrieking that heartless conservatives want to eat caviar while hungry babies cry, or that smarmy liberals want feckless thugs to revel in lives of state-sponsored ease.  

In reality, it is possible for well-meaning people (to paraphrase the old saying) to differ on how to best teach someone to fish.

Some of the misunderstanding may come from of a lack of awareness about the differences between the kind of “situational poverty” that has come out of the recession, as opposed to the more prevalent “generational poverty” that has existed in the US for well over a century.  The most promising remedies to these two very different problems are not the same.  Add that to the fact that poverty is an emotional issue, and that our vocabulary about it has been ravaged by cable news and talk radio, and you have ordinary people with opposing viewpoints seeing each other as immoral lunatics.  

If we could tone down the demagoguery, we could learn to apply the best aspects of both approaches:
  • An authentic emphasis on job-creation and recovery could be applied to help those devastated by the economic collapse. 
  • Robust federal investment into ravaged communities could ease suffering from chronic poverty, and provide a way out.

While Republicans have been forced by a few into espousing radical theories, support for their classic ideas is widely distributed across ideologies.
Eliminating pointless and outmoded regulations allows businesses to use increased revenue to hire more people.
Tax breaks for small business encourage new ventures and expansion of existing operations. 
Federally-funded social programs should be accountable and transparent, and evaluated for effectiveness. 
Without the right formatting, ample assistance programs run the risk of encouraging dependency.

Democrats have been pushed to fight tooth and nail to protect basic entitlements, so their demands may have come to sound strident and one-dimensional.  But the desire is not to simply truck in endless supplies of free goods and services to poor communities, achieving nothing but stasis.
The desire is to provide training, skills-building, support services, encouragement, and access to opportunity, to people who aren’t getting it elsewhere. 
The idea is that people naturally want to better and support themselves. 
That social programs are an investment. 
That by funding the teaching of literacy, job skills, effective parenting, family-budgeting and health management, the country will profit from a stronger and more productive citizenry.  

In any case, we’ll need to re-learn how to work together as soon as possible, because the country can only afford so much fish.

9 Comments

Rush threads the needle.

3/3/2012

0 Comments

 
With apologies like these, we don't need defiance.
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As advertisers pulled out of his radio program right and left, Rush Limbaugh was forced to take a humble tone, and---wait, what's this?  No humble tone here; this guy is doubling down!  Never thought I would type these words, but there's just no denying it:  Rush Limbaugh is a genius.

Here is his statement, issued Saturday afternoon:

"For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.  My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

This guy...

Rush, "word choice" is not the problem here.  ("He used a poor choice of words" was the weaselly phrase also clung to by Mitt and Rick when they were forced to weigh in Friday.)  During his rants, Rush actually softened his word choice at one point, saying “OK, so she’s not a slut. She’s ‘round heeled."  The problem isn't phrasing.  It's that he said demeaning, slanderous things about Fluke because of her position on a political issue.  He could have said, "This good lady assuredly removes her knickers and does unspeakable things with gentlemen callers on an all-too-frequent basis.  Otherwise she would undoubtedly refrain from insisting on economic recompense for correlated expenditures."  It would have the same meaning, and it's this defamation that he should be apologizing for.

This guy knows his stuff.  By saying, "I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke," he only concedes that while people who expect insurance to cover contraception are irresponsible sexual libertines, he didn't mean Sandra Fluke was one of them.

My hat is off to Mr. Limbaugh.  He simply turned his apology into an opportunity to restate his position.  I popped the whole statement into Word - it's a total of 192 words.  After I deleted the self-serving recap, 34 remained.  And the redacted version is heartwarming:

"I chose the wrong words. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.  My choice of words was not the best.  I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

0 Comments

Update on Sponsors Pulling Ads from Rush Limbaugh's Radio Show

3/3/2012

3 Comments

 
In the wake of his intensely offensive blather last week, Rush Limbaugh discovered that while he was talking, his money was walking. 

So far, active Limbaugh sponsors pulling their ads from Limbaugh's radio show include Sleep Train, Select Comfort, and Quicken Loans.  Other companies that have advertised with Limbaugh in the past or were erroneously named as sponsors hastened to correct these errors or distance themselves.  These include Lending Tree, eHarmony, Auto Zone, and Life Quotes.

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I'm posting this immediately to clarify where these companies stand, and will add updates as they come in.  For a great overview of the whole Sandra Fluke/Rush Limbaugh story, click on this Politico blog post by Dylan Byers.  Look for my additional commentary on the whole story later this weekend, including a look at the reactions of President Obama and the Republican presidential candidates. 



I posted this graphic on my facebook page Friday, but wanted to share the updated information and clarifications I was able to glean from the news today.  Of course, the sentiment of the post is the same! 
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_
Stay tuned for more updates as this story evolves!


3 Comments

The underbelly of the NC Legislature.

10/18/2011

8 Comments

 
PictureState Rep. Thom Tillis (R)
I stumbled across the clip below late yesterday, and it stayed with me all night.  I woke up and watched it again to make sure it wasn't a bad dream.  What bothers me so much about it is the forthrightness of these people's prejudices, and the unapologetic effort of this government official to encourage them.  The clip encapsulates the ugly mythologies and willful ignorance that define the conservative side of the class war.  


It's a video clip of NC Speaker of the House Thom Tillis, (R-Mecklenburg County) speaking recently to supporters, advocating for entitlement reform.  

On its face, reform is a worthwhile endeavor.  While I oppose Tillis' proposals for drug-testing of people on welfare, and required volunteer work for people on unemployment, he has every right to suggest policy changes and make a case for them.  He also has a right to his own philosophies about what it means to be on public assistance.  I appreciate his... clarity about the fact that he thinks there is one type of person on assistance who is "respectable" and one type who isn't.  The former, according to Tillis, would be a woman in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy.  The latter would be a woman "who has chosen to have 3 or 4 kids out-of-wedlock."   Respectability is subjective, and as voters, we do want to hear such sentiments stated, loud and clear.  In his position, Tillis has a responsibility to form opinions about government provision of welfare, officially called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).  While I find his opinion to be simplistic and callous, at least his honesty lets me know where he stands.

And he is honest.  According to Tillis, what we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance.  We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy, and had no choice in her condition - that needs help, and that we should help - and we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government.  And say: at some point, you're on your own.  We may end up taking care of those babies, but we're not going to take care of you.

Wait, wait.  Hold on.  I'm being unfair to Tillis; I've put his ideas into such crude and judgmental terms that I'm bordering on being disrespectful   No public servant could be that obtuse about the complexities of poverty and public assistance.  That's probably not exactly what he meant, and I shouldn't put words in his mouth.  Let me go back and listen again, and transcribe exactly what Tillis said, word for word.  Then you can compare it to what I wrote above.  

According to Tillis, "what we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance.  We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy, and had no choice in her condition - that needs help, and that we should help - and we need to get those folks to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government.  And say: at some point, you're on your own.  We may end up taking care of those babies, but we're not going to take care of you." 

Okay, so I was quoting him directly.  But again, as unsettling as this is to listen to, Tillis has a right to a point of view.  

What he doesn't have a right to do though, is lie, through statement or omission.  He doesn't have a right to knowingly exploit the trust of his constituents and assist them in maintaining an untrue vision. 

Tillis has been a North Carolina State Legislator for over five years.  He has claimed entitlement reform as a personal cause.  It's perplexing then when he demonstrates less than a layperson's understanding of the difference between disability, welfare or unemployment.  But much more disturbing is observing him moving artfully, deceitfully, from presenting proposals and points of view to suggesting and reinforcing falsehoods.  Tillis cannot have been a legislator this long, identifying himself as an advocate for change on this very issue, without knowing the basic facts about our state's version of TANF; NC Work First.  It would be inexcusable for him to be this ill-informed about the program, and unconscionable for him to be this proactively misleading about it, so there is no acceptable explanation for what he presents here.  

The myth of the able-bodied young woman hanging out on welfare, answering to no one, having more babies to increase her benefits was never realistic, but it became less than possible nearly two decades ago.  Massive federal welfare reform laws were signed into effect in the mid-nineties by President Bill Clinton.  The most important aspect of this reform was to solidify work requirements and establish stricter time limits.

Tillis knows this.

While the work requirements and some other aspects are defined at the federal level, a lot of responsibility for program design and administration was turned over to the states.  So it's possible that somewhere in the country, there is a state that has found a way to be more lenient in its application of federal standards.  Considering the reforms were expressly designed to rectify weaknesses in the welfare system that seemed to encourage generational poverty, it's unlikely.  And certainly in NC, since well before Speaker Tillis was elected, these programs were transformed into time-limited, employment-focused programs, providing subsistence-level monies, requiring participation in job training and budgeting counseling, with a focus on moving towards independence, and a clock on eligibility that is not restarted with the addition of new family members.  No one is bringing darling little bundles of dollar signs home from the hospital.  A newborn baby can add roughly $90 a month to benefits, which are calculated partly by family size, but that amount only offsets the additional expenses a baby brings.  In most cases, benefits will still remain under $1000 a month.

Tillis knows this.

So when one gentleman in Tillis's audience raises his hand to suggest that there should be some modicum of follow-up on the county level when people are given government money, some kind of system in which government officials could at least take a look at beneficiaries, and ask them some questions from time to time, Tillis knows but does not say that in fact, NC Work First goes much further than that.  Program oversight is very structured and strict.  It relies on much more than a once-over by staff to assess whether beneficiaries are keeping their nails clean and their shirts ironed.  The gentleman with the concern said, "The county - DSS in each county - ought to be required to bring the people in periodically and see what they're doing and question them, see if they're trying to find a job, what kind of shape they're in.  You can look at somebody and find out a lot about them."  Tillis's inscrutable response; "I don't understand it... everybody says it's because they're all looking for jobs.  Folks..." whereupon he launches into a bizarre proposition that people on unemployment have plenty of time on their hands and ought to be required to do 15 hours of community service a week.  

At the end of the clip, there is a moment of humor for the discerning viewer as Tillis squirms away from the suggestion by another audience member that all state employees, (which would include Tillis) be drug-tested.  But most of it is grim, as this state representative uses populist fabrication to encourage class distrust.  Does Thom Tillis want to solve problems in North Carolina?  Does he even misguidedly want to "create a sense of responsibility and obligation on the part of people receiving welfare" as he says at one point, or does he just want to push buttons and inflame people, who will then look at him as a hero?  

You be the judge.

8 Comments

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