So Now What?

Net Operating Loss -- The Wrong Story

We've all been treated to the spectacle of Donald Trump's tax issues the past week.  He lost just shy of $1 billion in 1995, and used that loss against subsequent gains.  The talking heads and various surrogates have been flogging his tax avoidance pretty much non-stop.  They need to stop.  It's not the relevant story, if only because it's completely legal.

This part of the tax code is about a hundred years old.  Its purpose is to help troubled companies rebuild and rebound from their difficulties. It has worked pretty well.  It has helped closely held businesses and smaller public companies alike.  I have some understanding of this process.  No one that I know who has had to take advantage has done so happily.  It's not a good thing.  Certainly calling Trump "a genius" for using the NOL is entirely bogus.  You use the NOL because you face catastrophic failure and this is a potential lifeline.  That lifeline may not be available, for example, if your lender won't agree to support you going forward.  Most lenders want to do that but there are some, I won't mention names, PNC, that lack the foresight and intelligence, to understand the benefits of nurturing a business back to health thereby preserving those jobs and fostering that company contribution to the commerce of the nation.  So, getting back on subject, no one is happy about being in the position to generate an NOL.  That Trump now says he wanted to use an NOL is either disingenuous or dangerously manipulative of the tax code.  The thing is, it's legal.  So that's not really the issue either.

The issue is, how the fuck do you lose a billion dollars on a casino?  It's a fucking casino!  In 1995, the economy was booming and Atlantic City was expanding, so blaming the economy for the failure is obviously bogus.  The only way a casino could lose that kind of money is through gross mismanagement.  So the issue here is Donald Trump's business competence.  It appears that he hasn't got any.  Don't be fooled by all the buildings with his name on them, that could be licensing agreements rather than any demonstration ownership.

OLYMPIC PAIN

The first week of the Olympics was entertaining.  Great athletes competing.  But week two is just too much.  I mean horse dancing and Busby Berkeley/Esther Williams 1930's swimming routines, now called synchronized swimming, really?  Give me a break.  And the announcers are just so into these bogus events.  Bob Costas and Ryan Seacrest are bad enough, but listening to breathless announcers describing how this horse is just out of the world, or that water dancer's toenail was just too long stretches my tolerance.  Have you noticed that while we watch these events once every four year, and are entirely unaware of them at any other time, we argue about whether a diver's entry splash is too big.  We haven't a clue, but we all weigh in on everything, like baton passing, who knows about this shit, not us.  We're on the sofa scarfing down Doritos and drinking Diet Coke, we know nothing.  I know that the participants work their tails off to be just so good, and that's admirable, I just don't want to see a bunch of people twirling ribbons around.  They do focus groups for everything, why not test the market for this Olympic thing?  The results would mean the games thing would take about 3 days, less if they limited the track events to just watching events with Usain Bolt, whose worst time was about a nanosecond, I could deal with that.

And then there's the whole sexism piece.  Women's beach volleyball is nothing more than soft core porn.  The men wear pants and shorts and shirts while the women wear stuff that would offend Victoria's Secret, except for the Egyptian team, which wore burkas, probably too far in the other direction to permit peak performance.  Women's gymnastics offers scantily clad teen age girls, maybe just a little creepy, while the men wear shorts and shirts.  The women and men who throw the shot put and the hammer are big enough to scare the crap out me, so they can wear whatever the hell they want, just so they don't come to my house and beat me up.

So Sunday night is the closing ceremony, thankfully.  Simone Biles is the U.S. flag bearer and she earned it.  On Monday we can go back to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and all the other stuff on my Apple TV, or just watch network reruns and the Olympic coverage nightmares will pass.

Circular Firing Squad

Here is the mountain we liberals have to climb in 2016.  First we must elect a Democratic President.  There is no alternative to this for us to have any hope of preserving the gains we have made and furthering our beliefs in establishing an equitable, fair and just society.  Second, we have to take back the U.S. Senate.  That's how we protect against getting any more Antonin Scalias and build a strong Federal judiciary at the lower court levels to establish a strong bench.  Of the 33 seats up for election this year, 24 are held by Republicans.  In 2014, the situation was reversed and Democrats were more vulnerable.  So we need to work to win as many of those seats as we can.  Finally, all 435 seats in the House of Representative are up for election.  This is where the Republicans have used their effective tactics of grabbing state governments to gerrymander districts and control the House.  In 2014, 58% of the electorate on a national level voted for Democrats, but thanks to gerrymandering, the GOP was still able to increase its hold on the House.  It's unlikely that taking back the House can happen in 2016, but we have to start by winning as many seats as possible, registering as many new voters as possible, and working to elect as many Democrats as we can to state government as possible.  It's a very daunting task.  Anything that distracts us from achieving these goals is a waste of energy and counter productive.

So now come the obstacles.  Scalia's SCOTUS cut the heart out of the Voting Rights Act.  Because they control so many state legislatures and governorships, the Republicans seized the opportunity to enact legislation that has restricted access to the ballot boxes to the elderly, the poor and communities of color.  Their claims that they are just trying to protect the electoral process from fraud has been demonstrated to be bogus.  In person fraud, the kind that their laws "protect" against, is virtually non-existent.  They have created a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.  There are multiple cases working there way through the Federal Courts, packed with Bush 41 and 43 judges, but even if they are successful, it's unlikely to effect this year's election because it will just be too late.

Campaign finance laws, also dealt a death blow by the Scalia SCOTUS, provide an additional boost to Republicans.  While there are Democratic Super PACS and dark money resources, they are not nearly as large as those backing the right wing.  Once candidates have been selected, these resources will spring into full combat mode, whether the candidates want them or not.  One of the problems with these groups is that they are on their own and press their own agendas without any input or message control from either party or any candidate.  They are much more vicious than the parties or candidates because they don't have to face the wrath of the voters but the candidates and parties do.

Finally, for liberals, we have the customary Democratic circular firing squad.  We have all enjoyed and been mortified by the GOP slugfest, and we feel good about the idea that Donald Trump could well be the Republican candidate and he may be the most offensive choice and, therefore, alienate the most voters.  I'll get to that later, but what has also happened is that while our candidates, particularly Bernie Sanders, have refused to engage in that kind of political slash and burn campaigning, their supporters have not.  As a Sanders supporter, my Facebook feed is clogged with vicious and despicable posts about Hillary Clinton.  I am disappointed and disgusted.  As Sarah Silverman pointed out last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Hillary Clinton was the guy until something better came along.    That's my key point.  I want Bernie to win.  I will vote for him in the Florida primary on March 15, I have donated money to his campaign and there is a Bernie magnet on my car, an act of actual courage here in Collier County Florida.  But I am a realist and a reasonably knowledgeable observer and participant in political life.  I understand that Bernie may not win.  If that happens, I will happily support Hillary Clinton.  I'll even put a Hillary magnet on my car.  I refuse to make the perfect the enemy of the good.  I will exercise my right and obligation as a citizen and vote.  I will vote for candidates up and down the ballot who come closest to my views. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT CANDIDATE.  Bernie has been wrong on gun control issues.  He voted to protect gun manufacturers and sellers from liability.  That was disgraceful vote and his explanation for having voted that way is, to put it bluntly, horseshit.  But, in most other respects, Bernie closely aligns with my views.

Attacks on Hillary Clinton are fruitless and support the Republicans because negative campaigning always has the effect of suppressing voter turnout and one of the things I have learned over the years is that low turnout elects Republicans.  That's another reason why the GOP has been so aggressive on passing laws that reduce ballot access.  If people stay home, they win.  For thirty or more years, Hillary Clinton has been a favorite punching bag for the right wing.  They have successfully sold the idea that she isn't trustworthy, although there is no proof nor any examples of that of which I am aware.  They keep hurling more slime at her all the time.  Recently it was Benghazi.  They spent $28 million investigating that horrible incident.  At the end of the day, GOP committee chair Trey Gowdy's own committee report said that none of it was true.  Further, it turns out that diplomatic facility security was cut because of the sequester, and we know who was responsible for that.  Some of it was outsourced to private contractors, you know, the kind of people who gave us Abu Ghraib.  We know who has backed outsourcing U.S. military functions don't we?  Then there is the email sham.  Turns out that Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell did exactly what Hillary Clinton did.  It was legal and established within the State Department.  She never sent any messages that were classified.  Some were classified after the fact recently, but they were not classified when she sent them.  Why was the State Department system so archaic and deficient?  Hey kids, can you say "sequester"?  So after all the right wing has done to trash Hillary, do you really think you are posting stuff that hasn't been circulating in the Fox News orbit for years?  No, you're only making it harder for her to win if she becomes the candidate by spreading the same lies among Democrats, and thereby suppressing voter turnout.  And what does low voter turnout mean boys and girls?  That's right, it means Republicans win.  Is that a smart objective for liberals?  No, it's just stupid and wrong.

What about the dump Trump movement in the Republican Party?  It doesn't mean anything.  Why?  Because after all the fireworks and Romney news conferences, asked if they will support Trump if he becomes the GOP candidate, every one of the Republican candidates and even Mitt Romney, John McCain, Lindsay Graham and the whole anti-Trump crew said yes, they will support him.  So the rest of it is sound and fury signifying nothing.  What about the right wing Super Pacs and dark money groups?  Some will go right ahead and work to elect Trump.  Some will reduce their support for Trump and, with those who will not support him at all, will direct their efforts to state and local races to help cement GOP control at those entry levels, where it provides a strong minor league training system for future right wing candidates.

So now what?  Here's what we must do.  First and foremost, stop trashing the other Democratic candidate.  Our people are closer to what we believe than any of the Republicans.  We need a large turnout. In that vein, second, contact your state and local Democratic Party and find out how you can help register voters, particularly if you live the GOP south, and then help turn out voters on election day.  Third, give money to elect Democrats.  Go online to take back the Senate and take back the House.  Give to your Presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.  Fourth, Howard Dean said that if you can't give money, run for office.  Run for town council, run for state assembly, but do something to fill our minor league system.  Fourth, do not sit out the election.  Vote.

We cannot allow the Republicans to win.  We have to fight to prevent their intended roll back of every progressive program enacted since the New Deal.  Fight for us, don't trash us.

The Presidential Sweepstakes Is On. OY!

I know, we're all following the 2016 Presidential race already, so what can my occasionally published blog possibly contribute?  I have no idea, but this is my blog, so join in or move on.

I just want to lay out some observations about elections, Presidential elections above all.  

1. There is no such thing as a perfect candidate.  I don't care which candidate you like, be assured that there are some things about him/her with which you do not agree.  Prioritize  your policy agenda and match that up with the what the candidates have either said specifically, or indicated support or opposition to.
2. Focus on issues not the horse race.  The media love to play with polls, and scandals, and everything that doesn't really matter.  Don't get sucked into their bullshit.  Your vote should go to the candidate who gets positive points for coming closes to your own beliefs.
3. Remember the Otto Von Bismarck's old saw, "Laws are like sausages,  it is better not to see them being made."  The best intentions run into the legislative sausage maker, so your candidate may look great but those policies won't come through the process unchanged.  In fact, most won't come through it at all.  Bismarck also said, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable--the art of the next best." In the first quarter of the 21st century in the United States, politics is truly a blood sport, in which compromise is punished more often than not.  It has never been a walk in the park, but it seems to be worse now than at any time during my life.
4. Finally, my own primary concern is who will be appointing Federal judges at every level.  Because of #3 above, this is my top priority.  SCOTUS is always a mixed bag, but the lower Federal courts are the minor leagues and filling them is very important.  Think about it, over the past couple of years, a very conservative court has issued rulings that have made liberals happy and rulings that have made conservatives happy.  Every President wants to tip SCOTUS toward his views, and sometimes they are more successful, and sometimes less.  Earl Warren was appointed by Dwight Eisenhower and he turned out to be quite liberal.  Lifetime appointment releases Justices from the pressures of politics, although some follow their initial agendas anyway, but some do not.  I believe that those who advocate for SCOTUS Justice term limits are simply wrong.  It is true that over the decades, life expectancy has increased so Justices are around for a lot longer, but people are sharper longer too.  In my lifetime, those Justices who are suffering health problems that would impinge on their abilities to serve have tended to resign.  Very few have actually died in office.

So that's my sage (hopefully) advice.  Now, let the games begin.  VOTE FOR STEVENSON/KEFAUVER! Oh wait, that was 1956.

So What's New? Part 2

I felt pretty good about Wednesday's post, but some people have raised specific policy concerns, so I thought, well, it's a cold day, so I'll just jot down a few thoughts about these things.

Let me begin by saying that I watched both McConnell's and Obama's news conferences in their seemingly interminable entirety on Wednesday.  It you watched too, you might have been encouraged by a seeming willingness to get things done.  If you were, you were wrong.  On specific issues, every opening was countered by a "but if..." phrase.

Yesterday's meeting with POTUS and the Congressional leadership was equally uninspiring.

Affordable Care Act: The House of Representatives voted to repeal the ACA like 54 times in the past two years.  The right wing of the Republican Party will be stronger now than it was so we can expect that it will try to repeal the ACA another 50 or so times in the next two years.  The Senate has used the Democratic majority to block those attempts.  That's gone now, so the Senate will hop on the bandwagon, but in a less clear cut way.  McConnell said that he would work to remove the individual mandate, that part of the law specifically upheld by SCOTUS.  POTUS is no fool, he gets that ending the individual mandate would gut the law.  So we can expect to see the veto pen fly into action every time Congress sends a bill trying to weaken and, thereby, kill the ACA.

Immigration Reform: POTUS said that if Congress sends him the bill approved by a large bipartisan majority in the Senate, he will sign it.  He made it very clear that he prefers that approach.     However, he will not wait for that to happen.  He will use his executive authority to take whatever actions he can until the Congress does send him such a bill.  This was a tack that Mitch McConnell likened to waving a red flag in front of a bull.  The House will never support the Senate bill, in fact Boehner refused even to bring it to a vote.   In the next term, even the Senate may not support its own bill because of the changes in personnel in that chamber.  So no immigration reform.

This would be a good time to point out that last winter five red state Democratic Senators asked the White House to delay taking executive action until after the election in order to protect them from the opposition to immigration reform in their states.  The White House complied.  Four of the five lost on Tuesday anyhow, and the fifth is in a runoff that she will probably lose.  In the meantime, Hispanic voters were outraged, and this futile little maneuver cost Democrats Hispanic votes.  To gain any credibility, POTUS will have to take the steps he said he would take last winter.  The GOP will go ballistic and accuse Obama of being a dictator and stepping outside the bounds of his office. There may even be an impeachment attempt or two.  Let's not get too worked up about this.  Obama has used executive orders no more frequently than Bush 43, Clinton and Reagan.  Having said that, you may assume that the Republicans will try to make this a major issue, after all 2016 is coming.

Tax code reform and infrastructure repair and improvement: This is one area where something may happen.  For years Republicans have said that they want to reform the corporate tax code and close loopholes.  Since 2009, the Democrats have tried to get jobs bills that focus on infrastructure repair and improvement.  The stimulus bill in 2009 was too small, but it did create jobs and complete infrastructure work.  The current hope for compromise is centered on the idea that corporate tax changes will be linked to an infrastructure jobs program.  One interesting side note is that during the 2012 campaign, Romney and Ryan talked about closing loopholes but refused to enumerate which loopholes would be closed and now that list will have to be specific.  Will this get done? I think it's possible but a long shot.

Climate Change: Forget it.  These issues are off the table.  James Inhofe, R-OK, is now chair of the  Senate committee that oversees climate change legislation and he is an extreme denier even having written a book that explicitly calls climate change a hoax.  The House has long been a lost cause.  POTUS will continue to use executive orders to do what he can, but nothing major can be done without Congressional approval and that's just not going to happen.  Some folks have expressed astonishment at the Republican denial of climate science.  They just haven't been paying attention. The Republican Party has been bought and paid for on climate issues.  Mitch McConnell is from one of the largest coal producing states, so it doesn't matter what he really thinks, his reelection depends on support of the coal industry.  That's all that has to be said about the subject.

Minimum Wage: Not going to happen.  While the public overwhelmingly supports increasing the Federal minimum wage, and all 5 states with state minimum wage increases on the ballot passed them with very comfortable margins, Congressional Republicans are vehemently opposed.  Joni Ernst, the new Republican Senator from Iowa, has said that she opposes having any minimum wage.  Admittedly while she's far out there, her opposition to increasing the current minimum wage is Republican mainstream thinking.  I'd love to see Congress reduce its pay to the minimum wage for a month and then see how it looks.

Equal Pay for Equal Work:  You must be high!  The Republican attitude here is that women just aren't worth it.  Some go further, like right to the edge of women as possessions of their husbands. There is a plethora of pseudo economic bullshit they and their apologists use to justify what is plainly and simply put bigotry.  But it's just bullshit.

Reproductive Rights:  Gone!  Welcome back to the 1950's!  Apologists for the anti-choice argument say that opposition to a woman's right to choose is based on a deep concern for the lives of the fetuses.  To which I say, CRAP!  The ultimate freedom is control of one's own body.  That's it pure and simple.  

Voting Rights Act: You don't actually think that the same people who have been pushing restrictions on ballot access in those red states are going to do anything at the Federal level that might allow the poor, elderly, and minorities to vote do you?  Get past it.  

I think that hits the high points.  POTUS is on his own, and the Democrats put him there because they tried to out Republican the Republicans.  Obama is too cool by half, and the Democrats are chicken shit.  This is an Administration that has accomplished lots in spite of getting no assistance from the Republicans.  Yet instead of promoting those successes aggressively, POTUS and the Democrats, a terrible name for a rock band, apologized for or ignored them.  They were a party that stood for nothing, just like the Republicans except that the Republicans had something they were very much against and they ran on that anger and opposition.  Additionally, the Republicans learned from the success of the Democrats in running a strong ground game.  They spent relatively little on TV time, leaving that to the outside groups who were happy to spend money on TV, and invested in making sure they got out the vote.  Meanwhile the Democratic ground game was weak.

While I'm disgusted and disappointed by the results, I remember that the Republican Party was ruled dead after the 2008 and 2012 elections, and they came back strong.  So things will turn, they always do.  In 2016, a strong Presidential campaign will lay the foundation for a Democratic renaissance, although the House is probably lost at least until 2020.

I think everyone, friend and foe alike, has been wondering whatever happened to the Barack Obama of the campaigns of 2008 and 2012?  That guy has to step forward again because the Democrats in Congress need someone to lead them.  Left to their own devices they will curl up in the fetal position and whimper quietly under their desks.  

So What's New? Not Much.

To say that I'm disappointed by last night's election results is, of course, an understatement.  But as the campaign unfolded, the result became increasingly predictable.  The Democrats did what they do best, they formed a circular firing squad and started shooting.  They have an incumbent President who has a list of pretty impressive accomplishments.  Instead of embracing and promoting those successes, they ran away in fear.  It's rarely a good idea to abandon your most successful vote getter.  Just ask President Al Gore.  

The process didn't just happen over the past year, but since the President's inauguration.  The Democrats allowed the Republicans to write the story.  POTUS was silent and the party structure, office holders and candidates mimicked his behavior.  The Republicans took the opportunity to fill the vacuum with their patented blend of spin, half-truths and outright lies.  So I'm unhappy, but not surprised.  

The story of yesterday was the nearly complete alienation from the Federal Government by the public.  This is part of the long term strategy of the Republican Party.  If the public loses confidence in the the government, it won't mind turning it over to those who advocate dismantling much of it.  How long term is this strategy?  Well, it started with the lie that Social Security won't last and there is nothing that can be done about it.  It continued with the lie that Medicare would run out of money and there is nothing that can be done about it and continued from there.  Those lies go back to Ronald Reagan who famously coined the pronouncement that the scariest sentence in the English language is "We're from the Federal government and we're here to help you." 

The GOP is very good at framing arguments partly because it is largely unencumbered by the truth.  Frank Luntz, a Republican hired gun, has taught his clients well. The Democrats just aren't very good at this as an organization.   Sometimes individual candidates are pretty good at it, but it's fairly random.  To further enhance their chances of controlling the government, the Republicans have been focusing on state government, which is where the action is.  As they took over states they took steps to insure their continued success, so they drew favorable district maps and then enacted voter restriction laws to protect us from in person voter fraud, something that doesn't happen.  As an example, Texas has the most restrictive voter ID law.  But since 2000, out of roughly 21,000,000 votes cast  in Texas there have been exactly 2 documented cases of in person voter fraud.  The judiciary, the appointment of which is the most important power of any President and Senate, has been packed by Bush 41 and 43, because Democrats have tended to give in to Presidential appointment authority, with Robert Bork being the exception that proves the rule, The Republicans have tended to block judicial appointments by Clinton and now Obama. 

So what now?  Until yesterday, the Congress was largely useless.  Now the Republicans will have to actually govern.  Lewis Black famously said, The Republicans are the party of no ideas, while the Democrats are the party of bad ideas."  Now the GOP will have to come with some actual legislation.  And POTUS will have to sign off on them.  As Mitch McConnell said today the President is the most powerful person in the system.  He has the veto pen, although he has only vetoed 2 bills during his Presidency to date.  Just for comparison, Bush 43 vetoed 12, Clinton 36 and Bush 41 vetoed 29.  These numbers don't include pocket vetoes, of which Obama has had none.  His statement today made it quite clear that he's ready to wield the veto more aggressively if need be.  He's also ready to sign off on reasonable compromises like the bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate but couldn't get past the Hastert rule in the House.

There will be important areas that won't get the attention they deserve and some areas that will get too much attention and will meet with the veto pen.  Things don't have to remain like this.  There are  Congressional and Presidential elections in 2016, and state elections in both 2015 and 2016.  Get involved and help turn your state to your views.  Howard Dean said that the best thing anyone can do to help promote her/his views is to run for office, town council, state assembly, anything.  Failing that volunteer  and give money.  

The Daily Show talked about the real winner yesterday, money. Click the link to see it, and apologies for the damn ad.  According to the numbers I've seen, the aggregate expenditure for the 2014 mid-term for the parties and their various committees and normal PAC's was an obscene $3 billion.  The overall total, including Super PAC's, and other contributions, including dark money, those anonymous funds enabled by the SCOTUS, will be about $6.5 billion.  It's a number that boggles the mind.  The Presidential in 2016 is on line to garner some multiple of that $6.5 billion.  This is disgusting and as Americans we should all be outraged and committed to finding a way to stop it.

Let me finish with the bright spot.  In many countries, an election like yesterday or any Presidential that changed the party in power would result in rioting in the streets and even lead to civil war.  In the United States, we have enough confidence in our system to understand that we can make change and tolerate opposition rule.  We live under the rule of law.  In spite of its weaknesses and problems, the United States of America is remarkably stable. 

Down to the Sea...or Not

Today marked one of my annual winter in Florida rituals.  I went to the pool.  That's right, I actually put on a bathing suit (I apologize for attacking your mind with that visual, which may stay with you right through the night), and went to the pool where I sat in the sun, read a book, and, yes, actually went into the water.  Some swimming might have occurred too.  I do this about one time each winter for reasons that aren't quite clear to me.  It's not that I can't swim.  I went to both a high school and a university that required every student to pass a swimming test, so my aquatic ability has been endorsed officially.  It's just that dipping in the water isn't one of my favorite things to do.  This is a feeling that my wife shares.  It may explain why we bought a house with a pool up in New Jersey back in 1984.

The glorious gated community in which we spend our winters offers three options for swimming.  There is an optional beach club, for which they charge actual money.  It's about a half hour away.  I've been there and it's lovely.  It has only two small drawbacks.  The first is sand and the second is salt water, both of which I don't like.  To pay extra for the privilege of driving half an hour to get sand in places where sand should never go and then try to rinse it off in 70º salt water, thereby being coated in salt, isn't that appealing.  

Then there is the main pool in the complex itself.  This a an architectural delight featuring waterfalls, a couple of non-threatening water slides and, in the middle of it all, a gazebo with a jacuzzi pool.  Surrounding the pool is a seating area filled with cushioned lounge chairs.  Each lounge  has a little flag on it.  If you put up the flag one of the attendants will come and take your order for food and/or drinks available from the quaint Gator Grille located poolside.  Soft luxurious towels are provided as is suntan goop.  It is truly a resort experience.  Except that a lot of the residents of the community hit the pool right after breakfast.  They stake out their lounge chairs and set up camp for the day.  They don't play golf.  They don't play tennis.  They hang by the pool.  These natatory types congregate in small pods with defined territories.  Should you drop your fluffy towel on one of their lounges they coalesce into a single glowering organism and shoo you away, in the most civil of mid-western manner, of course.  On the east coast, I suspect that the pods are actually vicious.  The remaining lounges are located in places so far from the actual pool that you have to follow the sound of the inviting waterfall to find it.  Then during peak weeks, like Christmas, Presidents and Spring break, which covers essentially the whole month of March, the resort pool is packed with children and grandchildren.  Somehow the members of the pods manage to incorporate these hordes of interlopers with no apparent increase in available seating.

Pool Day 2014

So that leaves the final option, the condo community pools.  Like the main resort pool, all the condo community pools are heated to 82º.  Unlike the main resort pool, the condo community pools are basic pools.  They consist of a pool house with restrooms and drinking water fountains as well as the mail boxes for the residents.  They have some furniture by the pool, but that's it.  This is the option I chose today.  The pool is about 50 yards from our house.  I arrived at 4.  I read until 4:15.  Went in the pool until 4:25, and walked home at 4:30.  This is exciting stuff people.

By the way, after years of opening, maintaining, and closing our pool in New Jersey, which hadn't been used in a decade or more, we had it killed by the pool killers at All Pool Demolition.  As you might guess from the company name, our action wasn't unique.  They kill about three pools a week.  I miss that pool not even a little.  

Israel Right or Wrong? Not So Fast

I am Jewish...and an atheist.  How can that be you may well ask?  A recent Pew study pointed out that "cultural" Judaism has become a major thread in the American Jewish community.  Many American Jews consider themselves to be Jewish but they're not so sure about the whole god thing and the narrow strictures of religious practice.  I fall into that realm with the exception of the god thing about which I am sure: there is no such thing as god.

Part of what we are told is central to our culture as American Jews is unquestioning support for Israel.  This support of Zionism is constantly reinforced by Jewish religious institutions and leaders.  Politically, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has been granted virtual religious status within our community.  In most circles, to question AIPAC is to question the very core of Judaism itself.  Earlier this week, The New York Times published an article about highly observant Jews who are not Zionists.  After reading that article, I was motivated to write today's post to my peripatetic blog.

As I noted, I am not an observant Jew.  We still get together for Rosh Hashanah, to break the fast on Yom Kippur and celebrate Passover, but with the quasi exception of Passover, which is the Jewish celebration of freedom and a call to fight to end oppression, things I do not consider religious but rather ethical and moral, these are traditions and I celebrate them because those around me, who I love and respect, consider them to be important.  

But back to Zionism.  Mainstream Jewish-American thought believes in Israel right or wrong.  On the other hand, these folks don't treat the United States the same way.  Personally, I don't believe in any political entity right or wrong without adding the caveat added by Carl Schurz in 1872.

"My country right or wrong; if right to be kept right; and if wrong to be set right."

First, Israel is not my country.  I am an American.  I put what I believe to be the best interests of the United States ahead of those of any other country, including Israel.  I understand the reasons for the creation of the State of Israel.  After millennia of abuse and discrimination, the holocaust was the ultimate wake-up call to the world about the plight of the world's Jews.  It would have been unrealistic to assume that holocaust survivors could simply return home and resume the lives they lived before Hitler.  Their home communities were unwelcoming and awash in anti-semitism.  Their homes had been destroyed or appropriated by others.  It would have been far more practical for survivors to have gone to other welcoming countries, except there weren't any.  The United States was just another nation among the world's loud chorus of countries that rationalized their anti-semitism and refused sanctuary.  Jewish leaders wanted a state in their biblical homeland, and there really wasn't any organized nation-state in that area anyhow, so why not?  And thus Israel, after much debate and controversy, was born, with President Harry Truman being the first world leader to direct his country, my country, to recognize the new nation.

The Arabs went ballistic.  They didn't want all those Jews near them either.  But they were largely a tribal culture whose nations were the fictions of European imperial powers, so who cared if they were unhappy?  In the ensuing war, most countries didn't really care who won as long as they didn't have to get involved.  When Israel won that war, the world largely shrugged and moved on. 

In the decades since, the general antipathy toward Israel hasn't abated much.  The United States has had the benefits of a strong ally in a deeply contentious part of the world first during the cold war and since then in an age where military action has diversified to non-state players like al qaeda, Hamas, etc. who oppose us.  Of course, today, it is our very support of Israel that has been the greatest, but not the only, motivator of that opposition.

And so we find ourselves with a situation in the middle east that seems to have no possible solution.  Our ally and beneficiary, Israel, opposes our policies and the current Israeli government has meddled in our internal political affairs both directly and through its mouthpieces, of which AIPAC is the loudest.  That opposition is not coupled with any alternatives that might lead to resolution, only opposition.  Israel says that the Palestinians are not acting as partners for peace.  That is correct.  I would add that Israel is not much of a partner for peace either.  Many years ago, when I was in Israel, I was told that Israel conquers by settlement.  Certainly that has been the methodology we have witnessed over recent decades.  Of course when an American Jew opposes the incumbent government of Israel, he/she is berated for meddling in Israel's internal political affairs and often tarred as an opponent of the Jewish state.

The two state solution may not solve the conflict, but it is currently the only game in town.  Israel has opposed that solution while presenting no alternative.  Sometimes it has opposed it overtly and sometimes it has opposed it by undermining negotiations and buying time to build more and more settlements on disputed land.  The late Ariel Sharon finally got it when he broke with Likud over the demographics of not reaching a two state solution.  The only way to keep Israel as a Jewish homeland is to allow a Palestinian homeland to exist and slow the inevitable growth of the Palestinian population of Israel that will change the country to a majority Palestinian country.  That all begs the question of the legitimacy of a nation state that is committed to keeping itself relatively ethnically pure.  I'm not sure that such a nation can be either legitimate or democratic if it takes the steps that will be necessary to ensure Jewish control into the future. 

Israel and the AIPAC crowd oppose American policy toward Iran.  Again, they offer no alternative.  We have long been told that the point of the network of sanctions against Iran has been to force them to the negotiating table.  Well, it has worked, they have come to the table and they have made the kinds of commitments that the rest of the world has wanted.  Will they live up to those commitments?  I don't know and I'm not optimistic.  Do we have to give the process time to play itself out? Yes we do.  There is no other alternative available.  What do Israel and my fellow American Jews propose?  Military action?  More dead and wounded American soldiers, Israeli soldiers and civilians and Iranian soldiers and civilians are not the solutions that make sense to me.

I support Israel, but only if it pursues policies that have some possibility of success and that don't undercut the United States.  There is no question that Israel is a dynamic democracy, even if AIPAC and company want us to believe that there is monolithic support for the incumbent government.  But it's repression of Palestinians, refusal to negotiate a workable peace agreement and opposition to the United States make it harder and harder for me to support it.

One more observation, and then you may bombard me with your comments.  Any American Jew who equates the religious right wing's support for Israel with acceptance of American Judaism is delusional.  The fundamentalist vision of "the end of days" requires that all Jews be back in Israel before Jesus can return to earth and judgment day begin.  So they love Israel, and they love you too as long as you make aliyah, i.e. move to Israel.  If you stay here, you are just an obstacle and they are no less anti-semitic than any other anti-semites.

Veterans Day

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude for those who were both drafted into service and those who have chosen to serve to fight for the United States of America.  That is not the subject of this post.  I want to talk about two subjects.  

Vietnam is first on my list.  Like most of the people I know, I was vehemently opposed to the war in Vietnam.  But I don't intend to talk about that either.  I want to talk about the dismal behavior of those of us who were against that war, including me, toward its veterans.  We saw them as willing pawns who killed at the behest of the government.  The people I know never did anything physical to those vets in terms of insulting them publicly, although some others did act against them physically, but our thoughts and discussions were entirely dismissive of what they went through as them merely getting their just desserts.  I was wrong, we were wrong.  First and foremost, most of those soldiers were drafted and they had no option but to go.  But even those who volunteered did what they had to do to survive.  Yes, there were incidents where soldiers did unspeakable things like the massacres at My Lai, but that wasn't the norm.  Mostly soldiers spent their time in Vietnam alternating periods of intense boredom with periods of abject terror.  We were right that they were mostly used as pawns, but that doesn't fall on them, it falls on those who sent them there and who kept them there.  Our government bears full responsibility for the deaths, injuries and PTSD, which wasn't recognized then, that befell these men.  Our anger should never have been directed at the soldiers at all.  We were wrong.  We should have welcomed those vets home thankfully as survivors of the failed foreign policy of the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon Administrations.

Finally, I want to talk about the hypocrisy of those who self-righteously declare their undying support for and thanks to veterans of our most recent adventures, but then quietly cut their benefits and leave them and their families to wallow in poverty.  We all remember John McCain's opposition to the GI Bill, which was ultimately passed  anyhow, but the indignities have continued.  A significant percentage of those receiving SNAP benefits (food stamps) are vets.  As a result of cuts to SNAP something in excess of 5000 vets will lose those benefits.  Veteran medical benefits have been reduced.  The unemployment rate among vets is 10%.  One third of homeless men in the U.S. are vets.  Acts of Congress, not fiscal mismanagement, have nearly destroyed the USPS and caused many of its workers to be laid off.  Guess what, the USPS employs more vets than anyone except the Defense Department.  Increasing the minimum wage will help about a million vets.  Expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would bring coverage to 40% of the 1.3 million vets who are uninsured and yet some of the most self-righteous empty suit Governors are the very people who have refused to except increased Medicaid coverage in their states.

If we as a nation really want to thank veterans, we should demand that they have access to food, jobs, health care and housing.  It just pisses me off when blowhard politician sing about their devotion to vets and then knife them at every turn.

The Iron Curtain

It seems clear that an Iron Curtain, to use Winston Churchill's phrase, has descended across the American Southland.  As a nation, we have worked for decades to encourage our public to participate in the nation's civic life by voting.  Many have marched, protested, been arrested and beaten to make sure that the right to vote would not be abridged in the United States of America.  Each election has seen a decline in the participation of more and more citizens.  It seemed that we were beginning to turn that around through things like the "motor-voter" laws and online voting.  Renewal of the Voting Rights Act has been approved by huge bipartisan majorities in the Congress right into the 21st century. Then the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gutted that law.  It's not that it can't be enforced, it's that enforcing it will be much more difficult to do.

The reason the Court gave for its action was that pre-certification is no longer necessary.  Within two hours of the decision, their reason was demonstrated to be fallacious.  Texas, one of the states that had been subjected to pre-certification, passed draconian voter identification laws, rolling the right to vote back to where it was when Martin Luther King marched in the 50's and 60's.  Pre-certification state North Carolina was next and Florida will soon follow.  The Iron Curtain is descending and the promise of our nation is being trashed.

How big a problem is voter fraud in the U.S.?  Since 2000, about 10 cases of in-person voter fraud have been reported in the country.  All but one was dismissed, and the one was caught and never actually voted.  So these states are solving a problem that doesn't exist.  Why?  What's going on here?

The Republican Party, now under the control of its extreme right wing, has realized that minorities, the young, the old and the poor tend to vote Democratic.  Rather than coming up with policies that will help these constituencies, they have decided to fight this rear guard battle.  These laws are designed to prevent them from voting. The processes required to get acceptable ID's for people without driver's licenses or access to birth certificates or who are students in the state is arduous and trying.  When it was the Southern Democrats suppressing the vote back before the Voting Rights Act there were poll taxes and "literacy" tests that were used to prevent "undesirables" from voting.  The mechanisms are different but the goal is the same. The harsh reality for the Republicans is that their constituency of white males is becoming a minority of aging curmudgeons.  These moves will only delay their descent into irrelevance.

They must be stopped and defeated in every election everywhere it is possible.  They have a core of oligarchs like the Koch Brothers who operate quietly behind the scenes to fund seizing and holding state government's and therefore control the redistricting and voting process.  What can be done?  We need a new civil rights movement.  Not founded on racial equality, but rather upon citizenship equality.  We need massive marches on the state capitols of those states behind the Iron Curtain and those in danger of disappearing behind it, like Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  We need to mobilize to help people negotiate the multiple obstacles to voting and then vote out those state legislators and governors whose agenda is to withhold the right to vote so that they may keep their dying grip on power for a few more years.  

I marched for equality in the 1960's and I am prepared to march again decades later.  Are you in?  Will you stand with me and those like me who are determined to defend the United States of America against these domestic threats?

Everybody Loves the Sequester

Republicans and Democrats alike fell in line behind the sequester when it was proposed not because they wanted to slash their favorite appropriations but because they figured the other side would never let slashing its favorite appropriations happen so the draconian cuts would never happen.  Surprise, surprise, no one blinked so now everyone is paying for Congressional obstinance.

Well, not quite everyone.  While 70,000 kids are being thrown out of Head Start, millions of seniors are deprived of nutritious meals, hundreds of Federal food inspectors have been furloughed endangering the nation's food supply, and thousands of teachers, police officers and firefighters have been laid off, not one member of the House of Representatives or the Senate has seen any effect at all.  In fact, the executive, legislative and judicial branches were specifically exempted from the effects of the sequester.  In all fairness, it should be noted that President Obama has voluntarily reduced his salary by 10% in response to sequester cuts.  No one else has rushed forward to share the pain.

In fact, while seniors go hungry, Congress and the President were so deeply moved by the impact of their own gutlessness on hapless air travelers that they loosened the rules of sequestration to allow the FAA to restore air traffic controllers and reduce air traffic delays.  Oh the horror of having to wait and extra hour in order to be treated like garbage by airlines and pay for a bag of 20 stale peanuts!  Let salmonella into our food chain, but don't make members of Congress and other air passengers wait another hour!  What hypocrites.

A couple of days ago, in an interview with Ryan Lizza, of CNN and The New Yorker, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor acknowledged that Paul Ryan and he created the sequester by pressuring Speaker John Boehner not to accept the grand bargain upon which he and the President had agreed.  Why do Cantor and Ryan like the sequester?  Simple, the sequester achieves the GOP right wing's long time desire to cut Federal spending on programs that they and the Libertarian/Ayn Rand wing of the party believe to be outside of the scope of Federal authority.  

Democrats naïvely believed that the threat of cuts to GOP favorites like defense and corporate subsidies would compel Republicans to avoid invoking the sequester.  But the Republicans understand that there is a lot more than 10% waste in the Pentagon budget, so defense wouldn't really feel the pain despite cries to the contrary from military leadership and Obama appointed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.  Libertarians are not fond of outright subsidies to the private sector either, and corporate earnings are at an all time high, so the large corporate entities that are beneficiaries of governmental largesse would weather the storm.  Those private sector companies that are very much dependent on the Federal government, like those working in cutting edge technologies, e.g. alternative fuel sources, are not likely to show profitability in the short run, and depriving them of their funding source will help kill them clearing the playing field for the traditional businesses that are major sources of contributions to the Republican Party.  

And so the sequester continues to devastate those who are most vulnerable and those who are working in developing the technologies we will need in the decades to come, while merely annoying the rich and powerful a little bit.  My conclusion?  This is an example of the Republicans being evil and the Democrats being stupid.  This is a hell of a government we've got here.

Sequester

Until recently, you just didn't hear the word "sequester" used in conversation very much.  I like the word.  It's not my favorite little used word.  That would be "bifurcate."  When did you last hear the word bifurcate used in normal conversation?  Right?  Like never!  Why is that?  It's a great word.  Think about how many times you've wanted to convey the concept of splitting something into two pieces, not equal pieces necessarily, just two pieces.  That's bifurcate.  Let's all try to use bifurcate in conversation from now on, until you or someone to whom you're speaking decides that the word just pisses you or them off.

"Sequester" is less satisfying to say, and probably used less frequently.  That is until recently.  My guess is that a large percentage of the people who are using the word don't really know what it means.  As kids we never played "sequester and seek," right, so it's not a familiar word.  Unfamiliar that is until it became linked to a) an artificially created financial deadline and b)...well I can't remember what b was going to be, so forget it.  I did.  

This sequester is about gutting every part of the Federal government regardless of merit or consequence.  If that doesn't sound like a good way to run a country, it isn't, but the political climate in the United States is mostly about how not to govern.  With all the politicos and pundits running around telling us that the sky is falling, you'd think someone would try to do something about it.  If you think that, you're wrong.  The Congress took is usual Presidents' Week break to go home, wrangle contributors, bloviate (another one of those words), do photo ops, smile at Presidents' Day parades and try to remember where their residences of record are actually located.  President Obama returned from golf with Tiger Woods last Tuesday to begin working on this, but there was no one to talk to until this weekend when members of Congress straggled back into town.  And even then no one wanted to talk, they just wanted to strut upon the stage.  The Republicans have opted to spend their time trying to blame the President for the sequester even though a majority of them voted for the sequester and it was proposed because Speaker Boehner could not get his caucus to agree to the grand bargain to which he and President Obama had agreed.  They have accused the President of failing to present an alternative to the draconian and, yes, I'll say it, stupid sequester.  I guess they're ignoring the White House web site.

Anyhow, you have to wonder why no one is doing anything.  I believe the answer is that they don't want to.  Polls show that 71% of voters believe that the solution should include revenue increases from closing loopholes and cutting subsidies to industries and companies that don't need them as well as cuts to Federal programs.  Thus the Democrats are ready to let the Republicans twist slowly in the the wind.  The Republicans have been trying to slash spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, meals on wheels for the elderly, the National Endowment for the Arts, et al forever, and the sequester gets them there without having actually to do something that might anger constituents, so they are happy to let the Democrats get pummeled by their constituents, who overwhelmingly support those programs, because they didn't protect them.  There is another component to this thing and that is that the government won't actually run out of money until March 27, so the sh*t won't hit the fan until then.  Now every Federal agency, company and state government that will be effected has already started to plan to wind down.  But Congress figures it has until March 27th, so what the heck.  

Personally, if the government is going to choose between children, seniors, cops and teachers and subsidies for BP, ExxonMobil, Monsanto, Cargill and their ilk (another of those words), I'm going to have to side with the kids, seniors (of which I am now one), cops and teachers.  The reality is that our fiscal health can't be protected with cuts only, revenues are needed too.  I guess I should point out here that Medicare, a favorite target, can be fixed easily, but it will take political will and our politicians don't have that.

It's Been a Long Road and There is Further to Travel

Today would have been Martin Luther King's 84th birthday.  On NPR this afternoon, Talk of the Nation played Dr, King's "I Have a Dream" speech, which they do every year.  As I rode in the car listening I found that the power of his words brought me to tears, literally.  The guy in the pick-up truck next to me gave me a strange look, but I don't care.  While Dr. King was speaking of African Americans, his thoughts apply to all who seek justice in our country and around the world.  So instead of writing about those things, I decided to share the speech with you in this video.

The Second Amendment

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

That's it folks.  That's the entire text of the second amendment to the Constitution. I suspect that most people haven't actually read the text since their days in high school, if then, but they wax eloquent over what it does and doesn't mean.

For the first 140 years or so of the existence of the republic, there wasn't really much conversation about the second amendment.  At the beginning, regulation consisted largely of apprehended criminals being punished for their crimes and their guns being confiscated until they had served their time.  Most of the original delegates to the Constitutional Convention saw the second amendment as allowing the states to maintain militias, now called the National Guard, and guns were used for hunting.  Not hunting for sport mind you, hunting for food.  The concept of "leisure time" was most uncommon among any but the wealthiest citizens, which would have included the rich, white men who were the delegates.  And, of course, shooting was a central component of the military.

In 1939, the Supreme Court, in United States v Miller, ruled that interstate commerce in sawed off shotguns could be regulated by the government because a sawed off shotgun had nothing to do with with the maintenance of a well regulated militia.  Thus the right of the Congress to determine which weapons were or were not appropriately allowed in interstate commerce.  

Seventy years later, in 2008, the Court revisited that ruling in District of Columbia v Heller, and in that ruling overturned the DC hand gun ban saying that Miller was an anomaly since a sawed off shotgun could not possibly be used for any legal purpose.  That still allowed the government to determine what weapons could or could not be allowed in interstate commerce by determining if a specific type of weapon could be used for a legal purpose.

In 2010, in McDonald v City of Chicago, the Court strengthened the rights of the individual, outside of the well regulated militia, to possess weapons under the protection of the second amendment.  

So here we are.  Twenty six people are dead in Newtown, Connecticut.  There was a shooting at a hospital in Alabama today.  We've had a bunch of these horrific incidents over the past couple of decades.  What should we do?  There are twenty times more gun deaths in the U.S. than in the other twenty two wealthiest countries combined.  Eighty seven percent of all gun deaths of children in the twenty three wealthiest countries occur here.  And this despite that fact that overall crime and gun crime has declined in the U.S. over the past decade or so.

What the hell is going on?  As I see it, and that's what counts here because this blog is entitled "The World According to Me," we have made guns too easy to get and mental health services to hard to get.  Any solution must address both these issues.

I don't believe it is necessary, or appropriate to ban guns.  Also, I believe that ship has sailed.  Guns are part of American culture, for better and worse.  An outright ban will simply promote a huge black market in guns, think prohibition, and make criminals of perfectly law abiding citizens.  Not only that, target shooting is fun.  In my profligate youth, OK, not really so profligate, but while I was in summer camp, I enjoyed shooting and even earned the NRA rank of sharpshooter second bar.  In those days, the NRA was an advocate regulation of firearms.

Having said all that, I also advocate registration of all guns, background checks and mandatory safety and use classes before someone may purchase a gun.  Owners should be required to report any theft or loss of a weapon to the local police so a national data base of weapons that are no longer accounted for can be maintained.

Extra capacity ammunition clips and bullets that are designed exclusively to kill, like hollow points, as well as automatic weapons should be banned.  Current owners of such clips, bullets and weapons may keep them, but they must be registered.  Penalties for failure to register or report theft/loss should be steep and cost of registration should be moderate.  Concealed weapons permits should be allowed only for those who can prove a need and those permits should be granted very sparingly.

As for mental health and addiction services, right now the Affordable Care Act prohibits insurers from denying coverage on the basis of a prior existing condition.  In 2014, mental health and addiction services will be part of the essential benefits  package that must be offered by the health care exchanges and Medicaid, so accessibility is about to be dramatically increased.

This is all great, assuming people are aware of their need for assistance.  The stigma attached to using mental health services must be removed and friends and relatives of those who need these services have to be willing to step forward and steer patients to those resources.  These school shooting rampages of recent years have been largely perpetrated by young, white, middle and upper middle class males.  After the fact we learn of the warning signs that were missed by those in a position to direct the shooters to get help.  Parents, teachers and, frankly, the public at large need to be educated as to for what they are looking.

None of these proposed solutions will be fool proof and all will take time to accomplish.  But they are a start, and we definitely need to start.  It behooves the public to push the NRA to return to its original policy of advocating reasonable gun regulations.  Right now, the NRA is no less than an accessory to multiple murders.  That must stop.  How to convince the NRA?  Take it over.  Members elect the leaders of the organization.  We need to learn NRA governance structures and co-opt them in the name of public safety.

Finally, gun advocates keep saying that if all the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary, or the movie goers in Aurora, Colorado had guns this could have been stopped.  Am I the only one who thinks that a kindergarten teacher with a gun locked in her/his desk drawer could not have been counted on to get to that gun before he /she was shot, or that hundreds of panicked movie fans firing their guns in the dark, smoky slaughterhouse that the assailant had created would merely have increased the death toll and engendered even more panic?  The idea that more guns in more hands is safer is patently absurd.  It is true that guns don't kill people, people kill people, but guns in the hands of unstable people make death more likely.

Standing on the Precipice

The election is over.  Now it's time to get to work to do the people's business.  First and foremost there is the fiscal cliff.  For those who have forgotten, let me describe briefly how we got to this point.  The fiscal cliff is a result of Congressional wrangling.  Back in 2011, the House Republican majority held the nation's credit rating hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling without major cuts in certain Federal programs.  The immediate crisis was averted by an agreement to set up a "super committee" that would be charged with reaching a settlement on issues of debt, taxes and deficits by the end of the year.  To the surprise of exactly no one, the committee was a dismal failure.  Because of the 2012 election, Congress and the President decided to kick the can down the road creating the fiscal cliff we face now.  The idea was that with the election over, the legislative and executive branches could tone down the rhetoric and actually accomplish something.  How that will work out remains to be seen.  In the mean time, I have the answers to the problems.  It's not necessary to thank me, I do it for love of country.

The Revenue Side

The Republicans will not tolerate increases in tax rates.  The President and the Democrats demand that the top income earners pay more.  If that doesn't sound like a recipe for success, it's because it isn't.  Yet with all the seeming rock and a hard place posturing, there have been some little cracks of light.  Boehner says he might accept revenue enhancers as long as the rates don't change and the President says he's not wedded to every step of his plan.  It's not much, but it is something.

At the end of the day, if all deductions for all tax payers are eliminated, there will not be enough money saved to make a significant dent in the debt.  Only an actual tax increase will do that.  I've been surprised at how many people don't grip the concept of "marginal rate."  What the President is proposing is an increase in the marginal rate.  So if you are making up to $250,000 in W-2 earnings, you will not pay more.  If you make more than $250,000 in W-2 earnings, the amount above $250,000 will be taxed at 39.6%, the same as during the Clinton years, only no oral sex.  That means that 98% of taxpayers will see no increase in their rates.  As for the claim that small businesses will be hamstrung, 97% of all small businesses don't pass the $250,000 mark either.  That remaining 3% includes hedge funds and financial firms that employ less than 50 people, not really small businesses.   During the Reagan Administration, the top marginal rate was 50%.  During the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, the top marginal rate went from 91% to 70%.  So stop weeping for the top 2%, they've gotten richer and richer and everyone else has gotten poorer and poorer.

During the campaign, Romney and Ryan said they would close loop holes to raise revenue, but refused to disclose which loop holes they intended to close.  Here are my top picks.  Oil companies receive huge tax breaks through the tax code.  Enough already.  They don't need the help.  We have subsidized the production of ethanol, a fuel that uses more energy to be produced than it creates.  The double whammy is that the tax subsidy rewards agribusiness for diverting its corn crops from food to bad fuel.  This is not only expensive, it's counter productive.  The United States should pocket most of the saving and divert the rest to basic research into the development of alternative fuels.  

All tax breaks for corporate investment off-shore should be terminated.  Let the government keep 50% and spend the other 50% to help finance domestic manufacturing investment.  Other countries have a Value Added Tax (VAT) instead of a corporate income tax.  When their companies export, they are reimbursed for the VAT making their products cheaper when they enter other nations, like, for example, the U.S.  The VAT is a regressive tax, and I don't recommend it for us, but we have to do something to compensate for the unfair advantage granted to vendors from VAT countries.  Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have been working on what they call a border equity tax that adds back the VAT from other markets when their products land here, and grants tax relief equal to the VAT charged in receiving countries when our companies ship there.  This sounds like a solution, but it violates the rules of  the WTO and could spark tariff/trade wars with some trading "partners" like, say, China.  So the concept needs some more work.

Mitt Romney's late introduction of an amount of deductions allowed, first he said $15K, then $17K and then $25K, has some merit.  I think it works well for home mortgage interest deductions, but not so well for charitable giving.  I think the lower rate for capital gains should be graduated, so up to the first "x" amount of capital gains would be taxed at 15%, anything over that would be taxed as regular income.  Republicans, hey, there may be one who reads this, before you get your panties in a knot, Ronald Reagan's 1986 bipartisan tax reform plan eliminated the lower rate for capital gains altogether, so you're allowed to support the idea.  By allowing some level of capital gains, we would protect the earnings of those middle income Americans whose retirement consists of some capital gains.

The Spending Side

I'm not even going to dignify discussion of cuts to the social safety net programs such as food stamps, unemployment benefits etc.  These make up about 10% of the Federal budget and, thus, should be left alone.  Let's talk about the big three.

Medicare

Fixing Medicare isn't that hard.  It does require political courage.  I'll wait while you laugh about the slim chance that we'd ever see any of that from Congress.  Are you done?  OK, let's move on.  As the private insurance market and simple common sense demonstrate, the costs of medical care are highest for the oldest, sickest people.  This is why insurance companies eliminate prior existing conditions whenever they can, of course with Obamacare they can't do that anymore, and why there are lifetime caps on benefits, oh, and of course with Obamacare they can't do that anymore either.  Medicare covers only the most costly population, old farts like me.  If Medicare could tap into a healthy cohort to share the costs, its income would go up and its costs would decline.  For the last few years we have heard the Republicans and the Tea Party types who have gained control of the Republican Party whine about the evils of government sponsored healthcare.  We all remember the sign above.  If you were to ask most Medicare beneficiaries if they are satisfied with their coverage, they'd say that they are.  Even the Tea Party types like it, as shown in the numerous signs and "intellectual pygmy on the street" interview comments at Tea Party rallies.  Medicare isn't perfect and people have problems with it.  But they never have the problem of their insurer trying to throw them off the plan because Medicare is not for profit.  Personally, I love my Medicare and thanks to Obmacare routine screenings like mammograms, prostate exams, annual physicals, PAP smears and the like are now covered, and the Part D Drug Plan donut hole has been reduced by 25% this year, and will be reduced for each of the next three years until it is eliminated.  

Remember the $716 billion that Romney and Ryan said that President Obama had taken from Medicare?  Well they took the money from private insurance companies who were getting subsidies to offset the costs of Medicare Advantage plans and from hospitals that were overcharging Medicare.  Advantage plans were part of the Republican program passed in the Bush Administration in an attempt to a) inject private market competition into the senior health coverage business and b) lure as many seniors as possible away from traditional Medicare in an attempt to drive it out of business.  I'll bet you can guess how that worked out.  Even with the subsidies, the private market couldn't keep costs in check so now the President has decided that these plans will have to sink or swim without government help.  Part D drug coverage was another genius move by the GOP and Bush.  The program was instituted but not paid for from the budget.  Rather, it was financed by borrowing more money.  And I thought Republicans were against increasing the debt.  It was a huge giveaway to the big drug companies.  Just to make their profits higher, Medicare was prevented from negotiating for better prices.  So some of that $716 billion will close the donut hole that increases the costs of drugs for many Medicare beneficiaries, and not even the sickest ones.  I'm currently in the donut hole and I don't use a lot of prescriptions.  Virtually all of those I do use are generics.

Back to the topic at hand.  If Medicare were opened to everyone at any age, the demographics of the beneficiaries would become much more advantageous and the plan would be financed forever.  Another advantage would be that employers would no longer be in the healthcare business.  I have spoken to numerous small and mid-sized business owners and the one thing upon which they all agree is that they don't want to be in the healthcare business.  Medicare for everyone would accomplish that goal and lower their costs of doing business, making them more competitive in the international market place.

Defense Spending

President Eisenhower

Our defense department is still designed to fight the Cold War.  We have bases all over the world, whether we need them or not.  For example, why do we still have huge bases in Europe?  Germany, France, Italy, the UK etc. have their own sophisticated military establishments.  Let's pack up all the stuff in Europe and come home.  We could save billions of dollars just by doing that alone.  Why do we have a military presence in Japan?  End the World War II prohibition on Japan developing a full military presence, and let them handle it themselves.  More billions would be saved.  Because of North Korea, we still need a presence in South Korea, but that presence should be reduced and South Korea should assume additional responsibility for its own military needs.  That's more billions.

We need to stop building weapons systems that the military doesn't want or need.  Technology has proven to be very effective.  Things like drones and cyber weapons have proven to be very effective  and they risk fewer American lives and cost a lot less.  We should always remember the warning of President Dwight Eisenhower, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Social Security

Who pays more for Social Security, someone who earns $106K per year or someone who earns $200K per year?  The answer is that they pay the same amount.  Social Security taxes are taken out  of W-2 earnings up to a maximum of $106K.  Someone making $35K per year pays a higher percentage of his/her income for Social Security than someone earning $200K.  Does that seem fair to you?  It doesn't seem so fair to me.  To save Social Security, which, by the way, is in no danger until 2035, we need to increase its income.  The way to do that is to lift the cap.  The current system burdens lower income earners more than higher income earners.  Very simple don't you agree?  There are a couple of myths being batted around about Social Security's "problem."  One of the most  widely espoused is that when Social Security was instituted, the average life expectancy was 63 years old, while today it's something like 70  That is true as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.  Back in the day, the average life expectancy may have been 63, but once you made it past 63, your life expectancy was about what it is now.  Remember that infant mortality was quite high back then, so the average includes children who died from things that are now very preventable and now don't really cause death anymore.  Of course Christian Scientists and the whacko followers of Michelle Bachman, who think vaccines cause disease and death keep that average lower than it need be.

So there you have it.  All we need now is for the members of Congress to do is develop a little intestinal fortitude and a spine and we can move ahead.  I suspect that what will come out of all this will be a piecemeal approach that will do little more than kick the can down the road.  Ah but we can dream!

Enough Already and Sandy Too

After 50,000 Republican Primary Debates, a whole bunch of GOP primaries, over a billion dollars of ads by both candidates, their parties, super-pacs, 501c4's (I think it's c4), 3 Presidential and 1 Vice Presidential debate, seemingly endless hours of pontificating by MSNBC, Fox News, network news Sunday shows, Daily Shows and Colbert Reports, I assume you've decided for whom you will be voting.  Most of the people who are reading this made that decision some time ago I suspect.  Some have already voted in states where that is allowed, including Ohio where the Secretary of State did everything he could to prevent it from happening.  I have held off commenting for two reasons. First, there has been enough to read and watch without my two cents in the mix, and, second, I've been busy doing stuff as well as reading and watching everything I could.  Of course if you're one of my Facebook friends, I have posted a plethora of links.  Now it's time to vote.  First, let's take a little detour.

Here in New Jersey, we have early in-person voting at every county clerk's office in the state this weekend and tomorrow for the first time.  This is one of the after-effects of Sandy.  Governor Chris Christie decided that in order to protect the Constitutionally mandated right to vote, the opportunity to vote had to be expanded.  Christie, of whom I am not a fan, has demonstrated character in the face of adversity.  He is paying for it, but more about that in a bit.

Before the storm, during the storm and every day since the storm, the Governor has been a whirlwind of activity and executive decision making.  He warned, cajoled, threatened and browbeat those who live on the barrier islands down the Jersey Shore to leave.  He did everything he could to warn the rest of us as well.  His performance was not unique in the region.  Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg in NewYork, and Governor Malloy of Connecticut were at their best too.  But none of them is my Governor, so I'll focus on Christie.  One of the realities he faced was that the State of New Jersey could not possibility mobilize enough resources to meet the oncoming need.  More had to happen.

Serendipitously, the one elected official who could mobilize the necessary resources saw the need early as well.  Before the Sandy hit, President Obama called the Governor and they talked about what was about to happen.  The President and the Governor spoke repeatedly about the need and about how the United States government could help.  The critical connection between the two governments was handed to Craig Fugate, FEMA administrator, who was given Presidential clearance to wipe away any red tape or other obstacle and make it happen.  FEMA was on the ground here when the storm hit.  

During the storm, Christie kept up his drumbeat of information and effective use of state government authority to try to help those of us out in the storm.  Of course the Governor was out in it too.  The President and the Governor were in frequent communication, with each of them working to provide the kind of coordinated response New Jersey needed and would need going forward.

After Sandy blew through, the President and the Governor visited major scenes of destruction around the state together.  This was no George W Bush thirty-thousand foot fly-by,  they actually worked.  They met with victims and continued to make sure our needs were being met.  It hasn't been perfect, but it was very good.  At each stop, the Governor praised the President for the skill and attentiveness he was showing and the President praised the Governor for his dedication and responsiveness.  It was what we needed to see and hear.

Twelve days before all this, Governor Christie, who has been a strong surrogate for Mitt Romney, was slashing the President verbally all over the country.  He has been relentless.  It's the same line of attack Romney has made but with Christie's unique New Jersey bluntness.  What happened?  The answer is very simple, Chris Christie is the Governor of New Jersey, and he understands that while politics, particularly at the Presidential level, is a vicious blood sport, an elected leader's prime priority is meeting the needs of the populace.  So the Republican Governor and the Democratic President, who understands what the Governor understands, worked together and stood together to provide the resources needed to help the people of New Jersey.  We have all benefitted from this increasingly rare display of grown-up behavior.  Christie still supports Romney and the President continues to run against what Christie is for.  Whether you support them politically or not, you have to be happy to see them working for us.

Not everybody was so happy.  As they were appearing together, Fox News and some of Romney's supporters were attacking Chris Christie as a turncoat.  Fox demanded that Christie re-pledge his fealty to Romney.  In most GOP circles, Christie is being vilified.  How did the Governor respond to all the noise?  When asked about the kerfuffle at a stop down the Jersey Shore, Christie's response said it all, "There are 2 million people in my state without electricity, do you really think I give a damn about Presidential politics?"  No, Governor, the people of New Jersey do not.

As you vote, think about the Governor and the President, and think about all you have seen and heard.  Are the candidates for whom you are about to vote seem to be more committed to us or to themselves?  Are they more interested in getting the job done or in screwing the other side for political points?  Vote carefully as if your life depends on it, because, one day, it may, literally.