Less with Less

For the past few months I have been working my way through "The Wire" on DVD, a tv series I cannot recommend more highly provided one has a stomach for frequent though not overly graphic violence and constant profanity. For those not familiar with it, on a surface level the show is about drug dealers and the cops who try to put them in jail in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, but on a deeper level it is about failing institutions and the people they leave behind.

David Simon, the ex-Baltimore Sun crime reporter who created "The Wire" has a new show on HBO about New Orleans called "The Treme." On the occasion of its premiere, The New Yorker reran a 2007 profile of Simon by Margaret Talbot which I read with interest. Simon is quoted as saying, "Management says, ‘We have to do more with less.’ That’s the bullshit of bean counters who care only about the bottom line. You do less with less.”

He was talking about the downsizing of his newspaper, but it seems to me that for the past twenty or thirty years the more-with-less canard has been aggressively foisted upon the whole of American society by Republicans and business-oriented, DLC-type Democrats alike.

Democrats need to stop shying away from the class warfare, wealth-redistribution charge. Damn right that policies such as health care reform and repeal of the Bush tax cuts seek to redistribute wealth. But so did the Bush tax cuts. The only difference is the direction in which the wealth flows. Democrats need openly and unabashedly to work to reverse the marked growth in wealth inequality over the past thirty years. Democrats need to take off their managers' hats, asking for more with less, and start offering us more with more.

Omnidirectional Placation

In his NYT review of New Yorker editor David Remnick's new book profiling Barrack Obama, Garry Wills offers the following in conclusion:

Obama’s strategy everywhere before entering the White House was one of omnidirectional placation. It had always worked. Why should he abandon, at this point, a method of such proved effectiveness? Yet success at winning acceptance may not be what is called for in a leader moving through a time of peril. To disarm fears of change (the first African-­American presidency is, in itself, a big jolt of change), Obama has stressed continuity. Though he first became known as a critic of the war in Iraq, he has kept aspects or offshoots of Bush’s war on terror — possible future “renditions” (kidnappings on foreign soil), trials of suspected terrorists in military tribunals, no investigations of torture, an expanded Afghan commitment, though he promised to avoid “a dumb war.” He appointed as his vice president and secretary of state people who voted for the Iraq war, and as secretary of defense and presiding generals people who conducted or defended that war.

To cope with the financial crisis, he turned to Messrs. Geithner, Summers and Bernanke, who were involved in fomenting the crisis. To launch reform of medical care, he huddled with the American Medical Association, big pharmaceutical companies and insurance firms, and announced that his effort had their backing (the best position to be in for stabbing purposes, which they did month after month). All these things speak to Obama’s concern with continuity and placation. But continuity easily turns into inertia, as we found when Obama wasted the first year of his term, the optimum time for getting things done. He may have drunk his own Kool-Aid — believing that his election could of itself usher in a post-racial, post-partisan, post-red-state and blue-state era. That is a change no one should ever have believed in. The price of winningness can be losing; and that, in this scary time, is enough to break the heart of hope.

This, to me, seems spot on.  It may have been strategically necessary in his 2008 campaign for Barrack Obama to avoid any utterance that might cause him to be dismissed as an angry black man. If Remnick is to be believed--Remnick as characterized by Wills; I haven't read the book, just the review--Obama has been angling to disarm the opposition with his charm and calm good sense his entire life.  The problem now--our problem--is that the opposition are swine, impervious either to charm or good sense.  At this stage the nation doesn't need a placater in the White House, the nation needs an angry black man.  An angry man at least.

Letter in Support of CLEAR

I've sent the following letter to my NC Senators, Burr (R) and Hagan (D) encouraging them to get behind Cantwell's and Collins's Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal act. I'm sending a version of this one to the White House as well. Early indications are that Obama will support the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill, which is unfortunate. I would have thought that after last summer's health care morass, the President would have seen the virtues of clarity and simplicity. The Republicans will have a hard time demagouging CLEAR. For one thing, it is co-sponsored by one of their own. Secondly--and more importantly--it is just 39 pages long. There's nothing hiding there. It won't be hard to counter their lies with references to the text of the bill itself.
Anyway, I encourage you to cut, paste and edit it as you see fit to send to your representatives in Congress and whomever else you think it might be useful to influence.

Dear Senator:

In the strongest way possible I wish to encourage you to lend your support to the Collins-Cantwell CLEAR Act bill. I have read the text of the bill in its entirety--the first time in my life I have ever done such a thing--and I am confident that more than any other measure under discussion the CLEAR Act will lessen the risk of dangerous climate change, will start America on a path to a more sustainable energy economy, and at the same time will minimize the economic harm to average citizens. Moreover, it is a political winner. Why in the world would you NOT support a bill that has bipartisan sponsorship, provides a rigorous framework for needed reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time will put a monthly check in the mailbox of every single one of your constituents that will put the vast majority of them at break-even or even better with respect to expenditures on energy?

I am a physician, a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine and Duke's internal medicine residency program. In my work I refer to scientific literature on a daily basis. I am familiar with the forms and methods of science. I have made a hobby of familiarizing myself with the science of climate change, and through such study I have been as strongly convinced that if left unchecked anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will lead to potentially catastrophic global warming as I am that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer or that an elevated serum cholesterol leads to an increased risk of coronary artery disease. The time to act was five years ago. To dither around with pork-laden energy bills such as the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman proposal that do little to nothing to limit carbon emissions is worse than doing nothing at all, since the passage of such a measure would give us a false sense of accomplishment and would set back the timetable for meaningful action on climate change by years--years that we do not have. One might envision even more effective climate change mitigation schemes than Collins's and Cantwell's, but they are not before the Senate. Please, stop wasting America's and the world's time. Bring CLEAR to a vote and vote it into law.

Kind regards,
Aaron Walton

The Choice is CLEAR

Bill McKibben has an article in the current issue of The New Republic that has brought my attention to the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act, introduced in the Senate by Susan Collins (R, Maine) and Maria Cantwell (D, Washington). The text of the bill--all 39 pages of it--is available here. I encourage you to read it as I have done.

Collins' and Cantwell's approach to limitation of greenhouse emissions is simple and effective. The government sells carbon production permits to CO2 producers and then distributes the proceeds to, well, everyone with a monthly dividend check. The quantity of permitted carbon production is ratcheted down on a defined schedule over the next 40 years to meet a defined set of emissions targets. The cost of energy would necessarily increase under this scheme, but for the majority of energy users, the increase would be mostly offset by the monthly cash dividend. Only the biggest energy hogs would feel the hurt. Also, there would be an incentive for all of us to become more energy-efficient, since reduced usage would free up more of that monthly money to use for other purposes.

According to McKibben, the Collins/Cantwell CLEAR bill has no suction in Washington right now. Many, including many of the larger environmental lobbying organizations, are throwing their weight behind the Graham-Kerry-Leiberman energy bill monstrosity that Sen. Kerry admits himself does little if anything to address climate change. Call it the politics of the possible. But just because it is possible to shovel a big burlap sack full of horse manure and plunk it in the middle of your living room doesn't mean it's desirable to do so. There is no reason that CLEAR should not appeal to the majority of average Americans--it is good for the environment and it pays cash money every month. There is equally little reason that the Graham-Kerry-Leiberman bill should appeal to anyone except possibly the energy industry who, while they actually would prefer no regulation whatsoever may feel that with the bill's passage, they have dodged a bullet--a CLEAR bullet.

I'll be back soon with a letter to my Senators on CLEAR. In the mean time I encourage you to write one of your own. Who do these guys and gals think they represent? Us? Or Big Coal and Big Oil?

It's a Question of Fairness

Money managers at private equity funds, aka "hedge" funds, benefit from a tax loophole that allows them to treat the bulk of their generous earnings--including the lion's share made up by fees--as long-term capital gains, taxed at a rate of 15% instead of the 35% they would pay if taxed along with their high-earning peers in businesses and professions other than private investments. The NY Times addresses the issue in this editorial as did James Surowiecki in a New Yorker article a few weeks back.

Rather than restate what other writers have already said better than I can, I will instead reproduce a letter on the subject that I've written to my North Carolina senators, Richard Burr (R) and Kay Hagan (D). I encourage all of you to use the Contact Your Elected Officials link in the sidebar to send a similar letter to your representatives in the Senate. Feel free to cut and paste my letter and modify it as you see fit:

Dear Senator:

It has come to my attention that the managers at private equity funds are subject to a uniquely beneficial tax loophole that allows them to treat the bulk of their income as capital gains, taxed at an absurdly low 15%, even though the money on which the gains are realized is not their own and their income is, in reality, a commission fee, not different in kind from the commission a car salesman receives from an auto dealership upon closing a sale on a used car. The used car salesman’s income is taxed like any other earned income, so why not the fund manager’s?

If you have not read the editorial on the subject in the April 3 issue of the New York Times, I encourage you to do so. That piece indicates that the hold-up to closing this loophole lies in the Senate, the House having already more than once approved measures that would address the problem. You need to take action on this. See to it that a measure closing this tax loophole is brought to a vote, then vote to approve it. Quite simply, it is a question of fairness. How can we take seriously your efforts to better regulate the financial industry so as to prevent future financial and economic crises when you cannot take simple action to see to it that some of those very same individuals who contributed most to the crisis of 2007/2008 are not asked to pay their fair share to the very government that benefitted them so handsomely with bailout money?

I am watching your votes, and I am publicizing this letter and your actions on my blog, www.onedigusteddemocrat.blogspot.com.

Kind regards,

Aaron Walton

Noise

The header of today's NT Times "Bloggingheads" video caught my eye: Avent-Garde Politics. Two political journalists, one from Fox News, one from The Washington Times were going to debate the proposition that the Democratic Party is now ignoring the concerns of ordinary Americans in favor of the avent-garde politics of the title. (Guess which reporter from which news organization was arguing which position.) I listened for about thirty seconds before I determined that both debaters are FOS.

Look, it isn't hard for anyone to figure out where I come down on this question. Health care reform is the quintessence of a policy initiative that addresses the concerns of ordinary Americans. To the degree that ordinary Americans are skeptical of the Democratic health reform law, it is because the Republican Party has been successful in its despicable attempt to deceive ordinary Americans about what health reform actually does and does not accomplish. What I'm reacting to is that the first thing out of the Washington Times' Democrat's mouth was a comment about attending liberal think-tank cocktail parties! I cut the video off right there.

You know and I know which of our major political parties tends to represent the interests of ordinary Americans and which tends to represent the interests of elites. What might be less clear is how easy it is for Democratic leaders to shank the ball and wind up in the rough of liberal think tank cocktail parties and thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraisers. This is all a distracting noise that makes it hard for either party to represent the true interests of ordinary Americans.

What is needed:

• Direct involvement from the party rank-and-file


• Close monitoring of the flows of money and influence


• Electoral punishment of Democratic party officials who fail to represent the interests of ordinary Americans


• Lobbying reform


• Campaign finance reform