38.3 - Question: why has the left dropped military spending as an issue?

Question: why has the left dropped military spending as an issue?

I have a question.

In the midst of all the talk about Tweetie-pie's proposed tax gift to the rich and the hack-and-slash treatment proposed for Medicare, Medicaid, and much more, another part of budget considerations has been met with a massive yawn.

On November 8, House and Senate negotiators agreed on the Fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), setting authorized levels of spending for the War Department. The figure? $700 billion.

That stunning figure includes $634 billion for core Pentagon operations and $66 billion for our various wars.

That is not just an increase over last year, it is an increase over what Tweetie-pie asked for: It's $31 billion more for Pentagon operations and $1 billion more for the wars.

It is a total increase over last year of $81 billion, more than 13% - an increase so large that had the DOD budget simply stayed the same level as FY 2017, not cut, just stayed the same, the US could have paid this year's tuition for every public college student in the country and still have $11 billion left over for board and books and so much for "free college is unaffordable."

Instead, we're supposed to waste it on crap like the F-35 strike fighter, the most expensive weapons system in history, with more than $100 billion invested over 25 years and it is still, according to recently-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, at least two years and $1 billion from being combat ready.

We're supposed to spend it on more bombers, more submarines, more destroyers, more aircraft carriers.

And we are supposed to pay for war and more wars and wars you haven't heard of and wars that are secret.

The New York Times reports that the United States has been at war continuously since 9/11 and now has nearly a quarter-million active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories. American forces are actively engaged not only in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen but also in Niger, Somalia, Jordan, Thailand, and elsewhere. In fact some 38,000 troops are on assignment in places the DOD lists as "unknown" doing who knows what.

So here's the question: Where the flaming hell is the left?

Why the silence? Why the acquiescence? The NDAA passed the House by 344-81 and the Senate by 89-9.

Looking for, proposing, ways to cut war spending used to be a rallying cry of the left. Money for life, not death! we said. Fund human needs! we said. What the hell happened?

Is it truly that just because it's not Americans doing a lot of the dying that we just don't care? Is that what we are saying? Or are we embracing the militarized paranoia of "the terrorists are coming! the terrorists are everywhere?" Is that what we are saying?

Well, I'll tell you what I say and I'll do it by paraphrasing something I wrote about 25 years ago:

Killing is what too much of our federal budget is about. I’m not going to get into the argument about what portion of federal spending goes to the military, not only because of disagreements over exactly what should and shouldn’t be considered “military spending,” but also because, frankly, I just don’t care.

Forget the number-crunching, forget the arguments about discretionary versus non-discretionary spending, about ratios and operating budgets and “trends,” forget the blather and the bother. The issue is not the percentage of federal spending going to the military, the issue is military spending. And the military budget has been and continues to be too big.

As long as we can afford to build rail guns but not railroads, the military budget is too big.

As long as we can afford humvees but not health care, the military budget is too big.

As long as we can afford military housing but not public housing, the military budget is too big.

As long as we can find money for mass murder but not mass transit, the military budget is too big.

As long as we can pay to make our bombs smart but not our children, the military budget is too big.

As long as military aid is given higher priority than development aid and world hegemony matters more than world hunger, the military budget is too big.

In short, as long as it’s easier to approve money for matters of death than for matters of life, the military budget is just too damned big.

But that’s still the political reality, no matter the current numbers: For domestic programs or non-military foreign aid, spending has to be justified - but for military programs, not spending has to be justified. The bias remains in favor of the Pentagon, the burden of proof remains on its opponents.

That bias, to be blunt, is the mark of militarism. And as long as that remains true, the military budget Is. Too. Big.

And I am ashamed of how the left seems to have forgotten that.

241.2 - Good News: Obama eliminates funding for "abstinence-only" sex ed in federal budget

Good News: Obama eliminates funding for "abstinence-only" sex ed in federal budget

Next up on the Good News front, our only President has actually done a couple of good things this week.

For one thing, over the course of something over two decades, the US has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into so-called "abstinence-only" programs as part of programs to reduce teenage pregnancies. It has done this even though it has been known for just about as long that they don't work.

The Obama administration was not immune to this; not only did such programs continue, in 2012 HHS added a new abstinence-only curriculum to its list of approved programs for teenage pregnancy prevention.

But now, in his final year, President Hopey-Changey has apparently evolved on another issue and in his final proposed federal budget he eliminates all funding for abstinence-only programs while increasing funding for the evidence-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.

In the grand scheme of things I suppose it's a small entry - especially given that the rate of teen pregnancy has been dropping pretty steadily for 20 years and in 2014 it was only 40% of the rate in 1991 - but it still is a good thing and so good news.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/03/be-careful-what-you-wish-for.html
http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=523&parentID=477
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/11/we-dont-need-no-stinking-studies.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-success-story-in-keeping-us.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/05/left-side-of-aisle-55-part-4.html
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/15/1501670/-Pres-Obama-eliminates-abstinent-only-funding-in-2017-budget-adds-4m-to-teen-pregnancy-prevention
http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-health-topics/reproductive-health/teen-pregnancy/trends.html#

Left Side of the Aisle #225

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of October 29 - November 4, 2015

This week:

Good News: DOJ gets slapped down on prosecutions of medical marijuana dispensaries
http://norml.org/legal/medical-marijuana-2
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2015/10/23/gallup-marijuana-legalization-support-holds-at-58-percent
http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
http://www.scribd.com/doc/285976410/MAMM-vs-USDOJ-Charles-R-Breyer-ruling-to-lift-injunction
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/20/federal-court-tells-the-dea-to-stop-harassing-medical-marijuana-providers/

Update: Martin Shkreli is meeting reallity
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/new-york-attorney-general-examining-if-turing-restricted-drug-access.html?_r=1
http://www.care2.com/causes/a-big-pharma-company-just-did-something-that-may-shock-you.html
http://www.cbs8.com/story/30327142/san-diego-based-drug-company-offers-low-cost-version-of-price-hiked-turing-drug

Footnote: Shkreli is far from the first to price-gouge on medicine
http://www.care2.com/causes/prescription-drug-price-controversy-highlights-whats-wrong-with-big-pharma.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/business/big-price-increase-for-tb-drug-is-rescinded.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

Update: Gravity Systems, the company that raised its minimum wage to $70,000, is doing just fine
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/14/1377642/-Washington-employer-shocks-employees-by-raising-his-company-s-minimum-wage-to-70-000-per-year
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/26/1439456/-Update-on-the-CEO-who-made-70-000-minimum-wage-for-all-his-employees

The little Thing: House GOP admits Obamacare is good for the federal budget
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/10/23/gop-bill-would-gut-health-law-halt-planned-parenthood-money/21253180/

The good news is who Obama tapped to fill a vacancy on the SEC; the bad and revealing news is who he wanted to pick
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/sec-poised-to-gut-corporate-disclosure-in-financial-statements.html
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/20/obama-names-lisa-fairfax-to-sec-a-vote-for-wall-street-reform/
https://theintercept.com/2015/06/15/sec-pick-specializes-in-helping-corporations-hide-political-expenditures/

Outrage of the Week: our expanding lovely little war in Iraq and Syria
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/politics/iraq-syria-mideast-hearing/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2087-our-lovely-little-war-new-us-base.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/06/2076-obamas-lovely-little-war-grows.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-weighs-moving-us-troops-closer-to-front-lines-in-syria-iraq/2015/10/26/4ae2f36c-7bec-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/master-sergeant-joshua-wheeler-idd-commando-killed-isis-hostage-rescue-n449876
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/carter-us-to-conduct-more-ground-raids-in-iraq-syria/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-kills-islamic-state-leader-in-syria-raid/2015/05/16/31280b26-fbca-11e4-a13c-193b1241d51a_story.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/23/politics/iraq-combat-hostage-raid-wheeler-/

A better way to deal with ISIS

224.8 - Only the poor face drug tests to receive any public aid or benefit

[Welcome to Jon Swift Memorial Roundup readers. Comments, as always, are welcome. You might be interested in checking out my weekly cable-access show, posted at whoviating's channel at YouTube.]

Only the poor face drug tests to receive any public aid or benefit

Last week I expressed my anger over the demonization of the poor as drug abusers, leading to the assumption that they have to be drug-tested, they have to show they are drug-free, in order to qualify for public assistance. I'm going to go on about that a little more this week.

Because this demonization of the poor has continued despite the fact that experience has repeatedly shown that the poor are less likely to be using drugs than the general population (which makes sense when you think about it: the poor can't afford the drugs).

Despite that history, despite the evidence that the poor are not drug abusers, thirteen states have passed legislation to drug test applicants or recipients of public aid - two of those, Arkansas and Wisconsin, doing so this year.

In addition, 18 states have bills pending to do the same. Because of federal court rulings that comprehensive drug screening is a violation of fourth amendment privacy rights, these bills try various ways to work about that by using questionnaires, the person's history, or the catch-all term "suspicion-based" screening.

Just how blatant is that demonization?

When Florida pursued its unsuccessful attempt before the courts to justify drug testing all applicants for assistance, it actually argued in one of its briefs there is a "concrete danger" that poor people are drug abusers, that is, that you can just assume they are using and abusing drugs. This came after its own program, before it was stopped by the courts, found a rate of drug use among applicants for assistance of just 2.6% in a state where it's estimated that over 8% of the general population are users.

And it's not just so-called "red states." One of the bluest of the the blue, Massachusetts, is now considering a bill that would require a drug test for anyone applying for aid if they have had a drug conviction any time in the last 20 years. The same would apply to anyone else who received aid as a result of that application. Fail, and you are banned from receiving aid for a year unless you complete a drug rehab program at your own expense. Which, of course, you may not be able to do because unless there is a free state-approved one available, if you could afford the cost of the drug rehab you probably wouldn't need the aid in the first place.

Why do I bring this up again? Well, this sort of demonization has primarily been directed at applicants for Temporary Aid for Needy Families, known by the acronym TANF, or similar programs that make up what we used to call welfare - that is, before that word became poisoned by the right-wing out of their hatred of the poor and the liberals out of their condescension toward the poor and their cowardice in the face of right-wing name-calling. But that's not enough for some people.

Sen. Joe Manchin

So Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, wants to go beyond TANF and have random drug testing for people who live in or apply to live in public housing, housing which he repeatedly referred to as "drug-infested." "We should be," he said, "looking at how do you have drug-free areas."

And that, in a way, sums up the who bigotry of it all. You know full well you can walk through virtually any neighborhood anywhere in this country and know there is drug use around you, know that community is, in Manchin's term, "drug-infested." But we don't demand all those people prove they are drug-free. It's only the poor.

We don't demand that those applying for subsidized student loans such as Stafford loans prove they are drug-free before they get aid. Only the poor.

We don't demand that a middle-class family taking advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit get tested first. Only the poor.

We don't demand that the rich pee in a cup before they can take mortgage interest tax deductions on their McMansions. Only the poor.

We don't demand that farmers looking for price supports prove their purity before they get aid. Only the poor.

When corporations through their lobbyists get special exemptions for themselves written into the tax code, we don't demand the corporate executives prove they're clean so we can be sure those benefits are not going to supply someone's drug habit. Only the poor.

No public financial benefit of any kind, no grant, no tax deduction, no low-interest loan, no subsidy, none of it comes with a demand to pee in a cup - unless the beneficiaries are poor.

It's only the poor who we expect to suffer the humiliation, the degradation, the soul-killing suspicion that they are somehow morally inferior and must prove their purity before we will deign to condescend to offer them a shiny penny. And we expect that because that's what we really think: We think the poor are inferior - lazy, drug-addled, loafers who need the strict but of course actually loving guidance of their betters, that is, us.

It is hatred for the poor. It is bigotry. It is class bigotry, or as I and others call it, classism. And our society reeks of it.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/drug-testing-and-public-assistance.aspx
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/26/court-rejects-florida-law-requiring-drug-testing-for-welfare-recipients/
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Drug-testing-welfare-applicants-popular-but-can-4416545.php?t=0dbaab4db5b05374ef
http://www.tbo.com/ap/politics/welfare-drug-testing-yields--positive-results-252458
https://malegislature.gov/Bills/BillHtml/143634?generalCourtId=12
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/article/20151019/GZ01/151019454/1101

217.1 - Refuting the lies about Social Security

Refuting the lies about Social Security

Well, a couple of weeks ago I had some anniversaries to note: The 50th birthdays of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Voting Rights Act, and the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And now I have another birthday to mark. On August 14, Social Security turned 80. And in what should have come as a surprise to no one, the date was met with a spate of widely-distributed articles claiming that the system either is or soon will be on its death bed.

Make no mistake: The claims you no doubt have seen that Social Security is "running out of money" or needs an "overhaul" which invariably involves cutting benefits or "will go belly up" in less than 20 years or, this one addressed to younger workers, "won't be there" when you get to retirement age, are all lies. Flat out lies.

I refuse even to call them misunderstandings or inaccuracies. They are lies, lies intended to undermine support for a program that the right wing has tried to bring down from the get-go, a program which they hated at first because it was government support for those in need and have come to hate even more because it has worked so damn well.

Oh, and I do mean from the get-go.

When Social Security originally was being considered in Congress, opponents claimed it would bring an end to American freedom. Seriously. For example, one member of Congress warned that the people would feel "the lash of the dictator" while another said Social Security "opens the door to a power so vast, so powerful as to threaten to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants" and a third insisted it would "end the progress of a great country."

They haven't stopped trying to undermine it, they've just changed tactics to regular waves of fear-mongering about how "unaffordable" and "unsustainable" the system is.

And, again, it's all lies.

One widely-circulated article was from Stephen Ohlemacher of Associated Press, headlined with some version or another of "Social Security at 80: Is it time for an overhaul?" Because it was from Associated Press, it appeared in newspapers major and minor all across the country.

It is hard to imagine that this article would have been more biased against Social Security if it had been written by some far right-wing think tank. But for that same reason, plus its wide publication, it provides a template to rebut the lies.

It starts with the boiler-plate fear mongering:

Social Security’s disability fund is projected to run dry next year. The retirement fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035. But once the fund is depleted, the shortfalls are projected to be enormous.

Okay, let's deal with the disability issue first because it's a bit subtle. Social Security actually has two funds: the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which is what we usually think of when we think of Social Security, and Social Security Disability Insurance. The money that comes in from payroll taxes is distributed between those two funds, with most going to the former.

Eleven times over the years, the trustees of the funds have adjusted what percentage of the monies coming in goes to each fund, depending on which one needed an extra little boost at the moment. Such shifts have been routine and uncontroversial. The last time one of these re-allocations of tax income was done was in 1994 and it was predicted at that time that the Disability Insurance fund would need to be replenished - guess when - in 2016. The need for replenishment is exactly what has been expected for the past 20-plus years.

The reason, the only reason, this presents the possibility of a crisis is that on the first day of the new Congress in January, the GOPper leaders of the House of Representatives adopted a rule which said that it would be out of order for Congress to reduce the actuarial balance of the Social Security retirement account. But obviously there is no way to reallocate any money to the Disability Insurance fund without affecting the balance of the retirement account. The effect would be small, but it would not be zero. Put bluntly, the "crisis" in the Disability Insurance fund was deliberately created by the right-wing in the House.

But the article mentions this rule only in passing, never explains its effect, but does describe it falsely as related to "improv[ing] the overall financial health" of the system, and allows the disability program to be called "plagued by waste and abuse" without challenge or evidence.

Next up, saying "the fund will be depleted" in 2035 is total and complete garbage. Starting back in 1977, payroll taxes were increased to build up a surplus to deal with the baby-boomer demographic bulge in retirees everyone knew would be hitting around 2010. The trustees' latest report says that the Social Security Trust fund now has $2.8 trillion in assets and that amount is expected to grow until 2019.

At that point, payments will exceed income and the system will have to dip into that surplus to pay full benefits. That is what will be "depleted" in, its now predicted, 20 years from now: the surplus. The surplus that was deliberately created to deal with the increasing demands on the system. The surplus that was deliberately created so it could be drawn upon. At that point, the system would be back on the pay-as-you-go basis on which it has existed for almost it's entire life.

More scare tactics:

In 1960, there were more than five workers for every person receiving Social Security. Today there are fewer than three. In 20 years, there will be about two workers for every person getting benefits.

Omigosh, how will we ever afford it?

Except that "workers versus retirees" is a useless and deceptive statistic. Workers don't just support retired people, they support all non-workers, including their children and their spouse or partner if they don't work. Even as the number of retirees is growing, family size is shrinking. So over those next few decades, even as the ratio of workers to retirees is expected to go down, the ratio of workers to non-workers is expected to go up: more workers per non-worker. The burden on workers will be much that same, it's just that in effect, some portion of that burden will have shifted from supporting their children to supporting their parents.

But wait! Come 2035, when we're back to pay-as-you-go, Social Security would collect enough in taxes to pay only 79 percent of scheduled benefits. A 21% benefit cut! Horrors! We have to cut benefits now to avoid that big hit later!

Well, yes, the 79% figure is true - if you also assume that nothing is done in those 20 years. The system has been tweaked and adjusted numerous times over its life and it will probably have to be tweaked again, but presenting it as a choice between "cut benefits now" and "cut benefits more later" is a false choice.

And here's an interesting thing I bet no one has told you: Note the reference to "scheduled" benefits. The trustees make calculations of future costs and benefits based on various scenarios of how the economy might play out over the years. Initial benefits for a new retiree are calculated on a wage base. The thing is, over time, wages tend to rise a bit faster than inflation. Which means projected - that is, "scheduled" - initial benefits also rise a bit faster than inflation. The bottom line is that 79% of scheduled benefits in 2035 will provide about the same standard of living as current benefits do today.

Oh, and one other little tidbit to add in here: Three years ago, instead of predicting being able to pay 79% of scheduled benefits in 2035, the prediction was being able to pay 75% of scheduled benefits in 2033. Which means, of course, that projections are somewhat better than three years ago.

Finally, there is of course the "scare with big numbers" gambit.

Over the next 75 years, Social Security is projected to pay out $159 trillion more in benefits than it will collect in taxes. That is not a typo.

Wow. Scary. Except: The US GDP is now $17.5 trillion a year, so even if you assume no expansion of the economy at all, over the same 75 years the economy will generate over $1.3 quadrillion in goods and services.

You want really big numbers? We'll give you big numbers. Between 1933 and early 2015, the mean annual real (i.e., non-inflated) growth in the US GDP has been 4.4%.

If that average was maintained, in that 75th year, when the accumulated payments beyond income of Social Security would be $159 trillion, the US GDP, in that single year, would be over $440 trillion. The magic of compound interest.

And if it seems silly to try to calculate out how big the US economy will be in 75 years, it should seem even sillier to talk about cutting benefits to present and future retirees based on projections every bit as tenuous.

Finally, what would I do about Social Security? I would remove the cap on wages subject to Social Security taxes, which is now $118,500 a year. Don't give me any bull about that's going after "the middle class." $120,000 a year is more than about 92-93% of US income-earners. That is not middle class.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/14/1412097/-Social-Security-at-80-It-s-Time-to-Expand-Benefits
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/things-know-social-security-80-overhaul-time/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/1916-outrage-of-week-changing-rules-to.html
http://www.ncpssm.org/PressRoom/NewsReleases/Release/ArticleID/1432/Analysis-of-the-2015-Social-Security-Trustees-Report
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/04/left-side-of-aisle-54-part-1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Social_Security_in_the_United_States
http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate

Left Side of the Aisle #217

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of August 20-26, 2015

Refuting the lies about Social Security
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/14/1412097/-Social-Security-at-80-It-s-Time-to-Expand-Benefits
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/things-know-social-security-80-overhaul-time/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2015/02/1916-outrage-of-week-changing-rules-to.html
http://www.ncpssm.org/PressRoom/NewsReleases/Release/ArticleID/1432/Analysis-of-the-2015-Social-Security-Trustees-Report
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/04/left-side-of-aisle-54-part-1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Social_Security_in_the_United_States
http://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-growth-rate

More on the three secret trade deals
http://eu-secretdeals.info/ttip/
http://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2015/07/ttip-corporate-lobbying-paradise
https://stop-ttip.org/what-is-the-problem-ttip-ceta/
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/lang--en/index.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/06/20/thirst-profit-corporate-control-water-latin-america
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
http://www.rt.com/news/264745-wikileaks-secret-tisa-documents/
http://www.rt.com/news/271138-wikileaks-tisa-leak-documents/
http://www.rt.com/usa/167088-wikileaks-tisa-secret-trade/

201.5 - Footnote: more on Social Security

Footnote: more on Social Security

Two footnotes to the item about Chris Christie's camouflaged attack on Social Security:

One is that CPI and Chained-CPI are not the only measures of inflation the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses in producing inflation figures.

Another is the CPI-E, "E" for "elderly." It's intended to reflect the fact that us old folks tend to spend relatively less of our income than younger folks do on things like clothing, recreation, transportation, and food and more on housing and health care. So CPI-E weights its measure of inflation based on that difference, so it's a better measure of the inflation rate experienced by seniors - which means, for the most past, folks on Social Security.

Here's what's important: CPI-E usually shows a higher inflation rate than the standard CPI does. Which means that, contrary to those who say we should cut the cost of living increases for seniors, the facts say that those increases are already too low.

Despite the ranting and raving of the reactionary budget hawks and their Dimcrat echoers and enablers that the old geezers have it too soft, it is more likely that we have been short-changing them for years.

The other thing, and it's important to remember this, that President Hopey-Changey has on more than one occasion directly offered to approve two of Chris Christie's proposals, two proposals to cut Social Security benefits - raising the Medicare eligibility age and switching to Chained-CPI - in previous budget negotiations with the right-wingers in Congress.

These people are not on your side. Unless you are of the elite, unless you are of the comfortable, they are not on your side. Noblesse oblige is not support, it is not being on your side.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.ncpssm.org/PublicPolicy/SocialSecurity/Documents/ArticleID/1159/The-CPI-E-%E2%80%93-A-Better-Option-for-Calculating-Social-Security-COLAs
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2011/07/footnote-to-preceding.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2011/07/sealing-our-fates-part-two.html

201.4 - Update: Chris Christie on Social Security

Update: Chris Christie on Social Security

Last week, I raised the amazing possibility that I might, and I did emphasize might, agree with NJ Gov. Chris Christie on something after he proposed an income cap on receiving Social Security benefits. I did say I was wary both because it would turn Social Security into a partly means-tested program, which it never had been, and because the history of right-wing attempts to undermine Social Security said I should be wary, but okay, I was willing to look at his fleshed-out proposal and to at least consider the idea.

Well, we have his fleshed-out proposal and, guess what, history wins again.

Gov. Krispy Kreme did indeed propose phasing out Social Security benefits for people earning more than $80,000 non-Social Security income with a final cut-off at $200,000.

Beyond that, he also proposed raising the retirement age, which is already going up to 67, two mnore years to 69, raising the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67, and coupling cost-of-living increases to what's called Chained-CPI.

That last part requires an explanation. Cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security have always been based on the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. It's the inflation rate we normally hear about. Chained-CPI calculates inflation in a different way, based on the premise that consumer choices change as prices change. It assumes, in the most commonly used "for instance," that if the price of beef goes up too much, you as a consumer will switch to cheaper cuts of meat.

On it's face, that doesn't seem a wildly unrealistic assumption, but here is the effect: Bear in mind that this is a very oversimplified example; I'm only using two commodities - beef and chicken - rather than an entire market basket of goods and services and the numbers are just for the purposes of illustration. But it does serve to make the point.

Okay. Suppose the price of ground beef goes from $4.00 per pound to $5.00 per pound, and that's getting a little pricey for you. So you switch to chicken, which has gone from $3.20 per pound to $4.00 per pound. The CPI says the inflation rate is 25% because that's how much the price for those commodities has gone up.

Chained-CPI, however says that even though the price of meat has gone up 25%, your cost is still $4.00 a pound, it hasn't gone up at all, so the inflation rate is zero even as the prices rise.

What this means at the end of that day is that by its nature, Chained-CPI, by assuming you always will and always can secure a lower-priced alternative to a product or service, always produces a lower inflation rate than regular CPI.

Chris Christie

So switching to Chained-CPI would be a stealth benefit cut for people on Social Security because while they would still get cost-of-living adjustments, the increase always would be less than it otherwise would have been. And the effect is cumulative, so the longer you're on Social Security (i.e., generally, the older you are), the bigger a gap you'll experience. It's a benefit cut - but it's one the politicos and their rich funders hope you wouldn't notice.

So Krispy Kreme's proposal, in sum, would mean having to work longer to get Social Security and getting less when you finally do. Work longer, cut benefits, and make it a means-tested program to justify cutting it further.

Balance is restored: Chris Christie is an ass.

Sources cited in links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC1WQwwetW8
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/14/3647048/chris-christie-says-cut-social-security-lol-sure-bro/
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/16/chris_christies_dangerous_social_security_demagoguery_cloaking_the_plutocrats_agenda_in_populist_rhetoric/

199.5 - Outrage of the Week: media blackout on CPC budget plan

Outrage of the Week: media blackout on CPC budget plan

Now for our other regular feature, the Outrage of the Week.

On March 25, the US House held a series of votes on various budget plans under an unusual arrangement where the budget that got the most votes would be the "official" house version.

At the end of the day, surprise, surprise, the official GOP plan got the most votes.

I want to mention one of losers. Specifically, the Peoples Budget, prepared by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This is the 5th year the CPC has done its own budget proposal, with this year's being called A Raise for America.

It's important for you to realize something right at the top: This is a real budget, which has been subjected to independent analysis. It is not just a summary of principles or a bunch of bullet points or a list of headings or a concoction of fudged numbers with what Paul Krugman accurately called trillion doll asterisks.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/the-peoples-budget-a-raise-for-america/
This budget proposes a multi-trillion dollar public investment in areas such as the desperate need for infrastructure repair and improvement, upgrading our energy systems, and addressing climate change, the sorts of investment that not only create millions of new jobs but improve the quality of life for the nation as a whole.

It reduces income inequality by raising taxes on the rich and closing corporate loopholes while cutting taxes on low- and middle-income folks. It improves the lives of the poor with expanded social supports. It invests in education and provides debt-free college. It improves on Obamacare by creating a public option (if you can remember what that is). It invests in renewable energy technologies.

And it does all this and much more while reducing the annual deficit not only by raising taxes on the rich and corporations but by cutting military spending and ending pointless war spending and pointless wars.

And in fact, many of its proposals are popular with the public. For a few examples, 80% of Americans support raising the minimum wage, which this budget does. Two-thirds think the rich pay too little in taxes, 70% oppose the cuts to Food Stamps, and large majorities favor paid leave, equal pay, and affordable child care, all of which this budget supports, and say the government has a responsibility to ensure employers treat employees fairly by enforcing such policies.

As the budget describes itself,

A fair wage is more than the size of a paycheck. It’s having enough hours, paid overtime, sick and parental leave, and affordable health and childcare. It’s being able to afford a good education for your kids and never living in fear that your job will be sent overseas. It’s knowing you can make ends meet at the end of the month. The People’s Budget helps achieve that.

And does it in a way that is fiscally sound with a budget that stands up to analysis.

So of course it only got 96 votes in the House.

But that's not the real outrage here.

The outrage is that until this moment, most of you had never heard of that budget. Most of you, unless you haunt lefty news sites or are a real political wonk who reads Politico.com or TheHill.com, you have never heard of this budget. The budget most in line with what Americans want, the one that does the most for the many instead of the few at the top, the one that does the most to advance economic and social justice, and the one that showed you can do all that while being more fiscally responsible than either of the major parties' alternatives, was subjected to an all but total media blackout.

I searched on Yahoo! News for major media coverage of this budget. I got nothing. I searched on Google News, got nothing. A search at the New York Times site produced zero hits. A search at the Washington Post site got exactly one hit.

I have said it many, many times before: We are by our national mainstream media uninformed, misinformed, and malinformed. And no matter how many times I say it, it is still an outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/house-gop-budget-resolution-2016-116382.html
http://cpcbudget.org/#peoples-budget
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/FINAL%20FY16%20Peoples%20Budget.pdf
http://www.epi.org/pay-agenda/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/paul-krugman-trillion-dollar-fraudsters.html
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/the-peoples-budget-a-raise-for-america/
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/03/24/congressional-progressives-economy-serve-americans-way-around/
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/236957-house-rejects-democratic-budget-alternatives

188.10 - Outrage of the Week: poorest of the poor to lose Food Stamps

Outrage of the Week: poorest of the poor to lose Food Stamps

Now for our other regular weekly feature, the Outrage of the Week

According to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, roughly one million of the nation’s poorest people will lose their Food Stamps over the course of 2016. Food Stamps are now properly called SNAP, for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but most everyone still calls them Food Stamps.

The problem here arises out of the 1996 welfare "reform" law. Remember that law? The Bill Clinton-era law that was going to, in his words, "end welfare as we know it?" Remember how it was going to fix everything? Remember?

That law said that unemployed adults aged 18-50 who aren’t disabled or raising minor children can't get SNAP benefits for more than three months in any 36-month period. Three months in three years. The law created an exception for those in a work or training program for at least 20 hours a week - but it did not require states to create such programs, so most didn't and so for most affected people that "exception" does not exist.

What's more, there is no exception for an inability to find work - so these individuals will lose their benefits after three months regardless of how hard they are looking for work.

Waivers could be granted for states to skip the three-month limit if the state's unemployment was high enough. During the Great Recession, most states got such waivers. But with declining unemployment, those waivers are now expiring in the 40 states that still have them and - surprise, surprise - Congress is in no mood to extend them.

The impact on the folks affected by the loss of the waiver will be severe. Agriculture Department data show that 82% of the people subject to the three-month limit have average monthly incomes no more than half of the poverty line. Even more shocking is the fact that, as a group, their average monthly income is about 19 percent of the poverty line. That's not 19% below the poverty line, it's 19% of the poverty line. Less than one-fifth of poverty level. And they typically qualify for no other income support.

Hitting those people with a loss of food assistance averaging approximately $150 to $200 per person per month will - not might, will - cause serious hardship. These people will go hungry. Period.

There are a lot of things Congress could do. It could restore the funding that was cut last year. It could extend the waivers. Hell, it could make the waivers permanent. Hey, I know that waiver business was supposed to be temporary, based on economic conditions, but the same was true of those famous Bush-era tax cuts and that didn't stop them from becoming permanent, did it?

But Congress isn't going to do that, in fact, no one  is even talking about doing it, even among the supposed liberals. But the real reason it won't happen is that Congress is now in the grip of ideology-driven fruitcakes who won't do anything to help the poor - not because of small government, not because of cutting the budget, not because of reducing taxes, but because they just don't care. They do not care that people will go hungry, they do not care that people will starve. Not even out of a drive for personal gain or benefit. They just do not care.

That's something I will be coming back to. For now, I'm just going to say it is a gross moral and ethical outrage.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.cbpp.org/
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=5251
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/food-stamp-enrollment_n_6419196.html

168.6 - Factoid of the Week: F-35 fighter

Factoid of the Week: F-35 fighter

Okay, this is something that may or may not become a regular feature. Pretty soon I may have so many regular features I won't have time for anything else. But here it is: It's the Factoid of the Week.

The subject is the program to create a fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, which is 7 years behind schedule and a couple of weeks ago was grounded just before two air shows that were supposed to be the jet's coming out party.

Here's the factoid: The entire cost of the program over the projected life of the jets is now $400 billion. That amount could have provided a $600,000 home to each and every one of the estimated 600,000 homeless people in the US.

Or, if you prefer another way to look at it, a single year's cost of the program, about $49 billion, could have covered the entire yearly cost of the National School Lunch Program, which feeds roughly 31 million students every year, eliminate the cuts made in the Food Stamp program, pay our share of UN's 16 peacekeeping missions around the world, and pay the entire amount sought by the UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs to address humanitarian crises around the world, including the millions of refugees and internally displaced people in war zones - and we'd still have a few billion left over for dessert.

Sources cited in links:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/11/military-jet-spending_n_5575045.html?cps=gravity
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/budget-appropriations/211520-f-35s-air-show-debut-in-jeopardy
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-16/us-approve-limited-flights-for-f-35-joint-strike-fighter/5599896
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/07/09/3458101/f35-boondoggle-fail/
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/operations/current.shtml

154.4 - Congressional Progressive Caucus proposes a budget, media ignores it

Congressional Progressive Caucus proposes a budget, media ignores it

A couple of weeks ago, Rep. Paul Rantn', who is what passes for an intellectual in the right wing, got my uncoveted Clown Award, and not for the first time.

Well, he's back, because he recently went through his annual charade of presenting an ideological wish list of attacks on the poor and public employees, tax cuts for the rich, and increases for the War Department under the guise of a proposed federal budget.

It has been roundly and justifiably trashed as economic nonsense - even Bloomberg.com, hardly a bastion of radical left-wing activism, called it a "fantasy" - as economic nonsense and in fact as a political document to rouse the rabid faithful rather than an actual budget.

But here's the thing: It has been discussed. Debated. Denounced and even in some quarters defended - but discussed. Widely and even intensely.

Okay, a couple of weeks earlier, on March 12, so there is no news-cycle conflict here, on March 12 the Congressional Progressive Caucus released what it called its Better Off Budget. First things first, this is an actual budget with actual numbers and actual economic analysis, not a wish list of "don't worry, the Magic of the Market (pbui) will take care of everything" hand-waving of the sort that Ryan's "budget" spews out over everything.

This budget shows, again with actual numbers, that we can create jobs, improve infrastructure, protect and aid the poor, protect the environment, improve education, improve housing, expand healthcare, and a whole lot more without having to raise taxes on anyone making less than $1 million a year - all while reducing the deficit significantly over the next 10 years.

Sounds like something that should merit a headline or two. So how much press coverage did this get?

[long silence]

About that much.

Oh, there was some coverage in the expected places, such as The Nation, the New Republic, Truth-Out.org, and In These Times and some analysis from outfits such as Citizens for Tax Justice, the National Priorities Project, and the Economic Policy Institute - but after a fairly intensive search¹, the closest I could come to any what could be considered mainstream coverage were opinion pieces in the LA Times, US News and World Report, two in the Huffington Post, and one in The Guardian, which is a newspaper in the United Kingdom, plus in terms of news coverage a couple of minutes for a single report on MSNBC the day before the budget was released and a report on al-Jazeera, which does cover a wide range of news and which most Americans can't see unless they know to search it out online.

Other than that, five opinion pieces and two news reports, there was pretty much complete silence. As far as I can determine, the New York Times never mentioned it². Not a word. The Washington Post never mentioned it³. Not a word. The Wall Street Journal never mentioned it⁴. Not a word. The network news never mentioned it. Fox News never mentioned it⁵. CNN never mentioned it⁶. In fact, as far as I can tell, all of cable news - other than that those single mentions on MSNBC⁷ and al-Jazeera⁸ - never mentioned it. Not once. Not a word.

So while I'm sure you're all aware that Paul Rantin' released his "budget," I would not be the least surprised to hear that until now you didn't even know the Progressive Caucus budget even existed.

The fact is, the media - the supposedly oh-so "liberal" media - is trapped, has trapped itself, in way of thinking that what comes from the right by definition deserves serious attention even if it's to knock it down while what comes from the left by definition deserves to be ignored.

The result is the right wing repeatedly is allowed to set the terms of debate such that that Barack Obama is taken to represent to extreme left edge of permissible debate and that's only because he's president so the media can't ignore him, and the answer to every policy question is for the left (not the right, just the left) to "move to the center," the center being defined as midway between the left and the right. So if the left does "move to the center," that center will still be defined as midway between left and right, so the left get demands to "move to the center," which means moving to the right, after which the "center" will still be to their right, and so on and so on.

And one of the reasons they get away with this is that we let them. We, us, the American left, the real left, we let them. And I don't only mean that we let the media get away with it - although part of the reason the media behaves the way it does is that a good long time ago the right wing learned to work the refs, to screech and scream about anything and everything they didn't like until the media just goes along to avoid the hassle - but I don't only mean the media, I mean "our" (and I use that word very cautiously here) political leaders.

Or should I say leader. No matter how many promises he has broken, no matter how many times he has disappointed or even angered his supporters, no matter how much he increases spying, no matter how many drone strikes he authorizes, no matter how many new military actions he authorizes in Africa, no matter how many undocumented workers he deports - more than any previous president - no matter how many whistleblowers he prosecutes - more than all previous presidents combined - no matter how many times he pushes a corporate agenda or coddles corporate crooks, no matter how many times he says he wants to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of some mythical "grand bargain," no matter how many fill in your own blank, no matter what he does or doesn't do, still there are people going around with bumper stickers and buttons saying some version of "Don't worry, Mr. Prez, I got your back."

Hey, for all of you who have forgotten: We're not supposed to have his back, he's supposed to have ours. And the fact is, in all too many ways, he doesn't.

It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing about particular policies. It's not a matter of arguing over whether some program goes a little too far or not quite far enough. It a matter of the fact that there is a basic, an essential, divide in this country, one notably expressed in digest form if you will by the Occupy movement: the 1% versus the 99%. It's not a matter of isolated issues. It's a matter of being aware of that divide and of knowing which side of that divide you are on and of being willing to stand there, with all that entails - something too many of us, ducking and covering from the slings and arrows of the right wing, are unwilling to do.

Sources:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/03/1507-clown-award-rep-paul-ryan.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/paul-ryan-budget_n_5069608.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/gop-budget-would-amount-to-pay-cut-for-federal-employees/2014/04/01/906b47ec-b9a9-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-paul-ryan-budget-20140401,0,2127070.story#axzz2xgALCyAS
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/paul-ryan-s-budgetary-fantasy
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/hot-topics/progressive-caucus-unveils-the-better-off-budget1/
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20Better%20Off%20Budget.pdf
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Back%20to%20Work%20Budget%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173348/truly-progressive-budget-vision
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117135/qa-rep-keith-ellison-cpcs-better-budget
http://truth-out.org/news/item/22921-ryan-vs-progressive-caucus-competing-visions-on-the-federal-budget
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16419/fighting_inequality_one_budget_at_a_time
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2014/03/progressive_caucus_budget_we_c.php
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/node/12986
http://www.epi.org/publication/budget-analysis-congressional-progressive/
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79604810/?related=true
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2014/03/12/finally-a-washington-plan-for-jobs-and-the-debt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-dolan/want-to-be-better-off-get_b_4950896.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/common-sense-takes-courag_b_4948854.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/paul-ryan-budget-vs-congressional-progressive-caucus
http://www.msnbc.com/now-with-alex-wagner/watch/better-off-budget-set-for-release-193403971839
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/12/congressional-progressivecaucusbudget.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-side-of-aisle-76-part-4.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/28/revealed_the_u_s_militarys_next_shadow_war_partner/
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/05/obama-exceeds-million-mark-deportations/7340419/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-75-part-4.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-73-part-4.html

1. searching via news.google.com, news.yahoo.com, and duckduckgo.com
2. a search at http://nytimes.com on "Better Off Budget" returned no relevant results
3. a search at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ on "Better Off Budget" for the period 3/11-3/14 returned no relevant results
4. a search at http://wsj.com on "Better Off Budget" for the period 3/11-3/14 returned no relevant results
5. a search at http://www.foxnews.com on "budget" for the period 3/12-14 returned no relevant results
6. a search at http://www.cnn.com/ on "Better Off Budget" returned no relevant results
7. a search at http://www.msnbc.com returned no additional relevant results
8. a search at http://america.aljazeera.com/search.html returned no additional relevant results

Left Side of the Aisle #154

Left Side of the Aisle
for the week of April 10-16, 2014

This week:

Outrage of the Week: Climate deniers suppress paper linking them to conspiracy nuts
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/24/5/622.short
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/unlocking-the-conspiracy-mindset/
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/20/science-journal-retracts-paper-showing-how-climate-change-sceptics-were-conspiracy-theorists-after-sceptics-shout
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/21/academic_journal_bows_to_pressure_from_climate_deniers/
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf

Link to Lewandowsky's second paper:
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/Publications/LskyetalRecursiveFury4UWA.pdf

Domestic spying: How they get away with it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m
http://rt.com/usa/white-house-nsa-proposal-633/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/technology/between-you-and-me-4-74-degrees.html?_r=1&
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court
http://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
http://theburglary.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-nsa-overhaul-may-require-phone-carriers-store-222010492--sector.html
http://rt.com/usa/nsa-overhaul-telecom-metadata-425/

Clown Award: District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/04/obama-drone-strikes_n_5093782.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_M._Collyer

Congressional Progressive Caucus proposes a budget, media ignores it
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/03/1507-clown-award-rep-paul-ryan.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/paul-ryan-budget_n_5069608.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/gop-budget-would-amount-to-pay-cut-for-federal-employees/2014/04/01/906b47ec-b9a9-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-paul-ryan-budget-20140401,0,2127070.story#axzz2xgALCyAS
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/paul-ryan-s-budgetary-fantasy
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/hot-topics/progressive-caucus-unveils-the-better-off-budget1/
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20Better%20Off%20Budget.pdf
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Back%20to%20Work%20Budget%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173348/truly-progressive-budget-vision
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117135/qa-rep-keith-ellison-cpcs-better-budget
http://truth-out.org/news/item/22921-ryan-vs-progressive-caucus-competing-visions-on-the-federal-budget
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16419/fighting_inequality_one_budget_at_a_time
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2014/03/progressive_caucus_budget_we_c.php
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/node/12986
http://www.epi.org/publication/budget-analysis-congressional-progressive/
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79604810/?related=true
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/pat-garofalo/2014/03/12/finally-a-washington-plan-for-jobs-and-the-debt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-dolan/want-to-be-better-off-get_b_4950896.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/common-sense-takes-courag_b_4948854.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/paul-ryan-budget-vs-congressional-progressive-caucus
http://www.msnbc.com/now-with-alex-wagner/watch/better-off-budget-set-for-release-193403971839
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/12/congressional-progressivecaucusbudget.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/10/left-side-of-aisle-76-part-4.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/28/revealed_the_u_s_militarys_next_shadow_war_partner/
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/05/obama-exceeds-million-mark-deportations/7340419/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-75-part-4.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2012/09/left-side-of-aisle-73-part-4.html

Examples of the divide between us and them
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-09/gm-workers-who-built-defective-cars-fret-about-recall.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/03/must_see_morning_clip_it_took_gm_more_than_10_years_to_recall_a_deadly_malfunction/
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/major-events-gms-recall-26m-small-cars-23142695
http://time.com/54382/general-motors-ignition-switch-recall-fine/
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ups-threatens-fire-250-protesting-workers
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/exclusive-ups-dismisses-250-queens-drivers-protest-article-1.1742718
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/ups-union-discuss-fate-250-fired-drivers-article-1.1750103
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/ups-fires-17-queens-drivers-ongoing-labor-dispute-article-1.1749171

150.7 - Clown Award: Rep. Paul Ryan

Clown Award: Rep. Paul Ryan

Now for one of our regular features, the Clown Award, given as always for meritorious stupidity.

Well, he's been the clown before, I'm sure he will be again, but this week the big red nose goes to the man who in the right wing passes for an intellectual: Rep. Paul Ryan.

CPAC, as you may know, is the Conservative Political Action Committee and it recently concluded its yearly confab, which is a must-go for anyone who hopes to win the favors of the fanatical right-wing yahoos who populate the most activist part - and therefore a politically-potent part - of the Republican Party. So basically it was a week of seeing who could toss the most and reddest meat to the mouth-breathers in the audience before at the end of it all Rand Paul of course won the presidential straw poll, just like his father, Ron Paul, always did in years past.

The thing is, however, the GOPpers, or at least the nominal leaders of the party, have finally realized they have an image problem. So they've started to talk about, for example, "reaching out to minorities." They do seem to have a problem getting the hang of it: The picture on the right is of the attendance at the panel on minority outreach.

But they keep on plugging away at it at this image campaign. On another front, they've heard of this "income inequality" business. They don't quite know what to make of it; they think it's just more whining from those lazy takers, but some of them figure they need to have something to say.

This is where Rep. Paul Rantin' comes in, who at least realizes that GOPpers have to at least look like they care about the poor. So in his speech at CPAC he went on about how completely Republicans understand the American people, while "the left" is offering people "a full stomach and an empty soul."

A stomach full of a school lunch, it turns out. Rantin' told a story he said came from a member of the cabinet of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkalloveryou. It was about

a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown paper bag, just like the other kids. Because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him.

"This," Rantin' finished with a dramatic rhetorical flourish, "is what the left does not understand."

Now remember, this kid gets the free lunch because his parents don't have enough money to provide him sufficient and adequate nutrition. But according to Paul Rantin', that inability to provide a brown-bag lunch every day actually somehow proves that those parents do not love their child as much as those parents who are richer love their children - so that boy should go hungry every day because that somehow will fill his soul.

Because as we all know, the very bestest thing we can do for poor people is make them poorer.

Oh, but Paulie-boy doesn't stop there. No, because remember he has to show that right-wingers really really do care about doing something about poverty. They don't want children to go hungry, oh no no no. Because they are the ones who really care.

So he had this study done, a study of the past 50 years of anti-poverty programs. Lo and behold and hey waddaya know, the "study," a 200-page document released about two weeks ago, concluded that anti-poverty programs are counterproductive and ineffective, that they've created "the poverty trap," where, to refer to something Rantin' has said elsewhere, the safety net has turned into "a hammock, that lulls people into lives of complacency" rather than what they should have, which is lives of hard work and self-reliance and the soul-filling experience of an empty belly.

Except - don't be too shocked - the report uses misleading figures, distortions of data, and often ignores its own data.

Here's a big one: The report cites the poverty rate just before the Great Society programs of the early to mid-60s began and compares it to the official poverty rate now. It notes that the current rate is only about one and a-half or two percentage points below the other and claims that shows that poverty programs don't work.

But that is a false comparison. We now have programs that didn't exist then. To get a fair comparison, we have to say what the poverty rate in the US would be today if those programs did not exist, just as they didn't exist at that earlier time.

The answer is that the poverty rate would be almost double: 29% v. 16%, even higher than before the "War on Poverty" began and comparable to the worst part of the Great Depression. Put another way, the various anti-poverty programs have reduced, are reducing, poverty by 13 percentage points. With a current estimated population of something over 320 million, that means that there are nearly 42 million people in this country who do not live in poverty as the result of public programs.

What's more, the report's own conclusions regarding the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs ignore its own findings that numerous programs help the poor get through their lives or even keep them out of poverty. For one example, it notes that the Child Tax Credit keeps about 2.9 million people from falling into poverty, including about 1.5 million children.

I don't know what he hoped to achieve with this report, but there is one thing he surely didn't achieve: He didn't stop people from saying "Paul Ryan, you are a clown."

Sources:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/06/1282611/-Paul-Ryan-Poor-kids-should-go-hungry-so-they-know-they-re-loved
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1033869/waronpoverty50.pdf
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/03/3353541/ryan-poverty-report/
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/05/paul_ryans_every_distortion_fact_checking_his_anti_poverty_plan/
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4073
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/04/1281960/-Paul-Ryan-generates-report-to-disprove-effectiveness-of-Progressive-Poverty-Programs-and-FAILS

146.7 - Outrage of the Week: unemployment benefits, SNAP, minimum wage

Outrage of the Week: unemployment benefits, SNAP, minimum wage

I'm going to wrap up, last thing for today, with our other regular feature. This is the Outrage of the Week.

The thing is, though, it's not a single outrage; it's a sort of a compilation of outrages that lead to a single conclusion, something I've actually talked about before and I'm sure will again - but let's just say this week it's kind of like a perfect storm of evidence.

Just recently again, again, again, the Senate was unable to pass an extension of federal unemployment benefits. This last time they said at least five Republicans needed to vote for it in order to get through the filibuster. Only four did and the bill failed 58-40.

And even if the Senate eventually does somehow manage to pass this extension of unemployment benefits, Republican leaders in the House haven't even talked about bringing it up for a vote.

And all of this is happening at a time when there are still a record number of Americans who are long-term unemployed. Right now, 3.9 million Americans have been unemployed for six months or longer. Now, there's a little down from the peak of 4.1 million, but still these kinds of numbers are unprecedented in our history.

And things about this bill - here's something about this bill, about the most recent version of this extension of unemployment benefits: The right-wingers in the Senate have been saying all along that their deal was that they wanted this bill to be paid for, they wanted the cost here to be covered by some sort of cost reduction or extra income there.

It was paid for. They didn't care. They filibustered it anyway.

The GOPpers said they wanted to be able to offer amendments to the bill. They were given the opportunity to offer amendments to the bill. They didn't care.

Right now, something like 1.7 million jobless Americans have lost all of their extended benefits; they have been six weeks without any of these benefits and this again is at a time when you're facing record numbers of unemployed, of long-term long-term unemployed.

That's just one thing. That's just point one. You want to get to point two, okay. This one just - I'm sorry, I find this so incredibly offensive I find it hard to talk about it.

It's food stamps, or SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. A House-Senate conference report just cut a little more than eight billion dollars over the next ten years from the SNAP program at a time when hunger is still an issue, at a time when the child poverty in this country is one of the highest in the entire industrialized world, when hunger is still a major issue, we're cutting up an incredibly successful program. The food stamp program has been one of the most successful federal programs: It has clearly, dramatically, measurably, reduced hunger in the United States and probably that's one of the reasons that these right-wingers are against it: Because it works, and the only thing they hate more than government spending which looks to benefit somebody other than themselves is federal spending that actually works at benefiting somebody other than themselves.

Now admittedly, this eight billion dollar cut was a lot less than the right-wingers wanted; the House Republicans, they voted for a 39 billion dollar cut. But let's not forget that the Senate Democrats also wanted to cut it and so the argument - again, at a time when again hunger is still real, unemployment is still real, millions. tens of millions of people are struggling, child poverty remains high, poverty remains high - they were arguing not over whether or not to cut food stamps but over how much to cut food stamps and we're supposed to accept and even be happy with this cut on the grounds it wasn't deeper.

Meanwhile, the conservatives are grousing over the farm bill of which SNAP, which is an Agriculture Department program, is part, the republicans are grousing that in this bill that snap got cut too little and farm commodity supports got cut too much.

The cut in food stamps could mean as much as a ninety dollar a month cut in a in benefits for some 850,000 of our poorest citizens. And remember, this is on top of the five billion dollar cut in the program that took place back on November 1st which was the fault of Obama and the Democrats because they borrowed money from the stimulus program that was supposed to pay for this and they never put it back. That was their fault.

But then on top of this, the right-wingers want to add insult to injury: They want to cut the food stamps and then to turn around and slap those who still have them. A dozen right-wingers in the House have introduced a bill to say that people who use the federal food stamp program would have to show a photo ID when they buy their food.

The basis for this, they said, is that a recent Government Accountability Office report found that 2.2 billion dollars in food stamps were improperly handed out back in 2009 which of course is benefits issued and so has nothing to do with a photo ID to use them - but the thing is, they know, they know, they have to know that a lot of these poor people don't have photo ID's and so wouldn't be able to use a the benefits even if they got them.

And just like with voting, what do they say? They say it's "to protect the integrity of the program."

"To protect the integrity of the program." Just like the lies they spread about voters and their mythological voter fraud in order to justify their voter ID laws that would cut out so many poor people from being able to vote.

"It's about the integrity the program." No, it's about you wanting to cut people off from any supports and leave them adrift.

And then here's the one on top, the third point for this like perfect storm of outrageousness and this may be the worst because I just can't understand why this is an issue - although actually I do I'll get to that in a minute.

It's the minimum wage.

Two recent polls - a Quinnipiac poll and a Pew Research Center USA poll - both say voters want the minimum wage increased. Democrats do, independents do, even a majority of Republicans, self-identified Republicans, say they support an increase in the minimum wage and still it is not happening.

The federal minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. If it had just kept pace with inflation since 1991, it would be over $12 an hour. If it has kept pace with worker gains in productivity since 1968, when the minimum wage was at its peak purchasing power, it would now be nearly $22 dollars an hour.

The fact is, right now, some 3.6 million people in this country are working at or below the minimum wage. That's roughly equal to the population of Los Angeles. And what's more, millions more have their pay actually tied in some way to the minimum wage, so if you raise the minimum wage you don't just benefit those 3.6 million people, you actually benefit nearly 28 million workers who would have a better life and a better chance to advance themselves.

And this nonsense that raising the minimum wage kills jobs? It doesn't. In fact there was just recently a letter signed by 600 economists who said that no, it doesn't, it does not kill jobs.

Instead, the proposal now to raise the minimum wage to just $10.10 an hour - which is still less than it should be - but raising it to just $10.10 an hour would reduce the number of people living in poverty by over four and a-half million.

So why isn't it happening? I'll tell you why. Because one other thing it is, is a stealth taxpayer subsidy to the fast-food and restaurant industry because these McWorkers, as they've come to be called, they are paid safety net benefits out of taxpayer funds, they get benefits like food stamps and other things because they don't make enough at their jobs to live on. Not raising the minimum wage is the equivalent of a $7 billion annual subsidy for this industry. That's why it's not happening: to protect profits.

It's all about, driven by, expressive of, the utter, complete, rank, selfishness justified by self-serving fantasies about the moral and ethical shortcomings have those lower in the economic scale than you. The belief that hungry people are crooks. That unemployed people are lazy. That low-wage workers have no ambition. That poor people have no work ethic.

It is just justifications of selfishness and greed and I'm going to talk more about this next week, about the sickness, the true sickness, of what I call classism, the contempt for the poor and the conviction that those who are poorer than you are fundamentally inferior to you. More on this soon.

Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/unemployment-extension-senate_n_4739526.html
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/20/news/economy/unemployment-insurance/
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/30/us-child-poverty-report-unicef_n_1555533.html
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/197291-sessions-says-food-stamp-cuts-not-deep-enough
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/17/news/economy/food-stamps-cut/index.html?iid=EL
http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/25/news/economy/food-stamp-cuts/index.html?iid=EL
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/government-oversight/197761-republicans-want-photo-id-requirement-for-food-stamps
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/23/1271896/-Republicans-believe-rich-people-just-work-harder-So-how-do-they-explain-these-statistics
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/27-shocking-numbers-that-reveal-the-true-state-of-the-union-20140128
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42973.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/the-case-for-a-higher-minimum-wage.html
http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/