NO BAILOUT! Without Protection

Populist Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur D-OH explains the rule for playing Wall Street bailout.

Contact your Senators and Representatives and urge them to say no to the bailout.

Dear Senator/Representative,

Please personalize your message

(sample letter)
Congress has no right to give the White House and its Secretary of the Treasury the power to transfer the people's money to the richest bankers in the country. Vote No to the Bailout legislation. The Bailout legislation is being rammed through Congress in a matter of days. This is an illegal power grab by the White House and their richest friends on Wall Street. The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars. It is also one of the biggest transfers of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich in the history of the United States.

Congress should help families stay in their homes. Wealthy executives should be forced to disgorge their obscene profits, fees and bonuses that made them ultra-rich while they ran the economy into the ground.

http://www.votenobailout.org/

How to Build a Populist Democratic Majority

Check out this 1996 paper from the Social Democrats, USA archives. Twelve years later, this is piece still offers timely advice about how to divide the Republican coalition and build a new populist Democratic majority.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010411072250/www.socialdemocrats.org/miller.html

Splitting the Republican Coalition

Irving Kristol is a leading spokesman among neoconservatives. He co-edits the Public Interest, a journal that is often an excellent source on political and economic matters. Kristol did a piece for the Wall Street Journal in June called "Times of Transformation." In it he delivers a seminal analysis of the current political scene. The article, although not so intended, suggests a winning strategy for Democrats.

Kristol points out that the conservative revolution in the Republican Party occurred in 1964 when Rockefeller lost the presidential nomination. He argues that the liberal revolution captured the Democratic Party in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern.

Kristol described the current Republican coalition as consisting primarily of two main strains: economic and social conservatives. The economic conservatives are anti-state and the social conservatives are anti-liberal who view liberalism "as corroding and subverting the virtues that they believe must be the bedrock of decent society." He believes that the differences between the economic conservatives and the social conservatives produce "tensions" between the two groups. Kristol's long range view is that the social conservatives represent "an authentic mass movement that gathers strength with every passing year."

The Kristol analysis, however, while close to the facts, is not complete. He does not fully explain the nature of the tension between the economic and social conservatives. The economic conservatives are anti-state because of their belief in the free market as the be all and end all of economic policy. As a result, they remain loyal to the business community in advancing programs to de-regulate the economy, eliminate effective health and safety regulations, undermine public schools, weaken trade unions, create employer-dominated worker councils and propose tax cuts for their business benefactors.

The social conservatives are not driven by economic issues. They are hostile to the Democratic Party because they perceive it as the home of a liberalism that believes that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded while at the same time supporting individualist lifestyles based on the pleasure principle. All of this offends their traditional idea about the family, religion and responsibility. They believe in a "moral" and cohesive society that is illuminated by the application of traditional values expressed in terms of country, community and family.

The relationship between the two groups is potentially more than one of tension but rather basic instability. Much of this instability arises out of the fact that each has a different social base that is differentially effected by trends in the economy. For example: since 1973 real annual earnings of the bottom 20% of wage earners has dropped by 24%, a staggering loss, while real earnings in the top 20% have increased by 10%.

The economic conservatives tend to be well-off and unaffected by negative economic trends. The social conservatives, on the other hand, are for the most part middle class, largely blue collar and rural and churchgoers who predominate in the Baptist, evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic communities.

But, the economic needs of the social conservatives do not automatically open them to the message of the Democrats. These Americans do not live by bread alone. They are appalled by the perceived breakdown of the social fabric that threatens their families and the future of their youth. Hence the dilemma and the opportunity for the Democrats: address their social concerns in a way that is meaningful and thereby get an audience for the bread and butter message that speaks to their self interest: expanded job training, improved public education, college scholarships, job protection through strong health and safety laws, increased minimum wage, fair trade that protects American jobs and a labor policy that protects the rights of workers to freely organize at the work place in organizations of their own choosing.

The Democratic Party does not have to look far for an example of how re-inventing itself can produce major political gains without any sacrifice of core values. Until recently, the British Labor Party had so marginalized itself that is was no longer a factor in British politics. It looked for a long time that this would be the Tory century. Now they lead the Tories by 30 points in the polls. A New York Times journalist correctly observed that this change in fortunes is because the Labor Party "abandoned [their] old class-warfare oratory and [their] more radical leftist policies, stole the initiative from the Tories on issues like family and crime [and] built respect in the business and financial communities for [their] economic policies." Through this process, the Party expanded the size of its tent and brought into its orbit a new constituency not limited by its trade union core.

A political party cannot hope to rule unless it speaks to the traditional culture of the people it seeks to lead. Once the Democrats learn that lesson they will become a party of values and economics, the combination of soul and bread, that will win back the social conservatives who deserted the Democratic Party in droves. It seems that President Clinton understands this but does not yet have a consensus for this view within the Democratic Congressional and organized party.

Bruce A. Miller
Social Democrats, USA

Boeing vs. Airbus: Outsourcing defense

Stop The NAFTA Trucks

Public Citizen www.citizen.org warns:

The administration is continuing its push to expand the NAFTA trucking program -- the controversial "pilot program" giving Mexico-based trucking companies full access to U.S. roads, without adequate measures to ensure public safety.

President Bush is continuing this program even though he signed a bill into law cutting off all funding for it.

The Bush administration insists on pushing forward, despite requirements to put the public's safety first. Act now and tell Congress to follow up on their work and demand Bush follow the law!

www.stopnaftatrucks.org

Sen. Tester on the clearness of the 2nd Amendment

Senator Jon Tester D-Montana defends our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

A quote from a great American and Democrat about the need to protect gun rights.

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
—Hubert Humphrey, 1960

The Case for Single Payer Health Insurance

Graham, a medical student and blogger (Over!My!Med!Body!), makes an excellent case for a single payer system of national health insurance:

Single-payer is basically a way some countries use to provide its citizens with health insurance. (Sounds very boring, I know. But keep reading!) Its name comes from the fact that doctors and hospitals are paid by one organization: a single payer. By having only one payer, you can simplify the health care system enormously.

Single-payer saves lives.

In a single-payer health system, everyone has health insurance. According to the Institute of Medicine, 18,000 people in the United States die every year from a lack of health insurance--that's two people every hour.

The US also has higher infant mortality levels(more children under 1 year of age die) compared to most other democratic companies. Babies would be healthier if all pregnant women could get access to a doctor while they're pregnant.

Or think of how much less-crowded emergency rooms would be if people could see a primary care doctor when they were sick, instead of only going to an ER when they become sicker.

Single-payer saves time.

Imagine if all doctors and all hospitals in the US had just one type of form to fill out. And all patients had one insurance card. And all patients had health insurance by virtue of being US citizens. And now think of the savings in time, money, paper-pushing. Doctors would have more time to care for patients; everyone would have fewer headaches waiting to talk to their HMO to prove their coverage; nurses would be less frustrated with their work.

Single-payer saves money.

By having one organization handle all of the bureaucracy and all of the administration of the health care system (mostly consisting of paperwork and payments) paper-pushing greatly decreases in frequency and cost. More of each of our dollars that go toward health care would actually be used to care for people's health, instead of going toward managers and forms.

Single-payer eliminates the bulk of paperwork duplication, and in the process, could potentially save hundreds of BILLIONS (that's 100,000 million) of dollars. As it is right now, American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health costs are so much higher than in other countries. The Canadian branches of Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler all publicly support Canada's health care system, because it saves them an enormous amount of money, compared to their counterparts in the US.

What's more, a single-payer system would mean fewer personal bankruptcies due to medical bills--and an end to patients actually receiving bills. In most countries with a single-payer system, patients never see a bill. The billing process doesn't even involve patients. (This saves money, too--think of how much work goes into itemizing each bill, sending it to each patient, following up on the bill if there's been an error... and on, and on.)

Most single-payer systems save a ton of money by buying prescription drugs for its patients in huge bulk quantities. You know the money you save for buying in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club? Think of applying that concept to buying prescription drugs for America's 290 million people. (Hint: this is what Canada does--it's what makes their drugs much cheaper.)

Single-payer saves choice.

Americans love choices. We love having options. With a single-payer system, patients could go to any doctor they wanted (try doing that with your HMO!). You could see the doctor that's closest to you, the one that your friends all recommend, or pick one that's your same religion, ethnicity, or race. It'd be a much different experience than getting a specific list from your HMO, telling you who you're allowed to see, if you don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.

Even better, people wouldn't be tied to their current job for the health insurance it provides. People could find jobs they're happier with or even consider starting their own businesses. It would make employers work harder to make employees happy, and employers could be more confident their workers were a good fit for their jobs.

http://www.grahamazon.com/sp/what.php

Reining in the free market

An excellent column from today's Dallas Morning News addressing the growing realization that free markets must be balanced with state regulation.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-goodman_13edi.ART00.State.Edition1.377d72b.html

Peter Goodman: Reining in the free market
As financial unease grows, regulation is coming back into vogue
09:22 AM CST on Sunday, January 13, 2008

For more than a quarter-century, the dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has been that the market is unfailingly wise. So wise that the proper role for government is to steer clear and not mess with the gusher of wealth that will flow, trickling down to every level of society, if only the market is left to do its magic.
That notion has carried the day as industries have been unshackled from regulation and as taxes have been rolled back, along with the oversight powers of government. Faith in markets has held sway as insurance companies have fended off calls for more government-financed health care, and as banks have engineered webs of finance that have turned houses from mere abodes into assets traded like dot-com stocks.

But lately, a striking unease with market forces has entered the conversation. The world confronts problems of staggering complexity and consequence, from a shortage of credit following the mortgage meltdown to the threat of global warming. Regulation – nasty talk in some quarters, synonymous with pointy-headed bureaucrats choking the market – is suddenly being demanded from unexpected places.

The Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have recently put aside laissez-faire rhetoric to wade into real estate, wielding new rules and deals they say are necessary to protect Americans from predatory bankers – the same bankers who, only a year ago, were being lauded for creativity. Were the market left to its own devices, millions could lose their homes, the administration now says.

Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are coordinating campaigns to flush cash through the global economy, lest frightened lenders hoard capital and suffocate growth. In Bali this month, world leaders gathered in the name of striking agreement to slow climate change.

Adam Smith used the metaphor of the invisible hand to describe how markets should function: With everyone at liberty to pursue self-interest, the market omnisciently distributes goods and capital to maximize the benefits for all. Since the Reagan administration, that idea has weighed in as a veritable holy commandment, with economist Milton Friedman cast as Moses.

As the Cold War ended and Communism retreated, the invisible hand seemed to monopolize economic thinking. Even China, controlled by a nominally communist party, has blessed private entrepreneurs and foreign investment. In Latin America, the International Monetary Fund financed governments that embraced market forces while shunning those that were resistant.
But now the invisible hand is being asked to account for what it has wrought. In the U.S., many economic complaints – the widening gap between rich and poor, the expense of higher education – are being dusted for its fingerprints.

After two decades of disappointing economic growth, several Latin American countries have spurned the IMF while embracing the finance and thinking of Venezuela's avowedly socialist leader, Hugo Chávez. China's leaders, though still devoted to "reform and opening," are keeping tight control on the value of the currency while steering capital to powerful state-owned companies, concerned that freer markets could throw millions of peasants out of work.

Throughout history, regulation has tended to gain favor on the heels of free enterprise run amok. The monopolistic excesses of the Robber Barons led to antitrust laws. Not by accident did strict new accounting rules follow the unmasking of fraud at Enron and WorldCom. Now, the subprime fiasco and a still unfolding wave of home foreclosures are prompting many to call for new rules.

"We're revisiting the question of market flows with a deservedly wary eye," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington. "For decades, economists and political elites have argued that any time you regulate any aspect of the economy, you're slipping the handcuffs on the invisible hand. That's demonstrably wrong in lots of ways."

But if markets can inflict pain, the harm from trying to tame them is often worse, argue those who would let the invisible hand carry on. The new regulatory tilt threatens to tie up innovation in a straitjacket of bureaucratic nannying while slowing the global economy, they say.

"Every regulation reduces people's freedom," said David Henderson, a libertarian economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "The more regulation we get, the worse we do."
Mr. Henderson is critical of the Bush administration's effort to freeze mortgage rates and the new rules proposed by the Fed intended to curb nefarious lending. They undermine the sanctity of contracts, he said, and make mortgages harder to gain for everyone.

"The way they justify it is that you've got to protect the stupid people who can't read a contract," Mr. Henderson said. "But they're treating everyone as stupid."

But in Washington, and under the roofs of many homes now worth less than a year ago, there appears to be a shift in the nation's often-ambivalent attitude about regulation.

Back in the boom, banks made loans to homeowners who did not have to prove their ability to pay, then quickly sold the loans to other companies. By the time it emerged that a lot of homeowners could not pay, these loans had been pooled with other loans and chopped into strange new paper assets that were sold to unsuspecting buyers around the globe. The subsequent reckoning has forced major banks to write off vast sums of money.

"Here you had all these people who were supposed to be sophisticated investors, and it turns out they were buying billions of dollars' worth of debt where they didn't even understand what they owned," said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. "There is going to be a willingness to re-regulate financial markets."

Liberal critics have long asserted that dogmatic devotion to market forces has skewed American society toward those of greatest means. More wealth is being concentrated in fewer hands, with rich people capturing the best housing, private education and health care services, and, as the argument goes, only crumbs left for everyone else.

That critique informs proposals from Democrats vying for the presidency, as they debate how best to expand access to health care and ways to shift the tax burden to the rich. They are in essence calling for market intervention to redress imbalances. With the gap between the richest and poorest now greater than it has been since the 1920s, these pitches have emerged as central components of their campaigns.

More notable, though, is how fervent proponents of unfettered market forces have lately come to embrace regulation.

The Bush administration, in seeking to freeze mortgage rates for some homeowners, put Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. in charge of the campaign. Mr. Paulson not long ago ran the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. Now he is demanding that banks accept smaller payments than promised, while describing the market as a fallible thing in need of supervision.
"The government acted to prevent a market failure and to try to avoid unnecessary harm," he said.

More than a decade ago, when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, he pushed through the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement, which linked the fortunes of Mexico and the United States. But if his wife or one of her Democratic rivals captures the White House next year, they promise a more skeptical look at trade deals.

Some argue that the pushback against market forces is a momentary pause in a steady march toward unfettered capitalism. The libertarian Cato Institute recently issued a report finding that economic freedom – shorthand for smaller government and fewer regulations – has never been greater. "Global economic growth significantly increases with the growth of the world's economic freedom," said Ian Vásquez, director of Cato's center for global liberty and prosperity.

Few policymakers have a beef with that characterization as a generality. But when things go wrong, demands grow for the government to step in and make them right.

"Untethered market forces lead to bad things," said Mr. Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. "You simply can't run an economy as complicated as ours on ideology alone."
Peter S. Goodman is a writer at The New York Times.

http://www.dallasnews.com/

John Edwards - Outsourcing

John Edwards is FDR with a Southern Accent

The Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards is potentially the person most likely to realign the two major political parties for the next generation or two. Edwards is a Democratic political leader who is not only closely mirroring FDR as a historical figure but is doing so by following in the same political and economic traditions as FDR. The main differences are personal backgrounds and accents.

During the 1930’s, President Roosevelt essentially ended the dominance of the “Bourbon Democrats” in national Democratic politics and moved the Democratic Party solidly behind a political program of economic populism. As a result, the nation saw a couple generations of solid economic growth and mass prosperity.

A vibrant middle class emerged from the policies promoted by FDR. The Democratic Party clearly replaced the Republicans as the stronger of the two major parties as a result. Beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan, many Democrats in power drifted away from the core values of the Democratic Party and started running as “Republican-lite” candidates. They started trying to compete for corporate campaign money by permitting awful trade agreements that undermined the health of the American economy and weakened the American middle class while helping the economic elite become even more powerful.

Some Democrats playing footsie with Republicans and large corporations failed working Americans and the poor by letting the obscenely wealthy start paying much lower percentages of their incomes in federal taxes than the middle class majority. Many Democrats started turning their backs on some common sense elements of the Roosevelt tradition of having those able to pay higher taxes pay them. We call this progressive taxation.

The rich pay should be paying higher tax rates since they have more influence on government policies and benefit more from them. They completely abandoned our federal government commitment to preventing monopoly control by large corporations of many important aspects of everyday life. Price-gouging has become routine. Insider trading and excessive executive pay has become routine in the corporate world.

Wealthy foreign corporations are often having more impact on government policies than the needs of average Americans. Media consolidation has blocked out almost all non-corporate voices in the discussion of public policy issues. Edwards wants less corporate control over everyday life and has specific programs in mind to move in that direction.

The wages of Americans have been suppressed. The ability to unionize in order to achieve higher standards of living has been attacked by federal legislation, right wing court rulings and harassment by oppressive federal government regulation by the Bush Administration.

Edwards is the most labor-friendly Presidential candidate of the top-tier candidates. With Edwards, we have a candidate who both walks the walk and talks the talk. Edwards is strongly opposed to outsourcing American jobs and is committed to ending unfair international trade deals or tax policies that encourage corporations to move jobs out of the nation.

Poverty in America has largely been ignored by our political leadership since the 1980’s. We waste trillions of dollars fighting unnecessary wars but seem unwilling to seriously commit to eliminating institutionalize poverty. Edwards is the only candidate really talking about poverty in America. Poverty is a serious issue in many rural American communities and inner cities. Most candidates ignore the poor because they do not write big campaign donation checks. Edwards can give the poor hope and get them voting.

We remain the only nation out of the 75 most economically advanced nations not to have government guaranteed universal health insurance. We cripple our corporations in international competition by forcing them to provide for healthcare. As a nation we spend 17% of our economy on healthcare while our competitors spend 8%. Our competitors cover all citizens while we have 47 million uninsured citizens and even more underinsured. If we had not abandoned our FDR political traditions, this situation would have been corrected long ago.

Edwards is committed to universal healthcare. John Edwards is uniquely focused on returning Democrats to their FDR roots of economic populism. The Bush Republicans are committed to short-term “Greed Capitalism” that is as self-destructive as the Republican policies of the 1920’s.

FDR saved American capitalism by reforming it with the New Deal. Edwards can do the same. Edwards can restore the FDR coalition by running as an economic populist.

He can win in places like North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Virginia and Oklahoma. Edwards might even win in places like Texas. He can win without abandoning Democratic traditional values. Edwards can carry rural communities and small towns without going Republican-lite. Edwards will carry all the traditional Democratic areas and much more because he truly represents Main Street instead of Wall Street.

Although from a working class background instead of coming from great inherited wealth, Edwards is much like our greatest American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Edwards has similar views with a Southern accent.

Written By Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence (hosts of DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com).Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Phone: 443-907-2367

Can't Find The Way

A great song with a strong populist message by country-folk singer Mary Gauthier.

CNN On Dems' NAFTA Expansion

Lori Wallach of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch makes the case against the Peru NAFTA expansion.

Wallach writes:

While many corporations are eager to obtain the new rights and privileges offered by this FTA, expanding the NAFTA-CAFTA model will harm the interests of most people in both countries. Recent polling has shown repeatedly that the American public has had it with our current trade model. The recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that, by a margin of 2-to-1, even GOP voters think our current trade policy is damaging to them. Democrats won congressional majorities in no small part because of the scores of freshmen elected across he country, including in GOP-leaning districts, who focused their campaigns on stopping more Bush job killing rade agreements. It is good politics – and good policy – for Democrats to create a new trade direction for our country.

Unfortunately, the Peru NAFTA expansion does not accomplish this important goal, nor will the public perceive it as anything but more of the same.
Worse, passage of the deal would give President Bush a high-profile victory, changing the message from the debacle in Iraq. It is hard to understand how a Democratic-controlled Congress would give Bush another NAFTA-style trade agreement under any circumstances, but more so the week after he announced he would veto the Democrats’ Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation, not to mention past vetoes of Democrats’ children’s health insurance and anti-war legislation.

There is a long list of trade policies on which the Democratic Congress could take initiative rather than helping President Bush expand NAFTA. We would be excited to work with you to address the imported food safety crisis, fix our disastrous China trade situation, halt the continuing importation of sweat shopmade goods, expand Buy America and anti-offshoring policy, and close the tax loopholes that promote offshoring. Such policies would be a foundation for a new direction on trade which could be built upon when a new president arrives in 2009. The first step towards this new direction is opposing more of the same. Please vote no on H.R. 3688, the Peru Free Trade Agreement.

Sincerely,
Lori Wallach
Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
http://www.citizenstrade.org

Impact of Immigration Policy on African Americans

T. Willard Fair, President of the Greater Miami Urban League describes the economic impact of illegal immigration.

Free market fanatics have a firm grasp on the GOP

Writing in the New York Times, Jonathan Chait draws attention to the grip that rabid free market types have on the Republican Party. Many within the red state Republican base are economic populists drawn to the party by appeals to patriotism and social conservatism but the Wall Street crowd always get their way instead. The message is very clear from the Republican establishment to all candidates who wish to receive PAC money - don't even think about questioning "free trade" or more tax cuts for the rich.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/opinion/09chait.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Captives of the Supply Side
by Johnathan Chait
New York Times
10/19/07

REMEMBER the Republican presidential debate a few months ago, when three candidates raised their hands to indicate they didn’t believe in evolution? Something just as laughable is likely to happen today, at the first Republican debate on the economy. Every candidate will probably embrace the myth that cutting taxes increases government revenues. At the very least, no one will denounce it as a falsehood.

It’s been said for years that the Republican nominating process is controlled by social conservatives, and that any aspiring nominee must kowtow to their demands. But this year’s Republican primary is making it increasingly clear that a different tiny minority — the economic far right — truly calls the shots.

Last year, Senator John McCain earned widespread ridicule for publicly embracing Jerry Falwell, whom he had once described as “evil.” But an equally breathtaking turnabout occurred earlier in the year, when Mr. McCain embraced the Bush tax cuts he had once denounced as an unaffordable giveaway to the rich. In an interview with National Review, Mr. McCain justified his reversal by saying, “Tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues.” It was the political equivalent of Galileo conceding that the Sun does indeed revolve around the Earth.

Mr. McCain is not alone. Every major Republican contender — Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney — has said that the Bush tax cuts have caused government revenues to rise. No prominent Republican office-seeker dare challenge this dogma for fear of offending the economic far right.

Yet there is no more debate about this question among economists than there is debate about the existence of evolution among biologists. Most economists believe that it is theoretically possible for tax rates to be high enough that a reduction in rates could actually produce more revenues. But I do not know of any tenured economist in the United States who believes this is true of the Bush tax cuts.

Granted, economic growth sometimes causes revenues to rise faster than expected after a tax cut, as has happened since the 2003 tax cut. But sometimes revenues fall faster than expected after a tax cut, as they did after the 2001 tax cut. And sometimes revenues rise faster than expected after a tax increase, as they did after the 1993 Clinton tax increase.
Even very conservative economists who have worked for the Bush administration — including Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush who is now an adviser to Mr. Romney — have publicly stated that today’s tax revenues would be even higher were it not for the Bush tax cuts.

No Republican candidate can risk committing heresy by acknowledging this bipartisan consensus among economists. On social issues, however, Republicans actually tolerate diversity of thought. For example, Mr. McCain, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Thompson all oppose, on federalist grounds, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The Republican Party is organized around a strategy of building political capital on social issues while spending political capital on economic issues. Republicans will advance the social conservative agenda, but they will rarely risk their popularity to do so.

As Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, recently observed: “Republicans tend to squabble, but when it’s fiscal issues, when it’s economic issues, we tend to come together. That’s what makes us Republicans.” Mr. Lott is right if he’s referring to the members of the Washington establishment who run the Republican Party. But when it comes to the party’s rank-and-file members, he has it exactly backward. Grassroots Republicans agree on social issues but disagree on economics.

The most recent Pew survey of the electorate, which came out two years ago, revealed that Republicans find common ground on social issues like discouraging homosexuality and teaching creationism alongside evolution in the public schools. They disagree on economic policy. In the survey, most members of the Republican coalition preferred deficit reduction to tax cuts.
Ardent anti-tax conservatives represent a clear minority among Republican voters. And yet the most extreme and counterfactual subgroup among them — supply-siders — remain firmly in control of the party.

The party’s economic priorities are reinforced at Grover Norquist’s weekly “Wednesday Group” meetings, where conservative activists, politicians, business lobbyists and pundits meet to hash out a common agenda. Mr. Norquist is known to cut off any mention of issues like abortion or homosexuality with a curt “No sex talk, please.”

A handful of fanatical ideologues, along with a somewhat larger number of money men who stand to gain a fortune from supply-side policies, relentlessly enforce the faith. They do so with far more success than the religious right, and they receive far less mockery for their efforts.
Just last month President Bush insisted, yet again, that “supply-side economics yields additional tax revenues.” Hardly an eyebrow was raised.

http://www.nytimes.com/

"SiCKO" offers activists a cure

What a difference a movie makes. Michael Moore’s “SiCKO” http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/ is breathing new life into the movement for non-profit national health insurance: “Enhanced Medicare for All.” Energized by “SiCKO,” Progressive Democrats of America is intensifying its campaign in support of HR 676, which would establish single-payer Medicare for All.

The House bill – authored by PDA advisory board member Rep. John Conyers – was endorsed by Michael Moore at a spirited rally Wednesday on Capitol Hill. HR 676 already has 75 co-sponsors. PDA activists will be out in force this summer leafleting for HR 676 at “SiCKO” screenings nationwide, beginning with sneak previews this Saturday in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Cleveland and many other cities. Contact Tim Carpenter (413-320-2015) for more details.

The Conyers bill/HR 676 is endorsed by dozens of labor, civil rights and consumer organizations, as well as thousands of physicians who have witnessed the takeover of healthcare by private insurance companies.

“Over a period of decades,” said PDA director Tim Carpenter, “we’ve watched Democratic leaders’ commitment to national health insurance decline as campaign donations from insurance corporations have increased.”

Carpenter continued: “SiCKO is a shot in the arm for HR 676, a bill that addresses our healthcare system’s central problem: That for-profit insurers treat and cure nobody while sucking billions of dollars out of the system in bureaucracy, paperwork, advertising, sales commissions and exorbitant profits and executive salaries.”

Movie clips from "SiCKO"

http://www.reelzchannel.com/moviedetail.aspx?movieid=226829

Fast Track demise is celebrated

Public Citizen's excellent blog Eyes on Trade has a clever take on the demise of Presidential 'fast track' trade authority. Let's hope that "Fast Track" stays dead and gone.

http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/06/long-overdue-fa.html

Long Overdue, Fast Track Finally Passes into History
Millions of Those Harmed by Fast Track-Enabled “Trade” Deals Celebrate
OBITUARIES: Fast Track 1974-1995/2002-2007

After a brief, damaging existence, Fast Track was pronounced dead on June 30, 2007.
The demise of Fast Track allowed the U.S. Founding Fathers to stop rolling in their graves over Fast Track's trampling of constitutional checks and balances. As well, victims of Fast Track-enabled trade agreements welcomed the news, given the anomalous procedure's record of damage despite having been locked up and out of commission for blocks of time since its inception.

In April 1973, America first saw the faint glimmer in Father Nixon's eye that was to become Fast Track when the Nixon administration - always eager to seize power from the legislative branch - dropped the initial Fast Track legislation. The young Fast Track - the product of a broken and abusive home - had an unusually long gestation period, taking over a year and a half to be unleashed by President Ford, who signed the first Fast Track bill into law. Fast Track teethed on federalism and checks and balances, shredding basic tenets of our democracy.

Fast Track delegated away Congress' exclusive constitutional authority over trade - allowing the executive branch alone to choose trading partners, set the substantive terms of trade policy, and even sign trade agreements, all before Congress ever voted. The controversial delegation mechanism allowed Congress only a yes or no vote on trade agreements after they had been negotiated and signed and by its very design shut out public and congressional oversight.
Unleashed again in 1988, the troubled Fast Track became a violent adult with a pathological disregard for the middle class, family farmers and the environment. After enabling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994, Fast Track found itself friendless when in 1995 its 1988-granted parole ended.

In 1998, members of Congress explicitly voted to keep Fast Track locked away as the policy and political damage of the Fast Track-enabled NAFTA and WTO began to come home to roost. For only two years of the eight-year, 130-trade-agreement Clinton administration was Fast Track out and about. The facts of President Clinton being able to pass several controversial, major multilateral WTO agreements and the Jordan Free Trade Agreement and China PNTR without Fast Track does not in any way diminish the claim that it is impossible to do trade agreements without Fast Track, said Gucci Loafers, a major K Street lobbyist.

In 2002, after Fast Track had been kept locked up for a quarter of its 27 years, another power-grabbing president, George W. Bush, struggled through a two-year, arm-breaking-for-votes campaign that featured a one-vote margin that unleashed Fast Track one last time.

Fast Track's lifelong philosophy was, "Just trust the president." Even after being kept in chains for much of its existence, Fast Track's legacy includes millions of peasant farmers who have been displaced by fast-tracked trade deals, workers whose wages have remained stagnant since Fast Track's hatching in the mid-70's, millions of Americans made ill by fast-tracked trade deals that required food imports not meeting U.S. safety standards, the evisceration of the U.S. manufacturing base, and much more damage. Many Americans celebrated Fast Track's long overdue demise and joined a national day of prayer for a better procedure that in the future could replace Fast Track to ensure trade agreements would benefit the majority.

Those deeply connected to Fast Track, including President Bush and representatives of the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chamber of Commerce, Pharma and other corporate lobbies, gathered at board meetings and campaign fundraisers to mourn their loss.

http://www.citizen.org/trade/index.cfm

What is social democracy ?

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS USA

Social democracy represents a "third way" between lasseiz faire capitalism and socialism. The greatest expansion of American prosperity took place during the years from FDR to LBJ when our nation was under a mixed economy which balanced markets with state regulation.

Twelve years ago, Social Democrats USA released the following statement titled "Why America Needs A Social Democratic Movement." I think that this declaration is a relevant today as in 1995. www.socialdemocrats.org/v.html

Social Democrats do not look forward to replacing our existing social and economic institutions with a wholly different system. We do seek change -- in some things, basic change. But we also seek to strengthen and uphold he institutions, traditions and values of today's society that we find decent, just and democratic.

To many, it appears that capitalism has emerged supreme, sweeping away all its predecessors and even its self-described successors. But, in our view, democracy has triumphed, not capitalism alone. While the market economy is surely necessary for political democracy, we do not believe it is sufficient.

In recent times we have again seen that capitalism is vulnerable to slumps, stagnation and crises which deprive people of their livelihoods and dash their dreams. Capitalism alone allows a few to enjoy wealth disproportionate to the value of their labor, and forces many to labor without ever enjoying wealth or even basic economic security. But the inequities and insecurities of capitalism encourage workers and other groups to band together to protect themselves, spawning great democratic movements of the working and middle classes, and the poor.

Social democracy developed in opposition both to laissez-faire indifference to failings of capitalism and to the dogma that capitalism must collapse in a spasm of righteous revolution. Social democracy has in many ways been vindicated by the events of the past few years. But this vindication brings new questions:

Will capitalism evolve into a democratic socialism in which society as a whole, through grass roots democratic government, directs the entire economy?

Is social democracy an obsolete concept, and is a welfare state that serves as a safety net for a dominant private sector and free market all that is necessary?

Or has society already evolved into a "mix" of socialist and capitalist elements -- a mix that today is moving into a "transnational stage of development"?

With the end of the Cold War, it is again possible to address these questions in a civil and open-minded way. Like Eduard Bernstein, we are evolutionists, animated by today's movements for democracy and social justice, rather than by schematic visions of the future. Like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, we believe in democracy as a way of life -- a guiding moral value.
We are convinced that the way forward is through the extension of democracy at home and abroad, in the social and economic as well as the political spheres. We will not advance through the exploits of omniscient elites who guide the "mindless masses" -- whether these elites are revolutionary "vanguards," sophisticated "think tanks," or Wall Street wizards.

An American citizens' movement for social democracy must be a community of values and a source of mutual aid -- not merely a weapon for class or political conflict. It must be a movement that creates a popular constituency for its values and ideas, not one that makes change through policies administered from the top down.

We are convinced that America needs such a social democratic movement, and that today our fellow citizens will welcome it.

Illegal immigration worsens income inequality

The Federation for American Immigration has just released a study detailing the connection between out of control immigration and increased income inequality in our country. http://tinyurl.com/25sv5r Here is a summary on the report:

Rising inequality in the United States is linked to rising immigration, falling union membership and rising international trade according to economists. But, these three trends are not independent of each other, and the rise in the immigrant population contributes to the other two trends. Since 1970, the country’s immigrant population has grown by about 26 million persons — a 272 percent increase.

Over the same period, the spread between mean and median family incomes — an indicator of increasing income inequality — has grown by nearly four times the rate of increase during the prior period (1947—70) when the immigrant population was fairly stable. Since mass immigration was unleashed by the 1965 immigration law, increases in average inflation-adjusted family income have steadily shrunk and are approaching no growth, or — if the trend continues — negative growth.

The Bush administration’s proposal to increase immigration and increase both skilled and unskilled temporary foreign workers would increase the labor supply and, thereby, accelerate the trend in rising income inequality and the erosion of the middle class. http://www.fairus.org/

My favorite syndicated columnist Froma Harrop has written yet another excellent piece titled "The working class is not stupid about immigration." As someone who tells it like it is, Ms. Harrop takes aim at labor unions like the Service Workers International Union who are supporting amnesty for illegal aliens and politicians who would sell out working families. http://tinyurl.com/288jef Harrop writes:

"Democrats who think they can get away with throwing blue-collar America to the wolves in return for new immigrants' votes should think again. Many Latinos who are native-born or legal immigrants — however sympathetic to fellow Hispanics who want to come here — do understand how the labor market has been rigged against them. The open border is why median wages are higher in Alabama than they are in Texas."

"And there are other low-income groups who fancy their interests matter. T. William Fair, head of the Miami Urban League, appears in ads calling amnesty for illegal workers "a slap in the face to black Americans" and "an economic disaster." Some predict a new coalition of working-class blacks, whites and not a few Latinos questioning certain Democrats' loyalty to their cause. (Cheap-labor Republicans are already on notice.)"

"Controlled immigration is a good thing, and a little wage competition is an acceptable price for bringing new blood and energy into the country. But the numbers really do matter. If some unions and Democrats choose to deny the economic realities, they should at least be open about their motives. It would be highly risky to assume that everyone else is stupid."
http://www.chron.com/

Fortunately, the AFL-CIO has taken a strong stand against the guest worker program http://tinyurl.com/3af82s and we have Senators like Byron Dorgan (D-ND) who are still willing to fight for the interest of America's wage earners.

Senator Dorgan points out three myths about the guest worker program which are part of the propaganda campaign from the cheap labor lobby.It is, simply put, a plan that would bring cheap labor in the back door in the form of millions of foreign workers, even as we continue to export good paying American jobs to other countries," Dorgan said.Those pushing the guest worker program are using myths to advance it, Dorgan charged Tuesday and he acted to correct those myths at a Capitol Hill press conference. He addressed three major myths about the program, and provided accurate information on each:

• Myth #1: The guest worker program allows up to 400,000 immigrants to come to America to work at jobs in the United States. That's a "vast understatement" Dorgan said, with the actual total number, thanks to an unacknowledged "multiplier" in the program, closer to 3.6 million additional workers who don't now live in the United States.

• Myth #2: The guest worker program applies to immigrants already in the United States. Every guest worker enrolled in the program would be a new immigrant, someone who is not here now. "Each person admitted to the United States under the guest worker program is exerting further downward pressure on wages, by adding to the number of people willing to work at low wages," Dorgan said.

• Myth #3: The guest worker program involves mostly agricultural jobs and other work Americans don't want to do. In truth, "these are not agricultural jobs. There is a separate program for additional agricultural workers. These are jobs in construction, manufacturing and transportation among other sectors. That's the backbone of our blue-collar middle class," Dorgan said.

Sadly, Senator Dorgan's arguments fell on deaf ears as the Senate has voted to defeat his amendment that would have killed the guest worker program. There is still time to stop the dangerous Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty legislation. Contact your Senators and Representatives and urge them to oppose this sell-out of American workers. http://tinyurl.com/yqk379 And if our politicians (Republican or Democratic) should think again if they believe it is possible to pander to the cheap labor lobby and win the support of working families.

Is the Democratic populist trend losing momentum ?

Writing in the Spring 2007 edition of Dissent Magazine, Benjamin Ross asks the question, can the Democratic populist moment last ? http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=%20763

Last November, Democrats won middle and working class voting precincts by railing against "free trade" policies and excessive compensation packages for corporate CEO's. The Democrats recapture of Congress in the 2006 was in large part due to the return of voters with socially conservative-economically populist views. So far the Democratic Congress has shown populist leanings by passing a minimum wage increase and legislation that would lower the interest rate on student loans. Still, there are concerns that a business as usual approach is creeping in.

The newly reached agreement between Congressional Democratic leaders and the Bush White House on free trade treaties with Columbia, Panama, Peru and South Carolina has drawn skepticism from some populist Democrats in Congress. Some Democrats strongly doubt that the Bush Administration will enforce the environmental and labor standards touted by Democratic leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Representative Mary Kaptur D-OH told the Associated Press that "the strongest voices for workers and the environment were not included in the negotiations and were not informed of the deal."

If the "free trade" compromise is any indication of where the new Congress is going, populist voters may conclude as in the Clinton years of the 90's that neither party is looking out for the interests of working Americans. In fact, the mix of free trade advocacy and social liberalism during the Clinton-Gore policies seemed to express a less than subtle contempt for the socially traditionalist labor voters that had loyally supported the Democratic Party since FDR. Many"New Democrats" envisioned a socially liberal "yuppie" party filled with educated, high-tech workers and Republican Bob Dole even mentioned upscale "Soccer Moms" in the 1996 Presidential debate.

Now that many of the tech jobs have moved overseas and the middle class is feeling much greater economic anxiety, it seems that populism has a new lease on life. The problem is that many of our politicians in both parties are beholden to Wall Street and the "K' Street lobbyists rather than to the public.As Ross points out, working class populist-social traditionalist voters never really disappeared but for the past twenty years both parties have been concentrating on winning over upscale voters with conservative views on economic matters and liberal views on social issues.

Such voters are seen as more important as they are more affluent and far more likely to contribute to campaigns that working and lower middle class social traditionalist-populist types. The power of elitist social liberals within the Democratic Party has been increased by the proliferation of single issue groups favoring causes like abortion and gay-lesbian rights. Ross also notes that in 2006, Republicans were able to resist in the Democratic trend in key House races in upscale and socially liberal "hedge fund" areas like Greenwich,Connecticut and the suburbs of cities like Chicago and Seattle.

Ross writes:

"The economically liberal and socially conservative have always been a large segment of the electorate. A 1999 Pew Research Center survey categorized one-third of all Democrats in a “socially conservative” group. Together with the “partisan poor” who had similarly traditional attitudes on religious and social issues, they made up the majority of all Democratic voters. Nearly a third of Republicans fell into a “populist” group that had decidedly anti-business views. Yet in the Congress of that year there were few Democrats, and certainly no Republicans, with such combinations of opinions. What caused the severe underrepresentation of populist voters in Congress, and what changed to enable populists to arrive with such sudden force?"

"The answer to this question lies in the enduring inequalities of class. Numbers do not translate automatically into political power. For one thing, the media are dominated by elite opinion, in its divisions over social issues and in its agreements about economics. On issues such as trade and the minimum wage, where elite and mass diverge most sharply, the views of the great majority of the American people are presented as the fringe of the debate. The fundamental human right of workers to organize earns hardly a mention."

"An even more important factor is the financing of political campaigns. The cost of campaigns has skyrocketed since the 1970s; a serious challenge for a House seat costs upward of a million dollars, and Senate races often exceed ten million. Economic progressives have found it hard to keep pace with the rising price of politics. Unions, with their membership stagnant, were unable to compete in the financial arms race; the Catholic and Jewish ethnic networks that helped pay for New Deal-era campaigns moved to the right on economics as memories of immigrant generations faded; and the generation of progressive political donors formed by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War had less inclination to Democratic partisanship than the generation formed by the New Deal and the Second World War."

"By the 1990s, Democratic campaigns relied heavily on single-issue contributors motivated by noneconomic issues—feminism, the environment, gay rights, gun control, and others. The party also drew its funds from relatively friendly business interests in such sectors as entertainment, finance, and computer software. Between these two groups there was considerable overlap in views, and frequently in membership, with the business people inclined toward social liberalism and the social liberals often sharing the globalist views of the businesses. An across-the-board progressive like Paul Wellstone could still mobilize social liberals to finance his campaigns. But candidates of the stripe of Jim Webb and Heath Shuler were largely shut out of the process."

"In the waning years of the George W. Bush era, the politics of campaign finance has changed entirely. Money floods into Democratic coffers driven by outrage at the Iraq War, the erosion of civil liberties, and the influence of a religious right that has become part of the Republican Party machine. Although most of the individual contributors probably hold more or less the same opinions about questions of public policy as the single-issue donors of the 1990s, they are motivated by a profoundly different political outlook. Democrats have become thoroughly partisan. Their overriding objective is to end Republican control of the government. To that end, any Democrat with a chance of winning will be supported—and in most of the places where seats can be gained, that means populists."

"The last few years have been a time for putting party before issues. Iowa Caucus-goers of 2004 rejected Howard Dean in the hope of defeating Bush, and the bloggers of 2006 promoted the insurgent primary candidacies of social conservatives Webb and Tester. Among donors, similarly, partisanship trumps economics. The paychecks of thousand-dollar campaign contributors will surely not be enlarged by a higher minimum wage, yet they cheer Nancy Pelosi’s determination to put this vote-winning issue at the top of her agenda. Democratic candidates, assured of the funds needed to run a campaign, are set free to represent voters rather than money."

"It is this rapid change in the temper of the political class, and of its campaign-contributing subclass specifically, that fueled the sudden populist surge of 2006. When this partisan temper cools, as it will if Democrats recapture the presidency in 2008, the populist tide will inevitably recede with it. That is not because populist voters will be less numerous, but because the conditions will be less favorable for translating their numbers into political power."

"The tide will recede, but it will not likely fall back to its previous ebb. Political motion develops its own momentum, and especially so when it carries a previously excluded group into the halls of power. Once included in the political debate, populist views will be hard to shut out. Democratic contributors educated by the 2006 election returns will remain open to supporting populist candidates. The loss of economic security in an era of globalization will continue to draw voters’ attention to social inequalities. And, we may hope, Democrats will seize this populist moment to enact structural reforms in campaign finance and union rights, so that the votes of the many carry a little more weight against the campaign contributions of the few. " http://www.dissentmagazine.org/

I agree. We need a populist Democratic Party rather than two parties representing Wall Street. While I favor a moderate to conservative course on social and national security issues, Democrats must represent the interests of workers and consumers rather than the powerful corporate interests that have have ruled our country for the past 25 years.

Edwards unveils plan for rural America

John Edwards brought his Presidential campaign to middle Georgia yesterday and unveiled a plan to help rural America. The Macon Telegraph reports that Edwards stressed his Southern, working class roots:
http://tinyurl.com/23qme9

It's where I'm from and I take it very personally," said the former North Carolina senator. "I grew up with eating fried chicken for dinner, going to Friday night high school football games, going to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

"I know very well what it means to grow up in the rural South. I think the president has a responsibility to help strengthen the rural areas of America."

The son of a textile mill worker, Edwards said he spent part of his childhood in Thompson before the family settled in North Carolina where he attended middle school.

Because of his upbringing, Edwards said he also understands the economic struggles brought on when manufacturers close the doors to their rural factories and relocate elsewhere. He likened Middle Georgia to the community where he grew up in Robbins, N.C., where manufacturers left town and many people were out of a job.

Edwards said he plans to introduce on Monday a specific agenda to create incentives for employers to locate in rural areas and to provide the infrastructure to support their success.

"That means tax incentives to come there and it also means having a technology infrastructure, broadband, having water and sewer infrastructure, having highway infrastructure and having all the pieces you need that will support the relocation of new employment opportunities," he said.
As president, Edwards said his hope would be to increase the number of opportunities available to not only Americans living in rural areas, but everywhere.

"I want everybody in the country, no matter where they live or the color of their skin to have the same chances I have had," he said. "I came from nothing to having everything.

"I think that's increasingly hard in America," Edwards said. "I think we have lots of work to do to make sure that opportunity is available to everybody." http://www.macon.com/

A new poll by Angus Reid Global View indicates that John Edwards may be the strongest Democratic contender. The poll showed Edwards leading former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani by a 49 to 43 margin and a 14 point lead over former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson. http://tinyurl.com/2d9e9t

Among the serious Democratic contenders, only Edwards has taken a strong stand for fair trade policies to protect American workers.

I don't always agree with David Sirota but he makes an excellent case as to why Edwards is the best hope for working and middle Americans. Sirota points out in a recent Huffington Post column that the Wall Street interests favor the candidates in both parties who support the economic status quo that has given us the greatest income inequality since 1928. http://tinyurl.com/32jnvu

Back in 1992, the famous campaign mantra was "it's the economy, stupid." This was the seemingly populist motto that people like Wall Street CEO Bob Rubin piggybacked on to help vault Bill Clinton into the White House, and himself into the corner suite at the Treasury Department. Today, there is Today, there is a slightly amended motto operating in advance of the 2008 election: "It's the economic ideology, stupid."

The variation may appear semantic. But like the differences between the classic TV show What's Happening!! and its can't-conjure-the-old-magic update What's Happening Now!!, there is a vast chasm between the two economic campaign slogans. Whereas in the good ol' days of 1992, candidates were campaigning against the real-life consequences of a crushing recession on working folks and for concrete real-world goals to help working folks, today candidates are campaigning against even recognizing real life, and for an ideology that their own economic advisers acknowledge has no connection to actual information.

A new piece in Businessweek gives you a good idea of how this works. The article starts out exploring how a number of Wall Street CEOs are "refining" the presidential candidates' economic positions (ha! and you thought the candidates decided their own positions). We are asked to sympathize with the plight of these CEOs because the presidential campaign has gotten off to an earlier start, and they are a little behind on shaping the key positions of the candidates they finance. After the obligatory threats against candidates who dare challenge "free" trade fundamentalism, we get this nugget:

"Like most voters, Wall Streeters are also trying to size up candidates' personal qualities. At a meeting on Feb. 3 in Manhattan, bankers grilled Obama about how he makes decisions. Present were Eric Mindich of Eton Park Capital, Frank Brosens of Taconic Capital Advisors, Michael Froman of Citigroup Alternative Investments (C ), and James S. Rubin of JPMorgan Chase's (JPM ) private equity fund, among others. Obama said a President must be able to make important decisions with little information...That message 'appealed to them because it was similar to the decisions that they make every day about risk, returns, and probability of various outcomes,' says Froman, a law school classmate of Obama. Similarly, Dalio, the Bridgewater chief who trades currencies, debt, and stocks around the world, likes the way McCain arrives at his positions. It's different from relying on academic knowledge or creative brilliance, says Dalio."

Scores of lobotomized politicians doing exactly what they are told, making information-free decisions, without looking at the hard data - this is K Street's dream. It is the domestic version of the Bush administration's reality-free march to war, with Wall Street financiers playing the role of preening neoconservative think-tankers. Remember this from Ron Suskind's now-famous New York Times article about the Bush White House:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' ... 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

No wonder Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) had absolutely no idea how many new freshman Democrats were elected on platforms against lobbyist-written trade deals.

No wonder Democratic politicians trumpet Bob Rubin as a great guru of job creation at the same time his company is laying off tens of thousands of American workers. No wonder Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record) (D-MT) is huddling with corporate lobbyists for strategy sessions on Capitol Hill about how to pass President Bush's request to reauthorize fast-track trade authority at the very moment his own state has the lowest wages in the United States.

No wonder Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) and John McCain (news, bio, voting record) and Mitt Romney are running for the highest office in the land, and yet are simultaneously refusing to offer anything other than "world is flat" propaganda about globalization - the most important economic issue facing the planet. Why should they behave any differently? To paraphrase the Bush White House, they don't live in the reality-based community anymore. http://huffingtonpost.com/

Trade was a major issue benefiting Democrats in key 2006 contests as noted by Chris Slevin and Todd Tucker in the Democratic Strategist:

2006 has shown us that fair trade is not only good policy, it's smart politics. A fair trade position showed that a candidate was willing to fundamentally challenge the outdated corporate consensus that government must be hands-off when it comes to supporting the middle- and working-class, while being hands-on when pushing policies like NAFTA and WTO that redistribute income upwards. Contenders and donors in 2008 hoping to sweep even more elected offices will have to recognize that voters are ready to move beyond "staying the course" on the failed trade policies of the past and to embrace an agenda which promotes economic security and mobility for all. http://tinyurl.com/268cd3

Progessives supporting expansion of nuclear energy

JFK at the Oak Ridge Research Reactor

Rod Adams, publisher of Atomic Insights http://www.atomicinsights.com/ observes a growing interest in nuclear energy within Democratic Party circles. Democrats are often stereotyped as anti-nuclear but surveys have shown that rank and file Democratic voters support expansion of nuclear power by a 2 to 1 margin (Rasmussen Reports, August 2005). As Adams points out, great Democrats like Al Gore, Sr. and Henry "Scoop" Jackson were among the original proponents of building nuclear plants to meet our nation's energy needs.

Adams writes in the informative Atomic Insights blog:

For the past 30 years, there has been a perception, sometimes reinforced by actions and statements, that the US Democratic Party is reflexively anti-nuclear. At the same time, it has been the perception, sometimes reinforced with words, if not action, that the Republican Party at least wants to "keep the nuclear option open".

When involved in discussions with people in the industry or related academic or government fields, I have tried to persuade people that these perceptions are over simplified and not terribly useful to the continued development of safe, clean, abundant nuclear energy.I remind people that some of the major political support for the technology in its earliest days came from strong Democrats like Senator Al Gore Sr., Senator Henry M. Jackson and L. Mendel Rivers. I also point out that it was President Ford, not President Carter who initially signed the Executive Order that forced the shutdown of the nuclear fuel recycling industry just when it was getting to a point where it could start operating profitably.

http://tinyurl.com/267zuh

Another article also suggests increasing Democratic backing for expanded nuclear power as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to global warming.

James Hoare
Environment News
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
The Heartland Institute
http://www.heartland.org/

Nuclear power offers a safe and economical way to meet anticipated growth in American energy demand, according to an October 2006 report by the Progressive Policy Institute, a policy arm of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).The report, "A Progressive Energy Platform," praises nuclear power as a key weapon against asserted global climate change and air quality concerns."

Nuclear power holds great potential to be an integral part of a diversified energy portfolio for America," the report states. "It produces no greenhouse gas emissions, so it can help clean up the air and combat climate change."

New Technological Advances

Key to the DLC's support for nuclear power are technological advances that substantially improve on an already impressive safety and environmental record."

New plant designs promise to produce power more safely and economically than first-generation facilities," the report explains. "For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has certified three new designs that would use significantly fewer pumps, pipes, valves, and cables than first-generation facilities."

That will reduce the plants' complexity, making them easier to inspect and maintain," the report continues. "From a safety perspective, the new plants rely on natural forces such as gravity, natural circulation, and condensation, assuring safe shutdown even in the event of an accident."

The report also notes further advances in nuclear plant design."In addition to these three new approved designs," the report adds, "at least four other designs may soon win NRC approval. Among these is the promising modular, 'pebble bed' reactor design.

As the name suggests, these smaller plants would use hundreds of thousands of uranium pebbles rather than large cores to generate power. As researchers at MIT recently concluded, these pebbles burn more completely than their traditional counterparts."

Deregulation Needed

We certainly welcome the Progressive Policy Institute support," Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Kerekes said. "It reflects the fact that there is considerable bipartisan support for nuclear energy and there has been support for a long time." We anticipate this report will have a positive impact among Democrats and among citizens as a whole," Kerekes added. "Support for clean, safe, and economical nuclear power continues to build all across America."

http://tinyurl.com/2bcxxn

* JIM WEBB EMERGES AS A PRESIDENTIAL POSSIBLITY

Before watching his electrifying response to the Bush State of the Union address, I had no idea that Jim Webb was in the ranks of great communicators like JFK and Ronald Reagan. With a mix of populism and patriotism, Webb is the one of the few political leaders who have any grasp of how to restore America's sense of unity and purpose.

Maybe a Presidential candidacy this soon in his political career seems unrealistic, but Jim Webb impresses me far more than any of the current Democratic (or Republican) Presidential prospects for 2008. Webb could attract support from across the political spectrum. There is no other political figure that I am aware of getting praise from The Nation http://tinyurl.com/38qmc9 on the left and The American Conservative http://tinyurl.com/2sg5wt on the right.

Even most students of politics have probably forgotten that Ronald Reagan first sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 1968 - only two years after his election as Governor of California. And unlike Webb, Reagan had never served as Navy Secretary. If Nixon had lost the close 1968 election to Humphrey, Reagan might well have won the Presidency in 1972 instead of 1980.My guess is that John McCain is our most likely next President leaving another open Democratic race in 2012. Webb could run in 2008 and put himself a strong position to win another four years down the road.

Just in case you missed it, here is the text of Jim Webb's great speech:

Good evening.I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown -- an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President's message, nor would it be useful.

Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and healthcare for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.Further, this is the seventh time the President has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party.

We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the President and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy -- how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans.

The second regards our foreign policy -- how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times.

In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy -- that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street.

We must recapture that spirit today.And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues -- those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death -- we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held Hostage to the predictable -- and predicted -- disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering.

Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world.The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.

And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos.

But an immediate shift toward strong regionally based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines.

The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other."

And he did something about it.As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this president to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

Thank you for listening. And God bless America.

* WILL CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS TAKE ACTION ON TRADE ?

Two research fellows from the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation ask an important question. Will the Democrats move quickly to re-shape our broken trade policies ?

American Economic Alert

Alan Tonelson and Peter Kim
FridayJanuary 26, 2007

One of the most widespread political predictions being made in Washington these days is that the new Democratic-controlled Congress will press for big changes in U.S. trade policy. One of the clearest possible tests of the Democrats’ determination to make big fixes – and provide badly needed relief for American producers and their workers – would be the prompt passage of the currency manipulation bill proposed in 2005 by Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan and former House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, a Republican from San Diego now running for president.

The bill’s main provisions would designate China’s (or any other country’s) policy of deeply undervaluing its currency as an illegal subsidy against which American victims can win compensatory tariffs through the U.S. trade law system.

Ryan-Hunter is no cure-all for the damage inflicted on domestic industry by the totality of China’s predatory trade practices. Beijing has displayed the ability and the willingness to shuffle the forms its protectionism takes to keep its trading partners off balance. But the bill would significantly narrow one of China’s most significant unfair advantages and would represent a big step forward in America’s willingness to take necessary defensive action.

Just as important, Ryan-Hunter’s swift passage will create powerful momentum for defeating the president’s request to renew his fast-track trade negotiating authority later this year, and for halting the rest of his outsourcing-centered trade agenda dead in its tracks.Ryan-Hunter already boasts major political advantages.

There’s a strong case that it’s legal under the World Trade Organization’s rules – to the extent that WTO legality can be reliably predicted. And rightly or wrongly, WTO-legality is still an important consideration for legislators.The measure also attracted more than 170 co-sponsors in the last Congress, and to underscore its bipartisan nature, Ryan and Hunter skillfully maintained a balance between Democratic and Republican supporters.

A Senate version was eventually introduced late last September, without co-sponsors, by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY). Both bills contain national security provisions, which means that they fall under the purview of the Armed Services committees as well as the traditionally outsourcing-happy House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees.

Further, even many domestic manufacturing groups still hesitant to oppose current trade policies broad-brush are enthusiastic about Ryan-Hunter. Therefore, any Congressional actors instrumental to the bill’s passage could endear themselves big-time to this constituency.More important, the main obstacle to Ryan-Hunter was the Congressional Republican leadership – which voters tossed out of power in November.

As a result, the way should be clear for the avowed party of the common man to push the bill through, at least in the House. (Senate rules make matters more complicated in the upper chamber.) When a session of Congress ends, all un-passed legislation disappears in a procedural sense and needs to start over from scratch in the following session. But the picture still looks highly promising for Ryan-Hunter.

Of the 170-plus co-sponsors, nearly160 are returning to the House. This means that of the 233 Democrats comprising the new House’s majority, more than 36 percent have already co-sponsored Ryan-Hunter, as have more than 36 percent of the 202 Republicans who make up the minority.In all, the bill in theory has already attracted more than 71 percent of the votes needed for a House majority of 218.

The situation in the two House committees of jurisdiction – Ways and Means and Armed Services – is mixed. Fifty of the 61 members of the new Armed Services Committee are returnees, and 36 are Ryan-Hunter co-sponsors. Interestingly, Republican supporters on the committee outnumber Democrats, with four out of their five senior-most members on board (including lead co-sponsor Hunter).

On Ways and Means, however, only nine of the current 41 members (all returnees) have co-sponsored Ryan-Hunter. Six are Democrats, including second-ranking Democrat Fortney Pete Stark of California. Still to hop aboard: slightly more than 105 Democratic returnees and 40 Democratic freshmen, along with about 120 Republican returnees and 13 Republican freshmen.

Yet with such a big head start, reaching a House majority, especially with the new Democratic leadership’s help, should be easily within reach. Major change on the Republican side should boost Ryan-Hunter’s chances as well.Many in this session's Republican ranks are staunch supporters of current trade policies and will surely continue fighting Ryan-Hunter – like Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio and Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.

But not only are the Republicans fewer in number this time around, they also have lost some of their most fervent ideological free trade leaders through resignation and retirement.Moreover, many of the Democratic returnees who haven’t yet signed onto Ryan-Hunter have solid records of voting for better trade policies.

At least two dozen other House Democrats have voted reliably against the outsourcing trade agenda since fellow Democrat Bill Clinton left the White House, and numerous others were at least ready to oppose the Bush administration when it made CAFTA a high-profile political battle.

Will the leadership follow the likely will of the majority of the Democratic caucus – and perhaps the majority of the House?

Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) will play a key role here – and unlike his acerbic and dictatorial free trade predecessor, Bill Thomas, Rangel is much more likely to approach the issue with an open mind. Although in the past he has voted for many free trade deals, Rangel voted against the Central America Free Trade Agreement and opposed the last extension of fast track trade negotiating authority. Rangel recently suggested that trade policy is one area where the administration and the new Democratic Congress could work well together, but on whose terms is unclear.

The stakes are pretty high – nothing less than survival of domestic American manufacturing. If Ryan-Hunter can’t pass a Democratic-controlled House reasonably quickly, the broader campaign to reform trade policy could be seriously undercut.

At the same time, with a big leadership push, new trade policies are entirely achievable in both the House and the Senate. Are the Democrats ready to seize this historic opportunity, and put Washington on the side of American producers and working families once again? The fate of Ryan-Hunter in the next few months will go far toward answering this central question.

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/

Congressional Democrats must act to reform our trade policies which have led to a massive trade deficit, a loss of national industrial capacity and destruction of millions of good paying jobs.