Congressional Republicans and the White House struck an agreement in principle on Monday night to extend all the Bush tax cuts for 2 more years in exchange for extending unemployment benefits. The GOP agreed to the so-called "Lincoln-Kyl compromise" a partial 2-year extension of the Bush estate tax cuts on estates worth over $5 million. If the deal had not been struck, estate taxes on estates over $5 million would have gone back up from 0% to the pre-cut rate of 55%. Instead, the rate will be 35% for the next 2 years.
(Waiting on Democratic strategists to figure out what to do is simply a passive way of committing suicide. Nuts to that. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
The following is the culmination of something I've been working on for several weeks. I've put a great deal of my time into this so whatever you do please make sure you watch the video.
Although official unemployment in New York City is 10.1 percent, a closer looks reveals an underlying complexity to the story. Rates of unemployment vary greatly across the city. Last month, the Fiscal Policy Institute released a report, New York City in the Great Recession: Divergent Fates by Neighborhood and Race and Ethnicity (PDF), investigating further.
Here are some numbers, first by neighborhood. Unemployment in Manhattan's Upper East and West Sides is 5.1 percent. Brooklyn's East New York stands at 19.2 percent. The South and Central Bronx have unemployment levels at 15.7 percent.
Now turning to unemployment rates by ethnicity, white non-Hispanics are experiencing an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. 15.7 percent for black, non-Hispanic, and 11.8 percent for Hispanics. The Fiscal Policy Institute reports that unemployment is 6.1 percent for their Asian and other category.
One thing that every major policy initiative the Obama administration has taken/has been forced to take on (most of them are in the latter category given the stakes) early in their term have in common is their overwhelming complexity. I am glad we have a President with real brains and a mind that can understand complexity, because when I think about the problems we have, and what it will take to solve them, the idea of George W. Bush, John McCain, or Sarah Palin being in charge gives me a bad case of the shivers. Think about what is on this President's plate: solving the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, dealing with the mess in Afghanistan, finding a long term international solution to climate change, finally reforming health care in a comprehensive way, dealing with an utterly out of control and corrupt financial sector, finally finding a fair and comprehensive solution to immigration reform. I know I'm missing some big things, but you get my point. There's not a single issue on this list that is simple to resolve, either substantively or politically. This level of major issues and crises to handle really does rival only a few other Presidents- Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in our nation's earliest days, Lincoln in the Civil War years, FDR. So thank goodness he's smart, and thank goodness he has surrounded himself with a lot of really bright advisers, because to make progress- let alone resolve- these issues is going to take a huge amount of brain power.
David Sirota just said on the frontpage here that he doesn't care if it's called bank "nationalization" or not, as long as it gets done.
Well, if we call it "nationalization," it may not get done, or it may not get done in the most effective way.
We need a different term to start promoting in all of our blog posts, interviews, YouTube clips, everything.
Call it bank rehab. And for the process of dealing with all the bad loans, call it bank detox. Why? It places the emphasis on the illness of the banks -- and the irresponsibility of the bankers -- rather than on the authority the government is exercising. It replaces a 15-letter word that most people can't define too well with two 5-letter words that everyone knows. (Safe to say there's never been a #1 R&B hit called "Nationalization.") It makes the concept approachable instead of wonky. And as a bonus, newspapers and magazines and the tickers on the TV news channels will gladly embrace the shorter words to save space. (So if you talk to any mass media types, make sure to say "rehab" and "detox" as much as possible.)
Plus, it sidesteps a word and a concept that smacks of old-style central planning, a word that's most commonly used today to describe a dictator's seizure of privately held assets. It sounds European, and in the annals of American political rhetoric, sounding European can be fatal (which is why we should also ban "the Swedish model" from our vocabulary, unless it's to make a joke).
If we want to maximize the support for a policy, then we need to make sure that the name for that policy is a good one. This should no longer be a controversial approach; we just need to follow through.
Objective: The complete elimination of all student loan amounts currently owed by legal citizens of this country, on the grounds that this is a highly effective way to boost a sagging economy.
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Declaration of Independence, 1775
I've written before about why the bailout is a bad idea economically. But more significantly, to pass it now threatens the basis of our Republic. A government must be legitimate to function, and for a Republic, legitimacy means the representatives must listen to their constituents. The public outcry against the current bailout has been overwhelming, with 2-1 and 3-1 opposition in polls and virtually 100% opposition in direct contacts to representatives.
Anybody participating in political discussions right now understands the depth of the resentment, not so much at the plan, but at the feeling that we don't matter. From left to right, we Americans are unified against this plan - not necessarily against any intervention, but against this intervention. If the plan passes against this kind of opposition, many will decide the government no longer represents them and no longer has the right to speak for them. Our government will no longer be legitimate.
Let me start by saying that I believe McCain's call to postpone the debate is a shrewd tactical maneuver. If nothing else it allowed him to seize the initiative, put Obama in a reactive stance, and make the headlines about him rather than about the economy. And while it is a big gamble, there is the potential to exploit any outcome that has Obama sitting alone at the debate in Mississippi. First, the Republicans will plaster the television with images of McCain sitting in a study, glasses tipped over his nose, reading important looking papers and conversing with "top economic advisors." They may also release, immediately before, during, or after the debate, some new proposal that has the complete and total acceptance of every Congressional Republican. Even if that proposal is hogwash - as it surely would be - McCain will at least look like he was getting something done while Obama was out-of-the-loop half a country away.
All that being said, I think there is a way to outflank McCain on this with a sublime maneuver. Tomorrow afternoon the Democrats call a press conference and Harry Reid announces that he is scheduling debate in the Senate at the same time the Presidential Debate would have taken place in Mississippi, saying something to the effect of: "The country deserves to see the two candidates for the highest office in the land debate. We cannot deny them that opportunity. At the same time Congress must decide which course we are going to take. And so there is no better time and no better place to have these two distinguished Senators engage in a robust discussion about our nation's economy than tonight on the floor of our the Senate. Let their fellow Senators, and the American people, hear what each has to say and see what proposals each will bring to the table."
First, this move would put Democrats in the driver seat and allow them to reclaim the initiative. McCain is the one that would now be put in a reactive position. Second, it would play to Obama's strength in terms of his speaking style. During the primaries I thought that the candidate debates were his weak point; he is much, much better at delivering prepared remarks. Third, it would make for incredible political theater: the two Presidential candidates, both Senators, having it out in the halls of Congress over the economy and a Bush's bailout plan. No doubt it would be the most watched Senate debate in the history of Senate debates. And think of all the points Obama could hit: capping CEO pay; helping families facing foreclosure; cutting taxes for Middle America. We could even get Biden in the game by saying a thing or two and then Palin would be the one who was left out in the cold. (No Cold War pun intended.) Finally, it could boost the prospects of the Democrat's Senatorial candidates; people would see that the Senate is actually doing something and maybe understand that having Democrats control that house (with a filibuster-proof majority) is of the utmost importance to the future of our country.
So there's this sudden faux-grassroots movement on the right to open up all of our wildlife reserves and our shores for oil drilling, under the pretense that it'll reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lower prices at the pump. It's even got a catchy, easily memorable slogan: "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less." And it's all the rage in East Wingnuttia.
Too bad that it's completely wrong and as far from the truth as one can get while still being in the same space/time continuum.
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