(Thinking forward, rather than just reacting... - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
In light of the 2010 wipeout for Democrats, we’ve all been taking stock of where to go next. The recent George Soros kerfuffle about "looking somewhere else" is a perfect example of the debate about where to invest our resources for the next two years and beyond.
The argument for investing in movement-building, towards progressive infrastructure outside of the Democratic Party is getting stronger and stronger, and you can read calls for it everywhere. I really hope the debate among big donors breaks away from dumping everything into 2012 attack ads and significantly towards long-term projects that will stand beyond the next election. Regardless of the decisions made by Democratic billionaires, we can put our resources towards movement building.
Joe Brewer, Founder and Director of Cognitive Policy Worksand a former staff member of George Lakoff’s think tank the Rockridge Institute, has launched a project along with Eric Haas and Sara Robinson.
Just as Glenn Beck provided guidance when the elected GOP leadership was in total disarray, could Rachel Maddow do the same for Democrats & progressives? This closing clip from yesterday's show is powerful evidence that Yes, she can!
It starts off innocently enough, with her trademarked infrastructure geekiness... which she goes on to remind us is a huge part of what America is all about. And always has been:
But it's not even that conservatives are anti-American. It's that movement conservatives are--and they are a very tiny fraction of the American populace. In fact, they're a tiny fraction of American conservatives, as there's almost no difference in the levels of support for spending on basic infrastructure such as highways and bridges, the kind of spending that Maddow focused on:
[Source: General Social Survey 1972-2008]
Americans are, above all, a pragmatic people. A get-things-done people. A people of optimism. A people of hope. A people of progress. We are not quitters!
Versailles has forgotten that. Even a presidential campaign supposedly premised on all of the above forgot it as soon as the polls closed in 2008. But we, the people, have not forgotten that. We have not forgotten who we are. We have not forgotten America.
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
-- Langston Hughes
The second in a series on the AFL-CIO's job creation proposals.
As part of the AFL-CIO's five-point plan for job creation, we're making concrete proposals to address the nation's immediate jobs crisis while keeping an eye on creating a sustainable economy in the future.
Investment in rebuilding the nation's infrastructure can put millions of people to work now and improve our country for the long term. The United States has some $2.2 trillion in unmet infrastructure needs. That's a lot of work that needs to be done, at a time when 26 million people are unemployed or underemployed.
Lately I have been realizing that modern conservatives very much depend on the benefits of good government to support them as they hold the anti-government positions they espouse. This first occurred to me when Sarah Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska. This was hailed in Republican circles as "brilliant" because conservatives have so little respect for government and governing that it didn't bother them that she was shirking her responsibilities to the state and to the voters that elected her to the office. But she can get away with this only because Alaska's institutions of government have been built up to the point where the state can survive such neglect by its leadership. The courts will still function, the bridges will still allow cars and trucks to cross.
George W. Bush's administration was one more example of Republicans getting elected only to scorn the idea of actually governing.
In California we are living with the results of Republican anti-government governing. There is a Republican minority here taking advantage of the requirement that all budgets be enacted with a 2/3 vote. They vote against everything, and refuse to offer up anything they will actually vote for. To get even one or two Republican legislators to cross over so we can have any budget at all (that budget always entirely on their terms even though they will not vote for it) the Democrats have to offer up non-budget corporate sweeteners like huge tax CUTS for big corporations or waivers to allow offshore oil drilling.
The Democrats allow this to happen because it is the only way that needed services can be provided. The Republicans play a game of literally denying oxygen tanks to elderly people who will die, literally requiring people to hold their breath until Democrats cave in and cut schools and hand out more perks for the rich and big corporations.
But so far the state has survived - although at a breaking point now - because of the investment made in prior years. Bridges still allow cars and trucks to cross. Courts still hear cases. Water still arrives at faucets and sewage is still flushed away.
Back on Friday, John Judis and Glenn Greenwald both published articles decrying the lack of concerted, effective, institutional left-wing pressure on President Obama. The specific context of their complaints was the smaller than needed size of the stimulus / jobs package. The argument was that if there had been more left-wing pressure for a larger package, the stimulus might have been a couple hundred billion dollars larger, and not included the alternative minimum tax fix. However, because so many progressive and left-wing organizations spent the last year dedicating themselves to supporting candidate, and now President, Obama, such pressure was lacking, and the stimulus was inadequate.
I posted a response to Judis and Greenwald, somewhat flippantly arguing that coordinated, left-wing pressure on the Obama administration for a larger stimulus was not possible due to new societal organizational patterns. I thought about the Greenwald and Judis articles quite a bit over the weekend, and, upon further reflection, I now think that my response was too generalized. There are reasons why left-wing pressure on the Obama administration is lacking, but those reasons are more variegated and specific than the blanket reasoning I provided. Given that creating effective left-wing pressure on any administration, not just the Obama administration, is something in which I am very interested, more thought on this subject is required. As such, in the extended entry, I attempt to provide a more comprehensive list of reasons for the lack of effective left-wing pressure on the Obama administration.
Anyone who followed the Barack Obama presidential campaign, whether a supporter or not, had to be impressed by the sheer reach of his online presence. Not to state the obvious; President Obama's online infrastructure has been discussed and dissected to the core. But as satisfying as Obama's victory was, it would be great to maximize its effect by parlaying it into a greater proportion of progressive officeholders at a local level.
These local offices -- mayor, city councilman, county executive, state delegate, etc. -- are the farm system of the Democratic Party. They provide the pool from which future Presidents, Governors, Senators, and Representatives emerge. And it should be our goal, as progressive activists, that this farm system produce more Russ Feingolds and Barbara Boxers and fewer Joe Liebermans and Ben Nelsons. We really haven't yet organized effectively to ensure that we push quality Democrats through the system. We've done well with the "more", but not necessarily as well with the "better".
Somewhere in America, a man loses the job he has held for more than thirty years. Somewhere in America, a woman cleans out the office she had occupied for close to a decade. Elsewhere in the United States, a teen unsuccessfully tries to find work. He knows he needs to help his Mom and Dad; each toiled in the factory that closed just down the street. A young woman searches for a professional position, just as she has for the two years since she graduated form the University. Each of these individuals is not startled by the headline, Economy Shed 598,000 Jobs in January. All ask, where have the "experts," Economists, and elected officials been?
All three of the Obama transition team leads charged with reviewing the Department of Transportation are privatization advocates. Not only that, but their private sector activities suggest that they stand to profit substantially from further privatization of the nation's transportation infrastructure (highways, bridges, tunnels, and so on).
I've been watching Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R - Texas) debating John Kerry (D - Massachusetts) debating the economic stimulus bill and it's related problems with bipartisanship on MEET THE PRESS. Needless to say, Kerry is pushing for jobs, education and infrastructure employment. Hutchinson is pushing for tax cuts, of course, and is threatening another 100% Republican pullout. What stuck in my mind, however, was her statement that the Infrastructure has been well-funded so far and is not a problem.
With shock and horror, stimulus opponents last week paraded around fragments of a government study showing that less than half the funds included in the now-passed House stimulus legislation would be spent by 2010. This was bad news. But then the Congressional Budget Office released the official (that is, the real) report, which reckoned that 64% of spending would occur before 2011 (85% by 2012). The House Minority Leader responded with vigorous, if seemingly misinformed, enthusiasm: the "so-called stimulus plan" will come "way too late to make any real difference in fixing the economy."
Instead, the House minority party proposed a treasure chest of tax cuts - some for individuals, including deductions for health insurance costs and relief from the alternative minimum tax, and some for businesses, including a carryback loss provision and small business income deductions. The only spending provision would continue the extended unemployment benefits program through the end of 2009.
Certainly, the opposition had succeeded in creating a fast-acting plan. But they seemed to ignore the arguably more important condition that the stimulus stimulate. Indeed, the pesky Congressional Budget Office that stimulus opponents have come to adore reports that the "multiplier" - the amount of economic activity wrung out of a dollar of additional spending or a dollar reduction in taxes - for tax cuts is the smallest of six stimulus policy options. And then there's conservative economist Martin Feldstein who calls the carryback loss provision "primarily lump-sum payments to selected companies." Others call this TARP II.
But this debate about fast-acting, ineffective stimulus versus slower-acting, effective stimulus obfuscates what the House legislation actually accomplishes (even if it raises important concerns about the persistence of the Bush ideology). Indeed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ties together measures designed to assist struggling households immediately and investment that can help set the stage for an economy built on energy efficiency and durable infrastructure.
Quite a few members of Congress are unhappy about this. Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon appears to be leading the charge to increase stimulus spending on rail, and had some harsh words for Larry Summers on the matter:
In response to the lack of stimulus spending on rail, DeFazio will introduce an amendment to the stimulus to up rail spending by $2 billion. While that is still short of the $15 billion minimum we had hoped for originally, it is at least something.
This amendment is going to go through the House Rules Committee in order to make it to the floor. With a vote on the stimulus expected on Wednesday, amendments need to be clear of committee by Tuesday.
I am thinking that this might be a good piece of activism for us to jump on tomorrow and Tuesday: call members of the House rules committee to help push the DeFazio amendment onto the floor. Of course, this is only one possible area of the stimulus to focus on, and other people might want to look at others. So, before we take this action, I would like to hear from you. Do you want to make calls asking for an up or down vote on DeFazio's amendment to increase rail spending in the stimulus?
According to the draft of the stimulus that is floating around, here is the itemized spending sorted into categories. It is worth noting that, despite all the talk about new bridges and highways, mainly the stimulus is about tax cuts, health care, education, energy, the environment, and unemployment.
Total itemized spending: $518.7 billion
Health Care: $150.1 billion
$87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate;
$39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid;*
$20 billion for health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients and introduce cost-saving efficiencies;
$4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective healthcare treatments.
Education, Science and Technology: $132.6 billion
$41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology program ($1 billion);
$39 billion to local school districts and public colleges and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas;
$15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500;
$15 billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures;
$10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation;
$6 billion to expand broadband internet access so businesses in rural and other underserved areas can link up to the global economy;
$6 billion for higher education modernization.
Energy and Environment: $104 billion
$32 billion to transform the nation's energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology;
$31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings;
$19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments;
$16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits;
$6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes
Unemployment Compensation: $63 billion
$43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training;
$20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.
Transportation: $40 billion
$30 billion for highway construction;
$10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.
Misc: $29 billion
$25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education;
$4 billion for state and local law enforcement funding.
* -= Applicable to either Health Care or Unemployment Compensation
Now, the summary indicated that the bill will have $550 billion in spending, so either the remaining $30-$35 billion is not itemized here, or there are still debates over how to spend it. The remaining $275 billion for the stimulus will come in the form of tax cuts, mainly what appears to be the middle class tax cut Obama kept talking about during the campaign, but also energy tax benefits.
I support the growing consensus that, while this is a start, overall there is not enough spending here. While it is an important and promising shift away from Bush-era governance, we need to aim even higher.
back in the day when i was an environmental justice organizer in one of san francisco's poorest and most polluted neighborhood i came up with a pithy little acronym - TWIMBY - to describe what appeared to me to be the aggressive emiseration of working class communities and communities of color even as the elites were enriching themselves.
as our country hurtles toward an economic abyss and is buffeted by the winds of the shock doctrine it seems to me that the term is becoming all the more relevant.
This is amazing. You guys are amazing. Earlier this week, when we unveiled our Better Democrats 2010 page, it quickly shot up to over 100 contributors, and more than $5,700. Now, in less than seven hours today, the Save Soapblox campaign has reached over 60% of it's goal, hitting $10,978 already!
For a time just after the holidays, just after an exhausting and expensive campaign, and during an economic downturn, this is a remarkable effort. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has contributed, and everyone who has helped out so far! You can help us get over the top here.
The efforts of the netroots over the last six years have been a remarkable testament to what a group of dedicated grassroots activists can do. Right now, it is hard not to feel excited, and hopeful for the future. We have the organizing energy. We have the growing numbers. We are making change happen, and turning the country bluer. The remarkable efforts of this community over the past week are just another example. In a time of great need for 100 progressive blogs around the country, you are coming through. Again, thanks to all, and let's keep it going!
You know how some politicians are fond of saying "you can't solve a problem by just throwing money at it." Well, here is a problem you can solve by throwing money at it. Send in a contribution to save Soapblox now!.
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