Bernie Sanders

The Fiscal “Cliff” and the Real Problem

Joseph M. Firestone — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:29:35 -0500

Like many others, I'm not worried about the so-called fiscal “cliff,” and the ravages to the economy that are likely to occur if Congress doesn't do something about it before the end of the year. That's because a lot of the impact can be cushioned in the short run by Executive Branch manipulations while negotiations continue to go on. But if measures aren't taken to reverse the contractionary effect of the sequestration-induced changes, we're looking at deficit cuts of $487 Billion over 9 months of the fiscal year.

By comparison, the American Recovery and Reinvestment (ARRA) of 2009 produced only $350 B in stimulus during its first year. And, if the full sequestration were allowed to proceed unmodified, then it would result in a “claw-back” of about 60% of the total ARRA stimulus.

Fortunately, if we do go over the "cliff" heavy pressure will then be on both parties to reintroduce the middle class tax cuts, and make them retroactive, and to restore some of the other cuts as well, so it may be possible to mitigate much, if not most, of the damage, if the Democrats are aggressive enough in pushing the negotiation advantages they appear to have now. So, the real danger of the manufactured “fiscal cliff” is more long-term.

That danger is the constant bleating from both deficit hawks and "progressives" that we have to do something long-term about the deficit/debt problem. So, they put up these long-term plans to delay deficit cutting for a year or two and then want to cut even more down the road to 'stabilize' the debt-to-GDP ratio. This is a non-existent problem, and any plan providing for deliberate polices to force deficit reduction by constraining Government spending to some arbitrary level is bound to damage the economy seriously when the prescribed spending cuts and increased taxes for lowering deficits take effect.

People have to come to accept reality, which is: if we want to import more than we export; and also want the private sector as a whole to save money (i.e. bank savings, pensions, other savings) then there is no alternative to having the Government deficit spend. Further, how much the deficit ought to be, without incurring the penalty of demand-pull inflation is dictated by how much we want the private sector to save, and how much of a trade deficit we want to continue to run. If we want to have a trade deficit at 4% of GDP, and we want to save 7% of GDP, then we must allow the Government to run a deficit of approximately 11% of GDP. And we must do that year after year after year, for as long as we want to save that much and import that much.

Do I need to point out that our deficits are not now anywhere near 11%? And that as a result we not only have high unemployment, an output gap of more than $3 Trillion annually in GDP, but also less in both savings (financial wealth being accumulated) and imports (real wealth being accumulated) then we otherwise would have? What will happen if even the “liberal” Center On Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) hits the economy with its proposed total of $3.7 Trillion (the $1.7 Trillion already agreed to last year and the additional $2 Trillion it is proposing) in deficit reduction? That is an average of $370 Billion per year in enforced deficit reduction which will come right out of savings and imports. That, in the absence of credit bubbles creating unsustainable demand, will condemn us to a stagnant economy as far as the eye can see.

We don't have to run those 11% of GDP deficits, and also have them drive 11% of GDP further debt accumulation. Deficits and debt accumulation are not the same things, and can be decoupled. We can have the deficits and use Proof Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PPCS) to underwrite the deficit spending; or we can change the rules preventing the Fed from monetizing deficit spending by just creating the necessary credits for spending Congressional deficit appropriations and placing them in the Treasury General Account (TGA) when needed. So having the increased debt along with the continuing deficits isn't necessary. And if we don't like the debt, then we can get rid of it.

But, again, if we want the imports and if we want the savings, then we must have the deficits, and we must never have deficit reduction unless we also have savings reduction and/or trade deficit reduction. So the bottom line here is: We need to have the “loser liberal” message we're hearing from Bernie Sanders, Robert Reich, The Center On Budget and Policy Priorities, and various "progressive" pundits and organizations, just stop!

Keynes's idea that a fiscally responsible nation incurs deficit/debt in bad times, and pays it back in good times with surpluses, is wrong in the context of fiat currency nations. The gold standard's been gone since 1971. Nations have much more fiscal space. Some nations want to run trade surpluses all the time, and accumulate nominal financial wealth, and others want to accommodate them and accumulate the real wealth of their imports instead.

So, this makes it impossible for those others to have both aggregate private sector savings and full employment, without Government deficits compensating for the demand leakages. The accommodating nations need to run permanent deficits to serve their own populations. And, if other nations, object to that, then they need simply to stop having export-led economies.

We have no national debt, or debt-to-GDP ratio problem, because we are a nation with a non-convertible fiat currency, a floating exchange rate, and debts in currencies not our own. This means we can always generate new currency to pay our obligations using the methods I just mentioned. And it also means that 1) our levels of debt and debt-to-GDP ratio have no impact on the fiscal sustainability of our fiscal policy; and 2) fiscal responsibility can't mean targeting fiscal policy at particular levels of the national debt, or the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Nor can the bond markets create rising interest rates on US public debt because "we," that is the Fed and the Treasury together, control those rates and can keep them as low as they want to even if every ratings agencies downgrades US paper to its lowest rating. Put simply, our creditors have zero power over our interest rates. Reich's talk about persuading our creditors that we’re serious about getting our fiscal house in order is just errant nonsense. What we really need to do about them is to use PPCS to fill the public purse, repay our debt instruments as they come due, and take their bond market in USD away from them entirely. It's only a source of "welfare" payments to rich people and foreign nations anyway. What do we need it for, anyway?

(Cross-posted from New Economic Perspectives.)

How to Fix the Fed: Dismiss Dimon, Boot the Bankers, and Can the Corporations

Richard Eskow — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:00:56 -0400

More and more people are calling for Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, to resign from the Board of the New York Federal Reserve.

His latest scandal, combined with Dimon's hypocrisy and relentless self-promotion, make him an obvious target. But Dimon isn't alone. Bankers dominate the Fed at the regional and national levels, and most of the other outside seats are held by executives from large corporations. (Remember Herman Cain?)

Should Dimon resign? They all should.

The Board Member With No Name

The scary thing is that Dimon may not be the Fed's most inappropriate board member. That honor may belong to the individual I call the Board Member With No Name. (I don't to want inflame the situation by identifying her, and what she represents is more important than who she is.)

Shouldn't a résumé that includes being the top bank lobbyist and working for the firm that laundered a third of a billion dollars for Mexican drug cartels disqualify someone from serving at the Fed?

Before she became the banking industry's chief lobbyist, the Board Member With No Name was an executive at scandal-plagued Wachovia Bank, an institution whose egregious mismanagement led to its collapse and a government rescue. Wachovia's many scandals and crimes included: deceptively packaging its toxic subprime mortgage backed securities; rigging municipal bond bids, which led to a $148 million fine; and, worst of all, laundering $378 billion in drug money for the Mexican cartels that have murdered at least 60,000 people.

The legislators who passed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 couldn't have imagined that someday one of its governors would come from a firm that was buste,d when its laundered money was used to buy a drug-smuggling plane in Sinaloa.

Banks are large organizations, and it's unlikely that the Board Member even knew about the wrongdoing. She looks like a very nice person - and she probably is. But her background hardly qualifies her for a position of public trust. After all, she's only two or three degrees of Kevin Bacon away from cartel bosses like "El Loco," who leads a group of deserters from the Mexican Army's Special Forces known as "Los Zetas."

Coincidentally, El Loco was arrested this week for beheading 49 people and dumping their bodies in the town square.

The drug cartels have been called "vicious," "evil," and "sociopathic." At Wachovia they were also called "preferred clients."

Conflicted

The New York Fed is the most powerful of all the regions - understandably, since it includes Wall Street. Dimon's one of three bankers on its board. One of the others is from a bank which still owed the government nearly $1 billion in TARP money as of last report. The corporate world is represented by the CEOs of a technology venture capital firm, an HMO, and the company which owns Macy's and Bloomingdale's (who's actually said to be a good guy.)

The Richmond Fed's bank representatives include the leaders of First Citizens Bancshares and CommerceFirst bank, as well as the managing partner of a Charleston law firm who specializes in labor and employment law (judging from his resume he defends corporations). There are also executives from an oil company, a big construction company, and an aerospace manufacturer. The Seattle board includes executives from Wells Fargo Bank (Wachovia's new parent) and Boeing.

And so it goes ...

Other banks and corporations represented at the regional or branch level include Bank of America, Boyd Gaming, Shorenstein Properties, Dow Chemical, Nissan, AutoNation, USAA, IBM, Southwest, JC Penney, USG, Nissan, along with energy and lumber companies and some of the legal and accounting firms that serve the country's megabanks.

Of nearly 250 Board members for the Fed's regions and branches, I was able to identify only three union representatives (from the AFL-CIO), one or two pension fund representatives (pension funds have been robbed blind by the big banks), and one member of a housing coalition. The Fed's boards have become more exclusive than a country club - and a lot more powerful.

Federal Case

Why do we even have a Federal Reserve? There are people - mostly libertarians of the Ron Paul school - who think it should be abolished. They're wrong. We need a central bank. The financial crises which peppered our early history proved the need for a secure dollar backed by the "full faith and credit" of the United States government.

Panics like the one that led to William Jennings Bryan's famous "Cross of Gold" speech were led by speculators who became wealthy at the expense of working people and farmers. Back in the 19th Century many banks issued their own dollars, leaving both buyers and sellers unsure of their value from day to day. Anybody who had been holding "Lehman Brothers dollars" would be out of luck today.

So the question isn't whether we need a central bank: We do. The question is, Why is it dominated by the people who have already ruined the economy once - and who have a clear conflict of interest?

The World's Biggest ATM

Give a bunch of bankers access to the world's biggest ATM and look what happens: As Bloomberg News reported last August, "Wall Street's aristocracy got $1.2 trillion in secret loans" from the Federal Reserve.

What the Federal Reserve hasn't done is carry out its mission, which the Fed's own "Purposes and Functions" document describes as:

conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates

supervising and regulating banking institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system and to protect the credit rights of consumers

maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets

providing financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions ...

When it comes to that last bullet point the Fed's knocked it out of the park, especially for the banks. The other goals? Not so much.

Scoring the Fed

Let's rate the Federal Reserve according to the parameters it set out for itself:

"Maximum employment": Thanks to the Fed, banks have had access to free or very-low-cost money, which they've used to make money on Treasuries and other safe investments. But they haven't been lending it to the consumers and small businesses who are the engines of job growth.
"Stable prices": Gas prices keep swinging up and down radically because of speculation.
"Moderate long-term interest rates": Yes - but is that good? Opinions vary.
"Safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system": JPMorgan Chase's recent debacle shows how little the Fed has accomplished here. but then, how easy can it be to rein in Jamie Dimon when he's chairing the meeting?
"Protect the credit rights of consumers": Massive mortgage fraud by major banks. One settlement after another for deceiving consumers. How much time do you have?
"Maintaining stability ... containing systemic risk": JPMorgan Chase's latest debacle settles this issue once and for all ...

... By any objective measurement, the Federal Reserve has failed to do meet these key objectives, and the composition of its boards is one of the reasons why.

The Radical Fed

Is it any wonder that the Fed gave out more than a trillion dollars to Wall Street's biggest banks - and did it in secret? (That alone would appear to violate securities law, since it allowed bankers like Jamie Dimon to materially misrepresent the financial condition of their corporations.)

And that's not all the newly radicalized Fed has done. It broke the rules by allowing Goldman Sachs and GE Capital to call themselves "banks" - just in time to collect their taxpayer-funded bailouts. But it hasn't shown any flexibility when it comes to demanding that banks use some of their low-interest Fed loans to lend to the people and companies that will use it to create jobs.

The Fed has even broken its own rules in order to protect bad bankers. As Prof. Steven Davidoff noted in the New York Times: "In Blocking Activists, the Fed Protects Poorly Performing Banks." It's also protecting poorly performers bankers - like the ones that sit on its boards.

In one case the Fed blocked a shareholder action by invoking a rule which said an outside party couldn't have more than 25 percent control of a bank - but the shareholder would only have acquired 22 percent control. As Davidoff documents, Fed is repeatedly bending or violating its own rules to prevent shareholders from exercising their rights to limit executive compensation or take action against underperforming or ethically-challenged executives.

The Fed has changed the playbook for bankers over and over. But whenever someone suggests imaginative programs to stimulate the economy by helping consumers or small businesses the Fed suddenly decides it's a stickler for the rules.

Resistance Is Futile

In our interview for The Breakdown last week, Paul Krugman reiterated his statement that his former Princeton colleague Ben Bernanke has "joined the Borg." The "Borg" is the collective alien entity from Star Trek that takes over people's identities and leaves them with no other mission but expanding its own power.

These Federal Reserve boards represent the Corporate Borg in all its unchecked power - but the power they possess is power that we have given them, through our elected representatives.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are good folks on the Committee, like Janet Yellen, Sarah Bloom Raskin and Daniel Tarullo.

But they're the exceptions, not the rule.

Enter Sanders

That's why Sen. Bernie Sanders' Federal Reserve Independence Act is so important. The bill would eliminate these conflicts of interest and force the Fed boards to stop serving bankers' interests and return to the Fed's original mission. People should insist that their Senators support it.

The bill follows on the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which was cosponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ron Paul. That bill demanded a public audit of the Fed, which is how we learned about those massive secret loans. That act showed that the left and the right can work together to change our broken central banking system.

It's time to reunite that left/right coalition. Ron Paul may be wrong about the need for a central bank, but he's right when he says that the Fed must be accountable to the people.

Dissing Dimon

Which gets us back to Jamie Dimon. When the prominent economist Simon Johnson first demanded Dimon's resignation he noted that, while his role is sometimes described as "advisory," Dimon sits on the Management and Budget Committee which supervises the pay of senior Fed executives.

That committee also approves the self-evaluation of senior Fed executives - which essentially means it gives them their performance reviews. It reviews and approves the Fed's overall budget, too, including the budget for auditing bankers like Jamie Dimon. According the Fed itself, its other main responsibility is to "review and endorse the Bank's strategic plan."

Budget, compensation, strategic planning: That pretty much covers everything.

Dr. Johnson has started a petition drive calling for Dimon's resignation or removal. He's been joined by Elizabeth Warren and the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, which calls Dimon's position "a stunning conflict of interest."

They're right, of course. But in saner times people would also be demanding that Dimon resign from his bank, too. His tenure as CEO has been marked by a wave of massive deals to settle criminal and civil charges. That alone would have led to disgrace and resignation in more civilized times.

Even in today's more mercenary atmosphere, Dimon's nothing to write home about: The stock was worth around $40 when he became CEO in 2005 and never rose much above $50 after that. It was $33.78 after this latest fiasco.

Dismissing Dimon

From his perch on the New York Fed board, Dimon has had a front row seat to the dispensing of a trillion dollars in secret cash to Wall Street banks - including his own. His bank reportedly received as much as $48 billion in secret loans at 1.1 interest, when less privileged banks were paying 3.8 percent. The money saved in interest on that loan alone could amount to almost $1.3 billion.

It's like the old saying goes - a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Dimon's always been a paper tiger, a product of his own PR campaign and the low standards of his profession. If he won't resign as JPM's CEO, he should certainly resign as its Board Chairman, a title he assumed in 2006. That's another clear conflict.

An ethically-managed Federal Reserve wouldn't wait for Dimon to resolve this internal conflict by giving up one of these roles. It would have demanded it long ago. And it would have dismissed Dimon from its Board for JPMorgan Chase's past scandals, as well as the one that just came to light.

And now for something completely different ...

It seems like something out of a Monty Python routine. The boards that govern the Federal Reserve, the publicly-created central bank that dispenses money to bankers, are all dominated by ... the bankers who receive that money. Picture it if you can:

Fed Board room, 2008:

ECONOMIST: This is serious! The global economy is collapsing because of your reckless gambling!
LONE CITIZEN BOARD MEMBER: That is serious. What can we do? We could break up our banks and fire their executives, or ...
BANKER: Wait! I've got it! Give us more money!
(Nods all around the table)

Six months later:

ECONOMIST: This is serious! We've given you money but you're not lending it out to get the economy moving!
LONE CITIZEN BOARD MEMBER: That is serious. What can we do? Perhaps there could be rules and conditions about lending that ...
BANKER: Or they could give us more money!
OTHER BANKERS: Good one! Let's go with that!

Three years later:

ECONOMIST: This is serious! Joblessness is still at record highs. Poverty has soard. Too-big-to-fail banks are bigger than ever. And you guys are still breaking the law and skirting the rules.
LONE CITIZEN BOARD MEMBER: Hmm. That is serious. The Fed could use its regulatory authority to ...
BANKER: (aside) I hate that guy. (to all) Let me see ... hmmm ... how about giving us more money?

Three and a half years later:

ECONOMIST: This is serious! The country -
BANKERS (in unison): More money!

Clean Up the Boards

The Federal Reserve's governing structure isn't quite that bad - but it's pretty close. As the President of the Kansas City Federal Reserve just noted, bankers have a "special obligation" to maintain the "integrity, dignity and reputation" of the central bank. ""No individual is more important than the institution and the public's trust," she added.

We'll go a step further: The public's trust can no longer be given to a central bank whose governing bodies are dominated by the wealthy and powerful. Bankers and large corporations should be asked to provide information to the Fed, and should be encouraged to offer their advice. But they don't belong on its boards or committees.

Other steps are needed to make the Federal Reserve responsive the people who created it and gave it such power. But the composition of its boards is a key part of its problem. Its an impediment to change and a disgrace to the nation. As Simon Johnson told an interviewer recently, "No other central bank in any serious country in the world allows bankers to be represented in this fashion."

It's time to boot the bankers from the Federal Reserve's boards and those seats to people who will work on behalf of the citizenry which created the Fed in the first place.

Show Peter Peterson We Reject His Elite Austerity Consensus

Roger Hickey — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:25:20 -0400

On Tuesday, May 15, one of America's wealthiest men, Peter G. Peterson, will use his foundation's money to lecture the rest of us about why the federal deficit is the most serious problem facing our country.

Since poll after poll demonstrates that strong majorities of Americans care far more about high unemployment and slow growth, Peterson's major strategy is to put on a show aimed at demonstrating that all the "serious people" – the elite of both political parties – have already agreed that the deficit is such a threat to America that we must slash public spending and "reform" entitlements. (That's a fancy way of saying cut benefits, raise the retirement age for Gen Xers and Millenials, and dismantle Medicare for these future seniors, as Cong. Paul Ryan and just about all Republicans have proposed.)

I'll be outside Peterson's Fiscal Summit, with Senator Bernie Sanders, and lots of friends who don't agree with Peterson's elite consensus – including leaders of the Campaign for America's Future, Health Care for America Now, CREDO, Social Security Works, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare, and NOW - and lots of other folks concerned about our country. If you don't believe Peterson speaks for the American majority, come on out. We start at 1 p.m.

To repeat, Pete Peterson knows most Americans want action to create jobs, not spending cuts, so in search of an inside-the-Beltway consensus, he tries to find a few important Democrats who will come and pretend that the kind of budget austerity that has wreaked European economies – and is being rejected by voters around the world – should still be the priority for the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, one of the key Democrats Peterson has lined up is Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner – and there is no telling what Geithner is likely to say. What every Obama Administration spokesperson should be saying is, "We need to invest more in jobs creation – and aid to states to prevent layoffs of teachers and cops and firefighters. And if we can get more Americans back to work, the deficit will come down because we'll all be paying taxes."

But Geithner might just easily say something that undercuts that clear, winning Democratic message. He could do what many budget hawks have been urging and call a post-election "grand bargain" that would prioritize deficit reduction by embracing the proposals of former Sen. Alan Simpson and investment banker Erskine Bowles, whose ideas were rejected by the members of the commission that bore their names.

Simpson and Bowles proposed raising the retirement age for young people now in the workforce - and weakening the cost-of-living index for everyone. That means a big Social Security and Medicare benefit cut for people who will have few other retirement and health security plans for their senior years. If Tim Geithner embraces these kinds of big cuts to these crucial programs, the political impact will be to undermine Democratic chances to take back the House and keep the Senate in 2012.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is also speaking at the Summit, should certainly care about Democrats like Geithner rejecting this kind of "bipartisan" consensus as a guide to what they should do in the lame duck session after the election. If he wants to be helping Nancy Pelosi to lead a strong Democratic majority after the election, he should be urging his fellow House candidates to reject this kind of deal – and to campaign like the successful Democratic special election candidate in New York, Kathy Hochul, who won by promising, "We will not cut Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for tax cuts for millionaires."

Speaking of tax cuts for millionaires and corporations, Simpson and Bowles are praised by Peterson and others for daring to increase taxes to reduce deficits, breaking with the quasi-religious conservative oppositions to raising any taxes at all. Actually, they propose the same counterintuitive approach as the Ryan budget plan: lowering tax rates, particularly those on the top. What my CAF partner, Robert Borosage, said at the time applies equally to the Ryan plan: "They promise the lower rates will be accompanied by cleansing the tax code of various tax deductions and expenditures that mostly benefit the rich ... Only we've played this game before. In the 1980s, bipartisan reforms lowered tax rates across the board, particularly those on the top, and cleansed a tax code riddled with corporate and fat cat deductions. And then Lucy pulled the football. They eliminated the deductions but not the corporate lobbyists." The rates stayed low but the deductions came back.

Democrats should join the voters and call for raising taxes on the rich and the big corporations - not cutting them in the name of deficit reduction.

I've been to Peter Peterson's fiscal summits in the past – and I can imagine what the reaction of his public relations team will be to our gathering outside:

1) They will allege that we oppose all deficit reduction plans – especially those that tackle the "entitlements crisis." Our answer is clear: We do oppose cutting Social Security benefits because that system is not in crisis and can be solved by raising the cap on the Social Security taxes rich people pay. We do oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid, because a civilized society should cover the costs of health care for seniors and the poor. However, our approach to deficit reduction involves a.) steps to spur growth and jobs; b.) real tax increases for the rich and the corporations; and c.) support for stronger health care reform aimed at getting the America's overall health care costs in line with other advanced countries. If we did that, our long term deficit problem would disappear. And I will bet that nobody speaking at Peterson's "Summit" will argue that crucial and clear approach to deficit reduction – because it means tax justice and taking on the drug and health care monopolies.

2) They will patronize us, pretending that Pete Peterson himself agrees there are times when job growth and economic stimulus must come before deficit reduction. But this is meaningless lip service. How many of Peterson's hand-picked Summit speakers will call for vigorous political action to pass a new round of stimulus and job creation measures? No, the real purpose of this Summit is to convince the media that – after a long period of slow growth, growing inequality, and polarized politics – leaders of both parties will come together after the election around a plan that kills the economic recovery through drastic spending cuts and undermines the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs that actually help most Americans survive in bad times. This meeting will not issue a rallying cry for bold growth policies to put America to work. And we should try to make sure that Democrats do not buy into what the organizers are selling – because the voters certainly won't.

One more thing Peterson has been selling: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Even many deficit hawks have attacked Ryan's budget plan – supported by almost all Congressional Republicans – because its tax cuts and unspecified and unlikely loophole closings would make the deficit much worse. Democrats claim they will run against the Ryan budget as the epitome of everything wrong with the Republican party, as it is. Yet at the last Peterson Summit, a year ago, former president Bill Clinton came to the defense of Paul Ryan and his plans for Medicare.

At this Summit, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a progressive Democratic leader (and ranking Member of the Budget Committee), is scheduled to engage in a "dialog" with Ryan. Van Hollen has so far done a good job at exposing the way the Republican budget slashes spending for the poor and middle class. Those of us outside the Summit will be hoping he stands up to Ryan by opposing job-killing austerity – and cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We'll see.

Note: It is wonderfully fitting that the Peterson Fiscal Summit will take place at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium, named after one of the wealthiest Americans of the 1920s and '30s, who, as Secretary of the Treasury, advised President Hoover to "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate... it will purge the rottenness out of the system." He advocated spending cuts to keep the federal budget balanced, and opposed fiscal stimulus measures. The result was the downward spiral known as the Great Depression.

Romney Makes a Stealth Attack On Elderly Americans While His Money Spies on the Chinese

Richard Eskow — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:25:55 -0400

Question: What are the connecting threads between these two recent Mitt Romney news items - the announcement that he's not enrolling in Medicare, and the revelation that Bain Capital helped him make money helping the Chinese government spy on its people?

Answer: They're both covert attacks on innocent civilians, and they're both based on Romney's own deceptions.

Think about it for a second:

As the New York Times reported, Bain-owned Uniview Technologies is the primary supplier for China's system of spying on its citizens - in schools, on streets, in Buddhist temples and in mosques, and anywhere else the Chinese people gather. The Times quotes Buddhist monk Loksag as saying, "There are video cameras all over our monastery, and their only purpose is to make us feel fear."

Thank you, Mr. Would-Be President! When Mitt Romney talks about "getting tough on the Chinese," people didn't realize that he meant the Chinese people, not their leadership.

It's a blind trust! That was Romney's defense this week, even though he called blind trusts for politicians an "age-old ruse" when he ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994. But here comes the lie: Romney's trustee promised to divest his estate of any holdings that could be tied to repression - and they don't come any more tied to repression than this one.

What's that got to do with Romney's decision not to accept Medicare coverage when he turned 65? Both of these moves were based on dishonesty and secrecy. The press reaction to Romney's Medicare decision missed the point. Ethan Rome is absolutely right that this move emphasized Romney's 1 percent status - and also highlighted the fact that he's 65, despite looking younger, so it was a doubly inept political move on that score.

It's also true that you can't just "reject Medicare." You can decline to enroll in Part B coverage (for physician and other outpatient services), but Part A hospitalization coverage is trickier to decline and you'll probably forfeit your Social Security benefits as well if you do - which may be the point.

Once you get past the blunders, it clear that Romney was acting as part of a larger plan to cut everyone's Medicare and Social Security benefits. He's a covert agent of sorts - even if he's an inept one in the Don Adams/Rowan Atkinson tradition. The plan's been underway for quite a while, and here's how it works:

Reframe social insurance programs so that they're giveaways, not something people have paid for throughout their lives.
Convince everyone that "the wealthy" don't deserve Medicare or Social Security.
Carefully avoid defining what you mean by "wealthy."
Propose a "means test" to determine whether you're too "rich."
And whatever you do, don't tell the truth - that the Concord Coalition, the far-right-group that spearheaded "means testing," defined "wealthy" as anyone who earned twenty thousand dollars a year or more during their working life.

Romney's not improvising here - he's acting according to a script, even if he can't help blowing his lines.

The first point is important. Medicare and Social Security are social insurance programs. People pay for them throughout their lives, both from their paychecks and from their taxes. It would sound absurd if Mitt Romney had a car accident and refused to cash his auto insurance check to repair his Rolls Royce - and it would be absurd. He paid the premiums and he deserves to use the coverage he bought. Social insurance programs work on the same principle.

But how do we know that the "means test" approach is really just a ruse to cut benefits for middle-class Americans? Simple: If they really wanted to target the wealthy, and just the wealthy, they could do it with taxation. They could tax their earnings to fund the program, as Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed.

Means-testing, on the other hand, requires a massive new administrative structure that combines Medicare, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS. It would be costly, centralized, cumbersome, invasive, and it would create a new Federal bureaucracy to pry into the financial lives of senior Americans.

Intrusive? Centralized? Invasive? Hey, maybe Uniview Technologies will get the contract!

Say what you will about Mitt Romney: He may be a bumbler, but when it comes to money he's not stupid.

Americans Elect and the Emerging Oligarchy: Update

Joseph M. Firestone — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:08:00 -0500

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has made many more Americans aware of the issue of an emerging oligarchy based on wealth inequality taking control of American Democracy. There are a number of ways to look at this:

-- the growing economic inequality in the United States and around the world,
-- the increasing control of politics both in the United States and most industrial nations by the wealthy and the giant multinational financial, energy, pharmaceutical, and other corporations which are viewed as having either the same, or in certain respects more rights than human citizens,
-- the fact that neither of the two major political parties is preparing to run someone who is likely to represent the interests of the 99% (the President's recent noises notwithstanding),
-- the control of all the major media outlets by corporate interests promoting public debt hysteria,
-- the persistence and growth of different standards of law enforcement for the 99% compared to the wealthy and well-situated (the 1%), and
-- the increasingly powerful legal/quasi-military apparatus suppressing the constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and assembly in the name of order and defense against terrorism.

All of these perspectives come together to support a narrative and an image of the increasingly rapid takeover of democracies, including the United States, by a small global elite composed of the very rich and very powerful corporate executives. Most Americans and many more people around the world are recognizing this reality of an emerging oligarchy and are looking for ways to get out from under its domination and to re-affirm democracy and open society. But to do that they somehow have to counter the influence of wealth in manipulating the perception and construction of social, economic, cultural, and political reality by the 99% and in dominating electoral processes even though they are vastly outnumbered.

To accomplish that, people are increasingly looking to the Internet as a democratizing force that could provide the ability for people among the 99% to self-organize and create their own reality and political movements without recourse to massive financial resources. Web-based organizations are now creating web sites/platforms that claim to offer people the possibility of having a greater voice in politics and in determining its impact on their lives. But do these new efforts offer a way out of oligarchy and back to democracy or do they just reinforce the emerging oligarchy?

This is the second in a series of posts on some of these new web-based platforms and how they relate to this central question of oligarchy vs. democracy. The first, “A System-Changing Solution for the OWS Movement?”, which I co-authored with Nancy Bordier, compared and contrasted two alternatives available to OWS, the Interactive Voter Choice System and Americans Elect (AE). This one will offer a more detailed analysis of AE.

Description

AE is organizing people to participate in a national on-line convention that will nominate Presidential and Vice presidential candidates and place them on ballot lines in all 50 States. People who sign up as delegates will decide the issues, select the candidates, and nominate the President through participating in the on-line convention. According to its web site, any constitutionally eligible citizen can be a candidate, provided they meet AE's eligibility and qualification criteria. They have ballot lines in 11 States at this writing, and are currently working on 16 more.

AE states that it is “non-partisan” in its approach, and also claims that it is not a political party. However, to get a ballot line in some States you have to identify as a political party. Also, their draft by-laws contain this section:

“Section 7.2. Transition to National Organization. Pending the formation of state committees, the Board of Americans Elect shall be deemed to be acting in each state as an authorized state committee and to perform and exercise all duties, powers and responsibilities of a state committee as may be required by state law. In states where Americans Elect has met all statutory requirements to form a minor political party, such organizations shall be considered separate legal entities from Americans Elect, and shall be governed by the Board pending qualification as a national political party in accordance with law in the 2012 election. Nothing in this section shall prevent the Board from appointing persons to act as local governing bodies or agents consistent with these Bylaws in any state where Americans Elect has met such statutory requirements.”

So, there is some gray in the position AE is staking out. Are they aiming to become a national political party? If not, then what does this section of their by-laws envision?

AE claims that it doesn't represent any special interests, and it also welcomes any registered voter, whether party-affiliated or not, who wants to become a member and participate in their on-line national nominating convention coming up in the Spring of 2012. In addition, AE says that it is not committed to any ideology, and that it will not promote any candidate or platform before its on-line nominating convention. Nor will it promote the nominee selected by its convention delegates to run on the ballot lines it secures in the 50 States.

AE is run by a closed corporation whose funding sources haven't been made public in the main. The corporation sets all the rules for its national convention, determines who can and cannot participate, which candidates can and cannot run, and then it registers and tallies all votes in secret and without any monitoring to prevent tampering with the vote for candidates.

Evaluation

As I pointed out earlier, AE says that it is non-partisan, and is not committed to any ideology or political party, and that it is not a political party itself. Well, it certainly isn't a branch of either the Democratic or Republican Party. However, we've already seen that in getting on the ballot in many States AE declares that it is a political party. So is it or isn't it? It seems that when it wants to get a ballot line in some State it says that it is a political party; but when it wants to raise funds it relies on its status as a 501 c(4) organization to secure contributions as needed with no specified limits and also to refuse to disclose its contributors as political parties must legally do.

Is AE really non-partisan? Well, it is in the sense that it doesn't subscribe to the platform of the two major existing political parties, but that doesn't mean that its Managers, Leaders and Boards of Directors haven't agreed on definite positions that they are partisan about, and that are definitely ideological.

Their ideological bias is reflected in the framing and structure of the hundreds of multiple choice questions that it asks registrants to answer to define their “true colors” from a political perspective. I won't review those here and suggest that you go to their site, take their “true colors” survey and see for yourself whether you think there is a clear framing bias in their survey instrument. I think there is, and that this ideological bias is illustrated very well by the “core questions” that every prospective delegate to their national convention must answer.

“To date, Americans Elect delegates from the across the political spectrum answered 5 million questions on AmericansElect.org. The 9 core questions that every DELEGATE has already answered include:

ECONOMY: What is your stance on the US budget deficit? Are in you in favor of more spending cuts, more tax increases or some combination of both?

ENERGY: What is your stance on America’s energy needs? Do you favor investment in renewables or more drilling or some combination of both?

HEALTHCARE: What do you think the government’s role in health should be?

IMMIGRATION: What is your stance on illegal immigration? Do you think that all or most illegal immigrants should stay in the country or all or most illegal immigrants be deported?

FOREIGN POLICY: When you think about the US pursuing its interests abroad, to what extent should the US listen to other countries?

EDUCATION: What is your stance on educational curriculae? Should it be set by the local school boards, by national standards, or some combination of both?

SOCIAL ISSUES: When you think about the rights of same-sex couples, do you believe they should be allowed to marry or only allowed to form a civil union?

ENVIRONMENT: What is your stance on our use of Natural Resources? Do you think it exists for the benefit of humanity or should it be completely protected or a combination of both?

REFORM: Should we make this country great by returning to the values of our forefathers or keep building and adapting for the future?”

Every one of these core questions has an obvious framing bias leading the registrants in a particular direction. The question on the economy assumes the deficit hawk framing of fiscal irresponsibility. It assumes that one should have “a stance” on the budget deficit, that one should want to cut it, and that the only alternatives are cutting Government spending, raising revenue through taxation, or a combination of both. This is not true, of course.

The question on energy issues is framed in terms of the present partisan split, implying that the center is a position following both approaches the question frames. The framing of the health care question doesn't provide a preamble explaining the difference between the options provided to respondents. It assumes that people know the differences between Medicare for All, and and other types of Government intervention in health care, when there is plenty of survey evidence that there is no clear understanding of these differences.

The framing of the immigration question in terms of “illegal immigrants” isn't even centrist, but biases replies toward a rightist view. The foreign policy question assumes that listening to other nations and pursuing the national interest of the US are in conflict. This is a nationalistic “framing” of the issue. The education core question frames the issue in terms of local vs. national control; but not in terms of the issue of excellence in education.

Social Issues are cast in terms of same sex marriage vs. civil unions. But there are many other social issues of importance such as those affecting Federal rules about a woman's right to choose, continuing racial discrimination various areas, the role of religion in American politics, etc. Why select same sex marriage vs. civil unions as a “non-partisan” non-ideological social issue?

The environmental issue frame is very abstract in philosophy. There are a dozen other ways and more to frame this issue. Why is this framing the “non-ideological one” that all must respond to in order to elicit a “centrist position”?

Finally, the question on political “reform” is highly abstract, and it's very hard to tell what responses might mean to the members. Why is this not framed in terms of issues like Congressional paralysis in the context of the filibuster, or reform of the electoral college, or the highly unrepresentative nature of the US Senate; or the gerrymandering of Congressional Districts; or whether greater regulation of Supreme Court Justices is needed to ensure that they disqualify themselves from hearing cases where they have an obvious conflict of interest; or the role of money in politics?

AE has many other questions people can answer that go beyond the core questions in dealing with some of the above issues. But 1) they are not the core questions that all must answer, and 2) even when many other questions exploring these issues are posed, they are posed with a definite ideological “centrist” bias. Whether or not, or by how much, it differs from major party formulations, these questions aren't either non-partisan or non-ideological unless you mean, by those terms, formulations different from major party formulations.

One of the most important issues arising in evaluating AE is the discrepancy between the claims it makes about its purposes and processes, the scope it is trying to provide for people to influence the political process, on the one hand, and the reality of its structure and operation, on the other. AE says that people who choose to participate in its process will decide the issues, select the candidates, and nominate the President; but its actual functioning, both current and projected, as described on its web site and in its bylaws, belies these claims.

-- So far, the issues embodied in AE's questions are framed by its staff and leadership, not by the people who sign up as members. We've already written about the ideological biases present in the AE core questions, and also indicated that if one takes the trouble to answer the remaining hundreds of questions they ask of willing registrants, there are biases present in the comprehensive set of questions amounting to the staff and leadership framing “a centrist agenda” of issues to regulate the priority choices of members. The whole process of agenda selection occurs in the context of a “top-down” framing of the issues. There is no 'bottom-up” influence on the framing of the agenda, even though the members/delegates can respond in ways favorable or unfavorable to the specifics of the centrist framing.

-- When it comes to selecting the candidates, AE says that delegates will be able to nominate American citizens they favor. However, the AE leadership will review all candidates to see if they're “qualified' to run for the presidency. AE leadership may or may not specify explicit criteria, but whether they do or not, and whether a candidate meets them or not, AE reserves the right to eliminate candidates they judge as “unqualified.”

In other words, the leadership of AE is able to make sure that all candidates nominated by the delegates are acceptable to the leadership, and that the delegates won't have an opportunity to vote on candidates that the leadership thinks is “unqualified.” the leadership can ensure that all candidates remain within a particular of range of opinion that the leadership finds acceptable. This seems like a selection of candidates by the leadership of AE rather than by the delegates.

-- Going further to the on-line nomination contest itself, the AE leadership guarantees a completely secure and honest process. However, the delegates have no way of verifying that the process is secure and honest. AE mentions an independent evaluation mechanism to ensure the honesty and integrity of the nominating process. But it is the AE Board and leadership who will select the “independent evaluators,” not the delegates to their national convention.

So, the bottom line is that the delegates will have no control over the process, and no way of monitoring its honesty and integrity. The only thing delegates will have is the word of AE, an organization that has been very reluctant to implement transparency at this writing, that it will accept the actual nomination of the delegates rather than manipulating the results of the selection process in secret. Is AE's word enough? None of us know. But we do know that deception in politics, in marketing, and in the financial sector is the order of the day.

The President promised change when he ran in 2008, but the change most of us see is certainly not the kind of change we think we voted for. The Republicans ran on creating jobs in 2010. But, no jobs have been created through programs passed by House Republicans. Corporations routinely offer ads about all they are doing for the environment; but the reality of their practices is very different. Local governments say they are trying to keep order; but then they engage in what appear to be little more than police riots violating the first amendment rights of Freedom of Speech, Assembly, and the Press. Systematic dishonesty and fraudulent behavior seems to pervade our culture in every aspect of it, and it is no big deal for our leading politicians and business leaders to look directly into the camera and lie to the public.

So, why would anyone take what a new organization intending to intervene in and change the electoral process says at face value? Why shouldn't warning bells go off whenever an organization has a discrepancy between what it says are its goals, and its actual structure and practices? Why shouldn't people question discrepancies between an organization's claim of non-partisanship, and its clearly partisan and biased framing of issues?

Why shouldn't people be skeptical when an organization says that it is subject to no special interests, but is clearly funded by $22 Million in contributions from a very small number of people, and then doesn't disclose the contributors? Why shouldn't people demand demonstrations of transparency and proof of sincerity and absence of elite control, before they commit any support to an organization that purports to give the public a greater voice in decision making?

-- In addition, AE’s goal of holding an online presidential nominating convention that automatically puts the same ticket on the ballots of all 50 states simultaneously appears to be headed in a dangerous direction because it is seeking to eliminate the face-to-face primaries and caucuses at the state level that are one of the cornerstones of the U.S. electoral process, hard-won by progressives over many years in their efforts to create open and honest elections that escape for the old 'smoke-filled' rooms.

Again, AE is run by a closed corporation that is secretly funded and sets all the rules for the convention, determines who can and cannot participate in the convention, which candidates can and cannot run, and registers and tallies all the votes. Whether the substitution of a closed corporation run in this way as the source of electoral nominations is a democratic improvement over the U.S. political party system is, to say the least, an arguable proposition, whether or not its delegates can select a presidential candidate within the constrained parameters AE's leadership chooses to impose.

Conclusion

So, if the problem the United States is facing is to provide a way of changing the political process to counter the emergence of oligarchy and to restore a Government that is “. . . of the people, by the people, and for the people . . .” then it's pretty clear that AE won't help us do that. Given its rules, governance, the lack of transparency in its funding, and the “guided democracy” style of its functioning organization, it won't help us to repeal Michels' “Iron Law of Oligarchy” and give the 99% a continuing influence in creating policies that serve them rather than enriching the 1%. Instead, it will simply provide a way for the discontented to vent their feelings through another political organization that is guided and managed from the top-down by people representing the oligarchy.

Now, to be entirely fair about this, it's pretty clear from AE's web site and interviews with some of their principals that Its purpose was never specifically to save the US from an emerging oligarchy. AE's view of the US's political problem is that it is legislative paralysis, caused by the two-party system and its excessive partisanship, in passing legislation aimed at our real problems. So, AE proposes a non-partisan President nominated through the AE online process and then elected, as a way of breaking partisan immobilism through a unity Administration that can broker consensus solutions among centrists in both parties. Its view of the world is through the right-center-left prism and so its solution is to strengthen the center giving it the balance of power, and allowing it to broker bi- or non-partisan solutions on which centrists of both parties can agree.

AE may succeed at developing a “centrist” balance wheel for the political system. But if this leads to legislative solutions that support or enhance the interests of the 1%, then how does that help the 99% and its problem of breaking the power of the emerging oligarchy?

For example, these days there is a Washington beltway consensus, and to a great extent a global consensus on the notion that the cure for our economic problems is austerity in public expenditures and restoring private solvency through savings. But how does that “old-time fiscal religion” help the 99%, especially since its short-term effects are likely to be a second and probably much deeper downturn than we have now?

If AE's centrist balance wheel had been in place this past fall it would have imposed a “centrist solution” to our economic problems in the form of a long-term deficit reduction plan such as the Bowles-Simpson proposal, which would have raised more tax revenue from the wealthy, but also cut entitlement and other Government programs for the middle class and the poor. But, this is a 1% solution, not a 99% solution. It doesn't represent what the 99% want. It is what the well-off people who run Americans Elect and many of the 1% seem to want.

So, the “non-partisan” solution to two-party polarization that AE is trying to mid-wife won't fix the political system by restoring popular control, but instead will place that system even more firmly in control of the oligarchy by imposing austerity economics and impoverishing the 99% even further, while providing the balance of power in national politics to a third political force that is dominated by centrist establishment figures. In short, AE isn't offering a way out for people, it's offering them a way to dig a deeper hole than they find themselves in now.

A 99% solution is one that, according to the polls, would re-create full employment, punish the banksters, stabilize the financial system, bring order to the housing sector while keeping people in their homes, provide consumer protection against the financial sector's predatory practices, provide Medicare for All, repair the nation's infrastructure, create a first class educational system open to all, and strengthen the social safety net, while taxing the rich, if necessary, to allow those things to happen. This 99% solutions could possibly be facilitated by AE, if it were set up to allow people to self-organize in whatever ways they choose. But its guided democracy structure won't let that happen. But the main point is that this 99% can only be brought forth by a change that undermines the emerging oligarchy and creates bottom-up accountability to the 99%.

You can also safely bet that whatever AE's delegates want, there will be no AE platform coming from its nominee that doesn't reflect the fact-free Hooverian perspective of fiscal responsibility = Government austerity, the current Washington consensus about what Government should do about the economy. And you can also safely bet that Bernie Sanders, Bill Black, Jamie Galbraith, Matt Taibbi, Dennis Kucinich, or Warren Mosler, provided it looks like they will be nominated by AE convention delegates, will then be disqualified by AE's governing committees before the convention is convened. This will happen because it is the job of AE committees to keep the world safe for the emerging “centrist” oligarchy, and out of the hands of people who might bring about the renewal of bottom-up democracy.

Update: Day in and day out, the best coverage of Americans Elect is provided by Jim Cook at his Irregular Times site. Here are three recent entrees that collectively drive home the point that Americans Elect's claims of being non-partisan and non-ideological have little, if any credibility, and that AE is primarily a marketing effort claiming these qualities, but belying these claims with almost every action it takes.

"Christine Todd Whitman Goes on TV and Promotes Jon Huntsman a Sixth Time, Violating Americans Elect Bylaws"

"Having Obtained Predictable Result, Americans Elect Erases Most of its Rating System"

and:

"Americans Elect introduces new “Priorities” Ranking System… Contradicting its Old System"

These three posts fit into the pattern of manipulation, systematic dishonesty, and the huge gap between AE's stated policies and actual behavior that I point to in my post above. In addition, there is a strong suggestion in the ratings system errors and sudden changes in the system and resulting ratings, reported by Jim Cook, that there is more than a bit of political bias, confusion and perhaps even incompetence, either on the part of AE's contractor "On the Issues" who handled the processing of data to obtain the ratings "matching" the candidates positions to the quiz choices given to Americans Elect "delegates," or on the part of AE employees who used their results.

AE is an organization that has raised $22 million for its project. If it is true, as its apparent rating system problem suggests, that it hasn't been able to get organized well enough to ensure that its process is unimpeachable, then that provides very little confidence that its online nomination process will be a reliable one that won't be subject to manipulation by its contractors and/or staff.

If it has its way, then hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of people would be participating in that process. Shouldn't those people have a nominating process whose integrity, reliability, and accuracy is beyond either reproach or the possibility of fraud by its administrators? How will AE ever be able to guarantee that? And how, given what they've done thus far, and appear to do on an everyday basis, in bringing centrist ideological bias to their web site and opinion instruments, can they guarantee to their delegates a non-partisan and non-ideological nominating process?

Perhaps AE needs to come clean and admit that it is not non-partisan, but actually a nascent political party with a definite centrist, austerity agenda, which it thinks is in opposition to the agendas of the two major parties. Then it won't have to claim that it has no framing biases, or that, incredibly, it is nonpartisan and non-ideological, or that it is anything other than another political party representing the 1% and its full-on austerity, globalist agenda for the US. That might not be unpopular, or get many people involved in its activities. But, at least, it would be refreshing.

Think of it, a political organization that is honest about its intentions! That should be worth at least a few points for its nominee at the polls on election day!

Senator Sanders, Ordinary Americans #OccupytheSuperCommittee

Daniel Marans — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:13:02 -0500

Days after the tents were ripped out of Zucotti Park in New York, hundreds of Americans brought the fight for the 99% to the nation’s capital on Thursday with a “Wake-Up Congress” rally calling for the Super Committee to support “Jobs, Not Cuts” to key social programs. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) fittingly called it “#OccupyThe SuperCommittee.”

Thursday’s town hall-style event, organized by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign and other advocacy groups, was aimed at influencing the Super Committee, and the lawmakers who will vote on their proposal, against cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The lawmakers on hand shared the stage with ordinary Americans who came to explain the importance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in their lives, and the harm that cuts would cause them.

If the goal of the rally was to “Wake Up Congress,” the message to which attendees wanted Congress to wake up was that “No deal is better than a bad deal.” Those on hand sough to push back against the conventional wisdom that the failure of the Super Committee to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction and the subsequent sequestration would be worse for the economy than a deal agreed to by the Super Committee members.

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) spoke, as well as Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). But the hero, organizer and unofficial emcee of the event was Senator Sanders, who is far and away the most stalwart defender of social insurance programs in the United States Congress. The retirees, community members and activists who assembled there treated Sanders like a celebrity. Sanders’ entrance and exit were greeted with chants of “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie,” the likes of which are usually reserved for popular sports players.

Sanders gave plainspoken arguments against cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the country’s deficit. “Here’s the issue: The issue is that in fact, this country does have a serious deficit problem,” Sanders said. “But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars not paid for, huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, and a recession as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit and the national debt I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

The speakers focused their criticism on two proposals that the Super Committee is rumored to be considering: the chained CPI (Consumer Price Index), which would reduce the Social Security COLA (cost-of-living adjustment); and an increase in the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

Senator Mikulski summed up the policy argument against the chained CPI. Mikulski effectively pointed out that the chained CPI’s logic of “price substitution” does not apply to seniors for whom health care costs make up the vast majority of expenses. “Sure, maybe you can switch to Dunkin Donuts from a latte if you’re young, but what are seniors going to do as drug prices go up?” Mikulski asked incredulously. “Will they substitute an expensive drug with water?”

(Another of Senator Mikulski’s memorable lines: “So here we are on the brink of Thanks giving…We are so mired in partisanship that we can’t seem to find a path forward. They think we [members of Congress] are the turkeys. Wherever I go in my state, they’re telling Congress to stuff it.”)

Senator Sanders spoke out strongly against raising the Medicare eligibility age, citing the cases of 65- and 66-year-olds who would have trouble getting private health insurance to cover their care. “If a 66-year-old gets cancer, what private health insurance is going to cover his treatment?” Sanders asked, before answering his own question. “The answer is none.”

It was the stories of some half dozen average Americans who spoke, however, that brought the hard numbers of the benefit cuts a human face. The people who testified included retirees on modest incomes, adults living with cerebral palsy and other disabilities, and people who lost parents and spouses upon whom they were financially dependent.

Marilyn Dixon-Hill from Camden, NJ, 58 years old, worked as a nurse for thirty years. A year ago to the day of the rally, Marilyn suffered from a disease that left her paralyzed. She has since regained the ability to walk, which she calls “a miracle,” but remains seriously physically impaired. As a result, she is unable to work and has begun collecting Social Security disability benefits.

Currently Marilyn has no medical insurance. Like other disability beneficiaries, Marilyn must wait two years to begin receiving Medicare benefits. “I need Medicare. I need Medicaid. No Cuts to Social Security,” Marilyn cried, tearing up as she said it. “These are safety nets for vulnerable people like myself.” Marilyn shared the concerns of many of the other speakers that benefit cuts would jeopardize their independence. “My fear is that with any cuts, I will not be able to care for myself and be a burden on my adult children, who have their own burdens in this economic system.”

The speaker who received perhaps the greatest applause was a retired Virginia man named Kenyon Peas. Peas, a retired union worker and veteran of the US military, paid into Social Security since 1958, when, at age 15, he worked as an amusement park ride operator. Peas’ Social Security check paid the out-of-pocket costs from serious medical problems, including a heart attack, and the removal of one-third of his lung, as well as Type 2 Diabetes, from which he continues to suffer. “Is this the way the United States honors its commitments?” Peas asked of plans to cut the programs. “The debt we owe China and others will most assuredly be repaid… Bank of America, among others, is too big to fail. We bailed them out. If you’re a working man or woman, we’ll cut your benefits, freeze or eliminate your COLA, and ask for your vote.”

Thursday’s rally in the Senate was the culmination in a series of actions by activists across the country protesting potential cuts to the three key programs. It started two weeks ago, when several thousand nurses and other union workers from around the country rallied in front of the White House and Treasury Department. They came from places as far away as Bemidji, Minnesota, to tell Congress to tax Wall Street—not cut the programs Americans need now more than ever.

Then more than 1,000 seniors from the Jane Addams Senior Caucus joined forces with #OccupyChicago to protest cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in Chicago, on November 7. The intergenerational solidarity against the tyranny of the 1% was a fitting refutation of conservative attempts to pit young against old.

Most recently, 3,200 seniors and union workers gathered in Wang Theatre in Boston to demonstrate against cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, on November 9.

The momentum of popular movements to prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid shows no signs of abating. The American people are finally making their voices heard. Now it is up to Congress to listen.

Sanders Bill "Goes Big" for Social Security

Daniel Marans — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:34:26 -0400

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to Alliance for Retired Americans national convention on September 8, 2011. Photo courtesy of the office of Senator Sanders.

The Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act, S.1558, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), strengthens Social Security for future generations without cutting benefits. The bill “goes big” for the nation’s most important pension, life and disability insurance plan.

Before we get into the details of the Sanders bill, though, it is worth providing a little background on just what serious Washington people mean when they talk about “going big.”

A week ago, a group of more than 60 budget hawks of both parties sent a letter to the Super Committee asking its members to “go big” and propose a large-scale deficit-reduction package in excess of their $1.5 trillion goal.

There is no doubt that this letter, organized by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a think tank funded by right-wing billionaire Peter G. Peterson, had Social Security in mind when they called for the Super Committee to “go big.” After all, no fewer than four of its signers voted for the Fiscal Commission deficit reduction proposal, which recommended cutting Social Security benefits by as much as 40 percent. Among them, Former Senator Alan K. Simpson (R-WY), whose apparent expertise in Social Security led him to call it a “Ponzi scheme” long before it was cool.

Social Security does not and cannot contribute to the deficit. It has a $2.7 trillion surplus and is prevented by law from borrowing.

But assuming we accept the letter signers’ premise that Social Security must be part of any deficit-reduction package with aspirations to “go big,” there is a perfectly sound bill in Congress that does just that.

Meet the Sanders bill: It’s simple, fair, and enormously popular. It has even attracted the support of Moderate Democrats like Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who is among the bills 9 original co-sponsors and who also signed the CRFB letter. Somehow I imagine it is not what the Alan Simpsons of the world had in mind, but they should give it a second look.

The Sanders bill (S.1558) closes Social Security’s 75-year funding gap by applying Social Security payroll tax contributions to covered earnings of $250,000 or more. Currently, only wages up to $106,800 are taxed.

S. 1558 will:

Guarantee Social Security can pay 100% of promised benefits for the next 75 years. Currently, with no action, Social Security will have sufficient income and assets to pay all monthly benefits in full and on time until 2036. S.1558 extends that through 2085, as estimated by the Social Security Administration.
Preserve currently scheduled benefits. Many proposals claiming to “strengthen” Social Security either undermine the program’s universal values, or the adequacy of its benefits. S.1558 closes Social Security’s funding gap without doing either.
Ensure everyone pays their fair share to Social Security. While nearly all Americans must make Social Security tax contributions on all of their wages, the wealthiest only do so on the first $106,800 of their annual earnings. S. 1558 rights this wrong. Social Security payroll tax contributions are only paid on wages up to $106,800 in 2011. S. 1558 gradually lifts the cap on taxable wages so that all workers contribute on all of their wages. It applies the Social Security payroll tax to covered earnings of $250,000 or more right away, but maintains the current-law benefit base. Importantly, it leaves the current cap temporarily in place, creating a donut hole so that a person’s earnings between $106,800 and $250,000 are not subject to a precipitous one-year increase in their payroll tax contributions. The donut hole would close over time, since the $106,800 cap rises with average wage increases. Once the cap reaches $250,000, in approximately 25 years, all wages would be subject to the Social Security payroll tax contribution. Benefits would continue to be calculated on the basis of capped wages, as they are under current law.
Affect a small number of Americans. Few Americans would be affected by this change to the Social Security payroll tax cap. Just 1.2% of workers had earnings over $250,000 in 2009, including 0.4% of women, 0.3% of African American workers and 0.3% of Latino workers.
Follow the will of the public.Two-thirds (66%) of voters support enacting Social Security payroll taxes contributions on wages above $106,800, according to a Lake Research poll. This includes 73% of Democrats, 66% of Independents, 59% of Republicans and 60% of Tea Party supporters. A Democracy Corps poll found that 63% of Americans favor eliminating the cap on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax contributions.

Views expressed are those of the author, and do not reflect the opinions of Social Security Works or the Strengthen Social Security Campaign.

A President On the Verge of a Political Breakdown

Richard Eskow — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:23:39 -0400

This isn't the first time the White House has floated the idea of Social Security cuts as part of a 'grand bargain' with Republicans, and it's not the first time there's been a groundswell of opposition. But that opposition has never crystallized so quickly into something deeper and more threatening to the President's political fortunes.

Liberal pundits are turning against him and Democrats on the Hill are taking the fight directly to him. With a new poll confirming that Social Security cuts would alienate the other side's base and independents, this "grand bargain" doesn't look like much of a bargain anymore.

Sen. Bernie Sanders already laid the responsibility for unpopular cuts squarely at the President's feet on a phone call with reporters today: " We thought Social Security was off the table," said Sanders, "but by reopening this issue the White House is not only going to take on these changes, but will open the door to whatever else Republicans want."

In other words: If something bad happens to Social Security, you own it, Mr. President.

The timing couldn't be worse for a new austerity pose. Today's jobs numbers show that we're in an ongoing economic emergency. Yet instead of pushing for the spending that's needed, the President keeps reinforcing Republican arguments instead. According to the AP he told reporters in the Rose Garden that "uncertainty over whether lawmakers will raise the nation's debt limit is keeping businesses from hiring." (What was keeping them from hiring before that?) Economic advisor Austan Goolsbee evaded the issue of badly-needed stimulus funding as well as anyone could - that is, not very well at all - while repeating that ill-advised 'business confidence" mantra.

The net result is a Democratic Administration that's either afraid to speak up for government's role in fixing the economy or doesn't believe it has a role.  Most people disagree, according to the polls. Now it looks like the Administration seriously overplayed its hand with this Social Security misstep (or trial balloon, or a double-triple-fakeout, or whatever this story was). That leaves it with the dual challenge of walking the story back and at the same time repairing a frayed bond between the President and many of his supporters.

The political logic's hard to fathom. Yet another poll was released this week confirming what we already knew: When voters are given a choice between reducing the deficit and maintaining benefits for Social Security and Medicare, they overwhelmingly choose benefits. Even today, after a relentless year-long drumbeat for austerity economics, 60 percent of Americans want these programs protected. That includes 72% of Democrats, which accounts for all the stories today about "Obama's problem with his base." But most Republican voters feel that way, too.

The controversy began two days ago with a Washington Post story that seems to have come from White House sources. That story was both definitive and, in keeping with the Post's ideological leanings, openly supportive of such a deal.[1] The White House only issued twisted non-denial denials like Press Secretary Jay Carney's comment that " while Social Security is not a major driver of the deficit, we do need to strengthen the program." (It doesn't affect the deficit at all.) That followed an earlier Carney remark that recycled the Administration's evasive language about the President not wanting to "slash benefits."

(That leads to another, parenthetical concern: Do they really believe that this kind of slippery politico-speak is good for the President's image?)

The generally pro-Democratic pundits who serve as a political Distant Early Warning System for Obama's base are signalling "DefCon 4" over this latest maneuver. Ed Schultz, who can usually be relied upon to defend Obama's left flank, said last night that Obama will be a "one-term President" if he makes a deal to cut Social Security. Paul Krugman's now openly speculating that the President is secretly an economic conservative whose "compromises" actually reflect his own beliefs.[2]

This morning a coalition of 300 groups sponsored a phone call with Sen. Sanders and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Eric Kingson, Co-Director of the nonpartisan group Social Security Works [3], called the proposal an "outrage." Sen. Sanders was even more blunt about the political backlash if a "piece of crap" deal is sent to the Senate for approval. Sanders dismissed the chained-CPI proposal (Washington's preferred benefit-cutting method) as "about politics and not Social Security," and pointedly reminded the President of his own unequivocal pledge not to change the cost of living adjustment or raise the retirement age as McCain had proposed.

"Let me be clear," candidate Obama said in 2008. "I will not do either."

"Elections matter," said Sanders pointedly. "What the candidates say matters." To underscore his point, Sanders added that the President "made a promise to the American people. It is important that he keep his promise." Sen. Whitehouse said he "worried that the White House was taking Senate Democrats for granted," adding: ""I don't know how strong a hand the White House needs to have to play poker with these guys."

In two short days the tone of many private conversations among Democratic and progressive activists and leaders has turned from "how to we persuade the White House ..." to "how do we defeat the White House." This backlash could move beyond tactical or policy disagreements and begin to undermine the trust between Democratic voters and the White House.

Republicans won't be thrilled, either. The"chained-CPI" calculation would also affect tax brackets, giving it the dual effect of dramatically cutting Social Security benefits while at the same time raising taxes on the middle class (but not the wealthy who are already in the top bracket.) The White House finally achieved that longed-for bipartisan consensus today, as lawmakers from both parties expressed their opposition to the chained CPI proposal . [4]

Some of the President's new allies, like the business-funded and right-leaning Democratic group Third Way, are putting out the usual (decisively rebuttable) attacks on the President's critics. The President's position with the base will only get worse if he's forced to rely on attack pieces from groups that represent the Lanny Davis/Joe Lieberman wing of his party.

The stakes couldn't be higher for the President. The GOP's pursuing a strategy that excites and energizes its base, while he pursues one that depresses and discourages his own. Obama's approval ratings are still high among Democrats but, as Nate Silver demonstrates, next year's election will hinge on turnout.

Silver's piece is entitled "Why the Republicans Resist Compromise." It doesn't tell us why the President doesn't - even, as in the case of Social Security, when compromise apparently wasn't on the table.

The President and his team have a clear choice: They can either retreat from this position and fight aggressively for Social Security, or they can stake his re-election on a misguided roll of the dice. Those are the only two options. In politics, as in life, sometimes there's no "third way."

_________________________

[1] From the Post: "The White House is now seeking a plan that would slash more than $4 trillion from annual budget deficits over the next decade, stabilize borrowing, and defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode as the cost of health care rises and the nation's population ages. That would represent a major legislative achievement ..."

Who would consider that "a major legislative achievement," besides the reporter herself? We're not told. Who has determined that an aging population of one of our two "biggest budgetary time bombs" - as opposed to unemployment or slow growth, for example? We're not told that, either.

[2] The "closet conservative" theory may sound conspiratorial, but there's some evidence for it. The President's key - and now apparently only - economic advisor is former Republican Tim Geithner, who has been a hardcore fiscal conservative throughout his tenure. (The non-ideological explanation for some of the White House's actions is that they've made a number of false moves that only coincidentally benefited economic conservatives.)

[3] This post was produced in conjunction with Strengthen Social Security and Social Security Works.

[4] The link takes you to a Bloomberg story that accurately reflects lawmakers' positions but makes a clear misstatement of fact. It says that "the 'chained consumer price index' has been endorsed by economists, who say the current inflation measure exaggerates how much prices increase." Many economists feel the current inflation measure understates the cost of living for seniors, and even the "chain gang's" own economists don't argue that it's a better measure of "how much prices increase." They base their proposal on changes in buying patterns that result from those price increases. (More on the chained CPI argument here.)

When A Socialist Speaks For Most Republicans, Who Speaks For You?

Richard Eskow — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:45:33 -0400

How broken is today's political debate? The only politician standing up for most Republican voters on today’s most burning political issue is. … a Socialist.

The question is whether we reduce the deficit only through spending cuts, or also by raising taxes on the rich. This should be an easy issue for Democrats to stand on ... and run on. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll showed that 72% of of those surveyed agreed that federal taxes should be raised for households making more than $250,000 - including 55% of Republicans. Yet even with the GOP leadership far to the right of the country on this issue, Democrats haven’t taken an unequivocal position.

Who's speaking for this Republican majority (and most everybody else) in Washington? Only Sen. Bernie Sanders, Socialist from Vermont. Sanders has unequivocally said that he won't support a deal to raise the debt ceiling unless it includes higher taxes on on the rich. Where are the Democrats? Nancy Pelosi's been marginalized from the discussions, even though a deal won't be possible without the support of Democrats in Congress. The White House and Harry Reid have refused to take a firm stand.

Sanders laid out his position in a speech in the Senate chamber yesterday with a “shared sacrifice" theme:

"The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending."

The Republicans insist on rejecting a majority of their own voters, as well as 74% of Independents and 83% of all Democrats, by pushing for a plan that would reduce government deficits exclusively through spending cuts - cuts that affect the middle class, poor people, and everyone who hopes to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits someday.

The "shared sacrifice" principle expressed by Sanders also included demands that there be no cuts to Medicare or Social Security. The 50/50 goal is a reasonable one, which makes it surprising that others haven't embraced it already. In fact, the only problem with a 50/50 split is that it may be too reasonable, now that the rich have become so much richer and the rest of the country has been forced to struggle so much.

But it's a mature and balanced approach, and it should be embraced by other politicians quickly. The radical right has already skewed the national debate so effectively that a nation wracked by joblessness, wage stagnation, and broad pockets of recession is only hearing about deficit reduction from its leaders. If we must obsess about deficits to the exclusion of more pressing problems - which tragically seems to be the case - then it's time to make sure that discussion is a sensible one.

The Sanders speech makes a number of excellent points, although at 90 minutes it's too long for its own good. (The Senator won national acclaim for a filibuster of the tax deal last year, but that doesn't mean every speech needs to be a filibuster.)

While the Republicans represent the radical right and Sanders represents the American majority, there are some ringers in the debate, too, like the Senate's Gang of Five (formerly the Gang of Six -- at this rate they'll soon be the Gang of Four). The Gang may show its colors soon, pretending to be “balanced” by pulling a sneaky rhetorical trick favored by the right-wing Pete Peterson crowd.

Here’s how the trick works: When discussions turn to raising taxes on the wealthy you'll hear them use phrases like "tax expenditures" instead. That's a code word for ending deductions that primarily benefit the middle class, like those that apply to mortgages and medical benefits. These "centrists" (who retain the name despite being far to the right of most Republicans) will try to convince people that this is a reasonable substitute for tax hikes on the rich. It's not.

There’s a reason why the Republicans, with their gift for manipulative phrasing, keep repeating the mantra “government spending … government spending … government spending …” They don’t want the discussion to include revenues as well as spending. But if it does, then they’ll throw the middle class under the bus with targeted reductions in tax expenditures that don’t favor the wealthy (reductions that always manage to exclude the wildly unpopular corporate tax breaks for oil and gas companies).

Republicans are playing chicken with the US economy. Like the dumb kids in Rebel Without a Cause they’re willing to drive the car off a cliff (with us in the back seat) – that is, unless the Democrats don’t cave first. Unfortunately, that’s too often been the response.

We’ve said that the “shared sacrifice” concept may be too reasonable – but not if it’s used as a line in the sand rather than another way for Democrats to negotiate against themselves. In fact, it may be the perfect way for Democrats (and any responsible Republicans) to say “this far and no further.” The President may want to avoid a showdown, but there can be no deal without Democrats in the House and Senate. They’re the ones on the front line. They’re the ones who must confront the reckless Republicans, those would-be rebels who really don’t have a cause … except further enriching their wealthy patrons.

The vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, are going unheard in this debate. This may be one of those moments when a reminder from a constituent ... or a flood of them ... is the only thing that can make our representative democracy act a little more representative.

______________________________

Tell your Representative to demand a fair deal here.

You can find more information on the unrepresented American Majority here.

Buy American Jobs

Leo Gerard — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:41:26 -0400

Efforts by those who never want to hear someone say, “Bye-bye American manufacturing,” converged coincidentally to make June Buy American month.

First, at the forceful urging of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Smithsonian on June 8 opened an all-American-made gift shop in the National Museum of American History. Three days later, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio introduced legislation requiring federal agencies to buy only 100 percent American-made flags.

Then, at the Netroots Nation 2011 conference in Minneapolis, Minn. this week, the AFL-CIO will serve American union-made beer, including Schell’s, brewed in Minnesota by members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW). The Alliance for American Manufacturing will host at Netroots an American-made fashion show at which it will serve USW-member made Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain bars. And the BlueGreen Alliance is distributing to Netroots attendees mercury-free, USW-made, energy-efficient, non-curly cue Oshram Sylvania halogen light bulbs.

All these events occurring before mid-June are significant in an era of stubborn 9.1 percent unemployment, a time when 14 million unemployed Americans are searching for jobs. It’s significant because buying American-made products is buying American jobs. And buying American union-made products is buying good, middle class American jobs.

Eight million American manufacturing workers have lost their jobs over the past 30 years as multi-national corporations off-shored factories. But America still manufactures and the prices of American-manufactured goods, including those made by union workers, are competitive with foreign-made products.

Choosing an American-made product, or North American-made to include my home country of Canada where hundreds of thousands of USW members live and work, means supporting North American workers and the North American work ethic. It means buying products manufactured by willing adults in reasonable conditions, not by children laboring Dickensian hours in dangerous factories. It means reasonable assurance that the manufacturer abided by environmental laws prohibiting the poisoning of the air, ground and water by toxic substances like mercury and lead.

The Smithsonian experience provides the perfect example of how buying American-made products purchases American jobs.

Late last year, Sen. Sanders went to the history museum shop to buy Christmas gifts and discovered the presidential busts there were made in China. He was incensed that an American taxpayer-supported history museum was selling American history memorabilia not made in America. He complained.

While the Smithsonian reviewed the situation, CBS news determined exactly how policies like the museum’s injure the American economy. CBS reporters found a Connecticut woman who had to lay off three workers when the museum stopped selling her hand-crafted, American-made jewelry and replaced them with foreign-made substitutes. Before the change, Merrie Buchsbaum’s “Americana Collection” was among the museum shop’s best sellers. Apparently tourists did not find the prices for her America-made souvenirs to be excessive.

When the museum cut her off, Buchsbaum’s sales declined 20 percent, forcing her to furlough her entire staff. Three jobs is the difference between buying American and buying foreign for just one small supplier of one small gift shop.

The Smithsonian changed its policy, converting the gift shop to an all-American operation with 300 American-made souvenirs. Now it’s called the American History Price of Freedom gift shop.

That price of freedom, the Smithsonian said, is higher in some cases when the souvenir is American-made. For example, the custom, hand-crafted American-made mugs it now sells cost $20 instead of the average $12 price for a foreign-made mug in other museum shops. But U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, who is preparing legislation tying the sale of American-made souvenirs to future federal funding for the museums, believes Americans will pay a buck or two more “to have their lapel American flag pin say ‘Made in the U.S.A.’”

American products don’t always cost more, however, even when they’re union-made. ABC news investigative reporters discovered that when they removed foreign-made goods from a Dallas family’s home earlier this year and replaced them with American-made products.

In addition, included in the price of North American-made products is the cost of protecting the environment and treating workers with dignity. It’s the price of morality. The United States and Canada, for example, forbid child labor and institutionalized the 40-hour work week. Both countries enforce environmental protection laws forbidding the devastating pollution countenanced by China and some third-world nations.

For example, the New York Times this week revealed that millions of Chinese children suffer from brain and nerve-damaging lead poisoning from unregulated, polluting factories, many of which produce batteries or smelt metal. The Times reported that the Chinese government in some cases conspired with the polluting companies to cover up the problem, denied testing to nearby sick residents and withheld tests results.

The lead poisoning raises the question of what China is doing about even-more-dangerous mercury, which is used by Chinese companies to make those twisty, energy-efficient light bulbs.

In America, Steelworkers are fabricating energy-efficient Sylvania halogen bulbs that look exactly like traditional light bulbs and contain absolutely no mercury. That’s American innovation, American compliance with moral environmental rules and American union labor creating a superior product.

Who knew, though? All anyone hears anymore is that American manufacturing is dead. American doesn’t make anything anymore. That is just not true. Here are some USW-made, terrific North American products:

Jacobson hats
Cutco Cutlery
Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts
Wendell August Forge pewter gifts
Breyers Ice Cream
Cascades paper towels and tissue
Viva and Bounty paper towels
Depend undergarments and Poise pads
Charmin and Angel Soft bath tissue
Puffs facial tissue
Georgia-Pacific Dixie Cups and plates
Cenveo envelopes
Leader Paper Products envelopes and business cards
All-Clad metal cookware
Regal Ware cookware
Speed Queen washers and dryers
Alberto Culver hair care products
Carrier home heating systems
Enderes forged hand tools
Channellock tools
Ideal Roofing steel shingles
Blanco Canada kitchen sinks
Nestle Purina cat litter
Distinctive Design furniture
Barrymore furniture
Star Bedding, Sealy, Spring Air, Springwall, King Koil and Simmons mattresses
Anchor Hocking glass tableware
General Storage containers
World Kitchen Pyrex glassware
A.O. Smith residential water tanks
Gentek Building Products including windows, doors and vinyl siding
American Standard bathroom fixtures
Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil
Fabri-Kal plastic ware
Speakman shower heads
3M O-cell-O sponges
Crown Metal Packaging for food and beverages
Federal White Cement
Shade-O-Matic and Eclipse venetian blinds, shutters and window covers
Valspar pigment for Valspar paints
Lavelle Industries rubber and plastic plumbing components
Harley-Davidson motorcycle parts and accessories
PFERD Milwaukee Brush metal brushes
Alto-Shaam, Inc. ovens and warmers
Shur-Line paint rollers
Goodyear, Bridgestone/Firestone, BFGoodrich, Titan and Yokohama tires.

The tires require caution. Many of those companies have foreign factories that export tires to North America. So the buyer must look for these codes to get American made tires: BE and BF for BFGoodrich, YE, 4D and E3 for Bridgestone/Firestone, UP and UT for Cooper, MD, MJ, MC, and MK for Goodyear and CC for Yokohama. These letters follow the letters DOT on each tire’s code.

In the case of the other products listed, some also operate foreign factories, so it’s always good to look for the Made in America label.

Buy American. Buy American jobs.