Clinton

David Broder: The Democrats' Worst Nightmare

Robert Borosage — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:14:31 -0700

David Broder’s April 24 Washington Post column on Arizona Sen. John McCain, entitled “The Democrats’ Worst Nightmare,” concludes with this little nugget:

“Yet, in pointing to those vulnerabilities in her rival, Clinton has heightened the most obvious liability she would carry into a fight against McCain. In an age of deep cynicism about politicians of both parties, McCain is the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest.”

What possibly could Broder be drinking? Has he forgotten:

The John McCain who initially voted against the Bush tax cuts as irresponsible giveaways to the wealthy, but now embraces them, a change in position justified only by his desire to “prevail” in the “contest” for the Republican nomination?
Or the John McCain who had the votes in his hand to outlaw the administration’s grotesque torture policies, and instead caved to support the bill that empowered President Bush to define what torture is, a flip-flop motivated only because of the potential cost of his position in the upcoming election?
Or the McCain that went from denouncing Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance” in 2004 to doing exactly what he denounced—“pandering to outer reaches of American politics—by kissing their rings in the run-up to the 2008 nominating contest?

Why the utter nonsense reported as accepted fact? Here as so often, Broder, the widely respected dean of Washington punditocracy, is a mirror of conventional wisdom. And as TV host Chris Mathews notes, “The media loves McCain. We’re his base.”

But can’t reporters love the guy without drinking the Kool-Aid? McCain has now put forth an economic plan that adds an astounding $300 billion dollars a year in corporate and top-end tax cuts to a commitment to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent. This is an utterly irresponsible and fantastical posture at a moment the economy is headed into recession and the dollar is already sinking.

The commentariat will have to decide whether their affection for McCain overcomes their commitment to common sense. Their choice should be instructive. If they follow Broder, that will be the Democrats' worst nightmare.

Happy Tax Day, From a Progressive Perspective

Corinne Ramey — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:08:53 -0700

Taxes are one of those things that everybody loves to hate. Tax collectors are the perennial bad guys, a picture of a 1040 form is squeezed between a picture of Hitler and an MRE on the blog StuffNobodyLikes, and the certainty of death and taxes is widely agreed upon. The Beatles, angered by the high tax rate in England, even wrote a song about taxes (which, allegedly, some post offices actually play on April 15). "If you drive a car, I'll tax the street; If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat," sings George Harrison. Of course, this doesn't acknowledge the fact that taxes made the road possible.

But taxes, when viewed from a progressive perspective, just ain't so bad. Taxes have funded our highways, our roads, and our infrastructure. They've funded scientific development, the courts, communication systems, firefighters and and water supplies. They fund the FDA to keep our food and drugs safe, public education, and public health and emergency services. Simply put, taxes are what has enabled this country to grow, function, and succeed.

In fact, taxes have in many ways made the United States what it is today and (gasp) even made it possible for the rich to succeed and get richer. As George Lakoff and Bruce Budner wrote on TomPaine.com, it's not just the poor and middle class, but the rich who have benefited from taxes as well.

"Consider Bill Gates. He started Microsoft as a college dropout and has become the world's richest person. Though he has undoubtedly benefited from his unusual intelligence and business acumen, he could not have created or sustained his personal wealth without the common wealth. The legal system protected Microsoft's intellectual property and contracts. The tax-supported financial infrastructure enabled him to access capital markets and trade his stock in a market in which investors have confidence. He built his company with many employees educated in public schools and universities. Tax-funded research helped develop computer science and the internet. Trade laws negotiated and enforced by the government protect his ability to sell his products abroad. These are but a few of the ways in which Mr. Gates' accumulation of wealth was empowered by the common wealth and by taxation."

Although taxes didn't create Gates' wealth, they certainly allowed him, and millions of others, to succeed. "We think of taxes as investments that give us dividends," writes the Rockridge Institute.

Part of changing the public perspective on taxes, though, isn't just realizing all the good that taxes have brought about. We need to reframe the debate, using positive, progressive language to talk about taxes. We need to drop the phrase "tax relief" and replace it with "tax equity." We need to talk about taxes as what has driven, and not destroyed, our economy.

Granted, the current tax system -- and the way that taxpayer money is being spent -- is far from perfect. An article in yesterday's Times notes that a conservative estimate of the amount of money spent on the Iraq War would cover the cost of Hillary Clinton's universal health care plan or Barack Obama's health plan and proposal to help people facing foreclosure. And even the super-rich Warren Buffet -- who says that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary -- admits that the tax code needs some help. "The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class," he says in this video.

Robert Borosage and Celinda Lake write about a more progressive tax code in The American Prospect:

"Simplify the tax code and make it more progressive. Tax income on wealth at the same rate as income on work. Give low-wage and middle-income earners a break while raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Invest in areas vital to our economy. That would help generate demand and produce jobs here at home rather than chasing them overseas."

And it's not just the federal tax system that needs some help. As Amy Traub has written, New York state's tax system needs a serious overhaul. She writes,

"The fact is, New York is the most unequal state in the country, and our regressive tax system only makes things worse. We’ve been cutting taxes for high-income households for years and now we’ve got a gaping budget shortfall. Raising taxes on the less-than-half-a-percent of New Yorkers who benefited most from the state’s economic good times is the least we can do."

So, when you write out your check to the IRS this year or stand in a mile-long post office line, remember that although filling out forms and waiting in lines isn't any fun, that taxes themselves are, in fact, a good thing. If only George Harrison was still around to rewrite "Taxman" from a more progressive perspective...

Earth to Senator Clinton: Just Stop Already

Cynthia Boaz — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:37:51 -0700

Senator Clinton, I am a white, female, middle-class, lifelong Democratic voter of a certain age. For the past four years, I have also been one of your constituents. Demographically, I should be your biggest supporter.

But I’m not. In fact, I am so horrified by your campaign tactics and reckless disregard for the bigger picture that I have resolved to cast my vote for someone else if you get the party’s nomination.

What makes this all the more surreal is that as a political scientist, I absolutely understand that by voting my conscience in our entrenched duopoly, I could well be contributing to a victory for the party whose interests least reflect my own. In other words, I am ready to sacrifice pragmatism for principle. So if for nothing else, allow me to thank you for the personal revelation that while at the end of the day, voting from integrity may not get me a “win,” at least I’ll be able to sleep at night (pun intended).

I’m curious, senator, have you noticed that in the past two months, a lot of people seemed to have defected to Senator Obama’s campaign from yours, but not the other way around? How do you explain that? I have some ideas, and here I offer the top ten reasons why I personally cannot support you:

10) You are in second place. In other words, you’re not winning. Neither the popular vote nor the pledged delegates. I know you claim to be a fighter, but mathematically, according to every vote calculator I’ve been able to find, it is close to impossible for you to acquire the nomination through the democratic process, unless you are willing to a) successfully push for a retroactive change in the rule that disqualified the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, which would, however you spin it, be an open violation of the rule of law (integral to the legitimacy of healthy democracies), and/or b) claim that “super” delegates are better qualified to ascertain the interests of the voters than the voters themselves (which is not only insulting and elitist, but, historically speaking, incorrect.) So, are you willing to subvert democracy rather than comply with an undesirable outcome? In my field, we call that “democracy by undemocratic means,” and it is a concept more closely associated with transitional democracies than consolidated ones.

9) You “went negative” and you played the terror card (and by proxy, the race card.) I’m not going to pretend to be affronted, because you are hardly the first or last candidate to use these means to achieve your ends. But the entire tactic is beneath who you claim to be, which is a candidate whose qualifications speak for themselves. If you truly are the more qualified candidate, you don’t need to exploit our fears and prejudices to get the message across. You should be above that, and we American citizens deserve more credit than that.

8) On the question of “experience,” I’m frankly not all that impressed. Your senatorial record in my part of New York state has been- to put it diplomatically- sub par. I live in a fairly economically depressed part of upstate whose great number of manufacturing plants gives it a close resemblance to much of the “rest belt” of Ohio and the steel towns of Pennsylvania. When you came to the Senate, you promised 200,000 (much needed) new jobs for upstate New York. Nearly eight years later, the net change is close to 30,000 fewer jobs than before. From the perspective of many upstate New Yorkers, you have abandoned us.

7) Your attempt to chalk up your time as First Lady as experience for the presidency…well, I guess I can understand that. After all, you did have a front row seat for some very important global events including the Rabin-Arafat handshake and the downfall of Milosevic. But you don’t know where to draw the line. For example, to imply that you helped to broker the Northern Ireland peace plan…Senator Clinton, please. Even the ever-gracious Lord Trimble called your claim “silly” and said that “being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player." As it turns out, the big meeting you cited as evidence turned out to be an honest-to-goodness tea party. I don’t even know how to comment on that. Seriously, a tea party.

6) Some of your rhetoric scares me, and not in the way you planned. For example, you referred to Hugo Chavez as a “dictator.” I can only assume that you are intelligent enough to know the definition of this term, and that this inaccuracy was intentional. Now, please know, I’m no Chavez fan. He has repressed his political opponents, intimidated journalists, and has shown a general disdain for the rule of law. But one thing he is not is a “dictator.” Chavez came to power in a democratic election and was even subject to two—two!—referenda on his rule, both of which he survived (albeit by a very narrow margin in 2007.) This may seem to be simply a semantic issue, but it’s not. By using a term like “dictator” to describe him, you are adopting the same dehumanizing rhetoric used by the current occupant of the White House, and setting yourself up to justify future aggression against Chavez. Like him, don’t like him, I don’t care. But don’t lie to us. The fact is that Hugo Chavez might be a bully, an authoritarian, or a belligerent nuisance, but a dictator he is not.

5) Where are the tax returns you keep promising? You say you need until April 15th, 2008. If I understand correctly, those returns were filed in 2006 and 2007 (weren’t they?), which means they should already be ready to go. The longer you delay, the worse things look for you. Start Xeroxing.

4) Here is an interesting campaign juxtaposition that sums up the difference between you and your competitor: on one hand, one of Senator Obama’s key staffers is co-founder of Wake-Up WalMart, a nonprofit dedicated to forcing WalMart to change its inhumane business practices, including substandard wages and lack of health care (all things you claim to be concerned about.) On the other hand, you personally served on WalMart’s board of directors for nearly a decade. Enough said.

3) If nothing else, self-respecting anti-war Democrats (and there are a lot of us) cannot in good conscience vote for you because of your support for the Iraq invasion, especially because of how you continue to defend that decision. Deflect all you want, blame President Bush or the intelligence agencies, but the fact is that a number of your Democratic colleagues had the courage and judgment to say “no” to that invasion, and you should have joined them. Trying to portray your and Senator Obama’s records on Iraq as identical since 2005 is also completely misleading. If you had not voted to support that invasion, his (and your) votes to fund the occupation would not have been necessary in the first place. Voting to invade and voting to fund are not moral equivalents- not by a long shot. What I don’t get is why you don’t admit you made a mistake and apologize for it already. We (anti-war Dems) would be much more receptive to that than to your utter unwillingness to accept responsibility. We forgave your husband for his transgressions, so what makes you think that we expect you to be infallible?

2) As I see it, the most significant difference between you and Senator Obama is not experience, but the kind of politics that you practice. You engage in a politics of what Buddhists, Hindus, and other mystics might call the "lower vibrating emotions"- i.e. you play on fear, anger, and self-interest. You tap into the sentiments that tempt us to regard other people negatively and competitively. This works in the short-term (as we saw in Ohio and Texas), but it tends to burn out quickly and leave demoralization in its place. In contrast, Senator Obama practices a politics of the "higher vibrating emotions"- i.e. empathy, compassion, and empowerment. I believe this is why so many people who were previously disengaged are drawn to him and to each other. Some may have a hard time articulating it beyond the word “hope”, but the fact is that Senator Obama—or better, what he represents-- accesses the better angels of our natures. That, Senator, is not just words. It doesn’t get more authentic than that.

1) What Senator Obama is doing transcends him. It is a movement. A president cannot change the way we think about our responsibility and role in the world, but a movement can. John Lewis knows this. Ted Kennedy knows this. Every democratically-minded citizen of India, Poland, South Africa, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Burma, Argentina, Belarus, and Tibet knows this. All of Europe knows it. Senator Clinton, you may find a way to acquire the nomination, but you can not commandeer a movement.

After all of this, you might be surprised to know I was a strong supporter of your husband and continue to believe that his presidency was amongst the greatest of the last century. No doubt you feel the same way. So I have to ask, is your desire for nomination at any cost really worth undermining that legacy and dragging all of us down with you in the process?

Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science and international studies at the State University of New York at Brockport. She specializes in political development, nonviolent social movements, and quality of democracy. She resides in Rochester, NY.

The Age of Infrastructure

Harry Moroz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:47:00 -0800

Perhaps because national infrastructure is so amenable to physiological comparison – highways are the nation’s bloodstream, its sewage systems the digestive tract, its bridges synapses – it is also subject, at least in journalistic cliché, to one of life’s few inevitabilities: aging.

Much of the evidence for this “infrastructural maturity” results from a 2005 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) that gave America’s infrastructure an average of a D on its Infrastructure Report Card. Grades ranged from a D- for drinking water systems (there is a wide funding gap for improvements, particularly in urban centers) and navigable waterways (half the nation’s locks are functionally obsolete) to a relief-inspiring C+ for solid waste (the number of landfills has declined, but mammoth regional fills have replaced them). The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) outlined similar concerns in its 2006 “Guiding Principles for Strengthening America’s Infrastructure”: aviation traffic will grow 39% by 2016, freight tonnage will increase 50% by 2020, and severe highway bottlenecks have already increased 40% in the last five years, but the structures that support these systems are deteriorating. 13,000 fatalities result each year from inadequate maintenance of highways, $63.2 billion are lost to traffic on the roadways, and $9 billion are lost to aviation delays.

Despite the ASCE’s empirical evidence and our intuitive sense (when was the last time you sat bumper-to-bumper with an SUV or stood jowl-to-jowl with someone in the subway) that infrastructure is aging and inadequate, no large-scale effort has been undertaken to confront the problem in a comprehensive and purposeful manner. Even after a bridge collapsed in Minnesota , a steam pipe burst in New York City, and levees broke in New Orleans, attempts to mend our bridges, highways, and waterways still stall because of bureaucratic strife and ineffective funding.

What often hinders large-scale infrastructure projects is not the knowledge that such projects are necessary or the lack of technical skill to carry them out. Rather, when politicians and government agencies tackle endeavors of such proportions, priorities clash, funding streams are challenged, and reputations are put on the line (For an international example, see Chile’s Transantiago bus service. Transantiago was designed to be self-financing, but is now expected to cost $40 million a month.). This means that massive construction plans become as much about individual personalities and personal ambition as about concrete, steel girders, and getting a car across the Hudson River. As Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution remarked at a congressional hearing on ground transportation, “The sad fact is that now that the Interstate Highway System is completed there is no coherent national vision for addressing a complex and conflicting set of transportation challenges. As a result, America’s transportation policy is adrift with no clear goals, purpose, or ability to meet these challenges.”

A unique solution to the bureaucratic and financial problems that often beset large-scale infrastructure projects has been proposed by Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel. On the morning of the Minnesota bridge collapse, as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert pointed out, the senators announced their sponsorship of legislation to create a National Infrastructure Bank. The Bank would issue bonds to raise funds for infrastructure projects that would be selected based on a strict set of criteria. Applications would be accepted only for projects that cost at least $75 million, have a public sponsor (a state or local government), and are of regional or national significance. The Bank would then rate each application based on its promotion of economic growth, its mobility improvements, its reduction of poverty concentration, its environmental benefits, its potential to promote smart urban growth, and its regional or national significance (the criteria vary slightly for each type of infrastructure project).

The National Infrastructure Bank is a first step in creating a coherent vision of American infrastructure. First, the use of bonds – rather than a pay-as-you-go system that relies on yearly revenues – allows the federal government to develop a stable, long-term strategy for economic growth based on infrastructure improvements. Such a financing stream is less subject to political whims and to revenues, which fluctuate with the economy and with legislative action (and inaction). Second, federal funding for infrastructure – in particular, for the transportation system – is often diverted by state governments to other (sometimes) worthy, yet non-infrastructure, projects. Puentes of Brookings points out that the Government Accountability Office has called the federal transportation fund a “cash transfer, general purpose grant program,” and that “the U.S. code neuters the federal role and states specifically that the appropriation of highway funds ‘shall in no way infringe on the sovereign rights of the States to determine which projects shall be federally financed.’” The National Infrastructure Bank would ensure that federal funds are used by state and local governments for specific infrastructure projects, rather than diverted to make up for, say, underfunded federal mandates.

Perhaps most importantly, the selection criteria required by the National Infrastructure Bank would encourage the federal government to undertake projects that are significant to the country’s long-term well-being: rather than stop-gap measures to repair existing problems, such projects would take into account new challenges like climate change, the growing importance of urban areas, and the need for more affordable housing, while at the same time confronting the more typical concerns associated with economic growth (increased air, highway, and port traffic). A database with details about each infrastructure project and its funding would provide at least some public oversight.

Interestingly, political support for an infrastructure bank is growing. The day after Senators Dodd and Hagel announced their plan – and the day after the Minnesota bridge collapse – Senator Hillary Clinton signed onto the bill as a co-sponsor. A week later, Senator Clinton gave a major speech entitled “Rebuilding America: Improving Our Infrastructure” and endorsed the legislation, lamenting that we in the United States “are treading water and being swept backwards.” Her specific plan – like her economic stimulus package – includes a panoply of measures to repair the “backlog” of deficient transportation structures, to conduct safety reviews, to increase public transit funding (and to link these funds to local land use policies), to invest in intercity passenger rail systems, to modernize seaports, to increase funding for congestion reduction programs, and to improve broadband deployment. Senator Barack Obama’s proposal was – like his economic stimulus package – more straightforward. In his “Keeping America’s Promise” economic speech on February 13th, Senator Obama proposed a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to invest $60 billion in transportation infrastructure over ten years. He has previously called for increased Amtrak funding, high-speed railways, metropolitan planning to reduce traffic congestion, and improved transportation access for low-income commuters. On February 13th, a day after his speech, he signed onto Dodd and Hagel’s bill as a co-sponsor.

Additionally, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska proposed an amendment to the Senate’s economic stimulus package that would have directed $5 billion to states for infrastructure projects to be used before October of 2008. Senator Nelson suggested that “An investment in infrastructure and public works projects will not only achieve a much-needed boost to our economy, but will also promote long-term economic growth.”

Pronouncements by presidential candidates and a rather optimistic amendment to fast-tracked legislation are positive, if modest, indicators that a national movement to invest in infrastructure is mounting. Even relatively insignificant problems with infrastructure have received ample attention recently. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that two bridge inspectors in Georgia had been falsifying inspection records because of a fast approaching federal deadline. Officials were alerted when they noted that the two were inspecting bridges at a rate of 18 per day; the average is 12 per week. Admittedly, there are significant issues to work out with a national infrastructure bank. The European Investment Bank, an infrastructure-financing behemoth established in 1953 and a likely model for an American infrastructure bank, is criticized for its lack of transparency and its lack of social and environmental standards.

Large-scale public works projects will always be subject to conflicting priorities, funding difficulties, cronyism, and, of course, the mafia. Indeed, such infrastructure projects are designed to be patronage machines because they use public funds in part simply to create jobs. Yet, this is no reason to fall prey to the starve-the-beast philosophy of the current administration that has allowed American infrastructure to age and permitted a patchwork of private firms to profit from the spoils of disaster capitalism. Rather, emphasis must be placed on centralizing funding streams for infrastructure that can then be distributed based on a long-term vision of American economic success. Such a vision would emphasize the urban areas where most of the American population lives and from where most American prosperity is generated; would confront the environmental challenges associated with both aging infrastructure and new construction; and would consider the benefits and the dilemmas linked to the ever-increasing mobility of people and goods. With this purposefulness, infrastructure projects as fundamental and as forgotten as urban sewage facilities and desalination plants would receive the attention and the financing that they have long been denied. A National Infrastructure Bank is a means of encouraging this far-sighted vision.

The 2008 Class War

David Sirota — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:28:15 -0800

The two taboo subjects in American politics, class and race, are now front and center in the Democratic nominating contest. As my new nationally syndicated newspaper column shows, the former is driving voting behavior and the biases against the latter are making it more difficult for Barack Obama to court lower-income voters.

Exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning votes from those making under $50,000 a year. She is the candidate of NAFTA, the candidate on the cover of Fortune magazine, the candidate of Big Money. And yet, she is winning the working class. Much of that, as I say, has to do with Obama not running an economically populist or class-based campaign. He simply hasn't been appealing to working-class voters in any direct way.

That tactical decision, of course, has at least something to do with the fact that Obama, too, raises huge amounts of corporate cash—cash that would not necessarily come to him if he started talking about corporate power, inequality and greed.

But the decision also likely has to do with the fact that Obama knows that if he voiced a more full-throated populism, he would be depicted in the media as a race-centric candidate—even if his populism was race-blind. As my column shows, power-challenging African-American politicians have been marginalized in this way for the better part of a half century. The moment a black leader talks about class or threatens the Establishment, he or she is billed as a race-centric radical.

The best contemporary example of this came from Time Magazine's Joe Klein. In a 2006 column that no one other than the blogosphere flagged as wildly offensive, Klein called populist Rep. John Conyers as:

"An African American of a certain age and ideology, easily stereotyped [and] one of the ancient band of left-liberals who grew up in the angry hothouse of inner-city, racial-preference politics."

Though this was a particularly obvious example of the media firing racism at class-based African-American politicians, it represents a widespread attitude pervasive in our political establishment. If you are a non-white politician and you talk about class, you are "stigmatized as a candidate mobilizing race," as Columbia University's Manning Marable says in my column.

The problem for Obama is the big states coming up in the contest. As National Journal's Ron Brownstein reports, the key contests on March 4th are Texas and Ohio. "In both states, the upscale white voters who have bolstered Obama are scarce," Brownstein reports. Put another way, Obama needs to make some sort of populist pitch to speak directly to these voters, but is constrained by his knowledge that the media and the Clinton machine will quickly label him "the black candidate" if he does just that.

That last point about the Clintons is very important. It was no coincidence that the moment Obama started talking about NAFTA and class in South Carolina, Bill Clinton made an unprompted remark likening Obama to Jesse Jackson, and an unnamed Clinton aide told the Associated Press Obama is "the black candidate." The Clintons are playing an ugly game.

Read the whole column here. If you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site.

Cross-posted from CAF and Credo Action.