Author Archives:
Shadow Elite: If You Believe That, I’ve Got a Bridge to Sell You….
A century ago, con men got away with selling the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants looking to buy a piece of America and get rich quick. The swindle became standard shorthand and joke for gullibility.
Today it’s no punchline. Mayors and governors staring down massive budget gaps are putting bridges, buildings, parking lots, and more up for sale. Who’s buying? Wall Street, which, in turn, wants to sell off your public assets to investors with the promise of sure-fire returns. Sound familiar, too good to be true? It is. But with layoffs and severe public service cuts looming, the prospect of fast cash – whatever the long-term consequence – is intoxicating. And politicians are drinking it up. (more…)
California in Crisis
With Peter Dreier
California is broken — and broke. Its K-12 public schools, roads, levies, aqueducts, parks, and bridges; its health-care system; home health care for the elderly and disabled; and even its once-envied public universities are all crumbling from long-term neglect and underfunding. State employees have been forced to take three unpaid furlough days per month — equal to a 14 percent pay cut.
The Lord of the Flies election
When I think about election day next week, the mental image I find most fitting is in the 1954 classic, the “Lord of the Flies,” about a group of teenagers stranded on a desert island that revert to savagery in their struggle for survival.
Californians struggling to keep important programs are on a different kind of island. The metaphorical island that we are on now is the one built by Proposition 13 and the Howard Jarvis tax rebellion of the late 1970s. That was the beginning of California’s descent from a once golden state of opportunity to a land starved of investment and resources.
Proposition 13’s tax caps, along with the requirement for budgets to be passed with a two-thirds supermajority, mean that a minority could thwart the aspirations of most Californians’ desires for high-quality services; great education that is the envy of the nation; a world-class infrastructure that is clean, green and essential for a productive business climate; and a health care system that meets the needs of all.
First 100, next 1,360
It’s the next big mega-moment for the American news media: Obama’s 100-days report card.
So, this is my take. But first, let’s start with two steps.
First step: As you read this, think about the challenges you’ve faced in the last 100 days to reflect on what you’ve been able to accomplish. Doesn’t seem like a lot of time, does it?
Second step: While my Republican friends say that we shouldn’t spend time bemoaning the past, a respect for history’s role in understanding the present and plotting the future requires that we at least recognize the position the Bush administration got us into.
$8 a week in taxes isn’t bad
The $800 billion stimulus package Congress passed in February contained tax cuts for millions of Americans and major investment in infrastructure and public programs. The debate and negotiations that led up to the bill’s passage echoed a 60-year-old debate between Keynesian, demand-side economics and conservative, supply-side dogma.
Obama and Democrats argue that tax cuts for workers stimulate growth by putting spending money in the pockets of American families. More cash for workers means more spending, leading to more hiring and ultimately more spending. The Republicans, on the other hand, believe you give tax cuts to the wealthy so they invest, innovate and create jobs.
A Different Relationship
President Obama can and should establish an entirely new framework for our relationship with Mexico.
First, we need to recognize the reality of interdependent national economies, common binational labor and capital markets and interconnected social and family networks.
Second, we need to commit ourselves to overarching goals of creating sustainable economic development that lifts Mexican standards of living and preserves an American middle class.
Healthy competition?
When Mayor Jerry Sanders wanted to reform city government, he turned to what he believed was an effective tool of market capitalism – competition. He claimed that pitting government workers against private sector companies would generate savings for the city.
Sanders, not an ideologue, grabbed on to “managed competition” so he could privatize city jobs and show his conservative backers that he was one of them. If it resulted in turning middle class city jobs into $12 an hour jobs without health care, that wasn’t his problem.
Now the debate about the effectiveness of public-private competition is at the center of the coming debate on health care reform in Washington.
How to Pay for the Next War
President Obama announced that we would add 4,000 more troops to the 17,000 he already ordered to Afghanistan.
In his address to Congress, he also announced that he would restore honest and transparent budgeting to pay for our military commitments. “This budget,” Obama said, …. for the first time, includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.”
Obama’s declaration was a clear rejection of George Bush’s supplemental off-budget appropriations designed to make it hard to oppose without being accused of abandoning the troops. Given estimates that the Iraq war may ultimately become the most expensive in U.S. history, Bush’s approach was fiscal irresponsibility wrapped in post-9/11 “yellow ribbon” patriotism. It saddled us with massive deficits and avoided the hard choices of balancing national priorities.
Why are Health Insurance Companies Afraid of Competition
The Health Insurance industry is already gearing up, once again, to fight Obama’s health care plans. This time it’s not Harry and Louise, but rather cries of unfair competition with a successful model of government organized health insurance.
Insurance companies, along with other vested health care interests, have successfully thwarted every serious attempt at universal health insurance since the New Deal and are taking no chances to keep a solid streak. The standard line of attack is to raise the specter of government-run health care, long lines and losing our choice of doctor. They back it up with endless repetition of ideological arguments that free, unregulated markets are the only way to meet America’s needs.
The Next Rod Blagojevich
San Diego political community is buzzing with rumors that long-time County Supervisors Greg Cox and Ron Roberts will retire sometime soon. The heart of the story is that instead of serving out their remaining years, one or both might resign mid-term allowing the County Board to appoint a successor.
This would presumably be the preferred choice of the local Republican establishment, increasingly worried about San Diego’s “blue-ward” shift after Obama’s first-time-since-FDR county democratic majority last November. Since Cox and Roberts are both Republicans in districts with massive Democratic registration advantage, a mid-term appointment may be the only way for the party to hold on to the nominally non-partisan seats. Especially if their replacements were ‘elected’ by the four remaining members of the Board of Supervisors – all Republicans.
Jailing Teenagers and the Poisoning of Public Purpose
Last month, two Pennsylvania judges pled guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to the two private detention centers. One judge secured the contracts for the firms to house the teenagers and the other judge kept the centers filled by sentencing enough teens.
The judges, as part of their secret “placement guarantee agreement,” sent hundreds of teenagers to detention facilities for minor and often questionable teen offenses. One high school student was sentenced to three months for mocking her assistant principal on a spoof MySpace page.
Don’t Listen to Wall Street, They Are the Ones That Got Us in This Mess
Ben Bernanke speaks to Congress on Monday and declares his opposition to nationalization of banks and the stock market surges 200+ points. The next day, President Obama speaks to the nation and declares that the banks and the wealthy won’t be able to prosper without the rest of us and the stock market drops.
Why do cable TV, blogs and proliferating new media still care about how Wall Street evaluates public policy? Why would we listen to them?
