It seems as though we are always having an 'all or nothing' debate on the health care law. Democrats seem compelled to follow the position of the administration that the whole Affordable Care Act should be defended, while Republicans are just as adamant that it should be repealed-- every jot and tittle.
It is true that because of the political realities in Washington during late 2009 when the bill was put together, it was a carefully crafted piece of legislation designed to appease both patient groups, medical providers and the insurance industry.
In particular, a key piece of the bill was the individual mandate-- the requirement that starting in 2014 all Americans must purchase health insurance or face tax penalties. Candidate Obama in 2008 had only supported the mandate for children (on the theory that children were unable to make their own decisions as to whether to purchase insurance or not and their parents should not have the right to put their childrens health and lives at risk by not purchasing insurance.) However, he had specifically opposed the mandate for adults (which helped distinguish him from Hillary Clinton in the primaries, as she supported it.) However, as the bill was warped to fit through the hoop of what was possible in the Senate (and key parts such as the public option were jettisoned) the mandate made its way back into the bill.
The reason why it did was the perfectly logical contention by the insurance industry that other provisions in the bill, which curbed their worst practices (like recission, the act of canceling someone's policy when they got sick; pre-existing condtion exclusions which effectively meant for example that cancer survivors could never buy health insurance; and lifetime caps on treatment) would drive up their costs as they were forced to cover the sickest patients and pay for their care. While it certainly can (and should) be argued that the purpose of health care is to take care of the sick, insurers did have a point about the cost. So, the mandate meant that they would in return vastly expand their market, by virtue of more people paying premiums. While they would now be required to cover sick people who previously could not get insurance, they would balance this with premiums paid by mostly young, healthy people who right now don't have insurance (and gamble that they won't suffer an accident or unexpected illness.)
There are some good reasons why one could argue for the mandate of course. Some people who could afford insurance choose not to get it now (you know who I'm talking about because you've met him too-- the young, indestructible stud who spends all his money on a hot car he can barely afford to put gas in.) Then, when they are in an accident from hot dogging it down the freeway they are unable to pay the hospital bill, and we all end up paying for it when they pass it on via exaggerated charges to us, the insured (which then the insurance company jacks up our premiums to get their loss back.) This kind of thing has been going on for years and it's why a lot of hospital administrators lose their hair early. But-- the mandate remains unpopular (after all, nobody wants to be told they HAVE to buy something) and it has been a point of attack by opponents of the law.
Adding the mandate to the bill helped nail down the votes of two key Senators with strong ties to the insurance industry, Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (for a long time Hartford, the capital of Connecticut practically defined the insurance industry and is still the home of many major insurance companies) and Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska (whose state is the most Republican one in the nation to elect a Democrat to the Senate, and also the home of Mutual of Omaha, still a major player in the insurance industry.)
Almost from the moment the ACA was passed on March 21, 2010, Republican candidates at all levels have pledged to repeal it. And recognizing how politically balanced it was, they have pledged to repeal the whole law, but in arguing that it should be repealed have focused their rhetoric like a laser beam primarily on one particular provision-- the mandate. However, promises to repeal are essentially political posturing. Doing so would be a mammoth undertaking, and it is a fact that no matter how successful the GOP is at the ballot box it is virtually certain that there will still be at least 41 Democrats who voted for the law in the first place left in the Senate-- enough to mount a filibuster and prevent a repeal effort from going anywhere even if there is a GOP President, pen in hand, ready to sign it. And it's hard to see how promising to go back to the broken health care system we've had for the past couple of decades is going to be seen as a panacea if they repeal it (I know they said 'repeal and replace' but repealing it and then passing a different reform law is even more hard to visualize than just doing the first half of that and going back to start.)
More significantly, various Republican groups (most notably a coalition of Republican state Attorneys General) have filed suit in courts all over the country attempting to overturn the law.
So far, at the level of the federal appeals courts, the results have been decidedly mixed. Six rulings have so far been issued. Three of them have upheld the law, and the other three have ruled against it. This is likely to end up in the Supreme Court next year and everyone is basing their thinking on the assumption that the court will either rule for the entire law or against the entire law.
BUT-- ONLY ONE of the three rulings against it overturned the whole law. The other two overturned the individual mandate only and upheld everything else of significance (including the reforms mentioned above preventing insurers from denying coverage and insurance exchanges where people who couldn't afford it otherwise could buy private insurance with premiums that are partly paid by the federal government.)
Well, it took a former Senate Republican-- and a formerly very influential one at that, former Majority Leader Bill Frist to ask the obvious question:
WHAT HAPPENS IF THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ONLY THE MANDATE and leaves the rest of the law intact?
After all, the Supreme Court has a long history of ignoring whatever the legislative dealmaking was in getting laws passed and overturning certain provisions while leaving others alone.
The first thing that will happen in that case is that the insurance industry executives will need their own services after having a heart attack. Suddenly faced with not getting the increased revenue they have been counting on but still on the hook for universal coverage, they will try to make this up in one (or more probably both) of two ways:
1. Significantly increase premiums. This would increase costs both to people who pay them, and also to the government. As passed, the OMB found that because of a number of taxes included in the bill the ACA actually reduces the projected deficit by $143 billion (another irony in Republican calls to trim the deficit, when this is something that actually more than pays for itself.) But if the mandate is repealed all bets are off the table because the necessary government subsidies on insurance would spike upward sharply and begin to play into the deficit.
2. Begin an intensive lobbying campaign to be relieved of the burden they now have (and as part of the overall package were willing to accept for a few years) of caring for the sickest without revoking their insurance, turning them away or limiting the total cost of their care.) While it is conceivable they could convince Congress and some future administration to repeal the rest of the law, I believe this is unlikely because many of the provisions are not only popular, but are well ingrained by now. Passing a bill that explicity gave insurance companies the right to screw people (even if it's how they used to screw them) would be very unpopular and no politician will want to touch it. So instead of that they might have more success if there was some other way in which these very sick patients who were no longer profitable to treat could be taken off their ledgers. But that would require that they be given to someone else to pay for. And clearly no insurance company will want to only get people who have been rejected as too costly or too risky by other insurance companies. So that leaves-- that's right, the government. So, in that case it's entirely plausible that the insurance industry itself would end up pushing for a public option (albeit one only open to people the insurance companies don't want.)
Nevertheless this is a good thing. If the Supreme Court throws away the mandate we could end up in a society in which you may not be compelled to buy insurance but insurers are compelled to sell it to you and on top of that we get a public option after all.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Spy games
American hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were sentenced to eight years in prison by Iran today after being convicted of spying. The pair claimed to be hiking in far northeastern Iraq more than two years ago along with a female companion, Sarah Shourd, who was later allowed out 'on bail' (effectively a ransom payment because nobody expects her to return for trial) after her health began to deteriorate and both the U.S. and Iran were concerned that if she died in prison it could lead to questions that neither would want to answer.
So the question remains, Are they spies?
I don't consider official pronouncements from either government to mean anything. The Iranians of course will say that (just as other governments hostile to the U.S. will) about any American who shows up in their territory. At the same time, if they were spies would you expect our government to acknowlege this? Clearly not. It was a major embarrassment to the U.S. earlier this year when they had to acknowlege that Raymond Davis, an American contractor who shot two Pakistani men who were allegedly trying to rob him was in fact an American agent. So because the Iranian government will automatically accuse and the American government will automatically deny, we can throw both of those out in the trash.
So what we are left with is purely speculative.
Reasons to think they could be spies:
1. The location and time where they were apprehended. I know dozens of serious hikers and I've never met any who were juked to go to Iraq. I'm sure there is some beautiful country there but in particular, trails that lead long the border with Iran seem a very curious place for American hikers to head to unless they have another reason for being there; Further, keep in mind that Iraq is still a war zone (and two years ago was that much more of one.) Granted, Kurdistan is the least restive part of Iraq but it's still true that Iraq is a dangerous place for Americans who just want to go for a visit. Most hikers try to avoid places where they may end up in political or local trouble, not seek them out.
2. The fact that high level administration officials have been involved in trying to get them out of Iran. If they were just ordinary citizens they'd probably send Bill Richardson or Bill Clinton or someone else with little power to actually promise anything to get them out.
3. They were convicted. Granted I'm not sure I'd want to be put on trial in Iran, but at the same time it does have a judicial system in place so contrary to popular belief in the U.S. it's not a society absolutely ruled by the will of a mullah or of Ahmadinejad. Judges have ruled against the state before there.
Reasons to think they may not be spies:
1. An eight year prison sentence. Convicted foreign spies are typically given life sentences, and in some countries they can face execution. Consider convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who was arrested in 1985. He got a life sentence for being convicted of spying on the United States. The Israelis have tried unsuccessfully through for years that have spanned five Presidential administrations to get Pollard back. Keeping in mind that Israel is a nominal ally of the United States, the fact that Pollard is still in prison and will very likely die there would not bode well by comparison for an American spy convicted in Iran. So an eight year sentence may be largely for show, so they can growl and tell us how tough they are but not be stuck with these guys in prison for the next 50 or 60 years. Eight years does however guarantee that they won't be released until after the Obama administration (a clear poke at it since they were arrested very early on during the Obama administration.)
2. History. Remember that Iran held Americans hostage for 444 days back in 1979-1981 and in fact effectively held America captive for more than a year. Almost every news story was about the hostage crisis (in fact that's how "Nightline" got started) and for at least a decade thereafter the biggest bogeyman we had was Ayatollah Khomeini. There are some who even believe that Ahmadinejad personally was among the hostage takers (a charge he denies) but there may be a certain desire to see how much they can make America sit up and take notice.
3. Cultural issues. Most successful spies (depending on their mission) are citizens of the country which they are spying upon. Foreigners can attract suspicion and even more so in a society as xenophobic as Iran has become. And in fact, the U.S. would not need to send Americans to infiltrate Iran because given the long history between the two nations along with the fact that many Iranians are plainly disgusted with their regime, it's virtually certain that the U.S. has all the spies we need available in Iran right now. At the same time, there are things that sufficiently trained Americans operating along the border in theory COULD do, including making contact with local villagers to try and recruit more spies (in which case they would most likely in fact have gotten lost because remember we are talking about Kurdistan here, which is on both sides of the border; in this scenario they would be looking for Iranian Kurds who were temporarily in Iraq.) Another would be to set up electronic equipment along the border; I'm certainly no expert on that but I'd be amazed if they don't have electronic equipment that could spy very effectively at least a few miles into the country, and detect movement around and across the border-- for example weapons shipments allegdly being smuggled from Iran into and across Iraq to Syria and then to Hezbollah. However, even to do this work, I would think they'd have tried to recruit some local Kurds they could trust with it so as not to arouse suspicion.
Often spies do not, in fact, serve out their full sentences-- they are exchanged in spy swaps. Probably the most notorious spy swap in history occurred February 16, 1962 when Russia's former top spy in the U.S. Colonel Rudolf Abel was traded across a bridge for former U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down in 1960. It's possible that Iran, rather than wanting the payment of ransom or political concessions, may be planning to trade these hikers for Iranians in prison (whether for spying or for other crimes) elsewhere.
What we can say is that there is probably more to be known here than the cover story.
So the question remains, Are they spies?
I don't consider official pronouncements from either government to mean anything. The Iranians of course will say that (just as other governments hostile to the U.S. will) about any American who shows up in their territory. At the same time, if they were spies would you expect our government to acknowlege this? Clearly not. It was a major embarrassment to the U.S. earlier this year when they had to acknowlege that Raymond Davis, an American contractor who shot two Pakistani men who were allegedly trying to rob him was in fact an American agent. So because the Iranian government will automatically accuse and the American government will automatically deny, we can throw both of those out in the trash.
So what we are left with is purely speculative.
Reasons to think they could be spies:
1. The location and time where they were apprehended. I know dozens of serious hikers and I've never met any who were juked to go to Iraq. I'm sure there is some beautiful country there but in particular, trails that lead long the border with Iran seem a very curious place for American hikers to head to unless they have another reason for being there; Further, keep in mind that Iraq is still a war zone (and two years ago was that much more of one.) Granted, Kurdistan is the least restive part of Iraq but it's still true that Iraq is a dangerous place for Americans who just want to go for a visit. Most hikers try to avoid places where they may end up in political or local trouble, not seek them out.
2. The fact that high level administration officials have been involved in trying to get them out of Iran. If they were just ordinary citizens they'd probably send Bill Richardson or Bill Clinton or someone else with little power to actually promise anything to get them out.
3. They were convicted. Granted I'm not sure I'd want to be put on trial in Iran, but at the same time it does have a judicial system in place so contrary to popular belief in the U.S. it's not a society absolutely ruled by the will of a mullah or of Ahmadinejad. Judges have ruled against the state before there.
Reasons to think they may not be spies:
1. An eight year prison sentence. Convicted foreign spies are typically given life sentences, and in some countries they can face execution. Consider convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who was arrested in 1985. He got a life sentence for being convicted of spying on the United States. The Israelis have tried unsuccessfully through for years that have spanned five Presidential administrations to get Pollard back. Keeping in mind that Israel is a nominal ally of the United States, the fact that Pollard is still in prison and will very likely die there would not bode well by comparison for an American spy convicted in Iran. So an eight year sentence may be largely for show, so they can growl and tell us how tough they are but not be stuck with these guys in prison for the next 50 or 60 years. Eight years does however guarantee that they won't be released until after the Obama administration (a clear poke at it since they were arrested very early on during the Obama administration.)
2. History. Remember that Iran held Americans hostage for 444 days back in 1979-1981 and in fact effectively held America captive for more than a year. Almost every news story was about the hostage crisis (in fact that's how "Nightline" got started) and for at least a decade thereafter the biggest bogeyman we had was Ayatollah Khomeini. There are some who even believe that Ahmadinejad personally was among the hostage takers (a charge he denies) but there may be a certain desire to see how much they can make America sit up and take notice.
3. Cultural issues. Most successful spies (depending on their mission) are citizens of the country which they are spying upon. Foreigners can attract suspicion and even more so in a society as xenophobic as Iran has become. And in fact, the U.S. would not need to send Americans to infiltrate Iran because given the long history between the two nations along with the fact that many Iranians are plainly disgusted with their regime, it's virtually certain that the U.S. has all the spies we need available in Iran right now. At the same time, there are things that sufficiently trained Americans operating along the border in theory COULD do, including making contact with local villagers to try and recruit more spies (in which case they would most likely in fact have gotten lost because remember we are talking about Kurdistan here, which is on both sides of the border; in this scenario they would be looking for Iranian Kurds who were temporarily in Iraq.) Another would be to set up electronic equipment along the border; I'm certainly no expert on that but I'd be amazed if they don't have electronic equipment that could spy very effectively at least a few miles into the country, and detect movement around and across the border-- for example weapons shipments allegdly being smuggled from Iran into and across Iraq to Syria and then to Hezbollah. However, even to do this work, I would think they'd have tried to recruit some local Kurds they could trust with it so as not to arouse suspicion.
Often spies do not, in fact, serve out their full sentences-- they are exchanged in spy swaps. Probably the most notorious spy swap in history occurred February 16, 1962 when Russia's former top spy in the U.S. Colonel Rudolf Abel was traded across a bridge for former U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down in 1960. It's possible that Iran, rather than wanting the payment of ransom or political concessions, may be planning to trade these hikers for Iranians in prison (whether for spying or for other crimes) elsewhere.
What we can say is that there is probably more to be known here than the cover story.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Revamped Domestic Violence resolution.
We are trying again to pass the domestic violence resolution we tried to pass in April (but it got hung up in the resolutions committee over some issues involving how it was written and when it was submitted.) The first draft of this was submitted in plenty of time so that should not be an issue.
Here it is:
WHEREAS, over 25% of women in the United States has been or will be a victim of domestic violence in her lifetime,
WHEREAS, according to the domestic Violence Resource Center, estimates range from 600,000 to 6 million women who are physically abused by husbands or boyfriends every year, the vast majority of which is goes unreported because of fear,
WHEREAS, domestic violence is the cause of four deaths per day in the United States,
WHEREAS, in 2010 according to figures from the Arizona Coalition on Domestic Violence, 96 people died in Arizona due to domestic violence,
WHEREAS, former Republican Leader of the Senate Scott Bundgaard has pled no contest to having beaten his girlfriend and is now the focus of an inquiry by the Senate Ethics Committee,
WHEREAS, other members of the legislature, including members of both parties, have been cited in past police reports for acts of violence against their wives,
and WHEREAS, domestic violence is too serious an issue to play partisan politics with or selectively ignore according to partisan allegiance,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Arizona State Democratic Committee condemns all incidents of domestic violence and in particular condemns all members of the legislature who have engaged in violence or threats of violence towards a spouse or domestic partner and does so regardless of partisan affiliation.
Here it is:
WHEREAS, over 25% of women in the United States has been or will be a victim of domestic violence in her lifetime,
WHEREAS, according to the domestic Violence Resource Center, estimates range from 600,000 to 6 million women who are physically abused by husbands or boyfriends every year, the vast majority of which is goes unreported because of fear,
WHEREAS, domestic violence is the cause of four deaths per day in the United States,
WHEREAS, in 2010 according to figures from the Arizona Coalition on Domestic Violence, 96 people died in Arizona due to domestic violence,
WHEREAS, former Republican Leader of the Senate Scott Bundgaard has pled no contest to having beaten his girlfriend and is now the focus of an inquiry by the Senate Ethics Committee,
WHEREAS, other members of the legislature, including members of both parties, have been cited in past police reports for acts of violence against their wives,
and WHEREAS, domestic violence is too serious an issue to play partisan politics with or selectively ignore according to partisan allegiance,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Arizona State Democratic Committee condemns all incidents of domestic violence and in particular condemns all members of the legislature who have engaged in violence or threats of violence towards a spouse or domestic partner and does so regardless of partisan affiliation.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Drafts of redistricting maps up
After a number of meetings around the state, the Arizona Independent redistricting commission released some initial drafts of plans that are under consideration. There are two legislative (shown above) and two congressional (shown below) sets of proposed boundaries. NOTE THESE WOULD NOT BE FINAL IN EITHER CASE. There will be adjustments to the boundaries to meet the needs of local communities of interest and other concerns. For example, I notice that in both versions of the Congressional districts there is a boundary along the Navajo/Coconino county line. However it seems highly likely that the western portion of the Navajo nation, which lies in Coconino county, will be put back into the eastern district, which would necessitate compensating adjustments elsewhere (these districts are drawn to comply with Federal standards regarding population and continuguousness.
I will have to study the Congressional maps more before developing an opinion. However, I was aware (and these maps confirm it) that Arizona legislative district 5 in its present form was virtually certain to be redistricted out of existence. If Sylvia Allen wants to remain in the Senate she will likely either have to defeat Jack Jackson in a district that is majority Native American or defeat Tom Chabin in a district whose main population center is in Flagstaff and appears to be very competitive with perhaps a slight Democratic lean (pending final boundaries.)
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Government spending and jobs.
A friend of mine on facebook asked me the following question:
Can you help me to understand if FDR initiatives like the WPA would help to get America back on it's feet in these times? Congress is focused on only taxes and the budget and I just feel like America needs employment opportunities to turn this economic situation (recession, depression or whatever it is) around.
So let's answer it here. To begin with, let me agree with Republicans at least in principle about something. Republicans insist that to raise taxes in a recession is bad (though if they get their way and cut taxes to spur growth in hard times, they never suggest raising them back again in times of prosperity and surplus, instead advocating more tax cuts to 'give people their excess money back.') Their reasoning is that if you raise taxes then people have less to spend (because it's going to the government) and if we assume that government spending does not grow, there will be less money put into the economy to spend on goods and services, so demand will drop. When demand drops then there is excess supply, which causes prices to drop and the companies that produce things, facing a glut in supply and low prices, will lay people off; then those who are laid off will (even if they get unemployment benefits) get less money and therefore spend less, which will reduce demand some more and keep things cycling downward.
There is a seed of truth to the theory behind this argument, especially if (as just noted) you assume that spending by the government remains constant.
In practice however, keeping taxes at their lowest in decades has not spurred the economy at all, partly because companies (and individuals at this point) are hording money (most large companies have record amounts of cash in the bank) and partly because when they do invest the money they are not paying in taxes to grow their businesses, the lion's share of at least what large corporations have spent is being invested outside the U.S.; I'm not against a good economy in China or India, but I do question a policy by which U.S. taxpayers pay to develop it. In particular, following the passage of the Bush tax cuts in 2001, over 2.5 million jobs were outsourced over the next three years as the beneficiaries of those tax cuts spent them to build factories and call centers in Asia, and then shut down factories and call centers in the United States.
There is another alternative when depending on the private sector to carry the economy isn't working, and that's what we will talk about here. Government spending to take up the slack, as spelled out by the late economist John Maynard Keynes. Remember that the above argument assumed that spending by the government remains constant. But what if it increases? If it does, then Governments (federal, state and local) will hire people and purchase goods and services. An office computer, a car, or a bag of cement will bring in the same profit to the vendor whether it is purchased by a company or by a government agency. Therefore government spending, if it increases the level of demand, has the same effect on the economy as if the same amount of money is spent by private businesses (though government spending also offers the advantage of certainty and budgeting while whether private businesses spend money depends on factors often subject to uncertainty and fluctuation.) Beyond that, if government hires people (as in the Roosevelt New Deal programs) then they get paid a salary. Because they are the same people who otherwise would be unemployed, they get paid a salary in exchange for doing work which must be done (and I promise, if you go to any mayor in America you could be provided with a list of projects that the city or town in question needs to have done, but there is not enough funding to hire the people to do it.) And most of what people earning a working wage earn, they spend at local businesses to maintain their household-- again, no differently than if they were working for a private company.
The Roosevelt era New Deal programs are a great example of precisely this kind of government spending to replace money that was not being put into the economy by private industry. Millions of people who previously were not part of the economy (other than being a drag on it by consuming whatever they could get their hands on but not producing anything because nobody was giving them the opportunity to produce anything) were instead hired and began building all kinds of infrastructure (much of which is in use today.) I still remember walking down a sidewalk in Socorro in the 1980's and seeing stamped in the corner of the cement, "WPA 1936." The New Deal programs did a lot more than just build sidewalks in Socorro, of course. They created great works of infrastructure including hydroelectric dams, highways and flood levees. My wife's grandfather was in the Conservation Corps as a young man and helped build many of the roads and trails into our National Parks. Much of this infrastructure is still in use today, partly because it was well built but also partly because honestly we haven't made the investment to maintain and where necessary replace it. The Minneapolis bridge collapse a couple of years ago should serve as a wakeup call as to what can happen when we let things decay for lack of funding.
More importantly, the Roosevelt programs (many later continued under Truman, Eisenhower and other future Presidents) stopped the deepening of the Great Depression when they were first implemented in 1933 and began the slow climb out of it. Yes, there were those who bemoaned the cost, but let's not forget that Roosevelt listened to them in 1937, cut spending, and got slapped with a return to recession in an economy not yet ready to stand on its own. Luckily he learned his lesson quickly and resolved never to listen to that kind of thinking again. THE MAIN POINT TO MAKE IS THAT INCREASING GOVERNMENT SPENDING INCREASES DEMAND FOR GOODS AND SERVICES, and this increased demand spurs growth in the economy. This is exactly the same argument Republicans make about tax cuts. The only difference of course is that giving the money to poor people generally means that all or most of it will be spent in America, while if it is given to multi-national corporations then you can only hope they spend it in America because most of them haven't in the past.
So what about the Stimulus two years ago? Republicans will tell you that it didn't work, proving that a big government spending program won't rescue us from the recession.
In fact, they are wrong on three counts.
1.The stimulus did work and stopped the slide into another Depression.
2. The stimulus was too small, not too big.
3. The economy can't be rescued instead by cutting government spending to reign in the deficit; attempting to do so actually makes things worse instead of better.
Remember that when Obama took office, the economy was hemhoraging over 600,000 jobs per month and was headed straight down with a rocket. The stimulus clearly did work, beginning the month it was passed, February 2009.
It is hard to see that this worked without the visual, because most of the early turnaround represents jobs which were on track to be lost but which were instead saved. Most of the money went in lump payments to states who then used the money to avoid even deeper cuts to schools, police and other government agencies. In many cases the Governors of those states quietly took the money but did not want to be caught thanking the President for Stimulus money (cautionary tale: see what happened to former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who was run out of the GOP after he did.) But just imagine: Two years ago Arizona implemented a series of deep cuts in order to appease a $3 billion budget deficit. After Jan Brewer got a billion dollars in stimulus money, the hole was only $2 billion. So translate the $1 billion difference into jobs that were saved, and it's quite a few. But to go back and point out now that all those people were preserved in their jobs by the Stimulus bill is largely self-defeating. The GOP won on how to frame that debate. Telling someone that without the Stimulus, "you would probably would have been laid off two years ago" is not likely to get many listeners, even if it's true.
It is also true that one reason why is a self-inflicted wound by the Obama administration. In trying to sell the Stimulus to Congress, an administration official made the now infamous statement that without the Stimulus, unemployment would top out at (a then-bad sounding) 8%. This was a very rosy projection, and clearly wrong. That goes to one of the most infuriating things about the Obama administration, to be honest. He took over during a crisis he didn't even have anything to do with starting and yet almost immediately started trying to talk up the economy (remember 'greenshoots?') I don't know why Presidents think that being a pitchman for the economy is part of their job. It's not. I think people would appreciate a President who would level with them a bit more. If the economy sucks right now, then say the economy sucks, and do it on television. Then, if things start to improve they will believe you when you say so. Roosevelt, in his 'fireside chats,' never claimed that things were getting better unless they were. He did not feel he had to 'sell' his programs-- he did win the election, after all. Had Obama proposed even twice the size of a stimulus he did and called it a 'jobs' program (because that's what it was, and 'stimulus' sounds like one of those Washingtonese words that Republicans could tee off on) then would they have dared to filibuster it back when we were seeing unemployment skyrocket? I don't think the President had to put a number on it at all, but if he did have to try and project where unemployment was headed without a jobs bill, something closer to 20% might have been more realistic.
This goes to the second argument. The stimulus was originally proposed at about $950 billion. Obviously this was part of a political attempt to be able to attempt crossing the 'trillion dollar' barrier. In exchange for this semantic concession we got a bill (which Republicans negotiated down to $797 billion after seizing the initiative within days after the President took office by threatening a Senate filibuster) that (as was pointed out at the time) was inadequate. The size of the Stimulus compared to what was needed to fully prevent a second Great Depression was like trying to haul a load in a trailer that weighs many tons up a hill using a compact car. Underpowered and therefore underperforming. Besides being too small, the Stimulus was loaded with 43% in both individual and corporate tax cuts (all to get the votes of three Republicans.) We know by now that the whole argument that tax cuts boost the economy is faulty; over the past decade we've had massive tax cuts in place, to where Americans are now taxed at the lowest rate in fifty years, so if low taxes produced a good economy then today our economy should be booming. Further, one price of getting the votes of the three GOP Senators who did vote for it, was to take out funding for school construction and repair projects (which is something that is clearly needed a lot more than more tax cuts, but it was taken out to appease Sen. Susan Collins, (R-Maine.) So by last year, it was plain that while the Stimulus had stopped the economic freefall, it was not enough to actually turn the economy all the way around and most economists said we needed a second, larger Stimulus. Though they were correct about the economics of the situation, this was clearly impossible in last year's "Tea Party" driven political environment. In addition to this, the Stimulus was only written to last for two years. The recession may be technically over but government support is still needed and is being withdrawn prematurely. To cite the most obvious example, state and local governments are now having to lay many people off because their tax revenues have not recovered to the level they were before the recession. What recovery they have had has not even been fast enough to compensate for the withdrawl of the stimulus funds. During the Lame Duck session last December, a de facto second stimulus was on the table with the new budget and had reached an agreement, when seven Senate Republicans walked away at the last minute and instead signed off on a much smaller budget package that preserved only 43% of the Stimulus-- you guessed it, the tax cuts.
To address the third point, you have to have blind faith that if the deficit went away that businesses would just open their wallets and start spending money, and further that when they do, they will begin hiring a lot of workers (because anything less than 300,000 per month won't bring the unemployment rate down at a significant rate.) At the same time cutting away at government at a time when we should be spending more to help the economy is a gamble. I'm not the only person who sees the economic policies of austerity and deficit reduction we are focusing on today as parallel to the disaster that similar policies caused in 1937.
Further, there is no evidence that the Federal budget deficit is what's preventing large scale hiring, and in fact it is instead misguided attempts to cut government that are having the opposite effect. What's happening in private industry is a little like a bunch of people standing on the beach after a shark has been spotted nearby. Even if the 'all clear' has been sounded, somebody has to go in first, and with the shock of the recession still recent and economic reports which seem to conflict each other weekly (but seem to point to a long, slow recovery with a significant possibility of a 'double dip' recession) employers are skittish to be the first ones in, spend a lot of money to expand, train and hire people and then get their heads cut off if there is a double dip. In fact, as far as there has been any growth in the economy a lot of businesses have figured out how to expand their businesses without hiring at all via productivity gains. Even in Congress we've seen this happen recently with the announcement of the end of the House page program (with the ability to now just send out a bill that's thousands of pages long instantly to every member of Congress, not to mention email and twitter accounts, there is no longer any need for high school students to walk around the halls of Congress carrying documents and bills with them from office to office.)
What is more, cuts in federal, local and state governments especially (since they are being pinched by the premature end of the stimulus) are undermining even what meager recovery there is in the private sector. This is exemplified by the July jobs report. In July, 117,000 nonfarming jobs were added (farming jobs are excluded from the jobs report because of the large monthly swings caused by different needs in farming.) However, this is a net of 117,000 jobs. Private sector jobs actually rose by 154,000 jobs. But jobs being lost in various levels of government ate up about a quarter of that as governments eliminated 37,000 jobs. In June, the initial report said that private sector employment was up by 53,000 jobs but government cut 39,000 jobs for a net gain of only 18,000 (later revised to upward to a net gain of 46,000 as more data became available.) So far from helping the employment situation, attempts to reduce government in the middle of the recession are actually slowing down the recovery and negating the effect of whatever private sector jobs are being created.
Common sense follows that this is true as well. If a man who has been unemployed in construction finds a job in a retail industry (perhaps for less money but he is at least employed) but his wife loses her job as a teacher due to state budget cuts, then it follows that there has been no net change in employment, and more importantly, no net change in demand for goods or services. This family is a microcosm of the recovery we are seeing: a few people are finding work in the private sector (though almost always in worse jobs with less pay and fewer benefits than the jobs they had before the recession) but because government is now dumping more people into the unemployment pool instead of taking them out, misplaced 'austerity' is actually dragging out and damping down the recovery.
Finally, let's consider the unemployed. If we do not hire them, then they either drop out of the labor market (whether through homelessness or finding someone else to become dependent on) or collect unemployment benefits. While unemployment benefits are generally meager, so were the wages for New Deal jobs. But returning to my wife's grandfather (which is where I will conclude,) his time in the Conservation Corps gave him more than the ability to put food on the table. Being involved in the construction of great works gave him a sense of pride in his accomplishments and self-worth that he had all the way until when I knew him before his death about a decade ago. It also gave him an education; after he returned from World War II he was able to use the skills he gained from the Conservation Corps to make a career as a heavy equipment operator. I'd say the government got a pretty good return on their investment in him of 25 cents per hour.
Can you help me to understand if FDR initiatives like the WPA would help to get America back on it's feet in these times? Congress is focused on only taxes and the budget and I just feel like America needs employment opportunities to turn this economic situation (recession, depression or whatever it is) around.
So let's answer it here. To begin with, let me agree with Republicans at least in principle about something. Republicans insist that to raise taxes in a recession is bad (though if they get their way and cut taxes to spur growth in hard times, they never suggest raising them back again in times of prosperity and surplus, instead advocating more tax cuts to 'give people their excess money back.') Their reasoning is that if you raise taxes then people have less to spend (because it's going to the government) and if we assume that government spending does not grow, there will be less money put into the economy to spend on goods and services, so demand will drop. When demand drops then there is excess supply, which causes prices to drop and the companies that produce things, facing a glut in supply and low prices, will lay people off; then those who are laid off will (even if they get unemployment benefits) get less money and therefore spend less, which will reduce demand some more and keep things cycling downward.
There is a seed of truth to the theory behind this argument, especially if (as just noted) you assume that spending by the government remains constant.
In practice however, keeping taxes at their lowest in decades has not spurred the economy at all, partly because companies (and individuals at this point) are hording money (most large companies have record amounts of cash in the bank) and partly because when they do invest the money they are not paying in taxes to grow their businesses, the lion's share of at least what large corporations have spent is being invested outside the U.S.; I'm not against a good economy in China or India, but I do question a policy by which U.S. taxpayers pay to develop it. In particular, following the passage of the Bush tax cuts in 2001, over 2.5 million jobs were outsourced over the next three years as the beneficiaries of those tax cuts spent them to build factories and call centers in Asia, and then shut down factories and call centers in the United States.
There is another alternative when depending on the private sector to carry the economy isn't working, and that's what we will talk about here. Government spending to take up the slack, as spelled out by the late economist John Maynard Keynes. Remember that the above argument assumed that spending by the government remains constant. But what if it increases? If it does, then Governments (federal, state and local) will hire people and purchase goods and services. An office computer, a car, or a bag of cement will bring in the same profit to the vendor whether it is purchased by a company or by a government agency. Therefore government spending, if it increases the level of demand, has the same effect on the economy as if the same amount of money is spent by private businesses (though government spending also offers the advantage of certainty and budgeting while whether private businesses spend money depends on factors often subject to uncertainty and fluctuation.) Beyond that, if government hires people (as in the Roosevelt New Deal programs) then they get paid a salary. Because they are the same people who otherwise would be unemployed, they get paid a salary in exchange for doing work which must be done (and I promise, if you go to any mayor in America you could be provided with a list of projects that the city or town in question needs to have done, but there is not enough funding to hire the people to do it.) And most of what people earning a working wage earn, they spend at local businesses to maintain their household-- again, no differently than if they were working for a private company.
The Roosevelt era New Deal programs are a great example of precisely this kind of government spending to replace money that was not being put into the economy by private industry. Millions of people who previously were not part of the economy (other than being a drag on it by consuming whatever they could get their hands on but not producing anything because nobody was giving them the opportunity to produce anything) were instead hired and began building all kinds of infrastructure (much of which is in use today.) I still remember walking down a sidewalk in Socorro in the 1980's and seeing stamped in the corner of the cement, "WPA 1936." The New Deal programs did a lot more than just build sidewalks in Socorro, of course. They created great works of infrastructure including hydroelectric dams, highways and flood levees. My wife's grandfather was in the Conservation Corps as a young man and helped build many of the roads and trails into our National Parks. Much of this infrastructure is still in use today, partly because it was well built but also partly because honestly we haven't made the investment to maintain and where necessary replace it. The Minneapolis bridge collapse a couple of years ago should serve as a wakeup call as to what can happen when we let things decay for lack of funding.
More importantly, the Roosevelt programs (many later continued under Truman, Eisenhower and other future Presidents) stopped the deepening of the Great Depression when they were first implemented in 1933 and began the slow climb out of it. Yes, there were those who bemoaned the cost, but let's not forget that Roosevelt listened to them in 1937, cut spending, and got slapped with a return to recession in an economy not yet ready to stand on its own. Luckily he learned his lesson quickly and resolved never to listen to that kind of thinking again. THE MAIN POINT TO MAKE IS THAT INCREASING GOVERNMENT SPENDING INCREASES DEMAND FOR GOODS AND SERVICES, and this increased demand spurs growth in the economy. This is exactly the same argument Republicans make about tax cuts. The only difference of course is that giving the money to poor people generally means that all or most of it will be spent in America, while if it is given to multi-national corporations then you can only hope they spend it in America because most of them haven't in the past.
So what about the Stimulus two years ago? Republicans will tell you that it didn't work, proving that a big government spending program won't rescue us from the recession.
In fact, they are wrong on three counts.
1.The stimulus did work and stopped the slide into another Depression.
2. The stimulus was too small, not too big.
3. The economy can't be rescued instead by cutting government spending to reign in the deficit; attempting to do so actually makes things worse instead of better.
Remember that when Obama took office, the economy was hemhoraging over 600,000 jobs per month and was headed straight down with a rocket. The stimulus clearly did work, beginning the month it was passed, February 2009.
It is hard to see that this worked without the visual, because most of the early turnaround represents jobs which were on track to be lost but which were instead saved. Most of the money went in lump payments to states who then used the money to avoid even deeper cuts to schools, police and other government agencies. In many cases the Governors of those states quietly took the money but did not want to be caught thanking the President for Stimulus money (cautionary tale: see what happened to former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who was run out of the GOP after he did.) But just imagine: Two years ago Arizona implemented a series of deep cuts in order to appease a $3 billion budget deficit. After Jan Brewer got a billion dollars in stimulus money, the hole was only $2 billion. So translate the $1 billion difference into jobs that were saved, and it's quite a few. But to go back and point out now that all those people were preserved in their jobs by the Stimulus bill is largely self-defeating. The GOP won on how to frame that debate. Telling someone that without the Stimulus, "you would probably would have been laid off two years ago" is not likely to get many listeners, even if it's true.
It is also true that one reason why is a self-inflicted wound by the Obama administration. In trying to sell the Stimulus to Congress, an administration official made the now infamous statement that without the Stimulus, unemployment would top out at (a then-bad sounding) 8%. This was a very rosy projection, and clearly wrong. That goes to one of the most infuriating things about the Obama administration, to be honest. He took over during a crisis he didn't even have anything to do with starting and yet almost immediately started trying to talk up the economy (remember 'greenshoots?') I don't know why Presidents think that being a pitchman for the economy is part of their job. It's not. I think people would appreciate a President who would level with them a bit more. If the economy sucks right now, then say the economy sucks, and do it on television. Then, if things start to improve they will believe you when you say so. Roosevelt, in his 'fireside chats,' never claimed that things were getting better unless they were. He did not feel he had to 'sell' his programs-- he did win the election, after all. Had Obama proposed even twice the size of a stimulus he did and called it a 'jobs' program (because that's what it was, and 'stimulus' sounds like one of those Washingtonese words that Republicans could tee off on) then would they have dared to filibuster it back when we were seeing unemployment skyrocket? I don't think the President had to put a number on it at all, but if he did have to try and project where unemployment was headed without a jobs bill, something closer to 20% might have been more realistic.
This goes to the second argument. The stimulus was originally proposed at about $950 billion. Obviously this was part of a political attempt to be able to attempt crossing the 'trillion dollar' barrier. In exchange for this semantic concession we got a bill (which Republicans negotiated down to $797 billion after seizing the initiative within days after the President took office by threatening a Senate filibuster) that (as was pointed out at the time) was inadequate. The size of the Stimulus compared to what was needed to fully prevent a second Great Depression was like trying to haul a load in a trailer that weighs many tons up a hill using a compact car. Underpowered and therefore underperforming. Besides being too small, the Stimulus was loaded with 43% in both individual and corporate tax cuts (all to get the votes of three Republicans.) We know by now that the whole argument that tax cuts boost the economy is faulty; over the past decade we've had massive tax cuts in place, to where Americans are now taxed at the lowest rate in fifty years, so if low taxes produced a good economy then today our economy should be booming. Further, one price of getting the votes of the three GOP Senators who did vote for it, was to take out funding for school construction and repair projects (which is something that is clearly needed a lot more than more tax cuts, but it was taken out to appease Sen. Susan Collins, (R-Maine.) So by last year, it was plain that while the Stimulus had stopped the economic freefall, it was not enough to actually turn the economy all the way around and most economists said we needed a second, larger Stimulus. Though they were correct about the economics of the situation, this was clearly impossible in last year's "Tea Party" driven political environment. In addition to this, the Stimulus was only written to last for two years. The recession may be technically over but government support is still needed and is being withdrawn prematurely. To cite the most obvious example, state and local governments are now having to lay many people off because their tax revenues have not recovered to the level they were before the recession. What recovery they have had has not even been fast enough to compensate for the withdrawl of the stimulus funds. During the Lame Duck session last December, a de facto second stimulus was on the table with the new budget and had reached an agreement, when seven Senate Republicans walked away at the last minute and instead signed off on a much smaller budget package that preserved only 43% of the Stimulus-- you guessed it, the tax cuts.
To address the third point, you have to have blind faith that if the deficit went away that businesses would just open their wallets and start spending money, and further that when they do, they will begin hiring a lot of workers (because anything less than 300,000 per month won't bring the unemployment rate down at a significant rate.) At the same time cutting away at government at a time when we should be spending more to help the economy is a gamble. I'm not the only person who sees the economic policies of austerity and deficit reduction we are focusing on today as parallel to the disaster that similar policies caused in 1937.
Further, there is no evidence that the Federal budget deficit is what's preventing large scale hiring, and in fact it is instead misguided attempts to cut government that are having the opposite effect. What's happening in private industry is a little like a bunch of people standing on the beach after a shark has been spotted nearby. Even if the 'all clear' has been sounded, somebody has to go in first, and with the shock of the recession still recent and economic reports which seem to conflict each other weekly (but seem to point to a long, slow recovery with a significant possibility of a 'double dip' recession) employers are skittish to be the first ones in, spend a lot of money to expand, train and hire people and then get their heads cut off if there is a double dip. In fact, as far as there has been any growth in the economy a lot of businesses have figured out how to expand their businesses without hiring at all via productivity gains. Even in Congress we've seen this happen recently with the announcement of the end of the House page program (with the ability to now just send out a bill that's thousands of pages long instantly to every member of Congress, not to mention email and twitter accounts, there is no longer any need for high school students to walk around the halls of Congress carrying documents and bills with them from office to office.)
What is more, cuts in federal, local and state governments especially (since they are being pinched by the premature end of the stimulus) are undermining even what meager recovery there is in the private sector. This is exemplified by the July jobs report. In July, 117,000 nonfarming jobs were added (farming jobs are excluded from the jobs report because of the large monthly swings caused by different needs in farming.) However, this is a net of 117,000 jobs. Private sector jobs actually rose by 154,000 jobs. But jobs being lost in various levels of government ate up about a quarter of that as governments eliminated 37,000 jobs. In June, the initial report said that private sector employment was up by 53,000 jobs but government cut 39,000 jobs for a net gain of only 18,000 (later revised to upward to a net gain of 46,000 as more data became available.) So far from helping the employment situation, attempts to reduce government in the middle of the recession are actually slowing down the recovery and negating the effect of whatever private sector jobs are being created.
Common sense follows that this is true as well. If a man who has been unemployed in construction finds a job in a retail industry (perhaps for less money but he is at least employed) but his wife loses her job as a teacher due to state budget cuts, then it follows that there has been no net change in employment, and more importantly, no net change in demand for goods or services. This family is a microcosm of the recovery we are seeing: a few people are finding work in the private sector (though almost always in worse jobs with less pay and fewer benefits than the jobs they had before the recession) but because government is now dumping more people into the unemployment pool instead of taking them out, misplaced 'austerity' is actually dragging out and damping down the recovery.
Finally, let's consider the unemployed. If we do not hire them, then they either drop out of the labor market (whether through homelessness or finding someone else to become dependent on) or collect unemployment benefits. While unemployment benefits are generally meager, so were the wages for New Deal jobs. But returning to my wife's grandfather (which is where I will conclude,) his time in the Conservation Corps gave him more than the ability to put food on the table. Being involved in the construction of great works gave him a sense of pride in his accomplishments and self-worth that he had all the way until when I knew him before his death about a decade ago. It also gave him an education; after he returned from World War II he was able to use the skills he gained from the Conservation Corps to make a career as a heavy equipment operator. I'd say the government got a pretty good return on their investment in him of 25 cents per hour.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Why a default really could bankrupt Social Security
Until a few days ago I was with those who questioned why a default would affect Social Security, since Social Security has a dedicated tax. However it will, and could even end Social Security.
To understand why, go back to the 2000 election, and also to a disastrous decision made during last December's lame duck session. Social Security is supposed to have a dedicated source of revenue, the Social Security payroll tax that is taken out every time we get a paycheck (plus an equal amount that our employer contributes that we don't even see.) Al Gore, concerned about federal agencies borrowing from the Social Security trust fund (supposedly a record of everything that was borrowed is kept in a file cabinet in the H.J. Hintgen Building in Parkersburg, West Virginia near the banks of the Ohio river) proposed to put Social Security in a 'lockbox' and prohibit Congress or any federal agency from raiding the Social Security trust fund. Of course we know what happened in 2000, and along with the end of the Gore candidacy went the idea of a 'lockbox.' Borrowing from the fund has only accelerated rapidly since then, so that most (by some estimates virtually all) of the money that is supposed to be in it has been replaced with I.O.U.'s now kept in the Hintgen Building. Then last December, as part of the 'compromise' budget proposal, payroll taxes were cut by about a third. This immediately unbalanced the Social Security account in that revenues coming in were much less than what was going out. Of course there is always that trust fund, right?
Well not if we default. If we default then there is one debt the government can wipe off the books and not pay back without suffering the adverse affects of a default on the value of the dollar in the international currency market. That debt is to toss the file cabinet out the window of the Hintgen Building and into the river, because according to bankers in New York or Switzerland or Hong Kong, that would be an internal U.S. government debt.
Don't kid yourself. This could happen, and it is not that far from happening.
To understand why, go back to the 2000 election, and also to a disastrous decision made during last December's lame duck session. Social Security is supposed to have a dedicated source of revenue, the Social Security payroll tax that is taken out every time we get a paycheck (plus an equal amount that our employer contributes that we don't even see.) Al Gore, concerned about federal agencies borrowing from the Social Security trust fund (supposedly a record of everything that was borrowed is kept in a file cabinet in the H.J. Hintgen Building in Parkersburg, West Virginia near the banks of the Ohio river) proposed to put Social Security in a 'lockbox' and prohibit Congress or any federal agency from raiding the Social Security trust fund. Of course we know what happened in 2000, and along with the end of the Gore candidacy went the idea of a 'lockbox.' Borrowing from the fund has only accelerated rapidly since then, so that most (by some estimates virtually all) of the money that is supposed to be in it has been replaced with I.O.U.'s now kept in the Hintgen Building. Then last December, as part of the 'compromise' budget proposal, payroll taxes were cut by about a third. This immediately unbalanced the Social Security account in that revenues coming in were much less than what was going out. Of course there is always that trust fund, right?
Well not if we default. If we default then there is one debt the government can wipe off the books and not pay back without suffering the adverse affects of a default on the value of the dollar in the international currency market. That debt is to toss the file cabinet out the window of the Hintgen Building and into the river, because according to bankers in New York or Switzerland or Hong Kong, that would be an internal U.S. government debt.
Don't kid yourself. This could happen, and it is not that far from happening.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Domestic Violence Resolution
This won’t be a routine state party meeting this Saturday in Tucson.
We will be considering the following resolution, which is derived after negotiations with the state party to get it onto the agenda from a resolution a number of us came together to craft:
WHEREAS, over 25% of women in the United States have been or will be a victim of domestic violence in her lifetime,
WHEREAS, according to the domestic Violence Resource Center, estimates range from 600,000 to 6 million women are physically abused by husbands or boyfriends every year, with the vast majority of instances unreported because of fear,
WHEREAS, more than 3 women are killed every day in the United States during episodes of domestic violence,
WHEREAS, domestic violence is too serious an issue with which to play partisan politics or selectively ignore according to partisan allegiance,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Arizona State Democratic Committee vehemently condemns all acts of domestic violence by anyone, regardless of political party.
The original resolution named names. This somewhat watered down version is the result of negotiations involving state party chair Andrei Cherney, but to his credit he is now allowing this to go forward. A bit of background may help flesh this out.
A Republican, Senator Scott Bundgaard, has been in the news quite a lot lately after an incident on a Phoenix roadway in which, according a police report, he beat up his girlfriend, Aubrey Ballard. Bundgaard has been condemned by the state Democratic party and many others for this action, which he rightly should be.
A Democrat, Representative Daniel Patterson, has not been condemned because he's been flying under the radar, so to speak, and like most in the state I had no clue about this until last month. Personally, I've always liked Representative Patterson and used to read his blog. He's been a great vote on everything from the evironment to protecting schools and I believe he is a genuine progressive. I met him once-- two months ago in Phoenix when he made a great speech outside the legislature during a protest on behalf of public employees. None of that prepared me for what I ran across on the Three Sonorans blog on March 9, a blog post including pictures of several police reports that have been filed against Representative Patterson, including one this past December involving a domestic violence episode involving his (now ex) wife, Jeneiene Schaffer. Most troubling in the Three Sonorans article was the allegation that state and Pima county party officials as well as leaders in the legislature have known about Representative Patterson's behavior including at least two incidents of violence involving his wife for sometime and chose to kick it under the rug and deter any serious inquiry about it.
I don't believe in giving someone a mulligan because they are a good vote on the environment. It is always wrong for a man to use force or threaten to use force against a woman, but also believing in fairness I decided the best course to take would be to ask Representative Patterson about it. So, I went to his facebook page and he had, as luck (or maybe pre-emptiveness, who can know?) would have it, he put up a post that day regarding his co-sponsorship of a domestic violence resolution.
That facebook page is here:
Daniel Patterson's March 9 facebook post on domestic violence.
I am here cutting and pasting the transcription of that conversation including his response:
Daniel's Profile • Daniel's Wall
•
Daniel R. Patterson
My bipartisan work against domestic violence in #Arizona http://bit.ly/eUZvU5 #Tucson
March 9 at 9:26am via TweetDeck •LikeUnlike •
o
Eli Blake I'm sure you'll erase this comment but I am very disappointed in what I read online a moment ago from the three Sonorans.
March 9 at 9:59pm • LikeUnlike
Daniel R. Patterson So am I. It is not true.
March 10 at 9:37am • LikeUnlike
I wish I could save a screenshot but unfortunately this computer won't allow me to do that.
Representative Patterson did not erase my comment, and he denied that this was true. Fair enough. Anyone can write anything on a blog after all, and it is necessary for those of us who are bloggers to police ourselves. Some bloggers do a better job than others of making sure that everything they write is factually correct. And even if it is, blogs by definition reflect one person's view of the world and don't try to keep things balanced. So if all that came out about this was the Three Sonorans piece I'd have to give Representative Patterson the benefit of the doubt.
However, that wasn't all there was of this. First, the police reports photographed in the article, do in fact, exist. I verified this with some folks down there. Then it turned out that there was an article about his penchant for violence two years ago in the Tucson paper. Then another newspaper, the Arizona Guardian published a story on Daniel Patterson. Most importantly, the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence called on Representative Patterson as well as Senator Bundgaard to resign from the legislature. I trust the ACADV and know they would not make a call like that without having good facts to back it up.
Turned out that I wasn't the only person thoroughly disgusted with both Rep. Patterson and with the state party's calls for Sen. Bundgaard to step down while knowing full well that we had exactly the same dirty laundry to take care of in our own house. To create a double standard here is to turn domestic violence into a political football that it is too much of an important issue to be turned into.
Several of us, including primarily myself, Diane D'Angelo, Pat Fleming and Judy Nagle began to coalesce around the basic premise that this needs to be brought out into the open so that the rank and file in our party (not to mention voters) at least know about it, and that we feel that some of the leadership in the state and Pima county party should not be supporting, much less covering up for, a man who has been accused of beating his wife. True that he has not been charged for that but at the same time his contention that the police reports are false (all of them?) just doesn't hold water. Yes, you can certainly find anyone who lives in a black or latino neighborhood who could probably relate to you a story about someone they know who was written up falsely by the police, but this involved several different officers over several years and rep. Patterson sounds less than convincing when he contends that the police reports are false.
Let me add here, that it is no secret that Representative Patterson has been dating his campaign manager for at least the past year. I don't care about someone's affair or their messy divorce (that's between them and their spouse) but I DO care about one other issue that came up out of all this: Representative Patterson has not been paying his child support. He did make a March payment after all of this came up but he's still two months in arrears. It would be one thing if he was unable to make child support payments (I've known some men who actually were unable to because of loss of income or illness) but he has been employed the whole time, and has chosen to deny payments both to his wife and for the raising of their daughter. That's not specifically what this resolution is about but it is a real and ongoing concern.
As I said, there are quite a few of us who came together to push this forward. Former Representative Fleming has agreed to read the proposed resolution on the floor. The plan is for others who feel that domestic violence is wrong regardless of who is doing it, to stand behind her while she is reading it. I for one will do so proudly. The Democratic Party has always been the party of the powerless against the oppressor, and it is worth remembering that oppression can happen just as much in a home or an apartment as it can happen in a society or in a workplace.
We will be considering the following resolution, which is derived after negotiations with the state party to get it onto the agenda from a resolution a number of us came together to craft:
WHEREAS, over 25% of women in the United States have been or will be a victim of domestic violence in her lifetime,
WHEREAS, according to the domestic Violence Resource Center, estimates range from 600,000 to 6 million women are physically abused by husbands or boyfriends every year, with the vast majority of instances unreported because of fear,
WHEREAS, more than 3 women are killed every day in the United States during episodes of domestic violence,
WHEREAS, domestic violence is too serious an issue with which to play partisan politics or selectively ignore according to partisan allegiance,
BE IT RESOLVED that the Arizona State Democratic Committee vehemently condemns all acts of domestic violence by anyone, regardless of political party.
The original resolution named names. This somewhat watered down version is the result of negotiations involving state party chair Andrei Cherney, but to his credit he is now allowing this to go forward. A bit of background may help flesh this out.
A Republican, Senator Scott Bundgaard, has been in the news quite a lot lately after an incident on a Phoenix roadway in which, according a police report, he beat up his girlfriend, Aubrey Ballard. Bundgaard has been condemned by the state Democratic party and many others for this action, which he rightly should be.
A Democrat, Representative Daniel Patterson, has not been condemned because he's been flying under the radar, so to speak, and like most in the state I had no clue about this until last month. Personally, I've always liked Representative Patterson and used to read his blog. He's been a great vote on everything from the evironment to protecting schools and I believe he is a genuine progressive. I met him once-- two months ago in Phoenix when he made a great speech outside the legislature during a protest on behalf of public employees. None of that prepared me for what I ran across on the Three Sonorans blog on March 9, a blog post including pictures of several police reports that have been filed against Representative Patterson, including one this past December involving a domestic violence episode involving his (now ex) wife, Jeneiene Schaffer. Most troubling in the Three Sonorans article was the allegation that state and Pima county party officials as well as leaders in the legislature have known about Representative Patterson's behavior including at least two incidents of violence involving his wife for sometime and chose to kick it under the rug and deter any serious inquiry about it.
I don't believe in giving someone a mulligan because they are a good vote on the environment. It is always wrong for a man to use force or threaten to use force against a woman, but also believing in fairness I decided the best course to take would be to ask Representative Patterson about it. So, I went to his facebook page and he had, as luck (or maybe pre-emptiveness, who can know?) would have it, he put up a post that day regarding his co-sponsorship of a domestic violence resolution.
That facebook page is here:
Daniel Patterson's March 9 facebook post on domestic violence.
I am here cutting and pasting the transcription of that conversation including his response:
Daniel's Profile • Daniel's Wall
•
Daniel R. Patterson
My bipartisan work against domestic violence in #Arizona http://bit.ly/eUZvU5 #Tucson
March 9 at 9:26am via TweetDeck •LikeUnlike •
o
Eli Blake I'm sure you'll erase this comment but I am very disappointed in what I read online a moment ago from the three Sonorans.
March 9 at 9:59pm • LikeUnlike
Daniel R. Patterson So am I. It is not true.
March 10 at 9:37am • LikeUnlike
I wish I could save a screenshot but unfortunately this computer won't allow me to do that.
Representative Patterson did not erase my comment, and he denied that this was true. Fair enough. Anyone can write anything on a blog after all, and it is necessary for those of us who are bloggers to police ourselves. Some bloggers do a better job than others of making sure that everything they write is factually correct. And even if it is, blogs by definition reflect one person's view of the world and don't try to keep things balanced. So if all that came out about this was the Three Sonorans piece I'd have to give Representative Patterson the benefit of the doubt.
However, that wasn't all there was of this. First, the police reports photographed in the article, do in fact, exist. I verified this with some folks down there. Then it turned out that there was an article about his penchant for violence two years ago in the Tucson paper. Then another newspaper, the Arizona Guardian published a story on Daniel Patterson. Most importantly, the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence called on Representative Patterson as well as Senator Bundgaard to resign from the legislature. I trust the ACADV and know they would not make a call like that without having good facts to back it up.
Turned out that I wasn't the only person thoroughly disgusted with both Rep. Patterson and with the state party's calls for Sen. Bundgaard to step down while knowing full well that we had exactly the same dirty laundry to take care of in our own house. To create a double standard here is to turn domestic violence into a political football that it is too much of an important issue to be turned into.
Several of us, including primarily myself, Diane D'Angelo, Pat Fleming and Judy Nagle began to coalesce around the basic premise that this needs to be brought out into the open so that the rank and file in our party (not to mention voters) at least know about it, and that we feel that some of the leadership in the state and Pima county party should not be supporting, much less covering up for, a man who has been accused of beating his wife. True that he has not been charged for that but at the same time his contention that the police reports are false (all of them?) just doesn't hold water. Yes, you can certainly find anyone who lives in a black or latino neighborhood who could probably relate to you a story about someone they know who was written up falsely by the police, but this involved several different officers over several years and rep. Patterson sounds less than convincing when he contends that the police reports are false.
Let me add here, that it is no secret that Representative Patterson has been dating his campaign manager for at least the past year. I don't care about someone's affair or their messy divorce (that's between them and their spouse) but I DO care about one other issue that came up out of all this: Representative Patterson has not been paying his child support. He did make a March payment after all of this came up but he's still two months in arrears. It would be one thing if he was unable to make child support payments (I've known some men who actually were unable to because of loss of income or illness) but he has been employed the whole time, and has chosen to deny payments both to his wife and for the raising of their daughter. That's not specifically what this resolution is about but it is a real and ongoing concern.
As I said, there are quite a few of us who came together to push this forward. Former Representative Fleming has agreed to read the proposed resolution on the floor. The plan is for others who feel that domestic violence is wrong regardless of who is doing it, to stand behind her while she is reading it. I for one will do so proudly. The Democratic Party has always been the party of the powerless against the oppressor, and it is worth remembering that oppression can happen just as much in a home or an apartment as it can happen in a society or in a workplace.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
2010 Arizona Census data up
The U.S. Census bureau has released its count for Arizona.
Navajo County's population of over 107,000 is up 10.2 % from last census but is more than 5,000 less than a 2009 estimate of what it should be. Overall, Arizona is the only state in the country to be more than 2% below what the statisticians estimated in 2009 that the 2010 population would be. Wonder of SB 1070 had anything to do with that?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Rodney vs. Andrei: a comparison of priorities
I wrote a post last month, shortly after Rodney Glassman had announced his candidacy for AZDP chair, on why I was supporting him.
Since then, Andrei Cherny, who ran last year for state treasurer, has announced he is running.
Unlike some, I don't have a reason to throw spitwads because I believe that we have two qualified candidates either of whom could do the job if elected. However, I believe that Glassman is clearly still the superior choice. To understand why, do a side by side comparison.
1. Glassman, as was noted when I wrote my original blog post, campaigned in all parts of the state. Cherny (and I referred to this then but didn't name him because his candidacy was not yet official) waited until Sunday before the Tuesday election to begin a tour of rural counties. As a rural Arizonan I have often seen our candidates, who we work very hard to recruit, left high and dry by the state party apparatus. Rodney has demonstrated his commitment to work hard in rural Arizona (even going out of his way to collect signatures to qualify for the ballot in all fifteen counties when by law he only needed enough in three) while Andrei, just based on last year's election, has not yet shown a similar commitment (as an example, we didn't even get Andrei's signs to put up in Navajo County until early October, and then we got very few of them.)
2. Rodney Glassman has committed to continuing to use the resources of the state party to help pay for our outreach on the Navajo and Hopi reservations and in fact expand the model to provide outreach on all the other reservations around the state. Native Americans vote 90% for Democrats when they turn out, about the same as African-Americans, but their turnout rates have been very low historically. This commitment on the part of Glassman is one reason why the person presently holding the highest elected position of any Native American elected official in the state, Senator Jack Jackson, has come out and stood squarely behind Rodney. I've known Jack for a long time and I know that he understands the challenges that Democrats face in campaigning in native American communities so his endorsement of Rodney means a lot.
3. Rodney, in keeping with his belief that we can be competitive anywhere in the state, announced early on a thirty district strategy, in which the party would set a goal to field a full slate of 90 legislative candidates in all thirty districts and then provide resources to help them. I mentioned this in my original blog post. Andrei Cherny, when he announced his candidacy two weeks later, had exactly the same plan. It may be that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but let's be clear here-- this was Rodney's plan and he deserves the credit for it. I'm glad that Andrei jumped on board with it, because it's a good plan.
4. Likely the most controversial topic-- the rules debate. Rodney Glassman, who has been elected to and has held office as a city counselor and Vice Mayor in Tucson (so he certainly as an understanding of what it takes to win an election,) has never let his commitment to serve as an elected precinct committeeman lapse. As many know, the rules state that only an elected P.C. can run for party offices. There may be an attempt made on the floor to amend this to allow an appointed PC (which Andrei is) to run. In fact, and I've been very clear on this with Rodney and he understands and respects my position-- I might even support such a rule change because I believe that giving people a choice is in the best interest of democracy and our tradition of free elections. However, let's be clear about this: the reason there even is a debate is because Rodney Glassman is the candidate who made the commitment last year to serve as a precinct committeeman, while Andrei Cherny did not (and there is no reason to believe that he would have, had he won his election.) The non-glamorous grunt work of a precinct committeemember-- we all know what it is-- the phone banking, the door knocking, the pole pounding, the table staffing, the signature gathering-- is something that Rodney Glassman signed up to do (whether he had beaten John McCain or not.) Personally, I'd prefer a state party chair who understands the view from the bottom and isn't afraid of digging in himself and wearing off a little shoe leather. Whether you believe the by-laws are a defining issue or not, the fact that Cherny had to be appointed as a PC just in order to run while Glassman took the trouble and showed the commitment to be one last year when it was time to get on the ballot for PC, is certainly another good reason to support him.
As I said earlier, I don't believe that either candidate is a bad candidate, but I believe that Rodney Glassman is clearly the better candidate.
Since then, Andrei Cherny, who ran last year for state treasurer, has announced he is running.
Unlike some, I don't have a reason to throw spitwads because I believe that we have two qualified candidates either of whom could do the job if elected. However, I believe that Glassman is clearly still the superior choice. To understand why, do a side by side comparison.
1. Glassman, as was noted when I wrote my original blog post, campaigned in all parts of the state. Cherny (and I referred to this then but didn't name him because his candidacy was not yet official) waited until Sunday before the Tuesday election to begin a tour of rural counties. As a rural Arizonan I have often seen our candidates, who we work very hard to recruit, left high and dry by the state party apparatus. Rodney has demonstrated his commitment to work hard in rural Arizona (even going out of his way to collect signatures to qualify for the ballot in all fifteen counties when by law he only needed enough in three) while Andrei, just based on last year's election, has not yet shown a similar commitment (as an example, we didn't even get Andrei's signs to put up in Navajo County until early October, and then we got very few of them.)
2. Rodney Glassman has committed to continuing to use the resources of the state party to help pay for our outreach on the Navajo and Hopi reservations and in fact expand the model to provide outreach on all the other reservations around the state. Native Americans vote 90% for Democrats when they turn out, about the same as African-Americans, but their turnout rates have been very low historically. This commitment on the part of Glassman is one reason why the person presently holding the highest elected position of any Native American elected official in the state, Senator Jack Jackson, has come out and stood squarely behind Rodney. I've known Jack for a long time and I know that he understands the challenges that Democrats face in campaigning in native American communities so his endorsement of Rodney means a lot.
3. Rodney, in keeping with his belief that we can be competitive anywhere in the state, announced early on a thirty district strategy, in which the party would set a goal to field a full slate of 90 legislative candidates in all thirty districts and then provide resources to help them. I mentioned this in my original blog post. Andrei Cherny, when he announced his candidacy two weeks later, had exactly the same plan. It may be that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but let's be clear here-- this was Rodney's plan and he deserves the credit for it. I'm glad that Andrei jumped on board with it, because it's a good plan.
4. Likely the most controversial topic-- the rules debate. Rodney Glassman, who has been elected to and has held office as a city counselor and Vice Mayor in Tucson (so he certainly as an understanding of what it takes to win an election,) has never let his commitment to serve as an elected precinct committeeman lapse. As many know, the rules state that only an elected P.C. can run for party offices. There may be an attempt made on the floor to amend this to allow an appointed PC (which Andrei is) to run. In fact, and I've been very clear on this with Rodney and he understands and respects my position-- I might even support such a rule change because I believe that giving people a choice is in the best interest of democracy and our tradition of free elections. However, let's be clear about this: the reason there even is a debate is because Rodney Glassman is the candidate who made the commitment last year to serve as a precinct committeeman, while Andrei Cherny did not (and there is no reason to believe that he would have, had he won his election.) The non-glamorous grunt work of a precinct committeemember-- we all know what it is-- the phone banking, the door knocking, the pole pounding, the table staffing, the signature gathering-- is something that Rodney Glassman signed up to do (whether he had beaten John McCain or not.) Personally, I'd prefer a state party chair who understands the view from the bottom and isn't afraid of digging in himself and wearing off a little shoe leather. Whether you believe the by-laws are a defining issue or not, the fact that Cherny had to be appointed as a PC just in order to run while Glassman took the trouble and showed the commitment to be one last year when it was time to get on the ballot for PC, is certainly another good reason to support him.
As I said earlier, I don't believe that either candidate is a bad candidate, but I believe that Rodney Glassman is clearly the better candidate.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Predictions for 2011
New Year's predictions for 2011:
January: While the Republicans are reading the Constitution on the floor of the House, Nancy Pelosi will surreptitiously insert the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into their document and they will read through it without noticing.
February: The House will pass a bill to repeal health care reform. Except of course for theirs. To make sure that 'Tea Party' freshman Andy "I'm in it for Meeee!" Harris (R-MD) is happy an amendment will be included to guarantee that members of Congress never even have to go a day without their government paid health care plan.
March: Congress will take a vote on raising the debt ceiling. They will agree only when it is pointed out how much of the debt is due to corporate welfare being paid to banks, pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, defense contractors and other big campaign contributors. We'll learn that the fastest way to quiet down a 'Tea Party Republican' is when the corporate fat cats that gave hundreds of millions to American Crossroads to get them elected this year give them a call to remind them, 'you're working for us. We bought you, remember?' As a concession to those who actually thought they would vote against raising the ceiling, John Boehner will agree to cry for five minutes.
April: Russell Pearce will get the legislature to pass a bill requiring that schools and other public buildings include a loaded handgun in an emergency case next to every fire extinguisher. Needless to say, no funds will be provided to pay for this ('us pay for it after making you do it? You've got to be joking!!')
May: Sarah Palin will say she still hasn't decided about whether to run for President and the press will write about nothing else for a month. Later on she will announce she is running, but then once all her supporters have sent her money she will abruptly quit.
June: LeBron James and the Heat will fall flat in the NBA playoffs and set up another Celtics-Lakers NBA final. Sorry folks. In the NBA, the Celtics are the kings, the Lakers are the dukes and everybody else is just another basketball team. If LeBron wanted to beat Kobe for a title he should have signed with Boston.
July: Democrats will prevail in the Congressional softball game after 'tea party' Republicans force three 'establishment' players, including the first baseman, off the team for being left-handed. They will replace them with true righties.
August: Hundreds of birthers will fly to Kenya to celebrate President Obama's fiftieth birthday. Local residents will take their passports and supply them with Kenyan credentials, and when they come back Joe Arpaio will accidentally arrest them for being 'illegal' and send them to Durango Prison. After several days of inhuman conditions they will be put on a bus for Nogales, where they will immediately be kidnapped by the zetas and held for ransom. The mistake will eventually be discovered and the U.S. state department will send Bill Richardson on a mission to the zetas to negotiate their release but it will be educational for them to find out what life is like for immigrants in Arizona without proper documentation.
September: A major hurricane will hit New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie will ask the White House to delay issuing a disaster declaration until he finishes his Caribbean Cruise vacation. Newark will be the only city in the state where people get debris cleared out of the roadway because Mayor Booker will be out there operating a backhoe himself.
October: By this point in the year, the Tea Party will have tried to push through so much bad legislation that three cornered hats with powdered wigs and buckle shoes will be big for Halloween.
November: Russell Pearce will announce that he wants all turkeys being shipped into the state opened and inspected to make sure nobody is smuggling an anchor baby inside.
December: State workers will be called into emergency duty at the state capitol on Christmas Day, after it is discovered that Santa stopped directly over the building and dumped several tons of coal on it.
January: While the Republicans are reading the Constitution on the floor of the House, Nancy Pelosi will surreptitiously insert the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into their document and they will read through it without noticing.
February: The House will pass a bill to repeal health care reform. Except of course for theirs. To make sure that 'Tea Party' freshman Andy "I'm in it for Meeee!" Harris (R-MD) is happy an amendment will be included to guarantee that members of Congress never even have to go a day without their government paid health care plan.
March: Congress will take a vote on raising the debt ceiling. They will agree only when it is pointed out how much of the debt is due to corporate welfare being paid to banks, pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, defense contractors and other big campaign contributors. We'll learn that the fastest way to quiet down a 'Tea Party Republican' is when the corporate fat cats that gave hundreds of millions to American Crossroads to get them elected this year give them a call to remind them, 'you're working for us. We bought you, remember?' As a concession to those who actually thought they would vote against raising the ceiling, John Boehner will agree to cry for five minutes.
April: Russell Pearce will get the legislature to pass a bill requiring that schools and other public buildings include a loaded handgun in an emergency case next to every fire extinguisher. Needless to say, no funds will be provided to pay for this ('us pay for it after making you do it? You've got to be joking!!')
May: Sarah Palin will say she still hasn't decided about whether to run for President and the press will write about nothing else for a month. Later on she will announce she is running, but then once all her supporters have sent her money she will abruptly quit.
June: LeBron James and the Heat will fall flat in the NBA playoffs and set up another Celtics-Lakers NBA final. Sorry folks. In the NBA, the Celtics are the kings, the Lakers are the dukes and everybody else is just another basketball team. If LeBron wanted to beat Kobe for a title he should have signed with Boston.
July: Democrats will prevail in the Congressional softball game after 'tea party' Republicans force three 'establishment' players, including the first baseman, off the team for being left-handed. They will replace them with true righties.
August: Hundreds of birthers will fly to Kenya to celebrate President Obama's fiftieth birthday. Local residents will take their passports and supply them with Kenyan credentials, and when they come back Joe Arpaio will accidentally arrest them for being 'illegal' and send them to Durango Prison. After several days of inhuman conditions they will be put on a bus for Nogales, where they will immediately be kidnapped by the zetas and held for ransom. The mistake will eventually be discovered and the U.S. state department will send Bill Richardson on a mission to the zetas to negotiate their release but it will be educational for them to find out what life is like for immigrants in Arizona without proper documentation.
September: A major hurricane will hit New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie will ask the White House to delay issuing a disaster declaration until he finishes his Caribbean Cruise vacation. Newark will be the only city in the state where people get debris cleared out of the roadway because Mayor Booker will be out there operating a backhoe himself.
October: By this point in the year, the Tea Party will have tried to push through so much bad legislation that three cornered hats with powdered wigs and buckle shoes will be big for Halloween.
November: Russell Pearce will announce that he wants all turkeys being shipped into the state opened and inspected to make sure nobody is smuggling an anchor baby inside.
December: State workers will be called into emergency duty at the state capitol on Christmas Day, after it is discovered that Santa stopped directly over the building and dumped several tons of coal on it.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Why I support Rodney Glassman as Arizona Democratic Party Chair
Last week, Rodney Glassman, who some of you may know ran for the U.S. Senate against John McCain earlier this year, contacted me to ask if I would support him for chair of the state party. I called back and asked him some questions that I had, and I am convinced that he is the right man for the job.
The first reason I and many others are supporting him is that he has promised (once the redistricting commission has done their work) to develop a 30 district strategy that will aim to 1) put Democrats on the ballot for all ninety legislative seats, and 2) run a competitive race for each of them. I believe this can be done. It is certainly true that we should get a better legislative map than the 2000 map (it would be hard to get one that was worse than what was, let's face it, a Republican gerrymander even though drawn by an ostensibly non-partisan commission.) However, even in Republican districts, Democrats can win if we can match winning candidates with a winning message. As proof consider that former Governor Janet Napolitano, besides winning very heavily among Democratic and Independent voters, in 2006 also got a third of the votes of registered Republicans. So if we assume from this that a third of registered Republicans are at least willing to consider voting for a Democrat, Glassman's 30-district strategy seems very reasonable. In 2012, especially after two years of Pearce-Brewer budgets it's hard to imagine that voters won't be at least willing to listen to what we have to say.
That's the second reason I support Rodney Glassman. He wants to craft a message that matches the main concerns that people here have: the economy, education and jobs. Many people are feeling economically insecure and see their bills rising higher and higher while their economic prospects diminish and they worry about layoffs and unemployment. Republicans have always diverted attention from this by finding a convenient scapegoat, be it Washington or Latino immigrants or unions or any number of other distractions. The failure of Arizona Democrats to answer with a cogent, consistent economic message has often meant that these distractions are successful by default.
Rodney Glassman not only believes that we can do this, but he is willing to approach it with the same optimism that spurred him to run against the 2008 Republican nominee for President of the United States and still get more votes and raise more money against John McCain in Arizona than any Democrat ever has.
The third reason why I support Rodney Glassman is that he is committed to the whole state, especially rural counties. He told me that the success we in Navajo County had on the reservation through the help of the state party hiring a Native American Outreach coordinator based in Navajo County while we provided the infrastructure is a model for what we should do on all reservations and he's willing to commit to making it happen through his leadership of the state party. Turnout is always poor on the reservations (for example it was ony about 10% on the White Mountain Apache reservation) but the Navajo reservation was one of the few reservations where turnout numbers were reasonable. When Arizona native Americans vote they vote 90% for Democrats so building and expanding this outreach is crucial for reaching Native American voters. Further, as a party vice chair from a rural county I have been impressed with his outreach to every part of the state. Rodney Glassman made sure, even though by state law he only had to collect sufficient signatures in three counties to qualify for the ballot in his Senate race, that he collected them from all fifteen counties. And in stark contrast to his likely opponent who famously visited every county in the state during a 48 hour blitz on Sunday and Monday right before the election, Rodney Glassman visited around the state during the actual campaign and made it clear that winning votes in outstate Arizona is a priority for him.
Finally, Rodney told me when I talked to him that he plans to serve as state party chair full time if he is elected. In the past our state chairs have not done that, splitting their time with their job. For example, Don Bivens still practices law and recently served as a member of the board of the American Bar Association. Certainly a worthy thing to do, but it meant that he was unable to serve as party chair full time. Rodney is able to do so, between the fact that he does have the personal resources and his wife is working full time. In so doing, I believe he will supply the energy and organization that can only be provided by a full time chair. It also means that he will be available 100% of the time. If you call or contact Rodney he will take your call or listen to your message and get back to you. A party chair must be accessible and he will do that.
The Arizona Democratic party certainly has a wide range of intelligent, capable people. We have a unique opportunity ot make gains in 2012 when many incumbent legislators will be running in new districts. I believe that Rodney Glassman is the man who can turn these opportunities into reality.
Or, as James Carville once put it in a book that laid out a Democratic strategy for winning the country back during the Bush years, "I'm sick of losing." So is Rodney.
The first reason I and many others are supporting him is that he has promised (once the redistricting commission has done their work) to develop a 30 district strategy that will aim to 1) put Democrats on the ballot for all ninety legislative seats, and 2) run a competitive race for each of them. I believe this can be done. It is certainly true that we should get a better legislative map than the 2000 map (it would be hard to get one that was worse than what was, let's face it, a Republican gerrymander even though drawn by an ostensibly non-partisan commission.) However, even in Republican districts, Democrats can win if we can match winning candidates with a winning message. As proof consider that former Governor Janet Napolitano, besides winning very heavily among Democratic and Independent voters, in 2006 also got a third of the votes of registered Republicans. So if we assume from this that a third of registered Republicans are at least willing to consider voting for a Democrat, Glassman's 30-district strategy seems very reasonable. In 2012, especially after two years of Pearce-Brewer budgets it's hard to imagine that voters won't be at least willing to listen to what we have to say.
That's the second reason I support Rodney Glassman. He wants to craft a message that matches the main concerns that people here have: the economy, education and jobs. Many people are feeling economically insecure and see their bills rising higher and higher while their economic prospects diminish and they worry about layoffs and unemployment. Republicans have always diverted attention from this by finding a convenient scapegoat, be it Washington or Latino immigrants or unions or any number of other distractions. The failure of Arizona Democrats to answer with a cogent, consistent economic message has often meant that these distractions are successful by default.
Rodney Glassman not only believes that we can do this, but he is willing to approach it with the same optimism that spurred him to run against the 2008 Republican nominee for President of the United States and still get more votes and raise more money against John McCain in Arizona than any Democrat ever has.
The third reason why I support Rodney Glassman is that he is committed to the whole state, especially rural counties. He told me that the success we in Navajo County had on the reservation through the help of the state party hiring a Native American Outreach coordinator based in Navajo County while we provided the infrastructure is a model for what we should do on all reservations and he's willing to commit to making it happen through his leadership of the state party. Turnout is always poor on the reservations (for example it was ony about 10% on the White Mountain Apache reservation) but the Navajo reservation was one of the few reservations where turnout numbers were reasonable. When Arizona native Americans vote they vote 90% for Democrats so building and expanding this outreach is crucial for reaching Native American voters. Further, as a party vice chair from a rural county I have been impressed with his outreach to every part of the state. Rodney Glassman made sure, even though by state law he only had to collect sufficient signatures in three counties to qualify for the ballot in his Senate race, that he collected them from all fifteen counties. And in stark contrast to his likely opponent who famously visited every county in the state during a 48 hour blitz on Sunday and Monday right before the election, Rodney Glassman visited around the state during the actual campaign and made it clear that winning votes in outstate Arizona is a priority for him.
Finally, Rodney told me when I talked to him that he plans to serve as state party chair full time if he is elected. In the past our state chairs have not done that, splitting their time with their job. For example, Don Bivens still practices law and recently served as a member of the board of the American Bar Association. Certainly a worthy thing to do, but it meant that he was unable to serve as party chair full time. Rodney is able to do so, between the fact that he does have the personal resources and his wife is working full time. In so doing, I believe he will supply the energy and organization that can only be provided by a full time chair. It also means that he will be available 100% of the time. If you call or contact Rodney he will take your call or listen to your message and get back to you. A party chair must be accessible and he will do that.
The Arizona Democratic party certainly has a wide range of intelligent, capable people. We have a unique opportunity ot make gains in 2012 when many incumbent legislators will be running in new districts. I believe that Rodney Glassman is the man who can turn these opportunities into reality.
Or, as James Carville once put it in a book that laid out a Democratic strategy for winning the country back during the Bush years, "I'm sick of losing." So is Rodney.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Jon Kyl defends earmark after voting against earmarks by pointing out administration supports the earmark
You know I've been spending way too much time on Facebook when it's been TWO MONTHS since I wrote a blog post. Granted, I was working on the election for the first part of that time (even though no candidate I worked for above the level of Justice of the Peace won-- but looking at the 'glass half full' side at least in Navajo County Democrats did win two of the three JP races that were contested, and the one we lost was in a 3-to-1 Republican area but Elaine Curiel still made a race of that one.) I'm glad that Evelyn Marez won handily here for Justice of the Peace. Races above that, well I'm looking forward to 2012.
However, I do want to get back to blogging (even if I still post all kinds of stuff on FB that would be great blog material) so I'll srart by again, calling Senator Kyl a hypocrite. Most of you (if anyone still looks at this blog after two months) know that he is the Senator who joined his GOP colleagues in voting to ban earmarks, and then only 72 hours later added an earmark to a bill. You may not know that the earmark is for a water project on the Whiteriver Apache reservation here in Navajo County. So, I support the earmark, but I don't pretend to be against earmarks. I called Senator Kyl's office today about it and the young guy who answered the phone read verbatim from a statement he was supposed to read to people who called about the earmark essentially saying the earmark was not an earmark. I expressed some skepticism about that and his next response floored me:
"It has the support of the administration."
Uh,...yeah. It does. And like I just wrote, it has my support. But it appears that Jon Kyl is playing both sides of the fence here. He is publically claiming he is against earmarks and is openly doing everything he can to defeat the Obama agenda (witness START) but is then defending his 'first-over-the-line' earmark by saying, "it has the support of the administration."
However, I do want to get back to blogging (even if I still post all kinds of stuff on FB that would be great blog material) so I'll srart by again, calling Senator Kyl a hypocrite. Most of you (if anyone still looks at this blog after two months) know that he is the Senator who joined his GOP colleagues in voting to ban earmarks, and then only 72 hours later added an earmark to a bill. You may not know that the earmark is for a water project on the Whiteriver Apache reservation here in Navajo County. So, I support the earmark, but I don't pretend to be against earmarks. I called Senator Kyl's office today about it and the young guy who answered the phone read verbatim from a statement he was supposed to read to people who called about the earmark essentially saying the earmark was not an earmark. I expressed some skepticism about that and his next response floored me:
"It has the support of the administration."
Uh,...yeah. It does. And like I just wrote, it has my support. But it appears that Jon Kyl is playing both sides of the fence here. He is publically claiming he is against earmarks and is openly doing everything he can to defeat the Obama agenda (witness START) but is then defending his 'first-over-the-line' earmark by saying, "it has the support of the administration."
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Don't be afraid to tell people bad news
What the report out the past day or so about the BP Oil spill makes it clear is how much the administration has been caught up in the whole Washington trap of trying to candy coat everything.
Start with the economy. Even today, most people don't blame Obama for it.
But the reports of 'greenshoots' last year and continuously trying to talk it up have had an effect-- not on the economy, but on the administration's credibility.
Then there is Afghanistan. Remember that the Bush administration's repeated assertions that things were going well in Iraq when they were not destroyed their credibility over time. But it seems as if the Obama administration is repeating the same mistakes. We still have no clear mission, no definition of what a 'victory' even is, and we are losing American soldiers and dumping money into it, for WHAT? Who knows anymore? But whatever it is, is still getting sugar coated by the administration.
So now the oil spill report comes out. The oil spill was another situation that Obama did not create-- it was BP's fault. But now we learn that the administration was continually trying to minimize the apparent scope of the disaster, sticking to numbers that were only 1/60th the actual size of the spill.
My question is, WHY!!?? Why carry BP's water on this and get slicked yourself as a result? I don't understand that. Is it a reflexive reaction in Washington that when you are in control all news must be spun to the positive side?
Americans are adults and would like to be treated accordingly. If the news is bad, then tell us the bad news.
In 1940, Winston Churchill took over from Neville Chamberlin during the most discouraging days of World War II. He made a speech in which he promised the British people, "I have nothing to offer you but blood, tears, sweat and toil." Then a couple of weeks later as German forces closed in on Paris he began a speech with, "The news from France is very, very bad" before going into details. Whatever one might think of Churchill, he set a mold with those two speeches that it would do well for our politicians to follow.
When you only spin all news as good, you close the trap upon yourself. You now own it, any failure to live up to what you've said (i.e. reality) becomes a disappointment, and after enough times of crying "no wolf!" people start to not believe you and all you can do is scream "Happy, happy news, all is well!" all the louder to compensate. Eventually you blow out the amplifier.
This is something it would behoove President Obama to learn as soon as possible.
Start with the economy. Even today, most people don't blame Obama for it.
But the reports of 'greenshoots' last year and continuously trying to talk it up have had an effect-- not on the economy, but on the administration's credibility.
Then there is Afghanistan. Remember that the Bush administration's repeated assertions that things were going well in Iraq when they were not destroyed their credibility over time. But it seems as if the Obama administration is repeating the same mistakes. We still have no clear mission, no definition of what a 'victory' even is, and we are losing American soldiers and dumping money into it, for WHAT? Who knows anymore? But whatever it is, is still getting sugar coated by the administration.
So now the oil spill report comes out. The oil spill was another situation that Obama did not create-- it was BP's fault. But now we learn that the administration was continually trying to minimize the apparent scope of the disaster, sticking to numbers that were only 1/60th the actual size of the spill.
My question is, WHY!!?? Why carry BP's water on this and get slicked yourself as a result? I don't understand that. Is it a reflexive reaction in Washington that when you are in control all news must be spun to the positive side?
Americans are adults and would like to be treated accordingly. If the news is bad, then tell us the bad news.
In 1940, Winston Churchill took over from Neville Chamberlin during the most discouraging days of World War II. He made a speech in which he promised the British people, "I have nothing to offer you but blood, tears, sweat and toil." Then a couple of weeks later as German forces closed in on Paris he began a speech with, "The news from France is very, very bad" before going into details. Whatever one might think of Churchill, he set a mold with those two speeches that it would do well for our politicians to follow.
When you only spin all news as good, you close the trap upon yourself. You now own it, any failure to live up to what you've said (i.e. reality) becomes a disappointment, and after enough times of crying "no wolf!" people start to not believe you and all you can do is scream "Happy, happy news, all is well!" all the louder to compensate. Eventually you blow out the amplifier.
This is something it would behoove President Obama to learn as soon as possible.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Of armed mice and blasting mountains apart in God's name
Which of the following quotes is fake?
. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they’re already into this experiment.
-- Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell, in an interview with the Bill O'Reilly show in 2007.
"I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there
-- Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul
I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."
—Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle, floating the possibility of armed insurrection in a radio interview, Jan. 2010
"We would be much better off with a closer relationship between church and state."
-- Colorado GOP Senate nominee Ken Buck, in an interview on the Jim Pfaff show, May 21, 2010
Sadly, none of these quotes are false. If Republicans take over the Senate, these are the people who will be running the show.
The Tea-Party driven GOP is rapidly deteriorating into the party of complete wackos. No wonder so many of them are birthers.
. American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains. So they’re already into this experiment.
-- Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell, in an interview with the Bill O'Reilly show in 2007.
"I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there
-- Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul
I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."
—Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle, floating the possibility of armed insurrection in a radio interview, Jan. 2010
"We would be much better off with a closer relationship between church and state."
-- Colorado GOP Senate nominee Ken Buck, in an interview on the Jim Pfaff show, May 21, 2010
Sadly, none of these quotes are false. If Republicans take over the Senate, these are the people who will be running the show.
The Tea-Party driven GOP is rapidly deteriorating into the party of complete wackos. No wonder so many of them are birthers.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Does Paul Gosar trust the voters? Doesn't look that way to me.
It's been two weeks since the Arizona primary it's still true that nobody knows who Paul Gosar is.
And I think he wants to keep it that way. The Republican challenging Ann Kirkpatrick for Congress still hasn't put much of anything on his website beyond that he was named 'Dentist of the Year.' OK, well Doc Holliday was a dentist too. I want to know more than that. But I've been to his website several times and have learned practically nothing about his views on complex subjects like Social Security, education and HOW to balance the budget (since he says he supports a balanced budget amendment) while also cutting taxes (since he also says he wants to do that.) IF he really thinks he can balance the budget while cutting taxes, I'd like to have some hint of exactly where he will cut trillions out of the budget because that is what it would take.
Why not answer this? Don't the voters have a right to an answer? Well, apparently not, I guess.
I have found video of him on the internet, but he's always speaking to the same tea party base. In some places that might be enough, but Arizona district one is a huge district with a very diverse group of voters. But apparently he doesn't trust the rest of us enough to actually talk to us.
Even his web ads are nothing but a sign with his name on it interspersed with a stream of standard GOP rhetoric (this could have been any Republican campaign ad for the past quarter century.)
Last week, Rep. Kirkpatrick sent Gosar a letter challenging him to a series of five debates. He has not responded yet. As a guy with low name recognition, don't you think he'd welcome the opportunity to have not just one, but five debates against the incumbent he hopes to replace? Heck, Terry Goddard can't even get Jan Brewer to agree to ONE debate, and here Ann Kirkpatrick, who wants to let people have the opportunity to see, hear and decide based on what they have seen and heard, offers Gosar FIVE debates and he can't even decide whether he wants to debate her?
WHY NOT? It seems clear that he doesn't trust the voters to actually watch him in a debate.
Maybe he's playing 'stealth' now because some of what he has said, is certainly open to question. For starters, last week he said he's "not a fan" of the seventeenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and it seems he wants to repeal it.
That's the amendment that allows us to vote for our own U.S. Senators. He would prefer the legislature do it. Is he serious about that? Think about the Arizona legislature for a moment, and ask whether you'd want Russell Pearce and Ron Gould naming a U.S. Senator, rather than you having the right to vote for one.
Apparently once again, Paul Gosar doesn't trust the voters and wants to take away our right to vote for our representation in the United States Senate.
I for one value my right to vote. And while I've sometimes not agreed with Representative Kirkpatrick (such as when she voted against the Energy Bill last year) I can see that she's considered the needs of a very large and very diverse district-- and it reflects in her voting record.
Let's remember that it was only two years ago that the last Republican to be elected in this district, who had earlier been named three years in a row to the list of 'Washington's dirtiest members of Congress,' a list where he joined luminaries like Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson-- declined to run again after being indicted on multiple counts of bribery, embezzlement and extortion. Ann Kirkpatrick has restored honor and personal integrity to the office of our district's member of the House of Representatives of the United States. For that alone, she would deserve re-election.
If Paul Gosar wants to aspire to such an office then he needs to come out and say who he is and be specific about what his plans are and how he plans to accomplish them. He's so far not done that.
And I think he wants to keep it that way. The Republican challenging Ann Kirkpatrick for Congress still hasn't put much of anything on his website beyond that he was named 'Dentist of the Year.' OK, well Doc Holliday was a dentist too. I want to know more than that. But I've been to his website several times and have learned practically nothing about his views on complex subjects like Social Security, education and HOW to balance the budget (since he says he supports a balanced budget amendment) while also cutting taxes (since he also says he wants to do that.) IF he really thinks he can balance the budget while cutting taxes, I'd like to have some hint of exactly where he will cut trillions out of the budget because that is what it would take.
Why not answer this? Don't the voters have a right to an answer? Well, apparently not, I guess.
I have found video of him on the internet, but he's always speaking to the same tea party base. In some places that might be enough, but Arizona district one is a huge district with a very diverse group of voters. But apparently he doesn't trust the rest of us enough to actually talk to us.
Even his web ads are nothing but a sign with his name on it interspersed with a stream of standard GOP rhetoric (this could have been any Republican campaign ad for the past quarter century.)
Last week, Rep. Kirkpatrick sent Gosar a letter challenging him to a series of five debates. He has not responded yet. As a guy with low name recognition, don't you think he'd welcome the opportunity to have not just one, but five debates against the incumbent he hopes to replace? Heck, Terry Goddard can't even get Jan Brewer to agree to ONE debate, and here Ann Kirkpatrick, who wants to let people have the opportunity to see, hear and decide based on what they have seen and heard, offers Gosar FIVE debates and he can't even decide whether he wants to debate her?
WHY NOT? It seems clear that he doesn't trust the voters to actually watch him in a debate.
Maybe he's playing 'stealth' now because some of what he has said, is certainly open to question. For starters, last week he said he's "not a fan" of the seventeenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and it seems he wants to repeal it.
That's the amendment that allows us to vote for our own U.S. Senators. He would prefer the legislature do it. Is he serious about that? Think about the Arizona legislature for a moment, and ask whether you'd want Russell Pearce and Ron Gould naming a U.S. Senator, rather than you having the right to vote for one.
Apparently once again, Paul Gosar doesn't trust the voters and wants to take away our right to vote for our representation in the United States Senate.
I for one value my right to vote. And while I've sometimes not agreed with Representative Kirkpatrick (such as when she voted against the Energy Bill last year) I can see that she's considered the needs of a very large and very diverse district-- and it reflects in her voting record.
Let's remember that it was only two years ago that the last Republican to be elected in this district, who had earlier been named three years in a row to the list of 'Washington's dirtiest members of Congress,' a list where he joined luminaries like Duke Cunningham and William Jefferson-- declined to run again after being indicted on multiple counts of bribery, embezzlement and extortion. Ann Kirkpatrick has restored honor and personal integrity to the office of our district's member of the House of Representatives of the United States. For that alone, she would deserve re-election.
If Paul Gosar wants to aspire to such an office then he needs to come out and say who he is and be specific about what his plans are and how he plans to accomplish them. He's so far not done that.
Friday, August 20, 2010
John McCluskey caught; Report shows private prison was unacceptable
Thank God that last night, three weeks after it began, the private prison break ended. As much as she doesn't want to talk about it, it was Jan Brewer's call to shift some public prisons to private control. Her chief of staff and a top campaign aide both are lobbyists for the private prison industry, and it was her decision in January to allow the transfer of over 100 dangerous maximum security inmates, including murderers, rapists and other violent felons, to a medium security private prison that was built for DUI offenders.
We should salute the professionalism of law enforcement officers from several states and the Federal U.S. Marshal's Service, and a U.S. forest ranger that finally ended the private prison break yesterday after three weeks, two murders, a kidnapping, a shootout, auto theft and millions of dollars worth of man-hours. In contrast, this is how private prisons work:
Shortened hours that led to no patrols of the perimeter fences during shift changes, alarm systems that often did not work or resulted in false alarms, guards who took over an hour to respond when the alarm did go off, a prison door propped open with a rock...
Let's also not forget underpaid and poorly trained guards resulting in high turnover.
State prisons director Charles Ryan almost grudgingly had to admit that it was time to move almost 150 especially dangerous inmates, including all the convicted murderers, out of the 'medium-security' facility and back to a maximum security facility run by the state. No word on why it took them three weeks to even recognize it was time to do that.
The most telling paragraph:
Washington [spokesman for the private prison company] offered up this explanation for the blatant security failures: "We have a lot of new and young staff that have not yet integrated into our security practices, so we're going to go back to basics with that staff."
OF COURSE THEY DO!! I used to live near a private prison in New Mexico and they had people getting hired and moving on out of there almost like they do at a truck stop or a carnival. If you pay people just what you need to pay them to keep warm bodies present (which private prison companies do, after all they are mainly interested in maximizing profits) then an inexperienced workforce will be the usual situation, not something that is rare or remarkable. If anything, they probably have a more experienced than usual workforce now, because at least they have the recession to hold people in their jobs a little bit longer.
Once the economy picks up, they will leave even faster. If anyone remains there it will be the misfits and incompetents who can't get a job that pays any better. Anyone who is actually competent enough to be worth more will find a better paying job elsewhere, very likely with a state or federal prison or law enforcement agency.
Here's the absolute kicker: It took them SEVERAL HOURS to find this hole:
Private prisons are NOT the way to go. In a public prison with professional, career prison guards, there is nothing the inmates know that the guards don't know. Any other model is not as secure.
We should salute the professionalism of law enforcement officers from several states and the Federal U.S. Marshal's Service, and a U.S. forest ranger that finally ended the private prison break yesterday after three weeks, two murders, a kidnapping, a shootout, auto theft and millions of dollars worth of man-hours. In contrast, this is how private prisons work:
Shortened hours that led to no patrols of the perimeter fences during shift changes, alarm systems that often did not work or resulted in false alarms, guards who took over an hour to respond when the alarm did go off, a prison door propped open with a rock...
Let's also not forget underpaid and poorly trained guards resulting in high turnover.
State prisons director Charles Ryan almost grudgingly had to admit that it was time to move almost 150 especially dangerous inmates, including all the convicted murderers, out of the 'medium-security' facility and back to a maximum security facility run by the state. No word on why it took them three weeks to even recognize it was time to do that.
The most telling paragraph:
Washington [spokesman for the private prison company] offered up this explanation for the blatant security failures: "We have a lot of new and young staff that have not yet integrated into our security practices, so we're going to go back to basics with that staff."
OF COURSE THEY DO!! I used to live near a private prison in New Mexico and they had people getting hired and moving on out of there almost like they do at a truck stop or a carnival. If you pay people just what you need to pay them to keep warm bodies present (which private prison companies do, after all they are mainly interested in maximizing profits) then an inexperienced workforce will be the usual situation, not something that is rare or remarkable. If anything, they probably have a more experienced than usual workforce now, because at least they have the recession to hold people in their jobs a little bit longer.
Once the economy picks up, they will leave even faster. If anyone remains there it will be the misfits and incompetents who can't get a job that pays any better. Anyone who is actually competent enough to be worth more will find a better paying job elsewhere, very likely with a state or federal prison or law enforcement agency.
Here's the absolute kicker: It took them SEVERAL HOURS to find this hole:
Private prisons are NOT the way to go. In a public prison with professional, career prison guards, there is nothing the inmates know that the guards don't know. Any other model is not as secure.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Debate on Arizona prop 203
One of the more interesting moments in this week's state Democratic Party meeting came at the end. Rather than taking a stand either in favor of or against Arizona ballot proposition 203, a voter-initiated ballot initiative to allow and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, the party allowed one proponent and one opponent to each make their case.
As is so often the case in these types of debates, both sides had a point but then both also did not have a point.
Let me first clarify where I stand on the issue of marijuana. Like most Americans, I do not use marijuana. But also like many Americans (and at least one poll suggests a majority though most other polls disagree) I support making it legal for adults (no prescription required.)
That said, let me address the arguments on both sides of the question, beginning with those made by the speaker in favor of prop 203. The speaker pointed out that we have several times in the past voted in favor of marijuana for medical use with a prescription (a position that agrees with the views of an overwhelming majority of voters) but that without dispensaries this is a meaningless 'right' because there is no legal way to get it. Certainly that is a legitimate argument. All marijuana, before being used, must be produced. Then, unless the grower is also the sole user, it must be transported, and then sold to the eventual user. Of course all of these things, growing, transporting and selling marijuana are felony crimes. The idea of a dispensary is it gives a regulated but legal (at least according to the state) venue where transactions that would be illegal anyplace else can be conducted freely and without fear of the police (though there are still federal agents who technically could-- but very unlikely actually would-- show up and make arrests.) One immediate problem that has come up (and this is something the anti- guy said,) is that in many states a whole bunch of dispensaries are popping up and very few of the people who get marijuana are actually sick.
The question I have, then, is instead of dispensaries why not push for pharmacies to distribute marijuana? I know why they don't-- fear of a federal raid, but that is not a fear that can't be argued against given the low number of such raids.
However, if you really believe in legal access to medical marijuana (as I do) then why not push for such a prescription to be filled in a Pharmacy? Not only are pharmacists trained professionals who may even know about drug interactions and other side effects, but in fact it is reasonable to expect that you will be able to get any prescription filled at your pharmacy. For example, I use an inhaler for my asthma, but it would be ridiculous to get that prescription someplace that only sold inhalers. So why is medical marijuana any different? SELL IT AT THE PHARMACY!!!:
The second guy suggested not passing the bill for essentially two reasons. The first was that, as a physician, he's seen children and teens who have used marijuana and argues that their mental congition skills are lacking. As a result they do poorly in school. This is a good point, except that by making it he's acknowleging that the kids get it anyway. And it's true-- you can walk into any junior high school in America and probably learn who to talk to if you wanted to buy some pot. In fact, one could argue that legalizing it for adults would make marijuana more difficult for children to get (I will make that case further down.)
His second argument is that the system of dispensaries is being abused everywhere it is being tried (he had some statistics showing that only 2-3% of the people who use them have cancer, glaucoma or other conditions that are commonly cited as being treated by marijuana.) He talked about corruptible doctors who write prescriptions for 'pain' and make virtually their entire business off of writing prescriptions for marijuana. He then went on to say that this is a 'back-door path' to legalization. And you know what? He's right about that.
And that's why I may end up voting against this (haven't decided yet.) As a supporter of legalization I think those of us who believe that it should be legal shouldn't try to sneak in through the back door but should instead walk in through the front door. Clearly this is a debate that needs to be had, but let's as a society have a candid and forthright discussion about marijuana legalization, and not try to 'trick' anyone into voting for de-facto legalization. There are some very good arguments to be made for legalizing it. Let me lay a few of them out:
1. Marijuana is not any more hazardous to our health than is tobacco or alcohol. They are all bad for us, but we have as a society decided that in the absence of an imminent danger just by the fact of use, that people have the right to be stupid and use tobacco and alcohol, and it is hard to suggest that marijuana is any worse for you. In fact in some ways it is better (for example, it is possible to die from an overdose of alcohol or nicotine, and some people have, but you can't O.D. on marijuana.)
2. We now spend tens of millions of dollars in Arizona (and billions nationally) catching and prosecuting growers, shippers and venders of marijuana, and our prisons and courts are stuffed to capacity. In this time of strained state budgets around the country (certainly including Arizona) can we really afford to keep millions of people in prison for selling pot?
3. Legalizing it would be a body blow to the drug cartels, as they now make most of their money from growing, smuggling and selling hemp. True that they also smuggle other, more expensive drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines but their bread and butter has always been marijuana.
4. It is true that local police departments make a lot of money under the RICO statutes from drug busts and their ability to keep a proportion of it. However, this money could easily be replaced by money collected in taxes from legalized marijuana, and let's be honest-- the RICO statutes have distorted law enforcement. I noticed a couple of years ago that there were far more police radar traps on the eastbound lanes of I-40 near where I live than in the westbound lanes. I asked a friend of mine who is a police officer why this is, and he told me that they are much more likely to make a drug bust from eastbound traffic, as it has become a major drug smuggling route, and of course with the statute that allows them to keep money from such busts there is a major financial incentive to watch the eastbound lanes more closely. The problem is that local (and clearly some out of state) drivers have noticed this too-- I drive on that highway every day and I see more speeders and reckless drivers going west than going east. So the drug war distorts the priorities of law enforcement, and this distortion is making life more dangerous for you and I even though I (and possibly you) don't use any drugs.
5. About that contention that legalizing it would make it harder for kids to get that I made at the end of the second paragraph:
I believe this is true, partly because kids have such an easy time getting it now but mainly because drug dealers don't care if you are 50 or 15 as long as you can pay, whereas circle K will check your ID if you try to buy tobacco or alcohol (they pay a substantial fine if they don't.) Drug dealers generally don't carry boxes of booze around with them, because adults would have no reason to buy it and it's still true that the majority of the drug dealer's clientele (especially those who can afford the more expensive or larger amounts of drugs) are adults. It's just not profitable for a drug dealer to charge a high price for something that most of the customers can get for less. The only ones who might have a difficult time with this are kids, but isn't our goal to discourage them from drinking (or smoking marijuana) anyway? A real eye opener was a study (and I wish I could find a link to it) that appeared in the Flagstaff Daily Sun about five years ago in which they found that more students in the Flagstaff school district reported having smoked marijuana in the past month than reported smoking tobacco. The reason why is pretty clear-- it's become easier for kids to get marijuana than cigarettes. So, if we made marijuana legal for adults then we could license it, regulate it and monitor sales in a way we can't do now.
Overall, prop 203 is far from a good law, and it's tempting to take a 'do no harm' kind position and vote against it in hope of getting a better law, but it's also still possible that I will vote for it because nothing is perfect and to vote to do nothing would be interpreted as a mandate to do nothing, and I do want to see reform get done.
As is so often the case in these types of debates, both sides had a point but then both also did not have a point.
Let me first clarify where I stand on the issue of marijuana. Like most Americans, I do not use marijuana. But also like many Americans (and at least one poll suggests a majority though most other polls disagree) I support making it legal for adults (no prescription required.)
That said, let me address the arguments on both sides of the question, beginning with those made by the speaker in favor of prop 203. The speaker pointed out that we have several times in the past voted in favor of marijuana for medical use with a prescription (a position that agrees with the views of an overwhelming majority of voters) but that without dispensaries this is a meaningless 'right' because there is no legal way to get it. Certainly that is a legitimate argument. All marijuana, before being used, must be produced. Then, unless the grower is also the sole user, it must be transported, and then sold to the eventual user. Of course all of these things, growing, transporting and selling marijuana are felony crimes. The idea of a dispensary is it gives a regulated but legal (at least according to the state) venue where transactions that would be illegal anyplace else can be conducted freely and without fear of the police (though there are still federal agents who technically could-- but very unlikely actually would-- show up and make arrests.) One immediate problem that has come up (and this is something the anti- guy said,) is that in many states a whole bunch of dispensaries are popping up and very few of the people who get marijuana are actually sick.
The question I have, then, is instead of dispensaries why not push for pharmacies to distribute marijuana? I know why they don't-- fear of a federal raid, but that is not a fear that can't be argued against given the low number of such raids.
However, if you really believe in legal access to medical marijuana (as I do) then why not push for such a prescription to be filled in a Pharmacy? Not only are pharmacists trained professionals who may even know about drug interactions and other side effects, but in fact it is reasonable to expect that you will be able to get any prescription filled at your pharmacy. For example, I use an inhaler for my asthma, but it would be ridiculous to get that prescription someplace that only sold inhalers. So why is medical marijuana any different? SELL IT AT THE PHARMACY!!!:
The second guy suggested not passing the bill for essentially two reasons. The first was that, as a physician, he's seen children and teens who have used marijuana and argues that their mental congition skills are lacking. As a result they do poorly in school. This is a good point, except that by making it he's acknowleging that the kids get it anyway. And it's true-- you can walk into any junior high school in America and probably learn who to talk to if you wanted to buy some pot. In fact, one could argue that legalizing it for adults would make marijuana more difficult for children to get (I will make that case further down.)
His second argument is that the system of dispensaries is being abused everywhere it is being tried (he had some statistics showing that only 2-3% of the people who use them have cancer, glaucoma or other conditions that are commonly cited as being treated by marijuana.) He talked about corruptible doctors who write prescriptions for 'pain' and make virtually their entire business off of writing prescriptions for marijuana. He then went on to say that this is a 'back-door path' to legalization. And you know what? He's right about that.
And that's why I may end up voting against this (haven't decided yet.) As a supporter of legalization I think those of us who believe that it should be legal shouldn't try to sneak in through the back door but should instead walk in through the front door. Clearly this is a debate that needs to be had, but let's as a society have a candid and forthright discussion about marijuana legalization, and not try to 'trick' anyone into voting for de-facto legalization. There are some very good arguments to be made for legalizing it. Let me lay a few of them out:
1. Marijuana is not any more hazardous to our health than is tobacco or alcohol. They are all bad for us, but we have as a society decided that in the absence of an imminent danger just by the fact of use, that people have the right to be stupid and use tobacco and alcohol, and it is hard to suggest that marijuana is any worse for you. In fact in some ways it is better (for example, it is possible to die from an overdose of alcohol or nicotine, and some people have, but you can't O.D. on marijuana.)
2. We now spend tens of millions of dollars in Arizona (and billions nationally) catching and prosecuting growers, shippers and venders of marijuana, and our prisons and courts are stuffed to capacity. In this time of strained state budgets around the country (certainly including Arizona) can we really afford to keep millions of people in prison for selling pot?
3. Legalizing it would be a body blow to the drug cartels, as they now make most of their money from growing, smuggling and selling hemp. True that they also smuggle other, more expensive drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines but their bread and butter has always been marijuana.
4. It is true that local police departments make a lot of money under the RICO statutes from drug busts and their ability to keep a proportion of it. However, this money could easily be replaced by money collected in taxes from legalized marijuana, and let's be honest-- the RICO statutes have distorted law enforcement. I noticed a couple of years ago that there were far more police radar traps on the eastbound lanes of I-40 near where I live than in the westbound lanes. I asked a friend of mine who is a police officer why this is, and he told me that they are much more likely to make a drug bust from eastbound traffic, as it has become a major drug smuggling route, and of course with the statute that allows them to keep money from such busts there is a major financial incentive to watch the eastbound lanes more closely. The problem is that local (and clearly some out of state) drivers have noticed this too-- I drive on that highway every day and I see more speeders and reckless drivers going west than going east. So the drug war distorts the priorities of law enforcement, and this distortion is making life more dangerous for you and I even though I (and possibly you) don't use any drugs.
5. About that contention that legalizing it would make it harder for kids to get that I made at the end of the second paragraph:
I believe this is true, partly because kids have such an easy time getting it now but mainly because drug dealers don't care if you are 50 or 15 as long as you can pay, whereas circle K will check your ID if you try to buy tobacco or alcohol (they pay a substantial fine if they don't.) Drug dealers generally don't carry boxes of booze around with them, because adults would have no reason to buy it and it's still true that the majority of the drug dealer's clientele (especially those who can afford the more expensive or larger amounts of drugs) are adults. It's just not profitable for a drug dealer to charge a high price for something that most of the customers can get for less. The only ones who might have a difficult time with this are kids, but isn't our goal to discourage them from drinking (or smoking marijuana) anyway? A real eye opener was a study (and I wish I could find a link to it) that appeared in the Flagstaff Daily Sun about five years ago in which they found that more students in the Flagstaff school district reported having smoked marijuana in the past month than reported smoking tobacco. The reason why is pretty clear-- it's become easier for kids to get marijuana than cigarettes. So, if we made marijuana legal for adults then we could license it, regulate it and monitor sales in a way we can't do now.
Overall, prop 203 is far from a good law, and it's tempting to take a 'do no harm' kind position and vote against it in hope of getting a better law, but it's also still possible that I will vote for it because nothing is perfect and to vote to do nothing would be interpreted as a mandate to do nothing, and I do want to see reform get done.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Something else Russell Pearce finds to be 'unconstitutional.' THE CONSTITUTION
Russell Pearce, the Arizona legislator who brought us Senate Bill 1070, tonight on Larry King said that the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is 'unconsitutional.'
Yes, you heard that right.
Of course the fourteenth amendment is PART of the Constitution, and got there only by going through the same mechanism set out in the Constitution to amend it; that is by passing both houses of Congress and then being ratified by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states.
So now the far right is claiming that the Constitution is 'unconstitutional.'
He's wandered off into the really deep grass on this one. What a moron!
Yes, you heard that right.
Of course the fourteenth amendment is PART of the Constitution, and got there only by going through the same mechanism set out in the Constitution to amend it; that is by passing both houses of Congress and then being ratified by the legislatures of 3/4 of the states.
So now the far right is claiming that the Constitution is 'unconstitutional.'
He's wandered off into the really deep grass on this one. What a moron!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Most of Arizona SB 1070 blocked by Federal Judge
Judge Susan Bolton has issued a temporary injunction against key parts of Arizona Senate Bill SB 1070. Among the provisions that she blocked include requiring all immigrants (including legal immigrants) to carry papers with them at all times and the provision that would require police to consider the immigration status during routine police contacts.
This is good news but of course Governor Jan Brewer immediately announced plans to waste more of the state's money by appealing the decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court in San Francisco. Governor Brewer apparently has little confidence in that body, making clear she plans to continue to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And of course the Sheriff of Nottingham, Joe Arpaio, said that he will be running another immigrant sweep tomorrow whether the new law is in force or not.
One provision that was left intact allows any local bigot to challenge the police in court with a lawsuit if said local bigot believes that the police are not enforcing the provisions of SB 1070. Right now that doesn't mean much since there are few of the really odious provisions left intact, but not tossing this out could be a problem in the long run if some of the provisions are ever ruled back in play or if similar laws are passed with this provision.
Concerns for the future, but for today, this is a happy day.
This is good news but of course Governor Jan Brewer immediately announced plans to waste more of the state's money by appealing the decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court in San Francisco. Governor Brewer apparently has little confidence in that body, making clear she plans to continue to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And of course the Sheriff of Nottingham, Joe Arpaio, said that he will be running another immigrant sweep tomorrow whether the new law is in force or not.
One provision that was left intact allows any local bigot to challenge the police in court with a lawsuit if said local bigot believes that the police are not enforcing the provisions of SB 1070. Right now that doesn't mean much since there are few of the really odious provisions left intact, but not tossing this out could be a problem in the long run if some of the provisions are ever ruled back in play or if similar laws are passed with this provision.
Concerns for the future, but for today, this is a happy day.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Tea Party claims to not be racist by writing a racist letter and listening to a racist speaker
Suppose that someone accused you of doing something and you didn't think the accusation was fair. How would you respond?
Well, we know how the Tea Party responds. This past week the NAACP passed a resolution aimed at the Tea Party, specifically for not confronting racist comments, signs and other displays from within its ranks (for example, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul suggesting that we go back to segregated lunch counters.)
So how does the Tea Party handle this? By the official spokesman of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, proving the NAACP's point by writing a hypothetical letter from the NAACP President to Abraham Lincoln, not only full of racist language but even telling him that he should not have ended slavery.
And then they follow that up by listening to a video from David Duke, the former Klan Imperial Wizard who a few years ago ran for Governor of Louisiana and then later for President.
This isn't how you prove you aren't racist!
I think, having listened to all the Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity I could stomach, that this is the result of the 'alternative media' coming to full fruition. They keep preaching about how the First Amendment guarantees the right to use 'politically incorrect speech' and they make a big deal out of doing it on air. So this kind of comes natural to them and their followers by now.
The issue of politically incorrect speech of course is NOT a first amendment issue. Nobody disputes that the first amendment gives you the legal right to call anyone any name you want to. You won't be prosecuted in a criminal court for it.
But that's not to say that you won't be held accountable for the consequences of your speech. Just as someone whose Constitutional right to free speech can be sued in civil court for slander or libel if they say or write falsehoods about people, so too if you insult someone using racist language you have to accept the consequence, which is that you will be judged a racist and an ignoramus for using it. You can't have it both ways. Go on all the racist rants you want, and listen to speeches by all the bigots you can find, but don't then be upset when someone calls you a racist. Because by your words and the associations you keep, so will you be judged.
Well, we know how the Tea Party responds. This past week the NAACP passed a resolution aimed at the Tea Party, specifically for not confronting racist comments, signs and other displays from within its ranks (for example, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul suggesting that we go back to segregated lunch counters.)
So how does the Tea Party handle this? By the official spokesman of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, proving the NAACP's point by writing a hypothetical letter from the NAACP President to Abraham Lincoln, not only full of racist language but even telling him that he should not have ended slavery.
And then they follow that up by listening to a video from David Duke, the former Klan Imperial Wizard who a few years ago ran for Governor of Louisiana and then later for President.
This isn't how you prove you aren't racist!
I think, having listened to all the Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity I could stomach, that this is the result of the 'alternative media' coming to full fruition. They keep preaching about how the First Amendment guarantees the right to use 'politically incorrect speech' and they make a big deal out of doing it on air. So this kind of comes natural to them and their followers by now.
The issue of politically incorrect speech of course is NOT a first amendment issue. Nobody disputes that the first amendment gives you the legal right to call anyone any name you want to. You won't be prosecuted in a criminal court for it.
But that's not to say that you won't be held accountable for the consequences of your speech. Just as someone whose Constitutional right to free speech can be sued in civil court for slander or libel if they say or write falsehoods about people, so too if you insult someone using racist language you have to accept the consequence, which is that you will be judged a racist and an ignoramus for using it. You can't have it both ways. Go on all the racist rants you want, and listen to speeches by all the bigots you can find, but don't then be upset when someone calls you a racist. Because by your words and the associations you keep, so will you be judged.
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