Anyone who thought Marta's amazing goals in Brazil's victory over the US women's national team in the second semifinal of the Women's World Cup was a fluke should check out this video of the FIFA 2006 women's player of the year!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Milwaukee Journal proscribes wrong deficit reduction medicine
A Milwaukee Journal editorial recently opined that "A Republican Congress abandoned its principles and left the country ill-prepared to meet long-term obligations." "Fiscal discipline is needed" it concluded.
The piece criticised the $190 billion 2002 Farm Bill, 70% of which went to the richest 10% of farmers. It also targeted the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Both could charitably be described as socialism for the rich-U.S. agribusiness, insurance and pharmaceuticals companies!
While they are poorly designed public policy, neither is at the heart of the deficit problem.
By failing to identify how the Bush administration has squandered a projected $5.2 trillion surplus, the Journal is fueling the erroneous perception that out of control social spending and entitlements are to blame.
Nothing could be further from the truth
The two main causes of the Bush era deficits are its high end tax cuts and the War in Iraq.
Congressional Budget Office data show that Bush's tax cuts have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits. Legislation enacted since 2001 has added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half of the deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and only a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
56.5% of these tax cuts went to the richest 10% of wage earners, those averaging $256,000. Only 14.7% went to the bottom 60% who average $44,000.
Unlike in previous wars, the United States has cut taxes at the same time it has increased military spending."It's fair to say all of the money spent on the war has been borrowed," says Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank in Washington. "But eventually everything has to be paid for."
And the bill is growing!
Just last week President Bush requested an additional $42.3 billion in “emergency” funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. If passed, the 2008 war bill will be almost $190 billion, the same as the 10 year Farm Bill increase the Journal singled out for criticism and the largest single-year total for these wars. It is an increase of 15 percent from 2007.
It will bring the year end total for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since Sept. 11, 2001 to $800 billion, still less than half the $2 trillion total projected cost.
As Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen once said about the Defense budget, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money"-money that could buy a lot of healthcare, infrastructure, early childhood education or deficit reduction!
What it hasn't bought is protective equipment for our soldiers and their vehicles, the capture of Osama Bin Laden or adequate medical care for our vets!
And remember this $42 billion military increase is off-the-books, "emergency" funding, an addition to the original 2008 spending request, made before the President announced his so-called “new strategy” of partial withdrawal.
Iraq alone has cost the United States more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the Gulf War and the Korean War and will soon pass the Vietnam War.
This for a war that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised would cost under $50 billion while his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, predicted Iraqi oil revenues would largely pay for Iraq’s reconstruction.
The $42 billion emergency funding increase is more than the bipartisan, fully funded $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that President Bush has promised to veto.
Since Iraq costs the country $333 million a day, we can't afford to expand SCHIP which costs $19 million a day!
The $42 billion is also almost twice as much as the $23 billion in improvements for waterways and water systems in every state that Bush is threatening to veto as too costly.
Mr Bush took office in 2001, the last time the Government produced a budget surplus. Every year after that the Government has been in the red. In 2004 the deficit swelled to a record $US413 billion ($494 billion).
The Journal is right when it suggests that Mr Bush is mortgaging the country's future. But it is wrong to suggest that entitlements and social spending are to blame.
High end tax cuts and Mr Bush's war of choice in Iraq are the real culprits!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Dairy state republicans implement southern strategy
Last week I wrote that Representative Frank Lasee's letter alleging rampant hallway sex among Brown Deer's black students "...is the ugly tip of a racist Republican iceberg that demonizes the city of Milwaukee and its minority residents."
Yesterday, New York Times Columnist, Bob Herbert, made the same argument in his column about the national Republican Party.
The Journal Sentinel ran an edited version of that column today, but, unfortunately, cut its most damning material.
Here's what the Journal Sentinel published with deletions in italics. (I have included non-deleted material so that readers can read the edits in their original context.):
Dr. Carolyn Goodman, a woman I was privileged to call a friend, died last month at the age of 91. She was the mother of Andrew Goodman, one of the three young civil rights activists shot to death by rabid racists near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964.
Dr. Goodman, one of the most decent people I have ever known, carried the ache of that loss with her every day of her life.
In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.
“I believe in states’ rights,” said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
It is unfortunate the Journal editors cut this material from Herbert's piece because Wisconsin's Republican leadership has followed this script to a T.
Frank Lasee's letter is a clumsy and transparent application of this approach.
The Assembly Republicans budget that sticks "it to Milwaukee" and Racine by slashing their shared revenue continues this GOP tradition as does their insistence on voter IDs which would disenfranchise poor, black and minority voters.
The dairy state's Republican leadership, by hiding their refusal to negotiate with their Democratic counterparts in the Budget Conference Committee behind a fanatical no tax pledge, are implementing the very southern strategy that Atwater so vividly described.
:
Yesterday, New York Times Columnist, Bob Herbert, made the same argument in his column about the national Republican Party.
The Journal Sentinel ran an edited version of that column today, but, unfortunately, cut its most damning material.
Here's what the Journal Sentinel published with deletions in italics. (I have included non-deleted material so that readers can read the edits in their original context.):
Dr. Carolyn Goodman, a woman I was privileged to call a friend, died last month at the age of 91. She was the mother of Andrew Goodman, one of the three young civil rights activists shot to death by rabid racists near Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964.
Dr. Goodman, one of the most decent people I have ever known, carried the ache of that loss with her every day of her life.
In one of the vilest moves in modern presidential politics, Ronald Reagan, the ultimate hero of this latter-day Republican Party, went out of his way to kick off his general election campaign in 1980 in that very same Philadelphia, Miss. He was not there to send the message that he stood solidly for the values of Andrew Goodman. He was there to assure the bigots that he was with them.
“I believe in states’ rights,” said Mr. Reagan. The crowd roared.
In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”
It is unfortunate the Journal editors cut this material from Herbert's piece because Wisconsin's Republican leadership has followed this script to a T.
Frank Lasee's letter is a clumsy and transparent application of this approach.
The Assembly Republicans budget that sticks "it to Milwaukee" and Racine by slashing their shared revenue continues this GOP tradition as does their insistence on voter IDs which would disenfranchise poor, black and minority voters.
The dairy state's Republican leadership, by hiding their refusal to negotiate with their Democratic counterparts in the Budget Conference Committee behind a fanatical no tax pledge, are implementing the very southern strategy that Atwater so vividly described.
:
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Darling & Ott missing in action when it comes to defending Brown Deer's students
Gretchen Schuldt's recent blog on Representative Frank Lasee's racist letter against Brown Deer's black students why have Senator Alberta Darling and Representative Jim Ott who represent that community been silent in the face of these scurrilous attacks.?
She writes:
"The silence of State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and State Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon) after State Rep. Frank Lasee (R-do we really have to admit he's from Wisconsin?) sent an intensely racist letter about black high school students to the Brown Deer School District discredits them both."
You can read her entire blog, "Darling, Ott mum on Brown Deer High School racist slander,' here.
She writes:
"The silence of State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) and State Rep. Jim Ott (R-Mequon) after State Rep. Frank Lasee (R-do we really have to admit he's from Wisconsin?) sent an intensely racist letter about black high school students to the Brown Deer School District discredits them both."
You can read her entire blog, "Darling, Ott mum on Brown Deer High School racist slander,' here.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Heathcare Savings Accounts: a non-solution
Forty-seven million Americans do not have healthcare.
Since 2001, the number of people without insurance has increased by 7.2 million, while the percent of the population getting health insurance though their employer has dropped, falling again last year to 59.7% from 60.2% in 2005.
More and more citizens are being priced out of the healthcare market place.
Nationally, healthcare and pharmaceutical costs have skyrocketed, almost doubling since 2000. And in Wisconsin, healthcare costs are 26% higher than the national average!
In response to this classic case of market failure, President Bush and his fellow ideologues in the Republican Party have called for a market solution-health care savings accounts.
If our privatized system is failing, why would any reasonable person think that more privatization-private savings accounts- will solve the problem?
Citizen Action has produced a hilarious cartoon on the market fundamentalists non-solution.
Since 2001, the number of people without insurance has increased by 7.2 million, while the percent of the population getting health insurance though their employer has dropped, falling again last year to 59.7% from 60.2% in 2005.
More and more citizens are being priced out of the healthcare market place.
Nationally, healthcare and pharmaceutical costs have skyrocketed, almost doubling since 2000. And in Wisconsin, healthcare costs are 26% higher than the national average!
In response to this classic case of market failure, President Bush and his fellow ideologues in the Republican Party have called for a market solution-health care savings accounts.
If our privatized system is failing, why would any reasonable person think that more privatization-private savings accounts- will solve the problem?
Citizen Action has produced a hilarious cartoon on the market fundamentalists non-solution.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Frank Lasee: more old south than new north!
It would be easy to dismiss Representative Frank Lasee’s letter alleging widespread hallway sex among Brown Deer’s black students as simple nonsense. He is well known for bizarre ideas like arming principals and teachers to prevent school shootings.
But it would be a serious mistake to dismiss this letter as publicity seeking or nutty.
Mr. Lasee’s screed is the ugly tip of a racist Republican iceberg that demonizes the city of Milwaukee and its minority residents.
Lasee allegations, without any evidence except a crank letter, is an insult to Brown Deer's African American students, their parents and teachers for it implies they condone such behavior. It could only have been penned by someone who believes that our urban communities are dangerous places inhabited by immoral people.
Lasee comes from Green Bay where 38% of the public school students are now children of color, primarily Hmong and Latino children.
The New North initiative, an ambitious, regional economic development initiative, has embraced this growing diversity as a competitive, regional asset. It has even established the People, Possibilities and Progress Diversity Award "...intended to recognize and support New North businesses and organizations that embrace and celebrate diversity."
But, not Representative Lasee.
His response to Green Bay’s growing immigrant population was to craft legislation aimed at discouraging immigrant workers from coming to the New North despite the area’s aging population and worker shortage.
Rather than lead his community in adjusting to workforce and demographic changes, Lasee promoted a stereotype of immigrant workers on the dole. His efforts helped fuel anti-immigrant attitudes in Green Bay that culminated in the city’s notoriously restrictive anti-immigrant law.
It’s amazing that politicians like Lasee who claim to want to improve the business climate continue to promote anti-worker, anti-business legislation!
But are the sentiments underlying Lasee’s charges very different from the daily diatribes against Milwaukee's black community heard on local talk radio?
Mark Belling, mouthpiece for suburban conservatives (whatever happened for to standing up for Milwaukee?) and the right, right wing of the Republican Party routinely questions the morality of Milwaukee’s black residents, most of whom are hard working people trapped in low paying jobs and impoverished neighborhoods.
He and his counterpart at WTMJ, marching in lockstep with the national Republican Party, have waged a reckless campaign against the largely mythical boogie man of black voter fraud while ignoring their own party’s efforts, which may have been orchestrated from inside the White House, to suppress the votes of eligible voters, particularly black voters, from Florida to New Hampshire.
Closer to home, Republican leader Senator Glen Grothman (R-West Bend) was a participant in September’s Cedarburg Village Board meeting where the Milwaukee Area Technical College district board was ridiculed for have a majority of minority members (6 of 8).
Senator Grothman, elected to the Senate with Belling’s help, has distinguished himself as a opponent of racial justice. Not only did he oppose making Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday, but more recently led legislative hearings aimed at dismantling affirmative action policies designed to increase the participation of Wisconsin’s racial minorities and women in jobs and schools where they have been excluded..
Milwaukee has had the nation’s worst black white unemployment ratio for 25 years. Unemployment and poverty rates in Milwaukee and Racine rival those of the Great Depression. Rather than calling for a New Deal for our poorest citizens in our poorest communities, Grothman, Lasee and Belling demonize them.
And who could forget Governor Thompson famous promise “to stick it to Milwaukee.”
Wisconsin’s Republican Party has come a long way from its anti-slavery roots.
Lasee’s letter reflects a decline into racial politics that would have made George Wallace and Bull Conner proud-a vision that is more old south, than new north!
But it would be a serious mistake to dismiss this letter as publicity seeking or nutty.
Mr. Lasee’s screed is the ugly tip of a racist Republican iceberg that demonizes the city of Milwaukee and its minority residents.
Lasee allegations, without any evidence except a crank letter, is an insult to Brown Deer's African American students, their parents and teachers for it implies they condone such behavior. It could only have been penned by someone who believes that our urban communities are dangerous places inhabited by immoral people.
Lasee comes from Green Bay where 38% of the public school students are now children of color, primarily Hmong and Latino children.
The New North initiative, an ambitious, regional economic development initiative, has embraced this growing diversity as a competitive, regional asset. It has even established the People, Possibilities and Progress Diversity Award "...intended to recognize and support New North businesses and organizations that embrace and celebrate diversity."
But, not Representative Lasee.
His response to Green Bay’s growing immigrant population was to craft legislation aimed at discouraging immigrant workers from coming to the New North despite the area’s aging population and worker shortage.
Rather than lead his community in adjusting to workforce and demographic changes, Lasee promoted a stereotype of immigrant workers on the dole. His efforts helped fuel anti-immigrant attitudes in Green Bay that culminated in the city’s notoriously restrictive anti-immigrant law.
It’s amazing that politicians like Lasee who claim to want to improve the business climate continue to promote anti-worker, anti-business legislation!
But are the sentiments underlying Lasee’s charges very different from the daily diatribes against Milwaukee's black community heard on local talk radio?
Mark Belling, mouthpiece for suburban conservatives (whatever happened for to standing up for Milwaukee?) and the right, right wing of the Republican Party routinely questions the morality of Milwaukee’s black residents, most of whom are hard working people trapped in low paying jobs and impoverished neighborhoods.
He and his counterpart at WTMJ, marching in lockstep with the national Republican Party, have waged a reckless campaign against the largely mythical boogie man of black voter fraud while ignoring their own party’s efforts, which may have been orchestrated from inside the White House, to suppress the votes of eligible voters, particularly black voters, from Florida to New Hampshire.
Closer to home, Republican leader Senator Glen Grothman (R-West Bend) was a participant in September’s Cedarburg Village Board meeting where the Milwaukee Area Technical College district board was ridiculed for have a majority of minority members (6 of 8).
Senator Grothman, elected to the Senate with Belling’s help, has distinguished himself as a opponent of racial justice. Not only did he oppose making Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday, but more recently led legislative hearings aimed at dismantling affirmative action policies designed to increase the participation of Wisconsin’s racial minorities and women in jobs and schools where they have been excluded..
Milwaukee has had the nation’s worst black white unemployment ratio for 25 years. Unemployment and poverty rates in Milwaukee and Racine rival those of the Great Depression. Rather than calling for a New Deal for our poorest citizens in our poorest communities, Grothman, Lasee and Belling demonize them.
And who could forget Governor Thompson famous promise “to stick it to Milwaukee.”
Wisconsin’s Republican Party has come a long way from its anti-slavery roots.
Lasee’s letter reflects a decline into racial politics that would have made George Wallace and Bull Conner proud-a vision that is more old south, than new north!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Greenspan rewrites history!
Alan Greenspan is revising history and the role he played in supporting the Bush administration's irresponsible fiscal policies.
In his new memoir, Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is harshly critical of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican-controlled Congress, as abandoning his party’s principles on spending and deficits. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending." Greenspan wrote.
Either Mr. Greenspan is suffering from amnesia or he is purposefully rewriting history to conform to his libertarian views! Either way, Greenspan ignores that it was the Bush tax cuts which he aggressively supported, that are primarily responsible for the era's deficits, not "out-of-control spending."
Congressional Budget Office data illustrates that the $1.3 trillion 2001 tax cuts, 45% of which went to the richest 1%, have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years.
According to the CBO, legislation enacted since 2001 added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half (51%) of this deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and about a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
Mr. Greenspan played a crucial role in getting this legislation passed.
President Bush initially proposed tax cuts during his presidential campaign in response to a projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
Opponents argued that it was folly to base tax cuts on projections and that any surpluses that might materialize should be used for necessary social investments (repairing New Orleans levies and the nation's ailing infrastructure, investing in education, etc.) and to pay down the national debt.
By the time Bush was inaugurated, the dot.com bubble which Greenspan had helped create through his support for capital gains tax cuts in the 1990's, had burst and the economy was slowing. The recession officially began in March 2001.
President Bush appeared to lack the Congressional support necessary to enact his high end tax cuts. He had lost the popular vote, his installation as President was controversial, and the Senate was divided.
But Greenspan, seemingly more concerned with providing political cover to the new president than the nation's economic health, aggressively supported the tax cuts.
In late January 2001, Greenspan said: "It is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases," assuring Congress that the tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits.
In response to White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, praised the Federal Reserve Chair, "We are very heartened to see that Chairman Greenspan has weighed in on the importance of cutting taxes, and hope that the Congress will join President Bush and Chairman Greenspan in cutting taxes, in passing the Bush tax cut, so we can protect the strength of our economy."
Greenspan's support was crucial mustering the votes to get the tax cut legislation passed.
In 2003 with deficits soaring, the Federal Reserve Chair supported yet another round of deficit-creating high end tax cuts proposed by President Bush.
These tax cuts created large deficits rivaling those Greenspan had insisted must be closed in the early Clinton years. But now Greenspan supported making Bush's tax cuts permanent at a cost that was more than five times the amount necessary to close the projected shortfall in Social Security over the next 75 years.
Then in a truly remarkable bait and switch, Mr. Greenspan called for cuts in social security to restore fiscal discipline. Not surprisingly his conversion to cutting social security benefits coincided with President Bush's ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the system through privatization.
Despite current protestations, Mr. Greenspan was not a critic of the Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility. When it mattered, at every key junction, Mr Greenspan aided and abetted the Bush administration's reckless economic policies. Buy the book, if you must. But don't believe the hype.
In his new memoir, Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is harshly critical of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican-controlled Congress, as abandoning his party’s principles on spending and deficits. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending." Greenspan wrote.
Either Mr. Greenspan is suffering from amnesia or he is purposefully rewriting history to conform to his libertarian views! Either way, Greenspan ignores that it was the Bush tax cuts which he aggressively supported, that are primarily responsible for the era's deficits, not "out-of-control spending."
Congressional Budget Office data illustrates that the $1.3 trillion 2001 tax cuts, 45% of which went to the richest 1%, have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years.
According to the CBO, legislation enacted since 2001 added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half (51%) of this deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and about a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
Mr. Greenspan played a crucial role in getting this legislation passed.
President Bush initially proposed tax cuts during his presidential campaign in response to a projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
Opponents argued that it was folly to base tax cuts on projections and that any surpluses that might materialize should be used for necessary social investments (repairing New Orleans levies and the nation's ailing infrastructure, investing in education, etc.) and to pay down the national debt.
By the time Bush was inaugurated, the dot.com bubble which Greenspan had helped create through his support for capital gains tax cuts in the 1990's, had burst and the economy was slowing. The recession officially began in March 2001.
President Bush appeared to lack the Congressional support necessary to enact his high end tax cuts. He had lost the popular vote, his installation as President was controversial, and the Senate was divided.
But Greenspan, seemingly more concerned with providing political cover to the new president than the nation's economic health, aggressively supported the tax cuts.
In late January 2001, Greenspan said: "It is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases," assuring Congress that the tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits.
In response to White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, praised the Federal Reserve Chair, "We are very heartened to see that Chairman Greenspan has weighed in on the importance of cutting taxes, and hope that the Congress will join President Bush and Chairman Greenspan in cutting taxes, in passing the Bush tax cut, so we can protect the strength of our economy."
Greenspan's support was crucial mustering the votes to get the tax cut legislation passed.
In 2003 with deficits soaring, the Federal Reserve Chair supported yet another round of deficit-creating high end tax cuts proposed by President Bush.
These tax cuts created large deficits rivaling those Greenspan had insisted must be closed in the early Clinton years. But now Greenspan supported making Bush's tax cuts permanent at a cost that was more than five times the amount necessary to close the projected shortfall in Social Security over the next 75 years.
Then in a truly remarkable bait and switch, Mr. Greenspan called for cuts in social security to restore fiscal discipline. Not surprisingly his conversion to cutting social security benefits coincided with President Bush's ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the system through privatization.
Despite current protestations, Mr. Greenspan was not a critic of the Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility. When it mattered, at every key junction, Mr Greenspan aided and abetted the Bush administration's reckless economic policies. Buy the book, if you must. But don't believe the hype.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Olbermann Responds to Republican Minority Leader Boehner
Keith Olberman and Senator Joe Biden respond to Republican (Ohio) Minority Leader John Boehner's cavalier comment that "the Iraq War is a small price to pay...."
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Greenspan's revisionist history
Alan Greenspan is revising history and the role he played in supporting the Bush administration's irresponsible fiscal policies.
In his new memoir, Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is harshly critical of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican-controlled Congress, as abandoning his party’s principles on spending and deficits. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending." Greenspan wrote.
Either Mr. Greenspan is suffering from amnesia or he is purposefully rewriting history to conform to his libertarian views! Either way, Greenspan ignores that it was the Bush tax cuts which he aggressively supported, that are primarily responsible for the era's deficits, not "out-of-control spending."
Congressional Budget Office data illustrates that the $1.3 trillion 2001 tax cuts, 45% of which went to the richest 1%, have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years.
According to the CBO, legislation enacted since 2001 added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half (51%) of this deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and about a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
Mr. Greenspan played a crucial role in getting this legislation passed.
President Bush initially proposed tax cuts during his presidential campaign in response to a projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
Opponents argued that it was folly to base tax cuts on projections and that any surpluses that might materialize should be used for necessary social investments (repairing New Orleans levies and the nation's ailing infrastructure, investing in education, etc.) and to pay down the national debt.
By the time Bush was inaugurated, the dot.com bubble which Greenspan had helped create through his support for capital gains tax cuts in the 1990's, had burst and the economy was slowing. The recession officially began in March 2001.
President Bush appeared to lack the Congressional support necessary to enact his high end tax cuts. He had lost the popular vote, his installation as President was controversial, and the Senate was divided.
But Greenspan, seemingly more concerned with providing political cover to the new president than the nation's economic health, aggressively supported the tax cuts.
In late January 2001, Greenspan said: "It is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases," assuring Congress that the tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits.
In response to White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, praised the Federal Reserve Chair, "We are very heartened to see that Chairman Greenspan has weighed in on the importance of cutting taxes, and hope that the Congress will join President Bush and Chairman Greenspan in cutting taxes, in passing the Bush tax cut, so we can protect the strength of our economy."
Greenspan's support was crucial mustering the votes to get the tax cut legislation passed.
In 2003 with deficits soaring, the Federal Reserve Chair supported yet another round of deficit-creating high end tax cuts proposed by President Bush.
These tax cuts created large deficits rivaling those Greenspan had insisted must be closed in the early Clinton years. But now Greenspan supported making Bush's tax cuts permanent at a cost that was more than five times the amount necessary to close the projected shortfall in Social Security over the next 75 years.
Then in a truly remarkable bait and switch, Mr. Greenspan called for cuts in social security to restore fiscal discipline. Not surprisingly his conversion to cutting social security benefits coincided with President Bush's ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the system through privatization.
Despite current protestations, Mr. Greenspan was not a critic of the Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility. When it mattered, at every key junction, Mr Greenspan aided and abetted the Bush administration's reckless economic policies. Buy the book, if you must. But don't believe the hype.
In his new memoir, Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, he is harshly critical of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the Republican-controlled Congress, as abandoning his party’s principles on spending and deficits. "My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending." Greenspan wrote.
Either Mr. Greenspan is suffering from amnesia or he is purposefully rewriting history to conform to his libertarian views! Either way, Greenspan ignores that it was the Bush tax cuts which he aggressively supported, that are primarily responsible for the era's deficits, not "out-of-control spending."
Congressional Budget Office data illustrates that the $1.3 trillion 2001 tax cuts, 45% of which went to the richest 1%, have been the single largest contributor to the reemergence of substantial budget deficits in recent years.
According to the CBO, legislation enacted since 2001 added almost $2.3 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2006, with half (51%) of this deterioration in the budget due to the tax cuts (about a third was due to increases in security spending, and about a sixth to increases in domestic spending).
Mr. Greenspan played a crucial role in getting this legislation passed.
President Bush initially proposed tax cuts during his presidential campaign in response to a projected $5.2 trillion surplus.
Opponents argued that it was folly to base tax cuts on projections and that any surpluses that might materialize should be used for necessary social investments (repairing New Orleans levies and the nation's ailing infrastructure, investing in education, etc.) and to pay down the national debt.
By the time Bush was inaugurated, the dot.com bubble which Greenspan had helped create through his support for capital gains tax cuts in the 1990's, had burst and the economy was slowing. The recession officially began in March 2001.
President Bush appeared to lack the Congressional support necessary to enact his high end tax cuts. He had lost the popular vote, his installation as President was controversial, and the Senate was divided.
But Greenspan, seemingly more concerned with providing political cover to the new president than the nation's economic health, aggressively supported the tax cuts.
In late January 2001, Greenspan said: "It is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases," assuring Congress that the tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits.
In response to White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, praised the Federal Reserve Chair, "We are very heartened to see that Chairman Greenspan has weighed in on the importance of cutting taxes, and hope that the Congress will join President Bush and Chairman Greenspan in cutting taxes, in passing the Bush tax cut, so we can protect the strength of our economy."
Greenspan's support was crucial mustering the votes to get the tax cut legislation passed.
In 2003 with deficits soaring, the Federal Reserve Chair supported yet another round of deficit-creating high end tax cuts proposed by President Bush.
These tax cuts created large deficits rivaling those Greenspan had insisted must be closed in the early Clinton years. But now Greenspan supported making Bush's tax cuts permanent at a cost that was more than five times the amount necessary to close the projected shortfall in Social Security over the next 75 years.
Then in a truly remarkable bait and switch, Mr. Greenspan called for cuts in social security to restore fiscal discipline. Not surprisingly his conversion to cutting social security benefits coincided with President Bush's ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the system through privatization.
Despite current protestations, Mr. Greenspan was not a critic of the Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility. When it mattered, at every key junction, Mr Greenspan aided and abetted the Bush administration's reckless economic policies. Buy the book, if you must. But don't believe the hype.
Anti-war soldiers die in Iraq
In late August I reprinted an article, "The War as We Saw It," written by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
They wrote:
To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched...Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence....
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
It concluded: "We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."
Now, two of the seven soldier authors, Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray are dead.
How many more young lives will be sacrificed to President Bush's vanity and willful ignorance?
For details read:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091307O.shtml
They wrote:
To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched...Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence....
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
It concluded: "We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."
Now, two of the seven soldier authors, Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray are dead.
How many more young lives will be sacrificed to President Bush's vanity and willful ignorance?
For details read:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091307O.shtml
Olbermann: Iraq and 9/11 finally really are connected - by President Bush
To this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of 9/11.
33 percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania.
Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed.
Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.
If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare.
How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here?
Keith Olbermann answers these questions and more:
33 percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in Pennsylvania.
Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that has changed.
Iraq has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.
If another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central to that nightmare.
How did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who brought us here?
Keith Olbermann answers these questions and more:
Friday, September 14, 2007
Petraeus's boss calls him sycophant!
General David Petraeus has provided President Bush's failed "surge" strategy in Iraq and the President himself with legitimacy.
But Petraeus boss, Admiral William Fallon, has little respect for Petraeus who he recently characterized as little more than a sycophant.
In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.
The entire article is linked.
But Petraeus boss, Admiral William Fallon, has little respect for Petraeus who he recently characterized as little more than a sycophant.
In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of U.S. troops in Iraq during the summer.
The entire article is linked.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Dave Zirin to speak in Milwaukee-racism, hatred and southern justice
On Thursday, September 27th Dave Zirin, the author of two critically acclaimed books on sports, politics and economics, will speak at MATC at 10 am in S120 and at 7 pm at the Little Read Book Store, 7602 West State Street.
Both events are open to the public.
Below is a recent article coauthored by Zirin and the Washington Wizards' Etan Thomas on the unjust incarceration and prosecution of six young, male black students in Jena, Louisiana.
Racism, Hatred and Southern Justice are Alive and Well in Jena, Louisiana
Posted September 12, 2007
By: Etan Thomas (Washington Wizards) and Dave Zirin (author)
"Outsiders need to stay away." That's what Billy Fowler of the school board in Jena, Louisiana, said about those who have raised concerns about the sentencing imposed on six African American boys -- ages 15-17 -- facing 100 years in prison.
Outsiders are always what people in the South have called those who challenge racism. But the story of Jena is not an outsider/insider story. It's a story about the worst tradition of what is known as Southern Justice. And like in the days of Jim Crow, it's a story where any shades of grey matter far less than black and white.
The issue by now has become well known: discussed on CNN and in the pages of USA Today. At Jena High School, a black student received permission from school authorities to sit underneath what was known as "the white tree" (remarkable that he felt he had to ask!) The next day, in retribution, three nooses hung from the branches, threats that they would soon be harvesting "strange fruit."
In protest black students collectively decided to sit under the tree. This a bold and beautiful act in the spirit of the best traditions of the '60s. They refused to comply with racist terror, even when those threats are as drastic as being lynched for simply not staying in your place.
And just like in the old South, the state made clear which side it was on. The town DA, Reid Walters, actually had the audacity to threaten only the black students, telling them that he had the power to ruin their lives with the stroke of his pen if they continued to make trouble.
Tensions escalated over the course of the semester. Two black students were beaten by a white student while another group of black students were threatened with a shotgun by a former classmate. Surprisingly, none of the white students or former students were punished in any way for these incidents.
But the following Monday when a white student was beaten up by six black classmates, they were immediately arrested and charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, charges that would put them in jail for 100 years without parole. The Jena 6 ranges in age from 15-17. The white student spent three hours in a hospital emergency room and required no further medical care.
Mychall Bell was the first student tried. He was represented by a public defender that called no witness, and was quickly convicted by an all-white jury, white judge, and now faces up to 22 years in prison.
Recently, in response to a public outcry about the case, prosecutors have announced that charges against Shaw and Jones had been reduced to lesser felonies. But the need to be heard on this continues. Two other students, Robert Bailey Jr. and Bryant Purvis, still await trial for attempted murder. Bell's conviction has been allowed to stand even though the judge ruled he had been improperly convicted in an adult court when he should have been tried as a juvenile. Shaw and Jones still face years in prison.
As Billy Hunter, the head of the National Basketball Player's association, said:
"The situation in Jena, Louisiana is abominable and rotten to the core. The actions of the District Attorney demonstrate that "racism and bigotry are live and well in Jena ." As a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and Assistant Chief in the S.F. District Attorney's Office, it is my opinion that the District Attorney's has severely overcharged the case revealing his bias against the six black Jena youth. His actions should serve as a wake-up call for all Americans who believe in an impartial and fair criminal justice system."
This is a case that should outrage any individual regardless of the color of their skin. When the justice system can be a direct symbol of racism, injustice and terror, the very moral fiber of our society is threatened. This is not a time for neutrality. Insiders and so-called outsiders will be marching in Jena on September 20th. We will also be circulating a statement in the world of sports for those who choose to support the efforts to have the charges against the Jena 6 dismissed. The simple truth is that when it comes to issues of basic justice, there are no such thing as "outsiders."
Both events are open to the public.
Below is a recent article coauthored by Zirin and the Washington Wizards' Etan Thomas on the unjust incarceration and prosecution of six young, male black students in Jena, Louisiana.
Racism, Hatred and Southern Justice are Alive and Well in Jena, Louisiana
Posted September 12, 2007
By: Etan Thomas (Washington Wizards) and Dave Zirin (author)
"Outsiders need to stay away." That's what Billy Fowler of the school board in Jena, Louisiana, said about those who have raised concerns about the sentencing imposed on six African American boys -- ages 15-17 -- facing 100 years in prison.
Outsiders are always what people in the South have called those who challenge racism. But the story of Jena is not an outsider/insider story. It's a story about the worst tradition of what is known as Southern Justice. And like in the days of Jim Crow, it's a story where any shades of grey matter far less than black and white.
The issue by now has become well known: discussed on CNN and in the pages of USA Today. At Jena High School, a black student received permission from school authorities to sit underneath what was known as "the white tree" (remarkable that he felt he had to ask!) The next day, in retribution, three nooses hung from the branches, threats that they would soon be harvesting "strange fruit."
In protest black students collectively decided to sit under the tree. This a bold and beautiful act in the spirit of the best traditions of the '60s. They refused to comply with racist terror, even when those threats are as drastic as being lynched for simply not staying in your place.
And just like in the old South, the state made clear which side it was on. The town DA, Reid Walters, actually had the audacity to threaten only the black students, telling them that he had the power to ruin their lives with the stroke of his pen if they continued to make trouble.
Tensions escalated over the course of the semester. Two black students were beaten by a white student while another group of black students were threatened with a shotgun by a former classmate. Surprisingly, none of the white students or former students were punished in any way for these incidents.
But the following Monday when a white student was beaten up by six black classmates, they were immediately arrested and charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, charges that would put them in jail for 100 years without parole. The Jena 6 ranges in age from 15-17. The white student spent three hours in a hospital emergency room and required no further medical care.
Mychall Bell was the first student tried. He was represented by a public defender that called no witness, and was quickly convicted by an all-white jury, white judge, and now faces up to 22 years in prison.
Recently, in response to a public outcry about the case, prosecutors have announced that charges against Shaw and Jones had been reduced to lesser felonies. But the need to be heard on this continues. Two other students, Robert Bailey Jr. and Bryant Purvis, still await trial for attempted murder. Bell's conviction has been allowed to stand even though the judge ruled he had been improperly convicted in an adult court when he should have been tried as a juvenile. Shaw and Jones still face years in prison.
As Billy Hunter, the head of the National Basketball Player's association, said:
"The situation in Jena, Louisiana is abominable and rotten to the core. The actions of the District Attorney demonstrate that "racism and bigotry are live and well in Jena ." As a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California and Assistant Chief in the S.F. District Attorney's Office, it is my opinion that the District Attorney's has severely overcharged the case revealing his bias against the six black Jena youth. His actions should serve as a wake-up call for all Americans who believe in an impartial and fair criminal justice system."
This is a case that should outrage any individual regardless of the color of their skin. When the justice system can be a direct symbol of racism, injustice and terror, the very moral fiber of our society is threatened. This is not a time for neutrality. Insiders and so-called outsiders will be marching in Jena on September 20th. We will also be circulating a statement in the world of sports for those who choose to support the efforts to have the charges against the Jena 6 dismissed. The simple truth is that when it comes to issues of basic justice, there are no such thing as "outsiders."
Monday, September 10, 2007
Questions about Georgia Thompson's prosecution remain unanswered!
Attorney General Gonzalez may have resigned, but the scandals left in his wake remain.
Adam Cohen of the New York Times reminds us today that "when the power of the state to imprison people is put in the wrong hands, lives can be ruined and democracy can be threatened."
He notes that there are still unanswered questions about the Justice Department's prosecution of Wisconsin's Georgia Thompson who was wrongly convicted of awarding a state contract to a Democratic Party contributor.
Prosecutors tried to get Ms Thompson who was jailed for four months to testify against Governor Jim Doyle. And Republicans used this case to paint the Governor as corrupt in the Wisconsin's gubernatorial election which was ultimately won by Doyle.
Questions about the case remain unanswered.
Since the Justice Department refuses to appoint a special prosecutor to examine whether this and other cases were politicized, Congress needs to intervene.
Cohen's article is worth the read and is linked.
Adam Cohen of the New York Times reminds us today that "when the power of the state to imprison people is put in the wrong hands, lives can be ruined and democracy can be threatened."
He notes that there are still unanswered questions about the Justice Department's prosecution of Wisconsin's Georgia Thompson who was wrongly convicted of awarding a state contract to a Democratic Party contributor.
Prosecutors tried to get Ms Thompson who was jailed for four months to testify against Governor Jim Doyle. And Republicans used this case to paint the Governor as corrupt in the Wisconsin's gubernatorial election which was ultimately won by Doyle.
Questions about the case remain unanswered.
Since the Justice Department refuses to appoint a special prosecutor to examine whether this and other cases were politicized, Congress needs to intervene.
Cohen's article is worth the read and is linked.
Bush boom leaves middle class out!
Last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel acknowledged for the first time that the current economic expansion was leaving the middle class behind.
Real incomes for working families declined for the second straight year and remain $2000 below what they were in 2000.
The number of Americans without healthcare jumped to 47 million. Many of those who retained their coverage were paying much higher premiums, reducing their disposable incomes.
Mortgage foreclosures are at a record high. It is projected that 2 million households will ultimately default.
Rising gas prices and the soaring cost of college education are also making it harder for middle class families to make ends meet.
And on Friday the US Labor department announced that the nation had lost 4,000 jobs last month and created very few over the last quarter, an average of only 44,000. To put that in perspective, we need 150,000 new jobs a month simply to absorb all the new workers entering the labor market.
Princeton economist, Paul Krugman, writes that supply side apologists argue that their upper end tax cuts created the "Bush boom" including eight million jobs since 2003. But Clinton raised high marginal tax rates and contrary to conservative projections of disaster created twenty-one million jobs.
I have reprinted Krugman's "Where's My Trickle?" below:
September 10, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Where’s My Trickle?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Four years ago the Bush administration, exploiting the political bounce it got from the illusion of success in Iraq, pushed a cut in capital-gains and dividend taxes through Congress. It was an extremely elitist tax cut even by Bush-era standards: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that more than half of the tax breaks went to Americans with incomes of more than $1 million a year.
Needless to say, administration economists produced various misleading statistics designed to convey the opposite impression, that the tax cut mainly went to ordinary, middle-class Americans. But they also insisted that the benefits of the tax cut would trickle down — that lower tax rates on the rich would do great things for the economy, helping everyone.
Well, Friday’s dismal jobs report showed that the Bush boom, such as it was, has run its course. And working Americans have a right to ask, “Where’s my trickle?”
It’s true, as the Bushies never tire of reminding us, that the U.S. economy has added eight million jobs since that 2003 tax cut. That sounds impressive, unless you happen to know that a good part of that gain was simply a recovery from large job losses earlier in the administration’s tenure — and that the United States added no fewer than 21 million jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, a move that had conservative pundits predicting economic disaster.
What’s really remarkable, however, is that four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers.
Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.
Meanwhile, benefits have deteriorated: the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance through employers, which plunged along with employment during the early years of the Bush administration, continued to decline even as the economy finally began creating some jobs.
And one of the few seeming bright spots of the Bush-era economy, rising homeownership, is now revealed as the result of a bubble inflated in part by financial flim-flam, which deceived both borrowers and investors.
Now you know why 66 percent of Americans rate economic conditions in this country as only fair or poor, and why Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy almost as strongly as they disapprove of the job he is doing in general.
Yet the overall economy has grown at a reasonable pace over the past four years. Where did the economic growth go? The answer is that it went to the same economic elite that received the lion’s share of those tax cuts. Corporate profits rose 72 percent from the second quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2007. The real income of the richest 0.1 percent of Americans surged by 51 percent between 2003 and 2005, and although we don’t yet have the data for 2006, everything we know suggests that the income of the rich took another upward leap.
The absence of any gains for workers in the years since the 2003 tax cut is a pretty convincing refutation of trickle-down theory. So is the fact that the economy had a much more convincing boom after Bill Clinton raised taxes on top brackets. It turns out that when you cut taxes on the rich, the rich pay less taxes; when you raise taxes on the rich, they pay more taxes — end of story.
But it’s not just trickle-down that has been refuted: the whole idea that a rising tide raises all boats, that growth in the economy necessarily translates into gains for the great majority of Americans, is belied by the Bush-era experience.
As far as I can tell, America has never before experienced a disconnect between overall economic performance and the fortunes of workers as complete as that of the last four years.
America was a highly unequal society during the Gilded Age, but workers’ living standards nonetheless improved as the economy grew. Inequality rose rapidly during the Reagan years, but “Morning in America” was nonetheless bright enough to make most people cheerful, at least temporarily. Inequality continued to increase during the Clinton years, but wages rose, as did the availability of health insurance — and the great majority of Americans felt prosperous.
What we’ve had since 2003, however, is an economic expansion that looks good if not great by the usual measures, but which has passed most Americans by.
Guaranteed health insurance, which all of the leading Democratic contenders (but none of the Republicans) are promising, would eliminate one of the reasons for this disconnect. But it should be only the start of a broader range of policies — a new New Deal — designed to turn economic growth into something more than a spectator sport.
Real incomes for working families declined for the second straight year and remain $2000 below what they were in 2000.
The number of Americans without healthcare jumped to 47 million. Many of those who retained their coverage were paying much higher premiums, reducing their disposable incomes.
Mortgage foreclosures are at a record high. It is projected that 2 million households will ultimately default.
Rising gas prices and the soaring cost of college education are also making it harder for middle class families to make ends meet.
And on Friday the US Labor department announced that the nation had lost 4,000 jobs last month and created very few over the last quarter, an average of only 44,000. To put that in perspective, we need 150,000 new jobs a month simply to absorb all the new workers entering the labor market.
Princeton economist, Paul Krugman, writes that supply side apologists argue that their upper end tax cuts created the "Bush boom" including eight million jobs since 2003. But Clinton raised high marginal tax rates and contrary to conservative projections of disaster created twenty-one million jobs.
I have reprinted Krugman's "Where's My Trickle?" below:
September 10, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Where’s My Trickle?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Four years ago the Bush administration, exploiting the political bounce it got from the illusion of success in Iraq, pushed a cut in capital-gains and dividend taxes through Congress. It was an extremely elitist tax cut even by Bush-era standards: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that more than half of the tax breaks went to Americans with incomes of more than $1 million a year.
Needless to say, administration economists produced various misleading statistics designed to convey the opposite impression, that the tax cut mainly went to ordinary, middle-class Americans. But they also insisted that the benefits of the tax cut would trickle down — that lower tax rates on the rich would do great things for the economy, helping everyone.
Well, Friday’s dismal jobs report showed that the Bush boom, such as it was, has run its course. And working Americans have a right to ask, “Where’s my trickle?”
It’s true, as the Bushies never tire of reminding us, that the U.S. economy has added eight million jobs since that 2003 tax cut. That sounds impressive, unless you happen to know that a good part of that gain was simply a recovery from large job losses earlier in the administration’s tenure — and that the United States added no fewer than 21 million jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, a move that had conservative pundits predicting economic disaster.
What’s really remarkable, however, is that four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers.
Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.
Meanwhile, benefits have deteriorated: the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance through employers, which plunged along with employment during the early years of the Bush administration, continued to decline even as the economy finally began creating some jobs.
And one of the few seeming bright spots of the Bush-era economy, rising homeownership, is now revealed as the result of a bubble inflated in part by financial flim-flam, which deceived both borrowers and investors.
Now you know why 66 percent of Americans rate economic conditions in this country as only fair or poor, and why Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy almost as strongly as they disapprove of the job he is doing in general.
Yet the overall economy has grown at a reasonable pace over the past four years. Where did the economic growth go? The answer is that it went to the same economic elite that received the lion’s share of those tax cuts. Corporate profits rose 72 percent from the second quarter of 2003 to the second quarter of 2007. The real income of the richest 0.1 percent of Americans surged by 51 percent between 2003 and 2005, and although we don’t yet have the data for 2006, everything we know suggests that the income of the rich took another upward leap.
The absence of any gains for workers in the years since the 2003 tax cut is a pretty convincing refutation of trickle-down theory. So is the fact that the economy had a much more convincing boom after Bill Clinton raised taxes on top brackets. It turns out that when you cut taxes on the rich, the rich pay less taxes; when you raise taxes on the rich, they pay more taxes — end of story.
But it’s not just trickle-down that has been refuted: the whole idea that a rising tide raises all boats, that growth in the economy necessarily translates into gains for the great majority of Americans, is belied by the Bush-era experience.
As far as I can tell, America has never before experienced a disconnect between overall economic performance and the fortunes of workers as complete as that of the last four years.
America was a highly unequal society during the Gilded Age, but workers’ living standards nonetheless improved as the economy grew. Inequality rose rapidly during the Reagan years, but “Morning in America” was nonetheless bright enough to make most people cheerful, at least temporarily. Inequality continued to increase during the Clinton years, but wages rose, as did the availability of health insurance — and the great majority of Americans felt prosperous.
What we’ve had since 2003, however, is an economic expansion that looks good if not great by the usual measures, but which has passed most Americans by.
Guaranteed health insurance, which all of the leading Democratic contenders (but none of the Republicans) are promising, would eliminate one of the reasons for this disconnect. But it should be only the start of a broader range of policies — a new New Deal — designed to turn economic growth into something more than a spectator sport.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Keith Olbermann: President Bush is playing with the troops!
Yesterday, Keith Olbermann exposed President Bush's trip to Iraq as nothing more than a photo op. Olbermann's entire special comment is posted below as well as his concluding comments.
Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.
Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.
Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.
Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.
And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.
In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.
Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.
Even if it means your resignation.
Even if it means your impeachment.
Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.
Even if it means a Democratic Congress - and those true Patriots among the Republicans - standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.
This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…
Not while you, Sir... are playing.
Good night, and good luck.
Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.
Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.
Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.
Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.
And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.
In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.
Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.
Even if it means your resignation.
Even if it means your impeachment.
Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.
Even if it means a Democratic Congress - and those true Patriots among the Republicans - standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.
This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…
Not while you, Sir... are playing.
Good night, and good luck.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Milwaukee Journal urges help for workers but forgets unions!
On Labor Day, America stops to honor the men and women who work in our factories, mines, hospitals, childcare centers, fields, and warehouses.
Papers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which eliminated its labor reporter shortly after the Journal and Sentinel merged rediscover the working class and its struggles, if only for a day!
This year for example the Journal Sentinel ran an editorial "Help the Working Class."
The piece is noteworthy as much for what it leaves out as for what it says!
First, in what the editors characterize as "a worrisome trend," they acknowledge for the first time that "...a large swath of the middle-class is losing ground along with the poor."
Only last February they argued the opposite when they asked: " But just because the rich get richer - just because top executives pull in their millions - is the middle class under siege?
Their apologetic answer was: "If the middle class is shrinking, it may just be because some of its former members have moved up. ...There is no doubt that many people feel under stress because of smaller wage gains in recent years and rising costs. But the middle class is holding its own."
It is harder to argue such a position now since the number of uninsured has soared to more than 47 million; that despite a 20% increase in productivity, working age families make $2400 less than they did in 2000 before the last recession; that hourly wages for those with college degrees grew no faster than workers with only a high school diploma-- 2.6% for college educated and 2.5% for high school grads between 2000-2007; and that this recovery may very well earn the dubious distinction of being the only sustained expansion in history in which the incomes of typical American households never reached the peak of the previous cycle.
But give the editorial board its due-at least it has recognized that economic inequality is growing.
And unlike last February when the paper wrote:"...government cannot, and should not, try to guarantee economic outcomes. First, it should do no harm...," this time it concludes with no less than a call for activist government urging the White House "...to work harder to improve the plight of working Americans and their families."
Of course, the problem with the Bush administration has nothing to do with effort. The real issue is that it and previous administrations have pursued a ruthless supply side domestic agenda that promotes tax cuts for the investor class, wage and benefit cuts for the working people and international trade policies that protect capital, but not labor.
Tax cuts on dividends, capital gains and inheritance have been sold as effective policies for promoting investment and growth despite evidence to the contrary. Wage and benefit costs are euphemistically characterized as profit necessary cost controls. Entire industries such as the airlines, trucking and public utilities have been deregulated. The result is that they now compete by cheapening wages or outsourcing rather than on the basis of quality and innovation. Labor's share of the nation's income has fallen to it lowest level since the Gilded Age of the 1890's and corporate profits to its highest.
If we are to reverse the growth in inequality we need to promote labor market policies and institutions that distribute the benefits of economic growth more widely.
This means raising the minimum wage and indexing it to the cost of living; providing some form of healthcare for all Americans; ensuring that trade agreements include environmental and labor protections; and promoting labor unions and collective bargaining. The Wisconsin Senate budget addresses the first two of these issues.
It is not an accident that the growth in inequality has emerged as union strength has declined. From the 1940s through the 1960s, the period economists call "the great compression," productivity led economic growth was shared widely. High levels of unionization, 35% of the total labor force in 1954, ensured that labor had sufficient bargaining power to insist that as the economy grew it would receive its fair share. The economy was not only fairer, it was more productive.
Today, the percentage of private sector workers that are unionized has fallen to less than 8% and labor lacks that leverage. As a result workers in this country have seen their real wages stagnate and their health benefits and pensions cut.
Over the past two years the Journal has run several articles documenting deindustrialization's impact on Milwaukee. The city has lost thousands of family supporting manufacturing jobs, Black employment has plummeted and the incomes of African American workers in Milwaukee have fallen from above the national average in the '70s to well below.
The city has the 8th highest poverty rate in the nation. We are New Orleans without Katrina!
Milwaukee not only lost manufacturing jobs. It lost unionized manufacturing jobs. Throughout the 1990s Wisconsin's total number of manufacturing jobs was relatively stable. But good- paying, union manufacturing jobs at companies like A.O. Smith/Tower, Allis Chalmers, Johnson Controls, Briggs and Stratton and Allen Bradley that had employed tens of thousands were being replaced by low-paying non-union ones, particularly in suburban and exurban areas.
Today, job growth is concentrated in the service sector. There is nothing that says that service sector employment in warehouses, retail, childcare and healthcare to name a few must be low paying. Costco, among others, demonstrates just the opposite.
If we are to reverse the growth of inequality and middle class decline we need to turn low- paying service sector jobs into family supporting jobs. This will only be accomplished if the workers in these industries have a union to represent them. That's a lesson too many have forgotten even as they claim to celebrate Labor Day.
If you want to help the working class, support its right to organize and bargain collectively.
Papers like the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel which eliminated its labor reporter shortly after the Journal and Sentinel merged rediscover the working class and its struggles, if only for a day!
This year for example the Journal Sentinel ran an editorial "Help the Working Class."
The piece is noteworthy as much for what it leaves out as for what it says!
First, in what the editors characterize as "a worrisome trend," they acknowledge for the first time that "...a large swath of the middle-class is losing ground along with the poor."
Only last February they argued the opposite when they asked: " But just because the rich get richer - just because top executives pull in their millions - is the middle class under siege?
Their apologetic answer was: "If the middle class is shrinking, it may just be because some of its former members have moved up. ...There is no doubt that many people feel under stress because of smaller wage gains in recent years and rising costs. But the middle class is holding its own."
It is harder to argue such a position now since the number of uninsured has soared to more than 47 million; that despite a 20% increase in productivity, working age families make $2400 less than they did in 2000 before the last recession; that hourly wages for those with college degrees grew no faster than workers with only a high school diploma-- 2.6% for college educated and 2.5% for high school grads between 2000-2007; and that this recovery may very well earn the dubious distinction of being the only sustained expansion in history in which the incomes of typical American households never reached the peak of the previous cycle.
But give the editorial board its due-at least it has recognized that economic inequality is growing.
And unlike last February when the paper wrote:"...government cannot, and should not, try to guarantee economic outcomes. First, it should do no harm...," this time it concludes with no less than a call for activist government urging the White House "...to work harder to improve the plight of working Americans and their families."
Of course, the problem with the Bush administration has nothing to do with effort. The real issue is that it and previous administrations have pursued a ruthless supply side domestic agenda that promotes tax cuts for the investor class, wage and benefit cuts for the working people and international trade policies that protect capital, but not labor.
Tax cuts on dividends, capital gains and inheritance have been sold as effective policies for promoting investment and growth despite evidence to the contrary. Wage and benefit costs are euphemistically characterized as profit necessary cost controls. Entire industries such as the airlines, trucking and public utilities have been deregulated. The result is that they now compete by cheapening wages or outsourcing rather than on the basis of quality and innovation. Labor's share of the nation's income has fallen to it lowest level since the Gilded Age of the 1890's and corporate profits to its highest.
If we are to reverse the growth in inequality we need to promote labor market policies and institutions that distribute the benefits of economic growth more widely.
This means raising the minimum wage and indexing it to the cost of living; providing some form of healthcare for all Americans; ensuring that trade agreements include environmental and labor protections; and promoting labor unions and collective bargaining. The Wisconsin Senate budget addresses the first two of these issues.
It is not an accident that the growth in inequality has emerged as union strength has declined. From the 1940s through the 1960s, the period economists call "the great compression," productivity led economic growth was shared widely. High levels of unionization, 35% of the total labor force in 1954, ensured that labor had sufficient bargaining power to insist that as the economy grew it would receive its fair share. The economy was not only fairer, it was more productive.
Today, the percentage of private sector workers that are unionized has fallen to less than 8% and labor lacks that leverage. As a result workers in this country have seen their real wages stagnate and their health benefits and pensions cut.
Over the past two years the Journal has run several articles documenting deindustrialization's impact on Milwaukee. The city has lost thousands of family supporting manufacturing jobs, Black employment has plummeted and the incomes of African American workers in Milwaukee have fallen from above the national average in the '70s to well below.
The city has the 8th highest poverty rate in the nation. We are New Orleans without Katrina!
Milwaukee not only lost manufacturing jobs. It lost unionized manufacturing jobs. Throughout the 1990s Wisconsin's total number of manufacturing jobs was relatively stable. But good- paying, union manufacturing jobs at companies like A.O. Smith/Tower, Allis Chalmers, Johnson Controls, Briggs and Stratton and Allen Bradley that had employed tens of thousands were being replaced by low-paying non-union ones, particularly in suburban and exurban areas.
The crisis is one of both deindustrialization and deunionization!
Union make a difference. Unionized workers earn 30% more than their non-union counter parts. The differential is even greater in health benefits (63%) and employer provided pensions (386%).
If the Journal is sincere in its desire to "help the working class" it ought to endorse the Employee Free Choice Act which would make it harder for employers to intimidate, harass and fire workers who exercise their right to organize a union.
At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, manufacturing jobs were low-paying and undesirable. Only after they were unionized in the 1930's did low-paying manufacturing jobs become family supporting occupations. Unions created the blue collar middle class.Today, job growth is concentrated in the service sector. There is nothing that says that service sector employment in warehouses, retail, childcare and healthcare to name a few must be low paying. Costco, among others, demonstrates just the opposite.
If we are to reverse the growth of inequality and middle class decline we need to turn low- paying service sector jobs into family supporting jobs. This will only be accomplished if the workers in these industries have a union to represent them. That's a lesson too many have forgotten even as they claim to celebrate Labor Day.
If you want to help the working class, support its right to organize and bargain collectively.
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