The SideTrack

2011's worst economic ideas

2011-12-22T12:44:00.001-07:00

The 10 Worst Economic Ideas of 2011

Say it ain’t so, Ron Wyden. The Democratic senator from Oregon has teamed upwith Congressman Paul Ryan to propose an option for Medicare recipients to buy private plans. They would be offered a flat payment to buy private plans if they so chose. Competition for these dollars will supposedly make Medicare and the health insurance companies more efficient. More likely, however, it will result in misleading claims by the health insurance companies or reduced coverage plans. It will raise costs for Medicare as healthy seniors are induced to take cheaper private plans with healthier individuals. Allegedly, the Wyden-Ryan plan would control for all this by setting minimal standards. Forget about that. The Obama administration has already given in on federal standards for Obamacare, letting states set their own. Guess who most of the states will favor. Seniors will probably have to move to New York or Massachusetts to get decent plans.But that’s not even the big rub. It is that Medicare payments will be limited to growing just 1 percent faster than GDP. Health care costs have risen considerably faster than that for a long time. Somehow Wyden thinks that such a limit will force reforms. In sum, it will simply lead to less coverage and more expense for beneficiaries. ___________________________________________________

Capitalism \= Greed and Gambling

2011-11-02T02:37:00.002-07:00

Wisdom from across the pond:

Greed is a human motivation, but not a dominant one –and the institutions that most exemplified the philosophy of greed were those that imploded in 2007-08. The goods made by workers whose motivation was purely instrumental were driven out of the marketplace by those of people who took pride in their work and of organisations which understood that complex assembly depends on teamwork. A semantic confusion leads us to use the word market to describe both the process which puts food on our table and the activity of gambling in credit default swaps. That confusion has enabled people to claim the virtues of the former for the latter.

Many of those who preach the doctrine of free enterprise loudest have succeeded by skills more akin to those of backroom politicians than of entrepreneurs. Mobile phone networks grew rapidly because a fortunate interlude of deregulatory fervour wrested a monopoly from incumbent fixed line operators. The inventors of social networking sites resemble the occupiers of St Paul’s Churchyard tents more than the occupants of boardrooms. The besuited Winkelvoss twins, lobbying and litigating for a share of Mark Zuckerberg’s business, embody the deformed view of market economics which confuses business interests with free enterprise.

Perhaps the “something nicer” which should replace capitalism is a more nuanced –and more accurate –account of capitalism itself.

"Bold"

2011-10-16T17:11:00.001-07:00

Nein, Nein, Nein

Voices on my teevee today telling me Herman's 9-9-9 plan is ridiculous, half-baked, and sure to bring on a second recession. But each "analyst" wrapped with a reminder that it was bold.

If there is one thing I've learned from Adam Sandler's career in "film" as it relates to real world politics its that anyone can have an idea and get others on board supporting it (see every director or studio responsible for every movie Sandler has made besides Punch Drunk Love).

Just because an idea is so ridiculous only one moron thought of it doesn't make it bold. Declarations of boldness should be reserved for those ideas that not only stand out but that are also, you know, good ideas.

Utah Democrats File GRAMA Request

2011-10-12T13:52:00.001-07:00

Contact:
Matt Lyon
801.597.8888 | mlyon@utdem.org

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Utah Democrats File GRAMA Request on Behalf of People of Utah

Democrats Charge that Republican Leadership is Taking a 2x4 to the Democratic Process
______________________________

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah State Democratic Party filed an official GRAMA request today with the Utah State Legislature regarding the closed door, secret conversations leading to the current "fiasco" over Utah’s congressional maps.

“Utah’s Republican leadership is forcing our hand. The Utah Democratic Party has been compelled to demand transparency and fairness on behalf of all Utah citizens,” said Jim Dabakis, Chair of the Utah Democratic Party.

“The poster children of closed cronyism in government – Representatives Dave Clark and Carl Wimmer – are working backroom deals to support their selfish political ambitions. They're throwing out months of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money," continued Dabakis. "Someone must speak for the people of Utah. Someone must smash a battering ram through the closed doors. Moral and public pressure has not worked so far -- so today -- the Utah Democratic Party is being forced to file a GRAMA request to ensure our government is acting in a fair, open, and transparent manner.”

“This is not a decision we are making lightly. We don’t want to tie up the legislature and drag on an unnecessary process. BUT THE REPBULICAN PARTY BOSSES ARE TAKING A 2X4 TO THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS AND THEY MUST REPENT!" Dabakis proclaimed. "They must open the doors, come to the table, and develop a compromise. We are willing to compromise - are they?”

Dabakis concluded: “The GRAMA request is the first step towards preparing a lawsuit on behalf of the people of Utah. We do not want to go the next step of subpoenas, affidavits, depositions, testifying under oath and official legal claims, but today, we feel we have no choice but to begin moving in this direction and we are reluctantly taking this step to ensure that ALL Utahns are represented.”

###

Better Know a Super Committee

2011-09-22T12:56:00.004-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Super committee member Xavier Becerra (D-CA) says everything should be on the table, and that there are "no sacred cows" as they scramble to cut $1.5 trillion from the deficit (jobs!). No sacred cows except their campaign contributions and contact with lobbyists as they meet, that is.

Watchdogs have circled on that theme hoping to pressure members to voluntarily disclose campaign donations and contacts with lobbyists. Politico:

[...] a coalition of government reform and transparency organizations are demanding that supercommittee members voluntarily disclose their committee-related contacts with lobbyists and publicly report any campaign donations within 48 hours of receiving them.

The groups note in the letter that most federally mandated lobbying and campaign finance disclosure reports covering October, November and December – when the supercommittee is slated to conduct the bulk of its work – won’t become public until mid-January.

“Failure to ensure transparency of these fundamental avenues of influence will reinforce the public’s mistrust of the process and risks delegitimizing the committee’s work,” the 14 groups wrote in a joint letter being sent this afternoon to the dozen supercommittee members. “Your critical work on this committee has begun, and yet the public remains in the dark about special interests’ attempts to influence your decision-making process, whether by meeting with you or donating to your campaigns.”

According to Politico only three committee members have agreed to halt fundraising while the committee meets, but so far none have agreed to voluntarily disclose important details about contacts. Lobbyists see the opportunity here with the concentration of power and no mandate for disclosure until it's too late. The Sunlight Foundation is hoping that changes with H.R.2860, the Deficit Committee Transparency Act. Sunlight's Ellen Miller, via email:

Without transparency around this process, we don’t know who the committee members are listening to. But we can take a guess: Money speaks louder than words in Washington.

The committee members could easily take measures to increase transparency on their own: Disclosing their campaign contributions and meetings with lobbyists or powerful interests in real-time would be one way. But while the Committee has at least taken steps to have a few open meetings, it’s business as usual when it comes to campaign fundraising and secret meetings with powerful special interests.

This legislation can change that, but it needs your help. The bill has been introduced, but it needs cosponsors to gain momentum while it still counts -- the Super Committee has already started its work, and it has to make its recommendations by December, right around the corner.

Open the Super Congress. Ask your representatives to cosponsor the Super Congress transparency bill!

I sat in on a conference call with Sunlight policy wonks and staffers from sponsor Rep. Loebsack's office last week that detailed the bill and the campaign. Recording posted here.

Most of us are hoping this committee, like the Catfood Commission, just goes away. But their recommendations in December might not. Without this legislation, details on who influenced the committee won't drop until it's too late. This may be an atypical disclosure ask, but this is an atypical committee about to make recommendations that could effect programs like Medicare and Social Security for the next generation.

Call your reps.

"Democrats' Nightmare Candidate"

2011-09-21T13:00:00.001-07:00

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

To: The SideTrack
To: Phillis Schlafly
Subject: Democrats' Nightmare Candidate

Dear Fellow Conservative,

I'm asking for your urgent help.

I've been fighting for our shared beliefs for well over 40 years. I understand the liberal mindset and what makes them tick. And I can tell you that the only thing that they dislike more than an outspoken conservative -- is an outspoken conservative woman.

Radical feminists and their allies in the "mainstream media" take absolute delight in trying to rip apart any woman who dares not walk in lock-step with their anti-family, secular-progressive agenda. Today I am writing to tell you about their nightmare candidate.

Cherilyn Eagar was there with me back in 1977 when she helped us stop the feminist-driven "Equal Rights Amendment." Today she is running for Congress in what is shaping up to be one of the most important races in the country. But for Cherilyn to be successful, she is going to need the support of conservatives just like you.

Like you and me, Cherilyn understands that our Constitution is under vicious attack. Once elected, I promise you that she will take the lead in repealing Obama's destructive agenda and stand firm against the radical agenda of the Far Left.

As a wife, a mother and grandmother, Cherilyn brings good hardworking "real world" experience to the table. And that's something that is sorely needed in Washington, DC these days. I hope you'll stand with me and follow this link to make the most generous donation you can.

Faithfully,
Phillis Schlafly

Most Likely To...

2011-09-06T15:21:00.001-07:00

Ars Technica:

For many in the US, expertise has taken on a negative cultural value; experts are part of an elite that thinks it knows better than the average citizen. (This is accurate, for what it's worth.)

The mentality behind the anti-intellectual, anti-expert phenomenon is human nature. And I don't mean to imply all experts are equal or even all worth listening to (Sarah Palin is probably an expert at something...maybe). But the current push back against expertise -- from climate science to economic analysis -- is coming from the same crowd who think Sen. Duh-Mint is a luminary hero for petulantly refusing to attend Obama's jobs speech, and herald Bachmann for saying she'll shut down the EPA.

There's no thought behind it, it's just frustrated people with little information seeing rebellion of any kind against the things that confuse them as a noble move.

In this state, they don't want education or even policy that makes sense, they want a characature (Lee, DeMint, Bachmann, Paul) to rally behind who will fight whatever they've decided is the cause of all of their problems.

Don't challenge them with your uppity thinkin' and 'splainin', just tell them how you're going to prank the high school principal and get all the math classes canceled.

And these people are the most likely to answer public opinion polls.

Jobs Speeches vs. Jobs Plans

2011-09-01T13:01:00.002-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

I'm on board with those upset over the infuriating optics of the President asking for a speech, Republicans shouting we don't wanna, and the President backing down. Again. First reaction, for some reason it riled me more than Democrats rolling over in the debt-ceiling debate. Second, the win here was nil, save a few -- admittedly too rare -- headlines like "The President Actually Tells Republicans No."

Republicans don't want to detract from their debate. Fine. The President shouldn't want to detract from that debate either. It's Rick Perry's big moment, and smart money says that's comedy gold. No one outside the beltway is going to care about the reschedule, or who looks like the adult in the room by next week.

In fact the speech itself will be a minor blip on the radar compared to any jobs plan itself, if -- a big if -- the President gets real. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, via LA Times:

Who knows what's politically achievable until we try?" Trumka said. "The president should articulate a solution of the size and scale necessary to solve the problem. We have a jobs crisis. … If you do only what you think the other side and the 'tea party' will agree to, then they control the agenda."

[...]

For those worried about the deficit, Trumka insists that job creation and deficit reduction go hand in hand.

"They complement one another," he said. "You want to get rid of the deficit? Put 25 million people back to work and you won't have a deficit problem."

Trumka gives the Times a detailed plan worth reading, but the point here is behind the details: Set the bar on a jobs plan as high as you can, and use that as a starting point.

Just like was said in the stimulus debates. And the health care debates. And the Bush Tax Cuts debates. And the debt ceiling "debates." And...

Republicans will oppose and roll out the hyperbole cannons, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann will say dumb things. But economically this is a chance to set an agenda and begin addressing an actual problem. Politically this is the Democrats' last chance before the 14 month circus is in full swing to reset the narrative ceded the teaGOP.

Voters have already reset, Republicans have shown their hand with Bush's Cantor's jobs plan deregulatory orgy which managed to be even more sucktastic than his last "jobs" plan. It's not going to take a committee to find a more popular and effective first step:

Over much of the 20th century, America's strong infrastructure investment was a major factor attracting global corporations headquartered in other countries to invest and create jobs here. Rising U.S. standards of living were fueled by a strong infrastructure system that facilitated the growth of companies in America, both global and domestic alike: transportation systems to move people and products, electrical systems to power plants and offices, communications backbones to drive computers and creativity. By 2008, the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies employed over 5.6 million Americans -- nearly 2 million in manufacturing -- and exported $232.4 billion in goods. That's 18.1% of America's total.

(h/t Think Progress)

Getting Texas Wrong

2011-08-18T12:12:00.006-07:00

Yesterday on #utpol a discussion errupted about TX Gov. Rick Perry's jobs "miracle," with several people were pointing to ~~Irrational Optimist's~~ Matthias Shapiro's breakdown of the numbers at PoliticalMath as proof of Perry's claims. While Matthias deserves credit for pointing out Perry (or any governor for that matter) had little to do with Texas job markets, he first serves up a very lazy and incomplete analysis to say that everything is, indeed, rosy in Texas.

His four main conclusions, and why they're wrong...

Unemployment Rate. Matthias: Even at 8.2%, Texas has performed better than other states, and in fact has a ballooned unemployment rate due to increased migration. The Whole Story: Actually, he got this one. But his analysis goes downhill from here. Read on. Also worth noting: Massachusetts and New York mirror the Texas rate and pre/post recession trend, and Nevada is seeing the complete opposite effect due to exodus.

Low wages? Matthias: No. Median income $15 (28th, nationally), and fast wage growth post recession, so everything's super. The Whole Story: Median income isn't an accurate indicator, especially in "top heavy" Texas. Median income in Texas is skewed by a uniquely large gap between high skill workers (oil engineers, for example) with salaries well above national averages, and hourly wage workers (service industry, retail, etc) well below. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics -- the same place Matthias gets his median numbers -- service industry salaries in Texas fall 10.3 - 13% below the national average, and nearly 10% of these workers are at or below minimum wage. That leaves Texas tied for the top spot in the nation for population making nothing more than minimum wage. While this may attract business chasing cheap labor to the state, it hardly positions Texas as a solid wage mecca as Matthias concludes.

Unique Energy Sector "Boost"? Matthias: No. Even if you take the energy sector out, Texas job market is growing fast. The Whole Story: What? Matthias displays here the ancient axiom that being a (self professed) whiz at math doesn't give you an edge in common sense. The energy sector in Texas has dwindled greatly since the 1980's, but it still brings with it supporting sub-sectors that are themselves substantial chunks of the market makeup of the state. Short: Energy sector employees eat lunch, buy toothpaste, get their cars fixed, go to movies, shop at malls... you know, all the things that you do in your average day with your money. Even Shorter: Vernal, UT, without an energy industry, is a road sign and a porta-potty (some will argue it's not much more than that now, but you get my point). It's impossible to conclude that without the energy industry there would be the same rate of growth in Texas. Im. Poss. Ible. To use an example Matthias himself will understand: Say you have a two foot tall column of pennies that represent your state's job market, each penny dependent on the one below and above for stability. You decide to grab a fistful in the middle of the column and just yank them out. The result? Pennies everywhere. You simply wouldn't see the same productivity in Texas without the energy sector, and in mid-recession Texas this sector was booming.

Texas Jobs # Inflated by Public Sector? Matthias: Nope. Public sector grown 70,000. High but not off the charts. The Whole Story: Texas workforce commission reports:

Dec 2007 - 1,781,000 jobs
May 2010 - 1,920,000 jobs

Net increase: 140,000. While Matthias is right +70,000 public sector jobs is the number now, why ignore the much higher number just one year earlier? Well, my friends, because that number is off the charts. And in the end it has to do with those tangential job market relationships again. Just as energy jobs have their supporting industries, so too the public sector. With the loss of 1/2 of these public sector jobs in just the last year, it's likely that supporting industries are -- as is typical -- slow to respond, but sure to respond (in fact, they're already seeing it), but Matthias would have you believe reaching this high water mark had no effect on the job market then and ongoing. He's wrong.

And there's one final glaring omission from the Political Math post: $11 billion of stimulus spending in 2009 alone, in addition to federal $ for infrastructure projects. I'm sure he just forgot to mention it.

Finally, relish Gov. Perry touting the notion which Republicans and teabaggers have labored against for oh so long: government does, indeed, create jobs. Texas -- though obviously not the jobs "miracle" Matthias, Gov. Perry, Erickson, and NRO would have you believe -- is sitting in a better spot than all but two other states. How? Immigration, consumer protection (housing), and government spending. They balanced the budget with fed money, spent fed money, and cut taxes amidst that government optimized spending, while taking nothing away from the people, at least at the same time (Texas has a few health care and education funding challenges... but that's another post). Yay, Keynes! And Perry will be campaigning against all of this while seeking the TeaGOP nomination.

Some other great reads on this: Kevin Drum, Yglesias, Wall Street Journal, and David Dayden.

Mittens! Chilean UI Privatization Scheme

2011-08-13T21:04:00.001-07:00

I don't expect privatizing unemployment insurance to get much traction, just Mittens! throwing Koch Bros. red meat to the Bachmann lovin' crowd in Ames. But it's worth taking a look at the consequences of the "ideas" that Romney is willing to sign onto to head up the GOP trainwreck:

A couple of quick thoughts on this. First, the whole thing is yet another way to wrest workers' safety nets away and hand them to Wall Street. Can you imagine being a worker with money in these accounts and having it subject to the whims of these markets? Please. And second, the Chilean model purports to get those "deadbeats" back to work, but there is absolutely no evidence it decreases the unemployment rate or protects workers. None. All it does is create a situation where a worker will do whatever they can with no job security or benefits simply to make ends get closer to each other even if they don't actually meet. It was started in 2002. In 2009, Chile's poverty rate rose for the very first time in 23 years. And guess what? It was attributable to joblessness and the global economic crisis. Oh, and here's some more detail on Chile and the student protests over student debt, access to education, and income disparity from yesterday. Ah, yes, the Great Conservative Experiment.

Guess that didn't work out so well for them.

Destabilizers and Laying Blame

2011-08-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Set aside S&P's credibility problems and their $2 Trillion oopsie (also, somewhat credible defenses from Ezra Klein and Felix Salmon), and what they're saying is we don't care exactly how you do it, as long as everyone agrees to do it for longer than the next election cycle. Cuts are super, no revenue increases = unrealistic, and someone we aren't serious enough to name specifically used the prospect of default as a bargaining chip, and that's just crazy.

The reasons for the downgrade, in a nutshell: dysfunctional politics. And NYU's Jay Rosen nails it in a tweet:

If we are to credit S & P's clear thinking, as @felixsalmon says, then the opinion should have read: the Republicans destabilized the system.

But saying that directly in a report that could (probably not) further weaken the US economy would be uncivil! Let's just dance around it, fan the flames of dysfunction, and scurry back before Goldman Sachs yells at us again.

In the end, the downgrade may be useful in elevating a legitimate point from progressive circles to, oh, say, the White House and Senate Dems: The House of Representatives is held hostage by a pack of simple minded zealots who don't give two shits about governance, economics, or reality. The Daily Beast profiles 19 freshmen who'd like to see it all burn:

If there is one thing clear from the Tea Party caucus’ first triumph, it is that its members don’t adhere to Washington convention or care about public sentiment. The greater the criticism, the more they stiffen. Their singular focus is collapsing the size of government, at any cost.

No tactic is too extreme, no issue too small (debt-ceiling votes used to be routine before they came to Washington), and no offer of a federal project for their district or a glitzy committee assignment can lure them from the stubborn line they intend to hold against spending.
“So you’re sitting down with [Speaker] Boehner and [House Majority Leader] Cantor, and they’re offering you stuff for a vote,” Walsh, the Illinois Republican, recalls. “They can help you and do some things, you know, committee assignments and help moving up the chain.

“But whew,” he says, making a whistling sound and sweeping his hand over his head. “You’re talking beyond me. I just don’t care.”

Calling this a mere lack of adherance to "Washington convention" is like calling Charlie Manson a "free thinker." It's clear, for what it's worth, that S&P puts a lot of the reason for the downgrade on a handful of lawmakers with a near-religious fidelity to an American history they've re-imagined in their own image. It's not just that the President shouldn't be open to negotiating with the lowest common demoninators, it's that you can't negoatiate with them, and they rule the GOP.

Also via Tweet, Robert Reich sees a way around it for Obama:

Mr President: Put forth bold jobs plan, challenge Rs to support it, and if they refuse make it center of your 2012 campaign.

Keyword: bold. Drew Westen writes today that the President's problem is messaging. He didn't tell a story with clearly defined villains, Westen says. I agree. But while the blame for the downgrade itself may be clear, blame for the situation right now should be spread on Democrats across the board. More from the Daily Beast:

This time the geometry of triangulation is different. Obama is hunkered in one corner with House and Senate Democrats, who are increasingly alienated by the president’s willingness to compromise with the conservative wing of the GOP.

House and Senate Democrats are alienated? Valid criticism -- and important going forward -- but Democratic lawmakers get a pass now considering their track record and the Legislative Meh they've served up again and again? The POTUS and Democratic lawmakers shoulder the blame for the 2010 outcome. Sure the story could have been better told by Obama. Also true, legislative agendas under a Democratic majority haven't lent themselves well to defining a compelling narrative. For every legislative success there is a contradicting backstory. For every bold challenge, a walk back. Where's the inspiration in running away from a pre-election Bush Tax Cut fight? Where's the vision in letting Max Bacchus wander health care reform through the woods for months? NYT's Timothy Egan wrote in August 2010, foretelling Democratic losses, "[Democrats] have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance."

The public has long been soured on the tea party, even in conservative meccas. They support tax reforms and increased contributions from the nation's most wealthy. They've cooled on the overly-simplistic Republican slogans and warmed to blaming them for failure to solve our country's problems. They want Social Security and Medicare strengthened not shredded.

Now if they could only find a party that stood for those things!

Jobs Report and the Age of Austerity

2011-08-05T12:42:00.001-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Republican voters are more sour on the debt deal than Democrats, and Nate Silver says polls show House Republicans owning the debt ceiling deal, creating an opportunity for Obama:

Voters’ Pavlovian reaction may simply be that fiscal austerity equals pain, which could complicate Republican messaging in the long-run.

In the short-run — depending on what happens with the markets over the next several trading days as well as with tomorrow morning’s jobs report — the question becomes whether Mr. Obama attempts to exploit the crisis by calling for stimulative measures that were lacking in the deal he signed with Republicans.

And speaking of that job's report for July: Hiring increases, expectations don't. Via NPR, Brookings' William Dickens isn't impressed:

The July report also revised figures for the two previous months. The economy added 53,000 in May, up from an earlier estimate of 25,000; and 46,000 in June, up from 18,000.

Even so, the economy expanded at a meager 0.8 percent annual rate in the first half of the year, the slowest pace since the recession officially ended in 2009. Those figures, combined with financial troubles in the eurozone in recent days, have ratcheted up talk of a double-dip recession and put markets on edge in the past week.

"If Europe gets its act together and we don't have any more brinkmanship in the political arena here, I can see us just limping through without a double-dip recession," Dickens said.

Surely we've seen the end of "brinkmanship" hostage taking. Dickens argues that the Fed is out of options, but Dean Baker says not so quick:

... the Fed could pursue a path that Bernanke himself had advocated for Japan when he was still a Princeton professor. It could target a higher rate of inflation, for example 4 percent. This would have the effect of reducing real interest rates. It would also lower the debt burden of homeowners, which could allow them to spend more money.

That could relieve some pressure on consumers, but the numbers today are still a little good news in a sea of bad. Private sector growth is almost -- but not entirely -- negating public sector cut backs. Until something different than what we're doing is done, we'll be applauding "not as bad as it could have been" right into the double dip and President Mittens!/Bachmann/Perry's first term.

Recess Appointments?

2011-08-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Jonathan Bernstein says it could help the President's credibility.

I argued over at the Plum Line yesterday that Barack Obama should fight back against Republican obstruction by making a recess appointment right now, even though House Republicans are preventing a proper recess through procedural gimmickry, and even though George W. Bush respected precedent and did not make any recess appointments when Senate Democrats used similar tactics in 2007-2008 (details there, and in this earlier post; see also Ari Berman's arguments). The argument I made over there, which I think is a reasonable one, is that there's a huge difference between action to block appointments taken by a majority of the Senate compared to action taken by the House, which has no Constitutional role in confirmations.

Bernstein argues that a handful of recess appointments despite creative House GOP obstruction could lend credence to Obama's willingness to fight back, without much takeaway from the "reasonable one" image he seems obsessed with maintaining above all else.

Simply put, House Republicans will squawk, and Obama could use recess appointments to show he isn't afraid of that. In March 2010 he made 15 recess appointments to "send a message" to Republicans to stop stalling. Confirmations to offices at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, Office of the Comptroller, commerce secretary, a long list of federal judicial positions and of course the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are still held up by what amounts to a procedural farce.

Both Clinton and Bush Jr. made more than 100 recess appointments each, despite facing less opposition from the Senate. Today's Republicans have made it clear they'll stall for two full terms if they can. And as Bernstein points out, this is the House holding things up now, not the Senate.

It's hard to see what the President is waiting for.

Debt ceiling deal reached, catastrophe "averted"

2011-07-31T15:21:00.002-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Unless Boehner demands more (he is) of the everything he's already getting, it looks like the debt ceiling deal is in the bag. Voting expected in a few hours.

Brad DeLong and Yglesias forgo the not surprising -- if depressing -- details of the deal to ponder the biggest loser here: governance.

... whenever the desires of the president conflict with the desires of the speaker of the House, the president has little leverage. Any speaker who does not fear disaster can roll any president. In this future, any bill that a speaker insists is must-pass gets attached to a debt-ceiling increase, and--unless there are people in the Senate equally willing to risk disaster, which is unlikely because senators are status-quo players too--so becomes law.

It's like a parliamentary system, with the debt-ceiling votes filling the role of votes of confidence.

Ezra Klein says don't worry, Democrats. You're the self-appointed losers again, but you could accidentally win as we're baking the welcome cakes for President Romney.

On Dec. 31, 2012, three weeks before the end of President Barack Obama’s current term in office, the Bush tax cuts expire. Income tax rates will return to their Clinton-era levels. That amounts to a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years, three or four times the $800 billion to $1.2 trillion in revenue increases that Obama and Speaker John Boehner were kicking around. And all Democrats need to do to secure that deal is...nothing.

This scenario is the inverse of the current debt-ceiling debate, in which inaction will lead to an outcome -- a government default -- that Democrats can’t stomach and Republicans think they can. There is only one thing that could stand in the way of Democrats passing significant new revenues on the last day of 2012: the Obama administration.

Until then, brace yourself for increased state contraction thanks to all this Teanomic "compromise," and -- of course -- triggers:

Revenues, in other words, won't be forbidden by the deal, but will be an uphill climb. Some Democrats think they have added leverage because if Republicans pull such a trigger, it will provide them with a helpful message going into the next election: Republicans were so unwilling to end egregious tax loopholes and breaks for millionaires, that they triggered devastating cuts to domestic and defense programs. Levin doesn't really buy it.

Levin's a smart guy.

Meanwhile,

We have had a non-declining 9% plus unemployment very low interest rate economy for two years now. And the employment-to-population ratio has not moved. Something about the future must be different from the recent past in order to get it to move upward. Starting in 1994 it was the dot-com boom that pulled us out of that jobless recovery. Starting in 2004 it was the housing boom that pulled us out of that jobless recovery. What is going to pull us out of this jobless recovery? I don't see it yet.
In my view the chance that the unemployment rate will be 9% or higher at the end of 2012 has just crossed 50%, heading upward.

Yay compromise!

Impervious to Facts

2011-07-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD

Dean Baker wants to know if Thomas Friedman is impervious to facts.

The evidence suggests that he is. He gives yet another of his diatribes about the need to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in order to advance his grand agenda for the country. Of course Social Security is financed by its own designated tax and is projected to be fully solvent for the next quarter century, so it is a bit bizarre to have this one on the list.

The Facts: The most pessimistic projections say Social Security isn't a deficit creator until 2037. Current budget problems are the result of a housing bubble and, as Baker also points out, ongoing budget problems are (still) the result of a broken health care system and our solitary substantial investment of the past decade: war.

While the villagers clutch their pearls searching for the most creative plan to gut the social safety net, Republicans struggle to hold themselves together having won a majority by electing screaming ideologues, Democrats scramble to not screw the debt ceiling standoff up entirely, and the President does his best to reinforce 30 years of conservative deficit dogma, it's worth keeping one thing in perspective:

Our national discussion has become a national distraction, and it's sure to carry over into the 2012 campaigns. No one is debating real solutions to actual problems.

Also: Jobs.

Minnesota GOP and the Tim Pawlenty School of Finance

2011-06-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD

Looks like Minnesota Republican Party leaders are graduates. Deluth News Tribune (h/t Bluestem Praire)

“We have about 20 counties left to go,” GOP Chairman Tony Sutton said. “We have been chipping away on them.”

Sutton estimated that the party could finish paying its recount bills within four weeks. He said about $20,000 remains to be paid.

“It is about managing all the bills we have,” Sutton said.

The chairman answered questions about the issue Monday following a letter Sen. John Howe, R-Red Wing, sent to Republican legislative colleagues suggesting they contribute to pay the bills, although in an interview he thought just $3,000 to $4,000 remained.

The money owed to the counties comes from the state Republicans' love of recounts, the most recent in the governor's race last fall. Democrat Mark Dayton was ahead just under 8,000 votes before the recount, 9,000 after. (Unpaid) Money well spent, huh?

The MN GOP appears to have learned the IOU bill pay method from one of the best: Former Governor himself, Tim Pawlenty.

Tim Pawlenty left us with a balanced budget that included a variety of IOU's. IOU's on the scale that no other governor in Minnesota has ever done.

First, there is the $1.4 to $1.6 billion that we still owe the school districts from the Pawlenty unallotment. I really enjoyed the banter from candidate Tom Emmer during the campaign in which he said they would hold education harmless. Equally brazen is the rhetoric from House Education chair Pat Garofalo and how proud he is of the House education budget. Neither of them has ever had any intention of finding a way to pay that money back, while schools borrow and pay interest to make up the difference. This IOU has become locked in so heavily that even Governor Dayton sees no path to repayment during the current biennium.

2012 Voters Turning "Inward"

2011-05-05T12:21:00.001-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Sabato on the prospect of a "bin Laden" bump for Obama/Democrats in 2012?

[...] the killing of bin Laden, as ordered by a Democratic president, gives Democrats a convenient and easy-to-understand answer whenever challenged by Republicans on national security: “Republicans had seven years under George W. Bush to get bin Laden. They failed. Democrats got him in a little over two.”

That potentially powerful argument may mean a lot when the country inevitably refocuses on national security in some future election. But whether it matters much for next year’s presidential election, when the focus will likely remain on the economy, is very much an open question.

This week Pew released their Political Typology report, which concludes voters -- especially swing voters -- aren't paying as much attention. In 2005, military strength vs. diplomacy was the question dividing voters clearly on partisan lines, with disafecteds and undecideds left to pick a side. The new report shows that while there is still a split on that issue, it's primarily between Republican subsets not Democrats and Republicans. The majority of voters have turned "inward." Blumenthal:

As the report explains in more detail, we see even less division among the groups on a variety of foreign policy and national security issues, including the war in Afghanistan, the use of force in Libya, the trade-offs between privacy and safety from terrorism and the role of foreign trade.

What now divides the party groups more clearly are attitudes about the efficiency and worthiness of government and the social safety network. These are also the issues now most likely to create cross-pressure on true swing voters. For example, 45 percent of the Democratic-leaning Post Moderns worry that "government is almost always wasteful and inefficient," while 61 percent of the Republican-leaning Disaffecteds agree that "the government should do more to help needy Americans, even it if means going deeper into debt."

National security never fully leaves the equation, but any role it plays in 2012 will boost Democrats, and Republicans will shy away from the issue entirely. Swing voters will be busy pondering the value of Social Security, Medicare, and the health of the economy.

Probably why we're seeing Republicans run away from Paul Ryan's budget -- which all but 6 House Republicans voted for -- as fast as they can.

#GRAMA and New Media: A (Too) Simple Solution?

2011-04-12T10:58:00.001-07:00

One of the challenges for the GRAMA working group has been how to handle "new media" like Facebook and Twitter in the confines and principles of a sound open records law.

Using Facebook as the central point for understanding the question, here are some examples of the challenges that I think illustrate both the complexity of new media, as well as the (possibly) obvious simple solutions that don't take the teeth out of transparency policies.

Interactive posting.
Archival process.
Private messaging options.

Interactive posting. Most Utah lawmaker and city pages are interactive (i.e. anyone can comment or post to the page wall, not just the page owner). Are all comments and even wall posts from the public considered a record? A simple solution would be to disable the interactivity, but does that defeat the purpose of elected officials and government agencies using Facebook in the first place?

Archival process. For the most part, archiving is not up to the state of Utah, or any governing body. Even if Facebook functioned in a way today (it doesn't) that made automated archiving possible, that could change tomorrow, and those decisions will be made by Facebook with business factors in mind, not government transparency concerns. It wouldn't be much to ask that -- on a regular basis -- cities, lawmakers, and agencies simply cut an paste wall/comment content into an email for archiving, but what about private messages and Facebook chats, which aren't logged by Facebook indefinitely?

Private messaging. Direct messages on Twitter, one-to-one Facebook messages, and chats, again, could easily be manually archived, but that process would be widely unreliable, and is, again, dependent on what these third party companies decide to do going forward. We could develop an intricate procedure today, and next week, Twitter could make a change that renders any automated state process unusable. An obvious solution here would be a "best practices" policy (i.e. "Hey Senator... Don't private message"), but checks would be "on your honor," so not much different than the situation now, without addressing new media specifically within the GRAMA law itself.

With these three challenges in mind what is the solution? Considering that any constraints must also be weighed against discouraging agencies and lawmakers from using new media entirely -- something I believe would be a detriment to access in exchange for no significant guarantee of transparency -- how does Utah embrace new communication and interactive tools and still ensure a valuable level of public confidence in a transparent process?

What if the solution is as simple as accepting that when it comes to new media, no open records law -- no matter how aggressive -- is going to ensure everything is on record? The law could simply require agencies and elected officials to use a dedicated, already archived and recorded email address (.gov) as the contact on any Facebook or Twitter account activity, which would give you an automated record of at least one side of the conversations, and organizations from the legislature to city offices could institute a "best practices" training for officials on a regular basis. Maybe even throw in a "disclaimer" of sorts that reads: "Anything you do on Facebook or Twitter is fair game. Anything retrieved by the media/public isn't protected as private under this law"?

In short, new media will always offer an option for private, undocumented exchanges (I have 11 apps on my phone that would allow me to do that right now). Is it worth banning the use of such media for lawmakers to do away with the risk? I say no.

But there are simple steps that can be taken to keep their use as transparent as possible, without taking new media completely off the table as either completely private, or completely unused by state government.

Hand Over Your Medicare, or the Government Gets It!

2011-04-08T00:58:00.002-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

As both parties have fingers in the wind for a sign of who might own a potential shutdown, I can't think of anything more tone deaf than releasing, simultaneously, a budget proposal phasing out Medicare, and shifting the marginal tax rate burden further onto the middle class.

But that's just what Republicans have done. Ed Kilgore:

So TV viewers tonight are going to see Republicans ecstatic about Ryan's radical budget and Tea Partiers--despite the tips-from-the-coach offered by Bachmann--chanting for a government shutdown. Sure, most rank-and-file Republicans will see nothing wrong with this scenario, but elsewhere, the public is likely to deduce that the "savings" congressional GOPers are demanding are about something more fundamental than subsidies for Big Bird or the exact level of cuts.

Ryan's proposal got the go ahead from leadership because it was red meat for the teabaggers. I'd bet they thought, just like in Ryan's first whack at screwing the middle class via "serious proposal" a year ago, they could stir up the Randian base, and wave it off in front of saner voters as just a discussion of ideas, a pondering of options, a party searching for it's identity.

But by wasting their first few months as a governing majority with a predictable attack on NPR funding, anti-choice posturing, and training the freshmen not to sound like secessionists on CNN, they've staved off any real discussion around policy withing their own ranks. And when they finally have it, they ensure that the "budget" showdown and Rep. Paul Ryan's "budget" proposal get simultaneous headlines, and connection in the public mind as one "budget" fight.

As in: We'll shut this whole thing down -- closing your parks, furloughing public workers, and delaying tax return checks -- unless you hand over your Medicare!

This genius strategy had every Democrat within sprinting distance of a microphone or camera rushing to comment in a rare display of messaging control.

Considering the buyers' remorse already hanging over Republican governors settling in in the midwest, and most of the freshmen Republicans campaigning in 2010 on defending Medicare against Obama's health care reform, I don't see how they reel this albatross back in.

Welcome to the 2012 campaign, folks. Entertainment provided by John Boehner's House.

Redistricting Committee Announced

2011-04-06T13:41:00.001-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 6, 2011

UTAH LEGISLATIVE REDISTRICTING COMMITTEE ANNOUNCED

SALT LAKE CITY -- Today, the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate announced the makeup of Utah's Redistricting Committee.

House members on the committee will include:

* Chairman Rep. Ken Sumsion, R-American Fork
* Rep. Curt Webb, R-Logan
* Rep. Gage Froerer, R-Huntsville
* Rep. Roger Barrus, R-Centerville
* Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake City
* Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City
* Rep. Todd Kiser, R-Sandy
* Rep. Merlynn Newbold, R-South Jordan
* Rep. Mel Brown, R-Coalville
* Speaker Becky Lockhart, R-Provo
* Rep. Francis Gibson, R-Spanish Fork
* Rep. Christine Watkins, D-Price
* Rep. Don Ipson, R-St. George

Senate members on the committee will include:

* Chairman Senator Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe
* Senator Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City
* Senator Ben McAdams, D-Salt Lake City
* Senator Stuart Reid, R-Ogden
* Senator Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal
* President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville

The committee will start work this month. They will draw maps and host a series of public hearings statewide in the months that follow. We anticipate that the Governor will call a special session in late summer or fall to allow the full Legislature to consider the new state maps.

The redistricting committee will draw boundaries for the State Board of Education, Utah House of Representatives, Utah State Senate, and the Utah congressional delegation, which now includes -- 10 years late -- our fourth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the last decade, Utah's population grew from 2,233,169 to 2,763,885. In 2001 the ideal population of a Utah House District was 29,776 (total population divided by 75). The ideal population of a senate district was 77,006 (total population divided by 29). To adhere to the principle of equal representation, and given the new population numbers, the boundaries now need to be adjusted so house districts include 36,852 people and senate districts include 95,306.

The public is encouraged to get involved in the process by participating in public hearings and using online technology - soon to be accessible on the legislative website - that wasn't widely available a decade ago. Interested citizens will be able to listen in, work on their own map proposals, and track the progress of the committee's work at www.le.utah.gov.

# # #

NOTES:

1. You can see the exact numbers by which each Utah House and Senate district needs to expand or contract in the PDF files, attached.

2. You can find information on the RFP for an Internet Based Redistricting Solution here: http://le.utah.gov/lrgc/rfp.internetbasedredistricting.html

3. A plethora of information from the 2001 redistricting process is archived here:
http://le.utah.gov/Interim/2001/html/2001sperdt.htm

4. Senate Leadership discussed redistricting with the press in late February. Listen to the audio clips here: http://www.senatesite.com/home/redistricting/

5. The State Board of Education recently posted redistricting info here: http://utahpubliceducation.org/2011/03/23/redistricting-will-redraw-utah-state-board-of-education-districts/

CONTACTS:

Joe Pyrah
Chief Deputy of the House
801-903-0955
joepyrah@utah.gov
http://www.utah.gov/house/index.html

Ric Cantrell
Chief Deputy of the Senate
801-647-8944
rcantrell@utahsenate.org
http://www.utahsenate.org

#GRAMA Work Group: Week Two

2011-03-30T07:49:00.011-07:00

I want to give a quick shout out to The Sunlight Foundation here, they've been amazingly helpful in researching open government policy around the country to see how other states are handling changing technology.

Our second meeting as a work group tasked with "bringing GRAMA into the 21st century" kicks off at 9am today at the Senate Building. I'll be tweeting, and you can follow along via the #GRAMA hashtag, and @GRAMArevisited, the official Twitter stream for the work group. I'll update this post afterward with more info from the meeting.

The Senate Site has more:

The SECOND MEETING of the GRAMA Group is set for Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Senate Building Room 210. This is an informal working group, but we’ll live stream and do what we can to make it open and inclusive.

Audio stream here. Requires RealPlayer. Sorry.

And the live stream embed:

Free video chat by Ustream

SCOTUS Returns to Politics and Money

2011-03-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Just over a year after the Citizens United ruling, the Supreme Court is about to delve into politics and money again, this time taking up the constitutionality of Arizona's public finance system for state candidates:

The subsidy system that the Justices are now ready to review was, in fact, believed to be a reform measure when Arizona’s voters narrowly approved it (by a 51-49 percent margin) in a statewide initiative in 1998. After a series of scandals over financing of state campaigns, resulting, among other woes, in criminal prosecution of two governors and a number of state legislators, voters went to the polls to vote on a measure titled the “Clean Elections Act.” Backers promoted the Act with a pamphlet arguing that the Act would free politicians to represent the public’s interest, and not just the interests of those who gave large contributions to their campaigns. The pamphlet tied the Act directly to the recent scandals, saying that the cycle of campaign finance abuse had seemed endless.
The Act went into effect in 2000, and as many as two-thirds of state candidates thereafter have opted into the subsidy system. The system was used in every state election after 2000 — until the elections of last November, after the system had been blocked by a temporary vote of the Supreme Court last June 8.

The "Clean Elections Act" is complicated -- but not unwieldy -- to understand, especially when you dig into various trigger and counter-trigger mechanisms enacted by the campaign sending choices of wealthy self-funded candidates. But that's not where those challenging the law are focused. Both proponents and opponents of the law are making a similar argument: this is about free speech.
Opponents aim at a specific trigger mechanism in which a candidate can ask for a subsidy if a self-financed opponent's (including independent "supporting groups") spending reaches a certain level, arguing this would encourage a self-financed candidate to keep their spending below that ceilling, "limiting" their free speech. Proponents of the law argue this mechanism levels the playing field fairly. Self-funded candidates are still free to out spend, but as they do, their opponents qualify for (but aren't forced to request) additional (but not equal in dollar amount) subsidies.
In a follow up post, SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston points out that in Monday's oral arguments, at least one Justice is already foreshadowing the precarious future of the system:

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who definitely seems to hold the deciding vote on the newest test of the Supreme Court’s skepticism about campaign finance laws, made repeated comments on Monday suggesting that he is very wary of Arizona’s attempt to offset the impact of wealthy candidates paying their own way. Among a variety that could be noted, no remark was more telling than what seemed almost to be a rhetorical question: “Do you think it would be a fair characterization of this law to say that its purpose and its effect are to produce less speech in political campaigns?”

I'm not informed enough on it to argue the Arizona model is a perfect or flawed system for better election process, but in Citizens United, the court declared it was "discriminatory" to limit "free speech" based on the "identity" of the spender. I'd expect them to take the same position here ensuring another win for billionaires buying up elections.

#GRAMA Work Group: Week One

2011-03-23T14:23:00.004-07:00

A few quick, barely self-edited thoughts on the first GRAMA work group meeting today:

There seemed to be broad agreement that our focus should be on the existing GRAMA law, and not HB477. This was encouraging. The task of somehow turning HB477 into a good law is impossible. Considering "bringing GRAMA into the 21st century" as a focus seems more reasonable.

On that point though, I found it odd to be discussing making changes to the existing open government law as if we've all agreed a case has been made for doing so. Legislators have not made a compelling argument for minor updates, let alone sweeping changes likely to stand for the next two decades. Reasons given amount to playing the victim (more on that below), and citing "fishing expeditions" without supplying evidence of any abuse that outweighs the importance of public confidence in an open, transparent process, and implications that the courts have over reached in interpreting GRAMA for the public good. I would like to see more of a concrete argument (and evidence) for making any changes to GRAMA than those offered so far.

On the notion that legislators are the victims of Utah's open records laws, I offer: Buffalo Chips! Sen. Stuart Adams provided an example today of a GRAMA request of his emails. He took issue over the fact that there were personal emails included, and though those emails weren't released, someone, somewhere read them. Adams said he "felt" this was a violation of his 4th amendment rights. An illegal search and seizure. While I can sympathize with legislators having "feelings" (as I understand it, some of them do), this is a ridiculous point of contention with open records policy. It amounts to wanting 1) private communications kept private and 2) no one getting to review records to determine what is private or in the public interest, except, I assume, the legislator responding to the request. It's impossible to address Sen. Adams' "feelings" and have an open records law that will serve the public well. Impossible.

That's not to say I don't sympathize. Personally, this level of exposure would make me uncomfortable too. And that is why I will never run for office. But Sen. Adams did get himself elected, and now serves the people of Utah. In the interest of public confidence in our governing agencies, lawmakers "feelings" should not rate higher than a transparency law with enough teeth to be effective.

Some great questions were thrown out today, and I literally can't wait to actually get into discussing some of the ideas and issues in depth. But like I say, I'm worried about the tone set by lawmakers and this work group retaining credibility. There are still a lot of valid questions unanswered on why the current set of transparency principles outlined in GRAMA are inadequate.

Sen. Pat Jones best framed what I think the umbrella focus of this group should be: Is it private until proven public, or public until proven private?

With all the talk today of "burden of proof," that's the money phrase. Someone is going to own the burden of proof in any issue of public vs. private communication. Legislators have not provided a convincing argument yet that that burden should fall on the public, the media, or non-profit advocacy groups to prove a need to access records of work done in our name. If legislators want to shift that burden onto taxpayers, they're going to have to provide something more tangable than the way GRAMA requests leave them "feeling."

I'll post more on the 36 policy questions presented to the group today soon; great questions I'd like to hear your thoughts on before the group meets again next Wednesday.

Newt's Legacy: For the GOP it's not about representation

2011-03-20T16:09:00.003-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD

John Sides links to a discussion on the breakdown of legislative norms, when debate in the House denigrates to a fight that has nothing to do with policy or problem solving or even reality. Barry Pump traces the tactic (yes, tactic) back to Newt Gingrich and two hours of "schoolyard taunting and bullying" in 1984.

2. Gingrich prepares a massive speech attacking Democrats by name (such as former appropriations chairman Dave Obey of Wisconsin and former Oakland mayor Ron Dellums) and accusing them of spreading communist propaganda in the Speaker’s Lobby. He writes a letter notifying the Democrats that he was going to name check them, but the letter was not delivered in time for the Democrats to respond on the floor during Gingrich’s speech.

3. Gingrich gives the speech while most members have gone home for the weekend. Dellums says he was on a plane back to California when Gingrich was on the floor impugning his patriotism, and he didn’t find out about it until he landed.

Pump outlines in 10 steps how Gingrich attacks the patriotism of Democrats outside of legislative protocol "norms," elicits an angry response from Speaker Tip O'Neill -- who orders newly installed television cameras to pan, showing Gingrich speaking to an empty chamber, and calls Gingrich out of line -- and then plays the victim, claiming the speaker abused his position for criticizing him publicly. Gingrich and his "young turks" brought the legislative process to a halt with hyperbolic antics. The goal was no longer policy or ideological agenda, but simply majority status at any cost. By the end of the 80's, the Republican Party was sold, and a 30 legislative strategy had begun.

By selecting the aggressive Gingrich over his mild-mannered rival, Illinois' Edward Madigan, House Republicans signaled that they want more lash in their whip. "We had a choice of being attack dogs or lapdogs," said a G.O.P. lawmaker. "We decided attack dogs are more useful."

Flash forward to the 112th Congress.

For all the hints at Boehner's lack of control as speaker after several unexpected failures, I wouldn't hold my breath. This isn't an intra-party rebellion; this is just blip in party message control. Leadership and the freshmen tea baggers won't part ways given a choice between governing or the perpetual campaign. "Principles," half-baked or not, will be set aside faster than a Gingrich mistress when leadership reminds the newbies elections still happen, and even the slightest nod at actual problem solving is out the window when the newbies remind leadership they are all Newt spawn.

For Republicans, this hasn't been about governance or representation for a very, very long time.

From the poll tax to the literacy test, using the law to create a structure that systematically disenfranchises people unlikely to vote for you has a long tradition in America’s political warfare. The latest “anti-voter fraud” laws pushed by Republicans are hardly different. By taking away same-day registration and requiring photo IDs to vote, they are making it harder for traditionally Democratic-leaning groups — students, young people, the poor, and some minorities — to exercise their right to vote. The basic strategy is if you can’t win their vote, keep them from voting altogether. While these actions have gained publicity in Wisconsin, the same tactic is being pushed by the GOP in places like Kansas and New Hampshire.

To the GOP it's a decades long war to be won and the ends will justify any means.

Cherilyn Eagar Will Save Us All (Send Her Money! UN! Mexicans! Arglebargle!)

2011-03-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest misuses of the phrase "common sense" I've seen in a long time. In the inbox:

The U.N. Agenda for Immigration
How Utah is adopting that agenda through HB 116
Last week a group of women from Eagle Forum accompanied me to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women Conference.  (More on that event to come.)

A few of us unintentionally attended a session hosted by the U.N. University addressing immigration. The presenters and many in the audience hold the position that immigration policy should embrace the concept of the free flow of migrant movement across borderless nation states.

It was suggested that a person should be able to set foot on American soil one day and run for political office the next.   Your contribution is needed now so that we can continue to fight for our freedom. Today.

Correction
My previous message today addressed the Utah legislature's action to embrace amnesty and how it will endanger all 50 states if the governor signs the bill. What has been unspoken in the debate is Utah's role in either knowingly or unknowingly contributing to the incremental movement toward open borders, global governance and the end of sovereignty that the U.N. openly supports.

I am now in D.C. and have just learned that the Utah amnesty bill is still on Utah Governor Gary Herbert's desk. Please contact him ASAP to let him know that the United States does not want Utah to become the magnet for more illegal aliens, which is the history of amnesty. The history of guest worker programs is that 40% of them overstay their visas and then become part of the illegal landscape.

Guest Workers?
Don't be deceived. A guest worker program cannot be implemented safely until the borders are secured! What message is Utah giving illegal aliens? "Come to America illegally, use illegal documents and in 16 years you too will be granted amnesty." This gives them time to use your children's social security numbers fraudulently and then be given a pass before it is discovered who those social security numbers really belong to. This is a farce.

Contact Utah's Governor Gary Herbert.
If you are a Utah delegate and oppose this measure, contact Brandon Beckham immediately. A meeting with the governor is being organized today. BrandonCBeckham@gmail.com

3S HB116 was pushed through the Utah State House of Representatives late Friday. By show of hands, most of them had not even read the bill! Please contact Governor Herbert’s office today and let him know that until the border is secured, we want enforcement only.

Contact all three:
Andrea Hansenandreahansen@utah.gov (Governor’s secretary)
Governor Gary Herbert gherbert@utah.gov
Lt. Gov.Greg Bell gregbell@utah.gov

Cut & paste in the bcc line for your convenience: andreahansen@utah.gov, gherbert@utah.gov, gregbell@utah.gov

Call the Governor’s office at 801.538.1000.

Learn more about the outrageous consequences of this bill.  Click here.

[SNIP: Rambles on about American Leadership fund, Mexican terrorists a bit more]

Thank you for your help.

Faithfully,

Cherilyn Eagar
Director, American Leadership Fund
Coalition on Illegal Immigration

HB477: They Did It for the Legislators! (And that's why it was wrong)

2011-03-05T13:47:00.001-07:00

Rep. John Dougall, (R - Giant Hypocrite)

Last night, via the Senate Site, an explanation of the fast-tracked, little discussed, and transparency defeating HB477, passed by the House and Senate both with little opposition. Read the whole thing yourself, but outside of anecdotal cost examples (which could be addressed numerous ways, with much more respect for the public trust), and a notion of protecting private information in legislative communications (which I would argue does not, and should not trump public confidence in an open, transparent government), it seems they "did it for the legislators!" And that is exactly why it was wrong.

Our elected officials are entrusted with representing us, and often seem to forget that they work for us, not their own claim to power. But more of a travesty here is a disrespect for the role of the media. The media, more so than any elected official, are a true extension of the people.

If there is indeed an over-reach by the media (keep in mind no legitimate example of such has been given) in the use of GRAMA, that is a necessary evil, and there are, again, far better options -- some that would take advantage of the very technology legislators have expressed concern about -- than restricting public access to the governing process. Utah legislators should feel obligated to err on the side of protecting that relationship between voters and lawmakers provided by an aggressive and attentive investigative media.

With HB477, legislators, led by Rep. John "Champion of Open Government" Dougall, and Senator Lyle "My Law Clients Come First" Hillyard, have instead erred on the side of protecting themselves.

My comment on the Senate Site post:

So far, legislators, primarily Dougall and Hillyard have provided only anecdotal “evidence” of the cost. And even if cost really is an issue, this is perhaps the least creative “fix” to that, and one that happens to not just “lose the PR” battle, but paints the legislature as making a judgment call on “worth” not so much as “cost.”

Outside of cost, Hillyard spent a lot of time in the media briefing and on the floor pointing out that clients sometimes email him at his legislative address. I understand that concern, and I even sympathize to an extent that our legislators who have jobs outside of their legislative duties. But what was so disappointing for me, listening to Hillyard, was his complete lack of personal responsibility. Senator, you are an elected official, charged with representing the people of Cache Valley, not just your law office clients. If your clients are emailing you at your Senate address, you (and only you) need to take responsibility for correcting that. It’s not — in any way shape or form — the responsibility of your constituents, who expect an open and transparent governing process.

Finally, I love the outreach from our legislature online. Especially that of the Senate body. But in effect, the way this has been handled, and the decisions leadership have made in how to begin a dialog -- implied by their “we’ll get back to this later” message to Utah’s media -- undermines that very outreach. Those of us who know legislators personally or interact to a greater degree during the legislative session may be able to see past this and watch for a continuing dialog, but for the general public busy with their daily lives, HB477 and the process by which it became law this week furthers the notion that their lawmakers are only telling them half of the story.

The point of “sunshine” or “open government” initiatives are not only good government, but a more engaged and less cynical public. With this process, and this bill, the Utah Legislature has done more to feed that cynicism than fight it. I am disappointed that Senator Hillyard would be more concerned about the “trials and tribulations” of legislators than the bigger picture of encouraging public faith in Utah’s institutions.

Not a proud day for Senator Hillyard, or the legislative process in Utah.

Now Governor Herbert has a choice.

Help him make it.

Email the Governor, or Call:
801-538-1000
800-705-2464
Fax 801-538-1528

Herbert Misleads on Wilderness Policy

2011-03-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Governor Herbert testified yesterday alongside ID Gov Butch Otter, MT Rep/Senate candidate Denny Rehberg, attacking Secretary Salazar's December order that the US Dept. of Interior would (GASP!) begin enforcing existing policy, ignored under the "No More Wilderness" Bush-era agreement between the department and some western states. Herbert:

"This order hinders rural economic development and hurts key funding sources for Utah's school children," Herbert said, noting that royalties from mineral development are a primary founding sources for Utah schools.

Putting aside the obvious irony of a Utah Republican feigning concern for schoolchildren, I decided to look into how this new policy focus would negatively impact mineral development in Utah. What I found:

It wouldn't. At all. (But: LAND GRAB!!! Arglebargle!!!)

According to BLM data for western states, there is an average of 1 acre of wilderness land for every 42 leased for oil and gas drilling. And of the land currently leased (which would not be effected by the new order) for oil and gas drilling, just over 1/3 is actually being used by the industry. Returning to enforcing existing policy would only effect new land designations.

Herbert took his typical "funky math" dog and pony show on the road to oppose what would essentially be a more open public land policy with greater opportunity for public input than the policy of the past several years and a policy that wouldn't hurt Utah's School children nearly as much as the legislation from the legislative session waiting on his desk to sign.

Don't believe the hype.

State of the Union Address, 1936

2011-02-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

History, repeats:

To be sure, in so doing, we have invited battle. We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed. The very nature of the problem that we faced made it necessary to drive some people from power and strictly to regulate others. I made that plain when I took the oath of office in March, 1933. I spoke of the practices of the unscrupulous money-changers who stood indicted in the court of public opinion. I spoke of the rulers of the exchanges of mankind's goods, who failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence. I said that they had admitted their failure and had abdicated.

Abdicated? Yes, in 1933, but now with the passing of danger they forget their damaging admissions and withdraw their abdication.

They seek the restoration of their selfish power. They offer to lead us back round the same old corner into the same old dreary street.

Yes, there are still determined groups that are intent upon that very thing. Rigorously held up to popular examination, their true character presents itself. They steal the livery of great national constitutional ideals to serve discredited special interests. As guardians and trustees for great groups of individual stockholders they wrongfully seek to carry the property and the interests entrusted to them into the arena of partisan politics. They seek-this minority in business and industry--to control and often do control and use for their own purposes legitimate and highly honored business associations; they engage in vast propaganda to spread fear and discord among the people--they would "gang up" against the people's liberties.

The principle that they would instill into government if they succeed in seizing power is well shown by the principles which many of them have instilled into their own affairs: autocracy toward labor, toward stockholders, toward consumers, toward public sentiment. Autocrats in smaller things, they seek autocracy in bigger things. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Also, this.

Response from Senator Liljenquist

2011-02-28T11:31:00.001-07:00

Last week, we challenged Senator Dan Liljenquist, the man behind Utah's pension (2010) and Medicaid (2011) reforms to explain an indisputably inaccurate post drawing a comparison between what's happening in Wisconsin, and his own reforms here. Liljenquist is often touted as an "expert" on these two issues, and how they relate to state budgeting. That's why it was such a shock to see him get it so wrong. Under a bit of pressure, Liljenquist finally posted comments from both Craig and I on his post, and responded in a single tweet:

@SenatorDanL: @thesidetrack I know the wrath of unions and their ostrich like insistence that nothing is wrong. I'm with Gov Walker. #utpol

Liljenquist didn't object to our challenges to his rendition of the budget issue in Wisconsin. He isn't objecting to the fact that these "wrathful" unions have agreed to all of the concessions asked of them by the state of Wisconsin. He didn't objecting to the implication that the fight in WI seems less about the budget, and more about a concentrated conservative push to undermine workers unions and pin state budget problems on the backs of teachers, firefighters and laborers. He didn't challenge the notion that WI Governor has helped to create a budget crisis with corporate hand outs. He didn't challenge the fact that state budgets are suffering the effects of a high unemployment, a housing crisis, and an economy in serious need of investment rather than further growth stifling cuts.

But he is, clearly, comparing what's going on there to what he is pushing for here. So can we assume he intends to create, with the support of the entire legislature, to create the same budgetary environment in Utah?

It's disappointing. Having spoken with Liljenquist a few times, I was impressed. Perhaps I just wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping he was coming from was a position of true concern for the future of all Utahns, as far as that future is tied to how we budget. Unfortunately, it seems Liljenquist is nothing but another ideologue with an axe to grind. Liljenquist is fond of saying "Do the math." I encourage everyone to do exactly that. Liljenquist's doesn't add up, or he is willing to mislead to justify his agenda. Also worth noting, these reforms amount to changing the rules mid-game. The state, like Wisconsin, is in effect renegotiating a contract made with Utah workers regarding promised earnings because they, legislators, did not budget well enough to meet their end of the bargain in a recessive economy. That's irresponsible, and now Liljenquist wants to place the blame on you!

With that in mind, the cries of "Medicaid is bankrupting us!" play out more as an weak excuse than a noble call to action. Last year, that same excuse was made to justify rushed pension reforms. What's next, Senator? Education? Transportation? Probably. And speaking of ostriches, notice that missing from any/all of this debate is any discussion of Utah's revenue stream architecture. Liljenquist would have us believe Utah has stumbled upon perfection in that arena, and any short coming must obviously be the fault of people who want retirement security or reliable medical services.

Both pensions and Medicaid are important parts of budgetary planning, and no one -- ever -- should defend the status quo as the best that can be done, including tax structure.

In light of all of this, Utahns should be very suspicious about how these reforms are taking shape, and what, exactly, Senator Liljenquist's true motives really are.

Questioning Senator Liljenquist's Credibility

2011-02-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last years pension "reforms" and the current Medicaid changes in Utah have been almost exclusively synonymous with one State Senator's name: Sen. Dan Liljenquist.

Liljenquist has been referred to again and again as the "smartest guy in the room" when it comes to these two issues as they relate to reforms and the state budget, and there's been little reason not to give Liljenquist the benefit of the doubt on his level of expertise and sincerity. Until today. Liljenquist posts, at his own website, a defense and justification of what Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposals, hitting all the talking points, and as we've seen from the WI GOP, telling about half the truth.

Liljenquist:

Wisconsin knows that reality is not negotiable. For years, they – along with about 49 other states – have kicked the can down the road when it comes to dealing with soaring pension costs and exploding unfunded liabilities. This week, Governor Scott Walker, a conservative Republican, told Fox News Sunday: “For us, this is about balancing the budget. We’ve got a $3.6 billion budget deficit. We are broke. Just like nearly every other state across the country, we’re broke. It’s about time somebody stood up and told the truth.”

Well, it appears Liljenquist won't be doing that "truth telling." Wisconsin doesn't have a $3 billion deficit this year, they have a $130 million shortfall for the remainder of this cycle, in an overall state budget of $14 billion (i.e. that's a crisis? Really?). Budget analysts agree that a $3 billion gap is on the way 'round 2011-13 in Wisconsin, but why? The state's legislative authority (think WI CBO) has an idea:

More than half of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2 (health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), and Assembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees).

Or.

In English: The governor called a special session of the legislature and signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit. [See update below.] As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

This is the height of irresponsible governance, and a strategy, it seems, endorsed by our own "authority" on state budget reforms? More from Liljenquist:

Schoolteachers from Madison, Wisconsin are some of the best paid teachers in the country, earning an average of $56,000 a year in salary, plus benefits totaling over $100,000.. Many public employees in Wisconsin can retire at age 55 with close to full pay, much earlier than the average private sector employee, while public sector unions are now the biggest contributor to political campaigns in the state.

The unspoken charge? Wisconsin's budget "crisis" is caused by public employees' pensions, teacher's salaries, and the ability of public unions to negotiate on the behalf of public employees. It's the standard GOP meme, but also happens to be one big lie. Not just in Wisconsin but nationwide, state budget problems are a result of the recession, the housing crisis, and high unemployment. Not teachers, firefighters, policemen, or the clerks at the DMV, as Senator Liljenquist seems to believe himself.

[Worth noting, as well: pension promises by states were de facto contracts between workers and states, which states now want to withdraw. So states (like Utah) refuse to address their revenue models, continuously pin public worker pensions to the whims of the stock market, and when the markets fold in a recession, return to these workers and demand concessions? Wow, that's leadership!]

That aside, what Senator Liljenquist fails to point out in his post is that WI's public unions have agreed to every financial concession the Governor has asked for. They simply object to his proposed changes to union bargaining rights -- changes that would not change the budget situation one iota. Should Walker withdraw the bargaining rights changes, legislative Democrats would return, and public workers would accept the financial burden they are being asked to shoulder. So who is holding up the process then? Walker.

Sen. Liljenquist, for all of his oft-touted "expertise" here is either grossly misinformed or willing to intentionally grossly misinform the rest of us. Neither should be acceptable from a state senator, even more so from the person driving our own state "reforms."

PATRIOT Act Vote Tomorrow, Call Your Congressman

2011-02-07T10:42:00.001-07:00

Electronic Frontier Foundation, in the inbox:

Tell your Congressperson to vote NO to the PATRIOT Act before tomorrow's vote! The PATRIOT reauthorization bill being fast-tracked to the House floor contains NO reforms, and will be voted upon with NO debate and NO opportunity for amendments to add oversight and accountability. Help stop this sneak attack on your civil liberties.

Tell your Representative to vote "NO" on H.R. 514, the PATRIOT extension bill.

Last year, many important PATRIOT reform measures were proposed, and a bill filled with powerful new checks and balances was reported favorably out of the House Judiciary Committee. But, as it ran up against the deadline, Congress decided there was not enough time to fully consider those reforms. So, last year, Congress extended the "sunsetting" sections of the law until the end of this February, with a promise to fully consider the issues before the next deadline.

But now, in a legislative sneak attack, the new Republican leadership in the House is trying to duck Congress' promise to consider PATRIOT reform, and is instead pushing your Representative to rubber-stamp another PATRIOT renewal. The House leaders have just announced that they'll be "suspending the rules" so that a bill introduced by Rep. Sensenbrenner to extend the expiring provisions until December 8, 2011 will go to the House floor for a vote on Tuesday, without any debate and without any opportunity for anyone to offer amendments to improve the bill.

Huntsman

2011-02-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

Former Utah Governor turned Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr. has resigned his post, and all speculation is that he's prepping for a White House run.

Huntsman has the money to jump-start a campaign, and the timing is undeniable, but he'd have to be tone deaf to take a run seriously. He's proven himself to be a sharp reader of political winds, and agile flip flopper. To get elected in Utah, he tied himself to an Eagle Forum devotee for Lt. Gov (Now Governor... so thanks for that Jon) from Utah's most conservative county. Once elected, fence sitting and inconsistencies were elevated to an art form. Jed Lewison beat me to the punch, detailing Huntsman as a walking contradiction.

But it's not just contradictions in tone, it's also substance. For example, in early 2009, Huntsman said Republicans needed to embrace gay rights and endorsed civil unions, but in 2004 he supported a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a ban which included the following provision: "No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect."

Similarly, in 2009, he said Republicans needed to take a moderate stand on immigration and praised Ronald Reagan for granting amnesty, yet a year earlier, he'd signed into law a hard-line anti-immigration measure similar to Arizona's SB1070.

Sound familiar? Mittens, Jr, without the MA health care mandate.

Huntsman can read the leaves, and shape himself accordingly, but it's tea leaves he'd be reading now. Despite his overwhemling popularity in the second most conservative state in the union, Huntsman saw the writing on the wall after the 2008 election results were in. His state, just as in the Clinton years, was about to become a far-right haven he wouldn't fare as well in. He'd painted himself as a moderate, without actually opposing some of the most extreme policies the Utah State Legislature tossed his way, but in the tea party age his lack of commitment to Teh Crazy was about to come home, and he -- smartly -- bailed.

In short, if the GOP were anywhere close to sane right now, Huntsman the Moderate could be their best shot. But the TeaGOP won't buy Huntsman the Palin-ite. Plus, Mittens! is one step ahead on the pandering.

If Huntsman gets in, it's just until Iowa. Enough to show intent, on his own dime, with 2016 in mind.

Let it Expire

2011-01-28T07:42:00.001-07:00

DemandProgress.org, in the inbox:

The PATRIOT Act is set to expire in just FOUR WEEKS, but Congress is trying to rush through a last minute extension -- and we need to fight back now!

Since it was passed almost a decade ago, some of the most noxious portions of the PATRIOT Act have burrowed their way deep into our legal system -- and last week Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) introduced legislation to extend them.

Will you click here, and urge your elected officials to let the PATRIOT Act expire?

Together, these provisions make a mockery of our civil liberties: They let government officials spy on whomever they want, for any reason, without ever letting them know or giving them a chance to challenge the order in court.

Enough is enough: Will you join us in demanding that Congress finally let these provisions expire?

Just click here and we'll send a message to your senator, representative, and President Obama.

Thanks for taking a stand.

-- The Demand Progress team

P.S. Please consider forwarding this message on to your friends, so we can make sure lawmakers hear from as many people as possible over the next four weeks.

TODAY: Public Forum on Utah's Foreclosure Crisis

2011-01-18T11:44:00.001-07:00

Via Utah Senate Democrats:

Representative LaVar Christensen and Senator Ben McAdams, working with the forum’s sponsors, are hosting a public forum and panel discussion that will examine the scope of the home foreclosure crisis in Utah and listen to frustrations of individuals and families who have lost their homes due to foreclosures. Christensen and McAdams are both proposing legislation in the 2011 legislative session that would implement a foreclosure mediation program similar to programs adopted by various other states. They are seeking input through this forum on how a Utah home foreclosure mediation program could be structured.

When: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 at 4 pm.

Where: Senate Building, Room 201, Utah State Capitol Complex.

The MLK You Don't See on TV

2011-01-17T12:35:00.003-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD.

FAIR finds a nugget in the archives. A column by column by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon dispelling any notion, as DOD Chief Counsel Jeh suggested last week, that today's wars are in-line with King's humanitarianism, and illustrating how far we're still off from achieving his dream:

But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights"--including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

[...]

You haven't heard the "Beyond Vietnam" speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967--and loudly denounced it. Life magazine called it "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." The Washington Post patronized that "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People's Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor" that would descend on Washington--engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be--until Congress enacted a poor people's bill of rights. Reader's Digest warned of an "insurrection."

King's economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor"--appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness.

The column, written in 1995, wraps with a condemnation of a Congress and a mass media complacent toward income inequality and poverty in our country.

16 years after this column, 43 years after King's assasination, it's worth asking ourselves how much closer we are to the vision Reverend King fought for.

Lessons from California: Talk to More Voters, Win

2011-01-14T15:03:00.002-07:00

Crossposted at MyDD

Just stumbled across this months old post by Raven Brooks, Top 5 Lessons at Netroots California, and the successes and failures of 2010.

Two key takeaways from his takeaways:

The first session of the day featured a great presentation by Seiji Carpenter at David Binder Research and Bryan Blum at the California Labor Federation filled in a lot of detail on some innovative things labor did this cycle. You can find Seiji’s presentation here and I’d encourage you to page through it. There’s a lot of meat to this presentation, but I wanted to highlight a few things.

[...]

* The campaign and IEs were able to focus on key demographics. They prevented Whitman from building a base among women. Undecideds moved toward Brown. Latinos came home to Brown and turned out in record numbers (a special shout out to SEIU’s Cambiando campaign here). Working class voters favored Brown. And in a historic shift Asian Americans overwhelmingly broke for Brown.

* Labor ran a program called Million More Voters that was intended to target voters with similar qualities to union members, and they identified 2.8 million people. Asian Americans were more than twice as likely to be targets so they invested a lot of time in researching those communities, something that hasn’t been done on a large scale in California before.

And

A wide spectrum of organizations put in a lot of voter contact work here, made some impressive new moves this cycle, and increased funding for these activities.

But this has been a debate that’s raged on for a while in California. Most of the money spent in campaigns is for TV time. Our consulting class makes big money pushing this tactic so it’s hard to advocate change and more effective uses of that money. I think this election began to show the effectiveness of field operations in California in ways other cycles haven’t. Some of the biggest wins here were won without large budgets for TV.

With Brown (and Reid in NV), mid-summer criticisms seemed warranted. Both campaigns were getting rolled by opponents who repeatedly self-destructed and were allowed to regain footing. But, as Brooks writes, we were wrong. Reid's margin was ludicrously slim, considering the opposition, Browns much better. But both went old school, and won.

California will be 2010's story of progressive organizing success. A relative success? Sure. Flawed? Brooks describes a lack of coalition between orgs, and the familiar clash of independent field organizing and the consulting culture permeating campaigns. But there also other big wins in defeating Prop 23 and protecting redistricting reform.

There's no revelation here, but it's somewhat comforting to be reminded there's always a simple truth at play, regardless of the odds: Talk to more voters, and win.

No matter how many times you read it on the House floor...

2011-01-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

Great paragraph today from Ezra Klein in response to the laughable GOP theater this morning over the constitution read:

If the Constitution is both unerring and obviously on the side of you and your policies, well, that's a powerful ally indeed. And that's a view that minority parties tend to find convenient, as even a presidential election can't override the Constitution. But when you admit that it's a more checkered document that has required both changes and reinterpretations as American history has moved forward, that leaves you in more difficult territory. As Dahlia Lithwick writes, "No matter how many times you read the document on the House floor, cite it in your bill, or how many copies you can stuff into your breast pocket without looking fat, the Constitution is always going to raise more questions than it answers and confound more readers than it comforts. And that isn't because any one American is too stupid to understand the Constitution. It's because the Constitution wasn't written to reflect the views of any one American."

SCOTUS Takes Up Arizona's Other Immigration Law

2010-12-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

It's called the "Legal Arizona Workers Act." It was passed in 2007, and went into effect in 2008. The law authorizes the state to suspend or "sanction" businesses through the state licensing policy, and also mandates business participation in the E-Verify system, contradicting federal rules maintaining E-Verify as a voluntary "experiment."

...the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, commonly called the employer-sanctions law, which was among the first in which a state tried to assume control of what previously had been strictly a federal function. The landmark has withstood challenges in U.S. District Court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which have said the law is constitutional.

The act emboldened Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who unlike other sheriffs across the state has used it to conduct 40 raids on businesses accused of employing illegal immigrants. Those busts have resulted in 308 arrests for identity theft and forgery, while two employers have faced civil sanctions.

Supporters and opponents of the law agree the Supreme Court's ruling could have sweeping ramifications. If the law is upheld, other states likely would consider similar legislation. The ruling also could influence the future of Arizona's broader immigration legislation, Senate Bill 1070.

In U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, et al. arguments for the state of Arizona center around a 1986 provision of Congress reinforcing a state's right to define and enforce business licensing as they see fit, and on the mandatory E-Verify aspect of the law, a claim that mandatory involvement of AZ businesses will only help text the effectiveness of E-Verify.

The Chamber of Commerce, joined by several civil rights legal defense organizations argue that the law is unconstitutional as a state level employment standard and mandatory enforcement of immigration law contradictory to federal provisions. SCOTUS Blog:

...the challengers’ brief belittled the notion that Arizona had simply enacted a “licensing” law, so it was protected by the exception Congress wrote into its scheme. If all that is needed to make a law regulating alien employment a licensing law is that denial or revocation could occur at some point in the process, then, the challengers said, “a state may regulate work-authorization status in whatever fashion it wishes — so long as, at the end of the day, something labeled a license may be affected.

What Congress meant by the exemption clause, the challengers insisted, was only that “states could rely on federal determinations of compliance with federal immigration laws when issuing business licenses or permits to farm labor contractors.” The exemption clause, it added, “permits states to tack on certain sanctions in the form of the suspension, revocation or refusal to reissue a license for persons who have been found to have violated the sanctions provisions” that Congress had imposed, not those that a state might seek to impose.

This is going to be an important ruling, preempting the SCOTUS's look into Arizona's SB1070 next year. The argument made by AZ over the "Legal Arizona Workers Act" amounts to a trial balloon for the argument they will make in defense of SB1070: Since the federal government hasn't acted, state must. Basically, Arizona is arguing that a lack of action on the federal level regarding immigration law somehow, magically, inexplicably amounts to an automatic transfer of power to the states.

I doubt the SCOTUS will agree, what with that whole Constitution-Not-Hard-To-Read thing.

But due to a conflict of interest, Kagan -- who reviewed the preliminary challenges to the law presented here as Solicitor General -- will be absent in the decision. That could lead to a 4-4 split, which then defaults back to the circuit court decisions, all of which have at least partially defended Arizona's argument.

Death (Panel) by Budget Cuts

2010-12-03T10:40:00.001-07:00

Apparently it's okay as long as we're saving a buck.

Effective at the beginning of October, Arizona stopped financing certain transplant operations under the state’s version of Medicaid. Many doctors say the decision amounts to a death sentence for some low-income patients, who have little chance of survival without transplants and lack the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pay for them.

“The most difficult discussions are those that involve patients who had been on the donor list for a year or more and now we have to tell them they’re not on the list anymore,” said Dr. Rainer Gruessner, a transplant specialist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. “The frustration is tremendous. It’s more than frustration.”

The "principles" of screaming teabaggers at townhalls, in all their glory. We should be so proud.

Biting Off a Bigger Chunk-o-Blogging

2010-11-18T12:00:00.003-07:00

Jerome Armstrong has invited me to write more at MyDD. I've accepted, just for the challenge. This is a chance for me to write for a much larger, national audience -- not to mention an honor, considering almost all of my political blogging heroes cut their national audience teeth at MyDD -- so I'm anxious to see where it goes. Craig and Jeff P may be posting more frequently here than usual, and we'll all double efforts to keep The SideTrack dedicated to state issues, especially as the legislative session begins.

But if things seem a bit dead here for a while, this is why. Hopefully, things won't. It's just a big adjustment, and to be honest, a bit intimidating. Also: uber exciting.

My latest MyDD post, for those interested: Nobody -- but pundits -- gives a rat's ass about bipartisanship.

Dayton, Wimmer, Frank Have No Common Sense

2010-11-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

Anyone believe a word of this?

Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said legislators don’t want the federal government involved in the state’s education decisions.

But Congress wrote the law in such a way that, if the Legislature and governor don’t accept the federal dollars, the money would be sent directly to Utah school districts. That would cut the Legislature entirely out of the decision-making process, Dayton said.

“I’ve got a lot of angst over that whole issue,” she said. “They’re trying to dictate 100 percent of our policy and what do they give us, 8 percent of our budget? It’s just not an appropriate arrangement.”

The $101 million in federal aid is part of a $10 billion package passed by Congress earlier this year, aimed at helping schools avoid laying off teachers.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Gary Herbert expect to use about half of the money to cover a budget shortfall created by tax collections that have been lower than projected. They plan to send the rest to various school districts based on a formula.

Rep. Craig Frank, R-Cedar Hills, said the state shouldn’t be forced to take federal funds and sees the issue as a “good opportunity to further push back against the federal government’s intrusion into the state autonomy, and they just continue to do this.”

Go get 'em Rep. Frank (R-Embarrassment)! But now for the reality:

These 10th-er Hacks aren't pearl clutching over getting this money, and they are devoid of a clue as to what Utah could do instead to keep schools above water. The "opposition" to "intrusion" is tantamount to a wing-nut temper tantrum, and the truth of their "concern" is that the Feds won't just sign the check over so that they can use it for items other than teachers, schools, etc. The "strings" they object to are the "strings" that mandate this money as education money, not "back fill the budget to cover for your failed tax policy" money.

Carl Wimmer isn't known to be a big picture thinker (or even a regular picture thinker). Dayton is a proven reactionary. And Craig Frank is... well, nobody cares what Craig Frank thinks. So ignore the pomp and circumstance, and settle your nerves about all the "tyranny" that is "you can't spend this money like morons with a federal check book."

The reality is even more shrinking of the institutes of education in this state (and as a result, less wiggle room, as today's students become tomorrow's economic foundation), or cashing the check. And all the hand-ringing over what we'll do when even this money is gone only overshadows the fact that the 10thers, Demagogues, Birchers, and Ideologues on the righty-est fringe of the legislature have absolutely no plan for the future beyond Vouchers 2.0, and the Overstock.com School of Science.

We are going to cash the check. We have to cash the check. And Dayton, Wimmer, and Frank are welcome to lose sleep over the "strings." Smarter folk should not.

Yes to the "Utah Compact"

2010-11-11T13:53:00.002-07:00

The Utah Compact is out, defining five principles for dealing with immigration in Utah. The approach is conservative, complete with pledges to the free-market and defending "the family," but the political reality is that Utah is a conservative stronghold, and this compact is the first step to sane immigration reform legislation, within that reality.

Add your name.

The pledge has been endorsed by the Sutherland Institute, AG Mark Shurtleff, SLC Mayor Ralph Becker, SL County Mayor Peter Corroon, Sen. Pat Jones... just to name a few.

Add your name now. Stealing a concise summary from Frank Staheli of what the compact offers:

FEDERAL SOLUTIONS — That "Immigration is a federal policy issue..."
LAW ENFORCEMENT — That local law enforcement should "focus on criminal activities, not civil violations of federal code."
FAMILIES — That all laws should support and foster strong families and "and improve the health, education and well-being of all Utah children."
ECONOMY — That we should recognize and respect the significant contributions that all immigrants make to Utah's economy.
A FREE SOCIETY — That free societies are inclusive and that we should celebrate all cultures and history, and that "Utah should always be a place that welcomes people of goodwill."

The reaction I've heard so far from progressives in Utah has been hesitant and suspicious of the obvious conservative appeal in the pledge. I understand. We're jumpy, and with good reason. But like it or not, Utah is a red state. The compact offers a stark contrast to the rhetoric of Reps. Sandstrom and Ray and what we're sure to hear from Sen. Howard Stephenson. A conservative approach to this issue is the only way the tone of this debate will change within a conservative legislature. It's also a fine setup for legislation I hope we see soon from Sen. Luz Robles regarding immigration in Utah to combat the AZ approach cemented in Rep. Sandstrom's "enforcement only" bill.

The Utah Compact is a chance to ensure that the legislative outcome of this debate is rational, inclusive, and in words of Sutherland Institute President Paul Mero himself: humane.

Sign the compact.

Political Cognitive Dissonance

2010-11-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post something about the elections for the past week, but really don't find anything that noteworthy to say that hasn't already been said. So, some of what I think are the best already-been-saids:

Drew Western:

The president and his advisers misinterpreted both the meaning of his election and polls showing that Americans wanted ‘bipartisanship.’ The reality is that people who are out of work couldn’t care less about who is bickering with whom in Washington. They care about what is happening to their lives and families.

Gail Collins:

I spent the election in southern Ohio, which was full of signs telling people to vote against Nancy Pelosi. She made an easy target — San Francisco liberal, first woman, and I will admit that she has a strange, semi-robotic way of talking. But I want to give her a going-out-of-power salute. She stood up for her principles. The health care bill would never, ever have become law if she hadn’t given the alpha males the spine to keep going. I know you’re not crazy about it, but I believe it’s going to be Barack Obama’s great legacy. And although nobody will ever give her credit for it, Pelosi moved a deeply reluctant House forward on ethics issues.

Greg Anrig:

The most reliable finding in political science literature is that voters punish incumbents when elections occur during a period of high unemployment. That conclusion was reaffirmed Tuesday, and it will be again in two years if the president and Congress follow the likely path of fixating on deficit reduction rather than job creation.

Ezra Klein:

One reason I don't like playing the pundit's game of offering strategic advice is that I don't believe anyone really has a handle on what works in American politics. I certainly don't. What we can say is there are certain patterns in American politics -- presidents tend to lose seats in their first midterm election, and the economy seems to drive a lot of votes -- and they tend to afflict lots of different presidents who seemed pretty capable at one point, and in many cases, won the next election and retired as masters of the political game. And since I think policy is a much less uncertain field, if I were in the House, I'd much rather lose my seat after making America a much better place than lose my seat after either failing in my efforts or never trying at all.

And best of all, Hertzberg:

As for "the American people" themselves, it seems clear enough that their rejection of the Democrats was, above all, an expression of angry anxiety about the ongoing economic firestorm. Though ignited and fanned by an out-of-control financial industry and its (mostly) conservative political and intellectual enablers, the fire has burned hottest since the 2008 Democratic sweep. By the time the flames reached their height, the arsonists had slunk off, and only the firemen were left for people to take out their ire on. The result is a kind of political cognitive dissonance. Frightened by joblessness, "the American people" rewarded the party that not only opposed the stimulus but also blocked the extension of unemployment benefits. Alarmed by a ballooning national debt, they rewarded the party that not only transformed budget surpluses into budget deficits but also proposes to inflate the debt by hundreds of billions with a permanent tax cut for the least needy two per cent. Frustrated by what they see as inaction, they rewarded the party that not only fought every effort to mitigate the crisis but also forced the watering down of whatever it couldn't block.

Corroon's Volunteers, In Their Own Words

2010-11-02T15:15:00.001-07:00

Back at the Peter Corroon Campaign HQ after visiting 6 staging locations, a Crown Burger, and checking in with the Mayor's friends on Main St. Magna.

The faces here at HQ have changed, but -- surprisingly for 4pm on election day -- the number of empty seats in a very large phone bank area have not.

I talked to several volunteers going on break here and at the various remote locations throughout Salt Lake County, and two themes keep repeating in their answers to my questions:

A genuine excitement over what they are doing here, and a respect for the way the campaign has treated its large volunteer staff.

My favorite comment from a vol who's name I didn't catch: "An architecture has been built here that will have long arms in years to come. The training I've gotten and the experience make me feel a duty to stay involved in this and future campaigns."

Polls are open for another four hours. Find your polling place, and take a few friends.

Thanks to the Corroon Campaign for letting me invade their space today.

Staging Location Five, Labor Hall

2010-11-02T13:57:00.001-07:00

Canvassing organization, and calling groups at Labor Hall and Magna Local 392. Too many people coming and going to count.

There's something about Labor offices, and the old timers often staffing them that almost make me feel sorry for anti-union Republicans.

They don't get it. Some Pics:

Staging Location One

2010-11-02T11:39:00.001-07:00

Staging location one, Foothill Blvd.

About 75 people here now, at tables lining the walls. Site manager says each person will make between 250-300 calls per shift, and this group is
the first on three shifts.

You do the math.

Election Day

2010-11-02T09:20:00.001-07:00

Spending the day stalking the Corroon Campaign, trying to get an inside look at what I'm told is one massive GOTV effort by Utah standards. I'll post updates here as often as possible, also on Teh
Twitter.

Peter Corroon a Better Choice for Box Elder County Jobs

2010-10-25T11:18:00.003-07:00

It's been a bad couple of years for Box Elder County.

From the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2010, Box Elder County has experienced a 16.8% drop in employment, currently sits at 8.8% unemployment -- one of the highest numbers in Utah -- and has seen an overall wage drop of 5% since 2009.

In Box Elder less people have work, and those who do are working for much less.

Governor Gary Herberts salvo? He "saved" 800 jobs at ATK, maybe... in Davis County.

Lost in the discussion over the 800 jobs (maybe) saved (in Davis County) over 20 years is a glaring set of questions regarding Box Elder and Herbert's two years of leadership: Why is a county sitting literally on top of both an interstate and a railway hub, less than an hour from an international airport, completely dependent only two large employers who have to shrink their workforce rapidly and repeatedly?

Just 20 minutes NE of Box Elder, in Cache Valley, unemployment is much lower, and wages have shrunk much less. Why? Cache Valley benefits from a diversified job market, boosted by both research at Utah State University, a highly educated workforce, and plentiful small, local businesses that have survived despite Gary Herbert's top-heavy economic "strategy" for Utah (County).

Consider a manufacturing facility building, say solar panels -- and all the research employment it brings with it -- employing 1-1.5K. What better place could such a business be located in Utah than spacious Box Elder County? And again: right on top of an interstate, a railway hub, minutes from two universities and an international airport.

Jesse Harris, on Peter Corroon's plan for rural job growth in Utah, writes:

Consider which states have been weathering this economy. Most of them are primarily agriculture-based, but they’ve been making significant investments in both the technology and energy industries. Much of this development is occurring outside of major cities.

And JM Bell, on the "Herbert Effect" in Washington County, said yesterday:

Acting Governor Herbert has a list of things he wants to keep pretty much the same.

Box Elder County deserves a better plan.

Read Peter Corroon's plan for job growth and a strong economy.

#NotABigot

2010-10-21T12:26:00.006-07:00

Let me first say there were a million reasons for NPR to fire Juan Williams... I'm surprised they waited so long. His comments that he was afraid to fly with Muslims were, sadly, the least of his transgresses against rational thought. But he's gone, and the world is a better place for it. Unless you're former Utah GOP Vice-chair, and professional hack Todd Weiler. Weiler tweeted this morning:

Well thanks for adding that "#notabigot" hashtag,Todd, because otherwise this tweet sounds exactly like something you'd hear from a bigot. I challenged Weiler's assertion that "everyone" was thinking this by pointing out that really, only morons are thinking this. Morons, Bill O'Reilly, and Todd Weiler.

The mindlessness of those who espouse this attitude is astounding. They seem unable to separate the few involved in the 9/11 attacks with, you know, 1 plus billion inhabitants of the planet (roughly 1/5 of the world's population). And even more amazing, people who feel this way aren't making it up. They really harbor these fears. But consider for a second if there is much difference between someone saying "I get nervous when there is a Muslim on the plane with me" and something like "I kept my hand on my wallet because there was a black guy on the bus today." Yep, no difference. And you know what? Thinking that second example would make you... wait for it... a raging bigot. Not to mention pretty damn stupid.

Imagine if every stupid act carried out by a Christian became a condemnation of Christianity itself. That would be ludicrous, right? Unfortunately, these fears espoused by so many are real, and every bit as small minded.

It's simple (and alas, all too human): If you are afraid of all Muslims because of what happened to our country on Sept. 11, 2001, you are practicing a form of bigotry, and as NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said when questioned about firing Williams, probably some issues you should take up with your "psychiatrist and publicist."

RedState Update summed this up best in a satirical video circa the recent childish "controversy" over the NYC Mosque (or multi-denominational cultural center, if you're fond of reality based understanding). To paraphrase:

Jackie: "You realize that not all Muslims were behind the 9/11 attack?" Dunlap: "Well, not all conservatives are racists... but because of a few tea parties, now we all have a PR problem."

I've issued a challenge for Mr. Weiler to accept, in an effort to broaden his horizons and expand his understanding that this a really really big world with a lot of different people in it. I have invited several people I know working (and owning businesses... gasp!) right here in Utah who happen to be Muslim. I'm now up to 4 takers on an invitation to have lunch with Todd, and calm some of his irrational fears about Muslims, and airplanes.

Encourage Mr. Weiler to accept. Bigotry is an ugly thing.

UPDATE: Rep. Carl Wimmer joins the Bigot Brigade. Encourage him to accept an educational lunch request as well.

Jimmy McMillan for President!

2010-10-19T11:33:00.001-07:00

(h/t Marshall Thompson) NY Gov candidate Jimmy McMillan ("The Rent is Too Damn High" Party).

update - because the rent is still too damn high

Spending Cuts Will Not Reduce the Deficit, Nor Fix Our Economy

2010-10-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

Ezra Klein is quickly becoming one of the best at cutting through the noise -- on many issues, from health care reform, to tax policy and deficits -- generated by demagoguing teabag candidates and partisan gas bags. In a concise post yesterday, he lays out in easily parsed terms why spending cuts are simply not the route to deficit reduction:

Our problem, put simply, is that our debt is growing faster than our economy. A lot faster. But you can't solve that by cutting spending or raising taxes. Those options will buy you time, but nothing more than that. Think of it this way: If you've got $1 trillion in debt and it's growing at 10 percent a year, you can cut $80 billion -- a huge cut in one year -- and be back to $1 trillion in debt by the next year. What matters is the growth rate, not the number.

That means the best way to solve your deficit problems is simple, at least in theory: Increase how fast your economy is growing. A one percentage point increase in your economy's growth rate is equal to about $2.5 trillion in new revenue over 10 years (not to mention it means you don't need as much social spending, as more people have jobs). To put that more concretely, whether we grow at 2 percent and 3.5 percent over the next 10 years means more to the deficit than whether we extend all of the Bush tax cuts or none of them.

The second best way to solve deficit problems is slow down how fast debt is growing. The big driver there is health-care costs, and so the honest answer on our debt problems is that we either need to wait and see how well the cost controls in health-care reform work, or we need to strengthen those cost controls and then wait and see how they work. We can raise taxes and cut spending to buy ourselves time, but the only sustainable answer is faster economic growth and slower debt growth. But we rarely talk about our debt problem in those terms, which means we rarely talk about it in a way that has any hope of solving it.

I don't expect Mike Lee or Morgan Philpot to change tact, nor that it'd make much difference in the narrative if their opponents challenged their rhetoric with a dose of intelligence. Lee's campaign has -- obviously -- not been about winning minds, but praying on low-info voters, easily churned into wingnut rage. But for the record, if nothing else, it's another great example of a simple truth of the 2010 race:

They understand teabagging... but not simple economics. This isn't a war of ideas, this is Bullshit vs. the Real World. And the real world, sadly, isn't winning in the Utah Senate race.

For those with more of a clue, early voting has begun. Go fight Teh Stooped.

Rasmussen Polls - Thumbs On The Scales

2010-10-17T12:55:00.001-07:00

Let's say you're a pollster and you want to poll an upcoming election. The best way to get public sentiment for the race would be to ask the ballot question first, before any demographic or issue questions. Rasmussen gives an example of this with the Lee v Granato poll.

Questions - Utah Senate - October 13, 2010

Utah State Survey of 500 Likely Voters Conducted October 13, 2010
By Rasmussen Reports

1* If the 2010 election for United States Senate were held today would you vote for Republican Mike Lee or Democrat Sam Granato? (Please note that we split the survey to rotate the order of the candidate names, so while half will hear the Republican candidate first, the other half hears the Democrat mentioned first.)

61% Mike Lee (R)
28% Sam Granato (D)
4% Some other candidate
8% Not sure

2* I’m going to read you a short list of people in the News. For each, please let me know if you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, or very unfavorable impression.

Now if you're a pollster who wants to sway the topline number a little, you might ask a warm up question or two. Perhaps capitalize on someone unpopular, contrast them with someone you want to prop up, and then ask the ballot question. Rasmussen gives us an example of this with the Corroon v Herbert poll.

Questions - Utah Governor - October 13, 2010

Utah State Survey of 500 Likely Voters Conducted August 23, 2010
By Rasmussen Reports

1* How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?

2* How do you rate the way that Gary Herbert has been doing as Governor… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?

3* If the 2010 Election for Governor of Utah were held today would you vote for Republican Gary Herbert or Democrat Peter Corroon? (Please note that we split the survey to rotate the order of the candidate names, so while half will hear the Republican candidate first, the other half hears the Democrat mentioned first.)

66% Gary Herbert (R)
29% Peter Corroon (D)
2% Some other candidate
3% Not sure

(note - I'm guessing that ras just didn't update the header of the press release, that's why it says conducted on Aug. 23rd, the title and results match the Oct. 13th poll.)

Now for the poll conspiracy theorists out there (and count me in that group), if you'll notice that each set of interviews took place on October 13th, and that each poll had a set of 500 respondents. Now these phone calls cost money to place, and Rasmussen is in the business of being profitable, so it would stand to reason that they only made one set of phone calls, conducting two interviews on each. Assuming that's the case, and assuming you wanted to really have a thumb on the scales for the second interview, you could prime the interviewee for the second interview with the questions in the first interview.

3. A proposal has been made to repeal the health care bill and stop it from going into effect. Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose a proposal to repeal the health care bill?

4* The health care plan passed by Congress requires every American to buy or obtain health insurance. Do you Strongly Favor, Somewhat Favor, Somewhat Oppose, or Strongly Oppose a federal law that requires every American to buy or obtain health insurance?

5* Should individual states have the right to opt out of the entire national health care plan?

6* Do you consider yourself part of the Tea Party Movement?

7* Is The Tea Party movement good for the country or bad for the country?

8* Generally speaking, how would you rate the U.S. economy these days? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?

9* Are economic conditions in the country getting better or worse?

10* Last year, Congress and the president enacted a $787 billion economic stimulus plan. So far, has the economic stimulus plan helped the economy, hurt the economy or had no impact on the economy?

11* In reacting to the nation’s current economic problems, what worries you more….that the federal government will do too much or that the federal government will not do enough?

12* How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?

13* How do you rate the way that Gary Herbert has been doing as Governor… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?

That's the end of the senate poll, but if you were a pollster who wanted to fluff the Herbert numbers, it would be a very convenient way to end the interview that takes place right before the governor race interview wouldn't it?****

Is there anyone left that thinks Rasmussen is a legit pollster merely polling the sentiment of the people?

****No, I don't have any proof, I said it was a conspiracy theory, I'll prove it when they find bigfoot in area 51.

Don't Dumb it Down

2010-10-15T13:22:00.001-07:00

Conservatives are winning the branding battles with simplistic half-truths that catch on, if not actually telling the real story. Many -- including me, at times -- have argued progressives need to learn to do the same, without the lies. But here's an argument for "keeping it real" even if "full of shit" is winning the frame. The Democratic Strategist:

"What progressives gain in exchange for this sacrifice of the opportunity to pound in a simple message and agenda for decades is pretty important: the chance when in power to promote policies that actually work. And of all the "brands" that are desirable for the party of public-sector activism, competence is surely the best. Indeed, the most ironically perilous thing about the current political environment is that Democrats are paying a high price for the consequences of ideologically-driven incompetence--not to mention very deliberate efforts to destabilize the planet and promote economic inequality and social divisions--attributable to the last era of conservative control of the federal government.

The best news for progressives right now is that conservatives are engaged in another, and even more ideologically-driven, effort to promote their "brand" at the expense of reality. Indeed, one way to understand the Tea Party Movement is as a fierce battle to deny Republicans any leeway from the remorseless logic that will soon lead them to propose deeply unpopular steps to reduce the size and scope of government, while also insisting on policies virtually guaranteed to make today's bad economy even worse, certainly for middle-class Americans. I'm willing to grant conservatives a "branding" advantage and keep my own political family grounded in the messy uncertainties of the real world."

http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2010/10/why_its_easier_for_conservativ.php

Health Care Reality Check for Morgan Philpot

2010-10-07T11:54:00.001-07:00

Via (again!) Ezra Klein:

Here's the play: Someone somewhere reports that the Affordable Care Act will require some change in the status quo. Maybe it's that insurers can no longer discriminate against sick children, and so some of them are pulling products that were only financially viable so long as they could discriminate against sick children. Maybe it's that McDonald's won't be able to offer miniature health-care "coverage" that caps annual benefits at $2,000, a form of insurance that wouldn't protect anyone from a real illness and that Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley once described as "not better than nothing." Maybe it's that 3M is changing its early-retiree health-care plans, for reasons that may or may not be related to the new health-care law. Opponents of the reforms jump on the story. "See!" they say. "This is a catastrophe!" Supporters -- at least some of them -- e-mail me. "This needs a rebuttal, thanks."

But it doesn't need a rebuttal. It needs explanation, and that's what's usually lacking. And when they do explain the particular rule or regulation causing the disruption, the situation often looks very different. The McDonald's plans, for instance, shouldn't continue after 2014, though it looks like the administration is going to give them a waiver to escape the bad press. The point of health-care reform was to get people into real insurance and protect them from illusory plans that run out when they get sick.

Just a few hours spent on the #utpol hashtag, and you'll see some Utah con parlaying this same garbage Klein points to as empirical "proof" that ACA "is ruining the greatest health care system in the world." (Yeah, that guy is running for Congress.)

The health care debate from then to now has always been too driven by anecdotal "evidence," admittedly a lazy tactic employed by both proponents and supporters. Once you inject more intelligence into the debate than the Utah Young Republicans twitter feed, you begin to understand the real objective of the reform, and the actual -- and beneficial -- challenges it brings to the status quo of our failing health care system.

It's laughable to see anyone defending the status quo, but an intelligent argument isn't the goal for Republicans at this point, if it (DEATH PANELS!) ever was.

When Morgan Philpot speaks today, remember, it's the McDonald's health care plan -- which isn't much of a plan at all -- that he's defending. When Shurtleff speaks afterward, remember he's a carpetbagger in search of a spotlight, always. And when you hear these lazy attacks on the ACA, laugh.

The bill, with all of it's warts, is a start, and will never see a repeal.

Utah GOP Throws Herbert Under the Bus

2010-10-06T20:14:00.002-07:00

Sometimes, I agree with Republican Lawmakers:

A half-dozen GOP lawmakers, all speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to alienate their party’s sitting governor, expressed disbelief and frustration at how Herbert has dealt with the Corroon challenge.

“I think he’ll have a very legitimate challenger, if not challengers. I think that is becoming more and more the conventional wisdom,” said one Republican lawmaker. “It doesn’t ultimately feel like an open and transparent campaign, and there’s an adage that says if you’re explaining, you’re losing. He’s been doing an awful lot of explaining.”

Said another GOP legislator: “In politics, people look for vulnerability, and he’s shown significant vulnerability this cycle.

“I really think Gary has bought himself a challenge,” he said.

Herbert campaign spokesman Don Olsen said he would “respectfully disagree” that the campaign has been mishandled.

Don Olsen is, of course, paid to say that.

Republicans, understandably, have circled the wagons around Gary, since he's their only option this go-round. They feign indignant outrage over Corroon's aggressive campaign, asking legitimate and warranted questions, because they know they're legitimate questions.

But Republican lawmakers in Utah rarely, if at all, speak out of turn. That a few "anonymous" lawmakers have gotten themselves quoted throwing Gary under the bus, it's either an intentional warning to Herbert's campaign, or such a majority sentiment on the hill that Gary is incompetent, even the weakest links are being let in on the narrative.

Mike Lee vs. The Educated

2010-10-03T16:31:00.002-07:00

Several articles circulating my way this weekend from a friend, all various responses throughout this year from economists, academics, and financial experts to the question: What does/should the future of the US Economy look like? Mulling them over, it struck me how even more ridiculous the teabagger battle cries sound in contrast to an actual intelligent discussion about economic realities and options.

Summarizing arguments made...

Stiglitz (video): Pace of foreclosures higher in 2010. 25% of mortgages underwater. Commercial real estate underwater. Long term national debt will be lower if we run a deficit now. Make up for state revenue shortfall.

Galbraith: Restructure housing markets, encourage retirements. Spend now to avoid systemic (and more expensive) problems later, long term deficit will be less. Stimulus worked, but only offset short-sighted action by many states with balanced budget only in mind. Good start, but time for Stimulus II.

Warren: 2,988 banks stretched, 1/2 of commercial real estate loans headed underwater. Fed approach was top down, honorable, but isn't working. Middle class has been hollowed out. Banks prospering won't save the economy in the face of such high foreclosure, joblessness.

Marshall Auerback: Someone should remind teabaggers and deficit hawks that there is nothing more inefficient, expensive, self-defeating and wasteful than long term systemic unemployment.

... and to bring it all home, our resident teabagger/DeMint lackey, Mike Lee: More outsourcing and balanced budget amendments that make economic response to crisis next to impossible! Also: horseshit.

We should trust the educated.

Opposition Research

2010-09-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

Nothing to ad to this, just a rare look into the world (industry?) of opposition research by election committees and campaigns. Rothenberg Political Report:

In the field, the standard rule is to be discreet.

“Do not engage in any action or conversation that you would not want to read about on the front page of a major newspaper,” according to the “Ten Commandments of Opposition Research” listed on the third page of a “Field Research Guidebook” obtained from one of the committees.

If researching, instead of the research, becomes the story, “it says you’re not good at winning on the issues,” according to one party operative.

Eventually, all the research is compiled into a book, sometimes an actual binder with appropriate tabs, other times an electronic file that is passed on to candidates.

But “the book” is just the first step in the process.

“Just the list of votes does nothing,” according to one Democratic researcher. “The difference between good research and bad research is a comprehensive story.”

The goal is to develop a pattern, similar to what Democrats have tried all cycle to do in Louisiana by attempting to portray Sen. David Vitter (R) as anti-woman.

“If it looks like an isolated incident, then the candidate or committee will get push-back,” the researcher added. “It has to build into the narrative of who they are.”

Whether it’s in the hands of the committees or the candidates, the research is then often tested in polling. What is often construed as “push-polling” is actually just message testing to a small sample of voters. Getting the information out to more voters is another question.

Meet with the Governor (in 6 Easy Steps)

2010-09-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

Facebook invitation in the inbox: Donate $1 to Gov. Herbert and get a meeting!

Apparently, the only way to get a meeting with Gov. Herbert is by donating to his campaign. A $50,000 contribution gets you special treatment by the Gov's Office but, $1 should still do the trick.

Please follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Mail $1.00 to 55 E Broadway Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Step 2: Call the Governor's Office and ask for a meeting. They can be reached at 801-538-1000. You might need to remind them that you're a donor.
Step 3: Meet Gov. Herbert about winning a $1 billion contract or anything else you desire.

Step 4: Invite others. Everyone should have some quality face time with Gov. Herbert.

Step 5: Inform us of your success!

Step 6: Vote.

Emphasis mine. Because.

The question that many seem to missing in all of this -- and I keep repeating -- is that even if Herbert is being honest about the donations for contracts, and even if he's telling the truth about being out of the loop on the $13 million "hush money" for losing contractors asking questions about what sounds like an unethically conducted bid process, there still remains the question: How could a sitting governor, mid-legislative session, with the budget in the spotlight each and every day, somehow be unaware that a $13 million check was being cut?!

Herbert is either pulling our chain, or incompetent. Neither is a quality anyone should look for in a Governor.

Herbert's Wash (KUED Debate)

2010-09-24T13:34:00.009-07:00

Yesterday, Peter Corroon and Acting-Guv Gary Herbert sat down for a debate. If you haven't seen it yet, do so here, or catch it on air Monday (KUED's Vote Utah series).

Overall it's what I expected. Gary all hyperbole , quoting right from the Sutherland Institute newsletters (Government never ever ever creates jobs... except when it does, but ssssssh!), hitting all the buzz words, and on the defensive, Corroon sounding much more the capable executive .Will Utahn's care? Is the R all it takes? We'll see. But one part worth special note happens at about 20min in, when the two get down to the state economy and breaks for businesses. It plays out a lil' like this:

Herbert touts a focus on bringing in new jobs, while discounting the tax breaks offered to get them here.

Why that's important? Well, these businesses haven't brought a marginally significant number of jobs to the state as of yet. ATK's potential 800 is potentially 800 over two decades, for example. These "successes" Herbert is holding up for us to pretend are trophies of leadership aren't increasing the tax base on the individual level, and are simple corporate welfare to the companies they draw. When it comes to their influence on the state's economy they are, at best, breaking even. It's a wash. Ta-da! Leadership!

Corroon responds that the unlevel playing field policies like these create hurts local businesses, who can't compete with the larger companies getting all of the breaks.

Why that's important? He's right.

The biggest lesson Utah Republican voters can't seem to learn -- and Herbert is selling without question -- is the difference between leaders who are pro-corporation rather than pro-capitalism. Someone should point out to Gary that that is also something you can find in a Sutherland Institute newsletter. It's one of the biggest scams in our state: Republicans dancing around in sparkley costumes of limited government only to distract you from their propensity to roll over in a stiff breeze when it comes to a corporate handout. Free market my left...

Perhaps someone can offer up a campaign contribution to get Gary to change up his talking points?

Also, to hear Gary Herbert talk about fighting radioactive waste, the man should be walking around in a cape. Which has me wondering how the waste got here...

Words Not Mentioned in the GOP "Pledge"

2010-09-23T12:12:00.001-07:00

Republicans rolled out their "Pledge" today, and not surprisingly, it's loaded with over the top teabagger rhetoric, and not so loaded with things like numbers, math, or anything that has even been in the same room with a hint of reality. Reading through the reactions, it appears unlikely to have much effect on the elections. It could be a first step to a Rep. Paul Ryan "privatize everything" style budget, but considering how fast the GOP ran away from that paper turd earlier this year, it's doubtful. Boehner says privatization as a way to pay for the $4 trillion cost of items "pledged" is "on the table". Good luck with that.

Worth noting though are the items not mentioned in the "pledge." Via David Corn:

You can read it yourself. Or peruse the reviews: liberal Ezra Klein dissects its internal contradictions; tea partier Erick Erickson decries the "Pledge" as a sell-out of the tea party movement; Republican curmudgeon David Frum finds it retro and short on "modern" and "affirmative" ideas for governing during a recessionary year. But here's a short-cut for you. Below is a list of words and phrases and the number of times they are each mentioned in the 45-page "Pledge."

Wall Street: 0
Bank: 0
Finance: 0
Mortgage crisis: 0
Derivative: 0
Subprime: 0
Lobbying: 0
Lobbyist: 0
K Street: 0
Campaign finance: 0
Campaign contribution: 0
Campaign donation: 0
Disclosure: 0
Climate change: 0
Environment: 1 ("political environment")
Alternative energy: 0
Renewable: 0
Green: 0
Transportation: 0
Infrastructure: 0
Poverty: 0
Food: 0
Food safety: 0
Housing: 0
Internet: 0
Education: 0
College: 0
Reading: 0
Science: 0
Research: 0
Technology: 0
Bush administration: 0

That list is as telling as the actual contents.

If this is what passes as a "plan" for today's Republicans, they'd really better hope they make no electoral gains anytime soon. If someone (cough, Democrats!) were to actually hold them to this in policy discussions going forward, "in the woods" wouldn't begin to describe where voters would send them.

Mike Lee, Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell... Gary Herbert

2010-09-21T12:49:00.005-07:00

The teabagger trifecta, Herbert's "hey look over there!" campaign, and the antics of the GOP nationwide illustrate what appears to be a cancer still eating the Republican Party. Bob Aagard:

Republicanland must be a great place to live. I want to visit some day.

You see, in Republicanland, saying you opponent is trying to take away Seminary from the religious majority by adding 2 more required high school classes (in a 4-year span) is having a good, clean, issue-based discussion. Yet pointing out that there might be something wrong in accepting cash from and meeting privately with people who are seeking government contracts is wrong is hitting "below the belt."

In Republicanland, having the CEO say he doesn't know what's going on in his company means he can get a huge bonus on his way out the door. If the CEO is a Republican Governor, he's a great leader who deserves to keep his job. Who needs to know who's really running the state? In Republicanland, it doesn't matter.

In Republicanland, when you are running up large deficits, it's OK to sue and get sued by the feds. It's also a great time to give tax breaks to rich people. It's also a great idea to give tax breaks to rich people in times of plenty, too. Even if that puts you in deficits. Any other reason (except for war) for going into deficit spending is a bad idea. Even if it puts people to work or helps them buy food.

Snarky, yeah, but also a fairly accurate summation of the garbage we're hearing from the GOP (both local and national) the last few years, and let's not forget "horseshit" plans for Social Security, stoking the xenophobic fires against Mexicans and Muslims, and rewriting the Constitution for political gain. Also, generally making things up to carpetbag their way into a lifetime career, at your expense. And why are people being so mean as to the Acting-Guv, asking all these relevant questions of the practices of the office of CEO of the state? Sniff. Poor Lil' Gary! Someone get him his smellin' salts.

All of this is something Republican voters can find reason to fight for? You're satisfied with this? Really?

It's not to say that there is something systematically wrong with Republican voters (the most you can really accuse many of them of is being willing to accept and even defend their party in it's current state, or the tea parties in their removal from reality), but there is definitely something rotten in the Republican Party. It's worse than "No Ideas," which you can expect from a party shoved into the woods two cycles in a row, now trying to redefine itself. No, what's really disgusting is the attitude lying at the core of the "voices" of the GOP, from House and RNC leadership, to local party representatives that voters are dumb enough to buy into what they're selling right now.

Here in Utah -- predictably, but still unfortunately -- voters will prove them right in most elections, but nation wide, I hope Republican voters will demand more from their party than they are getting the past decade.

Mike Lee, Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle's successful pandering to the nomination as a Senate candidates can serve as poster children examples for those conservatives hoping to return the party to a reality based platform. These two haven't been on speaking terms with the real world in what must be a long long time, yet somehow, they are "the future" the GOP (and tea baggn' delegates) offers conservative voters. Gary Herbert's indignation (while he denies nothing brought to light of day), pretending to be innocently "unaware," while it seems the opposite is true... conservatives buy this stuff in Utah? Again: Really? When did all the various ways a person seeking office or re-election can play off of the gullibility of voters become an example of leadership?

From state to national, you guys aren't exactly demanding 110% from your choices and representatives... to say the least. And before you get your knickers in a twist, the Democrats have been there. It's part of the cycle. But the only way you get out of it is to stop defending it, stop accepting it, and start demanding better.

When I listen to Lee, Angle, et al, I wish the GOP do take back the house this year. Yeah, it would set our country back (way back) 2 years, but it would give people a chance to see exactly what kind of lunatics the Republicans are sending up. When I see people out defending Herbert in the event of recent weeks, and feigning offense over the questions Corroon has asked, it makes me think all voters in Utah need is an R... any R will do (obviously). No one should be willing to accept so little from representatives of their state, regardless of party affiliation.

Just today, some fool invited me to a "Draft Carl Wimmer for Congress" page. Seriously! At least one person (eleven actually, looking at the "like" count on Facebook) thinks that Rep. Carl Wimmer (this Carl Wimmer) is leadership material. Unbelievable! I like Carl. Nice guy. But he thinks a lot of snow in his driveway is proof that climate change is a hoax. This is the brightest bulb the UT GOP has? Wow.

This crop is just craziness. Plain and simple.

13 Million Dollar Questions

2010-09-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Evidently coming up with losing road constructions bids is a lucrative business in this state, who knew? It seems more than a little odd that a fiscally strapped state would be willing to offer up a 13 million dollar pay off to the losing bidder, so they must have had a good reason right? UDOT's version of a good reason is something along the lines of a hunch.

Bid records reviewed by The Salt Lake Tribune show the Selection Recommendation Committee, made up of UDOT managers and budget officials, found enough variances to ultimately swing the contract against Flatiron/Skanska/Zachry (FSZ) and in favor of Provo River Constructors by a single point.

In each case, the several variances the selection committee identified broke in favor of Provo River Constructors, which, UDOT Executive Director John Njord acknowledged, “looked bad” and prompted a $13 million settlement with FSZ, the second-place bidder

And I agree, it does "look bad" but does it look 13 million dollars bad? Not even if the state still had a rainy day fund (remember that?). It looks like we won't be getting any answers from the new home of our tax money, as with all good pay offs, it came with a don't tell anyone about this clause, and it sounds like that's really too bad.

Kent Scott, an attorney for Flatiron, said he could not comment on the settlement, due to a confidentiality agreement.

“I’d love to [talk]. … It’s fascinating,” Scott said, but he respected Njord’s request to stay quiet.

As they say in True Romance, something's rotten in Denmark with this one, but Herbert won't let that slow him down, he's holding a high stakes fundraiser this weekend. I suppose the campaign feels like they need some more corporate money to dig themselves out at this point.

Herbert in Two (of his own) Words

2010-09-16T11:01:00.001-07:00

"Virtually unaware."

Uptick

2010-09-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

Political Wire:

Marc Ambinder: "Expect an uptick in Democratic enthusiasm and expect several significant races to tighten. People tend to make judgments through the lens of the last major event. If Democrats interpret last night to mean that radical Republicans are threatening to take control, they're going to be more receptive to the basic party message."

"The media is going to help the Democratic Party's national messaging, which is that the GOP is a party full of Christine O'Donnells."

Pass the popcorn.

EPA to Wyoming Residents Near Drilling Sites: Don't Drink Your Water

2010-09-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

ProPublica:

EPA scientists began investigating Pavillion's water in 2008 after residents complained about foul smells, illness and discolored water, and after state agencies declined to investigate. Last August the EPA found contaminants in a quarter of samples taken during the first stage of its investigation, and the agency announced it would continue with another round of samples -- the set being disclosed now.

In the meeting Tuesday, the agency shared results from tests of 23 wells, 19 of which supply drinking water to residents. It found low levels of hydrocarbon compounds -- various substances that make up oil -- in 89 percent of the drinking water wells it tested. Methane gas was detected in seven of the wells and was determined to have come from the gas reservoir being tapped for energy. Eleven of the wells contained low levels of the compound 2-butoxyethanol phosphate -- a compound associated with drilling processes but that is also used as a fire retardant and a plasticizer.

The scientists also found extremely high levels of benzene, a carcinogen, and other compounds in groundwater samples taken near old drilling disposal pits. Some of the samples were taken less than 200 yards from drinking water sources and scientists expressed concerns that the contaminated water was connected to drinking water wells by an underground aquifer.

The EPA recommended that residents "avoid drinking water" and use house fans and ventilation while showering to "avoid explosion."

Can't wait to see what Carl Wimmer has to say about this one.

Sundance Institute Needs Your Help

2010-09-03T20:18:00.000-07:00

Support independent film and artists:

From: Keri Putnam
Date: September 3, 2010
To: Jason Williams
Subject: Take Part with Sundance Institute

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I am happy to let you know that Sundance Institute has been selected by American Express and TakePart for an opportunity to receive $200,000 through the Members Project program. We are competing against other nonprofit organizations to receive the greatest number of votes in the Arts & Culture category during the contest period from August 30th - November 21st.

The competition is steep and we need your help. Please vote for Sundance Institute and help us raise these critical funds for our support of independent artists around the world. You may cast one vote per week. Past winners have cited weekly voting by their supporters as the key to taking home the cash prize.

Whether it's a window into the world of a teenage girl navigating the dangerous social terrain of the Ozark Mountains through Debra Granik's Dramatic Grand Prize winner Winter's Bone, or a journey with the victims of Hurricane Katrina in Trouble the Water, by Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, the Institute supports the kind of original storytelling that allows each of us to see the world from new perspectives.

Please help us win by registering on the TakePart website here and voting for Sundance Institute every week. You only need to register once and then log in each week to vote. You can also sign up for our weekly email reminder here to make sure you don't forget.

We would love if you would spread the word to your family and friends through Facebook, Twitter and emails. The link to share for voting is www.takepart.com/membersproject/vote and you can find us in the "Arts & Culture" category.

It will be all of us that make the difference. Many thanks for your votes and for your continued support.

Yours,

Keri Putnam
Executive Director, Sundance Institute
8530 Wilshire Blvd., 3rd Floor
Beverly Hills CA 90211
www.sundance.org

Preserve Social Security in one graph

2010-08-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

File this one under "no brainer." More:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/08/how_to_fix_social_security_in.html

The Greatest Generation vs. The TeaBagger Brigade

2010-08-28T10:51:00.007-07:00

The prologue years...

[...] unionism had shrunk, corporate America had blossomed -- at least in the size of individual entities and in the salaries and other benefits of those who sat at the top of them. In the decade following the war twelve hundred mergers swallowed up more than six thousand previously independent companies [...] some two hundred corporations controlled almost half of all American industry. The fewer companies, the less competition, the less competition, the less incentive to keep profit margins down -- and federal tax policies took very little of that profit. As a result, most of the personal wealth in the country resided in the pockets, bank accounts, and stock portfolios of a tiny percentage of the population.

But goods had been produced for the millions, not for the thousands, and the millions, in the end, simply could not afford them.

[...] Then there was the banking system. [...] the Louisiana Banking Commissioner took a look at the failures in his state and penned an assessment that could have served as an indictment of the entire system. "[...] poor management, promotion of speculative enterprises, loans without security, too large loans, loans to companies in which officers were interested, were the major causes of bank failure."

[...] It was up to the survivors now to sift through the wreckage to find what they could that would help them build a new world. There was plenty of wreckage to go around.

These are excerpts from The Great Depression: America in the 1930's by T.H. Watkins. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to draw a direct comparison to elements of the Bush recession, and see history repeating, not only in the activities encouraged that brought about the current crisis, but also the responses both enacted by one party and suggested as "ideas" by another party.

The parallels in cause and response -- if you consider that aspect of the history as well -- make today's "debate" and policy of timid stimulus, deficit commissions, and lack of unified economic vision pale in comparison to the policies of FDR and the WWII generation.

They were courageous enough to not only address the causes of crisis, but also to build an economic future in the face of those too small-minded and easily frightened to think of anything but austerity. At the end of the second World War, the debt to GDP ratio was 120%. They put everything on the line to rebuild from the Great Depression to the end of the war. The strategy prevailed, and by the time Mr. Trickle-Down-Economics came along to begin undoing what had been achieved, debt to GDP was down to 30%, and the American economy was leading the world. This didn't happen by magic, and most definitely wasn't the result of "tightening the belt" and "waiting it out" (or as I like to call it: The Utah Legislature's Only Plan, Every Time, Ad Naseum). The activities that increased the debt from depression to the end of the war were responsible for the infrastructure that then brought debt down while at the same time creating economic expansion. Today's austerity "leaders" offer no such plan (i.e. cutting Social Security may reduce short term costs, but how does it create opportunity or incentivize growth? Hint: It doesn't.).

It may seem cliche, but when I read passages like the one above it also seems relevant: it's simply the difference between a "can-do" approach to economic policy and future, as opposed to tea-bagging ourselves back into the economic middle-ages. The real lesson of the era was a bravery to rebuild and remake the country in response to changing demands and economic forces. To listen to Mike Lee, Jim DeMint, Bachmann, or any member of the TeaBagger Brigade, America of today could not handle such a challenge, and we must downsize opportunity, huddle together in frightened "principled" masses, cowering in Hoovervilles, covering ourselves from the rain with our pocket Constitutions and Eagle Forum fliers.

A Bold Plan vs. Driving out immigrants and Mark Shurtleff's protest rallies.

The Greatest Generation vs. The Generation that Winced.

Ability vs. Limitations.

You decide.

Cut Simpson, Not Social Security

2010-08-26T09:10:00.001-07:00

AFL-CIO in the inbox:

Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the federal budget deficit commission and proponent of Social Security cuts, sent a vitriolic, rant-filled e-mail to the leader of a prominent women's group fighting to strengthen Social Security. Simpson should resign or be fired, say seniors' and women's organizations.

Call the White House (202-456-1414) and urge President Obama to demand Simpson's resignation.

The Dumbening

2010-08-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

Ed Kilgore:

No one, of course, doubted Ronald Reagan's religiosity even though he never affiliated with a church in Washington. And the famously pious George W. Bush wasn't much seen in churches as president, either. As for playing golf on the Sabbath, I'm reminded again of the time when the wife of "Mr. Republican," Sen. Robert Taft, was asked where her husband worshipped on Sunday mornings. "Burning Tree," she blurted out, referring to the congressional golf course.

In this as in many other respects, Barack Obama is being held to a different standard than most politicians, but I guess that's just his cross to bear.

The PEW survey showing an increase in those who believe Obama is a Muslim denotes a willing lack of responsibility by Americans to stay informed and believe what they're neighbors send them in chain emails. The obsession with the topic thereafter displays how petty, childish, and trite our national narrative becomes on a regular basis these days.

Personally, I don't care about the chosen faith of my elected officials. That's between them and whoever/whatever they believe in. Every inch of newsprint and broadcast space dedicated to the topic, while possibly answering questions that are important to some out there, is space that could've been used discussing something far more relevant, like policy. I do understand why it might be important to some (especially those brainless xenophobes who believe all Muslims are terrorists infiltrating our country), and I even acknowledge that there are those out there small minded enough to factor such things as which church an individual frequents above all other considerations for elected office, and that those types of voters would want those types of questions answered.

But the question has been answered time and time again. Hell, most of the people I hear perpetuating the lie are the same people who think Jeremiah Wright (a Christian) had programmed Obama as a one man sleeper cell set to activate one's the new drapes were in the Oval Office. There's something bigger (and dumber) going on here. It's not a credible source issue, and it's not that the President has been vague about his faith. I think it's a deep dedication of some to see evil in all things either different from them or that they don't bother to learn enough about to understand. And lost in all of this is another question: At what point did we decide, as a country, that being Muslim was like a scarlet letter? Even if the President was, are we really that immature?

Apparently.

Ah, for the days of August '09, when all we had to combat to have an adult conversation were teabaggers screaming "Death Panels!" I thought then that the discussion over direction we were having as a country could not possibly get any dumber.

Those were the days.

Linda Chavez-Thompson

2010-08-23T13:32:00.001-07:00

Utah readers here can't vote for her, but they'll wish they could. This is how Democratic state candidates should be talking about immigration.

From: Linda Chavez-Thompson
Date: August 23, 2010
To: Jason Williams
Subject: Terror babies, ¡por favor!

Friends,

If calling American children "anchor babies" wasn't already fear-mongering, Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle took the debate to a new level of crazy with her theory of "terror babies."

Repeating a second-hand story to CNN's Anderson Copper, Riddle explained a nefarious international conspiracy by immigrants to cross the border illegally, while pregnant, to give birth without insurance, to then cross the border back again, so that 21 years later they can send their child back again to do us harm.

As I explained last Friday in my keynote speech at the Southwest Voter Registration & Education Project gala in San Antonio, I'm left to conclude that Debbie Riddle was either never pregnant … never waited in line to cross the border … or at the very least, never flew on a plane with a toddler.

But in all seriousness, I realize those who share Debbie Riddle's views must simply be scared to death when they look around and see people who look different than them.

As we all try to move up the ladder, the easy thing to do is to separate ourselves from those lower down.

And that brings me to my real point, which isn't about Debbie Riddle at all, but about Willie Velazquez, the founder of Southwest Voter, who chose a more courageous path.

Willie's legacy is a reminder that yes, we are our brother's keeper.

I took advantage of the opportunity with my keynote speech to speak out for the hotel workers there at the Grand Hyatt in San Antonio who have faced intimidation in their efforts to join the union UNITE HERE.

I ask you to take a moment to reflect on how you're continuing Willie's legacy.

Today, there are those who have spread fear from the immigration debate to the health care debate to the debate over public school funding.

These times call for courage. However you choose to keep Willie's legacy alive, I say from the bottom of my heart, "gracias."

Un abrazo,

Linda Chavez-Thompson

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About Those "Gang-Related" Arrests

2010-08-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

ICE announced last week they'd made 158 "gang-related" arrests in Utah, illegal immigrants with alleged ties to gang activity. Yeah Freedom! Except...

“We’ve gotten five or six of these gang cases in the past week, and I have three clients who have no criminal record,” said Aaron Tarin, an immigration attorney who is representing Salazar-Gomez. “They were not affiliated with gangs or participating in illegal activity, but they are being labeled as gang members because they have tattoos, usually that are completely unrelated to gang membership.”

The Trib reports that 65 of those 158 arrested had no criminal record. This is a complete contradiction of ICE's stated policy to target the most dangerous offenders first.

We're Not Racists!

2010-08-18T14:19:00.003-07:00

Followed the immigration discussion and respective demonstrations on the Utah Hill this morning via the Twitter (Our tweeting local journo's rock, btw). Not much to say about it other than I'd really like to see Sandstrom, Petty, and the mindless chattering tweeters provide some documentation to back up their wildly reactionary claims.

I'll wait...

While they're getting back to me, the rest of you can ponder this.

Celebrate the GOP Plan!

2010-08-06T12:46:00.002-07:00

Rep. Paul Ryan (R- Wonderland) is being touted about on all of the front pages lately as the poster boy for a restored fiscal plan for the GOP. One you should all clap very loudly for of course.

The only problem? Well, problems, really. None of it is even in the most remote stretches of the imagination "new," as much as it is a reworking of the same ol' Reagan-zombie dogma. Also, it requires a complete willing suspension of disbelief to believe.

You can smash chewed gum back into the shape of a fresh piece, but it's still going to have been in someone's mouth before yours.

"Secure the Borders" Debate, Billions of Dollars Later

2010-08-05T10:52:00.006-07:00

Birthright citizenship and border security "debate" has/is/always will be nothing more than distraction from progress on an issue that will not be a winner for the party in opposition to reform. Slate:

I seriously doubt that the American public has either the interest in, or the stomach for, a long, drawn-out constitutional debate about birthright citizenship. Polls show the public favors the anti-immigrant Arizona SB1070 but overwhelmingly supports legalization for undocumented immigrants as well. Apparently, the majority of the public is open to having a real conversation about immigration policy and solving the undocumented immigration challenge. This attack on U.S. born children—or, per the ugly moniker, "anchor babies"? That's just a distraction.

Challenges to birthright citizenship are not new. They emerge in predictable historical cycles. Like other attention-grabbing anti-immigrant initiatives, they may even spark debate, but not the kind of honest discussion necessary for immigration reform. Proposals couched in enforcement-only, anti-immigrant sentiment naturally encounter reflexive push-back from immigrant rights supporters advocating legalization. That's why the polarized battle over closing the border and increasing enforcement, versus enacting a legalization program, leaves little room for meaningful conversation. For any real change to come about, we must talk about the needs of employers and the contributions of immigrants. The vitriol about pregnant foreigners who sneak across our borders prevents us from getting an accurate picture of who most immigrants are—both documented and undocumented—and why they continue to arrive instead of trying to achieve their dreams at home. For example, our instincts tell us that reducing the flow across the southern border will require the expansion of the economy and job growth in Mexico. Yet formulating a plan to work with Mexico on its economy has never been part of the discussion.

The real problem with the enforcement-only approach to the undocumented immigration challenge is obvious: It's pretty much all we've been doing for the past decade, and what's the result been? Billions of dollars later, we are left with daily deaths at the border, as an enforcement regime funnels the continuous flow of migrants through the most treacherous terrain and ICE raids. Our borders separate loved ones as detention facilities bulge to the breaking point.

From the comments

2010-08-04T19:42:00.008-07:00

A line from the comments in response to my assertion that Utah voters are letting themselves be duped into blind support for anything with any/all Republican candidates:

Utah has a chance with [Peter] Corroon to cast a thinking vote, but will they?

Good question.

I haven't heard a single explanation from any of my Republican friends for Herbert deserving another few years in the Governor's seat. Asking as often as I can, I can't find a single person who opposes Corroon who can tell me a policy Corroon embraces that they disagree with.

Will this one come down to "principle"? Meaning of course: "Which one has the R after his name?"

Utahns need to stand up.

Why He Was Angry (and You Should Be Too)

2010-08-04T13:24:00.006-07:00

One of the inherent perspectives a progressive in Utah has the luxury of believing unquestionably is how little "principle" there actually is to the predictable GOP outrage at Democratic successes on the national level. Take a look at the mindless support for Gary Herbert (really... what do you know about anything he stands for, other than the R? Yeah, exactly.) or the thoughtless allegiance to Republican candidates, even when they don't represent what's best for the state. Let's face it, Utah, you're not picky. If it's got an R, you're satiated.

When Democrats enjoy a national success, we get to see this little slice of Utah politics spread like a virus to the national theater. Tea-baggn' is nothing new. It happened when Clinton won too, to a tragic extent. Republicans get angry, as any party would, when they lose. But the respond to it with fear campaigns, hightened/mindless rhetoric, and Frank Luntz. And GOP voters fall for. Much of the support for today's Republican Party stems from the same lack of demand for character and leadership that sails so many ideologues with the right buzz phrases to public office here at home. Being used in such a way should make you angry.

As angry as Rep. Anthony Weiner was last week. As he explains in an op-ed today, genuine frustration at misleading tactics is long overdue.

LAST week I got angry on the floor of the House. In this age of cable and YouTube, millions of people evidently saw the one-minute-plus clip. But there has been relatively little focus on why the substantive debate that sparked it matters.

More broadly, while I appreciate the concern over the future of civility in politics, I believe a little raw anger right now is justified. Democrats make a mistake by pretending there is a bipartisan spirit in Congress these days, and would be better served by calling out Republican shams.

The specifics of the debate last week should be an example of an issue beyond partisan dispute. The bill in question was created to help the thousands of citizens who went to ground zero after the Sept. 11 attacks. These are Americans who wanted to help, and who scientific studies now show are falling ill and dying in troubling numbers.

After nine years, the House had a chance to make this right by voting on a bill that would provide treatment, screening and compensation to Americans who sacrificed their safety that day, as well as Lower Manhattan residents and others who have suffered injury from exposure to the dust and debris.

Though it should have been a legislative slam dunk, the bill was defeated on a simple up-or-down vote, with only 12 Republicans voting in favor. Just 21 additional Republican votes would have been sufficient for passage.

It was frustrating to hear Republicans say these people didn’t deserve more help because, as one put it, “people get killed all the time.”

You're being duped by your own party, the tea party, and political opportunists wrapping themselves in the Constitution, my Republican friends. And until you demand better, expect it to only get worse.

Bush Tax Cuts: Orrin's "Analysis"

2010-07-30T10:45:00.010-07:00

Orrin Hatch thinks you're stupid, and if retweets are any indicator, many Utah conservatives are proving him right, buying his over-the-top double speak hook, line, and tea bag.

Orrin on July 22nd:

Introduced a Balanced Budget Amendment today, because our country cannot afford the spending binge Congress is on! #utpol

Orrin today:

Letting Bush Tax Cuts Die Would Kill Recovery: Analysts http://bit.ly/9oIFJ0 #utpol via @CNBC

Forgetting, for the sake of argument, that this is most likely some inattentive, poorly paid staffer (perhaps Utah GOP Chair Dave Hansen himself?), and ignoring that Orrin's analysts are the executives of a the large Deutsche Bank (the article may be better titled: Letting Tax Cuts Expire Would Kill Recovery... of Deutsche Bank!), let's take a look at what Orrin's "analysts" are actually saying.

The nascent US economic recovery would be halted in 2011 if Congress fails to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, analysts at Deutsche Bank said.

The cuts were enacted in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush and in part covered those earning more than $250,000, but they are set to expire at the end of this year. Tax decreases for lower-earning people likely will be continued, but the ones for the top end of the income scale are in danger of going away.

Oh Noes! Sure, the tax cuts for the middle class will stay in place, but what about the rich?! Won't someone think of the wealthy bankers of the world? Forget that this "analysis" runs contrary to all the "non-big-bank" analysis out there. The rich are suffering, people! Why is the middle class being so selfish? Come to think of it, What About Our Stockholders' Profits?! is a more accurate headline for this piece. The ~~Douche~~ Deutsche analysts continue:

The impact would be worse, the analysts said, if Congress fails to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was enacted in 1969 to make sure rich people pay taxes but was never indexed for inflation, and thus is now hitting middle-income workers.

"In a worst-case scenario, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire and failing to fix the AMT could result in (1.5 percent) of fiscal drag in 2011 on top of the 1 percent fiscal drag we expect to occur as the Obama fiscal stimulus package unwinds," Deutsche said in a note to clients. "If the recovery remains soft/tentative through early next year, this additional drag could be enough to push the economy to a stalling point."

Catch that? If the upper end of these tax cuts expire, we're all going to die... but if we don't adjust the AMT to make sure the rich pay their fair share... we're all going to die. Wow, this is confusing. Which is it? Either the rich need to catch a (continued) break, or they need to start paying their fair share. Can it be both at once? (Hint: No.)

So what Orrin has served up here is an article by bank "analysts" pretending to be concerned about the economy by arguing both for an extension of tax breaks for the wealthy, and an inflation based adjustment of the AMT so that the wealthy will be paying more taxes, and so that you'll be fooled into thinking it's you they had in mind when they penned this piece. And Orrin serves up this blustery support for the tax cuts that will add $3 trillion dollars to the national debt a week after sponsoring a balanced budget amendment because he can't sleep at night worrying about the national debt.

AMT was designed as a extra tax on high earners, but the the income level above which someone is subject to AMT isn't designed to change with inflation so it requires an act of congress to change it. Without adjustments, each year people who didn't have to pay AMT last year and aren't the tax's intended target will have to pay AMT (usually a grand or two at the bottom of the range, going up from there). An adjustment for inflation -- especially an automatic adjustment so we don't have to do this every year -- is a great idea. But Orrin has stumbled on that nugget of smart by sheer accident as he trudges through a self induced marsh of contradictory, hypocritical, hyperbolic stupid. He's not linking to this article for the insight, he's linking to the article because some bankers are really really really concerned that tax cuts for the rich may expire, and they are apparently his constituency. That and they used the word "Kill," which is always scary.

Letting the upper end of the Bush Tax Cuts expire will reset the revenue sets to those of the Clinton years, which if you'll remember were pretty super years, economically.

As I began: Orrin Hatch thinks you're stupid.

National Security Letters

2010-07-29T11:32:00.002-07:00

Ick. Rawstory:

The White House has asked Congress to make it possible for the FBI to demand that Internet service providers turn over customers' records in cases involving terrorism or other intelligence issues without first obtaining a court order.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act currently states that companies are required to provide basic subscriber data to the FBI, but lists only the four kinds of information that might be found on phone bills -- customer's name, address, length of service, and toll billing records.

In 2008, the Justice Department ruled that those four categories were "exhaustive," making some companies reluctant to provide any additional information. The proposed amendment would add the phrase "electronic communication transactional records" to the list in order to include the recipients of emails and when they were sent and received -- though not their content. It might also cover web browsing history.

The administration is describing the proposal as intended to prevent "confusion" on the part of service providers, but the Washington Post notes that "what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters."

Welcome to the Republican Tea Party

2010-07-29T11:25:00.001-07:00

Crooks and Liars:

Behold, the Republican Tea Party Contract ON America, where Democrats are prepared to remind the country of what Republicans have been up to this year.
Contract high points include:
Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)
Put insurance companies back in charge, repeal tax credits for small businesses, allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and to drop coverage when a person gets too sick and make prescription drugs for seniors less affordable.
Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether
Turn the guaranteed retirement benefits of America's seniors over to Wall Street CEOs by putting Social Security at risk in the stock market or, as some Republicans have called for, phase out Social Security altogether and end a program millions of American seniors rely on for their survival.
End Medicare as it presently exists Phase out and end Medicare as it presently exists for future generations of seniors -- ending Medicare's guaranteed healthcare benefits for more than 40 million American seniors -- and replace it with a voucher system which will result in higher premiums and fewer services for seniors.
Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil
At a cost of nearly $700 billion, extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and big oil, which are set to expire and which have and will continue to explode the federal budget deficit.
Repeal Wall Street Reform
Roll back the toughest consumer protections ever enacted, allow banks to continue to grow too big to fail, and ensure that predatory lenders continue to utilize their most abusive practices.
Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes
Cap liabilities for those responsible for environmental disasters like the Gulf oil spill and let companies like BP decide which victims deserve compensation for the disaster and what the timeline for relief should be.
Abolish the Department of Education
Put the big banks back in charge of student loans and put an end to federal assistance for public schools.
Abolish the Department of Energy
End America's investments in a clean-energy future and disband the organization responsible for oversight of nuclear materials.
Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
Gut the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act -- which together protect our kids from air pollution and keep drinking water safe -- and disband the watchdog that holds polluters accountable.
Repeal the 17th Amendment
Take away your right to pick your U.S. Senator
That's what they've promised. Not just a walk back to the Bush years, a walk back to another century. Perhaps they could repeal the Emancipation Proclamation, too.

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/welcome-republican-tea-party

Chart of the Day: It Trickles Somewhere . . .

2010-07-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

According to Reagan et al this should be good for everyone right?

Meanwhile, we still have this going on.

Herbert's "Reasons"

2010-07-28T10:48:00.002-07:00

Defacto Governor Gary Herbert's blog:

Best Choice for Governor: Reason #100

Exports gain momentum in Utah economy

SALT LAKE CITY — As the once-reliable twins of the local economy — real estate and population growth — have faltered, a smaller but more solid sector — exports — has been picking up the slack and gaining momentum.

Despite all the hand-wringing about the U.S. trade deficit that posted an 18-month peak earlier this month as the value of imports surged and exports nationwide have been bumping along or sinking into the negative, Utah has been quietly holding its own.

"And it has three of the top 10 metro areas in our study that appear to be the beams of a new economic era that could shoulder in a new wave of jobs and innovation," said Mark Muro, a co-author of a Brookings Institution report released today stating that the Mountain West, and Salt Lake metro areas in particular, could well be the new home of national export growth and the new hope for global competition.

Exports are great. They can -- can -- create jobs consistently enough to produce economic health. Export growth can be -- can be -- a sign of a healthy economy. But not when they are the only sign of growth to be seen.

Economics lessons for the Governor aside, it's worth noting that Gary's "Reason #100" is something he had not a single bit of involvement with.

Not a damn thing.

Same can be said for his Reason #101, where he takes credit for internet use. Reason #98, taking credit for our commuter friendly roads. Reason #104, slight growth in construction (cough Federal Stimulus cough) jobs. And by all means, lets not forget Reason #102!

Herbert's campaign seems to consist of asking Utahns to vote for him because 1) Praise was given while he was Lt. Gov, busy not replying to email requests from voters, 2) Achievements were made by others, 3) Scott Jenkins and ALEC think he's super, and 4) All of his stuff is already in the office... why make him move it?

So what's Gary not taking credit for? Well, there's this...

Utah is expected to receive $1.4 billion ARRA funds through a variety of programs, including $498 million for State Fiscal Stabilization. For additional budget stabilization, Utah maintains the Budget Reserve Fund (Rainy Day Fund) and Education Budget Reserve Fund (Education Rainy Day Fund) with a combined total balance of $418.5 million.^[3] Utah faced a $872 million revenue drop for FY 2009 and $956 million for FY 2010, making general state government cuts of 16% and using $391 million of federal money in FY 2009 and $782.5 million in 2010 to balance its budget.

Just like all that internet a-usin', Gary, this happened on your watch too.

The Forgotten Foreclosure Crisis

2010-07-27T11:35:00.003-07:00

Most of my chosen experience at Netroots Nation '09 and '10 is in the form of campaign type training, and doesn't make for an exciting post. I did step outside of that more this year to catch panels on Social Security (more on that later, but for now: there is no crisis), immigration, and other policy issues. Due to conflicting panels, I had skipped all but the Q & A of this one. Craig attended and will probably have more to say later, but in the Q & A alone I learned quite a bit, so I wanted to post the entire video of the discussion.

The Forgotten Foreclosure Crisis: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Professor Elizabeth Warren ("Godmother" of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and CPA nominee), and Firedoglake financial blogger David Dayden (DDay). Moderated by HuffPo's Ryan Grimm.

About 2 minutes swapping panelists mics, but at 19 minutes Warren is asked a question, and continues until about the 30 min mark with one of the most concise explanations of the crisis, how we got here, and what it means for the entire country going forward.