REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS, THE DEBT, AND THE ECONOMY

Here are the three takeaways from this post:

The U.S. economy is strong, it’s growing and creating jobs, despite the Federal Reserves’ interest rate increases.
Over the last 90 years (the period for which data has been captured), the economy has been significantly stronger under Democratic Presidents than Republican ones.
Republicans’ current concerns over the federal government’s debt and deficit are hypocritical as they had no such concerns when Trump and other Republicans were president.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

The U.S. economy finished off 2022 with strong 2.9% growth in the 4^th quarter in Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the total of all goods and services sold). GDP growth was 2.1% for the full year. The economic growth was strong despite big interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve (the Fed) designed to slow the economy in an effort to reduce inflation. Employers added 4.5 million jobs in 2022, the second-best year on record; 6.7 million jobs were created in 2021 (available data goes back to 1940). The unemployment rate is 3.5%, a 53-year low. [1]

Inflation is down significantly. Actually, in December, prices were DOWN 0.1% from the previous month. Over the last six months, prices have risen just 1.9%. This is below the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%, which would suggest that the Fed should stop increasing interest rates in its fight against inflation. [2]

However, the mainstream media have focused on the fact that prices in December were 6.5% higher than a year earlier, even though this is a significant decrease from June when they were up 9.1%. This focus supports the Fed continuing to increase interest rates, which benefits the banks, investors, and financial elites, but hurts workers and everyday Americans trying to buy homes and pay debts.

Moreover, the current inflation is different than inflation historically; it’s being driven by corporate price gouging, supply chain problems, and the war in the Ukraine. Therefore, interest rate increases are not likely to be as effective in fighting this current inflation as they have been historically. Nonetheless, the Fed’s interest rate increases may well needlessly drive our economy into a recession.

Reviewing economic growth historically, there’s a stark pattern in the U.S. over the last 90 years (the period for which data have been captured): The economy has performed significantly better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. Although a president has limited control over the overall economy, this pattern is true for all the major measures of the economy: GDP growth, job creation, incomes, productivity, and even stock prices. And the gap is significant in size. [3]

Over the last 90 years, there have been seven Democratic presidents and seven Republicans. (This does not include the current president.) In terms of annual GDP growth, the top four (FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Clinton) and number six (Carter) are Democrats. Three of the bottom four are Republicans (Trump [worst], G. W. Bush, and G. H. W. Bush) with Truman (D) as the third from the bottom. Overall, since 1933, the average annual GDP growth has been 4.6% under Democratic presidents, but only 2.4% under Republicans.

Looking at job growth (instead of GDP growth), the top six rates were under Democrats (the five top performers above plus Truman), while the bottom four were under Republicans (the three bottom performers above plus Eisenhower). Trump, by the way, is at the bottom and is the only president in this 90-year period with negative job growth.

Identifying the cause of this pattern is difficult, and, therefore, a bit inconclusive. However, it’s NOT spending and, in particular, it’s NOT deficit spending. In fact, Republican presidents have run up larger deficits than Democrats. (I’ll come back to this below.) Control of Congress is not the answer either.

The answer with the most supporting evidence is that Democratic presidents have been more willing to be pragmatic and follow evidence about which policies have actually strengthened the economy in the past. On the other hand, Republicans have clung to the theory that tax cuts (tilted heavily toward wealthy individuals and corporations) and deregulation will spur economic growth, despite consistent evidence to the contrary based on actual experience. Interestingly, tax increases enacted by President G. H. W. Bush in the late 1980s (to reduce the deficit created by Reagan) and by President Clinton in 1993 were both followed by strong economic growth.

In addition, it may be that Democratic presidents are more aggressive at using the government to respond to crises and that they are more focused on ensuring people have jobs. Democratic presidents may also be more aggressive in having the government invest in job-creating innovation when the private sector doesn’t, such as in medical research and clean energy.

While the causes of the better economic performance under Democratic presidents than Republican ones may not be entirely clear, the pattern is clear, strong, and long-term. (I have written about this pattern before, here.)

In terms of the federal budget deficit and the debt, over the last 40 years, Republican presidents have run up larger deficits and added more to the debt (a bit over $12 trillion) than Democrats (a bit under $7 trillion). (I have written about this pattern before, here.) The last president to balance the federal budget was Clinton (D), who actually reduced the debt over his eight years in office. Previous to that, President Johnson (D) was the most recent one who had a budget surplus.

So, when Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling, it’s blatant hypocrisy. Under President Trump, they voted to raise the debt ceiling three times as $6.6 trillion was added to the federal debt. The tax cut they passed in 2017 raised the annual deficit by about $200 billion. Moreover, raising the debt ceiling simply allows the government to pay for the spending Republicans and Democrats have already approved in annual budgets.

Republicans’ rhetoric about the debt and deficit is a smokescreen for their efforts to cut spending that supports average Americans, like Social Security; Medicare, Medicaid, and Obama Care that provide health insurance; and the Child Tax Credit that helps low-income families with children. On the other hand, they support spending that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, often giving them the money through tax breaks. Moreover, Republicans have for years cut the funding for the IRS, preventing it from enforcing our tax laws. As a result, wealthy individuals and corporations are dodging about $100 billion a year in taxes they owe under current tax laws.

Without the Republicans’ 2017 tax cut and with better enforcement of tax laws by the IRS, the federal government wouldn’t be hitting the debt ceiling now. So, Republicans’ opposition to raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility or the debt. Rather, it’s all about holding our government and economy hostage to their demands for cuts in spending that supports everyday Americans. Meanwhile, they protect the wealthy (who provide lots of money for Republicans’ campaigns) from having to pay their fair share in taxes. [4]

[1] Wiseman, P., 1/27/23, “Slow US economy grew last quarter,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[2] Kuttner, R., 1/13/23, “The misleading reporting on inflation,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-01-13-misleading-reporting-on-inflation/)

[3] Leonhardt, D., 2/2/21, “Why are Republican presidents so bad for the economy?” The New York Times

[4] Warren, E., 1/24/23, “The Republican con on the debt ceiling,” The Boston Globe

STORIES CENSORED BY CORPORATE MEDIA Part 2

A central purpose of my blog posts is to share information that is under-reported by the mainstream, corporate media. This post and the previous one share highlights of the top ten under-reported stories of 2022 identified by the annual State of the Free Press report from Project Censored. The media – print, TV, on-line, and social media – have undergone a dramatic corporate consolidation over the last 40 years so they are now a handful of huge, for-profit corporations, often owned and run by billionaire oligarchs. Through bias and self-censorship, this has restricted the content and quality of the information reported and, therefore, skewed the terms and content of public debate and decision making. Project Censored works to hold the corporate news media and their owners accountable. (See my previous post for more detail.)

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

By failing to provide citizens and voters important information, the under-reporting highlighted by Project Censored’s report undermines democracy, the public interest, and the promotion of a just, fair, and inclusive society. My previous post summarized the first four of its top ten issues for the year. Here are summaries of the next three. [1]

UNDER-REPORTED STORY #5: A network of right-wing “dark money” organizations is undermining democracy in multiple ways. Dark money organizations are politically active groups organized as non-profits so they don’t have to report their donors. A network of them, including the Judicial Crisis Network, The 85 Fund, and the Donors Trust, has been funding election deniers, the January 6 insurrectionists, and campaigns for and against Supreme Court nominees. They have funded support for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and opposition to President Biden’s nominee. The billionaire Koch brothers (although one of them has passed away) have their own network of groups that funnel money to political causes, including through the Donors Trust. These dark money groups are also closely link to the Federalist Society of right-wing lawyers and judges and its co-chair Leonard Leo.

This network of dark money groups has been set up to obscure the sources of funding for right-wing political activities. In 2020, these dark money groups provided the Federalist Society and related groups over $52 million, primarily to promote the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Barrett. In 2020, they provided over $37 million to entities that played a role in the January 6 insurrection. They previously had spent tens of millions of dollars promoting the confirmations of Trump-nominated Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. They gave tens of millions to groups promoting lies about the 2020 election. Members of the Federalist Society played key roles in the various schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the confirmation of Biden as President. For example, 14 of the 18 Attorneys General who filed suit to throw out election results in key states are Federalist Society members.

Despite the size and scope of this dark money network supporting right-wing political, anti-democracy activities, the corporate media have left the story of the connections and coordination of these funders almost totally unreported. Although the media have covered specific right-wing activities, they have not provided the context of the network of funders of these activities. Therefore, the impact and threat of these dark money funders and the need to address the overarching issue of dark money remain unknown to most of the public and most voters. If nothing else, this minimizes public understanding of the level of the threat to our democracy, to our elections, and to trust in our governments. This undermines democracy by failing to educate voters about the extent of the network of funders and the coordination among the right-wing extremists’ organizations.

UNDER-REPORTED STORY #6: Corporate consolidations and the marketplace power that this creates are key drivers of “inflation.” The mainstream, corporate media have reported extensively on the current surge of inflation. However, they rarely report on the price gouging by huge, monopolistic corporations that has been a key cause of inflationary price increases. When they do report on it, it’s usually to dismiss it as a cause of inflation. Corporate consolidation leading to the marketplace power to engage in price gouging has occurred in many industries in the U.S. and globally, from railroads to pharmaceuticals to ocean shipping. The food industry, which has engaged in price gouging causing high inflation in grocery prices, is a great example. Three corporations own 93% of the carbonated soft drinks sold, three other corporations own 73% of cereals, and four or fewer firms control at least 50% of the market for 79% of groceries. The four big meat suppliers have paid over $225 million to settle suits related to price fixing and other market manipulation.

Because of price increases across the whole economy, U.S. corporations’ profits are at the highest levels in 70 years. Fifty to 60 percent of “inflation” is going to increased profits, which are being used to pay big dividends to investors and to buyback over $20 billion of corporations’ own stocks in 2021 alone. (See previous posts here, here, and he re for more information on corporate consolidation and price gouging that causes “inflation.”)

UNDER-REPORTED STORY #7: Gates Foundation gifts of well over $319 million to the media and related entities. The identified gifts (the true total is undoubtedly far higher) go directly to the media, to the coverage of specific topics, and to journalism training programs and associations. These gifts raise serious questions about journalistic independence and conflicts of interest. U.S. recipients include CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS, and The Atlantic. International recipients include the BBC, Al-Jazeera, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel. An example of funding for coverage of a specific topic is the Gates Foundation’s $2.3 million grant to the Texas Tribune to increase public awareness and engagement in education reform. Given Gates’ longstanding advocacy for charter schools, which many educators and political leaders see as an effort to privatize public education and undermine teachers’ unions, this grant could be viewed as an effort to generate pro-charter school stories that appear to be objective news reporting.

The Gates Foundation, a tax-exempt charity that frequently trumpets the importance of transparency, is often very secretive about its finances and gifts. Not included in the $319 million figure are gifts to academic journals and research targeted at producing journal articles that often end up getting reported in the mainstream media. For example, at least $13.6 million has been spent on creating content for the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.

Major corporate media have not covered this story, despite a 2011 Seattle Times article noting that the Gates Foundation’s gifts to media organizations were blurring the line between journalism and advocacy.

My next post will summarize the last three stories that Project Censored had in its top ten list of those censored by the corporate media in 2022.

[1] Rosenberg, P., 1/3/23, “Project Censored, Part 2: Billionaire press domination,” The American Prospect, (https://prospect.org/power/project-censored-part-2-billionaire-press-domination/)

GIVING THANKS FOR FREE, READER-SUPPORTED MEDIA

I give thanks for news and information sources that are not-for-profit, reader-supported, and free, given that the mainstream media are large, for-profit corporations. Unconstrained by a corporate, for-profit mindset and dependence on advertisers for revenue that both skew “news” toward infotainment to attract attention and capitalistic viewpoints to please corporate bosses and advertisers, reader-supported media provide valuable information and perspectives that go unreported by the mainstream media.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, feel free to read just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

The mainstream media are NOT liberal on economic issues, despite the decades of assertions by the right-wing that they are. They may be liberal on social issues such as abortion rights, LGBTQ+ issues, and gun violence reduction, but they are NOT liberal on economic issues such as business and Wall St. regulation, taxes, workers’ rights, economic inequality, and enforcement of antitrust laws.

My favorite progressive (or liberal if you like), print (hardcopy and online), non-profit, free, reader-supported publications with a focus on news and public policy are presented below. I’m sure there are others but these are more than sufficient to keep me busy and informed with in-depth, accurate information, thoughtful perspectives, and expert policy analysis. You can sign-up for daily or weekly emails from them that highlight their current content.

Take even a quick look at any of these sources of news, information, and analysis and I believe you’ll quickly agree with me that the mainstream media are NOT liberal or progressive!

Common Dreams: Founded in 1997, it lists its mission as: “To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.” Its website further states: “We are optimists. We believe real change is possible. But only if enough well-informed, well-intentioned – and just plain fed up and fired-up – people demand it. We believe that together we can attain our common dreams.” It only publishes online and delivers daily or weekly emails with summaries of and links to its relatively short articles covering current news.

The Hightower Lowdown: This entertaining, irreverent, progressive populist newsletter is written by Jim Hightower. Hightower worked in Congress, was twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983 – 1991), and “has long chronicled the ongoing democratic struggles by America’s ordinary people against rule by its plutocratic elites.” The Lowdown is available in print, online, and on the airwaves.

The American Prospect: In my opinion, this magazine and website deliver the best and most comprehensive progressive policy content. Its stated mission is “to tell stories about the ideas, politics, and power that shape our world.” It is “devoted to promoting informed discussion on public policy from a progressive perspective.” It identifies “policy alternatives and the politics necessary to create [and enact] good legislation.”

The Nation: It publishes progressive, independent journalism that “encourages debate, foments change, and lifts up the voices of those fighting for justice.” Founded by abolitionists in 1865, it believes that provocative, independent journalism can bring about a more democratic and equitable world. It provides thoughtful and investigative reporting that “speaks truth to power to build a more just society.” It’s available both online and in print.

Mother Jones: Founded in 1976, it’s “America’s longest-established investigative news organization.” Its mission is to deliver “reporting that inspires change and combats ‘alternative facts.’” It provides in-depth stories on a wide range of subjects including politics, criminal and racial justice, education, climate change, and food and agriculture. Its fellowship program is one of the premier training grounds for investigative journalists. It is available in print, online, and via videos and podcasts.

ProPublica: It was founded in 2007 with the beliefs that investigative journalism and informing the public about complex issues are crucial for our democracy. Its mission is “to expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.” With more than 100 journalists, it covers topics including government, politics, business, criminal justice, the environment, education, health care, immigration, and technology with in-depth, detailed articles.

If you prefer video content to print, I recommend Inequality Media. Its vision is “a United States where active participation by informed citizens restores the balance of power in our democracy and creates an economy where gains are widely shared.” Its mission is “to inform and engage the public about inequality and the imbalance of power” in U.S. society. Founded in 2015, its short videos are “entertaining and easy to understand [with] graphics, photos, and animations.” It focuses on current news and explains it in a way that ties it to the larger story of needed social change to create a more equitable economy and a more stable democracy.

I urge you to read and, if you can, support financially one or more of these organizations. In the current hyper-capitalistic, plutocratic economic and political environment in the U.S., we need these sources of non-profit, reader-supported journalism to support a well-informed citizenry, democratic governance, and the relatively level economic playing field democracy requires. Today’s mainstream media are simply not performing these responsibilities of the media in a democracy. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated, “we can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.”

WELL-KNOWN COMPANIES ARE SUPPORTING ELECTION DENIERS

My last four posts have been about the record spending by wealthy individuals and corporations in the 2022 elections, its corruption of democracy, and what we can do about it. (See previous posts here and here for some details about the spending and here and here for what we can do about it.) This post focuses on corporations that are giving money to the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election. In particular, it focuses on those corporations that announced a suspension of contributions to those 147 members of Congress after the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, but have now resumed supporting them.

(Note: If you find my posts too much to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making.)

For an overall perspective on the huge amounts of money being spent on the election, Open Secrets now projects that spending on the 2022 federal and state elections will set a record and will exceed $16.7 billion. Spending on federal races is projected to be $8.9 billion and has already surpassed the 2018 record for a mid-term election of $7.1 billion (adjusted for inflation). Federal election spending in non-presidential years has increased from almost $5 billion in 2014 to over $7 billion in 2018 (up 48%) and to a projected nearly $9 billion in 2022 (up 25%). (Prior year figures are adjusted for inflation.) [1]

Spending on state elections, including ballot questions, is projected to be $7.8 billion, which would exceed the 2018 record of $6.6 billion. State election spending has increased from $4.6 billion in 2014 to roughly $7.0 billion in 2018 (up 52%) and to a projected $7.8 billion in 2022 (up 11%). (Prior year figures are adjusted for inflation.)

At least 228 of the Fortune 500 largest American companies have made contributions totaling over $13 million to Republicans that voted against accepting the 2020 presidential election results. (Millions of dollars in companies’ contributions to Republican Party committees are NOT included in this figure. Much of the spending of these committees is going to the 147 election-denying members of Congress.)

In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, many of these companies condemned the attack and the violence, and stopped making political contributions to the 147 members of Congress who voted against the peaceful transfer of power. This was good public relations for them. Furthermore, these big companies depend on the stability of the country, its political system, and its economy to successfully operate.

However, at least 228 of these companies have now quietly gone back to giving money to the 147 election results deniers. Note that they resumed giving to these members of Congress before their next election. Therefore, there was NO meaningful impact from their short-lived suspensions of contributions on the re-election fundraising of the election deniers. [2]

Home Depot suspended political contributions after Jan. 6 but a year later resumed making them. It has now made 100 contributions totaling $475,000 to 65 of the 147 election deniers. This makes it the biggest corporate donor for direct contributions to election deniers and represents 12% of Home Depot’s direct donations to candidates. [3]

Boeing stated in Jan. 2021 that it “strongly condemns the violence, lawlessness and destruction” of the Jan. 6 insurrection. It promised to ensure that the politicians it supported would “uphold our country’s most fundamental principles.” However, since then, it has supported 74 of the 147 election deniers with 314 contributions totaling at least $390,000 (which is 14% of its giving).

Other companies that announced a suspension of political giving after Jan. 6 but have now given to election deniers include AT&T ($389,900 in 127 contributions), United Parcel Service ($385,500 in 155 contributions), Lockheed Martin ($366,000 to 90 deniers), Raytheon ($309,000 to 66 deniers), and Northrop Grumman ($175,000 to 26 deniers).

General Dynamics has donated over $324,000 to 67 election deniers despite the fact that a recent investor report stated: “Our employee PAC will not support members of Congress who provoke or incite violence or similar unlawful conduct.” However, it seems clear that denying the validity of the 2020 presidential election has indeed incited a range of violence and unlawful conduct.

After Jan. 6, Amazon announced in a strongly worded statement that it would stop contributing to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results because their actions represented an “unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process.” Nonetheless, in September 2022, its PAC gave $17,500 to nine of the election deniers. [4]

General Electric (GE) issued a particularly strong statement after Jan. 6 stating its “commitment to democracy” and suspending donations to the 147 election deniers. Nonetheless, GE has now made contributions totaling $12,500 to eleven deniers, saying it is considering “individual exceptions [to its suspension of donations] on a case-by-case basis.” Not coincidentally, all eleven of them sit on congressional committees of importance to GE: defense and energy spending, transportation and infrastructure spending, and taxation. By the way, to give you a sense of the amounts companies are donating to election deniers, this $12,500 dollar amount ranks GE as tied for 145^th on the ProPublica list of companies donating to election deniers.

I urge you to boycott or reduce your business with these companies and the others in the ProPublica list. I also urge you to contact them (e.g., their Chief Executive Officer or their corporate communications office) to let them know you disapprove of their support for election deniers and the undermining of democracy that it fosters.

[1] Giorno, T., & Quist, P., 11/3/22, “Total cost of 2022 state and federal elections projected to exceed $16.7 billion,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/11/total-cost-of-2022-state-and-federal-elections-projected-to-exceed-16-7-billion/)

[2] MacGillis, A., & Hernandez, S., 11/1/22, “What Fortune 500 companies said after Jan. 6 vs. what they did,” ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/article/companies-funding-election-deniers-after-january-6)

[3] Hernandez, S., & Lash, N., 11/4/22, “Fortune 500 companies have given millions to election deniers since Jan. 6,” ProPublica (https://projects.propublica.org/fortune-500-company-election-deniers-jan-6/)

[4] Legum, J., 10/26/22, “Amazon puts January 6 in the rearview mirror: ‘It’s been more than 21 months’,” Popular Information (https://popular.info/p/amazon-puts-january-6-in-the-rearview)

REINING IN GREAT WEALTH WOULD REDUCE POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Wealthy individuals and corporations are buying and corrupting our candidates for public office and our political system like never before. An increasing proportion of the record amounts of campaign spending is coming from a small number of wealthy donors. This is damaging our democracy in multiple ways. (See previous posts here and here for some details.) Changes in our campaign finance system will help, such as increasing disclosure and limiting contribution amounts in exchange for matching public funds. (See this previous post for more details.)

(Note: If you find my posts too long or too dense to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making and the most important information I’m sharing.)

However, as Louis Brandeis once said (prior to becoming a Supreme Court justice), “we can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, but we can’t have both.” The current accumulation of huge wealth and hence political power in the hands of a few has indeed proved to be antithetical to democracy.

Economic inequality has grown because progressivity in the American tax system has largely disappeared. This is the result of two trends:

Income tax rates at the federal and state levels have become less progressive, and
More and more government revenues are coming from regressive taxes such as state and local sales taxes, taxes on gambling, and property taxes, as well as the federal payroll tax for Medicare and Social Security.

A progressive tax or tax system is based on the taxpayer’s ability to pay. It imposes lower taxes as a percentage of income on low-income earners than on those with higher incomes, i.e., the percentage of income paid as taxes progresses from lower to higher as income increases. A regressive tax or tax system does the reverse; those with lower incomes pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes.

Progressive taxes are viewed as fairer because low-income households need their income to pay for necessities, such as housing, food, clothing, utilities, and transportation. Higher income households have enough income to afford luxuries; they have more discretionary income, i.e., income they can spend at their discretion rather than having to use it to pay for necessities of life. Another way of thinking about this is that an extra dollar of income is much more valuable to a low-income household than to a high-income household. Therefore, it is fair to take a higher portion of that extra dollar of income from a high-income household in taxes.

Most of the taxes we pay have a flat tax rate, such as sales taxes and taxes on alcohol and tobacco. The effect of these taxes is regressive because low-income households spend a greater portion of their incomes on purchases that are subject to these taxes. Another example of a regressive tax is the revenue governments get from gambling. Low-income households spend a greater portion of their incomes on gambling, such as lottery tickets, and, therefore, this is a regressive revenue source for government and effectively a quite regressive tax.

The only significant progressive tax in the U.S. today is the income tax. The federal income tax has become much less progressive over the last 40 years and the portion of revenue that governments at all levels get from progressive taxes has declined significantly. As a result, our overall tax system has become much less progressive over the last 40 years and, at the state and local levels, generally quite regressive.

To have a progressive income tax, multiple brackets (i.e., income ranges) with higher tax rates for higher income brackets are necessary. The federal income tax has had as many as 50 brackets and until 1986 had always had at least 15. The highest tax rate was 94%, which, in 1944, was the marginal rate on income over $200,000 (equivalent to $2.5 million today). By the way, this tax rate was in place during one of the longest periods of economic growth in U.S. history.

The top tax rate was at least 70% until 1981; today it is 37%. President Reagan and other Republicans led the effort in the 1980s that reduced the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%. They also led the reduction of the number of tax brackets from 16 to two. Needless to say, the progressivity of the U.S. tax system plummeted and the path to great economic inequality was created. Today, there are seven tax brackets and a top rate of 37%. [1] So, some progressivity has been reintroduced but it’s still much, much less than it was prior to the 1980s. (The issue of taxes on capital gains, both realized and unrealized, is also important but a topic unto itself.)

The loss of progressivity has also occurred in state and local tax systems. Washington State has the country’s most regressive overall state tax system; state and local taxes consume 17.8% of family incomes for the 20% of families with the lowest incomes and only 3% of incomes for the 1% with the highest incomes. In Massachusetts, the richest 1% pay 6.5% of income in state and local taxes while the bottom 80% pay between 9% and 10% of income in state and local taxes.

Several proposals have been put forward to change the current regressivity of the U.S. tax system and to begin to change the high and growing level of economic inequality in the U.S., in terms of both income and wealth:

Taxing wealth (in addition to income) is important because of the huge wealth that some individuals have accumulated over the last 40 years and because the wealthy are able to avoid income taxes by minimizing their incomes and living off their wealth. (See this previous post for more on the rationale for a wealth tax.) Two of the proposals for taxing wealth are:
- The Ultra-Millionaire Tax, proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would put a 2% tax on wealth between $50 million and $1 billion and a 4% tax on wealth over $1 billion. The wealth of 99.9% of American households is below $50 million, so they would pay no wealth tax under this proposal. [2]
- The OLIGARCH Act: The Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Restore Civil Harmony (OLIGARCH) Act, proposed by the group Patriotic Millionaires, would tax wealth in four brackets defined in relation to the median wealth of an American household, which is about $122,000. It would put a 2% tax on wealth between 1,000 and 10,000 times median wealth, or wealth of about $122 million to $1.2 billion. The tax rate would go up in 2% steps and top out at 8% on wealth over roughly $122 billion (one million times median wealth). (Note: There are two Americans with wealth of over $122 billion.) [3]
For the federal income tax, the End the Bracket Racket Act, also put forth by Patriotic Millionaires, would add five new brackets with one establishing a 50% tax rate on income between $1 and $5 million and progressing to a 90% tax rate on income over $100 million. It would also incentivize states to raise revenue through income taxes by providing a federal tax credit for state and local income taxes (while eliminating the deduction for property, sales, and excise taxes). [4]

I encourage to you contact President Biden and your Representative and Senators in Congress. Ask them to support the establishment of a wealth tax as well as changes to the income tax to increase progressivity. These steps would begin to reduce economic inequality and, ultimately, the ability of the wealthy to corrupt our elections and democracy. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414. You can find contact information for your U.S. Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1] Patriotic Millionaires, retrieved 10/22/22, “End the Bracket Racket (EBR) Act,” (https://patrioticmillionaires.org/wp-content/uploads/End-the-Bracket-Racket-Act-1.pdf)

[2] Senator E. Warren, retrieved 10/22/22, “Ultra-Millionaire Tax,” (https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax)

[3] Patriotic Millionaires, retrieved 10/22/22, “Oppose Limitless Inequality Growth and Restore Civil Harmony (OLIGARCH) Act,” (https://patrioticmillionaires.org/wp-content/uploads/Oligarch-Act-Memo.pdf)

[4] Patriotic Millionaires, retrieved 10/22/22, see above

STOPPING WEALTH FROM CORRUPTING OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM

Wealthy individuals and corporations are buying and corrupting our candidates for public office and our political system. Congressional races, state ballot questions, and possible 2024 presidential candidates are all raising record amounts of money. Furthermore, an increasing proportion of this money is coming from a small number of very wealthy donors. This is damaging our democracy in multiple ways. (See previous posts here and here for some details.)

We need to rein in the corrupting effects of huge amounts of money being spent on election campaigns by a relatively small number of very wealthy individuals and corporations. A few dozen billionaires will spend over $100 million on the 2022 elections after spending $1.2 billion on the 2020 elections, which included a presidential election. Ultimately, we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decisions (e.g., Citizens United) that equate spending with speech and give freedom of speech rights to corporations and other organizations. But that’s a long-term strategy.

Initial steps to address this problem include:

Enhancing disclosure of spending in campaigns: full disclosure of who the money is coming from, including both individuals and organizations, disclosed in a timely fashion so voters know who is trying to influence their votes,
Enacting partial public financing of campaigns that will reduce dependence on wealthy donors and provide a way within current law to limit the size of contributions,
Reducing the accumulation of huge wealth and hence political power in the hands of a very few people, which is antithetical to democracy, by reforming our tax system, including the implementation of a wealth tax, and
Reducing corporate influence in our politics and policy making by enforcing anti-trust laws (see this post for more information) because huge corporations with huge wealth and political power are antithetical to democracy. We also need to better regulate lobbying and the revolving door of personnel between corporate and government jobs. These steps are topics for other posts.

Two bills were passed by the U.S. House that would address election system issues (items 1 and 2 above), the DISCLOSE Act and the For the People Act. Both have been blocked by Republicans and the filibuster in the Senate. (In addition, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and revitalize the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 and stop racial discrimination in our elections, passed the House but was also blocked in the Senate.)

In response, The Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747), a compromise bill, was developed and introduced in the Senate. It includes most of the key provisions of the For the People Act and the DISCLOSE Act. Unfortunately, Republicans in the Senate have blocked it as well.

The Freedom to Vote Act includes provisions that would: [1]

Reform the campaign finance system by a) requiring enhanced disclosure (e.g., all major donors) by any entity spending more than $10,000, b) ensuring super PACs are truly independent of candidates, and c) strengthening campaign finance enforcement,
Create a publicly-funded system for matching small donations to U.S. House campaigns that states and candidates can opt into, which would match small donations with $6 for every $1 contributed in exchange for limiting the size of donations, thereby eliminating the need for candidates to rely on big money donors and their corrupting influence,
Enhance protections for election officials, ballots, and other election records and procedures,
Expand opportunities to vote through mail-in voting, early voting, and making election day a holiday,
Reduce voter suppression by a) creating a national standard for voter IDs that allow a wide range of options, b) restoring formerly incarcerated citizens’ federal voting rights, c) requiring waiting lines to be less than 30 minutes, and d) cracking down on intimidating and deceptive election-related practices,
Modernize voter registration with same-day, online, and automatic registration, as well as protection against unjustifiable purges of voters from the voting rolls, and
Ban partisan gerrymandering and establish clear, neutral standards for redistricting.

I encourage to you contact President Biden and your Representative and Senators in Congress. Ask them to support the Freedom to Vote Act (S.2747) to ensure fair, democratic elections. You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414. You can find contact information for your U.S. Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

My next post will identify some reforms to our tax system that are needed to begin to reduce the accumulation of great wealth and hence political power in the hands of a very few people, which is antithetical to democracy.

[1] Brennan Center for Justice, retrieved 10/15/22, “The Freedom to Vote Act,” (https://www.brennancenter.org/freedom-vote-act)

WEALTH IS CORRUPTING OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM LIKE NEVER BEFORE

Wealthy individuals and corporations are buying and corrupting our candidates for public office and our policy making processes like never before. Congressional races, state ballot questions, and possible 2024 presidential candidates are all raising record amounts of money. (See this previous post for some details.) This is bad for democracy.

Most of this record amount of money is spent on advertising and much of that is negative advertising, i.e., attacking, undermining, discrediting, and demeaning the opposing candidate, even lying about them. One effect of all the negative ads is that they tend to depress turnout (e.g., why bother to vote for the better of the flawed candidates) and to undermine faith in our elected officials and the government. This undermines democracy and citizens’ belief in democracy.

Of particular concern, is that a big chunk of the huge amount of money being spent on our elections is coming from a relatively few individuals and corporations. A few dozen billionaires will spend over $100 million on the 2022 elections. They and the corporations they are connected with want policies that will reduce their taxes and provide other benefits to them. The 2017 tax cut bill was very directly the result of these big donors telling Trump and Republicans in Congress that they wanted a big tax cut or their donations to 2018 campaigns would be significantly curtailed. This quid pro quo is corrupt; it’s a kickback scheme.

Twenty-seven billionaires have given $89 million to the two Republican congressional super PACs, nearly 50% or half of the money they’ve raised for the 2022 elections. A few have given $20 million or more. Nineteen billionaires have given $26 million to the two parallel Democratic PACs, which is 17% of the money they have raised. For both parties, the bulk of the money came from people in the finance and investment business. These billionaires are also engaged in other political spending. For example, Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, who is openly anti-democracy and anti-government, has spent $15 million helping J. D. Vance win the Republican Senate primary in Ohio and $13.5 million helping Blake Masters win his Arizona Senate primary. [1] [2]

Back in the 2020 elections, billionaires collectively spent $1.2 billion, which was roughly one-tenth of all spending, despite being only 0.01% of all donors contributing over $200 (i.e., 1 out of every 10,000 donors). In 2020, the billionaires spent 40 times what they spent in 2010, due to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United and other decisions that now allow unlimited spending in our supposedly democratic elections. The political spending and influence of the billionaires has been growing election after election.

Large amounts of corporate money are also flowing into political campaigns, often through intermediary groups that make it hard to trace the connection between specific donors and specific recipients. Therefore, it is hard to hold the corporations accountable for the policies of the candidates they’re supporting. For example, eight corporations, who publicly committed to covering travel expenses for employees who needed to travel to obtain reproductive care, nonetheless have, since 2018, given almost $8 million to three Republican groups that have helped elected Governors, Attorneys General, and legislators who have worked to restrict abortion rights. The corporations are: Pfizer ($3 million), Comcast ($2.2 million), Microsoft, Citigroup, Uber, and Bank of America (between $800,000 and $400,000), and lesser amounts from Lyft and Yelp. [3]

Fifteen corporations, who publicly committed to covering travel expenses for employees who needed to travel to obtain reproductive care, nonetheless have political action committees that have given $2 million to members of Congress who voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have protected access to reproductive care. The top givers (between $501,000 and $113,000) are PricewaterhouseCoopers, Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, and Meta (Facebook’s parent corporation).

Frequently, these large donors, individuals and corporations, make significant efforts to avoid being identified and linked to the candidates they’re supporting. For example, the Conservative Americans Political Action Committee (PAC) filed its statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission on July 11. Then, between July 19^th and 24^th, it spent $2.4 million in Republican U.S. House primary races in Missouri, Tennessee, and Arizona. Because of its late registration, it’s not required to disclose its donors until August 20, weeks after the voting in the primary elections it was working to influence. [4] Therefore, voters didn’t know who was trying to influence their votes.

An insidious strategy that is seeing increased use is the spending of large sums of money by Political Action Committees (PACs) and other political groups aligned with one party in the other party’s primaries. Democratic-aligned groups have spent nearly $44 million in Republican primaries for congressional seats and governorships. They are promoting more radical candidates that Democrats think will be easier to beat in the final election. Some of the downsides of this strategy are that it doesn’t always work, that it diverts funds from Democratic candidates, and that it promotes divisive, fringe positions. [5] Similarly, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC, heavily funded by Republican donors and the endorser of over 100 Republican candidates who are 2020 election deniers, is spending roughly $20 million in Democratic primaries. It is opposing progressive Democratic candidates and supporting more conservative alternatives.

The amount of outside money in primaries, particularly across party lines, is very unusual if not unprecedented. Given the low voter turnout in primaries for congressional seats, a few million dollars can have a significant effect on the outcome. [6]

In conclusion, the large amount of money being spent on campaigns in supposedly democratic elections is corrupting. When candidates receive large sums of money, it changes who they meet with, who they listen to, and how they weigh competing interests when making decisions on how to vote on legislation once they’re in office. It changes which issues get addressed and what legislation gets written. It means politicians have strong incentives to act in support of their wealthy donors rather than in support of the average Americans who are, nominally, their constituents. This is corruption – money given to candidates’ campaigns changes their behavior when they’re in office.

For example, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) refused, along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and all the Republicans in the Senate, to increase taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations as part of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, despite strong support for this among the public. [7] The obvious explanation for these Senators’ refusal is that they were being responsive to their wealthy donors rather than to the constituents who voted for them. (More detail on Sinema’s unusually blatant apparent quid pro quo corruption is here.)

Among other things, this means that economic inequality is likely to continue to increase in the U.S. It also means that wealthy campaign donors will have even more money to invest in future campaigns – and it is an investment, because favorable tax and other laws put far more money in their pockets than they spend on their campaign contributions, as the Senator Sinema examples makes clear. This is, in effect, a corrupt kickback scheme.

Furthermore, the exorbitant cost of a congressional campaign changes who runs for these seats. Given that in a contested race you need a minimum of $10 million to run a US Senate campaign or $2 million for a House race, who can afford to run is extremely skewed – it’s not your average citizen! This gives incumbents a huge advantage, as it often means that no one runs against them. As a result, Members of Congress are currently older than they’ve ever been with 23% of members over 70, up from 16% in 2012 and 8% in 2002. [8]

My next post will describe steps to rein in the harmful effects of current campaign spending.

[1] Stancil, K., 7/18/22, “Just 27 billionaires have spent $90 million to buy GOP Congress: Report,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/18/just-27-billionaires-have-spent-90-million-buy-gop-congress-report)

[2] Rice, W., Tashman, Z., & Clemente, F., July 2022, “Billionaires buying elections,” Americans for Tax Fairness (https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issue/report-billionaires-buying-elections/)

[3] Datta, S., 8/2/22, “Corporate donations to GOP political groups boosted candidates behind anti-abortion rights laws in states,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/08/corporate-donations-to-gop-political-groups-boosted-candidates-behind-anti-abortion-rights-laws-in-the-states/)

[4] Giorno, T., 8/3/22, “ ‘Pop-up super PAC spent over $2.4 million in weeks leading up to three states’ GOP congressional primaries,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/08/pop-up-super-pac-spent-over-2-4-million-in-three-states-gop-congressional-primaries-in-three-weeks/)

[5] McCarty, D., 7/15/22, “Democrats spend millions on Republican primaries,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/07/democrats-spend-millions-on-republican-primaries/)

[6] Sammon, A., 7/14/22, “AIPAC has taken over the Democratic primary process,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/aipac-has-taken-over-the-democratic-primary-process/)

[7] Dusseault, D., & Lord, B., 7/19/22, “Joe Manchin just proved why we need the OLIGARCH Act,” Common Dreams and the Patriotic Millionaires Blog (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/19/joe-manchin-just-proved-why-we-need-oligarch-act)

[8] Giorno, T., 9/15/22, “Gen Z candidate Karoline Leavitt outraised ‘establishment’ candidate in lead-up to her win in New Hampshire’s GOP House primary,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/09/gen-z-candidate-karoline-leavitt-outraised-establishment-candidate-in-lead-up-to-her-win-in-new-hampshires-gop-senate-primary/)

REFLECTIONS ON WHAT PRO-LIFE REALLY MEANS

Truly being pro-life would rationally mean being pro-child, and also pro-parent and pro-family, but that’s not the way the term is typically used. (See this previous post for a discussion of this.) A similar disconnect exists with the term “family values” as it’s used by many right-wing politicians. Pro-child and pro-family (i.e., truly pro-life) state and federal policies would, among other things, provide economic supports for families with children. Economic security, self-sufficiency, mobility, and well-being are all linked to better outcomes for children, mothers, and families. They are also linked to abortion rights, so being truly pro-child and pro-family means supporting abortion rights.

States where abortion is legal and accessible have lower rates of poverty, family financial hardship, teen births and marriages, and maternal mortality, especially for Black women. These states also have higher labor force participation, earnings, and educational attainment, again, especially for Black women. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said, “Eliminating the rights of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.” [1]

The states that are restricting abortion rights while also providing limited supports for children, mothers, and families (see this previous post which identifies MS, LA, AL, AR, OK, and WY as the worst ones) would seem to be engaged in an intentional effort to disempower and economically subjugate women. [2] As Meyerson writes in his analysis of the misuse of the term pro-life, “There is, however, one plausible explanation for their determination to compel women to carry unwanted pregnancies through to birth and … make sure that life after birth … will be hard. The common thread … is a punitive misogyny,” [3] in other words, a desire to punish and control women.

Legal and accessible abortion is essential not only to women’s economic well-being, but also to their humanity, dignity, life, liberty (freedom to make important decisions for oneself), and pursuit of happiness. Therefore, being truly pro-life means supporting economic justice and reproductive justice.

As an example of truly pro-life policy making, President Biden recently announced a major initiative to end hunger in America by 2030 while also increasing healthy eating. [4] Pandemic relief measures were also critical pro-life policies that supported children and families. They reduced child poverty and food insecurity by roughly 25% from pre-pandemic levels. However, the enhanced Child Tax Credit, which was one of the pandemic relief policies, was not extended when it expired in December 2021. As a result, food insecurity in households with children is up 12%. The expiration of other pandemic relief measures has pushed food insecurity well above pre-pandemic levels. Lack of access to good nutritional meals can have negative consequences for children’s cognitive and social-emotional development, for their ability to learn in school, and for their health, with potentially lifelong effects. [5] Therefore, efforts to address hunger and nutrition are definitely pro-life and the failure to do so is anything but pro-life, despite the fact that some politicians who claim to be “pro-life” and to support “family values” are stingy when it comes to funding programs to reduce hunger.

As a bit of an aside, the number of intentional abortions in the U.S. has been steadily declining for 30 years. It has declined over 40% from roughly 1.6 million per year in the 1980s to about 900,000 in 2020. There has been an even bigger decline in the rate of abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age (between 15 and 44) from 29.3 in 1980 to 13.5 in 2017, a 54% decline. [6] One might think that “pro-life” people would be celebrating this accomplishment but they aren’t. The causes for this decline aren’t known definitively. Access to and use of contraception is undoubtedly an important contributor to reducing abortions, however, “pro-life,” anti-abortion people are typically opposed to promotion of contraception. Reduced sexual activity by teens is another contributor to the decline, which “pro-life,” anti-abortion people generally support. These positions are driven in large part by religious beliefs: sex outside of marriage is wrong and access to contraceptives encourages sex, so contraceptives are bad. Some religious beliefs go so far as to assert that sex should be engaged in only for the purposes of procreation, and contraception is antithetical to this belief.

The assertion that a fertilized human egg is a person and should be given all the rights of personhood and, therefore, that all abortions should be banned is typically based on religious beliefs. Interestingly, the only religious group where a majority of members oppose abortion rights is white, evangelical Protestants. Perhaps surprisingly, 64% of white Catholics support abortion rights, as do 75% of Hispanic Catholics.

An examination of the history of evangelical opposition to abortion reveals a concerted effort by Republicans to convince evangelicals to take this position. As recently as 1976, the Southern Baptist Convention, a centerpiece of white evangelical religion, passed a resolution declaring that having an abortion was a matter to be decided by a woman and her doctor. In general, evangelicals oppose government intrusion into individuals’ beliefs, decisions, and actions.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Republicans realized that their pro-business and pro-wealth policies weren’t going to capture a majority of voters. So, their strategists identified “culture wars” as a way to broaden their support and get people to vote against their economic interests. Core elements of the culture wars were abortion, homosexuality, and racism, with racism initially raised with innuendo and dog whistles so it was disguised and could be denied. The culture wars were a key component of the Republicans’ “southern strategy” to turn southern Democrats into Republican voters. The Republicans’ southern strategy, particularly subtle racism, was used in Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign and Nixon’s campaigns in 1968 and 1972.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Republicans began a long and ultimately successful campaign to convince evangelicals to oppose abortion. They did so by claiming that abortion rights were part of a women’s movement that sought to upend patriarchal control and the traditional family. In 1979, a right-wing, Republican consultant, Paul Weyrich, and minister Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority organization. Its goal was to move southern and evangelical voters away from Democrats and President Jimmy Carter, who, ironically, was a southern evangelical Christian. Abortion, feminism, and their supposed undermining of traditional values and families were core wedge issues of the Republicans’ culture wars. [7]

The bottom line is that for five decades Republicans have used anti-abortion rhetoric, and a false “pro-life” moniker, for political purposes. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned the right to an abortion, the hypocrisy and insincerity of their political rhetoric is being exposed as Republican candidates are disavowing their past anti-abortion rhetoric to try to win in November’s elections. Some candidates are dramatically flip-flopping, while others are just eliminating their opposition to abortion from their talking points and websites, because, having won their primary elections, they now want to appeal to a broader set of voters. These candidates have been claiming to be “pro-life,” and defining it as meaning anti-abortion, solely for political purposes.

[1] Banerjee, A., 5/18/22, “Abortion rights are economic rights,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/abortion-rights/)

[2] Banerjee, A. 5/18/22, see above

[3] Meyerson, H., 8/26/22, “ ‘Pro-life’: America’s most patently absurd misnomer,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/pro-life-americas-most-patently-absurd-misnomer/), page 6

[4] The White House, 9/28/22, “The Biden-Harris Administration announces more than $8 billion in new commitments as part of call to action for White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health,” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/28/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administration-announces-more-than-8-billion-in-new-commitments-as-part-of-call-to-action-for-white-house-conference-on-hunger-nutrition-and-health/)

[5] Stancil, K., 5/20/22, “Millions more kids going hungry since GOP, Manchin killed expanded child tax credit,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/20/millions-more-kids-going-hungry-gop-manchin-killed-expanded-child-tax-credit)

[6] Diamant, J., & Mohamed, B., 6/24/22, “What the data says about abortion in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/24/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/)

[7] Meyerson, H., 8/26/22, see above

WHAT PRO-LIFE REALLY MEANS

By John A. Lippitt, Ph.D., and Kirtly Parker Jones, M.D., OB/GYN

The Supreme Court’s overturning of the right to an abortion prior to fetal viability has put a spotlight on what it means to be “pro-life.” Right-wing Republicans declare that being “pro-life” means asserting that life begins at conception, i.e., fertilization. Therefore, they say, our laws should declare that a fertilized human egg is a person and should be given all the rights of personhood. If an individual believes, typically based on religious beliefs, that human (sacred) life begins at conception, they have every right to believe that, to lead their life based on that belief, and to try to convince others to live their lives that way. However, they do not have a right to impose that belief on others; that’s one important example of what a right to freedom of religion means.

A declaration in our laws that life and personhood begin at fertilization has many implications. It means, of course, that anything that prevents a fertilized egg from being born as living, breathing, presumably healthy baby is murder. It would criminalize some forms of contraception. Most forms of contraception primarily either stop ovulation (egg production) or prevent egg fertilization, but they can also reduce the likelihood of successful implantation of a fertilized egg, which could be considered murder. A personhood-at-fertilization law would make any miscarriage subject to a criminal investigation as to its cause. [1] Theoretically, the failure of a pregnant women to take steps to minimize the likelihood of a miscarriage could be criminalized, such as a failure to stop smoking, maintain a healthy weight, control diabetes, or cease use of alcohol and drugs, including some legal drugs.

Understanding the implications of a declaration that personhood begins at fertilization requires understanding the development of a pregnancy. Fertilization occurs in the fallopian tubes and it typically takes 3 – 4 days for the fertilized egg to reach the uterus. It then takes 2 – 6 more days for the fertilized egg to implant itself into the uterine lining where it will grow, assuming all goes well, for the next 38 or so weeks until birth.

Many fertilized eggs have abnormalities in their chromosomes. This means they cannot produce a viable fetus and typically die because they fail to successfully implant in the uterus or result in a miscarriage early in pregnancy. However, under a personhood-at-fertilization law, all deaths of a fertilized egg would be an illegal abortion and a murder.

Some fertilized eggs can get stuck in the fallopian tubes and an ectopic pregnancy results, which is life threatening if the embryo is not removed. But this would be an abortion and murder under a personhood law, unless a specific exception is included in such a law.

Overall, between a third and a half of all fertilized eggs do not implant in the uterus and therefore die. However, under personhood-at-fertilization laws, each such event would potentially be subject to a criminal investigation. This would also be true of any intentional or accidental destruction of a fertilized egg stored at a fertility clinic.

Somewhere between 7 and 9.5 million human eggs get fertilized each year in the U.S. Somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5 million of them don’t successfully implant in the uterus and do not lead to a viable fetus. Under proposed personhood laws, these would be considered abortions and potential murders, although in many cases the woman is not even aware that this has happened.

For medical professionals, pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg has successfully implanted itself in the uterus, roughly a week after fertilization. There are 4.5 to 5.0 million pregnancies in the U.S. each year. Roughly 18% of them are ended through intentional abortions, about 900,000 per year. A similar number, about 20% or 1 million, end through a miscarriage. [2]

If a person were truly pro-life (as opposed to anti-abortion), they would do everything they could to ensure that every pregnancy produced a vibrant, healthy baby. Prenatal and even pre-pregnancy care for women of child bearing age would be a priority. Furthermore, post-partum care for every baby and mother would be a high priority too, as would care and supports for children and their families from infanthood to adulthood.

An examination at the state level reveals that the six states that are most strongly anti-abortion (based on polls that find support for abortion rights is 49% or less) are the states with the worst records for supporting mothers and babies before, during, and after childbirth, despite the claims of at least their politicians to be “pro-life”. Indicators of their lack of support for mothers and babies include: [3]

Mississippi: ranks 50^th among the states with the worst (i.e., highest) rate of infant mortality and ranks 45^th worst on its rate of maternal mortality; it refused to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income families under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care), despite the fact that Medicaid is the source of health insurance coverage for many low-income mothers and their babies
Louisiana: ranks 49^th worst on infant mortality
Alabama: ranks 48^th worst on infant mortality, 48^th worst on maternal mortality, and refused to expand Medicaid
Arkansas: ranks 47^th worst on infant mortality and 50^th worst on maternal mortality
Oklahoma: ranks 46^th worst on infant mortality
Wyoming: ranks 47^th worst on its rate of women without medical insurance and refused to expand Medicaid

Conversely, polls find that in 14 states 70% or more of the population support abortion rights. In these states, support for mothers and babies is strong. All have implemented the Medicaid expansion and nine have enacted paid family and medical leave that includes coverage for when a new baby arrives. Another, less specific measure of support for parents, especially young parents, is the level of the minimum wage. Five of the six anti-abortion states listed above (Arkansas is the exception) have a minimum wage at the lowest level federal law allows, $7.25 per hour. On the other hand, 13 of the 14 states with strong support for abortion rights (New Hampshire is the exception) have minimum wages well above the federal $7.25 level. [4] By improving incomes and economic security, a higher minimum wage improves the well-being and outcomes of children, mothers, and families.

It’s hard to truthfully claim that you’re “pro-life” when you have high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, don’t provide health insurance to low-income mothers and babies, and/or maintain low wages for parents. As former U.S. Representative Barney Frank once quipped, many of these supposedly “pro-life” people seem to believe that “life begins at conception and ends at birth” at least from a public policy perspective.

Being pro-life should mean being pro-child, and also pro-parent and pro-family. Pro-child state and federal policies would support health, food, and nutrition benefits for mothers and children; a living wage for parents; affordable, high quality early childhood education and child care; and so forth. Being pro-life should mean being pro-mother and pro-woman, making contraception readily available, and leaving the decision about terminating a pregnancy to a woman and her doctor. To be truly and morally consistently pro-life, one would also have to be against capital punishment and war. Some people are consistently pro-life but many of those who claim to be “pro-life” are not.

The far-right won a battle in the culture war when they framed their anti-abortion stance as “pro-life” and the pro-abortion people lost when they used “pro-choice.” The pro-abortion folks should have framed their stance as pro-child and pro-woman, instead of pro-choice. But they didn’t. So, here we are today, fighting to take back the language and the law about what it really means to be pro-life.

[1] Bartlett, J., 5/14/22, “Examining the biology of birth control,” The Boston Globe

[2] Guttmacher Institute, Sept. 2019, “Induced abortion in the United States,” retrieved from the Internet on 9/16/22 (https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/factsheet/fb_induced_abortion.pdf)

[3] Meyerson, H., 8/26/22, “ ‘Pro-life’: America’s most patently absurd misnomer,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/pro-life-americas-most-patently-absurd-misnomer/)

[4] Banerjee, A., 5/18/22, “Abortion rights are economic rights,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/abortion-rights/)

CORPORATE SUPPORT FOR SEDITION CAUCUS DESPITE ANTI-DEMOCRACY ACTION

Corporations value having political power and influence to the point that they seem to care little about politicians’ ethics or actions on issues other than those that directly affect their corporate interests. Furthermore, they don’t seem to recognize that customers and employees care about the ethics and political activity of the corporations they do business with or work for.

Immediately after the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, 248 corporations and corporate business organizations voiced support for democracy, condemned the insurrection, and suspended contributions to the 147 members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election by rejecting the Electoral College results. These 139 Republican U.S. Representatives and 8 Republican U.S. Senators have been labeled the “Sedition Caucus” because they voted against the peaceful, democratic transition to a new, duly-elected President.

However, over 100 corporations and industry groups out of the 248 that suspended contributions to the Sedition Caucus have resumed supporting them. (See this previous post for more details.) Corporate business organizations and the political action committees of Fortune 500 companies have donated $21.5 million to them in the 19 months after January 6^th. [1]

Furthermore, the hearings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol and the alarming details it has presented of a serious coup attempt, have not slowed the corporate contributions to the Sedition Caucus. In June 2022, its members received over $800,000 from corporate interests. [2] These corporations claim to support democracy but apparently value political influence more than they value democracy.

Members of the Sedition Caucus, aided by corporate support, have raised huge amounts of money for their campaigns. For example, in the first nine months of 2021: [3]

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) raised over $14 million,
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) raised over $9 million,
Steve Scalise (R-LA) raised $7.4 million,
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) raised over $6 million,
Jim Jordan (R-OH) raised over $5 million, and
Matt Gaetz (R-FL) raised over $3.5 million.

Many corporations try to avoid a direct link to Sedition Caucus members by letting industry groups they belong to and support financially make these political contributions. For example, top contributors to Sedition Caucus members have been the political action committees (PACs) of the American Bankers Association, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and the National Auto Dealers Association.

Corporations whose own PACs have been big contributors to Sedition Caucus members include Home Depot, Verizon, Boeing, Charter Communications, Eli Lilly, Cigna, Northwestern Mutual, Pfizer, State Farm Insurance, Chevron, AutoZone, and Procter & Gamble.

I encourage you to let these corporations know, as a customer, employee, or citizen, that their support for members of the Sedition Caucus does not sit well with you. Boycott them if that makes sense for you and, if possible, let them know you’re doing so.

[1] Johnson, J., 7/26/22, “Corporate interests have given $21.5 million to GOP ‘Sedition Caucus’ since Jan. 6 attack,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/26/corporate-interests-have-given-215-million-gop-sedition-caucus-jan-6-attack)

[2] Accountable.US, 7/25/22, “June 2022: Fortune 500 companies and corporate trade groups contributed at least $819,980 to the Sedition Caucus,” (https://accountable.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-07-21-June-Sedition-Caucus-Report.pdf)

[3] Holzberg, M, 1/4/22, “Election objectors are among the GOP’s highest fundraisers ahead of Jan. 6 anniversary,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/01/election-objectors-among-gops-highest-fundraisers-ahead-of-jan-6-anniversary)

FIXING THE RADICAL, REACTIONARY SUPREME COURT

The Supreme Court’s rulings over the last year have clearly shown that the six radical, reactionary justices [1] (Roberts, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) are not guided by any coherent legal or judicial reasoning. Their decisions are driven by the outcomes they desire based on their ideological and political beliefs. They will ignore precedents, facts, and history that don’t align with the outcomes they want to achieve.

These six justices’ rulings disregard the rule of law; they are making up their own rules, principles, and rationales as they see fit on a case-by-case basis. They are not consistently applying the law so current and future results are predictable. They are also not enforcing the law equally on all persons and institutions. [2] (See this previous post for more detail.)

It appears that the six reactionary justices intend to return us to pre-1930 America – a patriarchal (and even misogynistic), racist, xenophobic, and conservative Christian society. It is a plutocracy (i.e., where wealthy elites rule), not a democracy. In it businesses and the private sector are dominant and government does little to regulate them – at least for businesses run by executives who are in favor with those in elected or judicial offices. [3]

There are multiple ways to move the Supreme Court back toward upholding the rule of law and our democracy. None of them are quick and easy. They all rely on either increasing the number of Democratic Senators (to a solid majority that would limit or overcome the filibuster’s requirement for 60 votes) or on at least some Republican Senators breaking with their party’s current radical, reactionary agenda.

First, it’s important to note that many of the Court’s radical, reactionary rulings could effectively be overturned by passing legislation. Voting rights, same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ+ rights, interracial marriage, and access to contraception are all examples of issues where the passage of legislation could be very effective. Others, such as limiting access to guns, clarifying separation of church and state, and limiting money in political campaigns, would require constitutional amendments. As noted above, achieving these changes would require an increase in the Democratic majority in Congress or changed behavior from Republicans.

In terms of fixing the Supreme Court itself, the most straightforward and potentially near-term approach would be to increase the size of the Court. The size of the Court has been changed by Congress seven times in the past (it’s had between five and ten justices), so this is not unprecedented. In addition, Republicans and Senate leader Mitch McConnell in 2016 informally reduced the size of the Court to from nine to eight for roughly a year by refusing to consider President Obama’s nominee for a vacancy.

A prominent proposal is to add four justices to the Court. This stems from the fact the Republicans, led by Senator Mitch McConnell, denied President Obama an appointment and also rammed through confirmation of a justice days before the 2020 election that President Trump lost. The votes of these two justices would be offset by two other justices and two additional justices would be added to reflect the appointments Presidents Obama and Biden should have gotten to make. (Note that these two appointments by Trump, and the one other he made, are the only three Supreme Court justices ever appointed by a president who lost the popular vote and who were confirmed by Senators who represented less than half the country’s population (44.7% in 2016 and 48.0% in 2018). This is possible because every state, regardless of population, gets two Senators.)

The Judiciary Act of 2021 has been introduced in Congress to add four seats to the Supreme Court “to restore balance, integrity, and independence to the extremist Court that has been hijacked, politicized, and delegitimized by Republicans.” [4] It has 60 co-sponsors.

Other proposals for increasing the number of justices have been put forward including one where there would be 15 justices: five Republicans, five Democrats, and five others chosen by the ten partisan justices. This would mean that the balance of power would be held by the five justices acceptable to both parties’ justices, which would presumably have a moderating and stabilizing effect. [5]

Another reform proposal would have the nine Supreme Court justices selected randomly from the roughly 170 federal appeals court judges. They would serve for a defined period that might be as short as two weeks, and then another random group of nine Supreme Court justices would be chosen.

Term limits are a way to reduce gamesmanship by Congress and improve the likelihood of adherence to the rule of law. With an 18-year term limit and staggered terms, a justice would be appointed every two years and two justices would be appointed in every presidential term.

There are a variety of other ways to improve the likelihood of adherence to the rule of law and to reduce the volatility of the effects of Supreme Court rulings. One would be to require a super-majority vote (say 7 to 2) to overturn precedents that have been in place for more than a certain number of years or that have been affirmed by a certain number of other rulings by the Supreme Court and other courts. Or a super majority vote could be required to overturn recently passed laws (e.g., the Voting Rights Act) or executive branch regulations.

Congress could also give itself the power to expedite laws overturning or rejecting Supreme Court rulings, as they have done for executive branch regulations through the Congressional Review Act. Congress could also limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court so it can’t overrule certain laws or regulations.

I encourage to you contact President Biden and your Representative and Senators in Congress. Tell them you support action to restrain the radical, reactionary justices on the Supreme Court and to overturn their rulings. Ask them to support the Judiciary Act of 2021, which would increase the size of the Supreme Court by four justices to correct the Court’s imbalance due to the two appointments stolen by Senate Republicans.

You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

You can find contact information for your U.S. Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1] See this previous post for an explanation of the appropriateness of calling these six justices radical and reactionary.

[2] Millhiser, I., 7/9/22, “The post-legal Supreme Court,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/23180634/supreme-court-rule-of-law-abortion-voting-rights-guns-epa)

[3] Cox Richardson, H., 4/6/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-6-2022)

[4] Senator Elizabeth Warren, 12/15/21, “Judiciary Act of 2021”, (https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/in-op-ed-senator-warren-calls-for-supreme-court-expansion-to-protect-democracy-and-restore-independent-judiciary)

[5] Millhiser, I., 7/2/22, “10 ways to fix a broken Supreme Court,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/23186373/supreme-court-packing-roe-wade-voting-rights-jurisdiction-stripping)

SIX SUPREME COURT JUSTICES IGNORE THE RULE OF LAW

The Supreme Court’s rulings over the last year have clearly shown that the six radical, reactionary justices [1] (Roberts, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) have no coherent legal or judicial reasoning that is guiding them. They have also shown that they will ignore facts and history that don’t align with the outcomes they want to achieve. Their decisions are driven by the outcomes they desire based on their ideological and political beliefs.

My last three posts have covered the radical, reactionary justices’ inconsistent use of three important principles or rationales that supposedly underlie and justify their rulings:

Belief in a weak federal government and strong state governments (discussed in this previous post),
Belief in “originalism” or “textualism,” i.e., that the language and meaning of the Constitution and its amendments as and when written should be adhered to (see this previous post), and
Belief in the legality of laws and rights supporting practices “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition” (see this previous post).

The six radical, reactionary justices’ rulings disregard the rule of law; they are making up their own rules, principles, and rationales as they see fit on a case-by-case basis. The rule of law requires that laws, as well as the rules and regulations that implement them, must be: [2]

Publicly promulgated and known,
Equally enforced on all persons and institutions, as well as in all similar situations, and
Consistently applied so results are predictable and not arbitrary.

Examples of their radical rulings include the overturning of multiple major, long-term precedents without presenting a clear, compelling principle or rationale that makes it clear the ruling is not arbitrary and will lead to predictability in future rulings by the Supreme Court and other federal and state courts. Their rulings on abortion, gun ownership, separation of church and state, and the power of executive branch agencies all overturned long-term precedents without presenting a clear, compelling principle or rationale. Therefore, these rulings appear to be arbitrary, likely to lead to unpredictable rulings in the future, and to reflect unequal enforcement of laws.

The six radical, reactionary justices’ frequent use of the so-called “shadow docket” is another example of how these justices are undermining the rule of law. In these cases, rulings are issued on an emergency basis without the presentation of arguments or a written decision presenting the rationale for the ruling. Rarely used in the past, the shadow docket is now a key part of the court’s decision-making process. Without any presentation of reasoning behind these rulings, given that many of them are clearly not in line with past precedents, they certainly appear to be legally arbitrary. Furthermore, the future implications of such rulings are unclear, therefore undermining predictability. (See this previous post for more details on the use of the “shadow docket”.)

Perhaps the most egregious of the many shadow docket rulings is the one in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the case over the Texas anti-abortion law that allowed private citizens to sue a provider alleged to have performed an abortion (as well as any person or entity that aided or abetted an abortion). They would receive a $10,000 bounty from the provider, person, or entity sued if they win. Any number of citizens can bring such a suit, so a provider could be hit with tens, hundreds, or even thousands of these lawsuits. Simply defending against them would bankrupt almost any provider, as would losing the lawsuits and having to pay $10,000 for each one.

The Texas law would have effectively banned abortion in the state when, at the time, the right to an abortion was a well-established constitutional right under the Roe v. Wade decision. Therefore, the law was blatantly unconstitutional. Nonetheless, five of the Supreme Court’s six radical justices refused to block the immediate implementation of the law. One of the six, Chief Justice Roberts strongly disagreed with the decision and wrote in his dissenting opinion that the ruling made a mockery of the Constitution by allowing state governments to override constitutional rights.

Many legal scholars believe that the Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson case is one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history and will be taught to future law school students as one of a handful of examples of how judges should never behave, [3] given its dramatic consequences and its lack of compelling reasoning. This undermines the rule of law by creating substantial unpredictability and arbitrariness, in part because it allows each state to negate constitutional rights that every American should be able to rely on. [4]

One way of looking at all this is to conclude that the six radical, reactionary justices have said that we know better what is the right thing to do than doctors, scientists, regulatory experts in executive branch agencies, and all the court decisions at all levels that have gone before us. Moreover, they appear to believe that they understand and can interpret history better than historians, even though professional historians have serious debates about how to understand historical events and their effects.

Extrapolating from the Supreme Court rulings of the past year, current rights that seem possible, if not likely, to be overturned by the six radical, reactionary justices include the rights to contraception, same sex marriage, equal treatment for LGBTQ+ individuals, and marriage across racial lines. (Note that the ruling establishing the right to interracial marriage was in 1967, i.e., quite recent, and, therefore, ripe to be overturned. Note also that Justice Thomas is in an interracial marriage. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.) Also at risk under this Supreme Court are business regulations and protections for workers and consumers.

It appears that the six reactionary justices intend to return the country to rule by white men, as it was when the Constitution was written. In addition, they seem to be making conservative, Christian beliefs the policies and laws of the country (which was explicitly opposed by the writers of the Constitution and the First Amendment). The patriarchal (and even misogynistic), racist, xenophobic, and conservative Christian society they appear to envision is what former President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) slogan has put into a sound bite for many Americans.

There are two other key elements of their vision that were not as evident in these recent rulings. First, they appear to envision a society that is a plutocracy (i.e., where wealthy elites rule), not a democracy. Second, related to this, they appear to envision a society where businesses and the private sector are dominant and government does little to regulate them – at least for businesses run by executives who are in favor with those in elected or judicial offices. [5]

This is a prescription for a return to pre-1930 America. It’s a “father knows best” autocracy or oligarchy where favored business leaders have free rein (or should that be reign) and where government is a racist theocracy. The MAGA Republicans are working to infuse this worldview into governments at all levels and into all branches of government. The radical actions of the Supreme Court, Trump, some governors, and some state legislatures, as well as the paralysis in Congress, are all indicative of their success.

My next post will identify some steps to take to fight back and reclaim the rule of law.

[1] See this previous post for an explanation of the appropriateness of calling these six justices radical and reactionary.

[2] Millhiser, I., 7/9/22, “The post-legal Supreme Court,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/23180634/supreme-court-rule-of-law-abortion-voting-rights-guns-epa)

[3] Other examples of horrible Supreme Court rulings include the pro-slavery decision Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), the pro-segregation decision Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and the Japanese-American internment decision Korematsu v. United States (1944).

[4] Millhiser, I., 7/9/22, see above

[5] Cox Richardson, H., 4/6/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-6-2022)

SIX SUPREME COURT JUSTICES ARE RADICAL, REACTIONARY, AND TOTALLY POLITICAL

The Supreme Court’s rulings over the last few weeks on abortion, gun violence prevention, public funding of religious institutions, and the powers of executive branch agencies reflect a political and ideological agenda, not a coherent legal or judicial philosophy. All of them overturned long-standing precedents – something all the justices pledged not to do in their confirmation hearings and something that justices believing in laws and rights “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition” wouldn’t do.

The six radical, reactionary justices [1] on the U.S. Supreme Court are justifying their rulings with rationales that are inconsistent and contradictory. This is most evident in their use of the following three principles:

Belief in a weak federal government and strong state governments (discussed in this previous post),
Belief in “originalism” or “textualism,” i.e., that the language and meaning of the Constitution and its amendments as and when written should be adhered to (discussed in this previous post), and
Belief in the legality of laws and rights supporting practices “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition” (see below).

In the June 24, 2022, ruling overturning Roe v. Wade’s establishment of a right to an abortion, the six radical, reactionary justices (Roberts, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) ruled that the federal government could not constitutionally guarantee this right because it is not “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition.” Apparently, the 50 years since the Roe v. Wade decision is not long enough to be deeply rooted. Nor is the fact that women have quietly had abortions literally forever.

In his majority-supported opinion, Justice Alito relied on an English judge from the 1600s (who believed that some women were witches and that wives were the property of their husbands) to conclude that there is no “deeply rooted tradition” of women being allowed to control their reproductive choices and bodies. If this antiquated worldview is the “tradition” that determines modern liberties, then the only liberties safe from the radical, reactionary justices are the handful of rights expressly mentioned in the Constitution – rights that were enumerated by white, male landowners in the late 1700s. Based on this standard, women’s right to vote is not a “deeply rooted tradition” and would not be recognized without being explicitly stated in the 19^th amendment. This “deeply rooted tradition” criterion also ignores the fact that for the first 129 years of our nation’s history, women were denied the right to vote and thus denied any realistic opportunity to create a “deeply rooted tradition” of bodily autonomy and access to contraception and abortion. [2]

The six radical, reactionary justices misrepresented the nation’s actual history and traditions in their opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. As historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote, “Both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association, the flagship organizations of professional historians in the U.S., along with eight other U.S. historical associations (so far), yesterday issued a joint statement expressing dismay that the six Supreme Court justices in the majority in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision that overturned Roe v. Wade ignored the actual history those organizations provided the court and instead ‘adopted a flawed interpretation of abortion criminalization that has been pressed by anti-abortion advocates for more than thirty years.’ Although the decision mentioned ‘history’ 67 times, [the six justices] ignored ‘the long legal tradition, extending from the common law to the mid-1800s (and far longer in some states, including Mississippi) of tolerating termination of pregnancy before occurrence of ‘quickening,’ the time when a woman first felt fetal movement.’ [The historians note] that ‘[t]hese misrepresentations are now enshrined in a text that becomes authoritative for legal reference and citation in the future,’ an undermining of the ‘imperative that historical evidence and argument be presented according to high standards of historical scholarship. The Court’s majority opinion…does not meet those standards.’” [3]

Justice Alito’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade states that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” But when he was questioned about his views on Roe during his confirmation hearing, he said, “[Roe] is a precedent that has now been on the books for several decades. It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed. . . . It would be wrong for me to say … I’ve made up my mind [otherwise] on this issue.” Stating that “Roe has been egregiously wrong from the start” certainly sounds like Alito had “made up his mind on the issue” long before his confirmation hearing but failed to disclose this to the Judiciary Committee. [4] Other justices, most notably Kavanagh and Gorsuch, similarly misled Senators during their confirmation hearings.

In the Supreme Court’s June 23, 2022, decision declaring unconstitutional New York State’s over 100-year-old requirements for obtaining a permit to carry a gun in public, the six radical, reactionary justices ignored the fact that from the nation’s founding until 1959, every legal article about the Second Amendment concluded that it did NOT guarantee an individual’s right to own a gun. That and a 100-year-old law seem like a “deeply rooted tradition” to me. It wasn’t until nearly 200 years after the writing of the Constitution, in the 1970s, that legal scholars funded by the gun and ammunition industry, and its front group the NRA, began to claim that the Second Amendment established an individual right to gun ownership. [5] (See this previous post for more detail on how the interpretation of the Second Amendment changed from supporting a well-regulated militia for the security of the state to a “right” for individuals to bear arms for self-defense.)

Similarly, the six radical, reactionary justices’ recent rulings overturning decades-old, affirmed precedents on the separation of church and state ignore roughly 200 years of a “deeply rooted tradition” based on the First Amendment language that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (See this previous post for more detail on specific rulings.) In their June 27, 2022, decision, which allowed a high school football coach to conduct a prayer on the football field with team members and others, the six deciding justices ignored the historical record – this one specific to the case at hand. The justices accepted the claim by the lawyers for the football coach that he had prayed privately and silently, despite the facts that a lower court judge had written that this was “a deceitful narrative” and that Justice Sotomayor, in her dissent, included a photo showing the coach leading players and students in prayer. [6]

In their ruling on June 30, 2022, declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, the six radical, reactionary justices rejected Congress’s grant of this authority to the EPA, an executive branch agency. However, such grants of authority have occurred since the first sessions of Congress in 1789. Therefore, what was fine with the Framers and the Founding Fathers themselves, is not constitutional according to the Court’s reactionary majority today. So “deeply rooted tradition” goes out the window when it does not fit with these six justices’ political and ideological agenda. [7]

In conclusion, it’s impossible to believe the six justices’ claims that they are honestly using “deeply rooted tradition” as the rationale for their decisions, given that, all of a sudden, these six justices know better what the Constitution means and what its writers intended than the many decades, and in some cases two hundred years, of precedents established by numerous judges and legal scholars who have gone before them. The long-standing precedents look much more like deeply rooted traditions than the positions these six justices are taking. They are using “deeply rooted tradition” as a smokescreen for acting on the basis of their personal political and ideological beliefs. They are not acting as impartial judges upholding the laws established by the legislative and executive branches of government, but rather they are legislating from the bench as they see fit.

My next post will provide a bit of an overview of the current state of the Supreme Court with these six radical, reactionary justices in control. I’ll identify some next steps that it would be logical for them to take and also share some thoughts on how to fight back.

[1] See this previous post for an explanation of the appropriateness of calling these six justices radical and reactionary.

[2] Hubbell, R., 5/4/22, ““The hard path forward,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-hard-path-forward)

[3] Cox Richardson, H., 7/6/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-6-2022)

[4] Hubbell, R., 5/5/22, “The law of small numbers,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-law-of-small-numbers)

[5] Cox Richardson, H., 5/24/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2022?s=r)

[6] Conley, J., 6/27/22, “Supreme Court takes ‘wrecking ball’ to separation of church and state with prayer ruling,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/27/supreme-court-takes-wrecking-ball-separation-church-and-state-prayer-ruling)

[7] Hubbell, R., 7/1/22, “We have made it through the worst,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/we-have-made-it-through-the-worst)

THE RADICAL, REACTIONARY, TOTALLY POLITICAL SUPREME COURT Part 2

The Supreme Court’s rulings over the last two weeks on abortion, gun violence prevention, public funding of religious institutions, and the powers of executive branch agencies reflect a political and ideological agenda, not a coherent legal or judicial philosophy. All of them overturned long-standing precedents – something all the justices pledged not to do in their confirmation hearings.

The six radical, reactionary justices [1] on the U.S. Supreme Court are justifying their rulings with reasoning that is inconsistent and contradictory. There are three important areas where the contradictory nature of the reasoning underlying these rulings is most evident:

Belief in a weak federal government and strong state governments (discussed in this previous post),
Belief in “originalism” or “textualism,” i.e., that the language and meaning of the Constitution and its amendments as and when written should be adhered to (see below), and
Belief in the legality of laws supporting practices “deeply rooted in American tradition” (discussed in a subsequent post).

The Supreme Court’s June 23, 2022, decision declaring unconstitutional New York State’s over 100-year-old requirements for obtaining a permit to carry a gun in public is based on an interpretation of the Second Amendment that gives an individual the “right” to bear arms. This interpretation ignores the first half of the Second Amendment which predicates the right to bear arms on “A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State.” An honest originalist could not simply ignore this language. An expanded “right” of individuals to own and carry guns in public does not in any way involve a well-regulated militia (such as the National Guard) nor enhance the security of the state. [2] So much for being true originalists or textualists.

Even ignoring this language from the Second Amendment for a moment, a modern day “right” to bear arms is being applied to arms that could not have been imagined at the time the Constitution was written. If the “right” to bear arms were being applied to muzzle-loading guns that took many seconds to reload, that would align with the original intention of the writers of the Second Amendment. Applying it to guns that can fire multiple bullets per second (and much more lethal bullets too) cannot be said (with a straight face) to be originalism. (See this previous post for more detail on the history of the interpretation of the Second Amendment as creating a “right” for individuals, as opposed to a militia, to bear arms.)

Similarly, the Supreme Court’s recent rulings overturning decades-old, affirmed precedents on the separation of church and state ignore the First Amendment language that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (See this previous post for more detail on specific rulings.) The intent seems clear and the amendment has been interpreted since it was written as prohibiting governments at any level from supporting a specific religion. For six supposed “originalists” to come to a different conclusion 200 years later, seems to make it clear that they are not really originalists.

In their ruling on June 30, 2022, declaring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, the six supposed originalist (aka textualist) Supreme Court justices relied on a new rationale found nowhere in the Constitution. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Kagan called out the hypocrisy of the six deciding justices who, while claiming to be originalists, are, in fact, inventing new doctrines to achieve the outcomes they desire. “The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it,” she wrote. “When that method would frustrate broader goals, [new rationales] magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.” [3] The ruling in the EPA case overturned grants of authority to executive branch agencies that have occurred since the first sessions of Congress. However, what was fine with the Framers and the Founding Fathers themselves, is not constitutional according to the Court’s reactionary majority today. So originalism or textualism goes out the window when it does not fit with these six justices’ political and ideological agenda. [4]

Many of this year’s rulings by the six radical, reactionary justices (Roberts, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) overturn long-standing precedents, i.e., legal interpretations and multiple court rulings by the Supreme Court and other courts that have been in place for years, some literally going back 200 years. It belies their claim to be originalists when suddenly, these six justices know better what the Constitution means and what its writers intended than the numerous judges and legal scholars who have gone before them.

Finally, these justices are totally ignoring the preamble to the Constitution, which states, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” It’s hard to see any commitment to the general welfare, domestic tranquility, or liberty in their rulings expanding the presence of extremely lethal guns on the streets of America, requiring state and local governments to support religious institutions or practices (even allowing coercion of public school students), or denying women the ability (i.e., liberty) to make decisions about their own pregnancies.

In conclusion, it’s impossible to believe the six justices’ claims that they are pursuing the original intentions of the Constitution and its writers. Rather, they are using “originalism” as a smokescreen for acting on the basis of their personal political and ideological beliefs. They are not acting as impartial judges upholding the laws established by the legislative and executive branches of government, but rather they are legislating from the bench as they see fit.

In my next post, I will review the contradictory and inconsistent nature of the six radical, reactionary Supreme Court justices’ use of their supposed belief in the legality of laws supporting practices “deeply rooted in American tradition.”

[1] See this previous post for an explanation of the appropriateness of calling these six justices radical and reactionary.

[2] Johnson, J., 6/23/22, “ ‘Devastating’: Supreme Court blows massive hole in state gun control efforts,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/23/devastating-supreme-court-blows-massive-hole-state-gun-control-efforts)

[3] Cox Richardson, H., 6/30/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-30-2022)

[4] Hubbell, R., 7/1/22, “We have made it through the worst,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/we-have-made-it-through-the-worst)

THE RADICAL, REACTIONARY, TOTALLY POLITICAL SUPREME COURT

Note: If you find my posts too long or too dense to read on occasion, please just read the bolded portions. They present the key points I’m making and the most important information I’m sharing.

The Supreme Court’s rulings last week on abortion, a gun violence prevention measure, and public funding of religious institutions reflect a political and ideological agenda, not a coherent legal or judicial philosophy, as I will discuss below. All of them overturned long-standing precedents – something all of the justices had pledged not to do in their confirmation hearings. There are three important areas where the contradictory nature of the reasoning underlying these rulings is most evident:

Belief in a weak federal government and strong state governments,
Belief in “originalism,” i.e., that the language and meaning of the Constitution and its amendments as and when written should be adhered to, and
Belief in the legality of precedents and rights unspecified in the Constitution only if they reflect long-standing practices in the country.

In this post, I’ll explore the belief in a weak federal government and strong state governments as a rationale for the justices’ rulings and demonstrate their inconsistent and contradictory use it. I’ll cover the other rationales in subsequent posts.

Conservatives have traditionally supported a weak federal government and strong state governments. However, for the six justices in the majority in each of these recent rulings their commitment to this belief seems to depend on the issue.

There are two main pillars behind the weak federal and strong state government position. One is support for “states’ rights;” leaving as much of the public sector role and policy making to lower levels of government that are closer to the grassroots. Having control of schools and elections in local and state hands are two bedrock conservative examples of this. The exercise of “states’ rights” has, both historically and currently, reflected racism. Racism was an important component of “states’ rights” politics in the 1960s as it was pushback against federal Civil Rights laws, including voting rights and school desegregation.

The second pillar of conservative support for a weak federal government is opposition to regulation of businesses and the private sector. Conservatives typically believe that an economy that is as unfettered by government regulation as possible will be the most productive (if not necessarily the fairest). They also typically believe in market place and private sector solutions to social issues (e.g., privatization), not government programs as solutions.

In the June 24, 2022, ruling overturning Roe v. Wade’s establishment of a right to an abortion, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not constitutionally guarantee this right. On the face of it, this reflects a belief in a weak federal government and a “states’ rights” approach where policies on abortion would be left to state governments. However, Alito’s opinion seems to go out of its way to ensure that anti-abortion advocates could pursue a nationwide, federal ban on abortion (i.e., a strong federal government role) by repeatedly writing that the abortion debate is being returned “to the people and their elected representatives.” He does not write that the decision is being returned to the states. The implication is that those “elected representatives” could be those in Congress. Therefore, within this one decision and opinion, Alito and the five other concurring justices are at best unclear and at worst contradictory about whether they believe the Constitution creates a strong or weak federal government in relation to the states, at least in realm of abortion law. [1]

The Supreme Court’s June 23, 2022, decision declaring unconstitutional New York State’s requirements for obtaining a permit to carry a gun in public is an assertion of a strong federal government with the power to overrule states’ laws regulating guns. The Court is furthering federal enforcement of an individual “right” to bear arms based on its interpretation of the Second Amendment. (I discussed the problems with their interpretation of the Second Amendment in this previous post and won’t go into them here.) This ruling overturns a state law that has been in place for over 100 years and effectively renders any state law restricting ownership or carrying of a gun presumptively unconstitutional. The ruling, among other problems, seems to ignore the language of the Second Amendment that the right to bear arms is predicated on “being necessary for the security of a free State.” A state and the people living in it are neither more secure nor freer with an expanded “right” of individuals to carrying guns in public. [2]

On June 21, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a ruling ordering the state of Maine to allow public dollars to pay for children’s attendance at religious schools. Putting aside for the moment the First Amendment language that prohibits the government from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion” (as the six deciding justices apparently did), this ruling reflects a belief in a strong federal government that can tell states how to spend their money. This is the antithesis of “states’ rights” and a weak federal government, which conservatives typically support. This follows a pattern of decisions where the Supreme Court has overturned decades-old, affirmed precedents and ordered state or local governments to take actions that benefit or support religious groups. In Missouri, the Court ordered the state to include religious organizations in a program funding playground maintenance. In Montana, it ordered the state to include religious schools in a scholarship tax credit. It ordered Boston to include Christian groups in a program allowing non-profit organizations to fly a flag on a city flagpole. [3] Most recently, it ruled that a Washington state school district had to allow a football coach to lead players and others in prayer on the football field, despite students reporting that they felt coerced. [4] (I wonder how the Court would rule if the religious group asking for government support were Jewish, Muslim, or some other non-Christian religion. We may find out one of these days.)

One final note. Election laws and the running of elections (along with schools) have been hallmarks of conservatives’ insistence on state responsibility and control with no or very limited federal government involvement. In recent years, the Supreme Court has overturned the Voting Rights Act, stopping federal oversight of election laws in states that had (and have) a history of discriminating against Black voters. It has refused to intervene as states have engaged in voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering with political and racial goals. However, back in 2000, the Supreme Court stepped into the presidential election in Florida (in Bush v. Gore) and ordered the state to stop counting ballots. The dissenting justices and many others identified this decision as a turning point when the “conservative” justices on the Court first displayed in a dramatic way their willingness to cast aside any coherent judicial philosophy or reasoning, upend precedent, and issue a ruling to achieve the political result they personally supported.

The recent rulings by these six Supreme Court justices (Roberts, Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) are clearly political and ideological, if for no other reason than the judicial philosophy and reasoning behind them is inconsistent and contradictory. Given the lack of a coherent judicial philosophy or reasoning, the only rational conclusion I can come to, is that these justices are acting on the basis of their personal political and ideological beliefs and sympathies, and not as judges upholding the laws established by the legislative and executive branches of government. Rather, they are dramatically legislating from the bench; something conservatives used to criticize others for doing. They are radical reactionaries, not conservatives. (See this previous post for more detail on why this is appropriate terminology for describing them.)

In my next posts, I will review the six radical, reactionary Supreme Court justices’ contradictory and inconsistent uses of their supposed beliefs in “originalism” and in the legality of precedents and rights unspecified in the Constitution only if they reflect long-standing practices in the country.

In the meantime, Heather Cox Richardson has posted a 33-minute reflection on the state of our (supposed) democracy after the recent momentous and anti-democratic decisions by the Supreme Court. Her commentary and perspective are, as always, thoughtful, poignant, and steeped in history. I encourage you to listen to all or part of it (perhaps the last ten minutes if you’re short on time). I’ve linked to it on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/john.lippitt.161/

[1] Hubbell, R., 5/4/22, “The hard path forward,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/the-hard-path-forward)

[3] Atkins Stohr, K., 6/22/22, “Remember separation of church and state? Apparently the Supreme Court doesn’t.” The Boston Globe

[4] Conley, J., 6/27/22, “Supreme Court takes ‘wrecking ball’ to separation of church and state with prayer ruling,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/27/supreme-court-takes-wrecking-ball-separation-church-and-state-prayer-ruling)

GUN VIOLENCE’S HIDDEN ACCOMPLICES

Nowhere else in the world does civilian gun violence take anywhere near the toll that it does in the US. Other countries have and are taking strong, effective steps to reduce gun violence. We, too, can substantially reduce gun violence but it will not be easy or quick. It will take sustained, hard, and at times uncomfortable advocacy to achieve the changes in policies, practices, and attitudes that are necessary to substantially reduce gun violence here.

While the media coverage of mass shootings almost always says the shooter or shooters acted alone, their indirect or hidden accomplices are many and we cannot continue to let them avoid responsibility. The radical reactionaries on the Supreme Court are accomplices because they have given individuals the right to own arms, including semi-automatic assault weapons with large magazines that have no purpose other than killing as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Members of Congress who block a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are accomplices. State legislators and Governors who have acted similarly are accomplices. This also applies to the blocking of other gun violence prevention measures, such as comprehensive background checks, waiting periods on taking possession of a gun, increasing to 21 the age requirement for buying a gun, laws keeping guns out of the hands of people most likely to use them to harm themselves or others, red flag laws that allow guns to be taken away from people who have indicated a likelihood to use them to harm themselves or others, etc.

The top of the list of accomplices today includes Governor Abbott of Texas, who proudly signed seven bills weakening regulations that reduce gun violence. In addition, despite saying that mental health services are what’s needed to prevent to mass shootings, he has refused to accept the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility for low-income residents of TX (Medicaid pays for more mental health services than any other health insurer) and he used over $200 million from the state agency that provides mental health services to bus immigrants to Washington as a stunt to support Trump’s border policies. [1]

Also high on the accomplice list is Fox TV (it’s not news), which promotes grievance, hate, and sometimes violence to a largely white, male audience. The social media companies are on the list as well. They allowed the video of the May 14^th mass shooting at the Buffalo food market to be seen by millions and to still be widely available two days after the shooting. Facebook took over ten hours to remove a link to the video. Twitch, where the shooter live-streamed the attack, is owned by Amazon. The ability to share video of a mass shooting with millions is what multiplies its impact and makes it real terrorism. [2]

Some of these accomplices are attacking those who are calling them out for their complicity, claiming we are using a tragedy for political purposes. They are hypocrites. First of all, they have used tragedies, fear, hate, and misinformation (let’s call it what it is – lies) for years to expand access to guns and foment their use. Second, while these accomplices appeal to our natural instinct to take the high-road in moments of crisis, they take the low-road time and time again – and appear to have no shame for doing so.

The time for being polite and civil in the face of gun massacres, which are terrorism, has long since passed. After fifty-five years of mass shootings in schools – going back to the University of Texas at Austin in 1966 – defenders of gun “rights” for individuals no longer deserve any presumption of good faith or restraint on our part given the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, including so many children. A polite and civil response has only led to an ever-mounting death toll. [3] (Please see my previous post for why claims of individual gun “rights” are the result of a manipulation of the meaning of the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution.)

It will require a strong and loud, and yes, confrontational, movement to produce meaningful action to reduce gun violence in this country. I urge you to speak out and act out however you are comfortable to contribute to this movement.

[1] Jeffery, C., 5/26/22, “He did not act alone,” Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/uvalde-texas-massacre-accomplices/)

[2] Harwell, D., & Oremus, W., 5/16/22, “Only 22 saw the Buffalo shooting live. Millions have seen it since.” The Washington Post

[3] Hubbell, R., 5/28/22, “He did not act alone,” Today’s Edition Newsletter (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/he-did-not-act-alone?s=r)

GUN VIOLENCE, THE SECOND AMENDMENT, AND THE “ORIGINALISTS”

The rash of recent gun violence has refocused attention on the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The radical reactionaries on the Supreme Court, who are supposedly “originalists,” have interpreted this language as giving individuals the right to bear arms and an individual right to security through armed self-defense.

Somehow the “originalists” have forgotten (or choose to ignore) the first two phrases of the amendment’s language which link the right to bear arms to a well-regulated militia and the security of the state. Clearly, the original writers of the Second Amendment did NOT have in mind the right of each individual, on his or her own, to bear arms. And they had no possible conception that arms would include semi-automatic weapons that could fire multiple bullets per second; the arms they knew took many seconds to reload for a second shot. So much for originalism! (I’ll write more about the hypocrisy of the “originalists” on the Supreme Court in a future post.)

Actually, what the writers of the Second Amendment had in mind was security against slave revolts. The Second Amendment was pushed by Patrick Henry (Governor of Virginia) and George Mason (intellectual leader of the anti-Constitution anti-federalists). They were worried that the new Constitution would give the federal government the sole power to form militias, preventing states and local entities from doing so. They were also concerned that Northerners would dominate the new federal government. Given that parts of Virginia, for example, had more enslaved Blacks than Whites, Henry and Mason (and others) wanted to ensure that southern states had the power to form militias to protect white slave owners from slave revolts. [1] Therefore, if there’s any originalism in the right-wing justices’ support of an individual right to bear arms, it’s originalism that has strong racist overtones.

The ”originalists” supposedly don’t support any evolution of the meaning of the Constitution over time; according to them, it’s the original language and intent of the writers that should govern judicial decision making. Furthermore, a leading “originalist,” Justice Alito, just wrote in his draft decision overturning Roe vs. Wade, that for an unwritten right to be legitimate, it must be deeply rooted in the nation’s history and have been understood to exist when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Under either of these originalist principles, an individual right to bear arms, particularly the types of arms available today, would be impossible to assert in a truly originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Again, so much for honest originalism!

A constitutional right to individual gun ownership is a relatively new interpretation of the Second Amendment, invented by the gun industry in the 1970s and aided and abetted by the National Rifle Association (NRA). It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that the Republican Party adopted support of individual gun ownership as a core belief and policy position. In the 1960s, Republicans were strong supporters of gun control, in part because they were strong supporters of law and order. Furthermore, during the 1960s, with the rise of the Black Power movement and pushback from the Black community against racism by police, Republicans were concerned about Blacks having guns. So, for example, in 1967, California passed the Mulford Act, the most sweeping gun control law in the country. It banned personal possession of a firearm without a permit and was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan. At the federal level, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed, which restricted the sale of firearms across state lines. Neither of these laws raised any constitutional concerns at the time.

Until 1959, every legal article about the Second Amendment concluded that it was not intended to guarantee an individual’s right to own a gun. In the 1970s, legal scholars funded by the gun and ammunition industry, and their front group the NRA, began to make the argument that the Second Amendment did establish an individual right to gun ownership. [2]

In 1972, the Republican Party’s policy platform supported gun laws restricting the sale of handguns. However, in 1975, as he geared up to challenge President Gerald Ford for the 1976 presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan took a stand against gun control.

In 1977, an at-the-time radical wing of the NRA took control of the organization and shifted its focus from marksmanship and responsible gun ownership by hunters to assertion of a right to individual ownership of guns for self-defense and to opposition to any restrictions on gun ownership. In 1980, the Republican Party platform opposed the federal registration of firearms for the first time and the NRA, for the first time, endorsed a presidential candidate: Republican Ronald Reagan. This led to the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, which repealed much of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and dramatically weakened federal gun control. Ironically, it was signed into law by President Reagan (who 19 years earlier had signed California’s strong gun control law).

Nonetheless, after three mass shootings in four years, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 included a ban on assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines, as they had been used in the mass shootings and were key to making the horrific carnage possible. However, this ban had a ten-year sunset provision. Therefore, the ban expired in 2004 and has not been renewed despite numerous attempts to do so.

These are key elements of the history of the Second Amendment and policies on gun ownership that have gotten us to where we are today. There have been over 230 mass shootings in the US already in 2022 – well over one per day. (A mass shooting is defined as one where four or more people are injured or killed, not including the shooter.) There were 20 in the week after the May 24^th Uvalde, TX, school shooting. In the 230 mass shootings so far this year, 256 people have been killed and 1,010 injured. Historically, there were nearly 700 mass shootings in 2021, a significant increase from 611 in 2020 and 417 in 2019. [3]

I urge you to speak out and act out however you are comfortable to contribute to the movement to take strong action to reduce gun violence in this country. Nowhere else in the world does civilian gun violence take anywhere near the toll that it does in the US. Other countries have and are taking strong, effective steps to reduce gun violence. We can too. We have a long way to go; the sooner we start the better.

[1] Mystal, E., 2022, “Allow me to retort: A Black guy’s guide to the Constitution,” NY, NY. The New Press.

[2] Richardson, H. C., 5/24/22, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-24-2022?s=r)

[3] Ledur, J., & Rabinowitz, K., 6/3/22, “There have been over 200 mass shootings so far in 2022,” The Washington Post

FACEBOOK KNOWS IT PROMOTES MISINFORMATION AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO WITHOUT GOVERNMENT REGULATION

Facebook’s promotion of low-quality, right-wing content and disinformation has been clearly documented. For example, in April 2021, The Daily Wire, a bigoted, sexist, anti-immigrant, far-right website that produces no original reporting and a low volume of articles had by far the highest distribution / engagement on Facebook. Second highest was the British tabloid, the Daily Mail, followed by Fox News. Four of the top six sources of content engagement on Facebook were right-wing publishers of disinformation. Credible media got much less engagement due to Facebook’s content promotion algorithm. For example, for April 2021: [1]

The Daily Wire (1^st) 74.9 million Facebook engagements based on 1,385 articles
CNN (4^th) 23.1 million Facebook engagements based on 4,765 articles
NBC (7^th) 18.7 million Facebook engagements based on 2,596 articles
New York Times (8^th) 18.6 million Facebook engagements based on 6,326 articles
Washington Post (14^th) 12.3 million Facebook engagements based on 6,228 articles

Facebook’s reality, driven by its content promotion algorithm, is NOT the reality outside of Facebook. The Daily Wire is NOT more popular than CNN, NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in the world outside of Facebook, let alone more popular than all four of them combined – and the almost 20,000 articles they publish per month compared to the less than 1,400 articles of The Daily Wire, none of which contain original reporting. Facebook promotes this alternative reality because it maximizes its profits. (See this previous post for more detail.)

The election-related disinformation that flourishes on Facebook is a global crisis. There are 36 national elections in countries around the globe in 2022 and many of them will be affected by disinformation on Facebook. Some may be affected to an even greater degree than what has occurred in the U.S., where a strong case can be made that disinformation on social media (with Facebook as a major if not the major player) led to the election of Trump in 2016.

Facebook (and its parent Meta) know how to stop the proliferation of disinformation and have done so for short periods of time at least twice. Meta refers to these instances as “break the glass” emergencies, but the emergency is not short-term and specific incident related, it’s long-term and endemic.

For five days after the 2020 U.S. national election, Facebook’s News Feed and other features operated very differently. Facebook adjusted its content promotion calculations, i.e., its algorithm, to more strongly promote credible news sources. By implication, it deprioritized or down ranked sources publishing disinformation and divisive or hateful content. Facebook did this to slow the spread of disinformation about election fraud and the presidential election being stolen. However, it was too little and too late, lasting only five days in the face of many months of spreading lies about the election. Nonetheless, during the life of the adjusted algorithm, Facebook engagement for credible sources such as the New York Times, CNN, and NPR spiked up and the engagement dropped for the extreme right-wing sources, as well as for hyper-partisan left-wing sources.

Some Facebook staff pushed to make the algorithm change permanent, but were overruled by Facebook’s senior management, including Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative who had previously intervened on behalf of right-wing sources and the Facebook algorithm that promotes them. Moreover, as Facebook returned to “normal” operation, Facebook also eliminated its civic-integrity unit.

After the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Meta and Facebook again “broke the glass” and instituted more preferential promotion for credible news sources, but again, only for a few days.

Many concerned people from across the globe and from all walks of life – from policy makers to advocates to marginalized people – are calling on Facebook (and other social media platforms, including Instagram [also owned by Facebook’s parent Meta]) to take three steps: [2]

Be transparent: disclose business models, algorithms, and content moderation practices; and release internal data on the effects and harms of the current mode of operation. This would allow independent verification of whether content amplification and moderation are effectively combatting disinformation, protecting elections and democracy, and keeping people, especially young people and children, safe.
Change content promotion algorithms: stop preferential promotion of the most incendiary, hateful, and harmful content to the most vulnerable audiences.
Protect all people equally: bolster content moderation to protect all people, especially marginalized and vulnerable groups, in all countries and all languages.

Facebook and the other social media companies won’t do this on their own. Without government regulation, they will continue to put profits before social responsibility . We must take steps to reduce the disinformation and divisiveness spread by Facebook and other social media platforms. Doing so is critical to the well-being of all of us, especially our children, and to the well-being of society and democracy. Government regulation clearly has to be an important part of the answer.

I encourage to you contact President Biden and your Congress people. Tell them you want strong regulation of Facebook and other social media platforms, including requirements to implement the three steps outlined above. (See this previous post for more on fixes for the harmful behavior of Facebook and other social media platforms.)

You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Legum, J., 5/6/21, “Facebook’s problem isn’t Trump – it’s the algorithm,” Popular Information (https://popular.info/p/facebooks-problem-isnt-trump-its)

[2] Change the Terms Coalition, retrieved from the Internet 5/2/22, https://www.changetheterms.org/

GOOD AND BAD NEWS FROM THE ECONOMY AND FOR WORKERS

The good news: First, the U.S. economy is creating lots of jobs: 1.7 million in the first three months of 2022. Wages are up 5.6% over the last year while unemployment continues to fall and is near its all-time low at 3.6%. The number of Americans getting unemployment benefits is at a 50-year low. [1] (These figures are particularly impressive given that many workers are re-entering the workforce after dropping out during the pandemic.)

This economic recovery in the U.S. is extraordinary; it has happened eight years faster than the recovery after the Great Recession of 2008 and is stronger than in other countries. Much of the credit belongs to the American Rescue Plan, passed in March 2021, which injected $1.9 trillion into the economy, spurring its recovery. It was passed by Democrats in Congress without a single Republican vote and enthusiastically signed into law by President Biden, who had been championing its passage.

Second, consumer spending is rising. This indicates that individuals and families are doing better economically and have money to spend. It’s also good for the overall economy, which is fueled by consumer spending. Business at restaurants, hotels, and airlines is increasing.

Third, workers at Amazon’s huge warehouse in New York City voted strongly to unionize (2,654 to 2,131). They overcame strong opposition from Amazon to form the first union of Amazon employees. This is one of the biggest wins for union organizing in decades, in part because Amazon is the country’s second largest employer and has 1.6 million employees globally. It also comes in the face of decades of declining unionization where the percentage of workers in unions has dropped from roughly 33% (one in three) in the 1940s to 20.1% (one in five) in 1983 to 10.3% (one in ten) in 2021. There has also been a series of unionization victories at Starbucks. [2]

The bad news: First, inflation is high at 7.9%; its highest in 40 years, but similar to what it is in other countries. Increasing evidence is pointing to corporate price gouging as a significant contributor to “inflation.” Corporate profits rose 25% in 2021, the biggest increase since 1976, while hitting record highs and totaling $2.8 trillion. [3] Corporations are able to increase prices and profits because of a lack of competition, which gives them monopolistic power. This is profiteering, i.e., making an unreasonable profit on sales of essential goods, especially during emergencies. (See previous posts here, here, and here for more about price gouging, which is profiteering by a different name.) As a first step to stop price gouging, there is a Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax bill in Congress. [4] (See this previous post for more information.)

Second, soaring profits on Wall St. sent the average bonus senior employees received to a record $257,500! This is 20% higher than last year and the overall bonus pool is estimated to be $45 billion. [5] The U.S. system of extreme capitalism allows our elite financiers to make huge sums of money while many workers struggle to make ends meet. Thus, economic inequality continues to grow.

Third, the gender pay gap in the U.S. remains stubbornly high, declining only 1.1% in the last 37 years from 23.2% in 1994 to 22.1% in 2021. From 1979 to 1994, it had declined from 37.7% to 23.2%, in part because men’s wages were stagnant. The wage gap has persisted over the last 37 years despite the fact that the percentage of women with a four-year college degree has grown to 43.8% (from 23.8%) and now exceeds that of men (37.4% now and 25.1% in 1994). [6]

Fourth, David Weil, an expert on how employers cheat workers out of their pay, was rejected for confirmation to a key post in the Labor Department. The Senate voted not to confirm him with “No” votes from all Republicans and three Democrats: Manchin (WV), Sinema (AZ), and Kelly (AZ). The only explanation for this vote effectively condoning wage theft by employers is that these Senators value campaign funds from corporate donors more than they care about fairness for American workers. Employer wage theft is increasingly happening because employers misclassify workers as contractors instead of employees, thus bypassing labor standards such as minimum wage and overtime pay laws. [7] It also means that workers don’t get benefits such as paid sick and vacation time, health insurance, and retirement benefits. Employers also steal pay from employees by failing to pay extra for overtime, not giving workers their tips, and not including all hours on the job as paid time.

[1] Ott, M., 3/25/22, “US jobless claims per week lowest since 1969,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[2] Weise, K., & Scheiber, N., 4/2/22, “Amazon workers on Staten Island vote to unionize in landmark win for labor,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[3] Johnson, J., 3/31/22, “ ‘Their inflation strategy is working’: Corporate profits soared to record high in 2021,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/31/their-inflation-strategy-working-corporate-profits-soared-record-high-2021)

[4] Corbett, J., 3/17/22, “New campaign aims to ‘Stop the Oil Profiteering’ of fossil fuel giants,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/17/new-campaign-aims-stop-oil-profiteering-fossil-fuel-giants)

[5] Associated Press, 3/24/22, “Average Wall Street bonus last year reached record $257,500,” The Boston Globe

[6] Gould, E., 3/10/22, “Equal pay day,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/equal-pay-day-there-has-been-little-progress-in-closing-the-gender-wage-gap/)

[7] Kuttner, R., 4/1/22, “The shame of corporate Democrats,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/shame-of-corporate-democrats-david-weil-labor/)

SUPPORTING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: SOMETHING EVERY DEMOCRAT OUGHT TO BE CAMPAIGNING ON NOW

Democrats in Congress and the Biden Administration enacted a nearly universal Child Tax Credit as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021. It provided almost every family in America with $3,600 annually for each child under age 6 and $3,000 for each child age 6 and up. Importantly, the credit was paid on a monthly basis rather than having to wait until one filed a tax return at the end of the year to get the money. In effect, it provided a universal basic monthly income for families with kids, something most wealthy countries do. [1]

The effect of this enhanced Child Tax Credit was dramatic – the child poverty rate declined by almost half. However, ARPA authorized these payments for only one year. Many politicians and policy analysts thought that the program would prove so effective and so popular that it would be extended. This is what was proposed by the Biden Administration and most Democrats in Congress as part of the Build Back Better bill.

Last summer, as the Build Back Better (BBB) bill was taking shape, the debate between Democratic progressives and centrists was whether to make the enhanced Child Tax Credit permanent or just extend it for five years. But then, Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema went rogue. They claimed they were concerned about the budgetary impact, but voted for an increased defense budget many times more expensive. They claimed that families were benefiting from it that didn’t need it or deserve it. I’ll come back to these arguments below.

Now, the question is whether any form of the enhanced Child Tax Credit will survive in whatever the Build Back Better bill becomes.

Longstanding research shows substantial benefits for child outcomes from family economic support. This research was bolstered very recently by a research paper published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In a randomized control trial, the most definitive kind of scientific study (the same approach as is used for testing new drugs), monthly cash support of $4,000 per year given to poor mothers with infants was found to result in changes in the infant’s brain activity that are associated with better development of important cognitive skills. [2]

Despite the strong body of research that documents that economic support for families improves children’s cognitive, school success, and life success outcomes, the Republicans and a few Democrats in Congress let the enhanced Child Tax Credit expire in January. As a result, 3.7 million more children are now in families living in poverty. The overall child poverty rate increased from 12.1% to 17.0% (a 41% increase in the poverty rate) and the impact on non-White children was greater:

White children in poverty increased from 7.5% to 11.4% (+3.9%)
Black children in poverty increased from 19.5% to 25.4% (+5.9%)
Latino children in poverty increased from 16.8% to 23.9% (+7.1%)
Asian children in poverty increased from 11.9% to 15.1% (+3.2%) [3]

The Child Tax Credit is a potent anti-poverty program. It is also extremely efficient. There are no middlemen, no application hassles, and no bureaucracy required to determine who’s eligible and who’s not; the government just provides money to all families with children, the same way it provides money to all seniors through Social Security. And the benefits are taxable, so higher income families who have less need for the money pay some of it back in income tax.

Senator Manchin has said he might support an enhanced Child Tax Credit if it had strict income limits or a work requirement. This would make it an inefficient, counter-productive policy because it requires a large bureaucratic effort to determine who is eligible and who isn’t, and mistakes will undoubtedly occur. It creates complexity and confusion because parents’ work status and income can change, often frequently for low-income workers and those in part-time jobs. Furthermore, it creates what are called “cliff effects” where as a parent’s earned income increases, they fall off the eligibility cliff and lose benefits. This creates a perverse incentive for low-income workers to refuse increases in pay or hours, or even to refuse a new job, because this might reduce their eligibility for benefits from the Child Tax Credit.

It would also make the Child Tax Credit less politically popular because middle-class parents wouldn’t get it. This reduced political support means that it will be more likely to be cut or eliminated in the future.

The Child Tax Credit is an issue that exposes the hypocrisy of many Republicans and some conservative Democrats. They claim they support family values and a right to life (as well as to liberty and the pursuit of happiness), but don’t support the enhanced Child Tax Credit that supports families and improves a child’s likelihood of leading a successful and fulfilling life.

I urge you to contact President Biden and your U.S. Representative and Senators to let them know that you support the enhanced Child Tax Credit, which would provide economic support to over 36 million families and over 61 million children. Tell them that this is what family values really are all about and that this is what a right to a life is all about for children in America.

You can email President Biden at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Kuttner, R., 2/18/22, “Save the Child Tax Credit,” The American Prospect blog (https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/save-the-child-tax-credit/)

[2] Troller-Renfree, S. V., et al., 2/1/22, “The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain activity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (https://www.pnas.org/content/119/5/e2115649119)

[3] Center on Poverty and Social Policy, 2/17/22, “3.7 million more children in poverty in Jan 2022 without monthly Child Tax Credit,” Columbia University (https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-january-2022)

PRIVATIZED MEDICARE CAN’T BE CONTROLLED

For decades, the private health insurers in America have, step by step, been privatizing Medicare, our public health insurance for all seniors, in order to make profits off this large public funding stream. Not surprisingly, they made dramatic new inroads during the Trump administration.

If we want to improve quality and control costs in our health care system for seniors, the privatization of Medicare must be stopped and rolled back. This and two other posts will summarize:

The history and background of Medicare and efforts to privatize it (a previous post),
The unsuccessful efforts to control the costs and improve the quality of the privatized Medicare Advantage plans (this post), and
What Medicare needs to do to fix what’s wrong, control runaway costs, and improve quality. [1]

Over the last 30 years, multiple efforts have attempted to control the costs of the privatized Medicare Advantage (MA) plans and to protect MA enrollees’ access to health care services (i.e., to reduce unwarranted denials of services or payments). However, the MA insurance companies always seem to find a way to dodge or get around new laws or regulations with these goals. Sometimes they block or weaken them before they’re ever enacted (e.g., through lobbying and campaign spending). Sometimes they alter their practices to skirt and undermine them.

When the privatized Medicare Advantage plans came into existence in 1985 (see my previous post for more details), reimbursement rates for MA plans were set at 95% of what seniors cost Medicare because the private insurers claimed they would be more efficient than the public Medicare program and would save Medicare money. However, MA insurance companies ended up spending 6% more per enrollee than Medicare, so they lobbied for and got higher and higher payments from Medicare. Instead of saving Medicare money, they cost it more and more. In 1997, the Clinton Administration’s Balanced Budget Act cut the excessive payments to MA plans and stopped the MA insurers from creaming-the-crop by enrolling healthier-than-average (i.e., less expensive) seniors. However, in 1999 and 2000, the MA companies got Congress to weaken these initiatives and then, under the pro-privatization George W. Bush Administration, they actually got increases in their payments from Medicare. The Obama Administration, as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, tried again to cut excessive payments to MA insurers. The ACA cut about $14 billion from MA plans’ excess costs by limiting them to only 1% more per enrollee than traditional, public Medicare costs. In response, an extensive and expensive ad and media campaign was initiated by the MA health insurers and Republicans claiming that Obama and the ACA were hurting seniors by cutting Medicare – a campaign you may well remember. As a result, two years later, under tremendous pressure, the Obama Administration backed off and instead of cutting MA rates by 2.3% to move toward the targeted savings, it increased them by 3.3%

The private Medicare Advantage insurers have been successful time after time in overcoming Medicare’s efforts to control their excessive costs. They are so big and profitable that they can spend the money needed to stymie Medicare’s efforts by engaging in campaign spending, lobbying, and advertising. Any time there is an effort to cut their funding, they run a massive media and lobbying campaign saying that the government is trying to cut spending on Medicare. This scares seniors and legislators into opposing efforts to make MA more cost effective. [2]

The private Medicare Advantage insurers also find innovative (and sometimes fraudulent) ways to dodge cost controls and increase their revenue. A major one is claiming that their enrollees are sicker than they actually are because the payments they receive are greater for sicker seniors. Codes indicating the presence of diseases and negative health conditions are added to enrollees’ records even if the MA provider is providing no treatment or services for those ailments. It is estimated that in 2019 this “upcoding” (as it is referred to) cost Medicare $9 billion. [3]

Another way that the private Medicare Advantage insurers are gaming Medicare is through its five-star quality rating program that provides bonuses to MA plans with high ratings. The original purpose of the quality rating program was to help seniors pick high quality plans. When the program was initiated in 2009, 15% of plans got 4 or 4.5 stars and none got 5 stars. Today, 86% of plans are rated at 4 or 5 stars and, therefore, get about $6 billion in quality bonuses. Yet research finds that MA plan quality has not improved. The only thing that has improved is the MA insurers’ ability to game the system to get billions in bonus payments.

When the pro-privatization Trump Administration came into power, it created a program to fully privatize Medicare called Direct Contracting. Some experts have described it as Medicare Advantage on steroids. For example, one of the three Direct Contracting models would allow all seniors in designated geographic areas to be enrolled in a privatized Direct Contracting health care plan with no right to opt out. In addition, for the first time, Direct Contracting would allow investor-controlled firms – as opposed to firms controlled by health service providers – to provide Medicare services. This would turn over the delivery of Medicare’s health care services to private investors like hedge fund and private equity vulture capitalists whose only goal is to make money. [4]

In a recent 18-month period, private investors spent $50 billion buying Medicare Advantage insurers and these new Direct Contracting firms because of the opportunities they see to make large profits. These deals value the purchased firms at an average of $87,000 for each senior they estimate they will enroll. This is indicative of the level of profit investors believe can be generated from Medicare payments to these firms. [5]

My next post will describe what Medicare needs to do to fix what’s wrong, control runaway costs, and improve quality.

[1] Caress, B., 1/24/22, “The dark history of Medicare privatization,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/dark-history-of-medicare-privatization/)

[2] Caress, B., 1/24/22, see above

[3] Gilfillan, R., & Berwick, D., 9/29/21, “Medicare Advantage, Direct Contracting, and the Medicare ‘money machine,’ Part 1: The risk-score game,” Health Affairs (https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210927.6239/full/)

[4] Gilfillan, R., & Berwick, D., 9/30/21, “Medicare Advantage, Direct Contracting, and the Medicare ‘money machine,’ Part 2: Building on the ACO model,” Health Affairs (https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20210928.795755/full/)

[5] Gilfillan, R., & Berwick, D., 9/29/21, see above

THE ECONOMY PERFORMS BETTER UNDER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTS

I’ve written before about the fact that the economy has historically performed better under Democratic Presidents than under Republicans. With the economy booming under President Biden, this pattern is both being confirmed and extended, and it’s receiving some attention. For example, Heather Cox Richardson, an historian, wrote the following in her Feb. 5, 2022, blog post (my bolding):

“The economy has boomed under President Joe Biden, putting the lie to the old trope that Democrats don’t manage the economy as well as Republicans.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The economy has performed better under Democrats than Republicans since at least World War II. CNN Business reports that since 1945, the Standard & Poor’s 500—a market index of 500 leading U.S. publicly traded companies—has averaged an annual gain of 11.2% during years when Democrats controlled the White House, and a 6.9% average gain under Republicans. In the same time period, gross domestic product grew by an average of 4.1% under Democrats, 2.5% under Republicans. Job growth, too, is significantly stronger under Democrats than Republicans.

“[T]here has been a stark pattern in the United States for nearly a century,” wrote David Leonhardt of the New York Times last year, “The economy has grown significantly faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.”

The persistence of the myth that Democrats are bad for the economy is an interesting example of the endurance of political rhetoric over reality. …

In the end, … the economists Leonhardt interviewed last year think [that] behind Democrats’ ability to manage the economy better than Republicans [is the fact that] Republicans tend to cling to abstract theories about how the economy works—theories about high tariffs or tax cuts, for example, which tend to concentrate wealth upward—while Democrats are more pragmatic, willing to pay attention to facts on the ground and to historical lessons about what works and what doesn’t.”

You can read the rest of her post with its more in-depth interesting historical perspective here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-5-2022

Good economic news ignored / downplayed by the mainstream media

Numbers released yesterday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the U.S. economy grew by a 6.9% annual rate from October to December 2021 and 5.7 percent for all of 2021. That’s the fastest full-year growth since 1984. The U.S. economy also added 6 million jobs in 2021, bringing the unemployment rate below 4%. This growth is the outcome of dramatic changes in economic policy initiated by the Biden administration through measures like the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Pay for workers is also growing.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media continue to downplay the extraordinary success of the economy, the Biden administration, and Democratic policies. Instead, they focus on the negatives. The Washington Post ran a story that began: “Even as the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in decades in 2021, the recovery has more recently flashed troubling warning signs, with soaring inflation, whipsawing financial markets and slowing consumer spending complicating the rebound.” What a surprising way to introduce a story on the best economic growth since 1984! The NY Times story’s headline was “Growth is surging in Biden’s economy. Why don’t voters feel better?” The answer is because the mainstream media aren’t reporting all the good news and even when they do, they highlight a negative spin! Read more at Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” blog post of January 27 here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-27-2022

WHICH CORPORATIONS SUPPORT SEDITIOUS REPUBLICANS AND WHICH SUPPORT DEMOCRACY

A year after January 6, 2021, when, even after the insurrectionists’ attack on the Capitol, 147 Republicans objected (with no factual basis) to certifying the Electoral College vote that made Joe Biden President, it’s important to identify the corporations that are supporting the 147 objectors who opposed the peaceful, democratic transfer of power to the new, overwhelmingly elected President.

Remember that in reaction to the insurrection and the votes of those 147 Republicans against a peaceful transfer of power based on the will of the voters, hundreds of corporations stated they were suspending political contributions to the objectors, or in some cases all political contributions. Many pledged never to support the objectors in the future.

Corporate support of politicians and political committees is done through corporations’ political action committees (PACs). Popular Information has been monitoring corporate PACs through their reporting to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). It has published its findings in a corporate accountability index that lists 183 corporations and whether or not they have kept their pledges not to support the objectors.

GOOD NEWS: So far, 79 major corporations have kept their pledges and not donated directly to any of the 147 objectors or to committees that support them, typically the fundraising committees of the Republican National Committee. These include Airbnb, Allstate, Amazon, American Express, CBS, Clorox, Coca-Cola, eBay, Facebook, General Mills, Hallmark, Hilton, Kraft Heinz, Lyft, Marriott, Mastercard, McDonalds, Microsoft, Nike, Sony, Target, Walgreens, Walt Disney, and Zillow. (See the full list at the corporate accountability index.)

Charles Schwab, one of the country’s biggest brokerage firms, went even further. Immediately after the insurrection, it announced the dissolution of its PAC and said it would no longer make donations to politicians. The PAC’s remaining funds were donated to The Boys & Girls Club of America and historically Black colleges and universities. Hewlett Packard also shut down its PAC soon after January 6. Hallmark Cards actually requested that two objectors, Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Roger Marshall (R-KS), return its PAC’s donations. [1]

Overall, Popular Information found that corporate PAC donations to objectors was down roughly 60% in 2021 as compared to 2019 (the comparable year from the previous election cycle). Of the 183 major corporations it contacted, seven explicitly pledged not to support objectors in 2022: Airbnb, BASF, Eversource Energy, Lyft, Microsoft, Dow, and American Express. [2]

BAD NEWS: To-date, 103 corporations have either given directly to objectors or to committees that support them, despite pledges not to donate to objectors, to suspend all PAC donations, or to re-evaluate their donation criteria.

Four corporations have broken their pledges and given directly to objectors and to committees supporting them: PriceWaterhouseCoopers: $184,000; Eli Lilly: $72,500; Cigna: $60,000; and Pacific Gas & Electric: $44,500.
Fifty-two corporations pledged to suspend all PAC contributions but then gave directly to objectors and often to committees supporting them as well, including Boeing: $375,500; Lockheed Martin: $323,000; GM: $158,500; as well as Aflac, American Airlines, Jet Blue, Kroger, Molson Coors, Stanley Black and Decker, T-Mobile, and UPS. (See the full list at the corporate accountability index.)
Seventeen corporations pledged to re-evaluate their donation criteria but then donated directly to objectors and sometimes to committees supporting them as well, including: Toyota; $95,500; Chevron: $71,000; Ford: $59,000; as well as Delta, Exxon Mobil, and FedEx. (See the full list at the corporate accountability index.) Toyota, after substantial public attention and pushback, announced in June, 2021, that it would change course and stop contributing to objectors. A clear indication that public pressure can be effective. (See more about how to do this at the end of this post.)
Thirty corporations have violated the spirt of their pledge by giving indirectly to objectors through committees that support them, despite pledging not to donate to objectors, to suspend all PAC donations, or to re-evaluate their donation criteria. These include: NextEra: $105,000; Dell: $60,000; Walmart: $60,000; Cozen O’Connor: $55,000; AT&T: $35,000; and $30,000 each from Comcast / NBC, Genentech, General Electric, Google, Intel, and Verizon. (See the full list at the corporate accountability index.)

The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has also been monitoring corporate and industry trade groups’ donations to the objectors. [3]

GOOD NEWS: One hundred thirty-four (134) out of 248 corporations and industry groups that said they were suspending donations to the objectors have not contributed to them to-date.

BAD NEWS: Over the last year, despite promises made to hold the objectors accountable, 717 corporations and industry groups have given over $18 million to objectors and the Republican National Committee’s fundraising committees that support them.

The four largest corporate donors to objectors and committees supporting them are: Koch Industries ($308,000), American Crystal Sugar ($285,000), General Dynamics ($234,000), and Valero Energy ($208,000). These corporations never pledged to stop or alter political donations despite the Jan. 6 insurrection and the unfounded objections to the Electoral College vote.

The five top donors among industry trade groups are: Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers ($432,000), National Association of Realtors ($303,000), Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America ($270,000), National Electrical Contractors Association ($222,000), and the Credit Union National Association ($217,500).

GOOD NEWS: Activism by consumers, voters, and stakeholders in general (i.e., us) can have an effect of corporations. For example, as noted above, Toyota stopped its financial support of objectors after public attention and push back from consumers. I encourage you to take action however you see fit. Here are some ideas for steps you can take:

Patronize businesses that support democracy (i.e., they are not donating to the objectors).
Boycott businesses that are donating to the objectors.
Send letters, emails, or social media postings to corporations to thank them for doing the right thing or highlighting their bad behavior and asking them to change it. Address your communication to the CEO and/or the shareholder or customer relations office. This is particularly effective if you are a shareholder, customer, employee, retiree, or other stakeholder in the company, which you should note in your communication.
Submit a letter to the editor of a local media outlet (hardcopy or on-line), post to social media, and/or spread the word to your family and friends.

Every action makes a difference and together, many small actions add up to something bigger than the apparent sum of those actions. We all need to do our part to save our democracy from the forces that are undermining it. Corporate America must stand up for our democracy and stop supporting those who are undermining it. In the 2020 election cycle, five of the objectors received over 60% of their campaign donations from corporate PACs. [4] This has to stop and it’s our job to make it happen, as we did with Toyota.

[1] Li, A., & Shah, A., 1/3/22, “The corporate insurrectionists: How companies have broken promises and funded seditionists,” CREW (https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/the-corporate-insurrection-how-companies-have-broken-promises-and-funded-seditionists/)

[2] Legum, J., Crosby, R., & Zekeria, T., 1/4/22, “Seven major corporations pledge not to support GOP objectors in 2022,” Popular Information (https://popular.info/p/seven-major-corporations-pledge-not)

[3] Li, A., & Shah, A., 1/3/22, see above

[4] Evers-Hillstrom, K., 1/8/21, “Exploring the top donors to GOP Electoral College objectors,” OpenSecrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/01/objectors-to-electoralcollege-donors)

THE FUNDING OF THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION

I’m surprised we haven’t heard more from the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the U.S. Capitol about the funding for the insurrectionists and the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. This, of course, was the rally at which Trump spoke for an hour, stated that our elections are corrupt, and then said to the crowd, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country any more. … So, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue … we’re going to the Capitol … to take back our country.” After which, of course, the crowd walked to the Capitol and attacked it and the people there.

The organizations, people, and funding that organized and paid for that rally are a tangled web of inter-related people and entities. Many of them were also involved in the Trump campaign. The trail of the money, as well as the overlap and connections among people and organizations, was intentionally obscured. Money was run through multiple organizations before actually being spent on-the-ground. This served both to hide who the actual donors and funders were, as well as to hide who was actually paid to do the work.

Many of the entities the money flowed through are “dark money” groups; these are non-profit, social welfare organizations that do not have to reveal their donors, but are supposed to only engage in limited political activity. They are organized under section 501(c)(4) of the IRS regulations. However, the IRS is not enforcing any limitation on their political activity. (Note: Charitable non-profits, to which donations are tax deductible, are organized under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS regulations and are strictly limited in their political activity. Donations to 501(c)(4) non-profits are not tax deductible.)

So, here’s some of the information that has been uncovered about some of the organizations involved in the January 6^th rally that preceded and fomented the attack on the Capitol. [1] [2]

Women for America First (W4AF): got the permit for the rally from the National Park Service. It is a dark money group and Women for Trump is an affiliate. Julie Jenkins Fancelli (heir to the Publix supermarket money) donated $300,000 to W4AF for the rally.
Rule of Law Trust: a sponsor of the rally and a dark money group. It is affiliated with the Republican Attorneys General Association. It received $150,000 from Julie Jenkins Fancelli and often receives money from opaque non-profits including the Judicial Crisis Network (see below) and ones that are part of the right-wing Koch brothers’ funding network.
Turning Point: a sponsor of the rally and a dark money group. It received $39 million from undisclosed donors in fiscal year 2020. Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action are affiliates.
Tea Party Patriots: a sponsor of the rally and a dark money group. It has received over $4.7 million from the Judicial Crisis Network (see below) and nearly $4.3 million from 2016 through 2020 from Richard Uihlein (see below).
Judicial Crisis Network: a dark money group that gave money to multiple groups that were involved in organizing the rally. It is now known as the Concord Fund and gave over $4.7 million to the Tea Party Patriots and $50,000 to Turning Point. It has also given over $1.9 million to the Rule of Law Trust since 2013 and millions more to the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Event Strategies Inc.: was named on the permit for the rally and two individuals who were organizers for the rally were on its payroll. It was also used by the Trump campaign, receiving over $2.5 million from it, including over $800,000 in 2021 after the official election campaign was over.
American Made Media Consultants LLC: created by the Trump campaign apparently to hide the recipients of the over $770 million funneled through it by the campaign. It spent over $200,000 on text messages on January 6.
The Trump Campaign: in the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign paid over $4 million to individuals and organizations that were organizers of the January 6 rally. Because the campaign funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through layers of shell companies and opaque firms, it is unknown when and for what purpose these payments were made. What’s known is that there was a significant overlap between people and organizations working for the campaign and organizing the January 6 rally.

Here’s some of the information that has been uncovered about some of the people involved in the January 6^th rally that preceded and fomented the attack on the Capitol.

Caroline Wren: a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign, she was named on the permit for the rally and boasted that she’d raised $3 million for the rally. She funneled this money through two dark money groups and a super PAC. This served to obscure the links between the donors and the use of the funds. She was paid over $170,000 for her work for the Trump campaign. She has been subpoenaed by the House Committee.
Richard Uihlein: CEO of the Ulinebusiness supplies company, he has given over $1 million to Turning Point over the last few years, about $4.3 million to Tea Party Patriots since 2016, and an undetermined amount of money to Women for America First.
Megan Powers: was listed on the rally permit as one of two operations managers. She was paid roughly $300,000 by the Trump campaign as its director of operations. She has been subpoenaed by the House Committee.
Justin Caporale, Maggie Mulvaney, and Tim Unes: were all organizers of the January 6 rally and have also been paid by the Trump campaign. They have been subpoenaed by the House Committee.

The catch phrase of the Watergate investigation of the 1970s was “Follow the money.” That may well apply to the January 6 insurrection as well. Although the House investigation seems to be focused on the flow of communications, I hope it’s also looking at the flow of money. Despite the fact that the rally organizers and the Trump campaign have worked hard to obscure the flow of money, I hope it can be traced because its flow would shed a lot of light on the scale of the conspiracy and who was involved in it.

The cost of the rally was at least half a million dollars and the costs of people getting to Washington and their staying overnight was greater than that. Knowing where that money came from and who coordinated the expenditures would undoubtedly be a very telling and important tale.

[1] Massoglia, A., 10/25/21, “Details of the money behind Jan. 6 protests continue to emerge,” OpenSecrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/10/details-of-the-money-behind-jan-6-protests-continue-to-emerge)

[2] Massoglia, A., 8/30/21, “Trump’s political operation paid more than $4.3 million to Jan. 6 organizers but questions remain about the full extent of its involvement,” OpenSecrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/08/trumps-political-operation-paid-more-than-4-3-million-to-jan-6-organizers-questions-remain-about-full-involvement)

LET’S JUST SAY IT: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DOES NOT BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY OR THE CONSTITUTION

It’s long past time to stop the charade that the Republican Party has any commitment to making democracy work. Or that it supports the Constitution. Or that it is patriotic. There are people who identify as Republicans who are at odds with these statements (Rep. Liz Cheney jumps to mind), but they are few and far between and are not the ones who are setting the official Republican Party agenda or messaging.

The Republican Party supports freedom of speech only when it’s speech it likes. Threats, violent speech (and acts), and name calling are fine when they serve its purposes and when they are aligned with its goals. However, speech by others, including peaceful protests, should be severely limited and if those peaceful protesters are injured or killed by a vehicle, the vehicle driver, not the protesters, should be protected by laws. [1]

According to the Republican Party and its judges, freedom of religion is paramount when it is Christianity practiced by white people, but others don’t deserve this freedom, despite its inclusion in the Constitution. For example, Muslims are, by definition, terrorists and should be monitored and restricted.

Democracy and the electoral processes laid out in the Constitution are valid, according to Republicans, only if Republicans win elections. Otherwise, the results of voting are fraudulent and should be disregarded and overturned by any means necessary, including violence.

No American, let alone member of Congress, is a patriot if they are willing to aid and abet an undemocratic and unconstitutional overturning of election results, or if they are unwilling to denounce and reject such efforts. Yet the great majority of Republicans are doing or have done these things, particularly in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. [2]

No American can claim to be a patriot if they are working to make it harder for citizens who might disagree with them to vote. However, Republicans in many states and in Congress are doing just this.

No member of Congress can claim to support democracy or the Constitution if, based on partisanship, they simply refuse to work meaningfully to pass important legislation. Such a blatant undermining of the functioning of a democratic government is unpatriotic at best and treasonous at worst.

Yet most Republicans in Congress have no interest in actually governing and, instead, are doing everything they can to keep the Democrats from governing, i.e., from actually doing things that the people of the country support doing and that a democratic government should do. For example, Senate Republicans are blocking confirmations of nominees for dozens of ambassadorships, at least a dozen high-ranking jobs at the Treasury Department, and roughly 200 other executive branch positions. This is nothing other than an effort to keep the Biden Administration and our democracy from functioning effectively; this presents a clear and present danger to America’s national security. [3] Again, it is unpatriotic at best and treasonous at worst.

The Republican Party is claiming that modest policies that support working men and women, as well as their families, are unaffordable and are socialism that would destroy democracy. First of all, it is hypocritical to say it is unaffordable because the expenditures of the Build Back Better bill (at which it levels these charges) is somewhere between one-fifth and two-fifths (20% – 40%) of the Defense Department budget that it supports. The Build Back Better bill would spend an amount equal to roughly 1% (one-hundredth) of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. This wouldn’t put the U.S. anywhere close to the government spending of European countries, let alone that of Scandinavian countries and their social democracies. And by the way, all of those countries, despite a greater degree of socialism than in the U.S., are democracies! So, second of all, socialism and democracy are NOT incompatible; they co-exist in all the other wealthy countries and to some degree in the U.S. in Social Security, Medicare, and the Veterans Administration, for example.

The Republican Party does not want to play by the rules established by our Constitution or our democratic traditions because if it did it would lose elections and power. It is out to win at all costs as it struggles to retain its power and that of its wealthy and generally white backers. It has given up on democracy because success for democracy means failure for it. [4]

Sadly, the current Republican Party’s rhetoric about supporting democracy, the Constitution, and patriotism is a sham. It is the language and lies of autocrats who are desperate to hang on to power and are willing to say and do anything to do so. Actions speak louder than words and the Republican Party’s actions, and the hypocrisy and lies it engages in to try to justify them, make its true beliefs and character crystal clear.

[1] American Civil Liberties Union, retrieved from the Internet 1/7/22, “Anti-protest bills around the country,” (https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/anti-protest-bills-around-country)

[2] Lehigh, S., 1/7/22, “What real America patriotism means,” The Boston Globe

[3] Boston Globe Editorial Board, 10/22/21, “US ambassadors, State Department officials held hostage,” The Boston Globe

[4] Blow, C. M., 6/20/21, “Stop hoping the G.O.P. will play ball,” The New York Times

SOCIALISM IS THE ANSWER FOR SAVING DEMOCRACY FROM CAPITALISM

Bob Kuttner has written a powerful and poignant article raising the question of whether capitalism is compatible with democracy – or at least a version of democracy that lives up to the American ideals of equal opportunity and government of, by, and for the people. [1] The New Deal of the late 1930s and 1940s created a form of government-regulated capitalism that for 40 years (until 1980) produced a thriving working and middle class, as well as an economy where income and wealth inequality were stabilized, if not narrowed. However, in the last 40 years, the U.S. economy has evolved into a new form of hyper-capitalism (some call it vulture capitalism) that has destroyed the ability of many workers to thrive. (See my previous post for more detail.)

This post presents Kuttner’s thoughts on where we need to go from here to restore our democracy and create more equitable economic and political systems. It’s a bit long, so just read the bolded parts if it’s too much, but do read Kuttner’s conclusions at the end.

Kuttner writes that we need to reverse the deregulation and privatization of important public services and public goods. Health insurance is one example:

Deregulation allowed the transformation of health insurance from non-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield programs into for-profit insurance corporations. This is a key reason the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world with some of the worst outcomes.
Private insurers have been allowed to provide Medicare coverage. This has resulted in increased costs and a bewildering array of choices that often confuse and manipulate seniors. This privatization of Medicare ultimately makes health care more complex, confusing, and costly for seniors, thereby undermining confidence in Medicare and our government.

The overall result of this deregulation and privatization is that health insurance plans are so complex that it takes hundreds of pages to explain their benefits and limitations; no consumer fully understands what they are getting or can shop intelligently among plans.

Other examples of harmful deregulation and privatization include:

Drug companies that are allowed to charged exorbitant, unregulated prices in the U.S. that are almost always much higher than in Canada and other countries.
Deregulation of the airlines that allows fares and fees to fluctuate widely. It is also the reason it costs so much more to fly to closer but less frequent destinations than for longer trips to bigger cities.
Privatization of housing subsidies has resulted in the grafting of some incremental public objectives onto a capitalistic, for-profit system run by landlords, developers, and financiers. The results have been both totally inadequate and dramatically inefficient.

Weak regulation has allowed private sector capitalists to aggressively promote products that have caused serious harm to public health, often while lying about their ill effects. Examples include cigarettes and other tobacco products, oxycontin (the prescription, addictive opioid), and fossil fuels and other products that have polluted our air and water. The promotion of fossil fuels, of course, has far-reaching effects that go well beyond public health.

In summary, the privatization and deregulation promoted by capitalists are not improvements or solutions to problems, they are problems. They have provided windfall profits to private investors as evidenced by unprecedented and growing economic inequality. Meanwhile consumers pay added costs and get degraded services, while the values and principles our democracy was founded on are debased. Successful privatization requires strong, effective public oversight to ensure that public goals and values are met, but this rarely happens. Important public goods, such as water and sewer systems, roads and bridges, parking on public property, etc. should not be privatized – as they have been – without strong regulation and reasonable provisions for terminating the privatization contract if goals are not achieved.

Attempts to remedy or ameliorate the problems of capitalism with incremental reforms or weak regulations (some have even argued for self-regulation by private companies) are not only ineffective, they also make service systems, government programs, and even markets for consumer goods convoluted, complex, confusing, and unfair. They create enormous, expensive, administrative bureaucracies that attempt to implement regulations or remedies. The resulting complexities benefit the capitalists and not workers or consumers. Perhaps the classic example of complexity that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations is our tax code. The exemptions, deductions, special provisions, and other loopholes benefit the capitalists to such an extent that average workers and middle-class households are paying a much higher portion of their incomes in taxes than the wealthy.

Delivery of services by the public sector, i.e., government, is not only fairer and more compassionate than delivery by the private sector, it is also more efficient, effective, and streamlined. The profit motive adds costs (i.e., profits, advertising, and administrative overhead) and incentivizes cost-cutting through denying services and cutting corners on quality. The private sector has no incentive to treat customers equitably; its only goal is to maximize profits.

Kuttner notes that “the history of the past century proves again and again, when market forces [i.e., capitalism] overwhelm the security and livelihood of working people, they are far more likely to turn to ultra-nationalism and fascism” than to collective action through democratic advocacy or labor unions. (page 11) This is particularly likely if there are demagogic “leaders” or “information” sources pushing them in that direction. The result typically is a rise in racism and xenophobia, as well as plutocratic control of the economy and policy making by wealthy individuals and corporations through the politicians they buy with campaign spending or otherwise.

Kuttner writes that “The signal disgrace of our era is the ease with which the corporate center-right has gone along with Trump and the Republican efforts to destroy what remains of democracy.” (page 14) He also notes that since 1980 “much of the Democratic Party has been so compromised and bedded down with Wall Street that displaced middle- and working-class people are skeptical that Democrats and liberal remedies can make much of a difference in their lives.” (page 13)

To ameliorate the economic hardship and insecurity of working Americans, Kuttner recommends providing public supports for workers and families, while resisting and reversing privatization and deregulation. Public supports should include paid family leave, cash support for families with children, subsidies for child care, easier access to good health insurance, regulation of drug prices, and free tuition at community colleges – all parts of the original Build Back Better bill proposed by President Biden and most Democrats in Congress.

Republicans will try to brand these programs as socialism and they do have a socialistic flavor when compared to our current, very individualistic, hyper-capitalism. However, they are immensely popular with the U.S. public and exist in all other wealthy countries. Moreover, socialism doesn’t elicit the negative reaction that it used to; 70% of millennials (i.e., people born between 1980 and 1995 who are 26 to 40 years old now) have a positive view of socialism. While Republicans will try to conflate socialism with communism, keep in mind that in communism the government owns all property and businesses. Not even the most aggressive policy proposals of Senator Sanders (a socialist) take any step in that direction. Also keep in mind that the branding of public policies as socialism was used by white supremacists in the post-Civil War years as their rationale for keeping Blacks from voting. Therefore, calling Democrats’ proposals socialism has racist undertones. (See this previous post for more detail.)

To reverse the scourge that the current version of hyper-capitalism has clearly become, we need to assert strong public control of our economy. Strong oversight and regulation of employers to protect workers and of companies to protect consumers are essential.

Promotion of the public good as the primary goal of government will drive workplaces and the economy to be fairer and more efficient, and to treat people with decency and respect. Think about how different our health care system would be if the public good was foremost instead of maximizing profits. Think about how different our financial system would be if we had public banks (as North Dakota does) and basic banking functions through the post office (as we once did). Think about having public broadband Internet service, which Chattanooga and Europe have, that is cheaper and higher speed than what most of us get in the U.S. Think about patent-free drugs that aren’t controlled and priced by monopolies. Think about the original Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) of the early 1970s that were cooperatively owned and run. Think about Medicare for all, especially without the distortions of the private insurers who’ve been allowed to offer complicating alternatives to Medicare. Think about savings and loan banks and health and other insurance companies that were non-profit, mutually-owned (by customers), and prevalent up until the 1970s. Think about publicly-owned, high-quality, mixed-income housing that is a major part of the housing market in Vienna, Austria.

Kuttner concludes that “Saving democracy, the planet, and decent lives for regular people requires moving beyond capitalism. To be an effective liberal today, you need to be a socialist.” (page 2) He states, “I’ve come around to this view gradually, not because my values have changed but because reality has changed.” (page 4)

He notes that our history has shown that the social democracy [2] of the New Deal did not stand up to the test of time. It deteriorated into a capitalistic welfare system with a supposed safety net that was politically vulnerable and, therefore, eroded over time. This produced today’s grossly inequitable U.S. economy where many workers and their families simply cannot survive on the compensation they are given.

Therefore, he concludes that the U.S. must move to democratic socialism [3] where there is substantial public or social control or ownership of important functions in our society that serve the public and the public good. This is necessary to dethrone capitalism as the dominant system of our society. Otherwise, as we’ve experienced, capitalism in a democracy will evolve into hyper-capitalism that serves wealthy individuals and corporations but leaves everyone else behind.

[1] Kuttner, R., 12/1/21, “Capitalism vs. liberty,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/capitalism-vs-liberty/)

[2] Social democracy is a system of government that attempts to assert values to similar socialism, but within a capitalist framework. The people have a say in government, but the capitalistic, money-based, competitive economy means that a public safety net is needed to help people whose low-paying jobs do not support subsistence.

[3] Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production are socially and collectively owned or controlled, alongside a liberal democratic political system of government.

CYBERWARFARE: RUSSIA’S ATTACKS ON THE 2018 AND 2020 ELECTIONS AND THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE

This is my seventh post on computer hacking and cyberwarfare and part of my overview of New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth’s outstanding book, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. [1] My first post summarized the book’s information on the scale of computer hacking, cybercrime, and cyberwarfare; the 2017 North Korean ransomware attack; and the 2009 U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) cyberwarfare attack on Iran. My second post covered the leaks from the NSA, electronic surveillance in the U.S., and the use of encryption to protect privacy. My third post described Russia’s cyberattacks on Ukraine. The fourth and fifth posts described China’s cyberattack on Google and Google’s response. The sixth post described Russia’s cyberattack on the 2016 U.S. election.

This post summarizes Russia’s attacks on the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections and the responses of the Trump and Biden administrations.

Under the Trump Administration, concern for cyberwarfare and cybercrime seemed absent. For example, the Obama Administration had reached an agreement with China to stop its industrial espionage, however this ended when Trump began his very public trade war with China. Similarly, the Iran nuclear agreement worked to keep Iranian hackers at bay. Trump’s voiding of the nuclear deal resulted in levels of Iranian cyberattacks that were unprecedented. Furthermore, as Trump backed off both sanctions and rhetoric against Russia for its hacking and election interference, Russia continued to hack our election systems and infrastructure, as well as to spread division, distrust, and chaos through social and other media. Even Saudi Arabia, with no sanctions from the Trump Administration for its murder of Washington Post journalist Khashoggi, was emboldened to engage in cyber espionage targeting the U.S. Cybercriminals engaged in ransomware attacks on cities, towns, and other infrastructure with regularity – and with little response from the Trump Administration.

By 2018, Trump had eliminated the position of White House cybersecurity coordinator and had made it clear that he never wanted to hear anyone in his administration, including the director of Homeland Security, mention election interference or election security. As the 2018 elections approached, the Russian social media propaganda agency, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), was engaging in sophisticated election disinformation on social media. In the six months before the elections, it spent at least $10 million on its efforts to influence the U.S. elections and to sow division, distrust, and chaos.

Fortunately, in September 2018, Trump had ceded decision-making for offensive cyberattacks to the new director of the NSA, General Paul Nakasone, who also served as the head of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command. John Bolton, in his brief tenure as Trump’s national security advisor, had developed a new cyber strategy that gave the Cyber Command increased flexibility. So, in October, the Cyber Command posted warnings directly to the IRA’s computers threatening indictments and sanctions if Russia continued to meddle in the 2018 elections. Then, on Election Day, the Cyber Command shut down the Russian hackers’ computer servers and kept them offline for several days as votes were tabulated and certified. No one knows what might have happened if the Cyber Command had not done this, but the 2018 election results were processed without any serious glitches.

“By 2020, the U.S. was in the most precarious position it had ever been in the digital realm,” according to Perlroth. [2] More than 1,000 local governments had been hit with ransomware attacks over the previous year. Russian cybercriminals were getting billions of dollars because local governments and their insurers calculated that it was cheaper to pay the ransom than to have to recreate computer systems and data. Cybersecurity experts worried that the ransomware attacks were a smokescreen to probe municipal computers and develop the capability to disrupt voter and election related systems during the 2020 election. Some of these experts also thought the election hacking and interference in 2016 and 2018 might be trial runs for more extensive efforts planned for the 2020 elections. Apart from the elections, in September 2020, over 400 hospitals were the subject of ransomware attacks, coming, of course, at the worst possible time – in the middle of the pandemic.

In Congress, a number of efforts were made to address concerns about election security, including bills requiring paper trails for every ballot and rigorous post-election audits, banning voting machines from being connected to the Internet, and mandating that campaigns report contacts with foreign entities. These were largely uncontroversial security measures that generally had bipartisan support and were deemed critical by election integrity experts. However, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Majority Leader, refused to let any election security bill move forward toward passage. Only after critics took to calling him “Moscow Mitch” did he relent and begrudgingly allow approval of $250 million to help states protect election infrastructure – a tiny amount of money when split among the 50 states (only $5 million each on average), especially given the seriousness of the threats their election systems were facing.

In early 2020, U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House and Congress that Russian hacking and election interference were working hard at promoting Trump’s re-election. Trump was so incensed that this information had been shared with Democrats that he fired his acting director of national intelligence and publicly dismissed the intelligence findings as misinformation. Beginning in August, Trump’s new head of intelligence refused to provide in-person briefings on election interference to Congress. The U.S. intelligence agencies had always been non-partisan, but the Trump administration increasingly manipulated their actions and statements to serve their political interests. Meanwhile, Microsoft revealed that in one two-week period Russian hackers had attempted to access 6,900 personal email accounts of politicians, campaign workers, and consultants of both parties.

During the 2020 election cycle, the Russians didn’t have to create “fake news” to foster distrust, division, and chaos; Americans, including President Trump, were providing plenty of such content on a daily basis. The Russian trolls simply worked to amplify, among other things, the vaccination debate, the lockdown protests, the misinformation about the benefits of mask wearing, and the blaming of the racial justice protests and any violence that occurred on violent, left-wing radicals.

As the 2020 election approached, the Cyber Command, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, and the FBI worked diligently to protect election infrastructure in the states and nationally, as well as to actively counterattack. Many of the officials involved figured it was likely that Trump would fire them for their hard work as soon as the election was over, but they persisted in doing their jobs. On Election Day, CISA officials briefed reporters every three hours and, in the end, Election Day came and went with no evidence of fraud, outside efforts to alter vote tallies, or even a ransomware attack.

Perlroth notes that while she would like to credit the work of our cybersecurity agencies for the uneventful Election Day, she feels that the 2020 election went as smoothly as it did, not because the Russians were deterred, but because they (and specifically Russian President Putin) concluded that their work here was done and had been successful. Discord, distrust, and chaos were being created by American actors without the need for Russian interference. If Putin’s goal, in the U.S. elections and otherwise, was to undermine American democracy and American influence in world diplomacy, he had probably succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

Nonetheless, Russian cyber hacking continues. In 2020, Russia’s premier intelligence agency, SVR was responsible for the cyberattack via the Solar Winds security software, a highly sophisticated attack that affected many government agencies and large companies. It gave the Russians access to tens of thousands of users’ computer systems. (By the way, SVR was also the first hacker to gain access to the Democratic National Committee’s computers in 2016.)

In October 2021, the Russians engaged in another massive campaign to hack into computer networks in the U.S. Microsoft announced that it had notified 600 organizations that they had been targeted by SVR with about 23,000 attempts to illegally access their computer systems in October alone. It noted that the attacks were relatively unsophisticated and were or could have been blocked by basic cybersecurity practices. It also stated that, for comparison, there had been only 20,500 such attempts by all other international governmental actors over the past three years. ^[3]

This Russian cyberattack occurred only six months after President Biden imposed sanctions on Russian financial and technology companies in April 2021 as punishment for previous cyberattacks. At the time, he noted that the sanctions could have been more severe but that he was trying to de-escalate confrontation between the two superpowers.

My next post will review things that can be done to counter cybercrime and warfare at the individual and governmental levels.

[1] Perlroth, N. This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. Bloomsbury Publishing, NY, NY. 2021.

[2] Perlroth, N. This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. Bloomsbury Publishing, NY, NY. 2021. page 347

[3] Sanger, D.E., 10/26/21, “Russia tests US again with broad cybersurveillance,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

CYBERWARFARE: RUSSIA’S ATTACK ON THE 2016 ELECTION

This is my sixth post on computer hacking and cyberwarfare and part of my overview of New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth’s outstanding book, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. [1] My first post summarized the book’s information on the scale of computer hacking, cybercrime, and cyberwarfare; the 2017 North Korean ransomware attack; and the 2009 U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) cyberwarfare attack on Iran. My second post covered the leaks from the NSA, electronic surveillance in the U.S., and the use of encryption to protect privacy. My third post described Russia’s cyberattacks on Ukraine. The fourth and fifth posts described China’s cyberattack on Google and Google’s response.

This post summarizes Russia’s attack on the 2016 U.S. election which began in June 2014 when Russia sent two agents to the U.S. for a three-week reconnaissance tour to gather intelligence on U.S. politics and elections. Their report became the field guide for Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Starting in 2014, the Russians tried to hack into voter registration and election systems in all 50 states. They are known to have succeed in accessing Arizona’s and Illinois’s voter databases. In 2015 (and probably before then), the Russians aggressively hacked into computer networks at the State Department, White House, and Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Defense Department, although this was probably unrelated to the election and was just “routine” espionage. Occurring in the midst of the unprecedented and mind-boggling presidential campaign that was ongoing at the time, these cyberattacks got little coverage in the mainstream media.

Russia’s social media propaganda agency, known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), had as its goal for the U.S. election in 2016 to “spread distrust toward the candidates and the political system in general. … [to create] division, distrust, and mayhem.” [2] In September 2014, the IRA created a Facebook group, Heart of Texas, focused on right-wing Texans that generated 5.5 million likes within a year. It also created another Facebook group, United Muslims of America. Then, among other things, it used these two Facebook groups to promote rallies and counter-rallies at the Islamic Center in Houston that led to real-world confrontations. The IRA used the stolen identities of Americans to make their work more credible, but nonetheless its cyber manipulators were surprised at how gullible and susceptible the Americans were to their Facebook disinformation.

Based on its success in Texas, the IRA began replicating this approach across the country, focusing on purple states. Its staffing grew to more than 80 people who were directed to “Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump – we support them)” according to leaked memos. [3] The IRA:

Communicated with Trump campaign volunteers.
Bought Facebook ads promoting Trump and attacking Clinton.
Promoted race-baiting and xenophobic messages.
Worked to suppress minority voter turnout and to encourage voting for third party candidates instead of for Clinton.
Paid an unwitting Florida Trump supporter to put a cage on a flatbed truck and paid an actress to dress up as Clinton and sit in the cage as Trump rally goers chanted “Lock her up!” Based on this success, they promoted similar rallies in other states.
Reached 126 million Facebook users and generated 288 million Twitter actions, which are staggering numbers given that 139 million people voted in the 2016 election.

In June 2016, it was discovered that two other Russian groups had hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s computer network months earlier, extracting and releasing embarrassing emails, among other things.

The Obama Administration, facing multi-faceted and snowballing Russian interference in the election, finally decided in the fall of 2016 that a strong bipartisan statement (so it wouldn’t appear political) was necessary. Top Homeland Security and FBI officials were sent to brief Congress. But the response from the Republicans was completely partisan. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to warn Americans about Russia’s efforts to influence and undermine the 2016 elections. He refused to sign any bipartisan statement, argued (falsely) that the intelligence on the cyberattacks was wrong, and claimed (falsely) that this was all just Democratic partisan politics.

After the election, the Obama Administration imposed significant sanctions on the Russians, but they were too little and too late. Although there’s some argument over the ultimate impact of the Russian’s efforts, Perlroth concludes that the Russian actions may well have tipped the election to Trump. Black voter turnout declined sharply in 2016 for the first time in 20 years, which was a constituency and an outcome that the Russians had aggressively targeted. Black voter turnout fell from 66.6% in 2012 to 59.6% in 2016, its lowest level since 2000. This represented a decline of 765,000 votes when less than 80,000 votes in three key states determined the outcome of the election. Furthermore, Trump’s margin in each of these three key states – Wisconsin (22,800 votes, a 0.8% margin), Pennsylvania (44,300 votes, a 0.7% margin), and Michigan (10,700 votes, a 0.2% margin) – was less in each state than the vote for the Green Party candidate. This voting for third party candidates instead of Clinton was another outcome that the Russians had aggressively targeted. Given the closeness of the election, a relatively small change in either (let alone both) of Black voter turnout or the number of votes for the Green Party instead of for Clinton would have changed the outcome of the election – and both of these were factors that the Russians specifically worked to influence.

Subsequent posts will outline the Perlroth book’s reporting on:

Russia’s continuing cyberattacks on the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections and the Trump administration’s response, and
What can be done to counter cybercrime and warfare at the individual and governmental levels.

[1] Perlroth, N. This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends. Bloomsbury Publishing, NY, NY. 2021.

[2] Perlroth, N., see above, page 310

[3] Perlroth, N., see above, page 311

THE DAMAGE THE RADICAL REACTIONARIES ARE DOING TO THE SUPREME COURT AND OUR DEMOCRACY AND HOW TO FIX IT

The radical, reactionary decisions of the Supreme Court’s six-justice majority not only affect society (see my previous post), they have implications for our democracy and the future of the Court itself. Their decisions undermine the credibility of the Court, the rule of law, and American democracy. They mean that government will not be able to regulate businesses, protect workers, or protect people’s civil rights. They mean that our government will not be able to provide a safety net for individuals when they fall on hard times and will not be able to promote public health and infrastructure.

The way the Supreme Court is making decisions is undermining its credibility and eroding respect for it among the public. The majority of the Court’s decisions since 2017 have been on the “shadow docket,” i.e., decisions made without the benefit of written or oral arguments. These decisions are often made and released in the dead of night, and often with an unsigned written statement (aka opinion). These opinions are typically short and fail to present a rationale for the decision. They almost exclusively advance a right-wing political agenda. Prior to 2017, such emergency rulings were rare and were used for uncontroversial decisions or when time was of the essence, such as death penalty executions. In less than three years, the Trump administration filed for at least 28 such rulings (an average of almost 9 per year), while there were only eight in the previous 16 years (an average of one every other year). [1]

The Court is emasculating the rule of law and degrading American democracy. It is failing to enforce federal laws, making decisions without considering the merits of cases, and allowing states to do as they please, even when they violate the Constitution and people’s rights. As Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent on the case on the Texas law limiting pregnancy terminations, “The Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.” [2]

Justice Kagan, in her dissent on the Texas case, noted that the Court’s recent actions, “which every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent, and impossible to defend,” are undermining the legitimacy of the Court. She noted, by way of example, that the Court failed to intervene to protect the rights of millions of Texas women, despite having intervened aggressively to protect alleged religious rights, such as when a California church had been prohibited from meeting in-person by Covid restrictions. Since Justice Barrett was seated in October 2020, the Court has issued seven emergency injunctions (e.g., blocking state coronavirus restrictions), while only four such injunctions had been issued during the previous 15 years of Justice Robert’s tenure. [3]

Making things even worse, the Supreme Court is treating its shadow docket decisions, promulgated without any reasoning to back them up, as creating new legal precedents that lower courts must follow. According to precedent, shadow docket cases do not establish new law, in part because the merits of the case have not been argued and considered. However, the current Court has had no problem asserting that its shadow docket decisions establish new law and legal precedents, particularly when infringements of religious rights have been alleged.

Given that the Court is ruling inconsistently, ignoring even its own recent precedents, making decisions without hearing or considering the merits of a cases, and promulgating its decisions without justifications, it is clear that the Court is advancing an ideological and partisan political agenda and not a legal one. This dramatically undermines the legitimacy of the Court and powerfully supports the case for Court reform.

In addition to the behavior of the radical, reactionary majority on the Court, the way two of the justices got on the Court also argues for reform. As you probably remember, in the spring of 2016, Senate Majority Leader McConnell (Republican of Kentucky) refused to even consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for an open seat on the Supreme Court, supposedly because it was an election year and the decision should be left to the new president. This reduced the size of the Court from nine to eight justice for roughly a year. However, when an opening occurred in September, 2020, also an election year, McConnell and the Republicans were happy to rush through the nomination of Amy Barrett, literally days before the election. So, the Republicans stole two seats on the Court and filled them with radical reactionaries.

These appointments raised issues about the appointment process and the lifetime terms of justices, given that it was the deaths of two sitting justices that led to these openings. However, there are other long-term issues with the Supreme Court. For example, there is no Code of Ethics that covers Supreme Court justices; they are exempt from the ethics rules that apply to other federal judges.

President Biden has appointed a Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States to study the issues with the Court and the need for reform. Testimony was received from a long list of people, including Harvard Law Professor Michael J. Klarman, who has written a 260-page Harvard Law Review article on the degradation of American democracy and the Supreme Court’s role in it. In his testimony to the Commission, Klarman recommends and provides a strong rationale for: [4]

18-year, non-renewable, staggered terms for justices, so that a seat is filled every two years, and
Expanding the Court by four seats immediately.

Others have recommended adding two seats to the Court to make up for the two that were stolen by Republican shenanigans. Robert Hubbell, a retired lawyer, recommends: [5]

Expanding the Court, noting that this would require bypassing the filibuster,
Limiting the terms of justices,
Implementing a code of judicial ethics for the justices, and
Limiting the Court’s ability to decide substantive issues on the shadow docket.

I urge you to let your U.S. Representative and Senators, along with President Biden, know that you support reform of the Supreme Court to restore its legitimacy and non-partisan operation. Urge them to push for a strong, substantive report and set of recommendations from the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court to achieve these goals. Then, we will all need to work to ensure that needed changes in the Supreme Court are implemented.

You can email President Biden via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Richardson, H. C., 9/1/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-1-2021)

[2] Sotomayor, S., 9/3/21, “Sotomayor’s defiant dissent,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/sotomayor-abortion-dissent/)

[3] Vladeck, S., 9/3/21, “The Supreme Court doesn’t just abuse its shadow docket. It does so inconsistently,” The Washington Post

[4] Klarman, M. J., 7/20/21, “Court expansion and other changes to the Court’s composition,” Written statement to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Klarman-Testimony.pdf)

[5] Hubbell, R., 9/2/21, “Today’s Edition: Susan Collins should resign in disgrace,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-susan-collins-should)

THE IMPLICATIONS OF RADICAL, REACTIONARY RULINGS BY THE SUPREME COURT

My previous post made the case that six of the nine Supreme Court justices (Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas) are radical reactionaries both in the content of their rulings and in their decision-making process. This post will outline some of the societal implications of their rulings, particularly the ruling on the Texas law prohibiting most pregnancy terminations.

As you’re probably aware, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court from delaying the implementation of a Texas law restricting pregnancy termination (aka abortion) that is clearly unconstitutional and uses a highly unusual and fraught enforcement mechanism. The Court did so without hearing any arguments on the merits of the case. Implementation of the Texas law, even temporarily, will allow nuisance lawsuits that will probably bankrupt or otherwise put out of business all abortion providers in Texas. The Supreme Court, in an unprecedent action, has allowed immediate implementation of this law despite the facts that it clearly violates a constitutional right and does immediate harm by stopping 85% of pregnancy terminations that happen in Texas.

The Texas law allows any citizen to sue anyone or any organization that is in any way involved in a pregnancy termination that occurs roughly six weeks or more into a pregnancy. (At six weeks, most women don’t even know they are pregnant yet.) The citizen would get a $10,000 reward or bounty plus reimbursement for legal costs if they win the suit. If the defendant wins the suit, they are not eligible to recover legal costs. This makes a pregnant woman who would like to terminate her pregnancy prey for bounty hunters.

The Texas law encourages and rewards vigilantism, where neighbors sue neighbors. This is the type of “justice” system – with neighbors incriminating neighbors – that totalitarian regimes use to control people. It was used in pre-WWII Germany, in the Soviet Union, and in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, for instance.

This citizen enforcement mechanism was used – as opposed to the normal use of public law enforcement agencies – specifically to bypass federal judicial oversight and inhibit federal enforcement of a woman’s constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy as established by the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. As Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, “Because the Court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent. … This is untenable. It cannot be that a state can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry.” [1]

As historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote in her blog, “The Republican Party is empowering vigilantes to enforce their beliefs against their neighbors.” [2] With vigilantism already escalating in our country, it needs no encouragement. It is occurring at school board meetings discussing mask mandates, it is being used to intimidate election and public health officials, and it was the foundation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Vigilante “justice” and states’ rights (to ignore federal constitutional rights) are what was used to maintain white supremacy in the post-Civil War south. For eighty years, law enforcement in the south depended on your skin color, your gender, and whom you knew. Vigilantes kept Blacks from voting and kept education separate and unequal. Southern vigilantes could literally get away with murder up until the 1960s. [3]

The Supreme Court decision on the Texas pregnancy termination case and decisions on other cases related to religious beliefs and practices are allowing white, Christian religious beliefs to function as civil law. These decisions allow private organizations (e.g., employers and health care providers) and state governments to engage in discrimination and oppression based on religious beliefs in providing (or not providing) women’s health care and services to LGBTQ people, for example. The Texas law encourages and rewards citizens who act based on their religious beliefs about pregnancy termination and sue fellow citizens. [4]

In allowing Texas to implement unconstitutional pregnancy termination restrictions and to avoid federal enforcement of civil rights by empowering citizen enforcement of state laws, the Supreme Court has opened a barn door. This strategy, having been successful at least temporarily in Texas, will almost undoubtedly now be used by other states on this and other issues in ways that violate people’s civil rights. [5]

In summary, the Supreme Court is failing to enforce federal law and uphold civil rights, giving states free rein to ignore the due process and equal protection provisions of the 14^th amendment. These are the provisions that allow the federal government to ensure the protections of the Bill of Rights for people, even when a state government tries to undermine them. These Supreme Court decisions mean the federal government cannot protect the rights of people of color, women, religious minorities, or otherwise-abled people. The Supreme Court has handed power over civil rights back to the states and the vigilantes, as it was in the 80 years after the civil war. [6]

It is unclear how this door, now opened, will be closed, but it is clear that reform of the Supreme Court to disempower its radical, reactionary, and ill-gotten majority is an essential part of that process.

In my next post, I will discuss the implications of the behavior of the Court’s radical reactionaries for the legitimacy and future of the Court. I’ll also present possible solutions to the current unprecedented and undemocratic actions of the Court.

[1] Sotomayor, S., 9/3/21, “Sotomayor’s defiant dissent,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/sotomayor-abortion-dissent/)

[2] Richardson, H. C., 9/1/21, “Letters from an American blog,” page 2, (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-1-2021)

[3] Richardson, H. C., 9/1/21, see above.

[4] Hubbell, R., 9/2/21, “Today’s Edition: Susan Collins should resign in disgrace,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-susan-collins-should)

[5] Hubbell, R., 8/31/21, “Today’s Edition: The U.S. war in Afghanistan is over,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-the-us-war-in-afghanistan)

[6] Richardson, H. C., 9/3/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-3-2021)

REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY ON THE FEDERAL DEFICIT

The Republican Party is guilty of lots of hypocrisy these days, some of it new and some of it old. One of the older elements that’s resurfacing today is concern about the federal government’s annual budget deficit and its overall accumulated debt. One of my real frustrations with the mainstream media is that they rarely call out Republican hypocrisy. They typically report the Democratic and Republican rhetoric as a he said / she said conflict without any historical or factual context.

Therefore, I was pleased to see a front-page story in the Boston Globe on 9/17/21 explicitly calling out the Republicans’ current hypocrisy on the federal deficit. The title and subtitle, no less, highlighted the hypocrisy: “Democrat in office, GOP focuses on the debt; But true to form, Republicans were silent as Trump ran up spending.” [1] What follows is a summary of the article.

Republicans are trying to build support for their opposition to President Biden’s and congressional Democrats’ infrastructure investment bills by saying they’re concerned about the federal budget deficit and overall debt. This is hypocritical because congressional Republicans remained largely silent as the debt grew by $8 trillion (40%) under President Trump in just four years. It’s also inaccurate because the Democrats are planning to pay for most if not all of the costs of the bills with tax increases on wealthy individuals and corporations, along with other revenue increases, so the deficit and debt would not grow as a result.

The hypocrisy is quite blatant because congressional Republicans pushed through a tax cut in 2017 that increased the debt by about $200 billion a year. Trump’s hypocrisy was stunning, given that he had promised during his campaign to balance the federal budget in four or five years. Instead, his four budgets ran deficits of an average of $2 trillion per year! Voters appeared to believe his campaign promise, in part because the mainstream media didn’t provide the context that would have shown it was a lie, particularly in the context of his other promises.

Republicans are saying they won’t vote to increase the federal government’s ceiling on its total amount of debt. However, they raised or suspended the debt ceiling three times when Trump was president. Moreover, most of the increase in the federal debt that has occurred since the debt ceiling was last raised in 2019, occurred under President Trump. Republicans are resurrecting their opposition to increasing the debt ceiling that they exhibited when Obama (a Democrat) was president. Then, they pushed the government to the brink of defaulting on its debt, which would create an unprecedented economic crisis.

This hypocritical opposition to increasing the debt ceiling and to increased spending because it might increase the annual budget deficit reflects a 40-year pattern of Republican presidents and congresspeople creating large budget deficits and then leaving a fiscal and economic mess for Democratic presidents to deal with and clean up. Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute (a conservative, free-market think tank) and a Republican economic and tax policy expert, is quoted in the article as saying, “Republicans are absolutely guilty of hypocrisy in that they focus on the debt during Democratic presidents and then run up spending during Republican presidents.”

[1] Puzzanghera, J., 9/17/21, “Democrat in office, GOP focuses on the debt,” The Boston Globe

THE RADICAL, REACTIONARY MAJORITY ON THE SUPREME COURT

You’ve almost certainly heard about the Texas law prohibiting most pregnancy terminations (aka abortions). It’s blatantly unconstitutional and also radical in multiple ways. I’m not going to discuss the law itself in any detail, rather I want to focus on the behavior of the Supreme Court’s six radical, reactionary justices on this case and others.

Many people refer to the five Supreme Court justices (Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanagh, and Thomas) who allowed the Texas law to go into effect and Chief Justice Roberts (who dissented in the Texas case for procedural reasons) as “conservative.” This is not accurate. Although they do fit with political conservatives in favoring free enterprise and private ownership, they do so in a way that ignores the whole post-Depression and post-WWII form of managed capitalism. Somewhat similarly, they only uphold traditional values and social norms if one turns back the clock at least 50 year and probably closer to 100 years. Finally, they are not conservative in terms of being averse to change or innovation, rather they are radical, judicial activists ignoring longstanding precedents and creating wholly new judicial theory and reasoning.

A number of court observers and journalists have taken to calling them “reactionary.” A reactionary holds political views that favor a return to a previous state of society, which they believe possessed positive characteristics that are absent from contemporary society. For example, these justices apparently want to return to the days when:

Abortion was banned and women’s roles and decisions were controlled by husbands, restrictive societal norms, and, in some cases, laws.
State governments were much more powerful and the federal government couldn’t enforce national laws protecting individuals’ rights, including the rights of people of color, women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, and others’ civil rights.

To call those six justices “radical” also seems appropriate as they are clearly upending fundamental principles, precedents, and processes of the Supreme Court and our system of jurisprudence. They have repeatedly shown a lack of respect for precedents that don’t fit their ideology.

Their radicalism isn’t limited to the Texas case or the substance of their decisions, but is also evident in the processes they have used to make numerous significant rulings. For example, rulings in three recent cases were made without hearing the merits of the cases:

The Texas pregnancy termination case: failed to stop implementation of a clearly unconstitutional law with a highly unusual enforcement mechanism – deputizing private citizens to sue – that is intended to evade federal judicial oversight.
The case on forcing asylum seekers to stay in Mexico: required the Biden administration to enter into an agreement with Mexico on asylum seekers, despite the fact that the Court has no jurisdiction or way to enforce Mexico’s participation. In addition, for the Court to direct the foreign policy of the U.S. is completely unprecedented and does violence to the separation of powers in the Constitution.
The termination of the eviction moratorium case: overturned a CDC-driven executive order that will impact the housing and health of millions of people in the face of a pandemic.

In these three cases, and in numerous others, the Supreme Court has issued rulings with significant effects based on procedural matters without the normal full briefing and arguments, which would provide them vital information needed to make an appropriately considered decision. This seems to be the Court’s new strategy for deciding major cases – ruling on procedural motions without hearing the merits of the cases. These rulings are typically unsigned, which is also unusual. Even Chief Justice Roberts, normally part of the radical, reactionary cabal, criticized the rush to judgement in the Texas case without consideration of the merits of the case, writing in his dissenting opinion, “We are at this point asked to resolve these novel questions … in the course of two days, without the benefit of consideration by the District Court or Court of Appeals. We are also asked to do so without ordinary merits briefing and without oral argument.” [1]

The lack of hearings also avoids a public airing of the issues, arguments, facts, and implications of a case and the Court’s decision. This and the fact that a number of the rulings have been issued outside of normal business hours seem to indicate a desire to minimize news coverage, public awareness, and public discussion of cases.

Both the substance of these rulings (and numerous others) and the Court’s failure to hold hearings make it appear that these decisions are based on ideology and politics, not legal precedents, the law, or the merits of the cases. As Robert Hubbell, a retired lawyer writes: “the Supreme Court has dropped all pretense of due process or respect for precedent … to implement the conservative social agenda … without regard to logic, precedent, or the Constitution.” [2]

Another indication that these decisions are partisan is that the Court had no problem with President Trump’s dramatic and sweeping executive orders but finds President Biden’s less dramatic orders unconstitutional. In the Mexico asylees case, the Court ordered Biden to reinstate an agreement with Mexico that had expired in 2020 before Biden was elected. However, the Court didn’t order Trump to reinstate it. [3] The six radical, reactionary justices appear to be acting aggressively to exert their power in support of a partisan, ideological agenda.

All six of these justices, unless I’m much mistaken, pledged at their confirmation hearings to abide by legal precedents, including previous Supreme Court decisions such as the Roe v. Wade decision, which made it a constitutional right to be able to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability at about 22 – 24 weeks of pregnancy. It now seems clear that they all lied, meaning they committed perjury given that they were testifying under oath.

In a future post, I’ll review the implications of the radical Texas pregnancy termination law and the Supreme Court’s failure to delay its implementation to allow time for judicial review. I’ll also discuss ways to respond to the Court’s radical, reactionary behavior.

[1] Hubbell, R., 9/3/21, “Today’s Edition: A judicial coup d’état,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-a-judicial-coup-detat)

[2] Hubbell, R., 9/2/21, “Today’s Edition: Susan Collins should resign in disgrace,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-susan-collins-should)

[3] Hubbell, R., 8/27/21, “Today’s Edition: The backbone of America,” (https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/todays-edition-the-backbone-of-america)

HOW THE GOVERNMENT CAN SUPPORT THE ECONOMY AND WORKERS

Effective governments are critical components of our societal infrastructure. They are needed to combat public health threats such as the coronavirus, to keep people safe, and to provide a safety net for workers and families in economic hard times, among other things. Government programs and actions can provide important supports for our economy and its workers. Economic growth and workers’ pay and employment are inextricably linked as consumer spending, i.e., workers spending their pay, is what drives our economy, representing about two-thirds of all economic activity.

My previous two posts (here and here) focused on efforts to undermine and weaken government. They outlined negative effects of weak government infrastructure and of privatization of public sector work. This post highlights the benefits of government action.

The “Biden Plan,” as the President calls it, uses aggressive federal government action to combat the coronavirus and to stimulate the economy. The first piece of it was an aggressive effort to get people vaccinated along with other steps to reduce the impact of Covid on people’s health. The second major piece, the American Rescue Plan (ARP), was passed in March 2021 and provides $1.9 trillion to combat the pandemic and its harmful effects on workers, businesses, and the economy. It strengthens our healthcare system; provides funding for schools, housing, small businesses, and local governments; and supports low- and middle-income workers by extending unemployment benefits and providing monthly support checks for families with children.

Given the popularity of the American Rescue Plan (75% of voters like it) and support from local and state governments (including a number of Republican governors), it wouldn’t seem to be a partisan issue, but every Republican member of Congress voted against it. Every President, Democrat or Republican, from WWII to 1980 used government actions to support the economy and workers, and to ensure that the rising tide did indeed lift all boats somewhat equitably. [1]

However, since 1980, Republican ideology has opposed such government action, taking the position that government action is unnecessary because the private sector, stimulated by tax cuts, will meet society’s needs even in the face of crises and economic recessions. This ideology claims that cutting taxes, particularly for wealthy individuals and corporations, will stimulate the economy, generate growth that will more than make up for the revenue lost due to the tax cuts, and that benefits will “trickle down” to workers.

Republican Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump all cut taxes and in every case the economy did NOT boom, tax revenue did NOT grow, and workers did NOT benefit, but the deficit DID grow substantially. Republicans’ concern about the federal government’s deficit seems to only apply to Democratic initiatives. Moreover, Republican President George H. W. Bush promised not to raise taxes when he ran in 1988, but when the previous Reagan tax cuts led to dramatic growth of the deficit, Bush raised taxes to reduce the deficit – for which he was basically disowned by the Republican Party.

According to Republicans, the American Rescue Plan and any government actions like it will (supposedly) kill economic growth and job creation, leading to high unemployment and growing deficits.

However, recent economic data show that Republican predictions have NOT come true. Rather, the data show growth in the number of jobs, falling unemployment, increased pay for workers, a growing economy, and a falling deficit. This provides solid validation for the government actions President Biden and Democrats in Congress have taken in response to the pandemic and its negative effects on workers and the economy. By the way, economic and job growth also occurred after Democratic President Clinton raised taxes. Moreover, the resultant increase in revenue and economic growth made the deficit disappear! Both the current experience and that under President Clinton clearly debunk Republican fear mongering about tax increases, a strong safety net, and government intervention in the economy.

Perhaps convinced by these data, 19 Republicans in the U.S. Senate (out of 50) along with all 50 Democrats voted for a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will make major government investments in roads, bridges, railroads, mass transit, water systems, pollution clean-up, and high-speed Internet access among other things. This spending over the next ten years is projected to create 3 million jobs.

However, Republicans are still unified in opposition to an additional $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill that would address climate change and more directly support workers and their families through funding for education, health care, housing, paid family leave, elder care, early education and child care, and making the temporary child tax credit of the ARP permanent. This last provision alone is projected to cut child poverty in half – disproportionately benefiting children of color – and would keep families with children from slipping back into poverty if the temporary ARP child tax credit were allowed to expire. The climate change investments in clean energy and reduction of carbon emissions are likely to save trillions of dollars in damages and mitigation measures that would occur if climate change continues unabated.

In response to Republicans’ concerns about the costs for the infrastructure bills, Treasury Secretary and former Chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen said: “My largest concern is not: What are the risks if we make these big investments? It is: What is the cost if we don’t?” [2]

I encourage you to let your U.S. Representative and Senators, along with President Biden, know that you support government investments in our infrastructure to support a strong economy, and workers and their families as well.

You can email President Biden via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Richardson, H. C., 8/10/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-10-2021)

[2] Richardson, H. C., 8/10/21, see above

WE NEED SOLID GOVERNMENT INFRASTRUCTURE Part 2

Governments are critical components of our societal infrastructure. Effective governments are needed to deliver the services, supports, and public amenities that Americans want and need. For 40 years, small government advocates – led by Republicans but with the acquiescence or assistance of many Democrats – have successfully shrunk and weakened government infrastructure and capacity. (My previous post focused on the targeting of public employees.)

One reason for the attacks on government infrastructure has been to privatize government functions so the private sector can make profits by performing work previously done by public employees. This has always been justified by the claim that the private sector will do things more efficiently and save taxpayers money. However, numerous real-life experiences have shown that this is often not the case.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the nation’s tax collector, is a classic example of the harm that results from privatizing and weakening public infrastructure. In 2004, President G. W. Bush privatized the efforts to collect hundreds of billions of dollars owed to the IRS, claiming the private sector would do a better job. The private collectors brought in $86 million from the easy to win cases. The IRS then brought the work back in-house and its agents collected about $140 million in just a few months from more difficult cases that the private collectors had skipped over. This experience demonstrated that privatizing the collection of owed taxes was inefficient and a waste of money. [1]

Nonetheless, the Republicans persisted in slashing the budget, staff, and enforcement capacity of the IRS. From 2010 to 2018, the Republicans slashed the IRS’s budget by 20% and its staff by 22%. The number of audits of taxpayers with over $1 million in income dropped by 72% and money collected from audits dropped by 40%. Now, President Biden is proposing increasing funding for the IRS and its enforcement activities, which will more than pay for itself in increased tax collections. (See my previous post on the IRS for more details.)

Other examples of privatization that have been problematic include:

Privatized prisons and detention centers are less safe, less secure, and more costly than government-run facilities. (See my previous posts on this here and here.)
Disaster response to hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico was privatized by the Federal Emergency Management Administration because of insufficient staff. The results were substantial delays in the delivery of critical supplies, cost overruns of $179 million, and another $50 million in questionable costs.
Paying bills, monitoring quality of care, and transmission of funds to states for Medicaid and Medicare have been privatized leading to a labyrinthian maze that is challenging to navigate when problems or questions arise.
Housing for refugees arriving at the Mexican border has been privatized resulting in an unresponsive amalgamation of contractor-run shelters.

With privatized services, quality problems and cost overruns are frequent, but it’s the government that gets blamed. A classic example is the problem with the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) website rollout. The problems stemmed from the 62 contracts with private firms that were hired to build the website. The government’s failing, beyond perhaps the decision to privatize this work, was that it didn’t have the capacity to effectively manage this complex set of private contractors.

Good management and oversight of contractors requires time and skill, which costs money. Privatization deals rarely provide for this because the focus is on cutting costs. So, the government can end up with private contractors managing other contractors. Contractors also end up writing policies – that sometimes benefit themselves. Private employees under long-term contracts end up sitting in the same offices and doing the same work as government employees, often at significantly greater cost. Members of the public dealing with the government have no idea whether they are interacting with a government employee or a contractor, but if things don’t go well the government gets the blame.

The number and complexity of privatization arrangements and a lack of transparency about some of them (often very intentional) mean that the number of private, contracted personnel and their cost to taxpayers are impossible to accurately aggregate. The effectiveness and efficiency of their performance is also often impossible to determine.

Reversing the trend toward privatization will be difficult for multiple reasons, but partly because companies with federal contracts are active lobbyists and campaign contributors. A 2011 study found that of the 41 companies making the most in campaign contributions over the previous 20 years, 33 had federal contracts.

I encourage you to let your elected officials at all levels, particularly the federal and state levels, know that you support strong government infrastructure as an essential component of a well-functioning society. We need President Biden and Members of Congress to support the rebuilding of government infrastructure and capacity, and to oppose privatization of core government responsibilities. The importance of this has become particularly evident during the pandemic, when the capacity of government public health agencies was essential to keeping people safe, through everything from economic assistance to eviction moratoriums to the distribution of vaccines and personal protective equipment. As Bob Kutner wrote in a recent blog from The American Prospect, “Face it, the only way to keep relatively safe is to elect people to run the government who believe in the government, and who operate it competently and relatively free of corruption.” [2] In other words, the only way to have the effective government that we need is to have solid, well-run government infrastructure.

You can email President Biden via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Kettl, D. F., & Glastris, P., 7/1/21, “Memo to AOC: Only you can save the government,” Washington Monthly (https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2021/memo-to-aoc-only-you-can-fix-the-federal-government/) This blog post is primarily a summary of this article.

[2] Kuttner, R., 7/2/21, “The Condo, the Inspector, the Market, and the Government,” Today on The American Prospect blog (http://americanprospect.activehosted.com/index.php?action=social&chash=61b4a64be663682e8cb037d9719ad8cd.839&s=6009966078bda0f5056f960a346ead8a)

WE NEED STRONG GOVERNMENT INFRASTRUCTURE

Governments are critical components of our societal infrastructure. Effective governments are needed to deliver the services, supports, and public amenities that Americans want and need. As I noted in my last post, an important reason that massive unemployment insurance fraud occurred during the pandemic was that government infrastructure wasn’t up to the task of effectively administering expanded benefits. State computer systems and personnel didn’t have the capacity to accurately enroll and pay the wave of new beneficiaries. And law enforcement lacked the capacity to identify and punish fraudulent applicants.

For 40 years, small government advocates – mostly Republicans but with the acquiescence or assistance of many Democrats – have successfully pushed to shrink government infrastructure and capacity. President Reagan (a Republican) asserted in 1980 that government was the problem and not the solution – a claim that went unanswered by Democrats. This marked the beginning of a concerted effort by Republicans to downsize the federal government – except for the Defense Department – in terms of number of personnel, regulatory capacity and responsibility, provision of a safety net, emergency response and public health capacity, scientific and policy analysis expertise and data, etc. President Clinton (a Democrat) in 1992 declared the end of the era of big government and of welfare as we’d known it – supporting and furthering the weakening of government infrastructure.

One component of this attack on government infrastructure has targeted public employees, both to reduce their numbers and to denigrate them. One reason for this has been to discredit government by claiming that its employees are inefficient, incompetent, and overpaid. Another reason has been to undermine unions, which today are strongest in the public sector given the very successful efforts by corporatists and oligarchs to undermine private sector unions. (The percentage of private sector workers represented by a union has fallen to 20% of what it was 60 years ago – from over 30% to under 7%.)

Federal civilian employment is a little over 2 million, roughly the same as it was in 1966, despite a quintupling of federal spending and a population that has grown by 68%. The government has added agencies in that time such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy. In these new agencies and others, the government’s roles and responsibilities have grown and have also become much more complex. Nonetheless, the number of federal employees has not grown to meet these needs. Moreover, under the Trump administration, employment at the Department of Labor declined 11%, 9% at the State Department, and 8% at the Education Department, although their workloads were not declining. Scientists were a particular target of the Trump administration. For example, the Agriculture Department had 50% of its research jobs vacant under Trump. [1]

To maintain the services that Americans want and the functions government must perform (such as tax collection) with a limited number of federal employees has required a dramatic increase in the number of consultants and contractors working for the government. This has become big business for many companies including some of the well-known consulting companies such as McKinsey and Booz Allen. Booz Allen now gets 96% of its revenue from federal government contracts.

There are now over twice as many private contractors working for the federal government as there are employees. The Government Accountability Office has warned for years that the extensive use of contractors was eroding the government’s ability to govern, including the making of important policy decisions. President Obama worked diligently to reduce the number of contractors, having noted that they are “often unaccountable and often less efficient than government workers.” His administration succeeded in reducing the ratio of contractors to employees from 3.38 to 2.34. Trump reversed this trend and the contractor workforce grew by about 1.4 million people in his four years as President.

A 2010 study by the Project on Government Oversight examined 35 government job categories and found that for 33 of them government employees were less expensive than private contractors even when federal fringe benefits were included. For one job category, contractors were almost five times more expensive.

As a result of the weakening of the federal government’s infrastructure and the extensive use of privatization and contractors, the rate of highly visible failures of government services as risen from 1.6 per year in the 1980s to 4.3 during the Trump administration.

My next post will more closely examine the privatization of government functions and its effects.

Note: In addition to personnel, computer systems are another essential component of government infrastructure. Many government computer systems, at the federal and state levels, are out-of-date, if not antiquated, due to a lack of investment over the last 40 years. As a result, many government computer systems can barely perform essential functions, are difficult to update, and are unable to share data with other systems. This is a story for another day and another post or two.

HOW THE RICH GET RICHER #4

The inability of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to enforce tax laws has resulted in a high level of tax evasion by wealthy individuals and corporations. Some experts estimate that as much as $1 billion a year in taxes owed are not paid.

As the country’s tax collector and tax enforcer, the IRS has never been a popular agency among the public or politicians. However, the importance of the IRS’s work in enforcing tax laws, maintaining a fair and functional tax system, and collecting the revenue the government needs to operate had been broadly respected.

This changed when Republicans gained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Newt Gingrich became the House leader in 1994. Republicans began vilifying the IRS and using “abolish the IRS” as a sound bite. Republican presidential candidates, including Sen. Lugar in 1996 and Sen. Cruz in 2016, made abolishing the IRS a central policy proposal. In 1998, Republicans introduced a bill in Congress to repeal the Internal Revenue Code (the country’s tax laws) and abolish the IRS. [1]

The Republicans have held congressional hearings on alleged abuses by the IRS. Despite the fact that in most cases investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others have debunked the alleged abuses, the IRS’s reputation has been seriously undermined. This gave Republicans cover for passing laws weakening the IRS and its tax enforcement.

Beginning in 2010, Republicans in Congress undertook a multi-year initiative to cut the IRS’s budget and enforcement capacity. Since 2010 when its budget peaked at $14 billion, the IRS’s budget has been cut by about 20% (adjusted for inflation). Its staff has been cut by nearly one-quarter to 76,000 full-time employees and the number doing enforcement has fallen from 23,500 to 6,500, a 72% reduction. [2] It has the fewest auditors it has had since the 1940s and it has the oldest computer technology in the federal government.

The IRS recently announced a backlog of 35 million unprocessed tax returns, three times the number from a year ago and four times what it was in 2019. This means taxpayers have to wait longer for their refunds, payments from the Earned Income Tax Credit to low-income families will be delayed, and some transactions, like mortgage approvals, that require current income tax documentation will be delayed. It also revealed that only 3% of the calls to its most popular, toll-free hotline reach a real person. Despite its challenges, it has processed 137 million individual tax returns and sent refunds of more than $281 billion.

Tax obligations expire (i.e., become uncollectible) after ten years if the IRS doesn’t pursue them. In 2017, $8.3 billion of tax obligations expired, up from $482 million in 2010 (a 17-fold increase). Investigations of people who didn’t file a tax return have fallen from 2.4 million in 2011 to 362,000 in 2018 (down 85%). Similarly, collections from people who file but don’t pay have dropped dramatically. In 2017, the IRS conducted 675,000 fewer audits than in 2010, a 42% drop in the audit rate. The audit rate has dropped roughly 70% on those with incomes over $200,000 and but only about 40% for those with incomes under $200,000. This is a key contributor to increased tax evasion by the wealthy.

The impact of the IRS’s budget cuts has been exacerbated by substantial new responsibilities that it has been given under the Affordable Care Act and the response to the pandemic. In responding to the pandemic, the IRS has been tasked with distributing three rounds of relief payments, implementing changed rules on unemployment benefits and tax credits, and, most recently, sending out monthly checks to most families with children. With a significantly reduced budget and staff, it has been expected to do all of these things while trying to maintain its core business of processing tax returns. [3]

President Biden has proposed increasing the budget of the IRS by $40 billion over ten years to reduce tax evasion and generate revenue to help pay for infrastructure investments. He estimates that this increased IRS funding would raise government revenue by $140 billion over those ten years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates added revenue of $103 billion and others have other estimates, but everyone agrees that increased enforcement would generate significant revenue. It would also make our tax system fairer by reducing tax evasion, which is largely done by wealthy individuals and corporations. However, it might well take five years to make the upgrades to the IRS’s computer systems and to hire and train the new staff needed to achieve these results.

Initially, the Republicans who were part of the bipartisan group of 21 Senators working on the infrastructure investment bill endorsed the increased funding for the IRS, but now they are backing away from it after hearing opposition from some of their wealthy backers.

Support for increased funding for the IRS has come from five former Secretaries of the Treasury, from both Republican and Democratic administrations. They state that increased funding for the IRS would “raise significant revenue and create a fairer, more efficient” tax system. [4]

The IRS and our income tax system depend, in large part, on the voluntary compliance and honesty of taxpayers. If taxpayers’ come to believe that the tax system is not fairly administered, voluntary and honest tax compliance is likely to decline. This could have dire implications for government revenue and for the IRS’s ability to do its job. It is important that the public believe that people pay the taxes the law says they owe. This encourages compliance with tax laws even if the overall perception is that the wealthy are not paying their fair share under our current tax laws. Then, the focus can be on making our tax laws fairer.

I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and to ask them to support additional funding for the IRS so it can effectively enforce our tax laws. You can find contact information for your U.S. Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Please also contact President Biden and thank him for proposing increased funding for the IRS because this will mean it can more effectively implement our tax laws. You can email President Biden via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Kiel, P., & Eisinger, J., 12/11/18, “How the IRS was gutted,” ProPublica and The Atlantic (https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted)

[2] Puzzanghera, J., 7/5/21, “Aggressive IRS could help with roads bill,” The Boston Globe

[3] Stein, J., 6/30/21, “IRS faces 35 million unprocessed tax returns as backlog swells, watchdog says,” The Washington Post

[4] Puzzanghera, J., 7/5/21, see above

TODAY’S VOTER SUPPRESSION IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

The efforts of states to suppress voting of Blacks (and other targeted groups that tend to vote for Democrats) are an historical repeat of what happened after the Civil War. These and other efforts that assert states’ power to restrict individuals’ rights are confronting the 14^th Amendments’ provisions (from 1868) that give the federal government the power to protect individuals’ rights in the face of state efforts to deny them. Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s daily blog puts these current events in the perspective of our history, which is a very valuable insight to have.

The Declaration of Independence, when it stated “that all men are created equal,” meant white men. Nonetheless, this was a radical concept at the time – that no man’s birthright made him better than any other man. The Civil War was fought, in effect, to maintain a system that elevated America’s white men above African Americans, Native Americans, other men of color, and even Irishmen. As in the mid-1800s, we are now facing efforts that reject the principle of the equality of all human beings and seek to recast America as a country where certain people are better than others. These efforts are being led by white men for the most part, and are empowered by a relatively small group of wealthy white men (and a few women). [1]

In 1865, the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned slavery in an important step toward equality. However, this did not stop white men in the South from working to establish systems that continued to make African Americans unequal and subservient to whites. These white men worked to deny African Americans the right to vote, to testify in court, and to sit on a jury. The infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision furthered this effort by denying citizenship to African Americans. The contorted opinion for the 7 to 2 decision was poorly reasoned and written by Chief Justice Roger Taney. These steps to institutionalize inequality occurred despite the fact that the 1870 Census would count African Americans as whole persons for the first time. Ironically, this would give the southern states more representation and power in Congress and in the Electoral College. [2]

To counter efforts to keep African Americans subservient, in July 1868, the 14^th Amendment was passed, declaring that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It guaranteed all citizens due process and equal protection under the law. To counter white southern men’s and the Dred Scott case’s assertion of states’ rights to write laws that determined who could vote, among other things, the 14^th Amendment gave the federal government the power to protect individuals’ rights when state legislatures passed laws that were discriminatory and infringed on those rights.

Nonetheless, two months later in September 1868, the Georgia legislature voted to expel the 33 newly elected African American state legislators. In 1870, with African American voting reduced by the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, African Americans were not elected. Similar events took place in other southern states. [3]

In response, the federal Department of Justice was created in 1870 with a primary mission of stopping the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and its suppression of the rights and voting of African Americans. The KKK was a domestic terrorist group then as it is today.

In February 2021, Black legislators in Georgia opposed proposed voting restrictions noting that they reminded them of the 1870s when Jim Crow laws and lynching were used to deter African Americans from voting. Nonetheless, Georgia legislators passed the voting restrictions. Although the means have changed, they are still presented as supposedly race-blind restrictions. However, the fact that white men (for the most part) are rewriting the rules of our democracy to protect white power is unchanged. Similar actions are taking place in other states, not all of which are in the South.

There are striking similarities between the voting suppression efforts of the late 1800s and what’s happening today. For example, in 1890, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill empowering the federal government to oversee voter registration, voting, and ballot counting in the South. Then, Senate Democrats blocked its passage by staging the first of many southern-led filibusters that killed civil rights legislation.

The civil rights laws and court decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are based on the 14^th Amendment giving the federal government the power to protect individuals’ rights. For example, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed public school segregation and separate but supposedly equal treatment of Blacks, and the Loving vs. Virginia decision legalizing inter-racial marriage, were possible because of the 14^th Amendment.

Opponents of civil rights laws and decisions revived the post-Civil War states’ rights arguments in the 1960s and 1970s. They began advocating for “originalism” in interpreting the Constitution when making court decisions. “Originalism” asserts that the Constitution should be interpreted as its writers envisioned it at the time they wrote it and that this would mean much stronger state governments and a weaker federal government, including in the establishment and enforcement of individuals’ rights.

In 1987, President Reagan nominated an “originalist,” Robert Bork, to become a Supreme Court Justice. He was rejected on a bipartisan basis. Bork had advocated for a rollback of Supreme Court civil rights decisions and of federal protections of individuals’ rights under the 14^th Amendment. As Senator Ted Kennedy pointed out, rolling back such protections would not only raise the specter of re-segregation, but also the reduction of women’s rights to reproductive health services, citizens’ protections from rogue police officers, the teaching of evolution in schools, protection from censorship, and other individual rights.

Nonetheless, today’s Supreme Court is dominated by “originalists” and the individual rights protections of the 14^th Amendment for voting, women’s and LGBTQ people’s health services, and the teaching of factual material, for example, are again being challenged by state governments, led mostly by white men.

On July 1, 2021, by a 6 to 3 vote, the Supreme Court decided that the state of Arizona did not violate the 1965 Voting Rights Act or the 14^th or 15^th Amendments with voting restrictions that disproportionately affect non-white racial or ethnic groups. President Biden stated that this “decision by the Supreme Court undercuts voting rights in this country and makes it all the more crucial to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and expand voting protections. … Our democracy depends on it.” [4] However, to pass these bills, which have already passed in the House, the Senate will have to either eliminate or limit the use of the filibuster to block them. The Republicans have made it clear that they have no intention of providing any support for these bills.

I urge you to contact your U.S. Senators and ask them to support the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and to support eliminating or limiting the filibuster as the only way to pass these bills. The protections for voting rights in these bills are critically important to our democracy. You can find contact information for your U.S. Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Please also contact President Biden and ask him to support eliminating or limiting the filibuster as the only way to pass these bills that he’s said our democracy depends on. You can email President Biden via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments or you can call the White House comment line at 202-456-1111 or the switchboard at 202-456-1414.

[1] Cox Richardson, H., 7/3/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-3-2020-bad)

[2] Cox Richardson, H., 7/9/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-9-2021)

[3] Berman, A., 6/2/21, “Jim Crow killed voting rights for generations. Now the GOP is repeating history,” Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/jim-crow-killed-voting-rights-for-generations-now-the-gop-is-repeating-history/)

[4] Cox Richardson, H., 7/1/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-1-2021)

OPPOSITION TO “SOCIALISM” IS A DOG WHISTLE FOR RACISM

As I imagine you’ve heard, Republicans are attacking President Biden’s and Democrats’ policy proposals as “socialism.” I thought, naively, that Republicans were just trying foster opposition based on Cold War fears by conflating socialism with communism and identifying it as the existential threat to American democracy.

Heather Cox Richardson, with her historical perspective, has opened my eyes to the fact that the opposition to “socialism” has deeper roots in our history and is a dog whistle for racism. (If this use of the term dog whistle is new to you, please see this footnote. [1])

First, socialism is formally defined as an economic and political system where workers own the means of production (e.g., factories, farms, and organizations that provide services as well as the raw materials, machines, tools, and physical facilities used in producing goods and services). This is NOT, by any stretch of the truth, what Biden and Democrats are proposing. Socialism recognizes workers as the essential input to the economy and, therefore, posits that they should own the means of production and be the beneficiaries of the fruits of the economy.

Social democracy, on the other hand, is a political and economic system where a democratic government manages and regulates capitalism (i.e., private ownership of the means of production) to ensure social and economic justice. In our democracy, the government’s commitment to social and economic justice for all is stated in our founding documents – that all people are created equal, that all people should be guaranteed life, liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness, and that all people have the rights delineated in the Bill of Rights.

The explicit recognition that equal opportunity and true freedom require economic security was stated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his proposal for an economic bill of rights [2] and by Senator Bernie Sanders in his statements on what democratic socialism means to him (although technically speaking, he was describing social democracy and not democratic socialism). [3] [4] (See this footnote for a definition of democratic socialism and communism. [5])

Currently, Republicans are using “socialism” as a dog whistle to mean the use of government resources to promote racial equity and justice. Their dog whistle definition of “socialism” is the use of taxes paid by hardworking white men (and women) to benefit lazy people of color who are happy to live on government benefits. Today’s Republicans claim this “socialism” will undermine American democracy and freedom. The dog whistle is that these policies will undermine the “freedom” and privilege of white people.

This use of “socialism” goes back to 1871 when southern Democrats claimed they opposed voting by Blacks, not due to racism, but because Black voters would elect policy makers who would promote “socialism,” i.e., taxing white property owners to pay for roads, schools, and hospitals that would benefit Blacks. [6] They argued that Black voting would lead to “socialism” that would destroy America (namely the America of white supremacy). [7] [8]

After the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which found racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, the use of government resources to enforce desegregation and civil rights was attacked as “socialism” because the costs of implementing desegregation and civil rights (for “undeserving” Black people) would be paid for by taxes on hardworking white men (and women). In 1958, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater accused his own party’s President Eisenhower of succumbing to “the siren song of socialism” for his use of government resources (troops) to enforce desegregation of Little Rock, Arkansas, High School. The irony was that the Goldwater family had made its money from government funding for dam construction in Arizona. [9]

Republican attacks on government, on a public safety net, and on beneficiaries of public assistance (inaccurately stereotyped as people of color) took on new strength and significance with the election of President Reagan in 1980. Remember Reagan’s attack on the mythical “welfare queen” with her Cadillac and mink coat? The attacks on “socialism” as a dog whistle for racism have only escalated since then.

Today, Republicans are vigorously charging that President Biden and Democrats are working to bring “socialism” to America. They claim that a no-holds-barred fight is necessary to save American from “socialism.” They are even willing to dispense with a commitment to democracy to “save” America. This disregard for democracy dates to at least 1980 when Republican strategist Paul Weyrich stated, “I don’t want everybody to vote …our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” That’s why Republicans have been and are actively engaged in voter suppression efforts. (Weyrich was a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, which today is deeply involved in promoting state voting suppression laws and with the “audit” of voting in Arizona and elsewhere.) In October 2020, Utah Senator Mike Lee tweeted, “Democracy is not the objective … liberty, peace, and prosperity are. … democracy can thwart that.” [10]

Republicans are claiming today, as white southern Democrats did after the Civil War, that keeping “socialism” from coming to America requires keeping Black and other likely Democratic voters from voting; democracy, our Constitution, and our founding principles (which make America exceptional) be damned. The racism of the post-Civil War white Democrats’ attacks on “socialism” was made clear by the brutal Jim Crow laws they implemented to keep Blacks in their place and to prevent them from voting.

The implications of today’s Republicans’ claims of needing to prevent “socialism” in America aren’t completely clear, but civil rights, police reform, and social and economic justice are definitely targets. However, the racism behind their attacks on “socialism” is clear and these attacks should no longer be a dog whistle; every American should hear the racism in their attacks on “socialism” loudly and clearly.

[1] The term dog whistle here is a political adaptation of the fact that a dog whistle can’t be heard by humans but can be heard by dogs. In politics, it refers to language that will be heard as supporting white privilege and supremacy by those people attuned to such sentiments, but won’t be heard by many other people as being racist and where the politician opposing “socialism” – or using other dog whistles – can deny racist intent.

[2] President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1/11/44, “The economic bill of rights,” retrieved from the Internet 5/22/21 at https://www.ushistory.org/documents/economic_bill_of_rights.htm

[3] Senator Bernie Sanders, 11/19/15, “Senator Sanders on Democratic Socialism and Defeating ISIS,” retrieved from the Internet 5/22/21 at https://www.c-span.org/video/?400961-1/senator-bernie-sanders-address-democratic-socialism (Sanders begins speaking at 8 mins., defines socialism at 12 mins., and presents his and FDR’s vision at 30 mins. into this 1 hr. 40 min. video)

[4] Golshan, T., 6/12/19, “Bernie Sanders defines his vision for democratic socialism in the United States,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/2019/6/12/18663217/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism-speech-transcript)

[5] Democratic socialism is socialism where both the economy and society are governed democratically, with decision making by citizens with a focus on economic and social justice. Democratic socialism is not compatible with capitalism, which is based on private ownership of the means of production and, therefore, where the benefits, economic and also social and political power, flow to the owners of capital, i.e., the owners of physical and monetary assets.

Communism is formally defined as an economic and political system where the workers own the means of production and that is dedicated to equality for all, implemented through an authoritarian government. The main difference between communism and socialism is that socialism is compatible with democracy and liberty, while communism requires authoritarianism and denies basic individual liberties.

[6] Cox Richardson, H., 4/19/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-19-2021)

[7] Cox Richardson, H., 5/14/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2021)

[8] Cox Richardson, H., 1/16/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-16-2021

[9] Cox Richardson, H., 4/19/21, see above

[10] Cox Richardson, H., 5/14/21, see above

SABOTAGE BY HOLDOVER TRUMP APPOINTEES

Throughout his term, President Trump appointed some very political people to executive branch positions and worked to make them difficult for a successor to remove. He accelerated these efforts in his lame duck days in office after he’d lost the election. These appointments were across the whole executive branch from the Defense Department to the Justice Department, as well as in the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.

In addition, in his final days in office, Trump did everything he could to sabotage President Biden and his administration. Some of Trump’s appointees continue this work to this day. Some of them and their actions have gotten a fair amount of attention and coverage in the media, notably some actions at Defense, Justice, and the Postal Service. However, many of these appointees and their sabotage have gotten little if any attention.

For example, Andrew Saul, Trump’s 2018 appointee for Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), delayed the $1,400 American Rescue Plan pandemic checks to 30 million of the country’s poorest and neediest people. Saul refused to send information on recipients of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to the IRS so checks could be sent to them. SSI recipients are people with disabilities or seniors with very low incomes. Two weeks after the Rescue Plan had passed, when many people had already received their $1,400 payments, Democratic Members of Congress wrote to Commissioner Saul demanding that he send the information to the IRS. He complied the next day. [1]

As another example, Commissioner Saul and his Trump appointed Deputy Commissioner David Black proposed a rule that would have required disabled SSI recipients to undergo more frequent and more stringent benefit eligibility reviews, which would have caused tens of thousands of people to lose benefits. This rule change was very similar to one enacted by the Reagan administration that led to a rash of suicides, among other harm, and was seen as so cruel that it was unanimously overturned by the Senate. In another example, Saul and Black tried to deny benefits for older and severely disabled non-English speakers that would have caused an estimated 100,000 people to lose $5 billion in benefits.

These are examples of Saul’s and Black’s consistent efforts to undermine the effective functioning of the SSA. They are emblematic of Republicans’ efforts to harm the credibility and effectiveness of government through sabotage from the inside. This makes their claims that government programs don’t work well and are a failure a self-fulling prophecy.

Saul and Black have terms that don’t expire until 2025. Many advocates for SSI recipients (and others) are calling on President Biden to fire them, but so far, he has not done so. If he does, Republicans will, of course, claim that partisanship is the reason rather than their failure to responsibly do their jobs. We’ve heard this before from Republicans and we will hear it again and again as Biden cleans house of Trump’s government saboteurs. Don’t fall for it. The politics and partisanship are on the Republican side in their work to undermine the functioning of our government.

In December, 88% of the members of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, who handle SSA disputes, voted no confidence in Saul and Black. Recently, the American Federation of Government Employees called on Biden to fire Saul and Black. It stated that they were sabotaging the SSA, undermining its mission, obstructing its operation, and asking employees to deny injured workers and veterans their rightful benefits, which would be a major ethical violation.

I urge you to contact President Biden and ask him to fire Commissioner Saul and Deputy Commissioner Black from the Social Security Administration. Tell him you support firing all the Trump appointees who are sabotaging the valuable work our government does. Contact President Biden at the White House at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.

[1] Sammon, A., 3/26/21, “Trump appointees are sabotaging Biden’s stimulus checks,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/trump-appointees-sabotaging-bidens-stimulus-checks/)

PANDEMIC RELIEF, UNITY, AND BIPARTISANSHIP

Passage of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), i.e., the pandemic relief package, is a milestone for unity because it fosters economic recovery and fairness for all Americans. Although it was a great opportunity for bipartisanship, unfortunately it has only been another milestone in the continuing, now decades-long, hyper-partisanship of Republicans.

President Biden had Republicans to the White House to try to obtain bipartisan support. He compromised by cutting unemployment benefits and reducing the number of Americans who qualified for relief payments by 17 million to address Republicans’ and conservative Democrats’ concerns about the costs of the bill and the targeting of benefits to those most in need. Nonetheless, the Republicans did everything they could to delay the bill, including demanding that the whole 628-page bill be read aloud in the Senate. And then, not one single Republican voted for it despite its overwhelming, bipartisan support for it among Americans. Roughly 75% of Americans supported the bill, including about 60% of Republicans.

Many in the media reported inaccurately that the passage of the ARP was also the death of bipartisanship because no Republican voted for it. The truth is that Republicans killed bipartisanship in the 1990s with their impeachment of President Clinton and put another nail in its coffin in 2008 with their pledge to make President Obama fail and to block every one of his legislative initiatives.

The ARP will cut the number of children living in poverty by one half. Child poverty in the U.S. is significantly higher than any other wealthy country and is incredibly harmful to children. Children in poverty in the U.S. are, of course, disproportionately children of color. The ARP will cut the overall number of Americans in poverty by 1/3. By the way, the official poverty line in the U.S. is well below any minimally realistic standard of living in many parts of the country at $26,500 for a family of four, which can be a single parent with three children.

The ARP provides a huge boost to middle-income families, increasing their after-tax incomes by an average of 5.5%, or about $2,750 for a family with a $50,000 income and $5,500 for a family with a $100,000 income.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Republicans’ calls for unity seem to have disappeared in the shadow of their blatantly partisan actions on the ARP. They have made it clear that their primary goal is obstruction of any initiative proposed by President Biden and supported by Democrats, even if it would do tremendous good for the country, its people and small businesses, as the ARP will. The Republicans will even obstruct policies that have broad bipartisan support among the public if somehow they believe that doing so will help them politically, i.e., in retaining their power and elected positions.

Perhaps not surprisingly as well, some Republicans are already trying to take credit for the benefits of the ARP, making it sound like they supported it. For example, Senator Wicker (R-MS) tweeted positively about the bill the same day that it passed, noting that it would help small businesses and restaurants, and giving the false impression that he had voted for it.

Republicans’ obstructionism has extended to President Biden’s nominees for his Cabinet and other positions. The precedent is that every President should be allowed to have whomever he wishes in his Cabinet, regardless of political differences. Unqualified and inappropriate nominees have been smoothly confirmed for President Trump and other Republican Presidents. Nonetheless, Senate Republicans have been dragging their feet and opposing some of Biden’s nominees solely for political reasons. They are even opposing nominees because of their partisan social media activity – a standard that would have disqualified a number of Trump nominees.

Looking ahead a bit, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act were recently passed by the House and would take strong steps to guarantee the right to vote for all, a key step toward unifying America. (See this previous post for more details.) These bills have the broad, bipartisan support of about 70% of Americans. However, the Republicans plan to block them in the Senate with the filibuster. Meanwhile, Republicans in many state legislatures and Governors’ offices are pushing bills that would suppress voting, particularly of people of color and those with low-incomes. (See this previous post for more details.) The House has also passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which will presumably be blocked by a filibuster by Senate Republicans. Clearly, most Republicans in Congress and those in many states across the country have no interest in bipartisanship and no interest in unifying America.

The hypocrisy of Republicans in Congress was just highlighted by their filing of a bill to repeal the estate tax. Over the next ten years, this would give $350 billion to 2,000 very wealthy people (i.e., those with estates of over $11 million for an individual or $22 million for a couple). Yet, the Republicans pushed to stop 17 million middle class Americans from receiving the $1,400 pandemic relief payments to save $24 billion (7% of the estate tax giveaway) and also to reduce weekly unemployment benefits by $100. So, Republicans support a big tax cut for some of the wealthiest people in America but oppose a little help for those in the middle class. This makes it clear that their purported concern about government spending and the deficit is hypocritical. Clearly, their calls for unity are hypocritical as well.

On a personal note, I’m dismayed to be writing so negatively about most Republicans and the Republican Party. I believe in political competition and an honest debate over policies. I grew up in New York State when Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican, was a well-respected Governor for 16 years. Up until the 1980s, I was a proud Independent voter, not registered in either party. My first significant political involvement was in 1980 when I worked hard for John Anderson for President, a Republican running as an independent against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

However, the 1980s made it clear to me that the Republicans had become wedded to an anti-government, anti-worker, anti-civil rights agenda. And their agenda has only gotten more extreme since then. In the 1990s, I became quite disillusioned with the national Democrats who adopted much of the Republican deregulation, pro-big business, pro-Wall Street agenda.

The Republican Party, for the most part, has now adopted an anti-democracy agenda that supports voter suppression, big corporations, and wealthy individuals without reservations. I hope President Biden can change the direction of the country and the Democratic national party while standing up to the radical revolutionaries of the Republican Party.

I urge you to contact the White House and let Biden know that you support his and the Democrats’ efforts to restore our democracy and its commitments to equal opportunity for all, the rule of law, and government of, by, and for ALL the people. You can contact the White House at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.

UNITY MEANS VOTING FOR ALL: FEDERAL LEGISLATION

In a democracy built on the premise that all people are created equal and a commitment to one person, one vote, the electoral goal should be a guaranteed right to vote (which does not currently exist) and 100% voter participation. Work toward these goals would be a strong unifying force. Unfortunately, there are many Republicans who are working to restrict voting in ways that give them an electoral advantage. As my previous post documented, the good news is that at least 37 states are considering over 540 bills to expand or ease access to voting. This is almost three times as many such bills as had been introduced a year ago. The bad news is that 33 states are considering 165 bills that would restrict access to voting. This is almost five times as many such bills as were under consideration a year ago. [1]

There’s more good news at the federal level where there are two important pieces of legislation that will protect and support every citizen’s right to vote: [2]

For the People Act (H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate) which addresses many issues related to making it easier to vote; promoting one person, one vote; controlling campaign spending; and enhancing ethical standards for public officials.
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act which focuses on eliminating racial discrimination in states’ electoral systems and addresses election oversight shortcomings that the Supreme Court created when it gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

The For the People Act was passed by the House in 2019 but ignored by Senate Republicans led by Senator McConnell (KY). It has been reintroduced in both the House and the Senate and would:

Improve access to voting by:
- Streamlining voter registration
- Expanding early voting and taking other steps to reduce waiting times at the polls
- Expanding and simplifying voting by mail
- Restoring voting rights to people who have completed their sentence for a felony
Promote one person, one vote, as well as voting integrity and security by:
- Ending gerrymandering of districts
- Regulating purges of voting rolls to prevent partisan voter suppression
- Providing $1 billion for upgrading the security of state voting systems, including requiring auditable paper ballots
- Increasing oversight of voting machine vendors
- Restructuring the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to strengthen its enforcement of election laws
Increase disclosure of campaign spending by:
- Requiring all organizations engaged in political activity to disclose large donors
- Requiring disclosure of spending on on-line political ads
- Eliminating the funneling of campaign spending through multiple entities in order to prevent donor identification
Enhance the value of small campaign donations and limit the influence of wealthy donors by:
- Creating a 6 to 1 match for small donations to candidates who opt into a system that matches small donations with public funds (Note: This is a critically important strategy that is working in New York City and elsewhere to enlarge and diversify the pool of candidates who run, engage and amplify the voices of regular people, and limit the influence of wealthy donors. [3])
- Raising the funds to match small donations through a surcharge on fines corporations pay for illegal activity and on tax cheating by the wealthy
- Dramatically lowering the maximum campaign contribution limit for candidates who opt into the matching system
Enhance ethics laws governing public officials and strengthen their enforcement by:
- Requiring Presidents to disclose their tax returns
- Strengthening conflict of interest and financial divestment standards for public officials
- Slowing the revolving door between related private and public sector jobs
- Prohibiting Members of Congress from serving on corporate boards
- Strengthening the Office of Government Ethics and its enforcement powers
- Closing loopholes in the regulations governing lobbyists and foreign agents
- Creating a code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is designed to respond to the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, fixing what the Court said made the law unconstitutional. The implementation of voting restrictions accelerated sharply immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision, with Republicans using them to target non-white and other voters who tend to vote for Democrats. The bill would also address other issues related to racial discrimination in voting systems. This bill was passed by the House in 2019 but was ignored by Senate Republicans led by Senator McConnell (KY). It has been reintroduced in both the House and the Senate and would:

Establish new criteria for determining which states and political subdivisions must obtain preclearance before changing voting procedures. (Preclearance means receiving approval from the Department of Justice before making changes to voting procedures.)
- The new criteria focus on particular practices that have been problematic in the past because they restricted access to voting, often in a discriminatory way. These practices include onerous vote ID requirements and the changing of district boundaries, voting locations, early and mail-in voting opportunities, and voter registration list maintenance procedures.
- All jurisdictions (e.g., counties, cities, and towns) would be required to obtain preapproval for implementing more stringent requirements for documentation to vote (such as IDs) than those established by federal law for vote by-mail registration or than those present in state law.
Require appropriate notification to the public of changes in voting procedures.
Clarify the circumstances under which a court must immediately block changes to voting procedures that have been challenged.
Establish standards and procedures for deploying federal election observers when problems with voting access are identified, particularly a serious threat of racial discrimination.

There is strong bipartisan support for the provisions of these bills that move toward guaranteeing the right to vote and making it easy to do so, as well as protecting the integrity of our elections. It is particularly noteworthy that this level of support exists despite all the Republican attacks on many of these aspects of our voting systems, especially voting by mail. For example: [4]

86% support working to prevent foreign interference; 7% are opposed.
84% want enhanced election security; 8% are opposed.
74% support non-partisan determination of electoral districts; 11% are opposed.
68% want 15 days of early voting; 19% are opposed.
60% support same day voter registration; 29% are opposed.
59% support automatic voter registration; 29% are opposed.
58% want to vote by mail; 35% are opposed.

I encourage you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and urge them to support efforts to make it easier to vote, to encourage every citizen to vote, to end racial and partisan discrimination in states’ election systems, and to enhance the integrity and security of our elections.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1] Brennan Center for Justice, 2/8/21, “Voting laws roundup 2021,” (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2021-0)

[2] Perez, M., & Lau, T., 1/28/21, “How to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act,” The Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-to-restore-and-strengthen-voting-rights-act)

[3] Vandewalker, I., 2/4/21, “How to change incentives for both politicians and donors,” The Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-change-incentives-both-politicians-and-donors)

[4] Cox Richardson, H., 2/25/21, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/february-25-2021)

UNITY MEANS VOTING FOR ALL

In a democracy built on the promise of all people created equal and a commitment to one person, one vote, the electoral goal should be 100% voter turnout. Working toward this goal would be a strong unifying force and would provide a strong unifying message for the country. The states, which run our elections, and their election officials should work to make it easy to vote and to encourage people to register and vote.

Unfortunately, there are many Republicans who are working to restrict voting in ways that give them an electoral advantage. This is anything but unifying. A national law establishing election standards and overseeing states to ensure they live up to our democracy’s voting goals would make sense.

At the federal level, there are two pieces of legislation (which I will describe in more detail in a future post) that will protect and support every citizen’s right to vote: [1]

For the People Act (H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate) which addresses many of the election oversight issues that the Supreme Court eliminated in its 2013 decision gutting the Voting Rights Act
John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act which focuses on racial discrimination in voting.

At the state level, the very high voter turnout in 2020, partially propelled by no-excuse mail-in voting and early voting implemented as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, is a great starting point to work toward further increasing voter participation. Indeed, to-date, 37 states are considering 541 bills to expand or ease access to voting. This is almost three times as many such bills as had been introduced in 29 states at this point a year ago. [2]

However, 33 states are considering 165 bills that would restrict access to voting. This is almost five times as many such bills as were under consideration in 15 states a year ago. In general, these restrictive bills have been introduced by Republicans in Republican-dominated legislatures, particularly in states where Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, lost. These efforts are not the way to unify America. [3]

The 541 bills to expand or ease access to voting have been introduced in a wide variety of states, from New York (87 bills) and New Jersey (38 bills) to Texas (67 bills), Mississippi (38 bills) and Missouri (26 bills). These bills primarily focus on:

Making it easy to vote by mail. Eleven states will consider bills allowing all voters to vote by mail without requiring a reason or “excuse” for needing an absentee ballot. Twelve states have bills that would give voters the opportunity to correct technical mistakes on their mailed-in ballots. Twelve states have bills that would allow or require drop boxes for returning mail ballots. Nine states might extend the postmark or delivery date deadline for mailed ballots. Fourteen states will consider allowing election officials to start processing mail ballots before election day, which would speed up the counting of votes and the availability of election results.
Expanding opportunities for early voting. Eighteen states will consider allowing early voting for the first time, lengthening the early voting period, and/or increasing the number of early voting sites.
Making it easier to register to vote. Fifteen states have bills that would allow same-day registration, i.e., registering to vote on the same day that one votes. Fifteen states will consider implementing automatic voter registration, e.g., registering people to vote when they get a driver’s license or have some other interaction with a state agency. Five states will consider adding on-line voter registration.
Restoring voting rights to those with criminal convictions. Nineteen states have bills to restore voting rights to or ease voting restrictions on people with a criminal conviction.

The 165 bills that would restrict or complicate access to voting are under consideration in 33 states, with Arizona (19 bills), Pennsylvania (14 bills), Georgia (11 bills), and New Hampshire (10 bills) having the most such bills. The rationale for these requirements is almost always the supposed danger of fraud, which is non-existent for all practical purposes. However, President Trump’s unrelenting but false assertion of voter fraud and a stolen election have fed this narrative. These bills primarily focus on:

Making it harder to vote by mail. Nine states will consider eliminating no-excuse voting by mail or tightening the excuse requirement. Seven states have bills to prevent the sending of a mail ballot to a voter unless they specifically request one, while four states might prohibit sending an application for a mail ballot without a request. Six states have bills that would reduce the ability of voters to register permanently for a mail ballot. Some states will consider bills that require witnesses or notarization for mail ballots or requests for mail ballots. Some states will consider restrictions on how mail ballots can be returned, including requiring an ID, prohibiting the use of drop boxes, and even prohibiting returning them by mail. Some states have bills proposing restrictions on the counting of mail ballots based on deadlines for postmark or receipt date, or through requiring signature matching.
Imposing stricter voter identification (ID) requirements. Eighteen states will consider imposing new or more stringent voter ID requirements for in-person or mail voting.
Making it harder to register to vote. Five states have bills that would eliminate same-day registration and ten more have bills that would cut back on same-day registration. Four states have bills that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and four states have bills that would eliminate, prohibit, or suspend automatic voter registration.
Allowing more aggressive purges of registered voters. Twelve states have bills that would expand the purging of voters from the rolls of registered voters.

So, the good news is that there are more efforts in the states to expand and streamline access to voting than there are efforts to restrict voting. The bad news is that there are significant efforts to restrict voting plus there is much damage to be undone, given that Republicans have been engaged in successful efforts to restrict voting in ways that benefit them politically for at least ten years.

The efforts to and success in restricting voting accelerated after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Republicans have blocked efforts in Congress to replace parts of the Act that are clearly necessary to prevent states from engaging in targeted voting restrictions, often aimed at non-white voters (who tend to vote for Democrats).

Targeted voter suppression has been a successful strategy for the Republicans. For example, the 2018 Governor’s race in Georgia and the 2016 presidential race were almost certainly stolen by the Republicans due to the success of their voter suppression activities. The 2000 presidential race, Gore versus Bush, was also almost certainly stolen, not by the vote counting debacle, but by the permanent disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions in Florida (who are disproportionately Black and likely to vote for Democrats).

At the state level, I encourage you to contact your state officials – your Governor, State Senator, State Representative, and Secretary of State or whomever runs your state’s elections – and urge them to support efforts to make it easier to vote and to encourage every citizen to vote.

[1] Perez, M., & Lau, T., 1/28/21, “How to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act,” The Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-to-restore-and-strengthen-voting-rights-act)

[2] Brennan Center for Justice, 2/8/21, “Voting laws roundup 2021,” (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-2021-0)

[3] Wines, M., 1/31/21, “After record turnout, GOP tries to make it harder to vote,” The Boston Globe from the New York Times

POLICIES FOR UNIFYING AMERICA

Unifying America requires economic security and equal opportunity for all. If one’s choices in life (i.e., one’s liberty and freedom) are constrained by an unfair criminal justice system or unaffordable necessities of life such as food, shelter, health care, and education, the result will be anger, frustration, and divisiveness. The fear and stress of economic insecurity, especially the loss of economic security one thought one had, make people susceptible to demagoguery and manipulation.

Among the public, there is strong bipartisan support for policies that support the well-being of all Americans and of our democracy. Most Americans actually agree on the problems we face and the solutions for them, so long as politicians do not make them partisan issues. This can be seen in the strong support President Biden is getting for his executive actions and his push for a strong pandemic relief bill, which will support the general welfare, i.e., the well-being of all Americans. (See my previous post for more detail on these.) Beyond these immediate steps, there are other policies that are needed to unify Americans by moving toward the aspirations of our democracy for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

Unity requires fair and even-handed accountability based on the rule of law. Ignoring violations of the law and “moving on” without accountability is unfair and divisive because it means some people are not held to the same standard of accountability as others are. Unity is not achieved by turning a blind eye to sedition, insurrection, and domestic terrorism (see my earlier post on this topic) or to other criminal behavior. If accountability does not make clear what is unacceptable behavior in our society, lawlessness and anarchy will be the result. Pardons of criminal behavior by allies are antithetical to the rule of law and accountability.

Accountability for white collar crimes is an essential part of achieving unity. When employers’ violations of labor laws (e.g., on pay, union organizing, and safe working conditions), when insider trading and financial manipulation on Wall Street, when corporate pollution and unsafe products, when conflicts of interest and self-dealing by government officials, and so forth are not punished, our criminal justice system is unfair and will be viewed, accurately, as biased. Lax enforcement of the law for certain types of crimes or criminals creates disunity, not unity.

Unity in our democracy means allowing and encouraging every citizen to vote and giving each vote equal impact. The suppression of voting, particularly when targeted at certain groups, is antithetical to our democracy’s promise of equality for all. Voting should be easy and convenient in terms of the places and times for voting. Early voting and mail-in voting (including drop boxes for mail-in ballots) should be broadly and easily available. Efforts to restrict voting do not promote unity. Onerous identification requirements for voters are voter suppression; there is absolutely no evidence of any voter fraud, except very occasional, isolated, local incidents that ID requirements typically would not address. Gerrymandering of districts for state and federal offices reduces the impact of some voters’ votes and has no place in our democracy; it fosters divisiveness, not unity. The standard of one person, one vote, means that each vote should have as equal an impact as possible.

Unity requires acknowledgement and healing of the effects of the deep and long-standing racism in our country. Racism and white supremacy are key components of our current disunity and of the heightened focus on the Confederate flag and Confederate statues and symbols.

The failure to hold the leaders of the Confederacy accountable after the Civil War and the “moving on” that let them resume control of state and local governments in the South was devastating to African-Americans. It resulted in Jim Crow laws and a racist criminal “justice” system that subjugated the supposedly emancipated African-Americans after the Civil War. This failure to demand accountability led directly to the racism in our society today. Racism has been used politically by the Republican Party since Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968 and it exploded with Donald Trump and his presidency and takeover of the Republican Party. Our society’s racism has been aided and abetted by many Democrats and non-partisans, as well, over many years.

In the late 1700s, equal opportunity and “all men are created equal” applied only to white men with property. Over the past 230 years, the United States has slowly and fitfully moved toward its aspirational vision of equal opportunity for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, country of origin, gender and gender identity, religion, and other characteristics. But we still have a long way to go. Our democracy’s vision has been and is undermined by intolerant white men and other white people who fail to realize or accept that it requires extending rights and equality to everyone – liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for ALL. [1]

America needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission along the lines of what South Africa did to end apartheid and what Canada has done to address its treatment of its native populations. We must acknowledge the harm done and implement restorative justice for both Blacks and Native Americans. We need to act aggressively now to stop current discrimination, while pursuing a serious, in-depth examination of what has transpired and how to achieve justice.

On these issues and many others, unifying America requires that Congress, state legislators, and our political parties work together on policies that are in the public interest and support the well-being of all Americans. Obstructionism must end. It is anti-democratic and divisive. Ideas and policy proposals need to be considered based on whether they are fair and good for the general welfare, not whether they are Democratic or Republican. Decisions need to be made based on whether they move our society toward the aspirational vision of our democracy, not based on some politicizing label someone may try to attach to them or to a proposed solution.

Polling of the public can provide important guidance on what people want, but true leadership by our elected officials is also needed. There’s strong evidence from polling and elsewhere that people want:

Health care for all and reduced drug prices;
Serious actions to address climate change;
Steps to reduce gun violence;
Wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and other steps to reduce economic inequality;
An end to special interest influence on policy making through campaign spending, lobbying, and the revolving door;
Actions to increase economic security, including increasing the minimum wage and addressing housing and food insecurity;
Improvements to our education systems: affordable higher education; affordable, universal, high quality early education and child care; and equity and quality in K-12 education; and
Strong enforcement of antitrust laws to reduce the monopolistic marketplace power of large corporations as well as the undemocratic concentration of economic and political power they hold.

President Biden is taking actions that are unifying America. He is making all Americans feel like the government is doing something good for them, for the good of our country, and not just for special interests and wealthy individuals and corporations. Biden has stated repeatedly that he will work for the good of all Americans whether they voted for him or not, and that he will reach out for sincere bipartisanship. This rhetoric and these actions are essential if we want unity.

People calling for unity are being hypocritical if they aren’t committed to honestly working toward the vision of our democracy and our Constitution for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. Without such a commitment, both in action and in rhetoric, there can be no unity. Our aspirational principles and ideals are what make our democratic republic exceptional. To work toward unity and achieving our democracy’s goals, we and our elected leaders must undertake an honest search for the common good, common ground, and how to best to promote the general welfare via government of, by, and for all the people.

[1] Baptiste, N., Jan.-Feb. 2021, “Trump lost. But racism will probably win again,” Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/12/trump-lost-but-racism-will-probably-win-again/)

PRESIDENT BIDEN: STAND UP FOR A STRONG PANDEMIC RELIEF BILL

I just sent the following message to President Biden about the pandemic relief bill that he is meeting with ten Republican Senators today to negotiate. I had to break it into two pieces because of the limit on how many words you can submit in their contact form.

I urge you to contact him at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ with your thoughts about the pandemic relief bill.

President Biden,

Please stand up firmly for a strong pandemic relief bill. Americans need economic security in the face of this pandemic. Many Americans need financial assistance, including direct payments and enhanced unemployment benefits. Over 1 million workers are still applying for unemployment each week. Millions of families are facing hunger and homelessness. Many small businesses need financial assistance too. Thousands of small businesses have gone out of business and thousands more are on the verge of doing so.

Funding for the COVID vaccination program and other steps to fight the pandemic are essential and should not be short-changed. This is a matter of life and death. It is also about reducing suffering by reducing the numbers of people that get COVID. And it is essential to the recovery of the economy. If there’s an area where we should not worry about allocating more money than may eventually be needed, this is it.

Finally, state and local governments need financial assistance. They’ve seen their revenues fall dramatically and their costs increase with the pandemic. Without assistance, state and local governments have been laying off tens of thousands of workers which hurts the workers, the economy and its recovery, and the delivery of badly needed government services. Support for getting children back in schools is a critical component of this. We know from the Great Recession in 2008 how harmful cutbacks in state and local spending were.

While I support bipartisanship, please do not let the Republicans undermine support for working families, the COVID programs, small businesses, or state and local governments. Many Republicans’ concerns about the cost of the benefits and the deficit are hypocritical. Their concern about the deficit did not stop the bailout of large corporations nor the huge tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations back in 2017. If they are truly concerned about the deficit, ask them to support repealing the 2017 tax cuts.

President Biden,

Please stand up firmly for a strong pandemic relief bill. Do not let Republicans give the cold shoulder to working Americans and small businesses after they very generously – and successfully – provided financial assistance to large corporations. The financial assistance to large corporations has their stocks at record high prices and their executives and large shareholders taking in billions of dollars.

I urge you to approach the negotiations with Republicans with caution. There are multiple examples where Republicans have not negotiated in good faith. They have pushed for compromises, then pushed for more compromises, and then have failed to support the final, compromise legislation. The Affordable Care Act is a classic example of this. Their supposed negotiations on pandemic relief bills that never passed this summer were similar. They demanded poison pills, moved the goal posts, and added new demands at the last minute. Their threat that failing to meet their demands will poison the well of bipartisanship rings very hollow; their lack of bipartisanship and bad faith negotiations through the Trump presidency and the whole Obama administration poisoned the well of bipartisanship long ago.

Please do not let your commitment to bipartisanship blind you to the Republicans’ disingenuous and divisive partisan tactics over the last 12 years and beyond. Their tactics had nothing to do with unity and everything to do with dividing and conquering or delaying and killing legislation.

Unity means providing economic security and equal opportunity for all Americans. Calling for unity is hypocritical without a commitment to honestly work toward the vision of our democracy and our Constitution for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. In the face of the pandemic, Americans need you to act boldly to move toward that vision. The danger is not in doing too much, it’s in doing too little.

POLICIES FOR UNITY, i.e., FOR LIBERTY, JUSTICE, AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL

What unites all truly patriotic Americans are the promises of our democracy: liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all. These aspirational principles and ideals are what make our democratic republic exceptional. (See my previous post for more detail.) To work toward unity and achieving our democracy’s goals, we and our elected leaders must undertake an honest search for the common good, common ground, and how to best promote the general welfare via government of, by, and for all the people.

Unity requires economic security and equal opportunity for all, so one’s choices in life (i.e., one’s liberty and freedom) are not constrained by economic deprivation or unaffordable necessities of life such as food, shelter, health care, and education. Unity means equal opportunity for all, particularly for every child. This is what valuing families or “family values” should mean to all of us.

We can’t have unity when a million people a week are requesting unemployment benefits and millions are struggling to put food on the table and avoid eviction, while 660 billionaires have added $1.1 trillion (an average of $1.7 billion each) to their wealth since March.

Unity requires adherence to facts and a commitment to seeking and promoting truth. Without this, there is no common ground on which to formulate policies and make decisions. Unity requires acknowledging the results of the 2020 election and stating that they were legitimate and fair. The media must stop promoting false equivalencies – of truth with untruth and alternative “facts” (which aren’t facts, of course) – and either ignore or prominently label false narratives and statements as such. A return to the Fairness Doctrine governing broadcast media (TV and radio), which was repealed in 1987, should be considered to require those using the public airwaves (which requires a public license) to present information on issues of public importance and to do so honestly, equitably, and in a balanced manner. Similar regulation of social and cable media should also be explored.

Unity requires a fair and unbiased application of the rule of law. Everyone must be held accountable to the same set of legal standards or a society cannot function; it would be riven with divisiveness and fighting among factions. Violent protesters of all stripes need to face equal justice and those who aided and abetted violent protests must be held accountable under the law as well. There needs to be acknowledgement of racial bias and harm. Then, there needs to be restorative justice if unity is to be achieved.

Unity requires our elected officials to work together in good faith to promote the general welfare. Certainly, there will be differences of opinion, but they must be resolved through good faith negotiations and compromise. Obstructionism is antithetical to unity.

Hypocrisy is also antithetical to unity. Different standards or principles cannot be applied in the same or similar situations. There are too many examples of this in our politics and society today to do justice to them all, but examples include:

Condemning violence against police that occurs in demonstrations for racial justice but not when it occurs in an insurrection targeted at stopping the democratic transition of power.
Blocking the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice nine months before the end of a Democratic president’s term but confirming a Republican President’s nominee on short notice just three months before the end of his term.
Opposing deficit spending when proposed by Democrats to help working Americans but not when proposed by Republicans to cut taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

Here are some specific, largely short-term, actions and policies our elected leaders must embrace if they truly wish to strive for unity:

President Biden’s appointees must be approved in a timely fashion, with appropriate oversight of course. This applies to Cabinet members, other executive branch positions, and to judges.
Financial assistance must be provided to working Americans. Over 1 million workers are still applying for unemployment each week. The economy has not rebounded to the point where emergency assistance is no longer needed; millions of families are facing hunger and homelessness. Additional direct financial assistance is needed, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, among many others, has stated. Furthermore, unemployment benefits need to be extended and enhanced and the minimum wage needs to be raised – for those who have jobs and those re-entering the workforce.
For workers doing face-to-face work, their safety must be assured. Strong, enforceable and enforced safety standards are a necessity.
Financial assistance must be provided to small businesses. Thousands of small businesses have gone out of business and thousands more are on the verge of doing so. Financial supports for large corporations through Federal Reserve and Treasury programs that operate largely out of the public eye have been very generous (trillions of dollars) and very successful. This is evidenced by the fact that the stock markets are at all-time highs, believe it or not, despite the struggles of small businesses and working Americans.
Funding is needed for COVID vaccinations. Money is needed for distribution of the vaccines and to help financially strapped states and communities implement vaccination programs. The quicker and more effective the rollout of vaccinations, the greater the number of lives that will be saved and of illnesses that will be prevented. The Federal Reserve and others have also noted the importance of vaccinations to the recovery of the economy.
Financial assistance is needed for state and local governments, as they have seen their revenue fall dramatically and their costs increase with the pandemic. Without this assistance, state and local governments have been laying off tens of thousands of workers which hurts the workers, the economy and its recovery, and the delivery of badly needed government services.
Criminal justice system reform must be undertaken aggressively. Racism needs to be eliminated from all components of the system. Police need strong national standards and oversight on the use of force and racism. The school (and even preschool) to prison pipeline needs to be ended and more appropriate interventions and discipline instituted. Mental health services need to be made available to children, youth, and adults instead of throwing these problems to the criminal justice system. Prosecution and sentencing need to fair and the use of restorative justice needs to be expanded. Rehabilitation and successful re-entry to society need to be the focus of imprisonment, probation, and parole.

President Biden’s Executive Orders are beginning to address many of these issues. They are promoting unity (despite claims otherwise by some Republicans) because they are implementing policies that most Americans support, but which haven’t made it through Congress due to partisanship. For example, 83% of Americans support a ban on workplace discrimination based on sexual identification, 77% want the government to promote racial equity, 75% support the government requiring masks on federal property, and 68% support the continued suspension of federal student loan repayments. A majority of Americans support rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords. [1]

People calling for unity are hypocrites unless they are committed to honestly working toward the vision of our democracy and our Constitution for liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all or, in other words, for promotion of the general welfare. Without such a commitment, there can be no unity.

My next post will highlight more specific and longer-term policies that will promote unity and our shared vision of liberty, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

[1] Richardson, H.C., 1/29/21, Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-29-2021)

BIDEN’S OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE ECONOMIC SECURITY WITH PROGRESSIVE POLICIES

Looking ahead to 2021, many challenges face the country and President-elect Biden. Most of them have negatively affected the economic well-being of many Americans, including the pandemic, the lack of racial justice, and the economic recession. All of them and others (e.g., climate change) can and should be addressed in a way that will improve the economic security of working and middle-class Americans. This would also go a long way toward restoring their faith in government and their belief that government can and is working for their benefit and not just for the benefit of big businesses and the wealthy.

Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party has joined the Republican Party in aligning itself with large corporations and the wealthy elites that run and own them through deregulation, trade deals, and tax policies that work to their benefit. As a result, the middle class has been decimated and blue collar, often unionized, workers have lost their economic security; 90% of Americans have lost ground economically over the last 30 years. Income and wealth inequality have spiraled to levels unseen since the 1920s and the economy of the 1950s and 1960s that lifted all boats has disappeared. [1]

Abandoned by the Democratic Party, which traditionally had stood up for them, white, blue collar workers and their families have been convinced to support demagogues, including Trump, who promote divisive, anti-immigrant, racist, reactionary, and undemocratic policies.

To address mainstream Americans’ loss of economic security, Biden must implement progressive policies that will enhance their economic well-being. The public strongly supports such policies as poll after poll shows. For example, polls find that: [2]

68% believe our tax system should require the wealthy to pay more,
75% support paying higher income taxes to support health care, education, welfare, and infrastructure, and
92% say they would rather live in a country with a low level of income inequality than one with high inequality.

There also was plenty of evidence of support for progressive policies and candidates in the 2020 election results. (See my previous post on this topic for some details.)

A key factor contributing to economic insecurity and inequality, and one Americans clearly understand, is that large corporations and their executives and lobbyists have undue influence on U.S. policies. By margins of more than two-to-one they don’t want President Biden appointing corporate executives or lobbyists to positions in his administration. Roughly 75% of poll respondents say that an administration official overseeing or regulating an industry they have a connection to is a “big problem” and about 90% say it is at least “a little bit of a problem.” The public knows that the so-called “revolving door” between positions in large corporations and ones in government lead to policies that benefit the corporations and their wealthy executives and investors. Sixty-seven percent of respondents, including 60% of Republicans, say that this revolving door is “corrupt and dangerous.” [3]

In government, personnel is policy. In other words, the personnel in key positions in the Biden administration will strongly influence who benefits from policies and their implementation – the working and middle-class or the upper class and big businesses. Therefore, it is important that Biden select people for his administration who are committed to working for the good of the people and not for the economic elites, many of whom are big campaign donors.

President Biden has two main avenues for creating needed policy changes: executive actions and legislation. These two are complementary and should both be used. Getting progressive legislation passed by Congress will be difficult even if Senate control is nominally with the Democrats (i.e., with a 50-50 split among Senators if Democrats win the two Georgia runoffs). But Senator Warren and others have shown that bipartisan legislation is possible even in the current contentious and polarized environment in Congress. Her successes include making hearing aids more affordable, enhancing consumer protection in various financial transactions, strengthening oversight and regulation of the financial industry, expanding access to affordable housing, and reining in abuses in housing financing. (I will write a post about this in the near future.)

There are also literally hundreds of executive actions that a Biden administration could take that are well within its existing authority. As many as 277 such actions have been enumerated by the writers at the American Prospect magazine and the document produced by the Biden-Sanders unity taskforce at the end of the Democratic primary last summer. They include steps to make our tax system fairer, to strengthen the safety net (including unemployment benefits and housing and food assistance), to expand access to health care and lower drug prices, to increase pay and benefits for employees of federal contractors, and to make it easier for workers to bargain collectively for better pay, benefits, and working conditions. (I will write a post about possible executive actions in the near future.)

I encourage you to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative to express your support for issues you would like to see them address in 2021, including policies such as the examples above that would improve the economic security of mainstream Americans. You can find contact information for your US Representative at http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

You can get information and sign-up for updates from the Biden-Harris transition at https://buildbackbetter.gov/.

[1] Lemann, N., 10/19/20, “Losing ground: the crisis of the two-party system,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/let-them-eat-tweets-the-system-never-trump/)

[2] Hightower, J., Nov. 2020, “Timeless truths for trying times,” The Hightower Lowdown (https://hightowerlowdown.org/article/timeless-truths-for-trying-times/)

[3] Demand Progress, Dec., 2020, “Americans want a progressive Biden administration,” (https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/reports/Americans_Want_A_Corporate-Free_Biden_Administration.pdf)

PROGRESSIVE PROGRESS IN THE 2020 ELECTIONS

Despite the mixed messages of the 2020 elections, there were significant progressive gains and the public continues to strongly support many progressive policies. Despite the claims of some centrist or corporate Democrats that progressive candidates and messages undermined some Democratic candidates, the four most visible progressives in the U.S. House (the so-called Squad) all got re-elected with between 64% and 87% of the vote: Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Omar (MN), Pressley (MA), and Tlaib (MI). In addition, five new, similarly progressive candidates were elected to the House, three of whom beat conservative Democratic incumbents in their primary races: Newman (IL), Bush (MO), Leger Fernandez (NM), Bowman (NY), and Jones (NY). [1] Furthermore, the grassroots organizing and energizing of Representatives Omar and Tlaib were significant factors in Biden’s wins in Minnesota and Michigan. In Omar’s district, her extensive grassroots efforts resulted in 88% turnout, compared to 67% nationally. [2]

Of the 93 sponsors of the Green New Deal in the U.S. House, 92 won re-election. All the congressional candidates running for re-election who supported Medicare for All won. [3] A recent poll found that 72% of the public support “transitioning to a government-run healthcare plan.”

In addition to the U.S. House, progressive candidates are running and winning in state and local races all over the country. Some of these candidates are in places and races you wouldn’t expect, such as an openly lesbian woman running and winning for sheriff in southwestern Ohio (70% of the vote against the incumbent). [4] In Maine, Chloe Maxmin upset the Republican leader of the state Senate in a rural, Republican district. A one-term Representative, she had introduced Green New Deal legislation and campaigned on progressive issues such as broadband access and public transportation. [5] She won with 51% of the vote. Eight of nine state Senate candidates endorsed by the progressive Maine People’s Alliance, including Maxmin, won. In addition, nine members of a progressive group of former teachers running for the Maine legislature won their races. [6]

Many progressive ballot initiatives were passed across the country in November: [7]

Arizona: Increased its income tax rate by 3.5% on those making over $250,000 to increase funding for public education.
Colorado: Provided 12 weeks of paid family leave.
Colorado: Joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to bypass the Electoral College.
Florida: Increased its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.
Mississippi: Required a run-off election in statewide office races if the winner doesn’t receive 50% of the vote.
Oregon: Limited campaign contributions and spending, as well as required disclosure of contributions, expenditures, and sponsors of political ads.
Virginia: Established an independent redistricting commission to draw electoral district lines rather than letting the legislature do so.

The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care), which provides free health insurance to low-income families and individuals, continues to enjoy broad public support, including by two-thirds of the adults in the 12 states that have not taken advantage of this federal program. In 2020, Missouri (in August) and Oklahoma (in June) used ballot initiatives to expand Medicaid when their state legislators refused to do so. Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah had done this in 2018 and Maine did it in 2017. An estimated 650,000 essential, front-line workers would get health insurance if the remaining 12 states adopted Medicaid expansion. In states that have expanded Medicaid, only 17% of workers are uninsured compared to 30% in states that haven’t done so. [8]

Finally, without the voter suppression tactics of the Republicans, the November election would have been an overwhelming landslide for Biden. In nineteen states, Republicans have implemented needlessly strict voter ID requirements that keep disproportionately Democratic voters from voting. It is estimated that 25 million citizens do not have a government-issued ID that is required to vote. With reasonable voter ID requirements, Biden would most probably have won Texas and Ohio and the Georgia result wouldn’t have been close. In Florida, the Republicans most probably stole the election from Biden by defying a successful ballot initiative that restored the voting rights of people who had been convicted of a felony and had completed their prison sentences. Republicans’ voter suppression efforts also included limiting the number of drop-off boxes for early voters’ ballots and closing polling locations in multiple states, making it more difficult for voters to vote and leading to long waiting lines to vote. No one knows how many voters were unable to vote or were discouraged from voting by these tactics. [9]

The debacle President Trump and his Postmaster General DeJoy created at the U.S. Postal Service resulted in hundreds of thousands of ballots not being counted. The exact number is unknown but some ballots were simply not delivered and many were delivered after the deadlines for counting them; 30 states do not count ballots that arrive after election day and the others require them to be postmarked by election day and set various deadlines for their receipt. [10]

So, for all of you who are supporters of progressive policies as I am, we’re making progress. Let’s keep organizing, lobbying, and working for our progressive goals of economic and social justice and a democracy that works. Poll after poll shows that the American public supports progressive policies. We need to get our elected officials to act on behalf of all of us rather than on behalf of their wealthy campaign contributors.

[1] Ballotpedia, retrieved 12/12/20, “United States House of Representatives elections, 2020,” (https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2020)

[2] Stancil, K., 11/5/20, “Omar and Tlaib credited as ‘major factors’ in securing Biden victories in Minnesota and Michigan,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/05/omar-and-tlaib-credited-major-factors-securing-biden-victories-minnesota-and)

[3] Stancil, K., 11/9/20, “99% of Green New Deal co-sponsors won their races this cycle: analysis,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/09/99-green-new-deal-co-sponsors-won-their-races-cycle-analysis)

[4] Hightower, J., October 2020, “ ‘Good trouble’ candidates are winning – and rebuilding politics from the ground up,” The Hightower Lowdown (https://hightowerlowdown.org/article/good-trouble-candidates-are-winning-and-rebuilding-politics-from-the-ground-up/)

[5] Conley, J., 11/6/20, “ ‘I mostly listen’: Offering blueprint for Democrats, Green New Deal champion Chloe Maxmin unseats powerful GOP incumbent in rural Maine,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/06/i-mostly-listen-offering-blueprint-democrats-green-new-deal-champion-chloe-maxmin)

[6] McFadden, A., 11/4/20, “Maxmin topples Dow as Democrats keep majorities in Maine Legislature,” Maine Beacon (https://mainebeacon.com/maxmin-topples-dow-as-democrats-hold-onto-majorities-in-maine-legislature/)

[7] Ballotpedia, retrieved 12/12/20, “2020 ballot measures,” (https://ballotpedia.org/2020_ballot_measures#Notable_topics_and_unique_measures_in_2020)

[8] Covert, B., 10/21/20, “The pandemic sent Americans’ health care coverage into free fall,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/covid-healthcare-unemployment/)

[9] Kuttner, R., 11/4/20, “The shadow election you didn’t see,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/shadow-election-you-didnt-see-voter-suppression/)

[10] Editorial, 11/7/20, “Louis DeJoy must be investigated,” The Boston Globe

REPUBLICANS ARE ALREADY UNDERMINING BIDEN’S PRESIDENCY

Republicans, led by President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell (KY), are already undermining Senator Biden’s presidency. This is all about politics. They want the Biden presidency and the Democrats to be unable to do much to help working people and the economy because that will make it easier for them to win seats in Congress in 2022 and the presidency in 2024. This is the same reason that Sen. McConnell said at the beginning of each of Obama’s terms as president that his goal was to keep Obama from passing any legislation.

Trump and McConnell are working to ensure that Biden begins his presidency with crises to face: a high number of COVID cases; an economy in a shambles; a safety net with as many holes in it as possible; angry divisions in the country over election results, racism, and immigration; and international crises with Iran and China and in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Moreover, Trump and McConnell are trying to limit the resources and flexibility that President Biden has to tackle these crises. They are undermining efforts to control the pandemic and provide economic relief by:

Letting the coronavirus spread with no effort from the federal government to slow it,
Retracting funding Congress has appropriated for pandemic relief from the Federal Reserve and perhaps other agencies or programs, and
Refusing to pass any significant pandemic relief and predicating any relief on the elimination of employer and business liability for workers or customers who get COVID.

Normally, the outgoing president defers important decisions to the incoming president and refrains from making personnel changes in his lame duck period. George W. Bush did so after Obama was elected and Obama did so for Trump. However, Trump is doing just the opposite. He is aggressively replacing personnel at the Defense Department and elsewhere. He is issuing executive orders and making personnel policy changes that will make it hard for President Biden to undo his actions. He is appointing partisan loyalists to scientific and advisory panels, weakening environmental regulations, and repealing health care regulations. He is carrying out executions, giving out oil drilling leases on public lands, and withdrawing troops from Somalia and Afghanistan. He is inflaming tensions with Iran, which will make it harder for President Biden to re-engage Iran in a treaty to block its ability to build a nuclear bomb. (Iran now has twelve times as much enriched uranium as it would have had if Trump hadn’t abrogated the Iran nuclear accord.) Some of Trump’s advisors have been upfront in stating that their actions are meant to limit President Biden’s policy options. [1]

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is taking multiple actions that will prevent President Biden from having the flexibility to quickly use remaining resources from the March relief bill to respond to economic hardship. Mnuchin announced that on December 31 he will suspend the Treasury Department’s lending program that supports businesses and local governments. He is also requiring the Federal Reserve to return about $250 billion that was appropriated for pandemic relief and putting $455 billion into a fund that will require congressional authorization before Biden can spend it. [2] Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the lobbying arm of big corporations, objected to Mnuchin’s actions and called for Congress to pass additional pandemic relief to support the economy. David Wilcox, a former chief economist for the Federal Reserve, said, “The most obvious interpretation is that the Trump administration is seeking to debilitate the economic recovery as much as possible on the way out of the door.” [3] [4]

Senator McConnell has refused to act on a $3 trillion pandemic relief bill the House passed in May, despite a call from 125 bipartisan economists for a relief package to address the economic crisis, which includes quickly escalating poverty as the benefits of the March relief bill expire. (Just about the only business McConnell has the Senate doing is approving right-wing federal judges.) As poverty and hunger are surging across the country, key components of a relief bill are enhanced unemployment benefits, aid to state and local governments, and increased food assistance. Some sustained relief will be needed until the pandemic is under control and the economy has recovered. [5]

Aid to state and local governments is critical because, faced with plunging tax revenue, they have cut 1.3 million jobs since February. There is no more effective, tried and true way of reducing unemployment and supporting economic recovery than providing aid to state and local governments; we know this from the 2008 recession. If families don’t have jobs and income, if parents can’t work because schools and child care are closed, local economies suffer. Every dollar of assistance to state and local governments boosts local economies by $1.70 due to the spending and re-spending of that dollar as it cycles through local workers and businesses. [6]

Senator McConnell appears to be more focused on limiting the liability of corporations when workers or customers get COVID than providing relief to workers, such as unemployment benefits for the 12 million workers whose benefits will run out before the end of December. He is also talking about imposing austerity on the federal government by focusing on cutting the deficit during Biden’s presidency. He wasn’t concerned about the deficit when President Trump increased it to levels not seen since World War II or when he cut taxes in 2017 for wealthy individuals and corporations, which increased the deficit by over one hundred billion dollars a year. Furthermore, austerity, i.e., cutting federal spending, will weaken and slow the economic recovery, hurting all Americans other than the wealthy, as we know from the aftermath of the 2008 recession. [7]

Despite the good news that vaccines will be ready for distribution soon, Republicans in Congress and the White House are not even talking about providing the funding needed to distribute the vaccines, which is estimated to be $30 billion. It also appears that there’s no or little planning happening in the Trump administration for vaccine distribution. With over a thousand people dying daily of COVID, one would think this would be a bipartisan priority, but Republican politics appear to trump even this essential public health initiative. [8]

Trump, McConnell, and many other Republicans are putting politics ahead of the best interests of the country and its people. This is sabotage and treasonous. We must all speak up against this unprecedented, corrupt behavior. I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and ask them to take action to provide necessary relief in the face of this pandemic and to ensure a smooth and respectful transition to the Biden presidency.

[1] Shear, M. D., 11/22/20, “Trump using last days to lock in policies and make Biden’s task more difficult,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[2] Mohsin, S., 11/25/20, “Mnuchin to put $455 billion in funds out of Yellen’s easy reach,” The Boston Globe from Bloomberg News

[3] Richardson, H. C., 11/24/20, “Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-24-2020

[4] Smialek, J., & Rappeport, A., 11/20/20, “Mnuchin to end some emergency Fed programs,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[5] Johnson, J., 11/24/20, “ ‘Go big, and stay big’: Economists call for $3 trillion Covid relief package to stop nation’s descent into ruin,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/24/go-big-and-stay-big-economists-call-3-trillion-covid-relief-package-stop-nations)

[6] Tahmincioglu, E., 8/25/20, “The way out through state and local aid,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/state-and-local-aid-bipartisan-economists-video/)

[7] Johnson, J., 12/2/20, “Critics smell ‘economic sabotage’ as McConnell unveils Covid plan with $0 for unemployment boost, direct payments,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/02/critics-smell-economic-sabotage-mcconnell-unveils-covid-plan-0-unemployment-boost)

[8] Dayen, D., 11/30/20, “Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Nov. 30, 2020,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-vaccine-distribution-gaps-transparency-funding/)

FACEBOOK KNOWINGLY PROMOTES DISINFORMATION

Facebook (FB) facilitates an accelerating spread of disinformation; this is widely recognized and well-documented. (See my previous post on this.) Facebook allows toxic speech and dangerous misinformation to spread unchecked on its monopolistic platform. This affects and infects our public discourse and knowledge base, undermining the health of our democracy. However, stopping it runs counter to Facebook’s economic interests because increased activity, regardless of its content, is what increases its revenue. [1]

Recently, damning evidence has come to light of Facebook’s manipulation of its News Feed to favor right-wing sources that are known to be deceptive over trustworthy news sources.

In late 2017, Facebook was in the process of making significant changes in the computer programming code or algorithm it uses to determine which of the overwhelming plethora of sources each of us is shown in our Facebook News Feed. It claimed it was working to bring people together and to prioritize trusted and informative news sources.

It was uncovered recently that FB ran experiments with its first iteration of a revised News Feed algorithm that revealed it would dramatically curtail the dissemination of right-wing, less-than-trustworthy sites, such as Breitbart, the Daily Wire, and the Daily Caller. FB’s software engineers were told to modify the algorithm to reduce the negative effects on these right-wing sites.

A second iteration of the new algorithm was ready in January 2018 and its effects were presented to senior executives at FB. The data showed that it reversed the curtailment of right-wing, less-than-trustworthy sites and instead curtailed distribution of progressive-leaning, credible news sources. The presentation included bar charts showing the impact on a dozen or so specific news sources.

This second iteration of the new News Feed algorithm was, nonetheless, put into use, based in part on support from FB’s Vice President of Global Public Policy, Joel Kaplan, and right-wing-leaning employees working for him. (Kaplan would later loudly support his friend Brett Kavanaugh during Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.) This was not the first time Kaplan had acted to promote right-wing disinformation. For example, in December 2016, when an internal investigation found that a group of FB accounts, mostly based overseas, were behind a lot of the promotion of right-wing disinformation, Kaplan objected to disabling these accounts because “it will disproportionately affect conservatives.” He also has defended and protected right-wing sites that violated FB policies, opposing sanctions on them. [2]

The new News Feed algorithm expanded dissemination of content from the right-wing Daily Wire that routinely shares false content and spreads malicious stories such as ones describing being transgendered as a “delusion,” calling abortion providers “assassins,” and labeling progressive members of Congress as not “loyal to America.” On the other hand, the new algorithm reduced dissemination of content from left-leaning Mother Jones magazine that provides rigorously fact-checked reporting and investigative journalism that has won it numerous journalism awards, including seven National Magazine Awards (three times for General Excellence). It has also been a National Magazine Award finalist 24 other times. In 2017, it won the Magazine of the Year award from the American Society of Magazine Editors.

In the six months after implementation of the changes in Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, FB traffic to trustworthy, left-leaning Mother Jones articles declined 37% from the previous six months. This means that the over one million Mother Jones followers and others on FB saw fewer of its articles in their News Feeds. On the other hand, over the summer of 2020, the deceptive right-wing Daily Wire had more Facebook engagement (i.e., likes, comments, and shares) than any other English-language publisher in the world. [3]

These data belie Zuckerberg’s claim when he announced the News Feed changes in January 2018 that the goals were “bringing people closer together” and fighting “sensationalism, misinformation and polarization.” He didn’t mention that he and FB were tipping the scales to favor less-than-factual right-wing sources.

Why did this happen? Facebook was tweaking its News Feed algorithm because user engagement was falling, which threatened its revenue and stock price. Zuckerberg and FB may also have wanted to avoid antagonizing Trump and the right-wing Republicans in power in the federal government, thereby reducing the likelihood that they would attack FB either verbally or through government investigations and regulations. Right-wing and “conservative” politicians had been criticizing FB for “liberal” bias (without evidence). A former Facebook employee said that it was made clear that changes to the News Feed algorithm could not hurt Breitbart, Trump-advisor Steve Bannon’s mouthpiece.

Facebook uses its monopolistic power to determine which publishers’ content the public sees. This power of selective partial censorship and propaganda promotion is Big Brother-type power that we all should be concerned about and fear. Free speech in today’s America is relative; it is based on how much money one has to broadcast one’s voice or on how FB treats you. Zuckerberg’s claim that he supports unfettered free speech is disingenuous given that FB tips the scales to favor certain sources and disfavor others.

FB’s marketplace power and dissemination of harmful disinformation need to be addressed by government policies and regulations. Slowing the spread of misinformation and malicious content from a handful of the most active and therefore most harmful sites would have a dramatic effect.

Facebook should be held accountable for disseminating false, misleading, or inflammatory content. Regulation is one way to do this and competition is another. As a monopolistic platform lacking competition, FB has no incentive to do anything but pursue profits and/or Zuckerberg’s personal agenda. FB should be regulated like a monopolistic utility as the phone company once was or as private electricity and gas utilities are. Anti-trust laws should be used to stop FB’s anti-competitive practices and its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp should be reversed. Competition should be facilitated, for example, by creating a not-for-profit, free to users, Internet platform for responsible information sharing and journalism akin to public radio and TV.

I’m not a heavy FB user so my expertise on its on-the-ground operation is limited. Therefore, I welcome your suggestions on how we can send a message to Facebook and Zuckerberg that will be heard loudly and clearly on the issue of the quality of content in its News Feed as well as other issues such as its repeated violations of users’ privacy. Would a one-day boycott where we don’t log into FB be effective? Or would a week where we never click on a FB ad be more meaningful? What else can we do? In addition, of course, to lobbying our elected officials to rein in Facebook and Zuckerberg with regulations and anti-trust laws.

[1] Alba, D., 10/13/20, “False info thriving on social media,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[2] Bauerlein, M., & Jeffrey, C., 10/21/20, “Facebook manipulated the news you see to appease Republicans, insiders say,” Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/10/facebook-mother-jones/)

[3] Bauerlein, M., & Jeffrey, C., 10/21/20, see above

FACEBOOK’S DISSEMINATION OF DISINFORMATION ACCELERATES

Facebook’s (FB) spreading of disinformation is accelerating, despite any claims to the contrary. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, repeatedly says that he does not want FB to be an arbiter of free speech, but it is the arbiter of what information or speech FB users see.

Zuckerberg also asserts that the best way to fight offensive bad speech is with good speech. [1] However, this is a false equivalency as good speech that tries to counter bad speech has to mention the bad speech which furthers its presence in our public discourse. This has been shown by research to further embed the bad or false speech in people’s minds. For example, reporting on Trump’s tweets and stating they are false or misleading, still puts Trump’s tweets in front of the viewing or reading audience.

Facebook’s current stated standard is that posts that are not calling for harm or violence, however offensive, should be protected as free speech. Its new policy announced in October will finally ban posts that deny or distort the Holocaust. This is a very small and belated step forward against some of the worst and most obviously harmful disinformation that FB has spread. Almost a quarter of Americans between ages 18 and 39 say they believe the Holocaust either didn’t happen or was exaggerated. It may be difficult to link this directly to FB or to harm or violence but it’s hard to believe there is no linkage. [2]

Facebook allows toxic speech and dangerous misinformation to spread largely unchecked on its monopolistic platform. Engagement with FB posts (i.e., liking, sharing, or commenting on them) that are from sources that routinely publish misleading or false content tripled from 2016 to 2020, exceeding the rate of increase for outlets that uphold traditional journalistic standards.

This affects and infects our public discourse and knowledge base, undermining the health of our democracy. However, stopping it runs counter to Facebook’s economic interests because increased activity, regardless of its content, is what increases FB’s revenue. [3]

Over the summer and early fall of 2020, the Digital New Deal (DND) project examined engagement with posts on FB and analyzed the reliability of the posts’ sources. It partnered with NewsGuard, a non-partisan service that rates news and information sources for their accuracy. (See note on its methodology at the end of this post.) The DND project focused on 721 deceptive information sources and compared them with a selected group of non-deceptive sources. It categorized the sources into three types:

False Content Producers: repeatedly publish verifiably false content (396 sources)
Manipulators: fail to gather and present information responsibly (325 sources)
Trustworthy Outlets (46 selected sources for comparison)

Engagement with posts from type 1 and 2 sources (referred to as deceptive sources) has grown 242% since 2016. Engagement with posts from Manipulators (type 2 sources) represents 84% of all deceptive source engagement and has grown from 390 million engagement actions in the 3^rd quarter of 2016 to 1,520 million in the 3^rd quarter of 2020 (almost fourfold). The deceptive sources with the most engagement on FB, including the top five in each of types 1 and 2, promote right-wing or “conservative” politics.

These deceptive sources, masquerading as news outlets, are spreading false information, manipulative messaging, and concocted conspiracies that degrade democratic discourse. This harms the health of our democracy because it undermines informed participation by citizens and voters. [4]

The top ten deceptive sources are all of the Manipulator type and account for 62% of FB engagement interactions with deceptive sources, while the other 711 deceptive sites are responsible for 38% of these interactions. Fox was the most frequent source in the Manipulator category. It is rated more positively by NewsGuard than many other deceptive sources because it sometimes does correct errors, avoids deceptive headlines, labels advertising, and discloses its ownership and financing. Other examples of Manipulators are the Daily Wire, Breitbart, and The Blaze.

My next post will provide even more damning evidence that FB’s goal is not to bring people together, to provide accurate information, or to fight sensationalism, misinformation, and polarization as Zuckerberg has said, but rather to maximize user engagement and profits, and perhaps to promote right-wing politics and curry favor with those in power in Washington, D.C. The post will highlight FB’s 2018 changes to its News Feed algorithm that determines what information or disinformation is presented to FB users. It will also present some ways to address FB’s monopolistic power and its dissemination of false and harmful content.

Note on the methodology for rating information sources used in the DND study summarized above: NewsGuard rates online news outlets based on nine criteria of responsible journalism including:

Does not repeatedly publish false content (22 points)
Gathers and presents information responsibly (18 points)
Regularly corrects or clarifies errors (12.5 points)
Handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly (12.5 points)
Avoids deceptive headlines (10 points)
Website discloses ownership and financing (7.5 points)
Clearly labels advertising (7.5 points)
Reveals who is in charge, including any possible conflicts of interest (5 points)
The site provides the names of content creators, along with either contact or biographical information (5 points)

Outlets receive points for passing a given criteria or they receive zero for failing. A total score of less than 60 merits a Red rating, meaning the site fails to adhere to basic journalistic standards.

[1] The Associated Press, 10/12/20, “Facebook bans Holocaust denial, distortion posts”

[2] Frenkel, S., 10/13/20, “Facebook bans Holocaust denial content,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[3] Alba, D., 10/13/20, “False info thriving on social media,” The Boston Globe from The New York Times

[4] Kornbluh, K., Goldstein, A., & Weiner, E., 10/12/20, “New study by Digital New Deal finds engagement with deceptive outlets higher on Facebook today than run-up to 2016 election,” Digital New Deal, German Marshall Fund of the United States (https://www.gmfus.org/blog/2020/10/12/new-study-digital-new-deal-finds-engagement-deceptive-outlets-higher-facebook-today)

OUR FEDERAL COURTS HAVE BEEN PACKED WITH RIGHT-WING JUDGES

Republicans are rushing confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee just before the election, which is emblematic of their packing of the federal courts at all levels with right-wing judges. [1] (See my previous post for more details.) Rushing through the confirmation of Judge Barrett threatens to complete the delegitimization of the Supreme Court – and to some extent the whole federal judiciary – by making it clear that the federal court system is not an impartial arbiter of the law, but a fully politicized institution.

Over 200 federal judges have been confirmed since Trump took office (including over 100 that were carried over from the Obama administration due to Republican blocking of confirmations) and basically all of them are proponents of the extreme right-wing legal philosophy of the Federalist Society. [2] Right-wing Republicans have used a Federalist Society endorsement as a litmus test for nominees while ignoring input from the American Bar Association, which always used to provide an independent analysis of the qualifications of nominees. [3]

This packing of the federal courts with right-wing jurists, which is the result of McConnell and the Republicans breaking the norms of our democratic processes, will benefit Republicans and their wealthy, corporatist backers for a generation or longer because their right-wing judicial philosophy favors corporations and the wealthy over workers, consumers, and the middle and lower classes.

These right-wing, Federalist Society-endorsed judges typically claim to support “originalism,” a legal philosophy that claims the original intent and meaning of the Constitution, written in 1787, should determine judicial decisions. “Originalists” claim that government cannot constitutionally do anything that is not explicitly provided for in the Constitution. This legal philosophy has been very effective in driving right-wing legal politics, although the appropriateness of applying the meaning of the words of the Constitution to today’s technology strains credulity; its writers couldn’t have dreamed of our current medical and health care capabilities, our transportation and communications systems, our financial instruments and guns, or our huge, multi-national corporations.

An alternative legal interpretation of the Constitution, as a living document that requires interpretation in the context of current times, was prevalent from the late 1930s into the 1980s. In the late 1930s, during the recovery from the Depression, judges interpreted the law and the Constitution to allow American democracy to live up to its principles. Right-wing politicians and legal theorists labeled this “judicial activism” or “legislating from the bench.”

The “originalist” legal philosophy was developed by right-wing scholars in the 1970s and 1980s in reaction to laws and judicial support for economic and civil rights. The New Deal worked to level the economic playing field, to regulate business, to provide voice and a balance of power for workers through unions, and to provide a social safety net. After World War II, these efforts continued with more of a focus on leveling the social playing field and treating all people as equals before law, by ending segregation and discrimination, protecting the rights of prisoners and those accused of breaking the law, and providing access to contraception and abortion. The judicial-established principle of one person, one vote and the Voting Rights Act worked to level the political playing field. Judicial decisions supporting economic and civil rights, many of them made by the Supreme Court under Republican Chief Justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger between 1953 and 1986, were, at the time, largely viewed as non-partisan. They reflected a belief that the Bill of Rights applies to state laws and governments, as well as at the federal level. [4] This dramatically expanded civil rights and overturned the “states’ rights” doctrine that had allowed states to, among other things, engage in discrimination, particularly against Black Americans.

“Originalist” judges have ignored and will continue to ignore precedents and are reversing 80 years of legislation and legal decisions on individual and civil rights, as the hearings on the latest Supreme Court nominees and recent Supreme Court decisions have made clear. While the attention of these hearings has been focused on social and religious issues, from abortion to affirmative action and discrimination to LGBTQ rights, the often-overlooked issues about our economy and capitalism, such as the balance of power between employers and workers, the ability to earn a living wage, and the availability of an economic safety net, are critically important as well.

Under “originalist” legal theory, the federal government has little power and much of what it currently does should be left to state governments. Under “originalism,” the federal government does not have the power to regulate corporations or the wealthy, including restricting their use of their money in our elections, as the spending of money is viewed as exercising free speech. Decisions by the federal judiciary at all levels make it clear that “originalist” theory favors private interests over public interests, corporations and employers over consumers and workers, law enforcement over defendants’ rights, and gun rights over voting rights. Such decisions deprive employees and other vulnerable populations of their civil rights. [5] [6]

Moreover, the “originalist” judges assert that the rights of the Bill of Rights, such as freedom of speech, are rights that belong to corporations as well as to natural human beings. I find it hard to believe that this was the intent of the writers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They clearly were focused on the rights of individual human beings. Furthermore, corporations, in anything approaching their current form, were unknown in those times.

Americans for Prosperity and other pro-business groups, many of them backed by billionaire, fossil-fuel businessman Charles Koch (and his deceased brother), have spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigns to pressure Senators to back controversial, right-wing judicial nominations, often using “dark money” (whose donors are hidden from the public).

The weak federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic is emblematic of “originalist” thinking. Some in the Trump administration simply didn’t believe it was the role of the federal government or within the legitimate powers of the federal government to respond, and, therefore, the response should be left to the states and the private sector.

President Trump and the Republicans in the Senate have packed the federal court system from top to bottom with hundreds of right-wing, Federalist Society-endorsed, “originalist” judges who are on the fringe of what was previously considered appropriate for a federal judge. If our Founding Fathers had intended an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution, I have to believe they would have realized frequent amendments would be required and they would have made it much easier to amend it. I believe that “originalism” is a rationalization for public relations purposes developed by wealthy corporations and individuals as a way to “justify” laws and court decisions that work to their benefit. This is just like their claim of non-existent voter fraud as the public relations rationale for voter suppression tactics.

Our federal court system is currently unbalanced and biased in favor of corporations and the wealthy. Right-wing judges will skew court decisions and harm the well-being of everyday Americans for the next 20 to 30 years unless Democrats are elected and actively work to rebalance the federal courts toward mainstream legal philosophy and historical precedent. This will not be easy given how skewed the system currently is.

Dramatic steps will need to be taken, including expanding the number of judges in the federal court system, possibly including the number of justices on the Supreme Court, given that removing judges is basically impossible. This is the only way to return to laws and government programs that protect and support a fair and just society with civil, political, and economic rights for all, women able to make decisions about their reproductive health, workers able to support their families and have safe working conditions, consumers able to use products and services safely, and a safety net that protects people when they hit hard times.

[1] Richardson, H. C., 10/11/20, “Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-11-2020)

[2] The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and libertarians that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society)

[3] Heer, J., 10/14/20, “Barrett’s evasions show why expanding the Court is necessary,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/barrett-confirmation-court-packing/)

[4] Richardson, H. C., 10/23/20, “Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-23-2020)

[5] Richardson, H. C., 10/14/20, “Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-14-2020)

[6] Dayen, D., 10/13/20, “Judge Barrett’s record: Siding with businesses over workers,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/justice/judge-barretts-record-siding-with-businesses-over-workers/)

WHO’S FOR PACKING OUR FEDERAL COURTS?

As Republicans are ramming through a Supreme Court nominee just before the election, they are also attacking Democratic presidential nominee Senator Biden for not saying whether he will “pack the court.” The irony of this seems to be lost on them, many in the media, and most of the public.

Republicans are claiming that increasing the size of the Supreme Court (aka “packing the court”) would be “the absolute biggest power grab in the history of our country,” when in fact their packing of the federal courts at all levels with right-wing judges for the last four years and beyond is a far bigger power grab. [1]

Rushing through the nomination of Judge Barrett threatens to complete the delegitimization of the Supreme Court, making it clear it is not an impartial arbitrator of the law, but a fully politicized institution. Senator McConnell and his Republican colleagues in the Senate blocked the appointment of a centrist judge nominated by President Obama, Merrick Garland, for ten months, solely for political purposes. Now, they are ramming through an extreme, right-wing nominee in a matter of weeks, solely for political purposes. And closer to an election than has ever been done before.

If Barrett is confirmed, 15 of the last 19 Supreme Court appointments will have been made by Republican Presidents. Furthermore, five of the nine justices will have been appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote and they will also have been confirmed by the votes of Senators who represent less than half of the American population. [2]

The Supreme Court has had nine justices since 1869, but its size is not specified in the Constitution. Republicans changed the size of the Court three times between 1863 and 1869 to give appointments to their Presidents and deny them to the opposition. [3] Furthermore, Republicans announced in 2016 that they would not fill any Supreme Court seats with nominees of Hillary Clinton (if she were elected), thereby effectively shrinking the size of the Court. Moreover, in 2013, Republicans proposed shrinking the number of justices on the D.C. Appellate Court, the second most important appellate court in the country, from 11 to 8 to lock in a conservative majority and prevent President Obama from appointing judges to the court. [4]

The packing-the-court issue is far bigger than just the Supreme Court. Senator McConnell and the Senate Republicans blocked dozens of Obama’s nominees to other courts, so that there were over 100 vacancies for federal judges when Trump took office. Over 200 federal judges have been confirmed since Trump took office and basically all of them are proponents of the extreme right-wing legal philosophy of the Federalist Society. [5] (More on this is my next post.) Right-wing Republicans have used Federalist Society endorsement as a litmus test for nominees while ignoring input from the American Bar Association, which always used to provide an independent analysis of the qualifications of nominees. [6] Republicans have also intentionally been installing young judges so their lifetime tenures and influence will last as long as possible.

This packing of the federal courts with right-wing justices, which is the result of McConnell and the Republicans breaking the norms of our democratic processes, will benefit Republicans and their wealthy, corporatist backers for a generation or longer. The only remedy for this political corruption, the only way to keep its perpetrators from realizing on-going benefits, is to increase the size of the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. New judges, appointed by Democrats, will rebalance the courts to reflect the interests and well-being of the American public. Furthermore, the federal district and appellate courts have not been enlarged since the late 1970s, despite a 40% growth in population.

It is important for the Democrats to stand up and make it clear that Republicans can’t steal two Supreme Court seats (and dozens of seats on other federal courts) and get away with it. They should couple an increase in the size of the Supreme Court with a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment to set term limits and/or a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices.

By rebalancing the federal courts, Democrats would demonstrate a needed commitment to America’s democratic principles and promises, as well as to economic and social justice.

My next post will discuss the right-wing judicial philosophy called “originalism” to which these Republican judges typically adhere and its implications for economic and social justice.

[1] Richardson, H. C., 10/11/20, “Letters from an American blog post,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-11-2020)

[2] Richardson, H, C., 10/11/20, see above

[3] Starr, P., 9/23/20, “How to rebalance the Supreme Court,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/justice/how-to-rebalance-the-supreme-court/)

[4] Kuttner, R., 10/13/20, “Biden needs to give a major speech on court expansion,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/biden-speech-supreme-court-expansion-court-packing/)

[5] The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and libertarians that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society)

[6] Heer, J., 10/14/20, “Barrett’s evasions show why expanding the Court is necessary,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/barrett-confirmation-court-packing/)

THE U.S. IS AT A HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT FORK IN THE ROAD

Bob Kuttner has written another one of his eloquent, incredibly insightful and provocative articles. This one analyzes the historically significant fork in the road the U.S. is facing, puts this inflection point in historical and political perspective, and offers his views on where we should go and what it will take to get there. [1] He doesn’t mince words and is not afraid to speak truth to political and economic power. I will summarize the article here, but I encourage you to read the whole article at the link in the footnote as I cannot do it justice. The article is relatively short, under 2,000 words; it’s only two pages in The American Prospect magazine.

(Note: Kuttner is the most knowledgeable, thoughtful, eloquent, and insightful progressive policy analyst I know of. The breadth of his knowledge across policy topics and history leaves me in awe. He is the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, which is my go-to source for progressive policy analysis and proposals. He is a professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School, where I got my Ph.D. in Social Policy with a focus on early childhood policies and programs.)

Kuttner starts the article with this statement: “We will soon know whether America will surmount its worst catastrophe since the Civil War. We have every reason to worry.” He goes on to note that “We Americans grow up learning our history as a chronicle of near disasters that narrowly come out right.” He cites the following examples of other historical inflection points where the U.S. surmounted significant challenges and put itself on a positive path for the future:

The Revolutionary War
The writing of the Constitution in 1787
The Civil War and the ending of slavery
The Great Depression
World War II

He states that “Now, we are at another inflection point where history could go disastrously wrong. … Things have already occurred that were inconceivable to most Americans.” He cites examples of the inconceivable that include:

The undermining of the U.S. Postal Service (at least in part to rig the election),
The failure to combat Russian interference in our elections,
The President stating he might not abide by the election’s results, and
The Attorney General failing to stand up for the rule of law.

Kuttner excoriates Republicans in Congress, governors’ offices, and state legislatures who have violated the fundamental principles of the historical Republican Party and our democracy to benefit their wealthy benefactors and maintain their political power.

He states that “America’s corporate and financial elite, given a corrupt, incompetent dictator who serves their economic interests, will choose the dictator over a democracy that might trim their billions. This is full-on fascism — the alliance of the business class with a tyrant who confuses the masses with appeals to jingoism and racism, while the plutocrats steal working people blind.”

His analysis concludes that “Trump is the logical extreme of a long downward spiral. … Trump merely makes flagrant what was tacit.” He states that in addition to Republican presidents, Presidents Clinton and Obama allowed a continuation of the 40-year slide where “money relentlessly crowded out citizenship, while economic concentration and political concentration [of power] fed on each other.” The concentration of economic power has occurred due to the emergence of huge corporations with monopolistic power in numerous industries due to the lack of enforcement of anti-trust laws. This economic concentration has led to great wealth in the hands of a small number of investors and corporate executives. They have used that wealth to gain great political power, which has led to policies that benefit them and their businesses. This self-reinforcing cycle has been a spiral leading to great inequality in income, wealth, personal well-being, and opportunity.

Kuttner states that reversing this long, downward spiral will be difficult and will require repairing damage to essential institutions in government, society, and the economy. These include facilitating voting rather suppressing it, using anti-trust laws to break up monopolistic corporations, reversing growing economic inequality, and supporting workers through higher wages, job security, and the right to bargain collectively with employers. Public agencies that have been hollowed out need to be rebuilt, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and more.

He notes that there are two serious obstacles to accomplishing this revival even if Democrats win the White House and control of the U.S. Senate. First, the Republicans in Congress and President Trump (but also Republican presidents before him) have packed the federal court system at all levels with right-wing judges. Kuttner states that “Reclaiming democracy will require reclaiming an honest judiciary. … Republicans have been so relentless in their blockage of Obama appointees and their ramming through of far-right judges that the very legitimacy of the judicial system is in question.” Kuttner makes a case for adding judges and expanding the federal courts at all levels as the only way to achieve balance and avoid judicial blockages of needed policy changes.

The second serious obstacle to revival of the American promise is the immense influence of corporate power brokers and the many corporate-leaning Democrats for whom current economic policies are the conventional wisdom. Kuttner believes that absent massive grassroots pressure the likelihood is that a Biden administration will not seriously challenge economic power and concentration, particularly in the financial and high-tech industries. The concentration of market and political leverage in huge corporations and in their executives and large investors has led to dramatic economic inequality, job insecurity, and hardship for American workers.

Kuttner proposes that the trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve has pumped into large corporations to bail them out in the current financial crisis should instead be focused on rebuilding infrastructure, addressing climate change, and ending racism, including paying reparations.

Kuttner closes by stating that if the U.S. returns to the path laid out by its core principles through the results of the November elections and subsequent actions that “it will be the narrowest of great escapes ever.”

[1] Kuttner, R., 9/17/20, “The terror of the unforeseen,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/the-terror-of-the-unforeseen/)

OUR ELECTIONS ARE RIGGED Part 2

Our elections are indeed rigged – by Republicans and the country’s wealthy capitalists to skew results to their benefit. One of their strategies is to reduce voting by those who are not part of their primary constituency of well-off, white voters. [1] My previous post describes the four main barriers to voting that states have been imposing. Studies show they disproportionately disenfranchise non-white, low-income, student, and/or elderly voters, groups who tend to vote for Democrats:

Imposing voter identification requirements
Reducing places and times for voting
Purging eligible voters from voter registration lists
Denying people with a felony conviction the right to vote

There are a variety of strategies that are being used to suppress voter participation in general and participation by likely Democratic voters in particular, in addition to the four above. In some states, Republican gerrymandering of state legislative districts has given Republicans undeserved power to enact barriers to voting. In Wisconsin, for example, in 2018, Democrats won a majority of the statewide vote for the state legislature (52%) but got only 36 of 99 seats in the legislature (36%).

Voter suppression strategies being used in various places across the country include:

Impeding voter registration: While some states are making it easier to register to vote, for example through election day registration and automatic voter registration at motor vehicle offices and other state agencies, many Republican-controlled states are making it harder to register. For example, some states have made the process for conducting voter registration drives so onerous that the effect has been to ban them. In Georgia, in 2018, the Secretary of State (who oversees elections and was a white male running against a Black woman for Governor) was charged with blocking the registration of 50,000 voters (80% of whom were non-white) due to minor discrepancies in the spelling or spacing of their names. [2]
Failing to update voter registration systems with address changes: Without up-to-date addresses for people who move frequently, e.g., young people, students, and low-income workers, these voters (who tend to vote for Democrats) do not receive ballots or voting information, and hence are less able and likely to vote.
Undermining confidence in our elections: Spreading lies about the existence of voter fraud and the validity and honesty of our elections creates skepticism about the importance of voting. Failure to combat foreign efforts to affect the outcome of our elections and to undermine faith in their credibility also damages voters’ enthusiasm for voting. Calling ballots that are counted after election day fraudulent (for example, mailed-in ballots that were postmarked on time) contributes to the false perception that our elections are dishonest. All of these techniques and other related ones undermine voters’ motivation to turnout to vote.
Providing misinformation about voting and registering to vote: This is a classic “dirty trick” used to confuse voters and keep them from registering to vote and from voting.
Creating barriers to or doubts about mail-in or absentee ballots: The President and some Republican-led states are erecting barriers to mail-in voting because it has been shown to increase voter participation, which does not work to their benefit. In addition, the President, in particular, is trying to sow doubt about the validity and effectiveness of mail-in voting despite its very successful use in many states, including as the sole method of voting in Oregon since 1998. Some states are making it complicated to correctly complete a mail ballot. In Alabama, for example, the signature on an absentee ballot must have two witnesses or a notarization. [3] A complicated process increases the likelihood that ballots can be disqualified due to a technical error in completing them and most states do not have a process for remedying a minor technical error; the ballot is simply not counted. Some states are setting strict deadlines for receipt of mail ballots (e.g., they must be received by election day not just postmarked by election day). In one county in Florida, 1,200 ballots were not counted for being too late despite being postmarked on time. And, as I imagine you’ve heard, the Trump administration is working to harm the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to process mail in a timely fashion. Finally, some states prohibit the opening of mail ballots until election day or even until the polls have closed. This delays the finalization of election results and gives Republicans the opportunity to assert that the late counting of ballots is indicative of fraud, as they did in Florida in the 2000 presidential election.
Intimidating voters: In Pennsylvania, the Republicans have sued all 67 counties to allow Republican-hired, outside “poll watchers” at the polls. Poll watchers such as these have typically been used to harass, challenge, and intimidate targeted voters, namely those who are likely to be voting for Democrats. They do this by, for example, demanding proof of eligibility to vote. They are typically deployed in low-income, non-white neighborhoods and sometimes wear uniforms and carry badges, cameras, and guns. This kind of intimidation was so bad back in 1982 that a federal judge imposed restrictions on activities that might intimidate voters. However, in 2018, with the Trump campaign’s support, these restrictions were lifted. [4]
Refusing to give workers time to vote: In most states, election day is not a holiday and most employers do not give workers time off (let alone paid time off) to vote, although this may be starting to change.
Negative campaigning: Negative messages and nasty campaigning create disillusionment with candidates (whether the information is true or not) and with voting in general. The result is lower voting participation both in general and for the targeted candidate.

Republicans have amassed a $20 million fund to bring lawsuits aimed at reducing voting and blocking the counting of ballots, such as provisional ballots cast by people whose voter registration was purged or blocked by voter suppression techniques. In Florida, for example, Republicans have sued to prevent postage-paid return envelopes from being sent with mail-in ballots, hoping to reduce the rate at which they are returned. In Nevada, they have sued to prevent the state from sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters.

President Lyndon Johnson called voting “the first duty of democracy”. However, President Trump and Republicans in Congress and in the states have been doing everything they can to denigrate that duty and to make it as hard as possible for those likely to vote for Democrats to fulfill their duty to vote. [5] This is stunningly unpatriotic and in violation of our Constitution and the founding principles of this country. Democracy’s foundational principle is that all citizens have a right and duty to vote. Undermining the ability to vote and the importance of voting are antithetical to democracy.

There are steps we can take to increase voter participation and, thereby, improve the health of our democracy. Steps to make it easy to vote and to block strategies inhibiting voting are occurring in the courts and in some states. The battle over allowing voting by those convicted of felonies in Florida has gone through three levels of courts already and is on-going, although it appears likely that 775,000 of them will not be able to vote this fall. In Virginia, where Democrats gained control of the state government in the 2019 election, they have repealed the state’s voter ID law, made election day a state holiday, expanded the early voting period to 45 days, and implemented automatic voter registration for people using services from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Mail-in ballots will have pre-paid postage and drop boxes for returning them will be installed throughout the state. Voters will be able to fix technical errors on mail-in ballots, while absentee ballots will no longer require a witness’s signature. [6] In North Carolina, a Democratic Governor, a state Board of Elections with a non-partisan leader, and court orders have reversed the tide in a state that was one of the leaders in voter suppression in 2016. [7]

The ultimate solution is a national one, namely reinstituting the protections that were in place under the Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court disingenuously eviscerated it in 2013. To this end, I encourage you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and let them know you support the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which passed the House in December 2019 but has not been acted on by the Senate. In addition, our election systems need extra financial support to operate safely, effectively, and accurately during the current pandemic. To this end, I also urge you to let your Members of Congress know you support the VoteSafe Act and the funding for election systems in the House-passed HEROES Act. [8] Given that the Republicans in control of the Senate are not likely to act on these bills this year, in the meantime, encourage your state and local election officials to make it as easy as possible for all eligible voters to register and vote.

To live up to our principles, every citizen needs to be readily able to fulfill that first duty of democracy – to vote.

[1] Hightower, J., 9/1/20, “Six ways the Right is shredding the right to vote,” Common Dreams from The Hightower Lowdown (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/09/01/six-ways-right-shredding-vote)

[2] Durkin, E., 10/19/18, “GOP candidate improperly purged 340,000 from Georgia voter rolls, investigation claims,” The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp)

[3] Bidgood, J., 9/20/20, “Alabama: ‘They’re doing everything to stop us from voting’,” The Boston Globe

[4] Hightower, J., 9/1/20, see above

[5] Graham, R., 9/14/20, “Vote!” The Boston Globe

[6] Gibson, B., 9/14/20, “How Virginia made voting easier and fairer,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/how-virginia-made-voting-easier-and-fairer/)

[7] Kuttner, R., 9/16/20, “Election night could be smoother for Senate races,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/election-night-could-be-smoother-for-senate-races/)

[8] Fudge, M., 9/21/20, “The struggle to vote continues,” The Boston Globe

OUR ELECTIONS ARE RIGGED

Our elections are indeed rigged, but not in the direction or way President Trump claims. For decades now, Republicans and the country’s wealthy capitalists have been working to skew election results to their benefit by reducing voter participation. As Republican campaign strategist Paul Weyrich said in 1980, “I don’t want everybody to vote. … Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” [1]

Low participation in elections works to the advantage of corporations, wealthy individuals, and Republicans. They know that their constituency – white, well-off voters – will continue to vote but that others can be prevented or discouraged from voting by barriers to voting and by spreading doubts about candidates and our elections.

Since the 1980s, Republicans and their wealthy donors have engaged in an escalating, coordinated, well-funded, multi-pronged effort to prevent targeted people from voting and to suppress voting in general. It now seems that no holds are barred; serious distortions of candidates’ positions, beliefs, and experiences and blatant lies are commonplace. One prong of their effort was getting “conservative” judges appointed to courts at all levels including the U.S. Supreme Court. This culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2013 that key portions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) were unconstitutional because discriminatory voting practices were (supposedly) no longer a significant issue. This was essential to the escalation of Republicans’ targeted voter suppression efforts.

The states have proved the Supreme Court wrong; every one of the nine states that had been subject to Voting Rights Act oversight (which occurs because of past discriminatory practices) has implemented new discriminatory barriers to voting. All told, over half of the 50 states have enacted hundreds of barriers to voting in the seven years since the Supreme Court’s decision, some literally within days of the decision.

The four main barriers to voting that states have imposed are:

Implementing voter identification laws: Eleven states had strict voter ID laws in 2016, where without the required ID a vote will not be counted unless the voter quickly takes the steps required to validate the provisional ballot they are allowed to cast. These strict voter ID laws first appeared in 2006. In 2000, only 14 states had any ID requirement and all of them allowed a voter to cast a ballot that would be counted through a relatively simple, on-the-spot process. By 2016, 33 states had an ID requirement. [2] For example, in Alabama, a state that had been subject to VRA oversight, a strict voter ID requirement was enacted the year after the Supreme Court’s decision. Motor vehicle offices were where most people would go to get the required photo ID. However, soon after enactment of the voter ID requirement many of these offices in predominantly Black communities were closed, although some of them were later reopened. [3] In Iowa, a very strict voter ID law was enacted in 2017, which it is estimated will keep 260,000 people from voting this fall. Studies have shown that voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchise non-white, low-income, and elderly voters. There is no evidence of voter fraud, however, it is, nonetheless, given as the rationale for voter ID laws. Moreover, voter ID requirements would NOT prevent the kind of voter fraud Republicans claim is happening. [4]
Reducing places and times for voting: A number of states have reduced the number of polling places. The nine states subject to the Voting Rights Act before its evisceration by the Supreme Court in 2013 have closed 1,688 polling places, typically in areas with high proportions of Black voters. Some states have reduced the number of days of early voting and Alabama, for example, does not allow early voting.
Purging eligible voters: While election officials do need to clean up voting registration lists (e.g., to remove people who’ve died or moved out of the jurisdiction), Republicans have turned the updating of voting lists into a technique for purging likely Democratic voters. Nationally, an unusually high number of voters (17 million) have been removed from voting lists since the 2016 election. The purges often target people who move frequently (e.g., young people, students, low-income workers, and non-white voters). These groups also happen to tend to vote Democratic. Often a postcard is mailed to the targeted voters (but not forwarded) and if it isn’t returned, they are removed from the voting rolls. Sometimes voters who haven’t voted in a couple of elections are summarily removed from voting lists. Georgia, for example, purged more than 534,000 voters from its voting rolls in 2016 and 2017. However, a study found that 340,000 of them were valid voters, predominantly non-white, and still living at the addresses on their voter registration information. [5]
Denying people with a felony conviction the right to vote: Forty-eight states deny those convicted of a felony the right to vote while they are incarcerated. Eleven states deny them the right to vote even after they have completed their sentences (including any probation or parole), although there typically is, in theory, a process for regaining their voting rights. [6] These laws denying voting rights reflect the racism of Jim Crow laws, where whites were looking for ways they could legally keep Blacks from voting (among other things). Laws were written and selectively enforced so that Black males were convicted of felonies at a high rate and therefore prevented from voting. (Women couldn’t vote at that time.) In 2016, there were over 4.7 million citizens out of prison but disenfranchised by their criminal record. One-third of them are Black. [7] In recent years, there has been a trend toward reinstating their right to vote often with some conditions. For example, in Florida in 2018, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question to repeal the law preventing those who had been convicted of a felony from voting after completing their sentences (except for those convicted of murder or a sex crime). However, the Republican Governor and legislature have gone out of their way to thwart the will of the people. As it currently stands, those who have completed their sentences, now also have to pay all restitution, fines, fees, and court costs before they are allowed to vote. This is effectively a new kind of poll tax and will keep an estimated 775,000 people, who are predominantly Black men, from voting this fall.

My next post will cover some of the secondary techniques for suppressing voting and steps we can take to increase voter participation and, thereby, the health of our democracy.

[2] National Conference of State Legislatures, retrieved 9/20/20, “History of voter ID,” (https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id-history.aspx)

[3] Bidgood, J., 9/20/20, “Alabama: ‘They’re doing everything to stop us from voting’,” The Boston Globe

[4] Gibson, B., 9/14/20, “How Virginia made voting easier and fairer,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/politics/how-virginia-made-voting-easier-and-fairer/)

[5] Durkin, E., 10/19/18, “GOP candidate improperly purged 340,000 from Georgia voter rolls, investigation claims,” The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-governor-race-voter-suppression-brian-kemp)

[6] National Conference of State Legislatures, retrieved 9/21/20, “Felon voting rights,” (https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx)

[7] Wood, E., 2016, “Florida: An outlier in denying voting rights,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Florida_Voting_Rights_Outlier.pdf)

MAKE THE POST OFFICE GREAT AGAIN

The scandalous behavior of Louis DeJoy, the Trump administration’s new Postmaster General for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), has gotten quite a bit of attention in the mainstream media; my previous two posts presented at least some of the rest of the USPS story. (My last post described the efforts to undermine and privatize the USPS, and, on the other hand, growing interest in reviving postal banking. My previous post described DeJoy’s Friday night massacre of personnel and the role of Treasury Secretary Mnuchin in the USPS shenanigans.)

In case you missed it, two new scandals have emerged involving the Trump administration’s leaders at the USPS. First, Postmaster General DeJoy faces multiple allegations that he pressured employees of his private business to make political contributions and rewarded employees if they did so with bonuses or raises. If true, this is a blatant violation of campaign finance laws. [1] Second, Robert Duncan, the chairman of the USPS Board of Governors (which formally appointed DeJoy), is a long-time major Republican fundraiser (as DeJoy is). Duncan recently was identified as one of three directors of a Republican Super PAC that has already spent nearly $18 million supporting Senate Republican candidates in the 2020 elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell basically controls this Super PAC. Duncan’s long-time relationship with McConnell and his role with the Super PAC are coming under scrutiny as concerns are growing about political manipulation of the USPS. [2]

Here are a number of actions and policy changes that Congress should initiate to restore and strengthen the USPS and its ability to deliver quality services, which would make the USPS great again. After all, it is a public good that connects us with each other and supports our democracy and our economy. [3]

Investigate Postmaster General DeJoy and ultimately remove and replace him with a qualified, non-partisan leader.
End the Treasury Department’s and Secretary Mnuchin’s control over and involvement with the USPS.
Repeal the provisions of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enforcement Act that require the USPS to pre-fund its retiree benefits and instead allow the USPS to account for its retiree benefits and present its finances using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
Repeal the provisions of the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act that require the USPS to be considered a private business and instead treat it like a public agency and a public service.
Rescind restrictions on the USPS’s operations and, for example, allow it to pursue postal banking to provide a valuable service to unbanked Americans and others poorly served by private, for-profit financial corporations.
Remove the requirement that the USPS invest its retiree benefits funds solely in Treasury Bonds; no private retirement fund would do this and it negatively affects investment returns and, therefore, increases costs for the USPS.
Explore the possibility of enrolling retirees in Medicare to more efficiently provide retiree health benefits.

These steps would allow the USPS to provide efficient, quality, universal service, while providing good jobs for its workers. They would stabilize and normalize the finances of the USPS and benefit the public.

DeJoy, Mnuchin, and Trump are engaged in sabotage of the USPS, plain and simple. They want to discredit it as a public agency, undermine its union workers, and shift its revenue to private companies (namely their friends and campaign contributors).

I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators to tell them that you support the U.S. Postal Service and oppose efforts to undermine it. Please also ask them to support postal banking to provide affordable and convenient basic financial services to the public, particularly low-income households. Private banks have failed to provide such services to many Americans and payday lenders have emerge to fill this gap but are taking advantage of desperate low-income workers.

[1] Queally, J., 9/6/20, “ ‘This is against the law and DeJoy must be fired’: Postmaster General accused of criminal violation of campaign laws,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/06/against-law-and-dejoy-must-be-fired-postmaster-general-accused-criminal-violation)

[2] Johnson, J., 9/1/20, “ ‘The corruption is bottomless’: Documents reveal chair of postal service board is Director of McConnell-allied Super PAC,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/01/corruption-bottomless-documents-reveal-chair-postal-service-board-director-mcconnell)

[3] Anderson, S., Klinger, S., & Wakamo, B., 7/15/19, “How Congress manufactured a postal crisis – and how to fix it,” Institute for Policy Studies (https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/)

BIG BUSINESS HAS FAILED US IN THE PANDEMIC

Big businesses and their executives have failed us in the coronavirus pandemic, but nonetheless they are standing at the public trough getting more bailout money than anyone else. This sounds just like what happened in 2008.

Big corporations and their so smart executives didn’t see the business opportunity and respond to the pandemic when it appeared in late 2019 in China. They could and should have seen what was coming and increased the production of ventilators and personal protection equipment (PPE). This was a great opportunity for them to make a profit and garner good publicity but with their short-term, finance-focused mentality, they totally missed the opportunity.

Corporate executives have failed to push back on the Trump administration and the right-wing movement in their disdain for science and expertise. At times, they have promoted it, for example in climate change denial. In the case of the coronavirus, shortly before Trump made his dangerous call for the country to get back to normal by Easter, he had been on a conference call with financial executives who apparently told him that ending social distancing would be good for the financial markets.

Corporate executives – supposedly leaders – have failed to stand up for rational policies and preparedness. In doing so, they have aided and abetted the right-wing anti-government, anti-knowledge, anti-truth movement. By doing everything they can to avoid paying taxes, corporate executives have undermined government capacity to respond to public health crises, among other things.

Lessons that were learned during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 have been ignored and undermined by the Trump administration and its enablers in Congress. They have weakened our public health system and undermined our global health security, including eliminating the key position that coordinates U.S. global health efforts. [1] The Trump administration ignored the plans the Obama administration gave them, developed based on the Ebola outbreak, on how to respond to a public health crisis.

The right-wing movement reflexively opposes government policies and programs, both because it wants unbridled, unregulated opportunities to make profits at any cost to the public good, and because they don’t want to take the chance that any government action would appear to be valuable or successful. They don’t want voters to ever get the sense that government does important things that serve the public interest. [2]

Deregulation, particularly of the financial industry and financial standards, has undermined the financial stability of multiple corporations and industries. There are many financially unstable corporations in the U.S. that are likely to be in or on the brink of bankruptcy without government assistance in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. This is the result of big banks making high-risk loans, vulture capitalists’ leverage buyouts (with high-risk loans), and corporations using virtually all their profits and even borrowed money to buy back stock and pay dividends (which enriches executives and wealthy shareholders). The systematic weakening of the regulation of the big banks since the 2008 crash, including the undermining of the Dodd-Frank law’s financial safeguards put in place after that crash, have contributed significantly to this dangerous situation. [3]

For example, over the last decade the airline industry has spent 96% of the cash generated by profits to buy back its own shares of stock. Therefore, it failed to build a reserve against tough times and is now standing at the public trough asking for a bailout of $50 billion. Coincidentally, the six biggest U.S. airlines spent $47 billion over the last ten years buying their own stock, endangering the financial stability and future of the corporations. [4]

A corporation buying its own stock boosts the price of its shares, which enriches big stockholders and executives. In 2012, for example, the 500 highest paid executives at public U.S. corporations received, on average, $30 million each in compensation with 83% of it based on stock options and stock awards. Therefore, a boost in the price of the corporation’s stock enriches these executives substantially. [5]

Over five decades, corporate executives have outsourced their supply chains to foreign countries, notably China, while ignoring the risks and hidden costs of being dependent on global trade. They did so to increase profits by dramatically reducing labor costs. The coronavirus pandemic has brought the risks and hidden costs of globalization home to roost. Manufacturing operations in China and other countries have shut down due to the pandemic, which has also made the shipping of goods problematic. Foreign governments, especially authoritarian ones like China, are controlling exports, including of critically needed supplies to respond to the pandemic. As a result, corporations dependent on global operations to produce goods for export to and sale in the U.S., don’t have products to sell and consumers can’t get things they need, including critical health care supplies and drugs.

The risks of global supply chains shouldn’t have come as a surprise to smart corporate executives. In the 1930s, when dealing with the Great Depression, economist John Maynard Keynes argued for the globalization of ideas and arts, but the retention at home of the manufacturing of goods. [6]

The bottom line is that corporate executives exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic by:

Failing to respond to the emergence of the coronavirus in a timely and effective manner,
Failing to support preparedness for a public health crisis and a knowledge-based response when the coronavirus hit,
Supporting deregulation of finances that have made their own corporations and our economy more vulnerable to economic stress, and
Outsourcing global supply lines making their own corporations and all of us more vulnerable to disruptions in global trade.

[1] Warren, E., retrieved from the Internet 4/5/20, “Preventing, containing, and treating infectious disease outbreaks at home and abroad,” https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/combating-infectious-disease-outbreaks

[2] Krugman, P., 3/28/20, “COVID-19 brings out all the usual zombies,” The New York Times

[3] Warren, E., retrieved from the Internet on 4/5/20, “My updated plan to address the coronavirus crisis,” https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/updated-plan-address-coronavirus

[4] Van Doorn, P., 3/22/20, “Airlines and Boeing want a bailout – but look how much they’ve spent on stock buybacks,” MarketWatch (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/airlines-and-boeing-want-a-bailout-but-look-how-much-theyve-spent-on-stock-buybacks-2020-03-18)

[5] Lazonick, W., Sept. 2014, “Profits without prosperity,” Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity)

[6] Prestowitz, C., & Ferry, J., 3/30/20, “The end of the global supply chain,” The Boston Globe

THE LEGACY OF WARREN’S RUN FOR PRESIDENT

As a policy wonk and someone who believes governments have an important role to play in addressing issues in our economy and society, I’m disappointed to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren drop out of the Democratic presidential race. Her highlighting of the work we need to do on social and economic justice will have a lasting legacy.

Warren has more clearly and specifically laid out a progressive vision for this country than anyone since President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She spelled out not only what that vision looked like but how to achieve it. She focused attention on the role of government, who it is supposed to work for in a democracy, and how those with wealth and power have undermined the basic principles and promise of our democracy. [1]

The detailed roadmap Warren put forth of how to solve problems in our society and economy, and to return to government of, by, and for the people will, fortunately, long outlive her presidential campaign. In February 2019, she put forth the first of her numerous plans to address our problems with a proposal to make affordable, high quality child care available for all children under school age. And she put forth her proposal for a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires as the way to pay for it and a number of her other plans.

Warren next presented a plan to break up and regulate the Big Tech corporations that are engaging in monopolistic practices and abusing the personal information they gather from all of us. She followed this up with a proposal to reverse decades of racist housing policies implemented by governments at all levels along with private sector lenders and the real estate industry. She followed up with plans to tackle the cost of higher education and student debt, a detailed plan to pay for health care for all, and policies to lessen the influence of big corporations and wealthy individuals in our policy making process.

Warren’s meticulous policy proposals set the agenda for the Democratic race for the presidential nomination. Hopefully, they will set the agenda for the final presidential race and future policy debates in Congress and governments at all levels.

Her proposals and arguments on the campaign trail hammered home the message that America’s problems are not inevitable but are the results of choices reflected in government policies. Warren highlighted how these decisions have been driven by the power of wealthy individuals and corporations, and how they have put their profits, power, and personal gain ahead of the common good.

Warren’s abilities as a storyteller made our problems and her solutions resonate with many Americans, as she wove her personal life story and America’s history into a clear, understandable, and persuasive narrative.

In keeping with her message that government needs to better serve the broad public, she raised the majority of her campaign’s $92 million (which, sadly, is necessary to run a competitive campaign these days) from small donors giving $200 or less. She refused to hold big ticket fundraisers where attendees make contributions in the thousands of dollars. She received more than half of her fundraising total from women, which is highly unusual if not unprecedented. This all demonstrated, as Sen. Sanders has as well, that a viable presidential campaign can be run without relying on large sums of money from wealthy individuals (who have vested, special interests). [2]

Warren has changed the way many Americans view our society and economy. Many people have learned about a wealth tax and the racial wealth gap for the first time, for example.

I believe she has changed the course of our country. Only time will tell how quickly and extensively her vision will affect the policies of our governments and the characteristics of our economy and society.

[1] Voght, K., 3/5/20, “What Elizabeth Warren taught us,” Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/what-elizabeth-warren-taught-us/)

[2] Hasan, I., & Monnay, T., 3/5/20, “Low on cash and delegates, Warren ends her White House bid,” OpenSecrets.org, Center for Responsive Politics (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/03/warren-ends-her-bid/)

LIES ABOUT THE 2017 TAX CUT ARE NOW CLEAR

The effects of the December 2017 tax cut bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), rammed through by Republicans in Congress and President Trump, are now quite clear. I’ll provide a summary of what it did, note the promises that were made about its effects, and then review its actual effects.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, among other things:

Permanently cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% (the lowest level since 1939)
Repealed the 20% corporate alternative minimum tax (which had required profitable corporations to pay at least some taxes on their profits)
Allowed up to $63,000 of pass-through business profits to go untaxed to help small businesses (supposedly). (These are profits from businesses that are not taxed because they are passed through to and taxed on an individual’s tax return.)
Provided significant tax benefits to corporations for investments in facilities and equipment, as well as for borrowing money
Adjusted the taxation of multinational corporations to more fairly tax their profits, for example, by increasing taxes on profits shifted to overseas entities and by incentivizing corporations to repatriate trillions of dollars of profits previously stashed overseas
Doubled the size of an estate that is exempt from taxation from $5 million to $10 million per person
Repealed the requirement of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) that individuals have health insurance or pay a tax to support the health care system
Made changes in the personal income tax system that are generally neutral for most taxpayers, although several of the tax reduction provisions are scheduled to expire in 2025

The supporters of the TCJA, including Members of Congress, the President, corporate executives, and wealthy shareholders all promised that it would:

Provide a sizable tax cut for workers and middle-income people, while increasing taxes on high-income people
Increase wages and workers’ incomes by $4,000 a year
Increase business investment, and hence worker productivity, the number of jobs, and economic growth in the U.S.
Limit the increase in the federal government’s deficit to $150 billion a year
Discourage the shifting of corporate profits and jobs overseas through new taxes, while also increasing tax revenue by giving corporations an incentive to bring up to $4 trillion of profits stashed overseas back to the U.S. by reducing the taxes they would have to pay on those profits. (More on this topic in my next post.)

The actual effects of the TCJA have been: [1]

No discernable wage increase due to the TCJA. In fact, wage growth appears to have slowed in 2019.
Clear failure to increase business investment; no increase in 2018 and a significant decline in the first 9 months of 2019. When the TCJA was enacted in 2017, year-over-year investment growth was at 5.4%. However, it has been dropping sharply and was only 1.3% in the third quarter of 2019 (the latest data available). [2]
Larger than projected decline in federal corporate tax revenue, which was expected to be $96 billion a year (roughly a 26% tax cut). As a result, the deficit is increasing by about $30 billion a year more than the $150 billion a year that was promised. The deficit is projected to increase to over $1 trillion a year in 2020.
The latest information suggests that the decline in revenue and the increase in the deficit may be even larger. (More on this in my next post.) The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the deficit (including interest payments) will be an average of $230 billion a year higher over the next 10 years due to the TCJA and $310 billion a year higher in 2028.

The federal government’s revenue from corporate taxes had already been declining as a portion of total federal tax revenue, largely due to corporate tax evasion and avoidance. The trend of declining tax revenue from corporations has been accelerated by the TCJA, which cut corporate taxes by about 26% or $96 billion a year. The corporate tax cut has primarily benefited corporate shareholders, at least in the short run; the 10% wealthiest households own roughly 80% of corporate shares and, therefore, these already wealthy households are the primary beneficiaries of the corporate tax cuts. [3]
Business profit pass-through tax exemption, supposedly targeted at small businesses, has largely benefited millionaires, which isn’t what most people think of when they think of a small businessperson. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone, as 49% of pass-through income appears on the tax returns of the richest 1% of taxpayers.
Increase in income and wealth inequality along both class and racial lines. Rich corporate executives and wealthy shareholders have been enriched at the expense of workers. White households are 67% of taxpayers but are estimated to receive 80% of the TCJA’s benefits, and most of this will go to the 5% of households with the highest incomes, i.e., over $243,000 a year. The average tax cut for a Black household has been $840, but $2,020 for a White household. For families with incomes under $25,000, the average tax cut has been about $40.
In 2018, the 5% of individuals with the highest incomes received nearly 50% of the TCJA’s benefits. After the individual tax cuts expire in 2025, the 1% of households with the highest incomes will receive 83% of the benefits of the TCJA.
A bigger tax cut for foreign investors than for low- and middle-income households in the U.S. Foreign investors, as a group, will receive an estimated $38 billion tax cut from the TCJA in 2020, while the 20% poorest households in the U.S., as a group, will receive an estimated $2 billion.

The bottom line is that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 has delivered none of the promised benefits to workers and low- and middle-income households, but has delivered much greater benefits than were promised (or admitted to) to large, particularly multi-national, corporations and to wealthy individuals. Economic benefits for workers and low- and middle-income households have not materialized and there is no reason to expect them to. Business investment and economic growth have not increased as promised. The promise of more fairly taxing multi-national corporations’ profits to increase tax revenue and discourage the shifting of profits and jobs overseas have not lived up to the promises made, and the most recent findings indicate that this failure has been more dramatic than was initially realized. (More on this topic in my next post.)

The loss of revenue for the federal government is significantly larger than was projected and, therefore, the increase in the federal budget deficit is much greater than what was promised.

[1] Corser, M., Bivens, J., & Blair, H., Dec. 2019, “Still terrible at two: The Trump tax act delivered big benefits to the rich and corporations but nearly none to working families,” The Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/files/uploads/20191211_Trump-Tax-Bill-R6.pdf)

[2] Blair, H., 12/17/19, “On its second anniversary, the TCJA has cut taxes for corporations, but nothing has trickled down,” Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/on-its-second-anniversary-the-tcja-has-cut-taxes-for-corporations-but-nothing-has-trickled-down/)

[3] Corser, M., Bivens, J., & Blair, H., Dec. 2019, see above

YEAR-END REFLECTIONS ON DEMOCRACY AND THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

For New Year’s Eve 2019, with a momentous election coming up in 2020, I’m reflecting on the state of progressivism (aka liberalism) and our democracy. One of my heroes in the world of liberal policy and political analysis is Bob Kuttner. The range and depth of his knowledge is truly incredible. His writing is clear and insightful even when covering very complex policy and political issues. A main outlet for his writing and thinking has been The American Prospect magazine, which he co-founded and has run for 30 years. When many print media outlets are disappearing, the Prospect is flourishing.

While the Democratic Party has strayed from its core beliefs and values to shift to the center and the right, especially on economic issues (to allow it to pursue contributions from corporate elites), The American Prospect magazine and Kuttner have stayed true to the progressive cause. They have consistently championed working people’s causes and exposed the abuses of the big, multinational corporations and financial industry. They have connected the dots among the structural corruption of unchecked capitalism, its inextricable link to the corruption of our politics and democracy, how these affect the everyday lives of regular people, and what’s need to reclaim our democracy and country for the people. [1] The Prospect’s most recent issue is an incredibly in-depth analysis of the Green New Deal and the need for urgent and radical, yet practical and doable, actions to address global climate change.

Bob Kuttner’s comments at the October gala celebrating the Prospect’s 30^th anniversary, reflecting on the roles of “mainstream” and radical progressives or liberals, struck me as very relevant and insightful in the run-up to the 2020 elections. Here is an excerpt:

“One of the things that fascinates me is the uneasy relationship and necessary symbiosis between liberals and radicals. Liberal democracy, at its core, is about the rule of law, democratic representation, the concept of loyal opposition, free inquiry, and due process. It’s polite. But sometimes, power relations become so out of kilter that radicalism has to violate well-mannered liberalism. The industrial union movement could not have succeeded without sit-down strikes that violated property rights. The civil rights movement required sit-ins, and marches, and other forms of civil disobedience. Lyndon Johnson, when he allied himself with Martin Luther King, understood that people had to break the law as it was then understood to redeem the Constitution. And of course the anti-war movement of the 1960s had to break a lot of china.

“Just as liberals, however queasily, need radicals, it’s also the case that radicals need liberals. Because drastic change ultimately needs to be enshrined as law.” [2]

Since the 1980s, an important factor driving the shift to the right and the enhancement of the power of corporate America and the wealthy has been an imbalance in financial resources and in the way the wealthy are using them. As Kuttner notes above, liberals and the left tend to be polite, well-mannered, focused on consensus and bipartisanship, and to operate within the context of laws, institutions, and established norms and practices. The right and their wealthy funders have not been similarly constrained. They have readily adopted an extreme agenda, been willing to bend and break the truth and the facts, and have willingly, and at times apparently gleefully, ignored norms and traditions, broken the law, and trashed important institutions of our democracy. [3]

This closing reflection from Kuttner’s speech resonates strongly with me:

“… the postwar system of managed capitalism, that my generation assumed was the new normal, was in fact an anomaly. …

It takes enduring continuous political struggle to keep enriching and expanding democracy, both for its own sake and to housebreak capitalism. That is a labor of Sisyphus. You roll the rock up the hill; and the rock tumbles back down the hill. But in Albert Camus’s celebrated essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, the last line is: ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy. The work, and the joy, is in the struggle.’” [4]

Beginning in the 1980s, the Democratic Party, and we as citizens of a democracy, let too many rocks roll too far down the hill by undoing the oversight and regulation of capitalism and letting it and the wealth of corporate elites corrupt our politics and policies. The middle class and working people got buried in the landslide of rocks rolling downhill.

Many citizens learned from the election of 2016 that democracy is not a spectator sport; citizens need to be engaged and informed for democracy to work. Some in the Democratic Party recognized and others found their voices to say that too many rocks had rolled too far down the hill of economic inequality and of other injustices in our society. Hopefully, the 2020 elections will reflect that learning, which was evident to some extent in the 2018 national elections, as well as in elections at the state and local levels.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to do whatever I can in 2020 to advance the movement that’s reclaiming our liberal democracy of, by, and for the people. I hope it’s one of your resolutions too.

[1] Meyerson, H., 10/24/19, “Sisyphus is happy,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/sisyphus-is-happy/)

[2] Meyerson, H., 10/24/19, see above

[3] Heer, J., 9/10/19, “In an age of policy boldness, think tanks have become timid,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/think-tanks-democratic-party/)

[4] Meyerson, H., 10/24/19, see above

SUPPLY-SIDE, TRICKLE-DOWN TAX CUT THEORY HAS FAILED

Plutocratic economics (see this previous post for background), and specifically so-called supply-side or trickle-down economics, claims that cutting taxes, particularly on the wealthy and businesses, will stimulate economic growth so much that 1) government tax revenue will actually increase, 2) the number of jobs will grow, and 3) workers’ pay will increase.

There have been at least six significant federal tax cuts between 1978 to 2019 and, in every case, federal government revenue did NOT increase as promised. These tax cuts, under Presidents Carter, Reagan, G. W. Bush, and Trump, each produced some short-term economic stimulus, but federal revenue declined and the budget deficit increased. Furthermore, these tax cuts have been neither fair (economic inequality has increased) nor efficient (some of the country’s most profitable corporations and wealthiest individuals pay little or no taxes). [1]

Some states have also cut taxes based on supply-side economic theory, most notably Kansas in 2012. Like the federal cases, the results have not been what was promised. Kansas’s Republican Governor Brownback and the state’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature eliminated state income taxes for more than 100,000 businesses and greatly reduced taxes on wealthy individuals. Invoking supply-side, trickle-down economic theory, Brownback predicted the tax cuts would more than pay for themselves, i.e., that state tax revenue would grow. Instead, revenues fell so precipitously that shortages in funding for schools required that the school year had to be considerably shortened to save money, public construction projects ground to a halt, and the health coverage of the state’s Medicaid program had to be greatly reduced. The state’s economy ceased producing jobs and Kansas’s economy performed more poorly than its neighboring states on virtually every economic indicator. (See this previous post for more details.)

In 2016, Kansas voters – including Republicans who objected to seeing their children’s educations shortchanged – revolted. Republican primary voters, joined by Democrats, ousted legislators who had refused to repeal the tax cuts, and in 2017, the new legislature overrode Brownback’s veto of a bill repealing the cuts. In 2018, voters elected Democrat Laura Kelly as their new governor, and today, with adequate funding restored, Kansas has resumed its support for education, infrastructure spending, and the other basic governmental functions. As a result, in 2019, Kansas leapt from 35^th (in 2018) to 19^th on CNBC’s list of the top states for business. [2]

Nonetheless, in 2017, supply-side, trickle-down economic theory was invoked by President Trump and the Republicans in Congress in justifying their $150 billion a year tax cut primarily for corporations and wealthy individuals. The results of these tax cuts have been, predictably, NOT what was promised. Rather than stimulating higher economic growth, growth and job creation have been slow.

The federal budget deficit has grown substantially and workers’ compensation remains stagnant. Huge rewards have gone to large corporations and their executives, so economic inequality has grown sharply. The corporations are using the windfall to buy back their own stock at record rates. This enriches executives and other large stockholders. Corporations have not been increasing workers’ compensation, nor hiring additional workers, nor investing in innovation. (For more detail see this previous post.)

Furthermore, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress, citing the growing budget deficit, argue that cuts need to be made in economic safety net programs including food assistance for the poor, health care for the poor and seniors (i.e., Medicaid and Medicare), and Social Security.

Future posts will summarize the harm plutocratic economics has done to workers and our democracy. They will also discuss the politics of neoliberalism and identify progressive policies that can reverse the harmful effects of plutocratic economics.

[1] Kuttner, R., 6/25/19, “Neoliberalism: Political success, economic failure,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/article/neoliberalism-political-success-economic-failure)

[2] Meyerson, H., 7/23/19, “Going up in economic ratings? Then lose trickle-down,” The American Prospect Today (https://prospect.org/blog/on-tap/going-economic-ratings-then-lose-trickle-down)

FUTURE SUPREME COURT CASES WILL TELL A TALE

The following upcoming Supreme Court cases should be watched to see if the “conservative” majority continues to make partisan or ideologically-driven decisions that reflect judicial activism (i.e., they disregard precedents and established law): (See my previous post on why the “conservative” justices are really radical, right-wing activists.)

Department of Commerce vs. New York State, where the Court will decide whether to prohibit the addition to the 2020 Census of a question on citizenship status. The Constitution mandates a census to count all people living in the U.S. The Census Bureau itself (which is part of the Department of Commerce) estimates that adding a citizenship question would mean that 5.8% of households with a non-citizen would not respond to the Census, resulting in 6.5 million people not being counted.
An acknowledged undercount (due to a citizenship question or anything else) would violate the intent of the Constitution. Furthermore, the undercounting of households with a non-citizen, who disproportionately live in states and districts represented by Democrats, will result in billions of dollars of reduced federal financial assistance to those areas due to funding allocations based on population. It might also result in Democratic leaning states losing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the loss of Democratic leaning seats in state legislatures.

A citizenship question has been added to the Census 1) in violation of the law for modifying the Census, 2) over the objections of experienced Census Bureau employees and six former directors of the Bureau under both Democratic and Republican presidents, and 3) based on a rationale that has been lied about by Commerce Secretary Ross and other Trump Administration officials. [1]

A recently uncovered 2015 report by a Republican redistricting strategist, Thomas Hofeller, concluded that a citizenship question would provide data to facilitate drawing political districts that would benefit Republicans. Hofeller also suggested using the rationale for the question that the Trump Administration has put forward: that the question would help protect minority voters under the Voting Right Act. The Justice Department letter to the Commerce Department requesting the addition of a citizenship question, uses, word-for-word, a paragraph from Hofeller, despite denials from the Justice and the Commerce Departments that they were aware of Hofeller’s work. [2]

Therefore, if the Court rules that a citizenship question can be included on the Census, the decision will reek of partisanship.
Rucho vs. Common Cause and Benisek vs. Lamone are cases where the Court will rule on the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts to benefit Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland. [3] Although these two cases reflect gerrymandering by each party, the bulk of and the most extreme partisan gerrymandering that is in place today has been done to benefit Republicans. (See my previous posts on gerrymandering here and here.)
If the Court refuses to ban extreme partisan gerrymandering, the decision will clearly benefit Republicans and, therefore, appear to be partisan.
The Court has decided to rule on three cases involving employment discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered (LGBT) individuals. Courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled since the 1980s that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on discrimination based on sex protected LGBT people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces non-discrimination in the workplace, has interpreted the Civil Rights Act to apply to sexual orientation and gender identity. Protection for LGBT people in federal law is important because 30 states do not have laws protecting them from discrimination. Many in the LGBT community are concerned that the Supreme Court will overturn these precedents in its rulings on these cases. It is even possible that its rulings in these cases could undermine protections for women. [4]
If the Supreme Court’s rulings in these cases overturn protections for LGBT individuals, the Court’s decisions will be viewed by many as radical, right-wing ideological and partisan decisions by activist justices.
Although no case is expected to reach the Supreme Court for a while, anti-abortion activists in Alabama and a number of other states clearly intend to engender a Supreme Court case that will give the Court an opportunity to reverse the Roe vs. Wade decision guaranteeing women the right to terminate a pregnancy. Anti-abortion activists are pushing these laws now because they believe the current “conservative” Supreme Court justices will overturn the settled law and precedent that Roe vs. Wade represents and that has been in place for over 45 years.
A Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade will be viewed by many as a radical, right-wing ideological and partisan decision of judicial activism.

If the Court makes radical, right-wing, partisan, activist decisions in some or all of these cases, Congressional action to reverse them is possible, with the possible exception of the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. Even there, Congress could ameliorate the effects of the inclusion of the question. (See my previous post on reversing the effects of Supreme Court decisions.)

These Supreme Court cases will be closely watched. A series of radical, right-wing, partisan, activist decisions will, unfortunately, continue to undermine the faith of the public that the Supreme Court – and our court system in general – is impartial and non-partisan. They would also undermine a foundational element of our democracy: its system of supposedly independent checks and balances.

[1] Liptak, A., 4/15/19, “The Supreme Court will soon consider whether the Census will include a citizenship question,” The New York Times

[2] Wang, H. L., 5/30/19, “GOP redistricting strategist played role in push for Census citizenship question,” National Public Radio (https://www.npr.org/2019/05/30/728232221/gop-redistricting-strategist-played-role-in-push-for-census-citizenship-question)

[3] Stohr, G., & Robinson, K., 3/26/19, “Supreme Court Justices question suits over partisan gerrymandering,” Bloomberg Law (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/top-court-justices-question-suits-over-partisan-gerrymandering)

[4] Arana, G., 5/22/19, “Does the Civil Rights Act protect gay employees? The Court will decide,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/article/does-civil-rights-act-protect-gay-employees-court-will-decide)

REVERSING SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

Congress could reverse the effects of many of the Supreme Court’s decisions by changing relevant laws. Many of the Court’s 5 to 4 rulings by the “conservative” justices (who I argue in a previous post would be more accurately described as radical, right-wing, activists justices) are politically or ideologically driven. Congressional action to reverse them is possible and in many cases would restore long-standing precedents and established law that the “conservative” justices have chosen to ignore or overturn.

One prominent example of a Supreme Court ruling that congressional action could reverse is the Court’s decision that gutted the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act. (See my previous post on this case here.) By updating the criteria for determining which local jurisdictions are subject to federal oversight, Congress could reinstitute federal review of states’ election practices. The proposed Voting Rights Advancement Act in Congress would accomplish this. [1]

As another example, Congress could reverse recent Supreme Court decisions that allow businesses to force harmed consumers and workers to settle their claims in a privatized arbitration system that overwhelmingly favors business interests. These Court decisions selectively interpret legal language or fabricate legal reasoning to allow a business to require consumers and workers to sign mandatory arbitration agreements that prohibit them from suing the business if they are injured or harmed. For example, the Court has read into the Federal Arbitration Act, which says nothing about class action lawsuits, that a corporation can require a consumer to sign away his or her right to join a class action lawsuit. [2] Congress could pass a law that establishes a right for consumers and workers to sue a business if they are harmed.

Additional examples of legislatively correctible Supreme Court decisions where established law and/or precedent have been ignored or overturned include:

Congress could pass a law reinstituting long-standing anti-trust laws that the Court has overturned. The Court’s decisions have changed anti-trust laws to:
- 1) allow price fixing between manufacturers and distributors, and
- 2) define a theoretical promise of short-term consumer price reduction as the sole criterion for deciding whether to permit corporate mergers and aggregations of marketplace power.
Congress could reverse the Court’s overturning of executive branch agency regulations, which the “conservative” justices did by developing a rationale for ignoring a 35-year-old precedent that had been repeatedly cited as established law. The Court has rejected agency regulations based on its own re-interpretation of underlying laws, rather than deferring to agencies’ expertise and interpretation of the law as had been the precedent. This effectively shifts regulatory power from executive branch agencies with long-standing experience and expertise to the five right-wing, male justices of the Supreme Court. Congress could pass a law prohibiting the courts from overturning a regulation if it is based on a permissible interpretation of the underlying law (which was the old precedent).
Congress could reverse the Supreme Court’s dramatic weakening of protections from discrimination based on race, age, religion, sexual orientation, and gender-identity. In race and age discrimination cases, the Court has ruled, contrary to precedent, that discrimination must be proven to be the sole cause of negative treatment. It has defined the term “supervisor” so narrowly that almost no one can be found guilty of sexually or racially harassing a subordinate. It has ruled that an employer or business owner can, based on his or her personal religious beliefs, eliminate coverage for birth control from an employer-sponsored health insurance plan. [3] Congress could pass laws defining the term “supervisor” and the standard for a finding of discrimination. It could also pass a law requiring all employer health insurance to meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act (Obama Care), which would mean including coverage for contraception.

Congressional action to overturn these and other Supreme Court decisions is not only possible, and would not only reverse bad legal precedents and harmful effects, but would send a message that power resides with Congress, not with five, unelected “conservative” men. Even if legislation to reverse these decisions can only be passed by the House, doing so would be beneficial. It would highlight the harm and lack of impartiality behind these politically or ideologically driven decisions, as well as the “conservative” justices’ ignoring of precedents and established law. House passage of such laws might temper future decisions by the Court and highlight important issues for future hearings on the confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

My next post will identify some upcoming Supreme Court decisions that should be closely watched to see if the trend of politically or ideologically driven decisions continues.

[1] Millhiser, I., 2/13/19, “Not so Supreme? Congress actually has a lot of power, mostly unused, to rein in the Roberts Court by clarifying the intent of the law,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/article/not-so-supreme)

[2] Millhiser, I., 2/13/19, see above

[3] Millhiser, I., 2/13/19, see above

THE NOT CONSERVATIVE AND NOT IMPARTIAL SUPREME COURT

“Conservative” is not the right term to use to describe the Supreme Court Justices who have been the “conservative” majority in many 5 to 4 decisions going back to at least 2000. This applies in particular to the current five “conservative” justices who will be the deciding majority in many future decisions.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas are probably better described as “radical, right-wing” justices. They could also be described as Republicans, small government ideologues, corporatists (supporters of large corporations and businesses), and/or plutocrats (supporters of the wealthy elites). Predecessors Rehnquist and Scalia also fit this mold; Kennedy, Souter, and O’Connor were a little harder to categorize.

These “conservative” justices are frequently making decisions that are not impartial decisions based on the law – despite their claims at confirmation hearings that they are just umpires calling balls and strikes based on the law (or some variation on this theme). One expert commentator states that “many of the Roberts Court’s decisions are so poorly reasoned that they appear to be straight-up dishonest.” (p. 52) [1] Despite nominees’ statements at confirmation hearings they respect precedents and established law (or something to that effect), their decisions frequently do not do so.

The “conservative” justices are also not strict constitutionalists – committed to following the original intent of those who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – despite their claims to be. Trying to apply laws and principles written back in the late 1700s to today’s world without interpretation and adjustment is ridiculous on the face of it, even if they did consistently try to do this (which they don’t). For example, corporations barely existed in the 1700s and they were nothing like the huge, multi-national corporations we have today. Also, the guns that existed then took many seconds, if not a minute or so to reload, while today we have guns that fire multiple bullets per second. Not to mention transportation and electronic communications that today happen at speeds that couldn’t have even been imagined in the 1700s, let alone the ability to store and have ready access to information on the scale we do today. Even if the relevant intent of those constitutional authors could be determined, there is no reason, over 200 years later, to give such deified status to their pronouncements.

And the “conservative” justices have sometimes made decisions that simply contradict reality, as in their decision to effectively overturn the Voting Rights Act. (See my previous post on that decision here.)

The Supreme Court, in the years since the Bush vs. Gore decision in 2000, has frequently ruled in ways that serve Republican partisan purposes, without apparent concern about overturning settled law or precedents, or violating their own stated principles. [2] In Bush vs. Gore, the Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop recounting ballots in the presidential election, when the recount might have shifted the victory from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Al Gore. It overruled Florida’s Supreme Court and election officials despite the “conservative” justices’ frequently stated belief in “states’ rights,” which means that the states have the power to conduct their business, such as elections, without interference from federal authorities.

Other Supreme Court decisions that have clearly benefited Republican partisan interests and that were 5 to 4 decisions include: [3]

Janus in 2018, which ruled that workers in a unionized workplace do not have to pay union dues even though the union is still required to represent and advocate for them in collective bargaining and in grievances. This is expected to result in a drop in union membership and in the financial resources available to unions. The Justices were well aware that unions register and mobilize more voters, particularly minorities, than any other organizations and that these voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
Shelby County in 2013, which effectively overturned the Voting Rights Act and allowed Republican state governments and election officials to make it difficult for minorities, low-income citizens, and other Democratic-leaning voters to register and vote. (See my previous post on this decision here.) Without this decision and the voter suppression it allowed, Democrat Stacey Abrams and not Republican Brian Kemp would almost certainly have been elected Governor of Georgia in 2018, for example.
Citizens United in 2010, which, along with other rulings, allows corporations and wealthy individuals to spend unlimited sums of money in our elections. This money clearly works to the benefit of Republicans and, in general, those who support the power and political influence of corporations and wealthy individuals in our political system and policy making.
Vieth vs. Jubelirer in 2004, which ruled that gerrymandering of electoral districts to favor one party over the other is not unconstitutional. The great majority of such gerrymandering, and by far the most extreme partisan gerrymandering, has been done to favor Republicans. Absent partisan gerrymandering, Democrats would likely have 15 to 20 more seats in the U.S. House. (See my previous posts on gerrymandering here and here.)

Congress could act in all these cases (as well as others) to reverse the effects of the Supreme Court’s decisions by clarifying the legislative intent and goals of underlying laws. One clear example is the Court’s decision that gutted the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act. This decision is considered by some to be one of the mostly egregiously reasoned cases of the Roberts court. (See my previous post on this case here.) Congress could reinstitute the Voting Rights Act’s control over states’ election practices by updating the criteria for identifying jurisdictions that would be subject to federal oversight. The proposed Voting Rights Advancement Act in Congress would do this. [4]

Congressional action to reverse these politically or ideologically driven decisions is not only possible, and would not only reverse harmful effects and overturn bad legal precedents, but would also send a message that power resides with the people and Congress, not with five, unelected “conservative” men. Even if legislation to reverse these decisions or their effects can only be passed by the House, it could potentially temper future Supreme Court decisions. At the least, it would highlight the harm and lack of impartiality behind these decisions.

A subsequent post will identify other Supreme Court decisions where congressional action could negate the effects of the Court’s rulings. Another future post will identify future Supreme Court decisions that should be closely watched to see if the partisan, rather than impartial, decision making continues.

[2] Kuttner, R., 5/15/19, “Over to you, John Roberts,” The American Prospect Today (https://prospect.org/blog/on-tap)

[3] Meyerson, H., 4/23/19, “The GOP Justices: Republicans first, white guys second, Constitutionalists third,” The American Prospect Today (https://prospect.org/blog/on-tap?page=1)

[4] Millhiser, A., 2/13/19, see above

ON-GOING RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE MUST BE STOPPED

Since the release of the Mueller report, the focus has been on obstruction of justice by and possible impeachment of President Trump. The report’s documentation of Russian election interference has gotten little attention. Concomitantly, there has been little attention to the need to protect our future elections from on-going Russian meddling.

Based on the Mueller team’s finding of “sweeping and systematic” interference by Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign, it indicted 25 Russians. Russian operatives used every major social media platform, and used them extensively, to spread false information, exacerbate social divisions, and influence the election.

The Mueller report spells out in detail the blatant and illegal efforts by Russia to affect the 2016 presidential election specifically to benefit Donald Trump and to undermine Hillary Clinton. It presents substantial evidence “that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the [Trump] Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” [1] [2]

Highlights from a much longer list of events related to Russian interference in the election include the following: [3]

September 2015: The FBI warns the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that at least one of its computers has been hacked by Russians.
June 2016: The Washington Post and others report that hackers working for the Russian government have stolen DNC emails and other information. Wikileaks announces that it has Clinton and DNC emails and documents. It begins publishing them in July.
July 2016: Russian intelligence agency hackers target Hillary Clinton’s home office.
October 2016: The Department of Homeland Security and the Office of National Intelligence on Election Security officially state that the U.S. intelligence community is “confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions” and are behind the releases of stolen documents by Wikileaks and DCLeaks. DCLeaks is later identified as a front for Russian military intelligence.
Late November and December 2016: Various media outlets report that the CIA has determined that Russia’s goal in interfering with the election wasn’t just to undermine confidence in the election and the U.S. government, but was also to support Trump and hurt Clinton. They also report that this intelligence has been shared with Congress.
Late December 2016: President Obama issues an executive order naming six Russians who took part in the presidential election hacking and imposing sanctions on Russia.
June 2017: A Department of Homeland Security official testifies before the Senate that hackers linked to the Russian government targeted voting systems in up to 21 states and compromised at least one email account at an American voting machine company. Although no evidence of effects on vote counting were found, voter information may have been accessed.
July 2018: The Justice Department, as part of Mueller’s investigation, indicts 12 members of Russian intelligence for persistent efforts to hack emails and computer networks associated with the Democratic Party.
September 2018: Facebook announces that more than 3,000 ads posted between June 2015 and May 2017 had undisclosed links to Russia. CNN reports that these ads targeted voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states Trump won narrowly and that were key to his victory.

In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued an Intelligence Community Assessment entitled, “Assessing Russian activities and intentions in recent US elections.” [4] It states that it is a “declassified version of a highly classified assessment; its conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment.” It concludes that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was the most recent example of Russia’s longstanding efforts to undermine US democracy but represented a significant escalation of their efforts.

It finds with “high confidence” that Russian President Putin ordered the efforts with goals of aiding Trump and hurting Clinton. It also concludes with “high confidence” that Russian military intelligence was behind the release of hacked information. It states that “Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards. … We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts.” (p. iii)

The Trump campaign was happy to accept the help of the Russians, apparently without actively conspiring (i.e., colluding) with them. It nonetheless engaged in a variety of contacts with Russian agents and did not report offers of help from them to the FBI or others. Members of the Trump campaign and family, including the President himself, lied to the FBI and others on multiple occasions about their contacts with Russians.

To respond to the evidence of on-going Russian attempts to influence our elections, the House and the Senate should continue the investigation and identify remedies. Based on their findings, they should formulate legislation and allocate resources to ensure the integrity of our future elections.

One would think that any American president and any Members of Congress, regardless of party or ideology, would support a thorough investigation of Russian interference to determine how to block future threats to our elections, and ultimately our national sovereignty and security. The Republican-controlled Senate and the formerly Republican-controlled House have refused to do so. The Republicans in Congress have abandoned their oath of office and American democracy in the interests of their re-election and political power.

President Trump, as the Mueller report spells out in detail, has repeatedly tried to terminate, limit, or impede the investigation of Russian interference in our elections. Trump’s actions make it clear that his concern is not for American democracy, but reflects three things: [5]

Acknowledgement of Russian meddling on his behalf undermines the credibility of his election in 2016,
On-going Russian efforts benefit his presidency, and
Russia’s activities improve his likelihood of re-election in 2020.

Former President Ronald Reagan, who branded Russia the “evil empire” and worked assiduously to win the Cold War with Russia, must be turning over in his grave to see his Republican party failing to protect America’s elections from Russian interference.

Despite President Trump’s resistance to an investigation, the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security have made their task forces on election interference permanent. The FBI recently moved 40 agents and analysts to its Foreign Influence Task Force. [6] However, without leadership from the President, and the cross-agency coordination and support that would provide, the efforts by these agencies will be less effective.

I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and your Senators and urge them to take action to protect our elections from meddling by Russia or other foreign actors.

[1] Cole, D., 4/23/19, “An indictment in all but name,” The New York Review of Books (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/05/23/robert-mueller-report-trump-indictment/)

[2] Mueller, R. S., III, May 2019, “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election,” U.S. Department of Justice (www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf)

[3] CNN, 4/18/19, “2016 presidential campaign hacking fast facts,” CNN Library

[4] Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 2017, “Intelligence Community Assessment: Assessing Russian activities and intentions in recent US elections,” (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3719492/Read-the-declassified-report-on-Russian.pdf)

[5] Cole, D., 4/23/19, see above

[6] Barnes, J. E., & Goldman, A., 4/26/19, “F.B.I. warns of Russian interference in 2020 race and boosts counterintelligence operations,” The New York Times

ARE THE DEMOCRATS’ IDEAS RADICAL?

The mainstream media’s frequent characterization of ideas put forth by Democratic members of Congress and Democratic presidential candidates as “radical” or “far left” or “out of the mainstream” is simply inaccurate. Most of the ideas so labeled are policies that:

Have previously been in place in the U.S.,
Are broadly supported by the American public,
Have been seriously considered in the U.S. in the past, and/or
Are widely in place in other wealthy countries.

For example, Representative Ocasio-Cortez’s recent suggestion that the income tax rate on income over $10 million be raised to 70% was called “insane.” In addition, it was stated that it would kill our economy.

However, in the 1950s, the top income tax rate was over 90% and our economy did just fine. The top tax rate was 70% on income over $216,000 up until 1980 and the economy continued to do well. In the 1980s, President Reagan slashed the top tax rate. The economy didn’t boom as a result, rather the growth and prosperity of the middle class stalled, workers’ wages became stagnant, and income and wealth inequality in the country began to explode. [1]

The 1950s, 60s, and 70s were a 30-year period with top income tax rates of 70% or more, on incomes of roughly $200,000 and up. This period also had strong economic growth, a growing middle class, and increasing equality. Therefore, a proposal to restore such a rate on incomes over $10 million represents a partial return to a policy with a proven track record of success. It is not “radical” or “insane” to say the least.

Ocasio-Cortez’s idea, therefore, is a sensible proposal to address growing inequality and an economy that is working for the rich (and especially the super-rich), but for no one else. What is out of the mainstream is President Trump’s and Congressional Republicans’ 2018 tax cut for the wealthy, given that 43% of voters say they want taxes raised on incomes over $250,000 (not just $10 million) and 60% say they don’t feel millionaires are paying their fair share of taxes. Furthermore, since 2003, the Gallup Poll has annually asked the public whether taxes on the rich were too high, just right, or too low. Every year, 60% to 70% of respondents have said “too low.” Yet, the mainstream media refer to supporters of the tax cut for millionaires as “moderates” and those who propose doing what a clear majority of Americans support as “radicals.” [2] [3]

Polls of the public also indicate that several other proposals reported as “radical” or “out of the mainstream” by the media are supported by majorities of Americans. Proposals for universal health insurance or Medicare for All are called radical, yet 70% of Americans support this, including a majority of Republicans. Proposals for tuition-free public college are called radical, but 79% of Democrats and 41% of Republicans support this.

In the 1950s and 1960s, tuition at public colleges and universities was free or minimal. Universal health insurance has been a topic of serious discussion in the U.S. on and off since President Franklin Roosevelt proposed it in 1944 as part of his Economic Bill of Rights, which included “the right to adequate medical care.” (See this previous post on FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights for more information.) Former Representative John Dingell, who just passed away at age 92, filed a bill, “The United States National Health Insurance Act,” in the U.S. House every session from 1955 to 2013; it would have created a single-payer health care system. [4]

Multiple polls have found that most Americans (including a majority or near-majority of Republicans) support Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for an annual wealth tax of 2% on wealth above $50 million, rising to 3% on assets over $1 billion. [5] Yet, the mainstream media and most pundits are calling her proposal radical.

We currently have a wealth tax; but it’s only on the main form of middle-class wealth – people’s homes. Homeowners pay a property tax, which is typically used to fund local government and schools. Nonetheless, the suggestion that other forms of wealth, ones that are typically owned by the very wealthy, be taxed at a similar rate is branded as radical.

Internationally, of course, the U.S. is the country that’s out of the mainstream. Most other wealthy nations have higher income tax rates than the U.S., have universal health insurance, and have free or near-free post-secondary education. A number of these countries also have a wealth tax – and more would have one if it were established as an international standard so the wealthy couldn’t so easily hide or shift their wealth to another country to escape a wealth tax. (But that’s a whole other topic for another post.)

Here in the U.S., these and many other policy proposals being put forth by Democrats are being labeled as radical, when they are actually anything but radical. They are supported by majorities of Americans (see this previous post for more information) and, in many cases, have been mainstream ideas for generations. Many of them have been pushed out for the mainstream by radical “conservatives” over the last 20 years, building on efforts that began over 40 years ago.

These ideas and policies – for higher income and wealth taxes, for universal health insurance, and for free public college – are being brought back into the mainstream by these Democratic politicians and their grassroots supporters. The election results of 2016 have brought them new levels of attention. Broad public support for the politicians proposing them, along with probable future election results, appear likely to put them squarely back in the mainstream. Resistance from the mainstream media and some politicians will have to be overcome, but it’s becoming clear who the real radicals are and who’s truly in the mainstream.

[1] Eagan, M., 1/11/19, “There’s nothing ‘extremist’ about social welfare,” The Boston Globe

[2] Eagan, M., 1/11/19, see above

[3] Meyerson, H., 1/24/19, “AOC’s achievement: Making American’s progressive beliefs politically acceptable,” The American Prospect Blog (https://prospect.org/blog/on-tap)

[4] Nichols, J. 2/8/19, “John Dingell kept the faith, from the New Deal to ‘Medicare for All’,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/john-dingell-obit-medicare-for-all/)

[5] Kapur, S., 2/9/19, “Warren starts 2020 bid, vows to end system ‘rigged’ by rich,” Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-09/pushing-a-wealth-tax-elizabeth-warren-to-launch-white-house-bid)

RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE? FEDS: NO! VOTERS: YES!

The bad news is that Congress and the President have not raised the federal minimum wage since July 2009 when it was set to $7.25 (about $14,500 per year for a full-time worker). After adjusting for inflation, it is now worth only $6.19. At its peak in 1968, the minimum wage was worth $11.39 in today’s dollars. If it isn’t raised by this July, which seems unlikely, it will have been 10 years that low-income workers governed by the federal minimum wage have gone without a raise; the longest period without an increase since it was first establish in 1938. [1]

Failing to raise the minimum wage as inflation increases prices shifts money from low-income workers’ pockets and the local economies where they spend their earnings to the pockets of their employers’ executives and shareholders. This is borne out by the fact that executive pay and corporate profits are at record levels. The minimum wage does not get increased because employers are greedy and politicians cater to wealthy campaign supporters rather than regular voters and workers. By the way, the best data available show that increasing the minimum wage does NOT reduce overall employment.

The good news is that some states and communities, often driven by grassroots activists, are increasing the minimum wage. On January 1, 2019, the minimum wage in 20 states and 24 communities went up, increasing pay for over 5 million workers. Over the course of the year, workers will earn over $5 billion more as a result. In eight states, the minimum wage is linked to inflation and is automatically adjusted each year. Alaska is one; there the minimum wage will go up, but by just $0.05 per hour, the smallest of the increases. [2]

The minimum wage increases were set by legislative action in six states and by local governing bodies in the communities where the wage increased. In New York City, for example, the minimum wage went up by $2.00 per hour.

In six states, increases in the minimum wage were the result of ballot measures that voters approved. Increasingly, as the federal government and some state governments (Arkansas and Missouri for example) are refusing to increase the minimum wage, grassroots activists are taking matters into their own hands and putting increases on the ballot.

The bad news is that in Michigan and the District of Columbia (D.C.) legislators blocked, reduced, and/or delayed increases in the minimum wage that had been put forth by voters! In D.C., city councilors overturned a law approved by 55% of voters that would have increased the minimum wage of tipped workers so that over time it would be the same as the minimum wage for other workers. [3]

In Michigan, the Republican legislature and Governor went out of their way to deny the will of the voters. Over 300,000 citizens had signed a petition to put a minimum wage increase on the November ballot, where its approval seemed certain. The ballot measure would have increased the minimum wage from $9.25 to $10 on January 1, 2019, to $12 by 2022, and then had it increase automatically based on inflation.

In September, the Michigan legislature and Governor, in an effort to circumvent the proposed minimum wage increase, adopted the language of the ballot initiative. This meant it would not appear on the ballot, thereby denying voters the opportunity to approve it. Then, the legislature voted for (and the Governor signed) a delay in the minimum wage increases with the increase to $12 delayed from 2022 to 2030! They also eliminated the automatic increases based on inflation. This would likely mean that minimum wage workers would see their real wages (after adjusting for inflation) decline over this period.

The good news is that the Michigan law that allows the legislature and Governor to intercept a ballot measure and prevent it from appearing on the ballot by approving it, states that the approved measure cannot be amended in the same legislative session. However, this is exactly what they did. Therefore, a lawsuit to the state’s Supreme Court is likely and would appear to have a good chance of succeeding. [4]

Given the almost 10 years since the federal minimum wage was increased and the 40 years of other policies that have left workers’ wages stagnant, raising the minimum wage at the state or local level is perhaps the most effective way to lift the incomes of our lowest-paid workers. Unfortunately, 21 states still rely on the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

The resistance of our elected officials to increasing the minimum wage reflects the extent to which many Republican and some Democratic elected representatives are more responsive to large employers and their wealthy executives and shareholders than to every day workers. The fact that every minimum wage increase that’s appeared on the ballot has been approved by voters shows the strength of support for a higher minimum wage among the voting public.

[1] Ingraham, C., 12/27/18, “Here’s how much the federal minimum wage fell this year,” The Washington Post

[2] Cooper, D., 12/28/18, “Over 5 million workers will have higher pay on January 1 thanks to state minimum wage increases,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/12/28/over-5-million-workers-will-have-higher-pay-january-1-thanks-state-minimum-wage) or Economic Policy Institute (https://www.epi.org/blog/over-5-million-workers-will-have-higher-pay-on-january-1-thanks-to-state-minimum-wage-increases/)

[3] Cooper, D., 12/28/18, see above

[4] Anzilotti, E., 12/6/18, “Michigan Republicans decide that people can live on $9.25 an hour for the next decade,” Fast Company (https://www.fastcompany.com/90277788/michigan-republicans-decide-that-people-can-live-on-925-an-hour-for-the-next-decade)

ELECTION AND ETHICS REFORM

With Democrats taking over control of the U.S. House in January, there’s a wide range of issues they might tackle. Even if many of the bills they propose, and hopefully pass, don’t become law (because they aren’t passed by the Senate or are vetoed by President Trump), they will frame the debate going forward and into the 2020 elections. Furthermore, policies can become law by attaching bills or provisions to must-pass bills such as those funding the government. This is a tactic that has been used for many, many years and has been used frequently by Republicans over the last 12 years. Talking about substantive issues will shift the discussion to ideas from personalities and to meaningful, long-term policies to address important problems rather than short-term, idiosyncratic, one-off deal making.

Two key topics will be the focus of the first bill in the new House in January. They were the first two topics on my previous post’s list of possible issues for House Democrats to address. They are:

Elections: stop voter suppression, encourage voting, stop gerrymandering, and reform campaign financing (e.g., limit contributions, provide matching public funds, and require full disclosure of spending and donors)
Ethics: address conflicts of interest for Congress and all federal workers; stop the undue influence of special interests obtained through lobbying, the revolving door, and campaign expenditures

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the current leader of the House Democrats (and likely Speaker of the House come January), has stated that the first bill in the new House in January, known as H.R. 1, will address the restoration of democratic principles and procedures. It will address election and integrity issues where government of, by, and for the people has been undermined by wealthy individuals and corporations. The overall goal of the bill will be to end the ability of special interests to bend public policies to their benefit and against the interests of hard-working Americans and our democracy. This will restore Congress’s and the federal government’s abilities to enact policies that address the problems of average Americans. This is essential to renew the public’s faith in our democracy. [1]

Pelosi’s bill would do many of the things President Trump promised to do during his campaign when he stated he would “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C. His actions and appointments have done nothing to drain the swamp and have probably made things worse.

This bill will address the huge amounts of money in our elections and the significant portion of that money that is “dark money” – money where the identity and interests of the true donor are hidden. The bill would require all organizations making donations to or expenditures on campaigns to disclose who their donors are. [2]

The proposed legislation would also take steps to increase the impact and number of small-dollar campaign donors. Incentives would be provided for individuals to make small campaign donations and the impact of those donations would be multiplied by matching them with public funds. Candidates who agree to accept these matching funds would have to limit the size of donations they accept and, perhaps, their overall spending.

The Pelosi bill would re-establish the Voting Rights Act’s protections of every citizen’s right to vote and would stop voter suppression. It would make it easier to vote through automatic and on-line voter registration while strengthening election infrastructure to prevent hacking and ensure accurate, auditable, tabulations of votes. To ensure that everyone’s vote has a fair chance of being meaningful, it would end gerrymandering, probably by requiring that an independent redistricting commission in each state draw congressional district boundaries.

The bill would strengthen ethics and conflict of interest laws governing Congress and federal government workers. It would ban members of Congress from serving on the boards of for-profit companies, which presents a clear conflict of interest. It would also enhance disclosure of who’s lobbying the federal government, so these efforts would be publicly known and not hidden in the shadows. And it would require Presidents to disclose their tax returns.

Pelosi’s bill would implement a code of ethics for Supreme Court Justices, who are currently exempt from the code of ethics that applies to other federal judges. [3]

It would close the revolving door of personnel between government positions and private sector jobs, which creates major conflicts of interest and is a major avenue for undue influence by special interests. It would prohibit employers from giving bonuses to reward employees for moving into public sector positions (as Wall St. has done repeatedly in the past). These individuals often go back to the same private sector employers later. The bonuses present the individuals with a significant conflict of interest from day one in their public sector job, particularly if the bonus is being paid out over time and, therefore, is being received when they are in their public sector role.

Tackling elections and ethics reform as a top priority makes sense for several reasons. First, these issues are very much on voters’ minds. Voters passed several ballot measures addressing them at the state and local levels in November, as was summarized in a previous blog post. Publicity about voting and ethical scandals in the Georgia election, as well as in Florida and North Carolina, have heightened the public’s awareness and concern about these issues. [4] In addition, candidates who refused corporate and PAC money fared very well in November. Noting incumbents’ acceptance of special interest money and linking it to specific votes was an effective tactic for beating them. [5]

Second, over the longer-term, addressing elections and ethics issues is critical to restoring democratic decision-making to government by ending the undue influence of wealthy individuals and corporations. This is essential to making progress on every other issue that would advance the public good. A fairer political process, where government is truly of, by, and for the people, is necessary to eliminate the system-rigging power of wealthy individuals and corporations. This will actually drain the Washington swamp. [6] Restoring faith in the fairness and integrity of our elections and policy making is a necessary first step toward restoring trust in our government.

If Democrats are willing to commit to a new code of conduct and to stand up for true democracy, they could reap the benefits of the current backlash against corrupt behavior by elected officials and the overall corruption of our political processes. There’s an opportunity to lead on re-establishing fairness and integrity in our politics. Some Democrats will resist this, fearing the loss of campaign donations and spending by wealthy individuals and corporations, but not doing so will risk losing a tremendous opportunity, both politically and for the good of our democracy.

I encourage you to communicate with your elected officials at the national and state levels about these issues. Nothing is more likely to persuade them than hearing from constituents who care about fair and ethical elections and behavior by government officials. I welcome your comments and feedback on steps you feel are needed to make our elections and policy making fairer and more responsive to regular Americans.

Thank you for your feedback on the list of topics in my previous post. In upcoming posts, I will delve into infrastructure investment and environmental policy issues since these were the two topics that were most frequently identified as priorities.

[1] Pelosi, N., & Sarbanes, J., 11/25/18, “The Democratic majority’s first order of business: Restore democracy,” The Washington Post

[2] Wertheimer, F., 10/10/18, “House Democratic challengers demand campaign-finance reforms,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/house-democratic-challengers-demand-campaign-finance-reforms)

[3] Mascaro, L., 12/1/18, “House Democrats’ bill seeks reforms,” The Boston Globe from the Associated Press

[4] Carney, E. N., 11/29/18, “Read it and weep: Georgia lawsuit paints stark portrait of voter suppression,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/read-it-and-weep-georgia-lawsuit-paints-stark-portrait-voter-suppression)

[5] Lardner, J., 11/30/18, “What the Democrats must do first,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/what-democrats-must-do-first)

[6] Lardner, J., 11/30/18, see above

THE TRUE STORY OF THE 2018 ELECTION

The dominant narrative of the 2018 election from our mainstream (corporate) media had congealed even before the polls on the west coast had closed. As it turns out, their narrative was wrong.

The narrative goes something like this: there was no blue wave for Democrats; Trump and the Republicans won the election. Furthermore, there was no progressive shift among voters, because even where Democrats won, it was moderates who won; progressive Democrats, like Beto O’Rourke in Texas, lost.

In an attempt to correct the narrative and provide updates on the many races that were not determined by the end of election night coverage, CNN did a novel thing: it held a night of programming a full week after the election that it called “Election Night in America Continued.”

Because of the expansion of mail-in ballots, absentee voting, and early voting, as well as the new use of ranked choice voting in Maine and some very close races, final results have taken longer to tabulate than in the past. A week and a half after the election, two US Senate seats are still up in the air (Florida and Mississippi), as are seven US House seats and two governorships (Florida and Georgia). [1]

The inaccurate story of Democrats losing the election was based on early results from the east coast. Democrats lost a US House seat in Kentucky that had received a lot of attention only because of a scrappy fight in a long-shot race by a woman combat veteran with some advertising that went viral on social media. Democrats also lost a high-visibility US Senate race in Indiana early in the evening. Close races for Governor in Georgia and Florida, and a close Senate race in Florida, all of which are still counting votes but which some pundits prematurely called Republican wins, fueled the Democrats-are-losing story.

Beto O’Rourke’s close loss in the Texas US Senate race, which had received so much attention only because it was so amazing that this race was anywhere near close in deep red Texas, cemented the narrative that the Democrats were losing.

The premature claims of Republican wins are now being used to fuel Republicans’ and Trump’s demand that vote counting stop with claims that these elections are being “stolen.” These false claims are dangerous as they undermine voters’ faith in our democracy and in our voting systems, as well as the commitment to accurately count every vote.

However, as more votes are counted and more results are finalized, especially from the west coast, the blue wave for Democrats is becoming clearer and larger. The Democrats flipped at least 38 seats in the US House. They will have at least 30 more seats than the Republicans. In the US Senate, the Democrats were defending ten seats in states that Trump won but lost only three of them. Meanwhile, Democrats won two Senate seats from Republicans (Arizona and Nevada). [2]

Furthermore, without the gerrymandering and voter suppression done by Republicans, Democrats would likely have won at least a dozen more seats in the US House. For example, in North Carolina, Democratic candidates for the US House got 50% of the overall vote, but only 3 out of 13 seats. With fairly drawn districts, the Democrats would have gotten 3 or 4 more seats in North Carolina alone.

With votes still being counted, it seems certain that in the overall popular vote for US House candidates, Democrats will have at least 7% more votes than Republicans. This would make the 2018 blue wave bigger than the Republicans’ waves in 2010 (President Obama’s first mid-term election) and in 1994 (President Clinton’s first mid-term election). [3]

The mainstream (corporate) media and others who fear a resurgence of progressive values and policies (such as universal health insurance, a $15 minimum wage, and free public higher education) have inaccurately characterized the Democrats’ successes as coming from moderates. They claim that where Democrats ran progressive candidates, they lost. However, to make this argument, they have had to define as moderates many candidates who support progressive policies. [4] For example, of the 60 new incoming Democratic House members, 45 have publicly supported expanding Medicare (including 20 who support Medicare for All), 42 have publicly supported increasing the minimum wage, 49 support campaign finance reform, 48 support reducing prescription drug prices, and 41 support unions.

Overall, 65% of new House members support expanding Medicare or Social Security, while 82% rejected corporate PAC money for their campaigns and / or support campaign finance reform. (Even before the election, the House’s Expand Social Security Caucus had 150 members and the Medicare for All Caucus had over 70 members.) [5]

The Democratic blue wave was also clearly present in state election results. Democrats picked up at least seven governorships (with Florida and Georgia still undecided), three Attorneys General, 50 state Senate seats, and 200 state House seats. There are now 14 states where Democrats hold the governorship and control of both houses of the legislature, up from 8. Republicans hold similar control in 21 states, down from 26. In fourteen states, the parties share control of state government. [6]

Even in deep red Texas, where O’Rourke lost the US Senate race, Democrats picked up two US House seats, two state Senate seats, 11 seats in the state House, and four appeals court judges. In addition, a slate of 17 black women was swept into offices in Harris County. [7]

So, although Democrats and progressives did not win everything they tried for, there was a strong blue wave for Democrats and it had a strong progressive tint to it.

In my next posts, I will provide an overview of the results of the many ballot initiatives that were voted on and then share some thoughts on policy changes that should be high on the House Democrats’ agenda.

[1] Ballotpedia, retrieved 11/15/128, “Election results, 2018,” https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2018

[2] Walsh, J., 11/13/18, “Yes, there was a big blue wave last week,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/midterm-elections-democrats-left/)

[3] Yglesias, M., 11/13/18, “Democrats’ blue wave was much larger than early takes suggested,” Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/13/18082490/blue-wave)

[4] Walsh, J., 11/13/18, see above

[5] Green, A., 11/15/18, “The midterms prove it: Progressive ideas are now mainstream,” The Washington Post

[6] Ballotpedia, see above

[7] Yglesias, M., 11/13/18, see above