Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #200
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
3500 members
November 13, 2009 formerly
Lake Hills Liberals
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members New Liberal Members are Welcome Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Dean Baker Answers My Questions** Ray McBain: Pressure Senators to Support Cloture Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Commercial Media Pundits Absolve President Bush Better to Elect Congress Members than Governors* State and Local Links
to the Beef David Spring: Facts about BIAW and Rob McKenna** Labor Wises Up about Conservative Democrats** Brian Baird Voted Against Health Care Reform* Featured Advocacy Group: Washington Families Standing
Together Nation and World Links to the Beef Most Countries Are Recovering More Than U.S. Afghan Development Depends on Protecting Women Why Are More Children Autistic? Much Money Spent on Medicare is Wasted It Might Be Beneficial if China Quit Buying Our Debt* Our Liberal Spirit What Have You Done to Realize Your Liberal Values? Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs · Federal Funding for Health and Education · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week Democracy is not a
spectator sport. Marian Wright
Edelman
Calendar of Events
Friday, November 13, at 12 Noon at Senator Jim
McDermott’s office (1809 7th
Avenue, Suite 1212
Seattle - rally to kick off campaign to
persuade Senate to pass health care reform bill.
Sunday, November 15, 1-4 PM at Horizon House (900
University Street, Seattle) - Health
Care for All Annual Membership Meeting
Sunday, November 15 at 7 PM at Carwein Auditorium, University of
Washington-Tacoma (1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma) - Does Torture Work?
Sunday, November 22 at 3:30 PM at Federal Way 320th
Library (848 South 320th Street, Federal Way) - Film: Rethink Afghanistan
and Discussion
Communication
with Our Members
New Liberal Members are Welcome
Now that we are using an email blast
service to send our Puget Sound Liberals newsletter notices, we can easily send
them to more members. Please forward our
newsletter notices to your Liberal acquaintances, so they can better understand
how to be an effective Liberal. Ask them
to email me to give permission to add them to our membership.
I would appreciate knowing their
community of residence, legislative district and phone number. The phone number will only be used to correct
bounces.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Petitions
Thank 63
house members who insisted on a public option. Of our 6 Washington Democratic congressmen.
Includes only Jim McDermott.
Tell
Harry Reid that Senate Bill must allow private companies to provide abortion
coverage.
Tell
your house member to co-sponsor HR 3017 to prohibit anti-GLBT employment
discrimination.
Tell
our Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the polar bear from oil drilling and
global warming.
Tell
President Obama to support strong clean energy legislation and attend
Copenhagen meeting.
Tell
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that too big to fail financial firms are
too big to exist.
Tell
President Obama to not send any more troops to Afghanistan.
Tell
global leaders to reduce hunger by supporting agriculture in our poorest
countries.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Dean Baker Answers My Questions
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and
Policy Research answered some questions that I asked him.
Hi Dave, here are some quick answers:
1. How much* should a financial transaction tax be to reduce the use of
our stock markets for speculation instead of simply allowing investors to
regain their money?
I think a 0.25
percent tax is reasonable. You can't eliminate speculation, but you can
reduce it and this would be a good start.
2. What margins* should be required to appropriately reduce speculation?
The current requirement on stock is 50 percent. People who are interested in highly leveraged trading are likely to do
it through options where the effective leverage from buying out of the money
options can be huge. Of course, this poses no particular risk for the system,
since they can only lose the price of the option.
3. One must have a financial interest (be subject to loss) to obtain a
life insurance policy on someone else’s life.
Can we require the same of derivatives?
That is we could buy flood insurance, but we couldn’t buy a derivative
which would pay if there was simply a flood.
This plus other reforms (standardized transparent derivatives arranged
publically on exchanges) would hopefully eliminate many derivatives as simply
gambling.
We could certainly specify that credit default swaps can only be paid off when the owner holds the
underlying security.
4. I understand that some European companies are breaking up financial
companies that are deemed too big to fail into smaller regional companies. Can we do the same thing with different
companies having different regions, such that competition in different regions is
between different companies?
We could, if there was the political will.
5. In the event that we bail out companies in the future, can we impose
various conditions, such as requiring them to forsake rights given them because
supposedly they are legally people? For
examples, no right to free expression, to association, to lobbying. Also caps on employee pay based on ratio with
lowest paid employees. And other
conditions. Maybe you have thought of
some
We can put whatever conditions we want on a bailout. it was outrageous
that we essentially handed the banks money, no questions asked.
6. Would it be useful to re-impose the Glass-Steagall separation of
commercial and investment banks, with little or no changes?
It would be good to have Glass-Steagall type separations. I can't see any good way to ensure that insured deposits are used for
speculation except by formally separating commercial banks and investment
banks.
Regards, Dean
Ray McBain: Pressure Senators to Support Cloture
Some
information concerning the difficulties passing a decent health care bill
in the senate. Most of them are millionaires, more concerned with their
"earnings" (ill-gotten gains) than with what the public wants.
What can we do, you and I and your readers, to put pressure on the
senators and keep the pressure on until we extract a decent bill from the
senate? Not just our two senators; we need to apply pressure to all senate
Democrats and any perceived "liberal" Republicans. Ray
McBain
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
I believe this
is a correct description of President Obama’s political approach. I agree that we need an independent Liberal
Netroots movement to counter to lobbyists.
Unfortunately Organizing for America has become an arm of the
compromised Democratic Party instead of an arm of President Obama’s attempts to
create New Politics.
Creating Jobs
Money
can be found to create needed well paying public infrastructure, public
employment and green jobs. Lobbyists
argue that cap and trade will reduce jobs, but ignore that wasteful military spending will reduce
many more jobs.
Health Care Reform
The house
public option plan is weaker than it should be, but it
was still worth enacting. The
proposed health care reform bills are much better than doing nothing. The
house has passed its health care reform bill which resulted from the merger
of three committee proposals. Two of the
votes needed for passage came from newly elected house members from California
and New York. Paradoxically, those who
voted against health care reform typically represent
areas with high numbers of uninsured people.
By
next week, the Congressional Budget Office will rate the proposed Senate health
care reform bill. Various procedural
votes will begin immediately to try to move toward cloture to stop any
filibuster. The bill
is expected to be passed before Christmas and a merged house-senate bill passed
for President Obama to sign during early January. Reasons
why the senate will take so long to deal with health care reform. If it passes in January or before, many other
important issues can then be addressed in time to increase support for
Democratic congressional candidates in November of 2010.
The
number of uninsured can be greatly reduced, with improvements to reduce costs
to be made later.
Education Reform
President Obama promotes
his education reforms.
Addressing Indian Problems: health care, economic
development, land management, etc.
President
Obama meets with Indians, asks cabinet departments to improve relations with
them.
Other
President Obama
signs bill to extend unemployment benefits.
Fannie
Mae’s program to allow people whose mortgages are foreclosed to rent the
homes can help both the people and the neighborhood.
Commercial Media Pundits Absolve President Bush
President
Bush’s greatest mistake was ignoring warnings that al-Qaeda might attack our
United States through the use of a hijacked airplane. Ignoring these warnings, plus the different
mandates given to the FBI and CIA which made it difficult for them to
cooperate, resulted in the success of the 9/11 attacks. President Bush’s administration should have
prevented these attacks. Having failed
to prevent the 9/11 attacks, Bush then used them as an excuse to greatly
increase his power, often in violation of our constitution. The Commercial Media Pundits never attributed
this failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks to him and supported his obtaining
increased unconstitutional powers.
A second major
failure was President Bush’s creation of the circumstances that encouraged the
housing and credit bubbles and their collapse.
The result was the collapse of our economy, such that many people lost
enormous amounts of assets, including their housing values, 401-K and other
stock market values and their employment.
All this on top of greatly increasing our federal deficits. If President Bush’s policies continued as
they would have if John McCain had been elected, these losses and increased federal
deficits would have continued.
So instead of
increasing people’s asset losses and our federal deficits, President Obama’s
stimulus-recovery package is actually reducing them. Yet the Conservatives and commercial media
pundits have suggested that somehow these asset losses and federal deficits
would be less without President Obama’s stimulus-recovery package. It is more likely that people now and future
generations would be better off if the stimulus-recovery package were larger.
These are just
two more examples that show that our commercial media pundits are Conservative
instead of Liberal.
Better to Elect Congress Members than Governors
Electing
Democratic instead of Republican congress members as occurred in upstate New
York is important to increase support for health care and other reforms. Electing Democratic instead of Republican
Governors is important to influence the redistricting which will follow the
2010 census. Of the two, it is more
important now to elect congress members than to elect governors.
Yet the
commercial media pundits reacted as though the election of Republican governors
in New Jersey and Virginia was much more important than the election of a
Democratic house member in New York.
Let’s hope that teabag demolition derby Republicans continue to oppose
less consistently Conservative house member candidates, resulting in the
election of more Democratic house members and the elimination of less
consistently Conservative house members.
Reducing Republican house members to their most consistently
Conservative ones will further reduce their appeal to mainstream voters.
Commercial
media pundits also suggest that the election of Republican governors indicates
that voters want President Obama to reduce his emphasis upon reforms. But Creigh Deeds likely lost by so much
because he de-emphasized reforms.
Here’s the Beef
Our
Obama Administration should create a WPA type public jobs program (primarily
for young and other people unencumbered by financial obligations). More
economic stimulus is needed, including green jobs. The
government should give a tax credit to employers who pay their
employees the same for working fewer hours, stimulating them to hire more
workers.
President
Obama and our congress members are not making needed regulatory reforms.
Instead of a sales tax, we need a financial
transactions tax to reduce speculation.
The $8000
tax credit for home buyers primarily helps real estate interests, instead
of more needy.
Progressive
Change and MoveOn
are running ads against Democrats who voted against health care reform.
Democracy for America and Act Blue are running ads telling Senator Mary
Landrieu to vote for cloture.
Liberals
should talk more about the perils of too little government.
Alan
Khazei should get Ted Kennedy’s senate seat.
Like
alcohol, prohibition of gay marriage, marijuana and travel to Cuba will be
repealed.
State
and Local
David Spring: Facts about BIAW and Rob McKenna
1. Since 1985, retro
agencies have received over $2 billion dollars in tax payer subsidies. The claim is that these are
“refunds” resulting from reducing accidents and lowering claims costs. However,
no evidence has ever been provided that retro agencies either reduce accidents
or save money. In fact, several studies have shown just the opposite… that retro
“private option” programs cost more than non-retro “public option” programs.
2. In 2006 alone, retro
agencies cost tax payers over $132 million dollars. Retro premiums paid in 2006 were $727 million.
Retro claims totaled $730 million – for a cost to tax payers of $3 million
dollars. But retro agencies were also given $129 million in tax payer subsidies
mislabeled as “refunds” for a total cost to tax payers of $132 million.
According to L & I data, retro agencies cost 6% more than non-retro
agencies in 2006. Thus none of the money going back to retro agencies comes
from retro premiums. Instead, the whole thing is tax payer subsidies.
3. The BIAW is the State’s
largest retro insurance agency receiving about 30% of all retro subsidies. Thus, since 1985, the BIAW
has received about $600 million dollars in tax payer subsidies. In 2006 alone,
the BIAW received $40 million dollars in tax payer subsidies.
4.
The BIAW diverts about 20% of the tax
payer subsidies it receives into more than 20 political action committees (PAC’s).
These PAC’s then use this tax payer money to buy elections and bribe
legislators. Thus, since 1985, the BIAW has spent over $120 million dollars
corrupting elections in Washington State. In 2006 alone, the BIAW put $8
million dollars in a political “war chest.” While some of this tax payer money
was used in legislative races and trying to buy our Supreme Court, most of it
was saved to spend against Governor Chris Gregoire in the 2008 election.
5. Almost HALF of all
funding for the Republican party comes from the BIAW and other retro agencies. There are about 50 retro
agencies and most are radical right wing groups.
6. The Wyman Actuarial
Report recently found that Retro agencies had been over paid more than $500
million dollars due to 3 “errors” by the Department of Labor and Industries.
7. Including interest,
Retro agencies now owe the State Treasury more than one billion dollars. Of the one billion, the
BIAW owes the State Treasury over $300 million dollars.
8. Attorney General Rob
McKenna is now trying to prevent the tax payers from getting our one billion
dollars back. He has advised the Department of Labor and Industries that they can
“only go back 3 years” to recover retro over payments. However, RCW 4.16.160
states that there is no time limit for recover of debts owed the State.
9. The money being hauled
off in the wheelbarrow below is the TAXPAYERS MONEY! This drawing was taken
from an L & I Presentation depicting how much money Employers would save by
switching from our “public option” Workers Comp program to a “private option”
Retro program. But it turns out that the so-called “savings” were really
billions of dollars in tax payer subsidies. Thus, this drawing is Rob McKenna
hauling away the Tax Payers Money.
10. The Master Builders
Association (MBA) is the single largest sub-agency of the BIAW. Together these
two groups spent more than $7 million dollars of tax payer money trying to
elect Dino Rossi in 2008. “Using
the workers compensation system as a cash cow for their (BIAW) political
ambitions is flat out corrupt and should be stopped." - Senator Karen Keiser
If
you would like to help me take down the BIAW, or if you would let me to give a
Retro presentation for your legislative district or for any other progressive
organization, please email me. And also please email your friends. It is
important to get the word out about the dangers of Rob McKenna and the BIAW.
They are worse than you might think. For more information, visit our website:
retroreform.org David Spring, springforschools@aol.com
Labor Wises Up about Conservative Democratic
Legislators
Influenced
by the BIAW, Conservative Democratic Legislators are harming Washington’s
people, Washington’s government and allowing employer abuse of labor. We would all be better off if a few
(hopefully 5) Conservative Democratic legislators were replaced by Liberal
Democratic legislators, even if others were replaced by Republican legislators.
Labor
has finally recognized this and will quit
assisting Conservative Democratic legislators. Hopefully, labor’s support is more necessary
than BIAW support for winning elections.
Washington House Member Brian Baird Voted Against
Health Care Reform
Brian
Baird was one of the 39 Democratic house members who voted against health care
reform. He (and Democratic house member
Rick Larsen) had earlier voted for revising our bankruptcy law to prohibit
people with large medical expenses from escaping repayment. It would be nice to replace Brian Baird with
a congress member who puts his constituents ahead of his campaign contributors.
Featured Advocacy Group
-------------------- Washington Families Standing
Together ----------------------
On
May 18, Governor Gregoire signed Senate Bill 5688, a law ensuring that all
Washington families are treated the same, with the same protections, the same
rights and the same obligations as their neighbors. Under this law, registered
domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite sex couples with at least one
partner over age 62), and married couples, are treated equally under the law in
all parts of the state.
Key
protections and obligations in the law include death benefits for the partners
of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty; pension benefits for the
partners of teachers, librarians and other public employees; the right to use
sick leave to care for a gravely ill partner, and the right to adopt a
partner’s child without paying for a home study.
These
rights and obligations for domestic partners were passed following those
adopted in 2007, when the Legislature established a domestic partnership
registry and granted registered couples rights to make health care decisions
for a sick partner, to visit a partner in the hospital, the right to consent to
an autopsy, and some property rights; and those adopted in 2008, including
community property rights, probate rights, joint responsibility for debts, and
other protections.
A
group has filed a referendum – Referendum 71 – to try to repeal the law. Ref.
71 voters will be asked to approve or reject the domestic partnership law. To
keep the law we will need to VOTE APPROVE on 71. So many people have asked how they can help,
that a coordinated campaign has been formed to help keep the law from being
repealed. It’s called Washington
Families Standing Together – the Approve 71 campaign – a coalition of
community partners committed to working together to protect Washington’s
families. See
the more than 175 organizations in the coalition. See the clergy and
faith-based organizations.
By
voting to Approve Referendum 71, you will vote to ensure that all families
should be treated fairly, especially in times of crisis. Note: This week, Referendum 71 was approved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Puget Sound Sage announces
people have
been trained for green jobs to be offered by Seattle.
Supported
by Progressive Majority, Ken Mann has been elected to Whatcom County
Council. Marilyn
Strickland was elected Mayor of Tacoma.
Washington
agencies coordinate their efforts to avoid water pollution.
Our nation’s morons and village idiots march on Washington
State.
Nation
and World
Most Countries Are Recovering More Than U.S.
Most
Countries (China, India, Europe, South America) are recovering more than our
U.S., partly because they never had as much fraudulent speculation as we did
and partly because they already have stimulus-recovery measures.
Afghan Development Depends on Protecting Women
There is no
Democracy and Development for Afghanistan without protecting women from
Taliban restrictions upon their participation in creating civil society. To leave Afghanistan under Taliban control is
to give up on protecting Afghan women and on creating an Afghan state which is
not controlled by vying tribal leaders.
But countering Taliban control depends upon persuading Afghan President
Hamid Karsai to eliminate corruption, which reduces Afghanistan people’s
resistance to Taliban control.
Why Are More Children Autistic?
Autistic children are
so distinctive that it is unlikely that many of them were not identified in
past years. If a higher proportion of
children are now autistic than before, it would seem that autism is the result
of some changed environmental condition.
Perhaps some of the many new chemicals which are now in our air, water,
food and other surroundings. Examining
societies for different rates of autism and presence of various chemicals might
help identify likely causes. In the
meantime, we should
avoid allowing possibly dangerous chemicals to enter our environment.
Much Money Spent on Medicare is
Wasted
Have you noticed the many television ads for power wheelchairs? Medicare spends more than $1 billion to buy
wheelchairs, paying the venders 4 times their cost. The reason so much is paid is the medical
equipment lobby. Eliminating this and
other Medicare overpayments and fraudulent claims would reduce our increasing
Medicare costs. But once again, we have
been unable to counter the influence of lobbyists.
It Might Be Beneficial if China
Quit Buying Our Debt
If
China quit buying our debt, our interest rates might increase to attract
other buyers. Increased interest rates
could harm our economy through making it more expensive to borrow money. But higher interest rates would also make
more expensive the speculation of our large financial companies. The dollar would also fall with respect to
Chinese currency, making it more expensive for us to import from China and less
expensive for China to import from us.
The result would be that some of the 5.5 billion jobs that we have lost
to Chinese manufacturers might be regained.
Here’s the Beef
Since global warming will affect them
differently, different
countries have different reasons for attempting to reach an agreement to at
the December meeting in Copenhagen. A
major reason is that global warming will affect food production and prices for
all.
Merger
of two tool making firms should be blocked because it will reduce
competition.
Capitalism obviously isn’t
working.
Our
U.S. is no longer the land of freedom and opportunity.
Unlike times past, labor
union members are diverse and mostly work outside manufacturing.
Even if there are good reasons to stay in
Afghanistan, the money
could be better spent to create jobs.
Israel’s wall is illegal
since it cuts off 9.5% of west bank land.
Our
Liberal Spirit
What Have You Done
to Realize Your Liberal Values?
Democracy shouldn’t be a
spectator sport. But many Liberals treat
it as one. They act as voyeurs to watch
politics; but don’t act to realize their Liberal values. We should each ask ourselves, “What have we
done this last year to realize our values?”
If we haven’t done anything, do we really have Liberal values?
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Stephen Noble Smith, 2009, Stoking the Fire of Democracy. Our Generation’s Introduction to
Grassroots Organizing.
Stephen Smith’s book
describes the Saul Alinsky grassroots organizing approach which is the basis
for the approach used by our Sound Alliance.
It is based upon establishing personal relationships with both the
people being organized and the decision makers to be influenced. This requires overcoming ones fears of
failure, taking carefully calculated risks continual evaluation of and
reconsideration of organizational strategies and tactics. Besides reading this book, grass roots
organizers should also read Paul Rogat Loeb’s book, Soul of a Citizen, Living with Conviction in
a Cynical Tim and his edited book, The Impossible
Will Take a Little While, A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear.