Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #210
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
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Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Maryrose Asher: WA State Progressive Coalition* Norm Conrad: I Accuse the Obama Administration* Rich Austin: We Need Economic Fairness Craig Salins: Clean Campaigns Legislative Update* Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Commercial Media Pundits Lower Expectations Failed Race for a Massachusetts Senate Seat* State and Local Links
to the Beef Bold
State Leadership Needed More Than Ever* State tax Increases, Spending Can
Save Washington jobs* Lisa Brown Proposes Increasing Some Sales, Vice and Business
Taxes AIG Seeks to Privatize Our Workers’ Compensation Nation and World Links to the Beef Can We Use Afghan Strategy in Yemen and Somaliland?* Our Liberal Spirit Act As If Sustainable Economic Recovery Has Occurred** 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 Visualize the Future That
You Want. Many
Sources
Calendar of Events
Saturday, January 23 at 6:30 PM at Carrie Bogner’s home
(1120 24th Ave E, Seattle) - InspireSeattle Potluck,
Social and Discussion of the next generation of recycling.
Thursday, February 4 at 7 PM at Seattle First Baptist
Church (1111 Harvard Avenue, Seattle) - League of Women Voters Monthly Forum. Topic is ‘Make Our Community Count’
concerning our Census Bureau’s goal to count every person living in the United
States.
Communication
with Our Members
With the End of Our
Holidays, Political Activity Is Increasing
The House and Senate are both back in
session. Quickly adopting a health care
reform bill is our highest priority.
Unfortunately the election of Scott Brown as a Massachusetts Senator
complicates matters. In any event, we
can expect more political news events than we have had during much of the last
month.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Petitions
Tell credit
card CEO’s to stop profiting from charitable donations.
Tell
congressional leaders to use reconciliation to pass health care reform.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Maryrose Asher: WA State Progressive Electoral
Coalition
The Washington State
Progressive Electoral Coalition (WSPEC) was officially launched on Sunday,
January 10, 2010, at Trinity United Methodist Church in Seattle. In attendance was a broad coalition from
Socialist Alternatives on the far left to Libertarians on the far right of the
progressive movement, including those alienated from the Democratic Party,
namely single-payer advocates.
Volunteers came forward to
serve on a Nomination Committee for the WSPEC Steering Committee as well as
volunteers to serve on the Senate Search Committee.
Bert Sacks, who had
previously offered to put his name in the hat as a potential Senate candidate,
unfortunately had to withdraw his name due to suffering a heart attack a week
before. He still managed to briefly
attend the meeting to make the following statement quoting from an article in Yes! Magazine.
Indeed,
every successful nonviolent insurrection has been a homegrown movement rooted
in the realization by the masses that their rulers were illegitimate and that
the political system would not redress injustice.
By contrast, a nonviolent insurrection is unlikely to succeed when
the movement's leadership and agenda do not have the backing of the majority of
the population.
I would also encourage
readers of Puget Sound Liberals Newsletter to read an essay by Bernard Weiner,
Ph.D. (in government and international relations) titled, “Behind the Veils of
Power: Hope for Progressives” http://www.crisispapers.org/essays10w/pr/veil.htm,
“New Year’s Resolution: Don’t Apologize
for Democrats” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/new-years-resolution-dont_b_404760.html?view=print,
and “What it
Takes to Build a Movement” http://www.counterpunch.org:80/rudd12252009.html.
The next meeting of WSPEC
will be held on January 31, 2010. Please
contact Dave Jette at dave@jettes.org, phone (206) 789-8660, or
contact me at maryrose.asher@gmail.com, phone
(206) 567-0593 for more information.
If you would like to host a
meeting of WSPEC in your area, we would be more than happy to provide speakers
as our goal is to go statewide. Maryrose Asher
Norm Conrad: I Accuse the Obama Administration
J’Accuse. This was the title of the newspaper article
written by Emile Zola on January 13, 1898, in which he recounted the frame up
of Alfred Dreyfus in what became famous as “The Dreyfus Affair”. That article was largely responsible for M.
Dreyfus’ new trial and eventually exoneration and reinstatement in the French
military, serving throughout WWI. Why do
I bring up this bit of ancient history?
I do it because I accuse the
Democratic Party leadership of gross negligence and utter stupidity and
arrogance.
We have just witnessed the
loss of Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat to a male nude model. Every pundit and election consultant is, as
always, blaming the defeated candidate.
Well, I have a couple of questions.
Where were all these
consultants over the last several months?
Where was the Chairman of the DNC?
Where was the WH Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel? Where was the Chairman of the DSCC? Why was this candidate the candidate?
This is not the first time
that a Democrat has lost an election that should have been won (and sometimes
was won). At this rate it certainly
won’t be the last.
I accuse the
current Democratic Party as led by its officeholders to be utterly
clueless. I further accuse the old boys
and girls clubs in both the House and the Senate to be incapable of recognizing
and effectively dealing with the state of the real world.
I present as evidence the
following screw ups by these “worthies”:
2006 House election in
Henry Hyde, the Republican
who had held the seat since 1974, had announced his retirement. In his previous election (2004), he faced Ms
Christine Cegelis who gave him the scare of his life. Running against a 16 term incumbent, Ms
Cegelis garnered over 44% of the vote.
But when Mr. Hyde declared his intent to step down, what did the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee do?
Chairman Rahm Emanuel recruited a newbie who had little actual interest
in politics but who seemed like a good sympathy vote getter, Tammy
Duckworth. Major Duckworth was an
2006 House Special election in
Randy (Duke) Cunningham had recently been convicted of multiple corrupt
practices and left office early in complete disgrace. The local
2006 House elections in general
In a little-known exchange
with Howard Dean, then chairman of the DNC and developer of the 50 State
Strategy, Rahm Emanuel shouted and fought with Dr. Dean. Rahm claimed that he knew all about Dean’s 50
State Strategy and that it was BS and amounted to nothing. That Dean strategy only significantly helped
the Democrats regain control of Congress and the Presidency. But it is Mr. Emanuel who got credit from his
fellow club members and the punditocracy for the Democrats regaining control of
the House.
2006 Senate election in
Joe Lieberman had PO’d just about every conscious Democrat in the country
with his undying support for W.
Progressives launched a primary challenge against Joe. Ned Lamont was the candidate who claimed the
Progressive mantle in the primary and narrowly (3%) won that primary. But Joe, being Joe, refused to admit defeat
and ran as an independent against the Party that chose him to run for the vice
presidency in 2000. The tragedy here is
that the DSCC, chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer, and the Democratic club in the
Senate (including the junior senator from
2008 Senate election in
Again, in an attempt to win
elections by presenting Democratic candidates with no Democratic values in the
name of centrism and avoiding offense to the right, the DSCC recruited Bob
Casey to run against incumbent Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum. Senator Santorum was in full blown
self-destruction mode with his lunatic comments and claims about anything and
everything. Almost anyone who could sit
up and speak without drooling all over the microphone could win this one. Did the DSCC pick a strong Progressive with
clear Democratic credentials to vie for the Senate seat? Hell, no.
The DSCC chose Bob Casey. I’m
sure Mr. Casey is a warm human being. I
just cannot find much in his résumé that shows that he is a Democrat. He supports the NRA and opposes gun
control. He is “pro-life” and opposes a
woman’s right to choose. He supports so
many GOP planks that he sounds like Bob the GOP Carpenter. Again, we get stuck with a liability in the
Senate.
2010 House election in
Democrat Jane Harman holds
this seat. She is the Chair of the Subcommittee
on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment and a
member of 6 other committees. She is a
hawk on military and intelligence issues.
Rep. Harman is a Blue Dog and a
member of the DLC. She supported the Bush
warrantless wiretaps, the bankruptcy “reforms”, tort “reform”, abolition of the
“spoiled rich brats” tax (estate tax), defense contractors, free trade, etc.,
etc. She faces a primary challenge from
Marcy Winograd, a local activist and progressive. Who are the House club members, including
members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, supporting? Why fellow club member, Jane Harman, of
course. Lynn Woolsey, Co-Chair of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, is appearing at one of Jane’s local
fund-raisers. The announcements list Ms
Woolsey’s position as co-chair of the CPC.
Progressives are not amused. The
PDA has written to Rep. Woolsey to ask her to stay away from the event. Thus far Rep. Woolsey has defended her
support for Jane Harman, while the rest of t
2010 Senate special election in
Martha Coakley just lost the
election to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy to a virtually unknown and
almost universally ridiculed Tea Party Republican who vowed to be the 41st
vote to prevent health care reform from passing the Senate. You’ve read my questions above. The one I want to highlight is why was Martha
Coakley the candidate? Granted, she won
the primary. But did the DSCC and the
rest of the Party leadership stay out of the primary? Of course not.
I could go on for hours. But it is getting late, and I wish to wrap
this up.
My conclusion is that our
government has been hijacked by more than the obvious lobbyists and corporate
interests and their ability to funnel copious quantities of cash into campaign
war chests. It has also been hijacked by
blind stupidity, the clubby relationships among members of both the House and
the Senate and the unwillingness of leaders to look at the world outside the
Beltway from outside the Beltway. They
have so screwed things up in the past years that it looks to me that without a
profound shakeup, President Obama’s presidency is likely to fail and the mid
terms will go horribly badly for the Democrats.
It is time to take back our
Party from the Democrats who currently hold office - and I mean most of
them. We have a couple of
Representatives who need a reality check.
Both Senators could stand the same.
Nice speeches amount to very
little without serious action to back them up.
Senator Murray, during her recent visit to
Senator Cantwell has been
strong on environmental issues, and I thank her for that. She also has a pretty good grasp of the
financial meltdown and re-regulation issue, and I thank her for that. But like Senator Murray she has voted for every
crackpot trade agreement to come down the pipe.
She, too, voted for the “reform” of the “spoiled rich brats” tax last
year. She was also one of the “gang of
14” who supported Republican cloture motions on judicial nominees by the Bush
administration. As a result we now have
a gaggle of really incompetent federal
Folks, it’s time to get
really active! It’s time to demand that
our bums represent us instead of themselves and the big money folks. It’s time to put up progressive challenges to
Democrats and Republicans alike. Our
Party has over the past year betrayed our hopes. It’s time to take it back.
Norm Conrad
See also my commentary. Dave Thomas
Rich Austin: We Need Economic Fairness
Both Republicans and Democrats have controlled
Congress at one time or another over the past 30 years. Same with the White House. In 2008, $5.3 billion was spent on federal
elections. The vast majority of campaign
contributions came from a small group of large donors. Your contribution of $50, $100, or $250 didn’t
even register on the “large donor” radar screen. Corporations have purchased the allegiance of
many powerful lawmakers. To think
otherwise would be extremely naďve.
Here are some startling facts: The U.S. economy is now
producing over $13 trillion a year. Nevertheless, the vast majority of
Americans are struggling to maintain their living standards in the face of
stagnating wages, rising economic insecurity, eroding health care and
retirement benefits and mounting debt.
And Congress has been at the helm.
Since 1980, labor productivity has increased over 80
percent, but the real median wage has hardly budged, increasing only 2 percent
over a quarter century. When wages
advanced with productivity from 1946 to 1978, we grew together as a nation.
Since then, increasingly, we are growing apart -- economically, socially and
politically. As a result of the rupture
between wages and productivity, an enormous redistribution of income – perhaps
the largest in our history – has occurred from poor and working Americans to
the top twenty percent. Today, America has the most unequal distribution of
income and wealth of any developed country in the world. And income and wealth
are more unequally distributed in America today than at any time since the
1920s.
The
implicit “social contract” that allowed Americans to grow together, and build
the American working class, in the early
post-WWII decades rested on a rough balance of power between workers and their
employers. Today, this balance of power has eroded and the social contract with
American workers is unraveling. America’s CEOs, who – some would say - once viewed themselves as stewards of our
country’s productive assets, now present themselves as agents of shareholders
in whose name they aggressively shift good American jobs off-shore, reduce
workers’ pay and walk away from their health care and retirement obligations. And Congress has been at the helm.
The goal
of economic policy should be to support a strong and internationally
competitive national economy whose benefits are shared broadly by all. To
achieve this objective, we must reconnect with four important economic values
that resonate powerfully with all Americans. Our country’s economic policies
should (1) provide for full employment; (2) protect the right of workers to
choose to unionize if they want to; (3) reform our global economic policies to
prioritize good jobs and a fair distribution of the benefits of globalization;
and (4) ensure that people who work for a living earn a wage that keeps them
out of poverty and have access to affordable and adequate health care and
retirement security.
We have
lost 5 million good manufacturing jobs since 1998, as a result of phony trade policies like NAFTA and WTO, and
corporate strategies to aggressively off-shore manufacturing operations. Princeton economist Alan Blinder warns that
millions of technology jobs are also vulnerable to off shoring, many of them
held by highly-educated and highly-paid American workers.
The
Congressional cabal comprised of both Republicans and Democrats tossed the
working class to the curb. While the GOP
leadership’s agenda is part sociopath and part neoconservative, the Democratic
leaders are back stabbing devotees to neoliberalism. Both embrace “free market capitalism”. While that may earn them am A from wealthy
investors both foreign and domestic, they deserve no more than a D – from the
85% of the population who – using the broad definition - make up the working
class. Choose your poison.
I am a
lifelong New Deal Democrat. It pains me
to see how the New Deal has been transmuted in “Let’s Make A Deal”. Rich
Austin
Craig Salins: Clean Campaigns Legislative Update
Our proposed judicial bills are advancing - Supreme
Court Fair Elections, public financing as an option for state supreme court
campaigns.
·
Here's a one-page handout, making
the case.
·
And here's a one-page summary of the bill.
·
For details on the legislative website, click SB
5912 or HB 1738
Please contact your legislator - expressing support! Skip to Take Action - below.
Lobbying
Update:
Since the start of the legislative session January 11th, we've been meeting
with committee chairs and members, to brief them on the proposed bill, and to
seek their support.
·
WashClean supporters from the 31st Legislative District
traveled to Olympia to meet with Rep. Chris Hurst, resulting in his support for
the bill - a key vote, providing a majority to move the bill along.
·
We made a presentation (Friday, January 15th) to the Board
for Judicial Administration - chaired by Chief Justice Barbara
Madsen. The BJA members include of most of the judge associations in the
state, as well as representatives of organizations concerned with the
judiciary. Rep. Marko Liias made our presentation to the BJA. There
was common acknowledgment that the integrity and impartiality of our courts are
under threat from special-interest campaign contributions, and there seemed to
be support for a program of public financing of judicial campaigns, if only a
funding mechanism can be found that is practical and politically feasible. Read WPC's 2-page presentation to the BJA, click
here.
·
There will be a public hearing - probably the week of
January 25th - in the House State Government and Tribal Affairs Committee, the
House committee which will first consider the bill.
Funding a
judicial campaigns public financing program:
Working with bill sponsor Rep. Marko Liias (D-21st LD, Mukilteo) and
legislative staff, we have been tweaking a proposed financing mechanism -
hopefully with "nexus" to the courts, and something other than
tapping the state's general fund (which we know is on life-support and is
dollars needed to support basic health and other essential services).
Right now, we're proposing to fund the program through a small surcharge
($1-$2) on court filing fees, applied to district and superior courts, and
perhaps to some administrative hearings. This may change.
Our objective is a funding somehow that would provide $1.5 million per year (or
$3 million per election cycle) for supreme court races. These details
will be worked out very soon - in time for a hearing on the bill in the House,
hopefully next week.
Bills would limit campaign contributions at city and county
levels:
Two bills have been filed in the Senate
which would apply existing statewide campaign contribution limits ($800 per
election, so $1,600 including primary and general elections) to all
cities and all non-charter counties (those that don't already have limits
established by local charter). Right now, there are NO
contributions limits in any local city or county with fewer than 200,000
registered voters. The bills are to be
heard in the Senate Government Operations Committee, Thursday, Jan. 21st,
chaired by Sen. Darlene Fairley, at 3:30 PM. WPC will likely support
these bills. The bills are: SB
6344 and SB 6285. In each case, these bills do not
preclude local jurisdictions from adopting tougher (lower) contribution limits.
For details, go to www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx. Click
on "Bill Information", enter bill #'s in the box, and you can read
bill documents, including staff Bill Information summaries. Very useful.
Please Speak Up!
The time to make or change law, is when the lawmakers are in
session! Yet - achieving progress is totally dependent on
support from voters in each district. If you care about this issue, you must
make your voice heard - to your own district lawmakers! It's easy and fast. Call the Legislative
Hotline (1-800-562-6000. Operators will take a message from you, which
bills or issues you're concerned about, and pass it along to your state senator
and your two state representatives. Or, you can write or email your
lawmakers directly, details here: Ask them to support Fair Elections for the
Supreme Court, HB 1738, and SB
5912.
Please support our thrifty, but effective organization. Email
Craig Salins to inform him of a desired monthly donation. Or mail a donation to send a contribution
to: Washington Public Campaigns, PO Box
70452, Seattle WA 98127-0452. Craig Salins,
Executive Director, Washington Public
Campaigns
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Obama
Administration officials review this last year. More
about this last year. President
Obama hosted a forum
on modernizing government, including private sector leaders discussing
their best practices.
Health Care Reform
Creation
of a merged senate and house health care reform bill may be almost done. President Obama and congressional leaders discussed
a merged bill for many hours in the White House on Friday evening.
Pharmaceutical
companies are being asked to contribute
$10 billion more to assist health care reform, still far less than some
want.
Bailout Tax
President Obama proposes
tax on large financial companies in partial repayment for the damage they
have caused. For
more. For all the large financial
company’s complaints about the tax, it
would only equal about 5% of their profits plus large bonuses. Some
legislators are considering higher taxes.
For more.
Corporate Political Campaigns
Our
Supreme Court has just ruled that corporations can spend large amounts to
influence elections, reversing a long series of precedents. We need public campaign finance more than
ever.
Commercial Media Pundits Lower Expectations
Commercial
media pundits are continually lowering expectations concerning President
Obama’s success.
·
They falsely say he has lost
popularity even though the same percentage of people support him as elected
him.
·
They say that voters who oppose the
likely merged senate and house health care reform bill will oppose Democrats
who support it; even though many of those who oppose the merged bill think it
doesn’t go far enough. Surely those who
want health care reform to go further won’t vote for those who oppose health
care reform altogether.
·
As David
Sirota notes, the pundits say that mainstream voters are much more
Conservative than they are, thus painting Liberals with whom mainstream voters
agree as extremists. Both mainstream
voters and Liberals support a public health care option, question the
no-strings-attached bank bailouts, and believe Federal Reserve chairman Ben
Bernanke policies have been wrong. They
then depict President Obama as a socialist, even though some of his actions
have been less Liberal than mainstream voters support.
·
They predict that many who supported
President Obama’s election (especially young and Hispanic voters) won’t vote
this fall. But President Obama has a
great ability to get out the vote of his supporters.
This lowering
of expectations concerning support for President Obama and Democratic congress
members will make it more impressive when support surfaces before the 2010
elections. I will be very surprised if
employment rates don’t increase at least some before the elections and if
voters who support health care reform will vote for ‘Do nothing’ Republican
congress members.
Failed Race for a Massachusetts Senate Seat
Oops.
Bye Bye 60 Senators Needed to Stop Filibusters.
Those who have been reading this
newsletter know that I have continually claimed that the pundits are wrong that
Republicans will win more congressional seats this fall. The win by Republican Scott Brown in this
Tuesday’s election goes against my claim.
And it a state that is often Liberal.
If this race is an indicator of what will occur in other races, I will
have lots of crow to eat.
I still think the Democrats will pass a
health care reform bill, perhaps through passage of a quickly merged bill, or
through house approval of the senate bill, or through reconciliation. For
more.
In addition, at the beginning of a new
congress in 2011, rules
can be changed including the rule requiring 60% for cloture to stop
filibusters. For
more.
But the loss of 60 Democratic votes
(including Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman) will complicate things. We may find that our economic malaise may
last longer and other needed legislation will not pass. For more.
I am still in shock that Scott Brown was
elected. Since that happened in
Massachusetts, could it have happened in Washington or Minnesota or Iowa or
California. Massachusetts voters
apparently didn’t know or care that Scott Brown had supported the Tea Party
Conservatives and some of their crazy accusations about President Obama. It appears that Martha Coakley ran a Gore and
Kerry type campaign in which she failed to characterize and attack Scott
Brown’s views.
I fault the Obama administration for not
realizing the importance of and wrong direction of Martha Coakley’s campaign
and correct it. She should have simply
expressed her values and then without more detail about her own proposals,
attacked Scott Brown’s values. She
should have defined him and put him on the defensive instead of letting him
define her and put her on the defensive.
More
generally, I tend to believe that instead of running such large deficits, the
Obama Administration should have raised the taxes on the wealthy. I think they would have received less
criticism for taxing the wealthy than for running large deficits. And like Roosevelt, Obama would have
benefited from Main Street voters viewing him as fighting the Wall Street
supporting high income people. Dave
Thomas
Here’s the Beef
A
possible state of the union address that focuses upon creating a sustainable
Main Street economy.
Conservatives
inconsistently accuse Obama of being too Liberal and to supportive of Wall
Street.
State
and Local
Bold State Leadership Needed More Than Ever
Commentary
by Progressive States Network
Gridlock.
Slow fulfillment of promises of change in D.C. A health care bill so
compromised that even supporters are unhappy with many details.
Frustration with D.C. seemed to be the clearest message from Massachusetts
voters on Tuesday. But what can we
expect other than gridlock and resistance when a 59-seat super-majority in the
U.S. Senate is insufficient to pass serious legislation? Or when monied
interests in D.C. buy off support to block serious reforms on financial
regulations, health care and climate change legislation?
As
we noted in our report Why
States Matter, the filibuster allows as few as 3% of the total U.S.
population to potentially elect representatives able to block the will of the
other 97% of the population. In practice, filibusters are put together
with a hodgepodge of states representing larger minorities of the population,
but when corporate special interests start with such a low threshold of votes
needed to preserve the status quo, it's hardly surprising that federal
inaction, diluted compromises and voter frustration is the norm.
This
is why bold, progressive leadership in the states matters. States Move
National Policy: Generally able to take action with a majority vote
in their statehouses, states have always been where progressive policy moves
forward. And when multiple states act, it creates a wave of reform that
can ultimately drive federal action despite the filibuster and minority resistance.
·
The federal
minimum wage was raised in 2007 only after states representing a majority of
the population passed their own minimum wage increases.
·
Health care
reform is only being considered in D.C. because states across the country have
expanded coverage in recent years and enacted insurance reforms like bans on
preexisting conditions and medical loss rations -- provisions ultimately
incorporated into federal bills.
·
Serious federal
movement on climate change only followed multiple states in the Northeast and
West enacting their own cap-and-trade bills to reduce greenhouse gases.
·
Making the
Progressive Case in the States: Without
the filibuster diluting every bill, states are also where voters can see
progressive values embodied.
·
The right-wing
has long understood the power of messaging through state policy. Whether
on gay marriage, abortion, immigration, or anti-tax policy, the right-wing
doesn't even bother having a federal agenda other than saying "no" to
all reforms, but they deliver their message to their voters through state
initiatives attacking abortion rights, banning gay marriage, scapegoating
immigrants, and trying to slash state taxes.
·
Progressives need
to be equally bold in using state policy to make clear our values to
voters. By promoting and enacting progressive policy in the states, we
can overcome the frustration people feel with D.C. due to compromises forced by
the filibuster.
·
PSN Taking
Action: It was for this reason
that Progressive States Network was formed just over four years ago, because
legislators and allied progressive organizations wanted to more effectively
coordinate state efforts to move policy and messages across the states.
·
Our Shared Multi-State Agenda
for 2010 reflects state leaders putting corporate accountability, green jobs,
addressing the foreclosure crisis, cutting health care costs, election reform,
and help for working parents on the public agenda.
·
By promoting a
balanced approach of raising revenue to address the fiscal crisis, state
leaders are moving job
creation efforts and keeping teachers, nurses and police employed in our
communities. For
more.
·
Programs like
PSN's State
Immigration Project directly confronts right-wing anti-immigrant messaging
with a positive alternative message of integrating new immigrants into our
communities.
·
And PSN's work on
a range of other issues, from broadband to workers' rights to privatization,
helps progressive leaders continue to promote bold, innovative policy across
the states.
·
In a time of
extreme economic hardship, voters are looking for clear leadership. And
despite current discontent with D.C., the public is committed to progressive
values. They just need to see those values in action.
State
leaders - both legislators and organizations - can address that hunger for leadership
by moving progressive policies and messaging in the states. By promoting
jobs, protecting families, and expanding accountability, state leaders will
deliver the message that progressives will not be blocked from serving the
needs of the public, however the right-wing manipulates the filibuster to
impose gridlock in D.C. More Resources
State tax increases, spending could protect
Washington job market
Press Release by Economic
Opportunity Institute
Washington State is losing an
estimated 44,000 private and public sector jobs due to billions of
dollars in state budget cuts
in 2009 – and further cuts could axe another 33,600, according to a new
economic analysis by the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI), a local public
policy research center.
By contrast, a combination of
new state taxes and federal aid to fill the state’s budget gap could save up to
30,000 jobs. Economist Mark Zandi of
Moody’s Economy.com estimates that every dollar of state spending generates
$1.41 of economic activity. Much of that spending – 62%, or 88 cents – boosts
the private sector. Cutting state spending means fewer purchases from
suppliers, reduced contracts with service providers, less money from public and
private employee paychecks circulating through local businesses – and of
course, fewer public services.
Lawmakers in Olympia are now
facing down a $2.6 billion revenue shortfall. Using Moody’s numbers, EOI policy
director Marilyn Watkins estimates that maintaining spending levels entirely
through
new federal grants and fund
transfers would save the state over 33,000 jobs versus an “all-cuts” budget
approach. But if federal aid doesn’t come through, even raising the entire
amount through new
taxes would save 9,000 to
26,000 jobs, because cuts in state spending hurt economic activity more than
tax increases.
Zandi isn’t alone in his
assessment. Economists Peter Orszag, now serving as director of the Office of Management
and Budget, and Joseph Stiglitz, economics professor at Columbia University and
former Chief Economist of the World Bank, concluded that steep reductions in
spending and services by state governments actually cause more economic damage
than increasing taxes – especially on higher-income individuals who would
otherwise save a portion of the money or spend it out-of-state.
So what taxes to raise?
Watkins says lawmakers should focus first on profitable multi-state or
multinational businesses, thereby keeping money in Washington that would
otherwise have been saved or spent elsewhere. Second, extend the sales tax base
to goods and services to slow erosion of the state’s tax base and stabilize
future revenues. Third, reevaluate business tax breaks: from 1994 to 2008, the
Washington legislature passed 185 such special tax exemptions that now cost the
state an estimated $2.5 billion in every biennial budget. For
more.
Lisa Brown Proposes Increasing some
Sales, Vice and Business Taxes
Published by
Seattle Times on 1/15/2010
DEMOCRATIC
and Republican legislators agree on Washington's basic values. We all want a thriving economy with plenty of
jobs, the best schools for our students, and healthy citizens in safe
communities. We all want to stand up for
these values on behalf of the 6 million people we represent, from Aberdeen to
Zillah.
Where
we do disagree is about whether Washington currently has the resources required
to follow through on these commitments. I
believe that without additional resources we will lose ground in the areas most
critical to our state's future and most central to our values. I don't believe Washingtonians are content to
do that.
Last
year, when the Legislature faced the largest imbalance between outgoing
expenditures and incoming revenues that our state has ever seen, we did not
seek more revenue. We cut $4 billion
from state funding for classrooms, college enrollments and keeping tuition low,
health care and hospital services, and prisons. We froze state worker pay, cut
health benefits and eliminated the equivalent of 3,000 full-time jobs.
And
yet we face a challenge even more daunting this year. Our situation was caused by the same
financial crisis that created budget shortfalls for 47 other states, led by
Republicans and Democrats alike. A
crisis like this isn't a partisan event, and I appreciate the constructive
spirit with which several prominent state Republicans have offered their key
ideas on these pages for getting us through the storm ["Produce a budget
that reflects our values," Opinion, Jan. 6]. But the magnitude of our problem dwarfs those
solutions. The Legislature could — and very well may — do all the things
suggested and make not even a 5-percent dent in the problem.
Our
budget shortfall is challenging enough as a math equation. But we cannot
overlook the fact that it's a human problem most of all. We all want our students to be prepared to
succeed in the national and world economy.
We all want those with affordable health care to keep it. We all want to be tough on crime by
preventing it. But even taking the
Republicans' suggestions, no new revenue will mean cuts to early childhood
education, to class sizes, to rural district funding and to college financial
aid that will jeopardize our students' and our state's economic future. It will mean eliminating health coverage for
65,000 working Washingtonians — including those with diabetes, veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder and pregnant women. It will mean cuts to assistance for the
disabled and to effective intervention and treatment programs, creating more
desperate people doing desperate things and placing our neighborhoods at risk.
To
deal with this crisis, the Legislature will make more administrative cuts, and
we will do it early. We will also put
intensive effort into preserving existing jobs, putting more people to work
today, helping those out of work retool for the jobs of tomorrow and
jump-starting private-sector hiring.
But
these efforts alone will not be enough. We will seek added resources to avoid
some of the scenarios outlined above and keep our basic values intact. This won't include a property-tax increase,
or an income tax. But it will include ending unfair tax preferences and closing
tax loopholes that don't create jobs. And it could include, among dozens of
other ideas, a sales tax on bottled water, increased "vice" taxes, or
higher business taxes for some professional services.
There
will be plenty who oppose these ideas. Fair enough. But it will take more than
a 5-percent solution from those who oppose new revenue to protect the basic
values mentioned here. More than any
other year in recent memory, the 2010 legislative session is about commitment. It's about affirming our commitment to the
things we value, following through on that commitment to protect those values,
and preventing our state from sliding backward in our most basic needs. Lisa Brown, Washington state Senate majority
leader
A Coalition - Rebuilding
Our Economic Future - is working for a fair, sensible and humane
future for Washington State.
AIG Seeks to Ruin Our Washington State Workers’ Compensation System
AIG. It's not just America's favorite
taxpayer-bailed-out, corporate-executive-overcompensating, claim-denying,
piece-of-crap insurance company. It's also the nation's No. 1 underwriter of
private workers' compensation coverage. And for the past year, AIG, Liberty
Mutual and the rest of the industry have been positioning to run an initiative
to privatize Washington's workers' compensation system.
Part of that campaign is to undermine public confidence
in our state-run system by lying about it. (Learn the truth.)
The next part is to have their Republican advocates in Olympia introduce a bill
destined to go nowhere so they can say, "The Legislature wouldn't
act."
Well, it's here. HB 2879 would allow private insurance
companies to bring their tax-subsidized talent for quashing claims, restricting
benefits and profiting from workplace injury into Washington state. The word is
that the insurance industry will spend $15 million or more to get it on our
ballot and passed, with a big assist from their anti-government ideologue
friends at the Building Industry Association of Washington.
So Washington will soon have to ask itself, shall we
invite the insurance companies to come and do to injured workers what they've
done to our nation's health care system?
Here’s the Beef
We
need standards for green roads analogous to standards for green buildings.
Nation
and World
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Can We Use Afghan Strategy in Yemen and Somaliland?
In Afghanistan, our strategy is to:
· Kill al-Qaeda
and Taliban leaders
· Co-opt their
followers when possible
· Assist village
economic development so that villagers can resist all outsiders.
Even while our U.S. maintains no troops in Yemen and Somaliland, this
strategy might be applied with slight modifications to these countries. If this strategy can be implemented with the
cooperation of these country’s leaders, it will be more effective.
Here’s the Beef
Opposition
to clean energy reform comes from Oil Exporting States and Oil Importers
A
tax on investment income of non-seniors may be imposed to help fund Medicare.
Health
care reform will affect states differently.
Increased
quality of life now depends more on increases in economic equality than
economic growth.
Michael
Pollan’s new book contains 64 rules of eating for better health.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Act As If Sustainable Economic Recovery Has Occurred
Imagine that with our
economic recovery has occurred. Imagine
that we have sustainable appropriately regulated Earn, Conserve and Invest
mindset and practices. If everyone could
behave now the way we would then, our recovery would occur now. Unfortunately, some people are motivated to
persist in our present Borrow, Consume and Speculate mindset and
practices. Still many of us can make the
change to a sustainable recovery mode.
Promote Fair Earning
Concerning earning a fair
share of what we produce, all workers (whether permanent or temporary and even
self employed) should join a union to push for fair earnings. All of us should discriminate against
non-unionized companies in our purchases.
We should push our government to make unionization and bargaining easier
and to implement and enforce tougher penalties for companies that resist
unionization.
Promoting Appropriate Competition
In many industries, a few
companies dominate to the extent that they can set their prices high enough to
make undeserved profits. We should avoid
buying from such companies. We should
also support breaking them up to restore appropriate competition.
Avoid Borrowing from Large Financial Companies
Large financial companies
lure us into borrowing from them, to make money which they use for high
management salaries and speculation. We
should avoid borrowing from them, borrowing instead from small financial
companies which don’t pay high salaries and speculate. This includes both mortgages and credit
cards. We should only maintain one
credit card and seldom use it for our purchases, using cash instead as we used
to do following World War II. We should
pay of any credit card balances monthly, being careful to avoid any fees.
Avoid Speculating in Stocks
We need a stock market to
allow people who have created companies or purchased initial public offerings
of stocks to redeem their money. But
only enough people need to participate in this market to purchase such
stocks. Note that a much smaller
proportion of people purchased stocks following World War II. Most people who own stocks are simply
speculating, without investing in any production.
We should avoid using our
savings to buy stocks or other speculative products from which large financial
companies make money. We should purchase
government bonds, corporate bonds from companies that pay fair earnings without
high management salaries and speculation, and deposit it in savings account of
local small financial companies which make appropriate investment and consumer
loans. For more. For
more. For
more.
To the extent to which we do
these things individually to reduce our speculative footprint (much as we
individually insulate, change to more energy efficient lights and appliance to
reduce our greenhouse gas footprint), we can help the shift from our present
speculative mindset and practice to an investment mindset and practice. Some people will not do these things, either
because they benefit from our present speculative mindset, or because they
simply find it too difficult to change their habits. So those who do these things will not bring
complete recovery. But partial recovery
is still valuable just as partial reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is
helpful. Dave Thomas
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Best Books to
Read
Paul Starr, 2007, Freedom’s Power, The True Force of
Liberalism - Defines Liberalism as Opposed to both
Conservatism and Socialism. The book to
read if you only read one.
Paul
Rogat Loeb, Soul of a Citizen, Living
with Conviction in a Cynical Time - Sustaining Your
Ability to Effectively Struggle to Realize Our Liberal Vision
Jerome Armstrong and Markos
Moulitsas Zuniga, 2006, Crashing the
Gate, Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics - The ‘New Politics’ Political Strategy which
places Public Interest before Private Interests
Paul Waldman, 2006, Being Right Is Not Enough, What Progressives
Must Learn from Conservative Success - Emphasize Liberal Values, Not Liberal Proposals
Thom Hartman, 2002, Unequal Protection, The Rise of Corporate
Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights - Wall Street Dominance Over Main Street
Jacob
S. Hacker, 2006, The Great Risk Shift,
The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement and How you
can Fight back - Liberal Political Strategy to Regain American
Main Street Control
-----
John
Kenneth Galbraith, 1958, The Affluent
Society and John
Kenneth Galbraith, 1967, The New
Industrial State - The Post World War II Era of Earning, Conservation
and Investment
Robert Kuttner, 1984, The Economic Illusion, False Choices Between
Prosperity and Social Justice - The Rise of Borrowing, Consumption and
Speculation
Naomi
Klein, 2007, The Shock Doctrine, The Rise
of Disaster Capitalism - The Ascendency of
Conservative Ideology
Robert
Kuttner, 1996, Everything for Sale - The Political Ascendency of Conservatives
Eric Boehlert, 2006, Lapdogs, How the Press Rolled Over for Bush - Neo-Conservative Deception
Thomas
E. Rick, 2006, Fiasco, The American
Military Adventure in Iraq - Neo-Conservative Incompetence
Kevin
Phillips, 1994, Arrogant Capital,
Washington, Wall Street and the Frustration of American Politics - Neo-Conservative Corruption
Ryan Sager, 2006, The Elephant in the Room, Evangelicals,
Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party - Christian Conservatives and Libertarians
Paul Muolo and Mathew
Padilla, 2008, Chain of Blame, How Wall
Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis - The Causes of Our
Speculative Bubbles and Their Crash
Evan Thomas, 2009, A Long Time Coming. The Inspiring Combative
2008 Campaign and Historic Election of Barack Obama - How Barack Obama Won the
Presidency