Why Americans Think Politics Is Corrupt
After living in Massachusetts, I left the Northeast for the first time to go to grad school at the University of Minnesota. While I lived in the Twin Cities, the Democratic Farmer-Labor Gov. Wendell Anderson was re-elected to a second term. At the beginning of his new term, the governor created a crisis in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes by making one of his money guys a member of his cabinet.
Coming from Massachusetts and being used to the hurly burly of Bay State politics, I found this scandal surprising. After all, back home there would have been an uproar if the governor hadn’t appointed his financial contributor to the cabinet. But Scandinavians brought a good government ethic to Minnesota. Massachusetts is Massachusetts. In the Bay State political deals are sealed with cash. The last three speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives have all been convicted of corruption.
In the last couple of decades, American politics has become a lot more like Massachusetts politics and a lot less like Minnesota’s. There was a time, long ago and far away when people frowned on the appearance of impropriety. Now politicians don’t even seem to care about actual impropriety.
Political pursuit of the almighty dollar is why voters have so little trust in Congress to do the right thing. As a radio talk show host, I hear over and over again from my listeners that legislators are in the tank with big business. I don’t share this skepticism since I have worked with many men and women of great integrity as a political consultant. But perception is reality in politics and as long as people believe that politicians are trading their votes for cash, Americans won’t have any confidence in Congress. And in a democracy, the process will only work if the people trust the system.
The only effective way to restore public trust in politics is to get big money out of the system. The best solution would be public funding of campaigns. But that’s not realistic now since the Supreme Court opened the financial floodgates last year in its infamous Citizens’ United decision. Because of the Court’s ruling, voters will be at the receiving end of a hurricane of violently negative campaign ads over the next year which will destroy whatever is left of public trust in government.
The next best remedy to restored trust in government is to force the networks and individual TV and radio stations to give free time to political candidates. The networks receive billions of dollars in federal freebies every fiscal year since stations do not have to pay for the right to use public airwaves. It’s time for the media to make the same kinds of sacrifices that working families are making to keep this country strong.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, December 2, 2011
Congratulate Yourself: Celebrate National Act Like Congress Day
If you’re disgusted with Washington, don’t bother complaining. Instead, do what they do.
The next time your boss assigns you some work, make a big show of trying really hard, then earnestly explain that despite months of effort and intense deliberations, you just couldn’t get it done. Despite your failure, express your sincere belief that the unfinished work cannot be left to the next generation to solve, along with your profound hope that somebody else will find a way to tackle the job. Then congratulate yourself for thinking about blazing a trail that somebody else may actually blaze someday.
Eventually, we’ll have an official holiday called National Act Like Congress Day, when everybody in America will show up for work and have a jolly good time doing nothing important. Maybe it will be truly authentic, and last an entire month, or quarter, or year.
But getting there will take dozens of committee hearings, a required minimum of 25 Face the Nation panel discussions, and the approval of Grover Norquist. So until then, it will have to be a citizens’ movement, kind of like Occupy Wall Street with a water cooler.
Until it catches on, there may be some opposition from the obsessively productive and the miserably accountable. So if your boss complains about the congressional pace of your work, question his patriotism and call him a socialist. Or a fascist, if that seems to fit his personality better. Send off-the-record E-mails to Politico describing how your boss’s inflexibility assured from the outset that you’d be unable to complete your assignment. Go on TV in a nice suit so that people know you looked good while you were failing.
If you are the boss, and you run the company, stop worrying so much about meeting revenue and profitability targets. Call your customers. Explain that, in the national spirit, you’ll still be showing up for work regularly (except for the January retreat, the January recess, President’s Week, the March recess, the Passover/Easter fortnight, the week of Memorial Day, the week of July 4, the whole month of August, the early fall recess, the mid-fall recess, the mid-late fall recess, Thanksgiving week, and most of December) but your output will be limited to official golf outings, commentary on other people’s official golf outings, and directing staff to attend meetings. Encourage them to golf with you and have their staff meet with your staff, under careful direction, of course.
Parents, your moment has arrived. When the kids pester you about making dinner or playing with them, make pained expressions while explaining that you understand how important those things are. It’s just that, right here, right now, isn’t the right time for you to be meeting their needs. Reassure them that you’ll establish a study group to explore other ways for their needs to be met, and get back to them in five or 10 years.
Kids, follow in the sizeable footsteps of your parents and your elected leaders. You don’t really have to perform well at school and get along with other kids. Those are just empty slogans. All you really need to do is establish a tactical advantage over your adversaries, and everything else will fall into place. So don’t worry about math or biology or geography or climatology or economics. That’s all bogus science that doesn’t matter in real life anyway. But read Ayn Rand and make sure you run for student council, and remember that it’s never too early to go negative against your opponent.
If you hear people complaining about how we can’t afford to “waste” time by putting off needed action, have the courage to disregard them. The world is full of hysterical people who don’t understand how special America is. We have tremendous natural advantages and if anybody can afford to waste time, it’s us. In fact, we practically have a moral obligation to the rest of the world to give them a chance to catch up with us. A level playing field is in everybody’s interest, so enlarging our debt, handicapping our productivity, and dumbing down our kids is the right thing to do.
But don’t let anybody call you lazy. That’s an insult! Our descendants worked incredibly hard to build this country, decades ago. We are now resting on their behalf. The media is always getting lathered up over some crisis, so above all, remember this: It’s only a crisis if it affects you. Somebody, somewhere, always has a problem, and it’s un-American to go around trying to solve all of them. People need to learn to stand on their own two feet, and until they do, the rest of us should stop working so hard.
After all, it’s time to prepare for the winter recess.
By: Rick Newman, U. S. News and World Report, November 23, 2011
What Does Super Committee Failure Mean For Healthcare?
The medical community is buzzing with concern this afternoon over what the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction means for healthcare providers and recipients.
Under the ‘trigger’ provisions agreed upon during the August debt default crisis, were the super-committee to fail to arrive at their own formula for getting rid of $1.2 trillion in deficit – a circumstance that has now become reality – Medicare would find itself facing an annual cut of 2 percent each year for a ten year period beginning in 2013.
Should this actually occur it would be disastrous for health of the nation’s senior citizens. Properly configured, the cuts could be made without biting into benefits for the elderly who depend upon the program, but the trigger mechanism does not point to specific areas of the federal health program where the cuts could be targeted in a way that would reduce spending while protecting benefits. Thus, everything would have be cut by the 2% amount, including medical benefits.
Personally, I don’t believe for a moment that the sequester provisions that were the penalty for failure of the deficit committee will ever see the light of day. There are thirteen months to go before these provisions kick in and Congress is already planning way to work around the cuts – particularly with respect to the defense budget. As a result, we can fully expect that the lame-duck session that will take place immediately following next November’s elections will either do away with or drastically modify the anticipated cuts.
It should also be noted that there are many policy experts who believe that had the panel reached an agreement, the damage to Medicare may have been far more serious than the planned 2 percent annual cuts.
There is, however, some real potential for immediate damage as a result of this Congressional failure.
The physician community had hoped that a deal would have brought resolution to the Medicare payment reductions doctors face each and every year as a result of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula. While Congress has traditionally delayed the cuts each year, the current decrease scheduled – should it actually happen – would hit physicians with a 27% pay cut for caring for Medicare patients starting January, 2012.
Given the tenor of Congress these days, there seems to be some chance that the Republicans might wish to make their point by allowing the payment reduction to take place. Should this happen, we’ve got a very big problem on our hands.
Physicians are already unable to make much-if any-profit on what Medicare pays them to treat our nation’s elderly. A near 30% cut would cause many-far too many-doctors to close up shop to seniors who are unable to cover the fees doctors require to stay in business out of their own pockets. The disastrous result this would lead to is obvious.
Says American Medical Association president, Peter Carmel:
The failure of the deficit committee forces our nation to continue on an unsustainable path that puts current and future generations of Americans at risk for harsh consequences The deficit committee had a unique opportunity to stabilize the Medicare program for America’s seniors now and for generations to come.
Once again, Congress failed to stop the annual charade of scheduled Medicare physician payment cuts and short-term patches, which spends more taxpayer money to perpetuate a policy everyone agrees is fatally flawed.
As I often point out, doctors are the one element of our healthcare system that are irreplaceable. Having hospitals are of little value when there are no physicians walking the halls to care for us. Drugs aren’t going to reach those who need them if there are no doctors to write the prescriptions.
Let’s hope that Congress is not so foolish as to make their point by hurting physicians and the seniors who depend upon them.
By: Rick Ungar, Forbes, November 21, 2011
‘Super Committee’ Failure: Super Gridlock In The Muppet Congress
In an age of super heroes and blockbuster movies glorifying those with extraordinary powers, we are left with the Muppets. And that may be doing a disservice to the Muppets.
Only 9 percent of the American people have a positive image of Congress—slightly higher than the percentage that view Fidel Castro favorably. Now that is scary.
Are these bad people? No. Do they not have the best interests of the American people at heart? I believe most do.
Is this all about two different philosophies of government? Certainly, that is a big part of the stalemate.
Unfortunately, most Americans now believe that there is more consensus, more cooperation, and more compromise—and maybe more maturity—on a nursery school play yard than in the U.S. Congress.
We can point to growing polarization, a lack of civility, people coming to Congress in ideological straight jackets, signing ridiculous pledges, being beholden to the more extreme elements of their political party.
But I would argue that American Democracy, at least for the moment, has transitioned into a parliamentary system, without the accountability. It is nearly impossible for Members of Congress to routinely cross party lines, at least on the most important votes. The pressure is great, the ideology has become increasingly rigid, and the politics of bucking your leadership is seriously problematic.
The current gridlock on our most difficult problems can’t be resolved by dissolving the government and holding new elections. It probably won’t be resolved next November. We will be faced, no matter who wins, with equal or greater intransigence from the opposition party.
And our voters will not have a chance to vote, as in a parliamentary system, for or against the party in power or the back benchers. Because our system now allows a minority to stifle the majority so easily in the Senate, through filibusters and holds, but allows the majority to dictate what is brought to the floor and voted on in the House, we are faced with paralysis.
Never before have I seen such a strong sense of a party-lock in Congress. Our recent history is one of moderates in the two parties holding swing votes, people crossing party lines on issues, and the ability to reach compromise when the country demands it.
Now, we exhibit all the markings of a parliamentary system but cannot extricate ourselves from the tendency toward permanent gridlock. Campaigns never end and self-preservation determines many members’ votes. The old approach of “working it out” is gone, at least temporarily, and there is no mechanism, even with the so-called super committee, to bust out of the hold that the system has on Congress.
The American people, after this latest breakdown, are watching as their savings and 401k’s are tanking. They are watching the blame game. They are watching Congress do very little to create jobs and improve their economic plight. For the moment, all they can do is throw up their hands. And the anger builds.
By: Peter Fenn, Opinion Writer, U. S. News and World Report, November 21, 2011
The Intransigent “Do Nothing GOP Congress” And Election 2012
The Republicans in Congress have made a wager. They’ve bet the political ranch that they will destroy Barack Obama’s chances for re-election if they can block his proposals to produce jobs.
In fact, it’s the GOP that could lose big when the votes are counted a year from now.
Republicans completely control the House. In the Senate they can use the filibuster to prevent anything from passing.
Last week, for the third time this fall, Republicans successfully blocked Obama’s jobs program in the Senate. Of course this came as absolutely no surprise, since Senate Republican Leader told the world earlier this year — in no uncertain terms — that his top legislative priority was to prevent the re-election of the president.
McConnell, and his House counterpart, John Boehner, don’t lose a wink of sleep over concerns that their intransigence harms the economic prospects of everyday Americans. In their view, the worse the economy gets, the more likely the voters will be to boot President Obama out of the Oval Office.
But a good case can be made that these guys will end up being too clever by half — that in fact they are providing fuel for precisely the argument that could defeat them in 2012.
McConnell and Boehner are right that it is very hard for an incumbent president to win re-election in a bad economy. And unless something dramatically changes, most Americans won’t think much of their own economic circumstances when Election Day rolls around next year.
So next year’s election will turn largely on one question: who does the American people hold responsible for what will likely still be a lousy economy?
Republicans are relying on the simple proposition that the guy in charge — the president — is to blame. But every day of intransigence increases the odds that in fact, they themselves will get the rap.
In 1945 Vice President Harry Truman became president when Franklin Roosevelt died in office. After the War, Truman presided over a substantial post-war recession that helped make him “unelectable” in the eyes of most pundits and politicians. GDP dropped by a whopping 12%. His political viability was complicated further when the Democratic base split into three parts. A portion followed Progressive Henry Wallace and much of the Southern Democratic white vote (the south was a Democratic base at the time) supported Strom Thurmond’s segregationist Dixiecrat Party. In the April before the election, Truman’s overall approval rating in the Gallup poll was just 36%.
But, Truman barnstormed the country, traveling 21,000 miles on a “whistle stop” tour where he decried the “do-nothing Republican Congress.” Though the economy began a modest improvement in 1948, no one — but Truman himself — believed he had a chance to defeat Thomas Dewey — a former Governor cut out of the same elite cloth as Mitt Romney. Truman won.
Obama can do exactly the same thing. Even assuming that the economy continues to experience only modest improvements over the next year, the Obama campaign can lay the lack of progress where it belongs — at the feet of the “do-nothing Republican Congress” that is intent on stalling economic recovery for their own political gain.
And where Truman’s 1946 recession was largely the result of the post war demobilization, Obama can rightly claim that this economic disaster was the product of precisely the same Republican policies that his opponents intend to re-instate if they regain control of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Not only has the GOP refused to support Democratic measures to put Americans back to work, their alternative “jobs program” features no direct, measurable job creation whatsoever. Instead it relies on the same “trickle down” economic theory that didn’t create one net private sector job in the eight years before the Great Recession – and the same unwillingness to rein in the big Wall Street banks that led to the worst financial collapse in 65 years.
But that’s not all. Everyone agrees that the Republican House Majority was swept into office last November precisely because of the terrible economy. But instead of job creation, they’ve busied themselves focusing on trying to defund Planned Parenthood, protecting Americans from the imaginary threat of Sharia Law, and fending off non-existent attack on the use of “In God We Trust.” The Republican controlled House hasn’t voted on a single job creation measure since John Boehner and his colleagues took power last January.
In the deliberations of the “Super Committee,” Republicans have been completely unwilling to give on the fundamental question of whether millionaires should be asked to pay to put America’s economic house in order. The view of the Republican leadership is that — in addition to defeating President Obama — their principal mission is to act as guard dogs for the exploding incomes of the top 1%.
In the upcoming fight over the next fiscal year’s appropriation bills, there is every indication that the Republicans will demand that riders be attached limiting the power of the EPA and restricting funding for contraception — which surveys show is used by 98% of American women.
Battles like these will do nothing but strengthen the Democratic narrative that the GOP leadership is focusing on bread and circuses for its base, while it intentionally blocks measures that could provide jobs to construction workers, fire fighters, cops, teachers and millions other out-of-work Americans.
Then there is the House schedule. Last week the Boehner team published a House schedule for next year intended to guarantee that very little gets done. The House will be in session only 94 days in all of next year (including many days where votes are postponed until 6PM) and will continue its habit of going into recess virtually every third week. Yet another example of a “do-nothing Republican Congress.”
It’s no accident, that while the polls show that most officials in the American government have fallen into disrepute for their failure to get the economy moving again, Congressional Republicans win the prize for negative ratings. Gallup shows Obama’s approval ratings beginning to edge up — from a very low 38%, up to 43%. Some other polls show it rising to 47%. The average rating from Real Clear Politics currently stands at 45.4%.
Meanwhile, Congressional job approval ranges from 9% to 16%, with a Real Clear Politics average of 12.7%.
The recent Democracy Corps poll shows that favorability for Republicans in Congress trails the Republican Party as a whole, Democrats in Congress, the Democratic Party as a whole, and President Obama.
On the other hand, the president’s agenda itself is overwhelmingly popular. His jobs bill is supported by the vast majority of Americans — and becomes more popular the more voters hear about it. When its provisions were explained, 63% offered their support in the October Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. That’s why it’s so important for the White House to continue pressing Congress to pass the bill as a whole — and to focus on its individual parts.
Funding jobs for teachers, firefighters and cops is very popular. Repairing deteriorating schools is very popular. Building roads, ports and airports is very popular. Providing unemployment benefits for those who are out of work is very popular.
And paying for it all by taxing millionaires and billionaires has the support of two thirds to three fourths of Americans — including a majority of Republicans. An October National Journal poll found 68% of voters support the Democratic proposal for a surtax on millionaires to pay for the jobs bill.
In fact, the whole 99% versus 1% message frame that has dominated the airwaves since everyday people began Occupying Wall Street — is very popular — as are the president’s executive actions to improve the economy without Congressional approval.
And what is unpopular? The Republican plan to abolish Medicare and replace it with vouchers – that is really unpopular. In fact, most polls find that 70% of voters oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare to reduce the deficit.
Creating jobs, making the 1% pay their fair share, and protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be the defining symbolic issues next year — and on every one of them Democrats hold the high political ground and Republicans have to walk through the valley of political death.
Finally, of course, is the matter of whom the Republicans will nominate as an alternative to President Obama. Unfortunately for the GOP, Presidential elections are not always referenda on the incumbent — they are choices between two living, breathing people — and in this case two clearly distinguishable futures for our country.
The conventional wisdom holds that Romney is the Republican’s strongest contender. If he is — which I doubt — he is no Rocky Balboa.
There are two lines of attack on Romney that are toxic:
He clearly has no core values.
When voters accuse someone of being a typical “politician” they mean someone is a candidate who has no center — who decides what he believes depending entirely on the political winds. Romney could serve as the dictionary definition of “politician.” He has done “one eighties” on everything from abortion rights to health care. He is a political weathervane whose guiding principle is only one thing: what will advance the political career of Mitt Romney?
In 2004, immediately before the election, Gallup showed George W. Bush with an approval rating of 48% approval to 47% disapproval — not much different than President Obama enjoys today. But a not very popular Bush won re-election — largely by convincing large numbers of swing voters that John Kerry had no core values, that he was a flip flopper. They succeeded even though Kerry was a war hero and had a strong record of standing up for what he believed. How much easier will it be to convince everyday Americans that Romney has no core values – since he doesn’t.
Romney is the poster boy for the 1%.
He feels like the guy who fired your brother-in-law. He is in fact the guy who, some time back, gathered his crowd of young Wall Street hot shots around him after he completed a big deal at Bain Capital and posed for a picture with money dripping from their mouths and pockets and ears. He’s a guy who made his fortune dismantling companies and firing workers.
Of course, none of these facts are intended to make Progressives complacent — far from it. None of them guarantees we will win in 2012 — only that we can.
For the first two years of the Obama Administration, Progressives took a lot of ground.
There was:
Health Care for All Americans
Wall Street Reform
Avoiding another Great Depression
Saving a million jobs in the American auto industry
Expanding Medicaid
Eliminating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Expanding Children’s Health
Environmental Reform
Expanding Labor Rights
Expanding Civil Liberties
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Now Obama is ending the War in Iraq.
But last fall the Empire struck back. All of the corporate, special interest money fought back with a vengeance. It fought back because that’s the nature of change. The forces of the status quo don’t just roll over and play dead. They do everything they can to hang onto their money and power and privilege.
Now we have to hold our ground and prepare a winning counter offensive — and it won’t be easy, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that magnifies the power of corporate cash.
But if they win — if America has President Romney or Perry or Cain, Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner — they have made it crystal clear what they will do. They will return America to the Gilded Age. They will roll back the twentieth century — they will rip apart the entire social contract.
They will privatize Social Security, destroy Medicare, emasculate the labor movement, cut taxes further for corporations and the wealthy. They will create new radical conservative facts on the ground that they hope will entrench conservative power for generations.
But they believe their real key to victory is lack of enthusiasm among Progressives. They believe that Progressives — and many in the Democratic base — will stay home next November.
They will be wrong.
That’s because over the next year, the progressive forces in America will rise to the battle. In their own way, the Occupy movement has already shown that Progressives will stand and fight.
They will rise to the battle because they realize that the 2012 election is not just about two people running for President. It is about a moral question. It’s about two competing sets of values. It’s all about how we see ourselves as a nation — as a society. It’s about whether we will be a society based on the precepts of radical conservative social Darwinism, or a society rooted in the progressive values that have always defined the promise of America.
We will not allow them to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
We will not allow them to destroy the American labor movement.
We will not allow them to destroy the middle class.
We will not allow them to destroy the American dream.
And we will remember a central lesson of history: that before change happens it seems impossible. And after change happens it seems inevitable.
American history — human history — is the story of ever-expanding human freedom. There may be ups and downs, but when you back up from the big chart of history, the trend is up.
I believe that our time is no exception — that next year — in this crossroads election — we will do what is necessary to assure that America once again recommits herself to create a brighter future for the next generation than those that went before.
That’s what the revolutionaries that created this nation did. That’s what the soldiers who fought and died to defend it did. That’s what the sit-down strikers who created the labor movement did. That’s what the freedom riders who fought for civil rights did. And that is precisely what we will do again in 2012.
By: Robert Creamer, Political Organizer, Strategist and Author, Published in The Huffington Post, November 7, 2011
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