“Wage Boost Could Pay Democrats Dividends”: Republicans Blocking An Increase In The Federal Minimum Wage Do So At Their Own Peril
American liberalism and the Democratic Party — two partially overlapping but by no means identical institutions — have set themselves an unusually clear agenda for 2014: reducing economic inequality and boosting workers’ incomes. These are causes they can fight for on multiple fronts.
Raising the minimum wage should offer the course of least resistance. Although congressional Republicans may persist in blocking an increase in the federal minimum wage, they do so at their own peril. Raising the wage is one of the few issues in U.S. politics that commands across-the-board public support. A CBS News poll in November found that even 57 percent of Republicans support such an increase.
Democrats have concluded that they can turn Republican legislators’ opposition to raising the wage into an electoral issue by using state ballot measures. As states are free to set their own minimum-wage standards — though the rates take effect only when they exceed the federal minimum — Democrats are working to put wage-increase initiatives before voters in states that will have contested House and Senate races in 2014, including Arkansas, Alaska, South Dakota and New Mexico. Such ballot measures have proved an effective way to increase turnout of low-income and minority voters, which can translate into more ballots cast for Democratic candidates.
(Although economic libertarians object to the minimum wage on theoretical grounds, a look at the states that have refused to enact minimum-pay statutes suggests that the real opposition to the minimum wage is rooted in something else. Those states are Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — places where persistent racism and the heritage of slavery seem to me a far more likely cause of opposition to the minimum wage than any ideological infatuation with the works of Ayn Rand.)
Most efforts to raise the minimum wage this year are likely to come in blue states and cities. The recent leftward movement of U.S. cities, symbolized by the landslide election of Bill de Blasio as New York’s mayor, is an underappreciated factor in U.S. politics. Twenty years ago, six of the country’s dozen largest cities had Republican mayors. Today, none do, even when those cities — including Houston, Dallas and Phoenix — are nestled in red states. The transformation of major U.S. cities is rooted in demographics, as immigrants and young professionals — both preponderantly liberal constituencies — have clustered in urban areas.
In some states, cities have the power to raise the minimum wage above the state level. That’s how San Francisco was able to set its wage level above California’s and why Seattle is likely this year to raise its minimum wage well above that in the rest of Washington. New York City lacks that power, though it’s probable that de Blasio will try to persuade legislators in Albany that his city — one of the least affordable on the planet — should be given that freedom.
Whether they can raise their minimum wage or not, the nation’s ever-bluer cities have a range of other options to increase incomes. They could require developers that receive municipal tax breaks or other assistance to pay their employees a living wage above the minimum wage. They could enact paid sick leave or paid family leave requirements. They could reduce the local cost of living by requiring developers of luxury housing to build affordable housing as well.
At the federal level, too, Democrats can do more than battle for a higher minimum wage. They could call for an increase to the earned-income tax credit, an idea much loved by some conservatives (Ronald Reagan especially) that provides a federal supplement to the income of workers who fall below the poverty threshold. They could refuse to vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a trade pact being negotiated with Pacific Rim nations, including such notably low-wage countries as Vietnam — or for the “fast-track” authority that would likely guarantee TPP passage unless the Congressional Budget Office can demonstrate that the measure won’t lower the wages of U.S. workers.
The ongoing efforts of fast-food workers and Wal-Mart employees to win higher pay will continue to remind both the public and legislators that millions of adults earn poverty-level wages in today’s United States. With the near-elimination of collective bargaining from the private sector, it will largely be up to Democrats in Congress, state legislatures and city halls to provide the wage boosts that unions once secured. That would help millions of Americans in their pocketbooks — and some Democratic candidates at the polls.
By: Harold Meyerson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 2, 2014
“The Cruelty Of Unleashed Capitalism”: Rich Catholic Republicans Threaten Pope Francis, Because He Frightens Them
If anyone wonders whether Pope Francis has irritated wealthy conservatives with his courage and idealism, the latest outburst from Kenneth Langone left little doubt. Sounding both aggressive and whiny, the billionaire investor warned that he and his overprivileged friends might withhold their millions from church and charity unless the pontiff stops preaching against the excesses and cruelty of unleashed capitalism.
According to Langone, such criticism from the Holy See could ultimately hurt the sensitive feelings of the rich so badly that they become “incapable of feeling compassion for the poor.” He also said rich donors are already losing their enthusiasm for the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan – a very specific threat that he mentioned directly to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.
Langone is not only a leading fundraiser for church projects but a generous donor to hospitals, universities, and cancer charities (often for programs and buildings named after him, in the style of today’s self-promoting philanthropists). Among the super-rich, he has many friends and associates who may share his excitable temperament.
While his ultimatum seems senseless – would a person of true faith stiff the church and the poor? – it may well be sincere. And Langone spends freely to promote his political and economic views, in the company of the Koch brothers and other Republican plutocrats.
Still, a Pope brave enough to face down the Mafia over his financial reform of the murky Vatican Bank shouldn’t be much fazed by the likes of Langone.
Yet Langone has reason to worry that the Holy Father is in fact asking hard questions about people like him. Indeed, he could serve as a living symbol of the gross and growing economic inequality that disfigures the American system and threatens democracy.
As a leader of the New York Stock Exchange, he was largely responsible for the scandalous overpayment of his friend Richard Grasso, the exchange president who received nearly $190 million in deferred compensation when he stepped down. Although New York’s highest court eventually upheld Grasso’s pay package, it was a perfect example of the unaccountable, self-serving greed of Wall Street’s elite.
Anything but repentant following the revelation and repudiation of the Grasso deal by NYSE executives, Langone told Forbes magazine in 2004: “They got the wrong f—ing guy. I’m nuts, I’m rich, and boy, do I love a fight. I’m going to make them sh-t in their pants. When I get through with these f—ing captains of industry, they’re going to wish they were in a Cuisinart—at high speed.”
He embarked on a furious vendetta against Eliot Spitzer, who had fought to recapture Grasso’s millions as New York attorney general. And when Spitzer was forced to resign as governor in the wake of a prostitution scandal, Langone’s public gloating seemed to indicate that he had played a personal role in exposing his enemy’s indiscretions. He particularly hated Spitzer for attempting to punish and curtail the worst misconduct in the financial industry.
While Langone passionately defended the outlandish grasping of the super-rich like his friend Grasso, however, he has displayed far less indulgence toward workers, especially those struggling to support their families on poverty wages. Until just last year, he was a director of Yum! Brands, the global fast-food conglomerate that includes Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken among its holdings – and that spends millions annually to hold down the minimum wage and prevent unionization of its ill-paid employees and farmworkers.
What all this adds up to is hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable compensation for financial cronies, but not a dime more for low-income workers. It is exactly the kind of skewed outcome that the Pope means when he speaks about today’s capitalists, “the powerful feeding upon the powerless,” and the need for renewed state regulation to bring their burgeoning tyranny under control. He is talking about Langone, the Kochs, and an entire gang of right-wing financiers.
“How I would love a church that is poor and for the poor,” Francis said not long after his election to the papacy. That could be what he gets – and that might not be so bad, for the poor and for all of us, Catholic or not, who love justice.
By: Joe Conason, Featured Post, The National Memo, January 3, 2014
“Job One, Helping The Jobless”: Can Congress Pass An Unemployment Insurance Extension?
When extended Unemployment Insurance benefits expired late last month, 1.3 million jobless Americans immediately lost that bit of safety net; if Congress fails to act, another 3.6 million Americans will lose this support by the end of 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that on Monday the Senate will take up a temporary extension. Getting it done would not only be smart economics but it’s also simply the right thing to do.
Many on the right oppose extending benefits under the deeply dubious theory that too much unemployment compensation makes the social safety net a comfy hammock, to borrow Paul Ryan’s evocative simile. Why would people work, the theory goes, when they can get paid to not work? So people like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul paint opposition to extended benefits as being rooted in concern for the jobless who suffer under the seductive yolk of big government’s helping hand – never mind that the study he cites doesn’t say what he says it says. And never mind that in order to receive jobless benefits, you have to be actively seeking a job, meaning that cutting benefits could actually discourage people from continuing to look for work. And never mind the paltry nature of support. As I wrote in my column last month:
The National Employment Law Project notes that “while the average American family spends $1,407 per month on housing alone, the average monthly extension benefit is only $1,166.” Still the modest sums help: According to the Council of Economic Advisers, in 2012 alone unemployment insurance benefits “lifted an estimated 2.5 million people out of poverty.” Further, the National Employment Law Project estimates, 446,000 of those people were children.
If members of Congress (and for that matter the yammering class) need any further evidence of the importance of extending benefits, the state of North Carolina has been unkind enough to conduct an experiment in punishing the unemployed. Last February the state enacted a law which not only slashed the duration (from 26 weeks to 12-20 weeks) and amount (from a maximum of $535 to $350 per week) of unemployment benefits, but also managed to run afoul of the federal jobless program, disqualifying North Carolinians from receiving those benefits.
So what happened when the lazy parasites were forced to stop suckling at the governmental teet? BloombergBusinessweek’s Joshua Green has a good piece today answering that question:
At first glance, the effect appears to be positive. North Carolina’s unemployment rate dropped dramatically, from 8.8 percent to 7.4 percent between July and November. By comparison, the national unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percent over the same period. A closer look, however, suggests that North Carolina’s unemployment numbers have fallen not because the long-term jobless have found work but because they’ve quit looking altogether. As a result, the state no longer counts them as unemployed.
As John Quinterno of the economic research firm South by North Strategies tells Green, while the number of unemployed in the state fell by nearly 102,000 year over year, 95,000 of those people aren’t counted as jobless not because they found jobs but because they stopped looking. Meanwhile, North Carolina’s food banks are getting overwhelmed, reports Bloomberg’s Evan Soltas, who quotes one food bank director who oversees seven counties and 230 organizations as saying that “some of our member agencies have been able to meet that need, but many have not.”
So what are the odds of Congress doing the right thing? As with many prominent issues these days, Democrats have the public on their side – according to a poll by the Democratic firm Hart Research, 55 percent of voters want the benefits extended. In order to pass an extension through the Senate, Reid will need to peel off at least a handful of Republicans (he already has one – Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who is co-sponsoring the three month extension Reid is pushing). The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has a good run-down of Republicans from either blue or purple states or from high unemployment red states who might vote with Reid. But, Sargent concludes:
The campaign to pressure Republicans into agreeing to extend UI has essentially amounted to an effort to shame them into it, by highlighting the huge numbers of their own constituents who stand to lose lifelines if they don’t act. Local press coverage has dramatically spotlighted the issue within states, as press compilations by Dems show.
But this doesn’t appear to be working with too many Republicans.
And even if the Senate passes the bill, odds remain long that House Republicans – who refused to include an extension when they cleared last year’s budget deal – will suddenly do the right thing.
If the GOP does block the extension, 2014 is off to a grim start for millions of Americans.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, January 2, 2013
“The Three Stages Of Obamacare Acceptance”: It’s Increasingly Difficult To See How Repeal Would Work, Even With Full GOP Control
Now that Obamacare is clearly moving forward, Republicans are adjusting to a new reality: it may no longer be a realistic option to simply wait until the law collapses under its own weight and vanishes entirely. GOP lawmakers are increasingly discussing a range of responses, from proposing profound changes to finally embracing a comprehensive alternative.
Which raises a question: Is it possible to envision a future in which Republicans and Democrats do enter into real negotiations over the future of the law and the health system, in which each side gets some changes it wants, in exchange for accepting some of the other’s proposed changes?
Yes, it is. But to get there, Republicans will first have to pass through what might be called the Three Stages of Obamacare Acceptance.
Right now, Republicans entertaining changes or alternatives are still proceeding from the premise that no outcome is acceptable unless it fatally cripples the law or eliminates it entirely. Republicans don’t believe the law can be fixed, since they think that even if it does work according to its own lights, it will still amount to a colossal policy failure. If Republicans want to hold that position indefinitely, there’s not much Dems can do about it.
But if Republicans do get to a point where crippling or eliminating the law is not the only acceptable outcome, there are scenarios under which they might negotiate for certain types of changes to the law, in exchange for changes Dems or liberals want.
Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation laid out the types of incremental changes Republicans might pursue. He suggested Republicans might propose various ways of relaxing Obamacare’s regulations, in keeping with conservative policy ideas, that wouldn’t destroy the law. For instance, they could propose allowing insurance sales across state lines so competition drives down prices, something liberals might be willing to accept under certain circumstances if the law’s uniform federal minimum coverage standards are kept (which could theoretically prevent the “race to the bottom” liberals fear).
Or Republicans could propose to make tax deductions available to those over 400 percent of the poverty line who do not qualify for Obamacare subsidies, helping those who see premiums go up (which Republicans have turned into a major issue) and mitigating Obamacare’s redistributive elements a bit. Or Republicans could propose relaxing the limitations on age ratings, allowing insurance companies to charge more than the current three-to-one ratio the law mandates between older and younger people.
In exchange, liberals might ask for subsidies to be expanded to those who fall into the Medicaid gap — making too little to qualify for subsidies but too much to qualify for Medicaid in states that haven’t opted in to the expansion. Or they might ask for more in subsidies for those who currently qualify.
The point is, there are scenarios under which real negotiations over the future of the law could take place. But Republicans would have to be willing to accept something less than its complete destruction. (As Jonathan Bernstein has detailed, a general unwillingness by Republicans to try to get some of what they want on multiple issues has made the GOP into a kind of dysfunctional “post policy” opposition.)
Let’s be clear: It is certainly still possible that over the long term, Obamacare could fail, if, say, the demographic mix is bad, insurers pull out, and the exchanges collapse. If so, Republicans would theoretically be able to simply wait for the law to fall apart in a few years. But some experts are cautiously optimistic that the latest enrollment numbers suggest the law could be on track to work.
And that’s where the Three Stages of Obamacare Acceptance come in — presuming, again, that the law works at least moderately well over the long term:
* Stage One: A dim awareness that there might be some good elements in the law, and that the public might not support returning to the old system. GOP Rep. Jack Kingston, for instance, recently suggested that it might not be “responsible” to simply let the law fall apart, and that lawmakers should be open to anything in it that would help people get coverage. Kingston was immediately slapped down by his primary opponent and quickly reiterated his zeal to get rid of it entirely. Something similar happened to a GOP Senate candidate in Michigan.
* Stage Two: A genuine recognition that large numbers of people are already benefitting from the law, and that this reality needs to be reckoned with — such as by proposing alternatives or changes that purport to accomplish similar goals, even as the elimination or crippling of it remains a paramount aim. GOP Rep. Tom Price has proposed an alternative designed, in part, to cover people with preexisting conditions, but it would probably cover far fewer people, and Price continues to insist on Obamacare’s repeal, maintaining its demise is a certainty.
Meanwhile, Senator Ron Johnson has admitted that “we have to deal with the people who are currently covered under Obamacare,” and to do this, he has proposed keeping the exchanges while getting rid of the individual mandate. The latter, experts say, would fatally undermine the law, and as such this isn’t a serious proposal.
* Stage Three: Republicans accept Obamacare is likely here to stay, abandon the premise that the only acceptable outcome is crippling or eliminating the law, and negotiate to achieve incremental changes they want. This is the scenario outlined by Levitt above. It’s hard to know when this might happen in earnest – certainly not in 2014, and GOP presidential primary politics could also make this difficult next year. But you’re already seeing this a bit with GOP governors who are negotiating with the feds to create their own versions of the Medicaid expansion.
It’s always possible Republicans could win the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2016 and pass legislation repealing the law. And again, if the law fails over time, the above stages could be moot. But it’s increasingly difficult to see how repeal would work in practical terms, even with full GOP control. What’s more, as Jonathan Cohn has detailed, experts think early returns suggest the law is likely to work out. Which means you can begin to imagine Stage Three kicking in. At some point.
“If Republicans were to accept that the law is in place for the foreseeable future, then one could envision tweaks that could move it in a more conservative direction without undermining its goals, while also providing improvements to the law that liberals are looking for,” Levitt says.
By: Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, The Washington Post, January 2, 2014
“Meet Our Modern-Day Scrooges, Proud As Can Be”: Where’s “The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come” When You Really Need Him?
The holiday season is that time of year when the news pages take on a softer edge, as editors, photographers, and reporters strive to convey the spirit of fellowship and concern for the less fortunate embodied by the Salvation Army bell-ringers and the end of year charity appeals that fill out mailboxes and in-boxes. The Washington Post ran a short article on a homeless 11-year-old girl named Christmas Diamond (yes, really) who, facing a year without presents, was still thinking dreamily of a paint set she got two years ago; a few days later, the paper ran a heartwarming follow-up on the dozens of gifts that readers had dropped off at her shelter. Many papers ran articles on the plight of the 1.3 million long-term unemployed who lost their extended federal benefits over this past weekend. The New York Times annually outdoes everyone with its “neediest cases” stories, written explicitly as inducements for readers to give to its charitable fund.
It’s enough to make one think we’re turning into a nation of sentimental Tiny Tims. Luckily, we still have the letters to the editor in the Wall Street Journal, whose readers are strikingly eager to give expression to their inner Scrooge even at the peak of yuletide. Consider this remarkable sampling from just the past few days (emphasis added):
…Even if Congress passed a law that decreed all incomes must be equal, the inequality the president laments would continue as individuals spend their equal incomes unequally. Individual choice is fundamental to American freedom and liberty, yet it leads to inequality of outcome. Should the government therefore fix inequality by dictating every choice an individual makes?
The logical terminus of such egalitarianism is totalitarianism.
Patrick Hall
Chattanooga, Tenn.
What’s wrong with income inequality? In a society where its most productive members are incentivized to produce as much as they can, the economy grows. The people who benefit the most from economic growth aren’t the high-income producers; it is the poor who benefit most. The difference between being unemployed and dependent versus employed and self-sustaining has enormous impact on one’s life. If you want to improve someone’s life, raising the other guy’s taxes or health-care insurance premiums isn’t the way to do it. The way to do it is to create jobs.
The doctrine President Obama self-righteously pushes is to strive for income equality. However, morality is a doctrine under which people experience the consequences of their behavior. Disincentivizing wealth creation, which is what President Obama seeks, is immoral and imposes misery on the underclass. That is what we should be discussing.
Michael O’Guin
McKinney, Texas
Barton Swaim (“‘Giving Back’ to Our Sanctimonious Selves,” op-ed, Dec. 20) misses the central insult of the words “giving back.” While giving generously to the needy and to the talented is a long American tradition, the term “giving back” suggests a prior “taking away,” i.e., theft. That single adverb “back” embodies the core conceit of the modern progressive liberal: that wealth is theft, requiring atonement; that unequal wealth—the fruit of a successful meritocracy—is criminal; that “society” is the only rightful owner of all that any individual can build and earn.
Give back our language!
Phil Harvey
Hampton Falls, N.H.
Mr. Swaim is so focused on questioning the sincerity of our small acts of giving that result from political and corporate marketing during the holidays that he fails to see the detriment that the constant pounding of phrases like “giving back” and “social responsibility” have on a free society.
Since one cannot “give back” what one has not previously received, this phrase implies that society has bestowed wealth on an individual instead of him having created or acquired it from his work and merit. “Giving back” is the twin brother of “you didn’t build that.” Likewise, one cannot be deemed “responsible” for someone to whom one has no obligation. “Social responsibility” implies that an individual has an obligation toward society, which he must fulfill. That is the cornerstone of socialism.
Mr. Swaim believes that the problem with the “giving back” phenomenon is that nothing is required from the individual but “minor, outwardly visible gestures.” On the contrary, let’s hope that it stays that way: that nothing is required from the individual and that “giving” always remains a voluntary gesture.
Fiamma Truuvert
London
…The economic reality is that the poorest Americans, with government subsidies and benefits, have better lifestyles today than did the poor at any other time in American history or anywhere else in the world. There is deprivation and pain, but life generally is better. In addition, there still is a remarkable amount of economic mobility in America despite pitiful public schools in most cities and severe cultural disadvantages (e.g., out-of-wedlock births, and low marriage rates) in poor minority communities.
Finally, no matter what we do collectively, we will never eradicate poverty unless Jesus mis-spoke two millennia ago. We can improve safety nets and try to reform public education, but there will always be a bottom 20%….
Jim Fitzpatrick
Hampton, Va.
The cover of the Journal on December 26, the day the first of these letters ran, featured a large photo of altar boys in violet robes standing among the 70,000 people gathered at St. Peter’s Square to hear Pope Francis deliver the traditional Christmas Day message. Francis’s message included this line: “Looking at the Child in the manger, Child of peace, our thoughts turn to those children who are the most vulnerable victims of wars, but we think too of the elderly, to battered women, to the sick…”
In other words, to all those people “experiencing the consequences of their behavior.”
Where’s the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come when you really need him?
By: Alec MacGinnis, The New Republic, December 30, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 
