“So What’s The Point?”: Mandatory ID ‘Isn’t Just For Voting Anymore’
As part of a broader voter-suppression campaign, Republican policymakers in many states now require voters to show a photo ID in order to cast an election ballot. This step, ostensibly intended to combat voter fraud that doesn’t exist, is a hurdle that’s never been necessary before, and which studies show disproportionately affect Democratic constituencies. There’s ample evidence of registered voters already being blocked from voting because of these measures.
But as my msnbc colleague Zack Roth reports, “For Republicans, requiring photo ID isn’t just for voting anymore.” It’s now being applied to recipients of government benefits.
North Carolina’s GOP-controlled legislature – which last year passed a voter ID requirement as part of the nation’s most restrictive voting law – advanced a bill Thursday that would make recipients of jobless benefits also show a photo ID. It’s expected to pass next week. […]
Other Republican-led states are even moving to require photo ID to buy food. Starting in July, welfare and food stamp recipients in Maine will have to show photo ID, under a program pushed by far-right Republican governor Paul LePage. He said transactions records show food stamp cards were used thousands of times at strip clubs, smoke shops, and bars, which isn’t allowed. Georgia recently passed a similar requirement for food stamp recipients.
Given all of these efforts, one might assume that fraud is rampant and that ID requirements would save money while preventing illegal schemes.
Except, that’s not quite right.
As Zack’s report made clear, fraud does exist when it comes to the distribution of government benefits, but most of the wrongdoing is the result of “concealed-earnings fraud,” which refers to people who have financial resources they mask in order to remain eligible for benefits, cheating the system.
How would forcing these people to show ID prevent this fraud? It wouldn’t.
For that matter, because food-stamp benefits are distributed by way of Electronic Benefits Transfer cards through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, ID requirements wouldn’t reduce fraud here, either.
So what’s the point? Proponents will have to answer these questions themselves, though Zack’s report added a key detail: ”Studies suggest around 11% of Americans – including one in four African-Americans – don’t have a photo ID. Among those who receive government benefits, that number is almost certainly higher.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 10, 2014
“The $6 Trillion Dollar Mistake”: The Iraq War, An Immoral Waste
A new study says the Iraq War has cost the United States $2 trillion. By the time all the veterans’ bills are paid, it will likely cost us up to $6 trillion.
Let that sink in for a moment. Per National Priorities, here’s an estimate of how much money is allocated for various programs in President Obama’s 2015 federal fiscal year budget:
Education: ~ $70 billion
Health: ~ $58 billion
Unemployment and labor: ~ $58 billion
Energy and Environment: ~ $35 billion
International Affairs: ~ $35 billion
Science: ~ $35 billion
Transportation: ~ $23 billion
Food and Agriculture: ~$11 billion
Think about what we could have done with $6 trillion. With a “t”. As in, one thousand billions.
Almost eight years ago David Leonhardt wrote about what $1.2 trillion could have bought, which was the estimated cost of the Iraq War at the time:
For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
Next time a politician or pundit tells you that we don’t have the money to pay for cancer research or climate change abatement or housing for the homeless or extended unemployment benefits, always remember that most of these Very Serious People gladly cheered on and still refuse to apologize for a $6 trillion pointless blunder.
And that doesn’t even get into the lives stupidly thrown into the fire on both sides, when that money could have been used saving lives instead. What an immoral waste.
By: David Atkins, Washington Monthly Political Animal, June 1, 2014
“It Makes No Sense”: Why Do People Vote Against Their Own Best Interests?
This question has stymied political strategists and pundits for a long time. As an expert in the women’s market, I too am baffled by the way people, especially women, vote against those who share their ideals and values in lieu of voting for those who don’t.
I have frequently been asked and often pondered the question: “Why would a woman vote Republican when they clearly have a war on women?” I wish I had a great answer for this. Perhaps they have always voted Republican, and thus continue down this path. Perhaps they are wealthy and the tax breaks the Republicans fight for, that primarily benefit the rich, is the most important reason. Perhaps they believe the falsehoods and phony rhetoric of the Republican Party. Whatever the reason, I find it truly disturbing.
Both women and men should vote for elected officials whose actions show that they have the best interests of the citizens and country in mind, but for some reason, they don’t.
While I acknowledge that many Republican women are pro-life, offering choice, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, just makes good sense. I’m not advocating abortion; I am saying that I should have the choice to decide what is best for me and my family.
Equally troubling is why Republican women support a party who barely passed the Violence Against Women Act, who don’t support legislation to guarantee that a women receives equal pay for equal work, and who think women’s bosses should have the right to determine her health care and reproductive decisions.
As Republican governors refuse to accept billions of dollars in free federal money to expand Medicaid, hundreds of thousands of people are going without medical care and are dying needlessly. As the GOP continues to cut billions from food stamps, many women and children are going hungry.
Men are also hurt by the policies of the Republican Party. Many men support the party because they are pro-gun, but Republicans also vote to keep the minimum wage at poverty levels and are against extending unemployment benefits. These policies hurt the working class.
Republicans want to reduce government spending and control, but I wonder if the populace realizes that many solidly red states that they live in receive a huge percentage of their income from the federal government? In actuality, the amount many red states pay in federal taxes is small compared to the amount they receive back from the government.
Do they think about how the government spends this money building the roads they drive on daily, or providing funds for the fire department that comes to their home if there is an emergency? When a natural disaster strikes them, do they accept F.E.M.A’s help? These and many more necessities are government-funded programs.
To cut spending on these and other projects as the Republicans suggest, would greatly impact both the men and women in these states in a very destructive way. It reminds me of the old saying, “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” It makes no sense.
In reality, the Republicans don’t want to cut spending, just redistribute it from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. The Republican budget once again gives massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, while it cuts programs and safety nets that help many of the people who vote Republican. I don’t understand why people vote against their own best interests, especially when it hurts their family, the economy and the principles on which America was founded.
I respect the two-party system and believe it is healthy for a democracy to have differences that exist in many areas of fiscal and social governance. But the right-wing fringe has hijacked the sanity of the Republican Party, and the GOP needs to get back on track. Gerrymandering, suppressing the vote, allowing unrestricted funds and unlimited terms have led to undemocratic practices which will destroy America if voters don’t stand up and fight for what is right.
Citizens, whether Republicans, Democrats or Independents, all have much to gain by voting for politicians who are interested in the good of the country: working together, listening to each other, and compromising. If they continue to choose representatives who do not support our fragile Democratic Process, citizens will soon have more reasons to fear Washington D.C. than foreign terrorists.
By: Gerry Meyers, CEO, President and Co-founder of Advisory Link;The Huffington Post Blog, April 21, 2014
“Dangerous ‘Intended’ Consequences”: The Laughable Logic Behind Marco Rubio’s Plan To Limit Government Regulation
Republicans like to talk about government in the broadest, most abstract terms—arguing that it’s too big, too intrusive, and too expensive. The argument plays well politically, since the public tends to agree. But it also allows Republicans to avoid talking about real trade-offs—like the fact that government unemployment checks help people pay their bills while they are out of work, or that government guidelines for product safety keep kids safe when they play with toys. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the latest big idea from Republicans is a “national regulatory budget”—a proposal by Senator Marco Rubio that, however sensible sounding, could force government to scale back protections that people very much need.
Under Rubio’s plan, an independent agency would calculate the economic costs of all existing regulations. Congress would then set an upper limit on how much regulations can cost the economy—and use that figure to establish caps for each individual federal agency. What would that mean in practice? Imagine that the Environmental Protection Agency wanted to impose a new regulation on pollution. If the EPA was already at its limit, it would have to rescind an old regulation (or regulations) in order to make room.
“The essence of this proposal is a budget accounting mechanism—a one in requires one out. So one regulation in requires a similar regulation to be repealed,” said Amit Narang, a policy advocate at Public Citizen and an expert on the federal regulatory process. “The premise of the legislation is that we are currently at the perfect level of regulation. We don’t need anymore.”
One of Rubio’s goals is to force regulatory agencies to go back through old regulations and eliminate outdated and costly ones. There’s a strong case for that: Government agencies don’t do this very often and plenty of duplicative, cumbersome regulations exist. But Rubio’s method for forcing agencies to review past regulations is clumsy—and, according to many experts, dangerous. Among other things, the plan requires agencies to eliminate a regulation (or regulations) with the same economic cost as the new one. If the EPA wants to impose a major regulation (such as one on coal-fired power plants), it would have to rollback a significant one in return. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility to imagine this kind of budgetary system resulting in, say, the EPA, in order to put forward new chemical regulations—maybe they would have to repeal old lead regulations,” Narang said.
Rubio seems to think that Congress can set an arbitrary cap on the burden of regulations, at the precise level where agencies can ensure public safety without unduly hurting the economy. “This would force federal agencies to enact only those regulations that truly serve an essential role,” Rubio said in a speech at Google’s Washington D.C. headquarters on Monday. “It would put in place and enshrine the cost-benefit analysis and the regulatory framework that we are lacking right now.” Rubio is right that under his plan, federal agencies would have to evaluate their regulations and repeal the ones that had the worst cost-benefit ratio. But Congress could easily set the cap at a level which would force agencies to eliminate regulations whose benefits exceed their costs. That’s a dangerous unintended (or maybe intended) consequence of his proposal.
The ultimate problem with Rubio’s plan is that it actually has nothing to do with cost-benefit analysis. On the contrary, it sets a cap based solely on the economic costs of regulations, regardless of their benefits. Rubio wants agencies to evaluate the current costs and benefits of old regulations (they already do so with new ones), but he wants to ensure that even if the benefits exceed the costs, federal agencies will be forced to do away with many regulations anyway. Rubio says he wants to ensure a rigorous analysis of our regulatory system. What he really wants to do is rig the game.
By: Danny Vinik, The New Republic, March 11, 2014
“The Worst Of The Worse”: Maine’s Paul LePage Might Just Be The Worst Governor Of All
When Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released its report on “The Worst Governors in America” last summer, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was not even on the list. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did make the “cronyism, mismanagement, nepotism, self-enrichment” list, but the review of his tenure was not necessarily the most scathing in CREW’s assessment of Republicans and Democrats who had gone astray. And Ohio Governor John Kasich was ranked as nothing more than a “sideshow.”
Now Christie is busy answering questions about blocked traffic, misdirected Sandy aid and political misdeeds. Walker’s facing national and state scrutiny of secret e-mails and illegal campaign operations so intense that even Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace interrupted him to say, “But sir, you’re not answering my question.” And Kasich is scrambling to deal with a “Frackgate” controversy touched off by the exposure of a public-relations scheme—apparently developed by his administration, Halliburton and oil and gas industry lobbyists—to “proactively open state park and forest land” for fracking.
The scandals surrounding these prominent Republican governors, some of them potential presidential contenders, are serious. And they raise the question: Could there really be a governor who is more controversial? And whose actions might be even more troubling?
Meet Maine Governor Paul LePage, who ranked in the very top tier of CREW’s “worst” list with this review:
The first-term governor packed his administration with lobbyists and used his office to promote their environmental-deregulation agenda, and allegedly went so far as to fire a state employee who testified in favor of policies the administration opposed.
Gov. LePage also attempted to gut his state’s open records act, and is under investigation by the federal government for trying to bully employees of the state Department of Labor into deciding more cases in favor of business.
Now, the federal investigation has been completed, and LePage is still very much in the “worst governor” competition. A report from the US Department of Labor Office of the Solicitor General concluded that LePage and his appointees meddled with the process by which unemployment claims are reviewed—apparently with an eye toward advantaging employers and disadvantaging the jobless.
When the governor and his appointees engaged with officials who consider appeals from Mainers seeking unemployment benefits, the federal investigation concluded, they acted with “what could be perceived as a bias toward employers.” Specifically, the investigators determined, “hearing officers could have interpreted the expectations communicated by the Governor…as pressure to be more sympathetic to employers.”
The headlines from Maine newspapers Thursday were blunt:
Federal probe finds LePage pushed jobless benefits appeals officers to show ‘bias toward employers
Federal probe faults LePage administration on unemployment hearings
Federal investigation finds that LePage, Maine DOL endangered fairness of unemployment hearings
The roots of the investigation into LePage’s actions go back almost a year, as noted by Maine’s Sun Journal in a front-page story Thursday:
An April 11 Sun Journal investigation cited sources who said the governor had summoned DOL employees to a mandatory luncheon at the Blaine House on March 21 and scolded them for finding too many unemployment-benefit appeals cases in favor of workers. They were told they were doing their jobs poorly, sources said. Afterward, they told the Sun Journal they felt abused, harassed and bullied by the governor.
Emails released under a Freedom of Access Act request echoed complaints made to the Sun Journal by the hearing officers who attended the meeting.
LePage denied the charges and claimed his communications with the hearing officers were “cordial.” When the US Department of Labor investigation was launched—because hearing officers are paid with federal funds and must follow federal rules—the governor denied it was going on.
But there is no denying now that LePage has been called out for creating what reasonable people would interpret as an unfair “bias” against the jobless in a state that has a significantly higher unemployment rate than its northern New England neighbors New Hampshire and Vermont.
LePage is expected to seek re-election this year. Among the candidates he will face is Democratic Congressman Mike Michaud, a third-generation paper mill worker who says, “I understand what people are going through, the hard times that they are facing. Whether or not they have a job today or tomorrow, the uncertainty is real.”
Providing a fair process for reviewing unemployment claims helps to address that uncertainty. Infusing bias into the process is not just wrong, it’s cruel. And that cruelty—as much as any political abuse or ethical excess—provides a vital measure for assessing the worst of the worst governors.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, February 27, 2014
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