Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #201
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
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Contents * Featured Articles Calendars of Events Communication with Our Members Member Commentaries Are Welcome Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Linda Jansen: House Bill Should Have Been Defeated* Maryrose Asher: House Health Reform Bill Is Inadequate Rich Austin: Goldman Sachs Uses Bailout Money Against Us Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef State and Local Links
to the Beef Washington Labor Responds to Seattle Times’ Rare Concern
for Democrats* Featured Advocacy Group: Democrats Work Nation and World Links to the Beef An Afghan Community Development Approach** Does America Need to Emulate Japan’s Lost Decade? * Ways to Reduce Health Care Costs* Our Liberal Spirit 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 Do one thing at a
time. Multiple Sources
Calendar of Events
Sunday, November 22 at 3:30 PM at Federal Way 320th
Library (848 South 320th Street, Federal Way) - Film: Rethink Afghanistan
and Discussion
Sunday, November 22 at 7 PM at 1515 - 12th
Avenue, Seattle - Northwest Film Forum: Money Driven Medicine, an expose
of America’s profit-driven health care system.
Communication
with Our Members
Member Commentaries Are Welcome
As in this and previous newsletters, I
am glad to publish your commentaries which disagree with mine. But you must be a member and I prefer that
you compose your own commentary instead of simply sending someone else’s
commentary. Your commentary may contain
links to other commentaries. Dave Thomas
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Petitions
Tell
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow women to purchase their own abortion
coverage.
Tell Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to put
wolves back on endangered species list.
Tell Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to prevent
mining that will harm Bristol Bay salmon.
Tell
EPA officials to stop nitrogen and phosphorous pollution in the Mississippi
River ecosystem.
Tell President Obama to tell
China’s leaders to stop sending arms to the Sudan.
Tell
President Obama to begin to remove our troops in Afghanistan.
Tell
your representatives to act to stop additional troops in Afghanistan.
Four
petitions opposing inclusion of Stupak Amendment in health care reform bill.
Another
anti-Stupak Amendment petition.
Tell
Hillary Clinton to act to end child trafficking.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Linda Jansen: House Bill Should Have Been
Defeated
I note the negative response
in your newsletter to Rep. Baird's vote against the health care bill. I
think he should be applauded. Besides the fact of the Stupak-Pitts amendment,
unconscionably voted for by many so called "pro-choice" Democrats,
the House bill is a fragmentation bomb for what is left of our health care
system.
From
John Geyman MD PNHP in the California Nurses Association newsletter: Buried
in the fine print of this monster bill are many provisions that will benefit
corporate stakeholders in the medical industrial complex on the backs of
patients and their families. These examples make the point:
• Although medical loss ratios (MLR) (the proportion of premium revenue
actually spent on medical care) are specified at a minimum of 85 percent, this
loophole has been added--"while making sure that such a change doesn't
further destabilize the current individual health insurance market." By
way of comparison, the Senate Commerce Committee has found that the average MLR
for the largest insurers in the individual market is only 74 percent, with 26
percent of premium revenue going to marketing, administrative overhead and
profits.
•
Although the bill would create a much-needed Center for Comparative
Effectiveness Research, it would have no say over reimbursement and coverage
policies. As the bill says, it "contains protections to ensure that
research findings are not construed to mandate coverage, reimbursement or other
policies to any public or private payer."
In
sum, this $1.055 trillion plan over ten years will not fix the major problems
of cost and affordable access to health care in our deteriorating system, will
add new layers of bureaucracy and complexity to the present system, is not
fiscally responsible, and is not sustainable.
What
to do now? Rather than accept an unworkable bill that is politically expedient,
we would be better off to make a major course change. That vote could take
place as early as tomorrow.
If
that fails, shelving this bill would be the best option. Until a few days ago,
I would have added that lawmakers should be pressed to retain the amendment
proposed by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) to allow states to experiment with
single-payer plans, as a number of states would like to do (e.g. California,
Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania). Although
that amendment had already been passed by a rare bipartisan vote of 27-19 in
the House Education and Labor Committee, it has been stripped from the bill.
The Democrats have hobbled
the states' ability to build their own health care systems, as you see.
We are all at risk from this horrible bailout to the insurance companies. It should be killed. We need to
"start from scratch" as President Obama famously said, and institute
Medicare for all. Linda Jansen
Linda Jansen and others have suggested that the house bill which
was just narrowly approved is so inadequate that it would be better if it had
failed or anything similar fails in the Senate.
My thinking is that if health care reform fails now, we will be stuck
with our present terrible health care system for a long time. Even if Linda Jansen and others are right
that the proposed reforms are a step backward, once they pass and the
inadequacies become obvious, steps will be taken to reform the inadequate
reform. Dave Thomas
Maryrose Asher: House Health Reform Bill Is
Inadequate
Maryrose Asher
doesn’t believe that our Obama Administration and Congress can produce an
adequate health care reform bill. She
suggests we read a commentary by Quentin
Young who is National Coordinator for Physicians for a National Health Program,
which advocates a single payer system:
Dear PNHP members and
friends, As you know, on Saturday the House of Representatives narrowly passed
HR 3962, which embodies the administration's "individual mandate"
approach to health reform, by 220 to 215. At the last minute, the bill
was amended to include a sweeping attack on women's reproductive rights (the
Stupack amendment) in addition to all its other glaring
deficiencies (including failing to expand coverage until after 2013;
windfall subsidies and capitulation to the private insurance industry; a sham
version of the "public option," etc).
We encourage you to read Dr.
Marcia Angell's analysis of the bill and the statement
from Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) who courageously voted against it, along with
one other single payer supporter, Rep. Dennis Kucinich. The Kucinich
statement
on HR 3962 is compelling. Donna
Smith, an organizer with the California Nurses Association and one of the
patients featured in Michael Moore's Sicko, notes that the bill would not have
prevented her from going bankrupt and losing her home when she developed
cancer, despite the fact that she had private health insurance. Indeed,
the bill wouldn't have prevented any of the tragedies exposed in the film (See
Smith's video "American Sickos: Will the
Current Bills Help? No").
Single payer, Medicare for All, will be introduced for a vote in the Senate by
Sen. Bernie Sanders. Please encourage your Senator to vote for the Sanders
amendment. Proposals
based on mandates and incremental reform (with or without a public option)
won't work. For more analysis of HR 3962 and the latest news from
Capitol Hill, please see our web site at www.pnhp.org/healthbill.
For daily updates on the latest
developments in health policy and politics, subscribe to PNHP Senior Health
Policy Fellow Dr. Don McCanne's "Quote of the Day". Cordially,
Quentin Young
The Network of Spiritual
Progressives also expresses concern about whether the proposed health care
reforms are a step backward such that they should be defeated.
Rich Austin: Goldman
Sachs Uses Bailout Money Against Us
Ain’t life grand? Goldman Sachs benefited from our bailout money.
Now they get to invest the proceeds of our “generosity” on their efforts to kill real health care reform
(not to be confused with the sellout "reform" currently under
consideration in Congress, which is also being opposed by Goldman). “Your” tax dollars being used against you!
Ever feel you’re on the outside looking in? You are! That’s because you failed to pay the
entrance fee, let alone buy a seat at the table! The “grand” referenced earlier should only be
used in the context of “hundreds of grand”.
Get the picture? Your good health
is being sold at a Congressional garage sale!
Rich Austin
Liberals
and Democrats
Government Watch
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Like me, Eugene
Robinson is impressed by President
Obama’s achievements. Tom Friedman
suggests that President Obama needs to better frame his various initiatives as
all being part
of rebuilding America.
Health Care Reform
Health
care reform faces major obstacles in Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid is trying various proposals to try to get enough votes to stop a
filibuster. Here is an analysis of
the merged Senate Bill. House
members who vote against the health care reform bill will find their
vote harmed them politically. For
all their promises to help reduce costs, pharmaceutical companies
are greatly increasing the price of their medicines. Paid sick days will improve
health and lower costs of poor health and health care.
Compared to just adding
more people to Medicare over a few years, present health care reform proposals
have many defects. One
analysis suggests that health care reform will stimulate positive changes,
without destroying profitability of private insurers. Republicans
are doing everything possible to delay action on health care reform and
should be blamed if it fails.
More Jobs
President
Obama plans a jobs summit to suggest more strategies toward creating jobs. For
more. Here are some
ideas that should be considered at the jobs summit. People who
most supported Obama’s election (young, black and poor) have suffered the worst
unemployment and need the most help.
The Hill reviews the possible options for a
House jobs bill next month: "The main idea for job creation is finding some sort of
compromise on a highway-construction bill that Democrats have been haggling
over for months. House Democrats have fought resistance in the Senate and at
the White House for a massive, long-term expansion of the highway authorization
bill. They haven't been able to agree on how to raise the money for a $500
billion bill. One idea would be to do a shorter-term bill without a revenue
stream, a Democratic aide said, adding to the deficit. Lawmakers are also
discussing more small-business tax breaks intended to create new jobs. But
other pieces being considered - extending unemployment benefits again, paying
the health benefits of unemployed workers, providing aid to state Medicaid
programs and extending popular tax breaks - might help the economy, but are
less likely to chip away at the unemployment rate."
House Dem Caucus Chair Rep. John Larson lists
ideas to CQ: "Larson mentioned funding for infrastructure projects House
Democrats have been pushing, and Democratic aides said the House might also
move extensions of tax policies set to expire at the end of the year. Among
them are the research and development tax credit, incentives for biodiesel, an
additional standard deduction for property taxes, accelerated depreciation for
motorsports complexes and expensing of brown fields cleanup costs. Expiring
business provisions are more likely to be extended than those affecting
individual taxpayers. Extension of the business provisions would have an
immediate impact on corporate planning and could affect quarterly earnings
statements since companies cannot otherwise assume their extension. One
Democratic lawmaker said there has also been talk about using money from the
financial sector bailout to aid small businesses. Larson said Democratic
leaders have not decided whether to move their jobs proposals separately or as
a package."
AFL-CIO releases 5-point jobs plan,
re-directing TARP funds:
·
Extend
the lifeline for jobless workers for another 12 months.
·
Rebuild
America's schools, roads and energy systems.
·
Increase
aid to state and local governments to maintain vital services.
·
Fund
jobs in our communities, restoring our environment, providing child care and
tutoring, cleaning up abandoned houses and more.
·
Put
TARP funds to work for Main Street.
Bernanke says job growth is "great
concern," indicating interest rates should remain low. Bloomberg:
“Jobs are likely to
remain scarce for some time, keeping households cautious about spending” he
said. “While payrolls will increase as the economy recovers, unemployment likely
will decline only slowly if economic growth remains moderate, as I expect.”
Time reports that Build America Bonds, part
of the stimulus, are working: The municipal-bond program, which
provides a federal subsidy to help states and other local governments raise
funds, looks to be one of the economic recovery effort's biggest successes. The
bonds have renewed and expanded investor interest in the muni-bond sector. And
by getting money into the hands of cash-strapped local governments, the bond
program has saved or even boosted jobs, stimulating the economy.
Apollo Alliance's Phil Angelides
and OurFuture.org's Natasha Chart call for "Buy America"
provisions for green stimulus funds to prevent shipping new green jobs
offshore.
A
Cash for Caulkers (home weatherization) might create many jobs suitable to
laid off construction workers.
Regulating Financial Companies
Senator Bernie
Sanders has introduced legislation
to break up ‘to big to fail’ financial companies. For
more. For
more.
Education Reform
President
Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan discuss reform.
Global Warming
In spite of
delay in global warming legislation, Obama
Administration will attempt to get agreement at Copenhagen to proceed with
measures to restrict global warming.
Immigration Reform
Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is leading the way toward 2010
immigration reform.
Food Security
Obama administration
approach to providing food security is wrong.
Toward Closing Guantanamo
Steps toward closing
Guantanamo in spite of Conservative troublemaking. For more.
President Obama’s Asian Trip
President Obama
has the opportunity to treat
Japan more as an equal partner. President
Obama’s remarks at the Shanghai meeting with students. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke seeks to increase
U.S. exports to Asian countries.
Suppose that
the Obama Administration and China disagree about ten issues. As the result of their meetings, they agree
on three issues and agree to further discuss two others. The commercial media pundits call the
meetings a failure because they didn’t agree on the other five, even though
progress was made on five. This belies
the progress that was made.
What Does Sarah Palin Want?
I believe Sarah
Palin’s primary objective is to obtain lots of money. Keeping her option open to run for president
in 2012, helps her secure speaking fees.
But resigning as Alaska’s governor suggests that she doesn’t actually
want to become a candidate, especially with the difficulties she would
encounter. She can better succeed as a
leader of the Teabag Republicans.
If Sarah Palin
did somehow become the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, she couldn’t
possibly win. So it would be good for
the Democrats. But it won’t happen. As a leader of the Teabag Republicans, she
can be expected to encourage Conservative candidates to compete with less
consistently Conservative candidates, such that Democratic candidates can win,
as occurred in upstate New York. This
also will bode well for Democrats. So
let Sarah obtain the money she wants and let her act in ways that help our
Democrats.
Here’s the Beef
Fox teabag commentators and Rush Limbaugh will cause more
Democratic Congress members to Replace Republicans. For
more.
If they were in control, Republicans would continue the harmful things they did
when in control.
Many
young Conservatives are opposed to teabag Conservatives.
Demographic
trends will assist Democrats to pick up congressional seats in 2010.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls for increased
federal funding of education and highway repairs to create jobs.
Non-government groups protesting Copenhagen global
warming inaction will
offer innovative proposals.
Our U.S. and other countries attending Copenhagen
global warming meetings will work for a modest
interim agreement with more definitive commitments next year after our U.S.
has passed our global warming legislation.
State
and Local
Frank Chopp and BIAW
David Spring: Speaker Frank Chopp held
a two hour discussion today with the King County Dems Legislative Action
Committee (LAC) regarding plans for the 2010 legislative session. In addition
to the usual 20 to 30 LAC representatives of the 14 legislative districts in
King County, there were also about 50 LD Chairs and Vice Chairs and other King
County Democrats. The folks who were at this meeting are among the most
progressive Democrats in Washington State. They are the heart and soul of the
Democratic party. They each put in hundreds (and even thousands) of volunteer
hours every year working to make our State a better place to live. They are why
I 1033 was voted down in King County by a margin of two to one, why R-71 passed
and why Dow Constantine overcame a 15 point deficit in the polls to become the
next King County Executive.
Speaker
Chopp spoke for about 30 minutes and then answered questions for 90 minutes on
a wide range of issues important to King County Democrats. The following is just
a few of his most important comments.
He
began with a slide presentation of the top priorities of House Democrats. The
Speaker pointed out that there will be a $2
billion dollar shortfall that will need to be addressed during the 2010
session, but the goal of House Democrats will be to address this shortfall without making any further cuts in public
schools or other essential State services. He acknowledged that the 2009
session was “Hell for State legislators, but a lot of other States are in even
worse shape.”
According
to Speaker Chopp, the Number One
Priority of House Democrats for the 2010 session is increasing funding for
public schools. This goal also
includes keeping kids in school, closing the achievement gap and defining basic
education to include Early Learning. Being from one of the lowest funded and
most over crowded school districts in the State (and in the nation), I hope
Speaker Chopp is successful in restoring adequate, national average funding for
our public schools.
Another high priority is Washington Works, which is Hans Dunshee’s Jobs to Fix Public
Schools Bill. This bill asks the voters to authorize a $850 million bond. This
will be matched by utility conservation funds to get a total of $2.5 billion in
construction work. My school district and nearly every other school district
will benefit from this bill and it will also provide over 40,000 urgently
needed construction jobs which according to Speaker Chopp will go to union
workers at union wages. He called it a win-win-win-win-win plan.
Another
priority is Security Lifeline which
includes help for the unemployed. Speaker Chopp wants to use billions in the
unemployment fund to provide training and actual jobs similar to the CETA
program in the 1980’s. He also wants to re-label programs such as TANF and GA-U
under the Security Lifeline program so they will be better supported by the
public.
Another
priority is Evergreen Washington
which is their label for a $1.50 per barrel tax on oil which will generate $150
million per year which will be leveraged into $2 billion in bonds for water
clean up and storm water projects and (alternative decentralized energy)
projects in Washington state. These will also be union wage jobs.
Another
priority is the Fair Shake Agenda. This
includes passing Senate Bill 6035, the Retro Reform bill. Speaker Chopp
spent a good deal of time discussing this issue. He said there were not enough
votes in the House in 2009 to pass this bill because “folks wanted to wait for
the Wyman Report which just came out this summer.” Frank said the Wyman Report
confirmed that hundreds of millions of dollars in over payments had been
“shifted” from non-retro groups to retro groups in the past 15 years. He said
this was not fair. He also stated that tens of millions of dollars from these
over payments were used to fund political campaigns and this also was not fair.
He said that “we want to end the
skimming of money from the workers comp program and “limit the use of these
funds to their original intended purpose which is improving worker
safety.” He said that he has
recently “polled all of the House
Democrats and there has been a significant shift in favor of the retro
reform bill as a result of the findings of the Wyman report. “ He is
confident that they will pass the retro reform bill in 2010.
As
you know, I believe that the retro program is the most corrupt program in the
history of our State. Reforming retro is nearly as important as protecting our
public schools.
I
was greatly relieved that the leaders of the House Democrats will support retro
reform in 2010. Speaker Chopp said that Representative Conway will be leading
this effort.
Another
aspect of the Fair Shake agenda is the Homeowners
Warranty bill. Speaker Chopp said they will pass a Homeowners Warranty Bill
in 2010. Andrew Villeneuve, Director of the Northwest Progressive Institute
(who is the leading advocate for this bill) stated that House Bill 1393 by
Larry Springer is a worthless bill because the loopholes provide no real
protection for homeowners. He asked Speaker Chopp to support Senator Rodney
Tom’s Senate Bill 5895 instead. Speaker Chopp noted that he was only one person
and we should let our Representatives know our concerns about the Springer
bill.
Speaker
Chopp also talked about many other issues which I was simply unable to get
written down because he was covering a lot of ground very quickly. The audience
also asked at least 20 questions. One was the Workers Privacy Act. Speaker
Chopp said that he personally was in favor of not forcing workers to sit
through anti-union propaganda session but that this bill was not on the unions
list of priorities for 2010.
The
final priority was sources of funding.
Speaker Chopp stated that Ross Hunter was chairing a group of legislators
collecting ideas to “target revenue options for public schools.” Speaker Chopp
said that framing this issue will be very important. It has to include what we
want to fund and how to explain it to the public.
I
pointed out that millionaires in our State paid only one third the national
average in State taxes. I asked if he would support Senator Kohl-Welles High
Earners Income Tax bill so that we can move towards a fairer tax structure here
in Washington State. Speaker Chopp said that the revenue options were still in the rough draft stage and he did not
want to go into detail about that topic until he had a better feel for where
the members of the caucus stood. But they were going to try to come up with
some sort of revenue options and avoid further cuts in public schools and other
essential State services.
If
we are to avoid disaster in 2011, there are two questions the 2010 session must
address.
The
first is whether millionaires will
finally be required to pay their fair share of State taxes? Using a High
Earners Income tax to raise State taxes on millionaires from the current 3% to
a national average of 9% would generate more than $2 billion per year in
additional revenue. Unless and until millionaires in our State start paying
their fair share of State taxes, I think the public will rightly rebel against
any further tax increases on our poor and middle class.
The
second question is whether
out-of-control tax exemptions for millionaires and major corporations will
finally be reduced? Tax exemptions are currently greater than $50 billion
dollars a year in hidden State spending and are growing at a rate of more than
$3 billion dollars per year. Nearly all of these tax exemptions go to the rich
and powerful. If we were to roll back tax exemptions even 10%, it would raise $5
billion dollars a year.
It
is concerning that the revenue issue is still in the rough draft stage. But I
think it will be impossible to raise billions of additional dollars without
fair tax reform. In addition, polls show that voters are firmly opposed to
increases in either the sales tax or the property tax. These same polls show
that voters support a high earners income tax by a margin of more than two
to one. Speaker Chopp acknowledged that “we assume any revenue
package we approve will have to also pass a public vote.” So I am
optimistic that fair tax reform measure will be approved in 2010.
All
in all, the progressive Democrats who make up the King County Legislative
Action Committee were very happy about Speaker Chopp’s comments. We realize
that politicians do not always do what they say they are going to do. But we
felt that Speaker Chopp was sincere in trying to move away from the All Cuts
Agenda that dominated the 2009 legislative session. If we can get BOTH TAX REFORM and RETRO REFORM passed in 2010,
there may yet be a silver lining to the dark cloud that has been hanging over
our head these past two years. David
Spring
Dave Thomas: On Sunday, November
15, House Speaker Frank Chopp spent two hours presenting Liberal proposals for
2010 legislative action. He generally
praised much of what the legislature did last year and blamed others for things
that should have been, but didn’t get done.
He indicated that he viewed BIAW as an opponent of the Democratic Party
and declared that he had never received any campaign donations from BIAW. He did not comment upon ways to stop BIAW’s
political attempts to reduce our government’s ability to serve our people.
I am glad to hear Frank Chopp’s
criticism of BIAW, but am puzzled by several facts.
· Frank Chopp
appeared at one BIAW quarterly meeting as an obvious supporter of BIAW.
· BIAW doesn’t
make direct campaign donations. It funds
numerous Political Action Committees (PACs) - one source indicates up to 20 -
which in turn make campaign donations.
Since these PACs are not identified with BIAW, examination of Public
Disclosure Commission data doesn’t easily reveal who is receiving BIAW money. But we know that various Democratic
Legislators have received it. Even if
Frank Chopp received none, he may have been glad that other Democrats did.
· When an
attempt was made last year to restrict BIAW’s political activities, it barely
passed the senate and then was never allowed to come to a vote in the House,
controlled by Speaker Frank Chopp.
Assuming that
at least now, Frank Chopp opposes BIAW’s political activities, he should use
his influence to get Labor and Industries to recover the money erroneously
given to BIAW (with interest), so that Worker’s Compensation Rates need not be
increased, and so that BIAW will no longer have money they can use politically
to hamper our government’s ability to serve our people. He should also take other steps, such as passing
the legislation to restrict BIAW’s political activities which failed last year. Dave
Thomas
BIAW Member Accountability
I attempted to stimulate BIAW members who object to BIAW’s
political activities to form a committee for member accountability and
introduce at this month’s BIAW quarterly board meeting a resolution that BIAW
will not initiate political activities without permission of its members. But I was unable to contact the people that I
hoped would act. Dave Thomas
Washington Labor Responds to Seattle Times’ Rare
Concern for Democrats
► In Sunday's Seattle Times -- Washington
state's labor leaders don't get it -- This editorial was written regarding
last week's Times story
reporting that unions are not contributing to Democratic campaign funds because
of unhappiness over the party leaders' agenda and performance in Olympia. The
editorial suggests this "is a kamikaze effort that works against the
interests of the Democratic Party and the workers of Washington." It goes
on to point out that labor's legislative agenda -- from restoring unemployment
benefits cut in 2003 to the passage of the Worker Privacy Act -- are misguided.
That the conservative Seattle Times editorial board opposes labor's legislative
agenda is nothing new. What is new here is the Times' concern about the
Democrats' re-election prospects. As blogger David Goldstein points out,
"nobody is a bigger supporter of the Democratic Party than the
Bush/Rossi/McGavick/Reichert/Hutchison endorsing Times."
Feel free to disagree with the WSLC's new political
strategy -- which, as outlined here, is
essentially to support legislators who support labor, as opposed to party
organizations. Feel free to disagree with delegates representing WSLC's
affiliated unions, who unanimously approved a convention resolution for the
WSLC to make no campaign contributions in 2009 to anyone. Feel free to disagree
that labor has a right to be upset after what happened in the
last legislative session. But ask yourself this: to what extent is the
Democratic Party entitled to labor contributions? We're talking about the
withholding of contributions -- not a political attack or the funding of
opponents -- the withholding of money. And it is being
described as a "kamikaze effort" that one former party chairman calls
a "strategy of self-destruction." Who is threatening who here?
Meanwhile, we can't wait to read The Seattle Times exposés
on the Sierra Club only contributing to pro-environment candidates or NARAL
only supporting pro-choice candidates.
Featured Advocacy Group
------------------------------------ Democrats Work ---------------------------------
The mission of Democrats Work
is to help organizations mobilize grassroots Democrats to perform community
service projects . . . as Democrats. To achieve its mission, Democrats Work
works with Democratic and progressive organizations -- including local clubs,
state and county parties, and local chapters of national organizations,
campaigns and elected officials -- to get their members and supporters to
volunteer for local service projects as part of a Democrat-branded work crews.
It can help you connect Democratic volunteers with
visible, tangible service projects in their communities -- cleaning up
neighborhoods and parks, supporting schools and teachers, planting trees,
sponsoring soccer clinics, and working at food banks. Democrats Work provides
the tools and guidance to help Democrats organize successful service events in
their communities.
Why engage in service politics? Through service, you
can:
· Make tangible contributions to increase
the visibility of Democrats at the local level. We want to show our neighbors that
Democrats get things done, making improvements that people can point to and say:
"The Democrats did that for this community." We associate Democrats
with service so when there is a need in the community, people will say, “Call
the Democrats, they always have people who can help.”
· Engage the grassroots during
non-election time to keep folks active and involved. Instead of asking people to get
involved every two or four years, we tap into that energy year-round and “keep
the band together.”
· Reach out to people who might not otherwise get involved in
purely “political” activities, but share our values. Not everyone wants to hand
out campaign literature or phone bank or even wants to work for a particular
candidate, but they are willing to paint a school or clean up a park with their
friends.
· Build a unified stable of motivated and
easily mobilized volunteers
who can help candidates win elections.
In the short term, Democrats Work seeks to foster the
civic participation of Democrats in their communities. In the long term, Democrats
Work aims to transform our nation’s politics: instead of money, we offer work;
instead of message, we offer action. In the end, Democrats Work envisions a new
type of politics: a politics of service.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Association
of Washington Business opposes tax increases, wants more business subsidies.
Washington
needs tax reform for fairness and increased revenue.
Western
Washington College professor uses leaves to identify vehicular air pollution.
Boise company’s
solar charger may save gas and greenhouse gas emissions.
To
enable consumption of local produce, local farmland must be protected from
developers.
In
spite of budget reductions, Spokane is planning for more public transit.
Nation
and World
An Afghan Community Development Approach
My understanding is that most Afghan villagers would just like to be
left alone, without incursions by strict Talibans, corrupt government agents or
troops from NATO nations. Based on my
community development experience, I propose that we seek to encourage village
development so that they can focus upon their own development, while remaining
free from outside intervention. This
would help Afghanistan and would serve our purpose of stopping the Taliban from
providing a haven for al Qaeda.
My approach would be to encourage the creation of a village development
movement. This might begin with
formation of an organization which would encourage villages to invite them to
help the villages create village development plans.
Responding to a village’s invitation, the village development
organization would conduct a 3 to 5 day series of planning meetings, during
which the villagers would describe their village, express their vision for the
village, identify obstacles to their vision, create strategies for overcoming
the obstacles and initiate projects (tactics) to implement the strategies.
After being asked to describe their village, villagers are asked to
imagine that they left the village for three years and returned to find it to
everything they want it to be. What
would they want to remain the same? What
would they want to be different?
We can imagine that they would want both agricultural and other
livelihood opportunities; various sanitary, health, educational and other
services; cooperative action based upon effective leadership; freedom from
intrusion by abusive outsiders; and various affirmations of their cultural
identity. They might identify such
obstacles to their vision as lack of capital, lack of expertise, inability to
cooperate based upon poor leadership.
Their strategies might include learning new forms of effective
leadership and cooperation through obtaining capital, expertise and other
needed resources. With assistance from
the village development organization, the villagers might learn to pool their
capital in a local cooperative bank. And
they might initiate a micro-lending program.
They might obtain expertise for initiating various livelihood, social
service and self defense projects.
Like Habitat for Humanity’s projects, all help from outside would only
occur if the villagers took responsibility for doing their part. Outsiders would not take responsibility for
the success of the villager/s projects be cause if they do, the villagers will
quickly quit taking responsibility.
Outsiders would allow projects to fail.
Through a combination of successful and failed projects, villagers would
learn how to succeed, first with small projects and then will larger ones.
It is crucial that the village development organization offer no
assistance that the villagers can’t sustain.
The villagers shouldn’t get so much as a copy machine, if they will be
dependent upon outsiders for its maintenance.
The objective must always be to make the village more independent and
able to sustain itself.
As some villages succeed as experimental demonstration projects,
neighboring villages may also initiate planning and implementing their own
development. Clusters or neighboring
villages can cooperate in various ways to share their expertise, their
successes and resources for some projects which involve multiple villages.
We can expect that the Taliban and corrupt government agents will
resist the independence of the villagers.
Our NATO troops may also be unenthusiastic about village independence. But if they villages are able to keep
outsiders from abusing and controlling them, we will have achieved our purpose
of not allowing safe havens for al Qaeda.
Instead of increasing the number of our troops in Afghanistan, we should
be able to withdraw them as rapidly as villages become independently able to
focus upon their own development.
Lessons from China
Our U.S. is suffering much more than China from the collapse of the
credit bubble. China did not allow the
fraudulent speculation that we did.
Without large government debt, China is implementing a large stimulus
package of infrastructure improvements. What might
we learn from China?
· Without the
many protections of special interests, China can disregard them to implement
infrastructure improvements much quicker than can our U.S.
· Chinese
education is better than ours, such that their literacy rate is higher and
their students learn more mathematics and science. They even have more people studying English
than we have. Their educated people can
find jobs more easily than our less educated ones.
· Chinese
families take care of their older members when they become ill, instead of
placing them in nursing homes. Anticipating
this expense, Chinese families save instead of purchasing consumer goods to the
extent that Americans do without taking responsibility for their elders.
· Instead of
spending to consume to the extent that Americans do, Chinese save their money
(20% or more). These savings are
available for investments which create jobs.
· Experiencing
increasing incomes, many Chinese are confident concerning their future. By contrast, most Americans have not
experienced increasing incomes and are not confident concerning their
future. With confidence, Chinese are
saving and investing to create more jobs.
We oppose giving our government as much power as the Chinese government
has, with the result than needed actions are delayed of stopped by special
interests. If the Chinese government has
too much power, our government may have too little power.
Does America Need to Emulate Japan’s
Lost Decade?
We have heard of the terrible stagnation that Japan has suffered since
the collapse of its real estate bubble.
But without the speculation that previously occurred, the
Japanese have still fared well.
Instead of seeking to avoid Japan’s experience, we should emulate them.
Ways to Reduce Health Care Costs
· Reduce fraud
· Stop hospital
infections
· Apologize to
patient about mistakes
· Encourage
healthier lifestyles
· Have family
doctors coordinate care
· Monitor
patients to take their medicine
· Manage chronic
disease
· Inform patients
about effective treatments
· Discuss end of
life options
Here’s the Beef
Young
people are suffering most from unemployment.
A
civilian ROTC program would create jobs.
Green
jobs are increasing faster than most other kinds.
To increase jobs, we should adopt
Germany’s successful strategies.
In
spite of soda pop industry lobbying, a tax may be put on soda pop.
The Glass-Steagall
restriction on combining commercial and investment banking should be restored.
Dean
Baker describes a financial transactions tax to raise money and reduce
speculation.
To
create more jobs, Dean Baker presents a paid time off proposal.
President Obama should inform China’s leaders
that we
can’t go back to our borrow, consume and speculate economy.
How
about having to pay for using more than one’s carbon ration. Especially
when driving.
With our U.S. unable to stop Israel from
building new West Bank settlements, Palestinians
are likely to respond violently.
Palestinians may declare
statehood. For more.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Juggling Different tasks
We are often warned to
identify our priorities and then concentrate on one thing at a time. But sometimes we are confronted with multiple
priorities. For example, to pursue only
one strategy for coping with our collapsed housing-credit bubble would be quite
risky. President Obama is attempting to
stimulate employment through the stimulus package, through reforming health
care, through implementing non-carbon based energy reform, and through regulating
financial companies. With passage of the
stimulus-recovery package, health care reform has become the primary
priority. But various different programs
within this and other priorities force President Obama to keep jumping from one
program to another.
In such a situation, we
should still do one thing at a time, but should rapidly switch what the one
thing is that we are doing. Barack Obama
appears to be doing this very well. As
some of these strategies are successful, there will be fewer remaining ones,
such that it will become easier to do one thing at a time.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
E.J. Dionne, Jr., 2008, Souled Out. Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right
E.J. Dionne is my favorite commentator. Instead of following the pack, he typically offers insights into important, but little noticed happenings. However, I do not recommend this book. With his Catholic background, he presents a very confusing argument that secular and religious Liberals should respect one another and cooperate to realize their shared political values. Several years ago, I presented commentaries agreeing with this, but without all Dionne’s distractions concerning his own religious background.