Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #224
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
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Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured Articles Opportunities Petitions Communication to Our Members Addressing Washington’s Major Needs Commentaries from Our Members Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Countering Citizens United Supreme
Court Ruling State and Local Links
to the Beef EOI Played Key Role in Developing Income Tax Proposal* Richard Curtis: Don’t Reward Patty Murray for Being Wrong Larry Kalb: Earth Day Statement Nation and World Links to the Beef Featured Advocacy Group: Economic Policy Institute 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 Men of sense often learn
from their enemies. Aristophanes
Calendar of Events
Friday, April 30 - May 2 at Seattle Pacific
University in Seattle - Wellstone Action Campaign Management Fundamentals,
including:
· Activist track: For people interested in citizen lobbying,
issue advocacy, and community organizing, this track provides skills in how to
win on issues.
· Campaign track: This track focuses on how to be an effective staff or
volunteer member of a winning progressive campaign.
· Candidate track: This is for people who have made the decision to run
for office.
Varying cost. To
register.
Saturday, May 1 at 11 AM at
Volunteer Park in Seattle - Marijuana Legalization Rally and March
Saturday, May 1 at Noon at Judkins Playfield (behind St. Mary's
church, 611 20th Ave South, Seattle) - Immigration
Rights Rally and March
Saturday, May 1 at 1:30 PM
at Seattle University Quad - Rally and March to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Tuesday, May 4 at 7:00 PM at the Labor Temple Hall #1
(2800 1st Ave • Seattle) - Community Forum
for MoveOn members to talk about how our democracy is being overrun by
lobbyists and big corporations—and what we can do about it
Saturday, May 22 at 6:30 PM at Alki Congregational
United Church (61st SW and SW Hinds, Seattle) - InspireSeattle Potluck and Forum,
featuring Education – a Key for Building Peace in
Afghanistan
Opportunities
Commentaries
that have addressed major issues
Obtain
a free ‘Corporations Are Not People’ bumper sticker.
Petitions
Tell your
senators to support the Safe Banking Act which would break up the mega-banks.
Tell
your senators to support strong financial regulatory reform.
Tell
the International Whaling Commission to ban commercial whaling.
Communication
To Our Members
Addressing Washington’s
Major Needs
Five major needs for Washington state
government to provide appropriate infrastructure and safety net are listed on
the right side of the front page of every newsletter. Including:
· Federal Funding for Health and Education
· Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax
· Replacing
Conservative Legislators
·
During 2007, our
Puget Sound Liberals championed public campaign financing.
·
During 2008, we
championed lowering
taxes for 90% of our taxpayers through requiring our high income and wealthy
people to pay their fair share of taxes. We championed doing this through substituting
a progressive income tax for some of our regressive sales, excise and property
taxes.
·
During 2009, we
championed restricting
the ability of Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) to retain
rebates it has obtained illegally and use money to oppose Washington
government’s ability to protect our citizens through restricting its revenue
and regulatory power.
·
We have
continually supported more consistently Liberal candidates against less
consistently Liberal candidates.
The results:
·
Our federal
government is moving toward assuming more responsibility for funding health
care, but not yet for education, both necessary to providing equitable education
to all Americans.
·
Our many
legislators who have been elected through raising and spending private campaign
donations have refused to pass public campaign financing beyond allowing local
governments to do so.
·
An initiative is
finally being promoted to add an income tax on high income people in order to
make them pay for the legal, social and physical infrastructure which enables
their incomes, to make our tax system fairer through lowering property and
business and occupation taxes and to increase revenues to support education.
·
The BIAW has been
quieter lately, but still has not been forced to repay its illegally gained
overpayments. Important is the extent to
which BIAW attempts to influence our fall 2010 elections.
I
enthusiastically support initiative 1077 and encourage all of our members to
assist its passage. Dave Thomas
Commentaries
From Our Members
Liberals
and Democrats
After
initial emphases on the benefits of health care reform, attention has shifted
to regulating Wall Street. Obama
Administration priorities beyond regulating Wall Street remain unclear. No new job creation bills have been
proposed. Both immigration
reform and green house emissions reform are mentioned, but their urgency is not
clear. For
more.
In
Ottumwa, Iowa, President Obama commented on his administrations efforts to
increase employment, reform health care, regulate Wall Street speculators, and
immigration reform.
Health Care Reform
Having
emphasized the benefits of health care reform immediately following its
passage, attention has shifted to regulating Wall Street speculation. But the Obama Administration will continue to
describe the benefits of health care reform before the fall elections.
Job Creation
Will
positive economic indicators and increased consumer spending lead to voters
thinking job prospects are increasing?
Positive
job reports lesson pressure to pass more job creation bills. After passage of several small job creation
bills, no new ones have been proposed.
Obama
Administration and congress are still doing little to assist unionization
which enables job holders to receive earnings more in accordance with their
productivity.
President Obama has ignored various job creation
measures adopted by President Roosevelt during the 1830s, including hiring
young people to work on infrastructure projects under management of our
military and the encouragement of unionization.
While President Obama treats his cabinet members much better than
President Roosevelt did, President Roosevelt listened to a much broader array
of opinions.
Regulating Wall Street
In his weekly Saturday address, President Obama noted that bailing
out American automobile companies has apparently been successful. But many more jobs are needed. And Wall Street must be regulated so that it
will not again remove credit from Main Street.
For
more.
After the whole economy practically collapsed into a World Trade Center
like heap barely a year ago, you would think that Congress would have rushed to
put tough new reforms in place. And yet it is only in the last couple weeks
that proposals with actual merit have come forward, amendments without which
the current Senate bill would be just more worthless congressional
grandstanding, and each of these amendments should be passed:
1) Brown/Kaufman amendment to break up the too big to fail banks
2) Merkley amendment to ban conflict of interest trading by banks (PROP
Trading Act)
3) Lincoln amendment to regulate derivatives
4) Paul/Sanders amendment to audit the Federal Reserve, and
5) Cantwell/McCain amendment to reinstate Glass-Steagall
Those who have treated our banking system like their own personal
casino, while they secretly placed their bets AGAINST the American people, have
established conclusively that lack of regulation only breeds financial
instability. Those who rail against "bailouts" must understand that
the next time there won't be enough money to save our too big to fail
institutions even if we wanted to. Congress must act now to reintroduce prudent
discipline to our financial markets. Otherwise
we are just marking time until the next Great Depression. Wall
Street speculators who used Enron-type accounting tricks should be jailed.
To limit the ability of mega-banks to do economic damage and to
politically influence their regulation, such banks must be broken
up into smaller banks as the Brown/Kaufman amendment does. For
more.
Three attempts to pass regulatory reforms were made. To my surprise, the 41 Republican senators
unanimously voted three times to stop their consideration. They are apparently
not worried that they will be accused of siding with Wall Street to block
regulations. For more. The Republicans finally agreed to allow
discussion of regulatory reforms to proceed.
Republicans
can still attempt to delay adoption of regulatory reform. It remains to be seen whether the regulatory
reform package will be strengthened or weakened or some of both. Some package will be passed which must be
reconciled with the house version. For
more. For
more. For
more.
Fiscal Responsibility
The
Obama Administration still shows no sign of increasing taxes on Wall Street and
other high income earners in order to reduce the federal deficit, thus continuing
to be vulnerable to concerns by Tea Bag Conservatives and others about the high
deficits. For more. For
more. Without raising taxes to
reduce deficits, the emphasis is upon reducing Social Security benefits. For
more. For
more.
Countering Citizens
United Supreme Court Ruling
Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Sen. Chuck Schumer are planning to introduce
legislation in both chambers next week to blunt the effect of the Citizens
United case.
According to
the summary, obtained by The Washington Post, the legislation would require
corporate chief executives or group leaders to publicly attach their names to
ads, much like political candidates are required to do.
It would also
mandate disclosure of major donors whose money is used for
"campaign-related activity." The
latter measure would require powerful trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce for the first time to identify the companies that fund its
political-related spending.
The measure
would also tighten political restrictions on foreign-based corporations, which
would be defined as any company that has 20 percent foreign voting shares, a
majority of foreign directors or a foreign national leading U.S. operations. If
enacted into law, that provision could affect a significant number of familiar
companies, including Budweiser, T-Mobile and Research in Motion.
Other
provisions would mandate public disclosure of political spending and would bar
companies that receive federal contracts worth more than $50,000 from spending
money to influence federal elections. For
more.
Here’s the Beef
President
Obama should follow President Truman instead of President Clinton, to be a
resolute Liberal partisan.
Change
we can believe in depends upon a Liberal grassroots movement to pressure
President Obama and congressional Democrats to confront special interest
instead of compromising with them.
By
opposing immigration reform, Republicans
are losing Hispanic votes, which may keep some Republican congressional
candidates from being elected.
State and
Local
Turning Red States Blue
All Liberals should read Adam Schrager and Rob
Witwer’s book, 2010, the Blueprint. How Democrats Won Colorado about the
development of a Liberals political infrastructure which is successfully
overcoming the long established Conservative political infrastructure. It is easy to read. I read it in less than 2 hours.
This book describes 4
components of the political infrastructure that was developed in Colorado, which
changed domination of Congress members, state legislators and the governor from
Republicans to Democrats and is now being imitated in other states, with backup
at the national level.
1.
Four wealthy
people (each with hundreds of millions of dollars) who act like venture
capitalists to fund the next two component organizations
2.
Organizations
that conduct house to house and phone surveys to identify potential Democratic
voters
3.
Organizations
that research vulnerable Republicans, develop attack ads to weaken them and put
them on the defensive and direct these ads to potential Democratic voters and
the general public
4.
Organizations
such as labor unions, NARAL Pro-choice and conservation groups that survey
their own members and others to identify and influence potential Democratic
voters and which also act like venture capitalists to fund the previous two
component organizations.
The database of potential
Democratic voters is continuously maintained and updated between elections and
attacks upon potential Republican candidates are launched between elections
instead of waiting until just before them, both to discourage Republican
candidates and weaken them. The results
in Colorado have been surprisingly successful, resulting in a complete
transition from federal and state representatives in both houses and the
governor who were predominately Republican to predominately Democratic.
In addition at the national
level, a database of potential Democratic voters is being maintained based upon
input from the various states which are adopting the Colorado strategy.
Republicans belatedly became
aware of the Colorado Democratic strategy and seek to adopt it in order to
counter the Democrats. But the
Republicans have a problem. They are
split between those (like many Tea Baggers) who want to maintain strict
Conservative principles and exclude others who are afraid of alienating groups
such as Hispanics and young people who are important to winning elections. Without unity, it is difficult for potential
political venture capitalists to decide who to support. This split will hopefully render Republicans
unable to counter the Democratic Colorado strategy.
So while Republicans have
their long developed national political infrastructure, Democrats are
developing theirs and also developing state political infrastructures which the
Republicans may be unable to counter.
This fall’s elections will provide a critical test of the success of the
Colorado strategy in many states.
Washington State is mentioned
as one of the states which might adopt the Colorado strategy with Fuse
Washington as the organization which maintain the list of potential Democratic
voters. However, Washington is not
dominated by Republicans. It is
dominated by Democrats, many of whom are inconsistently Liberal and were
elected due to private campaign contributions.
The problem is not replacing Republicans by Democrats. It is replacing inconsistently Liberal
Democrats by consistently Liberal Democrats.
Fuse Washington is not
oriented toward maintaining a list of potential Democratic voters to which
attack messages can be directed. It
sends petitions to Democratic legislators, asking them to adopt various
measures, most of which are not the priority measures that are needed to
improve Washington state government’s ability to serve its people.
EOI Played Key Role in Developing Income Tax Proposal
Wednesday's announcement by Bill Gates Sr. of an initiative for
an income tax on the wealthy caught many people by surprise. But not Economic
Opportunity Institute (EOI). For over a year, it has been the catalyzing
organization leading a coalition of progressive individuals and groups to
develop the policy for Initiative 1077. It has researched the revenue options,
delved into public opinion, and drafted actual legal language.
If passed by voters, I-1077 will:
·
Implement
an income tax on the wealthiest 3% of Washington households For
more.
·
Reduce
property taxes for all homeowners and businesses
·
Exempt
all small businesses -- more than 4/5ths of all businesses -- from the business
and occupation tax, and reduce this tax on another 11% of businesses For
more.
·
Raise
$1 billion in new revenue for education and health services
EOI talked with
many voters in developing I-1077. We
know that the political will exists to approve it. But we also know a strong opposition campaign
is forming. That's why we need your support.
Your donation of $10, $100, or $1,000 is critical to helping us
frame the debate and refute the opposition with clear, compelling, empirical
data. Can
you help? John Burbank, OEI Executive Director
Richard Curtis: Don’t Reward Patty Murray for Being Wrong
Financial
regulation was the major news item this past week. After all the
duplicity on the part of the Democrats in this financial mess, we now are
supposed to applaud them for going after Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs is no angel here, don’t get
me wrong. If it weren’t for Goldman pulling the trigger on AIG by
demanding AIG put up cash to show its ability to pay (collateral calls),
taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for an $80 billion bailout. A bailout
spearheaded by none other than ex-Goldman Chairman and CEO, Henry Paulson, who
at the time of the bailout was United States Secretary of the Treasury.
Then, in typical cronyism fashion, Ed Liddy, who was on the board of Goldman
from 2003 – 2008, was put in charge of AIG so that Goldman recouped every cent
of its AIG debt. Classic fox guarding the hen house, wouldn’t you agree?
But, this is all smoke and mirrors to hide
the real story which is the deregulation of the financial market which led to
its near collapse. Deregulation goes back to the Clinton administration
with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
(November 4, 1999).
Senator
Murray voted with the Democratic Party in support of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Act. President Clinton has since apologized and admitted this was a
mistake but we have yet to hear Senator Murray issue an apology for her vote.
In typical manipulation of facts, the
truth is covered over by the appearance of the Democrats finally going after
the “bad guys” and their call for financial reform. Their financial “reform,” however, is all
smoke and mirrors because it is not fixing the problem which the Democrats had
a major role in causing. One analyst said
there were enough holes in this finance reform bill for bankers to drive their
Ferraris through. Another referred to it as all holes and no
cheese.
Even
the sponsor of the bill, Senator Chris Dodd,
admits that this bill "will not stop the next crisis from coming" and
a recent Moody’s report states, “the proposed regulatory framework doesn’t
appear to be significantly different from what exists today.”
In order to successfully reform Wall
Street, if elected, I would work to:
· Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act
· Cap the size of big banks at $100 billion in assets
· Require that all derivative trades be done on open
exchanges to protect against speculative buying and selling
So
don’t let the Democrats, and Senator Murray, convince you that they have your
best interests at heart. Senator Murray voted the wrong way in
1999. Do we reward her by sending her back to the Senate?
If elected, I won’t be looking out for the
best interests of my cronies on Wall Street or in the Big Banks. My
campaign accepts no corporate donations and is dependent on individuals who want
to change the status quo in Washington, DC, today. Re-electing Senator Murray is sending the
wrong message.
I hope to hear from you and for your help
in this campaign to bring about real reform that is so badly needed in our
government today. Richard Curtis
Larry Kalb: Earth Day
Statement
When Earth Day started in 1970, our
country was mired in a war in Vietnam, and our environment was in desperate
need of care. On this 40th anniversary of Earth Day, we find ourselves once
again mired in wars and facing the most critical environmental challenge ever –
global climate change.
The good news is that since 1970, our
natural environment, of which we are a part, is in the consciousness of a lot
more Americans.
In the last year, our government has made
a move toward addressing the challenges of decreasing oil and increasing global
warming. But we must take that a lot further.
Sustainability means balancing our
economy, environment and the health and well-being of all Americans.
In our district, we have tremendous
potential to create good-paying jobs in not only solar and wind energy, but in
retrofitting our homes and businesses so that they are much more
energy-efficient. What an exciting prospect – one that creates jobs, stabilizes
our climate and saves us money!
The Pacific Northwest has a national
reputation for being green, and we can expand on that here in the 2nd
Congressional District!
I was impressed last week at the annual
“State of the Station” event at Naval Station Everett, to learn about the base’s
focus on energy efficiency and ending its reliance on oil.
Americans want the energy transition in
our country to happen. And our district can lead the way.
This is a high priority of mine.
Our lives, manufacturing and building can
all be greener, and I will work very hard to move Congress in that direction. There has been some progress, but it has been
very slow in coming, and it is not enough. We must move faster and make more
progress.
In China and Japan, energy efficiency and
renewable energy are the basis for their economies now. It should be the same
here in the U.S. if we are to be competitive in the world market now and in the
future. I see that this is where our
country needs to go and I want to push that forward in a big way.
One thing we’ve learned since the first
Earth Day is how everything is connected – our air, land and water, and our
health, are all connected. Too many people in our country have lost their
health in order to hold onto their jobs. I envision and will work toward an end
to that trade-off, which really isn’t a trade-off at all. We need good jobs and
good health. With a healthy environment comes good health.
And that is what I wish for you all on
this special Earth Day anniversary.
Larry Kalb is running for congress as a
real Democrat for a change. His most
significant issues are:
· Jobs: The number one priority right now
is to get people back to work.
· Troops Home: The occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan is wrong and must end, now.
· Health Care: Equal Access – Equal Care.
We must put you and your doctor back in control of your medical decisions. The
legislation passed March 22nd was a "mixed bag."
· Clean Air, Water, and Land: Climate
change is the most serious challenge facing humanity.
· Fair Elections: Campaign Finance Reform
& Paper Ballots. Require publicly financed campaigns, to limit the power
that corporations exercise over campaigns.
· Fix the Immigration System: We must put
an end to indiscriminate raids, detention without due process, worker
exploitation and shattered families.
Larry
Kalb
Here’s the Beef
What’s happening in
the 3rd Congressional District race?
Nation
and World
Featured Advocacy Group
----------------------------- Economic Policy
Institute ------------------------------
Economic
Policy Institute (EPI), a nonprofit Washington D.C. think tank, was created in 1986 to broaden
the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and
middle-income workers. Today, with global competition expanding, wage
inequality rising, and the methods and nature of work changing in fundamental
ways, it is as crucial as ever that people who work for a living have a voice
in the economic discourse.
EPI was the first — and remains the premier —
organization to focus on the economic condition of low- and middle-income
Americans and their families. Its careful research on the status of
American workers has become the gold standard in that field. Its encyclopedic State of Working America,
issued every two years since 1988, is stocked in university libraries around
the world. EPI researchers, who often testify to Congress and are widely
cited in the media, first brought to light the disconnect between pay and
productivity that marked the U.S. economy in the 1990s and is now widely
recognized as a cause of growing inequality.
EPI is a
member of Jobs for America Now, a coalition of more than sixty groups working
to put America back to work. For a complete list of participating organizations,
visit Jobs4AmericaNow.org.
American Jobs Plan
EPI recommends a five-point American
Jobs Plan to create jobs and stem the unemployment crisis. The plan calls
for the nation to:
·
Strengthen the safety net
(including: unemployment compensation, COBRA health coverage, and nutrition
assistance)
·
provide fiscal relief to state and
local governments
·
Make renewed investments in
transportation and schools
·
Support direct creation of public
service jobs
·
Establish a new job creation tax
credit.
The American Jobs Plan is an efficient and effective
way to create jobs. EPI estimates that the plan will create at least 4.6
million jobs in the first year, at a total first-year gross cost of roughly
$400 billion. This entire cost can be recouped within 10 years by enacting a
financial transactions tax (FTT), which would take effect three years after
enactment. An FTT is a highly progressive way to raise revenue by imposing a
small tax on the sale of stocks and other financial products.
Encouraging Unionization
As union membership rates declined in recent decades,
wages for most workers stagnated and income inequality grew to levels not seen
since 1929. These developments are linked, and, in EPI’s view, will not be
reversed without significant reform of U.S. labor laws to restore the rights of
workers to form and join unions. Especially during this time of crisis,
organized labor must resume its role as a balancing force in our economy.
A wide body of research has shown that unions are an
overall benefit to the economy. They raise living standards for union and
non-union workers, make companies more efficient and productive, and balance
the interests of owners and investors with those of workers so that profits are
shared. A widely-cited EPI study of union benefits can be found here.
Legislation being considered in Congress would remove
some obstacles workers face when they try to organize their workplace. The Employee Free Choice Act
would impose real penalties on employers who harass or fire union sympathizers,
or otherwise try to scare workers away from a union. If a majority of employees
at a workplace sign cards favoring a union, the act would require an employer
to recognize it, rather than undertaking a long, costly and destructive battle.
The act also would bring in a third-party arbitrator to produce a fair contract
if the two sides can’t agree on one within a year. EPI has prepared a question-and-answer
document to explain how the law would work and why it is needed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Police
brutality is seldom punished, especially in absence of videotaped evidence.
The costs of coal fired
electricity generation are underestimated.
A
typical American family now spends several thousand dollars a year on cell
phone, cable TV, internet connection and video games, as much as it spends on
gasoline.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Learning From Our Enemies
The recommended book below
describes how Colorado Liberals learned from their Conservative opponents how
to take control. They learned to canvas
to identify potential Democratic voters.
They learned to attack potential and actual Republican candidates to make
them spend their time on defense instead of offense. They applied these lessons and turned Red
Colorado into Blue Colorado.
A major part of enjoying our
freedoms and opportunities is learning to defeat opponents who have and would
deny us freedoms and opportunities. If
our opponents have been successful, we may learn from their successes. For more.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer, 2010, The Blueprint. How the Democrats Won Colorado