Michigan just can’t win, except when we win
If you haven’t climbed out of your Michigan basement recently you might not know that our job market is getting worse, not better.
In other news, water is wet. But hey, at least we won most beautiful place in the country.
Poverty Tour hits Ann Arbor’s Tent City
For a couple years I worked as a case manager for homeless individuals in Ann Arbor. Over that time, a few of my clients stayed at what is referred to as Camp Take Notice, a tent city led by people who have tried their best to create a community that was safe and free from drugs and alcohol. The camp has started attracting quite a bit of attention over the past two years. I visited the camp, my wife was part of a project that gave the residents a voice throughout Ann Arbor and showcased it at a university gallery, and I was even able to help a client move out when he was able to get his own place.
Recently, two of my favorite public intellectuals, Cornel West and Tavis Smiley visited Camp Take Notice as part of their Poverty Tour. They captured the visit on video.
It’s amazing to me how little poverty is talked about in our country when even in a place like well-to-do Ann Arbor, there are places like this.
Our Big Government
Big government is taking over our lives.
We spend too much on social programs.
We have a massive welfare state.
We can afford to make cuts to medicare but not the military.
Or maybe…
no.
These conservative talking points make a lot of sense when you don’t look at any data.
Detroit’s Classiest Band
I have to take a break from politics for tonight and point out something really fantastic coming out of Detroit.
Zoos of Berlin have released their most creative and inspiring recording to date. And if you have followed the Detroit quartet at all you know that is really saying something. It’s reminiscent of Byrne/Eno collaborations, and the only problem with this EP is that it’s not longer. All the tracks are fantastic, but the opener “Haven’t Eyes” is a frontrunner for my favorite track of the year. But I’m holding out for the new Prussia album before making any definitive statements.
Oh yeah, and if you live in Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area, they will be playing with two other great bands at the Blind Pig on September 3rd. Hope to see you there.
Downgraded
As you have probably heard by now, it turns out that credit raters agree that our debt ceiling debate and deal were complete bull. They have, for the first time in our nation’s history downgraded our credit from AAA to AA+. It will mean higher interest rates when we borrow money, which will make things more expensive because they have lost confidence in our ability to pay our bills.
In the S&P release, they stated over and over that the two major reasons for the bump are our seeming inflexibility on raising revenue (taxes) on the wealthy, and just how close we came to defaulting for no good reason. Thinkprogress compiled some of these excerpts.
[...]The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.
[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.
[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.
[...]Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
Standard & Poors indicates that they could improve their rating for the U.S. if “the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating.”
It seems pretty clear, but apparently the Republicans either didn’t read it, or just don’t care because they still think that the way to solve the problem is to keep doing what created it. The GOP is still calling for a cuts-only approach and Mitch McConnel has said that he will hold the debt ceiling hostage in the future.
So we’ve downgraded our credit, cut services and jobs for the middle and working class, and put our economy back on the road to recession. And for what? So the richest people in the world can keep the lowest marginal tax rate they have had in almost a century.
And speaking of people who got us into this mess in the first place, let’s not forget that it was S&P who helped create our financial crisis. Bernie Sanders sums up my feelings on them.
“I find it interesting to see S&P so vigilant today in downgrading the U.S. credit rating. Where were they four years ago when they, and other credit rating agencies, helped cause this horrendous recession by providing AAA ratings to worthless sub-prime mortgage securities on behalf of Wall Street investment firms? Where were they last December when Congress and the White House drove up the national debt by $700 billion by extending Bush’s tax breaks for the rich?”
Where were they then? And where are our leaders now? Unless the Democrats can start proving that they will stand up and fight against this insanity, they’ve lost me.
Colbert Does it Better – Birth Control Coverage
I’m thinking of making “Colbert Does it Better” a regular feature here.
The Department of Human Services announced that they will require health insurance plans to cover birth control, HIV testing and counseling, and breast feeding support. This move is really great and really smart on so many levels. It will save money for women and save unwanted pregnancies that, about 40% of the time end in abortion. You would think that conservatives would love something like that right? But some of the responses from folks on the right have been not only unreasonable, they have been down right sexist. Colbert did a great job at taking them to task this week.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Women’s Health-Nazi Plan | ||||
|
||||
Move to Amend in Michigan
A while back I mentioned that my friend Reagan got to aks Noam Chomsky a question about the concept of Corporate Personhood. After lots of discussion we have decided to start the first Michigan chapter of Move to Amend, which according to their website is…
A coalition supported by hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals dedicated to ending the illegitimate legal doctrines that prevent the American people from governing ourselves.
We will be organizing and pushing our representatives to amend the constitution to eliminate the laws that allow Corporations to have an unprecedented and undemocratic amount of power over our government.
For more information about why we are starting a Michigan chapter check out our interview with Ypsilantian Mark Maynard.
To get involved, come join us on Sunday August 14th, at 8:00pm at Frenchies in Ypsilanti.
Hope to see you there.
The Obama Spending Obsession?
A major GOP talking point is that President Obama and the Democrats are obsessed with spending. They just can’t get enough of it, it’s their number one drug of choice. But what is the reality?
This is chart is sure to make the rounds today.
If Obama is obsessed with spending, what kind of compulsive disorder to the Republicans have?
Balancing Act
Before this deal was struck, Obama gave a speech to the nation where he rallied us all around a common cry for… Compromise! Ok, so it wasn’t that inspiring. But in principle I don’t think compromise is that bad of a thing, that is, if it’s an actual compromise. But this so called deal, doesn’t look like any compromise I remember leaning about as a kid. Democracy Now has a good run down of who gets what in this bill.
The deal includes no new tax revenue from wealthy Americans, provides no additional stimulus for the lagging economy, and will cut more than $2.1 trillion in government spending over 10 years, while extending the borrowing authority of the Treasury Department. The debt deal was a victory of sorts for the Pentagon. Rather than cutting $400 billion in defense spending through 2023, as President Barack Obama had proposed in April, it trims just $350 billion through 2024, effectively giving the Pentagon $50 billion more than it had been expecting over the next decade.
See? Compromise! Rich people get to keep their tax cuts, the military gets to keep more money than expected, and the American people get keep their recession.
Keeping these tax and service cuts are really only going to do one thing, and that is put more burden on the states. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities issued a report showing just how big the burden of the recession is on the states. Fourty two states have budget shortfalls and rely on Federal dollars to cover their needs.
When those dollars dry up the states are forced to either make even deeper cuts, raise their taxes, or shut down completely. The CBPP concludes that these cuts will of course make our recession worse, not better. And the consequenses are very real
Spending cuts are problematic during an economic downturn because they reduce overall demand and can make the downturn deeper. When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, eliminate or lower payments to businesses and nonprofit organizations that provide direct services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. In all of these circumstances, the companies and organizations that would have received government payments have less money to spend on salaries and supplies, and individuals who would have received salaries or benefits have less money for consumption. This directly removes demand from the economy.
So where is the balance? Why didn’t the Democrats stand up for progressive values? Matt Taibbi has a pretty good answer.
The Democrats aren’t failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there’s political hay to be made moving to the right. They’re doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I’ve said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.
Most of the Democrats have been keeping up this act for a long time, but I’m not really buying it anymore.
Kill it?
John B. Judis thinks the Democrats aught to vote down the debt ceiling bill.
You don’t need to be a Congressional budget analyst to grasp one salient fact about the deal that President Obama has worked out with House and Senate leaders: It would impose drastic spending cuts, without any corresponding increase in spending, or any tax reduction, on an economy that is still staggering and that could easily fall back into a minus-growth recession. During the last two years, a major factor in keeping the wolf of a great depression at bay was federal government spending; now Obama and the Congressional leaders propose to cut it. Insane? You betcha.
Some wise and prudent people advise that it is better for Democrats in Congress to accept this deal because the alternative—a default on the nation’s debt—is much worse. It’s true that a default would have calamitous results, but the threat of default does not arise (in the manner, say, of Greece) from internal economic contradictions that must be addressed. It arises from a threat by rightwing Republicans to shut down the government if the president and the country don’t accede to their crusade against government spending. The crisis, as my colleagues have said repeatedly, is not economic; it’s political; and the president, instead of addressing it straightforwardly, has buckled under to the Republicans’ blackmail.
What should happen now? Democrats in Congress, and any Republicans who have not lost their senses, should turn this deal down. They should demand that any deal include compensatory increases in spending (or tax cuts) aimed at creating jobs and that any future spending cuts be contingent upon the economy achieving a specific lower unemployment rate—say, below 7 percent. To bring in some Republicans, the new deal could include tax cuts. Some Democrats are fixated on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, but in my view, the government should not raise taxes (by act or expiration) as long as the downturn continues, unless it is prepared to use those new revenues to create jobs.
What happens if the Republicans, and a few Democrats, refuse to go along with this new deal? There’s a simple solution. While pointing out that the Republicans have rejected measures that would create jobs, the president should invoke the Fourteenth Amendment and end this phony political crisis. Would he do it? Of course, his spokesmen have said he would not, but his spokesmen also said earlier that he would not accept a deal that did not include revenue increases. So the president is persuadable. The problem is that the pressure has come primarily from the other side—from people whose proposals, whether wittingly or not, would wreck the economy. It’s time the president feels some pressure from people who want to create jobs rather than destroy them.
My emotions are running high on this issue right now, but I have to say, that idea sounds kind of appealing at the moment.
leave a comment