politics

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The Deplorable State of American Politics


enemy

The cartoon above, from the strip “Pogo,” first appeared in 1952.  Walt Kelly produced this comic strip from 1948 to 1975.  Pogo Possum was a humble, personable and philosophical character who spoke on many subjects.  This particular one, I believe, speaks most tellingly about the state of our present politics.

In 1994 a Republican think tank came up with the idea of the “Contract with America” which all its members in both the senate and house signed.  In its most basic form it was a wonderful and powerful idea.  But those behind it had other ideas, sinister ideas.  Certain non-elected people had a very deep hatred for President Bill Clinton and this was supposed to be their open foray into removing him from power in 1996.  It failed simply because Clinton co-opted them by endorsing certain portions of the contract, most especially balancing the budget.  But those power brokers knew quite well how to win wars while losing a battle or two.  Clinton gave them that opportunity by having an affair with Monica Lewinsky and then denying it ever happened.  For the first time since Andrew Johnson a president was impeached.  Clinton’s crime?  Not that he had the affair but that he lied to Congress.  With attack dog Kenneth Starr at the forefront running a broad and unrestricted investigation, it was game on.

Who was behind this?  It was not the members of Congress but those moneyed interests behind the Congressional powers.  To be certain, David and Charles Koch were two of them.  Other powers behind the scenes were Republican strategists such as Karl Rove and talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.  What each of these men knew, and relied upon, was the average American’s disinterest in discovering the truth about any particular subject.  They knew their target audience would take them at their word despite the use of hyperbole, exaggeration and out right lies.

The Democrats have been equally as bad though usually not in the same way.  While Democrats love to use hyperbole, exaggeration and out right lies too, they are not nearly so well organized as Republicans and other conservatives.  And while the Democrats certainly have their share of moneyed interests, the do not have a strategist who approaches the ability of Karl Rove and have virtually no presence, let alone following, on the air waves in the form of an O’Reilly or Limbaugh.

Although I am a life-long registered Democrat, of late I have made a habit of voting Republican in Massachusetts elections.  This has been because of my disgust by state-wide politics as a whole, and those who are running for office in particular.  The brilliance of Senator Elizabeth Warren is unimpeachable but she is an uninspiring academic who had previously no civil experience.  She won, not on her merits, but because she was the Democrat who opposed Republican Scott Brown.  This sort of politics exists in every state which holds a large majority in one party, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming for Republicans, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Michigan for Democrats.

I find it troubling that the Republican Party has found itself split between their long standing moderates and those who have given their allegiance to the Tea Party.  But if you look at it closely, you will find the Tea Party is simply a reincarnation of the old Libertarian Party with a new platform.  The Democrats have their own group on the far left who, although without name, are equally as polarizing.  It is this polarization that causes intransience over issues which desperately need resolution.

The only resolution to these issues is for all Americans to hold their elected officials, those who the voted for, to back up their stands with absolute truth, to work in the best interests of their constituents and not the PACs, and to always work towards a common ground with members of the other party.  I would say that any member of Congress who votes in excess of 75% along party lines should deemed as of suspicious designs.  Each senator and representative should be able to report back to his constituents on a regular basis how each of his votes worked to the favor of the majority of those he represents.

Americans seem to be of a mind that politics as a whole are disgusting, but until each American decides to hold those he has voted into office to a higher standard, then nothing will change.

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Holding Politicians Accountable


Within our Federal Government there exists two sets of rules: one set is for civil servants while the other is for politicians and political appointees.  Within the former are a set of very strict standard which must be adhered to.  This group includes the members of our military which has an even more strict set of rules than those for civil servants.  The latter, however, seem to have no particular set of rules save that one indicated in the Constitution, “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  So very vague is that rule that only two presidents and a rather small handful of others have ever been held to it, and none successfully.

The members of our military are held to what is called the Military Code of Conduct, a set of 131 rules to which the must adhere, some of which seemingly contradict the Constitution itself, but which when challenged in the US Supreme Judicial Court have never been found lacking or at fault.  Civil servants are required to undergo an annual code of ethics training course which is given, generally, by a lawyer from that department’s office of ethics.  One portion of those ethics quite clearly set out a standard that states unequivocally any semblance “of a conflict of interest” will not be tolerated.  In any given year, hundreds of federal employees are tried in a court of law for violations of this code, and that is a good thing.  It is meant not only to enforce the law, but to give the public confidence in how federal employees conduct themselves.  To show the strictness of such rules, one states that no federal employee may accept any gift of greater value than $25 which includes meals, educational opportunities, etc.  The lone exception is if such gift is open to the public in general and that anyone, upon application, can avail themselves of such gift.

Now comes our political appointees.  In particular I want to bring about the person of General David Patraeus.  He graduated from West Point in 1972 and got an advanced degree from Princeton University.  He served a particularly distinguished career which elevated him to four stars, the greatest rank any military person can aspire.  Then in 2011 he was appointed to head the CIA.  In every respect he is an American hero who rose the well-earned heights.  It all came crashing down when it was revealed he had had a dalliance with Paula Broadwell.  The shame in all that is not that he had the affair, but that he was forced to resign.  If such dalliances meant an end to political careers the wreckage of such during our history would have easily end the career of half our presidents and probably equal numbers of Congress.  So corrupt was the administration of warren G. Harding that is has long be speculated had he not died first he would definitely have been one President who would have been removed from office by Congress.  If you want to know more about this, look up what is called “the teapot dome scandal.”

Most, if not all, of our US Senators are millionaires and are either so far removed from the middle-class, if they had ever been a part of it, to remember what it is like to be a part of it.  None came from poverty.  The same can be said for much of the House of Representatives.  That might not be so bad if not for the fact that they seldom represent the will of their constituency.  For them, quid pro quo is the only business they understand.  Simply put, that means those who contribute the most to their reelection get the greatest part of their attention and can count on their vote going their way.

They say it is impolite to speak ill of the dead, but to make a point I feel I must.  Sen. Edward Kennedy represented Massachusetts from the early 1960s until his death.  He was a decidedly unethical and devious man.  He was absolutely at fault in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, July 18, 1969.  He was obviously not run from office, as he probably should have been, but was given a 2-month suspended jail sentence for “leaving the scene.”   Even though I have always been a registered Democrat, I never once voted for the man as I felt him incapable of honesty.  When he ran unopposed, I wrote in my own name on the ballot.  I also requested assistance from his office with a problem I was have one time.  After visiting there I never got so much as a polite “we cannot help you” response from them.  But then, that is what unprincipled self-important people do.

Today, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, is acting in much the same way.  He claims he wants Wall Street reform and stricter regulations on financial institutions.  He says he wants to kill the 15% tax of earned interest that only the very wealthy enjoy.  That means, the top rate paid on all earned interest, by millionaires in particular, is 15%.  An average person who got lucky and won a million dollars would pay close to a 35% rate on that income while the millionaire will be assessed only 15% on his multiple of millions earned in interest.

Members of congress are regularly wined and dined at very expensive restaurants, given expensive gifts, given free memberships in exclusive clubs, and so forth.  It is hard to imagine that these members of congress will concern themselves quite so much with their constituents who sent them to congress to do their bidding than with those who spend lavishly on them.

I think politicians should be held to many of the same rules that civil servants are held to.  I also think campaign finance laws should be written to prohibit contributions to any single person or party except from individual voters, and that such amounts would also be limited.  The only way we will ever get Congress to listen to the will of the people is to limit the ability of the will of the PAC, the corporation, or any non-individual to be minimized.

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Just Who Is the “Average American”


Sadly, biased political love to use the term “what Americans want” when in truth, it is really only what their more liberal or more conservative side wants.  I do think, however, it is safe to say that what Americans want is for their government to run much more smoothly than it has in recent memory.

Right now American like to think that the Congress that has been in session is particularly polarized and incapable of compromise.  And that may be true but it is certainly nothing new.  When Thomas Jefferson was elected, a Democrat-Republican, the Federalist party thought that it spelled the end of the republic for certain.  Jefferson was viewed as a radical left-winger who cared little for the safety of America.  He did, in fact, do his level best to reduce the military to near insignificance.

But the most polarized Congress ever was probably that which existed during Abraham Lincoln’s years as president.  Not only were the Republicans and Democrats at each other’s throats constantly, but within each of those party there existed groups known as “war Republicans,” “Peace Republicans,” “War Democrats,” and “Peace Democrats” who factionalized their own parties.  Each contented it knew what the American people wanted and what was best for the country.  Part of Lincoln’s greatness was his ability to bring these warring parties together.  To that end he took Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat, as his running mate for his second term.  He jettisoned Hannibal Hamlin, his first term vice-president, a rather popular Republican, taking the southerner Johnson knowing that once the war was won he would need a southerner to bring the formerly warring parties back together.  That was not the only time there was a split-ticket in the White House, but it was the last time.

In 1908 the Republican party took the more cerebral William Howard Taft over the feisty Theodore Roosevelt as Republican party power brokers viewed TR’s populist tendencies as being too radical for the “Grand Old Party.”  Roosevelt was seen as a friend to labor, had worked diligently to break up monopolies, and was responsible for the starting of the national park system and other populist ideas of the day.  After his defeat to Woodrow Wilson 1912, Taft confided that he was quite relieved from the burden of such leadership.  Years later he was appointed to the US Supreme Court, a job that he was made to do, and ended his career as its Chief Justice and is generally recognized as one of the best ever in that role.  His genius was in Constitutional  interpretation, and not in Constitutional administration as is required of the president.

The point of this, so far, is that the partisan party politics we are seeing today is nothing new, and certain not the worst this country has ever experienced.  The strength of the republic is in its ability to be greater than any single person.

Political pundits love to clamor over who are Democrats and who are Republicans.  But statistics tells us that such definition is foolish at best.  The following diagram is what is known as a standard statistical curve.  It means that when you take a mixed population of anything, in this case the people of the United States, you can present that population with a high degree of accuracy using this diagram.

curve

Look at this diagram as being read from left to right.  Think of it in terms of the left being the political left and the right as being the political right.  If you look at just the blue portion under the curve you will see 34.1% extending from the center to the right and left.  In statistics it is mathematically provable that any population will find 68.2% of whatever you are counting, in this case voting Americans.  This is also known as the first standard deviation.  The next 13.6%, or the 2nd standard deviation, in our example refers to the more liberal or more conservative members of either party, leaving the last 2.15% as the most liberal or conservative.  The mathematics behind these numbers allow for no more than a 1% to 2% error, a very small number.  But what it ultimately means, and most importantly, is that 68.2% of the voting public has close to the same opinion on any given target.

The problem we here in America have is that those political operatives who live in the 2nd or 3rd standard deviation, tend to do a lot of yelling and attention garnering with the claim that they are speaking for most Americans.  But in truth they are speaking for, at most, 25% of Americans.  These people have the sad tendency of being ideologues whose ability to moderate their view is rather limited.  They have the tendency to be heavy-handed and take a “my way or the highway” view on every issue.

I think I am like most Americans.  I am as likely to take a liberal view on any particular issue as I am to take a conservative view on it.  I am a person of strong convictions but I know that in the interest of the greater good there are times when, without abandoning my convictions, I must compromise to find the middle ground where we can all agree.  For example, even as a registered Democrat, I am extremely pro-military and I am not in favor of any military spending cuts as is now being proposed.  That is a rather conservative view I believe.  But to achieve a reasonable end I recognize I will have to give a little.  Another day is in the offing when everything will be in play once again and I can once again fight for what I believe in.

Personally, I view the majority of our congress as being moderates.  Sadly, however, I see them being far too heavily influenced by the more conservative or liberal members of their own party.  They seem to have forgotten the mandate placed upon them by their own constituency, and this is to do the will of the people who put them in office, not the will of the power brokers.

 

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Who Is to Blame For America’s Present Economonic Malaise?


If you listen to the Mitt Romney political ads it is entirely Barack Obama’s fault that we have not already seen a complete recovery.  And if you listen to Barack Obama political ads it is the failed policies of the Bush-era that are to blame.  Personally, I think there is more than enough blame to go around that neither party is any more guilty than the other.

But first, let’s look at the world economy.  To look only at the American economy is a mistake because we do not operate in a vacuum.  Independent of what has been happening in America, Europe has gone through its own economic travails chiefly on the shortcoming of the Euro and the countries who use it as their sole currency.  In particular, Greece, Italy, and Spain have had it the worst.  Right now, Spain is reporting an unemployment rate of 25% which is similar to the U.S. great depression of 1929 – 1934.  That the Greek government has not gone bankrupt is largely due to the banks of Germany insuring Greek debt.  But northern Europe is hardly exempt from this as the Bank of Scotland is on particularly shaky ground at this point.

What does all this have to do with the U.S. economy?  The Bank of Scotland owns Citizen’s Bank which is headquartered in Providence Rhode Island.  Similarly, U.S. corporations have investments in every country in Europe and are therefore affected by that economy.  If a large U.S. conglomerate, say Ford Motor, is experiencing the European downturn, as it is, then that necessary reflects upon its overall corporate earnings.  And, as we saw in the Wall Street melt-down of 2009, corporations like AIG have considerable overseas accounts where they are insuring debt and investments.  If Europeans companies are defaulting or failing to make payments on their debt, that too necessarily affects U.S. corporations.

President Obama’s $750 billion stimulus plan has been roundly criticised by the Republican party.  They are suggesting that it did not work.  If it had not worked unemployment would have continued to rise and that just did not happen.  It did not, unfortunately, have the hoped-for effect but that does not mean it was a failure.  Every single dollar of that money, at least initially, went into the U.S. economy.  There is no where else it could have gone.  Was it as effectively used at it could have been? No, and that is where Obama failed.

People love to look at two journalistic publications and quote them as being authoritative on economic, and other, topics, the conservative Wall St. Journal, and the liberal New York Times.  That fact is, neither is quite so authoritative as they would have to believe.  The WSJ has more weight in the field of finances because that is its entire focus.  Even so, the people who write such articles are journalists who have a vested interest in reporting in a manner pleasing to their readership.  Simply put, such articles are biased towards conservatives which means they will emphasise data that supports conservative ideals and give less weight to data that supports more liberal ideas.  The New York Times, of course, does exactly the same thing.

The real question that should be asked in this presidential elections is, how much effect can the government, and even more so, any single person, even the president, have in the nation’s economic affairs?  The government is, by definition, the guardian of the public trust.  In deriving its power from the people, it is supposed to act in the best interest of all people without favoring any single person or group of people.  In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, people like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and a few others, were in virtual control of the U.S. economy.  Because of that, the Chicago fire of 1872 helped precipitate the economic crisis of 1873.  Wall Street and corporate America was entirely unregulated and did as it pleased.  Corporate trusts and monopolies were accepted practices.  The titans of business and finance had themselves so well insulated from all civil and criminal prosecution that they were able to act with impunity.  But then during the Populist era, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, laws like the Sherman Anti-trust Act were put in place to curb these excesses.  The public demanded that the government regulate and pass laws to reign in these men of great power and influence.  Corporate America was reigned in by 1920, and then after the collapse of Wall Street in 1929, the U.S. financial concerns were also reigned in.  In both cases the method of reigning in was the use of regulation and oversight.

Contrary to concerns raised by industrial giants and financial gurus of those early days, America boomed until 1974 when America was hit by an artificial oil shortage, the inception of the oil cartel, also known as OPEC.  Democrats, largely in power at the time, responded slowly and poorly.  But when Reagan took office in 1981 he decided, and sold a rather naive American public, on the idea that heavy government regulation was holding back the expansion of corporate America.  Had anyone at the time been versed in history they would have instantly known that nothing could have been further from the truth.  The truth was, corporate America, particularly in heavy industry, had not bothered to retool after World War II and were still using 1940 technology while rising industrial giants like Germany and Japan had entirely retooled and were on a firm footing to sell in a global economy.

The 1950s and 1960s American domination of the electronics market, for example, quickly gave way to the Japanese, and in time to Taiwan, Malaysia and other Asian countries.  America was importing cheaper steel from Germany, and then cheaper, and better made, Japanese cars.  It was not until the bailout of the American auto industry in 2009 that it became apparent to all that Detroit’s decision the all the status quo had been an abysmal failure, and only a government infusion of cash would save it.

When Reagan brought about the deregulation of corporate America he was effectively saying, “We trust that corporate America will behave itself and always work in the best interest of America.”  You would have to be a fool to believe such things.  Corporations, by their very nature, always and only serve in their own best interest.  And that is exactly as it should be!  They are not required hold sacred the public trust, that is the government’s role.  Good business practices dictate that you will always buy from the least expensive source.  If that source happens to be China then that is where you buy.  It is unreasonable to expect American businesses to act otherwise.

As to what the U.S. owes foreign governments the Romney’s campaign that Obama has borrow money from China is foolish!  Does the U.S. government owe China money?  Absolutely!  But that comes as a result of international commerce.  In an attempt to gain a foothold in mainland China, a number of large U.S. corporations have invested heavily in China.  In doing so they necessarily us U.S. dollars.  And what is a dollar but the federal government promising to pay.  It is a debt that says the federal government guarantees payment on each and every dollar proffered.  When China gets those dollars it can then put a demand for payment to our government.  One form of payment, of course, is gold.  But whatever form that payment takes it is always between governments and not individuals.

One thing every American needs to be aware of.  About every 25 years or so America goes through an economic downturn, some worse than others.  This is one of those.  Most such events happen as a result of what is called a “market correction.”  When stocks do not properly reflect their value of the company they represent, this overvaluation brings a downturn.  This time is was the real estate market that was way overvalued.  Part of it was over-investment, but another part, and more important, was a lacking in regulation and regulatory oversight that allowed speculators to reap huge profits where none should have existed.  This was the state of the “sub-prime” market.

American businesses resist regulation because they want as free a hand as possible in doing business.  But the truth is, regardless of the degree of regulation, they are going to continue to do business in a manner that reaps them the greatest profit possible.  And that is exactly as it should be.  But it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the responsibility of the government to assure our economic success.  That is the responsibility of corporate American and there is one thing you can always be certain of, corporate America will bring about success regardless of anything and everything else.  That means that they were responsible for the malaise and they will be in line for the credit when things improve.

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Let’s Kill a Few Democrat Sacred Cows


If you were to check my status at the city hall where I live you will find that I am a registered Democrat.  I bring that up simply to point out that this is not some conservative’s rant against liberals.

The Minimum Wage — This is like the holy grail of Democrat policies.  The minimum wage was first enacted in 1938 under the Roosevelt administration.  At that time it was intended to help raise people out of the abject poverty so many were in.  According to an Oregon State University study, that 1938 minimum wage raised the purchasing power of the employee to well above the poverty level.  Since 2006, however, that same study shows the minimum wage and the poverty level are almost identical.  This begs the utility of the minimum wage at all.

The federal government for decades now has had in place a wage scale for its employees that is adjusted for the area in which they live.  That is, a GS-5 level employee in Mobile Alabama gets a lower base pay than does his counterpart in New York City.  It is well-established that the cost of living can vary greatly from one locale to another.  That suggests that, at the very least, the minimum wage needs to be adjusted according to the locale.  Some states, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut and others, have already adjusted that rate upwards but the question is, is that really necessary?

I suggest that the minimum wage is entirely unnecessary any more for a variety of factors.  First, and foremost, the economics of 2012 have so drastically changed from those that existed in 1938 that the logic of any minimum wage is not defensible.  For example, the minimum wage here is Massachusetts is $8 an hour as opposed to the federally mandated $7.25.  Still, I can assure you, that a person working the front at any local McDonald’s is getting well above that $8 an hour which bring into focus who is getting the bare minimum?  Another clarifying point, exempt from minimum wage laws nation-wide are farm employees and certain other tip-based employees.  That is the federal government recognizing that certain exceptions need to be made.  But it also leaves you with the question, if market demands for labor keep minimum wages above mandated levels, why do we need a minimum wage?  I suggest we do not.

Federally Supported Welfare  —  I am not against welfare at all.  But I do believe in needs to be reigned in and the best way to do that is to switch that responsibility to each of the individual states.  The theory behind such programs is everyone feeds into the top as it serves the greater good.  That is, the good people of Grasse River Nebraska reap the benefits of helping Detroit poor.  It is absolute redistribution of wealth.  But it unfairly takes from wealthier better run states and given to poorer less well-run states.  The source of all welfare funds is the individual tax payer.  The closer you put the distribution of those dollars to their source, the control of those dollars improves.

Federal Funding of Public Schools  — To be clear, I think the funding of public schools needs to increase.  However, I do not want my Massachusetts-based income tax going north to support New Hampshire schools.  I think the Federal government needs to continue to mandate educational minimums and standards, but it needs to get out of the business of funding those schools.  Again, this is another place where redistribution of wealth is just not fair.

The bottom line is, by removing these, and other Democrat and Republican sacred cows, we will necessarily remove from the federal budget many items which are viewed as “pork.”  A thing like Sarah Palin’s “bridge to nowhere” would not have received a dime of federal funding and probably would not have been built by the good people of Alaska.  It is a simple recognition of personal responsibility within any given state.  When a state is fully responsible for funding its projects, its citizens are much likely to sit up and take notice of how much it costs and why they might even need it.

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Is Massachusetts Turning Republican?


Twenty years ago such a question would be laughable.  Even today some might scoff at it considering the makeup of the Massachusetts legislature is overwhelmingly Democrat.  I am, and always have been, a registered Democrat.  But I suspect that like me, many of my fellow Democrats in this state are rather fed up with the arrogance shown by the state’s Democrats.

Massachusetts has elected the occasional Republican to state-wide and national office, Edward Brooke and William Weld in the more distant past.  But they were more the exception.  State politics has been large dominated by Democrats since the FDR administration, and to some degree prior to that with James Michael Curley.  But recent events where Democrats have been accused and convicted of felonious acts has given the state’s voters reason to question their elected leaders.  The worst thing they have done, which is not a crime but a betrayal of faith, has been the arrogance of the party leadership in the state.

Two national offices are being heavily contested in the state right now, that for a U.S. Senate seat, Brown vs. Warren, and US Representative seat, Tierney vs. Tisei.  And in some sense, Mitt Romney too, although I view him as truly a Michigan native rather than a Massachusetts resident.

In the case of Brown vs. Warren, we have a very affable Republican in Brown who is the state’s Republican US Senator being opposed by a very cerebral and professorial sounding Warren.  And that is her biggest problem.  She claims to come from blue-collar America but sounds anything but.  If anything, she comes across as preachy and professorial.  She is difficult to identify with at much of any level.  Brown, quite simply, comes across as entirely middle-class.  He is a middle-class veteran that I can more easily identify with than Warren’s academic persona.  If history teaches us anything, it is that people vote for who they best identify with which does not necessarily mean who is best qualified.  In this case, however, I cannot say that Brown is not best qualified to both serve and properly represent me.  That, it is my guess, is the question Warren needs to respond to more than any other and which, I doubt, the Democratic leadership of this state will come to terms with.  In the end, I expect Brown will be re-elected.  And even though I cannot say for certain right now, he may well get my vote.

Tierney is a case of absolute arrogance.  I do not, for a second, want Tisei to win this race however I feel he has an excellent chance of doing exactly that.  Not so many years Thomas Finneran had the same arrogance being displayed by Tierney.  As it turned out, Finneran was guilty of, at the very least, comprising the public trust for his own personal ends.  I think Tierney is guilty of the same thing.  It is difficult to believe that a man, as intelligent as he is, had no idea of his family’s involvement in illegal gambling activities long before it became public.  I have to admit that my distrust of Tierney pre-dates that.  It goes back to the mid-1990s when he was opposed by a man named Peter Torkilson, a Republican.  I voted for Torkilson back then on a gut feeling that he was simply the better man.  Unfortunately I am no longer in that district so I cannot have any say in that election.  I do not believe, however, that the state’s Democratic leadership has properly and fully addressed the charges leveled against Tierney by the Republican party.  It simply and arrogantly believes he will get re-elected because you have to go far before anyone’s memory to find a Republican being elected from that district.  The thing is, I know that district to be more conservative than party leaders tend to believe.  It would not take much for more conservative Democrats, like myself, to turn the present election in favor of Tisei.  And that is exactly what I believe is going to happen.

Right now probably few people in Massachusetts believe that Mitt Romney will carry his declared home-state in the presidential election.  The last time that happened was when Al Gore failed to carry his home state of Tennessee.  And as likely as it is that Obama will carry Massachusetts, it should not be taken for granted.  And yet that is exactly what Democratic leadership is doing.

In the latest round of political debates, Warren, Biden, and Obama each lost their respective debates.  Tierney and Tisei will not have any public debate forum although they should.  The point is, Democrats seem to be riding on their laurels thinking they have the upper hand.  They do not, by any stretch of the imagination.  Since those debates, each of the Democrats has lost their lead in the respective race to their Republican opponent.  That is extremely significant because it shows a reversal of fortunes.

I think most Americans find it difficult to believe much of anything politicians say, even those they vote for.  You frequently hear them state they are “voting for the lesser of two evils.”  How can that ever be a good thing?  I noted in the debates that when asked direct and simple questions, those question largely went unanswered.  The politician being asked did a tap dance around the truth, but seldom gave what was a clear and simple answer.  Would it not be refreshing to hear a candidate just once say, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”

I do not think Massachusetts is suddenly going to become a state in which Republicans rule the roost.  But I do believe, at least in the two contests mentioned, that Republican will prevail.  I think it good that Republican should have more of a say in this state’s politics.  It makes the Democrats more honest, or possibly honest in the first place.  But maybe, just maybe, it will knock some of the arrogance from the state’s Democrat Party.

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Obama Has Disappointed Me But Romney Scares Me


Most people, when they think of Massachusetts, would categorize it as a liberal bastion.  In one sense they are correct as the state house is dominated by Democrat senators and representatives.  But in another, they would be wrong.  For the past two years the state has had a Republican U.S. Senator, and over the past 20 plus years it has boasted more Republican governors than Democrat, Weld, Romney and Celucci among others.  The residents of Massachusetts are more centrist than most of the nation would believe, and I feel they prefer balance far more than one-sidedness.

I remember when Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts.  The state’s Democrat Party brought into question his legal residence, saying he actually lived in Vermont while maintaining property here in Massachusetts.  But through a legal technicality, the elections board was forced to allow his residency as meeting the standard.  It always bothers me when someone gets by on a legal technicality.  It makes me wonder about their ability to be entirely honest and forthright.  It makes me question their integrity.  Romney did an all right job as governor, not spectacular and not bad as his Republican predecessor Paul Celucci had done.  But it was obvious that he was only interested in placing himself of a national forum as he was a one-term governor who did not try to serve a second term.  Such action makes me question his commitment to the state he served as governor.

When Barak Obama came into office he made many promises, more than any politician should, and certainly more than even he knew he could keep.  Washington politics, being what it is, seldom allows any president to “rule the roost.”  FDR came the close to being able to do that and then Reagan pretty much had his way.  And so when Obama took office he said he was taking a page from FDR’s presidency when it came to helping the economy to recover.  Except for the government’s largess, his recovery program failed to come close to FDR’s vision.  FDR started named government programs, most famous being the FRA (Federal Recovery Act).  Others, the civil conservation corps (CCC) later declared unconstitutional, the Tennessee Valley Act, the Rural Electrification Act, and other programs put a name on his program and gave the general public something to look towards to measure success.  All the programs, even the CCC, were hugely successful.

FDR’s success came largely because he kept the Federal Government in charge of its investments with the states acting as expediters but not overseers.  Obama did the opposite.  He meted out the money to all the states, with certain provisions attached, but then mostly gave up federal government oversight.  The results were mixed at best.  Obama would have been better served, as FDR did, by saying a certain amount of money will go towards rebuilding America’s highways and roads, possibly naming it the Infrastructure Recovery Act, and then putting heavy requirements upon states as to how they used those dollars.  His focus on the use of the money should have been seeing that as much of the $780 billion went towards labor intensive work as possible.   Inner city revitalization would have been another opportunity, although this seems to have been missed entirely.  To be sure, America’s “Rust Belt” is no better off today than it was 4 years ago.

It is my belief that lack of federal oversight allowed too much of “Recovery Act” dollars to end up in the pockets of well-placed and highly influential individuals who did little to help America recover from its worst recession since the Eisenhower administration.  To his credit, Eisenhower did his part in putting America to work with his vision of the Interstate Highway system that he fathered.

What scares me the most about Mitt Romney are his very conservative religious views along with those of his running mate.  Let me be clear, when it comes to abortion, I am even more conservative than Romney as I do not believe in it regardless of the situation and have felt so since I was a teenager.  But, I also recognize that abortion is an issue of conscience and I have no right to  insert my beliefs as being superior to any other person’s beliefs.  And that is why I believe in the absolute right of each individual, in the case each woman, to make her own decision of conscience.  If I can influence her towards not having an abortion, great, otherwise I have no right to dictate to her what she should do.  This to me is purely a First Amendment issue, the part that refers to religion, and nothing more.

I do not like politics in the extreme, right or left.  I fear Romney is all about doing the bidding of the far right as that is where much of his campaign funding comes from.

American politics today, most unfortunately, seem to be like a scene from The Wizard of Oz.  We should all be wondering who the man behind the curtain is.  We have the man out front, Obama and Romney, but we must know who is pulling the strings behind the curtain.  Who is it exactly that most influences these men and what is their agenda?  More importantly, does their agenda align with the desires of 80% of the American public?  I fear the answer to this last question is a resounding “no!”  That is not just conservative politics,  but liberal as well.

I think it the job of every American voter to ask the candidates one simple but tough question.  Whenever one of them states that something is true, that their particular way of doing things is best, or any other boast, ask them to show definitive proof of their claim.  Ask for details, facts, and deny them elusive or vague rhetoric.

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Dealing With Traffic Congestion in America’s Cities


Even though I am addressing the growing problem of congestion in America’s cities, I am going to refer almost entirely to Boston as it is the city I am most familiar with.  In an article in today’s (August 5, 2012) Boston Globe entitled “Teh cure for congestion”  p. K10 by Derrick Z. Jackson, the method Stockholm Sweden used is put forth.  In 2006, it states, Stockholm began a 7-month trial where it charged each automobile entering the city about $1.50 on off-peak hours and about $3 during peak traffic hours.  It used 18 city entry points armed with cameras that took photos of the license plates of cars entering the city and sent the charges to the registered owners.  Public opposition t this idea ran as high as 75%.  But at the end of the trial period the amount of traffic entering the city had been reduced by 22%, and when the measure was put to the vote, the public passed the measure to make it permanent.

In 1991 I attended a professional conference initiated by then Senator Paul Tsongas at the University of New Hampshire where professional traffic management specialists put on a symposium.  At the time Boston’s “Big Dig” was in its infancy.  Even so, for reasons that eluded rational and reasonable explanation, the plan for the North/South rail link had been discarded.  And this in spite of the fact that it had been fully engineered and was included in the original plans.  For those of you unfamiliar with Boston, the city has two rail terminus, one called North Station and the other, South Station.  This is, and never has been, a rail line that links the two which has meant passengers coming from north of Boston have had to use other means of transportation to get them to South Station so they could continue the journey, if the so desired.   The additional cost of the North/South link, had it been carried out, would have cost in the tens of millions of dollars in a project that ended up costing over $15 billion.

But such short-sightedness, and political chicanery, not unusual in the world of Massachusetts politics.  To the contrary, anyone who lives in the state knows only too well the state in known for its political patronage which Bay Staters have been at a loss to do much about.

Curiously, Boston is home to one of the foremost schools for urban planning which exists within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Moreover, the U.S. Department of Transportation has one of its larger research and development centers in Cambridge at the Volpe Center.  M.I.T. and the Volpe Center sit side-by-side not coincidentally.  But Massachusetts, in its infinite wisdom, has seldom seen fit to avail itself of these facilities most likely because its political influence does not extend to either.  By extension, if you look at other major American cities, you can find other private facilities which would welcome public monies in a state’s efforts to deal with its transportation problems.  These institutions, having no political agenda, would likely give a comprehensive and reason response to any transportation problem which is happening the city and state in which they reside.  And for far fewer dollars than corporate America can deliver with a product that would challenge any.

All major cities need a comprehensive system of rapid transportation.  By definition, that means subways systems and street cars, and any other facility whose movement is affected little, if at all, by street congestion.

Boston’s subway, the oldest in the nation, though by definition is a rapid transit system, suffers from its own form of congestion which during rush hours frequently renders it little faster than the street level automobile.  Worse yet, the infrastructure of the subway system itself is in need of extensive repair and rebuilding.  This, of course, is costly.  Worse, the system, the MBTA, is currently in debt to the tune of over $100 million.  The political response to this problem has been to raise fares, reduce service, and leave the long-term problems unanswered and unaddressed.  Other systems, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago, I have little doubt, suffer from similar problems.

What Americans do not understand, and which was brought out in detail at that 1991 conference, is that is costs many times more to maintain the nation’s roads per mile than it does to maintain the right-of-way for rapid transit and commuter trains.  Even more, public transportation has the ability to carry many more people between any two points per hour than even the best highway.

Why don’t Americans abandon their cars for the more economical and fiscally responsible public transportation.  Unfortunately public transportation has the tendency to be unreliable, uncomfortable, inconvenient and largely unattractive.  The “park and ride” facilities are frequently too small and inconveniently located.  Those that are heavily used tend to fill up early which provides a disincentive to the later commuter to even consider them.  In Massachusetts, for example, there is only one parking facility, the Interstate 95/Route 128 facility, that resides immediately next to a heavily used highway.  But there are more than 10 places where the commuter rail intersects with an Interstate highway.  Urban planners know, or should know, that easy of access is key to ridership in public transportation.  But Massachusetts, which has been increasing the size of its commuter rail had done absolutely nothing to address this.

The incentive to use public transportation, as shown in Stockholm, must be balanced with a disincentive to use the automobile.  Any person who has ever traveled to western Europe or the Far East and used their public transportation systems, knows how superior those systems are to any that presently exist in the United States.  In the world arena of public transportation, the United States is little more than a third-world country.

One thing the American public needs, to help it embrace public transportation, is knowledge of the cost to maintain a road per mile.  Politicians never give out such figures even though they have easy access to those figures.  Our roadways, as every American must know, are deteriorating faster than they can be rebuilt.  Roads that are in desperate need of rebuilding are patched which in itself is expensive.  Roads deteriorate not just from age, but also from the volume of traffic they carry.  The greater the traffic load, the faster the deterioration.  And that is extremely expensive.  Conversely, rail transportation can withstand increased use far better and much longer.  It only makes sense to shift traffic from roads to rails.

America would do well to take the lessons learned in Stockholm and other European and Asian countries that have adequately addressed their country’s transportation needed.  The solution to America’s traffic congestion is not easy but it does exist.

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Can Mr. Smith Return to Washington?


In the 1939 movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Jimmy Stewart played an honest man who went to Washington as a newly elected senator from his state.  Smith (Stewart) went to Washington full of idealism and energy only to encounter monied interests who were about to plunder the state for their own selfish ends.  While entertaining, the movie was a commentary on how well-connected wealthy interests were able to sway the votes of congress to do their bidding.  This was nothing new, even then, but it seems today we are faced with a crisis of the same sort.

In today’s Boston Globe (August 3, 2012), there is a story about the “Super-PACs” and their power.  To my surprise, and disgust, it was revealed that a majority of the funding of these PACs comes from a mere 10 people.  No, that unfortunately is not a typo on my part, the number is 10.  It goes on to say that about 98% of all funding of these PACs comes from just over 1000 individuals.  This should be abhorrent to any thinking individual.

It is said that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it, and so it has come to pass.  In the late 19th and early 20th century, the PACs of that era, then known as “trusts” combined to set prices, levy high taxes on imports, and restrict the amount of government regulation upon their industry.  Americans, finally fed up with this behavior, passed the Sherman Anti-trust Act, the minimum wage law, and child-labor laws.  That era, known as the Populist Era, passed quickly, by around 1915, and America quickly reverted to some of its old ways.  The result was the great stock market crash of 1929.  This time, however, it was the financial interests who had leveraged Congress to allow them carte blanch in their affairs.  Because of the nation’s crisis, FDR was able to enact a host of laws that both allowed free enterprise to flourish but had the government keep a watchful eye on exactly how business went about doing so.

But once Ronald Reagan was elected to office, he set about reversing many of the regulations, weakening oversight, and assuring large business that the government would no longer be “meddling” in their affairs.

This led to the rise of special interest groups in Washington who enticed members of congress to acquiesce to their desires.  But that helped bring about campaign finance reform which, briefly, worked.  But Americans are both smart and industrious, and it was not long before monied interests found all the loopholes in those laws and, of course, found a way to circumvent the law.  They will tell you, correctly, that they are acting entirely within the law.  But of course, they are entirely out of line with the “spirit” of the law.  The most egregious of these is the present-day “attack ad.”  Both conservative and liberal groups address only their party’s platform in either supporting their candidate or attacking the opposition.  They do not mention who they are supporting so such ads are not viewed, or counted, as contributions to the election of any particular candidate.  But the result, of course, is the same.

In the movie, Mr. Smith discovers that the power behind the vote is not the senator who has the vote, but the man who finances the senator.  This, unfortunately, is still going on in Washington, probably more so now than at any time in our history.  And if it is not stopped, it will spell the death of our vaunted political system.  The power of the ballot will cease to exist in the individual American, but will reside in the hands of the few who hold sway over powerful interests who do business in Washington.

The solution, in part, is a very simple one; cap the amount any person, any corporation, any organization can give to any political cause in any one year to $5000.   A PAC would simply be unable to accept any gift larger than $5000 from any single source during a calendar year.

But we as Americans are responsible for holding our elected officials to a high standard.  We must insist upon transparency of their actions.  We should know who in power is whispering in their ears.  We should demand of them the highest standard of ethical behavior.  It should not be corporate America that elects our officials, as I fear happens only too often today, but the individual voter.  We should have the knowledge that those running for office have not allowed facts to be spun so heavily as to defy good logic, a fairness of presentation, and the simple truth.  Next time a politician declares he is for or against something, look for the man behind the curtain.  Look for the secret agenda, and ask yourself if it is indeed in the best interest of those affected, and not just to line the pockets of those who are well-connected and wealthy.

Want to know how much the super-PACs take in and who they endorse?  Follow this link

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/superpacs.php

 

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American Politics Sounding More Like Iranian Politics


That I should make such a charge might sound rather harsh at first blush but it does need consideration.  The Republican party this year has decided to make gay marriage its featured issue.  It is a moral issue steeped in religious conviction and having little to do with proper helmsmanship of a government.  Since 1979 Iran has been run by a series of religious ideologues who rule, according to them, by the rule of the Qur’an.  The Republican party will couch their issue in moral correctness but you need only ask yourself on what basis that correctness is formed.

Decades ago the Republican party always portrayed itself in the light of national security, hawkishness, and conservative economics, and that was more than enough for them.  In 1952 they enlisted Dwight David Eisenhower to be their presidential nominee.  In truth, party leaders did not know what Eisenhower’s political preference was when they asked, but he was a national hero and someone who epitomized what they stood for.  Eisenhower ran roughshod over Stevenson that year and again four years later.  He could best be described as a “Nationalist” who Americans idolized.  The most popular political button of the era said, “I Like Ike.”   That was enough.  Not once in either elections did any sort of religious banter enter.

In succeeding elections, right through Clinton’s first election, economics and defense continued to lead the way.  Only once during that time, the early 1980s, did religion make a forray into politics and that was the Jerry Falwell “Moral Majority.”  This far-right political rhetoric, as had been historically true, quickly ran amok and fell into disfavor with the general public.  People recognized that they were not served well by any religious group that tried to control their political convictions.

Today that far right ideology has made a resurgence in the form of the Tea Party.  Madison Avenue marketing has made this into a group that harkens to our nation’s founding, and the men who bravely defied King George III.  But was it lost in translation is that those men of 1774 were a group of disparate political beliefs, some were even self-described agnostics.  Their aim was to make a single point that truly represented the beliefs of all Americans and had absolutely no political designs whatsoever.  The be certain, had the crown relented, ended the tea tax and returned colonial governorships to the control of the people, the revolution, at least at that moment, would most certainly have been delayed, if not completely avoided.

Our country has many pressing problems but nowhere in the top ten, or probably even the top 100, should be found the issue of gay marriage.  That issue, as it is being promoted by the left, is one of civil authority only.  That is the only place it can be politically.  Otherwise it becomes an issue that is contemptuous of the first amendment.  I expect that few American church, at least in the near future, will allow gay marriage within their domain.  But that a political body gives credence to a lawful joining of a couple needs to be left at just that.  It is absolutely not an assault on the institution of marriage as a religious institution.

One thing people of conservative ideology need to consider is the children.  It is not illegal for a lesbian couple to conceive a child.  In fact, once that child is born, the lesbian mother is held to certain legal standards.  A legal marriage between that couple serves to extend that legal, and moral, responsibility.  Even more, gay men can legally enter into a contract to have a surrogate birth a child.  And as in the case of the lesbian couple, a gay male couple would also be held to the rule of law in the care of that child.  Without marriage, the law has little standing with the otherwise unrelated parent.

The thing is, this is one of the most foolish issues the Republican party has ever brought to the front.  To me it says they are more interested in spending short resources on defending that position than to finding solution for the far more pressing issues of the day.  We still have a fragile economy.  We have enormous issues with our military strength and our foreign policy.  We are struggling with issues of non-renewable energy sources, water shortages, and a decaying national infrastructure.  Does it not make more sense to put those issues at the forefront than allowing gay people into legal contracts?

Iran has allowed itself to be led by ultra-conservative religious groups.  They are the “Qur’an Thumpers” of their nation just like the “Bible Thumpers” of ours.  I have no problem with religion.  I think it a very good thing.  But as was recognized in 1789, it has no place in our government.  We can never be a country that is religiously defined except that each person is allowed to believe as he wishes and that no one religious view can prevail over another.  If the issue of gay marriage is allowed into our political arena then it is necessarily dragging in a strictly religious viewpoint.  No court could make a decision on gay marriage, from a moral point of view, as to do so would be to assault the first amendment.  The far right has made this a moral issue and therefore a religious issue.  Following this tack is tantamount to agreeing with the direction a government like Iran takes.