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The new plan for GM and Chrysler unveiled yesterday by the administration has caused quite a stir, especially among the bondholders and the UAW. The reason: President Obama, in his presser regarding the plan, mentioned the bugaboo word "bankruptcy." As in, if this plan doesn't work a "quick and surgical" use of Chapter 11 might offer the "best chance at success." This unveiling ceremony carried its own not-too-veiled threat: bankruptcy would endanger bondholder and union interests, so the choice for them is stark: negotiate your demands downward from your already lowered expectations or risk losing much much more.
The plan, however, does offer something for the unions and the "auto communities" where they live. It promises to:
• Maximize the effectiveness of Recovery Act funds for new and more diverse economic development for new jobs, business and industry through various means including local infrastructure, housing, education and new industry.
• Deploy rapid response unit to communities facing plant closings to both meet immediate needs and to develop strategies for new job growth.
• Extend Trade-Adjustment-Assistance (TAA) to the auto industry, including retraining, healthcare extensions, income support and wage insurance.
• Attract major defense, research, green industry and other project to the region. Channel Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and other emergency grant funds to the region.
• Work with stakeholders to develop new legislative efforts to direct emergency support to affected communities and regions, and bring new jobs and economic opportunities to these areas.
As his Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers, President Obama picked an able individual, Dr. Edward Montgomery, Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, until today's resignation. Dr. Montgomery received a 1982 doctorate in economics from Harvard University, and in 1997 joined the the Clinton administration Labor Department as chief economist. He rose quickly to Deputy Secretary of Labor where he directed more than 17,000 employees and had a direct role in ending the 1997 Teamsters strike against UPS.
President Obama has picked a strong advocate for auto workers and communities, and indicated that Montgomery would tap the $787 billion economic stimulus package "to create new manufacturing jobs and new businesses where they're needed most - in [auto] communities. And he will also lead an effort to identify new initiatives we may need to help support your communities going forward."
So, whether GM and Chrysler survive or not, the President clearly has their workers' interests front and center. Dr. Montgomery will be involved in all facets of the plan and he's a proven leader with, colleagues say, an ability to build consensus. Robert Schwab, associate dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences says, "He's a real problem solver, terrific at bringing people together who are at loggerheads, and working to get a solution."
Aside from his business and labor He's what's needed to provide some assurance and comfort to the auto workers' families who have already suffered and who may face more in the future. One thing is certain to me, President Obama demonstrates not merely intelligence and courage, he's also revived something that's been missing for many years at the White House, compassion for working families married to hardheaded pragmatism.
I have finally completed my thinking on all this. And when I put my wide cranium to work on a project, well, Katie bar the door! You, my reader, may use this whenever needed. I know it will put you at ease to see its simple presentation of the relationship of everything to everything else. Just give me attribution when sharing it. That's all I ask. You're welcome.
(Click on chart for clearest view)
Below, for the scientists among you, is technical instrumentation I use to verify my findings.
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I Haz a Headache. GM's stock price took a big hit today as it lost about 25% of its already middling value. The company, despite well-publicized efforts at resuscitation, is again on a gurney in intensive care with all kinds of tubes stuck in it.
President Obama's newly announced treatment plan for GM (and Chrysler) was officially announced today, and it suggests, in its forceful wording, that this may well be the last intervention before the radical surgery of Chapter 11 reorganization. Not that radical surgery hasn't been applied already, to union benefits and bondholders alike. Indeed, today's announcement disclosed that GM had, last evening, a radical CEO-ectomy, with the removal of CEO Rick Wagoner.
In any event, the President has put together a team of doctors who will operate on GM at the Cabinet level. Politico reported, "The Obama administration calls its task force 'a cabinet-level group that includes the secretaries of Transportation, Commerce, Labor and Energy. It will also include the chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the EPA administrator, and the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change. The Task Force will be led by Treasury Secretary [Tim] Geithner and [National Economic Council] Director Larry Summers.'” In addition, and something that may provide succor to the UAW, the President appointed Ed Montgomery, former Deputy Secretary of the Labor Department in the Clinton administration, as Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. That's a position that will, hopefully, make the GOP howl.
The Costs of Intensive Care. Today, the President said,"We cannot make the survival of our auto industry dependent on an unending flow of taxpayer dollars . . . not as wards of the state . . ." The federal government will give GM "adequate working capital" over the next 60 days to work with the administration towards recovery. "We have made very clear that we expect a very, very substantial reduction in liability for both companies," one official said. GM must reduce its billions in debt to the UAW (primarily to the healthcare plan the union agreed to take over), and to its bondholders by staggering amounts.
Bondholder debt at about $28 billion likely must be cut back by more than two-thirds. GM offered bondholders 8¢ in cash, 16¢ in new unsecured debt, and new stock in GM. The bonds have traded for around 20¢ on the dollar. Bondholders have argued that even though GM is offering more than the 20¢ some bondholders paid, GM isn't offering to cash them out. So the company is only reducing the face value of the bonds and giving those investors equity (stock), which they argue, could be wiped out in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
At the same time, GM owes the UAW $20 billion to create a union-led health-care trust for retiree medical benefits. The UAW already accepted half of a similar debt from rival Ford Motor. GM could get a similar deal, but GM is asking the UAW to take less than half the $20 billion in cash and the rest in stock, again a risky proposition in light of the bankruptcy possibility.
The problem is that GM may need to get the UAW and bondholders to accept more stock than the cash the original plan asked for. And don't underestimate that GM needs labor concessions in part to win an agreement from bondholders to exchange existing debt for cash and new GM equity. It's dicey. An Inconvenient Answer. The answer to all this is the same answer that's been floated regularly in this debate: nationalized healthcare. Coverage that reaches everyone, rich or poor, working or unemployed. That is the primary "legacy" cost that is killing GM and others; indeed, it affects every business in America. A single payer insurance program would resolve the inefficiencies inherent in tying health insurance to employment, and would equitably spread the costs throughout society. Perhaps President Obama is hoping that a radical change in our healthcare system will roll out during the next two years, and thus relieve companies like GM and the UAW, by extension, from those massive dollar costs.
And, as always, the bigger question. What does it now cost us in GDP and in moral character as a nation to continue a healthcare system that is so brutally fractured and costly? Those who argue that we'd be replacing our finely tuned healthcare system with "rationing"? Look around; we already ration, and in the worst possible way, by wealth and its corollary, race. We can restore a lot more than our auto industry with healthcare reform.
Learn the entire story behind this breaking news here.
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South Carolina's GOP Governor Mark Sanford, a supply side true believer, has been busy saying "No!" lately. "No thanks" to about 25%, or $700 Million of the $2.8 Billion of fiscal stimulus due his state. That's $770 Million less for a state sinking into a depression. And I thought Scrooge was a Christmas spoiler.
In a rapid exchange of letters with the Obama administration the Governor proposed using the $700 Million to pay down some of his state's debt rather than to more actively stimulate the economy via spending on education and other public services approved under the federal stimulus legislation' s Title XIV, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. Sanford's first letter on March 10th sought a waiver of Title XIV provisions. When that was summarily denied by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Scrooge-like Governor, although skilled in handing out "No's" could not take an Obama "No!" sitting down. He tried again on March 20th, arguing with memorable specificity, his intention to pay down debt on education bonds and on debt related to state retirees and the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund rather than actually spending the hundreds of million of available dollars on his state to avoid even more fiscal distress.
So, on March 17th Peter R. Orszag, the director of OMB, informed him in by letter that the:
The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund is a one-time appropriation in Title XIV of the Recovery Act. The Fund consists of approximately $48.6 billion that the U.S. Department of Education will award to States to help address State and local budget shortfalls in order to minimize or avoid reductions in education and other essential services. As a condition of receiving stabilization funds, the Recovery Act requires States’ assurances that they will advance essential education reform in four areas: (1) make progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable for all students; (2) establish pre-K-to-college-and-career data systems that track longitudinal progress and foster continuous educational improvement; (3) make improvements in teacher effectiveness and in the equitable distribution of qualified teachers between high- and low-poverty schools; and (4) provide intensive support and effective interventions for the lowest-performing schools. In addition, States must assure that they will maintain State support for elementary, secondary, and higher education at certain levels for fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Mr. Orszag also pointed out that nearly 19% of the $700 Million in funds the Guv fought so stridently against could be used for "public safety and other government services," which also may include other education-related spending. Hint: More job creation. "[A]lthough payment of public debt obligations" that Sanford had suggested instead of creating jobs and helping his education system improve, "is a necessary governmental expenditure, the Department of Education, in consultation with the Department of Justice and my office, has concluded that the paying down of past debt does not constitute the use of Federal funds for 'government services' under the plain meaning of those words in the Act."
Checkmate, Governor? You'd think so, but the Guv has another way to avoid the apparent embarrassment of accepting funds that other states clamor for. In fact, many governors indicated "if South Carolina doesn't want it, we'll take it." The Guv may be in position to oblige them. My able former colleague at the Congressional Research Service, Legislative Attorney Kenneth Thomas, wrote (at the request of Senator Lindsay Graham(R-SC)) that the 10th Amendment to the federal constitution may bar a provision in the stimulus legislation that provides that federal funds can be made available to a state by the federal government either after certification by a governor or after the adoption of a concurrent resolution by a state legislature. The issue is fraught with heady constitutional and political federalism questions that go to the core of our state-federal relationships, and the courts may ultimately decide this, although many believe the Governor will not push back against a state legislative push against him.
In any event, responding to the Governor's stated intention to refuse the $700 Million, the state House of Representatives voted 108-8 to approve a measure declaring the Legislature's intent to accept all the stimulus money. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee voted 18-3 to accept the $700 million over Sanford's objections if necessary. Recently, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley disclosed he's among 79 mayors who have signed a letter to the governor and Legislature urging them to accept the stimulus money in question. So, it's a bottom up pro-stimulus surge to counter the top down anti-stimulus surge from the Governor's office.
Sanford appears quite alone on this. And he's a politician. Hmmmmmmm. How does that work for him? He's taking a position that nearly his entire constituency opposes. What does he gain? Fiscal purity? Far right wing kudos? Headlines? Certainly. And more. Accepting the reform-minded education stimulus funds would strike a blow to his efforts as a school choice cheerleader. This would subvert his hopes to all but replace the state's public school system with "free market innovations." One can make principled arguments for voucher systems, but Sanford's belief system would, in my opinion, lead to a fractured system built upon re-segregation by race, origin, and disability. His public school system is already graduating only about 55% of its high school students, and ranks among the worst in the nation on all measures, including teacher training. The public school system would greatly benefit from the programs offered by the Title XIV fiscal stimulus funds he plans to refuse. It's no secret why. He's not about improving the public school system; he's about dismantling it.
In addition, under the cover of the economic crisis, he's hoping to subvert the entire state government generally by (perhaps unconsciously) practicing what Naomi Klein calls "shock capitalism" by starving the state of federal stimulus funds as state tax revenues disappear via the recession. He, like most supply side anti-government wingnuts, hopes to permanently hobble state-provided services during the crisis. He certainly does not want to buoy government, to make it relevant, to actually use the power of government to provide services. In a way, this is his dream crisis - he thinks he can actually kill government, bury it, and create in South Carolina a cadre of permanently poor, non-unionized wage slaves for the industries he hopes to attract to the state with bountiful subsidies and tax breaks. This would tickle the sourpuss Ayn Rand. I hope this does not put too fine a point on it.
All this is nothing new, either for Governor Sanford or for the so-called fiscal conservatives generally, whether Republican, Democrat, libertarian, or simply insane. As a result of cuts already imposed by the South Carolina legislature this year many services have been cut, including autism services, residential facilities for mental health programs, and public schools and universities, which have been virtually gutted. Moreover, at 10.4 percent, South Carolina has the nation's second-highest unemployment rate and, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, it's risen by 20% since the election, and is broad-based, except for government employment which has remarkably remained steady. While the school system is by many measures adequately funded, at least by southern per pupil vs. per dollar of personal income standards, Sanford calls the public-education system "a Soviet-style monopoly." He promoted school choice by proposing a plan to give parents tax credits if they send their children to private schools. Sanford's been vocal on school choice: "On education, we must continue to push for school choice, one of the great civil rights issues of our time." The "great civil rights issue of our times"?
And Sanford's tax policy underscores his government-killer instincts. He's pushed
a budget busting list of tax changes that include eliminating the state's progressive corporate income tax and introducing an optional single rate personal income tax. While some other items on his list would raise some revenue (raising the state's regressive cigarette tax, eliminating sales tax holidays, reducing business tax "incentives"), overall, it's pretty clear that Governor Sanford's solution is to dig the revenue hole deeper." The proposal would introduce an optional flat personal income tax, index graduated tax brackets to inflation, phase out all corporate income tax over 10 years, increase the cigarette tax, introduce a landfill dumping fee and eliminate sales tax holidays. The governor also called for an evaluation of the state's property tax structure.
Yes, that's NO corporate income tax whatever. These "reforms" would make South Carolina one of only five states with no corporate income tax, and in a state that is a "right to work" (anti-union) state that, indeed, as the anti-tax Tax Foundation observed, would cause them to "move from #25 to #6 on the [State Business Tax] Index, placing just behind Florida and ahead of all other states in the South. That would be a sea change . . . and make the state much more attractive for business investment from a tax perspective." Wow! Ahead of all the other progressive southern states, you say? And just behind Florida? Sanford must feel like he's floating on air.
And he is. The thin air of sure-to-be-declining tax revenues. His plans are supply side nonsense on steroids, and it has been proved time and again to not result in increased revenues for a government employing it. It results, as experience has shown, in reduced revenue, increased income disparities, and reduced services for the middle class and the poor. His craven belief system is even further highlighted by his refusal to accept a large portion of the federal lifeline being offered to his state's 10.4% and growing unemployment rate and to his poorly performing school system. Let's hope that the state legislature overrides him on this, and that our Constitution is deemed to permit their vote to prevail. It's a close call. But South Carolina is sinking. In of Governor Sanford's allies, Gary Simrill, has observed, “He’s not the ‘morning in America’ type.”
The other day former (Thank God) President G. W. Bush told an appreciative Canadian audience that he plans to write a book about his eight year run. Huffington Post reported that "he said it will be fun to write and that “it’s going to be (about) the 12 toughest decisions I had to make. . . I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian (sic) voice saying exactly what happened.” He also revealed that he wants "people to understand what it was like to sit in the Oval Office and have them come in and say we have captured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the alleged killer of a guy named Danny Pearl because he was simply Jewish, and we think we have information on further attacks on the United States," Bush said, quite likely relating something that was actually said to Vice President Cheney, if it was said at all (after all, it is a mouthful). But Dubya was thee, so he's an "authoritarian" source . . .
In any event, while luxuriating in The Disgruntled Toad, the Capitol Rotunda restaurant your scribe has humbly made famous, this reporter came into possession of an astounding document, Mr. Bush's handwritten book proposal. Fearing retribution, the purveyor of this document prefers to remain anonymous, but your reporter can safely reveal that he was a senior official in the Bush White House and known by all to be an almost completely bald, pear shaped, obnoxious chickenhawk with the first name "Karl." While enjoying a typically inexpensive yet elegant twelve egg omelet, "Karl" carefully removed the Bush book proposal from his briefcase and pushed it across the table. He explained that by revealing Mr. Bush's plans he hoped to "somehow benefit financially, if only via free meal at the fabulous Disgruntled Toad." I explained that it was this journalist's policy to not provide emoluments, but when "Karl" quickly grabbed the document back, your reporter explained further that exceptions could easily be made, especially considering the low prices charged by this remarkable dining venue. "Karl's" twelve egg omelet, for example, with a pound of bacon and sausage, a loaf of toast, a plate of pancakes bigger than his oversized head, and a pitcher of O.J. came to only $12.95. The Disgruntled Toad is that good.
We parted amicably after an extended argument regarding whether your scribe would include dessert, which he did, but only after a spirited wrestling match. Now, after reading through Mr. Bush's remarkable proposal, this reporter has a renewed appreciation for the role dumb luck and family connections plays in the affairs of human kind.
Here it is:
"TO: Crown Publishers Dept. of Book Ideas from Former Leaders of the Free World
FR: Former By God! President George W. Bush
RE: My book perposal
Here's the book idea. Its gonna to be a list book. Like the ones that sell like crazy in airports and bus stations. I'm thinking it will be about my Presidence. But none of that bedroom stuff. What Laura and I do or refuse to do or get stomach sick after doin is our business in bed. So dont push me on this or I'll be all over you like shock and awe. And then I'll stay put in your office for six or ten years after that.
So the book is about me as President. I'm thinking of making it about the 12 most hardest decides I had to make. Like the time I had to pick my favorite tortures. Man, that was a hoot. I howled while Dick showed how they worked using a lifesized Ted Kennedy doll. I liked the ones that involved odd positions the best but Dick talked me out of it. As usual. Anyways we came up with a few good ones and Rummy peed his pants at some of the things I thought of. But Dick talked me out of it again. As usual. But maybe since I'm being chased from place to place by war crimes process servers maybe we should just forget about the torture stuff. Wait we gotta remember its not torture its enhanced interrogation techniques! Turd Blossom thought that one up and we all howled out loud and thats why we paid him so much too.
So anyways lets see about this one. I'm thinking about telling folks how my decide to bomb the crap out of Iraq. We confabbed it a lot even before 9/11. I remember THAT day. I was reading a really neat book to a bunch of grade school brats and I was concentratin on the plot when they told me about what happened. I thought they said "an airplane snatched the World Trade Center buildings" and I just thought "Hell. No airplane's gonna lift them things. Quit kiddin me when I'm readin to the brats." Anyways later on I found out what really happened. I thought "Hell, who do I really really hate? " I thought of a few people and some northern states but Dick said we couldn't just bomb Massachusetts or call in air strikes on Jane Fonda. So we decided on Iraq. Hell. Saddam was available he was pretty mean and he had stuff we wanted like oil and sand. So that was pretty much it for me. I told Dick and Rummy to work it out so's the folks would get behind us and they did a pretty fine job even though a few folks never did get on board. Like the French. Well let's see. Remember they don't take baths and they got crazy ideas about body hair. Well you know how it all worked out. We made some stuff up about WMDs and got folks scared to death and then we did our shock and awe thing and then we decided to stay in Iraq cause the weather was just so fine and we were there anyway. So why not stay? You know what it cost us to bring a tank home on a boat? Maybe though since I'm being followed by anti-war process servers maybe we oughta keep that Iraq business out of the book.
So I'm thinking we might try some writing about Katrina. I still think there's a good chance we can pin that one on Michael Brown that damned Arabic horse guy. Who in hell put him in charge of FEMA? Now I'm just thinkin now maybe Katrina isnt the best thing to write on. After all all it really was was a really big rain storm. Who the hell can write good about rain. So lets think of something else.
Maybe I could tell about how Dick used to get me in a headlock and wrestle me to the ground over even the smallest things. It was really his "go to" move. I'd come in to work each morning and there he was, sitting at MY desk, and playing with my puzzle pieces. Messed em up good too - a whole days work gone! He'd do stuff like that all the time. They say he had a bad ticker, well thats just bull. He let me feel his chest once and it was ice cold. He had to have a good ticker to survive in THAT body. But, thinkin on it now I'm remembering that Dick still has a few nukular weapons and a hell of a lot of plain old guns. Maybe I oughta stay clear of writin on him too.
So, lets see. I do remember that I made about 12 decisions during my eight years. I'm just now a little hazy about which ones its safe to write on. How's this? Laura had me decide on where to put the chairs in the family quarter. I put em all in one corner so she got all hissy mad and stuck them all over the place instead. Here and there. But IDIDmake that particular PRIORdecision. I also remember giving nicknames to everbody. I spent a lot of desk time on that. Y'all heard that I nicknamed Karl as the Turd Blossom. That one really hit the nail on the head! Dick was Nukular Grandpa. Rummy was Napalm Breath. Wolfowitz was Spank Weasel. Limbaugh was Turd Mountain. I got a million of em. You know what? I'm thinkinTHATS the book. Can we call it "My Big Book of Presidenting"? (Check for spellin)
So, I'll start writin and give you a call on Thursday if I'm not arrested in Canada.
Your Former By God! President George W. Bush."
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Nestled in the barber chair a few weeks ago, I looked around as a few more inches of my suspiciously gray-streaked hair wafted floorward. Across from me was the magazine rack, and I chuckled when I noticed a glossy new magazine, "Garden & Gun." Nestled oddly among the Redbooks, the Sports Illustrateds, and the Popular Mechanics, G&G outdid its neighbors in literal eye-catching. As odd as its resting place was in this old-fashioned barber shop was its title. Gardening, meet guns; Guns, meet gardening. For years now I've been using my old golf clubs as gardening tools, but this idea intrigued me. Perhaps I could scare a few more tomatoes out of our garden with a Colt .45 at my hip.
The Garden & Gun cover showcased a beautiful young couple, richly dressed in the country clothes of the wealthy. The dark haired young woman expertly held what I believed was a shotgun. Assisted by her young man while drawing a bead on something at about two o'clock high, her eyes were sincere, her mouth set; ready. Whatever fortunate bird was under her gaze that day could not have known her finger was - mercifully - not on the trigger. I sensed she was a compassionate conservative, but had no doubt she could stand up to that weapon's kick and guide its payload home.
In any event, at the time I thought G&G was another National Lampoon satire and planned to check it more closely on my way out, but being of a certain age, I paid for my razor cut and promptly forgot. About a week later I found a copy in my doctor's waiting room and had a look-see. First thing, it's for real; no National Lampoon after all, though I'd guess the lampooners kicked themselves when they spied it on Cambridge newsstands. Here was a parody's parody. What was Garden & Gun publisher Rebecca Darwin thinking? She's a former New Yorker magazine publisher, for God's sake. What happened?
Apparently a savvy idea happened. G&G reports good sales to those among us who desire “an adventure-bound, art-loving, skeet-shooting lifestyle.” There you go, art-loving and skeet shooting side by side. Finally. It must be the Messianic Age. G&G reflects "the modern lives of affluent Southerners and those who aspire to the sporting life of the South." It's first 12 editions since its 2007 debut bear that out. G&G has the feel of Southern Living on steroids, with its editorial guns at aimed at bagging the elusive southern male. The Feb./March edition fishes for the macho with feature stories about turkey hunting and falconers, yet the traditional Southern Living feel is still there in articles about cuisine a lacrawfish, hickory shad, and Cajun . It's worth a look.
But, after all its glossy pretension, what can be said about turkey "hunting"? Is it really "hunting" when you stalk an animal that stands about three foot tall, can't fly away, and has no incisors? Do you really need to arm yourself with Marine Corps fervor to bag a fatso bird that you could just walk up to and smack over the head with a frying pan? Tell me true, if you heard that a pack of wild turkeys was roaming your neighborhood would you send the children to the basement or start preparing cranberry sauce? And the "hunters" of this unlikely prey, armed literally "for bear," they hide in heavily camouflaged bunkers, call out to their prey in turkey-speak, urging them closer. Once close enough to touch with the gun barrel, they blast 'em. They don't even offer them a wrestling match. Now that might be "sporting," but shooting an earthbound, slow-witted creature from a hunter's blind just doesn't reinforce the image of an art-loving, sophisticated, skeet-shooting southerner that G&G seeks to portray. And that's really what G&G seems to be about - dressing up the south to hide its essential contradictions, glorifying the aristocratic provenance so many southerners yearn for, a past that when looked at closely simply does not often bear - or turkey - up well.
I do think, though, that the juxtaposition of guns and gardening is a new direction to exploit. It draws you in like an accident that you should not look at, but cannot avoid. So, I'm working on a few ideas for a few new blogs, or an online "webzine." If you have any ideas to add to mine below, please do so in the comments section and I'll cut you in on any profits.
Why not, I say:
-- Martha Stewart's Wrestling & Wassail -- Cats, Rifles & Soups -- Travel & Seizure -- Derriere Tattoos of the Rich & Famous -- New York Review of Books & Throwing Knives -- Paris Match & Flamethrower -- Golf & Grenades -- Art & Solid Waste Scene
"Listen, health care a privilege...For some people it's a right, but for everyone, frankly, it's not necessarily a right..." The topic: President Obama's health care agenda. The Congressloon: Zach Wambat, er, I mean, Zach WAMP (TN-R) (drop him a line). Watch the video first, then we'll talk. Have a seat, and put a pillow on the table in front of you in case you should pass out. Also, if you don't pass out, to avoid your head exploding, wear a tight baseball cap.
There. Are you O.K.? Do you need a few more moments to reacquaint yourself with your surroundings? If so, I understand. You've been "Wamped" . . . Have a little glass tea, or a stiff snort. Yes, he really did say those things. No, it wasn't a nightmare. Well, actually it was. We all did. How is this man in the United States Congress? How is he permitted outside his home?
One of his constituents, Katie Allison Granju of Knoxnews.com wrote that Wamp, "made (Louisiana GOP Governor) Bobby Jindal look good." Actually, Jindal, and even Congressloon Steven King (R-IA), look Einsteinian in comparison. Nashville Scene called Wamp the "Crazy Southern Goober of the day," suggesting that "if you're looking for a breathtaking exercise in denial and unrepentant gooberism, Wamp puts on a stellar show." Well, don't tell the GADL (Goober Anti-Defamation League) - Wamp's actually an insult to decent Goobers everywhere - but that isn't the question here.
It's a Question of the Ideology of the Heart. And it's pretty clear that Mr. Wamp's feelings about the "privilege" of health care won't win him a Gandhi Award anytime soon. The sad fact is that these beliefs are shared by the majority of what remains of the Republican party, the Blue Dog Democrats (the GOP branch of the Democratic party), and what remains of the DLC (the Democratic Leadership Council or, as Jesse Jackson labeled it, the"Democrats for the Leisure Class"). Throw in some libertarians and you'll still come up somewhat short of one fully beating human heart.
The "facts" that Wamp and his ilk throw out are unsupported by any analysis. On this point I'm going to do something I hate to see others do: I'm not going to "dignify Wamp's mendacity with a response." O.K., I will, but just a few:
- Of the 45 million who are completely uninsured, 78.8% work full or part-time, i.e. those hard working folk Wamp seems to think simply do not want the health insurance so thoughtfully offered by their employers.These workers are in the lowest economic strata and simply cannot afford the health insurance offered . . .
- and, 64 percent of American workers who are uninsured are not even offered an employer-sponsored health care plan (eshp). And, the reality is, contrary to Wamp's excitation on this, the vast majority do take advantage of eshp's when they are offered them.
- A full third of Americans live without health care for at least part of the year. Prior to the stimulus plan's reductions in cost (which the GOP fought), COBRA was very expensive, and many people who were laid off and between jobs didn't work for companies large enough to be required to provide COBRA.
Enough with the facts. The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation has a virtual encyclopedia of easily accessed and helpfully organized information, for example, check here and here (this one may take a little time to download, but it's well worth the wait).
It's A Question of the Heart. It's not about economics. But for the hell of it, let's assume it is. We CAN afford to insure the right of all Americans to healthcare; we cannot afford not to. With a national single payer healthcare program (though not presently in the cards in the President's plan) we will SAVE money. As our national health improves when ALL are included and none refused we will dramatically increase our prosperity by all measures, GDP, student test scores and achievement, productivity, infant mortality rate, and otherwise. If people like Wamp were truthful, they actually KNOW this. It's not about the economics of cost. It never has been. We waste enormous resources with our present system of mismanaged care, it even compromises the healthcare workers it exists for; listen to doctors and hospital administrators today, you'll not hear the same chorus of naysaying about health care reforms that you did in the 1960's. It's not about money. Period.
It's also not about the question of "rights." The radical GOP (that's all that's left) and others, particularly libertarians, speak of healthcare as a "positive" right, i.e. a right that is not, they would say, "God given" and therefore inalienable, such as free speech, freedom of assembly, rights of private property, etc. These others, they say, are true rights because they are rights that prevent something; for example, they prevent the state from interfering with them. They do not require anyone to do anything.
People like Wamp believe that so-called "positive" rights, like a right to health care are not true rights because they oblige others to do something they do not necessarily want to do. Mind you, they don't ever adequately explain how the rights they revere are truly "rights," they simply state that they are. They don't set out any particularly prima facie proofs other than the overriding principle of self-interest, and then it's often the particularly ruthless self-interest principle espoused by Ayn Rand - the right to take without restraint, the right to greed. They build a system of human and societal "rights" upon this foundation?
Sadly, yes. But their rights distinction is vapid. If, for example, one has an inalienable right to bear arms, then the state is obliged to defend that right. The state is also obliged to defend intrusions on all other rights that they claim, like the right to private property. The real crazies, and I'd guess Wamp to be among them, would counter by asserting that the state doesn't have any real a priori purpose; instead, rights are to be defended by individuals alone or by private market means, like Rent-A-Cop. Well, you can see, one can go around and around this issue and avoid noticing that we live in a real world where cooperation is essential to our survival, even though it is consistently and brutally interfered with by those who simply want to claim their "inherent right," their "inalienable right," to help no one but themselves, while they snidely argue away all instances where they benefit from innumerable kinds of state "interference," like police protection, bailouts, sole source contracts, and subsidies. Theirs is not a system of human rights. It's simply wrong.
So, it's not really about rights. Because of the interference of the GOP and other pseudo-libertarians, a positive "right" to health care will exist only through the good, old-fashioned social compact. We, the people, must cause it to happen, through legislation, or constitutional amendment. Moreover, it must be financed in a progressive way, via tax policy, because the wealthy, who make up a disproportionate number of the "leave me alone" rights crowd, will not do so voluntarily. The social compact is messy. President Obama will have a hell of a time outgunning them. The opposition will use all their rhetorical weapons to convince the majority of Americans they will suffer more than they already do under what they'll mendaciously label a "socialist" or "totalitarian" health care system, even though the facts and demographics are clearly contrary.
It's a Conviction of the Heart. In 1997, around the time of the SCHIP funding crisis, Joe Conason of the NY Observer summed it up, "Let us not hear again from these creeps about 'family values' or 'compassionate conservatism.' Such is the devolution of conservatism in our time—from a philosophy concerned with overweening state authority to a movement that bullies children in the name of freedom," or of "rights."
And note, Mr. Wamp, as just reported, Tennessee's January 2009 unemployment rate hit a 23 year high at 9.8%. Meanwhile their Democratic wingnut Governor, Phil Bredesen, is making rude noises that he may very well turn down the federal stimulus plan funds intended to bolster unemployment insurance. That should certainly help the healthcare fairness situation in the state.
Wamp, quite literally, does not - could not - care much about his own constituents. Many are in the poorest regions of the country, and unemployment will rise further. It's a question of the heart. Mr. Wamp's heart, and "conservatism's" heart. He and his fellow travelers need to spend a day in an Tennessee emergency room. Or in a Tennessee homeless shelter. Or in a medically underserved Tennessee rural county. Test the heart.
For now, logic and facts fail to convince them. It's about the heart, really. The conviction of the heart. And Mr. Wamp's heart - and the heart of the GOP - stands convicted.
(Though written and performed for a different purpose, environmental protection, Kenny Loggins' song applies quite well here.)
Pyrrhic Victory Declared! Today, Congressman Steve King (IA-R), who believes President Obama will turn the United States into "a totalitarian dictatorship," reopened his vast mind vault and launched another misguided missile. By proposing a House "Victory in Iraq" resolution, Mr. King once again solidifies his "Congressloon" rating on They Will Say ANYTHING! This afternoon, MSNBC's Nora O'Donnell heard that the Iraq War, by "Democrat party" benchmarks, i.e. the hated "Pelosi Democrat Congress," had been won. He wasn't after a victory parade just yet, but we must - absolutely must - put President Obama on notice that this is now HIS war, and he'd better not blow it for the rest of us! The Congressloon observed that since the President says he's been saddled with an economic catastrophe, he'd better protect the really good stuff, like the Iraq War "victory," that he also inherited from the Bush years.
There's an adolescent snarkiness attached to this that's wide and deep, and a deeper sadness. First, there's the patently obvious attempt to draw a bright line between Bush's disastrous policies that misguided us into an unnecessary war and anything that President Obama does to address that dark legacy. In other words, Mr. King says, let's now formally bless an utterly craven war as a "job well done," and not ask the vitally important questions still gone begging about its shabby beginnings, and its consequences for our country, the Iraqi people, and the world. Second, if the idea that "victory" has been earned in Iraq were to gain traction, President Obama would be attacked for any new Iraq policies that did not keep U.S. troops there indefinitely, Korea-style. Mr.King's press release indicated nothing less,
This victory, however, may be squandered if President Obama withdraws American forces too hastily. In an effort to avoid this, this resolution outlines the path that we have followed to victory and calls upon President Obama to maintain this hard-won victory. This resolution is intended to send an important message to President Obama – that history will judge him harshly should he choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Pyrrhus Understood Too Late. His "victory" resolution also carries a deep sadness with it. Yes, we clearly won the military confrontation, needless though it was. But, no, we cannot in any way claim "victory" for the occupation that followed. Giving it the maximum benefit of the doubt, only the concept of Pyrrhic victory explains Iraq, a victory literally "in name only," a "victory" so costly that, as happened to Pyrrhus in the third century B.C., one loses the bigger war because of the so-called victory.
Let's not forget, Iraq was not a war against the terrorism that threatened the United States after 9/11. That bigger war was always a war against alQuida, and that war wasn't pursued to its end - how often did anyone in the post-2005 Bush administration inquire where bin Laden was? Iraq was always a war for influence and hegemony in the oil trade, and now it can only be seen, at best, as a Pyrrhic one - costly in human lives, harmful to our international reputation and heritage, and a drain on the world's financial underpinnings. And ultimately, rather than a victory, we have a defeat. Plutarch reported that, after the battle of Aesculum, Pyrrhus cried, “Another such victory and I am undone.”
In the days ahead as you read about Mr. King's resolution, recall the history of the Iraq quagmire, and recall the idea of Pyrrhic victory: mistaking failure for success.
The new plan for GM and Chrysler unveiled yesterday by the administration has caused quite a stir, especially among the bondholders and the UAW. The reason: President Obama, in his presser regarding the plan, mentioned the bugaboo word "bankruptcy." As in, if this plan doesn't work a "quick and surgical" use of Chapter 11 might offer the "best chance at success." This unveiling ceremony carried its own not-too-veiled threat: bankruptcy would endanger bondholder and union interests, so the choice for them is stark: negotiate your demands downward from your already lowered expectations or risk losing much much more.
