There Is No Success Like Success

++Happy Birthday to President Obama, Medicare and Medicaid.

++If you have a policy prescription that works, don't you just try and improve it or extend it? Social Security is now humming along at 75years and by the  estimates of the world's public policy gurus it is one of the most successful social welfare programs anywhere. But the GOP still wants to privatize it so that we would be at the mercy of Wall Street and balloon the national debt another $2 trillion.

++Medicare and Medicaid also have hit anniversaries at 50 years and boast high consumer satisfaction rates. Bernie Sanders has argued that our whole healthcare system should be Medicare for all. Now the GOP wants to cut both and replace Medicare with a voucher system, which would be out of my price range, since I already paid for Medicare.

++Maybe the rule of thumb is that anything the GOP proposes will cost the American taxpayer at least $1 trillion. We can call it THE IRAQ FORMULA. Multiply their proposal by an Iraq factor and get the approximate price.

++When listening to the mini-flap on Planned Parenthood, you might want to listen to local Republicans at the state level claiming how much cutting their federal funding off will cost the states.

++If things aren't broken, don't fix them. 

The Wrecking Crew --Part 2

++No, they haven't given up. Jeb! speaking about Medicare wants it phased out. Speaking before Americans for Prosperity, Jeb likened his program to Paul Ryan's harebrained scheme to give Medicare eligible people vouchers. FYI--as someone eligible for Medicare this September, Ryan's plan would cost me an additional $6,800--which I don't have. So if I can;t afford the Republican plan, how many millions of Americans would get screwed. A senior citizen barked at Jeb!--"I paid into it every year and now you want to take it away from me." Yes, he does.

++The rightwing blogosphere is saying that Social Security Disability is running out of money and should be cut. Having a brother-in-law on it and knowing what a lifesaver it has been for both him and his family, you might want to know that ,yes, periodically SSDI does have a shortfall, which is easily remedied by the larger Social Security Trust Fund reimbursing it. This has gone on for years.

++On Social Security, the Democrats managed to kill a Senate proposal to cut Social Security in real dollars and extend the retirement age. This will go on. The GOP is committed to privatizing Social Security, which would be bedlam and create trillions in new debt.

++The other "hot" issue for the right now is Medicaid. Medicaid expansion saves hospitals, particularly in rural areas where the GOP base live , and saves state's monies. But the Red states, nearly 20 of them, refused to expand the program because of the original Obamacare Supreme Court decision. 

++Then we have the continued war against Planned Parenthood. Besides the abortion issue,the Right's attack on Planned Parenthood has to do with contraceptives and a woman's right to choose. She doesn't even get to the abortion stage, just birth control.

++Then we have the Republican's attacking pensions. I guess no one gets older anymore. What in the social contract, don't they understand. There is nothing in the GOP anymore that speaks to the infirm or the elderly.

Another Cup of Coffee Before I Go

++My last few blogs show the Obama campaign is in pretty good condition unless it is outspent in a ratio of 5 to 1 or above and voter suppression turns into a major problem. Financial analysts agree that with the stock market at the current level history tends toward Obama but they also warn that if there is any sell-off or profit-taking around September or October he would have problems. So watch for this to happen in time to influence the election.

++The game for the GOP is to have a controlled electorate and through attack ads and tightening up voter registration and early voting to re-produce as much of the 2010 as possible. They can't stand the 2008 turnout because it showed greater participation by the young, Latinos and African-Americans.

++In the next couple of weeks keep your eyes on little changes in Swing States. For instance, Ohio was the Florida of 2004, where minorities were suppressed kicking the state to George W. Bush. Besides removing the two Democratic electoral commissioners yesterday. The Republican official in charge of the election said today "We should;t accommodate the black voter" referring to his ban on weekend voting, which drew the most African-Americans in areas around Cleveland. Ohio remains the absolute must for the Romney-Ryan ticket. No Ohio, no win, period.

++Peter Bergen, one of the world's leading experts on bin Laden and Al Qaeda, wrote a lengthy analysis of the new Swiftboating ad and eviscerated its main charges that President Obama leaked details of the operation before bin Laden was confirmed in Pakistan. Apparently, the secret was kept for over a year as the operation was planned. It is worth a read at CNN.com.

++The last two days have seen a new tactic by the GOP. They accuse Obama of not spending enough to get the economy out of the Depression--actually true but the GOP prevented him from enacting his JObs Bill. They also claim that his Healthcare Reform failed because it left over 30 million uninsured. True again but their proposal would have led to even more uninsured leaving about 48 million uninsured.

++Ed Gillespie tried to finesse his way out of the Romney Medicare problem by claiming he would ensure solvency by raising the age of eligibility. 

++The AP is pounding the drums on Social Security claiming again it is going bankrupt. Refer to Bernie Sanders and my past posts about how Social Security can last as long as the country wants it by a minimal of tinkering.

++Willard Romney said he would release his 2011 taxes on October 15th adding new meaning to the October surprise. This time he has instructed his accountant to pay more?

The President's Vacation

20% of Americans now believe President Obama is a Muslim. This is the same percentage of Americans who admit to peeing in pools and the same number who believe extraterrestrials are already among us. Not surprisingly, the uptick in the Muslim thought coincides with his support for the Muslim Center--sort of near the Twin Towers site. Ground Zero in my lexicon is Hiroshima. Sadly, the White House actually felt compelled to issue a statement about the President's Christianity and details of his daily devotion and prayers. The Miami Herald ran a piece on the ministers who spiritually advise the President, one of whom married the Bush girl. I long for the day that a President tells people his or her religion is none of anyone's business.

Now Michael Gerson,W's former speechwriter, pens a piece today lamenting the rapid demise of President Obama and his failure to create a non-partisan atmosphere in Washington. Gerson quotes the Nation about Obama's lack of producing results. Astonishing chutzpah. But this is the line from Republicans. R. Emmett Tyrell writes in the American Spectator a piece of how Obama is worse than Jimmy Carter. O what potential lost!

Let's hear it for Eugene Robinson and his column in today's Washington Post, which points out that President Obama is on a quiet winning streak right now. Robinson reminds everyone that expectations for Obama on his inauguration were absurdly high. Robinson writes,even if Obama had done back flips across the Potomac River, people would still ask why he hadn't found a cure for cancer, solved the Arab-Israeli conflict and ushered in an age of universal peace and prosperity.

This past week, the last American combat brigade in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait. Commentators questioned why Obama didn't do a version of getting in a flysuit with a codpiece and proclaiming "Mission Accomplished". The Left either felt the White House had muffed a photo opportunity or were snarky like Dennis Kucinich who said you're not out until you're all the way out. Just a FYI, there are still 2,500-5,000 soldiers still linked to the combat operation who will be coming home in a week. By September 1, President Obama will make the official announcement that the combat phase has officially ended. He promised he would end the Iraq War in this timeline and he did so two weeks early. He also said he would wind down the war responsibly and is stationing 50,000 troops in training Iraqis for another year. He has fulfilled a difficult campaign promise.

What do we hear from the conservatives and Republicans? Crickets. Only MSNBC covered the withdrawal in any depth and the great heroes returning did not receive coverage from the right-wing echochamber. Silence about their number 1 project of the last 7 1/2 years.

Conservatives and the Left have created a drumbeat about Social Security. The President said he was not going to "privatize" Social Security as long as he was President and would maintain the benefits. He went further and said that with only a few adjustments the program would be strengthened and last another 75 years. Hardly, the sound of major alterations.

You knew something was up that caused George Will to chide the Obama White House about lecturing Israel about peace. On September 2, the so-called Quartet of Powers announced that Israelis and Palestinians would begin direct peace talks in Washington with President Obama presiding.

Much to the consternation of the neo-conservatives, who have been using the threat of an Israeli attack on Iran to pressure President Obama to act against Tehran, the administration informed Tel Aviv that Iran was having trouble with its nuclear program and couldn 't even get around to thinking about a bomb for a year.

President Obama made a commitment that troop withdrawals would begin next summer from Afghanistan. General Petraeus has been lobbying the Hill to make the timetable more flexible . For now, he has been shut down by the White House.

President Obama continues to be criticized for the BP oil disaster. But the well is now contained and BP has been forced by the President to put up $20 billion to guarantee Gulf Residents compensation for their damaged livelihoods. The administration also ramped up its response operation and effectively found ways to keep the oil from the shore, although the total environmental damage remains unclear.

Then we had the announcement this week that General Motors would start selling stock again on Wall Street and begin paying back the government bailout. President Obama's much-criticized bailout of the auto industry saved nearly 17% of the U.S. economy. His bet has paid off but you don't hear much about that here in D.C.

And, Gene Robinson, is right. The President didn't do the popular thing but he did the right thing by defending the constitutional right of the construction of the Muslim Center in lower Manhattan.

So what disaster will strike while President Obama is gone? The good news is that Congress is out of session so he doesn't have to jet in and sort out a late minute glitch in a bill. But something will happen.

We're just lucky we have an over-achieving Black man cleaning up the mess left by the White boys. I think that's the heart of the argument.

Thomas Frank on Privitzing Social Security

On page 259-260 of The Wrecking Crew, Thomas Frank explains the effects of privatizing social security, a program being supported by House Republican Pat Ryan for the next Congress. I have never read such a succinct explanation of the rationale and the dire consequences of such a drastic policy move.

" The shimmering dream of privatizing Social Security, though, remains the great unreachable winger prize, and the right persists in the campaign regardless of the measure's unpopularity or the number of political careers it costs. President Bush, for example announced privatization to be his top priority on the day after his reelection in 2004, although he had not emphasized the issue during the campaign and although,in statistical terms, almost nobody had voted for him for this reason. He proceeded to chase the issue deep into the land of popular unpopularity , a region from which he never really returned.

" He did this because the potential rewards of privatizing Social Security justify any political cost. At one stroke it would both defund the operations of government and utterly reconfigure the way Americans interact with the state. It would be irreversible, too; the "transition costs" in any scheme to convert Social Security are so vast that no country can consider incurring them twice. Once the deal has been done and the trillions of dollars that pass through Social Security have been diverted from the U.S. treasury to stocks in private companies, the effects would be locked in for good. First, there would be an immediate flood of money into Wall Street, boosting the net worth of the wealthy and lifting the boats of the various brokerages and mutual fund companies who would handle the millions of new private accounts. Second, there would be an equivalent flow of money out of government accounts, immediately propelling the federal deficit up into the stratosphere and defunding a huge part of federal activity/

" The overall effect would be to marketize the nation's politics,elevate forever the cold rationale of the financial markets over such vague liberalisms as the common good and the public interest. The prctical results of such a titanic redirection of the state are easy to predict, given the persistent political demands of Wall Street: low wage growth, even weaker labor organizations, a free hand for management in downsizing, polluting, and so on. To hand Social Security over to Wall Street would be to enshrine these demands as the foremost objects of economic policy. After all, who is going to legislate higher minimum wages or safer food or cleaner air when such legislation can be construed as an attack on the portfolios of the nation's beloved seniors? Not only would privatization change the soul; it would permanently reverse the political valence of the famous "third rail of American politics,"transforming Social Security overnight from the bane of the business community into its most powerful weapon. Touch Wall Street and your're dead."

I think that sums it up rather nicely.

Friday Coffee--Zimbabwe

It may be the day Curtis Le May cried. The United States and Russia reached their first major arms deal in 20 years. They announced 1/3rd cuts in nuclear arsenals, leaving each side with 1,550--still enough to blow up the world several times. President Obama and Medevev will sign the treaty in Prague and I am sure it will not be passed by the Senate.

Bin Laden released one of his lamest radio tapes yet. He warned the United States he would kill any American Al Qaeda captures if any of the 9/11 plotters are executed. At the present, he doesn't have any Americans in captivity. Gone are the old days of promising Armageddon but maybe he's also aware of Tan Man Boehner and can't think to top that rhetoric. I take his message as a sign his gang is seriously depleted.

Bibi didn't make out so well on his trip to Washington. Yes, he received a standing ovation at AIPAC but he was told by Obama "here's your hat, what's your hurry." as the President opted for dinner with his wife and children rather than to hear Bibi stonewall him. Apparently, Bibi didn't bring the promised concessions and only wanted bunker-buster bombs to drop on Iran. He also reiterated in his meetings here his commitment to building more Levittowns in Jerusalem. He is doing this for the big bankroller of the Likud Party, Miami-based billionaire Irving Moskowitz. He and Mr. Edelman, the billionaire casino ower in Las Vegas, are the two encouraging new settlements from the outside.

The issue here is actually serious. The Arab League is meeting and the pro-American Arab states are being confronted by the pro-Tehran countries on the issue of Iran's nuclear facilities. The lack of progress on the Middle East Peace Talks isn't helping the pro-American states on the issue of further sanctions.

David Frum's wife has weighed in on the AEI firing saying that the conservative movement has become like the doctrinaire Left it used to mock. The intolerance of dissent has been dubbed "the closing of the conservative mind".

As a way of apology for cancelling his Indonesian trip until June, President Obama gave an interview with an Indonesian journalist, where he reminisced about his childhood experiences there. He admitted to breaking a boy's arm in a bicycle accident. He said he didn't tell a teacher he wanted to be president, instead he wanted to be a fireman. I'm sure conservatives can make hay out of the interview because he spoke Indonesian and even admitted he once had been fluent.

Bill Clinton was wrong. He said that Obama's ratings would jump 10% with the passage of health care. According to RS2000, they only jumped 5 points and his negatives fell. The same poll saw the enthusiasm gap narrow between Democrats and Republicans. 55% of Dems are enthusiastic about going to the polls; 62% of Republicans.

In a piece I posted last week, I noted that teabaggers e-mailed the home address of Virginia congressman Tom Perriello, who voted for healthcare. And they got it wrong. But what has transpired is that the address was his brother's who found that his propane gas lines had been cut. The FBI is investgating as a serious attempt to kill the congressman. Two more members of Congress have also reported death threats today.

The next big item to solve is social security. It appears that with so many taking early retirement because of the recession social security will now run out of funds in 2016. Given my financial situation, this is just my luck. As I have said too many times, the solution to this is rather easy if people get over their tax phobia. President Obama is supposed to receive the recommendations on this matter from his debt commission in early December. Erskine Bowles, one of the Democrats on the commission, told a North Carolina business meeting that the commission will recommend cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

If Congress begged off any more serious reforms this year, who could blame them? Having been in session for much of the year and meeting around the clock, there is a high burnout rate among the staff. But look for bank reform to be debated after the break and the first run made at immigration reform. Republicans would rather opt for naming more people to appear on postage stamps.

Whenever the world seems to be turning elsewhere, the North Koreans always make a play for attention. Today it looks like they torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel with 100 aboard. It seems they used up all their rockets for another test to see whether they can reach Hawaii.

The King of Derivatives, former Senator Phil Gramm, writing in the Wall Street Journal, says that the healthcare debate is not over yet, by any means. Senator Gramm was the one who said during the collapse of the economy in the fall of 2008 that Americans were just whiners. Speaking of the Wall Street Journal, they are going to charge for reading them on line. So now they become like the Financial Times, another newspaper I no longer read.

Working on something work related, I was reviewing a list of projects being conducted by USAID in various countries abroad. All worthwhile. But in looking them over, an awful thought occurred to me-- virtually none of these programs would be allowed by the New Republican Party as government programs in the United States. The commonsense consensus that has been created over the years about development and democracy would not be tolerated by the new authoritarians. And many of these programs were initiated by the last administration.

THE ALEXANDRIA AGENDA

Today conservatives release their Mount Vernon Declaration. They argue that our understanding of the Constitution has been distorted by our politics, culture and universities--in short by all America. I lack the literary imagination to envision our Founding Fathers as conservatives or imagine our current conservatives would have to the balls to rebel against Britain. The constitutional world they envision is agrarian,pre-civil war and equal rights for everyone regardless of race, creed or ethnic group. Their efforts were paid for by Coors Beer; I guess in honor of our great brewer George Washington.

Instead of blaming America first, the Alexandria Agenda is written a few blocks down from George Washington's survey office, Gadsby's Tavern, where the founding fathers ate and drank, and near the grave of the unknown revolutionary soldier, and accepts America as it is. There are no large corporate or foundation grants funding this historic enterprise. Since our Constitution does provide for the "general welfare", our Agenda is modest in scope and lacks all ideology. Our guiding founder is Benjamin Franklin, who believed in solving practical problems.

What kind of society do we want?

Health Care. We are the only advanced country without universal health care. Medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. The equivalent of all the Vietnam War dead die every year from lack of health care. This is obscene and beneath our dignity. Health care costs are soon to become 20% of our GDP, a severe handicap to any future economic growth. We propose Medicare for all. Howard Dean has explained at great length how including the younger population in Medicare will dramatically lower its costs. However, given the political realities of Washington, we would accept passage of any of the health reform bills with the proviso that all lacunae be filled in later. Presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt have tried unsuccessfully to adopt universal health care measure for the United States. It is a large unfulfilled piece of the national agenda.

Housing. There are an estimated 18.6 million empty homes in the country since the subprime mortgage crisis. There are now over 3 million homeless in the country with an increasing number of suburbanites. These empty homes have been written off by banks and now are a blight in our towns and cities. Local governments should make provisions for the homeless to occupy these dwellings to prevent further deterioration. A new Homestead Act should be passed to encourage younger people to re-settle the cities that have been devastated by the Great Recession. Sweat equity could form the down payment and suitable payments could be made to allow a younger generation to acquire some wealth.

Jobs. For those Americans over the age of 55 ,who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time,they should be able to draw social security because the odds are great that they have paid in enough to qualify. This should apply to those who have held jobs that will not come back because of globalization. We must concentrate on the younger generation, which actually may experience a lost decade. The federal government should create FDR-like WPA to employ the young so that they are not lost for a generation.

Education. When state governments can not afford their obligations for public education, the federal government must intervene to stave off the sharp cut-backs in education funding and in education facilities. The government should adopt the Obama proposals to underwrite federal loans to college-age students and keep these loans out of the hands of bankers. The level of debt acquired by college age students is simply not sustainable, plaguing the young for years to come. Every nation, including developing ones, understands that education is the absolute key to progress and economic advancement.

Science. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both were committed to the development of American science. Where the private sector fails to invest in scientific research and development, both the Federal and State governments must be obligated to underwrite such efforts. In this case, science must be kept free from politics and religious interference.

Debt. The most fortunate of us have profited from living in this country.The grave disparity of wealth in this country is a threat to the national welfare and stability. Efforts must be made to increase revenues from the top 2%, who have been the sole beneficiaries of the economics of the last ten years. Clearly, these people did not obey the "visible hand " Adam Smith wrote about, a prudent morality and self-control over the acquisition of wealth.

The manufactured alarm over Social Security can be alleviated by ending the cap of social security taxes and by making social security means-tested. With my proposal on 55 and older unemployed becoming eligible, these measures are needed. As it is, Social Security has the means to fully fund obligations until 2047. With my added measures, it will be permanently solvent.

Medicare will remain an issue but depending on whether it is extended down to younger people the means for solving it will be complex. With a passage of any of the present legislation, there will be significant savings in costs particularly in the second ten years.

The large remaining issue of debt is the national security budget that has been running over $1 trillion a year for the last several years. A national debate is necessary about our military commitments abroad and the role of the United States in the 21st Century. At our present rate, the United States resembles Brezhnev's Soviet Union bristling with military power but an empty shell of economic development. The United States will have to eschew its current imperial delusion if it is to adopt a balanced foreign policy that is within its means. Another aspect is to make defense procurement based on market-based economics. Currently, three major corporations dictate the costs of military procurements and have the advantage of veto power over cost-savings.

These modest proposals will have the long-term advantage of cutting our national debt and making us more secure against foreign domination.

Energy Self-Suffiency: Since the Nixon Administration, the United States has been acutely aware of its massive consumption of foreign oil and the foreign policy ramifications of such a dependency. Because of technological advances, there is no further reason for us to remain in this situation. Solar, geo-thermal, wind, nuclear and natural gas allow us the possibility of independence. Nano-technology is advancing so fast that solar costs will drop dramatically in the years ahead. Perhaps, there will be a day for nuclear fusion but even so energy indepedence can be achieved within ten years. For proponents of domestic oil exploration, additional reserves would only represent another year of our total needs. It simply is not an option. Whether one holds to climate change or is a skeptic, our national interest demands we advance in the use of alternative energy use.

Immigration Reform: With the exception of American Indians, we are all immigrants. Currently, there is an estimated 15-20 million people in the United States without legal status. They pay taxes and social security and provide cheap labor for American businesses. To imagine expulsion as the nativist dream is to envision a scale of human rights violations that would bring permanent shame on the country. An immigration reform bill already exists--the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and John McCain during the Bush years--that would provide the means that these people can regularize their status. However, imperfect, it should be passed as soon as possible so that we can clean up this national disgrace.

If these issues are addressed, the United States can make the transition back to its past position as an economic power in the world. The country is for all us. It is not just for some people with obscure ideologies that festihize our Constitution and privately harbor dreams of going back to a time before the New Deal and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The sooner we fight back against the new revisionism the better off we will be in advancing to a more prosperous, just future.

E Pluribus Unum