Obama the Fighter?

Consider the words in this presidential speech:

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today.

These words could well have been spoken by President Obama since they are as relevant today as in 1936 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered this campaign speech. While it is easy to think that today’s polarized political atmosphere is worse than it’s ever been, that is hardly so.  In times of economic stress, there is plenty of fear and worry to go around – along with those who would like to exploit these for their own political gain.  And what period in our history had more economic stress than the Great Depression?

Perhaps the biggest battle between those on the political left and political right is over how active the government should be in regulating the economy to make sure that it works well for everybody.  Those on the left usually subscribe to the Keynesian economics school.

Keynesian economics advocates a mixed economy—predominantly private sector, but with a large role of government and public sector—and served as the economic model during the later part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war economic expansion (1945–1973), though it lost some influence following the stagflation of the 1970s. The advent of the global financial crisis in 2007 has caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought.

On the other side are those on the political right, most notably those in the Austrian School of economics who believe that less government intervention in the economy is better and more government intervention leads to socialism.

Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek criticized Keynesian economic policies for what he called their fundamentally collectivist approach, arguing that such theories encourage centralized planning, which leads to malinvestment of capital, which is the cause of business cycles.

What makes it so difficult to take sides on is that on one hand total government control of the economy doesn’t work as the downfall of many Communist nations has demonstrated. Even China has resorted to some free market economy ideas and its takeover of Hong Kong has not dimmed its free market vigor. But no government control whatsoever of the economy doesn’t work either. Lack of adequate regulation can cause large numbers of people to get hurt as the recent Wall Street meltdown demonstrated. And what about a safety net for those who are in distress through no fault of their own? So there is a middle ground that probably works best. But where is that middle ground? That is where reasonable people disagree.

But back to FDR and the Great Depression. The economy was in massive upheaval with huge numbers (even compared to today) of unemployed approaching 25%. FDR’s Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover’s agenda of letting the free market solve the crisis on its own clearly wasn’t working so FDR decided that the government had to get involved in the form of the New Deal which in effect, was a massive government injection of demand into the economy to get it running again. And while the New Deal certainly helped in those grim times, the country didn’t finally escape the Great Depression until World War II which although it was fought to preserve our liberty, it was in effect a massive government spending program that generated jobs.

But despite the crying need for government help in this dire situation, FDR still ran into bitter opposition from those on the political right. So what does he do? Reasoning and compromise are the first choices. But in the face of such intractable opponents, FDR decided that the only way to make progress was to fight as in these passages from the same speech.

They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

But while FDR chose to take the fight to those who were against him, President Obama has chosen to use reasoning and compromise to try and achieve his ends. And normally, this is the way the political process works. But he is dealing with a Republican party whose Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell said that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” And the parts of the Republican Party who may well be willing to deal with President Obama do so at their own peril when the even more militant Tea Party activists get done with them.

FDR did much to take his case to the people in the form of his famous fireside chats  back when radio was each household’s principal link to the world.

During his first term as Governor of New York, Roosevelt faced a conservative Republican legislature so during each legislative session he would occasionally address the citizens of New York directly. He appealed to them for help getting his agenda passed. Letters would pour in following each of these "chats," which helped pressure legislators to pass measures Roosevelt had proposed. He began making the informal addresses as President on March 12, 1933, during the Great Depression.

Today President Obama faces an economy that is generally considered to be the worst since the Great Depression. And like FDR he is facing equally bitter opposition, some of those who also hate him whether it is because of his race or otherwise. 

But fighting means occasionally losing and getting ones nose bloodied. However, it seems as though the president’s ego doesn’t allow him to be on the “losing” side of a fight even if it’s only temporarily.

A notable example that comes to mind was the so-called public option during the negotiations on health care reform. In the absence of a single-payer system (which former Illinois State Senator Obama supported but then later deserted as president) the public option was the only way that private insurance companies would have enough competition to keep the system honest. So he supported the public option until it became apparent that there would probably be enough votes in Congress to defeat it. Then he became strangely silent on the issue.

It’s easy to say that whatever President Obama is in favor of, the opposition party will be there to thwart him. But leadership is about fighting for what one thinks is right even if it means being on the losing side once in a while. Yes, he may well be voted down in Congress but the president also has the powerful bully pulpit at his disposal to take his case to the people, just like FDR successfully did with his fireside chats. If he were to get enough people on his side by using his considerable persuasive powers, he could well prevail on a number of important issues.

In addition, presenting his case to the people would have another tremendous benefit. It would engage the average citizen in the political process – something that is sorely lacking in this age of political control by the moneyed and corporate interests.

Right now those moneyed and corporate interests are having it their way. In the last decade, the rich have become much richer while those in the middle and lower classes have struggled. Large corporations have done very well, but those who work for them have struggled. For those on the right, their priority is now cutting government spending presumably to try and cut the deficit that they have largely created over the last 10 years.

But severely cutting government spending during a period of high unemployment only tends to create more unemployment. And make no mistake, unemployment is our most urgent short-term crisis in need of attention. In line with the Keynesian economics that worked for FDR, government has to be the spender of last resort to boost the economy and create more jobs. Simply putting more money into the hands of people at the top with the hopes of it “trickling down” simply hasn’t worked.

But those people at the top have somebody to fight for them. And that is usually those on the political right. Although they obscure things by raising social issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control, the predictable result of their policies is that those on the top of the economic food chain are the beneficiaries to the detriment of others.

Those in the middle and lower classes need someone to fight for them too! President Obama was elected in 2008 as the man to do that job. But he has disappointed so many on the left who can only wonder if he is really on their side but is unwilling to fight for what he believes in. Or even worse, is he just more of a corporate centrist than the populist fighter for the middle and lower classes he claimed to be during the campaign?

Without a primary challenger, the question becomes irrelevant. For those who feel that electing a Republican president would be a disaster, like it or not, President Obama is the only hope for our economy getting any better.

A couple of crucial tests are coming up.

One is the August 2nd upcoming deadline on raising the debt ceiling. Most observers feel that not raising the debt ceiling by the deadline would place the US in default and have catastrophic consequences on the world economy. While President Obama must agree to some spending cuts, he must also fight to raise taxes on the wealthiest to help give the government the revenues it needs to operate. The Republicans will undoubtedly resist. But the majority of the electorate is in favor of these tax increases and will be on the President’s side.

And if the unemployment numbers do not markedly improve by the 2012 election season, our cool and calculating president may then decide that this may lose him the election and he will then be finally forced to fight for programs that will create jobs.

So we may well make President Obama into a fighter after all whether it is by his choice – or not!

Will We Ever Get Our Jobs Back?

This is the time of year when the media likes to do stories on graduation ceremonies to talk about the prospects of these new entrants into the work world.  Although some have struggled from time to time, these younger fresh faces have usually done relatively well in the job market, at least compared to many of the older workers who have been shut out of the job market for being “overqualified”.

But if nothing else, this recent NYT article Outlook Is Bleak Even for Recent College Graduates confirms that if anything, the job market in recent years has gotten even worse.

Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought by the sour economy is more widespread than just a few careers led astray or postponed. Even for college graduates — the people who were most protected from the slings and arrows of recession — the outlook is rather bleak.

Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.

The article goes on to say…

Among the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by this spring, when the survey was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007.

Even these figures understate the damage done to these workers’ careers. Many have taken jobs that do not make use of their skills; about only half of recent college graduates said that their first job required a college degree.

Taking a first job that doesn’t require a college degree isn’t the end of the world in itself.  For example, I worked as a bartender for several months after graduation before finding my first professional job.  But I’m sure that many of these current graduates fear that they may be waiting a long, long, time for that first professional job – and for good reason!  Because unlike previous recessions, many of our recent job losses are not cyclical but instead have been permanently lost to offshoring.

Back in August, I posted Our Jobs Crisis which argued that if anything, we are underestimating how serious a threat this present shortage of jobs is for America’s future.  And that it is no longer just low skill jobs that are being offshored but also many professional level jobs that were previously immune to economic downturns.  While each political party is pointing fingers at the other asking where the jobs are, the endless distractions with other issues causes me to fear that neither side really cares or even worse, knows what to do about it. 

Yes, our economy is slowly recovering based on economic output.  Corporations are making handsome profits.  But the jobs are just not there.  They are simply not hiring – at least not here in the US.  Will we ever get our jobs back?  Maybe, but there is plenty of reason to fear the worst.

By now, most of us are aware of how we are losing jobs to offshoring.  More and more companies are deciding to take advantage of cheaper labor rates elsewhere in relocating their factories. It has gotten to where many product categories at our stores are only available as imports.

But if we are to believe software developer and author Martin Ford who wrote The Lights in the Tunnel, offshoring is only the tip of the iceberg next to the far greater threat to our economy from automation.

Economists almost universally believe in something called the "Luddite fallacy" -- which basically says that advancing technology will always create more jobs than it destroys. In other words, any fear that technology will never cause widespread, long term unemployment is a fallacy. This has always been true in the past. Will it hold true indefinitely? Will advanced technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) ultimately change the economic rules?

The previous link has not only a way to purchase a hard copy of the book but in the interest of bringing this issue to light also offers a free downloadable PDF version of the book to read and share.  I read it and found it to be compelling and yes, disturbing reading.

Like this passage which should send chills up the spine of a college-educated “knowledge worker”…

For knowledge workers, there is really a double dose of bad news. Not only are their jobs potentially easier to automate than other job types because no investment in mechanical  equipment  is  required;  but  also,  the  financial incentive  for getting  rid of  the  job  is  significantly higher.

As a result, we can expect that, in the future, automation will fall heavily on knowledge workers and in particular on highly paid workers. In cases where technology is not yet sufficient to automate the job, offshoring is likely to be pursued as a interim solution.


So while we lament about our jobs going to other countries with lower wages, if this scenario is correct, the job gains of the low wage countries will be only temporary until they too lose many of these same jobs to automation.

As this trend continues, it is not hard to see massive amounts of unemployment worldwide.  And with fewer people earning a paycheck, the demand for these products decreases which forces manufacturers to cut back on human labor even further to try and cut costs – the classic deflationary spiral which unchecked leads to a depression.

And when manufacturing jobs like this are eliminated, the result is that the upper management and stockholders make more money while the workers suffer economic hardship.  This increasing concentration of wealth at the top not only can create instability (such as what we had in Egypt and Libya) but results in even less overall consumer demand for goods and services.

Imagine  that  your  job  is  to  sell  as  many  $50  cell phones  as  you  can  in  one  hour.  You are offered two doors: Behind door # 1 sit Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, the two richest people in America. Behind door # 2 are a thousand average people.  You may well  be  tempted  to choose  the  first  door  just  so  you’ll  get  to meet  Bill  and Warren, but in terms of getting your job done, you would probably agree that door # 2 is clearly the best choice. This is because the demand for the mass market products that drive our  economy depend much more on  the number of  potential  customers  than  on  the wealth  of  any particular customer.  You  are  not  going  to  be  able  to  sell  40  cell phones to one person, no matter how wealthy they are. 

So is this doomsday scenario really going to come about someday?  Nobody really knows for sure. As noted before, most economists subscribe to the luddite fallacy and thus feel that new technology along with eliminating jobs creates enough new ones that we don’t have to worry.  But Ford’s argument is that with technology now accelerating exponentially, automation instead of helping man to do his job will soon in many instances be able to replace him altogether in the workplace – and in ways that were unforeseen only a short time ago.  Interestingly enough, one of the “Indicators to Watch For” in his book to tell us we are getting into trouble is “Diminishing prospects for college graduates”.

If these predictions come true, our leaders are going to have some very difficult problems to solve if there aren’t enough jobs to support much of our population and along with it, our economy.  One suggestion Ford offers is to tax corporations simply based on profits instead of the present system of payroll taxes which gives companies incentives to reduce headcount by offshoring or automation. This additional tax income can then perhaps be used to support government created jobs to do things that we need such as rebuilding the infrastructure while at the same time creating the demand for products and services our economy needs to survive. But while this solution would appeal to liberals who believe in FDR/New Deal types of programs, conservatives who say they hate big government would never stand for it.  But the conservative solution, which is about allowing the rich to become richer in the hopes of their someday providing more jobs certainly isn’t working. 

Whatever solution we come up with, we have to start taking mass unemployment as the extremely serious problem it is and start to come up with answers now!

Republicans Backed Into a Corner

The 2010 mid-term elections here in the US were all about how the Republicans were going to improve the economy and create jobs. And balance the budget. How they were going to do this in an economy that was arguably the worst since the Great Depression was anybody’s guess. But enough people were convinced to give them another chance and voted them control of the US House of Representatives along with a number of state governorships.

This lead to my posting right after the election Put Up or Shut Up Time for the Republicans.

[The Republican] plan to balance the budget is to extend the tax cuts to all including the wealthiest 2% along with mostly unspecified “spending cuts”. We don’t know exactly what they have in mind but the most consistent story is that defense, Social Security, and Medicare cuts are not on the table which is the lion’s share of the budget. With precious little else to cut, how do they propose to balance the budget while not only refusing to raise taxes but also swelling the deficit with more tax cuts for the wealthy? The math just doesn’t add up! But then again, they now have a chance to propose their own budget in the House to answer these questions.

But by forcing the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest during the Congressional Lame Duck session last year, the Republicans were already starting to back themselves into a corner. The only possible ways out were to make cuts in defense, Social Security, Medicare, or all three.

But Social Security and Medicare are extremely popular programs and recent polls have shown that over 3 out of 4 Americans have rejected the idea of any cuts to these programs.

So by process of elimination, there are only two remaining alternatives for the Republicans to choose from. One is to propose cuts in defense which usually goes against conservative ideology but would mitigate or avoid having to deal with the "third rail" associated with messing with Social Security and Medicare. Or give in to the right and try and sell the public on making all the cuts to Social Security and Medicare without touching defense.

The Republicans chose the latter and apparently felt that Congressman Ryan could sell this to the American public. But the more Americans read the fine print of Ryan’s plan, the less they are buying it.

Here from his "Roadmap" site is Ryan’s proposal for Medicare.

It preserves the existing Medicare program for those currently enrolled or becoming eligible in the next 10 years (those 55 and older today) - So Americans can receive the benefits they planned for throughout their working lives. For those currently under 55 – as they become Medicare-eligible – it creates a Medicare payment, initially averaging $11,000, to be used to purchase a Medicare certified plan. The payment is adjusted to reflect medical inflation, and pegged to income, with low-income individuals receiving greater support. The plan also provides risk adjustment, so those with greater medical needs receive a higher payment.

So instead of the government acting as the insurer as in Medicare, it will offer payments for individuals to shop around for their own private insurance. Just the idea of people in this age group with all of their mental and physical infirmities shopping around for the best deal on their health insurance boggles the mind!

But what happens if (most say when) the premiums for the so-called Medicare certified plans grow faster than what the government is willing and able to pay for? The policyholder must then make up the difference or go without health insurance.

This would be a really tough sell to get present Medicare beneficiaries to accept. But to get around that, this plan is being sold as affecting only those presently under the age 55. As long as it’s someone else getting screwed, that’s not so bad! The plan for Medicaid which insures low-income people leads to a similar problems that may result in some losing coverage.

And here is part of Ryan's proposal for Social Security.

Offers workers under 55 the option of investing over one third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts, similar to the Thrift Savings Plan available to Federal employees…Makes the program permanently solvent…with an eventual modernization of the retirement age.

Of course the “modernization of the retirement age” means raising it, a position openly advocated by New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie. But postponing the retirement age creates an additional hardship for those who do physical labor for a living in addition to those near the present retirement age who have been especially hit hard by unemployment. Raising the maximum taxable earnings for Social Security above $106,800 would likely address any future shortfalls without having to cut benefits. But this goes against the Republican ideology that taxes should never be raised!

Perhaps the most controversial part is Ryan's proposal for Tax Reform.

Simplifies tax rates to 10 percent on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25 percent on taxable income above these amounts…Promotes saving by eliminating taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends; also eliminates the death tax [the Republican epithet for the estate tax].

So instead of the present highest marginal tax rate of 35% for the wealthiest under the present extended Bush tax cuts (compared to about 39% under Bill Clinton when the budget was last balanced), Ryan advocates cutting it even further to 25%. And while those who work for their income would still have to pay taxes, those more well to do who can afford to live on just investment income get a free pass on taxes.

More and more people are starting to see a pattern here. It is difficult to continually advocate governmental policies that are seen to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everybody else. Any while Mr. Ryan is a pretty slick salesman for his budget policies when he appears as a TV talking head, his recent experiences at local town hall meetings have resulted in booing and heckling by some of the attendees.

Rep. Dan Webster (R-FL) along with many other Republicans around the country suffered a similar fate during one of his recent town hall meetings while trying to defend the Ryan plan.

Republican governors adopting policies that have made budget cuts in areas like education while at the same time supporting tax cuts for corporations are also getting some pushback sometimes in the form of recalls from some of its citizens.

Don’t think the Democrats haven’t noticed the turmoil among some Senate Republicans in deciding if they really want to stick their necks out in support of the Ryan budget plan that passed the Republican controlled House. So with no danger of losing and in the spirit of "cooperation"…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced on Wednesday that he would host a vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget as a means of forcing moderate GOP senators to weigh in on the legislation’s controversial proposals.

While the Tea Party purists may choose to ignore the growing voter dissatisfaction with the Ryan tax and budget proposals, the more moderate Republicans may well feel that they have been backed into a corner trying to defend these proposals that may well lead to some heavy losses in 2012. And what about the promised creation of more jobs? Of course they say that will come along if we agree to even more tax cuts. So how many Republicans will continue to try and defend the Ryan proposals in the face of such strong and emotional opposition? Stay tuned!

Post Script - May 25, 2011

Democrat Captures House Seat in Special Election

The results set off elation among Democrats and soul-searching among Republicans, who questioned whether they should rethink their party’s commitment to the Medicare plan, which appears to have become a liability heading into the 2012 elections.


Two months ago, the Democrat, Kathy Hochul, was considered an all-but-certain loser in the race against the Republican, Jane Corwin. But Ms. Hochul seized on the Republican’s embrace of the proposal from Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to overhaul Medicare, and she never let up.

Obama's Dilemma in Libya

di·lem·ma [di lémmə]n

1. situation with unsatisfactory choices: a situation in which somebody must choose one of two or more unsatisfactory alternatives

Suppose it was you sitting in the Oval Office and had to quickly decide whether or not to intervene in Libya to prevent the imminent slaughter of thousands, what would you have done?

It seems like a pretty easy decision. Prevent the slaughter of thousands or stand by while it happens. But of course this “easy” decision to prevent the slaughter is laced with maddening complexity. Last weekend as part of a roundtable on Meet the Press, Ted Koppel did an eloquent summary of the reasons why this decision may be just as unsatisfactory as the alternative.

The question hasn't yet been answered as to why it is that Libya, of all countries in that region, has won the humanitarian defense sweepstakes of 2011. We have seen many countries, both in that region and throughout the world, where civilian loss and civilian suffering has been much, much greater. Congo for the past 12 years, we've lost about five million people. Sudan, three million people, never any talk of military intervention. Take a look at what's going on in the Ivory Coast today. Secretary Clinton was talking about the number of refugees that might have come out of a Gadhafi attack on Benghazi. You've got 700,000 refugees in the Ivory Coast right now--close to a million, in fact. Why, why Libya? Hasn't been answered.

[Then there is] Syria. Remember that the current president's father, back in 1982, when he had a little rebellion on his hands in the city of Hama...wiped them out…Eighty thousand people were killed in Hama. What do we know about the rebels in Libya? One of the few things we know about them is that there was from that region of Libya a disproportionately high number of young men who joined al-Qaeda in Iraq. Are these the folks that we want to associate ourselves with? We know for a fact that Gadhafi is a bad guy, but we know very little about the people who seek to replace him.

We don’t seem to mind military operations for humanitarian purposes – as long as we don’t have to deal with seeing casualties on TV.

I just wanted to invoke the law of unintended consequences…Remember Somalia. There was never a more humanitarian mission than when President George H.W. Bush, the elder Bush, when he ordered U.S. troops into Somalia to avoid the starvation of hundreds of thousands of people. Ultimately, that led to a dead Ranger being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. We pulled out of Somalia just in panic; and a few weeks later, when Rwanda happened, the United States was so shell-shocked that it was unable to do anything and 800,000 people died.

This doesn’t include a host of other questions about, for example, what happens if the operation is unable take Qaddafi out without US ground troops which the president has promised not to send. And make no mistake, if Qaddafi is still left in power, he will still be able to carry out his threat of genocide as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

And then there is the question about whether President Obama should have first obtained permission from Congress to start this military action against Libya. While this would have been desirable, how practical was it under the circumstances? The president did consult with leaders in Congress. And US Senate Resolution 85 which urged the UN Security Council to take further action against Libya including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone, was passed by unanimous consent on March 1. But time was very much of the essence to prevent Qaddafi’s troops from reaching Benghazi and carrying out his threat to start killing his citizens. What if Congress were to get deadlocked on this decision like they have on so many previous occasions? If you were President Obama, would you want to take the chance of that happening?

Despite all of the windbagging about allowing Congress to vote on this, I’m sure that many are privately relieved that they don’t have to go on record as to how they would have voted. For now, they have the luxury of waiting and seeing how it all turns out and then taking whatever position in hindsight makes them look best.

But President Obama had no such luxury. He had to make the choice of either agreeing to intervene in Libya for humanitarian reasaons and take all of the criticism and second guessing that goes with it if things had turned out bad. Or he could have decided to stay out of it all and endure the worldwide condemnation if Qaddafi had been able to carry out the slaughter of his people. That is indeed a dilemma!

Nobody knows how this will all turn out. But it’s hard to imagine any thoughtful and reasonable person not trying to prevent a massive loss of life when an opportunity like this, especially when a coalition of others is asking for your help. I think that under the extremely difficult circumstances, the president made the best choice possible.

Nicholas Kristof in his NYT op-ed Is It Better to Save No One? sums it up this way.

Critics argue that we are inconsistent, even hypocritical, in our military interventions. After all, we intervened promptly this time in a country with oil, while we have largely ignored Ivory Coast and Darfur — not to mention Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.

We may as well plead guilty. We are inconsistent. There’s no doubt that we cherry-pick our humanitarian interventions.

But just because we allowed Rwandans or Darfuris to be massacred, does it really follow that to be consistent we should allow Libyans to be massacred as well? Isn’t it better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none?

The Assault on Education

Shortly after the Republican victory in November, I posted Put Up or Shut Up Time for the Republicans since the Republican narrative during the fall campaign was that they could balance budgets strictly by cutting spending without increasing taxes. But since they were unwilling (or unable) to specifically name programs they wanted to cut, it would be interesting to see what they would finally come up with.

On the federal level, the proposed cuts were for a grand total of about $61 billion out of a deficit of about $1.5 trillion including cuts to Planned Parenthood which critics feel has nothing to do with saving money.

Planned Parenthood, like other health care providers, provides a range of services for women. Every year, Planned Parenthood screens millions of women for cervical cancer, breast cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. The organization offers flu shots, diabetes screening and a host of other health services to women who might not otherwise have the means to get them. Nearly half of Planned Parenthood's clients qualify for Medicaid.

But Planned Parenthood also provides access to safe, legal abortions, and that has earned it the lasting enmity of those who would make that procedure illegal. The budget bill passed by the House would cut all funding, including Medicaid, from Planned Parenthood, likely putting it out of business.

While the Republican controlled House can pass just about any bill cutting any spending they wish to target, they know it is little more than a symbolic gesture since the Democratic majority in the Senate and the Democratic president will never let bills like this become law. But it sure makes for a great opportunity for conservatives to appeal to their base!

But it’s a far different story at the state level where Republican governors and legislatures that are in control can more easily pass spending cuts that suit their ideological views. And it seems like the most prominent target of the cuts is education.

The most visible story is in Madison, Wisconsin where the governor not only demanded pay cuts from its teachers, but also most of their collective bargaining rights. The interested reader can check out my previous posting, Making Sense of the Wisconsin Standoff.

But here in Pennsylvania, Republican Governor Tom Corbett has proposed what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls a Brutal Budget that makes massive cuts in spending for education.

A governor's budget is more than a ledger; it's a blueprint of priorities. This year, in the hands of Tom Corbett, it's also a sharp and bloody ax swinging at essential programs, particularly education.

In issuing his first budget, Gov. Corbett made it clear he means to keep his campaign pledge to rein in state spending and his $27.3 billion proposal contained no new or increased state taxes. But gouging funding levels for state universities will undercut his agenda for creating and retaining jobs, and hitting school districts with the deepest cuts undoubtedly will trigger tax hikes at the local level.

This is all so wrong on so many levels. Of course, the governor's object is to balance the budget without raising any state taxes. But if the result is triggering tax hikes at the local level, doesn’t that count as a tax hike? After all, the money is still coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets.

The purpose of state supported universities is to provide educational opportunities to its residents without their having to pay very expensive private university tuitions. For many of not most people, college would be otherwise unaffordable. So while again there is no state tax hike, aren’t the resulting tuition hikes still money that will be coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets? And if college then becomes unaffordable for some, isn’t that too much of a price for those people to pay?

Perhaps the most insidious damage would come from the cuts to the local school districts. In general, public schools are financed by a combination of local property and state taxes. So the cut in state taxes will mean either an increase in property taxes (for those school districts that can afford it) or cuts in the classroom (for those that cannot).

At least in theory, public education is supposed to be the great equalizer providing an opportunity for upward mobility for those in the lower economic classes. But decreasing the state funding for education only puts more strain on poorer areas with a lesser tax base thus increasing the gap between the haves and have nots. And while it is often the poorer school districts that need to offer more money to entice the best teachers to teach there, it is the affluent school districts that will best be able to attract the best teachers.

And just to add insult to injury is the governor’s refusal to impose a so-called severance tax on the expanding Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania – the only major drilling state in the country not to tax this industry. But the governor needed some way to thank those who so generously funded his campaign!

Indeed it cannot be denied that many states are in financial difficulty. And unlike the federal government, state governments cannot resort to deficit spending to solve shortfalls like the federal government can. But while some states have perhaps not spent some of their tax dollars wisely, far and away the leading cause of the state deficits is the recession. After all, people out of work pay little or no taxes. The same goes for companies that shut down or move away. And with all of the people out of work comes an additional strain on government services to provide a safety net.

With the present Congress no longer willing to provide funds to fill the holes in the state budgets, cuts on the state and local level will be inevitable which will not only cause more pain but result in the loss of even more jobs. The lesson to be learned is that no matter what the anti-government protesters and politicians say, slashing government spending in a recession will do nothing to make things better — and a whole lot to make things worse!

Making Sense of the Wisconsin Standoff

When it comes to unions, few are indifferent. Some feel they are an indispensable part of a free society. Others feel they are responsible for overpaid, inefficient workers that can suck the lifeblood out of a struggling company.

My father was a union cement mason. And although our lifestyle was far from extravagant, we always had food on the table and clothes on our backs so I grew up with a healthy respect for the value of a union livelihood. I will certainly concede that some of the criticisms of unions have an element of truth to them. Yes, some unions have been guilty of greed and outright corruption. But so have some of the companies they have negotiated with.

Unions came into being to satisfy a need. It would be safe to say that if all employers treated their employees fairly and with compassion when it came to pay and working conditions, there would be no unions. Of course working conditions (at least in America) are a whole lot better than say, the brutal conditions before and during the Industrial Revolution which led to the formation of labor unions and the right of collective bargaining. Indeed, there are those who feel that the ability to collectively bargain is an essential human right.

With this in mind, we have the standoff in Wisconsin which has been said to be A Watershed Moment for Public-Sector Unions.

In the half century since Wisconsin became the first state to give its public workers the right to bargain collectively, government employee unions have mushroomed in size and power — so much so that they now account for more than half of the nation’s union members.

But the legislative push by Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, to slash the collective bargaining rights of his state’s public employees could prove a watershed for public-sector unions, perhaps signaling the beginning of a decline in their power — both at the bargaining table and in politics.

By flooding the State Capitol in Madison with more than 10,000 protesters, labor unions are doing their utmost to block Mr. Walker’s plans. They helped persuade Democratic state senators to slip out of the building this week to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to pass the legislation.

Depending on ones viewpoint, what the Democrats did was either illegal or an example of civil disobedience. But after all of the setbacks that unions have suffered in recent years, the threat of losing its collective bargaining rights demanded that a line be drawn in the sand. If this attempt at neutering the union were to be successful, there would surely be others who would use the same tactics against other unions across the country to bust them.

And make no mistake; this is first and foremost about union busting. The deficit that was the pretense for demanding the union pay and benefit cuts was a result of Governor Walker turning an inherited budget surplus into a deficit by offering a business tax cut upon assuming office that has been said to benefit those who voted for him. In addition, the union was willing and able to negotiate the requested pay and benefit cuts but the governor was unwilling to sit across the table from them, but instead demanded that they first give up much of their collective bargaining rights.

Then there is the smell of partisan politics. While claiming the need to strip collective bargaining rights from its public employee unions, the governor excluded the police and firefighter unions who have benefit packages that are at least as generous. Why? Most believe it is because these unions tend to support Republicans unlike teachers unions who tend to actively support Democrats.

A number of liberal commentators observing the standoff in Wisconsin fear that since unions are about the last group of any significance that funds Democratic candidates, crushing whatever is left of the unions would give the Republican contributors even more power over our elections (as if they need it.)

Unions in America have long ago fallen on hard times. Today, only about 7% of private sector American workers are in unions. Not coincidentally, corporate America is reaping handsome profits while the typical American worker is not sharing in the prosperity to say the least. Harold Meyerson in a Washington Post op-ed article Hard Times for Workers on Labor Day 2010 writes:

Unlike European workers, unlike their own parents and grandparents who lived in a much more heavily unionized America, U.S. workers are now powerless to stop their employers from pocketing all the change.

Through the weakness of our labor laws, the reports say, private-sector American workers can no longer form unions. Human Rights Watch documents how corporations that are model (and highly profitable) employers in Europe and frequently collaborate with unions there descend to American employer norms -- denying workers the right to join unions -- when they come over here. Freedom House, citing the near-impossibility of forming unions in this country, laments that the United States cannot be classed among the 41 nations that afford their workers full freedoms.

So for me, the union in Wisconsin is definitely David going up against Goliath as represented by the Republican governor and his state assembly. For those who are interested, The New York Times offers one of their Room for Debate articles Wisconsin's Blow to Union Power which includes differing views on this issue from across the political spectrum. I fully agree with the view that the right to collective bargaining is part of The Essence of Democracy.

But collective bargaining there must be -- not a single-minded devotion to the interests of the most fortunate. That is why Wisconsin workers are right on the issues in Madison -- and why the emulation of Governor Walker by other Republican governors is a step backward away from the civilized world. The unions have made a stand for free people!

Fear of Fracking

Last week, the Murrysville (Pennsylvania) Council had an overflow crowd at a hearing to receive public comment on a proposed ordinance on gas drilling.

Usually, such routine functions of a small town government have about the same interest and attention from its residents as watching paint dry. Many Americans seem to be indifferent about participating in its democracy. Even presidential elections in recent years have only persuaded little more than half of its voting age population to turn out at the voting booths.

A friend of mine asked me to join her at the hearing since she was scheduled to be one of those offering pubic comment. We decided to get there early just in case to make sure we got a good seat. But we were too late. Despite cold weather and questionable road conditions, the council room was already filled to capacity and fearing a violation of the fire code, the remaining attendees were offered folding wooden chairs to watch the proceedings from the front lobby - some through the open double door into the meeting room and others watching the video monitor showing the meeting as covered by the local cable access channel.

As more people tried to squeeze into the lobby, those of us near the entrance door to the meeting room were asked to move forward and closer together. The resulting squeeze of humanity inside that lobby made for a much worse fire code violation than the one they were worried about in the council room. But not wanting to tell some people they had to leave, the powers-that-be winked and looked the other way.

At one time not long ago, the words “Marcellus Shale” would only be shared in conversation among those dealing in the field of geology. But since then, the words have been associated with a source of abundant locally produced natural gas and the jobs to go with it. More recently, the words have been linked to concerns about gas drilling polluting local water supplies and making people and their farm animals sick.

Last summer, HBO premiered the documentary Gasland and introduced us to the special method used to extract this gas called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking".

Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.

I found the documentary to be compelling watching and urged others to watch it in one of my previous postings, Please Watch 'Gasland'. (Now available on DVD) It is hard to watch this movie and not feel sympathy for the people who most likely had their well water supply polluted with the toxins that make up the fracking fluid.

But for those living where the Marcellus Shale drilling is likely to occur, they are feeling fear. Fear that some of the bad experiences that others have endured from the drilling may happen to them.

So now we get the answer on why all of those people were so motivated to witness and speak up at the Murrysville Council hearing. It was fear.

They know of other communities who welcomed the gas drilling with open arms but later questioned, Marcellus Shale gas: A blessing or curse?

For the many farmers in the area, the prospect of collecting a royalty from a natural gas well is exciting.

But for others, there is a real fear that the side effects of natural gas drilling — from polluted water wells to potentially good paying jobs that will take workers away from farms — will outweigh the benefits.

Obviously not all of the drilling will cause any of the problems these people fear. But if something does happen to their water, is there anybody there to protect them? On a federal level, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is supposedly there to protect their water. But the federal laws are so riddled with loopholes that proving EPA jurisdiction can be either impossible or impractical.

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.

As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

Another loophole exempts the oil and gas industry from the Safe Water Drinking Act - a loophole that Congress is trying to close.

The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (H.R. 2766), (S. 1215) -- dubbed the FRAC Act--was introduced to both houses of the 112th United States Congress on June 9, 2009, and aims to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act. It would require the energy industry to disclose the chemicals it mixes with the water and sand it pumps underground in the hydraulic fracturing process (also known as fracking), information that has largely been protected as trade secrets. Controversy surrounds the practice of hydraulic fracturing as a threat to drinking water supplies. The gas industry opposes the legislation.

So if the feds don’t have jurisdiction over protecting our water from being polluted by gas well drillers, who does? The answer is that the individual states must assume this duty. For those who believe that the federal government should stay out of the regulating business and leave it to the states, that is a good thing. But state regulation instead of federal regulation has two significant drawbacks here. One is that instead of a uniform law protecting all states equally, there is a hodgepodge of different state laws of differing effectiveness in protecting its people.

In Pennsylvania, it’s the Oil and Gas Act from 1984 which predates the use of fracking to to drill for gas.

Section 208: Protection of Water Supplies (58 P.S. § 601.208)
If, during the drilling and extraction process, a well operator pollutes or diminishes a public or private water supply, the operator is obligated to restore or replace that water supply.

Fair enough. But how do you replace the water supply of someone whose well water has been polluted? Living off of water that must be transported in is not a satisfactory replacement.

Section 505: Penalties (58 P.S. § 601.505)
A violation of the Act is a summary offense and is punishable by a fine of not more than $300 or imprisonment of not more than 90 days, or both.

This is obviously not an adequate punishment for someone who would say, pollute the water supply of a whole community.

This brings us to the second drawback of state enforcement. With state governments running deficits and needing to cut services, manpower and resources to enforce these laws have been cut to the bone. Much of the frustration of the affected landowners shown in Gasland was due to an inadequate or non-existent response from the state agencies.

So can the citizens of Murrysville ask their Council to help with the regulation the states cannot or will not do? In most cases the answer is no.

There is interest among municipal officials to use zoning and subdivision and land development ordinances to regulate gas drilling and extraction. To a large extent, the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act preempts local regulation and puts regulatory authority into the hands of the PA Department of Environmental Protection.

It appears that there are two extreme views when in comes to deciding whether we want to allow the oil and gas companies to use this relatively new method of hydraulic fracturing or fracking to extract natural gas which entails some risk to our water supplies.

In one camp, we have those who have the most to financially gain from the drilling and want this to happen with the least amount of interference from those pesky regulations. Surely we can trust the drillers to do it right. Just like we trusted BP to do it right?

In the other camp, we have those who are fearful that the existing regulations are too weak and that their enforcement will be lax. The only way for them to deal with the fear of fracking is to try and have the drilling banned altogether in their communities.

But past legal precedent has shown that totally banning a legal activity such as gas drilling is not likely to stand up in court.

So this only leaves a middle position of allowing the drilling but making sure that there are enough regulations with teeth in them along with adequate remedies against the drillers in case something goes wrong. This means that in Pennsylvania, we need to persuade our state legislators to strengthen the provisions of the existing Oil and Gas Act to get them up to date with the newer fracking technology.

And last but not least, we need to persuade our members of Congress to pass H.R. 2766 and S. 1215 which would repeal the exemption for fracking in the Safe Drinking Water Act and allow the federal government through the EPA to get more directly involved in protecting our water supplies – which is their job in the first place!