Happy New Year-- And Now The Fight For Congress Starts For Real

If you've ever contributed to a candidate or signed a petition, you were probably inundated with desperate pleas for helping dozens of candidates beat their deadlines-- midnight yesterday-- for campaign fundraising. We'll have plenty more deadlines between now and the crucial 2012 elections in November. Many of the races pit a worthless corporate Democrat against an even more worthless corporate Republican. Blue America has endorsed, and will continue finding, progressive candidates who do not fit into that catastrophic mold. Our candidates are fighting for ordinary working families and defending them against the special interests that have virtually bought up both political establishments. That willingness by our political elites-- I should say "that eagerness"-- to sell themselves to corporate bidders is the real DC "bipartisanship" ... and the root of everything that's wrong in our political system today.

I want to share an e-mail one of our most dedicated blue-collar, New Deal candidates, John Waltz, sent to voters in his Kalamazoo-based district yesterday. He offered five reasons why people who can afford to should consider contributing to his campaign. It'll give you a better idea of the kind of men and women Blue America is backing:

1. I am an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran. As we wind down these wars, we need to have more members of Congress that have served so that the VA is properly funded and we do not repeat any of the mistakes we made post-Vietnam.

2. Fred Upton has been in Congress for over 20 years. He was a back-bencher until recently when he aligned himself with special interests in DC. He is the number 1 enemy of the Earth, according to the Los Angeles Times, and has taken more money from lobbyists than anyone else in Congress.

3. My dad worked at GM for 30 years; I'm a UAW baby. I am from Kalamazoo and I know the people. We are Democrats; Barack Obama won with 60 percent of the vote in 2008.

4. Fred can't get it done. In the limited time he has been in "leadership," he starred on the failed "super-committee," and Congressional approval has dropped below 10 percent to almost zero under his "leadership." Now he's taking another starring role on some sort of genius committee to decide whether or not to raise taxes on working people. Fred needs to go.

5. It's time we elect people to Congress that will go to Washington DC with the express purpose of passing legislation that will move our country beyond this self-imposed period of futility. It will take someone with a clean slate; someone that is not bought and paid for by special interests. I will make you proud.

So, Happy New Year! Be safe, be wise, eat some black-eyed peas, and help me beat Fred Upton. Please contribute whatever you can to make that happen! We are only $5,000 shy of meeting our quarterly goal with less than 24 hours to make it happen. With your help I know this goal will be easy to beat.

Blue America had a goal for John's campaign too-- and we were only $200 from it. Can you help us get beyond that one? And we don't really care about any arbitrary deadlines except the first Tuesday in November, 2012. Here's the place.

Reid picked Kerry for the Super Committee despite his great wealth. Boehner chose Upton because of it. Both had their tasks, and, thank God, both failed. The Super Committee was a super bad idea, another brick in the road our elites are using to pave a road to Austerity for us. As David Atkins pointed out on New Year's Eve, Austerity may be a terribly ineffective policy if you want to reduce deficits, "as it weakens the middle-class tax base and long-term economic growth. But as a way of raking more money out of the middle class and into the pockets of the super-wealthy parasitic brigands, it's fantastic policy." Fortunately for us, Kerry and Upton and the rest of the congressional cutthroats couldn't agree exactly how to screw the middle class, so the whole thing fell apart... this time.

The Center for Responsive Politics did an analysis of the personal wealth of the dozen appointed members, whose median net worth is $1.2 million-- nearly 13 times larger than the net worth of the average American family. They were charged with deciding which programs should be axed so that their own class-- and the even higher classes who finance their careers-- can continue to enjoy scandalously low tax rates and loopholes.

As a whole, the Democratic members of the supercommittee are less wealthy than their Republican counterparts, according to the Center's research-- with the exception of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who is the richest member of the U.S. Senate.

Kerry, who is married to philanthropist Theresa Heinz, had a minimum net worth of $183 million in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. Lawmakers are only required to disclose their assets and liabilities in broad ranges, so he might be worth as much as $295 million.

The median American family, meanwhile, had a net worth of $96,000 in 2009, according to the Federal Reserve Board.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who was the 25th richest member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009, ranks as the wealthiest GOP politician among those on the debt supercommittee. His minimum net worth in 2009 was $7 million and his maximum net worth was $26 million, according to the Center's research.

Upton's career has always focused on exactly one thing: special privileges for the very wealthiest in society, like his own family, the western Michigan plutocrats who inherited Whirlpool and offshored and outsourced almost all the jobs to low-wage countries, destroying much of the Midwest industrial base as they did so. That's who John Waltz is going to beat next November-- with our help.

In the wake of the Supercommittee fail, Paul Krugman isn't surprised to find the usual deficit-hawk fabulists roiling the noise machine

Oh look, children! It's the Confidence Fairy, come out to play now that the Supercommittee has, as forecast, officially whiffed on deficit reduction -- with the president reproving, "Ba-a-ad Congress!"

"Last year, for example, the [Central European Bank] affirmed its belief in the confidence fairy -- that is, the claim that budget cuts in a depressed economy will actually promote expansion, by raising business and consumer confidence. Strange to say, that hasn't happened anywhere."

-- Paul Krugman, in his NYT column "Boring Cruel Romantics"

by Ken

There must be someone somewhere who was surprised by today's official declaration of the Supercommittee's inability to come up with the mandated trillion-dollar spending-cut package, or by the president's pretty much throwing up his hands and saying, "Ba-a-a-d Congress, now you fix it!" ("Obama vows to veto efforts to gut automatic spending cuts").

Though there was never any hope for a sane deal, I suppose somewhere there's someone who's grieving. As E. J. Dionne Jr. put it the other day in his Washington Post column "How we can succeed through supercommittee's 'failure,'" given the political realities:

A balanced deal would be nice but it's now impossible --and not because of some vague congressional "dysfunction" the media like to talk about. Sane fiscal policies are blocked because one party refuses to accept the need to roll back the excesses of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If Congress does nothing, those tax cuts go away. That's why a "failure" by the supercommittee to endorse a deeply flawed deal is actually a victory for sensible deficit reduction.

We can trust the usual suspects to tell the usual deficit-hawk "fairy tales," as Paul Krugman described them in the title of a blogpost this morning.

One repeated gripe I've had about news coverage in the Lesser Depression is the way deficit-hawk myths about markets are often reported as facts. Again and again, slight upticks in interest rates have been attributed -- in news stories, not opinion pieces -- to debt fears, despite the complete absence of any actual evidence to that effect.

Bloomberg today has an interesting twist: U.S. Futures Decline on Concern Supercommittee Won’t Agree on Budget Cuts. In reality, US rates are down, suggesting no increase in debt concerns whatsoever.

But if you read the Bloomberg piece carefully, what it actually says is that market players fear that the absence of a debt deal means no stimulus. So the actual fear is not that spending won't be cut enough, it is that it will be cut too much -- which actually makes sense, and is consistent with the action in stock and bond markets.

But how many readers will get that? The way it's presented reinforces the false notion that the deficit is the problem.

In other news, markets have greeted Spain's new government with a surge in borrowing costs; Spain and Italy are once again at near parity.

I don't suppose we can credit PK with being prophetic in asking how many readers would get that. By mid-afternoon he posted a follow-up, "Looking For Insight In All The Wrong Places":

One ongoing source of puzzlement for me -- something I've written about before -- is the continuing popularity of inflationista/deficit hawk views among many investors, on and off Wall Street, despite the fact that this world view has been disastrously wrong again and again for the past few years.

I got a sample of this mindset in my inbox today, with a correspondent deriding me as a totally out-of-touch academic for suggesting that what worries markets about the supercommittee superfail is the prospect of less, not more, stimulus (failure to extend unemployment benefits, payroll tax cut, etc.). Never mind, by the way, that this was what the Bloomberg article actually said. This struck the correspondent as self-evidently absurd, so much so that no actual argument against it was necessary.

OK, can we talk for a minute?

And he proceeds to ask what we would "expect to see if debt worries were roiling the markets": "interest rates and stock prices moving in opposite directions: debt worries should be sending US borrowing costs up and US equities down." But what's happened, he says, is the opposite. He presents a chart that "suggests that what's driving both asset prices is fluctuating optimism or pessimism about the economy, with fears of economic weakness driving both rates and stock prices down," and highlights "the big plunge in August, corresponding to the S&P downgrade."

This makes no sense if you believe markets actually believed S&P, and became more worried about US debt. It makes a lot of sense, however, if markets worried that politicians would believe S&P, and embark on even more premature austerity, depressing the economy further.

So it makes perfect sense to suppose that the superfail is having a similar if smaller effect.

"Obviously, I'm glad this particular correspondent isn't managing my money," PK writes. "But why do such wrong-headed, money-losing views retain their hold? Is it just affinity fraud?"

The "affinity fraud" link, by the way, is to a recent PK blogpost called "Madoff Explains Everything":

The Madoff affair, as you may know, was a classic case of "affinity fraud"; Madoff was able to gain the trust of wealthy Jews by persuading them that he was their kind of guy. Affinity fraud lies behind a lot of financial scams -- and it lies behind a lot of political scams too.

Right now, the campaign against OWS basically tries to get working Americans to turn on the movement, even though most people support the movement's goals, by trying to make it seem as if the protestors are people not like you -- whereas the plutocrats are. Hey, this has worked many times in the past; that's the whole point of "What's the matter with Kansas." And it can operate in many directions: OWS should be shunned because they're dirty hippies, Elizabeth Warren is not-like-you because, horrors, she's a Harvard professor.

And now that I think of it, the generalized theory of affinity fraud extends beyond politics to things like financial analysis. I've marveled now and then on this blog about the continued popularity on Wall Street of inflationistas, who have been wrong about everything. I suspect that a lot of it is that economists who issue dire warnings about deficits and money growth come across as the kind of people they'd like to hang out with at the golf course, whereas bearded professors don't.

So what to do? Within limits, one should try to allay unnecessary social dissonance. If you're going to have a demonstration on behalf of working Americans, can the drumming circles. The class warriors on the right want to convince people it's really a culture war, and you don't want to make their job easier.

But there are limits. No, I won't take up golf.

SPEAKING OF PAUL KRUGMAN . . .

What I actually meant to write about tonight, as the quote at the top of this post may reflect, was his column today, "Boring Cruel Romantics," about the class of "technocrats" -- like the newly installed prime ministers of Greece and Italy, and the European Central Bank -- to whom the Austerity-Inflicting Elites have entrusted management of what Ian Welsh recently described as a plutocratic world-wide "buying spree" being carried at austerity-socked bargain prices, a tidy follow-up to my post on Ian's column. However, I got sidetracked by today's more immediate subject matter. I still want to come back to it. For now let me just offer this tease:

[T]hese people -- the people who bullied Europe into adopting a common currency, the people who are bullying both Europe and the United States into austerity -- aren't technocrats. They are, instead, deeply impractical romantics.

They are, to be sure, a peculiarly boring breed of romantic, speaking in turgid prose rather than poetry. And the things they demand on behalf of their romantic visions are often cruel, involving huge sacrifices from ordinary workers and families. But the fact remains that those visions are driven by dreams about the way things should be rather than by a cool assessment of the way things really are.

And to save the world economy we must topple these dangerous romantics from their pedestals.

For the substance, well, now that I've used up one of my precious NYT free clicks, you don't have to. Here's the column link again.


AND SPEAKING OF DEFICIT-HAWK FABULISTS, COULD WAPO
DUNDERHEAD ROBERT SAMUELSON BE GETTING DUMBER?

Is it my imagination, or is the Washington Post's finance dunderhead Robert J. "No Relation to Paul" Samuelson actually getting dumber ("Why there’s a debt stalemate")? No, you're right, that's really not possible. It must just be a punditoptical illusion.

#

What Will Happen To Paul Ryan If The GOP Really Does Provoke A Revolution?

I never thought the OccupyWallStreet/99% Movement could actually lead to revolution... until this morning when I watched the sickening video above. Those are our kids, the best of our kids, being pepper sprayed like roaches by that slob with the mustache. Combine it with the self-entitled and willfully ignorant attitude from this grotesquely corrupt-- but never arrested or punished-- congressman at a public hearing and the response from the American citizen... and you see the breaking point is getting closer and closer.

When Alaska crook Don Young attacked distinguished history professor Dr. Douglas Brinkley's work as "garbage" and called him "Dr. Rice," Brinkley reminded him that he works at Rice University and that his name is Brinkley. Young, who is clearly senile, flipped out. "I can call you whatever I want to if you sit in that chair. You be quiet," he hissed. Professor Brinkley wasn't intimidated by the foolish old congressman. "You don’t own me. I pay your salary. You work for me."

The good professor's statement clashes with the divine right attitude-- fueled more by raw cash this time around than anything else-- that is now 100% prevalent among conservatives. The cop in Davis doesn't work for us anymore than does Don Young. They work for the 1% and their job is the same: holding down the 99%.

That's why Krugman was right the other day when he said the SuperCommittee would fail-- and that we're lucky it will fail. The 1% want it all-- everything-- and they believe that that is their right. The institutions of the state are in their hands-- whether the pepper-spraying cop in Davis, the corrupt, reactionary congressman from Alaska, the SuperCommittee or, for that matter, the entire Inside the Beltway set up and that of most of the states. It's now just a matter of time before people won't take it any more.

A House Democratic leader said a U.S. deficit-cutting agreement can’t include the extension of Bush-era tax cuts, while an influential Republican said his House colleagues won’t back a deal calling for new tax revenue.

The disagreement underscores the crux of the problem facing a congressional panel seeking to meet a Nov. 23 deadline to trim at least $1.2 trillion from the deficit over the next decade.

Representative Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, which pushes for deeper spending cuts, said any deficit-cutting proposal that includes a tax increase is unlikely to clear a majority of the House’s Republicans.

Representative James Clyburn, a Democratic member of the supercommittee, said if Republicans demand an extension of the tax cuts won by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 the chances of an agreement are dim.

“It would be difficult” to win passage of a supercommittee plan that includes more taxes, said Jordan, of Ohio, on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend.

“If it’s a net tax increase, this is the most fundamental principle within the Republican Party,” Jordan said. “This is a sacred trust I think we as Republicans have with voters.”

Sacred? Really? Sacred? Can you even be a Republican these days without absolutely loathing the message of Jesus Christ? I can't see how it would be possible to embrace Jesus and the GOP message. Their actual object of worship-- Ayn Rand and her adolescent philosophy of selfishness and greed-- is the basis of the religion of Republicanism and... Christianity it's not. Paul Ryan, more than most, has been willing it publicly embrace it-- and it's reflected in his hate-the-poor legislative agenda.



In yesterday's Washington Post moderate Ezra Klein examined Ryan's latest thrust against ordinary working families on behalf of those who have financed his political career and have promised to make him president. Klein views Ryan's "Inequality Report" charitably and treats it as a serious policy statement-- even finds some worthwhile points.

But more broadly, Ryan’s paper tries to create a false choice between reducing income inequality, encouraging economic mobility and accelerating growth. Toward the end, Ryan actually says the debate over inequality breaks down into two groups:

1. Is the problem simply that some households make more than others, in which case policymakers should be focused on closing this income gap by any means at their disposal, indifferent as to whether government policies aimed to close relative inequality result in lower absolute levels of income?

2. Or is the problem that incomes for households in the middle- and lower-quintiles are not rising fast enough, in which case policymakers should focus first and foremost on creating the conditions for income growth and job creation?

If there actually is anyone out there who believes we should be focused on closing the income gap no matter the cost to growth, I’ve never met them. Conversely, there actually are people who focus on what they think to be pro-growth policies without heed to the income gap. People like, say, Paul Ryan.

In 2010, the Tax Policy Center released a detailed analysis of the tax provisions in Ryan’s Roadmap for America. If you were in the top 1 percent, they found, Ryan’s plan would save you $350,000 a year. If you were in the middle of the income distribution, it would cost you $152 a year. And if you were in the bottom 20 percent, it would cost you $393 a year. That would undoubtedly increase inequality.

And there’s good evidence that increasing inequality is, ultimately, bad for growth. Over at the International Monetary Fund, Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry recently published a paper looking at the relationship between inequality and growth across the world. In a sense, they were testing Ryan’s proposition exactly. “Some dismiss inequality and focus instead on overall growth-- arguing, in effect, that a rising tide lifts all boats,” they write.

Berg and Ostry found that “high ‘growth spells’ were much more likely to end in countries with less equal income distributions.” Moreover, “the effect is large .?.?. closing, say, half the inequality gap between Latin America and emerging Asia would more than double the expected duration of a ‘growth spell.’?” And it was robust: “Inequality seemed to make a big difference almost no matter what other variables were in the model or exactly how we defined a ‘growth spell.’?”

Ryan also plumps for his Medicare reforms as a solution to inequality. As you’ll remember, his budget proposes converting Medicare into a voucher system where seniors would be given a check and sent into a regulated private market to purchase insurance. The plan saves money because the check would grow at the rate of inflation, while health-care costs often increase three times faster than inflation, so, quite quickly, the check would cover only a small portion of an individual senior’s costs.

For rich seniors, this wouldn’t much matter. They could easily afford the cost of private insurance. For middle-income seniors, or lower-income seniors, it would be a disaster. Ryan offers them some subsidies, but not nearly enough. The cost of coverage would quickly outpace the resources many of them have to pay for it.

I mention this because Ryan’s paper emphasizes the difference between “absolute” and “relative” inequality. “A century ago,” Ryan writes, “the average American lived a life that was dramatically different, in terms of what he or she could experience and obtain, from an elite like Rockefeller. In many important respects, the difference between ultra-elites and average Americans is less pronounced today.”

But that difference is less pronounced in large part because of programs like Medicare, which ensure that poor and middle-class seniors have access to health care of similar quality to that of richer seniors. So where Ryan’s analysis suggests the need to means-test Medicare and control health-care costs to ease inequality, the core of his health-care plan, the very plan he touts in the conclusion to his paper, would dramatically increase absolute health-care inequality for seniors.

So it’s good that Ryan has started thinking hard about inequality. But it would be better if he thought harder about what policy could do to address it, or at least to avoid making it dramatically worse.

Will The SuperCommittee Offer Barack Obama His Neville Chamberlain Moment?

In a few hours Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison, co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are convening an ad-hoc hearing with prominent economists that the SuperCommittee routinely and pointedly ignores-- Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and founder and co-President of the Millennium Promise Alliance; Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Economist and President, Bennett College; Dr. John Irons, Research and Policy Director, Economic Policy Institute; and Dr. Rob Johnson, Senior Fellow and Director of the "Project on Global Finance" at the Roosevelt Institute. They will be taking up the topics of not cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, creating jobs and taxing the wealthy. I'm going to guess that these panelists will ask the Progressive Caucus to accept NO deal that doesn't strictly adhere to those parameters.

There are conservatives on both sides of the aisle still eager for a "grand bargain" that will trade away the hard-fought, meager lifeline for millions of Americans in return for some table scraps-- temporary table scraps at that-- from the 1%. The SuperCommittee, could well turn out to be Obama's Neville Chamberlain moment and could cement his place in history as firmly as the Munich Agreements cemented Chamberlain's. There are no sensible Democrats who should tether themselves to Obama's tragic miscalculation and, thankfully, the Progressive Caucus is fully aware of this.

Yesterday, Grijalva moved to make sure another fully committed for real progressive, Norman Solomon, is part of his bloc in the next Congress by endorsing him for a newly created Northern California seat. Solomon, who has been a progressive activist and a stalwart advocate for the 99% for his entire life, is up against an array of garden variety "liberals" tied to business as usual corporate crooks-- his main opponent, for example, Jared Huffman, has been taking cash from PG&E, Gallo, Chevron and Wal-Mart. I'm sure Huffman is "against the war" or something, but no one whose political career is financed by Chevron and Wal-Mart is going to be a dependable ally against the unbounded greed and avarice of the 1% over time. November 23 is the deadline for the SuperCommittee to report its toxic findings and, if it does, there will be gigantic pressure from the White House and their corporate allies to tow the line. It will be a momentous decision for our political allies and what a difference having a Norman Solomon rather than a Jared Huffman in position to vote on something this important!

Yesterday, in his endorsement of Solomon, Grijalva stated, very clearly that Norman has shown with his entire life that he is "on our side."

This is a time for bold leadership. This is a time for activist solutions. This is a time to elect historical, not rhetorical, progressives-- in other words, progressives who have shown with their entire lives that they are on our side.

That's why I am so proud to take the unusual step today of endorsing my friend and progressive ally, Norman Solomon, in his campaign to win the primary for Congress from northern California.

Norman was one of the first challengers endorsed by Blue America this year and there isn't a better investment for progressives than to contribute to his grassroots, people-powered campaign. You can do that right here through ActBlue. Last night he shared his concerns with the way the SuperCommittee is moving.

"The current momentum of the Super Committee is plunging toward Super Betrayal. The bedrock of the social compact is under assault. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid-- these are programs of decency, not 'entitlements' to be treated as expendable items when the going gets rough. Unfortunately, the loud yearning for a 'Grand Bargain' begs the question of what the consequences would be in human terms if we fall victim to bogus renditions of 'austerity.' Our moral compass tells us that clarity is necessity: We do not throw children or the disabled or the elderly or the disadvantaged under the bus of expediency. That is not who we are. That is not who we are willing to be. Instead, we will continue to stand for-- and fight for-- what is right."

That's the guy we want in our corner... don't you think?

Tom Coburn Flips Out Again-- But In A Good Way

Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is, at best, a crackpot. Usually his reactionary core is more powerful than his crackpot nature. But not always; sometimes the crackpot in him wins out and, on rare occasion, he strays from the GOP corporate line and goes wandering off on his own. That just happened again. You may recall he got into a tiff with Grover Norquist a couple months ago over the no taxes pledge the Republicans all sign every two years. Now Coburn, who doesn't face the nation's most ignorant electorate for another 3 years, is borrowing a line of attack from progressives to whine about tax breaks his party has championed for millionaires. He issued a report for the SuperCommittee detailing unfair tax breaks to the SuperRich.

The report found millionaires enjoy about $30 billion worth of “tax giveaways” and federal grants every year-- almost twice NASA’s budget, the report notes.

“From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Multimillionaires are even receiving government checks for not working,” Coburn said in a statement Monday. 
 
The report is significant because Coburn is one of the Senate’s outspoken conservatives and has spent over a year working intensely on a bipartisan grand bargain to reduce the deficit.

...Coburn has identified billions of dollars in tax breaks reaped by millionaires that Democrats could be quick to target, as Republicans might suffer political damage by defending these special breaks. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has centered the 2012 Democratic campaign message on the theme that Republicans favor the interests of millionaires and billionaires over the middle class.
 
It also could set off another clash between Coburn and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who argues that Congress should not raise taxes unless they are offset by other tax cuts.

Among Coburn's findings were some doozies: "millionaires received $74 million worth of unemployment checks from 2005 to 2009; $316 million in farm subsidies from 2003 to 2009; $89 million for the preservation of lands on ranches and estates in 2009 and 2010; and $7.5 million to compensate for property damages caused by disaster. And 1,500 millionaires who didn't pay any income tax at all. There were also 18 folks earning more than $10 million a year who received around $12,000 in unemployment benefits and 74 people earning between $5 million and $10 million received $18,000 in benefits. In all 2,840 millionaires received unemployment benefits.

“This welfare for the well-off — costing billions of dollars a year — is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate, many who are working two jobs just to make ends meet, and IOUs to be paid off by future generations. We should never demonize those who are successful. Nor should we pamper them with unnecessary welfare to create an appearance everyone is benefiting from federal programs,” Coburn said.
 
Coburn’s report found that from 2006 to 2009, millionaires claimed $27.7 billion in mortgage interest tax deductions, $64.3 billion in rental expense deductions and $21 billion in deductions for gambling losses. During that time, millionaires also deducted $607.7 million for business entertainment expenses, according to Coburn.
 
The average annual amount of tax breaks claimed by millionaires is $28.5 billion, Corburn’s report found.

Predictably, Norquist went after Coburn yesterday for targeting “legitimate business expenses,” such as rental expense deductions, in his report. He said it “seems” as though Coburn is “trying to get on [President] Obama’s losing class-warfare argument.”

But not to worry-- if you're a millionaire, ole John Boehner took care of you by putting the heir to the Whirlpool fortune on the SuperCommittee, Michigan plutocrat Fred Upton, whose sole function in Congress has been to protect the interests of the self-styled American "aristocracy." He'll never let anything pass that takes even a nickel from the 1%. Blue America is seeking to right that travesty this cycle by helping blue collar Democrat John Waltz -- a firm advocate of the New Deal-- defeat Upton for the seat he's treated as a feudal estate. Chip in? You can do it here at the Blue America ActBlue page. Defeating Fred Upton is nearly as important to progress in our country as defeating Paul Ryan. And Obama won both of their congressional districts. These two races are winnable.

Alan Grayson Today

I'm not a huge Bill Maher fan, although I liked Religulous a lot. I wasn't a huge Anthony Weiner fan, although I liked his partisan fighting spirit, even if I distrusted the underlying ideological commitment. And I'm not a big fan of money bombs. I'm glad that Alan Grayson's money bomb this past weekend was hugely successful, even surpassing his goal. He surpassed his goal because... well, Bill Maher got it right in the video above. "He's got big ones. It's what we need someone to yank the debate back to what the center should be. And that is Mr. Alan Grayson." Maher hit it out of the park on that one. And I very much do trust Grayson's underlying ideological commitment. I don't like money bombs because I don't like manufactured deadlines. I don't even like birthdays or Christmases or Valentine's Days. I LOVE giving presents to people, but not on predetermined days. I give them presents when I'm moved to do so.

Blue America operates because people contribute when they're moved to contribute, rather than because of a phony DCCC deadline or a slightly less phony FEC deadline or because of a fun money bomb deadline. Watching Maher's comments about Grayson's ability to yank the debate back towards the center, reminded me again how important it is to elect Alan and other strong progressives to the House and Senate, not just because the Republicans have hijacked the center and moved it over the right field fence... and into the dump beyond, but because President Obama is so conflicted and so ill-advised (Rouse is way better than Daley, but a random dog off the street would be way better than Daley, a contemptible 1%-er and Rahm's perfect successor) that he could be the worst political negotiator in American political history.

Maher may be dreaming that Grayson runs for the White House some day. I'm less ambitious. Power inside Congress is all I'm asking. (How ironic it would be for a bold and aggressive progressive like Grayson to be the first Jewish Speaker, something Rahm always coveted, as does the female version, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, each of whom would be just another garden variety tool of the 1% holding down the legitimate aspirations of working families. In other words, the opposite of what Alan Grayson is all about.

Yeah, so his money bomb is over-- but his campaign for Congress has another 364 days to go. Please help if you can. Yesterday there were reports of progressive life on Capitol Hill, exactl;y the kind of thing we need Grayson driving. I'll believe this when I see it all the way through but...

Democratic leaders are signaling to worried colleagues and their party’s base that they are now in charge of deficit-reduction talks and will be tougher negotiators than President Obama.
 
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made it clear that congressional Democrats would not accept what they consider a “bad deal” from the supercommittee.

...Many Democrats, especially liberals, have a dismal view of Obama’s negotiating skills after he cut a deal in December to extend virtually all of the Bush-era tax cuts and another in August to slash spending by $900 billion and set up the deficit-reduction supercommittee.
 
Democratic leaders are telling GOP leaders that they’re not going to win this time by digging in their heels.
 
“This is all about political will. Everyone knows where cuts and revenues can come from. You’re never going to convince the Republicans to summon the political will to buck Grover Norquist unless you stare them in the eyes and say you’re not going to blink first,” said a Democratic leadership aide, referring to conservative activist Grover Norquist, president of American’s for Tax Reform.
 
Nearly every Republican in Congress has signed Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which requires them to oppose all legislation that raises taxes.
 
“They’ll rethink their position that they can just wait us out. We make no apologies on insisting on a balanced deal,” said the Democratic congressional aide. 
 
Obama appeared poised to stare down Republican leaders during talks in late July to raise the debt limit. He dressed down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) at one meeting and warned him bluntly: “Don’t call my bluff.”
 
In the end, however, the president agreed to a deal that many Democrats saw as a big giveaway.
 
Obama agreed to nearly $1 trillion in cuts and set up a joint select committee to find another $1.2 worth of savings in exchange for raising the debt limit-- a routine action in previous Congresses. Former President George W. Bush raised the limit seven times with little pushback from Congress.
 
House Republicans were left chortling in victory.
 
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got “98 percent of what I wanted.”
 
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Republicans called Obama’s bluff and won.
 
“President Obama reportedly warned Republican leaders not to call his bluff by sending him a bill without tax increases. Republicans in Congress ignored this threat and passed a bill that cuts more than a dollar in spending for every dollar it increases the debt limit, without raising taxes,” Ryan wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Aug. 3. “Yesterday, Mr. Obama signed this bill into law. He was, as he said, bluffing.”

Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, said the debt limit deal “was an unbelievable set of concessions” from Democrats.

“It had $900 billion in cuts, no revenues and no growth. It set up a committee to do more. All at a time when we thought you should be arguing about jobs,” Borosage said, reflecting the view of many liberal activists.

Obama has stayed away from the supercommittee’s deliberations and Democratic congressional leaders are now hewing more closely to what members of their party want.

Leaders have demanded that Republicans on the supercommittee agree to substantial tax increases and are refusing to back down.
 
At the same time, they are pounding Republicans on the issue of jobs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has forced Republicans to vote several times on jobs legislation-- including funding for teachers, first responders and infrastructure-- paid for by slightly increasing the tax rate on income over $1 million.

Granted, liberal activists and labor leaders were not happy with the compromise offer from Democrats on the supercommittee, but that was a trial balloon floated to show that Republicans were staunchly opposed to raising taxes in exchange for entitlement reform.

Mike Lux, a Democratic strategists who works with liberal and labor groups, said Democrats are now more unified than they were during negotiations to raise the debt limit or extend the expiring Bush tax cuts.

“I think Democrats are now united in playing tougher and being tougher negotiators with the Republicans. There was difference of opinion about how things were done in the past,” said Lux. “I think it’s great that Democrats have come together and said we’re going to be tough negotiators.”

I think Bill Maher and I (not to mention Lux) could find common ground on this-- if Grayson were part of these negotiations, he'd stiffen a lot of spines on the side of working families-- and that's something Democrats in Washington desperately need.

Smelly Old SuperCommittee For Sale

Between reading Nancy Pelosi's disappointing and disheartening pledge of allegiance to the Austerity Class and the disgraceful, craven sell-out of the entire premise of the New Deal by the Beltway Democrats on the SuperCommittee, I was fit to be tied all day. And depressed. Then I started calling some of our Blue America candidates to ask them what they thought. What cheered me up and helped remind me about the difference between those who kiss up to the 1% in our party-- the Steny Hoyers and the Rahm Emanuels and the Blue Dogs, etc-- and the actual New Deal Democrats who are all about the 99% Movement. Ken Aden, who's running in a nearly impossible district in northwest Arkansas, was on his way home from the DCCC meetings in Washington this week. He called on his cell phone and told me that he had "met many people from across the economic spectrum this week in DC... and while some of them do have the average American at heart, when legislating a great many more have utterly and completely sold out to corporate interests. Now more than ever we as citizens must educate ourselves when it comes to the corporate prostitutes who claim to represent us and our families. We will be able to identify them by their works and voting record. Whether you have a D or R before your name... if you back attempts to cut Medicare and Social Security, you are nothing but a criminal." That cheered me up-- knowing there are candidates with fire in their belly on this and not going to let sleazy career politicians collecting cash from lobbyists get away with it. And Ken was hardly the only pissed off Democratic candidate. Norman Solomon is the progressive running for an open seat in Northern California. This is what he told me, coming back from the same DC meetings as Ken:

"Several months ago, our campaign took out a full-page newspaper ad in this district, throwing down a gauntlet with the headline: 'Cutting Social Security and Medicare Is Not Fiscal Responsibility. It's Betrayal.' I just returned home from Washington, where progressives are struggling to impede the momentum of slash-and-burn efforts against Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on Capitol Hill. We should be outraged that most of the Super Committee is so eager to engage in Super Betrayal of our country's precious social compact."

I'm not sure if Darcy Burner has made a public announcement that she's running for a new Washington congressional seat that seems almost tailor made for her. But she is running and the new district is made up of the parts of the old district she won when she ran in 2008. She's been working in DC since then but I'm glad to see she hasn't lost any of her fire or her indignation towards those who would go to the capital and sell out their voters back home. "We should not be asking seniors to sacrifice the healthcare and Social Security benefits they spent their lives paying for just because bankers don't want to pay for the damage they've caused to our country's economy. We must end the wars and ask millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share." Same Darcy Burner we've always loved! 

Lee Rogers is a world-renowned California physician running against anti-family reactionary and corporate shill Buck McKeon. A very moderate guy, he doesn't seem very pleased with the Democrats on the SuperCommittee. "It's deplorable," he told me, "that the Democratic Super Committee deficit reduction plan proposes such drastic cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Basically, they put social programs for our seniors and the poor on the table when the Republicans are unwilling to compromise on defense spending and revenue increases. These are not the right priorities." State Senator Eric Griego (D-NM) is running for the open seat in Albuquerque. He's been on fire lately and this morning he told me this:

“It would be unconscionable for any members of the Super Committee to put Medicare and Social Security cuts on the table. Millions of seniors rely on these bedrock Democratic programs for their wellbeing. What the Super Committee should be cutting instead are the billions spent in tax loopholes for Wall Street and big corporations, and the Republican Congress’ continued focus on using taxpayer money to coddle millionaires and Big Oil instead of standing up for middle class families-- the 99%.”

And it's not just candidates who are angry; there are more than a few Members of Congress who are fuming over the SuperCommittee sell-out as well. Let me publish House Concurrent Resolution 72, written by John Conyers (D-MI), with dozens of co-sponsors:

Expressing the sense of Congress that any legislative language approved by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction should not reduce benefits for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients.

Whereas S. 365, the `Budget Control Act of 2011', creates a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction tasked with providing recommendations and legislative language that will significantly improve the short-term and long-term fiscal imbalance of the Federal Government;

Whereas large majorities of Americans want to address the deficit in a way that preserves Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits;

Whereas the Medicare program reflects the Nation's commitment to the health and independence of older Americans and Americans with disabilities by providing health care coverage to 42 million people;

Whereas Medicare safeguards beneficiaries and their families from the ruinous costs of medical treatments and prevents individuals from spending unmanageable proportions of their incomes on medical care or being pushed into poverty by their medical bills;

Whereas Medicaid provides a safety net for both low-income and middle-class families who may have family members stricken with catastrophic illness or injury or face prolonged infirmity in old age;

Whereas cuts to Medicaid would severely impact low-income families and individuals with disabilities, and curtail access to critical services, including nursing home and community care services;

Whereas cuts to Medicaid would limit the program's ability to provide women without health care coverage with prenatal, maternity, and postnatal care and hamper the United States efforts to prevent infant and prenatal deaths;

Whereas Social Security provides essential financial support to almost 55 million people in the United States, including more than 35 million retired workers;

Whereas Social Security provides modest benefits averaging $14,000 per year for retired workers, based on contributions paid into Social Security over a worker's lifetime of employment;

Whereas Social Security can pay full benefits through 2035;

Whereas Social Security has no borrowing authority, currently has $2.7 trillion in accumulated assets, and, therefore, does not contribute to the Federal budget deficit; and

Whereas the citizens of the United States deserve thoughtful and fair Social Security reform to protect current and future benefits and to ensure ongoing retirement security for seniors, protections for persons who become disabled, and benefits for the young children and spouses of deceased and disabled workers: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that—
 
(1)  any deficit reduction plan put forward by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction should not balance the budget by eroding America's hard-earned retirement plan and social safety net;
 
(2)  Medicare's ability to deliver high quality health care in a cost-efficient manner should be strengthened and its benefits should be preserved for current and future retirees;
 
(3)  appropriate reform to strengthen Social Security's long-term outlook should ensure that Social Security remains a critical source of protection for the people of the United States and their families without further increasing the retirement age or otherwise decreasing benefits; and
 
(4)  Federal funding for the Medicaid program should be maintained so that senior citizens, poor and disabled children, and others with disabilities are able to gain and retain access to affordable health care.

There may well be more co-sponsors now but these are the folks who signed on to Congressman Conyers' resolution originally:

Joe Baca (D-CA)
Karen Bass (D-CA)
Robert Brady (D-PA)
Corrine Brown (D-FL)
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
Mike Capuano (D-MA)
André Carson (D-IN)
Judy Chu (D-CA)
David Cicilline (D-RI)
Hansen Clarke (D-MI)
Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)
Steve Cohen (D-TN)
Joe Courtney (D-CT)
Mark Critz (D-PA)
Elijah Cummings (D-MD)
Danny Davis (D-IL)
Pete Defazio (D-OR)
Rosa Delauro (D-CT)
Donna Edwards (D-MD)
Keith Ellison (D-MN)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
Barney Frank (D-MA)
Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
Chalie Gonzalez (D-TX)
Al Green (D-TX)
Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ)
Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)
Janice Hahn (D-CA)
Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Mike Honda (D-CA)
Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)
Hank Johnson (D-GA)
Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Dale Kildee (D-MI)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)
Ed Markey (D-MA)
Doris Matsui (D-CA)
Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Brad Miller (D-NC)
Gwen Moore (D-WI)
Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
Grace Napolitano (D-CA)
John Olver (D-MA)
Ed Pastor (D-AZ)
Donald Payne (D-NJ)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
Laura Richardson (D-CA)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
Bobby Rush (D-IL)
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Bobby Scott (D-VA)
José Serrano (D-NY)
Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
Pete Stark (D-CA)
Bennie Thompson (D-MS)
John Tierney (D-MA)
Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Niki Tsongas (D-MA)
Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
Frederica Wilson (D-FL)
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)

Conyers wasn't happy seeing Democrats on the SuperCommittee going over to the Dark Side. "We should not tackle our country’s fiscal problems by asking working and middle class Americans to sacrifice benefits earned over a lifetime of hard work. These benefits stand for the premise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be rewarded with a measure of economic security when retirement comes. We cannot back out on this commitment now, particularly during tough economic times."

John Waltz, running for the House seat in the Kalamazoo-based district currently held by Whirlpool heir and SuperCommittee member Fred Upton, is on the other side of Michigan from Conyers, but he was the first candidate Conyers endorsed this year. You can see why with this blast Waltz took at the same weak-knee-ed Democrats that drive Conyers and other progressives nuts:

"It seems like déjà vu all over again. When will the Democrats stop caving in to Republicans and fight against disastrous cuts to Medicare and Social Security? If Republicans want to draw a line in the sand with no tax increases then Democrats should do the same with these programs. We can easily cut the deficit not by raising taxes, but eliminating the loopholes that millionaires use to avoid paying their fair share. What about ending the wars and shrinking the military footprint we have around the globe? I know these proposals would cause some ire with Republicans, but isn't that a lot better than knowing you are being a sell out."

 
Raúl Grijalva, back home in Tucson consulting with his constituents this weekend, told me by phone that “The Supercommittee is playing by the rules that Republicans established. Democrats cannot play along. Let’s identify real savings and then present proposals that serve the American people. Let’s hold the line on Social Security and Medicare. Right now the American people need bold fighters, not cornered negotiators. Democrats can and should be those bold fighters.”
 
Democrats at the grassroots who have heard about this betrayal are flipping out. It was expected, of course, that all the Republicans and Max Baucus (D-MT) would do whatever they could to further the narrow interests of the 1%-- as they always do. But, when we're being sold down the river and stabbed in the back by the likes of Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), James Clyburn (D-SC), John Kerry (D-MA) and Patty Murray (D-WA), it makes you stop and wonder how much better a D-minus is than a flat-out F. As CredoAction reminded us:

The Republicans have a long-standing desire to dismantle Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. But according to recent news reports, a majority of Democrats on the Super Committee just proposed their own plan to reduce the deficit that included slashing Medicare benefits by $200 billion.

It's hard to image how the Democrats on the Super Committee could be any more out-of-touch or wrongheaded.

In the face of massive unemployment, rampant foreclosures, a sputtering economy and widespread anger that the country is systematically prioritizing the needs of the ultra-rich and wealthy corporations over the needs of the other 99% of us, the Democrats who support this plan think the best thing to do is make it harder and more expensive for seniors and the less fortunate to get medical care.

Just wondering, but would you pledge to actively work towards defeating any Democrat who sells out Medicare? I sure would-- and will.


UPDATE: More From New Deal Democrats

Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH): "Once again, the budget burden is falling more on seniors and working people instead of millionaires and Wall Street. We need to protect Medicare and Social Security from bad cuts and demand that those wealthy Americans who benefited from the economy pay their fair share in taxes.

Rep Brad Miller (D-NC): “Some Democrats apparently think the New Deal was all a mistake, and we need to get back to our roots as the party of Grover Cleveland. I’m not one of them. Democrats need to claim our legacy as the party of Social Security and Medicare, and the party willing to take on concentrated economic power on behalf of working and middle-class families. Most Americans believe in equality of opportunity and a broadly shared prosperity, which should be core Democratic values. If we stand with them, they’ll stand with us.”

Dave Lutrin (D-FL): "It is time for Congress to stand up for all of the American people instead of a select few. It is time for Democrats to stand up to the neighborhood bullies. If the Democrats on the Super Committee cave to the Republicans, it will be like Marlon Brando's character, Terry Malloy, 'taking a dive' in On The Waterfront. Terry said 'I coulda been a champ, instead of a bum, which is what I am.' Terry regretted his decision, as I believe will any Democrat who takes the wrong side. The Dems were elected to be champions of the people, they cannot let the people down. No cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Raise revenue for the good of the country."

Ed Potosnak (D-NJ): "I'll fight against cuts to Medicare, Social Security and budget tricks that break our promises to Seniors. Earlier in this Congress we saw Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into an inadequate voucher program, now we face a bi-partisan SuperCommittee that is once again trying to balance the budget on the backs of Seniors. We need to change the people in Washington. I will fight against cuts to Medicare and Social Security every day I'm in office and so should the Democrats on the SuperCommittee."

Nick Ruiz (D-FL): "Voters, organizations and personalities that support Democrats who act to decimate the greatest New Deal traditions of social justice and economic fairness, or do nothing to stop it-- are as much to blame as the corrosive politicians themselves. Liberals must stop walking around blind without a cane and act now to reject politicians who have betrayed them. Voters must act now to produce politicians who will not dance with the devils of working class destruction."

Howard Dean: "If the so-called Super Committee votes to increase the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67, it will completely erase all the gains we made in providing healthcare to every American under President Obama. Medicare is the only universal healthcare program that exists in the United States of America. No one who supports moving back the age of eligibility can possibly be considered an advocate for universal health insurance. In fact, if that happens, the legacy of the Democrats for the past four years will have been to do far more harm to the healthcare system than good... This is bad policy and we have to stop it. I will personally not support any candidate for any office that attempts to cut back Medicare in this way."

The 1% will spend like mad to empower a Congress filled their eager handmaidens like Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan and their supposedly reluctant handmaidens like Max Baucus and Chris Van Hollen. If candidates who are part of the 99% are going to overtake them, we need to elect people like John Waltz instead of Fred Upton and Eric Griego instead of Marty Chavez. If you can, please chip in here or here. Even $5 or $10 goes a long way towards saving the country from what the conservatives have in mind.

Wouldn't a lot of current events make sense if our "leaders" had been taken over (maybe had their spines removed?) by invading alien mutants?

Under the rule of The Guardians, government secrecy has been raised to the point where it's illegal for us even to know that there are secrets.

by Ken

Maybe the way to think of it is like we're living in a cheesy sci-fi flick, where some of the traditional malcontents of society begin to suspect that said society has in fact been taken over by alien mutants -- let's call them The Guardians.

Meanwhile The Guardians have solidified their control of the human race by "converting" people, especially the one formerly known as "leaders," through one of two surgical procedures: spinectomies, where their spines are totally excised, or intestinectomies, where their guts are removed and replaced by receptacles that suck up endless quantities of things called "dollars."

Eventually the discontent spreads throughout the land, and some of the great unwashed masses who haven't been converted yet, or whose conversion was imperfect, begin to gather in patches of urban wilderness where they voice the suspicion that all is not well with The Guardians.

In our cheesy sci-fi flick, all sorts of logically inexplicable things happen. Like there's a scene where a bunch of these "leaders," of the Allegedly Non-Evil kind, join a nefarious cabal called a Supercommittee and then hold guns to their own heads and shout, "Stop me before I kill! Or maybe don't!"

Past events too are explained, like The Guardians' fiendish hatching of a conspiracy against the people cunningly dubbed the Patriot Act, bestowing on The Guardians' stooges in government and law enforcement (oh yes, they've taken over both, filling them with people converted into stooges) secret powers to ferret out and exterminate anything that might be perceived as disloyalty to the masters.

And finally, finally we can make sense of something like this op-ed piece that appeared in the Washington Post. I really think we need to let Nicholas Merrill tell his own story, at least as far as the law allows him. (Additional links onsite.)

How the Patriot Act stripped me of my free-speech rights

By Nicholas Merrill, Published: October 25

Sometime in 2012, I will begin the ninth year of my life under an FBI gag order, which began when I received what is known as a national security letter at the small Internet service provider I owned. On that day in 2004 (the exact date is redacted from court papers, so I can't reveal it), an FBI agent came to my office and handed me a letter. It demanded that I turn over information about one of my clients and forbade me from telling "any person" that the government had approached me.

National security letters are issued by the FBI, not a judge, to obtain phone, computer, and banking information. Instead of complying, I spoke with a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union and filed a constitutional challenge against the NSL provision of the Patriot Act, which was signed into law 10 years ago Wednesday.

A decade later, much of the government's surveillance policy remains shrouded in secrecy, making it impossible for the American public to engage in a meaningful debate on the effectiveness or wisdom of various practices. The government has used NSLs to collect private information on hundreds of thousands of people. I am the only person from the telecommunications industry who received one to ever challenge in court the legality of the warrantless NSL searches and the associated gag order and to be subsequently (partially) un-gagged.

In 2004, it wasn't at all clear whether the FBI would charge me with a crime for telling the ACLU about the letter, or for telling the court clerk about it when I filed my lawsuit as "John Doe." I was unable to tell my family, friends, colleagues or my company's clients, and I had to lie about where I was going when I visited my attorneys. During that time my father was battling cancer and, in 2008, he succumbed to his illness. I was never able to tell him what I was going through.

For years, the government implausibly claimed that if I were able to identify myself as the plaintiff in the case, irreparable damage to national security would result. But I did not believe then, nor do I believe now, that the FBI's gag order was motivated by legitimate national security concerns. It was motivated by a desire to insulate the FBI from public criticism and oversight.

In 2007, this newspaper made an exception to its policy against anonymous op-eds and published a piece I wrote about my predicament. In August 2010, the government agreed to a settlement, and I was finally allowed to reveal my name to the public in connection with my case, but I am still prevented -- under the threat of imprisonment -- from discussing any fact that was redacted in the thousands of pages of court documents, including the target of the investigation or what information was sought.

I don't believe that it's right for Americans' free speech rights to be bound by perpetual gag orders that can't be meaningfully challenged in a court of law. The courts agreed, but the NSLs and the gag orders live on. Now the FBI is supposed to notify NSL recipients that they can challenge a gag order -- but the government refuses to say how the court's ruling has been put into practice, or how many gag orders have been issued, challenged or reversed. This information is especially important since internal Justice Department investigations have found widespread violations of NSL rules by the FBI.

During the recent debate to reauthorize sections of the Patriot Act, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) -- warned that the government is interpreting the law to conduct surveillance that does not follow from a plain reading of the text. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry," Wyden said. As someone who had to keep silent and live a lie for the better part of a decade, in the false name of "national security," I know he's right.

The writer is executive director of the Calyx Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes "best practices" with regard to privacy and freedom of expression in the telecommunications industry.

It doesn't get a lot more unpatriotic than the Patriot Act.

#

What Would You Tell The SuperCommittee?

Not that they care what you have to tell them. They don't care what the Congressional Progressive Caucus has to tell them either, even though it's the biggest single caucus of the Democrats in the House. But the Caucus chairs, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), tried anyway. Last week they sent policy proposals to corporatist co-chairs of the SuperCommittee, Patty Murray (D-WA) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Their overarching point, one that matches the main concern of the American public, is that the committee focus on creating jobs-- raising revenues through fair taxation-- while protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“It’s way past time to talk big or think big-- it’s time to govern big and do what needs doing,” said Grijalva. “The American people are sick and tired of feeling too few in the government are responsive to their needs. While Republicans dither about cutting corporate taxes and dismantling Medicare, people are losing their homes, losing their jobs and losing their savings through no fault of their own. As a government, we need to look at ourselves and offer the country solutions that match the scope of the problems we face. Anything less is a waste of time.” Obviously Ellison was right on the same page: "While Republican politicians are busy slashing good paying American jobs from our economy, the Progressive Caucus continues to put job creation first with serious proposals to rebuild America. The most effective way to reduce the deficit is to put America back to work. Creating good jobs, making sure that everyone pays their fair share and protecting Social Security Medicare and Medicaid, are the best ways to ensure that all Americans are put on the path to prosperity, not just the wealthiest one percent.”

The proposals would reduce the nation’s deficit by trillions of dollars, put Americans back to work and protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Key recommendations include a responsible end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion; enacting the Fairness in Taxation Act, creating a millionaire tax that generates $872.5 billion; and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving $157.9 billion.

Here's the proposal in full:
 

Job Creation
 
Make it in America Again

We must begin with a strategy to revive manufacturing in the United States. This requires developing something every other industrial nation has – a national plan for manufacturing. When people see the words “Made in America” they know that they are getting the highest quality manufactured goods money can buy. We need a policy that reopens our factories and lets Americans do what they do best: produce the highest quality products in the world.

Rebuild America

With the cost of borrowing near zero, the construction industry flat on its back, and America’s decrepit infrastructure not only a competitive burden, but a threat to lives and safety, there is no better time to launch a major initiative to rebuild America. Create a national investment bank to leverage private capital and ensure that major projects are determined by merit, not by political muscle. Rebuild our half century old roads, bridges, locks and dams, while spurring creation of the roads of the future by connecting and empowering our country with fiber optic cable.

Jobs for the Next Generation

There is no shortage of work to be done in America and no shortage of workers to do it. One in four teenagers are officially unemployed, including nearly half of young African Americans and Latinos. We are witnessing a generation of crushed hopes, and we are squandering the talent of young Americans. Destructive cuts in public education threaten America’s economic success and we are now falling behind. We must increase federal support for hiring teachers as a catalyst for job creation and immediate and future economic development. We must invest in the finest public education and job training in the world, education is no longer a guarantee of work. Let us make the guarantee of a good American job real for every young person. We should provide direct employment in the public sector and incentives for hiring in the non-profit sector and private sector. In addition, the caucus supports a “Train me and pay me” program which would give stipends to workers and young people who are enrolled in job training programs.

Lead the Green Industrial Revolution

A centerpiece of our economic strategy must be to create good jobs now by capturing the lead in the industrial revolution that is sweeping the world-- starting with clean energy, electric cars, and efficient appliances. We need to invest in research and innovation so that America remains on the cutting edge of global technologies. Provide investment incentives to companies to create jobs here at home. Build a modern smart grid that can deliver efficiency and clean energy.

Not Just Jobs-- Good Jobs

American workers want good American jobs, not poverty level wages without benefits that make it impossible to support a family or save for the future. We can start by making sure that middle-class Americans are free to organize and have a voice and a seat at the table again. If corporations can join together to hire an army of lobbyists, working Americans must come together and use their strength in numbers to protect the rights of middle class Americans. We must ensure that businesses obey our labor laws and reward those that create good paying American jobs that protect our rights to equal opportunity and equal pay. Programs like TANF ECF have been proven to put people to work. While, we work on building these good jobs, we must ensure the long-term unemployed receive the full assistance and services they need so they can continue contributing to the economy.


Raising Revenue

Replacing Bush Tax Cuts and Estate Tax with Responsible Policies

The Bush-era tax cuts were and continue to be costly and ineffective at fostering economic growth. Of all the post-war business cycles, the economic expansion of 2001-07 saw the worst growth in gross domestic product, investment, employment, total compensation, wages and salaries, and labor force participation (measured trough to peak: 2001Q4 to 2007Q4). The Bush-era tax cuts were also objectively regressive, conferring a disproportionate benefit to high earners capturing a majority of new income. Additionally, the increased the estate tax exemption to $5 million ($10 million for married couples) and reduced the maximum tax rate above that exemption to 35% represents a tax cut that benefited only the wealthiest one-quarter of one percent of households.   The Progressive Caucus has longed called for ending this period of irresponsible spending on tax giveaways to the very wealthiest in our society. Unpaid for tax cuts has been the single largest driver of deficits over the last decade; any serious deficit reduction proposal must address these irresponsible policies. 

Currently CBO estimates an extension of  the Bush Tax cuts with the AMT indexed for inflation and an extension of current estate tax rates would add $3.95 trillion to the deficit from 2012-21.
 
Enact the Fairness in Taxation Act

The People’s Budget would adopt Representative Jan Schakowsky’s (D.-Il.) Fairness in Taxation Act (H.R 1124), which would create several new tax brackets for high-income earners: $1-10 million would be taxed at 45%; $10-20 million, 46%; $20-100 million, 47%; $100 million to $1 billion, 48%; $1 billion and over would pay 49%. The bill would also tax capital gains and dividend income as ordinary income for those taxpayers with income over $1 million. Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) estimate that the Fairness in Taxation Act would generate $748.2 billion over the 2011-20 period.  Extrapolating from this score, Rep. Schakowsky’s Fairness in Taxation Act is projected to generate $401.5 billion in revenue over the 2012-16 period and $872.5 billion over the 2012-21 period.

Savings $872.5 billion
 
Eliminate Fossil Fuel Tax Preferences

The president’s budget requests have repeatedly proposed eliminating a handful of tax preferences carved out for fossil fuel producers over the years. Eliminating this tax code spending would help level the playing field between renewable energy sources and fossil fuels. The People’s Budget would eliminate fossil fuel tax preferences as detailed by the president’s budget. Specifically, this policy would repeal exploration and development expensing, preferential tax treatment of royalties, and domestic manufacturing deductions, among other tax preferences, for oil, natural gas, and coal producers.  Repeal would save $21 billion over the 2012-16 period and $41 billion over the 2012-21 period. 

Savings $41 billion

Reinstate Superfund Taxes

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, once largely funded by dedicated taxes, is now largely funded by general revenue. Having a stable source of funding, rather than relying on year-to-year appropriations, would help plan multi-year cleanup of hazardous chemical waste. The People’s Budget would reinstate the Superfund excise taxes that expired in 1995 in order to finance cleanup of hazardous waste. Specifically, this policy would re-impose an excise tax of $0.22 to $4.87 per ton on various chemicals, an excise tax of 9.7 cents per barrel of crude or refined petroleum, and a corporate income tax of 0.12% on modified alternative minimum corporate income above $2 million. According to the CBO, this policy option would generate $19.4 billion over the 2012-21 period.

Savings $19.4 billion
 
Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee

The People’s Budget would impose a fee on large financial institutions. Specifically, the budget would impose a leverage tax (0.15% of covered liabilities) on large banks with more than $50 billion in assets (as proposed in the president’s budget request). According to the CBO, imposing such a tax could generate $31.3 billion over the 2012-16 period and $70.9 billion over the full 2012-21 period, recouping more than three-fold the net taxpayer cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The fee would provide an incentive for large firms to decrease their liabilities, helping to rectify the problem of “too big to fail” financial institutions that was made all too apparent during the financial crisis. The proposal would also help to level the playing field between small financial institutions (which do not benefit from an implicit government guarantee because they are not viewed as “systemically important” by credit markets) and larger financial institutions.

Savings $70.9 billion
 
Tax Preference for Municipal Bonds

Bonds issued by state and local governments receive preferential tax treatment. The current tax treatment also confers a disproportionately larger tax benefit for upper-income earners. The People’s Budget would replace the tax exclusion for interest with a direct subsidy to borrowers (i.e., state and local governments), which would be a more cost-effective way of reducing their borrowing costs. Under this policy, state and local governments would make taxable interest payments to borrowers and receive a 15% subsidy from the federal government for the interest paid on those bonds. This would simplify the tax code, increase budgeting transparency, and more cost-effectively subsidize borrowing by state and local governments. According to the CBO, this policy would generate $30.5 billion over 2012-16 and $142.7 billion over 2012-21.

Savings $142.7 billion

Derivatives and Speculation Tax

The People’s Budget would impose a small tax on transactions of exotic financial products. Assuming a 25% behavioral reduction in transactions resulting from a tax, Dean Baker and Robert Pollin estimate that various taxes on financial derivative products (financial instruments deriving their value from some other underlying asset, such as a stock, currency, or index) could generate upwards of $63.5 billion annually.Specifically, a tax on swaps (taxed at 0.01% per year to maturity and assuming an average life to maturity of 1.5 years)—including credit default swaps-- could generate roughly $34.8 billion. A tax of 0.01% on each side of futures and forwards transactions could generate roughly $10.7 billion. A 0.5% tax on option premiums (the right to purchase a stock at a set price at a future date) could generate roughly $6.3 billion. Additionally, a 0.01% tax on all foreign exchange spot transactions could generate roughly $11.7 billion annually (this latter option is a proper “Tobin tax,” rather than a derivatives tax). The tax rates on derivative and speculative financial products proposed by the People’s Budget would represent a smaller relative increase in transactions costs, so a 25% reduction in transactions seems reasonable, if not conservative. A larger behavioral response would decrease revenue relative to projected levels, but would conversely further the policy goal of taming speculation and encouraging more productive investment. Assuming a larger 50% reduction in transaction, Baker and Pollin estimate that these speculation taxes would raise $43.2 billion annually.

Savings $43.2 billion annually

Responsibly End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

The People’s Budget accounts for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These operations have cost $1.3 trillion, excluding debt service. The People’s Budget provides $161.4 billion in OCO funding for 2012 (the funding level in the CBO baseline), after which all OCO funding is ended. The Congressional Research Service estimates that this sum would be more than sufficient to safely and deliberately withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. Responsibly ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will save $1.6 trillion over the 2013- 21 period, relative to the CBO baseline.

Savings $1.6 trillion

Realigning Department of Defense Priorities

Over the last two years, a rare consensus has emerged among a wide range of Washington policymakers: any deficit reduction plan must tackle Department of Defense spending. Specific proposals for conventional forces include: reducing active duty Army personnel strength to 427,000 by 2014 (a decrease of 120,000); reducing the Marine Corps personnel strength by 30% to a force of 145,000 by 2014; reducing the Navy by 20% to a fleet of 230 ships; and reducing the Air Force by 15%, reducing the number of squadrons by 18 of 60. These force structure savings would total $593.7 billion over the 2012-21 period. Specific proposals for strategic capabilities include reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal, cancelling the Trident II missile, limiting modernization of nuclear weapons infrastructure and research, and selectively curtailing missile defense and space programs. No savings are assumed from TRICARE, the military health care program for active duty personal, military retirees, and their dependents. Overall, these policy proposals would gradually reduce defense appropriations by $692.2 billion over the 2012-21 period, relative to the CBO baseline. Relative to higher spending levels in the president’s budget request, they would represent $816.7 billion in savings over the next decade. In both cases, the savings are well within the bounds of the savings identified as reasonable by the Sustainable Defense Taskforce (SDTF) report. SDTF, a bipartisan group of defense experts, released a report in June 2010 that detailed a series of options, which, if taken together, would save $960 billion over a decade
.
Savings $692.2-- $960 billion
 
Protecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid
 
Offer a Public Insurance Option

Beginning in 2014, national health insurance exchanges will be established (as a result of health care reform) through which individuals and families may purchase private coverage, increasing competition in largely fragmented, regional insurance markets. Under this option, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services would administer a public health insurance plan to be offered alongside private plans through the exchanges. The public plan would exploit economies of scale to negotiate payment rates for prescription drugs, would pay physicians roughly 5% more than Medicare reimbursement rates, and would pay hospitals and providers comparable rates as paid under Medicare. Based on the potential for administrative and other savings, the CBO estimates that insurance premiums for the public plan would be roughly 5-7% lower than private plans offered in the insurance exchanges.  According to the CBO, this option would lower deficits by $17.4 billion from 2012 to 2016, and by $88.0 billion from 2012 to 2021. Over the next decade, outlays would fall by $26.7 billion (a reduction in targeted subsidies for the purchase of insurance in the exchanges) and a $61.2 billion increase in revenue (largely resulting from interactions with the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance).

Savings $61.2 billion

Negotiate Drug Prices With Pharmaceutical Companies

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) report, Restoring America’s Future, estimated that negotiating drug prices would save $100 billion over the 2012-18 period. The BPC report proposed ending guaranteed Medicare in 2019 (changing the program to a premium support system similar to vouchers), ending the ability of the government to harness economies of scale to negotiate pharmaceutical drug prices. The budgetary impact of this proposal is extrapolated beyond 2018 by indexing savings to projected per capita health expenditure.19 Based on this extrapolation, negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies would save an estimated $157.9 billion over the 2012-21 period.

Savings $157.9 billion

Strengthening Social Security

Millions of elderly Americans rely on the economic security that comes from the Social Security System. The People’s Budget does not propose any reductions in benefits. The People’s Budget raises the taxable maximum to include 90% of economy-wide earnings, and eliminates themaximum that employers pay on behalf of their high-income employees. Under the current system, income above a taxable maximum is not subject to any Social Security tax, meaning that high-income individuals pay less as a share of their income than everyone else. The CBO estimates thatincreasing the share of total earnings subject to the payroll tax to 90% would require raising themaximum taxable amount to $170,000 in 2012, up from $106,800 in 2011.The increase in thetaxable maximum on the employee side is gradually phased in over five years. The increase inemployer contributions for high earners (those employees earning more than $106,800) would bephased in immediately. This option maintains the benefits structure as is, and benefitcomputations would reflect all earnings up to the new taxable maximum on the employee side,although increased employer contributions would not affect benefit computations. This policyraises $445.0 billion over five years, and around $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Social Securityoutlays would increase by $2.8 billion over 10 years.

Additional savings for Social Security trust fund $1.2 trillion

Did you watch the Jesse Johnson documentary last night about the 1% and how hereditary wealth works in the U.S.? If you missed it... well it takes 80 minutes to watch. But it will help you understand where at least one SuperCommittee member, Fred Upton, an heir to the Whirlpool fortune, is coming from. He's nothing like Jesse Johnson. He's like most of the people-- well, like most of the white people, in Jesse's movie. Upton doesn't give a rat's ass about what Raul and Keith are proposing. His company shipped tens of thousands of Midwest-based manufacturing jobs to low wage hellholes all over the world rather than pay a fair wage. Fred Upton might listen to you, however... if you live in his southwest Michigan congressional district. You don't? Most of us don't. And the only way to get through to Upton is by defeating him in 2012 when he runs for reelection. He's up against a blue collar New Deal Democrat, John Waltz, the kind of guy the 1% doesn't want speaking up. You can help John speak up here at our Blue America ActBlue page. He'll be speaking up for your children's future.