What's the Earliest a Progressive Democrat Can Be Elected President?

by Thomas Neuburger

Among the many thoughts these rebellious times inspire is this one: How will it ever end?

It could end in mass and chaotic violence, of course, with anti-killercop protests hijacked by cop provocateurs and Proud Boy "bust 'em up" squads, followed by the inevitable law-and-order crackdown that shuts the whole thing off in a National Security State way — a crackdown that white and suburban liberals and conservatives alike will applaud till the sun sets in the west.

That's certainly one of the choices.

It could end like the sixties and seventies Movement ended, with a Jimmy Carter in the White House (our proto-neoliberal), followed by the end of the Vietnam War, a temporary end to the war on pot, the so-called "greening of America," and hippies going back to their day jobs with a sense of having won at least something for the effort.

But it won't — that's not one of the choices, simply because there's no slack in the schedule for the Late Seventies and Reagan Eighties breather that sent people dancing to Disco and off to watch, in envy and hope, the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

That's certainly not a choice given what's teed up for us today — relentless economic neoliberal misery; ongoing unrelieved anger and resentment; ginned-up battles between a "left" that pretends to stand for workers and doesn't, and a "right" that pretends to stand for freedom and doesn't; and the Big One, William Gibson's "Jackpot," the worldwide climate conflict that won't end till we stop feeding money to the Carbon Barons — and even then, if we don't start stopping soon, maybe never.

It could also end with the election of a true progressive president, a real FDR, an unbought, skillful champion of the people, who "welcomes the hatred" of the rich and destructive and means it. Not a pretender; the real thing.

When Is the Earliest the Nation Can Elect a Progressive Democratic President?

With the last thought in mind — it ends when we elect an actual progressive — let's see when's the earliest this could occur. (The following is borrowed and expanded from this insightful piece at Reddit's "Way of the Bern.")

Consider these scenarios:

• Trump wins in 2020. With no Democratic incumbent, a progressive can run and (if she's not sabotaged) win in 2024.

• Biden wins in 2020 and he or his VP (who will always have the inside track) loses to a Republican in 2024. A progressive can run, and maybe win, in 2028.

• Biden wins in 2020 but isn't on the ballot in 2024. His faux-progressive (neoliberal) VP wins in 2024 and but loses to a Republican in 2028. A progressive can run, and maybe win, in 2032.

• Biden wins in 2020 but isn't on the ballot in 2024. His faux-progressive (neoliberal) VP wins in 2024 and 2028. Then his or her same-stripe VP loses in 2032. A progressive could run in 2036.

• Biden wins in 2020 but isn't on the ballot in 2024. His faux-progressive (neoliberal) VP wins in 2024 and 2028. Then her same-stripe VP wins in 2032 and 2036. If her VP doesn't run, a progressive could run against a non-incumbent Democrat in 2040.

Exceptions:

• Biden picks a progressive VP in 2020, a real one, someone Sanders-like, who would run in 2024 if Biden doesn't.

But would anyone with sense take a bet he'll do that? Consider: Barack Obama put Biden where he is precisely to stop a Sanders-like candidate from winning. Why would Biden or the people behind him throw that gift away?

• Biden's same-stripe VP picks a progressive VP, a real one, someone Sanders-like, who might possibly be allowed to run in 2036.

That last is too far off to bet on, but I would take the bet that says neoliberals will make a hash of the climate emergency that's sure to show up by then, making all bets on democratic governance afterward moot.

We're left with these conclusions. We can run a progressive against a non-incumbent Democrat:

• In 2024, if Biden loses to Trump.
• In 2028, if Biden wins and his VP loses in 2024.
• In 2032, if Biden wins, his VP wins next, but loses in 2028.
• In 2036 or later in all other cases.

Do you see where this is headed? 2036 is more than a decade away. Because no progressive will win — and likely won't even run — against a Democratic incumbent, either the Democratic Party must self-reform, or a Republican must take the White House before a progressive Democrat can run.

In other words, unless the Democratic Party becomes suddenly anti-neoliberal, the answer to our initial question — What's the earliest a progressive Democrat can be elected president? — is Never or Too Late.

Not sure I like the look of that.
  

What's Next? A Look Into the Middle Distance

The Sack of Rome in 1527 by Johannes Lingelbach

by Thomas Neuburger

Diverse pathes leden diverse folk the righte way to Rome.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, A Treatise on the Astrolabe

The following offers a brief look into the middle distance, a view past the immediate future — the next few weeks or months when the virus will run its predictable, consequential course — but not so long a view as to reach the logical next phase of human history, the reduction of the species by the ravages of the “Jackpot,” as William Gibson called it: the big one, the global climate crisis and all that will bring.

What's missing from a view of the inevitable immediate and the collapsing distant is what gets us from here to there, from the virus in our faces to the emerging climate to come. The future's unknown, but much can be deduced. In that vein I offer these reflections on the few years or so. From this we learn that despite all that is uncertain, despite the many branches of our path, all roads may yet lead to Rome.

• On the 2020 nomination: Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee or he will be replaced as unfit — not unfit for the job (he's already unfit for that) but for the job of appearing to be fit for the job. A middle path is to give the VP nomination to his heir apparent and hint that the Party will be in charge, but these are roughly equivalent alternatives. Corporate Democrats will offer a corporate candidate.

• On the 2020 election: Trump will beat the Democrat (not certain, but likely in my opinion) or the Democrat will win the White House (much less likely). If Biden is the nominee after all, the election will turn on the votes of Democratic Party loyalist voters — most will turn out — added to the independent anti-Trump vote, who may or may not turn out in sufficient numbers to stem the incumbent tide. In that case, the election may well turn on incumbency.

If someone other than Biden is the nominee, the election will turn on Sanders-supporting independent voters, who will likely look at the substitute nominee, a person who received no primary votes and won no delegates, and ask, “Who is this person? Where was he when the primary was actually happening? Oh, nowhere; that’s where I thought he was.”

In other words, a more-competent-than-Biden alternative will have an even bigger hill to climb than Biden would have had, and his or her odds of losing to Trump will be significantly increased. The impression of increased competency won't increase support among Party loyalists, whose votes are guaranteed in any case, but an out-of-the-blue corporate candidate will increase the resistance of non-Party-loyalist and Bernie-got-screwed independents. Many will stay home, more than would have stayed home for Biden; others will revenge-vote for Trump under the principle, "I don't like the knife in my chest, but I hate the one stuck in my back."

• In none of these cases will much of anything change after the election, at least not once Covid has run most of its course. The need for a radical restructured economy will be waved away — by the corporate Republicans as too much "government interference"; by corporate Democrats who control the post-Sanders Party, as “irresponsible” and “unaffordable” given the glut of spending on the virus crisis itself.

In other words, whether Biden is the nominee or not, his promise that nothing will fundamentally change will indeed be kept by whoever is elected. Trump, if president, will do what Trump will do, or something worse. The Democrat, if president, will do what the Party always does, serve its donors while trying to placate workers they've abandoned. In neither case will workers see relief.

• The rebellion against both parties’ corruption will continue as before — or as it would have continued had Coronavirus not worked its interrupted the course.

If Trump is the next president, his Republican critics (they do exist) will be moved to silence by the thought that at least “their guy” is in power. Angry independents though, and newly bankrupt Sanders-supporting Democrats, will not depart so quietly.

In fact, they will not depart at all. They will conclude, instead and correctly, there’s no electoral path that will change their lives.

If a corporate Democrat (the only kind still standing) is the next president, his Democratic critics will be guilted into silence by the shame-selling corporate press. Angry independents though, newly-bankrupt Sanders-supporting Democrats, and all struggling Trump-supporting Republicans will not depart so quietly.

In fact, they will not depart at all. They will conclude, instead and correctly, there’s no electoral path that will change their lives.

• Thus the non-electoral portion (to steal a line from My Favorite Year) of this decade-long rebellion will begin, with all that this implies for endless populist promises not kept, multinational billionaire bailouts purchased and passed, and the clash of the newly-desperate against the muscular force of federal, state, local and judicial machines, all charged with keeping the “peace” at the expense of the people. 

With Sanders out of the game — whether by choice, inability, or the sly Obama hand that puppeteered in plain sight, it matters not at all — with Sanders gone, there are no non-corporate candidates left, which leaves the ravaged with no good choice at all. If they choose to act, they will choose among bad choices, and the corporate state will do what it will do, what entrenched power always does when faced with rebellion.

So far in this drama, the people have not lain quiet; they have acted. I expect no less now. Thus we arrive at Rome by any path.

This is the middle-distance as I see it, the route for the next few years. All roads may lead to Rome, but maybe not to the empire of our minds. People forget that Rome was sometimes sacked. 
  

In the Shadow of Impeachment, Neoliberal Democrats Hand Trump a Victory

Donald Trump discussing the new NAFTA trade deal (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

If Trump gets re-elected, if Big Tech continues to evade accountability, if imperial adventures continue abroad, if migrant farmworkers cannot feed their families, you can trace it back to this Tuesday, and the actions a House Speaker took while nobody was paying attention.
—David Dayen, The American Prospect (emphasis added)

As the Impeachment Drama lumbers to a 2020 conclusion, morphing into its variant selves and sucking life from every other story the media most folks attend to are inclined to tell, unwatched things are happening in its shadow.

Nancy Pelosi has used end-of-year urgency and the impeachment distraction to pass four pieces of major legislation, three of which will become law, all on the same day.

NAFTA 2.0 is one of them. Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, agreed under pressure to approve Pelosi's House version of NAFTA 2.0, rebranded "USMCA," or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, for obvious reasons. This is a deal he should never have made, yet he made it.

Consider who Trumka is — a bridge between the neoliberal mainstream of the Democratic Party and the (presumably further left) labor movement that supports and sustains it. In other words, he's the person who blesses neoliberal policies as "progressive" (thus retaining mainstream Democratic Party approval) while modifying those policies in the margins to be less terrible (thus retaining the approval of progressives, who want to think of him as opposed to neoliberalist policies).

He's the person, in other words, who makes the labor movement look less like a puppy of the Democratic Party establishment to progressives, while keeping the labor movement (and himself) firmly in the Party establishment tent. The drama of "Will Trumka approve USMCA?" we recently witnessed exemplified this role.

To anyone with two cells in their brain, it was obvious as soon as the question was asked that he would approve USMCA. The stage was set; his arrival on it announced; the spotlight was ready and bright. Would he really walk onto this stage at this late date and say no to Party leaders? Of course not.

Would he have been able to stay in his lofty perch if he had? His job was to bless the cake after it had been baked, not to unbake it.

What pressure was Trumka under? First, obviously, from the Democratic Party and its billionaire donors, to give them what they and the Republicans — and Donald Trump — all wanted, a neoliberal-lite trade deal that could become in Nancy Pelosi's words "a template for future trade agreements ... a good template."

Second, Trumka was under pressure from his union base itself (so say some, including David Dayen in the piece linked below), many of whom are Trump supporters, to give President Trump a signature first-term victory, just in time for the start of his second-term campaign.

Do I believe this latter explanation? No, but I believe Trumka believes it. And if indeed it is true that Trumka has to serve Trump, at least in part, in order to serve his own base, it's further evidence of the careerism of his actions, in contrast to behavior from actual labor-movement principles.

Here's Dayen on this sordid tale (emphasis added):

Pelosi got AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka to sign off on the U.S.–Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), handing Trump a political victory on one of his signature issues. Predictably, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham immediately gushed, calling USMCA “the biggest and best trade agreement in the history of the world.”

It’s, um, not that. Economically, USMCA is a nothingburger; even the most rose-colored analysis with doubtful assumptions built in shows GDP growth of only 0.06 percent per year. There’s one good provision: the elimination of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision that allowed corporations to sue governments in secret tribunals over trade violations. There’s one bad provision: the extension of legal immunity for tech platforms over user-generated content, put into a trade deal for the first time. This will make the immunity shield, codified in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, much harder to alter in the future. Pelosi has called this deal a “template” for future agreements, though trade reformers have called it a bare minimum floor.

Pelosi tried to remove the immunity shield, but abandoned the request. She did succeed in removing a provision for Big Pharma that extended exclusivity periods for biologics. The Sierra Club has termed the deal an “environmental failure” that will not have binding standards on clean air and water or climate goals. But the threshold question on the USMCA was always going to be labor enforcement: would the labor laws imposed on Mexico hold, improving their lot while giving U.S. manufacturing workers a chance to compete? There was also the open question of why the U.S. would reward Mexico with a trade deal update when trade unionists in the country continue to be kidnapped and killed.

In his statement, Trumka lauds the labor enforcement, noting provisions that make it easier to prove violations (including violence against workers), rules of evidence for disputes, and inspections of Mexican facilities, a key win. But I’ve been told that the AFL-CIO did not see the details of the text before signing off, which is unforgivable, especially on trade where details matter. There was no vote by union leaders, just a briefing from the AFL-CIO.

At least one union, the Machinists, remains opposed, and others were noncommittal until they see text. The Economic Policy Institute, which is strongly tied to labor, called the agreement “weak tea at best,” a tiny advance on the status quo that will not reverse decades of outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

Meanwhile, back at the Trump re-election ranch:

While the economics are negligible (and potentially harmful on tech policy), on the politics activists are losing their mind at the prospect of a Trump signing ceremony, with labor by his side, on a deal that he will construe as keeping promises to Midwest voters. “Any corporate Democrat who pushed to get this agreement passed that thinks Donald Trump is going to share the credit for those improvements is dangerously gullible,” said Yvette Simpson, CEO of Democracy for America, in a statement. Only a small handful of Democratic centrists were pushing for a USMCA vote, based mostly on the idea that they had to “do something” to show that they could get things done in Congress. Now they’ve got it, and they’ll have to live with the consequences.

I guess helping re-elect the "most dangerous president ever" pales in comparison to passing bipartisan-approved neoliberal trade deals.

One of Richard Trumka's jobs, if he wants to stay employed, is to make sure neoliberal Party leaders like Nancy Pelosi are happy and well served while simultaneously keeping progressives thinking that Big Labor is still in their corner even on issues the donor class most cares about.

At that he does very well, and did so here.
 

"...As We Sleepwalk Our Way Towards The Most Predictable Financial Crisis In The History Of Man"

There wasn't a policy of his I ever agreed with when Sanford was a congressman the first time, nor while he was governor, nor when he rejoined Congress. And I still don't. When he hits on a truth-- example: Trump is a shit head who is wrecking our country-- his analysis is never correct. Same goes for shit-for-brains professional centrist and NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman. His latest column-- with the click-bait title ‘Trump’s Going to Get Re-elected, Isn’t He?'-- is little more than a gussied up neo-liberal plea for "serious" Democrats and #NeverTrumpers to nominate anyone but Bernie.

Friedman and his wealthy circle were horrified in June when Democratic presidential candidates talked about fundamentally changing the system that has been so very good to those, like Friedman, in the top 1%. Status Quo Joe was tailor-made for Friedman. If he didn't already exist, they would have to create him-- or draft Gina Raimondo, the neoliberal Wall Street shill from Rhode Island. He's their man. And if he wasn't before-- all those decades of racism can be embarrassing to pretend liberals-- those comments about how "nothing would fundamentally change" clinched it.

I was shocked that so many candidates in the party whose nominee I was planning to support want to get rid of the private health insurance covering some 250 million Americans and have “Medicare for all” instead. I think we should strengthen Obamacare and eventually add a public option.

I was shocked that so many were ready to decriminalize illegal entry into our country. I think people should have to ring the doorbell before they enter my house or my country.

I was shocked at all those hands raised in support of providing comprehensive health coverage to undocumented immigrants. I think promises we’ve made to our fellow Americans should take priority, like to veterans in need of better health care.

And I was shocked by how feeble was front-runner Joe Biden’s response to the attack from Kamala Harris-- and to the more extreme ideas promoted by those to his left.

So, I wasn’t surprised to hear so many people expressing fear that the racist, divisive, climate-change-denying, woman-abusing jerk who is our president was going to get re-elected, and was even seeing his poll numbers rise.

Dear Democrats: This is not complicated! Just nominate a decent, sane person, one committed to reunifying the country and creating more good jobs, a person who can gain the support of the independents, moderate Republicans and suburban women who abandoned Donald Trump in the midterms and thus swung the House of Representatives to the Democrats and could do the same for the presidency. And that candidate can win!

But please, spare me the revolution! It can wait. Win the presidency, hold the House and narrow the spread in the Senate, and a lot of good things still can be accomplished. “No,” you say, “the left wants a revolution now!” O.K., I’ll give the left a revolution now: four more years of Donald Trump.




That will be a revolution.

Four years of Trump feeling validated in all the crazy stuff he’s done and said. Four years of Trump unburdened by the need to run for re-election and able to amplify his racism, make Ivanka secretary of state, appoint even more crackpots to his cabinet and likely get to name two right-wing Supreme Court justices under the age of 40.

Yes sir, that will be a revolution!

It will be an overthrow of all the norms, values, rules and institutions that we cherish, that made us who we are and that have united us in this common project called the United States of America.

If the fear of that doesn’t motivate the Democratic Party’s base, then shame on those people. Not all elections are equal. Some elections are a vote for great changes-- like the Great Society. Others are a vote to save the country. This election is the latter.

That doesn’t mean a Democratic candidate should stand for nothing, just keep it simple: Focus on building national unity and good jobs.

I say national unity because many Americans are terrified and troubled by how bitterly divided, and therefore paralyzed, the country has become. There is an opening for a unifier.

And I say good jobs because when the wealth of the top 1 percent equals that of the bottom 90 percent, we do have to redivide the pie. I favor raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to subsidize universal pre-K education and to reduce the burden of student loans. Let’s give kids a head start and college grads a fresh start.

But I’m disturbed that so few of the Democratic candidates don’t also talk about growing the pie, let alone celebrating American entrepreneurs and risk-takers. Where do they think jobs come from?

The winning message is to double down on redividing the pie in ways that give everyone an opportunity for a slice while also growing the pie sustainably.

Trump is growing the pie by cannibalizing the future. He is creating a growth spurt by building up enormous financial and carbon debts that our kids will pay for.

Democrats should focus on how we create sustainable wealth and good jobs, which is the American public-private partnership model: Government enriches the soil and entrepreneurs grow the companies.

It has always been what’s made us rich, and we’ve drifted away from it: investing in quality education and basic scientific research; promulgating the right laws and regulations to incentivize risk-taking and prevent recklessness and monopolies that can cripple free markets; encouraging legal immigration of both high-energy and high-I.Q. foreigners; and building the world’s best enabling infrastructure-- ports, roads, bandwidth and basic social safety nets.

Ask Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island’s governor, and my kind of Democrat.

And Biden's kind of running mate... if they're going to force him to pick a girl? Literally a Blue state Republican who calls herself a Democrat because of abortion and for no other reason whatsoever. She may be Thomas Friedman's-- and other neo-liberals'-- wet dream, but I can't think of many Democrats less fit for the presidency than Joe Biden... but Gina Raimondo, who nearly ran until she did the polling, is certainly one of them. Andrew Cuomo too.

Meanwhile the big-money Democratic funders have made their decision about who to back. As anyone would have guessed, they've always wanted Status Quo Joe and have banked on McKinsey Pete in case-- as is likely-- Biden self-destructs. And then there's Kamala, another one who has always been on good terns with the very wealthy. These bundlers raised tens of millions of dollars for Clinton and for Obama and now are just thinking about one thing: stopping the one candidate who is for fundamental; change. Career-long Wall Street shills Booker, Gllibrand and Klobuchar have also done very well. They usually give to multiple candidates...but not Bernie.

Politico looked at 1,923 big donors and bundlers who gave to Obama and Hillary. Give to anyone you want at the DWT thermometer on the right. Here's how the money flowed in terms of the number of big donors and fundraisers:

• Status Quo Joe- 253
• Kamala Harris- 246
• McKiney Pete- 224
• Cory Booker- 152
• Amy Klobuchar- 113
• Gillibrand- 106
• Beto- 60
• Michael Bennet- 48
• Jay Inslee- 46
• Bullock- 42
• Frackenlooper- 39
• Elizabeth Warren- 39
• Castro- 19
• Delaney- 15
• Moulton- 12
• Tim Ryan- 11
• de Blasio- 7
• Eric Swalwell- 7
• Marianne Williamson- 5
• Andrew Yang- 4
• Bernie- 4
• Tulsi- 2

One of them, obviously delusional, said, with a straight face, "Electability is the most important thing. We just want a candidate that can beat Trump. You invest in candidates that are delivering as a candidate, or that polling tells you has a good shot to beat Trump."

Congress Should Change The Name Of The House Financial Services Committee To The Neoliberalism Committee

This is propaganda

Members of Congress mostly sign up for the Financial Services Committee because it's the easiest committee in Congress to sell your vote for big bucks. There are a lot of really corrupt committees, but Financial Services is numero uno. Every now and then a Democrat or two will manage to get on the committee with the express purpose of reforming it. They rarely last long. The out-going chair, Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) is leaving Congress just in time to see control of the committee which from Republicans to Democrats. His legacy is having taken immense amounts of money from the banksters in return for destroying as many regulations on their behavior as he could. These are the bribes he earned-- and how the amount stacked up to other members of the House who were busy taking bribes last year:

• Financial Sector as a whole- $7,905,748 (2nd most)
• Stock brokers and the Investment Industry- $1,536,111 (12th most)
• Finance/Credit companies- $738,104 (#1)
• Hedge Funds- $107,350
• Mortgage Banking- $251,555 (2nd most)
• Payday Lenders- $202,000 (2nd most)
• Commercial Banking- $1,459,388 (the most)
• Savings and Loans- $85,903 (2nd most)

Well now he's gone and the new chair, Maxine Waters (D-CA), doesn't spend her life gobbling up bribes on a level Hensarling did. Hensarling isn't the only Republican who is leaving Congress from the committee. No more payoffs will be flowing to these criminals, in order of seniority and including how much they've taken from the Finance Sector:

• Ed Royce (R-CA)- $7,593,842
• Stevan Pearce (R-NM)- $2,015,512
• Randy Hultgren (R-IL)- $2,368,537
• Dennis Ross (R-FL)- $1,983,567

• Robert Pittenger (R-NC)- $1,367,745
• Keith Rothfus (R-PA)- $2,252,763
• Luke Messer (R-IN)- $1,828,341
• Bruce Poliquin (R-ME)- $2,357,049
• Mia Love (R-UT)- $1,812,806
• Dave Trott (R-MI)- $577,765
• Tom MacArthur (R-NJ)- $1,308,469
• Claudia Tenney (R-NY)- $984,180

• Mike Capuano (D-MA)- $2,686,760
• Keith Ellison (D-MN)- $914,294
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD)- $2,537,077
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- $4,208,505

I don't know who McCarthy has decided to anoint as the GOP ranking member this year but the three with the most seniority on the committee are Peter King (R-NY- $3,092,721) Frank Lucas (R-OK- $2,483,427) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC- $5,586,542) and it will presumably one of them. McHenry is the most corrupt and I'd bet hell get the job.

OK, while I was researching this I noticed something else. If you want to power-goose the bribes, the subcommittee to be on is Capital Markets, Securities and Investment. OMG! Do these crooks just roll in the cash-- more than anyone else, short of leadership positions. I can't wait to watch which crooked freshmen gravitate towards this one, The chairman was Bill Huizenga (R-MI) and he managed to grab $2,801,450 and the new chair is an incredibly corrupt NYC Democrat, Carolyn Maloney who has taken a startling $6,327,421 from the Finance sector. The Democrats should be ashamed to appoint this crook to chair the subcommittee. But they're not.

These are the Capital Markets, Securities and Investment subcommittee members, the ones who aren't leaving the House (so I won't mention that Kyrsten Sinema, who's going to the Senate accepted $4,208,505 in bribes while serving on this subcommittee) who have taken over a million bucks each from the Finance Sector:

• Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)- $6,327,421

• Jim Himes (New Dem-CT)- $6,279,357
• Steve Stivers (R-OH)- $5,598,776
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC)- $5,586,542
• Brad Sherman (New Dem- CA)- $3,823,403
• Sean Duffy (R-WI)- $3,679,647
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)- $3,661,288
• David Scott (New Dem-GA)- $3,260,344
• Peter King (R-NY)- $3,092,721
• Ann Wagner (R-MO)- $3,041,599
• Josh Gottheimer (New Dem-NJ)- $2,967,427
• Bill Huizenga (R-MI)- $2,801,450
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)- $2,780,919
• French Hill (R-AR)- $2,386,049
• Stephen Lynch (D-MA)- $2,084,356
• Juan Vargas (New Dem-TX)- $1,706,965
• Tom Emmer (R-MN)- $1,333,623

So that leaves us with the freshmen who took the most money from the banksters-- over $700,000-- while they were running. I've never seen a freshman class entering Congress with this kind of a debt to the banksters. And notice-- not one of them is a Republican! These are the ones the banksters are counting on to allow them to go on cheating their customers and ripping off the country:

• Mikie Sherrill (New Dem-NJ)- $1,356,124
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- $1,079,022
• Antonio Delgado (D-NY)- $1,077,633
• Dan McCready (New Dem-NC)- $1,006,825
• Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)- $949,192
• Josh Harder (New Dem-CA)- $946,554
• Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- $907,303
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- $894,376
• Abigail Spanberger (New Dem-VA)- $793,472
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- $775,938
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)- $756,569
• Max Rose (New Dem)- $746,093
• Kim Schrier (New Dem-WA)- $732,502
• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)- $729,600
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)- $710,436
• Mike Levin (D-CA)- $710,273
• Katie Hill (New Dem-CA)- $710,109

17 freshmen who have already taken over $700K from the Finance Sector-- unheard of! And notice that 15 out of the 17 are New Dems, the caucus invented to sell their votes to Wall Street. Lookin' pretty miserable already. And that brings us to an interesting essay that Rainer Shea published on Sunday at the Ghion Journal-- Neoliberalism Is The Rationalization For Corporate Tyranny. It helps to explain the ideology behind the New Dems that even many of them don't fully grok themselves. "To understand the pathologies behind our paradigm of militarism, institutional racism, and extreme inequality," he began, "we should focus not so much on the attitudes of the elites but on the ideology that they use to advance their agendas."

When was the last time we had someone in Congress willing to say anything like this?

He makes the point that neoliberalism-- the extreme version of capitalism-- is the ideology "that the ruling class has made into conventional political thought. And neoliberalism is an exceptionally useful worldview for a power elite to propagate because it gives those who share their ideology the same mindset that the elites themselves have."

Like every dominant class throughout history, the plutocrats see those in the lower rungs of society as inferior. But neoliberalism causes this hostility towards the poor to spread among the broader population. Following in the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and propagated by right-wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh, an attitude has developed among many people that one’s economic position is always their own fault. Resentment towards perceived freeloaders is widespread, with even lower-class people often being suspicious that their economic peers are siphoning off society’s resources through welfare.

When this impulse to blame the country’s decay on laziness and “degeneracy” is fed by the dominant political forces, the ruling elite’s belief in the supreme moral value of wealth and the need for a corporate capitalist “free market” becomes the worldview of much of the rest of society. The super-rich believe that “freedom” means the ability to gain unlimited amounts of wealth without accountability, and this is essentially how most conventional political thinkers also view freedom. The domination of the neoliberal consensus applies to both the mainstream “conservative” and “liberal” sides since the Democratic Party reliably helps Wall Street and large corporations while marginalizing potential progressive reformers.

In reality, our political system is controlled by neither conservatives nor liberals. Electoral politics, government agencies, the courts, the universities, and the media have been bought out by corporations and billionaires. America’s economy is tied in with permanent wars, which are waged to sustain the demands of a global corporate-controlled empire. Our politics and our culture have been subverted by a tiny ruling circle, whose agenda isn’t to advance the traditional definitions of conservatism or liberalism but to protect their own wealth and power. And these elites have gotten many people to rationalize their tyrannical rule-or to even be unaware that a dominating class exists-by branding the accumulation of wealth as a personal freedom that shouldn’t be limited.

This economically centered concept of “freedom” is popularized by giving Americans-- especially white Americans-- the sense that they have the opportunity to succeed in the game of capitalism. Of course, the vast majority of white working class people never become part of the capitalist class. But the promise that they can theoretically become the commanders of the capitalist apparatus is rooted in the Western mentality of individualism, which is psychologically compelling for someone who’s told that the masters of business are society’s deserving “winners.” And the fact that becoming part of the capitalist class would entail domination over society’s “losers” is justified by the darker part of Western culture that glorifies conquest. This aspect of our culture derives from the mentalities behind colonialism and slavery, and it’s now being used to justify our current period of exploitation.

The shallow culture of consumerism enforces this lack of concern for the common good, as well as the regimentation and lack of community that our modern suburban paradigm has created. America’s culture is in a crisis of empathy, where people are encouraged to only think of their own interests while ignoring the circumstances of those who are different from them. Anthropologically, it makes sense for a population in these circumstances to largely be cynical, suspicious of outsiders, and loyal to authority.

...As the clinical psychologist John F. Schumaker recently wrote about the empathy deficit that modern consumerist capitalism has created:

Only the odd diehard biophile or flower child still preaches love as the revolutionary force that could awaken a higher humanity and reverse our death march. People have become less loveable, both in terms of their loveableness and, more crucially, their ability to love.

The lesson is that if we want to make things better, we need to spread compassion and generosity throughout our daily lives. Even more important is the creation of a mass movement that seeks to overthrow corporate capitalism, and then creates a society which protects the planet while ensuring that every person has a safe and comfortable life.

Thomas Piketty's Proposal to Save Europe From Itself

Taxes and spending in the "Fairer Europe" proposal by Thomas Piketty et al (source; click to enlarge). Notice the emphasis on addressing climate change, both on the tax side and the spending side.

by Gaius Publius

Thomas Piketty, the anti-neoliberal French economist most famous for his groundbreaking book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has spearheaded a proposal for a "fairer Europe" which includes a thorough revision of both its political structure — the proposal includes a new sovereign governing body — and its economic structure, the fairer Europe ("a new model to ensure the fair and lasting social development of its citizens") that its authors hope to create.

The proposal is in the form of a manifesto (English version here), and there are two Guardian articles about it, one by Piketty himself that largely repeats the language of the manifesto, and one about the proposal by Jennifer Rankin, from which the above graphic was taken.

True to its author, the proposal is decidedly anti-neoliberal as well. This piece will serve to give you a taste of what the proposal offers. Much of the summary below is taken from the Rankin article, but please click through to the manifesto itself and read its detail for yourself.

A word of caution: Before dismissing the idea as impractical or politically impossible, consider the large revolutionary changes that have already occurred — Trump, Brexit — because people on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate for structural disruption of the status quo. The push against the old order (for example, though in a rather mixed and muddle way by the gilets jaunes movement against Macron in France) isn't going away.

It's going to be important, therefore, to put healthy-for-democracy alternatives to the old order on the table, not just angry, fascist, Trumpist ones. This is a Sanders-type change proposal in an European context.

From the Rankin article:

Group led by Thomas Piketty presents plan for ‘a fairer Europe’

Manifesto by progressive Europeans calls for €800bn of levies to tackle inequality, disillusionment, climate change and migration

A group of progressive Europeans led by the economist and author Thomas Piketty has drawn up a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe to address the division, disenchantment, inequality and rightwing populism sweeping the continent.

The plan, crafted by more than 50 economists, historians and former politicians from half a dozen countries, includes huge levies on multinationals, millionaires and carbon emissions to generate funds to tackle the most urgent issues of the day, including poverty, migration, climate change and the EU’s so-called democratic deficit.

Published as the British parliament is set for a climactic Brexit vote, the “manifesto for the democratisation of Europe” says EU institutions are stuck in “a technocratic impasse” that benefits the rich.

“Following Brexit and the election of anti-European governments at the head of several member countries, it is no longer possible to continue as before,” says the document.

That much is certainly true. The need for the West to adapt to the unrest that threatens it unarguable. About the proposal itself (my emphasis throughout):

At the heart of the manifesto is a call for a European assembly that would have a budget of up to €800bn a year, financed by taxing corporate profits more effectively, as well as [taxing] income and wealth.

The EU has been accused of failing to address the manifest unfairness of huge multinationals such as Apple, Google and Amazon channeling profits through member states where taxes are lowest.

The budget would be worth 4% of the EU’s GDP – four times the current budget. Funds would be raised from four sources: an extra 15% levy on corporate profits, tax increases on individuals earning more than €100,000, a wealth tax on personal fortunes above €1m, and a tax on carbon emissions.

Half of the proceeds would be returned to member state governments. A quarter would go to research, innovation and education. A fund to better manage migration and a fund to make agriculture and industry greener would also benefit.

About implementation:

Insisting they do not want a “transfer payments Europe” [a Europe in which significant amounts of money flow from some countries to others], countries would see only a 0.1% difference in what they collect and get in return – a big difference from proposals for a eurozone budget that many economists see as a long-term necessity for the 19-country bloc.

The money would be overseen by a new European assembly consisting mostly of national politicians and some MEPs. While the assembly would be in touch with EU institutions, it would sit outside EU treaties and have the final word on spending.

In other words, the new assembly would not destroy the existing European institutions, but sit on top of them. More about the new assembly from Piketty himself:

Because we must act quickly but we must also get Europe out of the present technocratic impasse, we propose the creation of a European assembly. This will enable these new European taxes to be debated and voted as also the budget for democratisation. This European assembly can be created without changing existing European treaties.

The assembly would, of course, have to communicate with the present decision-making institutions (in particular the Eurogroup in which the ministers for finance in the eurozone meet informally every month). But, in cases of disagreement, the assembly would have the final word. If not, its capacity to be a locus for a new transnational political space where parties, social movements and NGOs would finally be able to express themselves would be compromised. Equally its actual effectiveness, since the issue is one of finally extricating Europe from the eternal inertia of intergovernmental negotiations, would be at stake. We should bear in mind that the rule of fiscal unanimity in force in the European Union has for years blocked the adoption of any European tax and sustains the eternal evasion into fiscal dumping by the rich and most mobile, a practice which continues to this day despite all the speeches. This will go on if other decision-making rules are not set up.

Given that a newly created European assembly would have the ability to adopt taxes and to affect the very core of the democratic, fiscal and social compacts of states, national and European parliamentarians must be central. This is why we propose, in the democratisation treaty available online, that 80% of the members of the European assembly should be from national parliaments, with 20% from the present European parliament. This choice merits further discussion. In particular, our project could also function with a lower proportion of national parliamentarians (for instance, 50%). But in our opinion an excessive reduction of this proportion might detract from the legitimacy of the European assembly in involving all European citizens in the direction of a new social and fiscal pact, and conflicts of democratic legitimacy between national and European elections could rapidly undermine the project.

Thus national elections will de facto be transformed into European elections. National elected members will no longer be able to simply shift responsibility on to Brussels and will have no other option than to explain to voters the projects and budgets they intend to defend in the European assembly. By bringing together the national and European parliamentarians in one single assembly, habits of co-governance will be created which at the moment only exist between heads of state and ministers of finance.

I haven't captured all the detail here. Again, please read the manifesto itself and/or Piketty's article describing it. 

Notice that the goal of the proposed tax isn't to create a pool of money that passes from some countries to others, but to redistribute resources within countries — from the wealthy, high income-earners, largest corporations and from carbon emissions, to those whom the wealthy starve of resources. In other words, it's a tax that serves the good of the mass of the everyone else.

The proposal can be adopted by any country that wishes to do so, and it takes effect for those countries, if I read the proposal correctly, so the idea won't get stuck in a ratification process, as is the case in the U.S., for example, with proposals like Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

It's an interesting concept, and I think it has "legs." Piketty's reputation will ensure it gets a hearing, and the usual enemies of anti-neoliberal change (whom Rankin's article quote at some length) are already in arms against it — a good sign that it actually threatens what they live to protect.

This Piketty proposal is something to watch as the old world continues to crash and a new one struggles for birth.

GP
 

The Latest Corporate Obamist to Be Touted for President by Big New York Media — Deval Patrick

Bain Capital's corporate logo: Vultures, rampant, on a field of bones

Bain Capital's managing director and the Obama circle's choice for next president. "We get the government we deserve in a democracy," Deval Patrick unironically said, according to the original caption (Photograph by John Trotter/MAPS for The New Yorker).

by Gaius Publius

Yet another agent of wealth is being touted as a Democratic Party candidate for president — it seems there's no end of them. This time the candidate is no Mike Bloomberg, with his suspect past, his narcissistic sense of entitlement, and openly limousine lifestyle, but an under-the-radar Democratic governor named Deval Patrick.

Patrick ticks all the boxes. He's loved by the Obama organization, he has that next-Obama feel on the stump, and he's a "moderate" (meaning corporatist) in a year when Third Way organizations are searching hard for a "sounds progressive, serves the donors" candidate to throw against the Donald Trump or Mike Pence wall in 2020.

And now he has the the big New York media pushing his candidacy, firing his big opening salvos for him. Jeffrey Toobin, not a no-name writer, has an absolutely glowing piece about Patrick in The New Yorker. Let's take a look (emphasis mine throughout):

Toobin open this way:

On Election Night last week, Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, went out to dinner with his wife, Diane, near their apartment, in Boston’s Back Bay. They propped up their iPads on the table, trying to synchronize their schedules after a hectic couple of months. On weekdays, Patrick had been on the road for his job, as a managing director at Bain Capital, the investment firm founded by his predecessor as governor, Mitt Romney. On weekends, he had travelled to a dozen states, to campaign for Democratic candidates in the midterms, and, in the process, to generate the kind of good will and name recognition that could help him if he chooses to run for President in 2020. Diane, meanwhile, had been winding down her law practice, as a management-side labor lawyer at the major Boston firm Ropes & Gray, where she had recently given up her partnership after working there since 1995. Back at home, after dinner, Patrick took a quick look at the election results, and then turned in early, rising, as is his custom, at dawn, to take stock.

Notice, among the down home details of this warm portrait, these critical facts: Deval Patrick is managing director of Bain Capital. His wife Diane is a labor lawyer, but on the management side, meaning she helps corporations fend off unions.

Toobin clearly doesn't see any of that as a minus, but he should. Bain Capital, worth nearly $100 billion in privately held assets, is an acquirer and destroyer of companies:

In his 2009 book The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, Josh Kosman described Bain Capital as "notorious for its failure to plow profits back into its businesses," being the first large private-equity firm to derive a large fraction of its revenues from corporate dividends and other distributions. The revenue potential of this strategy, which may "starve" a company of capital, was increased by a 1970s court ruling that allowed companies to consider the entire fair-market value of the company, instead of only their "hard assets", in determining how much money was available to pay dividends. In at least some instances, companies acquired by Bain borrowed money in order to increase their dividend payments, ultimately leading to the collapse of what had been financially stable businesses.

A classic "leveraged buyout" company, a vulture capital operation. Here's what Bain did to Toys 'R' Us in 2018:

Just a few years ago, Toys 'R' Us was an iconic American retailer. Six months ago, it filed for bankruptcy. Two days ago, it announced that all 800 of its American stores, and all 100 of its British ones, are closing or being sold. As many as 33,000 workers could lose their jobs.

What happened to America's biggest toy store?

Simply put, vulture capitalists ate it.

One of those vultures was Bain Capital. Deval Patrick was its managing director, the man in charge, when this occurred.

So why is Jeffrey Toobin writing about him? Maybe because Patrick is much loved by the Obama inner circle:

Patrick would enter the race with one significant distinction: he is a kind of political heir to Barack Obama, and enjoys broad support from people close to the former President. Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s former senior adviser and still a close friend, told me, “Deval would make an outstanding President. He’d make a terrific candidate.” She added, “President Obama and Deval are very much alike in terms of their core values, what drove them into public service, their willingness to lend a hand, the responsibility to give back. I think they share a basic philosophy about what it means to be a good citizen.” Obama and Patrick also have in common roots in Chicago, Ivy League educations, and complicated relationships with largely absent fathers (which both men have chronicled in memoirs that feature youthful pilgrimages to Africa). They espouse a politics of unapologetic idealism, with a largely moderate, center-left orientation. On the stump, both are part teacher and part preacher. “Deval is a very genuine person, a very empathetic person,” David Axelrod, who has been a strategist for Patrick as well as for Obama, told me. “He is a guy who makes people feel comfortable. He’s very principled, you can see that—just like Obama.”

Ignore the adoring prose layered into that paragraph — "They [Obama and Patrick] espouse a politics of unapologetic idealism, with a largely moderate, center-left orientation. On the stump, both are part teacher and part preacher" — and focus on the endorsements. Patrick's "unapologetic idealism" is just not true; both Obama and Patrick are corporatists who serve wealth first. Being "part teacher and part preacher" just means he, like Obama, is a good Elmer Gantry.

As for Patrick being "principled," indeed he is; he's principled "just like Obama," though I'm sure Toobin doesn't mean this as ironically it sounds to any real student of Obama.

Most of the piece is like that — painfully praising, and painfully revealing in a way unintended by Toobin. For example, here's Toobin on why Patrick was opposed to Brett Kavanaugh's nomination:

That afternoon, Patrick and I sat down at a diner in Asbury Park. In Washington, Brett Kavanaugh was being confirmed as a Justice of the Supreme Court, and Patrick explained his opposition to the nomination. “Some of it is very personal,” he said. ... In 1993, Patrick’s brother-in-law was convicted of raping Patrick’s sister, and Diane has talked openly about being a victim of domestic abuse during her first marriage. “I can confirm that the experience of not being believed or having the experience not taken as seriously or treated as seriously is extremely painful,” he said. He spoke with sorrow and emotional distance, and [Toobin couldn't bring himself to write "but"], notably, didn’t denounce Kavanaugh directly, or Trump for choosing him.

Note in this passage the compelling verbal portrait of a man whose sister had been raped, speaking "with sorrow and emotional distance," followed immediately by the lack of condemnation of either the rapist, the radical who nominated him, or the destructive agenda the Kavanaugh court will enact. Toobin's personal access to Patrick ("That afternoon, Patrick and I sat down at a diner in Asbury Park"), his front-and-center self-placement as the writer picked to roll out Valerie Jarrett's front-runner, also stands out. The piece is a paint job, and deaf to its ironies.

None of this means that Patrick won't be a force to be reckoned with in 2020. Both Toobin and David Axelrod attest to Patrick's preacher power on the stump. Toobin: "Soon after Patrick started to campaign, Axelrod got a phone call from his sister Joan, who lives in Massachusetts ... “She had never done anything like this before, but she gets on the phone and says she’s just met Deval and he is incredible. ‘He’s the real deal. You have to come here and work for him.’” ... Patrick beat Reilly by twenty points in the primary."

As a sleeper, Patrick is well positioned to surprise. Be prepared to find him in the running as the race evolves, with both money and power behind him and yes-we-can media angels at his shoulder.

Toobin, closing on a note of swelling church-organ glory, emphasizes Patrick's chosen theme, "hope and kindness":

"It struck me that something is so wrong when we learn to shout our anger and whisper our kindness,” he went on. “We have got to learn to stop being ashamed of being kind." In the church and elsewhere, Patrick left a message of hope and kindness. The question, for Patrick and everyone else, is whether there is a wider audience for it in this fierce and broken political moment.

Is there a place for "hope and kindness" in this "fierce and broken moment"? Let's ask the broken employees of Toys 'R' Us before seeking kindness from Deval Patrick, their destroyer.

GP
 

As The Republicans Shift Further Right, The Democrats Follow Them And Are Now Your Father's GOP

"The Republicans," explained Kyle Kulinski last week, "have shifted further right to some weird brew of theocracy and authoritarianism and fascism and outright oligarchy." He forgot kakistocracy and kleptocracy but no need to quibble. "The Democrats," he continued, "are acting like the Republican Party." In a simple, straight-forward tweet over the weekend, Ro Khanna laid out an economic platform the Democrats need to be running on, something that Pelosi's and Hoyer's PAY-GO bullsit would largely negate: Medicare-For-All, Job Guarantee, debt free public college, and tackling climate change for real. Their ideas on being "fiscally responsible" are according to economist Stephanie Kelton,  "oldthink." Kelton was the Democrats' Chief Economist on the Senate Budget Committee in 2015 and then Bernie's top economic advisor during his 2016 campaign and she regularly preaches against the kind of austerity the establishment of both parties seek to impose on the country. In January she suggested I read Josh Mound’s piece from last July, The Democrats Are Eisenhower Republicans. It sounds like Kulinski may have read it as well.

For the last fifty years, the Right has waged a war on “objective” fiscal analysis in order to further their goal of upward redistribution. Republicans and their conservative allies invoke mainstream studies when they undermine progressive policy ideas, then discard those same analyses when they get in the way of their agenda.

In contrast, Democrats have touted themselves as denizens of the “reality-based community” and “the party of fiscal responsibility,” as Bill Clinton often put it.

The result is that, for decades, the parties have operated according to completely different rules on taxing and spending.

When Republicans put forward unrealistic tax and budget proposals, they waive away projected deficits by improbably claiming that economic growth will cover the massive shortfall. When Democrats are in power, they treat “pay fors” and budget balancing as paramount and CBO analyses as sacrosanct. And whenever a progressive figure like Bernie Sanders steps outside the neoliberal budgetary consensus, elected Democrats and liberal pundits join conservatives to smack down their proposals as “unrealistic.”

The predictable upshot of this policymaking asymmetry is that Democrats have spent the last forty years trimming their sails, inadvertently underwriting the GOP’s next tax cut.

Jimmy Carter’s austerity funded Ronald Reagan’s top-heavy tax cuts. Bill Clinton’s austerity funded George W. Bush’s top-heavy tax cuts. And now, the deficit reduction Obama worked so hard to achieve in the second half of his presidency will likely help fund Donald Trump’s top-heavy tax cuts.

Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, members of the incipient conservative movement bristled at the GOP’s balanced-budget orthodoxy, as embodied by President Dwight Eisenhower. Republicans’ fear of inflation, they argued, drove the GOP to balance the budget at all costs, unwittingly helping Democrats grow the size of government.

Some on the Right-- advancing what would become known as the “starve the beast” strategy-- began insisting that Republicans put all their focus on slashing taxes, rather than balancing the budget. Any deficits that resulted from tax reduction, these conservatives argued, would serve as a check on Democrats’ spending plans.

“I honor the Republicans for putting what they regard as the national interest ahead of partisan considerations. But I believe that they have been shortsighted in judging the national interest,” libertarian economist Milton Friedman wrote in a Newsweek column in 1968. “True fiscal responsibility requires resisting every tax increase and promoting tax decreases at every opportunity. That is the only way to put an effective ceiling on Federal spending.”

…President Jimmy Carter-- despite calling for a higher capital gains tax while running for president in 1976-- was, in many ways, the personification of this new centrist neoliberalism. And many conservative Democrats in Congress were sympathetic to lowering taxes on investment income. The combination of the Republicans’ “Tax Blitz” campaign and a concerted lobbying effort from business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Council for Capital Formation made the passage of Steiger’s bill a fait accompli.

The conservatives backing the capital gains reduction weren’t shy about its distributional effects. “Who will benefit from my amendment? Taxpayers in the upper bracket would benefit,” Steiger frankly admitted. He wasn’t kidding. The final version of Steiger’s plan, which was signed into law by Carter, gave a four-person family making $20,000-- just above median income-- approximately $100; a taxpayer making over $200,000 saw a tax reduction of more than $25,000.

By the 1980 presidential campaign, Carter had assumed the role of “green eyeshade” fiscal scold and Reagan the role of sunny spendthrift.

In late 1978, Carter had told the nation that the country was facing a “time of national austerity” that would require “difficult and unpleasant” belt-tightening. Throughout the rest of his presidency, Carter made clear that he believed his role as a president in a time of high inflation was to be “fiscally responsible in reducing the Federal deficit.”

He opposed any spending increases or further tax cuts, including indexing federal income tax brackets to inflation-- one of the few tax changes that would’ve disproportionally helped low- and middle-income taxpayers.

Reagan, in contrast, not only pushed a version of the Kemp-Roth rate cuts during his presidential campaign, he also favored indexation. He denied that his tax cuts would cause the deficit to balloon or that additional austerity was needed to fight inflation. Instead, he promised to replace the “eerie, ghostly silence of economic stagnation, unemployment, inflation, and despair” with the “confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”

Ironically, the only area in which Carter claimed to support more generous provisions than Reagan was in tax cuts for business. The inversion of the parties’ fiscal roles was complete.

Once in office, Reagan used language nearly identical to Friedman’s to justify tax cuts that would send the deficit spiraling.

“Over the past decades we’ve talked of curtailing government spending so that we can then lower the tax burden. Sometimes we’ve even taken a run at doing that,” Reagan told the nation in a televised address one month after taking office. “But there were always those who told us that taxes couldn’t be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know, we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath. Or we can cure their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance.”

When the CBO predicted huge deficits from Reagan’s cuts, the White House reacted just as the GOP is today. “That’s them practicing what they’ve been preaching for the last thirty years,” Reagan groused. “Their figures are phony.” The administration even attempted to oust CBO director Alice Rivlin and replace her with someone more pliable.

Despite the bill’s regressive effects, a majority of Democrats in the House and the Senate voted for Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. It was the largest tax cut in post–World War II history, and it exploded the deficit. Yet it did little to spur the growth that supply-siders had promised. As studies by the CBO, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Joint Economic Committee all found, Reagan’s cuts made the federal tax system less progressive and worsened income inequality. Between 1980 and 1983, the bottom half saw their after-tax incomes fall while the top 1 percent enjoyed a more than 20 percent increase.

In the end, Carter’s legacy was laying the fiscal groundwork for Reagan’s giveaway to the rich.

The next Democratic president, Bill Clinton, would make the same mistake.

…[I]n typical “supply-side” fashion, the tax windfall for the rich blew a hole in the budget. By this time, the idea that there was no political downside to growing the deficit had become the Republican conventional wisdom. As Vice President Dick Cheney told Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

The Bush deficits had the intended effect on Democrats, too.

When Barack Obama took office, the deficit was enormous and the country was entering the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Obama initially pursued a more ambitious agenda than either Carter or Clinton, but both his stimulus package and the Affordable Care Act were scaled back in an effort to avoid sticker shock. And after his health care law passed, Obama shifted into deficit-reduction mode. He appointed a “bipartisan” National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that only heightened deficit hysteria, and he worked to strike a deficit-reducing “grand bargain” with John Boehner that would’ve slashed Social Security.

Now, Obama’s fiscal probity is likely to be undone by Trump and the Republicans in Congress.

…[T]he the top-heavy tax cuts contained in the GOP’s ACA repeal bill and Trump’s tax plan would mark yet another “Two Santas” victory for the Republicans.

And this time they’re pulling out all the stops.

The Republican ACA repeal plan is essentially a tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill. The richest 1 percent would enjoy a more than 2 percent bump in their after-tax incomes, while few in the 99 percent would see any tax benefits. Translated into dollar terms, the most recent Senate GOP bill would provide a tax cut of a few hundred dollars for most people and a quarter of a million dollars for the top one-tenth of 1 percent. And the price? Tens of millions of people losing their health insurance and the virtual destruction of the Medicaid program.

…Republicans have made clear time and time again that they don’t care about the deficit. And Democrats shouldn’t either. Rather than fixating on the GOP’s shaky math, Democrats should highlight the cruelty of shoveling money to the rich at a time when inequality is soaring and millions languish in poverty.

Fiscal policy is ultimately about distribution, not growth or deficits. Republicans understand this. Unfortunately, Democrats don’t.

Instead of worrying about crafting practical, deficit-neutral proposals, Democrats should be bold and single-mindedly focus on downwardly redistributive taxing and spending. Go for Medicare for All, public child care, green jobs. Propose popular programs, and don’t worry about the cost. If the GOP raises deficit concerns, waive them away by predicting fabulous economic growth, just like Republicans do.

And if, once enacted, the progressive programs do end up increasing the deficit? Let the next Republican president worry about balancing the budget.

This morning Alan Grayson put it more succinctly for us: "Pay-Go is a good example of self-hating Democrats trying to be the 'fiscally responsible' Republicans that the Republicans themselves never are. The GOP just passed a $3 trillion tax cut for the rich, with no offsetting revenue or budget cuts whatsoever. A Pay-Go rule means that all we’ll ever see is GOP tax cuts for the rich, never Democratic tax cuts for the middle class and seniors. The Republicans figured this out a long time ago: there are exceedingly few 'fiscal responsibility' voters, and they’re going to vote Republican no matter what."

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is the most recent candidate endorsed by Blue America. More on her tomorrow; I promise. I asked her about this whole PAY-GO scheme. She gets it... in a big way: "Our families in MI-13 reside in the second poorest congressional district in the country, and they need real help from the federal government. House Democrats insisting on paying for progressive legislation that elevates working families with budget cuts elsewhere needlessly ties our hands before we even begin to fight. If Democratic leadership is going to buy into right-wing talking points and stand in the way of progress for our families, we will replace them with representatives more in touch with the families we represent."

Kelton also told me she thinks Hawaii's junior senator, Brian Schatz, has demonstrated a more astute read of the political game than, perhaps, any other Congressmember. "The GOP," he said, "is skillful about never talking about paying for what they want and Dems are always trying to satisfy the 13 people who are doing Third Way work on K Street. It’s a game that disadvantages Democrats. I don’t want to play it anymore.

Attention Nancy Pelosi: Kelton added that "PAYGO is a self-imposed, economically illiterate approach to budgeting. Republicans know this. They understand that deficits pose no risk to our national solvency and that the budget can be used to improve the financial well-being of the donor class. So they have unabashedly used their power to expand deficits and, hence, deliver windfall gains for big corporations and the already well-to-do. Instead of vowing budget chastity, Democrats should be articulating an agenda that will excite voters so that-- when the time comes-- they can unleash the full power of the public purse on their behalf-- a cleaner planet, good jobs, a secure retirement, affordable child care, debt-free college, and Medicare-for-All."