Jeb Bush, considered a potential GOP presidential candidate in 2016, had a strange week. He was on record as favoring a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but came out against such a path in a book soon to be published. This was viewed, correctly, as a major flip-flop. The reason for it was shocking in its candor: he said the book was written when sentiment in the Republican Party was markedly more hostile to immigration—in effect admitting that his new position simply echoes the party line. (But in what may be a record 360 turn around, just today Jeb reversed course again and says he favors a path to citizenship.)

Who knows exactly what he was thinking. Maybe he was floating a trial balloon to see how this change would be met both within and outside the GOP. I’ve never thought his prospects for the presidency have been high, but it seems clear that on this issue he miscalculated and his stock has been diminished. Nobody likes such bald-faced opportunism, even if we’ve come to expect it from our politicians.

But the bind that Jeb finds himself in illuminates exactly what the GOP faces in what may turn out to be the most important political issue of this year, and for subsequent election cycles as well.

To begin, immigration reform is popular; significant majorities support some form of path to citizenship for the nation’s approximately 12 million illegal aliens. Most are Hispanics and can’t currently vote, but many of their relatives can—and they increasingly view the GOP as not only hostile to immigration reform, but excessively nativist and racist.

This puts Republicans on the wrong side of a rapidly growing demographic. Even if they got on the right side, and supported comprehensive immigration reform, there is little chance of significantly improving their political prospects with this group. Most young Latinos are socially liberal and support a robust role for the government in providing safety nets and services; they’re strongly Democratic and likely to stay that way. Even if Republicans support immigration reform, its passage would be viewed mostly as a Democratic victory, in a bill signed by a Democratic president. You can be sure that President Obama and Senate Democrats would claim as much credit as possible and make it a centerpiece of future campaigns.

Making the situation even worse, many Republicans in the House will remain opposed to a path to citizenship; so any bill that passes will do so only because of Democratic support, denying the GOP any clear political upside.

To summarize, the immigration debate is likely going to expose large fissures in the GOP. The Party’s more nativist and racist elements will be on full display. Even if some major figures in the party ultimately support the bill, it will likely be viewed as a Democratic victory. Even worse, if the GOP strongly opposes the bill and it goes down in defeat, this will surely insure another devastating loss of the Hispanic vote in 2016—without which it will sooner or later become virtually impossible to win a national election in the United States.

Jason Scorse

Last week I discussed whether the GOP is likely to moderate its extremist positions now that Obama has won reelection and it has become clear that they can no longer win nationally with such an agenda. With the sequester having gone into effect on Friday and Republicans across the board saying that new revenues are off the table, it is reasonable to wonder whether the party’s intransigence will make compromise impossible.

When the sequester was originally negotiated, President Obama (and most observers) believed that the defense cuts were so large that they would ultimately force Republicans to the bargaining table. This now seems a miscalculation; a sizeable number of House Republicans appear willing to let the Defense Department take the hit in exchange for equally large cuts to discretionary domestic spending. Whether they maintain their resolve as these cuts begin to inflict significant economic pain remains to be seen.

Obama can be forgiven for assuming that Republicans would be compelled to negotiate. It is rare to witness such raw ideology at work, but that is exactly what we are seeing. It is an ideology that eschews evidence; the cuts are ill-timed for a struggling economy, and some affect programs with high rates of return to American society (e.g., medical and other scientific research and prenatal nutrition).

Similar ideology is also on display in some Red states that have agreed to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid extension. States are insisting that the added funds go exclusively to private insurers. As Paul Krugman notes, such a policy is both more expensive than publicly-funded insurance and a direct form of corporate welfare—to the tune of billions a year. It demonstrates once again that the GOP represents the worst of both worlds; economically it’s a corporate patronage party, and on social issues it holds extremist positions.

Recent evidence seems to support the argument that Obama was naïve to believe that his reelection could “break the fever”. But let’s not forget that fevers peak just before they break. An equally compelling argument can be made that we are witnessing the last gasps of a movement that wants to inflict as much pain as possible before becoming too marginalized to matter. Just as wounded animals are often the most dangerous, so too is the GOP’s right wing. Knowing that the future will be less and less hospitable to its tenets, the Right is trying to lock in everything it can before demographics simply overwhelm them.

The Tea Party members in Congress—those most directly responsible for the austerity measures just imposed—can always move on to lucrative lobbying jobs, positions at Fox News, or any number of right wing think tanks. There they’ll be hailed as heroes for standing firm against Obama’s liberal onslaught.

But while they have little to lose in the immediate future, they surely know that their Party’s long-termed prospects are essentially doomed.

P.S. Ezra Klein comes to the conclusion that compromise with the GOP is impossible at this point because they simply refuse to take yes for answer no matter what Obama proposes because of their steadfast refusal to accept a dime in new revenues.

Jason Scorse

President Obama predicted that if he won reelection it would help bring the GOP to its senses and begin the work of governing instead of just obstructing; he referred to this as “breaking the fever.” With the sequester set to kick in on March 1st, leading to billions in indiscriminate and destructive budget cuts, we will soon see if his prediction was right.

The President and Senate Democrats have proposed replacing the sequester by closing tax loopholes benefiting corporations and the rich, and by targeted budget cuts aimed at areas of government excess. So far the GOP has refused to cooperate, insisting that no new tax revenue can be part of any deal. Some Republican proposals would make the sequester even worse, replacing defense cuts with deeper cuts to programs for the poor.

As Friday’s deadline approaches, the pressure will ratchet up and the “blame game” will intensify. Whether this will be enough to change the GOP position is yet to be seen. Indications are that the Republicans are more than willing to harm the American economy in order to protect the rich and corporate interests. My sense is that the politics are against them, and the polls indicate that a majority of the public will blame the GOP if the sequester goes into effect, but this may be insufficient to stop them.

Two other issues where the GOP’s extremism will soon be tested are gun safety and immigration reform. While there’s sufficient Republican support in the Senate to help pass comprehensive immigration reform, indications so far in the House suggest that a majority of Republicans will not support a path to citizenship—a path which is critical to any bill that Democrats and the President will support. With gun safety, the situation is largely the same; there are likely enough Senate Republicans in support of new rules to prevent a filibuster, but in the House it is a different story with the NRA calling the shots.

The key question is whether Speaker Boehner will call for a vote on Democratic-supported proposals, knowing they can pass with Democratic backing against the will of his own caucus. This repudiation of the so-called “Hastert Rule” (where only bills supported by Republican majorities are brought to the floor) is what happened with the recent debt-ceiling vote and the vote on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. It will be fascinating to see if Boehner can persuade a sufficient number of Republicans to support gun safety and immigration bills without once again embarrassing the GOP and allowing Democrats to pass signature pieces of legislation.

Either way, we will soon see whether Obama was correct that the fever of Republican extremism could be broken by his reelection. If it was, we will likely get substantive legislation that can materially improve people’s lives and make America stronger. If not, then the only strategy going forward will be to continue to beat the rightwing at the ballot box, making them irrelevant to the political process. So far, Republicans have yet to grasp that America intends to move forward with or without them.

Jason Scorse

It is always risky to predict major political realignments in America; the pendulum can swing rapidly from one party and ideology to the next. However, this time things may be different. Both the demographic and structural factors currently at play portend a long-term center-left shift in American politics.

In many ways this shouldn’t be surprising, as America is truly a center-left country. Republicans and the rightwing would have us believe that America actually leans right, but the citizenry overall has always been more liberal than our governing institutions. These are “small c” conservative by design, and provide tremendous power to the minority.

Now—for the first time since Ronald Reagan’s first election—the forces of liberalism have strong headwinds at their back. These headwinds will be increasingly difficult to keep at bay, despite institutional barriers that favor smaller, conservative states both in the Senate and in the Electoral College.

Every month, tens of thousands of Latinos turn 18 and become eligible to vote while even more old white voters pass away. These trends are so significant that during every election cycle from here on, the share of the non-white voting population will increase by millions. These new young voters are not only socially liberal, they also favor an active role for government: strong social safety nets, increased support for education, meaningful environmental protections, and progressive tax policies.

To take just one issue, the tide in favor of gay rights has turned so favorably in just a few years that the reactionary rightwing is almost a national laughing stock. Within a decade or two, the victory of the gay rights movement will be so complete that it won’t even be an issue at election time (and it barely was in 2012).

No doubt, the rightwing and its allies (Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Heritage Foundation, and dozens of shadowy propaganda outfits bankrolled by anonymous mega-donors) will continue to sow disinformation and discontent, and stall progress wherever they can. But their followers are declining and their influence is waning, and their demise is all but assured.

Looking just a couple of years out, it seems likely that Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. Given her sky-high approval ratings, the pent-up aspirations of her supporters (who will have waited eight years since her first run), the large number of unmarried women voters, and the lack of any superstar candidate in the GOP field, she would be very hard to beat. If she runs and wins, during her term(s) she would almost certainly get a chance to replace the most rightwing Supreme Court justices—Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas—thereby cementing a liberal legacy for another generation.

A lot can happen in politics in a short time and there are a lot of unknowns, but a long-term center-left alignment definitely seems to be shaping up. It’s a compound of demographic changes, the fact that political preferences ingrained in the young are hard to reverse, and the hard right turn that the GOP has taken, especially since 2008. The new alignment will be good for the country, for the health of our civic discourse, and for the world. If we are fortunate, we won’t have to wait too long before we can finally relegate the far right elements to a totally inconsequential fringe.

Jason Scorse

President Obama was officially sworn in for his second term today, so it is an opportune moment to ponder his priorities. With the GOP having caved on the debt ceiling, this is likely not going to be a major issue going forward. Obama was right to stand firm and stare down the economic hostage takers; he won a victory not just for the country, but for the Constitution and the Executive Branch.

There are major issues ahead with respect to the sequester, which would impose automatic spending cuts of approximately $500 billion each to defense spending and discretionary non-defense spending. My guess is that the Republicans’ opposition to defense cuts will lead to a nullification of the whole sequester deal, rendering this issue moot as well.

As to the President’s key legislative priorities, here are my thoughts for the next four years:

1. Obamacare

Perhaps Obama’s biggest priority is seeing that his signature healthcare reform is implemented smoothly and efficiently so it can deliver on its key promises. While the GOP can still cause trouble with respect to funding, the law is not going to be reversed; the challenges ahead are technocratic and bureaucratic. One key is whether the GOP governors who have so far pledged to refuse Medicaid expansion money will follow through. This is crucial because much of the coverage for the poor depends on this part of the overall legislation. Here’s a prediction: Every single GOP governor will eventually cave and accept the money. The reason: it’s too good a deal to pass up, with the federal government paying between 90-100% of the costs. The Republicans may talk a good game about the evils of Obamacare; faced with the choice of turning down billions in federal money to help their states, and to compensate, doctors, nurses, and hospitals, they’ll take the money. Republican Governor Jan Brewer, a far-right Tea Party favorite, announced her decision to take the money just this past week.

2. Gun control legislation

The President’s proposed gun control legislation in the wake of the Newtown massacre is generating a lot of positive review. The usual suspects are vowing to fight the bill tooth and nail, so this will no doubt be a heated battle with an uncertain outcome. But I think the public has finally had enough with the gun-nut crazies and wants sensible reforms. I suspect that the President will get most of what he proposed; this won’t end gun violence, but it may begin an era of sensible gun regulation. This would be most welcome and perhaps herald a return to sanity.

3. Immigration reform

This issue is sure to be controversial as well, and the politics are difficult to game out. No doubt Obama and the Democrats would love to get a comprehensive bill providing a pathway to citizenship for the more than 12 million illegal aliens currently in the U.S., as well as more visas for highly-skilled workers. This is not only humane, but good economics and good politics. Passing comprehensive reform would solidify the Democrats’ standing with Latinos, the fastest growing demographic in the country and the one that provided Obama’s margin of victory in key swing states in both 2008 and 2012. For this reason I’m not sure that Republicans would support such a bill. GOP leaders know that their attitudes towards Latinos have been a key determinant of their electoral failures, but the nativist base of the GOP is so racist and reactionary that Republicans could reject anything with the potential to benefit Democrats more than the GOP—after all, Obama would be signing the bill and the legislative process would be led by Democrats. There are indications that 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan are working on their own versions of immigration reform, but my guess is that won’t put forth the type of comprehensive bill that the President will push for, and I think ultimately pass. The entire process will be fascinating to watch.

4. Climate change

Climate change is in many ways the most important issue, and yet the most uncertain with respect to what can actually get passed. There are strong indications that the president plans to invest significant political capital in the issue, but his goals are still unclear. With the chances of a carbon tax or a cap and trade program nearly zero, there is only so much he can do. He may push for national renewable portfolio standards or more investment in green energy, perhaps through increased R&D or tax breaks. This is an issue that breaks down regionally as much as by party, with key Democrats in fossil fuel states lining up with the Republican opposition—making it extremely hard to get strong legislation passed. Growing public recognition that climate change is imposing serious costs on society may help the president get something substantive done.

Bottom line: Those who think that Obama’s second term will mainly be spent simply defending and building upon his first term accomplishments are not paying attention. The President has an ambitious new agenda that could turn out to be just as consequential as the laws passed during his first term. If these are issues you care about, get involved. A lot of good can be done in the next four years if we work hard for it.

Jason Scorse

With the “fiscal cliff” deal now behind us, the country awaits the battle over the debt ceiling that will commence in approximately two months. President Obama has stated repeatedly that he will not negotiate with the GOP on extending the debt ceiling unless Republicans put forth a plan that matches spending cuts with revenue increases. Since it is virtually impossible to envision the GOP pursuing such a path (both Boehner and McConnell have stated repeatedly that they will not sign off on any more tax increases no matter what), the question on everyone’s mind is whether Obama will call the GOP’s bluff when they threaten to default on the U.S. debt.

Since the U.S. has never defaulted before, no one can be sure of the consequences—but most predict they would be severe. Given that the blame for purposefully crashing the U.S. economy would fall squarely on Republicans, many predict that the GOP will ultimately back down. But not everyone: the Republican Party has grown crazy over the past few years, and repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to hold the U.S. economy hostage to its extremist agenda. So more than a few believe that Republicans might well be willing to plunge the country into recession.

Others question whether Obama will have the spine to risk a default if he senses that the GOP truly has become that unhinged. With a history for underestimating GOP intransigence and conceding way too much during negotiations, it is possible that Obama will cave at the last moment. This is clearly what the GOP is hoping for.

Either way, we are going to find out an awful lot about both the President and the Republican Party in the next two months. If the President gives in to the demands of the economic terrorists, the fiscal cliff deal will look like a failure and there would be little to stop the GOP from wreaking havoc on Obama’s second term agenda. If, however, Obama manages to stand firm, we will find out if the Republican Party has gone insane—or whether it can rescue itself from slipping into borderline treasonous territory.

The answers to these questions will provide huge clues as to what to expect over the next four years, and to the future direction of the GOP. With the President preparing to introduce new gun control legislation and immigration reform, Republicans will soon have an opportunity to move to the political center and engage constructively in the nation’s problems, or continue their march to oblivion. It will be fascinating to see which path they take, and whether President Obama has learned from the mistakes of his first term.

Stay tuned.

Jason Scorse

Last week I described the seismic shift that occurs as ever more powerful technology replaces jobs once thought immune from automation. As consumers of technology, we all stand to benefit handsomely from the higher quality goods and services, lower prices, and greater accessibility that this technology provides.

There’s a significant downside, however. The labor market of tomorrow will not look the way it looks today, and it’s an open question whether there will enough well-paying, stable jobs to maintain a strong middle class.

One thing is for sure: the changes we need to ensure that the American economy remains inclusive and provides opportunity for all will demand major socioeconomic changes, many of them requiring increased governmental involvement. It’s ironic that just when an (intelligently) activist government is most needed, we have a far-right GOP bent on eliminating even basic government functions.

Here is a partial list of the changes we’ll need to ensure that technological progress leads to broad-based prosperity. In my estimation, the list ranges from least to most controversial:

1. End tax benefits that favor home ownership over renting. Americans will need to be mobile in our coming economy, so we can’t afford to create distortions by spending taxpayer money to incentivize home ownership. The tax code should provide no preferences that act to anchor Americans in one location.

2. End work-based healthcare. The American system of tying healthcare to employment is an anachronism that’s long harmed our economy and could harm it even more going forward. America’s future workers are rarely going to stay with one or a small number of employers over their careers, so it’s crucial to decouple jobs from healthcare. Workers have to be free to move, often frequently, to seize opportunities for advancement, transition between careers, and risk starting their own new enterprises. For these things to happen, the U.S. needs to move toward some form of single-payer system in which all Americans have healthcare regardless of their employment status.

3. Subsidize training and continuing education. It is likely that people are going to need to continually retool their skills as they progress through their careers, so some form of lifetime support for continuing education is crucial. This need not be tied to degree programs, but instead to marketable skills and training.

4. Expand social welfare programs through more progressive taxes. The economy of the future, while benefiting wide swaths of consumers, will likely enrich the top layers while continuing the hollowing out of the middle class. America will need a more progressive tax structure—with more tax brackets rather than fewer—to ensure decent living standards for all citizens, especially those without advanced education who will likely spend most of their lives in relatively low-paying service professions. Progressive taxation, perhaps supplemented by a broad-based consumption tax, is the fairest way to deliver these benefits to the greatest number of people.

5. Increase direct employment by governments. Government at all levels may be shedding jobs today, but will need to reverse direction and underwrite thousands of public service jobs—akin to those provided by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression, and to those provided through the building of the interstate highway system starting in the Eisenhower Administration. America’s infrastructure is sorely in need of rebuilding. Beyond infrastructure, the country has large unfilled needs in fields as diverse as natural resource conservation, healthcare, and various forms of community service (think a greatly expanded AmeriCorps that could offer secure, full-time employment for millions).

Jason Scorse

This article appeared in Fortune this past week.

Gasoline in Norway currently costs more than $9 a gallon. In Germany the price is more than $8. Prices between $6 and $10 per gallon are common throughout most EU countries. In the U.S., by comparison, the highest average per-gallon price is close to hitting $5, and we grumble about it.

No one needs a crystal ball to imagine what would happen in the U.S. if we woke up one day to find gasoline prices on par with Europe. Americans would be apoplectic and politicians of all stripes would respond in kind.

So why have Europeans accepted such high gas prices?

In Europe, where there is universal healthcare, low-cost daycare, and free or low-cost university education, people are much more willing to pay higher energy costs to support environmental goals. Put simply, $9 a gallon gasoline doesn't make people poor in Norway or Germany, because generous social safety nets—partially funded by environmental taxes—more than offset the negative economic impacts.

According to recent data from the OECD, environmental taxes account for approximately 2.4% of GDP in Europe, compared to .8% in the U.S. (the lowest of all OECD countries). Given that the U.S. GDP is approximately $15 trillion (Europe's economy is more than $17 trillion), this 1.6% difference would provide the U.S. government with $240 billion annually in extra revenue if it taxed energy and pollution at the same rates as in Europe.

Norway is an oil-producing nation, the world's 5th largest oil exporter. Norway taxes gasoline heavily and exports its oil resources for the purposes of supporting a very generous welfare state. All told, Norway applies a 78 % income tax on oil producer's profits, and an additional gasoline consumption tax equal to about two-thirds the price of a gallon of gasoline at the point of sale.

The U.S. is the third largest oil-produce in the world, and yet we tax oil at very low rates. This has, along with the increase in gas prices over the past decade, contributed to record profits for U.S. oil companies. Our wealth is also spread very unevenly—the average American citizen receives much less support on everything from healthcare to education to job security than almost any country in the EU. Further, U.S. median income has stagnated since 1997, while the cost of healthcare and education has skyrocketed (70 percent and 119 percent, respectively).

Asking citizens to pay higher prices for gas and electricity, when tens of millions are struggling to make ends meet, is simply asking too much, unless they are also provided with offsetting social benefits that improve their daily lives.

Although most environmentalists are hesitant to admit it, in the short to medium term any legislation that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions will make energy and consumer goods even more expensive. Estimates are that a cap and trade bill that imposed a modest $30 a ton price on carbon would cost the average U.S. consumer $800-$1,600 a year in higher prices. (Most economists believe that the carbon price needs to be significantly higher to get the U.S. on a path to 85% carbon reductions by 2050.)

As long as the middle class in America continues to face the mounting pressures of ever-increasing healthcare and education costs, declines in housing and retirement wealth, and the prospects of even less economic security—as debates about cutting Social Security and Medicare continue apace—it will be difficult for robust energy and climate policy to generate sufficient popular support to overcome the formidable political obstacles.

Americans care deeply about the environment, and most believe that climate change is a real and growing threat. They are acting rationally, however, when they oppose higher energy prices at a time of great economic insecurity.

The best hope for accelerating America's move away from its reliance on fossil fuels and towards a clean energy future is for environmental groups to team up with other progressive organizations, especially labor unions, and push for environmental policies in tandem with policies to boost economic security. The environmental movement faces a choice: expand its scope to include a broad middle class agenda or become increasingly irrelevant.

The only way to end the lingering distrust between environmental groups and labor is to acknowledge that generating support for environmental goals requires increasing economic benefits for the middle class. Doing so will require environmental groups to take a strong stand in support of universal healthcare, stronger Social Security and Medicare, progressive taxation, and financial support for education from preschool to college. No doubt many environmental groups will find it difficult or risky, but maintaining the illusion that environmental goals can be kept distinct from the economic decline of the middle class is no longer tenable.

Even a modest $25/ton tax on carbon pollution would raise over $100 billion a year in new revenue, which could provide funding for many popular programs with high rates of social return. The revenue would be enough to cover health insurance costs for 32 million uninsured Americans, while providing universal preschool education would only cost $35 billion; and if the revenue from this carbon tax was used to provide other forms of tax relief, the Earned Income Tax Credit could be tripled and the 10% bottom rate eliminated entirely.

Some environmental groups have already recognized the need to use more populist language that takes note of basic economic concerns. In late 2011, the Sierra Club sent out an email urging its members to stand with those fighting against economic inequality and injustice. This was a great start—but only a start.

Organized labor is making its voice heard as well. On January 12, 2012 Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, gave a speech at the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk, in which he made the point that asking people in fossil-fuel dependent industries to support climate policy that will threaten their jobs doesn't make sense in the face of weak social safety nets.

The day that the leaders of the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and UAW along with the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) share a joint press conference and announce their commitment to an escalating greenhouse gas tax where the revenue will be used for a combination of middle class tax relief and universal preschool for all American families, will mark the beginning of a new era in environmental policy. With declining union membership and an environmental movement demoralized by more than a decade of disappointment, an alliance between these two camps could help reinvigorate both.

The economics is unambiguous, and the math adds up. What is lacking is the political clarity, vision, and courage to put all of the pieces together and craft an effective narrative that the American middle class can rally behind.

Jason Scorse

The following appeared in the NYT op-ed section on Thursday, November 29th.

It's no surprise that it can be very expensive to live near the ocean. But it may come as a surprise to American taxpayers that they are on the hook for at least $527 billion of vulnerable assets in the nation’s coastal flood plains. Those homes and businesses are insured by the federal government’s National Flood Insurance Program.

You read that right: $527 billion, which is just a portion of the program’s overall liability of $1.25 trillion, second only to Social Security in the liabilities on the government’s ledgers last year, according to government data.

The flood insurance program was created by Congress in 1968 to fill a void: because of the risk, few carriers provided flood insurance. Now, private insurers offer flood insurance in a partnership with the government — but taxpayers shoulder all the risk. It has turned out to be a bad bet. The program is $18 billion in debt, a sum the government acknowledges probably will never be paid back by premiums, and it is likely to need a new multibillion-dollar infusion to pay claims from Hurricane Sandy. It is long past time for the government to stop subsidizing home and business owners who live and build in dangerous flood zones.

Homeowners and businesses should be responsible for purchasing their own flood insurance on the private market, if they can find it. If they can’t, then the market is telling them that where they live is too dangerous. If they choose to live in harm’s way, they should bear the cost of that risk — not the taxpayers. Government’s primary role is ensuring the safety of its citizens, so the government’s subsidizing of risky behavior is completely backward.

Between 1978 and 2011, the program, which is run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, paid out more than $24 billion in claims in the coastal flood plain. Total losses paid out for Hurricane Katrina alone exceeded $16 billion. FEMA says it is too soon to say how many claims will be filed for Hurricane Sandy-related damages, although The New York Times reported this month that early estimates suggest that this storm will rank as the second worst for claims paid out, with the cost possibly reaching $7 billion — at a time when the program is allowed, by law, to add only $3 billion to its debt.

The bottom line is that the flood insurance program is a fiscal time bomb for the government.

We should phase out the program, begin thinking strategically about how to shift populations away from the most risky coastal areas, and use the best available science to update the woefully out-of-date coastal-zone risk profiles that government agencies currently rely on to determine danger. We also need to encourage more stringent building codes that take into account the full range of climate risks. (Officials in New York and New Jersey this week estimated the overall costs of Hurricane Sandy in the two states at a combined $72 billion.)

Two major reinsurers, Munich Re and Swiss Re, have strict building codes for policies in coastal areas and will not insure properties in high-risk zones. Florida now self-insures for hurricane wind damage, and has the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund for insurers whose funds are exhausted. The program is financed by a surcharge on all homeowner and commercial insurance policies, but because of the potential for huge liabilities in a future storm, the program might fall short of the money it would need.

We do not underestimate the complexity and political difficulty of phasing out a popular program like national flood insurance, nor do we think the government should abandon people who are currently insured. But Congress and the president should challenge the status quo and make some tough decisions, like providing subsidies or buyouts to encourage people to move out of the most disaster-prone areas, and eliminating other government incentives that support living in high-risk areas.

Some Americans want to live as close to their beloved coasts as they can, but coastal landowners should pay the full cost of living in these dangerous areas. In this climate-constrained world our quality of life will take some hits. But with careful planning and a gradual shift away from the coast, Americans can still enjoy the beauty and live safely, yet escape the cycle of catastrophe and response, in which so much money is expended on properties that are repeatedly flooded.

Judy Kildow & Jason Scorse

If ever there was a complete policy failure, it’s been the so-called “war on drugs”: a failure not only at its No. 1 goal, but on virtually every possible metric.

The evidence is incontrovertible that drug use has not only not abated, street prices are actually lower and quality higher than when the war began. Criminal gangs continue to sow murder and mayhem as they seek to control the extremely lucrative, illegal markets. Add to this the trillions of tax dollars that have been spent, and the millions of human beings incarcerated worldwide for non-violent drug offenses, and the war on drugs becomes a tragedy of epic proportions.

Fortunately, it appears that the madness is slowly abating and the prospect for a rational public policy approach to drugs is improving. In many ways, credit goes to the medical marijuana movement. In more than a dozen states, the movement has secured the right to make cannabis legally available. Its presence over the years has significantly reduced the stigma long associated with marijuana use. This has been vitally important, since misinformation and misperception are really at the root of our failed drug policy—much of it fueled by powerful corporate interests who benefited even as the policy failed.

The cigarette and alcohol industries in particular (helped along by the prison/industrial complex) have profited immensely from the war and drugs. In the meantime, they’ve played leading roles in demonizing illegal drugs and romanticizing their own intoxicants. New research is appearing that reinforces the longstanding irony that these legal drugs are far more dangerous than most illicit ones, with alcohol ranking far worse than all forms of psychedelics, including marijuana.

On Election Day three weeks ago, Oregon and California passed ballot initiatives that fully legalize recreational marijuana use. Medical marijuana has always been somewhat of a scam, since most people who purchase cannabis use it purely for recreation, despite claiming medical necessity. With two states now fully legalizing its recreational use, we’ll have an excellent opportunity to see how everything plays out, and how the Federal government will react to the new leniency.

The Obama Administration has come under heavy criticism for cracking down on some of the larger medical marijuana dispensaries around the country (based on the plausible but contestable claim that many of them are fronts for large criminal enterprises). In addition, having two states thumb their noses at Federal drug law does present a conundrum.

Here’s hoping that the Obama Administration lets the States experiment and doesn’t intervene. Not only will the states, strapped for cash, be able to generate significant tax revenue; they’ll also save precious law enforcement dollars, and lower incarceration rates will likely lead to even more savings. It is doubtful that marijuana use will rise significantly; even if it does, marijuana is non-toxic and unlikely to cause any significant social disruption.

If Colorado and Washington succeed in their marijuana legalization efforts, more states are likely to follow and other drugs might be added to the mix, especially other psychedelics that are safe to use recreationally in the confines of one’s own home. As these laws take root, people should realize that the sky is not falling and that legalization in fact brings many benefits. All in all, the chances for a wholesale rethinking of our federal drug laws has never seemed more possible.

As I mentioned last week, this would be an excellent issue for true conservatives to take up. It speaks to basic notions of individual liberty, fiscal prudence, and a realistic understanding of how markets operate.

It would be great to see some Republicans take up the cause, and join with liberals to accelerate the end of the war on drugs. The sooner we let this failed policy take its place in the dustbin of history, the better.

Jason Scorse

If you’re a Democrat, the post-election soul-searching by the GOP should bring a smile to your face. The consensus among Republican operatives, policymakers, and pundits seems to be that Republican problems have everything to do with marketing and little to do with substance. True, there are calls for a softer tone on immigrants (and perhaps legislation to make their assimilation easier), and some denunciations of “stupid” campaign talk on rape; but by and large the party seems clueless to the fact that their ideas on everything—from the economy to healthcare to foreign policy—are extremely unpopular. If they truly believe that repackaging the same old talking points is their path to victory, a long era of Democratic dominance may be in the making.

The reality is that the GOP needs a complete overhaul if it is going to be a viable national party. If it can return to its authentic conservative roots and eschew the far right extremists who have taken over, it can once again be a force that deserves respect. The truth is that conservative ideas could help us make substantial progress on a number of important fronts:

1. The War on Drugs: A strong commitment to individual liberty combined with robust economic analysis makes it clear that the “war on drugs” can never be won; its costs, both human and financial, greatly outweigh the few benefits it confers to society (more on this next week). Conservatives are well-positioned to make this argument, since they tend to have the ears of the “law and order” community and any softening of their stance would be taken very seriously by the public.

2. Climate Change: Global warming denial on the Right is a fairly new phenomenon; for decades, many of the leading thinkers on environmental policy (especially market-based environmental policy) were conservatives. Effectively addressing climate change is going to take some well-thought out combination of taxes, credits, and R&D, and with their embrace of market mechanisms conservatives are perfectly suited to make the case for comprehensive climate change policy. They should take the lead to make sure the policy generates significant revenue to offset other forms of taxation and ensure strong long-term economic growth.

3. Housing: One area where conservatives have been consistently right and liberals consistently wrong is the proper role of government in the housing sector. The government’s presence harms the economy and wastes billions of dollars by subsidizing home ownership. As evidence, consider the hundreds of billions that have already been needed, with more to come, to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Then add in the terrible damage inflicted by the housing bubble, much of which can be attributed to the mortgage interest deduction and other distortionary government policies. It is long past time for the housing market to be completely private, with the government’s role reduced to enforcing transparency and non-discrimination laws. Government has no business providing direct incentives that encourage home ownership by persons who have no business owning homes. Again, conservatives are exactly the ones who could and should be making these arguments forcefully.

4. Healthcare: There is tremendous waste in the American healthcare system, which is easily the major driver of our long-term deficit. Better incentives are needed to align payments with health outcomes, and to improve competition. With Obamacare the law of the land, now safe from the threat of a Romney repeal, it’s time for conservatives at both the federal and state level to swallow their pride. They should work with the Administration to make our healthcare system more efficient and rational, so that our costs become more in line with those in the rest of the developed world. If we can accomplish this, virtually all of our future deficits will essentially disappear.

Unfortunately, the chances that Republicans will return to true conservatism look dim. House Republicans continue to oppose any increase in marginal rates on the wealthy, and appear poised to vote against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. In the Senate, Minority Leader McConnell has been hard pressed to utter a conciliatory note.

Obviously, it is too early to tell how things will play out—but from the looks of things, it could take another electoral drubbing or two before the GOP finally gets the message, changes course, and returns to its genuine conservative roots.

Jason Scorse

President Obama’s resounding victory last week, along with the Democrats’ strong showing in the Senate (and to a lesser extent in the House) puts the Democrats in a strong position. Add to this the GOP’s grudging acceptance that it must change course, and it all adds up to significant opportunities for good near-term policy outcomes.

Here are a few:

1. The resolution of the so-called “fiscal cliff”

The politics of this issue so favor President Obama that I have to believe the Republicans assumed they would hold the White House at this point. If Congress does absolutely nothing, tax rates for everyone will revert to Clinton levels, $500 billion over 10 years will be cut from defense spending, and $500 billion from discretionary spending. This would dramatically reduce short to medium-term federal deficits—but it would also potentially send the country back into recession. (It’s ironic that many on the Right who agree with this analysis would have us believe that Obama’s first-term stimulus did nothing to promote growth, which of course is completely contradictory.)

The fears of a recession have led to the consensus view that Obama must strike a deal before January 1, 2013. I disagree: Obama does not have to reach a deal by January 1, and in fact it might be in his interests not to.

His leverage exists because he’s threatened to let all of the Bush tax cuts expire if the GOP continues to demand that the tax breaks for the rich continue. While the discretionary spending cuts would be severe, reductions in defense spending have been a Democratic goal for decades (and all of the cuts would be phased in gradually). If Congress takes no action before the New Year, Obama could immediately send the Hill his own tax cut package squarely aimed at the middle class—and dare Republicans to block it. Given this possibility, the President has every incentive not to compromise on his key goal of having the rich pay higher taxes. The overwhelming majority of Americans agrees with this position; Republicans will take the blame if they hold middle class tax cuts hostage to tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. For this reason, I expect Obama to get virtually everything he wants. And what he wants will strongly favor the middle class.

2. Comprehensive immigration reform

When George Bush attempted to pass immigration reform, he was thwarted by the nativists in his party who oppose amnesty provisions. So began years of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the GOP, culminating in an historic drubbing last Tuesday in which President Obama won the Hispanic vote by a record 44 points. Now realizing that alienating the fasting growing voting bloc in the nation is a losing strategy, many in the GOP seem willing to make a renewed push for something very much like what Bush put forth only a few years ago. This is welcome news.

While the devil is always in the details, a plan that allows for an eventual path to citizenship for the country’s 12 million illegals, increases visas for highly skilled foreigners, and cracks down on companies that hire illegals would strengthen the U.S. labor market and ultimately the whole economy. It is also the right thing to do. It is in our collective interest to welcome immigrants to American citizenship; they are here to contribute and they share our values.

3. National Election Reform

This is more a hope than something concrete. During Obama’s victory speech, when he mentioned the need to “fix” the problem of seven-hour waits at the polls, election reform advocates felt a jolt. In 2009, when Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House, they had and missed a huge opportunity to pass sensible guidelines assuring easier voting. Let’s hope that Obama meant it when he brought the subject up again, and that Democrats take the lead to put forth common-sense measures (which the GOP will find hard to oppose). Let’s make the 2014 elections, and all that follow, more efficient and equitable.

Jason Scorse

In a little over 24 hours the 2012 election will be over. We’ll have an Obama second term or a new era of Republican extremism under President Romney. Make no mistake, if Romney is elected America will change in significant ways, almost exclusively for the worse.

Romney’s massive cuts to social welfare programs will devastate the middle class and poor, and his commitment to roll back environmental and financial regulations will wreak havoc. Even more, nothing will be more consequential than his ability to radically reshape the Supreme Court. He would likely get to replace two liberal Justices, creating a 7-2 rightwing majority for decades to come. I don’t think nearly enough attention has been paid to how profoundly this would reshape America. The rightwing justices would be virtually unchecked in their ability to further concentrate power in the hands of corporations, weaken individual rights, and dismantle the social contract.

But perhaps the biggest blow that would result from a Romney victory would be to reason itself. Romney has run the most dishonest campaign in American history. He has not simply exaggerated, taken things out of context, or uttered many “white” lies (though he has done all of these); the Romney campaign has blatantly lied on major issues from start to finish. On virtually every issue, his campaign has displayed an utter disregard for the truth.

At first, the traditional media was taken aback and didn’t really know how to respond. Supposed to be above the fray, and desperate to maintain the “both sides do it” façade, journalists and reporters have largely been at a loss. The Romney campaign exploited the media’s hesitation to call them out for their lies by doubling down on even the most blatant untruths.

But even the feckless talking heads eventually reached their limits, and numerous reporters have confronted the campaign’s lies directly in the past few weeks. Still the campaign doesn’t seem to care; Romney must have concluded that the negatives of being called out for lying don’t outweigh the positives of swaying potential voters. In this last week, the campaign has falsely claimed that Obama’s auto rescue plan is causing Jeep to move jobs to China, and reprised the 100% false claim that Obama has gutted the work requirement for welfare (a clear play to racial animosity). In these ways and other, Romney is banking on the ignorance of the American people; he must believe they are too stupid to know the truth.

A Romney win would represent a de facto legitimization of lying as the centerpiece of a presidential campaign. We would have a president who had done everything in his power, bordering on the criminal, to evade taxes (which he then refuses to disclose details of). We would have a president who is completely free of principles—willing to say anything to anyone, no matter how contradictory or nonsensical. We would have a president whose entire campaign has been premised on lie after blatant lie.

The precedent this would set is terrible to contemplate, and could threaten the long-term viability of American democracy. It is no exaggeration to state that on November 6th reason in America is on the ballot, and a vote for Romney is a vote to throw facts, reality, and truth out the window.

Jason Scorse

The Republican Party has spent the last four years denying that Barack Obama was born in America. If he was, and who can be sure, he isn’t a “real” American and doesn’t really believe in America anyway. The truth is that nobody in the last four years has been more relentlessly un-American, and more shamelessly anti-America, than the 47 Republicans who currently sit in the U.S. Senate.

Before Obama was even inaugurated, on January 16, 2009, the radio host Rush Limbaugh gave voice to what quickly became the GOP’s single-minded agenda: “I hope Obama fails.” Two years later, on the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) added his now-famous pronouncement: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” (Not “The single most important thing we want is to reduce unemployment in America,” or “The single most important thing we want is to speed the economic recovery in America”; doing that would help America, but it might not help the Republican Party.)

In thrall to Limbaugh, lining up like lemmings behind their Minority Leader, the Republicans have used the filibuster to turn the Senate into the most dysfunctional legislative body in the history of U.S. politics. The filibuster slaps America in the face, effectively making a super-majority of 60 votes the new requirement for passing anything in the Senate. So engrained has the filibuster become, so reflexively automatic, that Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts declared the other day that it makes no difference which party wins Senate control come November 6; it doesn’t matter, he said, because 60 votes will still be required (and everybody knows how impossible 60 votes are). “I’m tired of the process. It makes me disgusted,” Brown said.

But not disgusted enough. Over and over, he and other Senate Republicans have willfully chosen to put the interests of the GOP ahead of the interests of average Americans. Over and over, he and other Senate Republicans have willfully chosen to hurt rather than help America.

It’s telling, and damning, to look at just a few of the instances.

In the face of continuing high unemployment, Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill. It would have included $175 billion in infrastructure spending and aid for local governments, so that they could avoid laying off teachers and other civil servants. Why did the GOP oppose it? Mainly because it would have imposed a tax on millionaires.

As Obama said when he introduced the legislation before a joint session of Congress, “There should be nothing controversial about this…Everything here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight.”

For Senate Republicans, prior support has morphed into instant opposition when the GOP’s position has been taken up by President Obama. The individual mandate in the healthcare law arose from the conservative Heritage Foundation; it was one of John McCain’s positions during his 2008 run for the presidency; and of course it’s at the heart of the health insurance program passed by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and touted by him as a model for the nation.

But when the individual mandate became an Obama proposal, it was vilified and the president demonized (along with Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court, who later had the backbone to uphold it).

Similarly with the national debt. Senate Republicans had no compunctions about passing the Bush tax cuts, the first ever enacted with the nation at war. They had no problem putting the bill entirely on the cuff, along with the bill for a war begun under false pretenses. They had no trouble, under George W. Bush, with the routine, bipartisan business of raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

But when it came time to do likewise under Obama, the GOP once again chose ideology over country. The party openly and willfully risked the full faith and credit of the United States, causing Standard & Poors to lower the nation’s credit rating for the first time in history.

Anything in the service of party; nothing in the service of country.

Obama not American? Obama anti-America? Hardly. The real un-Americans and anti-Americans are the filibuster-crazed Republicans in the U.S. Senate. It's up to voters to remember when they head to the polls.

Gerald Scorse

The conventional wisdom is that President Obama had a terrible first debate, and it was certainly borne out by the polls, which have given a huge boost to Mitt Romney’s prospects of winning the presidency (how much of this tightening would’ve happened anyway we’ll never know). The fact that Romney won while lying through his teeth for 90 minutes seems not to matter much in this era of post-truth politics.

Fortunately, Vice-President Biden came back strong the following week and showed voters how out of his depth Paul Ryan is, and how horrible are his policy ideas. The President then delivered a stellar performance last week at the Town Hall debate, regaining momentum and winning the night.

Tomorrow night brings us to the final debate, which is on foreign policy. If ever there was a topic for which Obama should finish strong it is this. Despite decades of Republican advantage in the foreign policy arena, this time Obama and the Democrats have the upper hand. Not only do Romney and Ryan have zero foreign policy experience between them—making them perhaps the least qualified duo on this front in generations—but President Obama is extremely accomplished in this area. He ended the Iraq War and is in the process of ending the Afghanistan War. He killed Osama bin Laden and decimated al Quaeda. In addition, he’s ushered in the most effective Iranian sanctions ever (which are crippling the Iranian economy), he’s largely contained North Korea, he helped NATO end the Qaddafi regime, and he’s achieved a new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.

The President can claim with confidence that he has kept America safe and made tremendous progress against our enemies. America is more respected in the world since he took power, and the world is freer and more democratic.

Governor Romney, on the other hand, has so many wild ideas about foreign policy that it’s tough to know where to begin. The first thing to realize (which I expect and hope the President will point out) is that the overwhelming majority of Romney’s foreign policy advisors are former Bush Administration officials. While Romney has been careful not to tie himself to many of Bush’s former domestic policy advisors, his foreign policy team is largely comprised of the same neocons that got us into so much trouble during Bush II.

Romney has also cited Russia as our greatest strategic threat, which is ridiculous on multiple levels. He’s on record as having stated that he would not violate Pakistan’s sovereignty in order to kill bin Laden, and that we shouldn’t “move heaven and earth” just to get one man. President Obama can credibly state that if Romney had been president, bin Laden would likely still be alive. Romney’s overseas trip a couple months ago, when he insulted the British and made repeated gaffes, certainly didn’t help his cause.

His recent politicization of the killing of American diplomats in Libya has been disgraceful. At the Town Hall debate, Obama expressed open contempt for the Romney suggestion that his administration “sympathized” with the terrorists. Hopefully, the president will continue to hammer Romney on this point (and repeat his great line from a “60 Minutes” interview a few weeks ago, that Romney tends to shoot first and aim second).

Perhaps most damning, Romney seems intent on starting a war with Iran and being little more than a rubber stamp for the extremist wing of Israel’s foreign policy establishment. President Obama has taken great care not to upset his Jewish constituency, and I expect him to emphasize his unwavering commitment to Israel’s security; at the same time, I also expect him to make clear that diplomacy must take precedence over saber-rattling, and that any military action is only a last resort.

The President needs to thread this needle, to effectively point out his many foreign policy achievements, and to point out that Romney’s foreign policies come from extremist Bush holdovers. If he can make these points, a decisive debate victory should be assured. This will give Obama the momentum he needs as we enter the final two weeks of the campaign.

Jason Scorse

Answering a direct question on "60 Minutes" a few weeks back, Mitt Romney said it was fair for him to pay a lower tax on $20 million in capital gains than a worker pays on $50,000 in wages “because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level, as high as 35 percent.”

Romney was echoing a claim contained in an Ernst & Young study purporting to calculate “integrated” tax rates on capital gains and dividends by (listen up, now) combining taxes paid at the corporate and individual levels. The study mixes apples, oranges and tomatoes too, in a crazy right-wing stew.

He delivered his answer with a straight face, to a national television audience, as if it were the gosh-honest truth. In the real world it’s gosh-awful garbage.

The same study was used by the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), in his opening statement to a hearing on tax reform and the tax treatment of capital gains. Here's an eye-opening sample:

“As we consider the economic impact of the tax burden associated with capital gains, it is critical that we focus on the total integrated rate, which is nearly 45 percent, not just the statutory rate of 15 percent. The capital gains tax is often, though not always, a double layer of taxation. For example, in the case of shares of stock, a company’s income is first taxed at the corporate rate. Then, when shareholders of the company later decide to sell their stock, they are subject to capital gains tax on the sale. But the value of the stock they sell has already been reduced by the fact that the corporation previously paid out a portions of its earnings as taxes. So, even if we make current low-tax policies permanent, the top integrated rate on capital gains is actually 44.75 percent – a 35 percent first layer of tax and a 15 percent capital gains tax. If we allow current low-tax policies to expire, the top integrated rate on capital gains will exceed 50 percent.”

Ernst & Young is saying, and expects you to agree, that a tax on a corporation’s income is really a “35 percent first layer of tax” on an individual’s stock market gain. Is it? Let’s see.

Let’s start by noting that a capital gain, by definition, is the difference between the basis price (the price paid for the stock in the first place) and the proceeds, the amount realized when the stock is sold. By definition, the capital gains never existed before; by definition, the capital gains were never taxed before; lastly and also by definition, "double taxation" of capital gains is a total fiction.

Let’s also note that any claimed relationship between a corporation’s money and an individual’s stock market capital gain is essentially non-existent; to “integrate” these monies, and to pronounce a tax on one equivalent to a tax on the other, is rubbish.

Finally, let’s note that the 35 percent tax rate cited by Ernst & Young (and echoed by Romney) is mighty misleading. It’s the top corporate rate all right, but it’s paid by few U.S. companies. Many major U.S. corporations are members, in fact, of Romney’s moocher class: via various loopholes and tax dodges (which Romney knows a thing or two about), they pay no federal income tax at all.

The last paragraph of Camp’s opening statement refers to "compelling arguments for providing a preferential tax treatment for capital gains.” Those “compelling arguments” were rejected in late 2011 by President Obama's Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, which called for equal taxes on all income: the same tax rates on capital gains and dividends as the tax rates on wages.

Mitt Romney may think it's fair that capital gains and dividends get taxed at a lower rate than wages. Simpson-Bowles didn't think so, nor did the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington in a second blue-ribbon deficit reduction report issued shortly afterward. That report, the so-called Rivlin-Domenici report, also called for equal taxes on all income.

So too, long ago, did GOP icon Ronald Reagan. One of the centerpieces of Reagan's signature Tax Reform Act of 1986 was equal taxes on income from wealth and income from work.

Gerald Scorse

With the election little more than five weeks away, things look good for Team Blue. But a lot can still happen, and with the GOP intent on suppressing as many votes as possible, victory is anything but assured.

From the polling numbers, we know one thing for sure: if Democrats voted in numbers like they did in 2008, Obama’s victory would be guaranteed and huge gains in Congress as well. Unfortunately, despite Democratic enthusiasm for the President, a sizeable group of disaffected voters on the Left intend to sit this election out.

There are legitimate reasons to be upset or disappointed with many aspects of the Obama Presidency. The President hasn’t been aggressive enough on climate change, and has continued some of the more dubious Bush-era spying operations on American citizens. His main legislative victories, on healthcare and financial reform, have been far more centrist than liberal.

But there is a difference between being disappointed with aspects of the Obama Presidency and with the President overall. The former is defensible, while to my mind the latter is not. U.S. governing institutions are conservative (small c) by design, and our current polarized climate makes it next to impossible to get anything done. Yet Obama has managed to do big things in office. I won’t go through the long list of his accomplishment (you can read them here), but any objective reading of Obama’s achievements puts him among our most consequential presidents. And this in just his first term.

What the Right realizes but some on the Left don’t is that the U.S. system is incremental: it simply does not produce comprehensive programs on the first try, whether Social Security or Medicare or Obamacare. We may one day have single payer healthcare in the U.S., but it will come about through a number of smaller steps—Obamacare, then a public option, then a lower Medicare eligibility age, and so on. What’s important to realize is that Obamacare is the crucial first step, and that first step was the hardest. To fault Obama because he didn’t push hard enough for single payer or the public option is complaining about a cup half-full; it’s much better than dying of thirst.

For decades now, The Right has played the “long game”. They’ve built think-tanks and news organizations to spread their message, and create the narratives that have slowly seeped into the public consciousness. They’ve packed the courts with ideologues from local to federal levels, and worked tirelessly to elect state legislatures that would then draw up new, GOP-leaning Congressional districts. They understand how power works in America, and how to pull the levers.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the rise of the Tea Party. The party is little more than recycled rightwing extremism. Its clout has come from primarying, and defeating, establishment Republicans. Its overall value to the GOP is questionable (it will likely cost the GOP key Senate seats), but it has undoubtedly moved the party sharply to the right.

Nothing is stopping the Left from doing the same. The Occupy Movement could be running more left-leaning candidates against moderate or “blue dog” Democrats. Unlike the Tea Party’s messages of racism and xenophobia, the Left embraces populist themes; a leftward shift in the Democratic Party could well increase its electoral strength. But a quick perusal of the Occupy websites (here and here) shows that they largely eschew electoral politics, and advocate little more than protests and gatherings. They choose to be apolitical when politics matters more than ever.

The central conceit of many on the Left is that politics is too dirty and messy, and doesn’t deliver change fast enough. They issue timid calls for third-party candidates, and show a general disaffection with the political process. This is a shame. The aphorism about the Left being its own worst enemy is true. Our conservative institutions make sure that the Right will always have considerable power in America—but that power would be much less if the Left became more politically engaged, and had a longer-term vision.

I am confident that when all of President Obama’s accomplishments have run their course, he will have led the country farther to the Left (which Americans actually want) than people now realize. He understands how power in America works. He deserves criticism on many fronts; but he also deserves strong support, as does the Democratic Party.

There is no reason not to play the long game to change our governing institutions, while also keeping our eyes on the prize in the present moment. That’s how real change always happens.

P.S. Check out this great piece by Andrew Sullivan on the promise of a second Obama term.

Jason Scorse

I have often contended on VoR that if you are committed to reason, facts, and evidence, in the current political climate you have to stand with the Democrats. They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the GOP has basically gone off the deep end. Over the years, I have received a number of emails taking me to task for this claim, and charging that I am actually feeding the polarization that has become integral to American politics. I disagree; pointing out extremism and calling it for what it is does not make oneself an extremist.

I have often documented how the Republican Party has slipped so far from reality that it can accurately be described as anti-science and anti-modernity; its economic philosophy is hardly better, consisting almost solely of more tax cuts for the rich. I often ask those who criticize this assessment to point out any factual errors in my pieces. This is where the email trains typically end; it is not the messenger who is extreme, it is the Republican Party.

Now, thanks to a hidden camera at a Romney $50,000-a plate fund raising event, we have unassailable evidence that the views of the GOP far right have made their way all the way to the top, and found a home there.

In the video, Romney often gets his facts wrong while characterizing almost half of the American electorate as some form of “takers” or “moochers”. This is not serious analysis, but a rant we might expect to hear on far-right AM radio or from someone clinging to Ayn Rand fantasies. As dozens of commentators have pointed out, the majority of people who pay no federal income taxes are seniors, students, and members of the military in combat—in addition, of course, to the working poor who make so little that they don’t meet the tax threshold.

Besides which, a good portion of the 47% that Romney derides pay a significant percent of their income in payroll taxes, state and local sales taxes, federal excise taxes and the like. Including all taxes, the fact is that most of them pay a higher effective rate than Romney and other wealthy Americans. As President Obama noted is his first formal response to Romney’s comments, the man “needs to get out more”. The people he so disparages are actually some of the hardest working people in America. In a brilliant piece, Ezra Klein explains why low-income working people actually tend to take more responsibility for their lives than the rich, and how the grind of poverty makes it so hard for them to juggle their many social, family, and financial obligations.

The wealthy in America are not a horrible group of people, and most of them are more than willing to give back to society. Romney and the modern-day GOP don’t truly represent these people. By his own words, spoken to those he feels comfortable with, he represents people certain of their own worth and superiority, and just as certain that other people simply don’t measure up. To them the social contract is something to be dismantled, not strengthened.

That one of these men is now the GOP candidate for president is all the proof that’s needed that the modern GOP does not deserve deference, respect, or a single vote.

Jason Scorse

Aside from the sub-three hour marathon he never ran, the most fanciful notion to come from GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is his proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes. The idea violates a central principle of tax equity, it mocks his tax reform and deficit-cutting pretensions, and it tends to confirm what the economist Paul Krugman has been saying for the longest time—Ryan is an over-hyped pretty boy, heavy on ideology but light on fiscal chops.

The tax principle that Ryan would flout is called horizontal equity. Simply put, it holds that people who make similar incomes should pay similar taxes. Obviously, with no tax on capital gains, there’s no hope of horizontal equity.

Not that there’s any such equity now. Capital gains (and dividends) are hugely tax-advantaged, with the tax on long-term gains currently at an 80-year low of 15%. If the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, the capital gains levy is set to rise to 20% in 2013—still less than the tax the middle class pays on wages.

Things might have been otherwise if Ryan had voted differently as a member of President Obama’s bi-partisan fiscal commission, a.k.a. Bowles-Simpson.

The commission, you’ll recall, was charged by the president with developing a plan to attack the federal deficit and put the nation on fiscal terra firma. Led by co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the commission delivered as charged. A key ingredient in their plan was horizontal equity: equal taxes on all income, including capital gains and dividends.

Ryan chairs the House Budget Committee, and was the acknowledged policy-wonk leader of the Republicans on the commission. He’s fond of talking the talk on deficit reduction. Put to the test, he declined to walk the walk. He voted against the plan; it was his vote, essentially, that turned the promise of Bowles-Simpson into one more instance of gridlock, one more disillusion.

Coincidentally, another deficit-reduction plan came in close on the heels of Bowles-Simpson. This one issued from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, and it was co-chaired by former Federal Reserve official Alice Rivlin and ex-senator Pete Domenici. Its recommendations differed in important respects from Bowles-Simpson, but the plans had this in common: each called for horizontal equity, for equal taxes on all income.

In his acceptance speech at the GOP convention, Ryan slipped in a marathon-like mention of the Bowles-Simpson commission. “He [Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” Of course it was Ryan himself who effectively doomed Bowles-Simpson, making sure the report went to the White House without the necessary support to force a Congressional vote.

While the fiscal pretender Ryan calls for an end to capital gains taxes, others continue to call for horizontal equity. A recent New York Times editorial scolded private equity firms for converting management fees into capital gains in order to take advantage of the 15% rate. “The best way to end this problem,” The Times concluded, “is to get rid of the special rate for capital gains. As long as income from investments is taxed at a lower rate than income from work, there will be no stopping the search for ways, legal or otherwise, to pay the lower rate.”

There’s another believer in horizontal equity too, but he’s no longer with us. President Ronald Reagan’s signature Tax Reform Act of 1986 called for equal taxes on all income. In a signing ceremony on the White House lawn, Reagan called the bill “a sweeping victory for fairness….and the best job-creation program ever to come out of the Congress.”

There’s no better time for an encore than 2012.

Jason Scorse

As I expected, President Obama and the Democrats didn’t miss the fastball down the middle that Romney, Ryan and the rest of the GOP threw their way in Tampa.

The Democratic bench is so deep, and Democrats were so uncharacteristically forceful, that there was an abundance of riches at the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Michelle Obama, President Clinton and Joe Biden delivered powerful speeches, and there were notable surprises as well.

Senator John Kerry, exhibiting a wit and fight that had he shown in 2004 he might have won the election, utterly destroyed Romney’s foreign policy credentials. It was really something to behold. I have to pinch myself when I see Democrats, like Kerry, taking the offensive on foreign policy; it’s the first time in my adult life that I’ve ever experienced it. The polls reflect the new reality, showing Obama leading Romney by wide margins on foreign policy issues and the military. (Romney didn’t do himself any favors when, after the Democratic convention, he answered questions about why he didn’t mention the troops in his acceptance speech; as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo commented, his advisors must’ve cringed when they heard this. Watch and judge for yourself.)

Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm whipped the crowd into a frenzy and delivered perhaps my favorite line of the convention: “Mitt Romney’s cars get an elevator while auto workers get the shaft.”

Sister Simone Campbell, one of the “nuns on the bus,” provided a strong moral message to counter the religious right. While her tone was subdued and folksy, the message she delivered was pointed and powerful. While I do not think religion has any place in politics, we live in fact in a deeply religious society; it’s always good to see the religious left stand up to the bullies on the right, especially since the teachings of Jesus have more to do with love, compassion, and helping the poor than anything else.

San Antonio Mayor Juan Castro, a Democratic rising star at only 38, opened the convention with a forceful defense of government’s role in providing the foundations for a prosperous economy, hitting back hard at the GOP’s “you didn’t build that” meme. With Texas and Arizona trending purple, and the Latino vote becoming more consequential with every election cycle, I expect we’ll see a lot more of Mr. Castro. It’s especially encouraging to see young Latino leaders like him taking more liberal positions on social issues, where the Latino population tends to lean conservative.

Sandra Fluke, who became a celebrity after Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” for wanting contraception coverage included in healthcare, showed why President Obama chose to make her a voice of female empowerment this election cycle. She’s young, educated, and single, important characteristics of a growing and powerful demographic. She nailed the case that in 2012 the Democrats stand with women against the repressive policies of the Right.

Expectations were incredibly high when the time came for Obama’s speech, especially given how favorably Clinton’s speech was received. In my view, President Obama’s and Clinton’s speeches can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Clinton provided a point by point repudiation of all of the major GOP talking points, and explained in clear language why the GOP proposals were both misleading and potentially destructive.

Clinton’s description of how the Romney-Ryan Medicaid cuts will impact current recipients could be a game-changer, and has so far largely slipped under the radar. Romney and Ryan are emphasizing that their proposed Medicare cuts won’t affect current seniors, but their Medicaid cuts would, in a huge way. Bringing this to the fore could make the Romney-Ryan claims all the more untenable.

President Obama delivered the speech I think he had to make. It was sober in many ways, but it was also forceful and commanding. He belittled Romney instead of attacking him, and I think it worked well; it evoked strength, and made Romney and the GOP look unserious. I especially liked how he mocked Romney’s foreign policy credentials and made multiple references to his own role as commander-in-chief. I also thought his reference to climate change not being a hoax and natural disasters not being a joke was very effective.

The somewhat new aspect of his speech was his emphasis on citizenship and the responsibilities it brings. This was again a counter to the emphasis on individualism that now dominates the GOP’s philosophy. Both parties used to believe in citizenship, even if they differed on the details, but those days are long gone; today’s GOP is bent on eviscerating the social contract. Toward that end, they’re trying to disenfranchise millions through racist voter-suppression efforts in numerous Republican-controlled states.

One man and one party continue to believe in and fight for the compact between government and its citizens. That man and that party did everything they could to motivate voters to support them come November 6th.

The economy may still be sputtering, but Obama and the Democrats hit a home run in Charlotte.

Jason Scorse

The Republican convention wrapped up late last week, and I can proudly report that I didn’t watch a minute of it (even though, just for laughs, I’m tempted to watch Eastwood’s rant). I love a good campaign speech and good political debate, but I hate hearing an endless stream of lies and politicians who pander to the lowest common denominator. From the dozens of articles I have read, this is essentially all the Republicans served up for three full days.

Virtually all commentators seem to believe that Romney and company did not impress many people, nor did they offer anything that’s likely to sway many undecided voters. This is excellent news. Even better, the Romney camp seems to have set things up for Obama and the Democrats with a fastball right down the middle.

I predicted months ago that during this election cycle we would see an Obama we hadn’t seen before: tougher, scrappier, and more on the offensive. So far we have seen just that; during the convention, I expect to see Democrats continue on the offensive in ways most people are not used to. For decades, Democrats have seemed to lack spine and to cower when national security or taxes were discussed. Not this time around.

Romney has staked his candidacy on so many bald-faced lies, on so much misinformation and demagoguery, that he has turned himself and the Republican Party into a target that’s just begging to be knocked down. It won’t be long before the president will oblige, with relish.

Some of you may remember Obama’s speech last year—with Paul Ryan in attendance--when the President tore into his plan, mocking for him for his so-called courage and unleashing an impassioned defense of the American social contract. Look for more of that in Charlotte, in addition to strong language about the GOP’s war on women, its anti-immigration policies, and its denial of climate change and other science. And since Romney amazingly did not mention one word about the war in Afghanistan or the troops, you can be sure Obama will take advantage of that incredible oversight (what would-be president doesn’t honor the troops?).

I also expect many Democrats will use the convention’s bully pulpit to call out Republican lies head-on (just this Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” David Plouffe called out the Romney campaign for basing its campaign on a “tripod of lies”). With so few undecided voters, this is no time for nuance. The GOP appears to have given up any hope of winning over significant numbers of minority voters, and is doubling down on appeals to white anger and resentment. Look for the Democrats to turn the tables and point out that Romney and Ryan represent the 1% against the interests of the middle class, and are trying to sucker voters with the same old voodoo economics and diversionary tactics.

The final nail in the GOP coffin will be the strong case the President and Democrats will make as the champions and defenders of Medicare. The GOP often wins the elderly vote, but Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan has put that demographic in play; look for Obama and company to unleash a withering attack on the Ryan budget and the insanity of privatizing Medicare (as well as Social Security, which Ryan has also proposed).

And when Obama and the Democrats repeatedly hit the ball out of the park, the beautiful thing will be the lack of any need to rely on lies and exaggeration. We can finally have an election where truth, reason, and doing the right thing are all on the same side.

Cherish that this week during the Democratic convention.

Jason Scorse

Every four years we are told that this year’s presidential election is the most important in our lifetime. But this time it is, without a doubt. The Republican Party has descended into madness and a victory will empower the far right’s most outrageous and dangerous actors; a defeat, especially if it’s convincing, will finally send them into the dustbin of history where they belong.

The GOP’s economic platform is voodoo economics on steroids. Republicans want to add to the regressive Bush tax cuts with trillions more in cuts for millionaires and billionaires, while simultaneously slashing safety nets and investments in education, healthcare, and alternative energy. For the poor and the middle class, there’d be little but increased taxes.

In addition, the GOP wants to gut financial regulatory reform and get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; it vehemently opposes any new stimulus spending, and has become so delusional that it talks openly about returning to the gold standard and eliminating the Federal Reserve. In addition, the party’s continued rejection of basic climate science and evolution threaten to put us on a path totally at odds with the real world. Their views aren’t the ideas of a serious political party, but the ravings of madmen.

On social issues the party is no better. Republicans continue to support rampant discrimination and bigotry against gays, and has gone well off the deep end on women’s rights; it wants to criminalize abortion under all circumstances, and would even outlaw many common forms of contraception. With the theocrats in the GOP running the show, we could all be transported back to the Dark Ages.

Ironically, this lurch to the extreme right is not the product of political strength. Instead, it represents the last gasps of a movement in its death throes. Imagine the GOP as a sick and scared animal, cornered and lashing out in desperation. The far right is careening towards irrelevancy, and this is its last chance. Whether its leaders recognize this or not, that’s how they’re acting—and they’re holding nothing back.

All of the demographics in the country are trending against the party and its nativist, divisive, hate-based politics. The minority vote and the single-women vote are growing as a share of the total vote every year; even young Republicans are much more moderate than the older white males who continue to dominate the Party. The Old Guard knows that this is their last chance, and they will do or say anything to win. If it weren’t for a depressed economy they would be on the verge of a complete shellacking in November; instead, because of dissatisfaction with the economy and the raw racist hatred of President Obama, they have a chance.

A Republican victory would inflict maximum damage on the American people. A President Romney could very well replace two liberal Supreme Court Justices with judges in the mold of Scalia or Thomas, creating a 7-2 right wing majority and cementing a far right legacy for decades to come. This would be their greatest triumph—to have a high court that guts the pillars of the New Deal and moves us ever closer to a corporatist theocracy.

This is why the 2012 election truly is the most important in our lifetime. We have a chance to not only reelect one of the most gifted politicians of our era, but to finally lay the far right to rest. By 2016, the math will be so stacked against them that their slide into irrelevance will be complete. But if they manage to eke out a victory, they will take it as vindication for all they believe in. With the empty-vessel Romney as President, they will push for far-right policies that will make the Bush years look rosy.

If, however, we defeat the far right in November, we will have witnessed the apex of the right and can look forward to a more moderate era in American politics. It will take time and not be without its challenges, but the end result will be well worth it: we can focus our energy not on fighting the crazies, but on getting the country back to work and solving our other problems. A second term for Obama will make America a much better place.

It’s up to us. Now is the time. Do your part.

Jason Scorse

If you’ve been paying attention to this year’s presidential race, you’re well aware that Republican-controlled legislatures around the country are working tirelessly to suppress voting rights for primarily Democratic constituencies—minorities, the poor, and students. Despite essentially zero evidence of voter fraud in the U.S., Republicans are pushing through these “anti-fraud” measures in order to win elections any way they can (some GOP officials have in fact admitted that the real purpose of the measures is to tilt the election).

The insanity of the U.S. voting system was laid bare for all to see in 2000, when hanging chads meant the difference in Florida; the Supreme Court ultimately handed the victory to Bush II in a brazen act of partisanship. Since then, in many ways things have only gotten worse. Because the U.S. Constitution leaves many decisions about voting rights and electoral systems to the states, we effectively have 50 different sets of voting standards and unequal rights across the country. Worse, even within given states, the discretionary power of elected officials can bend rules one party’s way or the other and make voting rights even more inequitable.

For a country that prides itself on “exceptionalism,” America is truly exceptional when it comes to making it inconvenient to vote. We treat voting more as a privilege than a right, and put up huge obstacles in many areas. This stands in sharp contrast to most democracies, which make voting as easy as possible with policies such as mandatory early voting, uniform standards, electronic registration and address changes, and holding elections on weekends; in addition, election days are often national holidays.

It would be one thing if we had uniformly bad rules that affected all groups equally; unfortunately, our chaotic mishmash has turned what should be a routine function of state and local governments into another partisan cudgel that is exploited mercilessly by Republicans. For all their talk of bringing freedom to Iraqis and Afghanistanis, the GOP will do whatever it can to make sure blacks, Latinos, and students have a hard time casting ballots.

This has got to stop.

When the Democrats had a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate in 2009, they made a huge mistake by not passing some type of voting reform that could’ve at least begun to rationalize our electoral system. Even though the Constitution forbids the Federal government from creating a one-size fits all national system, Congress has significant leeway to create rules and regulations that could push us towards a saner and fairer system. In addition, funds could’ve been allocated to modernize systems already in place and fund research on the best ways to increase voter participation. I am also pretty sure that the Congress could change Election Day to a weekend or make it a holiday; it’s a no-brainer, and shocking, that this has yet to be done.

While the GOP may rationalize voter suppression as simply one more tool for winning elections, there needs to be more shaming by the media to reverse this despicable trend. Pressure in Ohio, where the Republican Secretary of State was going to allow Republican counties longer early voting hours than Democratic counties, was ultimately not done—but only after pressure from many media sources, notably MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

A bumper sticker I saw the other day summed it up: if you have to suppress votes to win, your ideas suck. Republicans know that they can’t win on their policies and therefore have chosen to suppress votes instead. This is no way to run an advanced democracy (or any democracy for that matter).

Hopefully, Obama will win reelection and the Democrats can hold the Senate and perhaps regain the House. In any case, Democrats should introduce voting reforms in 2013. I don’t expect Republicans to go along, but if enough pressure and attention is brought to bear they may ultimately have no choice.

Jason Scorse

One of my biggest disappointments with the Obama Administration has been their refusal to prosecute the individuals involved in the financial crisis that almost brought down the global economy in 2008. Perhaps in some cases it is true that the companies who misled investors by misrepresenting risky assets did nothing “technically” illegal, thus insulating their CEOs and CFOs from criminal prosecution; all the same, given the scale of the fraud, it’s hard to believe that there are no significant cases that could be tried.

Unfortunately, these days most corporate crime is punished (if at all) through fines, most of which are far less than the profits earned through the illegal activity, thereby creating no incentive to decrease the illicit behavior. This is inexcusable. Fines should be extremely punitive, especially when the risks are systemic and the health of the economy is at stake.

Even more important, people responsible for corporate crime should go to jail. They should be treated like other criminals and serve hard time. It is absurd that someone who steals as little as $20 from a candy store can serve years in prison, while executives who steal billions through “white collar” crime never see a day behind bars. We should also get rid of “country club” prisons, and send white collar perpetrators to the same jails that house other criminals.

If the heads of the country’s largest companies knew they would be held criminally responsible for wrong-doing done on their watch, they would act differently. While those at the top will always try to find ways to insulate themselves from misconduct at lower levels and escape blame, mechanisms can be designed to make sure they are held accountable and are not able to hide by claiming ignorance or offering other excuses. The issue is not whether holding corporate criminals accountable is possible, but whether there is sufficient political will to do so. The fact that large majorities on both the left and right want the government to come down hard on corporate crooks, and yet little has been done to this effect, only demonstrates how much of a stranglehold corporations and the plutocracy have on our elected officials and the regulators.

The financial sector stands out as the industry most in need of stronger criminal sanctions, but there are others as well. Industrial firms that illegally pollute the environment with highly toxic chemicals and maintain substandard safety conditions, both of which kill innocent people, should also be top targets for prosecution. It is outrageous that no officials at British Petroleum or Massey Energy were ever tried for the companies' years of horrific safety conditions and dozens of violations, which ultimately led to fatal accidents and environmental catastrophe. Companies like these have become so inured to simply paying fines for their misconduct that they simply build the penalties into their business models, removing any financial incentive to improve their performance.

We can wish that corporations would “do the right thing” based on ethical imperatives, but time and again they've demonstrated that they will not. They will get away with as much as they can to make a buck, even if it means creating conditions that harm and even kill innocent people. Until we as a society treat corporate crime more seriously, and make sure that individual corporate leaders are held accountable and serve hard time for misconduct and negligence, the carnage will continue and the guilty will remain free.

Jason Scorse

Last week, I laid out two criteria for judging a president’s economic performance: long-term economic vision and response to economic crises.

Using these metrics how does Obama stack up?

1. Long-term economic vision

The U.S. faces many serious challenges ahead that have huge fiscal impacts. While a percentage point here or there of GDP may not seem like a lot to most people, given the power of exponential growth, even small changes in the long-term trajectory of the U.S. economy can have profound consequences for future American prosperity.

President Obama has made many of the necessary investments in green energy technology, medical research, and infrastructure that are needed to improve American standards of living in the coming decades. His signature healthcare bill has set in motion many policies that will help “bend” the cost of medical spending downward, which is the key driver of our long-term deficits. In addition, by vowing not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, the President will help decrease both income inequality and provide more revenue to cover the costs of necessary government services.

The President’s long-term vision includes all of the requisite policies for strong economic growth, a transition away from fossil fuels, and towards universal and affordable healthcare coverage. He has fallen short not in the components of his plan, but in the magnitude of the investments. We need much more money devoted to alternative energy technologies if we are going to avert catastrophic climate change, and much greater invests in infrastructure if we are to keep pace with the demands of the modern world.

Part of the reason Obama has not been able to devote as many funds to these programs as necessary is GOP obstructionism, but he has also disappointed through his inability to convey the seriousness of what is needed to the American people. With real interest rates in negative territory for the first time in 60 years, we are missing an unprecedented opportunity to literally have people pay us to borrow their money. Not investing more in America’s critical environmental and technology needs at this time is simply dumfounding.

Overall, I give the President a B for his long-term economic vision and its implementation.

2. Response to the economic crisis of 2008

When Obama took office in early 2009 no one knew the full extent of the economic calamity; the country was losing 750,000 jobs a month and estimates were that GDP was contracting by 3-5 percent. In reality, it turned out to be closer to a 9% decline at the end of 2008, which made the recession the worst since the Great Depression.

Obama should get tremendous credit for pushing the stimulus bill through immediately upon taking office, which helped us avert a much greater catastrophe. The package included too many tax credits (to unsuccessfully attract GOP support)—which people used to pay down debt instead of spend, and hence had minimal stimulative effect—and an argument could be made that it should’ve been larger than $872 billion (some economists argued for as high as $1.5 trillion).

Given the political realities of the moment, it’s hard to fathom that a much larger package would’ve passed at the time, and it was reasonable for Obama to try to engage Republicans at this juncture (after all, it is only in hindsight that we’ve learned how hell-bent on destroying him they were to become). Obama also should get tremendous credit for bailing out the auto industry. This was very unpopular at the time, but has proven to be a huge success.

My main critique of Obama’s response to the crisis is twofold. First, the President should have never let Cristina Romer make the claim that the unemployment rate would peak at 8% if the stimulus bill passed. It ended up peaking at 10.1% in 2009 and this has been used by opponents of the stimulus ever since as evidence that the bill “failed”. Given the huge amount of uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the recession, Dr. Romer should’ve simply stated that the stimulus would add millions of jobs and significantly decrease the unemployment rate, without offering any specific target. She could’ve easily made the case that it would make a horrible situation better and that subsequent data could be used to gauge its overall impact once the full scale of the recession was known. With unemployment at over 8% for the entire Obama presidency, this one predictive error has been an albatross around the Administration’s neck that it has never been able to shake. The President is responsible for his team and he should’ve understood the dangers of committing to a target so early in his presidency that was in no way guaranteed.

Second, Obama should’ve made clear after signing the first stimulus bill that we would need further data in the coming year to determine if it was sufficient to get the country back on track for robust growth, and if not, outlined the next steps to finish the job. Instead, he has consistently remained upbeat even when the data have shown that the stimulus bill has been insufficient to the task. While it is unreasonable to fault him for not knowing the severity of the crisis, letting the critics cast the stimulus as a failure, and then use this as a rationale to prevent additional stimulus has prevented us from taking the necessary steps to get the economy out of the doldrums.

Overall, I give Obama a C+ for his response to the crisis.

In absolute terms these grades are not great, but relative to Mitt Romney, the President is a straight-A student. Romney represents the worst economic thinking around, as his ideas are basically Bush/voodoo economics on steroids.

Let us hope that Obama gets a second term to improve upon his performance instead of providing Romney and the GOP an opportunity to push the economy even further backwards.

Jason Scorse

It is ironic that short-term economic conditions largely dictate presidential outcomes because this is something presidents have very little control over. Did George Bush I deserve blame for the 1991 recession? No, but it likely cost him a second term. Did Bill Clinton deserve credit for the dotcom boom that corresponded with his presidency? No, but he is now forever associated with this era of great economic growth.

Currently, President Obama is facing a close reelection battle, despite the general unpopularity of the Republican Party and the terrible candidate that is Mitt Romney, because the economic recovery on his watch has been anemic. On purely relative terms, the economy has greatly improved since Obama took office and implemented his stimulus plan: growing at about 2% on average with 27 months in a row of modest private sector job growth, after a huge recession and the loss of many millions of jobs. On absolute terms, however, the economy is still weak, with unemployment of 8.2%, wage growth largely stagnant, and the housing market still depressed in most of the country.

I think there are two valid criteria for judging a president (or candidate) on economic matters, neither of which seem to factor into approval ratings:

1. What is their long-term economic vision and their roadmap to get there?

Presidents can have big impacts on the long-run economic trajectory of the country by prioritizing government investment decisions, especially in infrastructure and R&D, and by modifying the tax code to favor certain types of activities over others. For example, there is no doubt that America is significantly wealthier as a nation due to the smart government investments in computer technology and agricultural science over the past half-century. Going forward, the need for continued investment in health research and alternative energy technologies will have a great impact on the quality of life of average Americans and presidents can be very consequential in these areas.

2. How do (would) they respond to economic crises?

Presidents can’t do very much to improve short-term economic conditions, but they can respond more or less effectively to crises, and thereby either shorten or lengthen periods of economic hardship. Perhaps most importantly, they can provide assistance to those in need during emergencies and help build better safety nets in anticipation of the next crisis. They can also put in place regulations to limit excessive risk taking and diminish systemic risks to the economy.

If Americans could learn to evaluate both current presidents and opposing candidates based on these two criteria, instead of simply assessing their economic performance based on immediate conditions, we could have a much more robust and meaningful national debate. We would be able to focus on the longer-term concerns that are ultimately much more consequential for our (and our children’s) welfare. Until then, we will give presidents too much credit in good economic times and too little slack during the inevitable downturns.

Jason Scorse

By every metric available, we are living in one of the most politically polarized times in the past century. One only needs to read the blogs or watch cable news to realize this essential fact about the American political landscape.

But two important points have been lost amid all of the ink spilled decrying this hyper-partisanship—not all partisanship is created equal, and there’s a strong case to be made that partisanship in pursuit of principle, far from being discouraged, should be encouraged.

When people bemoan partisanship, what they are normally referring to is the act of putting party over principle, and viewing every issue through a political lens. Both major parties have often been guilty of this. In the modern era, however it’s the Republican Party that’s taken hyper-partisanship to outlandish heights.

During the Obama presidency, for example, the GOP has purposefully tried to sabotage the economic recovery at every turn—directly harming the lives and life prospects of tens of millions of Americans. Often they’ve done this by turning their backs on policies they championed not long ago. The foundational elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—the individual mandate and the private insurance exchanges—are Republican ideas championed by high-ranking Republicans only a few short years ago. Today’s Republicans not only opposed these ideas when the Democrats proposed them, but led the charge to have them struck down (and, starting with their presidential candidate, they’re still promising to repeal them).

But healthcare is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to GOP flip-flopping on its own positions. From a cap and trade system for greenhouse gases to immigration reform to tax reform, the GOP has continually rejected its own ideas in order to oppose President Obama and the Democratic Party. As the President once joked, if he said the sky was blue the Republicans would disagree.

To my knowledge, there is no precedent for a party so completely reversing its positions on major issues solely to obstruct and oppose the party in power. And the issues are incredibly consequential: it is no stretch to claim that the GOP’s ideological obstructionism has directly harmed millions of Americans and negatively impacted the national welfare. The party’s strategy in fact has been successful, allowing the GOP to retake the House in 2010. Success aside, history will also note that the Republicans openly and consciously chose to indulge in unprincipled partisanship.

On the other hand, the Democrats have governed in a “partisan” manner simply by default. With Republicans unwilling to work with them, the Democrats have been forced to vote as a bloc to get anything done. How have the Democrats exercised their “partisanship”? To pass a stimulus bill that likely prevented a second Great Depression; to pass a healthcare reform that moved America towards universal coverage after decades of struggle; to (mildly) rein in Wall Street after financial misbehavior nearly took down the global economy; to remove big banks as middlemen for student loans, giving tens of billions in former crony bank profits to needy students instead.

These accomplishments were clearly achieved through partisanship, but for principled ends that benefit the public. This is partisanship that should be applauded. If the Democrats had simply given up because Republicans refused to negotiate in good faith, it would’ve been a huge dereliction of duty. Democrats, especially liberals, may be disappointed in what President Obama has been able to achieve; but if they had waited for Republicans to cooperate, the list of accomplishments would be exactly zero.

Unfortunately, the traditional media’s continued use of false equivalencies portrays the partisanship of both parties as equally bad. Nothing is farther from the truth. Since Obama was sworn into office, the GOP has put party over country and stopped at nothing in their attempt to bring the president down—even taking the U.S. to the brink of default for the first time in our history.

In a rational world the Democrats would be praised for standing tall in the face of such radical obstructionism. Partisanship in pursuit of principle is politics at its best. It’s what we elect leaders to do.

Jason Scorse

As VoR readers know, I am a big fan of President Obama and think most of the criticism aimed at him is either untrue or unfair. I think his accomplishments in his first term alone make him one of the most consequential presidents of the past 50 years, and I think he could do even more in a second term (by augmenting the healthcare law, replacing two or three Supreme Court Justices, and enacting immigration reform and climate change legislation).

But in one area Obama has fallen far short of expectations, and it indirectly threatens his reelection. Candidate Obama promised a new era of engagement if he became president; Americans supposedly would be brought into the political process like never before, and stay connected throughout his presidency. The days when citizens participated only during an election were going to end; through the new technology, against a backdrop of unprecedented transparency, supporters would take part in the policy process as never before.

The Administration has followed through somewhat on its transparency promises, but has utterly failed to keep its supporters engaged in the political process. An invaluable opportunity to remake the relationship between the American people and their government has been wasted.

I remember the tremendous energy I and others felt after the election, and how ready we were to begin what Obama had seemed to promise. We waited for the invitations to the online town halls. We were ready to call our legislators, to create our YouTube videos, to educate our friends, families, and communities about the President’s initiatives. None of that ever transpired. The momentum dissipated; people resumed their normal lives and Obama turned to the hard task of governing.

Given the many crises that he faced (starting of course with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression), part of me understands why the President failed to follow through on one of his signature promises. However, I can’t let him off the hook so easily. He had one of the finest staffs ever assembled. He could have made citizen engagement a high priority. I still don’t understand why he and his advisors didn’t realize what a powerful asset it could be.

Imagine if during the healthcare debates, when rightwing lies about “death panels” and “government takeovers” abounded, the Administration had called on its millions of supporters to fight back; the same for the debt-ceiling debate, and the multiple other instances of GOP obstructionism. Imagine the potential to craft the national narrative if even one-tenth of Obama’s ardent supporters had remained active and engaged throughout his first term. I see no downside and enormous upside.

More importantly, one of Obama’s key demographics in 2008 was the youth vote. Keeping them engaged—especially as he nationalized the student loan business, taking tens of billions in crony capitalism away from the big banks and giving the money directly to students—would have helped guarantee that they show up in 2012 in roughly the same numbers. With their creativity and social-media savvy, they could be doing priceless work for Obama this time around.

For one thing, they might counterbalance the waves of new corporate money that Citizens United has injected into the system. I might even suggest that a committed youth vote is something that corporate dollars can’t buy; no allies will work harder for a candidate than those who are truly engaged and believe deeply in what he (or she) stands for.

We will probably have to wait for Obama’s memoirs to learn why he never followed through on his citizen engagement promises. Perhaps, like other former Presidents, this will become one of his signature causes as a newly-minted civilian.

The possibilities that Obama’s rise once presaged have slipped by for now, and with them the restoration of trust and belief in America’s governing institutions. If only his team had treated us more like partners, as they said they were going to do in the beginning.

Jason Scorse

Healthcare is arguably one of the most important issues (if not the most important) in America today. So, with the Supreme Court’s ruling behind us, it’s instructive to examine the political implications of the ruling.

For starters, we can now drop any pretense that the Supreme Court is anything but a political institution, with Justices crafting legal opinions to support their ideological views. In the lead-up to the ruling, the overwhelming majority of respected Constitutional scholars agreed that the mandate was clearly Constitutional. In addition, virtually no legal theorist in the country believed that the remainder of the law wasn’t entirely within the bounds of Congressional and presidential power. Yet, what should’ve been a 9-0 decision validating the law turned out to be a 5-4 victory.

More importantly, the Justices who dissented stated in their opinion that they would have struck down not just the mandate but the entire law. Think about that for a moment, because the magnitude of their dissent went unmentioned in most of the news coverage. A Democratic president, who came into office with a large electoral mandate, passed a centrist healthcare law with super-majorities in Congress. The law rested on principles first espoused by Republicans and by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Yet four unelected justices would have invalidated this momentous achievement, a goal of presidents ever since FDR’s day. This is rightwing judicial activism in its most extreme form.

There is anecdotal evidence that Chief Justice Roberts originally intended to side with the four dissenters and invalidate the mandate; supposedly, when he realized the implications of a 5-4 ruling with conservative Justices overturning a Democratic milestone, he reversed his decision to preserve the integrity of the Court. If so, well he should have. Such a ruling would have been an affront to our democratic system, and exposed the Court as one more bastion of extremist political ideologies. That we were only one vote shy of this outcome is chilling, and should instill great fear in anyone who thinks of supporting Mitt Romney—since the next president it likely to replace at least one and possibly two liberal Justices.

But now the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, and it is here to stay. As much as the Republicans may want to repeal it—and they immediately made all kinds of noise about their plans to do so—their chances are close to zero. There are so many popular provisions in the bill that voters, including many Republicans, would be outraged if the party actually tried to make good on its repeal promises.

The fact that there is still a relatively large movement in favor of repeal testifies both to the Right’s extremism and the terrible job done by the Obama Administration at educating the American people about the bill’s benefits.

It is still amazing to read stories like these, which document the heartbreaking situations that millions of Americans without healthcare find themselves in, and how most of them are completely ignorant of the benefits the healthcare law will provide them. That so many of such people reside in Red states, where the GOP has gone out of its way to demonize, downplay, or outright reject the law, is sad and ironic. (Some of these states are now pledging not to take part in the Medicaid expansion part of the law, even though the Federal government will cover 100% of the costs for the first three years and 90% thereafter, and these states have the most to gain since they have the greatest numbers of uninsured.)

The failure of the Obama Administration to clearly explain the law’s components and why they are important, regardless of whether persons currently have insurance, has been obvious ever since the law passed. There is some evidence that the Administration will take this new opportunity to truly focus on and make clear the law’s provisions; if so, better late than never.

Next week I will examine how Obama’s poorly played hand on touting the healthcare law is part of a larger missed opportunity that has cost him significant support among his greatest supporters, and may ultimately hamper his reelection prospects.

P.S. New social science research confirms my point made over the past couple of weeks--that the GOP's core mission is to enrich the rich at any cost and that all other issues are basically window dressing.

Jason Scorse

I argued last week that the modern Republican Party is essentially a corporate lobby aiming to increase wealth concentration at the top. A quick overview of the GOP’s priorities underscores the point:

1. Give Wall Street an even freer rein

2. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent and further decrease the top rates

3. Slash government spending to new historic lows, despite a rapidly aging population

4. Eliminate key health, safety, and environmental regulations

5. Privatize Medicare and Social Security

6. Disarm, disable, and essentially cripple unions

The GOP’s platform of course includes other issues, and they serve—importantly—as distractions. Republicans could never win national elections based on their real priorities, so they’re forced to use other appeals to try to cobble together a majority coalition. Therein lays the genius of the GOP as a political machine.

It is obvious why the wealthy disproportionately vote Republican, but the rich are not a huge group in absolute numbers in America. The GOP therefore relies on three other groups.

First are those who simply vote the party line while paying little attention to candidates or platforms. Even though the GOP has changed radically in the past decades, they remain reliable Republican voters every election. (There are plenty of Democratic party-line voters, too; the difference is that the Democratic Party hasn’t changed nearly as much.)

The second major group within the GOP base is compromised of religious extremists who willingly trade their economic self-interest for the GOP’s concerted attacks on women’s rights, gays, and the separation of church and state. I have always argued (contrary to Thomas Franks’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?) that GOP evangelists are not so much voting against their economic self-interests; rationally and legitimately, they’re putting their own interests behind their religious beliefs. No matter how twisted their views, there’s something strangely admirable about a person’s willingness to put their moral principles ahead of their personal economic self-interest.

The final major group making up the GOP coalition includes those largely motivated by fear, resentment, and anger at the changes they see all around them, e.g., the country’s constantly increasing ethnic diversity, greater acceptance of homosexuality and other changes in sexual mores, lifestyle changes brought on by women’s liberation, even scientific challenges like global warming that threaten long-held beliefs. These people are scared and alienated; they find themselves in a world they no longer understand, and feel that they are “losing their country”.

Republicans have mastered the art of appealing to this demographic by playing on peoples’ worst impulses: their fears of “the other,” and the consequent need to prepare for the worst (hence the huge attachment to guns and gun culture). The Democratic message of economic security, hope, and opportunity should make this demographic most amenable to change. To voters yearning for stability, legislation like the healthcare law should be extremely attractive.

The problem is that fear of loss is a more powerful motivator than possible gain, and the GOP has always pushed that button—telling voters that Obamacare would take away their freedom and make them dependent on faceless government bureaucrats. Similarly, Republicans have chosen to whip up resentment against public sector workers (who for the most part still have generous pensions and healthcare benefits) rather than fight for good benefits for all workers.

This always works in the GOP’s favor. It’s easier to destroy than to create, to stir up anger instead of having a dialogue, to demonize rather than to offer constructive solutions. The rightwing noise machine—from Fox to AM radio to the new GOP super PACs—is nothing more than one big divide-and-conquer apparatus whose underlying drivers are fear and anger. These play exceptionally well especially when the economy is limping; it’s no coincidence that the Tea Party rose to prominence after the worst recession in 70 years. The critical question is whether enough of America’s fear has dissipated to allow reason and rationality a greater place in the national psyche.

If not, and the country elects Mitt Romney, the quality of life for millions of Americans will get significantly worse. The question then will be whether the resulting anger from this realization can finally be directed to positive change, or whether it will simply be channeled into more resentment and greater gains for the GOP.

Nothing less than who we are as a nation, and how we care for our citizens and the planet, hangs in the balance.

Jason Scorse

Over the years at VoR I have painted an unflattering picture of the modern Republican Party. At the same time, I have always said there are many conservative ideas (small “c”) that are quite sound (e.g., getting the government out of the housing market, eliminating most natural resource subsidies, increasing school choice, using market-based instruments to tackle environmental issues).

The problem is that the Republican Party is no longer conservative. It has become an extremist and reactionary party that bears no resemblance to the GOP most people grew up with. (I have emailed numerous journalists and bloggers to request that they stop calling the Republican Party conservative. Unfortunately, old habits die hard; anything Republicans do automatically gets labeled as “conservative” regardless of its content.)

I don’t want to romanticize the Republican Party of old, as it too included plenty of religious fanatics and racists. Still, the governing philosophy of the older GOP adhered consistently to a defensible and at times admirable conservative philosophy. And while it is commonplace these days to point out that Ronald Reagan would not be welcome in today’s Republican Party, it is even more astonishing to compare today’s GOP with the Nixon Administration.

Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which today’s GOP wants to abolish. He also supported a minimum income for all Americans—an idea espoused by uber-conservative Milton Friedman—and a universal healthcare system strikingly similar to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Nixon is to the left of Obama on many issues, and would surely be labeled a Marxist by today’s GOP.

So the question is: How did the GOP go from being a truly conservative party to the abomination it is today?

Theories abound, most of them revolving around money in politics and America’s changing demographics, both ethnically and those caused by urbanization—along with the role of globalization. Trying to understanding the forces that caused this huge ideological shift is fascinating and important, especially since an equivalent shift hasn’t occurred in the Democratic Party.

But I’ll leave that question to historians and social scientists. What’s more important now is to understand today’s GOP and its goals.

The best way to understand the modern Republican Party is to imagine a corporate interest group that’s infiltrated its way into one of the major arteries of the political bloodstream. Economics has a term called “regulatory capture,” which occurs when those in charge of crafting and enforcing government rules are essentially controlled by the corporations they’re supposed to be policing.

The modern GOP has been fully captured by corporate interests and is best viewed as a corporate lobbying arm. Of course, there’s more to the Party than this; but I will argue that all these other elements are mere window-dressing. They only distract from the GOP’s fundamental purpose, which is to increase the power of corporations.

This claim, while hardly new or unique, provides the appropriate lens for examining the Party’s tactics, strategy and messaging. All the talk of liberty and small government can be seen for what is—a smokescreen for a corporate agenda of increased wealth concentration through less regulation, the disempowerment of workers (i.e., union-busting), and lower taxes on the rich.

More next week.

Jason Scorse

I’m not big on delving into the inner workings of a politician’s mind, especially a politician who’s both incredibly complex and astute. However, I can’t help myself this time.

Try to put yourself in Obama’s shoes right now. Try to remember what it was like in the lead-up to his victory and the early days of his presidency, after an election that provided more national euphoria than most people my age had experienced in their lifetime—or expect to ever again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and we were all thankful to have been a part of it.

Don’t forget the almost unprecedented crises that Obama inherited—two unresolved and increasingly unpopular wars, record budget deficits, the worst recession in 70 years—topped off by an opposition party intent on destroying him from Day One.

And the hatred, vitriol, and outright disrespect aimed at Obama were unprecedented from the start. Often racist and vile, this rage has crept into the mainstream with such regularity that it’s become almost background chatter. To cite an early and constant example, the media has devoted countless hours to the “birther” arguments of the buffoonish Donald Trump and his minions. We’ve also had to weather accusations that the president is really a Marxist Kenyan, hell bent on destroying America. We had a State of the Union Address interrupted by a sitting Republican Congressman yelling “you lie!”, and more recently by a rightwing reporter interrupting Obama’s press conference in the Rose Garden, not to mention the continuous onslaught of racist cartoons, jokes, and email chains.

All along, many have been pretending that it’s okay to give these Obama-haters and their pet fantasies air time. We’ve witnessed a pathetic display of cowardice masked as “journalism,” with more time spent analyzing the absurd attacks on the President than on appreciating all that Obama has achieved—and the odds he’s been up against.

Obama has done things that would have been huge news in normal times, but most people are hardly aware of. Nationalizing the student loan program, for example, denied banks tens of billions in crony capitalism and transferred that money directly to students. That’s a bold Democratic and progressive victory that took decades to accomplish, and yet, maybe one out of 10 people know anything about it.

And then there was saving Detroit, and passing an almost $900 billion stimulus package that prevented another Depression, and moving America closer to universal healthcare—a dream of Democratic presidents for generations; and on top of that, a bullet in Bin Laden’s head and a relentless campaign that’s decimated the ranks of al Qaeda. Obama’s achievements are stunningly large, and largely under-appreciated.

That’s the world Obama inhabits. He must know in his heart that he deserves a second term. He must know that if he were a white male Republican, and had done everything he had, the far right would be demanding his likeness on Mt. Rushmore. He knows this.

He also knew that the deck was stacked against him from the start. He knew that a black striving for power in white America could never get mad and show it, and had to outperform to get respect, especially in politics.

But the man has never broken a sweat. Never lost his cool. Not once. Ever. Think about that. Ask yourself how many people could pass that test. Through all of what the country has gone through these past several years and all that he has had to endure.

Take a look at this picture again—of Obama in the “Situation Room” sitting in the corner, having just ordered the raid on bin Laden, after cracking jokes at the White House correspondents’ dinner only hours before. Not only were the lives of dozens of the country’s most elite fighters on the line, but our relationship with our volatile ally Pakistan—a nuclear-armed nation festering with jihadists at the highest levels of government. Against the advice of some of his most senior political and military advisors, he had ordered this high-risk operation that put his entire presidency on the line

Look at that gaze.

Tell me he doesn’t know, deep down, that Mitt Romney shouldn’t have a prayer of denying him a second term. Obama must know this, and I imagine it must make him a little mad inside—at least a little.

So here’s my prediction: In the final months before the election, look for an Obama like we’ve never seen before. An Obama who knows he has a good chance of losing through largely no fault of his own, whose greatest liability—the economy—is more dependent now on what the Europeans do in the next few months than anything he has control over. This is an Obama who—if he’s going down—will go down swinging. I think he knows that if it’s going down to the wire that he can’t win on a technical decision.

He needs a knock-out.

He can’t count on pulling off a close race when the GOP is doing everything in its power, bordering on the criminal, to disenfranchise and suppress Democratic turnout; doing it purposefully, at all levels, at a furious and unprecedented pace.

Next ask yourself this: Could Obama have a better target than Mitt Romney—a man so smug and disconnected from any sense of hardship or struggle that he acts as if he’s owed the presidency?

With a moral core made of jelly, a mind-boggling propensity to lie, and a “I own the Monopoly Board” manner, it’s easy to see why people—including plenty in his own party—find it hard to like this man. He seems little more than a grown up bully. He’s a man willing to literally say anything to anyone to get what he wants.

Let me be honest: Obama could lose in November. I don’t think he will, and I’m going to work hard to ensure that he doesn’t; but if he does, I think he’s going to go out strong with no regrets. And if he does lose, it will be the American people who are ultimately the biggest losers of all.

Jason Scorse

Many progressives complain that the traditional media enables Republicans to obscure the truth (or outright lie) by continually peddling false equivalencies between the left and right, and by alluding to centrist positions that the nation should strive for, when in reality these positions are already held by the Democrats.

The worst offenders include some of the major opinion writers for the nation’s leading newspapers—the New York Times and the Washington Post—as well as the hosts of the major Sunday TV talk shows. One such person is Thomas Friedman, whose Times column this past Sunday (“G.(reen)O.P.”) is a perfect example of punditry that obfuscates rather than illuminates.

The basic premise of the piece is that Mitt Romney, having won the GOP nomination by appealing to the far right, should now stake out a “centrist” position on an issue sufficiently important to attract independent voters. Citing the GOP’s history of supporting reasonable environmental measures, Friedman suggests that Romney buck the crazies in his Party and put forth a sensible green energy platform that aligns with historic Republican positions.

Ironically, Friedman made this plea only days after Romney staged a much-publicized press conference at the shuttered doors of the Solyndra Corporation to smear the Obama Administration’s support for green energy. In his rant against Obama’s policies, Romney blatantly lied (a regular occurrence) by stating that the Attorney General’s Office had investigated the loan to Solyndra and found evidence of cronyism.

In fact Romney has shown every indication that he plans to continue the GOP Party line in favor of dirty energy, and oppose all policies addressing climate change. Any analysis of the Republican Party over the last decade shows that it is increasingly being bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry, and Romney is totally unlikely to take these backers on.

No sooner had George W. Bush been sworn in than Vice President Cheney (a former oil company executive) began convening secret meetings of the nation’s top energy companies and inviting them, essentially, to set the nation’s energy policies. All efforts to regulate greenhouse gases were shelved, states that tried to tackle the issues on their own were sued, and federal regulations that limited exploration and energy development were dialed back.

The GOP has become even more closely aligned with fossil fuel interests during Obama’s presidency, working unrelentingly against the “cap and trade” bill in the Congress. With the Koch brothers and their billions staunchly behind them, Republicans have also blocked every attempt to end the billions of dollars in subsidies that go to the oil industry—subsidies that are opposed by roughly 80% of all Americans.

Given these facts and the current political climate, the chance that Mitt Romney could one day wake up and decide to “do the right thing” on energy policy (something Friedman seems to think Romney actually believes in) is zero. There’s no chance. The power brokers in the GOP would never allow it, especially since the Tea Party and other rightwing extremists have made denying climate science a cause almost as dear as resisting any call for higher taxes.

In addition, the reality is that we already have someone with a balanced and serious energy policy: President Obama. While the President’s positions have been far from perfect, the stimulus bill contained the biggest investments in green energy in the nation’s history: he greatly improved fuel efficiency standards, made Detroit focus on hybrids and plug-in cars as part of its restructuring, toughened the rules for coal-fired plants, and continues to support a market-based system to tackle climate change.

If Romney moved towards a more sensible energy policy he would be moving in Obama’s direction, and his contrast to Obama—which delights his far right supporters—would evaporate. Not only is he unable to shift to the middle because of the GOP’s close alliance with dirty fuel interests; in an election in which he needs a fired-up base, moving in this direction would likely cost him more in lost enthusiasm than he would gain in votes from independents.

All of this should be obvious to anyone paying attention to GOP policies since 2000, but it seems to have eluded Friedman. He’s more concerned with maintaining his (undeserved) mantle of pragmatism and above-the-fray detachment, which is supposed to connote a steely wisdom, than in confronting the hard truths about political dynamics in 2012 and the constraints they impose. Friedman is a decent person, but he’s too full of himself to do the kind of honest reporting that might ruffle a few feathers.

Ordinary bloggers like me can point this out, but we don’t have audiences in the millions turning to us every week. It’s a shame that journalists with these followings don’t do a better job. Until they do, American politics and the American people will continue to suffer under a cloud of misinformation and false equivalence.

Jason Scorse

I recently viewed a talk by Sam Harris on the “Illusion of Free Will” that I highly recommend. As one who has always stressed the power of human agency and the need for increased personal responsibility (which is why many of my economic positions can be characterized as “small c” conservative), the notion that we have less personal freedom than we think was both fascinating and a challenge to my viewpoint.

The basic argument against free will is that when we analyze our thoughts and feelings, it is next to impossible to determine how many of them, if any, are coming from a deliberative process over which we have control. In addition, the source of our thoughts and feelings is still largely a mystery—hardly strong support for free will.

In addition, a combination of our childhood experiences (which we essentially have no control over, both with respect to our upbringing and our environment) and our genetics (over which we have no control) determines most of our personality traits and character. Before we become adults, we’re hard-wired to become whoever we become; the scope for free will, if any, has by then been greatly diminished.

I have come to realize just how strong these deterministic elements are as I have begun the process of trying to master my emotions in order to improve my personal relationships.

It is hard. Incredibly hard. Hardest-thing-I’ve-ever- done-in-my-life hard.

I attended some of the best schools in the country, have a Ph.D. in economics, and have all the motivation in the world. Doesn’t matter; I fail, most of the time, to recognize when I’m being defensive, when I’m responding to emotional triggers, when I’m not being sensitive to another person. My responses are so reflexive, in so many circumstances, that it’s hard to argue that I am in control much of the time. This is a scary and profound realization.

Here are some general thoughts on the limits of free will that I have arrived at so far:

1. As a society, we’re woefully underequipped to deal with issues of self-mastery and self-control. Those of us fortunate enough to have the time and money to read books, hire therapists, and be in the company of people who have worked on these issues (and to have the awareness that they are important to begin with) are by far in the minority. Nowhere in our educational system, or our cultural institutions, do we devote sufficient time to developing the skills to control our thoughts and feelings. I would estimate that a huge percentage of societal dysfunction—failed relationships, abuse, violence, obesity, etc.—is a direct result of this lack of self-mastery.

2. Almost everyone I know who suffers from serious emotional and mental trauma had this trauma inflicted on them by their parents, either directly or indirectly. This leads me to believe that people who lack self-mastery and control are only too prone to take it out on their children. The pain the children suffer is tremendous and heart-wrenching. When I hear couples who are having problems say that they want to have kids to help them “fix” their issues, I want to scream. Few things could be worse than to be parented by unhappy, unbalanced, and unhealthy people, instilling bad habits and fears that can last a lifetime.

3. Even if we do actually have free will, it’s clearly not that much—so what we have is precious, and should be used wisely. I think it is the relative paucity of free will that makes change so difficult. It is hard to change the mind of someone who was raised to be intolerant, or misogynistic, or told that nature has no intrinsic value.

4. In some ways the battles between left and right over the role of government come down to perceptions over human agency and free will. Those on the left believe there are systemic, social problems that are extremely hard to overcome through force of will alone. Those on the right put more stock in peoples’ ability to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”—so, almost by definition, those not well off have mostly themselves to blame. The available evidence so far indicates that the right’s view is too simplistic and over-estimates individual capacity. This indicates that we should be addressing our problems from a societal viewpoint, and not assuming that everyone can or should fend for themselves.

We’ll be learning more about the limitations of free will as the field of neuroscience continues to make new discoveries. The more I learn, the more I’ve come to believe that we have less free will than most people realize. The implications are profound, both for us as individuals and for society.

Jason Scorse

Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which he saw as the companion piece to his Wealth of Nations, was written 16 years earlier in 1759. Smith always viewed it as providing the necessary ethical and philosophical framework within which capitalism should operate.

Smith knew that while self-interest could unlock amazing creative energies and productive capacity, the same impulse could also lead to disastrous consequences. The key, as he saw it, was to make sure that capitalism operated within societal bounds and norms that constrained its worst abuses and promoted its most socially beneficial processes.

One of the primary roles of government in a democratic capitalist society is to strike a balance between limiting free enterprise to prevent capitalism’s worst excesses, while at the same time not dampening its unparalleled innovative potential. In many ways, the battle between liberals and conservatives has always been an argument over exactly this tension that Smith identified more than two centuries ago.

Unfortunately, one of the great problems in America today is that the Republican Party now refuses to recognize the need for such a conversation—believing instead that any infringements on business are an affront to free enterprise. This is not only unhealthy, but borderline psychotic (in fact, it has been shown that those who practice the most extreme forms of unbridled capitalism are more than 10 times more likely to be diagnosed as sociopaths).

There is simply no serious thinker on economic matters who believes that what is good for corporations will always be good for society. Markets can fail, and what’s in businesses’ self-interest can be extremely damaging to society (see, for instance, the systemic risk posed by Lehman Brothers and various other financial firms as recently as 2008).

The country needs a reasoned conversation in which our major political parties come together to correct the imbalances in our market system. It is clear that many corporations are not sufficiently accountable for the environmental damages they impose (especially the fossil fuel, agricultural, and chemical industries), and the risks they pose to the financial system. These same companies are rolling up record corporate profits year after year, but they’re not passing on these gains to their workers; middle class wages have essentially been stagnant for decades.

Stating these facts does not make one an enemy of free enterprise. Markets are not moral or good in and of themselves; they are only moral and good to the extent that they serve greater societal needs—when their actions lead to economic security, prosperity, opportunity, and environmental sustainability.

The Republican Party has forgotten this essential point, and today simply worships “free markets” in a vacuum. Despite the fact that these same “free markets” created a global crisis from which we’re still recovering, the party insists there’s no danger of excess or exploitation. Even worse, it continues to defend subsidies for some of the least socially beneficial industries (e.g., fossil fuel companies and defense contractors), thereby distorting market incentives in exactly the wrong direction.

Hope lies with the younger generation, which is coming of age at a time when capitalism is failing to generate the vital, broad-based prosperity the country enjoyed during the post-WWII decades. Thankfully for the older generation, their entitlement programs are shielding them from the worst elements of the financial crisis and the ongoing recession; it’s the young who are bearing the brunt of the current downturn, and they know deep down that things are out of balance. They’re well aware of the amazing potential in all the high-tech products that inhabit their lives; they also know that markets alone will not provide economic security, protect the public health, and safeguard the environment.

Hopefully, the young generation will recognize in 2012 as it did in 2008 that it has a champion in President Obama. If they can help him win reelection, there’s a good chance that the GOP will see the error of their ways and put forth a candidate in 2016 with less extremist views.

The country needs to return to the time when both parties realized it’s their responsibility to make capitalism work for the people, and not the other way around.

Jason Scorse

The real divide in U.S. incomes isn’t between the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent. It’s between those whose income is reported by their employers to the Internal Revenue Service, and those who self-report. The divide is costing the Treasury about $200 billion a year, and Congress should gradually phase it out.

Tax compliance studies have consistently linked self-reporting with Treasury shortfalls. The link was underscored early this year when the IRS released its latest estimate of the nation’s “tax gap”—the difference between true tax liabilities and what the Treasury receives. The IRS put the gap at $385 billion, with more than half stemming from unreported work income.

Here’s the key statement from the IRS summary of the new gap numbers: “For example, the net misreporting percentage for amounts subject to substantial information reporting and withholding is 1%; for amounts subject to substantial information reporting but no withholding, it is 8%; and for amounts subject to little or no information reporting, such as business income, it is 56%.”

Think for a moment about an income misreporting percentage of 56%. It means that taxpayers with incomes “subject to little or no information reporting” are paying, on average, less than half what they should be paying. The better part of the tax gap comes from assuming that human beings will act like angels when they self-report their work income. (True, there’s always the chance of an IRS audit. But odds are there won’t be any audit, and thousands of taxpayers are obviously playing the odds.)

The new gap totals should impel Congress to beef up income verification. Any such move, of course, would generate fierce resistance. Economist Bruce Bartlett held top posts under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush and now blogs for a major daily. His remarks on the IRS data touched on the obstacles to reporting reform: “People don’t like the intrusion into their privacy—and the diminution of their opportunities for tax evasion—and businesses don’t like the cost or the alienation of their customers.”

The straight up answer to all such complaints comes from 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain: “Country First”. Fiscal prudence, national togetherness and tax fairness all argue powerfully for less porous reporting rules.

The billions that lose their way to the Treasury will likely increase the federal deficit, leaving a hard choice. We can raise taxes, or go without the societal benefits that $385 billion would buy. We could also stem the leakage. The nation and all taxpayers benefit from income reporting for wages and salaries. The nation would also benefit, and it would only be fair, if information reporting could become the norm for current honor system tax filers—self-employed professionals, small business owners, landlords and others. As Bartlett wrote, “It’s unfair to honest taxpayers and undermines tax morale when large numbers of people and businesses don’t pay their taxes.”

President Obama's State of the Union address called for an America where “everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” A current example on Wall Street shows that income reporting rules can move closer to that goal, and even gain bipartisan backing.

This is year two of the three-year phasing in of new rules for reporting capital gains. Proceeds from the sale of stocks and mutual funds were formerly reported to the IRS, but not the purchase price, called the basis. Since capital gains can’t be verified without knowing the basis, it was easy for taxpayers to misreport their investment income. Basis reporting began as the initiative of former Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN). It became a bipartisan bill when Bayh convinced fellow fiscal hawk Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to sign on. The Bush Administration later added its endorsement.

The reasons for basis reporting of capital gains apply many times over to information reporting of work income. The Treasury’s loss is far greater, as are the potential gains to taxpayers from simplified record-keeping and tax preparation. Businesses, for example, could have bank accounts with deposits coded as income and checks coded as expenses. At year’s end, banks could report the totals to businesses and to the IRS—and begin making business income reporting almost as simple as wage and salary income reporting (and much closer in tax compliance as well).

“Trust, but verify” became President Reagan’s trademark phrase during his Cold War nuclear negotiations with Russia. America’s foe today is a mammoth deficit coupled with a $385 billion tax gap. Congress could slash the gap by slowly but surely bringing self-reporting taxpayers into a “trust but verify” system. Ronald Reagan would approve.

Gerald Scorse

As we all know, the Tea Party is nothing new; it is simply the most recent manifestation of the rightwing extremism that has been an integral part of the Republican Party for over three decades. What is new is that what used to occupy the fringe has morphed into the mainstream of the GOP. Fortunately, increasing numbers of people in the media are coming to realize that the Republican Party is being dominated by its most reactionary and radical elements—and they’re hell-bent on moving America back to the 19th Century, both economically and socially.

Just this week, I witnessed the deleterious effects of the rightwing wave that swept the nation in 2010 and allowed Republicans to take over many statehouses as well as the House of Representatives. I work in marine policy; in 2000, the government embarked on an initiative to incorporate marine spatial planning (MSP) and ecosystem-based management (EBM) into our ocean policy. It was an attempt to overcome the huge disparity between the relative sophistication with which we manage our terrestrial habitats and the minimal steps we’ve taken to improve the management of our coastal systems.

When President Obama came into office in 2008, he established new priorities for our National Ocean Policy (NOP). These included building MSP and EBM into a new national framework to create a more rational and efficient coastal management system. Combining data on human uses of ocean and coastal resources with the best available natural science promised a new era of ocean conservation and improved management.

But the industry groups who profit from exploiting the nation’s coastal resources always viewed MSP and EMB with trepidation, as these will likely restrict their activities. When the Tea Party swept into power in 2010, the industry groups finally had their allies in Congress (most of whom were bought and paid for through lobbying and campaign contributions). They began their campaign by deriding MSP and EBM as “ocean zoning”, which in their view was simply a burdensome regulation allowing the government to restrict access to what should be purely open resources, i.e., open to unbridled exploitation. Republicans proceeded to pack the House Natural Resource Committee with industry hacks, and held hearings in which industry representatives greatly outnumbered environmental groups. MSP and EMB were fallaciously attacked as “job killing” regulations promulgated by “big government”.

The bad-mouthing plan worked.

This past month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees U.S. ocean policy, cancelled its MSP and EMB initiatives and began closing the Marine Protected Areas Center in Monterey, CA. The reason: the GOP-controlled House simply reduced the budgets for these initiatives to zero. Even though the initiatives formerly had bipartisan support, and were based on more than a decade of scientific input, they were scrapped at the behest of the interests that now control the Republican Party.

Most Americans have never, and will never, hear of the Marine Protected Areas Center, nor will they know how the nation’s coastal environments will suffer now that these policies have been sidelined. And that’s the way the Republicans like it. They seduce low-information voters with platitudes, and stoke people’s anger with faux-patriotic vitriol; once in power, they use that power to undermine any trust the public might have in government action. This creates a pernicious cycle in which corporate interests are continually placed ahead of the public interest.

November will give the nation a chance to turn the tide and vote the GOP extremists out of office. Here’s hoping voters are up to the challenge. If they aren’t, you can rest assured that the rightwing extremists will find a way to undermine all kinds of public institutions in communities all across America.

Jason Scorse

By most reasonable metrics, the world’s wealthiest nations have been doing a terrible job these past few years exercising their power and leadership. Regulators in Europe and the U.S. failed to recognize the housing bubble and impending financial collapse, and the countries have essentially failed to repair the damage.

Thanks to the leadership of Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats, the U.S. was able to pass a stimulus package that prevented a depression—but given the magnitude of the crisis, it was well short of sufficient. With an obstructionist Republican Party bent of destroying President Obama at any cost, and an overly cautious Federal Reserve, the U.S. has muddled through years of economic under-performance that have permanently, and needlessly, damaged the life prospects for tens of millions of Americans.

But it could be a lot worse.

The leaders in the EU have enacted extreme austerity measures that every intelligent economist knew would only deepen the recession and worsen the fiscal picture, creating a downward spiral with no end in sight. The result is a Continent once again in recession or close to it, with many countries that only a few years ago were in good fiscal shape now facing huge increases in unemployment and Depression-era misery.

These failures aside, the leaders of the developed world have also failed to come together to forge a new international treaty on climate change to mitigate the truly civilization-threatening impacts that are becoming increasingly likely. Every day that passes without an agreement, the chances of avoiding catastrophe decrease and the costs of future action increase.

It’s become obvious that we as a species are failing at the highest levels (although to be fair not on every metric: overall violence and conflict are down, life-expectancy continues to improve, and the world’s richest nations continue to do much good.) At the same time as our largest institutions seem to be at their weakest and most ineffective, the power of the individual has never been greater. Empowered by continually evolving information and digital technologies, individuals almost everywhere now have the capability to innovate in radical ways.

Chinese farmers can develop solar and wind powered cars; committed groups of activists can topple dictators; 3-D printing is opening up an entire new world of manufacturing, and information technology is allowing people to take charge of their health like never before. It’s all coming together to create a paradigm shift in what is possible at the individual level; never before have individuals had so much potential in the palms of their hands, in their garages, and on their desks.

As a professor in public policy, I wonder whether the newfound power of the individual, which is destined to unleash tremendous creativity and innovation, will be sufficient to offset the paralysis (and often the backsliding) that we are witnessing on the national and international levels. Will new energy technologies created in someone’s basement be the solution to climate change? Will a new app hold the key to better health outcomes? Will the democratization of the digital era help to close the inequality gap that politicians have been unable to stop?

It would be a better world if we could overcome our collective action problems in addition to empowering the individual; this is why I’m working hard to reelect President Obama and increase Democratic numbers in Congress.

But if we continue to fail at the big issues that face the international community, I’m hoping that individuals and human ingenuity can pick up the slack and make the necessary difference. Without something to be optimistic about, life would be too hard.

Jason Scorse

During the oral arguments for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) before the Supreme Court, the rightwing Justices kept pressing the Administration to explain the “limiting principles” for the powers of the federal government with respect to the Commerce Clause. They wanted to know at what point the government would be going too far in mandating individual activity; Justice Scalia asked specifically whether the government could force people to buy broccoli.

The issue of limiting principles is one that has been debated throughout much of U.S. history, and the established precedent makes it clear that the government can only mandate activity in special cases in order to protect public health and safety. In the case of healthcare, the individual mandate only exists because everybody will one day need healthcare, and the mandate serves the function of ensuring that there are no free-riders in the system. The notion that the logic of the healthcare mandate could be extended to other more mundane actions is not supported by any precedent, nor are there any serious legal scholars who think that limiting principle arguments represent a substantive challenge to the constitutionality of the ACA.

While the Court may ultimately use a bizarre reading of the limiting principle argument to strike down the healthcare law, the very next week it applied no limiting principle whatever in the use of police power against American citizens. In a stunning display of disregard for individual liberty and dignity, the Court voted 5-4 in Florence v. Burlington County to allow police officers to conduct full body cavity and strip searches on people arrested for any offense, no matter how minor. The person who brought the case had been strip-searched twice over the course of six days for a traffic violation that he had actually paid, and the case was mistakenly still in the system. In recent years people have been strip-searched for offenses as minor as not using a turn signal; a 90-year old nun was strip-searched after she was arrested during a protest.

The Court in the Florence case ruled that officers have unlimited authority to conduct strip searches no matter how minor the offense, no matter whether there is reasonable suspicion that an individual may be hiding something. Tom Ashbrook of OnPoint radio on NPR dedicated an entire program to the ruling, and could barely contain his indignation and shock; Ashbrook is one of the most balanced and fair-minded reporters in the nation, but even he was outraged.

The Court has turned reason on its head. The rightwing members of the Court attacked the ACA for the individual mandate—a conservative idea hatched by the Heritage Foundation—because of a supposed fear that elected legislators might overreach; yet the next week they gave virtually unlimited power to police officers to humiliate and degrade ordinary citizens for even the most minor reason.

No further proof is necessary that the Supreme Court is dominated by rightwing ideologues who consistently put corporate and police power above the rights of ordinary citizens. For all their talk about freedom and liberty, the Tea Party and other elements of the radical right were completely silent as the Court struck another blow against citizen rights.

This should surprise no one. Despite their patriotic posturing, the American rightwing is little more than a front for corporate power and, effectively, a police state. Unfortunately, the rightwing has friends in the highest places—a Supreme Court that will stop at nothing to subvert the public interest.

Jason Scorse

A clear majority of Americans support a whole host of “left” positions: tougher gun laws, higher taxes on the rich, full rights for gays, access to contraception and abortion services, the decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs, increased access to higher education for the children of illegal immigrants, tougher penalties for Wall Street crony capitalism, an end to oil subsidies, a public option in the new healthcare law, stricter environmental regulations, just about every issue that comprises the center-left spectrum in America.

The question naturally arises as to why these policies have not been enacted under a Democratic President, and in fact are currently being rolled back in many parts of the country.

The answer is frustratingly simple: America’s governing institutions are (small “c”) conservative by design, which in this day and age means that center-right institutions are governing a center-left nation.

The Senate is the poster child of conservative institutions. Ironically, though it was designed to protect small states from the tyranny of the majority, today’s it’s become the vehicle for the minority to tyrannize the majority. The Senate routinely prevents popular bills with widespread public support from becoming law. Extreme rightwing members from small rural states can band together and easily block the will of the majority. In fact, 40 Senators who represent as little as 10% of the population can block the will of the majority—and with six-year terms, these same Senators can remain in power across different Administrations without even having to face reelection.

An example of this power occurred just last week when Republicans filibustered a bill to remove a small fraction of the tens of billion in tax breaks received by the oil industry (Chris Hayes had a great segment on this topic). Oil companies are almost universally loathed in America, and there is not an economist or policy expert of note who believes these tax breaks are good policy; even right-leaning institutions such as Cato and The Heritage Foundation oppose the breaks, and yet they continue. If the Senate were ruled by majority vote, like the House, the measure would have passed. Instead, the subsidies persist.

It is instructive to recognize how much would be law today if the Senate operated by majority rule: a cap and trade bill for greenhouse gas emissions, the DREAM act, a public option for the Affordable Care Act, increased infrastructure spending, higher taxes on the rich, significantly stronger financial regulation than what’s in the Dodd-Frank bill. More than 50 votes exist for all of these policies, with some even in the high 50s. (Remember, too, that even a Senate operating on majority rule would still be giving low-population states far more say, per-capita, than large population states.)

Can anything be done?

While many on the left are too risk-averse to recommend abolishing the Senate filibuster, this is in fact what’s needed. The fear, of course, is that if Republicans got a Senate majority, they could then vote to undo many of the left’s most popular policies—but this isn’t sufficient reason to oppose the filibuster’s elimination.

Allowing the majority to govern and enact its priorities is what elections are for. Democrats should relish the day that Republicans attempt to end Medicare, privatize Social Security, or roll back gay rights; they would face an electoral backlash like nothing ever witnessed. Democracy may be messy, but that’s how democracy should operate. We’re stuck right now in the worst of all worlds—the party in power can’t enact its agenda, and a large portion of the public blames that same party for not getting more done.

The filibuster can be abolished with a simple majority vote on the first day of a new Congress. Nothing in the Constitution requires the filibuster rules that currently operate in the Senate. In my estimation, the Democrats made a grave error when they failed to take this step in 2011 (because they feared a GOP majority in 2013). I have news for the Democrats: the next time a Republican wins the presidency and the Congress, the GOP will vote to end the Senate filibuster anyway, so nothing has been gain by forestalling the inevitable.

Changing the Constitution to make American institutions more democratic is a long-term project worth pursuing, but in the short term getting the Senate to vote by majority rule must be a priority.

The tensions and contradictions of a center-left country being governed by center-right institutions have always been problematic. Right now, these tensions and contradictions are threatening America’s prosperity and its trajectory. American voters have the frustrating feeling that their voices don’t matter, and to a large extent they’re right.

Running the Senate run by majority rule wouldn’t completely change things, but it would make a huge difference. Just look back at that list above of all of the things that could’ve been passed in the last few years if 51 votes were enough (or even 50, since Vice-President Biden would have cast the tie-breaking vote).

Jason Scorse

The oral arguments against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) at the Supreme Court this week were historic. They were also depressing, with the right wing Justices displaying an amazing degree of ignorance on how healthcare markets function throughout the developed world. Even more disconcerting was the way Fox News talking points about the individual mandate (e.g., that it is no different than forcing someone to buy broccoli) were uttered multiple times by the Court’s extreme members.

Before I explain why I think in the end the Court’s ruling—whichever way it goes—will benefit the Democrats this election cycle, and not be the final word on healthcare reform, it is worth recognizing how poorly the Obama Administration framed the individual mandate for public consumption.

Even those who support the goal of universal coverage can understand why many find it objectionable for the government to coerce people into purchasing a product from a private company. There is something on an emotional level that rebels against this idea. If backers of the healthcare law had described the mandate as a “personal responsibility requirement” or an “anti-free rider” provision, my guess is that the need for everyone to participate in the healthcare market would’ve been a much easier sell.

Putting the framing issue aside, the Democrats benefit by being on the right side of this issue from just about every substantive angle. Except for the mandate, virtually all the individual, major provisions of the bill are widely popular among Americans, and there was always widespread discontent with the previous status quo. More importantly perhaps, the Republicans have backed themselves into a corner in fundamental ways. Opponents of the ACA, along with most of the far right Supreme Court Justices, acknowledge that Medicare and Social Security are constitutional; therefore, by extension, single-payer healthcare would also be constitutional.

It’s no surprise, then, that some on the left are not-so-silently rooting for the Court to strike down the ACA, and reinvigorate the push for a single payer system. While single-payer is possible down the road, pushing for it at this moment (if of course ACA is overturned) could result in needlessly depriving millions of Americans of insurance coverage. It would be much more likely for single payer to become a reality through the reintroduction of the public option, and the persistent ability of that option to outperform private insurance—as is currently the case with Medicare compared to the numerous Medicare Advantage plans, and compared to private insurance plans in general. While the gradual evolution of ACA to a single-payer system is hardly guaranteed, it’s not at all unlikely (especially if states that experiment with single-payer, such as Vermont, succeed).

To summarize, if the Court upholds the ACA, a major critique by the right of President Obama’s signature achievement will have been dashed, and the incremental march towards universal coverage and a more rational healthcare system will prevail. If the Court instead strikes down the law, it will likely be viewed as a judicial decision that reeks of politics—a la Bush v. Gore—and re-energize the President’s base. It could also help usher in a push for single-payer under the simple, powerful message of Medicare for all.

This would likely be a potent political weapon. Despite the fear of Medicare’s costs, it remains extremely popular. In addition, expanding Medicare would also improve our healthcare system by severing health insurance from employment. (As a side note, if the Court strikes down the ACA it would also inferentially render Social Security privatization, a Republican goal for decades, unconstitutional).

Whatever the ruling in June, there will be huge consequences either way. The fact that the constitutionality of the mandate is even being seriously debated shows how unprincipled the GOP has become. The notion of a health insurance mandate originated with the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, and it was championed by individual Republicans as recently as 2009.

The ruling will also provide another key contrast in this election cycle, which is rapidly shaping up as pitting two sharply divergent views of America against each other: Obama and the Democrats for the 99%, and Romney (the presumptive nominee) and the Republicans for the 1%.

I’m confident this is a battle that the President and the Democrats can win now and well into the future.

Jason Scorse

Almost immediately after President Obama was sworn into office, the backlash by the far right became intense. In 2010 this backlash would cost the Democrats control of the House, key Senate seats, and many state legislatures and governorships. By and large, this wave of Republican “Tea Party” members has pursued a “scorched earth” policy of blocking virtually everything the President supports. They’ve tried dismantling social safety nets, rolling back women’s rights, union rights, and voting rights in ways that Americans haven’t experienced in decades.

Republicans may have come into power pledging to focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” but in fact they have done next to nothing to support job growth—and have in fact, blocked many common sense measures to increase employment. By any independent measure, today’s improving economy could have been even better were it not for the obstructionism practiced by the extremist class of 2010 Republicans.

As the election of 2012 approaches, the American electorate is showing increasing signs of “buyer’s remorse”. Women and Latinos, in particular, are showing their disgust at a Republican agenda that can accurately be described as both misogynist and racist. Unions have been fired up by the actions taken by GOP governors and legislatures, especially in Wisconsin and Ohio but in other locales well. Even though most voters don’t pay close attention to policy details, solid reporting by some journalists—combined with the new power of social media—has brought national attention to issues and put the GOP on the defensive (e.g., women bombarding the Facebook pages of prominent Republican governors).

It is clear that the pendulum has swung away from the GOP and back in favor of Democrats and more progressive policies. This is welcome news. The question is whether the economy can improve enough, and the Democrats can put forth a strong-enough campaign message, to enable Obama to hold the White House and the Democrats to retain the Senate and perhaps regain the House. This was considered very unlikely only months ago, but the overreach of the GOP has now made it much more likely, even if still difficult. That Paul Ryan has once again put forth a draconian budget that showers tax cuts on the rich and decimates social safety nets and essential government services can only help the Democrats; as one Democratic operative put it, “it’s like Christmas in March”.

I’ve long been arguing that the Democrats need to deliver a knockout blow to the far right so that the Republican Party can begin to purge itself of its extremist elements. Nancy Pelosi regaining her position as Speaker of the House under a second term for President Obama would likely be sufficient to make this happen, and it can’t come a moment too soon. There are no doubt many reasonable and sane Republicans in the country, but they are not the ones currently in charge; instead, a virulent far-right strand best characterized by the ravings of Rush Limbaugh is at the controls, and doing immense damage to the country. When the history of this time is written, people will be amazed at how low the Republican Party sank during these early years of the 21st century.

I urge all reasonable and rational people to do everything in their power to send the far right into the dustbin of history where it belongs. Too much time has already been wasted, and too many people have needlessly suffered, because so much of our political oxygen has been consumed by fringe issues, obstructionism, and the priorities of the 1%.

It’s time to focus on the things that really matter: adapting to the economic needs of the 21st century, extending quality and affordable healthcare to all Americans, addressing climate change, and responsibly reducing our long-term deficit.

Jason Scorse

Rarely on Voices of Reason do I spend much time on political tactics. It is my firm belief that too much media coverage is devoted to the various horse races and “he said-she said” journalism that have contributed to diminishing our political discourse.

But as we approach the general election in November, the two sides are beginning to test their narratives and sharpen their messages. While Mitt Romney is spending much more of his time than he would like trying to beat back his Republican primary opponents, it’s clear that his campaign will try to paint President Obama as a far left socialist who has deepened the recession, and hold him responsible for the record U.S. federal deficit (even though both of these positions are false; truth is not something Romney seems to care very much about).

A few days ago, in a nearly 17-minute video, we got a good glimpse of how the Obama Administration is going to counter Romney’s attacks. The video is a masterpiece. It’s narrated by none other than Tom Hanks, one of America’s most beloved actors. I highly recommend that you watch it and send it around to your family and friends. This is one Youtube video that deserves to go viral. Its greatest strength is its lack of hyperbole, and its no-nonsense sticking to the facts.

I base my praise on the following:

1. The video begins by contrasting the amazing sense of euphoria many of us felt in November 2008, when Obama was elected, with the reality of what was happening to the country at the time. Americans have short memories, so reminding us of the days when the economy was in free fall, and we were losing 750,000 jobs a month and the stock market was diving, is the appropriate baseline against which Obama should be judged.

2. Quickly the video pivots to the tough decisions that Obama needed to make to get things back on track. The video emphasizes the auto industry bailouts, which were unpopular at the time but have turned out to be great successes. It then switches to the healthcare debate and shows that it was Obama’s determination to get something big done (even if not big enough to satisfy many on the Left) that prevented the collapse of the entire process.

3. After a moving scene that describes how Obama’s mother died of cancer while fighting insurance companies, the video shifts away from healthcare reform to national security without discussing any of the healthcare law’s benefits. I was initially frustrated by this, and wondered why—but stay tuned.

4. The segment on national security highlights the end of the Iraq War and has an awesome segment on the killing of bin Laden. It puts Obama front and center as the decision-maker who risked his presidency on this fateful decision. Reminding Americans of this fact can only pay big dividends come Election Day; remember, national security is typically the Democrats’ biggest weakness. And at a time when all eyes are on the economy, being so aggressive on the national security front is a gutsy move. I think it is exactly the right one.

5. Then the video pivots back to healthcare and lays out the many benefits already being enjoyed by millions of Americans. This comes at a time when the Administration also has a new website showing exactly how people are benefiting from the law. Doing this right after the details of the bin Laden raid is a master stroke.

6. The video continues to pick up steam, outlining the benefits to students of the student loan reform legislation, the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, the appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the two female Supreme Court nominees, and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. While the ingredients for the video were likely chosen months ago, there is little doubt that Obama’s advisors decided to end on women’s issues as a way to contrast the President’s support for women with the war on women’s rights currently being waged by Republicans. It’s a home run.

7. Beyond the specific issues the video addresses, its tone is optimistic and there are multiple points where Obama calls out GOP obstructionism and extremism. This is not the Obama of bipartisanship, but Obama the fighter—the one who makes hard decisions with Americans’ best interests at heart. Overall, it is very powerful. My only critique is that there is no attempt to appeal directly to Hispanic voters, very possibly because immigration reform and the DREAM Act both failed during Obama’s first term. (Given Hispanics’ incredible distaste for the current GOP this may not be a huge oversight). One final note: the choice of Elizabeth Warren and Bill Clinton to be prominent in multiple parts of the video seems like a direct appeal to more liberal Democrats; it also raises Warren’s profile during her tough Senate fight and hints at a greater future role for Bill Clinton in the run-up to the election.

I am confident that this video will be studied by political campaigns for decades to come. It sets a very high bar for its professionalism and tone, as well as its content. As an avid Obama supporter perhaps I’m a little biased. What do you think?

Jason Scorse

Last week I discussed the major drivers of U.S. short and long-term deficits, and how controlling healthcare costs is the key to reducing the long-term deficit. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) employs many policy tools to bend the cost curve, it is too early to tell how successful they will be. Most experts expect that more changes will have to be made to achieve the magnitude of the reductions that are needed.

Evidence from decades of healthcare economics shows there is little chance that a healthcare system founded on private insurance will deliver efficient outcomes. Countries like Switzerland, which rely largely on private insurance, regulate so heavily that the insurance companies are actually better described as public utilities. The likelihood that the U.S. would adopt a private system with such strict regulation is extremely low. The only other viable option to reach the cost-reduction target is government control of healthcare via a single payer system. A government monopoly with the ability to bargain down drug prices and control bureaucratic costs has allowed most developed countries to provide high-quality healthcare for about half what it costs in the U.S.

Given the current state of American politics, single-payer healthcare may be even more far-fetched than the public utility model. A single-payer system does have one major advantage, however: most American already support and approve of Medicare, which in fact is a single payer system for the elderly. Progressives argued during the healthcare debate of 2009 in favor of extending Medicare to those 55 and over (instead of the current 65 and over), and even proposed “Medicare for all”. The “centrist” Democrats who were crucial to overcoming an expected Republican filibuster made it clear early on that they would not support any expansion of Medicare, which killed these options. This doesn’t mean, though, that single-payer is dead forever.

The upcoming election, and a likely Supreme Court decision before the election, will give us a clearer idea of the direction of U.S. healthcare. If the Court declares the individual mandate or the entire ACA unconstitutional, we’ll essentially be back where we were in 2009. If the Court upholds the ACA and Obama wins re-election, the terms of the act will be fully implemented in 2014 and will become a permanent part of the U.S. social safety net. America may build safety nets piecemeal, but we almost never reverse course once new entitlements are implemented. I would not be surprised to see the “public option” debate revived in Obama’s second term, along with more discussion of government’s involvement in healthcare (for example, the ability of Medicare to bargain for lower prescription drug prices). If a Republican takes the White House, it’s unclear what would happen. While the GOP candidates all promise to repeal the ACA, any such attempt would involve serious political risks. Tens of millions of Americans are already enjoying some of its benefits, and there is a general consensus that reverting to the old status quo is untenable. Republicans have been short on details of what they would do to replace the ACA, so it’s hard to know if any of their ideas are even viable (hopefully we won’t find out).

Dealing with our short-term deficit is much easier, since it’s driven largely by the Bush tax cuts. Repealing the cuts for those making over $250,000 and increasing marginal rates on the top 1% would go a long way toward achieving budget balance; the remaining gap could be closed through defense cuts and the elimination of redundant and/or wasteful programs. If Obama wants to be really bold, he could even propose letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire—breaking his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class—and almost completely eliminate the short-term deficit as early as January 2013. This would come with serious political consequences, but Obama could choose this route if he thinks the upside is great enough.

On the Republican side, the tax proposals they have put forward not only maintain the Bush tax cuts but usher in a new round of cuts, heavily tilted toward the affluent, that would balloon the deficit. Paul Krugman has run the numbers and found once again that the Republican claim of representing fiscal responsibility is complete nonsense. Krugman’s findings are no surprise, since the GOP’s anti-deficit rhetoric has been actually been nothing more than an excuse to slash safety net programs and divert the funds into more tax cuts for the wealthy.

In sum, only Obama and the Democrats are credible on the short-term deficit and only Obama and the Democrats have put forth actual plans to improve healthcare in America while bringing down the costs. The Obama Administration’s policies aren’t perfect but they are at least a serious attempt to address serious issues. If the Republicans should regain power, we will see if they can finally “walk the walk” and tackle healthcare reform while reducing the deficit. So far their rhetoric, and the few proposals they’ve put forth, fall way short of what’s required.

Jason Scorse

Over the last couple of years, the budget deficit has become one of the dominant topics in U.S. politics. As with most issues, the national discourse is rife with propaganda, inaccuracies, and outright lies. Fortunately, the deficit is an issue for which there is ample data and incontrovertible facts. Even on this issue, though, it’s important to disentangle short-term deficits from longer-term trends—which are too often conflated both by sloppy journalists and by political opportunists who want to use deficits as an excuse to slash government programs they don’t support.

Here are some facts:

1. The current short-term budget deficit, slightly over $1 trillion, was driven mostly by Bush-era policies: tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, and the increased use of safety net programs in the aftermath of the recession. While some of Obama’s policies have added to the short-term deficit, the additions are small. Obama’s major policy proposals are either fully paid for or generate net government revenue.

2. The short to medium-term deficits would nearly disappear if we simply let all of the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012. This provides a somewhat counter-intuitive result: If Congress does absolutely nothing at the end of the year, the deficit will dramatically shrink.

3. The long-term deficit is driven overwhelmingly by projected increases in Medicare (and to a lesser extent Medicaid) costs, both because overall U.S. healthcare costs are expected to continue to rise, and because the U.S. as a society is getting older. Defense spending and Social Security both contribute to the long-term deficit, but their effects are relatively small.

Given these facts, what do we do?

First, the reason that long-term deficits are bad for the economy is because large deficits push up interest rates. This increases costs for the entire economy, makes interest payments on the national debt more expensive, and can create a vicious cycle—high rates of inflation, eating away at consumer purchasing power, weakening the balance sheets of the banking sector (which is paid back in money that is increasingly less valuable), etc.

Does the U.S. currently face either of these scenarios, i.e., high interest rates or high inflation? The answer at this point in 2012 is a resounding no. Interest rates are near 60-year lows, and core inflation has remained remarkably low since 2008. True, higher energy prices have led at times to short-term spikes, but these have so far been only temporary. (Oil and gas prices are in fact spiking at the moment, largely due to tensions with Iran.)

Setting aside the current spike, record-low interest rates and tame inflation in the U.S. indicate that the short-term budget deficit is not a drag on the U.S. economy, and that the nation should continue short-term deficit spending—to help unemployed workers, maintain the safety net, and promote economic growth with investments in infrastructure and R&D. As I wrote in this space a few months ago, the U.S. government at the moment can essentially borrow money for free; because of this, any investments that provide a net positive rate of return are sound. This doesn’t give the government license to throw money at anything; it does, though, put the onus on those opposed to deficit spending to demonstrate that the government has no profitable investments available to it. This is clearly wrong.

So the case for continued short-term deficits until the economy gets growing at a robust pace (~3%) and unemployment falls (to perhaps 6-7%) rests on solid ground. Those arguing against such spending have little to support their views. As Paul Krugman has noted, supporters of austerity in these times are resorting to magical thinking and clichés instead of data and facts.

The issue of the long-term deficit is more complicated and difficult to address. The issue boils down primarily to bringing healthcare costs under control. I will devote subsequent essays to this topic; for now, here’s a quick overview of the two opposing camps.

The Democratic/progressive camp believes there is no reason for U.S. healthcare costs to be running at close to double the per-capita average of other developed countries; and further, that there are flaws in our for-profit model that lead to more expensive care coupled with poor outcomes. Dean Baker, one of the economists in this camp, has consistently pointed out that if U.S. healthcare costs were close to the OECD average, our long-term deficit would disappear. If that’s true, how do we get there?

The Obama healthcare law has many programs designed to “bend” the cost curve down. These include an increase in preventative services, national insurance exchanges, pay-for-performance in lieu of pay-for-service, and a whole host of experimental policies. Most have yet to go into effect, so the results aren’t even close to being determined. Many healthcare experts believe that Obama’s Affordable Care Act is a good start, but won’t be enough to decrease costs as much as needed. But they believe it can be built upon and improved, as has occurred with all other major U.S. social legislation since the New Deal.

By contrast, the Republican/conservative camp believes that the ACA should be repealed, and that healthcare in America should be based on market forces with little government regulation. The major Republican plans all call for some version of Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan—privatizing Medicare by turning it into a voucher system, with the value of the vouchers growing slightly more than the rate of inflation. Seniors would use the vouchers to shop for insurance on their own. The belief is that competition, combined with tens of millions of seniors with limited resources to spend on healthcare, will essentially force insurance companies to cut the costs of their policies. Unfortunately, no evidence supports this claim. In fact, Medicare Advantage, which is a variant of Ryan’s idea, has consistently resulted in higher per-person costs than Medicare.

The Republican/conservative camp refuses to accept the idea that healthcare is a qualitatively different commodity than, say, computers or cellphones; it’s rife with asymmetric information and perverse incentives, e.g., pay-for-service instead of prevention. Assuming that competition will decrease costs simply doesn’t conform to the realities of healthcare. While the Ryan plan might decrease the long-term deficit—and there’s no guarantee that it would—it’s likely to send tens of millions of seniors into poverty. Given the political clout of this demographic, the chance of this happening is close to zero.

To be continued next week….

Jason Scorse

Last week I argued that the Republican Party must be thoroughly defeated at the polls so that we can put to rest the oppressive, regressive policies that dominate the GOP these days. I want to be clear that this extreme position is only in response to the extremism of today’s Republican Party. By any objective standards, the Party has gone off the rails and is now a cancer in American politics and society.

A one-party system, however, is not in the country’s long-term interests. I started VoR back in 2004 because I was disgusted with the Bush Administration’s use of fear to ram far-right policies through Congress. At the same time, I still believed bipartisanship was possible and that the Republican Party could be a constructive force in America. In order for cooperation between our political parties to be viable, they have to acknowledge the same basic facts and share the same goals—even if they disagree on the means of achieving them.

A Republican Party that wants universal healthcare but has a different view of how to get there can be reasoned with, but not one that believes people’s health should be left to the whims of the market. A Republican Party that believes in the science of climate change and the threats it poses can be reasoned with, but not one that denies the existence of climate change. A Republican Party that wants to dramatically reduce abortions can be reasoned with, but not one that wants to roll back women’s rights to the 1950s.

The challenge, then, is to get the Republican Party back on a saner footing, so that moderates are unafraid to express themselves and can even become leaders in the Party. The first step is the general election defeat of the extremists who now dominate, demonstrating that their positions can only lead to further losses. The next and most important step is to reform the GOP primary system.

An extremely small percentage (low single digits) of registered Republicans takes part in the early state primaries that have come to define the presidential race. This is especially true in the caucus states, where participation requires so much time and effort—creating a bias towards retirees with significant free time. The result is that GOP presidential nominees are being chosen by an unrepresentative sample from the far right, disproportionately old, white, and male, and with strong evangelical leanings.

This warps the process in favor of positions that are untenable with the general electorate. For those who want the Republicans to suffer an epic defeat in November, the GOP nominating process is almost ideal. But what might be good in the short-term is not in the long-term. The country needs a sane, reasonable, and intelligent Republican Party to keep truly conservative ideas in the policy mix, and challenge the orthodoxy on the left.

I would gladly vote for a Republican presidential candidate who was willing to enact comprehensive tax reform that reduced needless tax expenditures like the mortgage interest rate deduction; who consistently championed individual liberties, including full marriage rights for gays; who promised to end one of the costliest and most senseless wars America has ever waged, the war on drugs; who made it clear that no company, no matter how big, would ever be bailed out by taxpayers again. True conservative positions on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote education reform also have a lot to offer, and would be most welcome in the national conversation.

Unfortunately, the current GOP primary system makes it impossible for any Republican supporting positions such as these to be nominated for national office. Let’s hope the party has the good sense to change its primary rules. The GOP will be better off for it, and the country as well.

Jason Scorse

The traditional media treats political battles like sporting events, which is one reason political discourse in America is so abysmal. But politics is no game: people literally live or die because of the outcomes. Does anyone really think Al Gore or John Kerry would’ve prosecuted foreign policy the same way as George Bush and Dick Cheney? Does anyone believe the poor and needy will fare equally well under a second-term Obama Administration or a President Romney?

While the battles with the largest stakes are usually fought on the national level, local struggles can be just as consequential locally—fights over the minimum wage, environmental health and safety regulations, or education policy. Good policies can greatly improve people’s lives while bad policies can inflict great harm.

Culture war battles are no exception. The fight this past week over access to birth control is a reminder that the right wing’s so-called “pro-life” stance has more to do with controlling women than protecting life. There is no better way to prevent unwanted pregnancies—and hence abortion—than with birth control. Nevertheless, the Right clings to religious doctrines that large majorities of the population, even those who are religious, no longer observe.

It is these same religious extremists who go out of their way to make life miserable for millions of gay men and women who want nothing more than to lead normal lives and be left alone. The recent essay in Rolling Stone about the campaign in Michelle Bachmann’s home town to harass and ostracize gay teenagers is nothing short of chilling. Gay students are constantly bullied and live in perpetual fear, and many have resorted to suicide. The purposeful and premeditated cruelty inflicted on these vulnerable teens should outrage anyone with a conscience.

I wish that politics could be a civil exercise in which people who shared the same goals hashed out compromises on how to achieve them. I wish the Right actually had the best interests of all Americans at heart, so progressives could negotiate with them in good faith. But we can’t. The Right in America represents a sizeable minority of hate-filled bigots, theocrats, charlatans, and crony capitalists. Together they have come to dominate the Republican Party, as evidenced by what it takes to excite the base during the current presidential nomination sweepstakes.

These are the people who boo gay soldiers, cheer at the mention of a record number of executions, and clap when told that people without health care should be left to die. There is no compromising with these people. They are actively harming our nation and will never voluntarily stop their crusade against an open and tolerant society that provides an adequate safety net for all its citizens. There is no reasoning with them; they live in a fact-free world where ideology trumps all.

Therefore, we must make them stop.

The only way to do this is to defeat them thoroughly and completely at the ballot box, and ensure that their ideology is forever discredited. This will take many years of concerted effort, but it is possible as long as we keep our eyes on the prize.

Jason Scorse

Presidential elections in America are strange: the one element that the president has the least control over, and yet looms largest in the minds of the electorate, is the economy. A staggering economy in 2008 helped then-candidate Obama win the White House; President Bush was blamed for the financial crisis, and McCain’s clear lack of economic know-how undercut his campaign. Obama likely would’ve won anyway, but these factors certainly made his task easier and increased his margin of victory.

But today, after three years in office, continued high unemployment and the still-sputtering economy are the biggest threats to Obama’s re-election. The European debt crisis—which could be the biggest single influence on the U.S. economic recovery—is completely out of Obama’s hands. A collapse of the Eurozone, coupled with defaults in one or more EU countries, could spiral out of control, create another global crisis, and throw the U.S. into yet another recession. The chances of this happening have diminished in the last couple of months (largely due to aggressive monetary policy by the European Central Bank), but they are still significant.

This is why every week that goes by with the Eurozone intact is a big victory for the President. The closer we get to November, the less likely that events in Europe could negatively impact the U.S. economy enough to influence the election this fall. Nine months is still lots of time, and European leaders have demonstrated a high capacity for poor policymaking, but at least the situation seems stable for now.

Another event that could derail both the U.S. and the global economic recovery would be a major increase in the price of oil. With global demand easing the price actually fell over the past week, but Iran has become the “elephant in the room”. The Iranians have threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. takes additional steps to restrict Iranian oil exports (steps America began to take in response to Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb). Closing the Strait would approach an act of war and would certainly draw a massive U.S. response. The price of oil could skyrocket to $200 a barrel, a shock that could rattle investors around the world and set off a global economic contraction.

Given that closing the Strait would be a form of economic suicide for the Iranians—they export most of their products through Hormuz—the chances of their following through are low. Even so, the threat itself could be enough to send prices higher. Along with the EU’s woes, this is one more issue that could significantly impact the U.S. economy and imperil a second term for Obama. Every week that goes by with calm in the oil markets is a boost to the President and his team.

As the clock runs down towards November, the election should be about the issues and the candidates’ positions. Obama has a record to run on and his Republican challengers have policies that can be evaluated. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out this week in Newsweek, Obama’s record looks remarkably impressive, especially when matched against his campaign promises. In addition, as Ezra Klein pointed out, politicians hold to their campaign promises to a surprising degree (despite the conventional wisdom that says they don’t).

If voters were more rational and reasonable, candidates would be judged more on the things they can control—their policy agendas—and less on things beyond their control, like the economy. Sadly this isn’t the case.

Given this reality, every week that goes by without an economic calamity outside the U.S. gives America’s economy another week to chug along and gain momentum. Nothing could be better for Obama’s re-election prospects.

Jason Scorse

Since the economy in 2012 will likely continue to be weak, and the presidential contest will revolve almost exclusively around it, Mitt Romney’s record as a successful businessman should be his greatest asset (although, as Paul Krugman has noted, there is little similarity between running a business and running the federal government). After three+ years of a crushing recession and its aftermath, a man who built a fortune restructuring failing companies is supposedly well-equipped to come to America’s rescue.

Sadly for Mitt and the Republican Party, it hasn’t turned out that way. Romney’s record at Bain Capital, which he helped found, has become his Achilles heel because of the massive lay-offs that came along with Bain’s “accomplishments”. And layoffs weren’t the only pain. While Romney and Bain were making millions, many employees at the restructured companies lost their pensions along with their jobs. The fact that Romney helped Bain receive millions of dollars in bailouts is also problematic at a time when people are (rightfully) disgusted with the Wall Street bailouts.

If you listened to Romney’s GOP opponents this week, you might have imagined you were in the middle of an Occupy Wall Street protest. I have never heard such populist rhetoric from Republicans; it reached the point where many on the Right had to come to Romney’s defense—characterizing the attacks on Romney as attacks on free enterprise that would ultimately damage the party. But the genie is out of the bottle: if Romney becomes the nominee, look for Democratic ads in which Republicans take turns lambasting Romney for “vulture capitalism”; it’s a Democratic operative’s dream come true.

What might prove even more troubling is the issue of Romney’s tax returns; he is in a no-win situation. He has refused to release his returns out of fear that they will show exactly what everyone suspects: he pays an extremely low effective tax rate since most of his income comes in the form of tax-advantaged capital gains. Romney almost certainly pays taxes at a lower effective than many middle class workers, and his tax proposals would keep it that way. If Romney doesn’t release his tax forms, it will reinforce the belief that he has something to hide and make a mockery of his commitment to transparency (which has already been mocked by the revelation that, as governor of Massachusetts, he spent tens of thousands in taxpayer money to destroy government records). If he does release his returns, the truth will be there for everyone to see. I see no way for Romney to escape.

Some commentators have suggested that the negative scrutiny Romney is now receiving will allow him to get the issues out of the way before the election season heats up. I don’t buy it. It would be one thing if Romney had good answers to the criticisms; so far, he and has advisors have only made matters worse—for one thing, by lying about how many jobs he supposedly created while at Bain. In addition, the fact that his economic policies would further favor the wealthy and hurt the middle class will become even clearer as time goes on.

This is all to the good. Mitt Romney is a small man in almost every sense of the word. He enjoyed tremendous success as a cutthroat capitalist, but he has no moral compass and no vision, and would be a terrible person to replace President Obama.

Here’s hoping the attacks on him intensify. He deserves it.

Jason Scorse

Over the past decade executive power has (rightly) gotten a lot of negative scrutiny, due mostly to the Bush Administration pushing the boundaries to prosecute the “war on terror”. Although Obama banned the use of torture immediately upon entering office, he too has been accused of using his presidential powers in extra-constitutional ways—much to the chagrin of the Left. (I tend not to agree on this point; although the President has pursued an aggressive campaign against terrorists, including against some American citizens, his actions seem to me both measured and Constitutional.)

But executive authority extends beyond national security interests, and the Obama Administration has adeptly used this power to promote civil rights and Obama’s larger domestic agenda. Given a Republican Congress unwilling to compromise on almost anything, exercising this power has been critical.

Some of the best examples: extending federal benefits to same-sex domestic partners, enacting new fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, enacting new mercury standards that promise to save thousands of lives and improve infant health, tying foreign aid to respect for gay rights, and using its judicial powers to invalidate Republican efforts to limit voting rights.

And just this week the Administration announced a new immigration policy meant to improve the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrant families. Before the change, legal immigrants married to illegal immigrants or with children that were illegal faced an immigration process that often involved years of forced separation. Under the changed rules, illegal family members will still have return to their home countries and reapply for U.S. entry—but they’ll get waivers that will greatly reduce their time away. The new rules are also an incentive for more people to come out of the shadows and apply for U.S. citizenship.

This change comes while Republicans adamantly oppose any easing of the rules for illegal immigrants currently in the country. They even filibustered the DREAM Act at the end of 2010, which would’ve done nothing more than allow the children of illegal immigrants who have spent their lives in the U.S. to attend U.S. public universities (and not even be eligible for financial aid).

Also just a few days ago, President Obama used his executive authority to recess-appoint Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans were refusing to confirm Cordray, or any nominee, in a blatant attempt to nullify a key part of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform (which passed by a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate). Obama timed Cordray’s appointment to allow him to remain in his post until the end of 2013. While the timing raises legal issues that will likely be challenged in court, Obama deserves credit for pushing the boundaries. Using procedural tactics never meant for that purpose, the GOP was trying to block a Congressionally-passed law from ever going into effect.

It would be much better if we lived at a time when Congress was committed to promoting the public interest and doing its job, but we are not; the House and Senate are filled with extremist Republicans who put politics before country.

But controlling the presidency does matter, and President Obama should be applauded for using his executive authority in several ways to improve the lives of millions of Americans.

Jason Scorse

Every four years we elect a president and every four years we hear that “this is the most consequential election of a generation” (or some variant thereof). Since it’s impossible to know counterfactuals, we can never really know which elections turned out to be most significant. Would Al Gore have bankrupted the country and mired America in a war in Iraq? Would John McCain have rallied the GOP around some form of climate change policy? We’ll never know.

The 2012 election will be different than recent others in a substantive way: a series of major policies are set to go into effect in 2013 and 2014 that will define the nation for decades to come, and President Obama’s positions are diametrically opposed to those of the Republicans.

All the Bush tax cuts are set to expire on December 31, 2012. If Congress takes no action to extend any of the cuts, taxes will increase on everyone (including the middle class) and the deficit be reduced by more than $3 trillion per decade.

Obama wants to continue the cuts for those making less than $250,000 a year but allow marginal rates on the rich to rise, saving approximately $700 billion per decade. The Republicans want all the cuts extended; if a Republican wins in November, this is likely to happen.

So the progressivity of the tax code is at stake in the upcoming election, and that means major fiscal choices. Extending tax cuts for the rich would likely mean cuts in other parts of the Federal budget—cuts to the social services that lower and middle income Americans rely on.

Also set to take effect beginning in 2013 are the cuts in defense and discretionary spending that were set in motion by the failure of the “Super Committee”. The defense cuts total approximately $500 billion over the next decade, and would be the first major reductions in defense spending since the beginning of the “war on terror” in 2001. Obama has pledged to veto any changes to this deal, saying that the defense cuts must occur. It is extremely unlikely that a Republican president would do the same; Romney or Gingrich would almost certainly use the failure of the Super Committee to push for even deeper cuts in social programs.

The fate of healthcare in America could well be decided by the Supreme Court early this summer, in advance of the election. The Court’s decision aside, healthcare faces sharply different futures depending on who wins the White House (and the Congress) in November.

All the GOP presidential hopefuls have pledged to repeal “Obamacare”. If this occurs, benefits that millions are now enjoying could be ended (e.g., older children on their parents’ plans, seniors no longer subject to the “donut hole”, patients with pre-existing conditions who were finally able to secure coverage). The Affordable Care Act also includes dozens of innovative measures aimed at improving the overall quality of care and lowering Medicare’s long-term cost trajectory; these too would be lost.

The nation will also be choosing between hugely different positions on immigration policy and gay rights. Obama signifies inclusion and tolerance, while most Republicans come down hard in favor of fences, marriage amendments, and thinly-veiled bigotry.

And don’t forget: it’s likely that two of the most progressive Supreme Court justices—Ginsburg and Breyer—will retire during the next presidential term. A Republican president would try to turn a 5-4 right-wing majority into a 7-2 majority, pushing back progressive causes for generations. With the Roberts Court clearly favoring business interests over the public good, any upcoming Supreme Court nominations could well turn out to be the most consequential outcome of the 2012 election.

All things considered, I hope that everyone dedicated to reason, justice, and equality will realize what’s at stake in 2012 and rally around President Obama. I have been a harsh critic at times, but given the crises he inherited, the obstacles constantly in his way, and the immense difficulty of actually governing, he has done a very good job and deserves re-election. His vision for the country is the right one, and the alternative is simply horrible.

Happy New Year!

Jason Scorse

A strong case can be made that apart from President Obama’s election and long list of accomplishments (to which the end of the Iraq War can now be added), the biggest political story of the past few years is how the Republican Party has essentially gone mad. I use that language not as hyperbole but as an accurate description; while Republicans call Obama a radical and an extremist, they’re actually doing a better job of describing themselves than the centrist in the White House.

I remember periods when the GOP became unhinged—during Clinton’s impeachment for example—but I’ve never before seen rightwing lunacy infect every aspect of the Republican Party. Once considered “the party of ideas,” current GOP positions now read like a list of what not to do if you want a sound economy, equal opportunity, and believe in equal treatment for men and women, and for all races and creeds.

Even though many Republicans are more reasonable than party leaders—for example, a majority favor tax increases on the wealthy—people who self-identify as Republicans hold increasingly extremist and often reactionary views on everything from immigration to climate change to healthcare. Many even refuse to believe that Obama is a U.S. citizen and a practicing Christian.

The fact is that classic conservatism and the Republican Party are increasingly at odds. The word “conservative” is now lazily used to describe almost anything right-leaning; historically, however, liberalism and conservatism were two sides of the same coin: each promoted a view of limited but effective government that relied on well-functioning markets to determine societal outcomes.

True conservatives are not averse to government. They believe in a set of principles, many of which come from microeconomic analysis, to determine when markets work well and when they do not. This methodology is used to identify the spheres where government can help improve outcomes (e.g., environmental policy) and where it will likely lead to worse outcomes (e.g., the housing market). Ironically, the Obama White House is known for using conservative economic logic to determine its policy responses; Lawrence Summers was famous in the Administration for asking the question “where is the market failure?” whenever anyone suggested government intervention to solve a problem.

People are sometimes surprised to learn that conservatives have also traditionally paid attention to issues of equality and income distribution. Milton Freidman famously suggested a minimum income for all U.S. citizens, an idea which made its way into then-candidate Richard Nixon’s economic platform. Today’s Republican Party would deride as socialism an idea that came from one of conservatism’s greatest heroes.

While conservatives have traditionally underestimated the benefits of many environmental policies, they were early champions of market solutions to many environmental problems. They helped establish a cap and trade system for sulfur dioxide, which has since been used by the EU to reduce greenhouse gases. Using environmental taxes to shift government revenue from labor income to consumption is largely a conservative idea, and it’s been adopted by the same European governments that most Republicans consider socialist.

Time was when people who considered themselves conservative would find the Republican Party more hospitable than the Democratic Party; that time is long past. If Friedman were alive today, he would be aghast at what passes for conservatism in the GOP. He wouldn’t be thrilled by the Democratic Party, but he would have the intellectual honesty to recognize that current Democratic ideas are actually closer to conservatism’s roots. And as Paul Krugman consistently points out, what passes for economic analysis in right-leaning circles these days is little more than ideological extremism masquerading as social science, with no regard to evidence or facts.

It’s time for people to stop referring to anything rightwing as conservative. It’s not only wildly inaccurate but disrespectful to a serious intellectual tradition that still has much to offer for American public policy.

P.S. Coincidentally, on Monday E.J. Dionne made the case that Obama is the conservative in the race by any reasonable use of the term.

Jason Scorse

If we had a serious media establishment in America, it would be full of stories about how the Republican Party has lost touch with reality. Analysts would ponder how a party whose policies are opposed by the overwhelming majority of Americans continues to exercise outsized influence; detailed examinations of the dysfunctional Senate would be standard front-page news; and GOP politicians who have been wrong on virtually every major issue of the past decade would be lambasted and their ideas discredited.

Instead, we have a media in which theater has replaced substance, fact-checking is rare, and reporters spend their time parroting talking points rather than doing analysis. Nevertheless, when the people get a chance to vote on specific rightwing ideas, they fail miserably. It turns out that the ideas might make good sound bites, but even in deep red states they cannot stand up to reason.

Case in point is the recent defeat of the Personhood Amendment in Mississippi, one of the reddest states in America and one of the most opposed to abortion rights. Faced with taking the anti-abortion rationale to its logical extreme—that from the moment of conception a fertilized egg is morally equivalent to a human being—the voters of Mississippi balked. The amendment lost by almost 20 points, a stunning defeat for the anti-choice movement.

The strength of the anti-abortion position has always been its moral absolutism. Pro-choicers are derided as moral relativists whose logic heads down a slippery slope on which human life is devalued. Some anti-abortionists do allow for exceptions when it comes to the health of the mother, and some are willing to do likewise in cases of rape and incest; but purists have never countenanced abortion under any circumstances.

The problem with moral certainty is that it leads to unreasonable and intolerable conclusions, even by the standards of one of America’s most conservative states. If a fertilized egg is a human being, what about fertility clinics which typically destroy hundreds or thousands of fertilized eggs? What about a woman who isn’t aware she’s pregnant, but has a miscarriage? Will exceptions for the mother’s health, rape, and incest no longer be allowed? Perhaps even more damming, millions of fertilized eggs are miscarried every year due to natural causes. Does this make God the world’s biggest abortionist?

As Gary Gutting opined in a recent New York Times piece, the practical implications of saying that human life begins at conception make people realize that there are grey areas, and what seems like a black and white issue really isn’t. Once this is acknowledged, the logic of the extreme rightwing position on abortion disintegrates and a window for morally acceptable abortions is opened.

Another rightwing extremity—the effort to strip public employees of their bargaining rights—was similarly defeated in Ohio, another traditional GOP stronghold. With states paying generous benefit packages to public employees, while private employees are seeing their benefits shrink, the GOP thought that attacking union rights would be a winning strategy.

But again, provocative sound bites don’t necessarily translate into sound policy. Ohio voters realized that workers without collective bargaining rights are at a disadvantage, and that unions have played a critical role in the creation of America’s middle class.

The 2012 presidential race is heating up, and the GOP primary is generating any number of extreme positions on taxes, Medicare, environmental protection, and other issues. The facts will ultimately undermine these positions, just as they undermined the Personhood Amendment and Ohio’s anti-union legislation. The truth is that just about every major Republican idea these days can’t stand up to reason, and would be rejected if it were put to an individual vote.

Whether voters will realize that Obama is not to blame for the economy, and that he presents a sensible alternative to rightwing extremism, is yet to be seen. I think they will. But if they don’t, any Republican president will soon find out that nearly all the positions they ran on are unpopular and ineffective, and pursuing them will only weaken the party in the long-run. Only by returning to more centrist, rational policies can the GOP reclaim its position as a serious political party.

Jason Scorse

To really appreciate how inefficient, ineffective, and ultimately cruel the U.S. healthcare system is, you have to experience its deficiencies firsthand. Unfortunately, someone close to me has been suffering mysterious and debilitating ailments for the past couple of months. The person is in the prime of life, but has been forced to quit working and life has lost much of its normal enjoyment.

I had my first hint of how bad the system is when we went to a gastroenterologist who joked during the visit how hard some ailments are to diagnose, and suggested seeing a psychiatrist since Western medicine had little to offer. This came in response to complaints of severe nausea and stomach pains, and the doctor was the head of this particular clinic.

As I accompanied my friend from doctor to doctor, I noticed the lack of coordination and the requirement for the same paper forms with each visit. The doctors all had their pet theories and ordered redundant tests, including the head of the GI clinic at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. They recommended all sorts of expensive tests, including an endoscopy and abdominal and head CAT scans, before anything else. All came back negative.

It wasn’t until visiting a naturopathic doctor that my friend finally starting getting information that seemed more reasonable and hopeful. The doctor ordered detailed allergen tests and blood and stool work to try to get to the root cause of the problem. These showed an intolerance to gluten, dairy, and pecans (of all things), as well as some adrenal issues and imbalances in intestinal flora. The naturopath recommended a regimen of supplements, avoiding all intolerant foods, and meditation to decrease stress. It’s only been two weeks since these changes have been made, but the signs are promising and my friend is starting to feel better. We can only hope that a full recovery is underway.

The lessons from this experience have big implications for healthcare policy (and more importantly, people’s health). For starters, our system is entirely backwards. People are given the most invasive and expensive tests first. And sadly, even doctors from the top medical schools lack any training in diet and nutrition, which are the root cause of so many ailments.

I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard from friends in the “alternative” medical community (including dieticians, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and physical therapists) whose patients had been suffering for years (or even decades) with easily treatable conditions that dozens of Western-trained doctors were unable to identify. The resulting human misery, as well as the costs, are staggering; no wonder Americans spend nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare as other developed nations, and obtain worse outcomes. I can only imagine how many millions of Americans are out there, unaware of the alternatives, continuing to suffer and wasting untold thousands of dollars.

My friend was lucky enough to have excellent health insurance. Ten of millions of Americans have none, and find themselves adrift in a world of even more suffering, anxiety, and financial hardship. It is simply unacceptable, especially for a country as great as the United States.

Fortunately, things are changing for the better. Once it’s fully implemented in 2014 Obama’s healthcare law covers more than 30 millions of those currently uninsured (even though tying health insurance to employment, as the system currently is constructed, makes little sense in the 21st Century workforce). In addition, major headway is being made on creating electronic medical records and expanding the role of technology to both decrease inefficiencies and empower individuals to take control of their own health. And as more and more people seek and find relief with alternative medical techniques (most of which are cheaper, safer, and have myriad co-benefits), mainstream Western medicine will be forced to change. Assisted by the internet and social media, Americans will no longer be forced into a system that focuses on disease management instead of on health and wellness promotion. There are many brilliant, caring, and dedicated students, enrolled in the top schools, who deserve an education (and ultimately a healthcare system) that allows them to devote their talents to far better things than simply prescribing expensive tests and working for a system that ultimately puts profit over people.

Those who claim that the American healthcare system is the best in the world are either blindingly ignorant or shills for the insurance and drug industries and medical providers. Our system is broken, and fixing it is the greatest challenge we face. Failure will lead to deficits that dwarf any we have ever experienced, and the moral consequences are even worse; needless suffering that simply unconscionable.

Jason Scorse

Terrorism is a charged word with no “official” definition. The most straight-forward and simplest is at Dictionary.com: terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

Congressional Republicans are at it once again. In the midst of the debt-ceiling debacle they used the threat of defaulting on U.S. bonds in order to enact sharp cuts in domestic programs that don’t fit their ideological agenda. Now that the so-called “Super Committee” has failed to come up with a bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, they’re back to the same old tricks.

President Obama wants to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, which are due to expire at the end of 2011. Republicans are already indicating that they will oppose these measures, just as they have opposed everything in Obama’s jobs bill (excluding two relatively minor provisions on hiring veterans, which passed recently).

Let me be clear. If Republican opposition were based on principle, consistently applied over the years, one could conclude that Republicans simply disagree with Democrats on the issues. But (like the individual mandate in the healthcare bill) the policies Obama and the Democrats are proposing right now are things Republicans have recently championed. Unemployment benefits have always enjoyed bipartisan support. Infrastructure spending has never been a partisan issue. And the payroll tax cut is something Republicans have long proposed. So why is the GOP saying no?

The only possible explanation is their willingness to do anything, including sabotaging the economy, in order to decrease Obama’s chances of reelection. There is no other plausible rationale.

The American economy right now continues to be weak, the EU seems on the verge of a meltdown, and growth is slowing in Asia. Every independent analysis indicates that Obama’s proposals would help ordinary Americans make ends meet and provide a modest hedge against the downside risks faced by the U.S. With interest rates near zero, there has literally never been a more opportune time for America to issue more short-term debt.

Some argue that concern over the deficit has led Republicans to change their minds over economic policies they supported only a few years (or months) ago. But simple arithmetic demonstrates that this claim is false. The GOP is calling for an extension of all the Bush tax cuts, and is resisting even modest cuts to the defense budget; these positions alone would add much more to the deficit than Obama’s proposals. Even Paul Ryan’s budget, hailed by many for its “fiscal seriousness,” would add more than $6 trillion to the deficit just in the next decade (yes, you read that right).

And don’t forget, Republicans want to repeal Obamacare even though it shaves hundreds of billions from the deficit in the first decade, and more than a trillion in each subsequent decade. There is simply no credible evidence that Republicans really care about the deficit—except as an excuse to dismantle social safety nets, and to keep redistributing wealth to the already wealthy

In the meantime, tens of millions of Americans continue to be burdened by crushing debt, unemployment and under-employment, and the prospect of more on the way. No doubt some of these individuals made bad decisions, and a case could be made that they deserve their fate; but most are simply victims of the most vicious economic downturn in three-quarters of a century.

None of this seems to matter in the slightest to the Republicans. They intend to bring Obama down and to continue catering to the rich, no matter how much ordinary Americans suffer.

If this isn’t economic terrorism, I don’t know what is.

Jason Scorse

Like many, I recently watched with amazement as dictators were challenged and overthrown in the Middle East. As one who came of age during the reigns of Gaddafi and Mubarak, and remembers the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979, I never thought I would see the day when unarmed civilians would take on such brutal regimes. Their courage is inspiring (I strongly recommend the Frontline documentary “Syria Undercover”).

Here in America, I have often wondered when (if ever) people would get fed up with a status quo in which the rich get richer while the poor and the middle class stagnate, and social and environmental needs are ignored. I have heard stories about the 1960s when mass actions by concerned citizens produced the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and opposition to the Vietnam War. I’m told there was a sense that something big was happening, and the feeling was almost palpable. I never thought I’d see a repeat; people have become jaded, and with 24-7 media the distractions are endless.

I was wrong. It is happening again in 2011 with the Occupy movements.

Despite all the shortcomings of this populist uprising, especially its lack of specific demands and leaders, the movement has become a force to be reckoned with and it’s not going away. I predict it will have a significant impact on American society over the next decade, starting with the 2012 election.

Saturday I watched the live telecast of the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland. While there were some crazy ideas and strange personalities, I was struck by how incredibly sane it seemed overall. The participants have created an extremely democratic and open society. People take turns discussing issues which are then brought to a vote. I know from my job how hard it is for as few as four people to agree on anything; it’s extremely impressive that the Occupy protestors in Oakland have created a forum where hundreds of disparate people, almost all strangers, map out a strategy and take action.

I also watched video of the police at UC-Davis pepper spraying a group of peaceful students, and it was a sight to behold—police brutality plain and simple (which supposedly got even worse off camera). What is most striking is that the crowd didn’t back down, but instead shamed the police into retreating. You can tell that the students recognize they have the moral upper hand, and that their cause is just. This dichotomy between people with truth on their side and police officers lashing out indiscriminately is more evidence that the balance of power in America needs to shift. There are now calls for the president of UC-Davis to resign (I recommend reading this letter and signing the petition).

Elites across America have been getting away with corruption and abuse for decades. We may have reached a tipping point where people are simply not going to take it anymore. When times are good and everyone benefits from a strong economy, it is easy to gloss over the inequalities; when times are bad, ugly truths can come to light. This is the time we are living in now.

And while I understand why the Occupiers resist aligning themselves with any political party, they will eventually have to enter the political realm in order to make any substantive changes. Doing so could force the Democratic Party to weed out its so-called “centrists,” who actually undermine core Democratic values. Whether through primary challenges or other means, anything that forces the party back to its populist roots would be a blessing. A significant number of Democrats are as beholden to financial interests as their GOP counterparts, and helped usher in the era of deregulation that is responsible for much of our current economic malaise.

Republicans don’t know what to do about the Occupy movements, which challenge just about everything they stand for. In the short term the party will likely continue to hold significant power—because of the undemocratic nature of the Senate and the Electoral College, because of redistricting by GOP-controlled state legislatures, and because so many rightwing extremists allow religious zealotry to trump their economic self-interest. But the party’s long term prospects are worsening by the day, and the Occupy movements are sure to hasten their ultimate defeat.

The Occupiers have put us on the road to a paradigm shift in America, one that will ultimately produce changes as significant as those from the 1960s.

P.S. The powers-that-be are getting scared and trying to undermine the movement as this memo shows. Also, for great updates on the UC-Davis incident check out this piece by James Fallows at the Atlantic (and check out the video at the bottom).

Jason Scorse

By any objective standard, Obama’s legislative and foreign policy accomplishments put him in a select group of consequential presidents. He is clearly one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, and rational leaders the U.S. has ever had, and his Administration has been essentially scandal-free. But no president has ever won reelection with unemployment hovering near 9%, which is almost certain to be the reality on Election Day 2012.

Sadly, Americans choose presidents based more on the economy and the candidates’ “likability” than on their policy positions. Contrary to Republican propaganda, the economy is actually much better, and will likely continue to be, than when Obama took office. At that time we were hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month, and the economy was contracting at an annualized rate of almost 9%. This, however, will do little to mitigate Americans’ feelings that Obama has failed on the economy; “it could’ve been a lot worse” is not a persuasive campaign slogan although Obama should be applauded for helping us avoid another Great Depression.

So by any reasonable metric one has to assume that Obama is likely to lose reelection next year. This is what statistical guru Nate Silver—putting the odds at slightly greater than 50%—predicted in his recent piece in the New York Times Magazine

Here’s why I think the analysis is wrong.

To begin, let me state that if the GOP nominated a conservative with solid credentials, someone smart and a moderate on social issues, Obama would likely lose. But that’s like imagining Republicans suddenly believing in strengthening the middle class and social safety nets, and that’s not who Republicans are.

The modern GOP is little more than a freak show comprised of intellectually challenged and morally bankrupt politicians and future reality TV stars. Jon Huntsman, who currently polls at less than 1%, is the only candidate both sane and not craven.

Mitt Romney, the likely nominee, is sane, and during his better days as Governor of Massachusetts he was actually a moderate Republican in the old mold. But that Mitt is long gone, and his positions today are little different from just about anyone on the far right. No doubt he will change his views and lie to the American people during the general election, but YouTube and Google will make this tactic not nearly as effective as it would have been in the pre-digital era.

More importantly, two elections last Tuesday portend badly for Mr. Romney. In Ohio, the anti-union measure signed into law by the newly-elected Republican governor was repealed by a nearly 2-1 margin. Shortly before Election Day, Romney had declared his “110%” support for the measure. That comment in 2011 could be decisive in 2012; given Ohio’s importance as a key swing state, this amounts to a huge boost for Obama.

Far away in Mississippi a much different ballot measure went down to defeat—the Personhood Amendment, which would’ve declared that a fertilized egg is a human being. This legislation would have criminalized certain forms of birth control, would have forced rape and incest victims to carry to term, and would have outlawed most fertility clinics. Even in Mississippi, one of the most far-right places in America, the measure was defeated by a double-digit margin. Romney was again on the losing side of the issue, supporting the measure and agreeing that personhood begins at conception. This position is well out of the mainstream; with two Supreme Court positions likely on the line in the next election, Romney in effect gave voters one more reason to be wary.

One final point: Romney is on record opposing Obama’s bailout of the auto industry. The problem is that the effort was extremely successful, saving upwards of a million jobs and leading to the rejuvenation of the industry. Romney, whose father was governor of Michigan, was supposed to have an advantage in the Upper Midwest states—but his opposition to the auto deal probably threw that advantage away.

It’s a long way to November 2012. Events in Europe are particularly troubling, and could pull the U.S. back into recession and diminish Obama’s prospects.

But barring any economic calamities, scandals, or foreign policy crises that reflect poorly on the President, I think he will beat any of the current crop of GOP nominees. The GOP field is that bad. We should all be thankful since Obama, despite his faults and stumbles, deserves another term.

P.S. I still think Obama could’ve lost in 2008 if John McCain had chosen a credible female vice-presidential running mate, rather than a person as divisive and idiotic as Sarah Palin. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas or Olympia Snowe of Maine would’ve greatly improved his chances.

Jason Scorse

Redistribution is a dirty word in politics, thanks mostly to 30+ years of Republican propaganda, but it has always been a facet of modern democracies. Even with a perfectly flat tax system, those with more money would contribute more to government coffers and thus provide more public goods to society.

In addition, a profound trend in the workplace will increase the need for income redistribution at exactly the time when strong political forces most oppose it. Blue collar manufacturing jobs have been shrinking due to automation for decades, despite continued U.S. growth in manufacturing output. These same forces are now threatening white collar jobs that were once thought immune to technological advances. Professionals like computer programmers, lawyers and doctors all face potential replacement by machines, decreasing the demand for these lucrative occupations.

Where, then, will our new jobs come from?

Developed industrial societies have gone through periods of innovation when whole professions have been swept away by machines. Even so, the pace of today’s innovation is so fast, and the effects so profound, that job creation may no longer be able to keep pace with increases in the labor force. The financial collapse coupled with the treasonous behavior of the GOP has already given us three years of historically high unemployment, with no end in sight.

The jobs that seem most impervious to innovation and automation—at least for the foreseeable future—tend to be service industry jobs. There’s nothing wrong with these jobs, but by and large they’re low- and middle-income jobs with little upward mobility. With continual increases in the costs of education and healthcare, it’s almost impossible to raise a family on the incomes these jobs provide.

This is why income redistribution is going to become increasingly necessary to prevent ever more Americans from falling into poverty. Redistribution doesn’t have to come in the form of direct handouts, but we are going to need larger subsidies for healthcare, education, preschool, and increased tax breaks that allow those at the bottom to increase their discretionary income. This money has to come from somewhere, and there’s no better place than the top 1%–who, over the past 30 years, have gained almost all of the increases in national wealth.

Increasing taxes at the very top will hardly decrease incentives to work, since taking a few extra percentage points out of the 10th, 100th, or 500th million dollar is unlikely to affect behavior. The people who make these exorbitant sums are motivated by many things other than money, and relatively meaningless changes in their after tax income is not a primary driver.

To those who argue that any diminished incentives on the entrepreneurial class will make all of our lives poorer (after all, who would want to dissuade a Steve Jobs from pursuing the Next Big Thing?), the truth is that few of the top 1% are entrepreneurs. They’re CEOs, financial service executives and the like, and they contribute few if any direct benefits to society. More than anything, they’ve gamed the system to pay themselves outsized sums (helped along hugely by a tax code that favors capital gains, dividends and stock options over wages).

America’s fiscal and employment problems can’t be solved simply by taxing the rich, but it surely would help. It’s simply immoral to cut college tuition grants, funding for Food Stamps and healthcare for children, while those at the top continue to reap unimaginable sums. As Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren so eloquently put it, no one in America gets rich on their own; it’s the institutions and structures we all pay for that provide them the opportunity to amass great wealth. Asking the wealthy to chip in a little more, after decades of having almost all of the nation’s income gains for themselves, is eminently fair. It’s not socialism, nor is it class warfare. It is simply updating the social contract to reflect the realities of the 21st century.

As usual, the Republican Party and a handful of Democrats beholden to Wall Street are on the wrong side of the issue. The Republicans not only want to shield the ultra-wealthy from additional taxes; the plans put forth by all of the presidential contenders would actually cut taxes for the rich and raise them on the poor and middle class.

Fortunately, a wide majority of the American people realizes that increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy is both necessary and just. They might not like to call it income redistribution, but that’s what it is.

Given the employment projections of the next decade, it’s going to become increasingly urgent.

Jason Scorse

A key feature of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest is that its members aren’t aligned with either political party. In fact, some of the protesters seem to have as much animosity towards the Democrats as the Republicans.

Why they dislike Republicans is self-evident: the GOP stands for the 1% at the expense of the 99%, not only on economic matters but on everything related to public health, safety, and the environment—to say nothing about their oppressive stances towards gays and women.

Some of the ire directed at Democrats is also warranted. It was Bill Clinton who repealed Glass-Steagall, ushering in the era of deregulation that wrecked the global economy and allowed Wall Streeters to reap huge profits at the expense of the general public. President Obama populated his Administration with former Clinton staffers known for their Wall Street ties, and many of his policies followed suit, causing some to feel that his position towards the big banks has not been sufficiently tough. In addition, his focus on deficit reduction instead of job growth (especially when it became clear that the recovery was faltering) is viewed by many as a betrayal of the middle class. While Obama has faced political constraints these past three years, there’s definitely some truth to these criticisms.

All the same, there are strong reasons why the OWS protesters are wrong to stay above the political fray. Their counterpart on the right, the Tea Party, has become a powerful destructive force. House Speaker John Boehner is unable to control them, and they essentially hold veto power over the entire House GOP caucus. It’s important for the OWS movement—an actual grassroots movement—to make the Democratic Party more progressive.

The reasons are simple math. The first are the numbers 7 and 2. In the next presidential term, two liberal Supreme Court Justices—Ginsburg and Breyer—will almost surely be retiring. A Republican president would tilt the Court rightward by 7-2, guaranteeing rulings in favor or corporate interests for another generation. Everything OWS stands for would essentially be made impossible for the rest of their lives. This isn’t hyperbole, it’s reality. If the OWS protesters think the Citizens United decision was bad, they need to imagine what a 7-2 Roberts Court would do.

The other math relates to the tax code. The next president will set the economic agenda by either allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire or by extending them. You can bet that a Republican president will not only continue the Bush tax cuts, but cut taxes for the rich (and for corporations) even more. This will increase income inequality while it explodes the deficit—allowing the GOP to claim how imperative it is to slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other social welfare programs.

What I’ve outlined is at least plausible, perhaps even probable. If a Republican becomes president, the goals of the OWS protesters will never be achieved.

OWS may not love the Democrats, but facts are facts. The protesters have a better chance of making the Democratic Party more progressive than of achieving success with a third party. There is already a solid progressive caucus within the Democratic Party, and building on this would give it new energy. The OWS protesters should seek out progressive candidates, and help the Democrat Party as it attempts to retake the House.

The Tea Party will ultimately harm the GOP because its positions are way out of line with the majority of Americans. By contrast, what OWS stands for is popular across all demographics, including independents and Republicans.

The OWS movement has the potential to become a powerful progressive force, but only if it translates its intensity and passion into political power. The Democratic Party provides that opportunity, however flawed and imperfect the party is.

Now more than ever, OWS protesters need to remind themselves not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Jason Scorse

In 2008, in response to the candidacy of Barack Obama, America experienced the resurgence of the extreme right. John McCain picked the anti-intellectual culture warrior Sarah Palin as his running mate. The crazies came out of the woodwork and called Obama a foreigner, a secret Muslim, and a terrorist sympathizer. But even then, McCain’s actual policy platform included some reasonable and centrist policies: he supported a modest cap and trade bill for greenhouse gases, the expansion of health savings accounts, and immigration and campaign finance reform.

But look what three short years can do. The current crop of Republican presidential candidates is fighting to see who can be the craziest. The two leading contenders, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, both want to repeal the healthcare law, cut taxes for the rich and increase them on the poor and middle class, deny climate change, and stoke the culture wars with new anti-choice and anti-gay measures. The only semi-sane candidate, Jon Huntsman, is polling at close to zero—and even his economic policies would greatly exacerbate income inequality.

The other candidates are engaged in little more than vanity campaigns that they hope will lead to Fox News contracts, reality TV shows, and/or book deals.

Even more depressing than the candidates are the audiences at the Republican debates. So far they’ve cheered loudly for Perry’s record number of executions in Texas, for letting people who don’t have health insurance die, and for the notion that poor people have only themselves to blame. They’ve also booed a soldier in Iraq who happened to be gay. In a display of breath-taking cowardice, not one of the candidates has chastised the audiences. So much for compassionate conservatism.

Whatever the critics say about President Obama, he’s a brilliant man who has used reason, facts, and science to shape his policies, both domestic and foreign. He is not an ideologue and is willing to compromise to get things done. As I have argued before, in many ways he is the pragmatic, centrist candidate that the mainstream media continually pines for—but can’t acknowledge is already in the White House.

Whoever the GOP eventually nominates, the candidate will be on the other end of the spectrum: an anti-reason ideologue. There is no sugarcoating the fact that the Republican Party has gone off the rails, and represents the worst that America has to offer. The choice in 2012 will ultimately boil down to reason vs. fantasy, empiricism vs. quackery, science vs. religion, and progressivity vs. regressivity.

Unfortunately, with unemployment hovering around 9% and many people ignorant of the fact that Republicans have purposefully tried to sabotage the economy, the election will likely be extremely close and Obama could well lose. If he does, the forces of irrationality and corporate greed—which have taken over the Republican Party—will be rewarded for their outrageous behavior with control of the White House.

This already happened in the 2010 midterms, with the GOP taking control of the House on a wave of rightwing extremism. I shudder to think what will happen if the same thing happens in the race for the presidency, or the battle to control the Senate.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

Jason Scorse

Yesterday, I went to the Occupy Wall Street protest as it converged on Times Square in the late afternoon. All in all, the protesters were joyous, motivated, and respectful of the police and passersby. As expected, the messages conveyed by such a diverse group ranged from pithy and legitimate critiques of Wall Street to anti-capitalist mantras that were ill-informed and non-constructive.

On my way home I got into a conversation with a group of young radicals who were calling for an end to the Federal Reserve. I tried to explain that the Fed serves important functions, and that if anything we should be demanding more aggressive action to reduce unemployment. They complained about the weak dollar and the threat of inflation, and I tried to explain that both could help remedy unemployment by boosting exports, reducing imports, and helping the economy grow faster.

At this point the dialogue ended. The young men said I didn’t know what I was talking about. When I told them I had a Ph.D. in economics, they got even more irate. They were particularly incensed when I defended Obama and the Dodd-Frank bill. When I asked them to tell me what they didn’t like about Dodd-Frank, they mentioned the government’s support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I tried to explain that they were confused, and clearly didn’t understand what’s in the bill.

And herein lies one of the reasons that substantive change in America is so hard: the policies challenges we face are incredibly complex. In fact, in the two areas where we most need reform—health care and the financial system—the policy details are so complex that even people with advanced degrees have difficulty understanding them. In a culture where most people can’t even name their own Congressman, there’s little chance of understanding topics like derivatives or healthcare exchanges. Frankly, I myself don’t fully understand them.

The gulf between what average voters know about government policy and what the experts engaged in carrying out the policy must take into account has never been greater. It’s difficult to imagine that ordinary voters will ever be sufficiently informed to make clear judgments about policy specifics. We may know that we want tighter regulations on banks, or universal healthcare, or strong environmental controls, but the complexity of achieving these outcomes will elude all but the most devoted policy wonks.

This leads to the next conclusion: voters must trust the politicians they elect to do the right thing. Yes, this creates the potential for corruption, abuse, and the influence of special interests in the political process. More than ever, the most important characteristics for our political leaders are integrity, honesty, and a commitment to science, rationality, and the public good. Without these traits, the entire policy process degenerates into a free-for-all for corporate interests and crony capitalism.

This is exactly what happened during the Bush Presidency. The public interest was subverted by corporate interests in virtually every piece of legislation, from the prescription drug bill to energy policy to the fight to privatize Social Security (which ultimately failed).

Corporate interests were hardly banished in the Obama Administration. They were placated in the healthcare bill by the lack of a public option, by the decision to waive competitive bidding for drugs, and by the individual mandate. More recently, the Administration decided to delay new Clean Air rules. But the public interest did prevail at some key points, notably with the Volcker rule in the Dodd-Frank bill, strong patient protections in the Affordable Care Act, and the removal of bank subsidies for student loans.

The media can and should be the bridge between the complexities of the policy process and the public. Unfortunately, the traditional media in America fails to perform this crucial function, and in fact makes matters worse by routinely peddling false equivalencies (this one is particularly egregious).

The void left by the media puts Americans in an especially precarious position as the challenges become ever more complex, and beyond the capacity of average voters to comprehend. In such a situation, voters would be well-advised to put more stock in the integrity and intellect of those they elect. At the end of the day, these qualities are the most likely to determine whether they act in good faith for the public interest.

Jason Scorse

When the “Tea Party” began a little over three years ago, I and many others pointed out that it was the same old rightwing extremists who had been peddling nonsense for decades. Their rebranding was due in large part to the financial support of billionaires and a Murdoch news network devoted to spreading lies and propaganda. Even people who should’ve known better were tricked into believing that the Tea Party represented a genuine grassroots populist movement.

The ever-compliant and intellectually lazy traditional media was all too ready to echo the party’s talking points and elevate them into something new and sexy. Never mind that from day one the supposedly non-partisan Tea Party was 100% aligned with the Republican Party and has remained so ever since; never mind that its demands for deregulation and smaller government are the same as those of every rightwinger now running for president; never mind that in 2010 the Tea Party supported lunatic standard bearers the likes of Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle, and supported candidates in Colorado and Alaska who likely cost the Republican Party control of the Senate. Disrupting town hall meetings and bringing guns to rallies makes for sensationalist news stories and sells air time, which is ultimately what the corporate media cares most about. Most disappointing, even usually responsible outlets such as NPR have taken the bait and failed to accurately portray the Tea Party.

I just arrived in New York City and intend to take a trip downtown to see for myself the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has now spread to several major U.S. cities. Unlike the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street is a true grassroots movement, unsupported by outside money, with no fawning cable network ready to do its bidding. In fact, the fecklessness of the traditional media has been in full display in their coverage of the protesters so far, ranging from condescension to outright hostility; so much for the media’s “liberal bias.” It’s started to change in the last few days as the numbers of protesters grows and the focal point of their discontent coalesces around the theme of income inequality, which is undeniably increasing and cries out for some kind of political response.

While most Democratic leaders have so far (rightly) stopped short of fully endorsing the protesters, they have expressed sympathy with their grievances and applauded their energy. The response from the Right has been predictably hypocritical. One Party’s Tea Party is another Party’s “mob” bent on dividing Americans and engaging in class warfare. That Republicans can lob the class warfare charge at people protesting at the steps of those who nearly collapsed the world economy, and were bailed out with trillions in taxpayer dollars, shows how frightened they really are. And they should be: stripped of all its rhetoric and patriotic pageantry, the GOP is little more than a private club representing the interests of millionaires and billionaires (and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide).

For decades middle class wages have stagnated while the price of necessities like healthcare and education has skyrocketed. At the same time, the top 1% of Americans has grown wealthier than ever. The Occupy Wall Street protesters may hold disparate beliefs, including a fair share of leftwing nonsense, but what ultimately binds them is the belief that income inequality in America has gone too far. And they are right.

The protesters aren’t aligned with the Democratic Party, but it’s likely they’ll be voting that way in 2012. The one thing standing in the way of reduced income inequality is the Republican Party; their existence is predicated on crony capitalism that funnels money to the top, cuts services for the bottom, and increases corporate power.

With unemployment at 9.1 percent and discontent widespread, Republicans should be able to topple Obama in 2012. But with the President finally taking a stand for strong, progressive policies, the last thing the Republicans want is a fired-up Democrat base heading into the election year. Occupy Wall Street may end up producing just that.

Jason Scorse

I (and many others) have fiercely criticized President Obama’s economic policies and rhetoric over the past three years. During the debt-ceiling debacle, I was particularly incensed by the president’s offer to raise the Medicare eligibility age and decrease Social Security benefits in exchange for tax increases that are already scheduled to occur in 2013. Raising the Medicare eligibility age is horrible economics—private insurance costs much more than Medicare—and terrible politics too, since Democrats would lose their long-held advantage as Medicare defenders. And Social Security is completely solvent through 2036 and would be indefinitely if we simply raised the regressive cap on taxable Social Security income.

It has therefore been refreshing to see the President finally put forth a progressive economic vision, both with the American Jobs Act and with his promise to veto any deficit reduction bill that cuts Medicare benefits without also including significant tax increases on the wealthy. He has also taken Social Security off the table. The President’s policies are economically sound and overwhelmingly popular, and his rhetoric has improved substantially as well. He has been calling out Republicans by name for their insistence on no new taxes on the wealthy, and putting significant pressure on them to pass the new jobs bill. (His rhetoric is by no means perfect: he continues to say that governments are like households and should tighten their belt in a downturn, which is bad economics.)

Even more encouraging is that Obama is taking his message directly to the people. It is a shame that this populist and confrontational Obama has been dormant for so long; we can only wonder what the political landscape might look like if he had done this long ago.

One of the fairest criticisms of the President and his team is that they did so little to capitalize on the momentum they had built up during the 2008 election. Immediately after his victory, there were tens of millions of people who were incredibly inspired, many of whom had never voted or participated in a national election, and they were eager to remain involved. The failure to keep these people engaged represents a huge missed opportunity.

Some commentators have posited that Obama simply hates partisanship and confrontation and refused to believe that it was impossible to achieve compromise with the Republicans. After framing his entire campaign and image around “post-partisanship” and the need to come together as Americans, it’s understandable that Obama felt compelled to genuinely try to work with the GOP. But I will never understand why the president and his team pursued their strategy of capitulation and concession for as long as they did.

Whatever the reasons, I now must give credit where credit is due. Obama seems firmly committed to fight for the middle class and progressive policies. His emphasis on fairness is crucial; many economic policy battles are ultimately battles over values, and the Democrats need to frame them as such. Polls consistently show that the overwhelming majority of Americans, including Republicans, share Democratic values on the individual issues.

I’ve always been amazed that the GOP—on the wrong side of virtually every issue—has been able to maintain so much political power. Part of the explanation, surely, is that Democrats have largely ceded the language of morality and values to the Republicans. With that in mind, it’s especially heartening to hear Obama making his case with words like fairness. He and the Democrats stand a much greater chance of winning in 2012 if they take the offensive and use strong moral language to contrast their positions with those of the GOP.

On that note, the announcement by Elizabeth Warren of her candidacy for the Senate seat in Massachusetts has been a shot in the arm for progressives. Her recent defense of the social contract has gone viral; it is populist, articulate, and easy to understand. In a follow-up discussion on “Morning Joe,” Warren turned the tables on her questioners and showed an ability to speak in simple, effective language on a range of issues. This is the type of politician Republicans most fear, and I’m confident she will defeat Scott Brown next year (you can help her candidacy here). Who knows? Her Senate career could be a prelude to an eventual run for the Presidency, and she’s the type of unapologetic progressive who will fight tooth and nail for the middle class.

Thankfully, Obama has now taken that direction too.

Jason Scorse

Watching an interview with former President Jimmy Carter the other day reminded me of all the caring work he’s done since losing his bid for reelection in 1980. Carter has spent the past three decades working on housing issues for the poor, most notably as ambassador for Habitat for Humanity; in addition, perhaps more importantly, his Carter Center has been promoting free and fair elections and human rights throughout the world.

I then thought about former President Clinton and Vice President Gore, both of whom have worked tirelessly since leaving office on major global health initiatives and raising awareness about climate change. President Clinton, through the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Health Access Initiative, has raised billions of dollars and likely saved millions of lives.

My thoughts then turned to modern-day Republican presidents and vice presidents. The contrast is stark.

Let’s give Ronald Reagan a pass. According to his son, he may have been suffering from Alzheimer’s as early as his second term, and kept a low profile for the remainder of his public life.

It’s been almost 20 years since George Bush I left office, and he’s done very little in the way of humanitarian or charitable work. He does manage, though, to host his own annual fishing tournament in Florida.

George Bush II and Dick Cheney have been ordinary civilians for three years now, and there’s no sign that either one is inclined to devote any significant time to helping others. Bush II shows up at sporting events every so often, and has appeared as a paid motivational speaker in large arenas, but has shown little interest in working on the issues of freedom and democracy that he committed so much blood and treasure to while commander-in-chief. Dick Cheney seems far more interested in continuing to make the case for “enhanced interrogation techniques” (a.k.a. torture) than in doing anything helpful for humanity. (See this Frontline documentary for the facts about the damage that the sanctioning of torture has done to U.S. interests and our moral legitimacy).

Of course this is a small sample, but to me it highlights one of today’s big differences between Democrats and Republicans. The biggest cheers at Republican primary debates come from the mention of record executions in Texas and letting sick people without insurance die; at the same time, Cheney makes the rounds on TV shows to hustle his book and reaffirm his support for torture.

When he was elected, Bush II claimed to be a compassionate conservative. Whatever amount of compassion he meant to bring to the Republican Party, it is now completely gone. All we’re left with is cruelty, selfishness and mean-spiritedness (in addition, of course, to a complete disregard for science and facts).

Former Democratic presidents and vice presidents spend their time saving lives, promoting human rights and free elections, and trying to rise to the challenge of climate change; former Republican high officials lounge in their mansions and gated communities and periodically promote their bankrupt ideologies.

It’s a perfect reflection of the difference between the two parties.

Jason Scorse

Disappointment and disillusion with President Obama are at an all-time high, not just among the general population but among his liberal base as well. His recent decision to prevent the EPA from issuing new Clean Air regulations was seen as another indication of his capitulation to business and his unwillingness to take a stand for the public interest. Many Democrats now view him as overly conciliatory, weak and ineffectual. Regular VoR readers know that I’ve often been critical of his economic policies and rhetoric, along with his lack of leadership on the environment.

But it’s important not to get carried away with criticizing the President. There’s something about the office, and the unrealistic expectations that come with it, which invariably lead to disappointment.

Ronald Reagan, who holds almost god-like status in the GOP, wouldn’t even make it through a Republican primary today. He raised taxes multiple times, sold weapons to our sworn enemies the Iranians, retreated from a terrorist threat in Lebanon, and granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who enjoys almost equal veneration by the Left, signed off on a number of policies that are anathema to today’s progressives. The internment of the Japanese during WW II is probably the blackest mark on his record. He also signed legislation that deprived many blacks of Social Security, and many of the New Deal’s work programs discriminated against women.

Bill Clinton? His Administration created “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act. He did almost nothing for the environment during his eight-year tenure, and his signature welfare reform has been a mixed success. When I ask Clinton fans to name one lasting accomplishment, they often come up empty (I think the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit is his greatest domestic achievement).

George Bush II went against the GOP base by working with uber-liberal Ted Kennedy to pass “No Child Left Behind”—and with Medicare Part D, he signed into law the biggest expansion of an entitlement program in over a generation. He also sharply increased federal funding for global AIDS initiatives, and he tried to pass an immigration reform that would have granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

The obvious take-away is that presidents never fully satisfy their base. The country is so diverse, and the demands of the office pull in so many different directions, that all presidents find themselves forced to make decisions that upset some of their core constituencies.

The question is how to judge President Obama in this context. It is too early to make lasting judgments; he has a year left in his current term, and could enjoy another four years after that. But I think it is fair to make a preliminary assessment based on his 2008 campaign, and on the constraints he’s faced as President.

By these criteria, I still give Obama high marks. He’s followed through on a number of his signature campaign promises—healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, student loan reform, repealing DADT, ending the Iraq War and focusing on Afghanistan, and passing a massive (albeit too small) stimulus bill. He has also accomplished many things under the radar—rebuilding the Justice Department after its decimation by the Bush Administration, rebuilding FEMA and making it effective again, increasing transparency in government, and greatly improving automobile fuel efficiency standards.

He took over after the worst recession in 70 years, and he’s faced a unified and ruthless Republican opposition determined to deny him at every turn. Has Obama done everything he promised? No. Has he made huge mistakes? Yes. Would someone else have done better? This is impossible to know for sure, but my guess is probably not.

None of this is to suggest that there aren’t legitimate reasons to be angry with Obama, or that we should stop criticizing him. But progressives should put their frustrations in context. Compared to Rick Perry or Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann (or any other declared or undeclared Republican candidate), President Obama is so clearly superior that his supporters need to cut him some slack. It’s the right thing to do.

Jason Scorse

There was a time when Republicans generally shared the same social goals as Democrats on key issues like environmental regulation and healthcare, but differed on how to achieve them. This gave rise to legitimate grounds for debate on the best ways for society to reach its objectives. But those days are long gone. Today’s GOP no longer even pretends to care about the public interest, and it denies even basic science in its drive to promote corporate interests over the public good (see, e.g., this critique of the GOP’s stance towards the EPA).

But there is something even more troubling about the modern Republican worldview. It now rests almost entirely on two fundamentally flawed beliefs about American society.

The first is that America is a meritocracy that rewards those who work the hardest. The reality is that social mobility in the U.S. is near its all-time lows, and is the lowest among all the world’s most developed nations. For Americans, the socioeconomic status of the household they’re born into is the best single predictor of their future prosperity—and nothing is more random, and not based on one’s own efforts, than the family into which a person is born. Even some progressives have a hard time accepting the profound influence of sheer luck in determining one’s ultimate lot in life. Besides being born into a rich or poor household, we are all to a great extent a product of our genes: some of us get genes that make us strong, healthy, smart, and attractive, while others do not.

I’m not claiming that heredity is destiny, only that it is more consequential than people acknowledge or admit—especially on the Right. I could’ve spent every waking hour in my youth trying to be a professional baseball player and I would’ve never gotten to the minor leagues; not for lack of effort, but for lack of raw genetic talent. The same for being a brain surgeon. Fortunately, I was born into a middle class family in Manhattan and my intelligence was sufficient to help me earn an advanced degree.

But do I deserve all that I’ve received? Yes and no. I’ve worked hard, and I believe I’ve made some contributions to my field. But at the end of day, I know that my success is as much a product of luck as hard work: luck with my parents and upbringing, capped off with the luck of being born into a society with the institutions and wealth that allowed me to spend so many years studying (all of them, as it happened, in public schools and universities).

Bill Gates often jokes that if he had been born 10 years earlier he would’ve been a lab technician. In fact, of course, he was born at exactly the time when he could merge his unique talent with the rapid innovation taking place around him (much of it originally funded by government R&D). Gates knows that his immense wealth is as dependent on lucky timing as it is on any genius.

Or think about the hedge fund managers who make billions buying and selling complex financial products. How is it that there is so much wealth to be had in this endeavor? The global financial system created after WW II by the Western powers (beginning with the Bretton Woods agreements) is largely responsible; without it, there probably wouldn’t be any hedge fund managers.

But in the Republican worldview, individual worth is totally independent from the forces that in fact hand out these opportunities. In addition, while America has clearly made great progress with regard to racial and gender discrimination (and other types as well), there is little doubt that these too continue to shape individual destinies in profound ways.

The truth is that meritocracy is largely an illusion. It is perpetuated by those with wealth and power to justify their privileged positions and help rationalize their exalted status. Of course individual determination and effort matter, but they are generally not the most consequential forces.

The GOP’s second illusion stems from the first. Republicans increasingly believe that those who receive net benefits from society are nothing more than “takers,” mooching off society’s productive members. This too is contradicted by the facts.

Most people who receive Social Security benefits have paid into the system for their entire working lives. It shouldn’t be called an “entitlement” at all; it should be called an earned benefit, which is really what it is. And the tax itself is extremely regressive, limited to the first $106,800 of income. A high percentage of Americans, in fact, pay more in Social Security taxes every year than they do in income taxes. People on Medicare have also been paying into the system all their lives, and on their entire income (albeit at a much lower rate). Other social welfare programs (e.g., Food Stamps, Head Start, and the Earned Income Credit), are used primarily by working families with low incomes. In addition, people who don’t make enough to pay income taxes pay regressive sales taxes and excise taxes every day.

The only program that might be considered a handout is unemployment benefits, but these go mainly to people who have been laid off, not to those who choose not to work. In the aftermath of the financial collapse, there are still roughly 17 million Americans who are either under-employed or unemployed through no fault of their own.

In summary, to the modern GOP, the rich deserve all their wealth; the poor likewise deserve their poverty, and should therefore not be assisted by the state. This extreme form of social Darwinism is premised on two grand illusions: that we live in a true meritocracy, and that most social programs funnel money to those who are not contributing to society.

No wonder Republicans are focused on dismantling the social contract, cutting taxes for the rich, and blocking assistance to those in need; it is the natural byproduct of a twisted worldview with little basis in reality.

Jason Scorse

Obama is set to make a major address on jobs in September. Besides being three years too late, there is little chance that his ideas can pass the Republican-controlled House. Worse, Obama is tying his jobs agenda to deficit reduction—saying that we need one in order to do the other. This plays right into the GOP’s talking points, and it’s bad economics.

Despite the S&P downgrade of U.S. debt, America can currently borrow money at the lowest interest rates in more than half a century. This means that the government could finance new stimulus measures without doing a single thing to cut the deficit, and pay close to zero percent on the borrowed money. Deficit reduction is in no way a prerequisite for more stimulus.

Those arguing against stimulus claim that the government is incapable of making any investment that promises a positive return. This is ridiculous, and the President should be stating the obvious: borrowing money at near-zero percent and using it to repair roads and bridges, expand internet access, invest in green energy R&D, medical R&D, or increased early childhood education makes economic sense because all of these investments have high rates of return.

Americans can understand that if you spend $1 million to fix a bridge, and this saves you from spending $5 million if the bridge failed, this is a good investment. And doing it when you can borrow that $1 million at the lowest rates in decades makes it a great investment. It’s like homeowners fixing their ailing roof, saving them from much greater future damages, at a time when they can borrow the money almost for free.

With 25 million people out of work or underemployed, we should be using the current low rates to make the investments that will put people to work and have positive rates of return. This is how we “win the future”—which was Obama’s slogan last year, but has now faded as he increasingly adopts a spurious, right wing framing of the issues. An important teachable moment has been missed, and the President has no one to blame but himself.

Long-run deficit reduction is a worthy aim, but for now Obama is peddling bogus economic reasoning. The major reasons for our growing national debt are the explosion in healthcare costs and the continuing erosion of revenues stemming from the Bush tax cuts and the recession.

Obama should be focusing on our dysfunctional healthcare system, highlighting the good that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is already doing and pushing for additional reform. Instead, he’s talking up cuts in entitlements that will do little to reduce the deficit and will further harm those who are already hurting. He’s also calling for discretionary spending cuts that will mean less environmental protection, medical R&D, and other important government functions.

The Administration also appears ready to take the wrong course on housing. I wrote in an earlier VoR piece that Republicans have a better policy than Democrats on housing, especially the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. While the GOP is wrong to blame the financial meltdown on Fannie and Freddie, they’re correct that the government should privatize the home loan industry and get out of it completely.

The economic case for government intervention in the housing market is weak to non-existent. In fact it’s a policy that distorts incentives, makes it harder for people to be mobile, and largely benefits the wealthy (since they get the biggest tax breaks). It also costs the Treasury hundreds of billions a year—and U.S. taxpayers have already lost over $150 billion bailing out Fannie and Freddie, with the number almost certain to grow larger.

Unfortunately, all indications are that Obama is pushing for a continued dominant government role in the housing market. His policy would leave the same incentives in place, continue to cost the Treasury dearly, and once again put taxpayers on the line should we have another housing bubble. There were early signs of a willingness to unwind the government’s role in Fannie and Freddie. It now appears that pressure from housing groups (including many liberal lobbying arms), as well as from Republicans not as committed to their principles as they claim, have convinced the Administration to change course. Reducing government subsidies for housing now seems to be off the table, when it should be near the top of the list.

Since the GOP has gone (at least temporarily) insane, rational voters will have no choice but to support Obama in 2012. It’s extremely troubling, however, to see his economic message go from bad to worse. The President either doesn’t have a firm grasp of economics, or because of political expediency and/or cowardice refuses to propose the serious economic reforms that will help the economy. It’s hard to know which explanation is worse.

Jason Scorse

The economic remedy now being touted is comparable to a situation in which doctors demand that leeches be used to cure illness, claiming that when people are sick the best thing to do is to bleed them to get rid of their toxins. Government austerity—when the private sector is sitting on $2.5 trillion in cash, unemployment is over 9 percent, and economic growth is dwindling—will definitely bleed the economy, and could kill off a recovery that’s never been more than tepid.

But this is the “solution” we’re now facing, both because the Republican Party has put defeating Obama ahead of the suffering of the American people, and because Obama and the Democrats have let the rightwing fanatics frame the debate. It is a tragedy largely of our own making, and one that could have been avoided.

Across the Atlantic, the situation is no better and possibly even worse. Great Britain and many European nations have not only embarked on severe austerity programs; in addition, the European Central Bank (the equivalent of our Federal Reserve) has decided to raise interest rates, electing to fight phantom inflation rather than promote growth. The likely result, of course, is to further choke off Europe’s economic recovery. Sometimes it seems as if the wealthy nations of the world are competing to see which can be more irresponsible and oblivious to basic economic truths.

Fortunately, many emerging economies (while not immune to the downturns in the wealthier countries) continue to grow strongly, and to lift millions out of poverty. Brazil, profiled in Saturday’s New York Times, is a case in point: after almost a decade of economic policies that have driven down inflation and attracted increasing foreign investment, plus significant government investments in social programs, the country has become a model for Latin America. And in Asia, even though China has run into higher-than-expected inflation, it too continues to enjoy rapid growth, and its investments in infrastructure continue to pay large dividends.

What will happen in America over the next couple of years is anybody’s guess. If we somehow manage to avoid a double-dip recession, luck will have more to do with it than sound policy. Despite the terrible economy, Obama still has a decent chance of being re-elected given the quality (or lack of it) of the possible GOP nominees. The fact that Michelle Bachmann has any chance at all of winning the nomination shows how crazy the Republican Party has become; she is truly a lunatic who has no business anywhere near the presidency. The new entry, Rick Perry, is the governor of one of America’s largest states; even so, he’s probably too conservative, fiscally and socially, to have any real chance of reaching the White House—no matter how bad the economy.

I never liked Obama’s emphasis on hope, which we rely on when things seem out of our control. I have always preferred human agency, and a strong conviction that we can be the masters of our own destiny.

But I do hope that one day I will be able to write a piece entitled “The Age of Reason,” when we actually get around to tackling the tough challenges we face—instead of pretending the problems will go away, or intentionally making them worse.

Jason Scorse

In 2000 and 2004, America voted for George Bush for president, a man clearly lacking in the intellectual fortitude necessary to lead the most powerful country in the world. This was a man, after all, whose rise was predicated almost exclusively on his family name, and who had failed at every business venture he had ever attempted. As president, he and the GOP managed to create a lost decade: America embarked on a disastrous war of choice, a federal surplus turned into a galloping deficit, a major American city was partially destroyed while the government watched, apparently helpless, and industry lobbyists essentially wrote any major legislation that managed to pass. It was a decade of crony capitalism, which, along with the horrifically managed Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, left America poorer and weaker in almost every way.

With the election of Barack Obama, I had high hopes that America had learned from its mistakes and would regain solid footing. Never again, I believed, would the country act so irrationally.

But I was wrong.

Less than three years after Obama was sworn in, along with a large Democratic majority in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the country has been taken hostage by rightwing extremists who make Bush and Cheney look like moderates. The Tea Party fringe of the Republican Party exhibits all of the traits of a cult that is impervious to reason, and willing to impose untold suffering on others in order to get its way.

Some in the traditional media are finally recognizing the lunacy of the modern GOP and calling the extremists what they are: economic terrorists. But tremendous damage has already been done. The debt-ceiling deal will likely make the economic situation worse. Even though the immediate budget cuts are small, the country in fact is in desperate need of additional fiscal stimulus. By emboldening the lunatic fringe of the GOP and showing them that hostage taking works, it’s next to certain that Tea Partiers will hold the economy hostage every chance they get.

They’ll get the chance very soon. Budget fights in the coming months will include the renewal of unemployment benefits at the end of 2011, which Obama was unable to get into the debt ceiling deal. And while Obama asserts that it’s now time to pivot to a jobs agenda, the chances of passing anything meaningful with the Tea Party controlling the GOP is close to zero. Even if he managed to get a few small programs passed, their impacts would be minimal and too late to have any appreciable impact on the economy (and the election) in 2012.

As expected, the rating agency S&P downgraded U.S. debt holdings for the first time in history because of Congress’s inability to pass meaningful fiscal reform. Why anyone cares what S&P or any of the ratings agencies say is beyond me; these are the same groups that rated subprime derivatives Triple A, not coincidentally because of the fees they received from the banks issuing the derivatives. The heads of these agencies should be in jail, not taken seriously in policy circles.

But we live in an age of insanity: up is down, and black is white.

We are definitely not in the world we hoped would follow Obama’s election—not in the post-racial or post-partisan world. In fact we’ve regressed: throughout the decades we’ve always had policy difference and chasms between the left and the right, but now we’ve entered an era where facts don’t seem to matter and discredited ideas take on lives of their own.

To my and many others’ disappointment, President Obama seems not to be the right person to help America out of the deep hole we’ve managed to dig for ourselves. What we need is a fighter, not a conciliator. We need someone who can forcefully stand up to the agents of intolerance and irrationality—not compromise with them, not embolden them.

America is a great country, but I wonder whether we can withstand another lost decade and still hold our place as the most powerful country in the world. Not only would America’s prolonged economic stagnation lead to diminished economic prospects and immense personal hardships; historically, long periods of economic decline have been accompanied by sharp rises in extremism and violence. We’re already seeing some of this as severe austerity programs go into effect in Great Britain, Greece, and other parts of Europe. They could well be the forerunners of similar tumult in America.

We are in dark times, times that are almost all of our own making.

Jason Scorse

Every time I have thought President Obama was on the verge of making an unwise decision, I have assumed that since he is privy to a lot of information I don’t have that I should trust his judgment. But now, on the verge of an epic defeat that may very well harm his reelection prospects, I realize that he is as fallible as all human beings and quite capable of making foolish decisions.

Before I outline why his handling of the debt-ceiling debate has been a complete debacle, let me be clear that I do not share the general view that Obama has betrayed progressives and liberals. Obama always campaigned as someone on the center-left, and much more on the center than on the left.

Recall that his healthcare proposal was the most conservative of the three major Democratic candidates; it didn’t even include an individual mandate. Many liberals oppose his escalation of the Afghanistan War, but he promised to do exactly that multiple times during the campaign. And never once did Obama come out in support of gay marriage despite the obvious parallels with the Civil Rights movement that he so often referenced.

Up until now Obama’s governance style and legislative accomplishments have been remarkably consistent with his campaign promises (those on the right who characterize him as some sort of Marxist are simply delusional).

After the 2010 midterms Obama found himself in extremely challenging political territory. Most current members of the Republican Party have in effect become economic terrorists, willing to sink the U.S. economy in order to promote their extremist agenda (in a rational world their behavior would be characterized as treasonous). And the general level of ignorance promulgated by the media regarding economic fundamentals is at an all time high. In this atmosphere reason is in short supply.

This is where Presidential leadership comes in. The GDP numbers released last Friday were abysmal and indicate that we are on the verge of a double-dip recession. And the reason the situation is so dire is as simple as basic arithmetic: GDP=C+I+G+NX. Consumption has plummeted due to huge losses in wealth and income from the recession, and people are saving a lot more of the income they do have; investment is down because businesses do not see increased demand on the horizon (and they are sitting on record amounts of cash); net exports are doing okay but because the rest of the world is in such bad shape the value of the dollar has not fallen sharply enough to make our goods much more competitive. That leaves government spending as basically the only thing standing in the way of falling GDP.

The revised numbers from 2008-09 show that the recession was even worse than previously thought, with the economy contracting by almost 9% at the nadir. The 2009 stimulus package helped to bring the GDP back from this trough to positive territory, but as it winds down the economy is once again sputtering. This is not rocket science, and yet it is almost unanimously believed that the stimulus failed. This is akin to complaining that water doesn’t put out fires if you use a bucket to put out a burning building.

With joblessness still near record highs for the past 50 years, we are now on the eve of enacting a draconian austerity package as part of what was once a routine debt-ceiling vote. This unprecedented capitulation to the most extremist elements of the rightwing will not only further embolden them, but further weaken the economy and prolong our economic misery. Not only was Obama unable to wrangle any tax increases out of the deal, he didn’t even manage an extra dime of stimulus for anything, not infrastructure, green energy, jobs training, a new payroll tax cut, nothing.

What is even more shocking is that the President at one point offered to make cuts to both Social Security and Medicare as part of a $4 trillion dollar reduction package. He wanted to reduce the rate of increase in Social Security payments and raise the retirement age for Medicare to 67. These are both horribly regressive policies that would save little money, and weaken the Democratic position as defenders of the social safety nets. Social Security isn’t even contributing to the deficit, and as Obama knows it is rising medical costs that must be tackled, not reductions in Medicare eligibility (if anything, Medicare’s lowered overhead costs argue for lowering the age of eligibility).

So what was Obama thinking?

No one knows for sure and we will likely have to wait for years after the end of his presidency (which may well be in 2012) to get the full story. From everything I have read, it appears that Obama vastly underestimated the intransigence of the Republican Party, and in his desire to be the “compromiser in chief” was willing to embrace bad ideas as in order to win over so-called independent voters.

Like many Obama supporters I oscillate between profound disappointment, frustration, and anger. I feel that the President has sacrificed key Democratic principles for nothing. I never expected him to be a fierce partisan or a far-left progressive, but in my mind he has crossed a line.

One last note for those who are thinking of not supporting Obama in 2012; let me remind you that the next President will almost certainly have the opportunity to replace two additional liberal Supreme Court Justices, the fate of the Bush tax cuts hangs in the balance at the end of 2012, and the main provisions of the new healthcare law come into effect in 2014. Come 2016 I’ll be the first to support a true progressive candidate, but no matter how much Obama has let us down, we should support his reelection for the good of the country. That’s what true patriots do; they put country first.

Jason Scorse

After House Speaker Boehner abruptly walked out of the debt ceiling negotiations Friday afternoon, President Obama held an impromptu press conference in which he expressed his deep frustration with the Republican leadership (I highly recommend watching it in its entirety). The President called out individual Republicans by name and posed the question, “is there anything they’ll say yes to?” At the very end he became agitated and said it was inexcusable for the GOP to put special interests and petty politics ahead of the interests of millions of struggling Americans.

As someone who has watched in horror as Republican demands have gotten more outrageous by the day, I was heartened to hear the President place the blame squarely where it belongs. Obama has bent over backwards to reach a compromise with the GOP, in the process conceding way too much in spending cuts, and yet still there is no deal. Americans need to know who is at fault and why; Obama made the case in simple terms that even the traditional media will have a hard time misrepresenting.

But while it was satisfying to see Obama finally take the Republicans to task, I had to wonder whether this display of presidential leadership was simply too little too late. For the past two and a half years, the GOP has done everything in its power to threaten the economic recovery, roll back Democratic accomplishments, and block social progress. They used their victory in the midterms to bring Washington to a halt; at the state levels, they’re enacting the most regressive economic and social policies in a generation.

The economy very likely will limp into 2012, with unemployment extremely high and most Americans feeling worse off than they did in 2008. If the GOP allows a U.S. default the situation will be much worse, with another major recession in the works. These conditions are clearly unfavorable for Obama. It’s difficult to know how a different debt ceiling strategy might have played out, but it is hard to imagine the situation being much worse for the President and the Democratic Party than it was heading into the weekend.

Like many other Obama supporters, my primary critique of the President is that he has not fought hard enough for core Democratic principles. Perhaps more importantly, he has failed to consistently and clearly articulate his agenda and call out the Republicans for blocking it. I appreciate the president’s show of leadership with the U.S. on the brink of economic calamity; at the same time, it should never have come to this.

The President seems incapable of appreciating how hell-bent the Republicans are on defeating him, no matter how much suffering they inflict on average Americans. Hopefully, both the President and the electorate will recognize how dangerous and radical the Republican Party has become before irreparable damage is done.

Jason Scorse

I am not a huge fan of the Atlantic's Megan McArdle, but her article on the plight of the long-term unemployed is quite compelling. She was unemployed for a long period years ago and recounts the terrible toll it took on her life and her economic prospects. She was one of the lucky few who eventually found a rewarding career. But many of the long-term unemployed in America are not likely to be so fortunate, especially those in their 40s and 50s. Research suggests that the long-term unemployed suffer increased illness, along with significantly lower standards of living for the remainder of their lives.

This is a tragedy.

The millions of Americans who have been out of work for six months or more during the recent recession and its aftermath are out of work due to no fault of their own. The collapse of the financial system sent the global economy into a tailspin; at the peak of the recession the economy was shedding 3/4 of a million jobs a month. Today's jobless are capable of working and want to work, but because of depressed demand businesses don't want to hire them. And with the government shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs the situation in the public sector is even worse.

President Obama and the Democrats have provided the jobless with unemployment benefits for the past 2+ years, but they are about to run out (the Republicans have fought against providing the jobless with any benefits and routinely cast them as lazy and undeserving). With the economy barely producing any jobs at all their prospects continue to look bleak, and they will likely continue to suffer the toll of prolonged joblessness.

With the Congress and traditional media obsessed with long-term deficits, it appears that new assistance for the unemployed or new stimulus measures are a near impossibility. The Democrats, and particularly President Obama, share a tremendous amount of blame for the absurd situation we find ourselves in, because they have failed to draw attention to the plight of the millions of Americans who still can't find work.

Since the first day of Obama's presidency the Republican Party has not acted in good faith for the betterment of the American people; the GOP cares only about moneyed interests and catering to its extremist theocratic base. A strong leader doesn't simply accept the limits imposed on him by those who want to destroy him, and whose electoral victory is premised on the failure of the economy.

With the historic Democratic majorities Obama enjoyed for the first two years of his presidency he was able to pass excellent legislation that is and will continue to benefit ordinary Americans. For this he must be applauded and given credit. But his failure to fight for additional measures to boost the economy and help the jobless is by far his biggest failure. He should be using the bully pulpit that only the President has to express moral indignation at the Republicans for blocking additional stimulus measures. He should propose direct jobs programs for the unemployed that put them back to work right now building roads, bridges, and trails for our national parks.

There are those who argue that this is bad politics because the Republicans will likely block these programs and the President will then look weak and ineffectual. I disagree. A strong leader doesn't accept the status quo, but changes it through the force of their rhetoric, persistence, and moral suasion. I find it hard to imagine that if week after week Obama called on Republicans to finally honor their pledge to focus on jobs, that nothing would come of it. And even if this were true, what could be a better political message to carry into 2012 then Obama making the case for a greater focus on jobs and the Republicans rebuffing him at every turn?

Jason Scorse

George Bush’s presidency ended two and a half years ago, but his legacy continues to profoundly harm American society. I’m not referring to the Iraq War, to the destruction of New Orleans, or to the fiscal policies that created record federal deficits and triggered a global financial crisis. I’m referring to his two Supreme Court appointments: John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

The Supreme Court term that just ended marks one of the most extreme expansions of corporate power at the expense of ordinary Americans that the country has ever witnessed. Dalhia Lithwick’s recent article in Slate on the topic is a harrowing must-read. Not only did the Court throw out class action suits against some of the world’s biggest corporations; it also pointed the way for corporations to keep stiffing workers and evading responsibility. At a time when American wages are stagnating, union rights are being stripped, and globalization is putting ever more jobs at risk, the Court’s gifts to big business couldn’t come at a worse time for the lower and middle classes.

All of the key decisions were decided by 5-4 majorities that included the votes of Justices Roberts and Alito. And these decisions came on the heels of the Citizens United ruling, decided by the same 5-4 majority, which overturned decades of precedent to give corporations virtually unlimited ability to donate to candidates. The result has been a huge increase in corporate election spending, free of accountability and brimming with lies and propaganda.

In a recent interview, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, no liberal, expressed disagreement not only with the Citizens United decision; she also confessed to a general unease with the direction the new Court is taking—including on abortion rights, where she was regarded as a moderate. O’Connor was replaced by Alito, and his single vote has had a tremendous impact on the Court’s direction.

Alito, you’ll remember, wasn’t the first person Bush nominated for the O’Connor seat. He first chose Harriet Miers, the White House legal counsel. But Miers was a relative unknown, and the far right wasn’t interested in taking any chances; it mounted a full-court press to discredit Miers, and eventually forced her withdrawal. Bush replaced her with the known right-leaning Alito, whom he knew would satisfy the GOP base. It is now clear that the far right’s work to get Miers replaced by Alito has paid off handsomely.

Alito, only in his 50s, should serve well into the middle of the 21st century. He’ll be a reliable vote in helping to strip workers of their rights, to keep chipping away at Roe v. Wade and perhaps overturn it, and to continue the expansion of corporate and executive power.

Fortunately, Obama has made two great additions to the Court with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. Chances are, however, that any near-term additional opportunities would only replace liberal justices (Ginsburg and Breyer), which won’t change the liberal/conservative composition of the Court. If for some reason Justices Ginsburg and Breyer don’t retire before the 2012 election, and Obama loses, a new Republican President could have a golden opportunity to turn a 5-4 right wing majority into a overwhelming 7-2 majority.

I shudder to think of the consequences for social programs, women’s rights, and the environment if this comes to pass. There is no more powerful evidence than Supreme Court appointments that elections have far-reaching consequences, stretching well beyond the terms of specific political offices. Nominating Alito to replace O’Connor will likely prove one of George W. Bush’s longest and most pernicious legacies.

Jason Scorse

Negotiations over raising the U.S. debt ceiling have become grotesque, with the Republicans holding the country hostage to their agenda of coddling the rich, ignoring the middle class, and gutting the social safety nets that protect the poor and vulnerable. With the GOP eager to damage the economy and bolster their 2012 prospects, they seem to be in a no-lose situation. The lazy and incompetent traditional media are playing along as always, doing little to point out just how dangerous Republican tactics are or to remind Americans that the deficits are almost completely a product of Republican decisions made during the Bush years.

But it’s really Obama’s fault that the GOP is able to use the negotiations in this manner. He could’ve demanded a debt ceiling increase when he agreed last year to extend the Bush tax cuts, or he could have insisted on a clean debt-ceiling vote with no strings attached. Instead, once again, he’s been parroting nonsensical right wing talking points: the government has to balance its books just like ordinary households, and businesses (sitting on record amounts of cash) can’t have any confidence unless and until the government acts on long-term deficit reduction. In reality, what businesses really need is more demand. Cutting spending now is almost certain to worsen the economy, and may even lead to a double-dip recession; in addition, entitlement changes that take effect years from now won’t make businesses start spending today.

It’s times like these when I have to ask myself what Obama can possibly be thinking. Maybe his message resonates with so-called “independent” voters, who are mostly disaffected Republicans that appreciate rightwing rhetoric. Maybe he believes that the debt talks will help him cut down on military spending and agricultural subsidies, which have proven untouchable in the past. With both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars now scheduled to end, the Treasury is set to save over $1 trillion over the next decade (so maybe the cuts to discretionary spending won’t have to be that deep).

Maybe he’s a better negotiator than it seems, but I’m nervous. The GOP’s insistence on no new tax revenues, coupled with savage cuts to social programs, may make even Obama unwilling to compromise. It’s also important to remember that debt ceiling votes come up continually; if Obama doesn’t stand strong now, Republican demands and intransigence will only get worse in the future (as hard as that is to fathom).

As Maureen Dowd recently wrote in her New York Times column, Obama seems hard-wired against staking out strong positions and drawing lines in the sand. He seems predisposed to always be conciliatory and split the difference. Now well into his third year, Obama has acted decisively on only two fronts: the healthcare overhaul, and a more aggressive terrorist assassination program that has taken out not only Osama bin Laden but a majority of the Al Qaeda leadership. In both cases he exercised strong leadership, took large risks, and used up huge amounts of political capital.

In the current debt ceiling negotiations, he needs once again to exercise boldness and stand up for progressive values. He needs to remind Americans that it was the GOP that got us into this mess, and that now is the absolute worst time to take money out of the economy and weaken ordinary Americans’ safety nets. He needs to stop worrying about false class warfare accusations, and point out to the country that it is Republicans who are actually practicing class warfare at every opportunity—from statehouses to the Congress. (Prime example: after talking incessantly about jobs in the run-up to the 2010 elections, the GOP has done absolutely nothing along those lines; instead, almost openly, they seem to be hoping for a limp economy come 2012).

The August 2nd debt ceiling deadline represents a crucial test of Obama’s leadership. If he stands strong, he will strike a populist note, make an impassioned case for progressive priorities, and highlight the GOP’s hypocrisy and allegiance to the affluent. But if he gives in, he will severely tarnish the Democratic claim to stand for the middle class—and allow the GOP to further divide and weaken our country for the benefit of the rich.

Jason Scorse

Arguably, the three biggest challenges in America right now are high unemployment, the lack of sensible energy policy, and rising healthcare costs. All of these issues are complex; solving them requires a well-informed public that can make reasonable decisions that benefit the public good. Informing the public is the role of the traditional media, but they are failing miserably, with dire effects.

To illustrate, here are some quotes from the New York Times and Meet the Press over the last few weeks:

“Republicans have set the terms of debate by pressing for large cuts in federal spending, which they say will encourage private investment. Democrats have found themselves battling to minimize and postpone such cuts, which they fear will cause new job losses”--The New York Times, June 2, 2011

"The companies estimate that the boom [from new oil drilling] will create more than two million new jobs, directly or indirectly, and bring tens of billions of dollars to the states where the fields are located, which include traditional oil sites like Texas and Oklahoma, industrial stalwarts like Ohio and Michigan and even farm states like Kansas."--The New York Times, May 28, 2011

“This play has been run time after time. If you go back and look at the quotes from President Clinton back when he needed to win re-election, they sound a lot like the quotes from Democrats today about don’t let those Republicans take away your Medicare. The difference is that the debt is bigger, the deficit is bigger, the gap is bigger, and the situation is more dire. But I think that, sadly, the lesson of New York 26 is “mediscare” works.”--Ruth Marcus on Meet the Press, May 29, 2011

In the first quote, The Times presents as equivalent two views on the effects of cuts in federal spending, one put forth by the Democrats and the other by Republicans. But the fact is that one position is entirely wrong, and anyone with a shred of common sense or a knowledge of basic economics should recognize this. Cutting federal spending leads to job losses. There is no dispute about whether this is true. In addition, corporations currently have record amounts of cash on hand; the notion that somehow they will decide to invest if the government slashes spending and decreases employment makes absolutely no sense. In fact they are waiting for increased demand before they invest their capital.

The second Times quote simply repeats a claim made by the oil and gas industry without any analysis whatsoever as to whether the claim has merit. In fact, the notion that increased offshore drilling could lead to two million jobs is absurd and no independent analysis predicts job gains even approaching this number. If the oil and gas industry promised everyone their own unicorn if more drilling were allowed, would The Times simply repeat their words?

Ruth Marcus’s complaint about Democratic attacks on Ryan’s Medicare plan is perhaps the most depressing of the three quotes. The Ryan plan would exchange guaranteed benefits for a voucher that will not keep up with healthcare costs, and will lead to pronounced medical insecurity and higher costs for seniors. This is simply a fact. That Ryan and the Republicans still call their plan Medicare, and claim that destroying the program is actually saving it, doesn’t make it so. Any reasonable analysis must conclude that the Ryan plan ends Medicare as we know it.

We cannot solve our problems and retain our global leadership unless the citizenry understands the realities we face. A compelling case can be made that people who routinely watch cable news and read our most prestigious newspapers actually become less informed from the coverage.

This is especially frustrating because better reporting is not extremely difficult. Fact-checking the statements made by politicians and interest groups, and grilling them on the false claims they make, is what real journalism is all about. Unfortunately, our traditional media has become increasingly lazy, incompetent, and irresponsible, and American society is suffering tremendously as a result.

There are still some examples of good reporting in the traditional media, but overall the best reporting is now done on blogs and new online media. No wonder viewership for major newspapers and TV news is down.

By far the biggest beneficiaries of the death of the traditional media have been the Republicans and their corporate backers, who have come to realize that they can wantonly lie and spread disinformation without being held accountable. With no incentive to tell the truth, they simply make stuff up as they go along; no matter how outlandish, the media simply act as stenographers and report it. This puts progressives at a huge disadvantage: not only do they need to make an affirmative case for their causes, they have to fight back against the tremendous amounts of disinformation that clogs the airwaves and newspapers.

It is a monumental task only made worse by the media’s obsession with the sensationalist and superficial over the substantive. Case in point: when Nancy Pelosi decided to talk about jobs and the economy instead of the controversy over Anthony Weiner’s sexual indiscretions, the major networks simply pulled the plug and switched programming.

This is no way for a free society to operate. We face serious challenges that will require major policy decisions; trillions of dollars are at stake, to say nothing of the health and well-being of all citizens and our ecosystems as well.

What can we do? We can contact traditional media outlets and complain about their poor reporting. We can create our own blogs. We can direct our friends, families, and coworkers to trusted and reliable news sources. One way or another, we can all play a part in creating a media culture where facts are respected and falsehoods are consistently denounced.

Jason Scorse

Anybody who wondered how far Tim Pawlenty was willing to go to ingratiate himself with the crazies on the Republican right has gotten the answer: plenty far, and then some.

It all became clear last week when the former Minnesota governor, a so-called moderate and one of about a dozen GOP presidential wannabes, unveiled what The New York Times called his “chimerical” economic plan. Chimerical? Maybe so, but comical would be more accurate.

Following three decades during which just about every dollar of economic gain has gone to the top, Pawlenty went over the top and proposed sending trillions more to the same people. Among his make-the-wealthy-wealthier proposals: no taxes on capital gains, no taxes on dividends, no taxes on estates.

It’s been GOP orthodoxy for years to lower capital gains taxes, and the current rate of 15 percent on long-term gains is the lowest since FDR’s first term. Combined with the same current rate on dividends, it’s the No. 1 reason why income inequality in the United States has risen to levels not seen since the robber barons.

Not good enough for Pawlenty; let’s raise it even higher!

Besides showcasing his ability to pander, Pawlenty’s economic plan also showcases his total lack of interest in cutting the deficit (a lack of interest he shares, of course, with every Republican who simultaneously touts tax cuts and spending cuts as the solution to all fiscal problems. As The Times points out, the numbers can never add up “because of the giant deficits the vanishing tax money would create…”)

Never mind. Pawlenty has his eyes on the prize, in this case the Republican primaries. Here’s how his strategy looked over at Talking Points Memo: “…Pawlenty is clearly placing himself staunchly on the right, with a program that would drastically change the shape of the federal government as Americans have known it. In an environment where the GOP has run into trouble over Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposals to privatize Medicare, will these ideas fly with the general public beyond the GOP primary base?”

For the moment, they don’t have to. For the moment, all Pawlenty has to do is keep on pandering to the base.

Given what he did last week, that's the master plan for the man The Times called “at least until this speech…one of the more reasonable of the suitors for the Republican presidential nomination.”

Gerald Scorse

Regardless of whether Obama gets reelected in 2012 he will go down as an extremely consequential president. While he fell short on many fronts, his achievements are enormous and will be felt for generations to come. And he likely will be reelected, giving him another opportunity to pass legislation in areas where he has so far failed––namely energy policy and immigration reform–as well as an opportunity to nominate at least two more Supreme Court justices.

At critical moments Obama has stood strong against Republican attacks on the middle class, social safety nets, and civil rights, and provided a compelling vision for an America that is compassionate and committed to the common good. But these moments have been interspersed with the baffling use of right wing framing to describe our economic problems, and an over-eagerness to appear non-partisan even in the face of the routine, far right positions of the modern GOP.

It’s true that a firebrand liberal could never have been elected the first black president of the United States, and Obama seems to be hard-wired with a more centrist and moderate temperament. This has clearly served him well, and will likely help his reelection prospects among the so-called swing voters.

But the Democratic Party, and the country, will eventually need more committed progressive champions who can frame the issues in bold moral language, and who are willing to take much stronger positions against the right wing. A cool and cerebral President may be well-suited to a world reeling from a global financial crisis and a country still mired in two wars. Coolness, however, is not what the country needs to take on a Republican Party hell bent on reversing the social and economic gains of the 20th century.

There are times when compromise and negotiation are what’s best for the nation, and then there are others when it’s time to draw lines in the sand and stake out positions from which you will not yield. That time is approaching. The Republicans want to end Medicare, eviscerate Social Security, strip women of their reproductive rights and subject them to degrading and intrusive treatment; they want to keep12 million illegal immigrants in the shadows, even denying their children entrance into our colleges; they want to slash health, safety, and financial regulations, strip unions of their collective bargaining rights, and usher in a kind of voter intimidation not seen since the days of Jim Crow. None of this is hyperbole: almost every Republican in the Congress has already voted for many of these policies, and they’re being enacted at the state level by many Republican-controlled legislatures.

Make no mistake: an ideological war is underway for the soul of America, and a lot is at stake. I will work hard for Obama’s reelection, and hope that he uses his second term to make a stronger commitment for progressive values.

But in 2016 and beyond, I am searching for a true progressive champion whose message is not one of compromise or post-partisanship, but of principles. For those who think someone like that can’t win, I say look at the polling data on the issues raised above; by large margins, the American people support progressive policies. They just need someone to point this out forcefully and consistently, and go on the offensive against the Republicans without fear.

P.S. Kevin Drum has an article today on how the Democrats have abandoned the middle class. I think Drum exaggerates since Obama and the Dems have passed many policies that have benefited the middle class, but his call for leaders that are true economic populists is aligned with what I am advocating.

Jason Scorse

The past decade has been extremely depressing for the U.S. environmental community. Rather than lead the world on climate and energy policy, the U.S. has fallen further behind our developed-world allies, and now even falls behind rising powers such as China and Brazil.

The question arises: Why has America not been able to muster the political will to usher in a clean energy future and join forces with the other rich (and not so rich) nations of the world to combat climate change?

The answer is, of course, complex. Institutional barriers in the American political system favor rural states over urban ones and demand super-majorities that are almost impossible to muster; powerful industrial interests continue to disproportionately sway politicians while funding vast networks of misinformation; and one of our two major parties has embraced a virulently anti-science position that is unprecedented in modern history.

But there is something even more fundamental that the environmental community has failed to grasp. It’s not that Germans, Canadians, Norwegians, and French have a greater love for the environment, or that these countries lack parochial and special interests and powerful corporations. Above all else, what differentiates Americans from these other wealthy nations is our much greater degree of economic insecurity.

The reality is that a bold new energy and climate change policy would inevitably result in dislocations in certain industries and upset long-established ways of life in many regions; in addition, it would lead to higher prices for basic commodities such as gas, home heating oil, and food.

In societies where there are strong social safety nets―universal healthcare, universal preschool, strong support for new parents, significant investments in public transportation, and sustained support for higher education ―the changes wrought by a paradigm shift in energy will tend not to result in hugely destabilizing effects across whole towns and communities. In fact, with good planning and investments in critical infrastructure, strong environmental policies can result in overall improvements in the quality of life for nearly everyone.

Throughout much of the developed world, citizens are willing to pay prices for gasoline that would lead to riots in American streets, because they know that the government revenue raised by high gas taxes is used for programs that directly benefit them. In other words, ten-dollar a gallon gas isn’t such a big deal when everyone has great healthcare, great public transportation, and free high-quality schooling.

Many environmentalists criticized President Obama for using virtually all of his political capital to pass healthcare legislation before a comprehensive energy bill. Though many of the benefits of that healthcare bill won’t go into effect until years from now, and support for the legislation still suffers from the copious amounts of misinformation peddled by the bill’s detractors, the goal of universal healthcare will ultimately serve the environmental community. The question is whether it will be too late to matter.

The bottom line is that people are much more willing to support environmental policies that come with large risks and disruptions to their way of life when other policies are in place to shield them from excessive risk and instability. Progressive environmental policies must rest on a foundation of broader investments in social safety nets. One of the primary reasons that the U.S. has fallen behind the world on environmental policy is because we have fallen behind on virtually all measures of economic security; the two are intimately linked.

Jason Scorse

Tax-deferred retirement accounts were created under a law passed by Congress in 1974. They strike a bargain between taxpayers and the Treasury: money in the accounts grows tax-free, but taxable withdrawals must be taken yearly after age 70 1/2.

Both sides win. Roughly half of all Americans have gotten a jump on financial security, and now hold trillions in retirement savings. On its part, the Treasury gets an annual influx and is nearing demographic gold: the first baby boomers reach required distribution age in 2016, and a mother lode of retirement taxes should start streaming in.

Congress, though, has proven more than willing to help the affluent slip away from the tax payback. Two examples are the late-December renewal of a 2006 Bush tax break, and a one-year suspension of minimum required distributions.

The starkest instance—and the most costly for the Treasury—stemmed from the financial meltdown. With portfolios plummeting, Congress rushed to freeze mandatory withdrawals for 2009. Only the haves stood to gain. Anyone who actually needed the distribution had to take it and pay taxes; the haves took a pass and saved thousands.

The stock market recovered and the suspension was allowed to lapse. Nobody should expect an encore, but the precedent has been set.

As the clock ticked down on 2010, the lame-duck Congress passed an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. Along with it, fitting right in, came a one-year renewal of the IRA charitable deduction.

It allows holders of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to give up to $100,000 of their required annual distribution to charities. No federal or state taxes are paid. In addition, because the money doesn’t count toward income on tax returns, high-income filers could avert hikes in Medicare premiums. According to one estate attorney, the bill is “good for about 10 different [tax-avoidance] reasons.”

What we have here is a siphoning away of public revenue to private charity. Money may go to good causes, but the transfer violates the payback half of the retirement bargain. In effect, the money is being stolen from the U.S. Treasury (and from every state that has an income tax).

Donors have their hearts in the right place and the law behind them. Charities are thrilled. The thieves are in Congress, always ready to jigger the tax code on behalf of the well-off.

Withdrawal formulas also stiff the Treasury by keeping a tight lid on required withdrawals. The formula that applies to most people calls for a starting minimum required distribution of under 3.7 percent. The rate rises annually, but ever so slowly; 25 years later, at age 95, the required distribution is only 11.6 percent. The formulas don’t overtly discriminate, but they heavily favor those in no need and no hurry. So-called stretch IRAs, an estate planning tool, can string out distributions—get ready now—into the next century.

Brokerage houses distort the tax payback in their own way. They’re making billions on retirement accounts, but they continually bash required distributions. A Fidelity advisory, for example, told clients that at 70 1/2 they’re “required to start raiding” the accounts.

Raiding? Not exactly. Minimum distributions mean it’s time to start paying back Uncle Sam for decades of tax deferral. Even after federal and state taxes, affluent Americans over 70 1/2 are likely looking at annual payouts in the healthy five figures. Whatever the number, it got there with a long tax-free ride.

How about a little gratitude. And instead of robbing Uncle Sam, let’s have distribution rules from Congress that are more sensible and equitable.

Gerald Scorse

For the past three decades the Republican Party’s domestic goals can largely be summarized as follows: cut taxes on the rich, deregulate the economy, weaken the New Deal social contract, and impose an intolerant and regressive form of Christianity on all of society. The problem for the GOP has always been that these policies are deeply unpopular with the vast majority of Americans, making it necessary for the party to mask its true intentions. By and large, it’s been expert at doing this.

Republicans for decades have camouflaged their policies under the rhetoric of freedom, liberty, and small government. In addition, they’ve manipulated a strong strain of victimization that runs through American society, especially the victimization of whites: immigrants arrive to take their jobs, their hard-earned money goes to black welfare queens, affirmative action robs them of their chance at college, gays come to seduce their children.

At times, Republican presidents and Congressional leaders have passed centrist legislation and presented a more moderate face of the GOP. George Bush I passed a cap and trade program for sulfur dioxide to combat acid rain, and raised taxes. George Bush II ran on a platform of compassionate conservatism and passed the largest expansion of entitlement programs in a generation with the Part D Medicare prescription drug bill. In addition, he joined hands with Ted Kennedy to pass No Child Left Behind, and he expanded aid to Africa for AIDS drugs. To his credit, he also tried to pass a comprehensive immigration bill that would’ve created a path to citizenship for the 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the U.S.

But something in the Republican Party snapped the moment Obama was sworn in as president. Ever since, we’ve been seeing pure unadulterated rightwing extremism—and it hasn’t been pretty. Every crackpot conspiracy theorist, racist, and extreme libertarian has crawled out from under a rock and found a home in the GOP. The party won more power during the midterms and is now putting its crazy ideas into practice, with horrific results.

The Republican-controlled House has spent its time crafting draconian anti-abortion bills, attempting to defund Planned Parenthood, and repealing the Affordable Healthcare Act. Despite promises to the contrary, they have yet to offer anything to replace it. They no longer even pretend to care about universal coverage.

Their near unanimous vote for Paul Ryan’s long-term budget shows even more how extreme the Party has become. The plan is no less than a redistribution of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the very wealthy. It would obliterate Medicare, forcing millions of future seniors to choose between extreme poverty or no healthcare at all. Radical is too kind a word for Ryan’s plan; it is mean-spirited and cruel. For good measure the plan also repeals financial regulatory reform, cuts the funding for green power by 70%, and cuts food stamps. (Interestingly, Ryan credits none other than the extremist Ayn Rand as his philosophical inspiration. Her views about unfettered capitalism are increasingly popular in the GOP; rarely mentioned is her atheism, and her detestation of religion.)

It doesn’t end at the federal level. In statehouses around the country, unhinged rightwing governors and state legislators have unleashed even more draconian anti-abortion bills (almost all of which are clearly unconstitutional), severe rollbacks of environmental legislation, massive attacks on unions’ collective bargaining rights, and voter suppression efforts not seen since the days of the Jim Crow South.

Never in my adult life did I imagine that the Republican Party would be so brazen in its attempts to remake America in these ways. I always assumed that counter-forces would temper the extreme elements.

The two people most in charge of forming the Republican message, the strategists Karl Rove and Frank Lutz, are once again putting lipstick on a pig, but one that is bigger and uglier than ever. Unsurprisingly, just about every word out of their mouths is the opposite of the truth: black is white, up is down, 2+2=10.

Just as unsurprisingly, we now have the racist, demagogic, fraud Donald Trump capturing the imagination of the rightwing, even leading some polls for the Republican 2012 presidential nomination. Trump once espoused positively liberal views; he’s married (and declared bankruptcy) several times; estimates are that if he had simply taken his inheritance and put it in the S&P 500, his net worth today would be greater than what he’s amassed through his business dealings. It’s beyond ironic that at a time of record long-term unemployment, the GOP’s new hero is a man most famous for yelling “you’re fired”.

Even if Republican primary voters come to their senses and turn on Trump, you can be sure that whoever they nominate will have renounced any moderate views and given the base all the extremist red meat they could swallow. Ironically, while we’re in great danger of falling behind in the 21st century, the modern Republican Party wants to “save the country” by taking us back to the 19th.

Jason Scorse

Almost since the day President Obama was sworn in, liberals have waited for him to strongly defend progressive taxation and a robust social safety net.

For the longest time, he did neither. He let many core supporters down with his lukewarm support for a public option during the healthcare debate. Back in December he signed into law an extension of all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest, effectively breaking a central campaign promise.

But Wednesday, April 13th marked a turning point in the Obama Presidency, with his stirring defense of the social contract and his vow to never again extend the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 a year. More importantly, the President delivered a scathing critique of Paul Ryan’s budget proposal (which has since passed the GOP-led House of Representatives); the President called Ryan’s vision “deeply pessimistic,” and said it was neither “serious” nor “courageous”.

Since making this speech, Obama has been on a national tour consisting of town hall-style meetings in which he continues to hammer the Republican plan and offer his vision of how to reduce our long-term deficits while at the same time protecting key entitlement programs. The public supports his positions by wide margins. Approximately three-quarters of the electorate support raising taxes on the rich and protecting Medicare; virtually all the particulars of Ryan’s budget are deeply unpopular.

So if the election of 2012 comes down to competing visions of how to get the long-term U.S. budget in balance, Obama will clearly win. But that’s not necessarily what the election will be about. Unfortunately, most Americans vote based on much more immediate concerns, and the state of the economy is usually more important than any other factor. With high gas prices eating into consumer spending, people’s attitudes are becoming much more negative—despite many months of positive economic growth and recent signs of decent growth in new jobs.

The reality is that the economic recovery is extremely fragile; if gas prices remain high, which is likely, this could lead to anemic growth and more unemployment. And despite Obama’s stirring defense of liberal priorities, he is arguing on turf that the Republicans have defined.

In the run-up to the 2010 midterms, all Republicans could talk about was jobs, jobs, jobs. Since taking office they have done nothing to promote job growth, but instead have used deficit reduction as a cover for slashing spending on social programs. Instead of relentlessly attacking Republicans for betraying their campaign promise, the President allowed them to frame the debate. Instead of focusing on the need for immediate job creation, Obama conceded that deficit reduction should be the nation’s first priority. If the economy simply putters along for the next 18 months, he may pay a huge price for that concession.

Let’s say it was politically impossible to get a second stimulus bill through the newly elected Congress. Even so, if Obama had tried and failed he would’ve demonstrated his priorities to the American people. He would’ve forced Republicans to go on record opposing job creation. Instead, we have differing visions of how to overcome long-term deficits—visions that may ultimately have little bearing on the public’s mood come November, 2012.

At this point, the Obama team has to hope that the economy picks up and provides enough momentum to get the President over the finish line. If it doesn’t, there will be lots of second-guessing about whether he did enough to make the case for job creation instead of joining the GOP in putting deficit reduction first.

Jason Scorse

Today's piece is written by guest contributor, Gerald Scorse, who helped get this legislation passed through his tireless efforts for tax fairness.

Income from wages has been reported to the Internal Revenue Service ever since World War II. Starting in 2011, income from stock market capital gains will effectively begin to get the same treatment.

This closes a loophole that cost the Treasury billions every year. It takes a big burden off taxpayers. And it never would have happened without a man the Left loved to hate.

He’s Evan Bayh (D-IN), who retired from the Senate in January. His Blue Dog politics rankled liberals, and he was trashed for giving up a seat that would flip to the GOP. All the same, Bayh made tax reporting fairer than it’s ever been in America.

He did it by passing a bill that requires brokers to report basis prices to the IRS. Basis prices are what investments cost going in, and brokers didn’t have to turn over these numbers. They had to report proceeds, but not basis prices.

The only way to figure capital gains is to have both numbers, and do the arithmetic. For nearly a century, since the beginning of income taxes in 1916, capital gains income has been reported on the honor system. Now the IRS will get basis prices along with proceeds. Brokers won a gradual phasing in: new stock purchases this year, mutual funds in 2012, bonds and options in 2013.

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson recommended basis reporting to Congress, and it was her proposal that prompted Bayh to draft his bill. The Treasury was losing up to $25 billion a year through capital gains misreporting, and states were being stiffed additional billions. The reasons were no mystery. As Ms. Olson told the Wall Street Journal, “It seemed that people who wanted to comply with the law were finding it too hard, while those who wanted to skirt the law were finding it too easy.”

It was easy faking numbers on tax returns. It was hard keeping records year after year, adjusting them for distributions and stock splits, even remembering where they were. Computers erased the problems; brokers are now required to maintain basis records and forward the final results.

Tax compliance for income that’s reported to the IRS far exceeds compliance for self-reported income. Wage earners essentially report all their wages, and the reason is written on the W-2 forms they get every year: “THIS INFORMATION IS BEING FURNISHED TO THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE.” Compliance figures slump for every kind of self-reported income, including stock market capital gains.

When Bayh re-introduced his bill in 2007, he cited a study that found misreporting by more than a third of taxpayers with capital gains or losses. The Congressional Record for that day shows one other senator making the case for basis reporting. Let’s listen in:

“It is estimated that $345 billion of federal taxes goes uncollected each year. This bill doesn’t solve that full problem, but it is a step in the right direction. It reduces the federal deficit without raising taxes or cutting spending. It simplifies the tax filing process and reduces the chance of error or fraud. It applies what we know about the clear benefits of automatic reporting to the IRS—which is required now for wage income—to capital gains income as well.

“This bill makes sense. It’s good policy. And I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it and in helping to improve our tax code.”

So said the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, on February 14, 2007. Now, as president, his budgets (and America’s taxpayers) will benefit from the added billions that fairer tax reporting will bring in to the Treasury.

P.S. Next week the theme will be Obama's strong new defense of a center-left progressive vision, which stands in stark contrast to the extremist regressive and reactionary vision of Paul Ryan and the House Republicans.

P.P.S. Some commenters support raising the Social Security retirement age to 70. The reason this is a bad idea and regressive is because average life expectancy is up mostly because of reductions in child mortality. Life expectancy conditional on reaching age 65 has barely budged over the last decades, and the retirement age for Social Security has already risen from 65-67. Increasing it 3 more years will lead to a net reduction in lifetime benefits, hurt the poor and middle class the most, hurt minorities more than whites, and is unfair especially to people who work in physically demanding jobs. Raising the cap for Social Security taxable income above $106,000 is a much more equitable way to handle the projected 25% shortfall in 2037.

Gerald Scorse

When negotiating with hostage takers who are willing to kill their hostages, the negotiators are at a serious disadvantage. Such was the case with the budget talks that concluded late Friday, with the Republicans playing the role of the hostage takers. Ever since Obama came into office, the GOP has done everything it could to harm the economy and bring down the President. Republicans know that with a pliant and unserious media, they won’t be blamed; the more the economy suffers, the more votes they’re likely to get from a populace that pays little attention to facts and has a painfully short memory.

Republicans voted against the stimulus bill, tried to block unemployment benefits at every turn, and held both unemployment benefits and middle class tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich. They voted against the financial regulatory bill, and have tried to defund it ever since taking control of the House. Over the last three months, despite all their talk about jobs, their agenda has been dominated by trying to take away women’s reproductive freedoms and deny gays their rights. Their policies are unambiguously job killing, since it’s harmful to take any money out of our still-fragile economic recovery. The party opposes the interests of the overwhelming majority of the American people; its base is dominated by religious extremists and supporters of crony capitalism. And now Paul Ryan has added insulted to injury by proposing to massively cut Medicaid for the poor and disabled, privatize Medicare and force millions of seniors into poverty, all the while dramatically ballooning the deficit and cutting taxes for the rich by trillions more.

Given that the GOP has essentially taken leave of its senses, President Obama and the Democrats were in a terrible bind. If they gave in to the GOP’s demands, it would harm the economy and the American people; if they didn’t, the GOP would willingly shut down the government—harming the economy and the American people. It was a no-win situation. Obama decided to give the GOP almost everything it wanted, agreeing to cuts totaling close to $100 billion compared to his original budget proposal.

This was a bad deal, but I understand the need to be pragmatic and the “grown up” in the room. What I don’t understand is why Obama legitimized the GOP’s position by almost bragging that the compromise included the biggest spending cuts in history. That was astounding. He should have explained to the American people that spending cuts are a terrible policy, with unemployment near 9% and the recovery far from assured; he should have said that he agreed to the cuts only to avoid a shutdown and even worse damage.

Instead he allowed the GOP to move the goalposts once again towards the far right. Bigger spending battles lie ahead, and the GOP will now be emboldened to push for even deeper cuts.

Many on the Left have claimed that Obama is a weak negotiator. They point out that he often concedes to the Right’s demands before negotiations even start, and keeps echoing their rhetoric instead of forcefully presenting the progressive alternative. I keep asking myself why he does this, and I have no good answer. He has completely failed to reshape the debate over energy policy, going so far as to entirely drop the use of the term “climate change” from his speeches; on fiscal policy, with millions still out of work and other millions under-employed, he has completely abandoned the Keynesian rhetoric he ought to be using.

Some say that Obama is saving his political capital for fights over entitlements, or ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans, or for his reelection campaign. Personally, I’m starting to wonder whether he’s ever actually going to mount a full-throated defense of American progressivism in the 21st century. I’m starting to think he simply doesn’t have it in him.

Someone needs to stand up strongly for core progressive principles against the GOP onslaught. If they don’t, America’s middle class could quickly become only a memory—and American greatness will be something for history books sooner than we think.

P.S. Word is out that Obama is giving a major speech on Wednesday outlining his vision for entitlement reform and proposing steps to rein in our long-term deficits. We will soon know whether he has the backbone to stand firm against the Republican onslaught against the middle class.

Jason Scorse

For most of modern American history, the two major political parties in America have largely agreed on the desired long-term environmental outcomes for the country: there was a consensus among Republicans and Democrats that it was a good thing to press for cleaner air and water, less toxins in the environment, biodiversity preservation, and mitigation strategies for clean energy and, mostly recently, climate change.

The disagreements were largely centered around how to achieve these outcomes, and to some extent the pace of change and the absolute targets. Democrats by and large preferred a heavier regulatory approach (i.e. “command and control”) that set specific firm-level emissions limits, prescribed permissible technologies, and set industry-wide energy and fuel efficiency standards. Republicans tended to support more market-oriented policies, with cap and trade foremost among them.

Nowadays, the arguments are no longer over the methods to achieve environmental progress, but whether we should support such progress in the first place. This situation is unprecedented. Those who believed that divided government would lead Republicans to take a more moderate and constructive role have so far been proven wrong. It is hard to imagine the situation being much worse for America’s environmental quality, which is directly linked to the quality of life for all Americans.

The modern Republican Party has absolutely no affirmative environmental agenda whatsoever, and goes so far as to contest the entire rationale for continued environmental progress. Ironically, this extremely reactionary environmental agenda is coming at a time when the ideas that Republicans once championed are now widely accepted as the best ways to structure environmental policy.

The cap and trade bill that died in the U.S. Congress in 2010 was based on market-oriented principles that were the centerpiece of George Bush Sr.’s cap and trade policy for sulfur dioxide, enacted in 1990. It permitted maximum flexibility in achieving its goals of greenhouse gas reductions over a long time horizon, giving businesses plenty of time to adjust and adapt. The bill’s intellectual foundations were so strongly rooted in conservative economics that then-presidential candidate John McCain was a huge supporter of the measure and included it in his presidential platform.

And yet today, the Republican-led House of Representatives has voted to deny the science of climate change and strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases, which was granted to the agency by a 5-4 decision in the very conservative-leaning Supreme Court. The GOP-led House has proposed gutting the EPA’s budget as well. And it gets worse.

The Republicans in the House have refused to end the subsidies for oil companies (as these firms continue to rake in record profits), and while they seek to reduce food stamps, they have made it clear that they will not touch the billions in agricultural subsidies that disproportionately benefit big agribusiness. Adding insult to injury, House Republicans even reintroduced Styrofoam into the House cafeteria after Democrats had removed it during the last Congress.

I have been involved in environmental policy for almost 20 years and have never seen anything like the current Republican assault on the environment. It is truly astounding. To be clear, the Republicans leading this charge against environmental progress are in no way following conservative principles―they are doing the exact opposite. Those who profess to support conservative economics should be leading the charge against subsidies for big business and taking a firm stance in favor of the “polluter pays principle,” which states that those producers and consumers whose actions degrade the environment should pay for the damage. (You know we’re living in an upside down world when the one avowed socialist in the Senate, Bernie Sanders, has been the most vociferous opponent of oil company handouts.)

There is absolutely nothing “free market” about letting polluters trash the environment for free. In fact, this fits the definition of a market failure, not a well-functioning capitalist system. What the Republicans are currently practicing is crony capitalism of the worst kind: rewarding industry at the expense of the public interest and future generations.

It is the Republican rank and file who should be the most offended by these policies. Public opinion polls consistently show that both Democrats and Republicans care deeply about the environment, and support clean energy policies and strong environmental safeguards. Unfortunately, the once proud environmental ethic of the Republican Party has been snuffed out by a small group of radical Tea Party extremists who are deeply confused both about true conservative principles and the proper role of government in society. And once moderate Republicans who supported sensible environmental policies are nowhere to be seen. Until true conservatives retake the Republican Party we will be left doing little more than damage control, and the chances of a new comprehensive affirmative environmental agenda are slim to none.

Jason Scorse

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed an extremely anti-union bill last week, stripping some public-sector unions of their collective bargaining rights. Many have called his actions a “power grab,” and already lawsuits are pending. Some argue that since Walker didn’t campaign on policies even remotely as radical, what he has done is both immoral and inconsistent with what he was elected to do.

Like it or not, what the governor and the GOP-dominated state legislature did was entirely legal and consistent with democratic principles. We live in a representative democracy; we elect people to office for a set term, and we don’t get to vote on every issue they decide. The Republican Party has for decades been attacking unions and doing everything it could to weaken worker rights and redistribute income to the wealthiest Americans. These things are no secret. Anyone who votes Republican has no reason to expect anything different.

The citizens of Wisconsin voted for Walker over a Democratic opponent who would never have tried to strip unions of their rights. If the majority of voters in Wisconsin want strong union rights, they can vote for a Democrat next time around (or vote in the recall campaigns that are now underway).

Complaining that a Republican has taken away union rights is like complaining when a pig wallows in the mud. The people of Wisconsin not only voted for a far-right Republican for governor; they also kicked out Russ Feingold, one of the most consistently progressive U.S. Senators, in favor of a Tea Party extremist who doesn’t even believe in climate change.

This is what people get when they vote out of emotional frustration and not with their heads. By punishing Obama and the Democrats for their inability to clean up the economic catastrophe left by the Bush administration, voters demonstrated no understanding of the limits of political power and the time it would take to dig out of America’s deepest recession in 80 years.

What happened in Wisconsin played out across the country in November, e.g., Florida elected a far-right governor famous for presiding over the biggest fraud in Medicare history. While voters in a few states resisted the worst that the Republican Party had to offer (such as Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, and Christine O’Donnell), numerous other extremists (like Rand Paul) were swept into office.

And let us be clear, Republicans don’t even bother to hide their intentions. When asked whether the GOP House spending bill would lead to job losses, Majority Leader Boehner said “so be it”. While claiming to care about jobs and the economy, Republicans have spent all their time trying to strip women of their rights, bash gays (and now Muslims), and cut every piece of socially progressive legislation they can—family planning, Head Start, children’s health, even environmental protection and tsunami warning systems.

To those who contend they didn’t actually vote for any of this, I say, stop fooling yourself. The Republican Party of 2011 is nothing more than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the rich, powerful corporate interests, and far-right religious extremists. Anyone who votes for a Republican has to know what they’re getting.

But they don’t deserve all the blame. Millions of progressives stayed homed last election because Obama only delivered on 60% of his promised agenda in two years, not 100%. While it is true that the president didn’t fight hard enough for a public option, and failed to get climate change legislation passed, these shortcomings pale in comparison to all he achieved. Yet, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, millions sat out and let Republicans sweep to victory.

Democracy is messy, and the votes of even the tiniest majority can lead to devastating impacts on everyone—but that’s how it works. Ultimately, voters are responsible for the quality of their leaders and the policies they promote.

Until Americans take a more mature and long-term view when they head into the voting booth, and once and for all reject the modern Republican Party, our quality of life will suffer and our position in the world will falter. We have only ourselves to blame.

Jason Scorse

One of the aspects of economics that I most respect is that we’re trained to give credence not to what people say they value, but to what they actually do—and to what those actions reveal about their real values and priorities.

Economists know that what people say they believe, and their motives, are often at odds with their actual behavior. For example, an individual who claims to care about the poor but who does nothing to help poor people, cannot in any meaningful sense continue to make this claim; they may “care” in some abstract sense, but this is hardly the same as someone whose care manifests itself in volunteer work, donations, or a voting pattern that reflects this care.

Paying attention to actual behaviors and choices is most important when scrutinizing political parties; it’s also where rhetoric and reality may not only be miles apart, but directly contradictory. Case in point is the modern Republican Party. For most of the run-up to the midterm elections, Republicans hammered the Democrats and President Obama for a weak economy and promised to focus on jobs if they were returned to power.

It’s been well over a month since the GOP took over the House of Representatives and gained several seats in the Senate—and what they’ve done shows that jobs are the last thing on their mind. They have focused on radical anti-choice legislation to strip women of their reproductive rights, opposition to D.C.’s legalization of gay marriage, and on budget proposals that, by all independent analyses, would lead to job losses in the hundreds of thousands.

Republicans want to cut funding for environmental protection, children’s healthcare, implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act, college student loans, the arts, science research funding, funding for AIDs drugs, and long-term investments in infrastructure. They will do everything to preserve hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the affluent, but when it comes to the most needy they claim “we are broke”.

These actions, not the GOP’s words, show what the party values and prioritizes. Their priorities reflect an extremely pro-industry stance that would greatly diminish the quality of life for millions of low and even middle-income Americans, while doing almost nothing to address the nation’s long-term financial imbalances—which are driven almost exclusively by projected Medicare liabilities.

In truth, the GOP’s priorities are shameful, and if made into law would not only directly harm many Americans, but jeopardize the still-fragile economic recovery. It is a road map that should be lambasted and ridiculed by every serious person.

The reason the GOP has so far gotten away with these insanely misguided priorities (which they won’t ultimately get away with) is because the traditional media spends way too much time reporting on what Republicans say and not what they do. The leaders say they are focused on jobs and the media dutifully reports this, instead of pointing out the contradictions between their words and their actions.

A media that made educating the public (not entertaining them) its central role would hold our politicians to account, both Democrats and Republicans. They would relentlessly ask GOP leaders questions such as:

- After winning the elections based on a platform of increasing jobs, why have you focused on everything BUT jobs since taking power?

- Why the focus on divisive social issues that have nothing to do with your mandate, and are not what people voted for?

- Why are you proposing a budget that by all independent accounts would cost jobs and hold down economic growth?

- Why have you refused to address long-term fiscal issues, especially Medicare, and focused instead on parts of the budget that in effect are a sideshow?

- How can you claim to care about long-term economic growth when you’re proposing cuts to infrastructure, education, environmental protection, and science research that will harm long-term growth?

- You said that you wanted to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, but so far you have focused exclusively on repeal and offered nothing to replace it with. You even spurned Obama’s call for greater flexibility for the states in providing care. Do you no longer believe in providing affordable care to all Americans? If you do believe in it, how do you propose to actually achieve it?

Of course, on the Sunday talk shows all day today (and for the remainder of the week as well) these questions will barely be asked if at all. Republican leaders will continue to say one thing and do another.

Until the traditional media focuses more on politicians’ actions and less on their rhetoric, it will be up to us (on forums like this and thousands of others) to build an informed citizenry that will hold politicians to account.

Jason Scorse

The attempt by Republican Governor Walker of Wisconsin to eliminate collective bargaining rights for some public sector employees (those who happen to vote Democratic) is in keeping with a long history of GOP efforts to undermine unions and tilt the playing field even more towards corporations over workers.

Before proceeding, let me agree that unions can breed corruption and bad outcomes when they lose sight of the public good and resist reasonable change—e.g., teachers unions that oppose merit pay and make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. Like all interest groups, unions can become ossified, myopic, and counter-productive.

But unions also provide a significant and often necessary check on the power of corporations to dictate terms of employment. Even though union membership in the private sector is at an historic low, the benefits won by unions continue to impact wages and benefits for workers throughout the economy. They provide the benchmark with which the private sector must compete.

The International Labor Organization deems the right to collective bargaining a core labor standard, and it’s embraced by all democracies. At a time when large multinational corporations can play one nation’s workers against another’s, and even one state’s against those next door, the power of the average worker to influence the terms of their employment is at a low point. Today, few private sector jobs offer defined benefit pensions, increasing healthcare costs are routinely passed on to employees, and the median wage for middle class workers has basically stagnated for decades, while corporate profits and pay for CEOs have hit stratospheric levels.

Governor Walker’s proposals are extreme. Wisconsin’s public sector workers have agreed to major concessions to help close the state’s budget gap, but he seems intent on destroying the unions. The state’s Senate Democrats—ever since they fled to deny the Republicans a quorum—have been trying to open lines of communication and strike a deal. The Governor has rebuffed their efforts and insists he will not compromise.

But when a man posing as the billionaire David Koch called the Governor’s office, he was able to get Walker on the phone in minutes to discuss union-busting strategy.

This is yet another clear illustration of the difference between Democrats and Republicans. The GOP is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America—especially the giant banks, insurance companies, and the oil, gas and coal companies. Republicans couldn’t care less about the middle and lower classes, as shown most recently by repeated attempts to block unemployment benefits and hold middle class tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich.

Democrats are by no means perfect. They’re too beholden to unions, and too many Democrats take large amounts of corporate contributions and side too quickly with corporate interests. But in the large, a commitment to the lower and middle classes is still a core element of the Democrat platform. Democrats have taken on powerful interests in fighting for the healthcare bill, for the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill, and for environmental legislation (though well short of the degree that it’s needed).

In America today one party stands for corporate power and nothing else; the other party at least in the main stands up for the public good.

It amazes me that tens of millions of Americans apparently don’t recognize this basic fact.

Jason Scorse

Conservative politicians and commentators have been saying for the past two years that a major weakness of the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill was its failure to address the problems caused by the government’s involvement with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The conservatives were right.

The Obama Administration believed that including the issue would have made an already large bill too large, and said they needed more time to come up with a plan. Now the Administration has released its recommendations, and we can appreciate the bind the government finds itself in.

Public anger at the bailouts was largely directed at banks, but those bailouts have largely been repaid and often turned a profit. Meanwhile, the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is approaching $200 billion and will continue to grow. Between them, Fannie and Freddie guarantee 85% of all the mortgages in America; with a backlog of foreclosures and declining home prices, Uncle Sam will be on the hook for billions more.

The obvious solution is to get the government out of the market. The problem is that if Fannie and Freddie are sold off, and the government ends its commitment as the insurer of last resort, the housing market could crash again and lead to another recession. Hence the Administration’s bind: on one hand an unsustainable policy that needs to end, on the other the prospect of even greater economic pain.

The Administration’s plan would come close to eliminating government support of the housing market. But—even in the plans where Fannie and Freddie are eventually privatized—the government would still back certain mortgages, and support would be withdrawn gradually over many years. This makes sense, since the last thing we need now is another recession. It would still be best if the government got out of the housing market entirely within 10 years.

Congress will decide which if any of the Administration’s recommendations become law, and it is unclear how far lawmakers are willing to go to end a half-century of government-guaranteed home mortgages. If they really want to get serious, they could also address one of the “third rails” of American politics, the home mortgage interest deduction: it costs the Treasury billions a year, it’s regressive, and it increases suburban sprawl.

Whatever happens, the era of massive direct government promotion of home ownership is likely to end. This will probably lead to higher mortgage interest rates and, in turn, lower home prices. It’s something to keep in mind for people who look at residential real estate as an investment; the long-term trend for home prices is not favorable and could get worse.

Jason Scorse

Events in Egypt represent a major turning point in Middle Eastern history: the world’s most populous Arab state is in the midst of a grassroots uprising against a three decades-old autocracy. It is particularly fascinating because the Mubarak regime has been a stalwart ally of the United States in its dealing with Israel and the “war on terror”. In addition, the U.S. has long had a tortured relationship with Middle Eastern autocrats—in Iran and Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait and Yemen. This is clearly the beginning of a new chapter in Middle Eastern and Arab history, and it holds the promise of greater freedom, prosperity, and the protection of human rights.

But the inflection point I want to discuss this week is the one occurring in America.

According to new Census data, almost all the growth in the U.S. population is occurring among minority groups. The “browning” of America is accelerating and the proportion of “whites” continues to decline. This simple fact explains most of the political upheaval in the Republican Party over the past two years, including the elevation of rightwing Tea Party extremists to national prominence.

What has occurred since 2008 has been a perfect storm for the regressive forces in America: an economic recession, the election of the first black President, and the mainstreaming of gay rights. The dying days of empires often brought out rage and violence, and these are the characteristics of today’s Republican Party. It represents the last vestiges of an old order that is quickly losing power and status.

Look at virtually any “conservative” political gathering, Tea Party convention or Republican convention, and the most striking fact is how unrepresentative the Republican Party has become. Of course there are individual minority Republicans, and plenty of Republican women, but the modern GOP does not represent a cross-section of America society; increasingly, it is made up of white, fundamentalist Christians. They are caught up in a delusional paranoia brought on by the realization that today’s America, and the America of the future, barely resembles their America.

The GOP has appealed to white racism and the marginalization of minorities for decades; even so, the extent to which the Party has adopted white grievance and eliminationist rhetoric is shocking. Rightwing extremists can win in the South and even occasionally in “blue” states like Wisconsin and Illinois; with almost 10% unemployment, the GOP could have run Donald Duck in many Congressional districts in November and still picked up seats. But there is no way that extreme nativism, and the complete lack of an affirmative agenda, can translate into a winning national strategy. As the economy continues it too-slow but steady rebound, the vacuity of the GOP will only become more apparent.

We will look back 10 or 20 years from now and view this period in American history as a major inflection point: a time when the rise of a more multiracial, multiethnic, and culturally more diverse America finally eclipsed the old, socially conservative white order. The hyperbolic rhetoric of the Tea Party, of demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and the sheer insanity that has infected the Republican Party will be seen in its proper historical context as the final throes of a stilted and reactionary class, being eclipsed by a new America.

Jason Scorse

I have spent the past two weeks lambasting the GOP and calling out Republicans for their extremism, regressivity, and violent rhetoric. Anyone who pays attention to politics and cares about solving America’s major problems (which should include everyone) should be aghast at the turn the Republican Party has taken.

Republicans across the country, from local city councils all the way to the Congress, are promoting extremely damaging policies, ranging from widespread attacks on abortion rights to attacks on science and history curriculum in textbooks, to massive cuts in basic social services for the poor and middle class.

But perhaps even more damaging to the body politic, is the Republican assault on reason. Over the past two years the Republican Party, urged on by its most incoherent and extremist fringe―the Tea Party―and amplified by the rightwing media noise machine has constructed an alternative reality for conservative activists in which up is down and black is white. In this universe once popular conservative ideas are now considered heresy. Essentially, the ruling philosophy of the modern Republican Party is to oppose virtually everything Obama and the Democrats support, regardless of its merit, even if the policy is based on bedrock conservative principles.

This is no way to run a country. America is a two-party democracy, and we need both political parties to be firmly rooted in reality, and share at least the same basic goals for society; e.g. equal opportunity, a robust social safety net, high environmental quality, and strong national security.

And while the debt problems of the U.S. in the short-term are not a serious concern (in fact increasing government debt to stimulate the economy in a severe recession is the exact right policy), our long-term deficit problems are serious. Solving them will require some major changes to Medicare, military spending, and the tax structure, and both parties will have to make tough choices and come to the bargaining table in good faith. That faith doesn’t exist right now, largely because of the intransigence in the GOP, and its insistence on promoting misinformation and lies about the budget realities, as well as opposing common sense cost-control that are already in the new healthcare legislation (which they just voted to repeal).

The country desperately needs the serious and reasonable wing of the Republican Party to make a resurgence and take the Party back from the Tea Party extremists, and the likes of Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity. Many of the policies needed to address climate change come straight from conservative economics, and their best advocates would be Congressional Republicans. The same goes for healthcare; the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea (promoted as an alternative to government-run healthcare), and we need Republicans who recognize why it is crucial for a well-functioning private insurance system; instead we get massive lawsuits peddling the nonsense that the mandate is unconstitutional. On taxes, we are going to need serious Republicans who are willing to support higher taxes for the rich, along with reductions in corporate giveaways, and even some of the “sacred cows” such as the home mortgage interest rate deduction and agricultural and fossil fuel subsidies.

While I am disgusted at the behavior of the modern Republican Party over the past two years, honest conservatives should be the most upset, since their Party and its ideals have been sacrificed in the most cynical way for political power at the expense of principle and the public good. It is ultimately up to them to wrestle back their Party from the extremists and return the Republican Party to its honorable conservative roots.

P.S. Here are links to a talk I gave a few months ago that relates this theme to environmental policy:

http://go.miis.edu/scorse-environment-economics-short
http://go.miis.edu/scorse-environment-economics-long

Jason Scorse

Most of the media long ago stopped practicing real journalism, in which positions, ideas, and policies are critically examined and shown to be either truthful and accurate or false and misleading. Reporters nowadays simply note what people across the political spectrum are saying, as if all viewpoints are equally valid. This phenomenon has worsened over the past decade, and has gotten to the point (as Paul Krugman notes) that journalists will treat someone who claims the Earth is flat as equally deserving of air time as someone who maintains that it’s round.

The Republicans and the rightwing have capitalized on this new dynamic by lying shamelessly and continually, knowing that misinformation will not be challenged and that they stand a good chance of moving opinion in their direction if they simply repeat the lies often enough. If even a tiny fraction of the lies that Republicans spew daily were challenged, and the individuals saying them were publicly shamed, it is likely they would be forced to backtrack.

Following the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, the media is busy wondering whether the violent rhetoric on the right is at all responsible. It is disgraceful that it took an event of this magnitude to get the media to examine more closely the rhetoric that has emanated from the Right ever since Obama was sworn in; it’s also beside the point to try to link the act of a madman to the cacophony of political rhetoric.

The rhetoric from the Right should’ve been denounced long ago, not just for its potential to incite violence but because it was incoherent, clearly false, and antithetical to constructive political discourse. It can harm people in serious ways; policy decisions that directly affect the lives of America’s 300 million people hang in the balance.

It is long past time to acknowledge that Republicans and the Right have gone off the deep end, and that there is no equivalent amount of hatred, bigotry, and misinformation coming from the Left. Yes, there are individual Democrats who lie, say stupid things, and degrade political discourse, but they’re a tiny minority; on the right, the extremists are essentially in charge and setting the agenda.

Obama and the Democrats in Congress are hardly far-left liberals; in fact, not a single policy achievment of the past two years could truly be described as liberal. Obama and the Democrats represent a centrist or at most a center-left Party. Their domestic achievements rest on conservative ideas; in foreign policy, Obama has largely followed and often expanded on the policies of George W. Bush .

Republicans on the other hand have turned against their own ideas (e.g. the individual health insurance mandate, cap and trade), have become more reactionary on social and immigration policy, and even more regressive on fiscal policy. They have tacked so far right in the past two years that the only choice voters now get is between the hard right and the center. This is clear to anyone who pays a modicum of attention to American politics, yet it’s barely acknowledged by the media.

I want to end with a point about the use of strong rhetoric. Another false equivalency is that the use of condemnatory rhetoric is always bad, no matter whom it’s directed against. From my viewpoint, there are times when the words evil, vile, despicable, and fascist fit the circumstance, and are an appropriate response to outrageous statements or acts. I would use those words, for example, to describe Rush Limbaugh, who makes hundreds of millions of dollars doing nothing more, and nothing less, than spewing lies and stirring up hatred.

To sum up, it’s my belief that context and facts matter deeply. Hating people who deliberately inflict pain and suffering on other people, and often profit from it, is rational; hating gays or illegal immigrants isn’t rational. Only when we disentangle ourselves from the false equivalencies that permeate our culture can we have a truly vigorous and reason-based dialogue.

Jason Scorse

The labels we use to describe our political parties and their ideologies have turned into caricatures, devoid of meaningful content. For decades the Right has waged a campaign to tarnish the word “liberal,” linking it with elitism and people who are wishy-washy and out of touch. The term is now extremely unpopular, despite the fact that a majority of Americans support liberal policies such as progressive taxation, strong social safety nets, and environmental regulations.

Ironically, those on the Right who have demonized liberals are the ones actually working for the real elites—the wealthy and the super-wealthy—and their policies do the most to harm the middle and lower classes.

At the same time, the Right has managed to burnish the term “conservative” so that many more Americans now identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal. True conservatives espouse principles which in fact are quite admirable and promote the public good. The problem is that modern-day Republicans by and large support the opposite of conservative principles.

And yet day after day the media refer to Republicans as conservatives, and the more they deviate from true conservatism the more they are identified as conservative. This is a situation where black is white and up is down, not just on Fox News but even on the left-leaning Rachel Maddow Show, where Republicans with views the most divergent from true conservatism are labeled the most conservative.

This mislabeling needs to stop. It confuses the public over what policies our major political parties actually support (as opposed to what they profess to support), and it can lead to bad policy outcomes. Let’s look at some examples of real, and faux, conservatism.

True conservatism recognizes that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves, and that balanced budgets require sufficient revenue. Modern-day Republicans continue to subscribe to the “voodoo economics” that has been discredited by serious economists for decades.

True conservatism promotes individual choice and responsibility. Modern-day Republicans oppose the health insurance mandate and end-of-life counseling, both of which are conservative ideas.

True conservatism believes in free markets with a minimum of distortions caused by government involvement; at the same time, true conservatives recognize the importance of strong regulations. Modern-day Republicans did everything in their power to weaken the financial regulatory bill and shield the largest banks from oversight. (The new GOP Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, recently stated that “Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”)

True conservatism promotes a robust national security policy aimed at maintaining a strong military and reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation. Senate leaders of the Republican Party voted against the new START Treaty, which true conservatives championed, and against repealing DADT, which the military itself strongly backed.

True conservatives understand that trade-offs are necessary to deal with the threats to our environment. Modern-day Republicans favor fossil fuel subsidies and nuclear power subsidies, but oppose making polluters pay for the damage they cause.

True conservatives believe in a rational, scientific approach to public policy. Modern-day Republicans are anti-science, and openly promote scientific ignorance.

And the list goes on.

Instead of calling today’s Republicans “conservatives,” we should be calling them rightwing “radicals” and “extremists.” These are more accurate descriptions of a party that has embraced the worst forms of populism, crony capitalism, and reactionary social ideology. By calling them what they really are, perhaps we can show how out of step the GOP is with mainstream American values—and true conservatism as well.

Jason Scorse

While the rhetoric aimed at President Obama the past two years has been worse than anything aimed at President Bush during his presidency, it’s nevertheless true that both the Left and the Right use hyperbole to tarnish their political opponents. The Right does this with greater frequency and ferocity, and I reject all notion of equivalency, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem on the Left.

At the same time our increasingly vulgar, uninformed, and sensationalist media culture only makes matters worse by rewarding the loudest and most ignorant voices with the most air time. One particularly disturbing trend is allowing individuals to compare politicians and policies they don’t like to Nazis and fascism; demonization along these lines this should automatically disqualify anybody from being taken seriously.

But sometimes strong moral language is needed to describe the actions of politicians, political parties, and specific ideas and ideology. One of my major criticisms of Democrats and progressives is the infrequency with which they frame policy discussions in simple, value-laden terms—right and wrong, good and bad.

Which brings me to the question that headlines this piece: is it hyperbole to describe the modern-day Republican Party as “evil”? Even entertaining the question will strike some as extreme, but I think the facts warrant a close inspection.

First, let me say unequivocally that I in no way think the Republican Party’s moral failings put them on a par with a surfeit of unquestionable evil in the world: the severe oppression that occurs daily in most Arab dictatorships, the genocide in Sudan and the Congo, the crimes against children perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church. But “evil” is not a binary concept; there is a spectrum, and it’s fair to consider whether the goals and actions of the modern GOP put them anywhere on it.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists multiple definitions of evil: morally reprehensible, arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct, causing harm. By these definitions, any serious examination of Republican priorities and actions over the last two years demonstrates that the term “evil” is a fair descriptor.

Let’s begin with GOP opposition to Obama’s healthcare bill (which passed) and energy legislation (which didn’t). In both cases Republicans opposed policies they once supported for no other purpose than to deny Obama and the Democrats a victory; in both cases, they put Party politics over the national interest. The healthcare bill that Obama eventually signed is comprised almost exclusively of Republican ideas that have been around for decades. The same goes for the now-dead cap and trade bill: it was the product of conservative Republican ideology, and was part of the 2008 Republican presidential platform.

Both issues reflect far more than abstract ideas or principles. Healthcare affects all Americans, especially the 42 million who have none; energy legislation to curb climate change may literally determine the quality of life for all future generations. If Republican objections had been based on differing approaches to tackling these issues, that would have been one thing; but they were obstructing for obstruction’s sake, and nothing more. With so much at stake, this type of opposition to score political points can reasonably be described as evil.

On the issues that defined the lame duck session of Congress, Republicans did no better. They blocked a vote on the once-bipartisan DREAM Act, denying tens of thousands of innocent children and young adults the opportunity to get a college education or serve in the military. Almost all Republicans voted against the repeal of DADT (and the GOP even tried to insert a reversal of the repeal into the defense authorization bill, three days after DADT was repealed in the Senate). The GOP also blocked a bill to pay medical expenses for 9/11 first responders, backing down only after being shamed for days by the media, including Fox News’s Shep Smith. Republicans called the $7.6 billion price tag too high—even though it was entirely paid for by closing corporate tax loopholes, and Republicans just days before had added more than 100 times this amount to the deficit by continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

That, of course, was the one thing Republicans remained committed to at every step: keeping tax breaks for the rich, the richer, and the richest, up to and including the estates of billionaires. In order to help the already wealthy, the GOP stood ready to hold up tax breaks for the middle class and unemployment benefits for millions of Americans who lost their jobs, and often their homes, through no fault of their own.

These documented and continuing stances of the GOP put the interests of the privileged and the powerful above all else, and showed little to no empathy for anybody else—not for the gays being discriminated against, not for the illegal aliens living in the shadows, not for those down and out because of the excesses of others. If these actions can’t be considered “evil,” we need a new definition.

The modern-day GOP has earned the label. Until Republicans change their ways, this is how their actions should be described.

Jason Scorse

In an era of amazing political moments, last week ranks high on my list of most fascinating. For decades, the Republican Party has been a front group for corporate special interests and the rich, with bones thrown now and then to religious extremists. Basically, from the 1980s on, nothing has been more sacred to the GOP than tax cuts for the rich.

In many ways, 9/11 allowed Republicans to hide their anti-regulatory agenda and their efforts to redistribute wealth upward behind anti-terrorism and national security issues. When these moved to the front of the political landscape, their relentless efforts for the rich received far less scrutiny than they otherwise would have.

But with the economy in the doldrums for more than two years, and foreign policy issues fading, bread and butter issues are front and center once again. And the brazen class warfare that the GOP displayed this week was a sight to behold; I recall nothing like it in my adult life.

The Republican Party literally held unemployment insurance for millions of Americans and middle class tax cuts that benefit all Americans hostage to tax cuts that benefit only the richest of the rich. For all their talk of deficit reduction, they didn’t even pretend to care how the tax cuts will be paid for; such talk was only a charade for the election season.

And they didn’t stop there: Republicans also struck down a deal to pay compensation for 9/11 workers suffering from medical issues related to the cleanup (and had the nerve to blame the $7.6 billion price tag, when the tax cuts for the top 2% will cost 100 times as much); they delayed a vote on the DREAM Act that would allow illegals under a certain age to obtain citizenship after 10 years if they go to college or serve in the military; and they blocked a vote to repeal DADT, even though virtually all the top military commanders practically begged Congress to end the policy.

Even I, who hold the modern Republican Party in contempt, was shocked at this display of callousness, disregard for the public good, disregard for civil rights, and lack of any sense of fiscal responsibility. The GOP made crystal clear to the American people whose side they’re on, and we have their votes to prove it.

And yet this is the party that was rewarded with increased political power only weeks ago. It shows no sign of tempering its extremist goals, or refraining from holding most Americans hostage to the desires of the party’s ultra-wealthy corporate sponsors. The question that matters most is how long they’ll be able to get away with it.

My hunch is that they’re already over-playing their hand. As soon as the economy picks up, people will turn on the Republicans with a vengeance. Voters can be incredibly ignorant and misinformed, driven by emotions more than reason, and prone to irrational outbursts motivated by fear, but at the end of the day I think their better judgment ultimately prevails.

The GOP today lacks any sense of civic duty or seriousness. It can win when people vote their frustrations, but not when they vote their hopes.

Jason Scorse

Liberals, progressives, and other supporters of President Obama have been disappointed for quite a while. The Administration diluted the original stimulus package, failed to get a public option in the healthcare bill, failed to get any significant energy legislation passed, never pushed for immigration reform, and has yet to repeal DADT or close Guantanamo.

It’s true that some of these failures are as much the fault of Congress, especially the Republicans in Congress, as they are of Obama. That said, what has irked many of his supporters is Obama’s seeming inability to take strong principled stands and use the power of the presidency to demand better policy. Progressives believe that stronger leadership from the White House could force Congress’s hand, even if only incrementally.

The Left yearns for Obama to frame the issues in terms that resonate with the American people; sadly, this yearning has gone unfulfilled. To me, this is one of the great mysteries of the Obama presidency. I expected him to more forcefully argue for a new paradigm of governance, a new compact between the people and the state, and the roles and responsibilities of each. He has touched on these themes but never woven them together into a narrative that can help rebrand the Democratic Party. It seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Nonetheless, it is worth reminding ourselves that Obama’s legislative victories are almost unparalleled in modern American history. The healthcare bill, financial regulatory reform, the stimulus bill, and student loan reform all represent achievements that place Obama among the most influential presidents since WW II. Just in the last few days, a new Food Safety and Child Nutrition bill were added to the list.

However, it is also fair to measure Obama against the potential he seemed to have when he first took office. Could he have achieved more if he had taken a stronger stand on key issues? We will never know for sure, but we will soon find out if Obama is willing to take a strong stand on what could ultimately prove a decisive issue regarding his reelection prospects.

The public and the Democratic Party are strongly behind Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for those with incomes under $250,000 and let them expire for the richest 2%. The way the Administration and the Democratic leadership have mismanaged this issue all along—from messaging, to timing, to negotiating—has been abysmal, perhaps the worst example of Democratic spinelessness I have ever witnessed. But the ball remains in Obama’s and the Democrats’ hands. If they cave without exacting concessions, such as new infrastructure spending and extended unemployment benefits, it would represent a colossal failure. Tax cuts for the wealthiest will do almost nothing to stimulate the economy, will contribute enormously to the federal deficit, and will hand the Republicans a victory that will only embolden them to continue to destroy the Obama Presidency.

Until now I have always given Obama the benefit of the doubt. I assume he is smarter than I am, and many steps ahead politically. But if he loses this tax cut battle with little or nothing to show for it, I am afraid I will have to reconsider.

Again, a qualifier is in order. At the end of the day, I don’t care about Obama’s style of governance or how he’s perceived; all I care about is what he accomplishes. In the coming weeks DADT could be repealed, the START treaty ratified, the DREAM Act passed (at least a version), and a reasonable deal made on tax cuts (trading more stimulus for a temporary extension for all incomes).

It’s extremely foolish to underestimate Obama (just ask Hillary Clinton). He still has time to display strong leadership and make a midcourse correction that his supporters can respect. I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt one more time.

Jason Scorse

A huge battle is shaping up in Congress over extending the Bush tax cuts, with Obama wanting to extend only the middle class cuts and Republicans wanting to extend all of them, including those for persons making over $250,000 in taxable income (which would add $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years, negating any claim that the GOP is serious about the deficit).

Obama should call the GOP’s bluff and agree to an extension of all the tax cuts permanently—but with a catch.

The president should propose new and higher marginal rates on incomes over $1 million, $5 million, $10 million, and $100 million, with the highest rate at 49% (so that the federal government never gets more than half). In addition, all stock options should be counted as income so that hedge fund managers don’t get to pay low capital gains rates on their compensation. Not only would this be a political winner—wide majorities believe the ultra rich should pay higher taxes, even Republicans—but it is likely (I haven’t done the math yet) that the additional tax revenue would more than offset the revenue lost by extending all the Bush cuts.

Making a bold move like this would put Republicans between a rock and a hard place. Obama would be giving them what they want—permanent extension of all the Bush cuts—but only in exchange for new marginal rates that make a ton of sense: it’s insane that a billionaire pays the same marginal rate as someone making a few hundred thousand. If the Republicans refused, Obama could go back to his original proposal, point out that he offered a reasonable compromise (one that would’ve reduced the deficit and improved the tax structure), and that Republicans killed the deal. I see no downside to this whatsoever.

On healthcare, calling the Republicans’ bluff will be a little trickier and take time, but it could turn out to be just as effective. Republicans lied egregiously about the actual contents of the healthcare legislation—with their talk about “death panels”, socialism, and a government takeover—but most of the specific provisions are popular with the public (e.g., allowing for pre-existing conditions, banning rescissions, eliminating lifetime caps, preventative care without co-pays, and allowing children up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ policies). The individual mandate is the most controversial part of the bill, but it’s the glue that keeps everything together: without it, there is no way the private insurance companies will be able to afford the additional regulations mandating and expanding coverage.

Republicans will never be able to revoke the popular provisions of the bill—and if they truly threaten the individual mandate, the insurance companies will be up in arms. So again, call their bluff: dare them to remove the individual mandate, and come up with the money to pay for the additional services that Americans want and have now been promised. The Republicans will fold. The only alternative is a public option, or true socialized medicine. (Keep in mind that Obamacare relies almost exclusively on private insurance. This was once a Republican idea, put into effect in Massachusetts under then-governor Mitt Romney and proposed in the Senate under former GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole.)

Governing is far more difficult than campaigning, especially when your base consists largely of people looking to vent their frustrations instead of thinking about how to solve problems. Now that the GOP has to actually govern, it’s time to expose their inconsistencies and contradictions and move forward with a serious progressive agenda. For Obama and the Democratic leadership, the only thing standing in the way is timidity.

Jason Scorse

The 2010 midterms have come and gone. Democrats did a little worse in the House than expected, a little better in the Senate. Importantly, we now have clear evidence of the damage that the Tea Party is doing to the Republican Party: the GOP lost sure Senate wins in DE, NV, and CO because of extremist Tea Party candidates, and had to invest significantly more in other races (e.g., KY) that should have been less costly pick-ups. In fact, a reasonable case can be made that the Tea Party cost the GOP control of the Senate. Tea Partiers may have helped pick up a few extra House seats, but these were more than offset by the Senate setbacks.

Voters in Wisconsin and Florida made egregiously bad choices in their Senate and governor’s races respectively. In Wisconsin, progressive champion Russ Feingold lost to Republican Ron Johnson, an extremist climate-change denier who is clearly a nut job. By exercising profoundly poor judgment and elevating a person of dubious moral and intellectual caliber to the U.S. Senate, the people of Wisconsin have demonstrated that they are not serious.

In Florida the voters elected Republican Rick Scott as governor. Scott’s signature achievement as chief executive of Columbia/HCA, the largest for-profit healthcare provider in America, was to defraud the government out of billions in Medicare claims. He was forced to resign in disgrace, and Columbia/HCA had to pay the biggest settlement in Medicare fraud history. It’s hard to fathom how any group of people, let alone the voters in one of our most populous states, could elect a crook of this magnitude to statewide office. But elect him they did, and Florida too wins a prize for horrible electoral judgment.

There are many ways to punish bad actors. Just as I will never visit Arizona as long as it maintains its draconian anti-immigration policies, I will never visit WI or FL and contribute to their tax base and tourism industries.

I would like to make a distinction between simply opposing Republican candidates and opposing extremists. Florida also elected Marco Rubio to the Senate. I disagree with Rubio on probably 80% of his policy views, but he is articulate, reasonably intelligent, and not prone to demagoguery. I dislike Rubio and would never vote for him, but he’s a Republican who’s at least amenable to reason; he’s also a very good orator, and my pick for the 2016 GOP nomination for president. He’s poles away from people like Johnson and Scott; both are frauds who damage the body politic and don’t deserve the high offices they’ll soon hold.

All in all I am surprisingly happy with the midterm results. California went straight Democratic and defeated the anti-climate change forces; the most extreme Tea Party candidates lost and the Tea Party will continue to harm the GOP; the House turning Republican will force the GOP to actually attempt to govern, making clear to the public that the party has nothing but bad ideas that don’t add up.

Now if only the economy can continue to improve, we can count on an Obama victory in 2012 and an upswing for Democrats overall.

Jason Scorse

Democracy’s greatest strength is that it turns what were once contests of arms into contests of ideas. Political contests are often aggressive, confrontational, and generate extreme rhetoric, but they are rarely violent; this is one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

But while politics channels otherwise violent forces, it is important to realize that politics still represents a war of ideas—of conflicting ideologies, and often incompatible worldviews.

We cannot both cut taxes for the ultra-wealthy and provide reasonable standards of social services for the poor and the middle class; we cannot both respect a woman’s control over her own body and the dictates of religious fundamentalists; we cannot both believe in equality and deny gay people the right to marry. Although politics is often the “art of compromise,” public policy often requires choices that need to be made in which one side wins and the other loses.

I feel strongly that the extremist ideology of the far right in America is poisonous and a threat to the long-term viability of America as a great power; further, that it results in extreme suffering for large portions of the population. The far left also espouses some terrible ideas, but it has virtually no power and is relegated to fringe status; the far right, however, is ascendant within one of our two major parties. The Democrats are by and large centrist, while the Republicans have morphed into something radical that pays little if any attention to true conservative principles.

It is my goal to defeat the far right; I don’t want to compromise with them, to lend credibility to their ideas, but to bury their delusional worldview in the dustbin of history. There are times when a political party goes so far off the deep end that it loses its intellectual and moral legitimacy; such is the case today with the Republican Party and its extremist enablers.

The war of ideas that I and others want to engage in seeks to discredit the far right on social policy, on tax policy, on the role of religion in society, and, perhaps most importantly, on the proper role of the government in the regulation of business. We have just witnessed the immense damage that lax regulation has wrought on our society: putting us on the brink of a second Great Depression, dropping us behind in the crucial technologies of the 21st century, and creating the greatest income inequality in America in generations.

As in most wars, battles will be won and lost, and one must take a long-term view. On Tuesday, it is likely that a battle will be lost and some of the most extremist candidates ever to run for national office will be elected. But this should only make those dedicated to reason and rational public policy more determined than ever not to give up. The ultimate goal is to make sure that 10, 20, 30 years from now there will be no more talk about how tax cuts for the rich pay for themselves, why gays should not have the same rights as everyone else, and why healthcare is best left to the whims of the free market.

We will ultimately win this struggle, but victory will come sooner if we realize that it is a war of ideas that we are engaged in. It’s a war that requires plenty of fortitude, mental toughness, and the will to win.

P.S. My new book, What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics, is my contribution to the war of ideas on the environmental front. It is now available from Amazon.

Jason Scorse

With a little over a week until the midterms, the only thing we can be sure of is that the Democrats are going to be net losers by a pretty big margin. It’s still possible, though unlikely, that the Democrats will retain control of the House, and almost certain that they will retain a reasonably comfortable majority in the Senate (53+). Since so much of this election depends on turnout—always hard to predict—we simply have to wait and see.

For progressives (and anyone else who cares about the public interest), election 2010 will likely put in office a crop of extremist rightwing candidates whose views range from bizarre to downright oppressive. However, not all is grim.

Here are some things to consider:

1. A good portion of the expected Democratic losses will come from the so-called “Blue Dogs” who rode the waves of 2006 and 2008 in districts that traditionally lean Republican. While these representatives are friendlier to progressive causes than their Republican counterparts, they have aided the GOP by helping block key aspects of the liberal agenda, e.g., a public option in the healthcare bill. With most of them gone, it will be easier for the Democratic caucus to maintain a unified progressive stance. This could help going into the election of 2012, and also over the next two years.

2. Many Tea Party candidates will be defeated, delivering a blow to the know-nothings in the Republican Party. It is possible that the Republicans will lose as many as 5 Senate seats that they could’ve easily won with reasonable center-right candidates. These losses will likely accelerate the intra-party warfare within the GOP. The adults know that the Palins, O’Donnells, and Angles are toxic to the Party’s long-term viability, but they don’t know how to stop them. When their candidacies result in losses, the adult voices are going to speak out. We’re going to get a preview of the 2012 Republican presidential nomination fight, and it won’t be pretty.

3. It is obvious that the extremists among the Republican candidates will never be able to deliver. Their actual positions are unpopular; the reasons they’re going to win seats are a weak economy and widespread anger over forces beyond people’s control. If they win the House, however, Republicans will have to govern—and it will quickly become clear that they have no real plan for job creation, deficit reduction, immigration reform, energy policy, or practically anything else. Any attempt to repeal healthcare reform will not only face an Obama veto; many of the bill’s provisions are very popular (when people cite the unpopularity of the bill overall, they forget that half of those who don’t like wish it were more progressive). The bottom line is that Republican policies and ideas are more unpopular now than they were a few years ago, and the GOP will soon find itself caught between a rock and a hard place: placate the base and alienate 70% of the public, or move to the center and face the ire of the Limbaugh-Tea Party crowd.

So not all is grim, even if the Democrats lose control of the House.

Politics is a strange game. I wish those who are ignorant and reactionary didn’t have so much sway in our system, but I am still all but certain that progressive policies and ideas will ultimately win. In 20 years we will have a solid universal healthcare system, gays will be able to marry, our immigration system will be much more humane, and we will have ushered in a green tech revolution.

Reactionary forces always stall progress and increase suffering along the way, but they also always lose in America, and this time won’t be any different. We have to be in it for the long haul.

Jason Scorse

Religious extremists in the U.S. are at least partly responsible for the homophobia and misogyny that still dominate our culture. The vitriol spouted in weekly sermons across the country leads to real harm, including violent attacks on homosexuals and the high gay suicide rate. But many other forces contribute, and the harm is hard to quantify.

But in one area the link between the religious right and societal harm will ultimately become much clearer: therapies resulting from embryonic stem-cell research. During the Bush Administration, at the behest of religious extremists, federal funding for stem-cell research was limited to existing lines—essentially a ban on federal funding. One of the first things Obama did when he took office was to lift the ban. Despite legal challenges, funding is again flowing into this promising area.

Just last week, a trial began in which embryonic stem cells will be injected into the spinal cord of a partially paralyzed man to try to cure his paralysis. This treatment, and many others like it, may not work. But it is almost certain that embryonic stem cells will ultimately lead to effective treatments for some of the most debilitating medical conditions. It will then be possible to roughly calculate how much misery and suffering resulted from the eight-year ban on federal funding; we’ll be able to approximate how many people, for how many years, went without treatment because religious extremists had brought research to a halt. Blocking stem-cell research is hardly equivalent to shooting abortion doctors, but it imposes real costs on real people.

It’s also worth reminding ourselves how morally bankrupt the case is for opposing stem-cell research. An embryo with no consciousness or identity, which is going to be destroyed anyway, is placed off limits to scientists. At the same time, researchers can inflict horrific pain and suffering on sentient animals. You don’t have to believe that animals are in any way morally equivalent to humans to realize that torturing them is worse than destroying microscopic embryos.

In addition, the religious extremists who oppose stem-cell research are hypocrites. Robert Edwards just won the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on in vitro fertilization, which allows infertile couples to have babies. His medical breakthroughs produce millions of embryos, unused and ultimately discarded, that are sought for stem-cell research. Nobody on the religious right pickets fertility clinics or expresses moral outrage at producing extra embryos so that couples can have their own children. The religious right opposes stem-cell research that may one day ease human suffering, but not the destruction of embryos to produce more humans. This is morally inconsistent.

But moral consistency has never been a hallmark of religion.

I look forward to the day when breakthroughs from embryonic stem-cell research help ease some of the worst human diseases and injuries. In addition to celebrating the benefits to humanity, it’ll make it easier to clearly see how much harm has been caused in the meantime, and represent one more case against religion.

P.S. If you have any topics you would like covered in VoR send me an email at: voicesofreasonblog@gmail.com.

Jason Scorse

The mosque controversy in Lower Manhattan has died down, and a fringe preacher is no longer threatening to burn the Koran; in this calm atmosphere, it’s worthwhile remembering that in a liberal democracy there is no right not to be offended. We can be miffed by all sorts of behavior, but in free societies our annoyance is never a reason to restrict someone else’s freedom—even to do something as stupid as burning religious books.

Of course, if an individual’s actions could cause bodily harm or impose significant hardships on others, then the State has a right to restrict that behavior. But offensive art, book burning, flag burning, and all sorts of offensive media materials are almost always Constitutionally protected. Why? Because no matter how disagreeable, they can be ignored.

When the radical pastor in Florida planned to burn the Koran there was a huge outcry because of the impact this might have on Muslim perceptions of America, which could lead to increased violence against U.S. troops and citizens. Everyone from the President to General Petraeus spoke out against it. I understood their argument, but thought it was a poor one.

A free society permits a person to do stupid and offensive things; if a pastor wants to waste his money burning books, that’s his business. And the argument should’ve continued: for Muslims around the world, this insulting act should be met with peaceful protest as evidence that the Muslim faith is consistent with liberty.

But of course this didn’t happen. The simple threat of Koran-burning led to violent and fatal protests in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. Killing people because someone insulted you is a wildly disproportionate response; you prove your maturity, and show confidence in your beliefs, by taking a higher road.

Instead, in many European countries and even in the United Nations, attempts are underway to make it illegal to insult religions. This is insane. If anything, we should be challenging the special treatment of religions in society, not sacrificing core liberal values.

I vehemently believe the world will be a much better place when religious influence decreases; at the same time, I vehemently respect the right of every person to believe whatever they want. Just as I would fight to my last breath to prevent religions from imposing their values on the rest of society, I will always fight for the freedom of religion—because that compact is part of the basis of American society.

I think most religious people have thick enough skins and a strong enough commitment to liberty to accept that insults to their faith are part of the bargain. Those who don’t should not be appeased.

It’s a very slippery slope once exceptions are made to honor the delicate sensibilities of religious extremists.

Jason Scorse

The GOP “Pledge to America” is a joke; it greatly increases the national deficit and includes no new ideas whatever. Strikingly, however, it calls for the repeal of healthcare reform and its replacement with a Republican version. The Pledge is vague on what the Republican bill would include, but the GOP has conceded there is no way we can go back to the old status quo.

The American healthcare system is the worst among developed countries in terms of what we get for our money, the levels of coverage, and the injustices that befall families who are denied treatment or can’t get coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Providing universal coverage is difficult, but many countries have managed to do it for decades.

Universal systems fall into one of two basic types: public systems run by the government in which doctors are paid salaries instead of per-service fees, with the government deciding what treatments patients receive (or they can pay for additional services out of their own pockets); or tightly-regulated systems of private insurance. The UK falls into the first category while Switzerland has the latter.

Obama’s healthcare policy resembles the Swiss model. As yet, America has no public option and doctors are paid by individuals and insurance companies, not the government. Republicans are so opposed to government-run healthcare, like the UK’s, that the public option was never on the table (though progressives strongly favor this approach).

What Obama and the Democrats passed is actually what many Republicans proposed in the past, including Bob Dole and later Mitt Romney, who instituted a very similar program in Massachusetts. But then Republicans put themselves in a bind: instead of building off these centrist and reasonable plans, they took an ideological position opposed to anything the Democrats proposed. In addition, they stoked the fears of their extremist base with cries of socialism and death panels. As a result they’re can’t even support policies they once championed, such as the individual mandate.

But if private insurance is going to be the delivery mechanism, insurance companies will have to be so tightly regulated that they become almost non-profits, which is the case in Switzerland. Without tight regulation, private insurers will simply choose to insure the healthy and refuse insurance to the sick; this is what maximizes profits, which is what private businesses do. Without tight regulation, there is no way to deal with preexisting conditions, mandatory preventative care, and other thorny issues.

Americans love many provisions of the bill Democrats passed, e.g., the fact they can’t be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions and have lifetime caps. Republicans are trying to tell people they can have it both ways—all the benefits of Obamacare, without any government involvement. This is simply impossible: Republicans will ultimately have to choose between the popular provisions of the bill or government regulation.

Democrats were right to vote for the healthcare bill, as imperfect as it is; once the train leaves the station it doesn’t go back. We’re headed for universal healthcare in America, and only the Democratic Party can deliver it. That Party will win the healthcare battle, even if there are minor setbacks along the way.

Jason Scorse

It’s amazing how quickly things change: three of my four predictions last week proved wrong.

DADT repeal and the Dream Act, both of which I thought would pass, were thwarted in the Senate by the GOP’s unprecedented threat to filibuster a defense authorization bill. The Democratic leadership clearly miscalculated by trying to bring the bill to the floor without having the votes.

On the middle class tax cuts, Democrats completely dropped the ball by refusing to hold votes before the election. This is the spineless Democratic behavior that drives the base crazy, and it comes just when they need inspiration. To hold two separate votes on tax cuts—one for the middle class and the other for the wealthy—was a no-brainer. The public vastly favors extending only the middle class cuts (even Republicans by a 2:1 margin), and it’s been a signature issue for Obama.

It’s a shame that the Democratic leadership let such a golden opportunity slip by; nothing would have clarified the differences between the parties more sharply, and it’s exactly what the Democrats should have done going into the election.

This week also witnessed the rollout of the GOP’s “Pledge for America”, which turned out to be little more than industry wish lists, patriotic slogans, and regressive social values. It was trashed by so many Republicans that I had to wonder why they even bothered to release it. Given widespread discontent with the economy, Republicans are poised to make huge gains if only the public doesn’t think too hard about what the GOP actually stands for. Why remind them when you don’t have to?

Instead, “The Pledge” gives Democrats another chance to make the election not simply a referendum on the economy but a choice between competing visions. The Democrats, for all their imperfections, have demonstrated over the past two years that they stand for the public interest and social progress. Over the same time, Republicans have essentially turned into lobbyists for the corporations that fund their campaigns and give them lucrative jobs when they retire from public life; they’ll do anything to subvert the public good—opposing healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, environmental protection, even food safety. Besides their regressive economic policy they’re regressive socially, openly hostile to women’s rights, gays, and immigrants.

If elections were decided on the merits of party policies, we’d be looking at another Democratic victory. Yet here we are five weeks before the election, and a major Republican victory is highly probable

But it is not a given. There is still time to contain the damage, if only the base, all progressives and all Democrats bury the hatchet and work together. To this end, I urge everyone to read the Matt Yglesias article on how high the stakes are. Major provisions of the healthcare law are just going into effect, improving hundreds of thousands of lives, and these are the things Republicans want to repeal. Stop complaining and get in gear, Yglesias says; staying home will set back progress for years to come.

I couldn’t agree more. Those dedicated to reason and social progress cannot sit this one out.

Jason Scorse

With six weeks to go before the midterm elections, the key to avoiding a major defeat for Obama and the Democrats is to rally their base. High unemployment and a weak economy are the main reasons they’re in such bad shape; these macroeconomic factors largely determine electoral outcomes, despite all the theories put forth by pundits about particular policies or personalities. The additional element hurting Democrats this cycle is low enthusiasm among supporters, not the popularity of Republicans. If Obama and the Democrats can fire up a sizeable portion of the coalition that swept them to victory in 2008, they may be able to hold the Congress.

So what do Obama and the Democrats have planned?

1. The appointment of Elizabeth Warren to lead the Consumer Protection Agency

This position was announced Friday; while Warren’s position is ambiguous, she’s basically in charge and avoids a long and contentious confirmation battle. Warren is a progressive champion, and will likely be all over the airwaves in the coming weeks touting the new agency and its regulatory benefits for consumers. The regulations she’ll be overseeing are extremely popular, and the Republicans voted against them.

2. Repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

As early as next Tuesday, the Democrats will bring to a vote the new defense authorization bill that includes an amendment repealing DADT. Republicans will have to decide whether to filibuster; if they do, their anti-gay bigotry will be holding up needed resources for the armed services. I predict that the DADT repeal will pass, handing a major progressive victory to Obama—one that activists have been waiting for since his election.

3. The DREAM Act

Another amendment to the defense bill, the DREAM Act will give college-age children of illegal immigrants, who are also illegal, the right to apply for citizenship if they attend college or serve in the armed forces. This has been a huge goal of immigrant rights supporters, and will provide a tangible victory to help make up for the failure of comprehensive immigration reform. I predict that this will pass as well, with the military in favor because it increases the pool of potential volunteers.

4. Tax cuts for the middle class

This is like a softball down the middle of the plate. Americans are heavily in favor of ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and keeping them for the middle class (remember, the wealthy also keep the cuts on the first $250,000 of income). Extending the middle class cuts and letting the high-end breaks expire has been one of Obama’s central promises; getting it enacted would restore some progressivity to the tax code and help the struggling middle class. The Republicans are complete hypocrites on the issue; it’s impossible to oppose increasing the deficit and simultaneously favor tax breaks for the rich, especially when the economic stimulus they provide is minimal. The GOP complains about spending for unemployment benefits and children’s healthcare, and then wants $700 billion for the ultra-rich? That’s a political gift that cries out to be exploited, and the Democrats have from now until Election Day.

All of the above are in addition to what has been two years of major legislative victories (for a good summary click here). Obama has not delivered on all of his promises and there is reason for both criticism and disappointment, but this has been the most progressive administration in 60 years. Any Democratic supporters who choose to sit it out on Nov. 2 are simply not thinking straight.

Jason Scorse

I don’t subscribe to the “things have to get worse before they get better” theory, but I’m starting to think it could happen this time around. But before I explain why a GOP wave in November might turn into a silver lining, let me first say that I think it’s premature to call the elections for Republicans.

The midterm season doesn’t really start until after Labor Day, and polls can swing hugely between now and Nov. 2. And while many Democrats are disillusioned (for a number of reasons, some sensible and some not), I can’t imagine that many will end up not voting given how much is at stake. Three words—“Speaker John Boehner”— should be enough to get even unhappy Democrats to the polls. And while the youth turnout might not be as high as in 2008, the Administration’s student loan reform provides a strong reason to vote. Loans are cheaper and grants bigger than ever before, all because of Obama’s efforts.

I also think the Republicans peaked too early, leaving a significant window of opportunity for Obama and the Democrats to drive the narrative leading up to the election. Obama is likely to appoint Elizabeth Warren, a liberal favorite, to head the new Consumer Protection Agency; it appears that the small business tax credit bill will pass (thanks to the defection of Ohio’s Republican Senator); Obama wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class and end them for the rich (a very popular position); and the controversy over the mosque near Ground Zero has given the president another opportunity to promote America’s best ideals in the face of rightwing fear-mongering.

But let us assume that the worst comes to pass: Republicans take control of the House and gain several seats in the Senate. Many Tea Party candidates will have won, and rightwing extremism will have been rewarded.

Governing, though, is a lot harder than stoking anger and taking extreme positions; the fact remains that the far right’s policies are deeply unpopular.

If Republicans try to repeal healthcare reform, or privatize Social Security, or extend tax cuts for the rich, Americans will quickly get buyer’s remorse. Republicans might also shut down the government, which would also be extremely unpopular. Lastly, of course, Obama holds the veto power over whatever might get to his desk. So if the Republicans do take control, it’s my prediction that it will virtually guarantee his reelection in 2012; voters will clearly see the GOP agenda, reject it, and hand Obama four more years.

America has major problems that need to be addressed—climate change, immigration, tax reform, and the long-term deficit. These require serious people making difficult choices, and today’s Republican Party is incapable of taking part. If government in Washington must grind to a standstill and extremist Republicans such as Joe Miller, Rand Paul, and Sharron Angle given a platform to espouse their lunacy in order to make finally people realize that the GOP is nothing more than a front group for corporate interests, then so be it.

If Democrats do manage to hold onto the House and the Senate, but with smaller majorities, the caucus that remains will likely be more progressive. It will embolden Democrats if they manage to hang on, encouraging them to fight harder and with a more unified voice for their legislative priorities—even if they’re ultimately thwarted by the obstructionist GOP.

So whatever happens in November, I’m still optimistic. The question is how much needless suffering we have to endure before our political system is again populated with rational actors committed to the public good.

Jason Scorse

Most political analysts predict that the Republicans will make huge gains in November, likely taking over the House and gaining several seats in the Senate. Voters are angry over the economy and disenchanted with the Obama Administration. While there is some justification for this malaise, rewarding the GOP come November is insane; no rational reading of America’s problems would dictate that the solution is more Republican control.

For all of the shortcomings of the Democrats and Obama*, the Republicans have been in lock-step opposition to every sensible policy for the past 20 months; they fought against healthcare reform and the stimulus package, sided with the banks against financial regulation and student loan reform, blocked climate change and energy legislation, and even opposed extending unemployment benefits.

By any objective measure, if the Republicans had had their way the economy would be in much worse shape, perhaps rivaling the Great Depression. And what are the current Republican priorities? They say they’re against budget deficits, but they want to extend the Bush tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy and repeal healthcare reform—even though the Congressional Budget Office says many of its measures will help control future costs.

Past Democratic supporters who threaten to stay home and wage “protest votes” are simply not thinking straight. If they believe things are bad now, wait till the Republicans take power. There’ll be endless Congressional investigations, a shredding of safety nets, and likely a government shutdown.

The problems we face require long-term planning and sacrifice on all our parts. It’s no help at all, and in fact invites a further crisis, if our impatience leads us to simply “throw the bums out.”

The main thing in the Democrats’ favor is that many Tea Party extremists have won Republican primaries, giving the Democrats opportunities they would not have had if reasonable Republicans had won. GOP Senate candidates Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, Ken Buck, and Joe Miller are true radicals, with views ranging from the bizarre (Buck: our education system was much better in the 1950s) to the outright oppressive (women who are raped should be forced to have babies—all four).

Democrats also have a cash advantage going into the elections, and it’s hardly too late for those who are disillusioned to wake up and realize that not voting would be a colossal mistake.

*I think many on the left have been right to criticize Obama for compromising too much and not fighting hard enough for progressive ideals. He and other Democrats failed spectacularly on energy and climate change legislation. Not bringing immigration reform up for a vote has demoralized many Latinos, and hurt his popularity with this rising constituency. In addition, Obama’s fetish for bipartisanship has worked to blur the ideological lines that separate the parties: on the issues that matter most, the country sides overwhelmingly with Democratic policies.

P.S. Eugene Robinson goes even further than me; in a column last week, he said Americans were acting like “spoiled brats.” He’s right.

Jason Scorse

Following up on last week’s post (about the need for the media to focus on issues and policy first, and political implications second), it occurred to me that one of the reasons this is unlikely to happen is because most journalists do not understand public policy very well. The reality is that policy is complicated and requires some level of training and/or experience to understand, and most journalists lack these qualifications.

I don’t have statistics, but a cursory examination of op-ed writers and journalists in the major newspapers indicates a dearth of individuals with degrees in economics or public policy. This is not to say that those without such degrees are by definition unqualified; nonetheless, the amount of misinformation, mistakes, and poor reasoning exhibited routinely in the traditional media severely undermines the accuracy of the reporting (Dean Baker’s “Beat the Press” blog is a great source that identifies the many errors commonly made in the traditional media about the most important domestic issues).

In addition to loads of misinformation, much reporting and commentary exhibits a profound ignorance of the power and interest group dynamics that lurk behind the daily pronouncements on policy and economic matters coming from various quarters. For instance, a common meme floating around lately claims that the reason new hires are slow is because businesses are concerned about regulatory uncertainty and tax increases; this has been promoted mainly by conservative economists and the Chamber of Commerce. Few reporters ever note that businesses want nothing more than less regulation and lower taxes, and that it is in their interest to try to convince policymakers and the public that this is what is needed to get greater economic growth (regardless of whether it’s true).

Similarly, many media personalities lack the knowledge to challenge politicians on TV when they make outrageous claims about tax cuts leading to increases in government revenue, or that the stimulus bill didn’t create jobs. In a media culture where image and personality are valued over knowledge, we are left with news outlets unequipped to challenge propaganda and spin.

There are of course notable exceptions, such as Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times (and has to spend much of his time debunking pieces by other, uninformed Times writers, e.g., David Brooks), but these are few and far between.

Of course writing and reporting skills and crucial, but the media discourse would improve markedly if more people who had studied policy held top jobs, especially those who could explain complex issues in ways that ordinary citizens could comprehend. It’s too much to ask average Americans to understand the details of the tax code or health insurance economics, but not too much to ask those charged with informing the public to actually have the requisite training to do so.

This is another instance where the anti-intellectual and anti-elitist mindset in America is harming the country; experts should be sought out, not ignored, especially when it comes to the news.

Jason Scorse

The Shirley Sherrod case (in which a video was edited to make a USDA official appear racist, when she was not) is yet another episode of media chicanery and incompetence; for the better part of a week it distracted the country from policy debates that really matter. The rightwing hacks and enablers who routinely perpetrate these frauds got exactly what they wanted: the more time the country spends on sideshows, the less attention is paid to the real issues.

There’s a fair amount of introspection going on about what brought the media to the point where hatchet jobs from disreputable sources can hijack the news cycle (the Obama Administration itself fell victim, in a disgraceful way). Even many of the media’s most vocal defenders (e.g., Mark Halperin) admit that something is terribly wrong.

And there is.

But I doubt whether the media will learn the most important lesson. What ails them most is not that they fall victim now and them to a con artist; what ails them is the political paradigm through which they view virtually everything. The real trouble is that all news stories are instantly treated as Democrats v. Republicans and left v. right, always with a nod to where “centrists”, “moderates”, or “independents” lie.

This lens does more to distort than illuminate; politics should be secondary to the larger issues and ideas. America is facing tremendous challenges: a slow recovery with high unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, a health care crisis, two ongoing wars and terrorist threats, potentially catastrophic climate change and environmental degradation, and an illegal immigrant population that’s now over twelve million.

The media should focus on these issues, and offer the public the differing views on how to address them—the policies, regulations, and laws they would entail, and the potential pros and cons of the different approaches. Only after laying out the issues should politics enter the equation.

For example, on deficits, the two ways to address the issue are raising taxes or cutting spending. If the media outlined the different combinations of these strategies, and what they would mean for individual Americans, it would be a great service: people could form an opinion on the substance of the issues, ahead of the political implications. Of course, where the parties stand will ultimately be a big part of any policy story—but party stances should not top the discussion. The public needs to be educated and informed first, and then figure out which party is most closely aligned with their views.

The way the media currently works, everything is backwards. In print and on-air, writers and talking heads focus on the political battles before the substance is even close to clear. This confuses the public, which understandably reverts to simply following their ideological predispositions (which in turn further polarizes the nation, and dumbs-down the discourse).

When issues advance or stall in the political process, the media should make clear who is responsible. This will help voters clearly link policy outcomes to specific politicians. For example: when financial reform passes with next to no Republican support, headlines should make that clear; when unemployment benefits are blocked by the GOP, the headlines shouldn’t say “Congress fails to pass unemployment benefits extension”.

And please, no more discussions of how many Americans self-identify as “conservative” or “liberal”; these definitions are extremely vague and imprecise, and people often hold contradictory views on many topics that render these labels meaningless (i.e. wanting lower taxes but increased government spending, or increased personal freedom but the ability to restrict the rights of groups they don’t like).

The media has forgotten that political victories are ultimately meaningless and only policy victories matter. Social Security or tax cuts or gay rights matter because of their impact on people, not because they score points for one party or the other. Being fair and balanced doesn’t mean giving equal weight to both parties, it means describing objectively the costs and benefits of different policies and who stands to gain and lose. This crucial distinction has been lost in our media culture.

VoR prides itself on being a non-partisan forum, which may surprise some because of the strong stances I often take for the Democratic Party over the GOP. But if tomorrow the Republicans started representing just, fair, and reasonable policies, I would switch my allegiance in a heartbeat. Political labels mean nothing to me; they are important only with regards to policy goals.

If the media could finally recognize this, it would bring much greater clarity to the issues and lead to a much better-informed citizenry.

Jason Scorse

The death of climate change legislation this week provides more evidence of a completely broken political system. Not only is the threat from climate change real and growing; addressing the problem would have strengthened our economy and reduced the power of the world’s petrodictators. Climate change policy would have been a huge net positive for society, and it should have been a no-brainer.

But of course, some industries—notably oil and coal—would be harmed. Since they hold disproportionate political sway, these incredibly polluting industries were allowed to block progress. It is truly discouraging to the see the world’s greatest democracy beholden to the lowest common denominator.

The GOP is largely to blame: not one Republican Senator could be counted on to do the right thing (and remember that cap and trade was part of the McCain-Palin platform, but now even McCain is against it, as well as Lindsey Graham who worked with Kerry and Leiberman on a climate bill). Although comprehensive climate change legislation had already passed the House (again, with no Republican support), the new supermajority requirements of the Senate meant that at least some Republican support was necessary (especially since a few “centrist” Democrats from the oil and coal states were likely to vote “no” as well.)

But despite the obstructionism and small-mindedness of the Republicans, I place the majority of the blame on Obama. Why? Because he never made the case to the American people, never forced a true debate on the issue.

Obama’s greatest strength is that he can talk to the American people as adults, and level with us about the hard choices we face. But before the climate bill negotiations even began, he capitulated to the right by offering billions in federal loans for new nuclear plants and pledging to expand offshore oil drilling.

Later, faced with the disaster in the Gulf, Obama could have turned crisis into opportunity and made the case as to why finally—after decades of speeches and broken promises from Presidents as far back as Nixon—we had to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. He could have packaged this with American competitiveness and the need not to let China and Europe become the dominant players in the new alternative energy industries. He could’ve reminded us that most of the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, which supports extremists around the world and doesn’t even let women drive cars; he could’ve pointed out that Iran wouldn’t be funding a nuclear program if oil was $20 a barrel.

Instead, Obama and the Democrats caved. They didn’t force a vote to put people on record; they didn’t make the Republicans actually filibuster the bill; the threat was enough to make them fold. Most discouraging (and not confined to the climate bill) is how the Democrats have been unable to enforce party discipline on procedural votes; it’s one thing to resist party-line unanimity on legislative votes, but all Democrats should be required to let legislation come to the floor. It’s beyond me that Democrats who side with Republicans on filibusters go unpunished; loyalty on procedural votes seems to me an absolute minimum requirement for a political party.

Obviously, I’m frustrated. There is simply no excuse for a failure of this magnitude, especially without a fight. There was never any indication that Obama took this issue seriously enough to do what was necessary, and for this I will not forgive him.

But the fight goes on, and Obama and the Democrats still have time to make up for this colossal misstep. There are a number of steps that the EPA is likely to take next year that could significantly limit greenhouse gas emissions, and are also onerous enough that the oil and coal industries may actually prefer congressional action. In addition, there are a number of executive orders Obama could issue to increase energy efficiency throughout the economy—and, through government procurement of green energy, move the market in a new direction.

And who knows? Maybe the Democrats won’t lose too many seats in November, and will get a second wind on this issue. At this point, they have failed and there’s no good spin to put on it.

P.S. The NYT seems to largely agree with how I appropriate blame. On a positive note, Harry Reid spoke to the Netroots Convention and offered a glimmer of hope. And although unrelated to climate, this exchange was extremely moving and demonstrates why despite all of their shortcomings the Democrats are far superior to the GOP.

P.P.S. Krugman has a nice piece Monday on the issue and lays more of the blame on the consummate hypocrite John "country first" (cue the laugh track) McCain.

Jason Scorse

Predicting election outcomes is tricky, but economic conditions are highly correlated with how citizens ultimately vote. The formula is simple: the better the economy, the better for the incumbents; the worse the economic conditions, the worse the party in power fares. (James Carville summed it all up with his much-quoted phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!”)

Given today’s high unemployment and low growth, the Republican Party should pile up huge gains in November. And they probably will if Republican leaders could just learn to keep their mouths shut. But they apparently can’t, and what’s been coming out almost daily provides what hope there is for Democrats.

Over the last few weeks Republican Congressmen have basically stated that the GOP’s priorities include:

1. Screwing over the working poor and the middle class by refusing to extend unemployment benefits, all the while claiming that the unemployed are lazy and undeserving;
2. Standing up for Wall Street and big corporations, even to the point of calling for a one-year moratorium on regulations (forget about health, safety and the environment, who cares?);
3. Standing up for the rich at every opportunity;
4. Pretending to care about the deficit (when it’s about money for the unemployed), but saying at the same time that deficits don’t matter (when it’s about extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich).

I think it’s safe to say that if elections were determined by actual policy prescriptions, the GOP would fail miserably; only a minority of Americans, perhaps even a small minority, support these views. So, despite the bad economic times, it’s worth asking why so many Americans will pull the lever for a party whose priorities are this perverse.

Part of the answer is because there are people for whom facts simply don’t matter; their worldview is shaped by the ravings of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the other purveyors of misinformation who dominate Fox News and talk radio. These people can never be swayed by reason. Ironically, the current bad economic conditions (even though Obama inherited them) only reinforce their belief that all Democrats are bad.

The good news is that the people who make up this minority will be quickly shrinking as a proportion of the electorate over the coming decades. Many are older and will simply die off, and many others are from a white working class that is also shrinking. No doubt there are younger Americans who are just as ignorant as the old-guard extremist fringe, but polls indicate that most are significantly more tolerant than their elders and at least moderately amenable to rational arguments.

So, as infuriating as it to watch the know-nothings dominate so much of our political discourse, I believe that what we’re experiencing is the last gasp of this vocal and vitriolic demographic. Granted, this final outpouring from the right-wing, epitomized by the Tea Party “movement”, may last a good while—but in relatively short order, it will fade into the dustbin of history. Our stagnant economy has probably bottomed out, and their appeal will naturally decline as employment, the housing market, and other economic markers begin to improve.

I am not claiming that American political discourse will ever become a bastion of reason based on honest policy discussions. On the other hand, I do think that what we are now witnessing represents our political nadir—that things are as bad as they’re going to get. Demographic trends and the inevitable march of social progress will prove too powerful for the right wing to withstand, and it will fracture and crumble.

Here’s hoping that this occurs as soon as possible.

P.S. Seems like Frank Rich is on the same page as me today. Good stuff.

Jason Scorse

Nancy Pelosi rarely directly criticizes the Senate, despite the fact that hundreds of pieces of legislation that she has passed in the House continue to languish without even a vote in the Senate. But the other day she made some of the strongest comments to date that the filibuster needs to be eliminated and majority rule brought back to the Senate chamber.

There is nothing in the Constitution that states that 60 votes are needed to pass legislation in the Senate; the filibuster is simply an artifact of rule changes that have been made over the past few decades. The Constitution does allow for new rules at the beginning of every session, so that only 50 senators (plus VP Joe Biden who would break a tie) could simply decide to eliminate the filibuster. This would allow the Democrats to pass much of the stalled legislation on energy policy, immigration, and jobs bills in 2011 and beyond.

In fact, even though the Democrats will likely end up with significantly fewer Senate seats in 2011 (perhaps 53-54), with only a majority threshold, it is likely they would actually be able to pass significantly more liberal policies than they have been able to so far. Even with 59 votes they have had to kowtow to the rightwing Democrats and Republicans such as Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Scott Brown to reach the 60-vote threshold.

Of course none of this will matter if the Democrats don’t hold onto the House of Representatives, which they do have a serious chance of losing. But if they can hang on, and then eliminate the filibuster, the second half of Obama’s first term could be extremely productive, even with significantly diminished majorities. No doubt, this will be the major topic of discussion in Democratic circles immediately after the midterm elections.

Without filibuster reform it is likely that the entire Congressional apparatus will grind to a halt, since the Republicans are intently on derailing everything Obama does in the run-up to the 2012 elections. They have proven demonstrably that they don’t care about the problems facing the country, and only want to regain power at any cost, no matter how much suffering they leave in their wake.

It will be very hard to get 50 Democrats to eliminate the filibuster, both because of the desire to cling to tradition, and also for fear that once the Republicans get the majority again they will wreak havoc with their new power. But with significant grassroots activism, I think their hesitation and fears can be overcome. Americans want Congress to govern and to address the problems of the day. Majority rule is simple to understand and as American as apple pie; it speaks to basic notions of fairness. With the filibuster abolished, the difference between the two parties would become even more pronounced, giving the American people an even starker choice with respect to public policy between the two major parties.

This is how it should be. Elections have consequences. Let the Republicans campaign on repealing healthcare, giving tax cuts to the rich, cutting entitlements, and increasing the military budget. If that’s what people want they can vote for it.

But right now majority rule is being thwarted by an extremist fringe in the Senate that won’t even let legislation come up for a vote. As frustrating as these past 18 months have been, if this leads to the elimination of the filibuster it will have been worth it.

Jason Scorse

Just when the bank bailout is looking like it will cost taxpayers much less than previously estimated, the cost of bailing out the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage brokers has skyrocketed to an estimate of over $350 billion. And yet, the government continues to provide all sorts of misguided tax breaks and subsidies for home owners to the tune of over $230 billion per year.

This is one area where I agree with the serious conservatives (and a few liberals) who say that these policies need to end.

In graduate school I teach about the five primary conditions under which government intervention in the market may be necessary to avoid “market failure” and promote better social outcomes (these conditions are common in the environmental realm, which is my specialty, and why even free market enthusiasts acknowledge that the government has a strong role to play in environmental protection).

1. Imperfect information

In areas where information is poor the producers and sellers of goods may not make well-informed decisions. With housing, the information is close to perfect; sellers know exactly what they are selling, and the buyers can get homes inspected, get their histories, as well as detailed information about the neighborhoods. There is essentially close to zero information asymmetry in the housing market and the information is close to perfect. (It is true that many consumers are poorly informed about special types of adjustable-rate mortgages, which is the impetus for the new Consumer Protection Agency being debated in the financial reform bill conference committee, but this has nothing to do with information about physical homes).

2. Externalities

In situations where the production or consumption of a good imposes costs or benefits on those outside of the transaction (pollution is the classic example), then the price may not fully reflect its true social cost and the government may want to intervene (to either raise the price of goods with negative externalities or lower the price of goods with positive externalities).

Some make the argument that homeowners take better care of their property than renters and therefore create positive externalities for their neighbors (thus justifying a subsidy), but this is based largely on anecdotal evidence and is vastly overblown. In the nations of Europe, where renting is much more common, there is little evidence that renters let their homes deteriorate anymore than home owners. In fact, artificially increasing home ownership may have negative externalities. Not only does it increase the likelihood of default, which then produces terrible blights in a neighborhood, but people tied to mortgages have a much harder time moving, which stalls economic recovery in down times when home prices are low and jobs may be more plentiful in other areas.

3. Lack of secure property rights

Where there are unclear property rights, investment is stymied because people can’t be sure of ownership (and natural resources will be subjected to a “tragedy of the commons”). Home ownership rights couldn’t be more secure in America; when you buy the house it’s yours as long as you pay for it.

4. Lack of competition

When there is lack of competition, monopolists can charge artificially high prices and price discriminate. The housing market is extremely competitive, with millions of buyers and sellers and no one with significant market power.

5. Lack of insurance markets

In areas where insurance is lacking this may lead to under-investment because people don’t want to risk losing everything. There are plenty of home insurance options in America (which are actually required for bank loans); and in fact, the government often perversely promotes the construction of homes in unsafe disaster-prone regions by subsidizing flood insurance where the private insurance market deems it too risky.

What all of this makes clear is that there is absolutely no economic rationale for subsidizing home ownership. Not only is it extremely expensive (at a time of record budget deficits) and has negative unintended consequences—which made the financial crisis much worse than it would’ve been otherwise—but it is regressive; the primary beneficiaries are wealthy people who buy even bigger homes.

Removing housing subsidies would be good policy in every way. But is has become a “third rail” of American politics for the simple reason that most people own homes and get huge benefits from the breaks; they will be up in arms if they are taken away. While it may be unfair to remove these breaks after people factored them into their decisions, we should gradually eliminate them. This will ultimately lower the value of housing, making renting more affordable as well as buying (for those who would live in a world with home subsidies).

If we want to help lower and middle income people, we can do so directly in much better ways. We could take some of that $230 billion and lower the income tax brackets, raise the standard deduction, increase the Earned-Income Tax Credit, or do a host of other things like increase grants for college education. But it is long past time to get the government out of the housing market.

P.S. Frank Rich nails it on how this week's news should prove a godsend for Obama and the Democrats.

Jason Scorse

The greatest challenge for a democratic government is balancing the competing interests in society. The U.S. system of checks and balances is one of the most elegant, sophisticated, and successful systems for doing this—but the framers of the Constitution could never have imagined the rise of the modern corporation, with its attendant concentration of power and wealth.

In the modern era, the Supreme Court has essentially said that money from corporations can be only minimally regulated in the political sphere. Because of their wealth, corporations can employ thousands of lobbyists and give huge donations to politicians. The result is predictable: politicians often put corporate interests ahead of the public interest, often rationalizing that they are one and the same. A sizeable chunk of the regulatory apparatus and the legislative systems in today’s America is crony capitalism run amok: businesses essentially writing their own regulations, minimizing their liabilities, seeking and getting handouts, and avoiding accountability.

Ordinary citizens may bemoan these cozy relationships, but it is ordinary citizens who vote the politicians into office. With the influence of money in Washington having grown to such heights, it is more important than ever for voters to be informed, savvy, and unafraid to hold their elected leaders accountable for the decisions (votes) they make. Unlimited corporate money in politics cannot, in and of itself, guarantee crony capitalism; it can only persist if we allow it to.

The corporations and the politicians beholden to them know this, which is why misinformation is their most powerful weapon. If the citizenry can be confused and their anger and rage deflected, those controlling the money and the legislative process can continue to get what they want: favorable regulation, subsidies, and no blame when the public is harmed.

Currently, the corporate spheres whose interests are most inimical to the public are the financial industry and the fossil fuel industry. Wall Street’s extreme profits come at the expense of financial stability and credit for small businesses; the fossil fuel industry’s profits come at the expense of the environment and national security.

The Democrats have just passed a sweeping financial reform bill. While it’s imperfect, it will create a more stable financial system and subsequently curtail Wall Street profits, which were derived in part through excessive risk. Democrats have also proposed legislation that would increase energy efficiency, develop alternative sources, and consequently decrease the profits of oil and coal companies.

By contrast, the GOP did everything it could to weaken and try to block financial regulatory reform; in addition, Minority Leader Boehner has been practically bragging about his cozy relationship with Wall Street, even promising to weaken regulation if the GOP regains control of Congress. The GOP’s stance on energy legislation is even more deplorable; because of the Gulf oil spill and dashed hopes for more offshore drilling, Republicans are indicating they will not support comprehensive energy reform. With offshore drilling representing only a tiny fraction of the bill, this is absurd.

Adding insult to injury, Republicans are blocking attempts to raise the liability caps for oil companies, saying that this would hurt small oil companies who could never afford to cover the costs of a large oil spill. Think about what the party of “limited government” is saying: we need to put the taxpayer on the hook to make sure oil companies are not financially harmed too severely if they despoil our environment. Even more ridiculous is the notion that there is any such thing as a “small” oil company capable of offshore drilling in depths of thousands of feet. The oil industry is one of the most concentrated in the world and only the biggest companies have the capital and technology to explore in deep waters for oil. But in the GOP fantasy land, where black is white and up is down, protecting big oil from having to pay for its mess is protecting small business.

What we have is a Republican Party that is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of big business, with the public interest non-existent.

This is one reason why the Tea Party “movement” is such a deplorable joke. If Tea Partiers really cared about liberty and freedom and an end to crony capitalism, they would run as a third party; the last thing they’d be doing is trying to help the Republicans regain control.

Fortunately for all of us, so far they are only succeeding at alienating ever greater numbers of Americans; by and large, the country is coming to realize that the Tea Party represents an extremist fringe with no coherent or consistent ideology.

Jason Scorse

It is obvious to even casual observers that the Tea Party “movement” is little more than rightwing extremism in new packaging. While the traditional media craves new phenomena for talking heads to speculate about, the Tea Party is a motley crew of disaffected Republicans, crackpots, conspiracy theorists, and racists, with ignorance and misguided rage as their common thread. And much of the Tea Party is funded by corporate interests masquerading as grassroots activists.

But high unemployment and the lingering effects of a great recession have created unhappiness with the current Administration and the Democratic Party in general. While the Obama Administration is not responsible for the meltdown of 2008, it has been in power over a year and the economy is still in poor shape in many areas. Even though the worst is likely over, it is hard to garner support based on the notion (however truthful) that at least things aren’t a lot worse.

The conventional wisdom was that the Democrats should brace themselves for a “wave” election in November, with highly-energized Tea Party candidates primed for major victories. Scott Brown’s victory back in January was said to be a premonition, with a reliable Blue State electing a Tea Party favorite for the Senate seat of liberal lion Ted Kennedy.

But then reality intruded.

Brown sided almost immediately with the Democrats on a jobs bill, drawing the ire of the Tea Party faithful who had propelled him to victory; and just this week, he again voted with the Democrats on financial regulatory reform (despite GOP attempts to label the bill as another bank bailout).

Even more interesting is the case of Tea Party darling Rand Paul, son of Congressman Ron Paul, in Kentucky. Paul bucked the GOP establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, by running as a Tea Party candidate in the Republican senatorial primary and promising to bring conservative purity to Washington. On Tuesday, he won by more than 20 points.

But his victory lap turned into a fiasco. Appearing on the Rachel Maddow show that night, Paul indicated that he opposes the part of the Civil Rights Act that allows the government to bar discrimination in private businesses. Citing one of the extreme tenets of libertarianism, Paul inferred that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate because of their private ownership.

Paul’s libertarianism is so extreme that he also disapproves of government standards mandating access for people with disabilities. And on Good Morning America the next day, he called President Obama’s criticism of BP “un-American” because Obama wanted to blame the company for the Gulf Oil spill (just for the record, BP is a foreign company).

Ironically, Paul’s libertarian credentials don’t extend to the bedroom or to women’s reproductive rights, since he believes the government is right to discriminate against gays and should ban a woman’s right to choose.

In a television interview that shouldn’t be missed, Paul’s Democratic challenger, Jack Conway, went on CNN and completely destroyed Paul’s positions—foreshadowing a tight Senate race in red-state Kentucky, and providing a model for how other Democrats should challenge rightwing ideologues.

Paul went on to cancel his Sunday appearance on Meet the Press (one of only three times this has happened in the show’s more than 40-year history), and it is clear he’s in damage-control mode.

Paul’s meltdown and Scott Brown’s apparent conversion to a moderate New England Republican are high-profile national examples of a Tea Party that’s more bark than bite; a smaller episode on the local level also points to the Party’s inherent limitations.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, a carbon tax was recently put before council members for a vote. Dozens of Tea Party activists and a local energy company spouted all sorts of climate change denier nonsense, hoping to make the council hearings a replay of the healthcare town hall debates last summer, when legislators were screamed down and cowed. Not this time, however: council members voted 8-1 in favor of the carbon tax, and in their statements said that the behavior of Tea Party activists actually emboldened them even more to vote in favor of the measure.

While a few data points do not indicate a trend, it appears that people are getting fed up with Ted Party attempts to stifle rational discourse and legislative progress. The American people are getting a close look at the Tea Party’s true colors, and they’re being turned off.

Nothing would deal the movement a more serious blow than to defeat Rand Paul, so please consider giving to Paul Conway’s campaign; judging by his performance on CNN, he certainly deserves it.

Jason Scorse

Illegal immigration is one of the thorniest issues in America. Even the term “illegal alien” is fraught with negative connotations that lead many supporters of immigrants’ rights to use the term “undocumented” instead. But this is a euphemism; persons without proper documentation are illegal and should be identified as such (just ask the Guatemalans whether Mexican authorizes use such niceties as “undocumented” when they are caught trespassing in Mexico).

Because the U.S. Constitution deems anyone born in the U.S. a citizen, many illegal aliens have children who are citizens, while their parents remain in the shadows. Since many U.S. businesses and individual households thrive on cheap immigrant labor, and low wages by U.S. standards are relatively high by Mexican and other Latin American standards, the flow of illegal immigrants has continued by the hundreds of thousands every year.

Supporters of immigrants’ rights point out that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants are law-abiding citizens who pay taxes and contribute to the American economy, and deserve a path towards citizenship. Opponents counter that illegal immigrants are breaking the law, that a country has a right to control its borders, and that there are millions of people all over the world, even in Mexico and Latin America, awaiting lawful entry to the U.S.

Putting aside the relative merits of the arguments, there are almost 12 million illegal immigrants in the country and there is no feasible way to deport them even if we wanted to. The only real choices are allowing them to continue in the netherworld of illegality, or granting them some form of pathway to citizenship.

There is a reasonable fear, however, that a citizenship path will only create another incentive for millions more to cross the border illegally—figuring that as long as they can remain hidden, they will eventually be granted some form of amnesty.

Only if we address the root cause of the problem can we break the cycle; we must devise a way to ensure that only legal residents can work in the U.S.

Enter the debate over a National ID Card.

While no doubt many employers hire illegal immigrants because they can pay them lower wages and lower benefits, even the most unscrupulous employers require basic forms of identification such as driver’s licenses or Social Security cards. But these are easily faked, and employers have scant incentive to set up verification processes; they’re costly to begin with, and employers can always tell the authorities they didn’t know the IDs were a sham. Only a counterfeit-proof biometric National ID card has the potential for a virtual error-free method of verifying an individual’s status.

The problem, from the viewpoint of some libertarians, is that any such document infringes on the right to privacy; it would contain information allowing the government to track individual people. Ironically, those most suspicious of a National ID Card overlap greatly with the “law and order” crowd that’s demanding an end to illegal immigration before any negotiations regarding amnesty for the 12 million already here.

But they can’t have it both ways; something has to give.

If they want serious border enforcement and a system ensuring that only American citizens and legal residents can work in the U.S., they’ll have to support a National ID Card; the forces of supply and demand will overwhelm any border fence, and any number of border police.

It will be fascinating to see whether a compromise can be struck this year, coupling strict biometric employment verification with an orderly system for the legalization of the 12 million immigrants currently in the shadows. Given the options, it’s a compromise that’s both reasonable and fair.

Jason Scorse

The climate change bill that was supposed to be unveiled in the Senate on Monday is now on indefinite hold. Senator Lindsey Graham, the lone Republican supporter, walked away from the bill because President Obama and the Democratic leadership signaled that immigration reform may come first. Harry Reid responded immediately to Graham’s reasoning, stating that the American people expect the Congress to tackle both issues and there is no reason not to proceed. We’ll know within a couple of days whether the increasingly watered-down climate legislation has any chance of passing in the Senate this year.

That this legislation, which passed the House almost a year ago and was one of Obama’s main priorities, is so close to failure should be a wake-up call to environmentalists—especially with large Democratic Congressional majorities. The interests aligned against reducing our dependence on fossil fuel are legion; in addition to the climate change deniers in the coal and gas industry and the anti-science wing of the Republican Party, many Democratic lawmakers in states dependent on fossil fuels for jobs and cheap energy are also very resistant to change. Environmentalists need to be at the top of their game for any comprehensive energy legislation to have a chance of passing.

Last week I described why the animosity of some environmentalists towards mainstream economists (coupled with confusion about them) is wrong-headed: economists are by and large strongly on the side of environmentalists, especially with respect to climate change.

This is not just a rhetorical issue with implications limited to bragging rights on blogs; the stakes are extremely high. This is because the political right in the U.S. has mastered the art of messaging, and thoroughly dominated the public policy narrative over the past couple of decades. On the issue of climate change they have clearly dominated the left in every way, sowing widespread confusion that has led to declining public support for bold action.

Think how masterfully the Right has moved the goalposts on virtually every issue since Obama and the Democrats took charge: a healthcare bill similar to Mitt Romney’s is now socialism, closing Guantanamo (agreed to by Bush and McCain) is now appeasing the enemy, and cap and trade, once the mainstream position for addressing climate change that both Obama and McCain agreed on, is now vilified (and McCain, with boundless hypocrisy, joins the chorus against the bill). What we have left in the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill is extremely weak, and even this will face an uphill struggle to pass.

Writers like David Roberts and Bill McKibben, who routinely characterize mainstream economics as somehow antithetical to environmental concerns, are inadvertently spreading the exact narrative that the Right wants everybody to buy into. There is nothing that the coal, oil, and gas lobbies, the anti-environmentalists at the Chamber of Commerce, and the extreme libertarians at the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute want more than for the public to believe that mainstream economics oppose sensible environmental regulations that are fair, transparent, and put a significant price on greenhouse gases. This makes it easy to characterize those in favor of tougher climate policy as leftists who are anti-business, anti-jobs, anti-economic growth, and anti-competitiveness.

But they are wrong.

The overwhelming majority of mainstream economists favor stronger environmental regulation on many fronts, especially climate change. It is the rightwing economists who are out of the mainstream, who believe, contrary to basic economic theory, that an unfettered market can solve environmental problems despite all evidence to the contrary. There’s is not the consensus view.

By routinely bashing mainstream economics, often through faulty reasoning, environmentalists play into the hands of those with an-environmental agenda. The public needs to know that most of the leading minds in economics come down squarely in favor of strong climate change legislation, as well as efforts to improve water quality, clean air, and biodiversity protection.

This will only happen when environmentalists better educate themselves about economics, and realize that it is actually one of their greatest allies.

Jason Scorse

Last week, I explained why the Republican view on income redistribution is diametrically opposed to the Democratic position. Now that healthcare reform has passed, and the final pillar of the Democrats’ social contract is the law of the land, legislative battles will likely revolve around fixes to the system (despite Republican cries for repeal, which is extremely unlikely).

Since Medicare faces insolvency in the long-term, and Social Security has funding gaps only 10 years out, the great policy debates of the next 10-20 years will focus on the mix of tax increases and benefit reductions that must be made to repair America’s balance sheet.

But there will also be arguments over the best ways to achieve our social goals. In this regard, it would be extremely helpful for Republicans who reject the extremist elements now dominating their party to play a constructive role.

For starters, the Republican insistence on personal responsibility could play a lead role in shaping America’s healthcare policies. Many of the diseases that most afflict Americans—heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes—are often due to lifestyle choices. Incentives should be built into the system which reward decisions leading to positive outcomes and penalize negative behaviors.

Example: people who eat junk food, don’t exercise, and smoke cigarettes—and are therefore more likely to require expensive medical procedures—must be given powerful incentives to change. This could mean lower premiums for making positive changes, or higher premiums for not making them. Republicans, with their emphasis on personal responsibility, are well-positioned to make this case.

In order to pay for things that we all want, it will also be necessary to find and root out as much waste as we possibly can.

There is no better place to start than the military budget. At minimum, tens of billions are wasted every year on unneeded weapons systems and on contractors who overcharge. In addition, while maintaining a strong U.S. military abroad may be in our interests, we could save billions more by reducing our forces in Europe and Asia, where threats are minimal. Republicans, with their emphasis on national security, should take the lead on making this a priority.

Ratcheting down the “war on drugs” would also save billions in wasted law enforcement dollars (both in the U.S. and abroad); and through a program of gradual legalization, billions more could be gained in tax revenue. Moves towards legalization would take much of the crime out of the drug trade and reduce a major source of revenue for terrorists. Republicans have always been known for their “tough on crime” stance—so if they showed leadership in this area, it would be taken seriously (see this great video by a former Republican judge on his mission to end the war on drugs).

Economists agree that to solve our high-unemployment problem, America needs a prolonged period of robust economic growth. While free trade is no silver bullet, it’s important because protectionism and distorting subsidies prevent the most efficient use of resources. Calling for a return to the negotiating table to conclude the latest Doha Round of trade talks would be a great way for Republicans to reaffirm their commitment to free trade. In addition, calling for an end to agricultural and other natural resource subsidies would not only help move the talks along; it would also save taxpayers tens of billions (which the GOP always wants to do, right?).

Finally, there are two more domestic issues for which well-intentioned Republicans could take the lead. The first would be to help diffuse the divisive gay marriage issue. Republicans could make a persuasive case, based on personal liberty, that the government has no rightful place in the marriage business. Governments need to sanction civil unions to confer legal benefits and rights, but should not otherwise be involved. By sanctioning civil unions for both heterosexual and homosexual couples, and leaving the issue of marriage up to individual religious institutions and the couples themselves, the government could extricate itself from this issue. This is the most sensible way forward.

On affirmative action, Republicans could help make the case that it’s time to move away from race-based to class-based methods; numerous studies have shown that it’s economics, more than race, which drives educational disparities. This would diffuse another issue that breeds white resentment (which Obama is on the wrong side of), while at the same time maintaining policies to help the disadvantaged.

None of the policies or approaches described above falls entirely within the purview of Republican or conservative ideology, but each represents an area where Republican support could be significant or even decisive.

In sum, Republicans can play a constructive role if they once again embrace reasonable policies, and eschew the obstructionism and venomous sound bites that have turned their once proud party into today’s caricature.

Jason Scorse

Barack Obama entered the White House with a vision for America that differed greatly from his Republican predecessors and modern Republican orthodoxy. After decades of trickle-down economics and the view that government was more a problem than a solution, Obama believed that policies should be targeted at boosting the middle class, and that government plays an essential role in creating equal opportunity and investing in new infrastructure and technology.

With the passage of the stimulus bill, the Fair Pay Act, and now healthcare reform and educational loan reform, Obama has delivered on a vision for American governance that differs greatly from your own.

But before you get up in arms about how “radical” Obama is, keep these things in mind:

First, everything Obama is doing he explicitly campaigned on. People who voted for him (or against him) are not facing any surprises. In fact, I can think of no other president whose governing has been as faithful to his campaign pledges. Second, his policies are centrist by any reasonable definition; his healthcare reform is almost identical to plans once promoted by Republican Senators Hatch and Grassley, and by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. It is a sign of how extreme Republican orthodoxy has become that healthcare reform without even the weakest public option is considered “socialism”.

There is, however, one aspect of the healthcare bill that does contain a socialist element—the law redistributes income from the upper to the lower classes, just as Social Security and Medicare do.

It’s therefore not surprising that Republicans vehemently attacked all of these policies: Republicans uniformly believe that income from the wealthy should not be used to fund social welfare programs for the less-affluent (especially if they’re administered by the government via taxation).

This is a legitimate ideological position. If Republicans want to make the case that the rich should not be taxed to provide services for the rest of society, I can respect that. I strongly disagree, but the position has intellectual merit.

What is wrong is to characterize redistribution of income as un-American and un-constitutional. This is absurd. Our system of government allows the legislative branch to levy taxes at different rates on different classes of people, and grants wide latitude to use the money for all sorts of social purposes. The Constitution’s Commerce clause and General Welfare clause have both been interpreted this way for at least 100 years (which is why the legal challenges to healthcare reform are doomed to failure).

A question naturally arises as to why Republicans are so opposed to income redistribution. While I can’t claim to speak for all of you, you apparently believe that such policies are equivalent to theft, and therefore morally wrong. This helps explain why you take such an uncompromising view on such matters: if I thought taxing the rich to pay for a janitor’s healthcare was equivalent to robbing a man at gunpoint and putting his money in another man’s pocket, I might feel the same.

This gets at the fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats; Democrats don’t view redistribution this way. Democrats look at society and see that luck—both good and bad—has as much to do with one’s fortune as merit. Where someone is born, the type of parents they have, the schools in their neighborhood, and (unfortunately) their gender, skin color, and sexual orientation can significantly affect their life’s outcomes. People who work equally hard can achieve completely unequal results. Accidents happen, misfortunes occur, and some who choose low-paying but socially vital careers may not be able to afford good healthcare or save a lot for retirement.

For Democrats, these huge elements of chance provide the key rationale for social safety nets, which by their nature must be funded largely through the material wealth of others.

Where Republicans see theft, Democrats see the social contract.

One view is not inherently wrong and the other right, but they are mutually exclusive and incompatible; they are radically different worldviews, which is why the rhetoric gets so heated.

Your Republican worldview won out for much of the last three decades, but it is now in retreat. After rising inequality, stagnating wages, and sky-rocketing healthcare costs, Americans voted for something new and they got it.

So, Republicans, your have every right to strongly disagree with what the Democrats are doing, but please drop the notion that what’s happening threatens the fabric of America. Every liberal democracy in the world redistributes income in some fashion. What we’re now witnessing is an expansion of the American social contract, and it’s as American as apple pie.

If you want to change course, make the case to the American people that it’s bad policy, or unfair, or counter-productive. Make the case for an individualistic society where everyone has to fend for themselves. Stick to your principles and try to regain power using these arguments. But please recognize that what Obama and the Democrats are doing is entirely consistent with American values; they just happen to be values that you disagree with.

Jason Scorse

The voices of reason in the United States won a major victory tonight.

Healthcare is officially no longer deemed a privilege, but a right for every citizen. While the steps made in the final healthcare package are modest, centrist, and do not include a much-needed public option, they represent the biggest advance in America’s social contract in 45 years, since the passage of Medicare. With this one vote alone, President Obama now sits among the most consequential American presidents. It is truly a remarkable achievement.

It also marks the first time in my lifetime that I have witnessed in real-time the extent to which the reactionary forces in America will purposefully misinform, deceive, and slander to stand in the way of progress. I have now seen firsthand the lengths that the forces of ignorance, backed by their corporate special-interest cronies, will go to demonize those who want to take even the smallest amount of wealth away from the already well-to-do and redistribute it to the middle and lower classes.

While the healthcare overhaul is nothing close to socialism, it does represent a progressive redistribution of wealth in American society, after decades in which policies have been vastly regressive. It puts the brakes on, and reverses the concentration of power at the highest income brackets.

Perhaps most importantly, it begins the process of injecting more competition and bargaining power for the average citizen into the healthcare system, even though it falls short of what ultimately will need to be done. This reform effort should be viewed as a first step in a long process, but a critical one. The fight has just begun, and with renewed energy and commitment from progressives, it too, like most pieces of social legislation, will improve over time.

Expect to see a fight for the public option as the next step. Now that it will be able to stand alone, I think the odds are much more favorable that it will pass. It is extremely popular with the public, and now that insurance coverage is going to be mandatory it is logical that the maximum number of choices be made available.

There is so much to say about this past year—the political implications, the ebb and flow of the Democratic leadership, the many failed attempts at bipartisanship, the media’s terrible role in compounding misinformation, the August “Tea Party” townhall disruptions, how President Obama, after losing the narrative and the process, finally got his mojo back and returned to campaign form—but for now I want to highlight my initial thoughts on some of the biggest winners and losers in this epic legislative battle.

Winner: Nancy Pelosi

From all accounts Nancy Pelosi was instrumental in keeping Obama’s eye on the ball for comprehensive reform and not caving in after Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. She never once waivered in her commitment and she delivered the votes at a time when the House is extremely distrustful of the Senate and unhappy with the more moderate Senate bill they had to accept (my favorite Pelosi quote is here). Also, don’t forget that Pelosi has already delivered on Obama’s other signature legislation, with tough financial regulatory reform and a decent climate change bill. Bottom line: Pelosi is tough as nails, the most powerful woman in America, and one of the most effective Speakers of all time. After being demonized by the Right for years, this is poetic justice. Thank you Nancy.

Loser: Women

Unfortunately (and ironically), in order to secure the votes of anti-abortion Democrats led by the chronically misinformed and deceitful Bart Stupak (who will now fortunately face a serious Democratic primary opponent), the President signed an Executive Order that repeats the restrictive language on abortion in the Senate version of the healthcare bill. Abortion foes have been worried that healthcare subsidies will help pay for abortions, and so to placate their demands, women who want abortion coverage in their insurance will have to send in separate checks, one personal and one with government money. It’s an absurd exercise because no one is arguing that women who get tax rebates or tax breaks on employer healthcare do the same (which most women do); this is simply a way to use poor women to score political points. In a sign of incredible hubris, Stupak went so far as to state this opposition to the healthcare bill (which will save tens of thousands of lives), was premised on its abortion language (which will save none) because of his deeply held “pro-life” principles. Women’s organizations around the country are clearly not happy with President Obama’s Executive Order.

Winners: President Obama and the Democratic Agenda

Even though President Obama is rightly criticized for not taking a stronger leadership role in the healthcare process much earlier on, and continuing to believe in bipartisanship when it was clearly impossible, he has achieved what many presidents before him tried to do and failed. Nothing breeds success like success and I expect to see a much energized and more aggressive Democratic Party in the coming months. And there is no better issue to keep the momentum going than financial regulatory reform, with the Republicans openly siding with Wall Street and big banks. Also expect to see a major push for immigration reform and climate change legislation. It’s going to be a very busy spring.

Losers: The Republican Party and the Tea Party

No matter how they try to spin it, the healthcare victory is a huge blow to the GOP, who now will have to run against elements of the healthcare plan that are extremely popular, such as an end to exclusions for pre-existing conditions, increased subsidies for drugs for seniors, lifetime caps on medical bills, and expanded children’s healthcare coverage. History is clear that social programs, once passed, are almost impossible to repeal. The Republicans threw everything they had at the President and the Democrats, whipped mobs into frenzies, and lied repeatedly on every major media outlet for more than a year on every aspect of the proposed legislation, but in the end they lost. The same goes for the Tea Party movement, which became even more bellicose, unhinged from reality, and outwardly bigoted as the vote drew near.

Americans of all political persuasions are rightly angry about the high unemployment rate and the Wall Street fat cats who gamed the system and ripped us all off, but by and large they do not subscribe to the Tea Party worldview. While this far right movement, funded by fake grassroots campaigns and corporate money, will endlessly fascinate Fox News and the major outlets that prefer screaming over reasoned discussion, the movement has already peaked. I predict that it will do more damage to Republicans through bitter primary fights than to Democrats in the midterm elections (just as it did in upstate New York in the race in which Tea Party candidate Doug Hoffman helped secure the first Democratic congressional victory since the Civil War).

Winner: The American People, who have now joined the rest of the developed world in establishing a fundamental right to healthcare.

Jason Scorse

When I began VoR almost six years ago, I thought of it as a non-partisan forum where all good ideas would get a fair hearing. While I hold many views that are considered liberal, I also believe that a strong case can be made for many policies that please classic conservatives— free trade, school vouchers, an end to all forms of subsidies, including for home ownership, more accountability in health care that promotes personal responsibility, using market mechanisms to achieve environmental goals, and an aggressive policy against terrorism and America’s enemies.

Over the years, to my chagrin, I have found myself increasingly unable to find much in the Republican Party to defend. I have tried where appropriate to give credit to the GOP and its ideas, but the Party has been taken over by extremist ideology and is being led by conspicuously ignorant people. I regretfully came to the conclusion that reason dictates a stand against the Republican Party. Until the GOP purges itself of its anti-science, irrational, and hateful elements, Republicans are enemies of the public good and must be confronted and defeated.

Two episodes this week emphasized how out of step the GOP has become, both with reality and the best interests of the nation.

The first was the publication of an independent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal (The Center is non-partisan and well-respected for its serious scholarship). The Center’s findings are shocking. At a time when wealth in America has become ever more concentrated, when the middle class has seen its purchasing power erode, and after a decade of no net job creation, Ryan has put forth a budget that cuts benefits for the middle class while cutting taxes for the ultra-wealthy—to such an extent that even with spending cuts, his plan wouldn’t balance the budget.

Rep. Ryan supposedly represents the GOP’s moderate wing, but his budget proposal is a radical plan that would permanently weaken the middle class and concentrate wealth even more at the top. He’s proposing massive transfers from the lower classes to the upper classes, this after decades in which the wealthy have benefited by orders of magnitude more than everyone else.

One of the great mysteries of American politics is how the GOP can convince a single person that the party is on the side of working families and the middle class. How can the lower-income whites who dominate the Tea Party believe that Republicans represent their interests?

The second thing that brought home how extreme the Republican Party has become was a mailer I received from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Here are a few of the questions in their survey, followed by my comments:

- Should the government take more than 50% of anyone’s income in taxes?

The government doesn’t even take close to this for any income group.

- Which aspect of the Democrat plan for a Washington takeover of health care do you find most objectionable?

This falsehood (the proposed plan is based entirely on private insurance) was followed by additional falsehoods.

- Democrats have recently proposed ACORN inspired “Universal Voter Registration.” Election laws of states would be thrown out and they would be required to register every person on the welfare rolls, unemployment lists, holders of driver’s licenses or any other name on a state-held list and register them to vote. Do you think this will lead to massive voter fraud and is a cynical attempt by the Democrats to cement their power forever?

Voter fraud is a GOP strawman, and the undercurrent of racism here is palpable.

- Do you think Democrats and Obama are more concerned with appeasing petty foreign despots and being “popular” on the world stage than they are with the sovereign national security of the United States?

It’s hard to know where to begin on this one since it’s so absurd.

The mailer had nothing affirmative, just one falsehood and slander after another.

I sincerely hope that the sane people in the Republican Party can regain control and return it to its roots. The Party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower would be a welcome partner at the legislative table, since Democrats clearly do not have all the right ideas. I thought this would happen after the GOP’s resounding defeat in 2008; instead, the extremist elements became even more empowered.

It seems that the American electorate will need to rout the GOP at the polls for at least a couple more cycles before the party’s moderates can gain the upper hand. While Republicans are sure to gain in the 2010 midterms, Democratic retention of both the House and the Senate may finally send a signal that Americans are tired of the GOP’s scorched-earth policy and obstructionist tactics.

Jason Scorse

David Plouffe, President Obama’s brilliant campaign manager, is famous for inveighing against Democratic “bed-wetting”, the party’s unseemly predilection for showing weakness in the face of rightwing attacks. Plouffe, who took time off for a book tour and to be with his new daughter (born two days after Obama’s victory), is now back at the White House helping to strategize for the 2010 Congressional races.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Obama has adopted a more confrontational and assertive tone in the weeks since Plouffe’s return, and that’s a good thing. It was clear months ago that bipartisanship was a fool’s errand, no matter how gifted a communicator Obama is. Plouffe is tough and doesn’t mince words; he’s not afraid to champion liberal principles, and to call out ignorant and disingenuous Republicans. (If the Democratic establishment was really smart, they’d put him in charge of everything.)

The President will need a stiff spine in the months ahead. The upcoming legislative battles could well define his presidency, and determine whether he holds office for another seven years. Plouffe is not only the man to help Obama get his mojo back, but to help limit Democratic losses and maintain their majorities in November.

Plouffe’s return comes not a moment too soon for Obama’s domestic agenda; at the same time, I’ve been pleasantly surprised for months with how well the Administration has responded to incidences of terrorism on U.S. soil.

There have been four all told. Two were the work of apparent jihadists—the Colorado episode in which a U.S. army officer killed 12 people, and the attempted Christmas-day bombing over Detroit. Two were perpetrated by lone madmen with grudges against the government—the airplane crashed into an IRS building in Austin, and last week’s shooting of two Pentagon police officers.

At no time did the Administration use rhetoric to inspire public fear, or go on the airwaves to issue new terror warnings or raise “threat levels”. Obama and his people did not act as if they were under siege, or engage in chest-thumping bravado. They simply went about their business and responded in measured and reasonable fashion.

By so doing, the Administration has made clear that they will not play into the terrorists’ hands by acting terrorized every time an incident occurs. This, more than anything, differentiates the current administration from the last.

And while the Obama Administration remains calm and collected, almost weekly they are killing or capturing major al Qaeda and Taliban leaders—accomplishing more in a year than Bush did in eight.

One major reason I voted for Obama was because I wanted the adults back in charge. On terrorism, he has not disappointed. With Plouffe back in the White House, there’s hope for similar progress domestically. We know what his motto is: No Bed Wetting Allowed.

Jason Scorse

It is obvious in hindsight that Obama’s strategy for getting healthcare reform passed was a colossal waste of time. Although there is still a decent chance that a comprehensive bill will get passed (we should know very soon), the botched process has taken a tremendous toll on the President’s agenda and both his and the Democratic Party’s approval ratings.

The reform package that the President put forth largely mirrors the Senate version, with a few modifications to make it more progressive and palpable to House Democrats. But because so many concessions were made to try to attract Republican support, the plan has been significantly watered down (e.g., no public option, despite its great popularity both with the public and with healthcare economists), and the Republicans have had ample time to demonize elements of the bill and sow confusion (with the help of a negligent media that by and large has parroted the Republicans’ lies instead of calling them out for their deceitfulness).

Not only has the plan been weakened and no Republican support gained. The process has dragged on for so long, and cost Obama so much political capital, that the other major elements of his agenda—financial regulatory reform and climate change legislation—have been largely stalled, and now face much tougher going. If the Democrats had delivered on healthcare in the summer of 2009 their political fortunes would be much brighter now, and Scott Brown likely would not have been elected in Massachusetts.

There is little doubt that high unemployment is largely responsible for the Democrats’ misfortunes, and there is little they can do it about in the short-term. Even so, a victory on healthcare months ago would’ve provided millions of Americans with tangible improvements in their economic security—e.g., limits on total payments to medical insurers and no denials for pre-existing conditions—and allowed Obama to focus on job creation much sooner. The $15 billion jobs bill that just passed could’ve been a $100 billion package back in September.

Did Obama really believe he could help craft a bipartisan healthcare compromise, or did he try so hard because cooperation between the parties was such an integral part of his campaign? We’ll find out years from now, when the details of Obama’s first year are released.



Regardless of what he once might have thought, he clearly realizes now that substantive bipartisanship is not possible; he realizes that the voters elected him and large Democratic majorities to get things done. It was refreshing, at the end of last Thursday’s healthcare summit, to hear him tell Republicans that it’s his job to enact the policies he campaigned on, and that voters will get their chance this fall to accept or reject them. This is how democracy is supposed to work: the party in power gets to enact its ideas, and if voters don’t like them they can vote them out.

It is impossible to know what the political landscape would look like if Obama had entered office with this mindset, but it is understandable why he felt the need to try to “change the nature of politics” as he promised he would. Given the disastrous 1994 healthcare battle, delegating the responsibility to Congress seemed to make sense; but it’s clear now that he turned too much power over to the legislators, and exerted far too little leadership.

What matters most at this point is finishing the job, however disappointing the final product may be. Liberals and progressives can take heart knowing that major social legislation often starts out well short of the ideal, yet grows stronger over time. Both Social Security and Medicare followed this pattern. Passing comprehensive healthcare reform, whatever its flaws, would still be a momentous achievement.

Activists should keep their eyes on the prize.

There is much work to be done on other fronts, and nothing breeds success like success.

Jason Scorse

On the policy front, the next few months promise to be the most consequential in at least a generation; it’s a political junky’s dream come true. The fate of three pieces of legislation hangs in the balance: healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, and comprehensive climate change policy. It is hard to know which is most important, since they all have huge implications.

Politically, healthcare reform is probably the most important—because of the year that has already been invested, and because the Democratic base is so committed to its passage. Universal healthcare has been a goal of the Democratic Party for more than 50 years, and the activists who have worked so hard to get this close can almost taste it. Already defeat has been snatched from the jaws of victory, with the election of Scott Brown to Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat, but there’s been renewed Democratic momentum behind the scenes in the run-up to the upcoming televised healthcare summit.

The Democrats seem increasingly committed (including Senate Major Leader Harry Reid) to using the budget reconciliation option, which requires only 50 votes (plus VP Biden to break a tie), and therefore is immune from both a Republican filibuster and any “nays” from the Blue Dog Democrats. Ironically, a bill that passes using reconciliation might be more progressive since many concessions to the so-called centrists won’t have to be made. Equally ironic, an insurance company’s decision to raise premiums an average 39% for over 800,000 people in California helped galvanize President Obama and the Democrats to get the healthcare process moving again. Whether a final bill will actually make it to Obama’s desk is still unknown, but the odds are the best they’ve been since Brown’s victory.

The financial regulatory reform package may actually be the most important piece of domestic legislation: without new controls on banks, we could have a repeat of 2008 and another Great Depression. The fact that Republicans oppose almost all the provisions in the bill is simply astounding, and should be met with scorn and contempt. If necessary, as with healthcare, the bill should be passed through reconciliation; some provisions would require only an executive order. However the reform gets done, the details are too critical for half-measures. (It is interesting to note that former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a staunch Republican, found the Congressional Republicans conspicuously uninformed when it came to the matters at hand; this may explain why their ideas are so bad).

An argument could be made that climate change legislation is in fact the most important of the three big issues; the future of human civilization may be at stake. With Obama’s recent $8.3 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear plants in Georgia, it is clear that he is making overtures to Republicans (such as Senator Lindsey Graham) to get their agreement to a comprehensive bill that includes a cap and trade provision with serious emissions reductions. Whether any Republicans can be persuaded to vote for the bill (or even to vote against filibustering such a bill) is unclear, but I would say it’s unlikely. Of the three major pieces of legislation, this one in my view is least likely to pass.

The best hope is the CLEAR bill being pushed by Senators Susan Collins, a Republican, and Democrat Maria Cantwell. It’s a straightforward proposal that auctions off 100% of the allowances in the cap and trade system and refunds 75% of the money to consumers, so that 80% of Americans would suffer no net losses from higher energy prices. Their bill has gained a lot of attention recently in the environmental press, and it has a chance.

With the Republicans apparently poised to make significant gains in November, and with politicians loathe to make difficult decisions close to elections, the consensus is that votes on all three of these issues will take place by May, and that this may be their final chance at passage for years to come. Whether they pass or fail, these are going to be some of the landmark political moments of our lifetimes.

If ever there was a time to pay attention, to discuss the issues with friends, co-workers, and relatives, and most importantly, get involved by contacting your elected representatives, the time is now.

Jason Scorse

Populism has a long tradition in America and American politics. At this juncture it is completely understandable for people to be outraged at a) the Wall Street fat cats who almost brought down the financial system, and yet are rewarded with bonus packages completely unrelated to their horrific job performance, b) the rising economic inequality of the past decades, which continues to accelerate while median incomes remain relatively stagnant, and c) the politicians, including prominent Democrats, who put in place the policies that helped create problems (a) and (b).

Given these grievances it is both reasonable and rational to demand greater regulation and monitoring of the banking industry, policies to help decrease the gaps in wealth and income, and politicians who will put the public interest over corporate interests. (This is not to say that there aren’t legitimate arguments against doing these things, only that a populism which expresses itself in this manner is intellectually consistent). This strain of populism is largely the populism of the left and those who support President Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, because of Obama’s and the Congress’ inability to pass healthcare reform and financial regulatory reform, this group is currently deflated and is questioning whether everything they invested to get Democrats elected will ultimately be for naught (putting aside for now how much worse a McCain-Palin presidency would’ve been).

The populism emanating from the right is anything but deflated, as the Tea Party shouting matches on TV have repeatedly shown. Yet, at its core, this right-wing populism is inherently contradictory. While it includes anti-corporate rhetoric and anger directed at the bankers, as well as disdain for virtually all established politicians (including most Republicans), the remedies and demands expressed by this group make little sense. For example, according to many rightwing populists, the solution to the excesses of the bankers is more deregulation—because, somehow, it was government interference that made the bankers do all the bad and unwise things they did. This complete nonsense is exactly what Frank Lutz, a leading GOP strategist, is telling Republicans to say when they vote against Democratic proposals for financial regulatory reform: that they don’t want to bail out banks anymore (and the Republicans are listening). Whether the public is actually stupid enough to believe this remains to be seen.

But there is an even greater contradiction at the heart of rightwing populism, where the main grievance seems to be that government spending is out of control and must be reined in. But the fact is that most of our tax dollars go to just three things: the military, Social Security, and Medicare. While there is no doubt waste in the military, and there are sound arguments for reducing our global military footprint, the security challenges we face make it unlikely that the military budget can be pared down significantly.

That leaves the entitlement programs. Social Security is relatively solvent; not in great shape, but not terrible either. Long-term projections suggest a deficit of about 20-25% between income and outgo, which will need to be made up by higher taxes, a decrease in benefits, or both. Medicare on the other hand is in terrible shape, both because of skyrocketing healthcare costs and the demographic shift to a greater portion of older people in society.

Contrary to what most Americans think about government spending, these programs are not very wasteful. Social Security is simply a transfer payment system with extremely low overhead. While there is some fraud in Medicare, its efficiency is far greater than that of private insurers. Administrative expenses eat up about 20 percent of the income of private insurers; the comparable figure for Medicare is only 5 percent.

Since nothing angers rightwing populists more than higher taxes, there is little chance they would entertain raising them, even on the rich. This leaves only one choice: massive cuts in the very entitlement programs they rely on. In essence, the message of the Tea Party movement and the angry rightwing crowds is this: I demand massive cuts to my retirement and medical insurance! And I demand them now!

This is exactly what the ranking Republican on the House Committee on the Budget, Rep. Paul Ryan, has proposed (although he and other GOP leaders appear to be quickly backing off). The people who would be hit hardest and suffer the most are exactly the working class, non-college-educated Americans so heavily represented in the Tea Party anti-government crowd.

What is shocking is how little the Democrats have capitalized on this inherent contradiction. A plausible strategy would be to tell the American people that they too share their anger, and channel this into calls for hedge fund managers to have their income taxed at income tax rates instead of the 15% capital gains rate (a lower rate than their secretaries pay). Or to increase the cutoffs for Social Security and Medicare taxes so that those making $100 million a year don’t continue to pay exactly the same as those making $100,000.

Whether it’s fear of being accused of class warfare or being labeled as “tax and spend” Democrats, the party has let the rightwing populist anger go unchallenged. If they continue to be cowed, the Democrats could suffer massive defeats in the 2010 midterms and Obama could be a one-term president.

But the rightwing populists would then be in for a rude awakening: if they get what they say want, they’re going to be much worse off. It would be a classic example of the “winner’s curse”.

Jason Scorse

Anyone who missed Obama’s Q&A session with Republicans last week should check it out, if only for the laughs. Obama, cool and wry, crushes Republican talking point after talking point, and leaves the GOP wishing it had never agreed to allow the session to be nationally televised.

If this had occurred a year ago I might’ve been impressed. But not anymore. We all know that Obama is a masterful rhetorician, capable of making most people who challenge him look foolish. But in all honesty, running circles around the ignoramuses who currently populate the Republican Party is essentially child’s play.

The real test of Obama’s leadership is not whether he can win arguments, but whether he can win Congressional votes and get his agenda passed. And while there were some significant victories in his first year, none of his signature priorities—healthcare reform, financial reform, and cap and trade—have made it to his desk. There is a chance that all three could pass in some form, but it’s more likely that all three will fail. This would be catastrophic not only for the country, but for the Democratic Party.

I question whether Obama and his team are doing everything they can to push Congress to act, but all of us need to do our part as well. It’s time for letter writing, phone calls, and emails, in that order of importance.

Here’s a summary of the key players to contact:

For healthcare reform

1. Your two senators - urge them to fix the recently passed Senate bill through reconciliation so that the House can pass it

2. Your congressman/woman - urge them to pass the Senate bill as soon as the Senate makes the necessary fixes

3. Senator Harry Reid - urge him to push reconciliation as the solution to the healthcare impasse

4. Congressman Tom Perriello and Congresswoman Betsy Markey - applaud them for their bill to repeal the anti-trust exemption for health insurance companies, which is an attempt to get the process rolling again, and urge them to propose more bills in this vein

For Financial Regulatory Reform

1. Senator Chris Dodd - urge the senator not to water down his financial regulatory reform package and to force Republicans to go on record either for it or against it

2. Senator Harry Reid - urge him to bring the strongest possible bill to the floor

3. Your two senators - urge them not to accept anything but a strong bill

For Cap and Trade

1. Your two senators - urge them to vote only for a comprehensive energy bill that includes mandatory and significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions

2. Senators Graham, Lieberman, and Kerry - urge them to put forth their proposal in its entirety and not let it get watered down (this is an instance in which a Republican senator and a turncoat Democrat are actually playing a constructive role)

And contact your friends and family and urge them to do the same!

P.S. In the long-term this is what needs to happen.

Jason Scorse

A decent cap and trade bill.

A near universal healthcare plan with a strong public option.

Relatively strong financial regulatory reform with a new Consumer Protection Agency.

All these are center-left pieces of legislation. And all of them have passed….the House of Representatives, where majority rule operates. The House also best reflects the will of the people because its members face the voters every two years.

The Senate, undemocratic by design, is the reason none of the above bills has made it to President Obama’s desk. To get the Constitution ratified, the Founding Fathers gave small states the same number of senators as large states; it was not done for reasons of principle. A majority of 51 senators could easily represent 65% of the population if most of the large coastal and Midwestern states are included—which means, in fact, that a simple majority in the Senate can easily mean a supermajority of the American people. States like North Dakota have so few people that they have more senators (two) than representatives (one), and yet they hold tremendous sway over legislation affecting hundreds of millions.

But today’s situation, in which a filibuster-proof 60 senators are required to pass anything at all—the first time this has regularly been the case in U.S. history—means that a super supermajority is always needed: senators representing close to 75% of the population. Think how truly staggering this is: no other advanced democracy needs anything like this to pass legislation. No wonder we’re at a virtual standstill in the Senate.

We live in a center-left nation, but we’re stuck with institutions that allow reactionary forces to control the legislative process. While it can be argued that some supermajority requirements were built into the Constitution, there is no Constitutional requirement for 60 votes in the Senate; a simple majority of 51 should be able to pass all bills.

Which brings us to tradition.

The Constitution permits the Senate to make its own rules, and the filibuster was adopted in close to its current form in the first half of the 20th century (though it’s never been abused as it is today). The Founding Fathers would probably be aghast at the idea of filibuster, and would absolutely be aghast at how frequently it’s used.

While the Republicans deserve the contempt of the American people for abusing this procedural measure, their conduct is predictable; they’re no longer a serious political party, they’re a refuge for ideologues and fanatics completely divorced from reality.

Ultimately, the blame resides with the Democrats. They squandered many months of a filibuster-proof majority, and amazingly topped it off by losing Ted Kennedy’s senate seat.

Even now, with 59 senators, they have more seats than when Obama took office (58), and many avenues to pursue their agenda. They need only 51 votes to use reconciliation (the process Bush used for both of his tax cuts); this could be put to use quickly to modify the healthcare bill so that the House would pass the Senate’s version. This is simply a must. Anything short of this would be a political and moral disaster: the Democrats spent almost a year on healthcare reform, and the need grows every day. Failure to pass a comprehensive bill would be a betrayal of the American people, especially the Democratic base who worked so hard to get so many elected.

The Senate can also bring to the floor the rest of the House agenda, including stringent financial regulatory reform, and force the GOP legislators to vote against it (instead of watering it down to attract one or two stray Republicans). If the GOP filibusters, Democrats can bring the bill to the floor again and invite the news media in. Make headlines about how 59 Senators are trying to rein in the banks, combat global warming, and create a citizenship path for 12 million illegal immigrants, but 41 Republicans are standing in the way of an up or down vote. People need to see the abuse that’s going on.

In addition, the White House could do a lot better job messaging. It was excellent that the President addressed GOP obstructionism in his State of the Union speech, but the argument needs to be made more directly. The American people need to know that Obama’s agenda has already made it through one branch of the Congress, and is being held up by minorities who won’t let democracy work. People should be urged to call, email and write key senators who could overturn these roadblocks.

Institutions change only through struggle; they never evolve solely on their own. In this vein, some of the next pieces on VoR will point to contacts and initiatives that can help us break the gridlock.

It’s time for the center-left agenda that America voted for to be enacted. We tried the hard right agenda in the Bush years and it failed, miserably. It’s time for a new direction. If that direction fails, voters can once again choose a different course. First, it needs to be given a chance.

Jason Scorse

The nightmare happened: A Tea Party know-nothing who opposes national healthcare reform (but says he’s OK with Massachusetts’ near universal coverage) has replaced Ted Kennedy, who fought for healthcare all his life, in the bluest state in the nation.

There are two roads for the Democrats at this juncture.

One is to fall into panic mode, drop everything they’ve worked on all year, and play defense for the rest of 2010; basically, do whatever they can on jobs and the economy. This would be electoral suicide, plus a 100% betrayal of the people who worked so hard to get them elected. With huge majorities in Congress, holding the White House, to squander this opportunity would be unforgivable. Even more relevant: the policies they campaigned on and worked on all this time are centrist and pragmatic, and popular with the American people (when framed properly, and not subject to months of Republican lies).

The other option is for Democrats to answer this wake-up call by fighting even harder for what they believe in—to realize that weakness at this juncture would be the absolute worst message they could send to the electorate and to their base. The House could pass the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill right away and send it to the President to sign. Through budget reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes, the Senate could then make modifications in line with some House requests. Just like that, we would get a healthcare bill that includes a real public option and greater subsidies for those who need them.

On financial regulatory reform, the Senate could put together a strong bill and dare the Republicans to vote against it. It would include the Consumer Protection Agency and a tax on bank windfall profits. The framing would be perfect for the Democrats: since the Republicans have claimed the mantle of populist rage, a vote against reining in the bankers would yield huge political dividends. If Republicans succeed in killing the bill with a filibuster, parts of it could still be passed through reconciliation; in addition, Obama could use his powers as chief executive to do a lot through the Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On the environmental front, Democratic senators are already saying that the cap and trade bill is dead. Obama has the authority through the EPA to enact tough greenhouse gas regulations, and he should exercise that authority. There are some in the academic community who think this is a better approach than a weak cap and trade bill.

The Democrats could also push immigration reform, again daring the Republicans to vote against it and further alienate the growing Hispanic communities in key swing states. On gay rights, Congress could repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and the President through executive order could strike down Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Bottom line: If the Democrats show some fight they can turn this around. Their loss this past week would then turn into a blessing in disguise.

Unfortunately, the early word out of Washington seems to indicate that Democrats are inclined to show the country how spineless they are. If so, then the party from Obama on down does not deserve to govern and does not deserve the country’s support.

This is a moment of truth, a moment of reckoning, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Democrats can choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of their 2008 victory, or show some fortitude and get the job done. It’s their choice.

P.S. I called every office of my senators and congressman and urged them to fight or that I would never give them a penny again or volunteer for Democratic campaigns. I urge people to do the same.

Jason Scorse

It could be a horror story for the Democrats: on Tuesday, within weeks of getting healthcare through the Senate, Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts might fall into the hands of a Tea Party Republican—putting not only healthcare reform in jeopardy, but everything on Obama’s agenda during this all-important election year. We’ll have political chaos if it comes to pass, emboldening the far right and throwing progressives into a prolonged era of soul-searching.

The question everyone should be asking is how we got to this point. I offer three reasons:

1. Obama and the Democratic leadership have not been aggressive enough.

Obama and the Democratic establishment have tried to play nice with Republicans, touting the benefits of bipartisanship and avoiding strong language to describe the GOP. Months were spent courting Olympia Snowe on healthcare, only to see her thumb her nose even when the bill met all her requirements. Obama rarely called out Republicans for their obstructionism and other outrageous antics.

This conciliatory posture has deflated rank and file Democratic voters, who fought hard for the 2008 mandate and want their leaders to stop making overtures to a party bent on their destruction. Obama and party leaders have also shied away from strong moral language, instead relying on more cerebral arguments. While they’re sensible and just, they don’t excite the passions. The enthusiasm gap between the parties is not hard to understand.

In addition, the priority given to healthcare pushed many other progressive issues aside, e.g., gay rights and immigration reform, disappointing large parts of the Democratic left.

2. The expectations of the Democratic base

While Obama and other party leaders are partly responsible for the deflated attitude among rank and file Democrats, these same activists can also blame their own unrealistic expectations. The notion that Obama would simply roll into Washington and usher in a new progressive era was naïve; change doesn’t happen that fast on the Beltway.

Similarly, there is a bizarre disconnect among many Democrats between the disappointment they feel and the reality of what Obama is on the edge of accomplishing. Getting healthcare reform through Congress would be such an achievement that if he never passed another significant piece of legislation, his presidency would be one of the most consequential ever.

But Obama has done more. He passed a major stimulus bill that brought us back from the economic brink and includes hundreds of billions for infrastructure and green energy. He passed the Fair Pay Act that bans gender pay discrimination. The House has passed significant financial regulatory reform and climate change legislation that the Senate will take up shortly. And through executive order, Obama has vastly improved government transparency and trimmed government waste. He also nominated the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court, and has been relatively successful on the foreign policy front.

So while there’s much to criticize and much left to do, the Democratic base should appreciate all that’s already been done. It should whet their appetite for the years ahead.

3. The media’s kid-glove treatment of the Tea Party movement

The so-called Tea Party movement has found a soft touch in the mainstream media. I’ve paid close attention these past couple of months, and it’s clear that the movement is a hodgepodge of misguided populism, white resentment, and a big dose of lunacy—all of which makes it incoherent, outrageous, and often despicable. What do the media do? They lap it up and let the Tea Partiers spew it out.

Many Tea Party leaders have no political background, little or no education, and are often used as pawns by established Republican figures (such as Dick Armey, whose group Freedomworks has been heavily involved in the Tea Party’s fight against healthcare reform).

The movement’s focus on deregulation as a cure for America’s economic woes is particularly striking. Tea Party activists make the populist argument that deregulation will lead to more competition, but the reality is just the opposite: there is nothing that big business would love more than a new wave of deregulation.

The media should be doing its job, exposing Tea Partiers for what they really are—a toxic threat to the body politic and the public interest. Instead, Tea Party activists get major and largely deferential coverage. In possibly the most egregious example, Tom Ashbrook (my favorite NPR commentator) devoted his entire hour-long show to the movement and never challenged numerous outrageous statements. For instance, after one leader likened Obama’s universal healthcare to Nazism, Ashbrook just cut to a commercial—never even questioning this vile claim.

As Paul Krugman notes, the media seems so cowed by charges of liberal bias that if a rightwinger should claim the earth is flat, the media will invite in another panelist to argue why the earth is round. This has got to stop.

In summary, the American body politic is in big trouble. Hopefully, Coakley will win in Massachusetts on Tuesday—and we’ll all have had a wake-up call to get more serious in the days and months ahead.

Jason Scorse

I have a confession to make: the rightwing demagogues who complain about liberal bias in the media are right.

How else to explain the fact that the traditional media outlets are packed each and every week with Republicans and so-called conservatives unleashing torrents of mindless nonsense?

Like Dana Perino, Bush’s former Press Secretary, and Rudy Giuliani, each claiming that no terrorist attacks occurred on Bush’s watch; like Dick Cheney and his minions in Congress, whose brilliant critique of Obama’s approach to terrorism is that he doesn’t use the word “terrorism” enough, or pound his chest and snarl into the camera.

And Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, must be a secret plant by the New York Times and the Nation magazine; no real GOPer could be so consistently stupid, and use his position for little more than personal enrichment and merriment. It’s obviously all part of a sinister liberal plot to make the Republicans look bad, as real Republicans would never vote for a Chairman who knows nothing about policy.

Of course, we can’t forget Sarah Palin. Only a liberal-leaning media would devote so much airtime to a person whose grasp of even the most basic issues is approximately at a first-grade level. By homing in on Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, the media is doing everything in its power to tarnish the reputation of the Grand Old Party. The media elites probably meet in back rooms every week, conspiring to pay attention only to the most depraved and ignore all the intelligent Republican voices. These victims of liberal bias must be plotting as we speak to retake the airwaves and show the country how serious and balanced real conservatives truly are.

So stay tuned. Today’s Sunday talk shows will surely be filled, as they are every Sunday, by disgraced former Republican office-holders, or by those currently in office who have little to no power, or maybe if we’re lucky, Dick Cheney’s daughter, who has never met a lie or distortion that she doesn’t like. They will utter nonsense and deception, all of which will go unchallenged by the talking heads, giving them every incentive to out-crazy themselves next week.

No doubt about it. It’s those sneaky liberals fault, force-feeding the American public a steady diet of propaganda from the far right that will forever sour them on the Republican brand.

Jason Scorse

Despite Barack Obama’s ability to win over independents and Republicans during the 2008 election, his efforts to create a less polarized political culture have proven futile. Paul Krugman, who witnessed the vicious partisanship aimed at Bill Clinton during the 1990s, was one of the first to recognize that no amount of Obama’s rhetoric, star power, or even common sense would compel Republicans to take the nation’s problems seriously. He saw that today’s GOP is wedded to a scorched earth strategy in which ideology trumps all.

He was right.

I thought, given Obama’s huge mandate, the Republicans would give him at least a six-month honeymoon period; they didn’t give him six minutes. On Inauguration Day the rightwing noise machine went into full gear, claiming that Obama wasn’t a citizen and that he was bent on marching America towards socialism. The same people who didn’t make a sound when Bush turned a trillion dollar surplus into a five trillion dollar deficit suddenly became concerned about government debt.

Who cares that the worst thing to do during a recession is to reduce government spending? Who cares that Obama’s healthcare reform will actually reduce the deficit and begin to control long term healthcare costs? In the fantasy world of today’s Republicans, white is black and up is down. Facts have no place, only death panels and forced abortions.

It is clear that one of the two major parties has given up any pretense at seriousness; it’s clear that we face a situation in which only more and better Democrats can get the job done.

We don’t have six months to waste trying to get Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins to vote for a bill they will ultimately find some lame excuse to oppose. We don’t have time to negotiate with people who deny the existence of global warming. And we certainly shouldn’t cut a deal with a Republican Party that thinks Wall Street and the financial system don’t need more regulation.

Obama brought into office the hope of a “post-partisan” America, but that dream has been dashed. Reality-based Republicans may one day regain control of their party from the know-nothings and fanatics, but that is a long way off at best.

While the spirit of cooperation has been integral to Obama’s message and brand, it would be best for him now to admit that he made a mistake—to admit that at this juncture bipartisanship is simply not possible. It would show the country that he’s more interested in outcomes than process, that his only priority is what’s best for the American people. He should distill his message to specific policy principles and values, and make clear that he will work with anyone who shares them. If this happens to be only Democrats, so be it.

Let’s make the next decade a true battle of ideas and values, pitting those of reason, fairness, and justice against those of deceit, religious zealotry, and cronyism. I am confident Americans will choose the former.

It will be easier for them to do so if we jettison the calls for bipartisanship, and make the distinctions between the parties as sharp as night and day—as sharp in fact as they really are.

P.S. It seems as if the Obama Administration is finally starting to make just the shift described above.

Jason Scorse

Politicians are among the most despised people in America, right behind Wall Street bankers and lawyers. While many live unscrupulous lives and/or abuse their political power, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on, and honor, the efforts of those who fight for the public interest. It is an opportune moment to do so: after months of wrangling, the Democrats have apparently arrived at a healthcare compromise that has the necessary 60 votes in the Senate and a good chance of winning final approval.

Senators like Chuck Schumer, Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden, and Representatives like Nancy Pelosi and Anthony Weiner, have worked tirelessly to fashion a piece of legislation that has eluded previous Congresses and presidents for decades, including the last Democratic president. They battled powerful interest groups with hundreds of billions on the line. They weren’t able to win some big battles, and they produced a far from perfect bill; but with no room for error, they got the job done against an obstructionist Republican Party, fake populist outages, and religious zealots (to mention just some of the obstacles).

The bottom line is that these legislators (and dozens more unnamed) have overcome tough odds and deserve our respect. I am confident they will work hard to improve the bill once it finally passes, so that its final form more closely approaches the ideals the progressives have long championed.

I am sure that these Senators and Representatives enjoy their work, and they’re compensated fairly (the average salary is approximately $175,000 with great benefits), so they hardly need any praise from us. Nevertheless, it takes only a moment to recognize how extremely difficult politics is: while it’s unlikely that anybody in Congress understands everything that’s in the 1,300-page healthcare bill, it’s surprising how sophisticated and detailed their knowledge actually is. Some have been working on the issues for decades, have spent thousands of hours studying them, and really know what they’re talking about.

Which brings us to the GOP.

When it comes to healthcare, the Republicans morphed from the party of “no” to the party of know-nothing. From “death panels” to “forced abortion” to charges of socialism, the GOP did little more than lie and deceive throughout the healthcare debate. (Take a moment to watch this video of last week’s “prayer meeting,” in which top GOP politicians joined a right-wing group in asking god’s help to derail healthcare legislation; compare this, if you will, to the relentlessly serious efforts of the Democratic caucus.)

While a few Republican senators made reasonable suggestions to improve the bill, the GOP strategy by and large was a despicable display of politics at its most cynical. The GOP voted unanimously against the stimulus package, last week voted unanimously against a new jobs bill and financial regulatory reform (more on this next week), and now stands ready to vote unanimously against healthcare reform.

So while the healthcare bill gives progressives plenty of reasons to be disappointed and frustrated, they should take a moment to respect all that’s been achieved so far.

And everyone, regardless of political persuasion, should recognize that only one political party in America right now is actively addressing the real problems that America faces—the Democrats.

P.S. I was obviously wrong about the opt-out public option making it into the final healthcare bill. I underestimated how truly small a man Joe Lieberman is, and underestimated the intransigence of Ben Nelson. The opt-out was (and still is) brilliant politics and I thought it would be hard to argue against it since states were not compelled to participate. Again, I was wrong. But don’t be surprised in the coming months and years to see some form of public option re-emerge through the reconciliation process, and if so it will likely be stronger than the version once contained in the Senate bill.

Jason Scorse

While the success of most Administrations correlates highly with the unemployment rate, presidents, ironically, have relatively little control over the economy.

George W. Bush inherited a recession flowing from the dot.com bust of 2000, and the economy promptly took another major hit following 9/11. Bush’s Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan then proceeded to lower interest rates and kept them low for way too long, oblivious to the gathering housing bubble. Bush also went wrong in stacking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with people enamored with deregulation, and either unable or uninterested in reining in the gross irregularities taking place in the derivatives market.

In addition, Bush’s signature domestic initiatives were tax cuts for the rich; these dramatically increased the deficit (which became Obama’s to deal with) and did little to stimulate the economy. Bush also failed to make any significant investments in green energy and prevented federal funds from being used for stem cell research, thus retarding these industries.

As a result President Obama inherited the worst economy since the recessions and stagflation of the 70s and early 80s. Unemployment would top 10% before the end of his first year in office. None of this was really his doing; nevertheless, as he predicted, in the public mind he’s become responsible for the current economic conditions.

During the past year the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at essentially zero percent and flooded the financial system with hundreds of billions in order to prevent a crisis and a repeat of the Great Depression. New financial regulations making their way through Congress could do a lot to prevent another crisis in the future, but they have nothing to do with today’s jobs picture.

Obama was able to pass a massive fiscal stimulus plan in his first weeks in office, and he’s now expected to announce new jobs initiatives in the coming weeks. From all estimates his policies have prevented the loss of around one million jobs, but they have not led to a net jobs increase. Obama has also laid the groundwork for long-term employment by investing in green technology and new infrastructure, and by easing restrictions on stem cell research.

Due to luck as much as anything, the jobs picture is apparently improving faster than anyone had predicted; last Friday’s surprising Labor Department report showed that the economy lost only 11,000 jobs this past November, reducing the unemployment rate from 10.2% to 10%. If the trend continues and job growth turns positive in the coming months, it would be a huge plus for American workers and a tremendous political boon for Obama and the Democrats.

The lesson, for all presidents, is that with so little direct influence over the economy, they had better use wisely what little leverage they have. While Bush was not responsible for the initial conditions during his first term, he did nothing to shore up the economy and wasted trillions on regressive fiscal policies. Obama inherited an economy that could easily consume his presidency and his ambitions, but he acted aggressively with all of the levers of his power and it may well be paying off.

Jason Scorse

The continuing fanfare surrounding Sarah Palin reminds us that even stupid and detestable individuals can capitalize on populist outrage, which always seeks scapegoats and soundbites. At the core of the rightwing narrative that feeds on this outrage is the notion that America’s “elites” are oblivious to the needs and values of “ordinary” Americans, who are hardworking, law-abiding, and god-fearing, in contrast to an intellectual class that is secular and aloof.

While there are racial, class, and coastal v. inland undertones to this narrative, the predominant theme is anti-intellectualism. People with advanced degrees are frowned upon in favor of those who act based on their “gut” and the moral absolutes of religion. The number of people who disbelieve in evolution, question climate change, and are suspicious of rational argumentation is highly correlated with the demographics of the rightwing.

Unfortunately, because of the conservatives’ power to influence the media and therefore our political discourse, this anti-intellectualism has crept further into the mainstream. While Obama’s election victory was in some sense a repudiation of anti-intellectualism, the crowds that continue to fawn over Palin, and the entire Tea Party movement, are evidence that this pernicious strand is alive and well. It’s a dangerous strand as well: without our elites, America would no longer be a first-rate power.

From the Founding Fathers to the creators of Google, from the profound political insights that inspired the Constitution to the scientific insights that developed and expanded the internet, America’s prosperity has always been a product of our elites. It is America’s dominance in higher education that has generated the technology, and the wealth, that have made our economy No. l in the world (and our military as well).

I often pose this simple question to my students: Why is it that a secretary in the U.S. can live a middle class life, with a decent home, a car, and some luxury goods, while a secretary in India will likely live in poverty? Since they both do the same thing, how is it that one leads a relatively affluent life while the other lives in poverty? The answer is simple, but holds a profound truth. The secretary in the U.S. lives in a wealthy country, with a high overall standard of living. And why is that? It’s largely because of our elites, whose innovations have propelled our economy and our prosperity for decades.

Being able to produce elite thinkers and innovators, and to attract them from around the world, will only become more important as the new century progresses. Whereas much of America’s prosperity was once tied to our abundant natural resources, the share of our wealth that’s linked to this base is fast diminishing. As the economies of emerging powers like China, India, and Brazil continue to grow, America’s need to remain competitive and technologically “ahead of the curve” will be paramount.

Those who live in almost all of the “red states” (e.g., Palin’s Alaska) are net recipients of federal income from the “blue states”; similarly, they are huge net recipients of the fruits of the intellectual capital that is concentrated on America’s East and West Coasts (e.g., Silicon Valley and the Northeast Corridor). Instead of disparaging those at the forefront of U.S. science and technology, the rightwing should be trying to emulate them.

Ironically, if Middle America is going to remain prosperous in the future, it will be because the inland communities become hubs for new technology and manufacturing (like North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Research Triangle); clinging to romantic, pastoral, and illusory notions of what constitutes the “real America” may draw in the crowds for Palin rallies and Tea Parties, but it’s ultimately bad for the region and bad for America.

Jason Scorse

The stakes couldn’t be any higher than they are right now in the U.S. Congress. On the docket are healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, climate change legislation, immigration reform, gay rights, and more. These issues impact the welfare of not only tens of millions of Americans but arguably the whole world (in the case of environmental policy and financial regulation).

Yet, we have an opposition party that has essentially taken itself out of any serious discussions and has decided to try to block any progress on any front. The GOP has become an extreme obstructionist party, threatening to filibuster every major piece of legislation; in addition the entire Republican apparatus, from the grassroots to the Congressional leadership to Fox News, is spreading lies, deception, and fear in an all-out effort to confuse American citizens and whip up extremists (the better to create sensationalist media coverage).

It is time for the reality-based community, for all who care deeply about the issues, to say enough is enough. It is time to forego the political correctness that says it’s impolitic to call a lie a lie in politics, time to deny even a hint of deference to those who resist all progress. As Obama has said, those who use falsehoods and deception to derail America’s efforts to move ahead must be “called out”.

All of us have a relative, colleague, or friend who denies global warming, or throws the word socialism at any government program they disagree with, or refers to gays or immigrants with hateful rhetoric; they belong to the know-nothing crowd that is coarsening our body politic and seems intent on keeping us from even beginning to attack the real issues of the day.

It takes courage to stand up to these people, whether at the water cooler, a staff meeting, or even at the dinner table; but this holiday season, ignorance should not go unchallenged. It is often said that progressives are simply too polite, too weak-kneed to stand up for what they believe—which helps explains why rightwing extremists too often prevail in public discourse. This must end. Those who stand idly by while others spout nonsense and propaganda only empower them.

It’s critical at this juncture, with so many important issues hanging in the balance, that we all directly confront those who don’t have the facts on their side. We must politely, but firmly, correct them. We need to make it clear that shouting and hyperbolic pronunciations are not going to win the debates of the day. Not anymore.

Standing up for reason can often be uncomfortable, but it is the right thing to do.

If not now, when?

If not you, who?

Just say no to the forces of ignorance, and never look back.

Jason Scorse

On Election Day voters in Maine approved a referendum overturning the state’s gay marriage law, making it 31 straight victories in statewide elections for opponents of gay marriage. This is sobering for those who favor equal rights for gays, but not all is gloomy. In Washington State voters passed a law giving full civil union rights to gays; similar laws have also passed in other states.

Public acceptance of gays increases as each year passes, and no doubt one day there will be majorities in favor of gay marriage. But for now too many Americans can’t seem to get past the word “marriage”; they’re willing to grant full marriage rights to gays, but not allow them to use the term. Some may argue that it’s purely a semantic issue; but separate is not equal, and there can be no real equality for gays until they can actually “get married.”

However, the issue of civil unions versus marriage brings up political choices that are at the core of a liberal democratic society.

As I have mentioned in earlier pieces, couples in Europe typically go through two marriage ceremonies—one in which the government grants civil unions, the other a separate and more traditional ceremony, often religious. This, it seems to me, is the appropriate model. In the U.S. we let the state sanction religious ceremonies. This is a clear violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state, and it should be challenged. Gay civil unions provide a way to break this link, and restrict the state to its proper secular role.

If the gay rights community would focus (for the time being) strictly on promoting civil union rights in individual states, they would likely win. They should also focus on the long-term prize of federal civil union legislation, making it illegal for any state to deny civil unions to gay couples. This is something that Obama has hinted that he would support, and for which there very well may be national support.

The arguments against gay marriage make no sense, and are often little more than masks for various forms of bigotry; the arguments against civil unions are even more transparently unjust. Ensuring equal marriage rights for gays in all 50 states, equivalent to those enjoyed by married heterosexual couples, would be a huge victory.

And it could have the added benefit of moving the United States toward the European model, and getting the state out of the marriage business altogether. This should certainly resonate with the more libertarian-leaning Republicans and conservatives. At the same time, religious groups could follow their own consciences and either permit or disallow gay marriages.

To sum up, breaking the connection between the state and marriage would be a big step forward for liberal democracy. And as time passed, more and more religious groups would likely begin to accept gay marriages, mirroring their increased acceptance in the larger society.

Jason Scorse

Every since the opt-out public option was introduced, I have predicted that it will make it into the final healthcare bill. The reason is simple: it will ultimately achieve what a robust public option would, and it is a winning political strategy that could propel Democrats to even greater majorities.

Republicans have misrepresented the public option—labeling it as socialism or government-run insurance—but it improves consumer choice and would give many American citizens essentially the same type of policy that members of Congress and the federal government already have. With an opt-out system, in which states could vote not to have a public option, the case against reform becomes significantly weaker; not only can individuals choose whether to join a government-managed plan or go with private insurance, but states would not be obligated to participate at all.

Since Americans by significant majorities favor a public option, it would be very difficult for many states to actually opt-out; in the end, a national (or near national) system would become almost inevitable. The argument could be made that citizens in the opt-out states would be unfairly disadvantaged. But those citizens would get the chance to vote out their legislators and replace them with those who support a public option, or they could move to a state that already had one. Either way, the choice would be theirs.

It is clear that such a system would greatly benefit Democrats and progressive politicians. While the GOP misrepresents the facts and yells “big government” at every Democratic proposal, once healthcare passes the American people will not quickly forget (or forgive) the GOP’s relentless obstructionism. Thousands of Americans have been driven into bankruptcy by health issues, and hardly any are satisfied with the healthcare status quo.

This is why the GOP is getting increasingly desperate as they read the writing on the wall. The Democrats are only months away from passing the kind of healthcare legislation that reformers have tried to enact since FDR’s day; once it happens, public support for the Democratic Party is almost certain to grow. With no positive agenda to speak of, the GOP is in dire straits.

The opt-out public option will one day be looked back on as one of the most brilliant moves a political party ever made.

Side note: Given both the substance and the politics of the opt-out public option, it is extremely discouraging to see news reports which suggest that the Obama Administration is in fact pushing the much weaker “trigger” option. I find it hard to believe that Obama could be this cowardly and foolish, so I will wait to see how this plays out. Please call as many Senators and Representatives as you can and voice your support for a strong public option and no trigger substitute.

Jason Scorse

It’s increasingly likely that serious healthcare reform will pass by the end of the year, and even include some form of public option. This is great news for America, but bad news for Republicans who have been pinning their hopes on defeating the measure.

Yet many problems will remain, primarily healthcare’s ever-increasing costs. The final bill will likely improve efficiency, increase and improve preventive care, and decrease abuse and fraud. Nevertheless, costs will continue to rise if Americans don’t radically improve their health. Obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing, and preventable deaths from cancer and heart disease are still near historic highs.

If people were truly rational and not as susceptible to addictions and misinformation, the disincentives associated with sickness—pain and suffering, lost wages, shorter lifespans—would be sufficient to encourage Americans to stay in relatively good health. Unfortunately, in areas related to health, people are often highly irrational, cravings and addictions are extremely powerful, and knowledge is abysmally low.

If government is going to either provide healthcare for free or highly subsidize it, then it’s only right that it enact policies that try to incentivize good behavior and minimize long-term costs.

Some of the policy options in this regard are non-objectionable: better prenatal and early childhood care and nutrition, healthier school lunches, and a ban on candy and sodas in school vending machines. Other policies, such as “end of life” counseling, have stirred up a great deal of controversy. Such counseling could save lots of money, since a disproportionate share of healthcare dollars are spent in the waning months of life; yet, if consulted beforehand, many people would prefer not to have many of these procedures. Unfortunately, when they’re old and infirm, people are often incapacitated and unable to inform their healthcare providers of their true preferences. It’s one of the great scandals of the healthcare debate that a reasonable and sensible “end of life” policy was portrayed as a diabolical scheme and labeled “death panels” by unscrupulous Republicans.

Another policy that would go a long way towards promoting healthier lifestyles would be an end to agricultural subsidies for commodity crops, which act to artificially deflate the price of corn syrup, meat and dairy products. Unfortunately the agribusiness lobby backs many powerful legislators, both Republicans and Democrats; they hold tremendous sway, particularly in the Senate, despite the relatively low populations of the states they represent.

Better healthcare could also be encouraged by charging different premiums based on individual behaviors, e.g., diet, alcohol and cigarette consumption, and exercise. If people were charged higher premiums for engaging in unhealthy lifestyles, this would likely be viewed as too harsh by a majority of the public. But the same outcomes could be achieved by rewarding people who engage in healthy lifestyles with lower premiums, which is intuitively appealing.

Even with all of these policies in place, there may still be a need for either higher taxes or additional healthcare rationing. But those tough choices can at least be minimized, and the overall population will be a lot healthier, the sooner policies along these lines are put into effect.

Jason Scorse

One of the centerpieces of the healthcare bills currently being debated in Congress is an individual mandate, which would require everyone to buy insurance or face a penalty. A similar mandate would apply to businesses, requiring them to either offer insurance or pay a penalty.

Varying levels of subsidies and assistance are being proposed, including hardship exemptions, to help lower and middle income Americans and small businesses offset a significant new expense.

There is an even more basic argument as to whether anyone should be forced to buy health insurance at all. From a libertarian standpoint, such a mandate is an infringement of the first order.

Proponents have likened the mandate to car insurance, which everyone is required to buy if they own a car. But this is a specious argument: people are required to buy car insurance because of the harm they might inflict on others. The liability insurance that everyone must carry makes sure that drivers can’t impose costs on someone else without being able to compensate them.

Libertarians claim that no such externality exists in healthcare. If a person chooses not to buy health insurance, the argument goes, the risk will fall only on that person; ergo, it’s each individual’s right to decide whether health insurance is worth it.

But this argument too is specious.

For one, we as a society are not willing to let people go without care when they get sick. People are not turned away at emergency rooms if they don’t have coverage, even if they could have afforded it. It’s inhumane to let people suffer and possibly die because they miscalculate whether they’re going to stay healthy (like the law student in this article, who thought he could go without insurance in his early 20s but instead got a rare form of cancer). In addition, when a mother or father gets sick and does not have insurance, their children can become innocent victims. Last but not least, the costs of treating the uninsured are in fact picked up, in the form of higher premiums, by all those who already have insurance.

The bottom line is that most people who don’t have insurance are either too poor to afford it or are gambling in a foolish way. Since most Americans find it unconscionable to refuse treatment to sick people, the most obvious and efficient solution is to make sure everyone has at least basic health insurance.

A sizeable percentage of the people currently without insurance are young and healthy, and their premiums will be relatively low. Their numbers are large enough, however, that the income from their policies can help subsidize care for everyone else. Remember: It is only because insurers are poised to gain up to 45 million new customers that they’ve agreed not to turn people away due to preexisting conditions, and to accept caps on individuals’ total out-of-pocket expenses.

If we lived in a world in which personal responsibility was taken to the extreme, and people were left to die if they got sick or in accidents and either didn’t have insurance or couldn’t afford treatment, then a mandate wouldn’t be necessary. Fortunately we don’t live in such a world, and a mandate is a necessary component of good public policy.

All the same, there is an urgent need for more personal responsibility in healthcare, and for incentives that match behaviors to outcomes. I’ll address these issues in a future piece. First, by mandate, let’s make sure that everyone has at least a basic level of insurance.

Jason Scorse

The Republicans have all but given up offering any substantive ideas for healthcare reform; they simply want to kill it and harm President Obama and the Democrats. At the same time, there are critical areas of disagreement among those who sincerely want to get the job done. Let’s explore some of those areas.

1. Level of subsidies

A main provision of healthcare reform is likely to be an individual mandate, requiring everyone who doesn’t have insurance to purchase it. Since healthcare is extremely expensive, this could cause serious economic hardship to low and middle-income persons unless they’re given sufficient financial assistance. Nothing would be worse than instituting a mandate only to force tens of millions of people into spending almost all of what little disposable income they have on healthcare. Olympia Snowe, one of two Republican senators actually negotiating in good faith with the Democrats, has made it clear that she will not support any package that doesn’t include generous subsidies. House Democrats are in almost universal agreement with this position; with midterm elections coming up in 2010, nothing would be more politically damaging than passing healthcare reform without adequate funding. However, the bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee last week contained notably less generous subsidies than those in the House bill; the differences will have to be reconciled.

I would err on the side of generosity, both because of the equity issue and the politics; middle-class families should not be burdened with a new mandate that doesn’t come with completely, or almost completely, offsetting government assistance.

2. Total cost

Various numbers have been floated, ranging from $700 billion to $1.2 trillion over 10 years; but, as I have noted earlier, the cost issue is largely a sideshow. The difference between generous proposals and those that would seriously harm the purchasing power of tens of millions of Americans is in the range of $30-$40 billion a year, which is little more than a rounding error in the federal budget. Compared to the cost of the Iraq War, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, and the Medicare prescription drug bill, the cost of insuring all Americans is cheap, and certainly reasonable. Those who, after the last eight years of profligate spending, have suddenly become “deficit hawks” only want to derail President Obama and the Democrats. Instead of complaining about the costs, they should be applauding how relatively inexpensive the proposals actually are (and the extent to which Obama intends to pay for most of it through cost-saving measures).

3. Competition across states

This issue doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. As the law currently stands, states are in charge of regulating private healthcare insurance markets and residents are not allowed to shop across state lines. This has created a large number of state insurance markets that are highly concentrated, and in which residents have only one or two providers to choose from. The results are predictable: high insurance rates driven by monopolies and an inability to create large pools with greater bargaining power. Any serious effort at reform must include national pooling so that an individual in, say, California can buy a policy from any market in the country; this would go a long way towards increasing competition and bringing down costs. It is unclear whether such a provision will make it into a final Democratic bill, but it should.

4. The public option

No issue is more contentious than whether to allow the government to offer a Medicare-like policy which citizens could choose instead of the private insurance options. Proponents contend that a public option is the only way to keep private insurance companies honest, force them to reduce administrative and overhead costs, and ultimately “bend the long-term cost curve downwards”. The logic is compelling: public programs like Medicare and Medicaid have far lower administrative costs than private insurers, and can use their leverage to negotiate lower prices with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies (though Medicare is specifically prohibited from the latter under the terms of the prescription drug benefit).

Opponents of the public option view it as a “Trojan Horse” on the way to a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system; they contend that a government-run plan would undercut private insurance because it wouldn’t have to operate at a profit, and would therefore drive private insurers out of business. Proponents counter that a public option that must operate strictly based on fees collected, absent government funding, would create a level playing field and would not have any unfair advantage.

Not all industrialized countries with universal coverage have a public option—some are single payer (Canada and the U.K.) while others (such as Switzerland) rely solely on competing private insurers. If private insurers are strictly regulated, almost like public utilities, a public option is not necessary to bring down costs. Without such regulation, however, a public option is necessary; private insurers have every incentive to maximize profits and find every means to keep costs soaring. Since it is unlikely that the Congress has the will to enact robust private insurance regulation, a public option will ultimately be necessary in the U.S. to bring down long-term costs.

Aside from the above issues, there is widespread agreement (even among many Republicans) on some core elements of healthcare reform—the elimination of exclusions for pre-existing conditions, the decoupling of insurance from jobs (i.e., a job loss would not mean the loss of insurance), hardship exemptions for the very poor and small businesses, caps on both the percentage of one’s income and total payments to insurance companies, and the need for universal coverage.

Reaching agreement on the last 20% will be difficult, but this is what politicians are elected to do. By Thanksgiving, probably, we will know if they are up to the task.

Jason Scorse

It’s easy to mock the Republican Party, which has sunk into a morass of ignorance, intolerance, hypocrisy, and downright lunacy. But that would be too simple. The modern GOP is actually composed of two separate strands: those who truly believe the craziness, and those who know it’s all nonsense but nonetheless whip up hysteria to advance their own interests.

It is easier to forgive those who actually believe the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and even RNC Chairman Michael Steele; it’s harder to do likewise when major Republican figures such as Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Minority Leader John Boehner, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich peddle the lies and delusions that spread confusion, stir national divisions, and breed hatred.

Pawlenty, once considered a moderate, came out against Obama’s speech to schoolchildren and now espouses a bizarre strand of rightwing nuttiness that says state governments can refuse to enact specific pieces of federal legislation (in particular, Pawlenty says that Minnesota could opt out of any federal healthcare reform legislation). He and other so-called “tenthers” believe that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution grants states this right, though the idea has been discredited for more than a century.

The day after Obama’s healthcare speech, Congressman Boehner spoke at a conference sponsored by the Family Research Council, one of the most extreme rightwing depositories of misinformation and incubators of rage. There is no commensurate left-wing organization, and if there were no major Democratic figure who would dare speak to such a group.

Then we have South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who screamed “you lie” during Obama’s speech, demonstrating that the tactics of the teabaggers and Limbaugh are becoming more and more mainstream GOP. I don’t know what to say about Sarah Palin, who seems to grow more unhinged by the day and proves that John McCain disqualified himself from ever being taken seriously again by nominating her to a position a heartbeat from the presidency.

The bottom line is that the far-right fringe of the Republican/conservative movement has now infiltrated what is left of the modern GOP establishment; it is now impossible to tell where the fringe ends and the actual party establishment begins.

It’s best to ignore the true believers: those who, through indoctrination, lack of education, peer pressure, or too much time spent on crazy websites, actually believe the messages being propagated by the rightwing noise machine. They represent no more than 10-20% of the country; as long as Obama and the Democrats can help revive the economy and enact policies to help the middle class, their voices will eventually die down.

But the ringleaders of this crazy circus are in another category altogether. To purposefully manipulate people’s ignorance and fear in order to stoke rage and block progress on key issues that affect the majority of Americans is an evil thing to do. It’s intentional, it’s coordinated, and it serves no purpose other than personal and political advancement.

In other words, today’s GOP has become so depraved I no longer know what to call it.

Jason Scorse

It may come as a surprise, but the healthcare debate is not about healthcare. And it never was. The debate is little more than the last throes of a dying party wedded to a version of America that is going the way of the dinosaur. The majority of people who oppose healthcare reform are elderly whites, mostly in the Southern and Western states. They are watching the country they have known all their lives change into a more multicultural and tolerant America, and their generation no longer calls the shots.

Charges of socialism, fascism, and government takeover are nothing more than proxies for an intense fear of change and the end of an era in which white males dominated American life. As Paul Krugman has noted, it doesn’t really matter what Obama or the Democrats say or propose about healthcare reform; the enraged minority of birthers, teabaggers, and fringe rightwing loonies will strenuously oppose it. They are not opposed to particular policies, but to the new ruling class and the new generation of Americans. It’s a generation that increasingly doesn’t look like them, talk like them, or share many of their values.

This is why progressives have been understandably distressed that Obama and the Democrats have been watering down healthcare legislation in order to placate a group that is not amenable to reason. There is literally nothing short of scrapping any meaningful healthcare reform that will garner more than one or two Republican votes. At a time when one party has gone off the deep end, bipartisanship is a fool’s errand.

And like a rabid animal, cornered and weak, the GOP knows all too well what is at stake. If comprehensive healthcare reform passes, it is the end of the modern Republican Party. If even a tiny fraction of the nearly 50 million people who are currently uninsured are happy with their new coverage and decide to vote Democratic, or the more than 200 million who are currently insured realize the protections they have just been granted by Democratic legislation, the GOP could be in the political wilderness for a generation. No wonder Republicans are throwing everything they have into trying to prevent reform; no wonder they’re getting more desperate by the moment.

These reactionary forces must be defeated because healthcare reform is so crucial.

Two people close to me are suffering under a system that crushes tens of thousands of Americans every year. One friend was required to get a tooth implant to prevent his jawbone from deteriorating. His insurance wouldn’t cover it because implants are considered cosmetic, even for an infected molar. He is now broke. Another friend is suffering from serious headaches and had to have an MRI. She now has a “preexisting condition” and can’t get coverage, so she will be forced to spend thousands she doesn’t have just to try to get some relief from an illness that is literally incapacitating her.

These are the stakes. On one side are the forces of the status quo, with all their misguided rage and intolerance; on the other are hard-working Americans who simply want a system that gives them the security of knowing that their health issues and medical expenses won’t put them in the poor house.

Now is the time for Obama and the Democrats to get the job done.

Jason Scorse

In a piece two weeks ago I mentioned that income inequality in the U.S. is at its highest in almost a century. The question naturally arises: Does this matter? I think it does, but not because inequality in and of itself is a bad thing.

Equality of opportunity is a core American value, holding that all citizens deserve the chance to achieve their full potential. Some will become doctors, some will enter the law and business, others will become car mechanics or retail workers. The “American dream” and basic conceptions of liberty in no way require that people’s wealth and status be even roughly equal. An America that lives up to its ideals will be an America with an unequal distribution of wealth and income.

But this inequality has limits, and I think the current levels of inequality point to a larger failure in American society and the body politic.

It is hard to make the case that if everyone in America were truly able to live up to their potential, we would have the rising levels of inequality that now confront us. There are many causes for this increasing gap, among them higher returns to education, the fact that you need money to make money, and the decline of unions. At the same time, public policies have contributed to widening disparities: decreases in tax rates have disproportionately favored the wealthy, while rising healthcare and education costs and relatively stagnant incomes have chipped away at middle-class prosperity.

In addition, the higher returns to education that account for a significant portion of the income gap are driven in large part by an education system that does a great job of serving the needs of the top 10% but a poor job at serving much of the rest. Some states, like California, have an excellent system of community colleges and top-notch state universities, but also have a dismal pre-college education system. Some states, particularly in the South, have mediocre education systems at all levels.

Inequality doesn’t just happen in a vacuum; the levels of inequality we are now experiencing have their roots in bad policies, including our failure to stem the costs of medical care and cover all Americans. Tens of thousands of our fellow citizens go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and the insecurity bred by the fear of losing health insurance prevents thousands more from looking for better jobs and richer opportunities.

In rich countries like ours, inequality is admittedly less of an issue because relatively few people are starving or out on the street; it is a much bigger concern in developing countries, where so many people don’t even have their basic needs met. Nonetheless, the current levels of income inequality in America are signs of a collective failure that requires sustained effort at the national and state levels, and better policies focused on providing equal opportunity and more reliable safety nets.

Jason Scorse

The Framers of the Constitution created an incredibly elegant and powerful document that has withstood the test of time. In order to reach consensus, however, the Framers had to placate the small states that were worried that their voices would be drowned out by the majority; hence the creation of the Senate in which every state gets two senators regardless of population.

From its inception, the Senate has been the least democratic institution in the U.S. and demographic changes have only increased its undemocratic character. Wyoming, with little over 500,000 people gets the same Senate representation as California, with its population of almost 37 million; this means that each California Senator represent 75 times more people than the Senators from Wyoming. It doesn’t get much more unequal than this. This undemocratic trend will only continue as population growth continues to shift to the more populous coastal states.

On top of the radically unequal distribution of political power, the Senate’s filibuster provision allows only 40 members to block legislation. If those 40 members come disproportionately from smaller states this can present a situation where Senators representing no more than one fifth of the electorate can block legislation favored by the other four-fifths.

How this imbalance warps legislation is clear in the contrasting healthcare bills being put forth by the House of Representatives and the Senate committees. In the House, where members are allotted proportional to population, the bill being proposed includes a strong public option and taxes on the super-wealthy, both of which are supported by wide majorities of the public. In the Senate it is unclear whether either of these provisions will make it to the final bill despite widespread public approval, largely because of the intransigence of a few rural senators representing a few million people.

There are some who argue that the Senate’s arcane structure helps to slow the pace of legislation in good ways, allowing for greater discussion and debate, and preventing major new bills from being enacted without sizeable majorities. This may be the case when both political parties are serious about reform and take the issues seriously, but it can be paralyzing when one party is interested only in obstruction and not the public interest. This is the case we face today, with a Republican Party increasingly catering to its lunatic fringe, peddling lies and misinformation, and bent on inflicting serious damage on Obama’s presidency.

But even with the high hurdles posed by the Senate rules and its undemocratic character, Obama and the Democrats have both the votes to overcome a filibuster and pass whatever legislation they want without the help of any Republicans. This is what people interested in real healthcare reform have been urging the President to do for months, knowing full well that the Republicans would not negotiate in good faith.

At long last, it seems as if the White House has finally come to realize that this is the right strategy to pursue. Hopefully, come September they will show the country that they mean business, and pass comprehensive reform.

Jason Scorse

Now that the lunatic fringe of the far right has taken over the Republican Party, it’s clear that nothing constructive will come from the GOP for the foreseeable future. Even so-called “moderates” like Chuck Grassley now spread lies and misinformation, and brag about being obstructionists. Only the Democrats can pass meaningful domestic legislation, and nothing is more pressing than healthcare reform.

The Democrats have the power to enact a package that conforms to the three basic principles Obama has laid out: near-universal coverage and lower long-term costs, combined with continued choice. There are legitimate debates about how to achieve these goals, but the outlines are clear and the Democrats already have many good ideas on the table or in Congressional Committees.

The American people voted for and deserve the type of healthcare reform that is currently being debated in Democratic circles. Sadly, consensus has been elusive due to concerns over bipartisanship and the tendency of “Blue Dog” Democrats to act like Republicans.

One only has to look at the past eight years to know that if the GOP had the Congressional majorities the Democrats now have, there would be no talk of bipartisanship and compromise. During the Bush years, with much smaller majorities, the GOP pushed through highly regressive tax cuts, huge giveaways to the energy companies, and a trillion-dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies. The results: trillions in new debt, and an America more unequal than at any time since the age of the robber barons.

There is still plenty of time for Democrats to coalesce and pass a decent healthcare reform package this year. I am confident they will, given that the alternative is so dire: a huge setback for Obama, possibly an effective end to his presidency in its first year.

But if the Democrats fail on what should be a win-win situation for the country and the party, I will no longer support them. Instead I’ll begin investigating potential third parties; I would also consider voting for any Republican who adhered to true conservative principles and was not beholden to the religious right.

Until the ink is dry on a healthcare bill, I’m going to cross my fingers, send emails, and make lots of phone calls. I sincerely hope that the Democrats come to their senses and pass this crucial test.

Jason Scorse

Many elements of the healthcare debate have been frustrating—the media’s continued attempt to trivialize the key issues and dumb down the dialogue (some commentators have gone so far as to criticize Obama’s recent press conference for being too serious), the depravity of Republicans who couldn’t care less whether the status quo persists, and the “Blue Dog” Democrats who continue to side with GOP obstructionists to stall reform—but the most ridiculous arguments have been over the cost.

Major reform that gets us close to universal healthcare will apparently cost taxpayers about $100 billion a year more than we currently pay; this is a 10% increase over the $1 trillion the government already spends annually on healthcare. Obama has identified cost-savings that can pay for about two-thirds of this $100 billion, leaving around $35 billion a year in new revenue that needs to be raised.

Bottom line: this is peanuts.

I have no idea why the Obama Administration, usually so adept at managing the narrative, has let the issue of cost become so contentious when it’s really a non-issue. The notion that Republicans, after squandering a major surplus and turning it into an almost $8 trillion deficit, now care about fiscal responsibility is simply not credible. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy would cost more than $2 trillion over a decade; they passed with no offsetting savings, and were added 100% to the deficit. The Iraq War has cost more than a trillion dollars and counting, to say nothing of the stepped-up war in Afghanistan.

It’s admirable for Obama to insist that healthcare reform be revenue neutral, yet instead of being applauded for this he gets criticized for needing to raise a modest amount of new revenue? And this to cover almost 50 million Americans who now lack any coverage whatever? It’s simply insane, but sadly it’s also indicative of contemporary political discourse and the media’s inability to focus on substance over spin.

But again, much of the fault lies with the Obama Administration for not doing a better job of putting into perspective how little the healthcare proposals cost, especially compared to the benefits. I am baffled at this lapse. Maybe the Administration knows something I don’t. The way I see it, it’s time to end the sideshow over cost and make the case loud and clear.

Jason Scorse

I just returned from Rwanda a few days ago and am still processing the experience; it is hard to express how impressed I was by the turnaround this country has made. After being engulfed in arguably the most brutal genocide in human history only 15 years ago, Rwanda is now the shining star of central Africa. The capital, Kigali, is one of the cleanest and safest cities I have ever been in despite the immense poverty that still grips the country.

The success of Rwanda is truly miraculous and much of it can be attributed to President Kagame. While it is often true that we overrate the contributions of individuals to historic events, it is hard to overstate Kagame’s influence. Without this one man, Rwanda could still be embroiled in bitter conflict that would threaten to tear the country apart.

Kagame is in effect a benign dictator, but it is hard to argue that what he has brought to the country has not been worth at least a temporary dimunition of political rights. Kagame has instated term limits that impose a maximum 14-year reign for the presidency, and if he sticks by this there will be plenty of time for Rwanda to develop a healthy democratic system.

After the genocide in 1994, the World Bank determined that Rwanda was a “non-viable” country, and yet today it attracts significant foreign investment, tourism, and compared to the turmoil in neighboring Kenya, the country remains extremely calm. While tensions remain beneath the surface it is amazing that after so much bloodshed reconciliation has been possible, such that the murderers and their victims coexist side by side.

After traveling in many parts of the developing world, what is so striking about Rwanda is how clearly it demonstrates that order, cleanliness, and an extremely low tolerance for corruption need not be accompanied by high standards of material wealth. Sometimes major changes can come through little more than the force of will of extremely powerful leaders. When used for ill this power can lead to atrocities and even genocide, but when used for good a single individual can initiate the regeneration of an entire society.

Here’s hoping that Rwanda can continue on its amazing path towards a brighter future.

Jason Scorse

Obama’s press conference on June 23rd was extremely impressive; this is a man who is in command, and can make people who challenge him look very foolish. Case in point was Chuck Todd, who tried to pin Obama down to specific actions the Administration would take against Iran. Obama scolded Todd, saying that while the media is on a 24-hour news cycle the president is not. Asked whether John McCain and Lindsey Graham had “scared” him into getting tougher on Iran, Obama responded, with his trademark grin, “What do you think?”

The president is that rare politician who can demonstrate that words do matter, a lot. He and his team are meticulous not only about what they say, but how and when they say it. Every word in an Obama speech or press conference is aimed at the larger picture; like a chess master, he’s always thinking five moves ahead.

What surprises me is that people continue to underestimate him, and think they can bring him down with cheap shots. He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, cut his teeth in the rough and tumble of Chicago politics, defeated a Clinton in the Democratic primary, and went on to win the White House, over a war hero, in the biggest landslide for Democrats in a generation. It’s almost as if the smile, the slim frame, and the talk of bipartisanship and cooperation casts a spell that makes people forget what a ruthless—and effective—politician Obama truly is.

But even many on the left are complaining that Obama has retreated on many campaign promises, and that he is just another “centrist” trying to triangulate and take the path of least resistance.

It’s way too early to reach this judgment. In only five months in office, Obama has already racked up impressive achievements: a major expansion of children’s healthcare, the equal pay for women legislation, and the biggest stimulus package in history, including hundreds of billions for renewable energy and education. He’s also proclaimed his commitment to closing Guantanamo and ending torture.

The biggest challenges await: healthcare reform, climate change legislation, an overhaul of the financial industry, and comprehensive immigration reform. If Obama makes meaningful progress on even one of these, he will have had an incredible first year; if he manages to succeed on multiple fronts, it will be stunning. Those who would judge Obama need to wait at least another six months to see how these issues play out. If Tuesday’s press conference is any indication, Obama will spend his political capital judiciously to further his agenda.

His best rhetorical skill may be his ability to make his opponents seem ridiculous, as if they must be joking. For example, asked about his insistence on a public option for healthcare, Obama mocked those who claim that the government can’t do anything right and at the same time say that private insurers won’t be able to compete with a public plan. In seconds, he shot down an argument that had begun to worry many Congressional Democrats.

I don’t worship Obama. Still it’s a thing of beauty to watch someone so skilled at dismantling opponents with so little effort. As they say in boxing, you can’t win on points against the champ—you have to score a knockout. No one so far seems even remotely capable; if Congressional Democrats show enough spine (a big if), the next legislation session could be very fruitful for Obama’s agenda.

Jason Scorse

The scope of the irresponsibility and lack of accountability during the Bush years is legendary, and will only grow over time. It is both sad and maddening to see the airwaves full of the enablers of this legacy (e.g., Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, joined these days by the uber-hypocrite Newt Gingrich). The same for the intellectual architects of these failures, most notably neoconWilliam Kristol, who bounces from one major outlet to the other, from the pages of the New York Times to the Washington Post.

Ours is a culture that preaches accountability and responsibility, yet no longer practices it. This is probably our greatest national weakness; I have always contended that we get the government (and the media) that we deserve.

This culture of disregard for the consequence of one’s actions is nowhere more evident than in the public response to the housing and credit bust, and most recently in legislation aimed at improving the fuel efficiency of the cars Americans drive.

Millions of people who bought homes during the bubble now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth (referred to as being “underwater”). To hear them, you might think there is a god-given right that their homes would appreciate at double digits forever. If they were speculating, the downturn was simply the price of making a bad bet; if they bought their home to live in and could afford the mortgage, there should be no change in their behavior; if they bought a home they couldn’t afford, that was their mistake (and whoever gave them their mortgage).

But now tens of thousands are simply walking away from their homes and refusing to pay. This weakens the communities that have to deal with the abandoned houses, further weakens the banks, and helped lead to government bailouts that cost taxpayers tens of billions. The bailouts largely reward the most irresponsible; those who were prudent and resisted the housing hysteria are now subsidizing the foolish.

The same goes for credit cards. After running up huge debts, mainly on goods that are by no means a necessity, millions are now defaulting—and getting great deals in the process. They’re wiping out their debts by paying as little as 50 cents on the dollar. Wonderful for them, but it raises interests rates for everyone else (and depresses share prices for people like myself, who have banks in their retirement portfolios).

Perhaps most egregious, since it comes from a Democratic Congress under President Obama, is the new $1 billion “cash for clunkers” program. Owners of SUVs or trucks that get less than 18 mpg will be able to get up to $4,500 from the government to trade their old vehicle in as long as they buy one that gets at least 2 mpg more. People who own cars with less than 18 mpg get the money if they buy new cars that get at least 4 mpg more. This is another giveaway to the auto industry, it does almost nothing to improve fuel efficiency, and it actually penalizes the people who had the sense to buy fuel-efficient cars in the first place: if you have a car that gets 25 or 30 mpg, you’re not eligible for a single penny from the program.

There are serious problems when society views the government as little more than a trough at which to engorge themselves. This parasitic relationship reached its apex during the Bush Administration: lobbyists wrote legislation, jobs went to political cronies instead of the competent, the public was told they could have lower taxes and still fight two wars.

With Obama we were supposed to get “tough love” and a return to the true conservative principle of personal responsibility. Given the severity of the economic crisis, and the need to bail out the banks and the car companies, the president obviously feels he has to hold up on this message; one can only hope that it ultimately becomes central to his governing philosophy.

When those who play by the rules see irresponsibility being rewarded, they ultimately become dispirited and no longer believe in the system. They can easily become disengaged, leaving the system even more vulnerable to manipulation by those who are unaccountable and irresponsible. This is a cycle that America must avoid if it is to remain a great power.

Jason Scorse

Just as nations and empires in their waning days are prone to violence, just as wounded animals are the most dangerous, so can a political party in its death throes pose a threat to society.

Such is the case with the Republican Party in America today.

Thoroughly discredited, representing an ever smaller and less diverse portion of the American electorate, the modern GOP is not only bankrupt of ideas but increasingly given to outbursts of ignorance, stupidity, and dangerous rhetoric. It happens regularly, on a scale that is hard to square with a mature political party.

Many of the worst offenders are not elected Republicans but ex-office-holders (such as Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo, Dick Cheney, and Mitt Romney), shock jocks such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh, and almost the entire crew of Fox News. But even from Republicans currently serving in government, there is no shortage of foolishness and even vitriol; consider, just for instance, recent statements from Senator Jim Inhofe and Governors Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and Mark Sanford, along with the head of the RNC, Michael Steele.

Even so-called Republican “moderates” such as Congressman Eric Cantor and Governor Tim Pawlenty have joined the chorus of irresponsibility that now is the norm, not the exception, from Republicans.

These last gasps of the party that rose to ascendancy under George W. Bush are causing serious damage to society, both to the political process and concretely; the murders of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas and the guard at the Holocaust Museum in the Capitol are only the most recent examples. As much as the right and the GOP want to distance themselves from violent extremists, there is no denying the link. The killers share the rhetoric and conspiracy theories that are all-too-common in rightwing commentary, and often endorsed explicitly or implicitly by high-ranking Republicans (Dick Cheney recently said that he favors Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsed actor Jon Voight’s comment that Obama is a “false prophet” who will bring down America).

On the policy side the damage is even greater. The Republicans watered down the stimulus bill to reduce benefits to the unemployed and deny lower taxes to low-income Americans. On energy policy, they offer no solutions for global warming; in fact, their latest attempt at energy legislation expressly ignores the topic and calls instead for two new nuclear reactors in each of the 50 states. And on healthcare, while the outcome is far from certain, Republicans are working hard to block a public option and to maintain the private insurance industry’s grip on the market.

One can only hope, as in 2006 and 2008, that the American public recognizes the danger and continues to hand the Republicans decisive defeats. The more it’s marginalized into irrelevancy, the greater the chance that the GOP will have to significantly rethink its positions.

On a positive note, the 20% or so of America that leans far-right (most of whom call themselves Republicans) holds views that are well out of the mainstream; many are illiberal and bigoted older Americans, who will die off over the next 20-30 years (e.g. almost 60% of Bill O’Reilly’s audience is over 50 years old). The younger generation, both Democrats and Republicans, is more tolerant and open-minded. Here’s hoping we can minimize the damage that the fringe is still able to inflict before they all pass away.

Jason Scorse

The New York Times says that Obama plans to take a more active role in the upcoming healthcare debate because he’s worried that if he leaves the legislation solely to Congress, it will become too watered down. Supposedly, in a conversation with Senate Republicans, he stated that he’d rather compromise and get 85% of what he wants with some Republican votes than get 100% of what he wants with only Democratic support.

This is troubling and yet understandable, and underlines the great test that Obama will face in this debate.

Congressional Democrats have already agreed to use the reconciliation process for the healthcare vote, which means that it will only require a simple majority and cannot be filibustered. This almost guarantees that Obama could get everything he wants; even if he loses a few “moderate” Democrats, there’s little chance he would get fewer than the necessary 51. He could even go as low as 50 and count on Vice-President Biden for the tie-breaker.

But Obama is making a calculated judgment that in order for healthcare reform to truly be sustainable, both economically and politically, he needs Republican support; otherwise, any reform might be reversed by a future Congress or presidential administration.

The question is what Obama will have to give up to attract Republican support, and whether it will be worth the trade-off. The main element that Republicans oppose is the “public option,” which would allow a government-run plan similar to Medicare to compete with private plans. Republicans fear that this would open the door to single-payer insurance, and that the government plan would have an unfair advantage over private-sector plans.

While in theory there is some merit to this argument, in reality it is largely fallacious. Many nations have both private and public health insurance, and the systems can be structured to compete fairly. Without a public option, which typically has low overhead costs, private insurance companies have little incentive to cut costs—and cost-cutting is ultimately the key to successful healthcare reform. By resisting a public option, Republican lawmakers seem more intent on protecting the profits of big insurance companies than on improving healthcare access and affordability for all Americans.

If Obama were to compromise on the public option, it would represent a tremendous failure of leadership; he would be capitulating to the GOP, and severely damaging the prospects for real reform. As Obama has already stated, if genuine healthcare reform can’t be passed now it will likely never pass.

I would like to assume that Obama’s reputed statement to Republicans (that he’d rather get most of what he wants with some Republican support than all of what he wants with Democrats alone) is simply, at this point, good politics; I would like to assume that he plans to stand firmly behind a public option, even if this leads in the end to little or no Republican support.

If substantive healthcare reform passes and proves successful, its popularity would likely generate the political will necessary to sustain it; at the same time, it would represent an additional political advantage for the Democrats.

To my mind, that’s a risk worth taking.

Jason Scorse

With the retirement of David Souter from the Court, Obama has the chance to nominate his first Justice. While his choice won’t dramatically alter the ideology of the Court, since Souter is strongly liberal, it does give him the opportunity to appoint a fresh face and begin to counter the right wing tilt that was bolstered by Bush’s additions of John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Odds are that Obama is going to pick a woman, and fortunately there are many capable women both in the court system and outside it. Speculation is also mounting as to whether Obama will try to pick a Hispanic or a woman from another minority group, thus further diversifying the Court, strengthening his ties with the chosen community, and scoring political points in the bargain.

The best choice Obama could make would be Constitutional scholar Pam Karlan of Stanford University, who is openly gay.

Professor Karlan is extremely bright; she was one of the main commentators on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer back in 2000 during the Florida recount battles, and consistently proved to have the most coherent arguments. She is extremely confident and does not shy away from controversy. At 50 she is relatively young, and she has the intellectual heft to help build a serious alternative to the rightwing narrative that has recently dominated the Court and the public’s perception of it. She is just the type of Justice who could persuade other Justices and move the Court, even if only incrementally, in a direction in which every citizen’s rights are better protected.

In an ideal world, the fact that Karlan is gay wouldn’t be an issue. But of course it is. Nominating the first openly gay Justice to the Court would be certain to galvanize the right wing and guarantee a bruising confirmation battle. But it could also do more to advance civil rights and educate the public than almost any other decision Obama could make.

Professor Karlan has one of the best minds in the country; during the confirmation hearings, she would make quick work of anyone who tried to challenge her integrity or her commitment to the rule of law. When pressed whether she would have a “pro-gay” bias, she could easily counter that no one ever asked Catholic males (e.g., Scalia and Alito) whether they had a “pro-male, pro-religious” bias; so much for the notion that being gay has anything to do with following the letter of the law or being impartial.

An openly gay person on the Court would be a huge victory for civil rights, and establish Obama as a President who doesn’t shy away from pushing the envelope. Given his opposition to gay marriage and his hesitancy to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” it would also go a long way towards answering his critics in the LGBT community and on the Left.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Obama is going to make this pick even though I think he would like to; he doesn’t want to distract from his larger domestic agenda, especially health care, and already the torture issue is threatening to do just that.

Here's hoping that Obama does the courageous thing and nominates Karlan to the Court.

Jason Scorse

Friday’s economic data point to a continuing recession, but one in which the worst may be over: job losses are beginning to decelerate, there are moderately encouraging signs in retail spending and consumer confidence, and some of the hardest-hit home markets are showing sales upticks. The stock market, a leading indicator typically six months ahead of employment and GDP swings, has shown the largest percentage gains in years over the last two months.

Whether the worst is really over is hard to tell. Still, since much of the nearly $800 billion in stimulus spending will only begin to impact the economy in the coming months, it’s reasonable to expect that things should get better; in that case, the country may be officially out of recession by the end of the year. Much rests on the health of the financial system, which is still shaky, but there have been encouraging signs in the banking sector as well; banks currently don’t need as much new capital as once feared, and a serious financial collapse now seems a remote possibility.

If there is reason for cautious optimism for the country’s economic health, there is no such (even qualified) good news for the GOP. In the opening weeks of the Obama Administration, the Republican Party appeared to stake its political future on the hope that Obama (and the country) would fail, and that they would be able to put the blame squarely on the President and the Democrats. This was always a risky proposition, made even riskier by the timing; the likelihood that the recession would continue through the 2010 mid-term elections was always dubious.

By voting nearly unanimously against virtually all of Obama’s major spending initiatives, the GOP has put itself in a lose-lose position. If the economy turns around, Obama and the Democrats will be able to take all the credit; if things get worse, Democrats can make the case that things would have been far worse had we followed the GOP’s advice. While the government is running record deficits, federal red ink has never been a hugely motivating political force. In the midst of the worse recession since the 1930s, it won’t matter this time, either.

People vote their pocketbooks more than anything. By painting themselves into a corner on all matters economic, the GOP will have nothing left to fall back on but the culture war issues that have less and less resonance. The country is becoming increasingly tolerant of gays, and the stridently anti-abortion forces represent no more than 20% of the country.

To compound its problems even more, the face of today’s GOP consists of a discredited old guard (e.g., Cheney, Gingrich, and McCain) and a new guard (Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, and Sean Hannity) which speaks only to a sliver of angry, bitter voters: those not guided by reason, and who totally turn off independents and moderates. As many on the blogosphere have noted, the current spokespeople for the GOP are almost a dream come true for Democratic activists.

In the end, America needs a robust multi-party democracy. With the GOP seemingly bent on political irrelevance, perhaps it’s the time for the emergence of a new national party. Either way, as long as Obama and the Democrats don’t make any major missteps, the country appears to be theirs to govern for a long time to come.

Jason Scorse

By any reasonable standards, President Obama is confronting an excess of serious issues: the global financial meltdown, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing threats in Iran and Pakistan, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, health care reform, the climate crisis, immigration reform, and on and on.

Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to embark on many new initiatives at once. This is especially true in our media-driven culture, which tends to focus on the trivial, blow things out of proportion, and make it difficult to carry out sustained rational discourse. Obama’s political capital has so far allowed him to take on much more than earlier presidents, but he too has limits.

There is no doubt a heated and ongoing discussion in the White House over what issues to prioritize and which to put on the back burner or shelve, perhaps permanently, in the effort to succeed on a few key fronts.

There is likewise no doubt that healthcare reform is at the top of Obama’s agenda, and that he is preparing to expend significant political capital to make it happen. Democrats have already signaled that they are willing to use the reconciliation process to get this passed, which will require only a simple majority vote instead of the 60 needed to prevent a Senate filibuster.

But there are some issues that the Administration has signaled it does not intend to pursue, and in an ideal world these issues would not be brushed aside: notably gay rights, the prosecution of former Bush officials for their role in the torture of detainees, and gun control. Federal legislation mandating civil unions would be a huge step forward. Those who ordered the torture of detainees committed war crimes and should be brought to justice, reaffirming U.S. moral legitimacy and the rule of law in America. Closing the loophole that allows gun purchases without background checks and reaffirming the assault weapons ban are common-sense steps; taking them would prevent tremendous violence both in the U.S. and Mexico.

And there’s the question of how far the Obama Administration is prepared to go to enact serious climate change legislation. The House of Representatives will likely approve the Waxman-Markey Bill, but Democrats lack the 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. It remains to be seen whether they’re willing to use the reconciliation process here, as in healthcare reform, to get a deal done. If the U.S. doesn’t pass serious environmental legislation before the Copenhagen meetings in December, it could signal the beginning of the end of any meaningful international effort to address global warming--with potentially devastating consequences.

Obama is under tremendous pressure, and will only go to the mat for issues which he is convinced the public cares most about (which may make him change his mind about the torture prosecutions). We need to make sure our voices are heard on a wide range of issues; unless we speak up, they will not get the attention they deserve. Our politicians will only make things a priority if we do.

Jason Scorse

The Bush years will be remembered for many things, but above all they represent a lost decade during which American economic might was squandered. The wealth that was generated during the first decade of the millennium was essentially illusory; except for some advances in computing and electronics technology, increases in the value of assets were strictly on paper, based on speculation and, as we’ve discovered, Ponzi schemes.

It didn’t have to be this way. Our current problems are the result of specific policy decisions made by the Bush Administration, and a public that let them get away with it.

The Administration’s all out disregard for scientific inquiry is legendary, and particularly damaging in the areas of stem cell research and energy technology. Some on the right argue that no major advances have come from embryonic stem cell research, and that if anything, Bush’s refusal to allow federal funding has led to advances in the less morally problematic realm of adult stem cells. This is wrong. With a federal moratorium in place for eight years, we have no real idea how much stem cell research may have been retarded. Many of the world’s top scientists in biotechnology have moved to other countries, and many competitor nations have used the past decade to catch or surpass us in this critical 21st century technology.

In addition, by deciding to make it harder to obtain student and work visas, the Bush Administration has significantly decreased the number of top students and researchers who come to the U.S. to study and work. At a time when America should have increased its outreach, we made the world’s best and brightest feel unwanted and unwelcome.

On the energy front, Bush’s reversal of his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide (and his all-out efforts to block states from doing so on their own) has led to another decade in which American dependence on Mideast oil has increased. As a result we continued our direct financial support of terrorist-sponsoring states, and lost precious time to confront climate change. China is now the leading solar panel producer in the world; while Silicon Valley is finally beginning to invest in green technology, a tremendous opportunity for America to take the lead in energy innovation was wasted.

The state of America’s infrastructure is appalling by industrialized standards, as anyone who drives on our major highways or visits our airports can attest. It will take many years and hundreds of billions of dollars just to make repairs, let alone major improvements.

The costs of education and health care have far outstripped the nominal increase in wages over the past decade. This has hampered productivity because many workers stay in jobs solely for the healthcare benefits, and many businesses are hiring fewer workers because of the burden of healthcare premiums. Many younger Americans are being dissuaded from pursuing advanced degrees at just the time when the premium on education is getting even higher. There is simply no way America can remain a major economic power if education participation rates continue to slip relative to other major powers.

The bottom line: in too many important ways, America is a poorer place than it was in 2000.

Fortunately, in only a little over two months, Obama has begun to put in place policies that will not only help us dig our way out of the mess we’ve made, but rebuild our human and physical capital for the long-term.

We’ve lost a lot of time, and it may take at least a year or two to get unemployment down to a reasonable level and growth rates up to a modest 2-3 percent. At least we’re now pointing in the right direction, away from the policies of Bush’s lost decade.

Jason Scorse

Anyone who doubted Obama’s commitment to a paradigm-shifting agenda should have had their fears allayed by now. Make no mistake: Obama is the real deal, a New Deal for the 21st century. He is that rare politician who is actually following through on his campaign promises: from health care to the Iraq War, from tax reform to ethics reform, to even serious climate change legislation.

Obama’s agenda is so far-reaching that I think many on the Left have yet to realize what an amazing opportunity this is to reshape the country. While there are things to criticize about some of his cabinet choices, aspects of his bank bailout plan, and his foreign policy, Obama is a man on a mission who has thrown incrementalism to the wind.

Included in his recent budget is the most progressive redistribution of wealth in decades. By letting Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy expire in 2010, reducing the value of itemized deductions for those making over $250,000, and closing many corporate loopholes, Obama is telling the elites that it is time for them to contribute more to the greater good that is the foundation of their prosperity. Much of the additional revenue from these steps will be used to put a significant down payment on universal healthcare.

On the climate change front, Obama’s plan is an economist’s dream. Instead of giving away the pollution permits for greenhouse gases he is going to make companies pay for them; this will create a revenue stream which Obama plans to use to permanently reduce tax rates for low-income Americans and to fund renewable energy projects. This will help mitigate the regressive nature of higher energy prices, and help transition the economy to less carbon-intensive technologies.

Obama has also been extremely savvy by including in his budget all the costs of war and the annual fixes to the alternative minimum tax. This will not only make it easier for him to demonstrate progress on cutting the budget deficit, it provides a more sober and reality-based assessment of the country’s long-term fiscal needs.

The next phase of Obama’s plan is entitlement reform. The elephant in the room is Medicare, which by some projections is headed for deficits in the tens of trillions. Obama, of course, hopes that some sort of universal healthcare system will bring down costs and enable the country to get the problem under control.

Doing even half of what he proposes would make him Obama a great president. If he can pull off his entire agenda, he will truly be a once-in-a-lifetime figure.

Elections have consequences.

Jason Scorse

On the heels of the stimulus package victory, the Obama Administration quickly unveiled its new bank bailout strategy and home foreclosure plan. The host of economic challenges that Obama faces is unprecedented in the modern era, let alone the foreign policy challenges that seem to grow more difficult every day (see Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel).

But looming ahead is what will likely be Obama’s toughest challenge: enacting meaningful climate change legislation.

With oil prices back down to near-record lows (in real dollars), with the economy in a tailspin, and with environmentalism near the bottom of the public’s priority list, passing such legislation is going to be extremely difficult. It has not been made any easier by Energy Secretary Chu’s recent statement that he is unsure whether the political climate is right.

The signature legislation being considered is a national cap and trade system that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 1990 levels by 2050. This would require a major restructuring of American industry (and the entire economy), and would likely lead to significantly higher energy costs in the short to medium term. Because demand for energy is relatively insensitive to price, much of the cost would be passed on to consumers. Rebates could mitigate these higher prices, but this too would cost money and the question is where to get it.

Enter the contentious issue of giving away or auctioning the greenhouse gas permits.

Government auctions of permits could generate huge amounts of revenue, perhaps trillions; the monies could be used not only to decrease taxes in other sectors, but for additional investments in green technology or technology transfers to the developing world. But industry is going to lobby hard for free permits. Obama has pledged to auction the permits, but it’s an open question whether this will make it into the final bill. Either way, look for a massive battle.

In addition to the permit issue, fossil fuel industries (particularly the coal industry) would be hit hard by any binding greenhouse limits. Legislator in the affected states will lobby intensely to weaken any legislation, and create escape clauses that go easy on the coal industry.

Even more fundamentally, the remnants of the Republican Party in Congress are comprised mostly of extremists, many of whom continue to deny the reality of climate change. Arguments that Obama is kowtowing to the “extreme left,” and that he wants to put the interests of polar bears over those of American workers, are sure to fill rightwing airwaves when legislation is finally proposed.

Whether Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders have the will to overcome these objections (which unfortunately may be joined in by some of the “Blue Dog” Democrats), will likely determine whether America, and the world community, make a serious effort to address climate change. If we wait another eight years, there will be almost no real chance of reining in the emissions trajectory.

Initial signs are promising. Henry Waxman won out over John Dingell for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, replacing a shill for the automakers with a staunch environmentalist. Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has already signaled that it will make recommendations for regulating CO2, and Obama himself has not backed down in his aggressive call for the U.S. to be a willing partner in tough and substantive international climate negotiations scheduled for Copenhagen this December.

But a lot can happen in 10 months, and great political battles often hinge on factors beyond the President’s control. The state of the economy and foreign affairs toward the end of 2009 may have as much to do with whether we try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as the best-laid plans of environmental advocates.

Jason Scorse

This past week saw an amazing episode of brinkmanship between the discredited Republican Congressional minority and the new president, with the outcome of the stimulus bill still in doubt.

I’ll put my money on President Obama.

He bent over backwards to please House Republicans, replacing 10-20 percent of the bill’s spending portion with business and corporate tax cuts that have little stimulus merit. It upset many progressives (myself included) to see Obama water down such a potentially good bill simply for the sake of bipartisanship.

Not only was he rewarded with exactly zero House votes; even more, right wing pundits and GOP leaders (including Senator McCain) chided the president none too subtly for not doing more to appease them.

I keep reminding myself that Obama is a master politician, and I am convinced that he has a larger plan in the works. Now that Republicans have made clear that they have no intention of negotiating in good faith, Obama and Congressional Democrats may be able to weaken the GOP provisions, add more progressive elements, and pass an improved bill.

If the GOP complains, it will be easy for Obama to say that he tried to bring them into the process and that they have no right to feel slighted. With his sky-high approval ratings, the public will likely side with him over the GOP—and when the economy ultimately turns around, Obama and the Democrats will get all the credit. This will likely happen before the 2010 midterm elections, putting the Democrats in an extremely strong position to make further gains.

But perhaps I’m giving Obama too much credit, and he was naïve enough to believe that the GOP wanted real negotiation. I doubt it. While some elements of the stimulus bill are little more than Democratic-wish list items, the GOP’s relentless emphasis on tax cuts is patently ludicrous; few economists still peddle this voodoo.

Sadly, what remains of the GOP is mostly an extremist Southern wing that is well out of the mainstream. While Republicans still control 40 percent of the votes in the Senate, the states they represent account for less than 30 percent of the population. With Rush Limbaugh seemingly calling the shots, we are witnessing the death throes of a loud and vocal minority.

And we should be happy we are.

Listening to GOP “leaders” and “thinkers” is like listening in on a parallel universe where black is white and up is down. Their ideas have been discredited, and they seem tone-deaf to the direction this country (and the world) is going. They continue to spread misogynistic nonsense (notice how many voted for the Liddy Ledbetter Fair Pay Act), have overtly racist leanings (i.e. RNC candidate chair Saltsman sending out CDs with the “Barack the Magic Negro” song), and they still cling to “culture war" crusades that are being drowned out by a collapsing economy and other truly serious issues. Americans know that it was Republican rule that landed us in the mess we are in, and that capitalism has been been brought to its knees not by “socialism” but by the GOP.

The bottom line is that bipartisanship for its own sake is a fool’s errand. The Republicans are so opposed to all that the Democrats and Obama stand for that the best strategy will be to largely ignore them. The public wants more social spending, a more progressive tax code, a more diplomatic and even-handed foreign policy; it wants science elevated to its rightful place, and it wants America to get serious about an energy policy.

Obama is the rare politician who is smart enough to have it both ways: appearing to reach out to those who disapprove of his policies, but not backing down from his core principles.

It’s up to us to make sure this is how he governs for the next eight years.

Jason Scorse

The American experiment is premised on the beautiful, radical, ultimately illusory proposition that all people are created equal. In reality, people are inherently unequal; even more, research suggests there are genetic markers for qualities as far-reaching as will power and discipline that severely limit the ability of people to improve their lot.

This seeming contradiction at the heart of the American ideal (and the ideals of liberal democracies worldwide) presents us with an immense challenge: despite the inequalities that we inherit by chance at birth, how much can and should society do to move toward greater equality, both in terms of opportunity and outcomes? It’s a question that has bedeviled presidents throughout our history, and it’s particularly poignant at this moment when we have a president as committed to change as Barack Hussein Obama. It doesn’t help that the current financial crisis is only exacerbating inequalities, and making it even harder to address the mess we are in.

Here are some thoughts on this question, a mixture of Obama’s and my own:

1. Greatly expand early childhood education (starting from pre-natal)

An increasing body of research says that the years from conception to the age of four or five are the time when the most intense and rapid cognitive development takes place; this means that a child’s capacity to learn and grow is largely determined before they ever enter kindergarten.

Some amazing programs, such as the Harlem Children’s Zone, have caught the attention of top educational researchers and Obama as well. These programs focus on the crucial early years in a child’s development. Obama has stated that he hopes to fund 20 such zones around the country. In terms of results per-dollar, programs like this are one of the best investments a country can make, with returns orders of magnitude greater than for many other types of social investments.

2. Lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research and increase federal funding for medical research

Innovations in health technology have the potential to diminish and even eliminate the genetic inequality that some of us inherit. If we can find cures for crippling diseases, we can help not only those people but others as well. We may be able to determine the genetic precursors to various diseases, screen for them at the earliest possible time, devise interventions, and perhaps even eliminate them from the human gene pool.

3. Create a culture of responsibility and accountability

Even though our genetic inheritance can dramatically shape our destiny, genes are far from a 100 percent determining factor. While we may not have as much agency or free will as once believed, we can create environments that nurture certain behaviors over others.

Obama had this in mind when he pledged to create a government that was more transparent and accountable, and an America in which people take greater responsibility for their actions and the impact of those actions on others. Already, he has signed into law paradigm-shifting ethics and transparency rules whose full impact we will only experience as the Obama Administration unfolds.

4. Elevate science to its rightful place

The Republican “war on science” has been one of the most damaging legacies of the Bush years. Not only did Bush substitute ideology for facts, many times he injected religious dogma into the process as well.

Restoring scientific inquiry and empiricism to its rightful place is central to Obama’s mission, and he is clearly intent on carrying this out. This will have particular relevance in issues such as environmental standards, healthcare and education policy, all of which touch directly on people’s lives.

5. Draw sharper lines between abhorrent criminals and non-violent offenders

One of the tragedies of the American justice system is how often criminals such as murderers, rapists, and pedophiles are lumped together in jails with non-violent offenders such as drug users (who sometimes receive harsher sentences). This is unfair, inefficient, and often creates worse criminals as well.

There are clearly people whose past and potential actions require that they be locked up. At the same time, our jails are full of individuals whose real problems are addiction and mental illness, not an inclination to criminal behavior. I hope that President Obama can shift the terms of the debate so that the latter group receives more treatment and preventative resources, and is isolated from the hardened criminals who truly deserve incarceration.

Summing up, it will never be true that people are created equal. But the great beauty of America is our attempt to forge a “more perfect union” in which we move ever closer to this ideal.

Jason Scorse

Recent polls suggest that Americans not only have faith that Obama will be able to turn the country around, but they are also willing to give him significant time to do so. While their patience is not unlimited, they recognize that Obama is inheriting problems not of his own making and not amenable to quick fixes. This (rare) display of maturity on the part of the American people is refreshing, and it gives Obama greater political capital than any new president in the past 20+ years.

While making political predictions is always dicey, here are mine for 2009:

1. The Economy

Obama will sign a stimulus package in the range of $1 trillion. It will be largely free of pork, but it will include provisions to entice tax-cutting Republicans that should have been left out. The emphasis will be on public works, especially green energy. As a result, we’ll see the economy start to turn around by the second half of the year. Obama will get credit for the turnaround (though much of it will actually be due to central bankers around the world), which will only increase his standing among the American people.

2. Healthcare

The dire fiscal situation will keep Obama from passing universal healthcare in his first year. But he’ll greatly expand coverage for poor children, and will lay the groundwork for a major initiative once the economy picks up. He will build a coalition for universal coverage with big business by telling them that their support is not only in their best interests, but is a necessary trade-off if business wants additional financial help from the White House.

3. Climate Change

There is great uncertainty about what Obama will do on this front. On one hand he has expressed strongly his intention to curb greenhouse gasses, but so far has been unwilling to ask for the necessary sacrifices (e.g., a greenhouse gas tax). A major international meeting in December will likely determine the fate of the post-Kyoto framework. While I expect the Obama Administration to make significant commitments, I suspect (unfortunately) that they will not go far enough toward reaching the goal of slashing emissions by 80% by 2050.

4. Education

Obama will expand early childhood education (perhaps as part of the stimulus package) and make some minor reforms in linking federal money to more flexible hiring practices and promoting charter schools. I don’t expect anything radical on this front in the first year.

5. Gay Rights

Obama will end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, and will begin to craft federal legislation mandating universal civil unions for gay couples. This will be a major development, and it won’t actually take place until after the economy rebounds.

6. The Supreme Court

If a vacancy arises Obama will nominate a woman or a Hispanic. Based on obvious political calculations, the nominee will be sufficiently liberal to satisfy the Democratic left.

7. Iraq

As promised, Obama will begin a phased withdrawal that will essentially end major U.S. combat operations by 2010. He will leave a residual force of 30,000+ that will still take part in combat operations, especially to weed out any remaining Al Qaeda. Iraq will continue to teeter on the brink, but be reasonably stable in 2009.

8. Afghanistan/Pakistan

These countries are linked in terrorism since the border between the countries is essentially porous. Obama will increase U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and will also ask his generals to begin bribing the less extreme Taliban elements in an effort to divide the group. He will increase foreign aid to both countries, making the case that America must offer their peoples an attractive alternative to the extremists.

Obama will also significantly increase pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants, and will increase covert American operations aimed at taking out key Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. Pakistan remains mired in internal strife and has yet to admit the full extent of its terrorist problem, but pressure from both India and the U.S. will force the Pakistani government to clamp down on the militants who threaten its own survival.

9. Iran

Obama will begin diplomatic initiatives leading to a “grand bargain”: the Iranians will be offered increased entry into the world community in exchange for abolishing their nuclear weapons program and decreasing their support for global terrorism. If this diplomatic effort fails, Obama will authorize military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities by the end of 2009.

Happy Inauguration Day!!!

Jason Scorse

When I first heard that the “Big Three” automakers were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, my reaction was good riddance. The automakers, in conjunction with the United Autoworkers Union (UAW), have blocked environmental legislation for decades because cheap oil spelled big profits with gas-guzzling SUVs. There’s something to be said for allowing market forces to weed out inefficient producers and reward the Asian car manufacturers who had the foresight to develop fuel-efficient fleets.

But after some reflection I realized that this was too simplistic. Part of the reason the Big Three are so close to insolvency is because of the credit crisis, which is no fault of theirs. Currently it is simply difficult to get car loans, and even Toyota and Honda are experiencing huge sales downturns. In addition, because the U.S. is the only major industrialized nation without universal healthcare, U.S. automakers are at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis their overseas rivals.

Bailing out Detroit might not be a great option, but it appears to be the lesser of bad options; letting the mainstay of U.S. manufacturing go down in the middle of a major recession would reverberate throughout the economy, and make things significantly worse. In comparison to the $700 billion so far pledged to bail out the financial sector, the $15-$34 billion that is being discussed for the Big Three is a relative pittance; there’s also a good chance that the government (aka we taxpayers) will eventually recoup the investment, which happened when Chrysler was bailed out years ago.

Enter the Senate Republicans.

At the weekend the GOP, in yet another show of class warfare and ideology trumping the public good, seemed intent on derailing any auto bailout because the UAW would not agree to immediate and major cuts in wages. That the GOP’s anti-union stance would blind them to the repercussions of letting this modest proposal fail shows all too well that when it comes to the middle class and blue collar workers, the Republicans could care less. Where is their outrage over the compensation of corporate CEOs and investment bankers who pull down more in a year than autoworkers make in a lifetime? Their companies have already received tens of billions of dollars, many times more than the Big Three are asking for.

I hold no love for GM, Ford, and Chrysler and I’ve never owned an American-made car, but I never imagined the day might come when these companies went out of business. There is still time for emergency measures, but the window of opportunity may be about to close for good.

Jason Scorse

My hunch is that Barack Obama is an atheist, or at minimum an agnostic. I doubt that he believes in heaven and hell, that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that a supernatural being is preparing to wipe away our sins and redeem the world.

But Obama wanted a career in national politics. In America this requires membership in a church, and at the least a modest display of piety. (You don’t believe it? Polls show that Americans would sooner vote for a black lesbian for president than for an atheist.)

So am I accusing Obama of being an opportunist and somewhat dishonest? Yes, but I forgive him; pretending to be religious is a tried and true American tradition, and he had no choice but to feign devotion if he wanted a future in national politics. I think he has a genuine affection for much of Jesus’s philosophy and the role that it played in the Civil Rights Movement, and I believe this helps him to justify his own professions of Christianity.

But make no mistake about it: Barack Obama is not a deeply religious man, if religious at all (the same can be said for John McCain, which is one of the reasons the far right despises him).

This is a good thing. It is time for America to reverse the creeping intrusion of religion into politics and the public square. Obama is just the person to elevate rational discourse to its rightful place in national politics, and to return religion to the private sphere where it belongs.

I am sure every now and then Obama will make a speech that highlights religion, and he will routinely end his talks with “god bless America”—he wants to be re-elected after all—but I predict that his administration will be one of the least overtly religious in the modern era. Above all, Obama is a pragmatist who understands that the role of government is to protect the public interest and get things done.

By couching issues in terms of basic fairness, common sense, and effectiveness, Obama will demonstrate that America does not need religious dictums to do the right thing; that our inherent moral intuition, combined with reason, is up to the task of crafting sound government policy. With Obama, intellectualism will be back in vogue and the United States can get back to leading the world in many areas of scientific inquiry.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created just about the perfect balance between religion and the public sphere; in contrast to the last eight years of attempts to upset this balance, Obama is poised to solidify the wall that separates church and state.

And we will all be better off.

Jason Scorse

A curious thing has happened in the weeks since Obama’s momentous victory: many on the Left are complaining that the President-Elect isn’t being progressive enough. On popular cables shows such as Rachel Maddow, in the pages of liberal blogs and websites like Truthdig and MyDD, and in the columns of established liberal publications such as The Nation, commentators are declaring Obama too centrist.

I don’t know what planet these people are on.

Obama has maintained a remarkably consistent set of principles and policy goals ever since he began campaigning almost two years ago, and they include some of the most progressive U.S. policies in over a generation. Obama is set to put forth a plan for universal or near-universal healthcare coverage; to enact major tax reform that increases taxes on the wealthy and gives cuts to the middle and lower classes (the definition of progressive); and to embark on a massive public works stimulus program that will create millions of jobs and focus on green energy.

He’s also committed to regulating greenhouse gases and reversing the Bush Administration’s environmental legacy, and to expanding preschool education and federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Taken together, we have the makings of the most progressive administration of our lifetimes.

It seems clear that Obama’s critics have yet to realize that what is considered “centrist” these days is actually progressive. They should be celebrating the fact that the policies which progressives have long fought for are now embraced by a majority of the American people, and are on the verge of being enacted by one of the most skilled politicians in American history (and one who takes office with a significant mandate as well). Instead, too many progressives seem stuck in their role as outliers who need to “take on the system”.

In particular, the appointment of many former Clinton Administration officials and prominent classical economists has some prominent progressives confusing personality with policy. As Obama made clear at a recent press conference, he is the one who will provide the vision for where he wants to take the country, and his team will be tasked with implementing it.

I can understand why progressives are nervous; they are so close to realizing many of their dreams, and they don’t want the opportunity to slip away. But it would be nice if everyone could take a deep breath and give Obama the benefit of the doubt. He has earned it and until he proves otherwise, I am going to trust him to carry out the progressive policies that he has promised.

Jason Scorse

Aside from all the speculation about Obama’s cabinet picks this past week, the most significant political development may have been the victory of Henry Waxman over John Dingell for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has chaired this powerful committee for nearly three decades. He has consistently undermined sound environmental policy by kowtowing to the Detroit automakers, scuttling efforts to raise fuel efficiency standards and to otherwise address climate change.

Few believed that Waxman would succeed in ousting Dingell before the chairmanship came up for a vote, and Waxman ended up winning by only a slim margin. His victory is significant because it means that Democrats are serious about energy policy. Obama released a short YouTube video on climate change last week, in which he made clear to both domestic leaders and the international community that America will take a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gases.

In addition, a large portion of Obama’s planned stimulus package (which will be his first priority after taking office) centers on building new green infrastructure, including transmission lines to support electric cars, smart grids to allow much more efficient use of energy, and major new renewable energy projects across the country.

As someone who has waited decades for the United States to get serious about energy issues, and not simply react to the ebb and flow of the oil market, the prospect of comprehensive reform is truly exciting.

Obama is benefitting from a political climate in which there is now bipartisan consensus that government must make up for the spending slack caused by falling consumer demand. Add to this the fact that most jobs in alternative energy cannot be outsourced, and you have a potent recipe for action.

Another aspect of a major progressive energy policy is its security component, i.e., what’s best for the environment and job growth is also best for our national security: as one of my bumper stickers proclaims, “Renewable Energy is Homeland Security”.

With this in mind, look for James Woolsey, former head of the CIA and energy advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign, to have a role in the Obama Administration. Since Obama has yet to name a (promised) Republican to his cabinet, I wouldn’t be surprised if Woolsey became at least a senior advisor. This would be politically shrewd; Woolsey is highly respected in both parties, and could help cement support from the military and those who are security-minded, but less persuaded by environmental concerns.

Jason Scorse

Today, I jump into the media buzz concerning Obama’s first-term priorities. One thing I think is certain: Obama is not going to be an incrementalist. He won a large mandate based on bold campaign promises, and I expect him to quickly put forth major initiatives such as universal healthcare, energy independence, and progressive tax reform.

All three will be difficult to enact given the vested interests and the costs, not to mention the GOP’s aversion to raising taxes on the rich. Nevertheless I think Obama will make these the centerpiece of his first year in office, and that he will succeed in all three areas. The reason is simple: a significant majority of Americans want them. Their enactment will not only help us out of the current economic slump, it will lay the foundation for strong economic growth in the future.

Obama promises a new “New Deal” that progressives have been awaiting for decades, yet which has eluded past Democratic presidents. The confluence of factors at Obama’s back make it likely that this time will be different.

In other critical areas as well, I think Obama’s presidency will have a profound effect almost immediately.

We are likely to see major election reform within the first year. This may include a national registration program, extended early voting, mandatory paper trails, perhaps even shifting Election Day to a weekend or holiday. All of these changes would benefit not only American democracy, but the Democratic Party; since its base is growing, anything that increases turnout bodes well for the Party’s prospects.

On the issue of gay rights, Obama could move the country closer to the European model of civil unions. If Obama can pass a law mandating civil union rights for all gay couples, at the same time making it clear that no religion will be forced to perform ceremonies for gays, this should reassure those who remain concerned about infringements on their view of marriage. With a national civil union statute, the state wouldn’t be allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation; religions could marry whomever they wished, straight or gay.

On the abortion issue, Obama has another opportunity to quell the culture wars by pressing for major initiatives to decrease unwanted pregnancies. If he can achieve a reduction in abortions through sound government policy, and not ideology, that would be a huge victory for the progressive approach to reproductive issues.

Obama is likely to face his greatest challenges in foreign policy. Here, I think he will very likely disappoint and anger many of the left, which may result in some of the fiercest opposition to his presidency.

He is not going to be a pacifist. There is little doubt that he will not only ratchet up troop strength in Afghanistan, he may very well ratchet up cross-border raids into Pakistan too. In addition, if he remains true to his commitment to stop the genocide in Sudan, this will require putting U.S. troops into the midst of a volatile, chaotic conflict. The same logic that says we should intervene in Sudan may also be applied to the Congo, where war is once again raging and hundreds of thousands are being displaced. I would not be surprised to see U.S. troops take a more active role in more conflicts under an Obama Administration (a role which I wholeheartedly support).

With respect to Iran, Obama will no doubt make diplomatic overtures and perhaps offer the Iranians some sort of “grand bargain” in which in exchange for inclusion in the international community the Iranians must give up their nuclear ambitions. But make no mistake: one of the reasons Obama wants to negotiate with Iran is because if they refuse an American deal this will make the case for military action that much stronger. I strongly doubt that Obama will allow Iran to go nuclear on his watch; if military action is required to stop them, I think he will opt for that choice.

Obama gives us a better chance at non-violent solutions to the world’s thorniest problems. At the same time, anyone who thinks an Obama Administration automatically means a de-escalation of conflict is naïve.

Jason Scorse

Above all, Barack Obama’s landslide victory last Tuesday was a victory of reason over ignorance. His opponents tried to tarnish him with every kind of mindless smear, but they all backfired; the American electorate by large margins is not only comfortable with Obama, they say that he shares their values. With Obama’s poise and intellect, plus a little luck, America may finally have turned its back on the anti-intellectual fear tactics of the modern Republican Party.

What is so striking about Obama’s victory is the way he managed to defeat the agents of intolerance and anti-intellectualism: he either ignored or belittled them. Instead of fighting fire with fire and responding with anger and indignation, Obama mocked his attackers and made them look petty. In many of his speeches he would mention a recent smear and essentially say to the crowd, “can you believe these people?” In these moments he always maintained a sense of humor that put him above the fray.

When McCain made fun of his comment that Americans should inflate their tires (which would save more oil than any amount of offshore oil drilling), Obama said that the right seems “proud of its ignorance.”

When the right began calling him a radical and a socialist, Obama asked whether sharing his toys in kindergarten was part of the evidence against him.

And in his acceptance speech Tuesday night, Obama injected a word that he hadn’t used before on the campaign trail to characterize the divisive politics of the last couple of decades: immature.

Obama clearly represents a return of seriousness to politics, a recognition that we simply cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from the major issues that we face.

It will be fascinating to watch the team Obama assembles: he has the best and the brightest lining up to offer themselves, from Nobel Laureates to leaders of business and finance to the world’s top statesmen (and women). In just his first few days as president-elect, he has set a tone indicating that he means to put competence above loyalty, pragmatism above ideology (including making clear that he intends to fill some senior positions with Republicans). The main message from the Obama camp is that the adults are back in charge.

For the most part, the Republican Party seems to have taken exactly the wrong lessons from their defeat. Listening to leading Republicans this past week, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they live in the same country. There were claims that Obama doesn’t have a mandate, claims that the country remains “center-right,” suggestions that the GOP needs to focus on culture war issues and limiting government spending; there was almost nothing to indicate that the party has any sense of the political realignment that’s taking place.

Obama and the Democrats won in all of the demographic groups that are growing in America, while the GOP won in only the groups that are shrinking. If this isn’t a recipe for permanent political irrelevance for the GOP, I don’t know what is.

While political fortunes can change very quickly, my hunch is that Obama and his administration will not make the same mistakes as Karl Rove and George Bush and blow the political capital they have. Unlike Rove and Bush, who lied about their agenda in order to get elected (promoting a non-existent “compassionate conservatism”), Obama earned his mandate by telling the voters precisely what he intends to carry out. This is a huge advantage that should not be underestimated.

There is a case to be made that it’s a good thing the Republicans are clueless and in disarray, perhaps even enough to nominate Palin in 2012, because this would only extend their minority status.

But one-party rule is ultimately not good for a democracy, and a robust and inclusive Republican Party is something we should all wish for. Let us hope that thoughtful and reasonable Republicans will be able to recapture their party, sooner rather than later.

Jason Scorse

This campaign has been an amazing journey. We have witnessed the rise of the biggest star in American politics since JFK, who has run a masterful campaign that will be studied for generations to come. Against incredible odds and in the midst of world financial crisis, Barack Obama has maintained his composure and demonstrated a fortitude and commitment to reason that has been astounding.

As epic has been the rise of Obama, John McCain’s fall has been equally dramatic. A once proud man, who championed many controversial positions, has been reduced to making baseless claims and spreading lies. His choice of Sarah Palin, a know-nothing religious fundamentalist brazenly proud of her provincialism and ignorance, will go down in history as the one of the worst vice-presidential picks of all time. Choosing Palin demonstrated without question that McCain put his election prospects first, not the interests of the country, while completely undermining his argument about Obama’s relative inexperience.

But the election is not over yet.

Even though McCain has not led in a single national poll in over six weeks, and every single electoral analysis has Obama winning comfortably, there is still a slight chance that America will give in to fear and swing for McCain in the last days. Undoubtedly, if McCain were to win racism would be a huge factor since there would be simply no way to explain such a shift in such a short period of time (absent world-changing events).

If this happens it will demonstrate that despite all of the terrible lessons of the past eight years, America has still not regained its bearings. This would be a terrible blow against the forces of reason that I shudder to contemplate.

To make sure the unthinkable doesn’t occur, I urge everyone to do what they can in these last hours to make sure that on November 4th America chooses light instead of darkness, hope over fear, reason over ignorance, and unity over division.

It will be an amazing and historic moment to wake up on November 5th and see that America emphatically rejected the politics of the extremist right and turned the page on one of the darkest chapters of our modern history.

And it will be with great pleasure that I can begin to devote the pages of VoR to discussing how an Obama Administration plans to rebuild the country and make a more prosperous, more just, and safer world.

Jason Scorse

One of the things I am most hopeful about in a potential Obama Administration is the chance to finally strike the right balance between personal responsibility and government assistance. For too long America’s political landscape has been polarized by two unhealthy extremes that have dominated both government policy and our national conversation.

Many on the Left and in Democratic circles, while rightly focused on some of the key structural inequities in American society, have often been too quick to view government as the solution to all problems, and too quick to believe that those who find themselves in hard times are necessarily victims of some injustice. Many Americans simply make bad choices—taking too much credit, investing too little in education, saving too little for retirement, and taking too little time to invest in their children—and they and their families suffer for it. One doesn’t have to be insensitive to the racism that still lingers in society or the stagnating median wages of the past decades, to also acknowledge that many Americans would be a lot better off if they exercised greater caution and care when making major decisions.

Many on the Right and in the Republican circles, while justifiably focused on values of hard work, sacrifice, and personal responsibility (even if not practiced by their leadership) have often been too quick to ignore the lingering systemic injustices that keep many people from achieving their full potential, and too quick to abandon the most vulnerable segments of society, who are often stuck in hard times through no fault of their own.

What we need is a leader who makes it clear that the government is there to meet the American citizens half way. For everyone who works hard and strives to improve their lot in life the government will lend a helping hand with college tuition assistance, basic daycare and preschool, healthcare, and a safety net during serious economic downturns when firms aren’t hiring.

At the same time, the citizenry have a responsibility to do their part by being seriously engaged in their children’s education, updating their skills continually throughout their working lives, living within their means, doing their best to save, and taking care of their health so as not to burden the healthcare system.

I think Barack Obama is capable of creating this new social compact in America; many of his speeches are already tinged with hints of such a worldview, especially in the realm of education. America will likely never move all the way towards some of the more strongly socialist economies of Europe, such as Sweden and Germany, because we so greatly value our unique dynamism and put a large premium on individuality. Obama’s social programs may move us in this direction, but not all the way, and with an American flavor that will retain both greater choice and a greater role for the private sector.

Hopefully, in less than 10 days we will begin this journey towards a more responsive government that works in concert with a more disciplined and engaged citizenry.

You know what to do to make it happen—send money, make calls, and talk to friends and relatives so that we run through the finish line. Also, you can help out the down ticket races here.

Jason Scorse

We’re down to the final two weeks of what might be the most historically significant election of our lifetime. First, there’s the possibility of electing the first black President of the United States; second, given the almost certainly large Democratic majorities in Congress, an Obama Administration could dramatically transform American society by ushering in a 21st century version of the New Deal.

There is little doubt that if Obama were able to enact even half of his agenda, America would be a fairer, more just, and prosperous nation eight years from now. It is exciting to be so close to a transformation with the potential to do so much good.

By any rational calculus, the election should be a landslide. The Republican brand is in tatters after eight years of criminal incompetence by the Bush Administration (an incompetence which has left America significantly weaker both internationally and domestically). Unfortunately, significant numbers of citizens appear to be more interested in culture wars, religious fundamentalism, and thinly-veiled bigotry than making a reasoned choice for the next leader of this great nation.

While Republicans have no monopoly on ignorance, they certainly seem to have cornered the market. A once-proud GOP now panders to the lowest common denominator, so much so that McCain-Palin rallies often bear an eerie resemblance to lynch mobs.

Senator McCain, who once famously denounced the religious right as “agents of intolerance,” last week hired the same robo-calling firm that tarnished his own 2000 presidential bid. Then the calls insinuated that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child; now they’re spreading lies and sowing hatred toward Obama. So it goes in the final act of a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

As I said months ago, this election will be a clarifying moment regardless of who wins: the soul of America will be revealed for all the world to see. My strong hunch is that we are going to like the outcome: Obama will win with a strong mandate, and the virulent elements of the Republican Party will be repudiated.

But there remains the possibility that Americans may give in to fear and ignorance and reward McCain; at the weekend, the polls were beginning to show a tightening race (though to be fair, this usually happens as presidential campaigns approach their end).

It’s also likely that the campaign will get even uglier as Nov. 4th nears (which also usually happens).

Do what you can to put Obama over the top. This is no time for complacency.

Jason Scorse

For many viewers, Barack Obama’s witty response to McCain’s insistence that he doesn’t understand foreign policy was the highlight of Tuesday’s debate. Obama answered that it’s correct that he doesn’t understand why we invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

But the line that will have lasting resonance was Obama’s response when Brokaw asked whether healthcare was a privilege, a responsibility, or a right; Obama stated unequivocally that it’s a right. He went on to say that it’s wrong for people to go without healthcare in the richest nation in the world, and told the story of his mother spending the last months of her life dying of cancer while fighting insurance companies over whether they would cover the costs of her treatment.

Many secularists (including myself) have long lamented the ceding of morality to the religious right, which uses it to bludgeon whatever minority they happen to hate at the moment. But in America, the Enlightenment tradition is full of examples of clear moral language that reflect no particular religion, but speak instead to our sense of common decency.

With so many facets of American life clearly calling out for our leaders to acknowledge what is wrong, unfair, and even criminal, it’s about time for Democrats to frame the issues in clear moral language. For good or bad, this is what many people, who would not be swayed by policy proposals, most relate to.

Here are just a few examples:

It is wrong that median incomes have stalled while wealth has soared for the top 1%.

It is wrong that we have allowed businesses to kill key pieces of environmental legislation that would confer huge health benefits for relatively low cost; it’s equally wrong that we haven’t seriously begun to address global warming.

It is wrong that millions of Americans are behind bars for non-violent drug offenses (often for longer terms than rapists, robbers, and murderers) when their “crimes” might better be treated as medical conditions.

It is wrong that in many parts of the country gay couples don’t have the same legal protections as heterosexual couples, let alone the right to marry or serve openly in the military.

It is wrong that quality day care and preschool are not available to all Americans, especially given the huge social returns to this early childhood investment.

Hopefully, Obama’s clear moral language on healthcare is just the beginning of a larger moral conversation in which many more issues will be framed as issues of right and wrong and basic fairness. This will not only build a new and stronger Democratic coalition; it can also attract more traditional Republicans who have been put off by the stridency and intolerance of the religious right, as well as evangelicals who have grown weary of the culture wars.

Jason Scorse

This is an odd moment for optimism: we’re facing the likelihood of a serious recession, and the global equity markets have already lost trillions. Yet I believe there are several silver linings beneath the current crisis.

Here are my reasons why America will ultimately be much better off:

1. Obama’s victory is almost assured, along with larger Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate.

A focus on the economy usually favors the Democratic candidate. This time around, John McCain’s bumbling and craven response to the financial meltdown seriously eroded what miniscule credibility he had on economic matters.

The most important thing needed to get America back on track is an Obama Administration with solid Congressional backing. It’s the only way that major institutional reform can be undertaken; any legislation drafted by a McCain Administration would take us in the wrong direction. Want proof? Just look at the dictatorial-style powers Paulson asked for last week.

With Obama at the helm and the adults back in charge, legislation will begin with the public interest front and center. Thanks to the Democratic left, the legislation might get even better in the Congressional negotiations.

2. Progressive legislation may be easier to pass given the Wall Street bailout

In the first debate, Jim Lehrer tried to get Obama to state which programs he might need to cut because of the worsening budget situation. I think this is exactly wrong. By bailing out the fat cats who got us into this mess, it will be easier for Democrats to spend on social programs and give tax cuts to the middle and lower classes. The Congressional refrain in 2009 is likely to be: “If we had enough to help investment bankers, we have enough for health care, universal preschool, college tuition relief, etc.”

In addition, I think it will be easier than expected to let Bush’s tax cuts for the top 5% expire as scheduled. There is widespread outrage that those who have done the best under Bush are being bailed out. This added revenue, plus the savings from ending the Iraq War, should allow the Democrats to fund significant new programs.

3. The bailout is not likely to cost $700 billion

While the final outlay may total $700 billion, proper safeguards and oversight should enable the government (and taxpayers) to get back most if not all of the money. This will only reinforce Point No. 2, since the public’s perception will be that $700 billion went to the fat cats and it’s time for Main Street to get its share.

4. New investments and real regulation will strengthen America

For years, America has been on an unsustainable path and living beyond its means. Our infrastructure has aged; we trail much of the world in broadband access and other requisites of today’s digital age. We need a serious push to upgrade our infrastructure, to develop new industries in green technology and biotech, and to modernize our financial system. We need all of these things to maintain our competitive edge in the global economy of the 21st century.

This will take some time. Obama plans $150 billion of federal spending over 10 years on alternative energy, and he will immediately open up federal funding for stem-cell research. I am confident he will also put our best minds to work on updating our financial regulatory apparatus, as he called for back in March. Wall Street may not see the growth in asset values that we have experienced in other periods; at the same time, a steady growth rate of 3-5% without as much volatility would be a great development. It is certainly within reach.

In summary, while things may get worse before they get better (which is quite scary), I think America’s best days lie ahead. The country is on the verge of self-correcting, even if the process is going to be painful.

P.S. Once we send Palin back to Alaska, we can all laugh (or shudder) at the fact that someone with so little knowledge about virtually anything (and seemingly proud of her ignorance) ever got anywhere near the vice-presidency. She didn’t deserve to be on the same stage with Joe Biden.

Jason Scorse

For a long time, America has been living beyond its means, running record deficits and having a negative personal savings rate for the first time in history.

Even more importantly, the Republican Party has for decades been preaching an extreme anti-government ideology completely divorced from economic fundamentals. As a professor of economics, I can say with some confidence that the people who have peddled this nonsense are extremely ignorant about basic economic principles. Nothing in the works of Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, or even Milton Friedman supports the radical laissez-faire that has been the hallmark of the Republican creed; in fact, just the opposite.

Most economists recognize that markets are not always self-correcting, and that government needs to set the parameters to ensure against systemic risk. Probably no one has had more blind faith in markets than Alan Greenspan (a disciple of Ayn Rand). His legacy is now in tatters since much of the crisis can be traced directly to his actions—opposing government regulation of investment banks and hedge funds, helping to create the housing bubble by taking interest rates to historically low levels, becoming a cheerleader for subprime mortgages, denying the housing bubble and the mortgage crisis long after their existence was clear to others.

Now the house of cards has come crashing down, and it’s time for grown-ups to come to the rescue. In the presidential race there is only one: Barack Obama. John McCain’s campaign has deteriorated into such a farce that I will be shocked if Obama doesn’t win in a landslide. Yes, there is racism in America, and yes, Americans can be swayed by irrational fears, but I refuse to believe that they will elect a man whose campaign will be a staple of late-night comedy shows for years to come.

From picking probably the most inexperienced and patently unqualified person ever as his vice-president—a person whose approval ratings are tanking as she utters gaffe after gaffe—to his bizarre stunt this week in which he said he was suspending his campaign (but didn’t) and would not show up at the first debate (but did), McCain has demonstrated that he is simply unserious. This has not been lost on virtually every news commentator, save the talking heads at Fox News. And with the consensus that Friday’s foreign policy debate was either a tie or an Obama win, it will be all downhill for McCain from here. Foreign policy was supposed to be McCain’s forte; I expect Obama to dominate the debate on economic policy, and I expect Biden to dominate Sarah Palin on Thursday on every issue.

On a somber note, the financial mess cannot help but constrain the actions of the next president; this means that Obama will not have the funds to embark on as much of his progressive agenda as we had hoped. At least in the short-term, Republicans will likely win by losing: they took over the White House in 2000 with a surplus, and will leave it in 2009 with a record deficit that will thwart elements of the new Democratic agenda.

But in the long-term, the Republican Party will no longer be recognizable and America will be better for it. The modern GOP has become a cancer on the Republic, and deserves its place in the dustbin of history. Now is the time for America to rebuild under a Democratic Administration, with large Democratic majorities in Congress. I look forward to devoting VoR pieces to analyzing Obama’s proposals and achievements.

P.S. In his debate with Sarah Palin, I hope to hear Joe Biden say something like this: “Let me be clear, just because someone is a woman doesn’t mean they support women’s issues. For over three decades, I have been a champion for women’s health and safety and reproductive freedoms. In an Obama-Biden administration, these will be a top priority.”

Jason Scorse

This election is shaping up to be even more dramatic than expected. The country’s financial crisis accelerated this past week, and the government is poised to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion or more. It’s one more instance of the greedy making fortunes, running up huge debts, and leaving it to the taxpayers to pick up the tab.

But this time it’s more than just another financial disruption. This time there’s an opportunity for the country to say “enough” to the Republican ideology of virtually unregulated markets that precipitated this crisis, and now threatens American competitiveness and even our solvency.

When Ronald Reagan took power in 1980, there was a case to be made that regulations were too onerous and federal income taxes were too high, e.g., there was too little competition in the airline and trucking industries, and the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Reagan and the Republicans had the solution: cut taxes and do away with regulations. They were themes that resonated with the American people, and the GOP has hammered away at them ever since.

But besides lowering taxes and making some industries more competitive, Reagan became a union buster and a gutter of key environmental and labor laws.

And it’s become ever more clear that the anti-regulation pendulum which he set in motion has swung too far.

For all the talk of complex derivatives and sub-prime mortgages, the root of the current crisis is much simpler: whereas traditional banks are required to hold assets worth 10% of outstanding loans, investment banks were able to hold as little as 2%. When things began to unravel, these firms (Lehman Brothers being the latest example) simply didn’t have the funds to stay afloat. Why aren’t investment banks held to the same capital requirements as traditional banks? It began with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, engineered by then Senator Phil Gramm of Texas (later to become John McCain’s top economic advisor). And just four years ago, the SEC passed a rule which specifically allowed five investment banks to take on higher debt ratios. Which five? Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Only the last two are still standing, and even they were teetering before the big news on Friday.

America would have economic problems even if investment banks had been required to hold 10%, but nothing approaching the severity of what we’re facing. As a direct result of lax oversight and loose regulation, America could well be headed for a prolonged economic slump and significantly higher unemployment (in addition, of course, to that $700 billion bailout bill).

But (as I always keep in mind) we get the government we deserve. In 2000 and again in 2004, Americans chose a leader they thought was a nice guy; he might not be too sharp, but he shared their values and would be fun to have a beer with. When we don’t choose competence, when we don’t use reason to elect the leader of the free world, this is what we get: a major U.S. city under water, record gas prices, two terribly managed wars, zero response to climate change, and now a financial meltdown.

In a little over six weeks, voters will once again have the chance to change course and say “enough” to the party that has driven America into a huge ditch these past eight years.

They can choose a man whose economic team is comprised of the people who made possible this economic mess, and who freely admits that he doesn’t know much about the economy (along with his culture-war sidekick from Alaska, who proudly doesn’t know much about anything).

Or they can choose probably the most centered and serious politician of a generation, whose campaign has been disciplined, respectful, and focused on the real issues Americans care about.

Hopefully, Americans will make the right choice this time. If not, expect more of the same and no sympathy from me.

Jason Scorse

The contrasting styles of the Democratic and Republican conventions are being mirrored in the ads and strategies of both campaigns. The Obama camp is hitting McCain hard, mostly using his own quotes or factual information, and maintaining an overall positive tone. McCain, on the other hand, is peddling lie after lie and sinking to a nastiness that has shocked and dismayed many former admirers in the media.

As someone who is often critical of the traditional media, it is encouraging that reporters are finally speaking out about the deception and vileness of McCain’s campaign (even if it is belated, and not yet forceful enough). There are still almost two months to go before Election Day; if the narrative can switch to “old, nasty, and lying” versus “young, hopeful, and truthful,” I think Obama will be in good shape.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see Charlie Gibson hit Sarah Palin with some pretty serious questions, many of which clearly caught her off guard and exposed her for the neophyte that she is. Her celebrity status is bound to fade, and hopefully this episode will accelerate the process; there has never been anyone so manifestly unqualified to deal with the challenges America faces.

But there is still plenty to criticize in the media.

One particularly egregious episode occurred during Tom Brokaw’s interview with Joe Biden last week on the Meet The Press. Brokaw brought up Obama’s response to an abortion question that was asked by the evangelist Rick Warren at the Saddleback Ranch forum. Warren asked Obama when a human being gets rights. Obama answered that he didn’t really know, that it was a difficult issue on which many religious scholars and ethicists can’t agree. McCain answered that human rights begin “at the moment of conception.” McCain’s remark was greeted by cheers, while Obama was criticized for waffling.

The problem in Brokaw’s interview with Biden was that he made it seem that Obama had been responding to an entirely different question—when does life begin?

McCain’s response was meant to please religious fundamentalists, but it contradicts his actual policy positions. If human rights begin with conception, then all abortions are murder (even in cases of rape or incest, or to protect the life of the mother). All embryonic stem-cell research would be banned; fertility clinics, which often destroy human embryos, would need to be shut down. These are not McCain’s positions, and the media should insist that he explain the inconsistencies.

Obama’s response is actually consistent with the belief of the overwhelming majority of Americans, who believe that destroying embryos is sometimes justified, and that they should not be afforded the same status as people.

Abortion is the single most divisive issue in American politics, and can be decisive in terms of election outcomes at the margin. With so much on the line, it was extremely unprofessional for Brokaw to make such a big mix up during a primetime interview. Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court and the strong desire of the religious right to criminalize abortion and prevent stem-cell research (which is partly what led McCain to choose Palin), the American public deserves an open and honest discussion on the candidates’ positions.

Once again, the traditional media let the American people down.

Jason Scorse

The conventions have come and gone, and we learned a lot.

The Democrats staged an essentially flawless event. While many speakers were critical of McCain and the GOP, they were respectful and reasoned. Obama’s acceptance speech praised McCain for his military service and called him an honorable man. The speech included a lot of substance and some details of his positions. The audience throughout the four days was as diverse as America, with all age groups and ethnicities represented.

On the Republican side we got a steady stream of vitriol, lies, and continuing incompetence: the McCain camp botched the backdrop for his acceptance speech, showing the Walter Reed Middle School instead of the Walter Reed Medical Center. The Republicans would have us believe they’re competent enough to run the country, but they can’t even choose a photo properly.

And the audience at the GOP convention? It was almost 100% white; in fact, McCain had such a hard time getting minorities to show up that his campaign used stock photos of black people, taken off the internet, for his introductory video.

So there we have it: a choice as stark as night and day, as black and white.

What will it say about America if the majority chooses McCain over Obama? As I’ve said before, it will not be because people have been tricked or duped into voting against their interests.

For some, a vote for McCain will be based on a legitimate and rational calculus; those who are rich, for example, who don’t want to pay higher taxes, or those who believe that we need a more militaristic approach to our foreign policy challenges.

For many others, I fear that a vote for McCain will be an expression of a dangerous anti-intellectualism that is creeping across America: an ideology driven by imaginary grievances against “elites,” and the notion that somehow intellectual sophistication is a liability rather than an asset. These people cheer when Mitt Romney (who signed universal healthcare when he was governor of Massachusetts, and once supported gay rights and women’s rights), tells the GOP convention that we need to clear Washington of the “East Coast liberals” who have controlled the government for the past eight years. They cheer when the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani (who had multiple affairs, divorced twice, lived with a gay couple and dressed in drag), extols the virtues of “small-town” America against the evil forces of cosmopolitanism.

This creed is not conservative, it is reactionary; it holds an anti-enlightenment worldview in which facts simply do not matter.

The fact is that the world is becoming more inter-connected and complex by the day. A culture of anti-intellectualism will not be able to cope with these complexities; it will not be able to meet the many challenges we face, from climate change to terrorism to economic globalization.

The EU, China, India, and Brazil aren’t wasting time arguing over evolution, or whether a Harvard education is a good or bad thing. Yet listening to the GOP convention last week, what did we hear? A constant refrain of "culture war" references, and next to nothing about the real issues that face Americans.

If McCain wins, it would in some sense be easier to accept if we could blame it on stupidity and misinformation. What I am suggesting, however, would point to a deeper defect in the American electorate: the wholesale embrace of trivia over substance and resentment as a governing philosophy.

P.S. Maybe I'm simply wrong about the American voter. What do you think?

Jason Scorse

History was made last week in Denver when a black man was nominated for president by a major political party for the first time. The week had many highpoints, with strong speeches by both Clintons, Michelle Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Joe Biden (you can watch them all here). And to cap it off Barack Obama gave one of the best acceptance speeches ever to an adoring crowd of over 80,000.

The speech hit all the right notes—the failed policies of George Bush and the GOP, the need for universal healthcare coverage and a serious energy policy, and a commitment to real security. Obama had many excellent lines and often took the fight directly to McCain. He ended with an homage to the 45th anniversary of MLK Jr.s’ “I have A Dream” speech. Perhaps most importantly, he spelled out what “change” would mean by specifying proposals his administration would make. It was a brilliant speech, which we have come to expect from what has been an almost flawless campaign to date.

The ball is now squarely in the court of the American people.

Obama has demonstrated that he is a serious, thoughtful leader who would take America in a substantively new direction, one that is less divisive and more focused on the public good. He has assembled a team of extremely capable and experienced advisors, and chosen the foreign policy expert Joe Biden as his running mate. With an Obama presidency, the adults would be back in charge.

On the Republican side we continue to get more of the same. One of McCain’s healthcare advisors just days ago echoed a Republican talking point that there are no uninsured people in America because anyone can go to a hospital emergency room. This is profoundly ignorant—advocating socialized medicine at its worst—since hospital emergency rooms are hugely expensive and crisis-driven instead of preventative.

The week ended with McCain in desperation picking unknown Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, for his VP. Not long ago, the same Sarah Palin admitted that she didn’t even know what a vice-president did. Her selection is a sop to the religious right (Palin is strongly anti-abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and believes in creationism) and a transparent attempt to woo Hillary supporters. Not even some of the most ardent Republican backers can deny how completely unserious this pick is (I can’t wait to see what national security hawks like Christopher Hitchens have to say, who have sworn that foreign policy judgment is the only criteria they are using to judge the presidential candidates).

So now it’s up to the American people. Will they choose the divisive (and now gender-identity) politics of John McCain? Or will they vote instead to change the dismal course of the past eight years, and heed Obama’s call: “America, you are better than this.”

We will know in a little over nine weeks. The stakes are about as high as they come. I urge everyone to do what they can—no matter how small—to nudge the American public in the right direction.

Jason Scorse

The presidential campaign officially kicks off tomorrow with the start of the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado (a great venue since Colorado is a swing state in 2008). The convention will culminate Thursday night with Barack Obama’s acceptance speech before an audience of 70,000+ on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech.

Obama has three primary goals:

1. To unify the party

There are still grumblings from Hillary supporters who can’t get over the fact that she lost. In an overture to them, Obama has agreed to let her name be placed in nomination and receive a roll call vote. All indications are that Hillary is doing the right thing; she will urge her supporters to vote for Barack in the final vote, and will deliver a gracious speech asking them to do likewise in November. I think Obama got it right in allowing the roll call vote and giving both Hillary and Bill prime speaking slots. He’s going to need their all-out support (especially among core white working-class voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the election may once again be decided, and where currently an uncomfortably large percentage of Democrats are saying they will vote for McCain).

2. To counter claims of his “otherness”

The Republicans and the McCain camp have been hitting Obama hard on charges of elitism and aloofness, while none-too-subtly trying to paint him as somehow foreign or un-American. So one of the main focuses in Denver will be to showcase Obama as prototypically American, and to surround him with “regular” Americans from all walks of life. Since large segments of the electorate will be getting their first extended look at Obama, this portrayal will hopefully go a long way toward making them comfortable with the notion of a President Obama.

On a side note, much has been made of the forum with pastor Rick Warren last weekend. Many believe McCain got the upper hand with answers which were firmer and more direct, while Obama’s were more “nuanced.” While this assessment may be accurate, I think commentators missed the point of what Obama wanted to achieve at the forum. His main goal was to make the largely Republican evangelical base comfortable with him, which is no small feat for a liberal Democrat; I believe he achieved this. Look for a more forceful and hard-hitting Obama when he faces off with McCain in the debates this fall.

3. To contrast his agenda with McCain’s

This should be the easiest objective to achieve, and ultimately the most important. McCain has no choice but to run on his image; if the election is based on issues, he loses by a landslide. The public doesn’t want a more belligerent foreign policy, more tax cuts for the rich, privatized Social Security, or an end to legalized abortion, all of which McCain supports.

I have one criticism of the Obama campaign so far: it hasn’t hit McCain hard enough, hasn’t driven home the message that what he wants for America is more of Bush’s policies and even worse (although this is quickly changing). Obama needs to couple this with specifics about how he’s different; he has to deliver them in simple sound bites that voters can easily understand and relate to. Some examples: McCain: more tax cuts for the rich; Obama, tax cuts for the middle class. McCain: the government controls a woman’s body; Obama: a woman controls her own body. McCain: trillions for more wars; Obama: trillions to rebuild America.

This election is Obama’s to lose. If the Obama camp plays its cards right, it will be a referendum on Republican rule. With more than 80% of Americans thinking the country is on the wrong track, the outcome shouldn’t be close. Because of Obama’s relative inexperience, McCain’s image and the racism that lingers in America, the election could be closer than it otherwise would be; nevertheless, Obama should win if he executes his game plan. Nothing so far leads me to believe that he and his campaign won’t deliver; they are, if nothing else, an extremely disciplined machine.

And with Joe Biden as VP, and Obama’s foreign policy credentials now solid, he can focus the convention on all of the above.

P.S. Great article on Obama's economic plan in the NYT; bottom line-Obama has a detailed and thoughtful plan while McCain's economic policy is largely tax cuts for the rich and corporate giveaways.

P.P.S. I think still Mark Warner would’ve been the best Democratic candidate to run against any Republican nominee. We would be looking at a true 1980-style blowout if he were the nominee. Warner was poised to run, dropped out, and now will almost certainly be elected a U.S. senator in Virginia; he also just happens to be giving the keynote speech in Denver. Whatever led him to eschew a national run this time around, it looks like he still has presidential aspirations.

Jason Scorse

The Republican Party has morphed into an organization so corrupt that it needs to be completely repudiated at the polls. Only then will true conservatives, who hold honorable and intellectually defensible positions, be able to retake their party.

I’ve lost track of exactly how many party officials have been indicted. Just last week we learned of illegal GOP practices in the Justice Department. Monica Goodling, an incompetent sycophant, was put in charge of hiring DOJ attorneys. She put political loyalty over national security, refusing to hire a highly-qualified terrorism expert because he was married to a Democrat. In addition, she blacklisted gay staff workers and ran her office more like a crony front for the Bush Administration than the nation’s top legal department.

This same week, a man broke into a Unitarian Church and started shooting people with a shotgun, killing two, because he was angry with liberals. Books by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage were found in his home. Imagine what the media, especially the rightwing media, would’ve done with this story if the person had been a liberal who owned books by Michael Moore and Richard Dawkins. For all the talk about leftwing radicals and extremists, it is the far right that routinely resorts to violence, fueled by the non-stop hatred coming from rightwing talk radio and Fox News.

Some may argue that it is neither fair nor balanced to lump the far right with the Republican Party. I beg to differ; it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Fox News is essentially a talk shop for the Republican Party and the White House; Scott McClellan has confirmed this. Karl Rove, whose politics of division helped Bush get to the White House twice (and who has just been held in contempt by the House), is now advising McCain’s campaign. Rush Limbaugh and rightwing talk radio are probably the biggest “get out the vote” operations for the Republican Party.

In addition, senior members of the GOP are on record over the past decade routinely making asinine and inflammatory statements: they have bashed gays, openly threatened the judiciary, called global warming a hoax, lied about oil drilling and gas prices, etc., ad infinitum. All this on top of the epic incompetence of the Bush Administration, which will take decades to fully document and comprehend.

There is a historical parallel here. Until Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the Democratic Party was dominated by Southern racists who exercised a stranglehold on party policies. They clung to segregation and overt racism, creating a culture of fear and violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of blacks and numerous white supporters. When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, racist whites almost instantly began to desert the Democrats. This weakened their power base in the once-Democratic “Solid South,” ultimately leading to the ascension of the conservative movement and the election of Ronald Reagan.

While the loss of the South dealt a political blow to the Democrats, it has worked to the party’s long-term benefit. The party is far from perfect, but excising its bigoted and reactionary members was the right thing to do. Now, in 2008, it is on the brink of nominating America’s first black candidate for president.

Hopefully, the Republican Party will be thoroughly discredited in this election. The far right will descend into the dustbin of history, where it belongs. Only then can the Republican Party jettison its association with religious extremists, bigots, and hate-mongers, regain its tradition of true conservative principles, and once again be a strong voice for American values.

Until then, I am officially ending my commitment to non-partisanship. The modern GOP must be defeated at the polls, and begin its long-overdue renewal.

This does not mean, however, that from now on I will only sing the praises of Democrats. Next week I’ll be looking into free trade—an issue where by and large the Republicans have it right and the Democrats have it wrong.

P.S. Coincidentally, Paul Krugman seemed to be thinking the same thing this week.

Jason Scorse

In my twenties I was a pacifist; I believed that violence, particularly military violence, was counterproductive and unethical. I could accept violence in self-defense, but I believed (and still do) that few wars met this criterion. My rejection of violence extended to the death penalty, which seemed barbaric in a civilized society.

These views have changed over the years, especially since 9/11. Since that time I have examined in some detail the nature of oppressive regimes and the monsters they produce (for example, the Lebanese terrorist whom the Israelis just swapped for the bodies of their soldiers).

Here are my still evolving thoughts on issues in which violence is central; I find them the most difficult to grapple with, both as an individual and as a member of society):

1. The Death Penalty

I now believe there is nothing morally wrong with the death penalty for certain crimes. Some acts are so abhorrent that the persons who commit them forfeit their right to continue living.

Yet I remain opposed to the death penalty, for two reasons:

First, it is impossible to apply uniformly. There are always racial and class biases, which make it inherently unjust. While the same might be said for our criminal justice system in general, we need to be especially careful when it comes to the ultimate penalty.

Second, the death penalty serves little purpose besides revenge. Its deterrent ability is nil or negligible. Life imprisonment, an alternative sentence, gives society ample means to protect itself against future crimes.

2. Pre-emptive war

As discussed in earlier pieces, pre-emptive war is already countenanced by the international community and international law. If a country is going to be attacked, it has the right to strike first. This doctrine has most famously been used by the Israelis: in the 1967 war, in air strikes against Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981, and recently against Syria’s nuclear facility.

Pre-emptive war strikes me as reasonable and just, especially against actors who are clearly intent on attacking a peaceful nation and clearly developing the capacity to do so. I would extend this logic a step further: nations have the right to assassinate foreign leaders or military personnel directly involved in terrorist activity against that nation.

For example, if Iran is arming militia groups that are targeting Americans or Israelis, Iranian leaders then become legitimate targets. Those leaders have declared war by proxy against America and Israel, and can be treated accordingly.

This does not mean that I think it would be wise to attack Iranian leaders. It means that there is nothing immoral about killing leaders who are actively engaged in killing your military personnel and threatening your civilian population.

What is not moral is preventative war, the doctrine which the Bush Administration used to justify the Iraq invasion (though they called it a pre-emptive action). Preventative war occurs when one nation strikes another nation based on the possibility of a future attack. Iraq posed no real threat to the United States. If wars could be justified based on no more than conjecture about potential threats, total chaos would ensue.

3. International Military Actions

Although the Iraq War did not meet the criterion for a pre-emptive war, what about Saddam’s crimes against humanity? Did those justify the overthrow of his regime? What about the atrocities of the Sudanese government? Or the Burmese or Zimbabwean governments?

The answers are far from clear.

Let’s start with the moral issues. If a ruler commits crimes against a country’s own people, e.g., mass murder and genocide, I believe there is nothing immoral in taking out that ruler and his or her party by force. There would be nothing wrong with taking out the Sudanese government or the Zimbabwean government or the Burmese junta; in fact, a strong case could be made that this would be the moral thing to do.

But there are major complications with carrying out such a policy. The first reflects our failure in Iraq: we removed a despot only to incite sectarian strife that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and devastated the country. There is little doubt that the Iraqis have suffered more over the past five years than if Saddam had remained in office (even though the country may be better off in the long run).

Another moral question is the extent to which the lives and treasure of one nation should be sacrificed for the benefit of another nation. Citizens everywhere are right to question whether their governments should send them to fight and die in other lands simply for humanitarian reasons.

Countries rarely base their military actions on humanitarian grounds. Instead they cite national security interests, which makes their actions palatable to the home-country public. This explains why America has been so involved in the Mideast (the oil-producing center of the world) and so relatively uninvolved in Africa (where the violence and atrocities have been even greater, but where U.S. economic interests are far less).

I’m personally not happy that America’s military involvement is usually limited only to places where there’s a perceived nexus between national security and economic goals. On the other hand, is it really the business of America to eradicate evil wherever we find it, whenever we find it? Even if we wanted to, even if we decided this was the moral thing to do, where would the resources come from?

Tough questions. Difficult choices. No easy answers. Even if international actions against oppressive regimes may be moral, it does not mean that they are either practical or should be a priority for a nation-state.

Jason Scorse

Academics use a number of election prediction models, and almost all rely on macroeconomic variables—GDP growth, inflation, unemployment, etc. Most of these models predicted a Gore win in 2000 (which was actually correct since he won the popular vote) and a Bush win in 2004. At the moment the models predict a resounding Obama win in 2008, based on dreary economic news as we head into the election.

Obviously these models are not 100% accurate; their architects freely admit that factors such as wars, disasters, and issues of character also influence voting patterns. But they stick by their fundamental insistence that it is the economy which ultimately dictates election outcomes.

In aggregate, there is little to dispute about these models. If Americans are feeling good about their economic prospects, by and large they can be expected to vote for the candidate who represents the party in power; if they think their economic prospects are dim, they will vote for the opposing party.

But hidden behind the national numbers are huge state-by-state and regional disparities that can’t be explained by economics alone. In huge swaths of the South as well as parts of the Midwest (e.g., Utah) the GOP has consistently outpolled Democrats by margins that correlated poorly if at all with economic factors.

It is these areas where “culture war” issues and race play a major factor, often turning economics into a secondary and even a tertiary issue. Large numbers of voters in these regions are genuinely more concerned about gay marriage, the government taking away their guns, abortion, the perceived dilution of American culture because of illegal immigration, and fears of an even more secular America. While the economy may still influences these voters, their ballots often end up going to the candidates who promise a kind of cultural security which they feel is slipping way.

Some political observers, like author and WSJ columnist Thomas Frank, take this as evidence that people have been duped into voting against their economic interests, when in fact it is evidence that these people simply give priority to issues other than economics.

When rich investment bankers in New York vote Democratic, nobody says they’ve been duped, even though they may very well be voting against their immediate economic interests since Democrats generally favor higher taxes for the rich*. If asked to justify their votes, these well-off Democrats might cite the party’s liberal social positions or less belligerent foreign policy; in exchange for these positions, they’re willing to accept higher taxes.

But when poor whites vote Republican because they oppose gay marriage or abortion, they’re assumed to be gullible. Unfortunately for Democrats and economic progressives, the disproportionate electoral sway of America’s Deep South and Midwestern states hands these “values” voters extra weight both in the Electoral College and the Senate.

In the end, it’s hard to accept any uni-causal case for the election of a U.S. president. There are too many factors, too many cross-currents, and it’s impossible to sort them out. The economy ultimately may swing the election, and certainly it will be more important than it was in 2004; but there are many motivations that can sway people on the margins, and have large electoral impacts.

As the Democrats have learned, in order to truly be competitive in certain parts of the country they have had to tone down their gun control rhetoric, speak more openly about faith and religion, and walk a fine line on gay rights (opposing gay marriage while supporting civil unions). This is what many voters in these regions want to hear, and the strategy has begun to pay dividends: Democrats are winning elections for state offices and Congressional seats in once-solid GOP territory, and Obama is competitive in states that haven’t voted Democratic for 40+ years.

The Republicans are in a much more difficult position because America overall is more socially liberal and economically progressive than the mainstream GOP. The party’s success this decade in some sense represents an anomaly; Bush actually lost in 2000, and won in 2004 largely because of a fearful citizenry that wanted to support a “war-time president.” Looking forward, it is hard to see how the far right’s message will resonate with voters, especially younger voters whose only taste of GOP rule has been an administration characterized by epic incompetence, cronyism, anti-intellectualism, and economic downturn. It will be interesting to see how the GOP retools, especially if they lose big in November.

Stay tuned….

*Wealthy individuals voting Democratic might be right to think that their long-run economic prospects under Democratic rule will be better than under Republican rule even if their immediate economic interests take a hit.

P.S. See here for a very interesting analysis of economic performance under Democratic and Republican administrations; it may surprise you.

Jason Scorse

Last month the world got a glimpse into Karl Rove’s mind when he said this about Obama:

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Put aside that most Americans have never been inside a country club, or the fact that a black man could easily face discrimination at such an institution. If we substitute “school dance” for “country club,” and picture a 17-year-old Karl Rove as one of the passersby, it’s not hard to imagine this scene playing out: Rove is the nerdy loser who never gets the girl, who has to bear the taunts of better looking and more popular students, and he’s emotionally scarred by the experience. Viewed through this lens, we can better understand his lifelong quest to get back at all those who made him feel so low as a teenager.

The same goes for one of America’s most annoying pseudo-intellectuals, Jonah Goldberg, whose book “Liberal Fascism” reads like a 500-page poke in the eye at all the people who at some point or another threw the word “fascist” in his direction. Again, it is easy to imagine a young Goldberg sitting in his room alone at night, incensed, plotting how he was going to have the last laugh, no matter how ridiculous, inflammatory, or intellectually dishonest he needed to be.

So what’s the point of all this?

There are a few. First, as much as the readers of this site would like more reason and rationality in politics, the people who practice it are often motivated by just about everything other than the public good—a quest for power and attention, perhaps a profound sense of victimization and alienation (Tom DeLay, for instance, was a bug exterminator who became incensed at the environmental regulations he was forced to follow). And in politics, as in so much else, it is often the loudest voices which most influence policy, those who feel aggrieved, rightly or wrongly, who fight the hardest.

Finally, insecurity may be the strongest of all human emotions: a potent combination of fear, uncertainty, estrangement, and desperation. We all experience insecurity at some point in our life, sometimes throughout. Politicians and pundits who become adept at playing on our feelings of insecurity are often the most successful. Why? Because those who are insecure are often seeking explanations for their plight, consciously or not. They are quick to accept scapegoats and rationalizations (which is why minorities like gays, blacks, immigrants, atheists and today’s favorite, “intellectual elites,” are typically in the cross-hairs).

I am not sure how to combat the bad feelings that insecurity brings to the surface. The best antidote I know is a consistent and unyielding campaign to eschew excessive emotional appeals, to stick to facts and reasoned arguments.

But still I wonder: if Karl Rove had had a few more friends back in high school, maybe the world could have been spared the last eight years of the Bush Administration.

Jason Scorse

Americans are feeling pain at the pump; gas prices going into the July 4th weekend hit a record high national average of $4.09 for regular unleaded, up $1.14 from a year ago and roughly triple what it was when Bush took office. Oil has topped $145 a barrel and high fuel costs are leading to price increases across a wide swath of products.

But in truth, U.S. gas prices are low by world standards. As this chart shows, there are many developed nations where the average price of a gallon of gas is between $7 and $10.

Most of these nations are not being hurt as much by the current oil price shock because their governments were smart and made gas expensive long ago. This created incentives for better public transit, more fuel-efficient vehicles and industrial processes, and shorter commutes. For decades, many U.S. economists have been urging higher gasoline taxes for exactly these reasons; unfortunately, their advice has fallen on deaf ears.

As the price of oil plummeted in the 1990s, the SUV craze took hold and Detroit automakers ignored the lessons of the 1970s and 80s. Not only did these behemoths lead to more urban sprawl and less automotive safety, America’s carbon footprint grew enormously. Politicians of both parties took the myopic, short-term view. They could have seized on this period of low gas prices as an opportunity to phase in a higher gasoline tax, and move towards a more fuel-efficient and less oil-dependent society. They didn’t.

Fast forward to September 12, 2001.

Of the 19 hijackers who changed the world the previous day, 15 came from Saudi Arabia. We knew then that Saudi oil money financed extremist groups. Iran and Iraq, two other nations that represented serious national security challenges also relied on oil money, as well as Russia and Venezuela.

Given the growing threat of global warming, any serious U.S. effort in 2001 to reduce its oil dependency would have been warmly greeted by the world community, especially the Europeans. The massive investments in technology required for such an endeavor would have helped reinvigorate manufacturing in the U.S. and the American auto industry.

Instead, an administration run by oilmen told us that conservation is for hippies and that all America needed to do was go shopping.

Fast forward to the present.

Virtually all of the worst-case scenarios of 2001 have come to pass. Rogue, terrorist-sponsoring oil states are awash in cash, which they are using to fund groups hostile to America. Here at home, there’s a long list of problems: the economy is teetering on recession, auto sales are slumping sharply, with GM and Chrysler headed toward bankruptcy, and the U.S. has recorded its sixth straight month of job losses; at the same time, not coincidentally, the threat of global warming continues to accelerate. And while Bush and Cheney continue to beg the Saudis to open the taps a little more, the Saudis are putting pressure on us to raise interest rates (in order to strengthen the dollar) at a time when the financial sector would be further weakened by such a move.

And we have no one but ourselves to blame.

All of these outcomes were both predictable and avoidable. In April of 1977 President Jimmy Carter put forth a comprehensive energy policy that is amazing in its detail and prescience. In the speech Carter calls for collective sacrifice and warns us not to get sidetracked by the sudden drop in oil prices because of the need to plan for the long-run. Carter was largely scoffed at and ignored and now we have to live with the results (Nixon also devoted some of his 1974 State of the Union speech to energy issues, although he did not offer nearly as comprehensive an assessment of both the problems and the solutions).

Unfortunately, when it comes to sound energy policy the U.S. has been running on empty for way too long, and we’re going to have to suffer for a while before things turn around.

Jason Scorse

The following comment by Geraldine Ferraro may have been the stupidest of the entire primary season:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

If Obama had an Anglo name and spoke with a Southern drawl, is there anyone in their right mind who doesn’t think he would now be ahead of McCain by 20 points in the national polls? And be ahead in at least 35 out of 50 states?

But Obama has a foreign name (including Hussein for a middle name), has lived abroad, has Muslim relatives, and is black; unfortunately, all of these factors represent serious drawbacks for him with a sizeable segment of the electorate. These are people who in 2008 remain at least slightly xenophobic, racist, or susceptible to accusations and insinuations that somehow Obama represents the “other”.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Just take a look at McCain’s first general election ad, which begins with the narration: “The American President Americans Have Been Waiting For.” If McCain is an “American President,” then what is Obama? An “un-American” president? This from the team that has said it wants to run a “clean” campaign, but won’t even try to control advertising by so-called 527s and other outside groups that are gearing up for what is likely to be one of the nastiest campaigns in recent memory.

There are numerous rumors already flying over the internet about Obama being anti-Semitic or refusing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, about Michelle Obama using the slur “whitey,” even questions regarding the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate (all of which can be debunked at Fight the Smears).

While America has come a long way from its overtly racist past, there is simply no doubt that racial fears, conscious and unconscious, will play a major role in this election. This November will show us whether a solid majority of Americans will be able to resist the smears, the coded racist slurs, and the dumbing down of the real issues by a media bent on sensationalism (and let’s not forget to mention a rightwing attack machine that will do absolutely anything in order to win).

This is not to suggest that any vote for McCain is a vote prompted by racist fears, any more than the votes against Hillary were all due to misogynist leanings. We still have five months to go; there are likely to be many ups and downs over the campaign, and surprises could occur that might alter the fundamental dynamics of the race.

But if the underlying trends continue and Obama loses, it will likely be that an onslaught of negative and untruthful scare tactics tipped the balance against him.

That is a huge reason why this election is so important.

Is America truly ready to move beyond its racist past? Can we be led by our hopes, and not by our fears and prejudices? Election 2008 will provide a serious reality check, perhaps the most clarifying moment of a generation.

Jason Scorse

A spate of articles and books in recent months (e.g., Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World) raise the question of whether America will remain the dominant economic power in the coming decades; no one really doubts that America will remain the dominant military power. I just returned from a two-week trip to China, which got me thinking about the subject since one can’t fail to be impressed by the rise of this Asian power.

I am ambivalent about the issue. On one hand, as an American I want my country to remain strong and prosperous; but I also am an internationalist, and want to see prosperity spread across the world. Fortunately, it need not be a zero-sum game. American greatness can coexist with rapid wealth generation in the emerging markets.

In fact, an argument can be made that American wealth is partially dependent on the rise of the developing world: our historic low interest rates and (until recently) extremely low inflation are due in part to the high savings rates and low labor costs in Asia and the Middle East.

The key looking forward is to realize that American dominance is not some force of nature that is destined to continue. It is instead the result of specific policies and characteristics of the American economy and society that must constantly be revisited, revised, and maintained. Mistakes have been made that have weakened America’s economic position, but these mistakes can be rectified.

Here are four missteps, coupled with new opportunities, to consider as we look towards a new administration and getting back on the right economic track:

1. Nowhere has the failure of leadership been more damaging than in the U.S. auto sector. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have coddled Detroit; a combination of corporate mismanagement and intransigent, short-sighted unions has blocked all efforts at meaningful fuel efficiency for decades. Free-market advocates are finally seeing some vindication, decades late, now that high gas prices and tumbling demand for SUVs is forcing Detroit to see what thinking people have known for decades: fuel-efficient cars are the wave of the future. It is too early to tell whether Detroit will be able to recover, but there are encouraging signs: GM is pursuing plug-in electric vehicles, and both Obama and McCain support a cap on carbon emissions (although McCain oddly seems to forget that he does).

2. One way America has become so affluent is by recruiting the best of the best from across the world. Skimming the cream from countries across the globe has helped the U.S. to the highest living standards for any country remotely comparable in size. However, since 9/11, the enactment of anti-immigrant policies has slowed the influx of engineers, computer scientists, biochemists, doctors, et al. While tighter immigration controls are no doubt warranted, America should be expanding visa applications for the best and the brightest. This is an area that doesn’t make headlines, but it should be watched carefully.

3. Green technology, nanotechnology, and biotechnology are likely to be the leading areas for rapid growth and breakout products that dramatically impact global society. The U.S. nanotechnology industry seems in good shape, but our biotech industry has suffered under the anti-science policies promulgated by the Bush Administration at the insistence of the religious right. Legitimate moral issues related to cloning need to be addressed, but blocking embryonic stem-cell research that has the potential to cure major illnesses is both unwise and unconscionable. The embryos used in the process are already slated for destruction; in fact, a consistent “pro-life” stance would oppose fertility clinics, a fact which the right never mentions. Both Obama and McCain support lifting the ban on federal funding for stem-cell research (but given McCain’s numerous reversals and pandering to the right, I am not confident he will maintain this position; we’ll see).

4. The final issue is more long-term: America’s debt. America is the world’s most heavily indebted nation, both the government and the people. This has been possible because the rest of the world has sought the safety of U.S.-backed treasuries, but it will not persist indefinitely (especially as other countries begin to consume more and the emerging markets become more attractive for investment). High levels of American debt will inevitably result in higher domestic interest rates and lower economic growth. Higher taxes are also likely, especially if the federal deficit continues to rise. Neither Obama’s nor McCain’s fiscal plans make tackling the debt a priority, but McCain’s plan is much worse overall; it would increase the deficit by an estimated $5.7 trillion over the next decade. Regardless of what the government does, individual Americans should get their fiscal houses in order: we need to pay down our debts and increase our saving rates.

In conclusion, predictions of America’s economic decline are probably premature. At the same time, continued American dominance is in no way preordained. It will take hard work and sound policies; as always, a little luck wouldn’t hurt either.

Jason Scorse

In many parts of the world disagreements between groups are often settled through violence and mayhem. The singular achievement of liberal democracies is that we settle our differences through the political process and rarely resort to violence; this is no small feat.

But make no mistake: our current political battles represent life and death struggles. They include a woman’s right to choose, civil rights for gays, universal health care, global warming, and war policy. In short, choosing a president of the United States is one of the most consequential acts a citizen ever performs.

Every time we vote, we make serious moral judgments; there is no escaping this, since politics is little more than the act of converting public morals into public policy. Everything from tax rates to teacher pay to toxic chemical standards to social security payments is at its root a moral decision about what is right and wrong for society.

It should be clear that we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the last eight years, which have harmed so many millions both here and abroad.

Unfortunately, repeating these mistakes is what John McCain promises to do on virtually every issue. He has not only embraced the Bush economic policy, but his tax proposals are even more regressive and would result in more debt ($5.7 trillion); he has called for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and promised to appoint justices like Alito and Scalia (who not only would take away women’s reproductive rights, but whose views on the scope of executive power are truly frightening); he strongly supports the Iraq War and argues for an open-ended U.S. military occupation; he voted against the children’s health insurance bills and is ideologically opposed to any form of universal health insurance; even his support for climate change legislation is tempered by his support for windfall profits for the oil and energy industries.

As Albert Einstein noted, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. A vote for John McCain is a vote for more of the same disastrous policies.

I make no apologies for claiming that people who would vote for someone who doesn’t want to provide health insurance for poor children, who wants to further enrich the rich, and who thinks the Iraq War was a good idea, are taking positions which I consider both foolish and immoral. Political differences this great represent sharply opposing values and worldviews, and there’s nothing wrong with discussing them frankly.

In fact, America would be in better shape if people spoke up more often about injustice and incompetence without fear of being labeled strident or divisive. Mature people need not be afraid of offending others with direct talk, even if it sometimes includes recriminations (no doubt, all of us have probably done things or held views that we now view as foolish or unethical—it’s part of being human).

What separates ideologues and political hacks from reasoned critics is not the absence of strong language; it’s openness to opposing views, respecting people who don’t share our views, admitting that we could be wrong, and, of course, backing up claims with solid arguments.

In no small part, the reason that Democrats and progressives have failed to achieve many of their goals over the past decades is because they’ve failed to cast public policies in clear moral terms. Voters don’t often get excited over policy details, but they do get excited over principles.

Ironically, many of these Democrats and progressives (who have largely ceded all moral discourse to the religious right) are now worried that Obama’s “beyond partisanship” posture ignores the political struggles that will be required to enact his agenda.

They shouldn’t worry; Obama definitely gets it. He doesn’t believe that the entrenched interest groups and power centers will simply roll over for him.

His great gift is his ability to couch the major issues of the day in clear moral terms—what’s fair, what’s right, what’s sensible—and in this way appeal to the compassion and reasonableness of the American people.

He doesn’t need to convince every last American that his views are best. But by not shying away from making forceful statements about what’s right and what’s wrong, he very well may be able to convince a solid majority.

Jason Scorse

Now that Barack Obama has wrapped up the Democratic nomination, the American people are in store for a historic election. Obama is truly a phenomenon: a man who has swiftly risen through the ranks of Democratic politics though a combination of rhetorical skills, his tranquil and composed demeanor, and the nature of this unique historical moment. He doesn’t have McCain’s long history in government and military service nor Clinton’s political stature, but he is no doubt formidable.

With Obama and McCain as the nominees, the U.S. electorate will truly get a choice between two very different approaches to both domestic and foreign policy. While much was made of the small policy differences between Clinton and Obama, it is Obama’s initial and unwavering opposition to the Iraq War that helps to solidify the contrast between the Democratic and Republican candidates for president in 2008.

As readers of this site know, I have never subscribed to the Thomas Franks school of thought. In his book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, Franks posits that many working-class Americans have been duped into voting for the GOP all these years against their own economic interests. While Americans may be genuinely ignorant about many aspects of foreign affairs and public policy, they do know the basic differences between the major political parties.

When Americans go to the ballot box, those whose greatest desires are to see abortion criminalized and gays denied civil rights will correctly choose the Republican candidate; those who want the estate tax eliminated and corporate tax rates slashed are also correct to pull the lever for the GOP, the same as those who prefer a more militaristic and hard-nosed approach to foreign policy. I find these reasons not only wrong-headed, but largely immoral and foolish; but they are not irrational based on the values these voters profess.

Bush’s reelection in 2004 (and GOP gains in both houses of Congress) represented something of an anomaly; Americans were still reeling from the shock of 9/11, and the Iraq War was still supported by a majority of the population. It seemed to me at the time that the incompetence and pettiness of the Bush Administration were clear for all to see, but I understand how many Americans wanted, and chose, to give the president the benefit of the doubt.

Fast forward to 2008.

It is now obvious to almost everyone that these past eight years are likely to be remembered as a “lost decade,” one in which Americans were led by the worst president in our history. America is weaker, poorer, more fractured, less competitive, and less respected than it was in 2000; it will take years to reverse the damage that has been wrought by ideologues who put loyalty over expertise, and turned the U.S. government into a system of allegiance to cronies over competence.

While John McCain would likely represent an improvement over the Bush Administration (which isn’t really saying much), his positions on foreign policy, fiscal policy, and executive power are almost identical. Barack Obama, on the other hand, offers significantly different proposals on all fronts: a more diplomatic and focused strategy for combating terrorism, a more progressive tax system, universal healthcare, transparency in government, and a serious alternative energy policy.

It is no secret who I think would be the better president. But in the event Obama doesn’t win, it will be an extremely illuminating moment nonetheless.

If the American people choose John McCain for president, I will have to conclude that the majority of Americans do not share my values or my vision for the future.

Given how much energy I invest in national politics, this will be hard news for me to accept, but I will do so. I will turn my attention to more local issues and the international stage. I will not move to Canada or bemoan America, but I will realize that on the national level America is not the country I hoped it would be.

I do not think this will happen. I look forward to many years of discussing an Obama Administration: its many achievements as well as its missteps.

Either way, November 2008 will be a major clarifying moment in American history. I look forward to it.

Jason Scorse

This week marked the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. As Jeffery Goldberg at the Atlantic Monthly points out, Israel is the culmination of one of the most successful nationalist movements of the last century, and yet it still faces stark questions with respect to its identity and future.

I am Jewish by birth: my mother is Jewish, and Judaism is a matrilineal religion/culture. Like many Jews raised in New York City in a secular home with little exposure to explicitly Jewish culture, I have mixed emotions about both Judaism and Israel. I know that my ancestors were often singled out and persecuted, and that to this day Jews are still a hated minority in many parts of the world. I do not take lightly the struggles and pain of the Jewish people.

There are many things about Jewish culture that I respect, particularly its strong intellectual tradition and the fact that Jews by and large do not believe in proselytizing. At the same time, my strong aversion to organized religion puts me at odds with much of Jewish identity; I also find the notion of a “chosen people” offensive.

It is with respect to the state of Israel that my feelings are most mixed. There is something uplifting about a people so long reviled and persecuted finally realizing their dream of a state of their own, one which they have turned into the most prosperous in the Middle East. But the human costs on both sides have been tremendous; I’ve been reading about the history of the Israelis and the Palestinians for more than a decade, and I’m still not sure where the blame really lies.

Some things, however, are clear.

There is no doubt that suicide bombing is evil, and that the Arab states bent on Israel’s destruction are largely filled with vile opportunists who use the Palestinians as pawns to deflect attention away from their own corruption. Israel is not free from blame, either. The continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank clearly violates both international law and any proper sense of justice.

More importantly, the very nature of a “Jewish state” troubles me.

The essence of liberal democracy is that states are defined by ideals, not by ethnicity; yet so much of Israeli domestic and foreign policy is driven by the goal of maintaining a majority ethnic Jewish population. Because of higher Arab birth rates, this ultimately means that Israel will either have to create a two-tiered socioeconomic system (akin to apartheid in South Africa) or somehow decrease its Arab population (through expulsion or other means). In some ways the Jews may be suffering the “winner’s curse”: after thousands of years of struggle, they return to their homeland only to see demographics deny them their dream.

The bottom line is that Israel will eventually be faced with a difficult choice—either be democratic or be Jewish. Since I believe strongly in democracy, my own choice is clear; yet I can still sympathize with the fears and hopes of my ethnic relatives half-way across the world.

I hope and dream that one day humanity will be drawn together by shared ideals of freedom and universal human rights. In the meantime, religious and ethnic bonds will remain some of the strongest that both keep people together and tear them apart. Israel is ground zero for this dynamic, and will likely be for the foreseeable future.

Jason Scorse

If there’s one lesson to learn from the Reverend Wright controversy, it is that it’s past time to get religion out of politics. While Senator Obama’s pastor occupied the spotlight this past week, preachers with equally ridiculous and offensive views have been linked to GOP leaders for decades. Both Democrats and Republicans should work to keep religion out of the public square.

Both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence make absolutely clear that religion is a private affair that should not be the basis for any government policy. At the same time there’s no doubt that candidates’ religious views influence their morals, and this is a valid topic for discussion.

It would be illuminating, for instance, to see a presidential debate in which the candidates were called on to discuss how their religious beliefs influence their attitudes towards war, healthcare, education, science, and taxation. Perhaps even more important, it would be great to hear what they think about the separation of church and state in modern-day America.

The least we can ask for is a politics free of the influence of incendiary and ignorant preachers of any stripe.

Unfortunately, as E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post points out, there’s a double-standard at work: if the preachers are white and right wing, they don’t get the same scrutiny as when they’re black and liberal (or associated with liberals). If the media paid close attention to the pastors in John McCain’s circle, the public would soon learn that his are no less offensive than Reverend Wright.

So their views would cancel each other out, and make no difference in November. This would be a great development. Senator McCain doesn’t wear his religion on his sleeve, nor does Senator Obama. That means we might yet get a debate that isn’t about distractions, but focuses instead on the issues that actually matter for America and the world.

P.S. As usual, please make your views known to the traditional media—both carrots and sticks—praise them for covering real issues and rebuke them when they emphasize trivialities. I’m beginning to sense a backlash against the mindlessness, which bodes well for the fall.

Jason Scorse

The real elitists in American politics are the pundits and the news media who think that flag pins, “likability”, and the color of one’s skin or one’s gender are the most important issues in the campaign for the presidency of the most powerful country in the world. With an economy slipping into recession, no end in sight for two of the longest wars in U.S. history, an administration that has endorsed torture, and a looming environmental crisis, the nation’s major news sources have no shortage of serious issues to report on. Instead, we get an endless stream of distractions and trivialities.

Adding insult to injury, the nation’s opinion pages routinely contain lectures on what it really means to understand rural America—these from blowhards living in the posh D.C. suburbs who skip from one gala dinner to the next.

This has to stop. The stakes are simply too high.

The only way it will is if we the people demand something different. Some of us are already doing this by switching to new media sources, which is one reason why newspaper circulation and network news audiences are steadily declining. We also need to speak up loud and clear when the mainstream media stoop to new lows, as ABC did with its mindless Obama-Clinton “debate”. And of course we can continue to build alternative sources, as this website and tons of others has attempted to do.

More than anything, what has exposed the mediocrity of the traditional media is the plethora of superior perspectives put forth on the web by academics, thinkers, and concerned citizens. Many of the pieces that I read on blogs, for which the writers are generally unpaid, are better than what people are earning six-figure salaries to produce.

But let us not pretend that alternative media can do it alone. The large resources of the major newspapers and networks enable them to do the kind of original reporting that blogs and other independent sources can’t possibly match. Only National Public Radio, probably the best overall source of news, can begin to compete, and even its resources are tiny by comparison.

It is possible to envision a future in which the traditional media forego mindlessness and return to in-depth coverage of serious issues and a focus on real priorities. Combine this with continued scrutiny by blogs, and the more varied commentary that comes with them, and America could easily become the most informed nation in the world. Given the disproportionate power that we wield on the international stage, we should aim for no less.

Take-home point: Make your voices heard. Whenever you hear or read a particularly mindless story, give the media a call or send an email expressing your discontent. And when they run a great story, let them know as well.

P.S. As if on cue, an entire issue of mindlessness at Newsweek. Let the editors know what you think at: Editors@newsweek.com.

Jason Scorse

There is no doubt that Obama’s recent comments that many rural Americans feel “bitter” about their economic situation, leading them to “cling” to guns, religion, and anti-gay and anti-immigrant sentiments, represent his worst political mistake to date. Both Clinton and McCain promptly jumped all over the comments, as well as the news media (ridiculously so in Wednesday’s ABC News “debate”).

That Obama made these comments in a closed meeting in San Francisco makes them all the more damaging. We will know soon whether this seriously damages his poll numbers; Obama is that rare politician who can take a terrible gaffe and turn it into a “teaching moment” (e.g., the Wright controversy).

Back in 2005 I wrote about this issue while disputing the main thesis in Thomas Franks’s book, What’s the Matter with Kansas. Franks lays out in detail the ways in which rural Americans are distracted by “culture war” issues and duped into voting against their economic self-interest. I laid out in some detail why this argument—Obama’s argument (and Jim Webb’s too)—is somewhat elitist, but more importantly, wrong.

Issue by issue, I showed that for many Americans certain “values” issues trump economics, and that voters are making rational choices, just not in the way the left and Democrats would like.

This week Larry Bartels from Princeton took up my critique, and offered a different explanation. Analyzing socioeconomic data and poll results, Bartels makes the case that low income Americans do vote based more on economic issues, while the relatively affluent take socio-cultural issues more into account (perhaps because they don’t have to worry as much about money).

In some ways the 2008 Presidential Election will present a test, however imperfect, of this thesis. Assuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, Americans will have a choice between a candidate with an unambiguously progressive domestic agenda and a candidate who believes that Bush’s domestic agenda was too progressive.

If come November, with the economy likely in a recession or just coming out of one, McCain were still able to beat Obama, we would have to conclude that the majority of Americans are not primarily swayed by economic issues when it comes to voting.

If this transpires it will usher in a day of reckoning for the Democratic Party and the entire progressive movement, both of which would need to radically rethink their view of government and American values. Stay tuned.

Jason Scorse

The controversy surrounding the comments of Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, has once again highlighted a major divide in American politics. At one extreme are those who believe that America is an exceptional nation chosen by God to bring democracy and justice to the world; at the other are those who hold that America is no different than other imperial powers. Formed in slavery and genocide, it is as responsible as any other nation for the atrocities that stain human history.

Many on the left criticize those on the right for what they view as a form of mindless and blind patriotism, of obliviousness to the evils committed by Americans. Those on the right view many leftists as bordering on traitorous, unable to recognize that America has more often than not been a benevolent power that has sacrificed greatly to promote freedom around the globe.

The middle ground is rarely articulated in American political discourse, and yet this is where the truth lies. What we need is a humbler and more truthful American narrative.

Such a narrative would begin by acknowledging the great tragedies of Native American genocide and black slavery, the legacies of which linger to this day. It would recognize that slavery hardly ended with the Civil War; it continued in one form or another until WW II, and then morphed into an extremist racial segregation that continued until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In fact, of the more than 350 years of American history, fewer than 50 have been characterized by even a modicum of decency towards black Americans. It is not an exaggeration to describe the treatment of blacks in America as domestic terrorism, made all the more evil because it was perpetrated by American citizens against other American citizens who happened to be of a different color.

But the evils that were committed against blacks, Indians, and other immigrant groups throughout American history have always been tempered by the ideals set forth in our founding documents. The Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. This was a revolutionary doctrine, and it was always there to prick the consciences of those who realized what it said about our treatment of blacks and Native Americans and yes, women too. Over generations, the ideal that all men and women are equal helped to create one of the most multi-ethnic and economically mobile civilizations of all time. America may be a nation of sinners, but it is also a nation that strives to live up to its ideals and to overcome its moral imperfections.

Americans, believing deeply that freedom is a universal right, have also sacrificed tremendously to help spread liberty throughout the world. Americans died by the hundreds of thousands fighting Nazism and Communism, wicked ideologies bent on world domination. Today American military bases around the world do more to prevent conflict than to incite it. While Iraq makes the headlines, no one hears about the relative peace and tranquility secured by American forces throughout much of the world.

America’s foreign policy has aided and abetted heinous crimes, but this was usually done to oppose what we understood to be even greater evils. For example, while there is no real excuse for American support of dictators and oppressors, we justified these steps during the Cold War in the face of Soviet aggression and expansionism. This irrationality reached its apex during the Vietnam War, when it became common practice to destroy entire villages in order to “save” them.

Despite all the contradictions and wrongdoings, the American experience has been marked by continual moral progress: by the knowledge that we must do more to live up to our highest ideals, and by our movement toward them. America will never be perfect, but this does not take away our legitimate right to try to influence world events. American power is best used with one eye on our own shortcomings, and the other on promoting those universal human rights that represent the best of who we are.

A more humble and truthful American narrative recognizes how easy it is to commit evil in the name of good, and the need to guard against this; at the same time, the narrative gives us confidence that our highest ideals are worth promoting across the globe.

P.S. A time stamp for the comments is coming soon. Thanks for your patience.

Jason Scorse

An honest, non-ideological conversation about our current economic problems requires us to abandon the clichés of “big government” versus “small government”. The real issue is effective government: what should be done and what’s the best way to do it?

We cannot afford a laissez-faire attitude toward the banking sector. Banks cannot be allowed to fail for the simple reason that they can take the rest of the economy down with them. This means that ultimately the public sector (our tax dollars) acts as a final insurer for the private banking sector, and banks know this. Without adequate regulation they will always be tempted to take unnecessary risks, knowing that the federal government will eventually come to their rescue.

The conversation we should be having is how best to ensure that banks are not allowed to take risks of such magnitude that they can undermine the entire credit system, while at the same time allowing them to innovate and provide low cost capital to the general economy. While the details of this balancing act must be left to experts in finance and banking, the basic concept is not beyond the ability of the average voter to comprehend, nor of politicians to explain. There should be zero tolerance for anyone who simply spouts “the markets should be allowed to work things out;” the markets haven’t worked things out, and this line of reasoning ignores the “moral hazard” argument noted above.

On to another topic.

Barack Obama gave what many consider a brilliant speech on race relations in America last week, and it has already gone viral on YouTube. Obama is that super-rare politician who can take a serious liability (in this case an error in judgment) and turn it into an asset through his own rhetorical skills.

What Obama’s speech only hinted at should be the topic for a larger American conversation: the fact that social class and access to power divide us even more than race. Racism surely persists in America, as do sexism and homophobia; but the greatest drivers of American inequality are divisions between rich and poor, between the less educated and the more educated, and between the well-connected and the unconnected.

The millions without healthcare come from all ethnicities and racial backgrounds; coal miners who are dying by the dozens in the Appalachians are poor whites, and they have watched for generations as big coal companies have literally removed the mountains from their communities; the millions of manufacturing jobs that are leaving the Midwest are throwing blacks, white, and Latinos out of work; the corporations who flout all sorts of health and safety laws, aided by a Congress and a court system that caters to their needs above the public interest, do not discriminate in the harm they inflict.

The notion that class is the primary source of injustice in America was recognized by none other than Martin Luther King Jr., who vehemently attacked economic inequality in the last years of his life. While he is revered for his successes in the Civil Rights Movement, his positions on economic fairness and social class were not well received by the mainstream; at the time of his assassination he had lost much of his earlier support.

This is one of America’s “dirty secrets”: it is always in the interests of the powerful for the disenfranchised to fight among themselves for the crumbs (e.g., poor whites against blacks, Latinos against blacks) while those in the chips laugh all the way to the bank. This is not to suggest that there are no grievances with a specific racial or ethnic component, but that these are ultimately secondary to class interests. One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to understand this.

At a time when the federal government is once again bailing out the elite to the tunes of hundreds of billions of dollars, we have a clear choice: we can remain distracted by race, or take a moment to examine the concentration of power in this country and realize how it disadvantages whole swaths of people across all racial and ethnic categories. Greed sees only the color green, and all it really cares about is power.

P.S. Check out Paul Krugman on the topic of financial regulation making lots of sense and raising real concerns. And while I find most of Bill Kristol's columns offensive here I actually somewhat agree with him.

Jason Scorse

The terrorist attacks more than six years ago supposedly “changed everything”. They changed George Bush from someone who spoke forcefully against “nation-building” and foreign intervention into a president enamored with the idea of spreading democracy by force; they led the Administration to violate the Constitution on multiple occasions through warrantless domestic surveillance and the torture of enemy combatants; they provided cover for a far-right domestic agenda that the majority of Americans opposed.

But in one critical area 9/11 changed absolutely nothing: our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and the autocratic, terrorist-sponsoring regimes that benefit from this addiction.

Not only has the Bush Administration done nothing to diminish our reliance on Middle Eastern oil, Vice-President Cheney is on record mocking conservation as nothing more than a “personal virtue” (i.e., something only tree-huggers do), the GOP-led Congress passed energy bills that increased subsidies for oil companies (thereby further distorting markets against alternative energy), and the Administration sued the state of California for imposing a greenhouse gas reduction policy that would have resulted in higher fuel-efficiency mandates.

Let’s recap the results so far of this catastrophically misguided policy:

1. Oil prices (partly due to the effects of the Iraq War, which have crippled Iraq’s oil sector; see this NYT's piece on how insurgents are stealing Iraqi oil) are at records highs, which has helped stoke the highest inflation rate in decades and complicated efforts to deal with the coming recession

2. Oil-producing U.S. adversaries such as Iran, Venezuela, and Russia are awash in cash, helping to keep dictators in power and undermine democratic reform

3. So-called allies, such as Saudi Arabia, are also awash in cash, allowing them to stall on reforms and continue to funnel more money into the hands of terrorists

4. Our European allies are livid that we have not helped in any meaningful way to address global warming, which could be mitigated through comprehensive international efforts

5. Instead of tens of billions invested in alternative energy projects or tax rebates for the middle class, they’re going to the likes of Exxon-Mobil and Chevron (which routinely set corporate profit records every quarter)

Results like these all lead to the same conclusion. America’s long history of entanglement in the Middle East stems largely from our dependence on oil, and we will continue to be dragged into conflicts in the region until and unless we dramatically reduce the power of these regimes in the way that they would feel it most: their pocketbooks.

Following 9/11, a serious global push to reduce oil consumption would have sent a major signal to the Middle East regimes to either diversify their economies or witness their eventual decline. Ironically, having to face this reality would have provided significant incentives to liberalize their economies, which has proven to be one of the best paths to freedom and democracy.

Instead the Bush Administration took the low road, adopting policies guided by outdated thinking and its strong ties to the oil industry. Bush will leave behind many legacies of failure and incompetence, but this “lost decade” of wasted opportunity on the energy independence front may ultimately be seen as the most costly of all.

P.S. Check this article out in Sunday's WaPo for even more depressing analysis of how the Iraq War's impact on oil prices has hurt the U.S. economy and strengthened our adversaries.

Jason Scorse

The terms “conservative” and “liberal”, while grounded in well-established philosophical traditions, have been turned almost upside down today. In fact, what we now call conservative was considered classical liberalism in the Europe of old.

The rise of extremist Christianity in the GOP is as contrary to true conservative principles as trade protectionism in the Democratic Party is to true liberal principles. For every Republican who touts the benefits of spreading democracy by force around the globe, a true conservative is rolling in the grave; similarly, true liberals stand aghast that Democrats never meet a problem that can’t be solved by throwing more money at it. The insane war on drugs, and the cowardice with which both Republicans and Democrats approach the issue of gun control, display profound disrespect for both conservatism and liberalism.

The Republican noise machine has been particularly successful at tarnishing the word “liberal”. On the other hand, the actions of the Bush Administration these past seven plus years have gone a long way toward blunting the advantage that the term “conservative” once held with respect to political identification.

The truth is that most of the issues we currently face do not break down easily along ideological lines; at root they are issues that require pragmatism, competence, and common sense. For example, in the richest nation in the world, the overwhelming majority of Americans realize that allowing millions of children to go without healthcare is morally wrong; end of story. The debate is how best to provide the coverage, not whether it should be provided.

With respect to globalization, no one really believes that we should or could turn back the clock. The vast majority realizes that U.S. companies need to remain competitive; they also realize that America needs to maintain some form of safety net, and help displaced workers better transition from one type of employment to the other. Workers should be able to take risks, and not live in constant fear of being one paycheck from bankruptcy. Again, the only debate is how best to get there.

On the topic of terrorism, no one doubts that there are bad actors out there who mean to do us serious harm; the question is how best to find them and deal with them, and not sacrifice our core ideals and liberties in the process.

None of these issues can be resolved by adopting an ideological mindset that refuses to seek alternative points of view or consider other tactics. What is needed is a reasoned approach, combined with flexibility, attention to detail, and follow-through by top-notch government authorities who are accountable to the people.

I chose the title for this piece because I think Barack Obama is the candidate with the most potential to usher in such an era of common sense approaches to policy without the ideological baggage that weighs so heavily on the American body politic. As the conservative columnist Stephen Hayes has noted, Obama’s rhetorical skill lies in his ability to show that he understands and respects opposing viewpoints, even as he points out why a certain course of action is preferable. He rarely uses terms like liberal or conservative; he has a way of elevating the dialogue above the labels that so often get in the way of clear thinking.

While McCain is trying to prove his “conservative” credentials (which seems to mean embracing Christian extremists like John Hagee, and flip-flopping on the Bush tax cuts), Hillary Clinton is staking out a fairly conventional partisan stance. None of this is to say that Obama is the only one who could help move us beyond the ideological divide, but that he seems to have the best chance this election cycle.

Regardless of who wins in November, I think we will begin to see a movement away from the conservative-liberal divide as a new political generation comes of age: a generation less interested in notions of ideological purity, and more interested in finding solutions to the problems that all of us face.

Jason Scorse

We could be at a unique historical moment for both the Democratic and Republican parties.

On the Democratic side, Obama excepted, almost all of the major political figures were shaped by the civil rights and the anti-Vietnam War movements. They have a sense of moral indignation and fire that’s absent in Obama. His appeal (in addition to his charisma, charm and rhetorical skills) stems largely from his post-1960s outlook. To the older Democrats, change only comes about through hard struggle against unyielding forces; they consider Obama naïve to think otherwise, and arrogant as well because he believes the time has come to move beyond this narrow view of political progress.

Their frustration was clear in a recent discussion with one of Clinton’s biggest supporters, Geraldine Ferraro, in which she lambasted those who take for granted the gains in women’s rights, and fail to realize how hard-fought they were.

It is easy to understand how this core group of Democrats has come to believe that their contributions to social justice are being undervalued. Obama has taken pains to thank them and make clear that he wouldn’t be where he is if not for their efforts; at the same time he is unapologetic in his call for change, which is no doubt directed at them as much as at the GOP.

The change taking place on the Republican side has been more gradual, and took on particular resonance with the passing of William F. Buckley this past week. Buckley was the consummate intellectual elitist, a person whom the modern Republican Party came to loathe; he was the son of a rich oilman, educated with private tutors and in the best New England schools, spoke in a haughty British accent and routinely quoted Shakespeare, was an avid yachter, and to his dying day believed that the right to vote should be restricted to those who passed certain literacy tests.

To his dismay, the conservative movement that he helped created and the Republican Party that he called home took on an increasingly anti-intellectual bent. This anti-intellectualism reached its apex with the presidency of George W. Bush, who is almost proud that he can’t speak proper English and who uses his “ranch” in Texas as a stage set to prove his “heartland” credentials. Similarly, Buckley’s fierce but substantive and respectful debate program, Firing Line, has been replaced by Fox News and the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly; these men are many things, but gentlemen in the Buckley mold is not among them.

Buckley came around to believe that the Iraq War has been a failure and antithetical to true conservative principles; for this he was branded a senile old man and a coward by some of the very people whom he helped elevate to positions of power. This account of a debate between Buckley and Norman Podhoretz (an influential neocon who has never visited the Middle East, but has written books on the region and who claims that Iran must be bombed), is striking. Buckley asks Podhoretz if he’s at all embarrassed that Iraq didn’t have any WMD; to this, without a shred of evidence, Podhoretz claims that all the WMD were shipped to Syria.

If conservatism and the Republican Party are to regain their footing, their leaders would be wise to shed their anti-intellectualism and try to once again become the “party of ideas”. If the past seven plus years have taught us anything, it is this: when ideology and party loyalty come before competence and intellectual merit, the results are disastrous.

(In next week’s piece I will discuss Obama’s potential to actually further many key Democratic values in a way the old guard has been unable to do.)

Jason Scorse

I was aghast the other day when I read this piece about a potential bailout of troubled homeowners. The article describes people, often with six-figure incomes, whose mortgages are now higher than the value of their homes. They are upper-middle class, they live in large homes and own several cars, and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is now asking that my tax money (and yours) be used to rescue them from their own bad decisions.

On this score, the conservative notion of personal responsibility and dealing with the consequences of one’s actions is absolutely right. These are not people who were duped by shady loan practices, but well-educated individuals with good jobs who exercised bad judgment. Liberals who say that no matter how foolishly people behave the government is there to bail them out are going too far.

There is another conservative position that I’m starting to warm to as well: doing away with campaign finance reform. This is an issue that conservatives feel so strongly about that it is McCain’s biggest Achilles Heel among hardcore Republicans. The Supreme Court has made it clear that limiting people’s contributions to campaigns is essentially a limit on free speech, and therefore a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Most attempts to limit private money in politics are meant to prevent the rise of politicians who, bankrolled by the wealthy and powerful, are able to outspend and outcompete all their rivals. There is also the fear that politicians will be bought off by big money, which will sway their votes. On both scores I think these fears are unwarranted.

The internet has almost completely negated the advantages of big money in politics; millions of small donors can now help candidates raise tens of millions of dollars a month (just ask Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Ron Paul). It is true that with unlimited contributions the uber-wealthy can surpass these amounts, but the law of diminishing returns keeps this advantage well in check; there’s only so much that money can do in any campaign.

With regards to the corruption that money brings to politics, this is where an active citizenry comes in. If there is evidence that politicians are trading votes for contributions from big business, or selling out the public interest for the interests of the few, then it is our responsibility to vote them out of office. Again, in the age of the internet, it is easy for almost anyone to get detailed information on candidates’ positions and records. Americans watch television an average of four hours a day: plenty of time to better inform ourselves about politics and our elected officials if we so choose. If we do not choose, and if those officials abuse the public trust, then we have only ourselves to blame. We get the government we deserve.

There is a strong need for government regulation and assistance in many facets of our lives, but conservatives are correct when they insist that we shouldn’t use government intervention as a substitute for taking responsibility for the major decisions in our life. Buying a house and voting for elected officials are two areas where people should be expected to invest significant time in their decisions, and be prepared to live with them.

Jason Scorse

The presidential field will soon be narrowed to the final two: John McCain for the Republicans and Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for the Democrats. Although it has become routine to claim that every presidential election is “pivotal,” “historic,” or “represents a major turning point,” this time the descriptions stand a good chance of turning out to be accurate.

America will have its first chance ever to elect a black man or a woman president, but that’s just the beginning of what’s at stake. American troops are fighting two foreign wars; the economy seems on the brink of a significant downturn; the long-term makeup of the Supreme Court hangs in the balance, and global warming seems to be accelerating. These issues, and who knows what more, will face the 44th president come next January.

This is why we need a vigorous series of presidential debates. The country deserves a detailed and sophisticated discussion of the major issues, not the superficial questioning that often passes for a debate.

One excellent proposal is for a debate entirely dedicated to science, an idea spearheaded by a group calling itself “Science Debate 2008”. Many of the country’s top scientists have signed on, and their idea has appeared in many major media outlets. After seven plus years of an administration openly hostile to science and scientific inquiry, this would be an amazingly refreshing event. Not only would it help inform the electorate about the candidates’ views on the major environmental, technological, and ethical issues that we are now confronting; it would also help to elevate science at a time when facts too often take a back seat to opinions and punditry.

In addition, a candidate who doesn’t believe in evolution, or thinks global warming is a hoax, or that frozen embryos are “people,” would have to describe what information they based their beliefs on, and defend these beliefs against respected members of the scientific community.

Another debate I would love to see is one dedicated to the candidates’ values: where they come from, how they inform their worldviews, and the implications of these values for their domestic and foreign policies. A candidate who cited “family values” would be asked to elaborate on what this means, and what role they think government should have in promoting these values. They would be asked how their values inform their priorities, e.g., what do their values tell them about growing income equality, about the size of the military budget relative to domestic spending, and about the difference between just and unjust wars.

In all these presidential debates I would like to see the candidates have the ability to ask each other questions, to have five minutes to make opening and closing statements, and for enough flexibility in the debate structure so that particularly important contrasts can be fully developed.

This isn’t too much to ask. It should be the norm.

For too long we Americans have allowed ourselves to be swayed by largely superficial aspects of the candidates’ personalities, appearance, and character (fueled in large part by the media’s infatuation with the trivial). It is time to demand more substantive and comprehensive debates in the run-up to the most important choice we make as citizens.

P.S. The Commission on Presidential Debates has no contact information on its website, so there is no apparent way to make suggestions directly to the Commission. Individuals can, however, add their names to the signatory list for the Science Debate at their website. As we get closer to the election I will update readers on how to voice your opinion on both the number and content of the debates.

P.P.S. Seems like a science debate with the Clinton and Obama proxies actually happened over the weekend. Check it.

Jason Scorse

It’s a mixed bag.

Here in the U.S. there is both good and bad news. On the positive front, turnout in the Democratic presidential primaries has shattered records week after week. While America is unique among modern democracies in its abysmal voter participation rates, there are hopeful signs. What is particularly inspiring is the increased youth vote; politicians continually urge young people to get out and vote, but no modern-day politician was able to get them there until now. In addition, while the role of big money in U.S. politics is rightly bemoaned, the fact that candidates can now raise hundreds of millions from small donors on the internet has tended to equalize the playing field and is a great development.

Two other developments, however, don’t bode well for U.S. democracy. The first is the Bush Administration’s continued blatant disregard for the rule of law and its now-admitted use of torture (for the disturbing details see Dahlia Lithwick’s piece in Slate). This will go down as a historic moral failing and a low point for American democracy.

The other troubling development is Hillary Clinton’s attempted power grab of the 366 delegates from Michigan and Florida. These states broke DNC rules by moving up their primaries; the DNC retaliated by stripping the delegates of their right to be seated at the convention. All the candidates agreed to abide by the DNC ruling and not to campaign in these states. But with the delegate race now looking incredibly tight, Hillary is making noises about seating the Michigan and Florida delegates; this despite the fact that Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan, and both primaries, which Hillary “won,” were essentially a joke. Regular readers know that I’m an Obama supporter, but this is simply wrong. If she wins fair and square, fine; but what she’s suggesting is literally an attempt to steal the nomination, and it has the potential to destroy the Democratic Party and once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (for the sordid details see this piece in The New Republic).

On the global stage, unfortunately, the state of democracy and freedom is almost unambiguously bleak.

Freedom House recently published its 2007 rankings, and there has been a marked decline in democratic freedoms around the world: a global backsliding, led by such nations as China, Russia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Chad, Pakistan (Al Qeada's home base), and a mélange of Middle Eastern autocrats. So much for Bush’s “Freedom Agenda”. People can argue all they want about how his foreign policies will be viewed 50 years from now; according to current measurements, those policies have failed.

All of this should remind us yet again how fragile democracy is; it needs to be consistently defended and protected. It is not the natural state for humanity, but a system that is eternally vulnerable.

Jason Scorse

In earlier posts I have praised centrism; to me it’s not a mushy form of triangulation, but a pragmatic style of politics that takes the best from the left and the right.

Centrism is not without ideological principles, but ideology does not overwhelm facts. For example, a centrist position on abortion retains the ideological position that women have an inherent right to control their reproductive decisions; but centrists also recognize that late-term abortions confront us with ethical challenges that cannot automatically be resolved in favor of women’s rights.

On the economic front centrist policies meld the recognition that market-based capitalism is the engine of our prosperity with the understanding that regulations are required to ensure equity and maintain health, safety, and environmental standards. Centrist economic policy neither fetishizes free markets nor demonizes them.

Centrists do not seek equal outcomes in America, but they do believe that government has a role in guaranteeing equal opportunity. There are legitimate differences on how best to provide this opportunity, but basic agreement with the idea that government resources should be used to make sure every American has a chance to excel and contribute to society.

Centrist foreign policy recognizes that America has a unique role to play as a world superpower, and that more often than not American influence has helped to tilt the world against authoritarianism and toward freedom. At the same time, America’s exceptionalism hardly makes us perfect; we have also engaged in unjust and unwise foreign interventions that have led to humanitarian disasters. Centrists don’t want isolationism, but they do want wise engagement and an emphasis first and foremost on diplomacy and economic tools.

Unfortunately, the GOP has drifted so far right during the Bush Administration that its guiding philosophy conforms to almost no centrist principles.

On domestic issues, GOP leaders seem to think that tax cuts alone (mostly for the wealthy) are the end all and be all. Nobody in the GOP talks about making college more affordable for the middle class, or increasing teacher pay in poor communities, or providing health care for poor children, or any of the other policies that are needed to truly provide equal opportunity. Instead the GOP lionizes the “market” and denigrates all forms of regulation, an approach that has taken us in swift succession from Enron to Katrina to the current subprime mess, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and ruining countless thousands of lives.

Things are little better on the foreign policy side. The Administration has had some success with North Korea and seems finally to be taking an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is too little too late. The Iraq War has been a disaster, and the bellicose militarism that has dominated the GOP’s strategy has hardly made America more secure: Al Qaeda is still potent and again gaining in strength, Iran is emboldened, Pakistan dangerously close to becoming a failed nuclear Islamic state. For the most part the GOP presidential nominees have learned nothing from this imprudent course, and spend their time trying to out-tough each other.

The only exception is Arizona Senator John McCain, who, despite some reactionary stances, comes closest to a centrist position; unfortunately for McCain, this is exactly why the GOP establishment can’t stand him. Except for him, the establishment all line up on the far right.

Across the aisle, however, the Democrats are mostly staunch centrists. There are Kucinichs in the party, but the leaders and the serious presidential candidates are textbook centrists on a wide range of issues.

This may change. The GOP was once home to many moderates (remember the Rockefeller Republicans?), and may be again. (Among the party’s presidential nominees, Mike Huckabee has shown an almost Democratic interest in workers who’ve lost jobs and families whose annual incomes are well short of six figures.)

But if you’re a real centrist, there’s no doubt you should be fighting to elect Democrats in 08.

Jason Scorse

I’m really stuffed…..from all that humble pie I’ve been eating this past week. I thought Obama would cruise in New Hampshire, and he didn’t.

Even so I feel good. As one reader pointed out to me last week, my being a cheerleader for Barack doesn’t really fit with the tenor of this site. Nor does it really mesh with my own outlook. So after a little soul-searching here’s the deal:

I really don’t care much about the personalities in this race, including Obama. He is a fresh face from a young generation, and he represents a cosmopolitan vision of the world that I happen to think will serve America best in the 21st century.

But more than anything I’m sick of the “culture wars”, and really bothered by the notion that the U.S. presidency has become a form of dynastic rule. If Hillary’s name were anything but Clinton or Bush, I might like her a lot more. But it isn’t, and she brings with her a sense of entitlement that truly irks me. If she gets elected I guarantee Jeb Bush will challenge her down the road, and by then Chelsea can come in and try to knock him off. It’s ridiculous and it’s un-American.

That aside, there’s something even more fundamental that last week taught me: I’m as susceptible as anyone to soaring oratory and a warm smile, but what I really care about are ideas and policies.

The ideas and policies that I want from our next president are:

1. A more restrained and humble foreign policy

I don’t want isolationism, but I’ve had enough of the grand rhetoric about remaking the world. I think the worst foreign policy mistake we’ve made has been to elevate bin Laden and al Qaeda to the status of Hitler and Stalin; these cave-dwelling fanatics are dangerous and should be killed, but we have done more to increase their allure across the Muslim world than they could’ve ever dreamed of. This is not WW III; we need targeted policies focused on specific enemies, not sweeping rhetoric about the power of democracy (remember, if you will, that our own democracy tolerated terrorism against a good portion of our own citizens for well over a century).

2. Transparency in government and a commitment to the rule of law

There have been too many days during the Bush presidency when I have been ashamed to be an American. America should not torture, period. We should restore habeus corpus, period. The public has a right to know everything that is not absolutely necessary to be kept secret for national security purposes. If the government wants to spy on American citizens, it needs warrants. I want a president who understands all this without reservation.

3. Protection of minority rights

This includes gay rights, women’s rights, and voting rights. Protecting these rights is not “special-interest” politics; it is the bedrock of American democracy.

4. Science and reality-based governance

Religion is a personal matter and should have no bearing on public policy. Religious doctrines may sometimes takes us to the same place, but religion by itself is no basis for legislation. When it becomes so, we have arrived at a theocracy.

5. Free markets with social safety nets and proper regulation

The free market system is the most incredible wealth-generating system in the world, and every nation that wants to improve its standard of living is embracing it (or should be). But the free market system produces winners and losers and safety nets are necessary, e.g., guaranteed health care and retirement benefits. In addition, as we’ve come to realize, the environment can be a big loser when economies industrialize. This means that effective environmental regulation is crucial as well. I want elected officials who fully embrace capitalism, but who understand that regulations and safeguards are needed and will fight to get them.

There are many more issues that I care about, but these are the main ones. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, the GOP has diverged so far from its roots, and is so dominated by religious fundamentalists, that I simply can’t vote for them at this point. That leaves me in the Democratic camp for ’08.

Until now I have backed Obama. Truth be told, the differences between the Democratic candidates are relatively small: a Clinton, Edwards, or Obama administration would likely be very similar and in line with my priorities outlined above.

I’ve sided with Obama because of what I mentioned above. I don’t like the idea of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton; I don’t like the ferocious left-right partisanship that we’ve been seeing in Washington.

But above all, I want to win. I want a sane and competent government grounded in the real-world.

So I am now torn. If McCain becomes the GOP nominee, I am not so sure that Obama has a better chance at beating him than Hillary. If I knew for sure that Hillary would nominate Barack as the VP if she won, and McCain was definitely the GOP nominee, I might even switch and support her. I think Obama could handily beat anyone else on the GOP side, so I would stick with him if someone other than McCain gets the Republican nod.

I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m leaning heavily to supporting Obama no matter what because I finally want to vote for someone, and not base my support on political calculus and fear. My more pragmatic side isn’t so sure. Either way, I’m glad to be back concentrating on ideas and policies rather than personalities.

Next week: why even centrism requires partisanship these days.

Jason Scorse

I’m a college professor and another semester has just ended. In my final class on environmental economics I stressed to my students that we shouldn’t get too fixated on individual actions, but instead focus on political and institutional change. I think most got the message, but not all.

These days activism has become overly identified with consumer choices. It’s easy to forget that solving our problems requires more than buying organic food (which in some cases may actually be worse for the environment), buying a hybrid car, or turning off the lights. Doing these things may be comforting, but they’re not the real answer.

The magnitude of problems such as climate change, deforestation, the collapse of fisheries, and species extinction requires major changes in laws and regulations from the federal level on down, and cooperation at the international level as well.

I try (not always successfully) to practice what I preach. Most of my charitable giving and volunteer time is now devoted to getting better politicians elected. Whether we like it or not, every time the President of the United States signs a bill or an executive order its impact is greater than the sum of all the actions that any number of ethically-minded individuals might make in their daily lives. On the international level, these impacts are only compounded.

For example, governments around the world spend upwards of a trillion dollars a year on subsidies that actually pay people to use resources unsustainably and pollute the environment (for more info check out this article). No matter what changes we make in our personal lives, we won’t be able to protect our critical ecosystems if we don’t stop this madness. The same for climate change: No amount of carbon offsets or fluorescent lights are going to be sufficient to mitigate climate change without government commitments to both cap greenhouse gas emissions and to establish adaptation strategies at the national and international levels.

The same goes for many issues not directly tied to environmental issues, e.g., the proliferation of WMD and the spread of infectious diseases. They all require government action.

Again, this is not to deny the role of individual choice and the impact these choices can have; I make the comparison only to emphasize that individual choices will never be sufficient without larger political and institutional change. Getting leaders elected who are willing to take on the special interests and promote the public good, and then holding these leaders to their promises, is the only viable long-term strategy for a more just and prosperous world.

Fortunately, in America we will have the chance in the New Year to finally put the back-sliding of the Bush years behind us and to elect a competent administration in its place.

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Jason Scorse

What has happened to the Republican Party is tragic.

It has been taken over by fringe elements who contradict almost all the tenets of true conservatism. The GOP today is in almost complete disarray, with moderate Republicans (those who do not want to impose an intolerant brand of Christianity on all Americans) left standing on the sidelines with nowhere to turn.

Anyone who doubts this need look no further than the current dynamics of the GOP presidential nomination. Here we have Mike Huckabee, now the front-runner, who doesn’t believe in evolution, believes that the Bible is the literal word of god, as late as 1992 said that he wanted to isolate AIDs patients from the rest of society, and who claims that god is behind his rise in the polls, airing commercials in which he claims to be a “Christian leader”. At the same time Huckabee has been implying that Mitt Romney is not a true Christian, forcing Romney to give a speech about Mormonism in order to assuage voters concerns about his particularly bizarre religion.

Romney’s much anticipated speech only reinforced the view that the Republican presidential race is being dominated by religious concerns. Romney went out of his way to ignore and disrespect all Americans who do not believe in religion; at the same time, he fanned the flames of the culture wars by resurrecting the straw man of secularists out to ban religion from America public life. It was a perfect illustration of how far a once mighty and proud party has fallen.

Not to be outdone by Huckabee and Romney, John McCain, trying desperately to breathe some life into his flagging campaign, has taken to emphasizing that America is “a Christian nation”.

A party once concerned with fiscal discipline and defeating communism is now concerned with seeing who can mouth the most platitudes about Jesus, and promise to nominate court justices who will impose their views on the rest of us.

What is most ironic (and points to another failure of traditional media) is that there is more news coverage about the Democrats being swayed by the far left than about the GOP having become a captive of the far right. Aside from Dennis Kucinich, all the Democratic contenders are almost perfect examples of centrism and moderation. For all the talk about MoveOn.org, Democrats have done almost nothing to curtail the Iraq War, not a single Democratic contender has come out in favor of gay marriage, and on the most contentious issues (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and illegal immigration), the Democrats have sounded almost hawkish.

In contrast,virtually all of the Republican candidates are all appealing to the radical fringe on issue after issue, from religion to torture to immigration. With notable moderates either retiring (John Warner and Chuck Hagel) or being beaten by Democratic rivals (Lincoln Chafee), the GOP can only become even more extreme in the near term

This is discouraging news for America. Since 60 votes are needed to pass legislation in the Senate, a vocal minority can block legislation and wreak havoc (as we are already seeing).

Hopefully, true conservatives will somehow find their voice again and speak up against the religious fundamentalists who have taken over the GOP. Our nation’s policies would be much improved if the party could once again become a champion of conservative principles; I might not always agree with them (just as I don't always agree with Democrats), but at least their positions would be defensible.

Until that happens, I’ll be working work hard to defeat a Republican Party that wants to undermine American democracy and turn it into a theocracy.

Jason Scorse

The discovery that stem cells may be able to be produced without destroying a human embryo was announced two weeks ago. Ever since, Bush supporters and “pro-life” Republicans have been waxing triumphant about how Bush was right to oppose federal funding for embryonic stem cell research: Michael Gerson of the Washington Post, writers at The National Review and The Weekly Standard, and this week, Charles Krauthammer, also of the Washington Post, whose article “Stem Cell Vindication” flatly declares that “Bush won”.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, which coincidentally also appeared in another Post article. That article quoted a prominent genetic scientist who said that the Bush-imposed federal ban on embryonic stem cell research probably set the field back four to five years. A new avenue of research has been developed, but valuable time has been lost.

Stem cell research is likely to yield new medicines that can alleviate suffering and prolong life, hopefully in the near future. Then we will be able to calculate the needless suffering that Bush and his “pro-life” supporters caused; then we will be able to see the damage that can be done when religious ideology dictates policy.

But all of this is lost on the “pro-life” apologists. Not one of them mentions that this new line of research represents an opportunity cost of lost time doing other research, or the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists still supports continuing the earlier stem cell research (because it is too early to tell if the new avenue truly represents a complete and viable substitute).

Let me be clear: if this new research does make it unnecessary to destroy human embryos, that’s great. But it’s not the point. It never has been.

I have yet to meet a “pro-lifer” who opposes in vitro fertilization and calls it “murder”, even though embryos are destroyed in the process. The religious fundamentalists who tell us that abortion should be illegal are perfectly willing to let people go to great lengths to produce their own biological children; they know that the public would never agree to government interference in fertility decisions of this kind.

But when the destruction of an embryo might lead to a cure for cancer or paralysis (even an embryo that is going to be discarded anyway), the “pro-lifers” say that life can’t be taken. Their position is inherently inconsistent, and yet virtually no one calls them on it.

Hopefully, in 2009 we will elect a president who is willing to lift the ban on embryonic stem cell research. Let the best minds go figure out the best methods, unimpeded by religious fundamentalists.

Update:The Washington Post gets it right.

Jason Scorse

This article in Foreign Policy points to many encouraging global trends. While you wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines, the chance of dying in an armed conflict is now at its lowest level in history. Longevity continues to improve virtually everywhere. In fact, on almost all measures humanity is progressing in substantive ways that we can all be thankful for.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t grave issues to deal with, but it’s good to put things in perspective. Compared to the challenges of the 20th century–two world wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War–the problems we face today are not as dire. And we’ll be going at them with much better technology and far more wealth.

Before we can even begin, though, we have to somehow shake off the modern perception that government is ineffective, inefficient, and corrupt. For decades this sentiment has been fostered by the “conservative” movement in the United States; in a huge irony, through incompetence, cronyism and scandals, it’s been demonstrated in spades by the Bush Administration.

Nobody doubts that Washington pursues some wasteful and ridiculous policies: agricultural subsidies and the “war on drugs” topping the list. But there’s no way we can tackle our major problems (like our dependence on foreign oil, and climate change) without a bold and committed government. We know that strong measures need to be taken, but somehow we’re unable to take them.

The core problem, the one we need to solve before we can start solving the other ones, is the fundamental distrust of government.

I just finished reading a book on the building of the atomic bomb during WW II, and I was amazed at the level of coordination that was required. The U.S. government constructed entire cities from scratch; the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people were channeled into a single effort that involved the most advanced science known at the time. Every resource that America could muster went toward the cause. As just one example, the amount of silver needed for the project was so great that it exhausted all the reserves in the entire country; the project was able to borrow the rest from the U.S. Treasury, which it then returned after the war.

The descriptions of the Manhattan Project reminded me, of course, of America’s efforts to put a man on the moon more than two decades later: another shared goal that required government leadership and a huge national investment. It saddens me that this type of government-led project seems so anachronistic today. Instead of a massive project after 9/11 to develop alternatives to oil, both to combat climate change and to weaken the petrol states that support terrorism, we were told to go shopping and tax cuts were showered on the rich.

More than anything, I hope that Americans in 2008 choose a leader who does not believe that government is the enemy. I hope this leader inspires us with a sense of national purpose, and reinstills real pride in government: not as a provider of earmarks and pork, but as the way to channel our incredible ingenuity and reach for the greater good.

Now that would definitely be something to give thanks for.

Jason Scorse

Like many, I am appalled by the lack of seriousness in the media’s coverage of the presidential contenders, particularly their televised debates. Questions like “what’s you favorite Bible verse?” and “have you ever seen a UFO?” have zero relevance and are an insult to our intelligence; the same for stories about whether Obama is “black enough,” whether Hillary’s laugh is grating, or the price of Edwards’s haircut. The apparent obsession with trivia, distractions, and vacuity is deservedly satirized in this Onion news clip.

But the topic is hardly comical; we are about to elect a new leader of the free world at a pivotal time. Why all the frivolity?

One standard explanation is that this is what people want: if they didn’t, the media wouldn’t supply it. There is certainly a grain of truth to this; people do spend an inordinate amount of time watching low quality shows, both news and entertainment. However this logic isn’t quite as sound when it comes to the presidential debates. For these the public has no options. Either we watch Tim Russert ask inane questions or we don’t watch at all; there is no alternative we can switch to.

But I think something more fundamental is occurring; what in economics is called “coordination failure”. The media business has become extremely competitive and risk-averse, and no media outlet wants to be the first to turn to more substantive issues and risk losing audience share to those that cater to the lowest common denominator.

Still there is a real hunger for more substantive news in the country. If all the major news organizations jointly resolved to only focus on issues of substance, I doubt highly that overall viewership would drop. In fact, I think the American people might wake up and ask themselves why they weren’t demanding more substance and real analysis all along.

So here’s my plea to the media empires of the world: please, please get together and agree to drop the triviality. Not every story has to focus on policy details only a wonk could love, but let’s at least get to the core issues. It would be good for your viewers, for your listeners, and ultimately for the world. You could start with this list of questions, put together for FoxNews by a contributor to Reason magazine.

Jason Scorse

Civilian control of the military is not only one of the great benefits of today’s democracies; it is also one of the most profound political developments of the modern era.

Clearly there are hazards to having the military in charge of those who may not have fought in wars, and therefore cannot know first-hand the horrors of war. But those hazards are small compared to having active-duty generals in charge of both a country’s military and politics. For instance, there is no shortage of military men whose experience in battle only increases their appetite for military incursions, and who are apt to view all foreign policy politics as contests of military might.

Probably no example in American history better demonstrates the benefits of civilian leadership over the military than the Cuban Missile Crisis. If the military leaders had had their way the U.S. would likely have bombed Cuba, believing that the Soviet nuclear warheads were not yet operational. In fact they were operational, and recent documents show that both Castro and the Soviets were prepared to launch a nuclear strike on America if Cuba was attacked. Only the wisdom and restraint of the Kennedy team, many of whom were formerly in the military, averted the disaster.

Most importantly, civilian leadership puts the responsibility for foreign policy and the conduct of war exactly where it should be: on elected officials who are accountable to the people. Without this check it would be much harder for the public to exert any influence on American foreign policy, including waging war.

And yet this chain of accountability has been utterly broken by one of the Bush Administration’s most effective “bait and switches”. Back in 2006 Bush started using the rhetoric that he was “listening to the generals”; it was a masterful way to shift the blame away from him and his administration so that he could contend that he was just following what the generals were telling him.

This tactic of deflecting attention away from his own failed policies reached its apex recently when he shifted all the attention to General Petraeus. No longer did Bush have to answer for his policy decisions; they were all in the hands of a single general who would periodically brief Congress.

And the media rolled over (yet again).

When Petraeus testified in September there were reams of media coverage dissecting his statistics and whether the “surge” was working; there was next to nothing on how Bush’s rationale for the war had shifted yet again (to we can’t leave because it will get worse). The Administration’s original metrics for success were barely discussed.

Most troubling about this shift is that it’s become increasingly clear (despite the mythology perpetrated by the Right) that the generals are not apolitical actors who “tell it like it is”. In fact they have their own agendas and are loathe to openly criticize Administration policy.

Until they retire that is.

General Sanchez, once a major cheerleader for the war, is the most recent retired general to change his tune once he begins collecting his pension. Just last week he unleashed a tirade of criticism on the administration and described the war as a colossal failure. One can only wonder whether there are any high-ranking military officers willing to openly criticize the war while they actually have some say in its conduct.

We now have a situation where the civilian leadership under Bush has absolved itself of responsibility and the generals are playing along. The result: an indefinite occupation which no one seems to have a clue how to end.

Expect lots more money down the drain and lots more body bags. And then Bush will tiptoe out of office and leave the mess to the next administration.

This is not how American democracy was supposed to work.

Jason Scorse

Last week I made the case that Ahmadinejad’s request to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site should have been approved. It wasn’t, but the Iranian President was invited to talk at Columbia University. Predictably, many on the right accused Columbia President Lee Bollinger of giving in to this dictator’s propaganda ploy.

The speech went ahead as planned, but something strange happened.

Many on the right, including some who originally opposed the event, grudgingly admitted that it might have actually served U.S. interests. They were notably happy with Bollinger’s harsh treatment of Ahmadinejad (which in my view actually blunted Bollinger’s words and made him appear to be bowing to the right-leaning New York Post), but they were even more happy with Ahmadinejad’s miserable performance. Not only did he throw in more Holocaust denial rhetoric, he denied that there were gays in Iran, said Iranian women were the freest in the world, blurted out bizarre Koranic passages and requested that the messiah come soon. In short, for all the world to see, he came across as the fanatic and out-of-touch despot that he is.

Iranian television naturally tried to spin the event in their leader’s favor, showing selective clips and complaining about the rude treatment he received. But these passages from Iranian bloggers show clearly that in the age of the internet it is next to impossible to hide the truth, even for dictatorial regimes.

There are still those who claim that allowing Ahmadinejad to speak was a bad move since the U.S. has no obligation to provide any forum to a maniacal ruler. In my view this is myopic; it reeks of the hypocrisy that is all too common these days, and has contributed to America’s diminished standing in the world.

Iran is progressive compared to Saudi Arabia, and yet the Saudi royal family gets special tours of the Bush ranch in Crawford and family members walk arm in arm with the President. In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive, and unmarried women are forbidden to appear with men in public. Meanwhile the royal family continues to bankroll terrorists around the world, which helps explain why a disproportionate number of foreign fighters coming into Iraq to kill Americans and Iraqis are in fact from Saudi Arabia.

President Mubarak of Egypt, who receives billions in U.S. aid, jails and tortures political dissidents. President Musharraf of Pakistan is not much better, yet he too gets face time with our top leaders and gets treated with extreme respect. And don’t forget those Sunni sheiks whom Bush just visited in Iraq for photo-ops, whom he said were “good men” fighting al Qaeda; only months ago they were major leaders of the insurgency and were shedding American blood.

But it is not consistency or fairness that leads me to advocate American forums for the world’s despots. It is because it is in our interests, as the Columbia event demonstrated. The more we can show how deranged the Ahmadinejads of the world are, while at the same time presenting ourselves as a free and open society confident in its values and its commitment to freedom and human rights, the surer we are to come away the winner. We cannot win every propaganda battle, every exchange of soundbites, but we will win the larger war of ideas. And we must not shy away from it.

A conservative friend of mine, once a supporter of President Bush, even one-upped me on this score. He suggested that we not only allow the dictators of the world to speak on our soil and debate us, but that we make it an open invitation with full expenses paid whenever they want. He too understands that this is not a left-right issue; all of us should be confident that America has nothing to fear from the rants of madmen. Hearing them out only shows our real strength to the world’s people.

Jason Scorse

(In response to the Iranian President’s request to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site.)

Fellow Americans and citizens of the world:

It is no secret that the U.S. and Iran governments are at odds on many fronts. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we are enemies. Iran is sponsoring terrorism throughout the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, where our soldiers are sometimes the victims. Iranian President Ahmadinejad has made thinly veiled threats against Israel, recently hosted a conference for Holocaust deniers, and has defied the United Nation’s mandate to curtail its nuclear program.

And now, before visiting this very same institution in New York City, he has asked that he be allowed to lay a wreath at the site of the greatest terrorist attack in our history.

Like many of you, my first reaction was disgust and anger.

But then I thought again about the great struggle we are in against the jihadists and the forces of extremism around the world.

Above all else, this is a struggle for hearts and minds. In the Cold War it was not military action that ended the strife, but the recognition that the Western system of free markets and democracy produced better outcomes and led to more prosperous societies. The same must happen today. Those in the Arab and Muslim world must come to realize that open societies, with human rights like freedom of speech and religion, are not tools of Western imperialism; instead they represent the highest aspirations of all peoples, including their own.

And so I put away my disgust and anger.

It is imperative to make clear that America has nothing to fear from the dictators and thugs of the world. We will win the war of ideas, and the jidadists and their ideology will be relegated to the dustbin of history. But we must engage in this battle in order to win it decisively.

And so I am welcoming the Iranian President to the World Trade Center site. His trip will demonstrate two things.

First, not that America is weak and bows to the whims of despots, but that America is a free society, one where even people with odious and objectionable views are allowed to express them. This is a sign of our strength and a signal to the Arab world: it is only the weak and desperate who restrict free speech and free expression, who limit people’s movements, who jail political dissidents.

Second, another key American trait is redemption. If the Iranian President truly wants to turn a new page by honoring our dead, let that be a first step towards a greater reconciliation. Let him withdraw his support for Hezbollah and Hamas; let him stop his nuclear program.

It is unlikely that Ahmadinejad will do any of these things. More than likely he will try to use his trip as a propaganda ploy. If this is the path he chooses, he will fail.

The world will see clearly that it is America that stands by its principles; that it is America that practices freedom, and not just preaches it; that it is America that offered goodwill even to its enemies in the hopes that they would change their ways; that it was America that allowed the President of Iran onto the site of our greatest and freshest wound, only to have him disrespect us.

And let it be known to all that America’s goodwill is not infinite; that we do not take it lightly when people abuse our goodwill and pursue policies of death and chaos; that when America finally loses its patience and is forced to bring its full resources to bear on those who want to harm us and our friends, that America was on the side of justice and the side of freedom.

Thank you my fellow Americans and citizens of the world.

Next Week: More on the competing notions about diplomacy and how to treat rogue actors on the world stage.

Jason Scorse

Friday I had the opportunity to see Barack Obama give a speech in San Francisco (you can view some highlights here). While I had already heard him speak early this year, I barely had a glimpse of him then; this time he was right in front of me and there were big screens to each side. Most importantly, Obama has been refining his stump speech all year and the result was one of the best political speeches I have ever heard.

There is no doubt in my mind that if everyone in America had the opportunity that I had, Obama not only would win the Democratic primary but the presidency too.

Let me be clear. I do not think Obama is a savior or a miracle worker. I would likely be disappointed at some of the things he would do or say as president, and likely some of the expectations that he could radically transform Washington would go unfulfilled.

But there is no doubt that he would be a transformative and historic figure, partly because his rise is already the stuff of legend. Listening to Obama, it is clear that he understands the unique circumstances that made him first a Senator and now a major contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. These circumstances include a terribly unpopular president, the dawn of a new millennium, and a deep desire for something fresh and new. Obama has combined all of these with a political message that is much more pragmatic than ideological, a message which speaks to the optimism of the American psyche at a time when we have been fed little more than fear for the past six years.

The contrast in styles between our current president and Obama is striking, not only because of their different political views, but because of Obama’s charisma and articulateness. Whereas it is often painful to listen to Bush mangle even the simplest of phrases, if Obama becomes president people will be glued to the television every time he addresses the nation. My guess is that his speeches would become classics and be mined for soundbites for generations to come.

Obama plays a crowd like a master conductor, working his way from anecdotes, key principles, and his own insights to resounding declarations of what must be done to reclaim American greatness. He has no small bit of the preacher in him. His stump speech evokes patriotism in the best sense of the word, instilling pride and love of country, not empty jingoism.

One of the highlights of Friday’s speech came when he spoke about restoring America’s leadership in the world. He said he would go to the U.N. General Assembly and proudly declare that “America is back”. With respect to his disagreement with Hillary Clinton over speaking directly to our enemies, he declared sarcastically that he had no fear that he would lose a propaganda battle with the world’s dictators. He said a strong country, sure in its principles, has nothing to lose by engaging more with the world. Some of the biggest applause came when he said how he would restore habeus corpus and shut down Guantanamo and the CIA’s secret prisons, shouting that this is “not who we are”. Indeed.

I left the event feeling more excited about politics than I ever have, but strangely, also a little remorseful. If Obama doesn’t earn the nomination I will be very disappointed; America will have missed a historic opportunity and we will be the poorer for it.

Jason Scorse

Many supporters of the Iraq War are already preparing to blame the Democrats for “losing” the war. For these supporters the primary lesson of Vietnam appears to be that we would’ve won if only we had “stayed the course”: this despite a decade of heavy fighting which killed 2-3 million Vietnamese, left a rural peasant economy drenched in napalm and Agent Orange, took more ordinance than was dropped in all of World War II and cost over 58,000 American lives plus hundreds of thousands wounded, most of whom were supplied via a draft that fell disproportionately on the poor and disadvantaged.

This same reasoning is now being applied to Iraq. After almost five years of heavy fighting that shows no clear sign of abatement, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and tens of thousands of American casualties*, we are once again being implored to remain steadfast and see the conflict through until we are “victorious”. And once again, as the narrative goes, the only obstacle to our eventual success are the Democrats, who want to draw down forces before the job is done.

I was born at the height of the Vietnam War. I’m too young to remember the political dynamics that played out in the seventies and eventually led to the election of Ronald Reagan and the supposed conservative ascendancy. Today many people suggest that the Democrats risk the same fate as they did 40 years ago, when their credibility on national security evaporated, if they force a withdrawal from Iraq and the situation gets even worse.

I do not think this scenario is likely to transpire, mainly because I do not think the parallels between the Vietnam era and today really hold up. The sixties were marked by enormous cultural changes (e.g., the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, increases in teenage drug use and sexual promiscuity) that came to be associated with the Democratic Party, and against which many Americans ultimately wearied of and rebelled against. It’s now 2007 and society has advanced dramatically; today it is the GOP’s perverse and hypocritical moralizing on social issues that is out of step with the rest of the country. In addition the only Democratic president in the seventies was Jimmy Carter, who was easily caricatured as a peacenik. Today all of the first and second tier potential Democratic presidential nominees have gone out of their way to portray themselves as tough on national security.

None of this is to suggest that the Democrats do not have their work cut out for them. Even if America elects a Democratic president in 2008, he or she will face the daunting and delicate task of somehow extricating the United States from Iraq and will have to take responsibility for the outcome. Given how badly the war has been managed I suspect that the American people will grant a Democratic president a great degree of leeway when things (as likely) become chaotic and messy. No one expects Iraq to become tranquil overnight or a Jeffersonian democracy anytime soon.

It seems to me that Americans are more sophisticated and reasonable than the war’s major supporters, who talk of “victory” as if it were some abstract concept devoid of costs and benefits: as if “victory” were something that we could simply will into being if only we stick it out. The public understands that there are many pressing issues, both domestically and abroad, and that it is time that the Iraq War no longer be the primary focus of so much energy and national resources.

Unfortunately, our fates will be entangled with Iraq’s for a very long time, but I believe that Americans will cut the Democrats some slack even if things get worse before they get better.

As long as Democratic leaders offer a comprehensive vision of how to make America safer and more prosperous, and devote sufficient resources to the task, both political and financial, I think the political fallout of withdrawing from Iraq can be minimized.

*Total U.S. casualties are over 30,000: 3790 dead and 27,004 wounded.

Jason Scorse

You probably don’t deserve what you have. Neither do I.

Despite what we like to tell ourselves about meritocracy, the greatest predictors of a person’s lot in life are things completely out of their control: where they were born and their genetic inheritance.

Let’s take my life as an example. I was born a white male into a middle class educated family in New York City with above average intelligence (at least according to standardized tests). From the day I was born a relatively prosperous life was almost guaranteed; it was laid out for me on a red carpet. All I had to do was go through the motions—elementary school, high school, college, career. At the same time there are tens of millions just as able as I, who were born in other parts of the world, who live their lives in squalor and misery for no other reason than the injustice of random fate.

None of this is to suggest that there aren’t exceptions to the rule; there are some privileged kids who experience tough times, and there are some who rise from poor upbringings to great success. (Even these individuals were likely hampered or helped by their genetic predispositions.)

My point is not to portray the world as a deterministic product of class and genetics; it is not. Individual choice and action are essential and societies must provide incentives for people to strive.

However, the fact that individual fortune is so much a product of things beyond a person’s control presents the greatest argument in favor of progressive government policies. The philosopher John Rawls long ago noted that if we had no idea where we were going to be born and with what attributes, the types of redistributive policies that we would favor would be much different than the ones that we currently employ.

As always, for all redistributive systems, the “devil is in the details”. Many utopian schemes (such as communism) can easily backfire and make life worse off for nearly everyone.

But the notion that individual merit alone should be the basis for society’s rewards should be laid to rest once and for all. Let us reserve praise for those who take their gifts and use them to do extraordinary things, and to those whose gifts and opportunities have been limited and yet against all odds have managed to succeed.

The rest of us deserve little praise or blame.

P.S. An article on the new "Gilded Age" in today's NYT shows how the basic points outlined above are still not universally understood.

Jason Scorse

Having had some time to digest my three weeks in Europe, I am struck by the extent to which the European political and media culture is generally sophisticated and serious. During the French election and Gordon Brown’s ascension there was no talk of how gay marriage posed a threat to Western Civilization, no debate over evolution, not a single word about whether a woman’s right to choose should be revoked, and the politicians never argued over whose fealty to god was stronger. With decades of experience fighting terrorism, Europeans are fully engaged in the intelligence and police work necessary to, if not eliminate the threat, greatly reduce the risks, and the citizenry do not live in fear. The media in Europe is much more aggressive than in the U.S., and the tough questions are almost always asked.

None of this is meant to romanticize Europe and European political culture. Europeans have plenty of contradictions and serious problems of their own. The parliamentary systems they employ often end up in gridlock, the assimilation of Muslim immigrants has been terribly slow, and there are serious structural issues in many of their economies that will be difficult to address. But I am confident that the Europeans will ultimately be up to the task; talk of the “demise of Europe”, particularly by commentators on America’s political right, is extremely overblown.

When you contrast the seriousness and sophistication of European political and media culture with the last six plus years in the States, America comes out looking infantile. On issue after issue American politics has been reduced to soundbites best befitting a grade B movie or a network sitcom. More time has been spent debating a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage than on some of our biggest national security issues. More time has been spent rallying against immigration reform than on global warming. While much of the blame for the debasing of American political culture rests with the GOP and the rightwing noise machine that supports it, the Democrats have not been free of blame. They have been cowed into defensiveness and posturing of their own.

There are encouraging signs, however, that the American people are tired of the level to which our political discourse has sunk and a return to seriousness is imminent. Bush’s approval ratings are at historic lows and there is a real sense that people finally see through all of the lies, stupidity, and incompetence of this Administration (according to the Pew Research Center, “incompetent” is the word most people now associate with President Bush).

Last week I was ecstatic to read about the TV anchorwoman who refused to cover the Paris Hilton saga and instead continued with a discussion about serious issues. As always, the blogosphere is ahead of the mainstream media, and beginning to do investigative reporting of its own that is top-notch. While this medium was in its infancy during the 2004 campaign, it showed its strength in 2006, and it will be an even more powerful force in 2008.

The Democratic “big three” – Obama, Clinton, and Edwards – are all serious figures who have helped to raise the political discourse to a more sophisticated level. No one can accuse any of them of being ideologues. On the GOP side I wish I could say the same thing about the top contenders – Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Thompson – but I can’t. Aside from McCain, who is a serious person regardless of one’s opinion of his politics, the others have displayed many of the same traits that have gotten us into the messes we now face. Given Romney’s bizarre statement that he wants to double the size of Guantanamo (for no apparent reason other than to sound tough), and Rudy’s being unaware that North Korea’s nuclear program is farther along than Iran’s, and Fred Thompson’s sheer vacuity, one can only hope that some serious GOP politicians are waiting to enter the fray.

Above all I want the 2008 campaign to be focused on serious issues by serious people, regardless of party. Anything less would be a blow to America and the world.

Jason Scorse

I’ve been in Europe during the changing of the guard at Downing Street and now comes the news of two large bombs discovered in cars in downtown London. Here are a few observations from across the Atlantic.

Many commentators believe that Tony Blair’s legacy will be forever tarnished because of his support for the Iraq War and perhaps more importantly, his unwavering support of President Bush. This may be true, but it would be unfortunate.

For all his faults, Blair is just the type of politician I wish we had in the United States. He is extremely articulate, fully embraces globalization, and is firmly committed to the enlightenment values that best define Western culture.

Under his watch Britain has prospered for the past decade. In addition, even though his legacy is most closely aligned with the future of Iraq, he actually helped to solve what seemed to be an even more intractable situation at home: reconciliation with Northern Ireland. After decades of conflict, including many terrorist attacks, Blair managed to achieve a peace which none before him had been able to do. This is a huge achievement that should help elevate his status as time goes on.

Europeans have been dealing with terrorism on their soil for a long time; as the bombs discovered this week demonstrate, the threat of terrorism is real and governments must remain vigilant.

But as a friend recently pointed out to me, virtually no one in Europe considers Islamists to represent an existential threat to the West. After two world wars and their own homegrown insurgencies, Europeans are not terrified of scattered bands of Islamists, many hiding out in caves, no matter how determined and hateful they are. Of all of the mistakes we have made in the past six years, to me none is greater than not recognizing this essential fact:

Terrorism only works if we allow ourselves to become terrorized.

Jason Scorse

There has been a pronounced rightward shift in U.S. high courts that is impossible not to notice. Not only has the Supreme Court begun to chip away at women’s rights, the Justices have made it easier for prosecutors to purge juries of those opposed to the death penalty, have sided with employers in discrimination suits, and appear likely to strike down key components of affirmative action.

For those who value minority rights and the rights of the public against special interests, these results are deeply troubling. But there may be a way to reverse much of the damage, and ironically the solution is consistent with a key conservative position.

Conservatives have long railed against what they perceive as “judicial activism”: judges interpreting statutes instead of enforcing them, in essence playing the role of the legislature. The right has been able to get this viewpoint accepted despite the fact that multiple studies have shown equal, if not increased, judicial activism among the most conservative justices. Judicial activism, then, is really no more than a code word for decisions that conservatives don’t like. While there is no doubt that it is a real phenomenon, it’s hardly the exclusive domain of liberal judges.

The solution, as conservatives see it, is for legislatures at all levels to pass laws on the key issues, and to be precise in their lawmaking and not leave so much room for judicial interpretation. For example, in the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that a woman could only sue her employee for pay discrimination within 180 days of the discriminatory act, the Court made clear that Congress could change the law if it found the 180-day period unreasonably short. Smartly, Hillary Clinton immediately promised to do just that.

From a conservative viewpoint this is exactly how the process should work: justices objectively interpret the law and effectively send the case back to the legislators, who can then change the law if they are unhappy with the interpretation.

Given that the country is slowly and steadily moving in a more liberal direction on virtually all social issues, as well as on the environment and civil rights, members of Congress and presidential hopefuls should begin to advocate more use of legislatures as the preferred method to advance their agendas. The legislatures in fact have already begun to act: New Hampshire recently legalized civil unions for gays, and New York and California are currently contemplating legalizing gay marriage. As I have mentioned before, the Democratic Congress should enact a federal law establishing once and for all a woman’s right to control her reproductive decisions, and a Democratic President should repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” anti-gay policy.

The Far Right targeted the courts for decades and its efforts paid off as more right-leaning judges received judicial appointments. It’s time for the Left to exercise the power of the legislature to reverse the erosion of civil and minority rights in the name of the people they represent. The Right will no doubt be unhappy, but the irony is that this is what they have been advocating all along; as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Jason Scorse

I returned this week from a trip abroad during which I interacted with many Europeans. The experience made me ponder a nagging question: how do Americans stack up against our counterparts in Europe with respect to cultural awareness and knowledge of world affairs? While my sample size was relatively small and clearly biased, I think my conclusions could withstand a more rigorous analysis.

We Americans are truly less culturally knowledgeable than our European counterparts. Most Europeans speak at least two (often three plus) languages, travel extensively throughout the varied regions of Europe, and know far more than the average American about history and geography. While some of this is due to simple population densities and a first-class rail system, it is nonetheless fair to say that Americans are relatively ignorant compared to Europeans on the cultural front.

With respect to current world affairs, here too I think the Europeans have a significant edge. Their general level of knowledge regarding current conflicts, as well as the political situations in countries apart from their own, is more sophisticated than the average American. It is safe to say that almost nowhere in Europe would you encounter polls showing such widespread ignorance on important basic questions (for example whether Iraq had WMD or whether the scientific consensus is that humans are at least partially responsible for the greenhouse effect).

However, when it comes to important moral judgments and the interpretation of world events, Europeans can be just as myopic, shortsighted, and biased as the Americans they criticize.

Europeans have a very negative attitude towards America because of the Iraq War. They view America as a bumbling hegemon led by a tough-talking Texas cowboy poseur. Despite the (not insignificant) truth in these perceptions, Europeans are reluctant to admit the extent to which they rely on American power and the ways in which their Enlightenment values must sometimes rely on military might.

I asked some of those I encountered why no European power, such as France or Germany (especially Germany), had considered sending troops into the Sudan to stop the genocide, both for humanitarian reasons and to show the world that other powers besides America could be relied on to promote human rights in a meaningful way. My question was always met with lame excuses or silence. I mentioned American intervention in the Balkans, in which it was unilateral American power that stopped the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs. Again, crickets. Europe lives under an umbrella of American military security, but Europeans are more apt to criticize the size of the U.S. military budget than to acknowledge their reliance on it.

The world would be a better place if Americans moved closer to the European model with respect to cultural awareness: it would be great if we spoke more languages and could find Iraq on a map, all the while not shying away from our recognition that democracy and liberty must be backed by military power. (In my view Barack Obama, with his international experience and liberal global vision, comes closest to this ideal among the current presidential hopefuls.)

On the other hand, Europeans would do well to acknowledge that sometimes it is necessary to back a commitment to liberal democracy and secularism with force; not all uses of military power are illegitimate and the result of imperialist design. Their hesitation to rely on military force is certainly welcome, but not their unrealistic and sometimes dangerous rejection of it in its entirety.

Jason Scorse

We are nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century and yet it is still true that the color of a person´s skin is probably the best predictor of their material standard of living. On my recent trip to Brazil I saw this firsthand and was struck yet again by the enduring legacy of slavery and racism.

In the elite neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities, the residents have almost entirely European features and the overwhelming majority of blacks are maids, street cleaners, or other service workers. The proportion of national income that goes to whites versus blacks has changed little in centuries and the concentration of wealth is even greater.

The same situation persists throughout Latin America, where the treatment of indigenous people also includes blatant human rights violations and virtual second-class citizenship. Whatever can be said about inequality in America and its racial component, we have come a long way and progressed much further than our Southern neighbors.

But we have a long way to go.

For four decades we have experimented with various methods of affirmative action based on raced-based preferences, which have resulted in significant upward mobility for blacks and other minority groups. That we have a fairly robust and sizeable black middle class and a rising Latino professional class is a testament to the success of affirmative action (which is not to say that many of these men and women would not have succeeded without racial preferences).

But there is a perception that racial preferences are un-American and amount to reverse discrimination. The perception has become widespread; there are too many examples of preferences being extending to the sons and daughters of the minority elite, and patience with affirmative action is wearing thin. Fortunately there is an easy fix that is starting to catch on. By simply changing preferences from race to economic status, we can lose the stigma of race and yet still lend a hand to those at the bottom of the economic ladder, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic. If we also happen to assist poor whites from Appalachia or the Pacific Northwest or anywhere else, all the better.

The second thing that should be done to help ameliorate the effects of racism is to wholeheartedly promote universal preschool education. For a long time educators have realized that a child´s cognitive potential is largely determined before the child ever sets foot in kindergarten. From birth until the ages of 3-4 a child´s brain is absorbing information at a staggering pace. Without significant stimuli, a child´s development during these years is severely handicapped and their potential significantly stymied. Increasingly, researchers are showing that investments in preschool are some of the best that individuals and society can make.

Neither of these policies will completely end the legacy of racism, but they represent improvements over the status quo. They are policies that all countries should adopt, especially those where slavery once reigned.

Jason Scorse

Make no mistake, if there are such things as “activist” judges the five who voted to uphold the Congressional ban on “partial birth abortion” are now the poster children. In a blatantly religiously and politically motivated decision, they ignored recent court precedent (only 7 years old), based their decision on discredited science, and interjected arguments about protecting women from their own decisions (because according to the “conservative” mindset, women are feeble and infantile and need to be prevented from doing things that they will later regret). It was a low point for a court that has not lacked for low points in recent years.

What is particularly sad is how predictable it was, and how Democrats never mounted a real fight to prevent it from happening. Replacing Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate female judge, with Samuel Alito, a far right Scalia copy, who during his confirmation hearings made it clear that he still resented the “irresponsibility” of the 1960s, left no doubt about how the Court would change. Alito’s confirmation hearings even revealed memos that he submitted to the Reagan Administration outlining the exact strategy for stripping women’s rights that he helped put into effect in the latest decision.

But I think there are a number of silver linings worth noting. In fact, I think this decision may end up being a gift for progressives in their struggle to protect women’s rights. Here’s why:

1. Progressives need to confront the ethical challenges that late-term abortions pose. As I noted on VoR long ago, both extremes in the abortion debate lead to immoral policies. Those on the right who elevate embryos to the status of human beings strip women of their fundamental right to control their bodies, in addition to preventing medical advances that could well save millions. Those on the left refuse to acknowledge that a developed fetus has at least some rights: there is a point short of nine months when the fetus is sentient, conscious, and can feel pain.

Instead of trying to ignore this, progressives should be asking why significant numbers of women let pregnancies develop so long that a procedure hardly distinguishable from infanticide becomes necessary. No doubt there are cases where complications arise late in a woman’s pregnancy that threaten a woman’s health and make this procedure necessary; but just as surely there are cases that arise for less defensible reasons. Since the far right wants to criminalize abortion, their efforts to restrict and regulate the procedure are justly viewed as nothing but interim steps towards their ultimate goal; they cannot be trusted to have the best interests of women at heart. Only pro-choice progressives, who have fought and defended a woman’s right to choose, have the trust and confidence of women. It’s up to them to make a good faith effort to see that late-term abortions become even more rare. Perhaps they can never go down to zero, but that should be the goal. If progressives can get beyond the belief that any questioning of any abortion is a betrayal to women, they may realize that this issue provides an opportunity to continue to win over the public.

Abortion is an issue where the middle ground has it right. A strong majority of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all 50 states in the early part of pregnancy. This is when the embryo or fetus is in a pre-conscious state (and in fact when millions each year are destroyed through natural miscarriages). But the public recognizes that at 4-5 months these fetuses not only start resembling babies, they can also think and feel. So people want restrictions on late-term abortions: not because they want to deny women’s rights, but because they have legitimate moral qualms about destroying sentient beings.

The left must realize that affording moral status to highly developed fetuses does not make them “sell outs” and does not “buy into the right-wing frame”; it is instead an honest attempt to grapple with the issues that abortion presents. If they can make this leap, the left will find that public opinion supports their position.

2. This brings me to the second silver lining. If Roe v. Wade is ever overturned the conventional wisdom is that the “blue” states will legalize it and the “red” states will criminalize it in varying degrees, creating a patchwork of rules and regulations. What seems more likely to me, however, is that a federal law requiring all states to permit abortions would be enacted by a Democratic majority in Congress (Eliot Spitzer of NY has just produced a model for this type of legislation). This law would immediately be challenged and the case would make its way to the Supreme Court. The Justices would have to decide whether Congress has the right under the Commerce Clause to regulate abortion. Since women denied abortions in one state would obviously cross state lines to receive abortions, any sensible reading would indicate that of course Congress has this right.

More importantly, the Court’s recent ruling for the first time upheld a federal law regulating abortion. This gives the Court its own precedent validating this reading of the Commerce Clause. Justices Thomas and Scalia, recognizing that the precedent they were setting could be used to enact laws in favor of abortion rights, made it clear in their concurring opinions that they were not deciding on the merits of Congress’s authority, just on the specifics of the regulation. They obviously wanted to leave open the door to their ultimate goal: not only to overturn Roe v. Wade, but to deny the federal government any ability to require states to permit abortions.

Would three more Justices agree with such a radical position? A position which would obliterate centuries of precedent, and throw into question literally hundreds of Commerce Clause cases? After decrying “activist” liberal judges and saying for decades that abortion should be decided by the legislature, would five Justices have the nerve to deny the government this power? I don’t think so: it would destroy the Court’s reputation and legitimacy for decades. I cannot see a scenario where Chief Justice Roberts (or even Alito, who is if anything an incrementalist) would agree to this reading.

3. This brings me to whether the recent decision is a step towards overturning Roe v. Wade. I think it does the opposite. It further strengthens Roe because, more than anything, every new case that affirms Roe’s basic structure, as this did, solidifies Roe as precedent. While no doubt the Court undermined some of the spirit of Roe, particularly in its disrespect for women’s ability to make decisions for themselves, Kennedy in his majority opinion went out of his way to affirm Roe’s fundamental tenets. I think a woman’s virtually unfettered right to an early-term abortion has less of chance of being overruled now more than ever. I may be wrong. We will see what new obstructions the far right comes up with, and which if any the Court upholds.

Jason Scorse

It never takes long after a major tragedy in America for rightwing extremists to lay the blame on evolution and/or abortion.

After the Columbine massacre Tom Delay had this to say:

“Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.”

After 9/11 Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said that the ACLU, abortionists, feminists, gays and People For the American Way shared the blame for the attacks.

Karen Hughes, counselor to the president and now Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, once tried to compare supporters of abortion rights with terrorists when she said, “the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life” (Tell that to the Iraqis, whose civilian deaths we refuse to count).

And now in the wake of the Virginia massacre we have these words from Pastor Parsley, president of the Center for Moral Clarity in the “On Faith” section of the Washington Post:

“Choosing a world view that excludes God and disregards the value of human life makes the unforgettable scenes from Virginia Tech possible.”

(Apparently Pastor Parsley didn’t read what the Virginia killer had to say about his motives, such as this: “Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.”)

Obviously, the rightwing extremists in our society and government don’t care about facts. The places in the world where abortion is safe and legal are by and large the most peaceful and prosperous on earth; the societies where abortion has been criminalized are by and large repressive and filled with violence. Aside from most of the Middle East and Central Asia, take Brazil, where abortion is illegal except in cases of rape and incest: in the last five years almost 2,000 minors have been murdered in Rio alone.

The rightwing doesn’t seem to care that there are over 200 million guns in the hands of Americans, half of the world total for small arms, which helps to fuel the approximately 30,000 gun-related deaths per year. In fact, America is an anomaly in terms of the high level of violence in a country where abortion is legal.

But again, facts are beside the point. Even if abortion were criminalized (which will fortunately never happen; more on this next week) the rightwing would find someone or something to blame for the violence that persists because their worldview is not amenable to reason.

At the same time that we are told by the far right that our domestic violence is a product of our moral decay, President Bush tells us repeatedly that we are at war with terrorists because they “hate our freedoms”. Which freedoms I wonder? I doubt Osama Bin Laden cares that we have 500 channels to choose from or 10 types of toothpaste or even that we can own guns; he probably respects that part of our culture.

What bothers the Islamic terrorists is that we have freedom from religion. For the Islamists this is the greatest sacrilege: to have the arrogance to be a secular society. Islamists also hate the fact that women are free in our society, free to dress in skimpy clothes, free to be the bosses of men, and yes, free to control their own reproductive decisions.

This is where the rightwing’s narratives collide. On one hand they want us to believe that all of our problems are due to our secular society, but the freedoms of this secular society are supposedly what we are fighting to protect. The rightwing can’t have it both ways.

The far right’s continued efforts to criminalize abortion demonstrate their insistence that women are morally and intellectually infantile and that their bodies should be subjected to the whims of a patriarchal state; their continued attacks on evolution demonstrates that the far right wants to discredit basic science; their persistent and hate-filled attacks on homosexuals demonstrate that they want a sexually oppressive and unequal society. All of these goals are shared by the Islamic terrorists with whom we are at war.

I have one humble desire for our next president. I want him or her to work to strengthen, not undermine, the basic freedoms and liberties that our enemies despise. I want there to be nothing in common between the goals of my government and the goals of the Taliban, Al Qeada, Iran, and the rest of the Islamic extremists who are the enemies of free and just societies.

Jason Scorse

The internet has been going strong for over a decade now, but there is a lively debate about whether it is truly a democratizing force or whether its grassroots potential is still dwarfed by traditional forms of power. I for one believe that the internet is radically changing our democracy and empowering new actors in positive ways.

Take political fundraising. While many large donors and their elite events still grab major headlines, the internet has elevated grassroots fundraising to a new level. A few million ordinary people each giving $50-$100 to a campaign can generate tens of millions of dollars and catapult candidates into the first tier of a race. Just ask Barack Obama, who has a growing army of 100,000+ donors that he is building mainly through his website. Learning from the success of Howard Dean’s internet rise in 2003-2004, Obama is not only raising phenomenal amounts of money, but his website emphasizes the movement over the money. Individuals can join groups, find and host events and invite others into the campaign.

While Obama leads the Democratic field in utilizing the internet’s potential, Democrats similarly are way ahead of Republicans. Instead of simply asking for money, Democrats are using the internet to create a sense of togetherness and to engage users in the cause. This is a striking development given that Republicans have long held the advantage with mailing lists and grassroots fundraising.

This brings me to the second significant aspect of the internet: the rise of political blogs. Sites such as Dailykos, in which any user can post a diary that is then rated by others and can rise to the top of the main page, affords huge audiences to ordinary people based solely on the merits of their ideas, not their credentials. In addition, the comments section allows all users to actively participate in the conversation.

Almost all blog writers are not “professional” journalists, yet their writing often rivals or is better than what appears in major news sources. Their off-the-cuff style may be offensive to some, but the candor and lack of political-correctness on the blogosphere is a welcome development when the mainstream media’s op-ed sections seem to be dominated by sycophants too lazy to fact-check their claims.

And these days many stories that otherwise would have slipped by the major news outlets are being heard because of bloggers. Case-in-point is the recent work by the writers at Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, which led to the heightened interest and eventual whirlwind surrounding the purge of U.S. attorneys.

And the left-leaning sites appear to offer much greater reader engagement than right-leaning sites; to my knowledge the right has no site that rivals Dailykos in its community participation.

Like all other mediums the blogosphere has increasingly become concentrated, with a relatively small number of blogs dominating computer screens around the country; at the same time the blog medium itself is profoundly more democratic than traditional media. No no-name will ever get an op-ed job at the New York Times, but the internet gives every unknown the chance to reach huge audiences by working hard and building a following. Who knew Atrios before Dailykos got rolling?

The extent to which bloggers might ultimately blunt the influence of Washington’s chattering class and the highly paid consultants who dominate the Democratic and Republican parties is still unclear, but any diminishment of their power is to be welcomed.

All in all I think the internet is proving extremely beneficial to democracy, with its full potential yet to be exploited. This is good for the country and ultimately good for the world. The citizens of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Cuba aren’t going to forever watch the rest of the world actively engage in open and democratic societies without demanding freedom of their own.

Jason Scorse

Last week’s piece sparked an interesting discussion on the issue of principles versus political pragmatism. Here are three instances where this dilemma presents itself, and some thoughts about them:

1. Voting for third-party candidates

Many people view voting for third-party candidates as simply throwing away one’s vote in protest. Since a third party candidate has never won major national office in the U.S. there is some empirical evidence to support this. However, third party candidates have definitely influenced the outcome of at least three presidential elections. Ross Perot’s double digit showing in 1992 likely cost George Bush Sr. reelection and ushered in the Clinton era. Based strictly on mathematics, Ralph Nader surely cost Al Gore the election in 2000. Historians also generally agree that Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson in 1912 over the Republican Taft.

In the case of Perot, most of those who voted for him likely leaned Republican and their votes resulted in the election of a candidate with a much different set of political principles. A significant number of those who voted for Nader likely were more politically aligned with Gore and yet helped usher in the second Bush presidency. This lends credence to the view that third-party voters often hurt their own causes.

So did these voters make a principled stand or did they actually sell out their principles by putting into office those they opposed?

I don’t think there is an easy answer.

There is something noble about voting one’s conscience. If we really want things to change we have to take a stand (think of Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act, which he knew from the start would cost the Democrats the South). Even though it infuriates some, Nader is right that from his perspective Gore took away votes from him; there was nothing stopping a Nader presidency if this is what the people really wanted. We live in a democracy and a serious challenge to the two-party system is probably a good thing in the long-run. In addition, those who believe that voting for third-party candidates is harmful always have plenty of time to convince people why they should vote instead for one of the major candidates. In the case of Gore in 2000 I have a hard time blaming Nader voters for the loss; Gore should have won in such a landslide that Nader’s 97,000 votes in Florida would not have been an issue.

My main issue with Nader voters (and third-party voters in general) is their motivation. If it’s a sincere vote for a different set of principles that one believes would be better for the country then I’m all for it, but what bothered me about the Nader campaign was the insistence that Democrats and Republicans were essentially identical and that Nader represented the only legitimate alternative. This is sheer folly, as the last six years have made abundantly clear. Anyone who thinks that a President Gore would have been no worse than the current president needs to have their head examined. The differences were evident in 2000 and they’re even more evident now on a whole range of substantive issues, e.g., foreign policy, taxes, the environment and civil rights.

2. The federal government or states’ rights

A common belief among conservatives is that contentious social issues should be resolved individually by states. They believe (rightly) that there is no Constitutional right to an abortion and therefore that states should be able to decide for themselves whether to ban it or allow it. Except for those calling for an amendment to ban gay marriage (and civil unions), conservatives feel the same way about gay rights. This stance is often championed as pragmatic and entirely consistent with “original” Constitutional principles; in truth it is little more than a cover for bigotry and the diminishment of civil rights.

Since when have states been on the forefront of increasing liberty in America?

If it weren’t for federal laws and rulings by the Supreme Court, many states would to this day have extremely racist laws, such as laws against biracial marriage. Until Lawrence v. Texas a few years ago, numerous states had extremely anti-gay laws on the books; many have actually increased their anti-gay statutes through anti-gay marriage initiatives that deny partner benefits (e.g. in Virginia and Michigan). If Roe v. Wade were overturned many states would immediately criminalize abortion, thereby setting women’s rights back generations.

Given these realities I think that insisting on federal laws that protect a women’s right to abortion and federal laws that treat gay partnerships equally are the only viable option for those who believe in liberty. This means that national majorities on key issues of civil freedoms must trump the desires of individual states to impose oppressive policies in the name of local democracy.

Fortunately, this principled position is also pragmatic politically. As the religious right has become more extreme on social issues the country has become more tolerant and liberal, and the base of social extremism in the South is becoming politically isolated. A political party that stands for federal guarantees of basic equality for gays and a women’s right to choose will have majority political support. (This is one of the reasons why sometimes I think it would be a good thing if Roe v. Wade were overturned; it would create the opening for federal legislation to maintain abortion rights).

3. Negotiating with terrorists and despots

Conservative commentators are correct to point out that this week’s deal with North Korea represents negotiating with a member of the “axis of evil”. The deal even includes a U.S. promise to remove North Korean from the list of terrorist-sponsoring nations.

Throughout our history we have not only negotiated with dictators and evil rulers but actively supported them when we believed it was in our interests. Probably most notorious was our pact with Stalin in 1945 which allowed almost half of Europe to fall under Communist rule. We supported Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s war with Iran, even selling him the ingredients for the chemical weapons he later used against the Kurds. Even today we support dictators, strongmen, and oppressive regimes in various parts of the world, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Arguments in favor of dealing with dictators and rogue states come largely from the realist school, which argues that a nation must pursue its self-interest even if this means accepting practices abroad that we would never accept at home. In a world where the choice is between a bad regime or a worse regime (think the Iran-Iraq War), we cannot simply refuse to work with either regime based simply on principle when our interests are at risk.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that by compromising our principles and dealing with despots we actually undermine our long-term interests since only a sustained commitment to democracy and human rights will truly create a world where our security and commercial interest are best served.

Again I don’t think there are simple answers; we must examine situations on a case-by-case basis.

For example, is there anyone who really thinks we shouldn’t deal with President Musharraf of Pakistan simply because he’s a dictator who shows no signs of democratic reform? I don’t think so. Yet there is little doubt today that our support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980’s was unnecessary and a mistake. It was never clear that a victorious Iraq was better for us in the long run than a further emboldened Iran; and Hussein’s eventual use of chemical weapons and his numerous other atrocities clearly put us in a morally untenable position.

To be continued.

Jason Scorse

The 2008 presidential field is already stocked with solid candidates, particularly on the Democratic side. For a party that arguably was robbed in 2000 and watched its hopes slip away in 2004 it is hard not to be upbeat given the depth and strength of the current lineup. On the Republican side things do not look so good; all the major candidates have significant weaknesses in a climate already leaning Democratic.

But two years is an eternity in politics so any predictions made now are essentially meaningless; literally anything can happen.

Although currently I support Barack Obama for president (see his recent speech where he officially launches his campaign here; it is excellent), I am still open to changing my mind. I will even go so far as to say that although I have never voted for a Republican for president, I could envision scenarios in which I would do so in 2008. Bottom line: whoever is most aligned from either party with the personal qualities and values I believe in will get my vote.

So what are those attributes?

1. Good judgment

I can’t emphasize this strongly enough. The president is a generalist who must delineate responsibility to groups of experts and then make final decisions when presented with alternative policy options. Judgment is essential in choosing those best-qualified to run governmental departments as well as the assorted experts who are called on to advise them. When it comes to making final decisions I want someone who I trust will make a serious effort to use reason and empirical evidence, and weigh costs and benefits. Those who are blinded by ideology, who do not demand the best information possible, or who allow their biases to interfere are likely to make bad judgments and repeat them.

2. Sound policy principles, not plans

I consider myself a policy wonk, and yet even I don’t want too many policy details from candidates. Plans change dozens of times once Administrations come to office and Congress has a huge role in shaping them. What I want are principles. Case in point: health care. I want candidates committed to universal healthcare, but I’m not concerned about specifics in 2007 for something that likely won’t be debated until at least 2009. Second example: gun control. I would like to know that a candidate believes that the federal government should do more to clamp down on illegal guns, but I don’t need to know whether they want to reinstate specific weapons bans.

3. Core non-negotiable values

There are core principles of liberty that I want a candidate to stand for equivocally. These can be deal breakers for me. Examples:

- Abortion rights: candidates can talk all they want about the legitimate desire to reduce abortions, but they must support this fundamental woman’s right.

- Gay rights: as much as I support gay marriage I am willing to concede that in the current climate it is not feasible. At the same time candidates must support civil unions, oppose a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage, and oppose the ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military.

- Separation of church and state: I look forward to the day when a declared secular humanist can run for president and have a serious shot. Today, at a minimum, candidates must make clear that religion can never be used to end conversation or policy discussion (even if they believe it should be included as part of the broader debate), and that science will always trump religious ideology.

4. The ability to be a uniter, not a divider

I don’t care whether a candidate would be fun to have a beer with (that’s what friends are for), but congeniality and the ability to work across party lines are extremely important given the challenges we face. A recent book on the Supreme Court makes the case that the most successful Justices were not those who were the brightest or had the sharpest ideological positions, but those who could woo their colleagues and forge consensus positions. This is a skill that should not be underestimated.

5. Speak articulately about the way forward and the positive role of America in the world

I don’t need fancy words or masterful rhetoric, just someone who can get across a positive and encouraging message consistently, who can help to rekindle the positive image of America in the world, and speak for all Americans, not just those of their own political party.

Anything I’m missing?

P.S. Check out my friend's new site: Headline Junky. It is more of a detailed day-to-day analysis with very good writing and insights. Definitely check it out.

Jason Scorse

It costs hundreds of billions of dollars, there’s no end in sight and tens of thousands have been killed. It is empowering our enemies and weakening our friends.

I’m referring to the “war on drugs”, probably the most misguided set of policies in the world today. It is a war that attempts to defy the law of supply and demand, eradicate one of the core desires of human beings and use military force to solve a social problem. All the while this “war” uses empty moralizing to mock freedom and liberty, diminish individual rights, and perpetrate a form of racial and class warfare that would make the KKK proud. In short, it is a delusional set of policies with disastrous consequences. I am 100% certain that people will look back and wonder how we could have been both so blind and so stupid.

In this piece I do not intend to list all of the facts that underlie my assessment; they have been documented ad nauseum for decades. Check out these websites: here, here, here, and here for detailed accounts of the grim statistics and how your tax money is being thrown down the drain. And here is a collection of essays in William F. Buckley’s ultra-conservative National Review on the utter futility of the “war on drugs”. In addition, a couple recent examples of collateral damage and violations of international sovereignty in the "war on drugs" are here and here.

What I want to focus on in this piece is one aspect of this war which is not as prominent as it should be, and which provides an opening for a courageous politician of either party.

A commitment to promoting families and “family values” is now something that all serious candidates for higher office must demonstrate. For most rightwing politicians this somehow has morphed into a bizarre platform of anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-sex education policies, combined with calls for greater censorship of the media (for sex only, of course, violence is okay). For the left, the issue of “family values” is somewhat vague and usually comes wrapped in calls for greater education funding, health care, and sometimes censorship as well.

But in the end, it is difficult-to-impossible for the government to legislate values. The problems that lead families to disintegrate are due to complex factors that have nothing to do with election cycles. There is no doubt that sex education and better health care can make a difference, but there is one policy shift that would have a dramatic and almost immediate effect on family life in America: the decriminalization of most illegal drugs.

Hundreds of thousands of families each year are devastated by the incarceration for drug offenses of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, and uncles and aunts. Most of these offenses are non-violent, yet in many states they are met with hard time in prisons full of violence-prone people. Not only is this insanely unjust, but it hits the most vulnerable families the hardest, which are disproportionately minorities. Treating drug addiction not as a crime, but as an illness, would dramatically improve the lives of millions of people. No longer would children have to visit their parents, siblings and other relatives in jail; no longer would they become increasingly jaded and disconnected from society; no longer would they continue to use drugs behind bars. Instead they would be eligible for treatment programs, community service and other rehabilitation efforts.

Would this be a panacea? Of course not. But the current policy is simply unsustainable. We will eventually have to treat drug addiction as what it is: a health problem, not a criminal problem. In addition, casual users should be no more stigmatized than those who drink a few beers, smoke cigarettes, or pop one of the hundreds of legal drugs that Americans consume by the billions each year. It is not a crime to catch a buzz; it is an elemental part of human nature. (And as studies continue to demonstrate, many illegal drugs such as marijuana are safer than alcohol or tobacco.)

It will take a brave politician to state the obvious. The inevitable smear will surely follow, accusing him or her of being “soft on crime”. This in turn will be compounded by the prejudice that we have for people who choose to get high on things other than what are considered socially acceptable.

But the politician who breaks through this delusional fog and changes the terms of the debate will help to usher in a new era, one that will truly help families and ultimately end the “war on drugs”. This will be a legacy worthy of the highest praise.

P.S. On a completely unrelated note, I have entered my first novel into a writing competition on gather.com. If you're interested, you can read the first chapter and leave comments. Thanks.

Jason Scorse

This past week was historic: the first woman Speaker of the House, a minority member for House majority whip, the first Muslim Congressman (sworn in using Thomas Jefferson’s personal Koran no less, a move that could not have been more brilliant), and only the second black governor in U.S. history. What all of these public officials have in common is that they are Democrats. While the GOP talks diversity, it is the Democratic Party that best mirrors the true diversity in American society.

Not only did the Democrats pass meaningful (though by no means comprehensive) ethics reform on their first day in charge, but their “first 100 hours” agenda consists of popular, common sense measures that will surely increase Congress’s approval rating. Democratic proposals include an increase in the federal minimum wage, federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and allowing the Government to negotiate prices for prescription drugs under Medicare.

All of this portends good news for the Democratic Party, which, despite all of the nonsense we have heard over the past years about Karl Rove’s genius, is poised to become the dominant majority party for the coming decades; the GOP, meanwhile, is shrinking into a Southern regional party powered mostly by religious fanatics and racists.

But on the biggest issue of the day - the Iraq War - the Democrats will soon face a huge dilemma: to what extent should they oppose Bush’s escalation of the conflict?

This week the president is expected to announce an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq. He has already shuffled the generals and intelligence officials in charge and brought in those who are more predisposed to an escalation. For all of the promises of a “new strategy,” what is likely to unfold is more of the same: adding more blood and treasure to a failed policy. The spectacle of Saddam’s execution should have been the final straw to convince the American people that supporting the Iraqi government is not the key to “victory”; it is a government that is in league with Moktada al-Sadr and the Shiite extremists. We are well past the time when military force could succeed in Iraq, and the insurgents can always wait out our troops since they know we have to leave sooner or later. Only when Iraqi leaders agree to real compromise will there be any semblance of stability, and this has little to do with whether we have another 20,000 boots on the ground.

All of this puts the Democrats in a quandary. They know that Bush’s plan will cost many more American and Iraqi lives. They know that the mess will be left in the lap of whoever takes over the White House in 2008, likely a Democrat. They know that their constituents want them to oppose Bush and insist on bringing the troops home.

But Bush is the commander in chief and has the power to wage war. Pelosi and Reid sent the President a strongly worded letter urging him not to escalate the war, and they can hold hearings to expose its futility. But the only way the Democrats can bring the war to a stop is by moving to cut off funding, which carries huge political risks. It could easily result in a huge backlash against the Democrats, and provide an opportunity for Republicans to blame Democrats for our eventual defeat.

So what to do?

Twice in the past I have insisted that the American people voted for Bush and therefore, he should be given the benefit of the doubt to carry out the foreign policy he believes in. I have made the case that this is his war and he should fight it his way to its conclusion. I am fully aware of the moral dilemma this poses, even while Iraq grows more dangerous and costly by the day. But I essentially think this is how the Democrats should proceed. They should make it clear that they strongly oppose his policy, hold him accountable for it, but not threaten to withdraw funding. They might have the middle-ground option to authorize funding for continued operations but not for additional troops, but this would get tricky: almost certainly Bush would find a way to escalate the conflict, which would put the Democrats in an even greater bind.

In conclusion, this is a terrible situation with no good outcome. Elections have consequences. When the American people voted for Bush in 2004, after he had displayed incompetence and hubris and showed that he was out of touch with reality, they made an error that America, Iraq and the whole world continue to pay for. Democrats will not be able to remedy the situation until 2008 at the earliest, when they get a chance to restore sanity to the White House.

P.S. It seems as if Pelosi just this morning suggested that the Democrats will try to take the "middle way"; fund current troops but not additional ones without sufficient "justification". This is going to get really interesting really fast.

Jason Scorse

As 2006 ends I am both nervous and hopeful about the prospects for 2007. Nothing better encapsulates why I feel this mix of emotions than Tony Blair’s recent essay in Foreign Affairs, which I wish everyone would read carefully.

The first thing that struck me is how articulate Mr. Blair is. He has always been the superior spokesman for the ideological worldview that underlies his support for the Iraq War and the “global war on terrorism”.

So what are Blair’s main points?

1. The attacks of 9/11 were the product of a growing global ideology of radical Islam, not simply the work of a few isolated madmen.

2. We are not in the midst of a “clash of civilizations”, but in a struggle for civilization itself.

3. Islam itself is not the problem; in fact Islam has many elements that are eminently reasonable and progressive.

4. Poverty is not the root of the problem, and the problem will not go away if we withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

5. The ideology of radical Islam must be confronted everywhere.

6. We must support those in Iraq and Afghanistan who stand for democracy regardless of whether or not the war was justified.

7. The ultimate struggle is for modernity and global liberal values. These are much more than just security, and include new multilateral trade deals, protecting human rights, and fighting climate change.

Let me begin with what I find hopeful about this message. Mr. Blair is one of the liberalism’s wisest defenders of the past decade. He gets the big picture. He understands that you can’t promote democracy and then torture people, that the Doha Round of the WTO is as important for beating terrorists as expanding democracy, that America must take the lead on environmental issues that have potentially huge security implications. Put simply: Mr. Blair is one of the champions of enlightenment values and we owe him great respect.

But with respect to his perception of the “enemy” and how to combat the forces of radicalism, I do not think the facts support Mr. Blair’s worldview.

Let us start with Iraq. Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. While it is certainly true that there are elements in Iraq who want to see democracy fail in order to establish a Taliban-like state, most of the conflict is motivated by the oldest reason in the world: power. The Sunnis are afraid of being disenfranchised and the Shiites want to take full control; there is nothing particularly ideological about it at all, and the jihadists are only a small part.

While supporters of the war continue to put their faith in the Iraqi government, it is becoming increasingly hard to tell the “good” guys from the “bad” guys; some of the worst elements in Iraq, notably Al Sadr, are part of the democratically-elected government. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that once we leave Iraq Al Qeada will be weakened, not strengthened, because many powerful groups in Iraq view them as enemies and are already engaged in fighting them, while our presence serves as a recruiting tool for the jihadists.

We also should not let Mr. Blair off the hook about the original motivation for the war. He says that radical Islam should be combated everywhere. I agree, which is exactly why attacking a weak non-threatening secular regime was a bad idea.

Finally, Mr. Blair is surely aware that the radicals who killed more than 50 British citizens in bus and train bombings were themselves British citizens, as are the majority of the 1,600 Muslims in Britain who are currently under heavy surveillance. The murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland was committed by a Dutch middle class citizen. Bin Laden and his affiliates are mostly middle class and Western-educated. And where is their support coming from? Primarily Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. While the threat of terrorism might not go away if we left Iraq, there is little doubt that these men have been further radicalized by the invasion and occupation.

In summary, when I listen to people like Mr. Blair I am hopeful because of their strong and unwavering commitment to liberal values. Philosophically I agree as well with the neocons, who also believe strongly in freedom and democracy. I believe that American power can and should be a force for good in the world (e.g., personally I wish that America would unilaterally invade Sudan and crush the perpetrators of the Sudanese genocide).

But I diverge with Blair on tactics and strategy. As I have said many times, democracy is not a precondition for peace and liberal values. Democracy can bring people like Al Sadr or Hamas to power. In Saudi Arabia and Pakistan it would likely bring Al Qaeda to power.

The war against Islamic radicals is much more a long-term ideological struggle than it is a military one. As to the practical matter of defeating and deterring the individuals who are actively seeking to do us harm, it seems increasingly obvious that this is best done through intelligence gathering and global law enforcement efforts, not by the crude use of military force.

That people as smart as Mr. Blair don’t seem to get this, even after these past four years, is what makes me worry.

P.S. A few comments on Saddam’s execution: 1. Read the description of what happened at the execution and it will make you sick to your stomach; Saddam’s executioners prayed to Al Sadr, whose militia the Defense Department has recently indicated is the #1 threat in Iraq (yes, greater than Al Qeada). 2. The whole affair in Iraq is becoming a sicker and sicker travesty by the day, and this banana-republic show trial is just one more page in a downward spiral. 3. None of this is to suggest that I am sad that Saddam is dead; I am sad that the greatest nation on earth is so morally adrift that “victory”, no matter how elusive, has become a hollow term.

Jason Scorse

Well, you know, maybe that requires understanding the Middle East a little first. But even a little understanding seems like too much to ask from our elected representatives.

Investigative reporter Jeff Stein has been going around the nation’s capital for the last few months quizzing our politicians on Middle East Basics 101. And guess what, they’re failing miserably. Incoming Intelligence Chairman Reyes didn’t even know that Al Qaeda is a predominantly Sunni group, not predominantly Shiite (and remember the odds were 50-50 he’d guess right.)

This should give all of us pause, but especially those neocons who advocate overthrowing regimes throughout the Middle East by force. It is not only crazy to entrust these people with such radical missions, it is also immoral.

Reasonable people can disagree on the original rationale for the Iraq War (although I don’t think there can be reasonable disagreement that it has turned out to be a failure), but I think everyone can agree that a prerequisite for a policy as radical as preventive war is at least understanding the people you’re warring with. It’s not too much to ask our leaders that if they want to invade a country and initiate a radical transformation of the Middle East that they have a solid understanding of the history, culture, and politics of the region.

I fear that instead America’s worst instincts have been at work. After 9/11 we needed to lash out at an enemy and we believed that somehow a massive show of force in Iraq would initiate a new Middle Eastern reality. It turns out that this thinking was grounded more in our delusions than in solid analysis. We continue to use broad brush strokes to categorize people who are divided along many religious, cultural, ethnic, and political lines. We have further united our enemies against us and divided our allies. We have disempowered the Baathists and empowered Iran. In short, we have set in motion forces that were in some sense predictable if they had been grounded in an understanding of who we were dealing with—but they weren’t.

Hopefully, this should serve as a serious warning to all of those interested in an aggressive foreign policy. Just as classic liberal economists showed us why in many instances government intervention to solve domestic problems may do more harm than good, the same applies for foreign policy. I am not advocating isolationism, only stating what should now be obvious: our leaders should focus on protecting America and weakening its enemies, not on grand utopian visions of radical transformation brought about by military force.

P.S. Coincidentally, this Sunday's NYT has a short "refresher course" on Middle Eastern basics that is worth reading.

Jason Scorse

Freedom is a word with many meanings. Yet it more than anything defines liberal democracies, and differentiates us from many of the “un-free” Muslim and Arab societies with which we are at odds.

Throughout Western Europe, which is experiencing an influx of largely unassimilated Muslims, there is the perception that some freedoms need to be curtailed in order to ensure that Muslim immigrants conform to European norms. In the Netherlands the Dutch have just passed a law banning the burqa and other types of Muslim clothing, and France has already banned the Muslim headscarves in schools. (In one of the biggest infringements of free speech in a liberal democracy, the Austrians have made it a crime to deny the Holocaust.)

While some of these laws are understandable from the standpoint of a people worried that its cultures and traditions are slowly being eroded by a foreign illiberal wave, they are largely misguided. What is needed is a careful clarification of what freedom means in the context of liberal democracies, including which ones are non-negotiable and which are more fungible. Tony Blair has begun to lay out such guidelines, making a point of which aspects of liberal democratic society in Britain all immigrants must respect if they are to be welcomed.

The bedrock principles of liberal democracies are equal rights for all, including women and minorities. Also, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from unlawful persecution, and freedom of association. The Western powers should go out of their way to make clear to the Muslims and Arabs who live in their societies that these elements are non-negotiable for all members of society; that where these principles conflict with Islamic principles, it is the principles of freedom that win out. The tenets of no religion or culture can supersede these basic freedoms.

At the same time it should also be made clear that all aspects of a person’s culture and way of life that do not conflict with these basic freedoms are left entirely up to them. If women freely chose to wear burqas or headscarves, fine; it is only when they are coerced that it is wrong. People are free to celebrate whatever holidays they want, and to practice their religion openly and freely; the West welcomes new cultures with open arms. (Keeping in mind of course that limits on freedom of speech and association for those who incite violence have always been a part of liberal democracies, and are not aimed at Muslims or Arabs).

In summary, there are fundamental rights that must be honored by everyone in a liberal democracy, and these need to continually be repeated and reinforced. However, members of other cultures should not be made to feel that all aspects of their cultures are under attack by the West.

Putting this in the context of American society, where we have been much more successful at assimilating minority religious and cultural groups, it is the U.S. Constitution that lays down these liberal democratic principles while it paves the way for an ever-evolving American culture. Those who argue that we are a Christian nation are wrong; we are a constitutional democracy that does not draw whatsoever on Christianity for its structure. However, it is correct that America’s cultural mores have predominantly been of the Judeo-Christian variety, including our holidays, slogans, and dominant religion. This can and likely will change. As the makeup of the American population changes so will our culture; we will further integrate the Hispanic and Muslim cultures, all the while maintaining our constitutional tradition.

A side note: It is ironic that demagogues such as the rightwing radio host Dennis Prager, who confuse and obscure the difference between our liberal democratic legal foundations and our cultural history, advocate contradicting our legal statutes in order to promote a narrow view of American culture. Prager caused a stir when he recently said that the new Muslim Congressman-elect must take his oath of office on a Bible and not a Koran. In reality, our legal tradition requires neither, nothing more than one’s right hand held in the air, and the Congressman has every right to choose to use a Koran for symbolic purposes as a representation of his culture. Prager’s insistence demonstrates that the right wing only believes in freedom of religion when it is Judeo-Christian religion; it is quick to call for unconstitutional rules, which infringe on religious freedom, when other religions seek a place within American culture. (The American Family Association is lobbying for a new law that requires swearing on the Bible for public office.)

Jason Scorse

I have come to believe that the root of fundamentalism (which has spawned some of the most virulently anti-liberal and violent behavior in the world) is a dysfunctional view of sexuality. I know it seems extreme to boil one of the great geopolitical struggles down to this level, but I think the facts bear this out.

Let us begin at home. The most recent gay sex scandal involving the now-disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard has opened a window into a world that tens of millions of Americans belong to that most of us who live in cities, especially liberal ones, have no connection with. In this world, sexual purity, defined as no sexual experience outside of heterosexual marriage, is viewed as the ultimate virtuous behavior. Not only is homosexuality viewed as a temptation by the devil, but premarital sex and even masturbation are viewed as abhorrent in the eyes of God. Best-selling books by evangelical authors are dedicated to fighting the “evil urge” to masturbate and men with homosexual tendencies are “cured” through shock therapy. What is perhaps most sad and disturbing about this latest episode is that Mr. Haggard is so full of self-loathing for his homosexual behavior that he has committed himself to healing by none other than one of the most anti-gay bigots in the country, James Dobson of the Family Research Council (who recently said that he is too busy to counsel Ted). Mr. Haggard goes so far to deny that homosexuality even exists.

The obsession with sexuality has spilled over into the virulent anti-gay activity of many on the Christian Right and is also intimately linked with their campaigns against sex education. In addition, much of their case against abortion rests on the view that sex is strictly for procreation and nothing more. To an outsider like myself, the more I learn about the inner workings of the Christian Right, the more I realize what an unhealthy and combustible mix it is. It has established a movement with an almost singular focus on sexuality, while at the same time creating conditions in which sexual confusion and frustration thrive. By denying the genetic nature of homosexuality and associating virtually all sexual desire with shame, the Christian Right creates mandates that lead to profound cognitive dissonance. It then funnels the frustration people feel when they can’t live up to these impossible and unrealistic ideals against liberals, gays, lesbians, and Hollywood (recall, Jerry Falwell blamed the attacks of 9/11 on just these groups.)

At the other end of the spectrum, halfway across the world, we have the Muslim fundamentalists, who blow themselves up believing that they are going to be rewarded in paradise with 72 virgins. If there is anything more obviously driven by sexual dysfunction I don’t know what it is. Because of the disempowerment and distrust of women throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world, many Muslim men experience their first sexual relations with other men (and yet, in six Muslim countries homosexual acts are punishable by death). This too leads to extreme forms of shame and self-loathing. The belief that men are unable to control their wicked sexual impulses is so strong that a Muslim cleric in Australia just went on record saying that women who don’t cover themselves deserve to be raped because they have tempted men (and he is just one of many). The entire cultural phenomenon of covered women is little more than a means to control sexual impulses and achieve some unattainable and unhealthy version of sexual purity.

While I do not have statistics to back me up, I can say with some confidence that people who are comfortable with their sexuality are some of the most contented people in the world, while those who are sexually conflicted and frustrated are among the least contented. I believe this level of contentment is inversely correlated with many antisocial behaviors, including violent aggression, the need to scapegoat vulnerable groups, and the need to force others to conform to one’s own view of reality.

Where this all leads I am not sure. I do not want to downplay the problems that some people encounter when they engage in sex with numerous partners, including sexually-transmitted diseases. Nor do I want to discount the needs of children, who require loving and committed parents.

How to strike a balance between sexual freedom and acceptance of non-traditional views of sexuality with a commitment to strong relationships and family is difficult. But there is no doubt in my mind that fundamentalism at its core is driven by sexual dysfunction and that until this issue is approached head-on we can look forward to more gay-bashing, violence against women, and suicide bombers. If there really is a clash of civilizations it is between the fundamentalists and liberal society, and the most potent issue that separates these two groups is their views towards sex.

P.S. Someone read my piece and forwarded me a link to one of Bill Maher's rants that's too good to pass up. Check it out- it's hilarious and on the money!

Jason Scorse

Last year some of the top military commanders in charge of Guantanamo prison came to Monterey to brief the community on conditions at the prison and the government’s policy towards detainees (An Air Force brigadier general named Hemingway, a Naval rear admiral, and an Air Force colonel). This was part of a larger campaign to address the public’s growing unease with an unjust system that was weakening America’s credibility in the world.

During the Q&A I asked the brigadier general how we could claim war powers to hold people without charge when the “war on terror” was so ill-defined and could perhaps go on indefinitely. The general responded that this was a serious question that had yet to be addressed, but which needed to be. He said that terrorism posed a new threat that required new definitions and that the government still hadn’t fully grappled with this issue.

A year later, and five years since 9/11, we still don’t have a clear definition of what this conflict is, and what defines success. The new detainee bill that recently passed in Congress strips Guantanamo prisoners of the right of Habeas Corpus and puts them in an indefinite legal limbo.

That we are this long into the struggle and still have not come up with a sensible definition of the conflict is a disgrace to our American system and the rule of law. By this time into WW I and WW II we had prosecuted the wars and declared victory, yet today we don’t even know what “victory” means. This wouldn’t be so terrible is it weren’t for the immense extensions of executive power and the diminishment of civil liberties that have accompanied this struggle, which we are routinely told will take generations.

The contradictions of our current policy were no more evident than in a recent NPR interview with John Yoo, the primary architect of the Bush Administration’s legal strategy in the post-9/11 period. While Yoo makes a persuasive case that presidents have always had the power to hold people indefinitely who are caught on the battlefield, when pressed to say how long that power can reasonably last he reiterated what the general said last year: we don’t know since we haven’t defined victory.

But Yoo made an additional statement that demonstrated the Administration’s lack of seriousness on the definitional issue, and contradicted President Bush as well. Yoo said that perhaps a good metric for defining the end of the conflict would be when most of Al Qaeda’s top leaders are captured or killed. While this sounds reasonable, it directly contradicts Bush’s own contention that the war is much broader then Al Qaeda. Also notably absent from Yoo’s remarks was how the Iraq conflict relates to his definition, since none of the major Al Qaeda figures are in Iraq. If Yoo and the President can’t agree, it seems clear that the Administration is not really serious about defining the “war on terror”.

This should come as no surprise.

The Bush Administration does not want to define the war because then it would have to justify an entire set of policies that have specious connections to the true terrorist threats, and it would also by definition constrain its own power. The result is that we are stuck with an Orwellian “war without end” in which presidential power is virtually unchecked and anything the president deems a threat can be lumped under the general heading of the “war on terror”.

My guess is that Bush will leave office without ever articulating a definition of success in the “war on terror”. We will still have hundreds of alleged terrorists in U.S. custody, many of whom were grabbed in large sweeps and are likely not terrorists, and who will not get the chance to contest the charges against them. Recall, these are the same prisoners that are constantly referred to by Bush as “some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists”, when in fact they are alleged terrorists since little evidence has ever been brought against most of them. This is precisely why we need the checks and balances and judicial oversight that this Administration has constantly tried to supersede. (What is worse is how they have cynically implied that anyone who questions their policies is abetting the terrorists.)

It will be