What Candidates Should I Support?

Dear Friends,

I cannot bring myself to blog about President Trump or the Republican Party and what they are doing to this country and the world.  There is more than enough analysis and commentary about those topics.

I am, however, concerned about the Democratic Party and feel compelled to write about it.  We need a clear progressive vision for our country, and we need to advocate for that vision in all 50 states and all 3,142 counties in the country.  I have chosen a few a issues that for me are critical.  I will not support a candidate or a party whose views are not consistent with mine on these issues.  I will no longer support the lesser of two evils even though I might be forced to vote on that basis.

The idea that the Democratic Party needs to move to the center is a complete fallacy promulgated by the Democratic Party establishment to maintain its power and big money relationships.  The vision that I am proposing is not an extreme left wing vision.  Some of the issues are not really left or right political issues.  The individual policies to achieve the vision have broad support among the American people even though they have never been given the media coverage they deserve.  Today I will just provide the list with a short explanation.  In future posts, I will cover each one in more detail.

Global Warming
I put global warming first because it is the biggest existential threat we face.  Fossil fuels must remain in the ground.  We need policies that demand the use of solar, hydro, geothermal and wind power.  We must reduce our energy usage and dramatically increase our efficiency.  We cannot transition slowly to non-fossil fuels and being more efficient.  We must move forward immediately and aggressively if we are to save our planet for our children and grandchildren.  While the Paris Accord was a start, it was too little, too late.  We must move faster.

Education
We must provide free high quality public education from pre-k through college, including the arts.  Education is essential to a happy productive life as well as to a functioning democracy.

Health Care
Health care is a right not a privilege.  The government must provide health care for all.  We must have Medicare for all now.

Income/Wealth Inequality
We must immediately enact policies that reduce income and wealth inequality.  Education and universal health care are part of the solution.  In addition, we must significantly increase taxes on the wealthy including income and estate taxes.  We must regulate Wall Street and big corporations to reduce their economic and political power.  We must enact a minimum wage that provides a living above the poverty line (i.e. $15/hour).  We must support unions to provide a level negotiating field for workers and managements.

Voting Rights
We need strong voting rights laws to prevent voter suppression and disenfranchisement.  We need to end gerrymandering.  We need to overturn Citizens United.  We need to understand that money is not speech.  In fact, money denies the speech of those without it.  We need to create a culture where everyone has the right to vote and everyone votes.

Discrimination
We must end discrimination of all kinds.  Our country fails to provide racial, gender, economic, social, or criminal justice, among others.  The current anti-discrimination laws must be strengthened and aggressively enforced.  Those laws must also be dramatically expanded to include types of discrimination that are not currently covered, particularly protecting LGBTQIA people's rights.  Notwithstanding current laws, we know we live in a society with deep, broad and intransigent institutional bias.  We must create a culture that eliminates such bias.

Financial Safety Net
We must be a society that ensures that all members of our society have an acceptable minimum standard of living, including food, shelter, health care, financial security, education and respect.  Our current programs are falling far short of this result.  They need to be strengthened and expanded.

Jobs
The government can and should create jobs.  The best way to do so is by fixing our broken infrastructure, properly maintaining it and expanding it as new technologies and needs arise.  The government can use private companies to build and rebuild our infrastructure, creating lots of good jobs.  These jobs can help with some of the other issues discussed above such as developing green technologies and an efficient energy grid.  The government should also support research and innovation that will lead to new jobs and a growing economy.

Immigration
We are a nation of immigrants.  Yet it seems that each new group of immigrants is treated poorly by those that came before them.  We have millions of undocumented people living in our country who belong in this country, who contribute to this country and who must have a path to citizenship, security in their lives and the respect they deserve as human beings.  The way we treat immigrants today is a travesty and flaunts every tenet of how a civilized nation should behave.

Foreign Relations
I realize I am giving this topic short shrift by putting it last and lumping all the issues together into only one paragraph.  However, I believe our foreign policy should flow directly from the values and vision espoused in our domestic policy.  All human beings deserve respect, freedom, justice, education, health care, jobs, etc.  If we base our foreign policy on these tenets, we would demand a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, we would spend more time, money and effort on peacefully solving conflicts than on violently imposing our will, we would not back dictators because it is good for business, we would seek total nuclear disarmament, etc.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Clinton and Sanders Infrastructure Plans

Dear Friends,

Hillary Clinton has finally come out with an infrastructure plan, and as you might imagine it is very middle of the road and certainly would not accomplish what even she says we need.

Everybody agrees that the United States infrastructure is in grave need of repair, costs Americans a ton of unnecessary money each year and is way behind that of other developed countries.  If you don't believe me read the article in Fortune (here) entitled "An investment in America's infrastructure could cost taxpayers nothing".  It is a full throated argument for investing huge sums of money in our infrastructure.

There seems to be general agreement that the US needs to invest well over $1 trillion in our infrastructure to repair it and bring it to a competitive level with other developed countries.  As the Fortune article points out, an up to date infrastructure would save everybody money that is currently spent on lost time and damage done by a crumbling and overcrowded infrastructure.  In addition, infrastructure spending creates lots of good paying jobs.  The Fortune article estimates that even a $18 billion annual investment in infrastructure would create 216,000 jobs in the first year.  As the Fortune article concludes, "It is hard to think of a timelier win-win proposal."

Bernie Sanders has proposed increasing our infrastructure spending by $1 trillion over the next five years (here).  Hillary Clinton, while acknowledging that estimates of "the size of our 'infrastructure gap' register in the trillions of dollars", proposes that we increase our infrastructure spending by just $275 million over the next five years (here).

You can see a comparison of the two plans at Dave Johnson's blog on The Huffington Post (here).

Secretary Clinton's proposal can hardly be called an incremental improvement much less any kind of a solution to our infrastructure deficit.  It is, of course, better than nothing.  Senator Sanders' proposal truly addresses both the infrastructure deficit we face as well as the need for many more good paying jobs.  Once again the extremely modest proposal from the establishment candidate will not generate any enthusiasm among those in our country who are looking for real change and bold ideas.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Jobs, Gasoline Prices and the XL Pipeline

Dear Friends,

Yesterday the House of Representatives voted to approve the XL Pipeline.  It was a clean vote - no debate and no amendments.  Three members of the House of Representatives from Minnesota who are Democrats voted with the Republicans.  One of them is Colin Peterson who is more Republican than Democrat anyway and whom I have never supported.  Another is Rick Nolan from the Iron Range whom I have supported.

Rick Nolan, during his recent campaign for re-election said that he could support the XL Pipeline if it were built with US steel.  As you can imagine, the issue of using US steel is a big deal on the Iron Range whose economy depends on steel because they produce taconite.  Needless to say the bill that passed the House yesterday said nothing about requiring the use of US steel.  Representative Nolan sought to explain his vote by saying that his constituents wanted him to be bipartisan.  I am not sure what his vote has to do with bipartisanship.  A vote with no debate and no amendments is hardly a way to achieve bipartisanship.  One of his constituents does not seem to agree and voices the real reason for Representative Nolan's vote as quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (here):

Why would you run a pipeline from Canada with the dirtiest oil running through it made with cheap foreign steel in the breadbasket of America … all in the name of profits for an oil company?” said John Malek, president of the 1,300-worker union local at Minntac mine near Virginia. “The only benefit I really see out of this is getting some good American steel in it and putting some construction workers back to work.

The third Democrat from Minnesota to vote for the bill in the House was Tim Walz.  I have supported Tim in every one of his runs for the House and have been proud to do so because he has done a lot of great things.  I do not know why he voted for this bill, but I doubt that I will agree with him and will certainly have trouble supporting him in the future.

The article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune quoted above also indicated that Senator Franken whom I have also supported from his start in politics implied that he might support the XL Pipeline if it passes the environmental study being done and it includes a provision to use US steel.  The clear implication is that the XL Pipeline should get support if it provides jobs.

So how many jobs would the XL Pipeline produce?  Once construction is completed it is estimated that there will be 35 permanent jobs created by this pipeline, according to estimates by the State Department.  TransCanada, the pipeline company, estimates that 20,000 jobs will be created during the one to two years of construction.  That is really an overestimate because TransCanada is using job years.  So a single job that last for two years is counted as two jobs.  Also of the 20,000 jobs, 13,000 are directly for the pipeline construction and 7,000 are for related manufacturing jobs.  TransCanada's estimates are not substantiated and according to a study from Cornell University, there will be less than 5,000 direct jobs during the construction of the XL Pipeline (here).

If Congress wants to pass a law that will encourage jobs and lots of good jobs, they should pass a law to bring our infrastructure into the 21st century.  The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that we need to spend $3.6 trillion by 2020 to update our infrastructure.  That would produce jobs.  Consider that today with only minor spending, there are 14.2 million jobs in infrastructure construction or about 11% of our total employment.  True bipartisanship would be to pass a real infrastructure building law that would also be a great jobs bill.  We could also require that US steel be used in government funded projects (if we do not enter into the Trans-Pacific Partnership).  If you want a quick summary of the infrastructure problem here is a CBS News article.

Another argument that you hear about the need to have the XL Pipeline is that it will lower the cost of gasoline.  A Bloomberg article (here) addresses this issue.

Keystone opposition has been shocking to many Americans, too. The world’s biggest oil consumer relies on some of the world’s cheapest gas prices to power its economy. How could the U.S. possibly turn down a new artery to deliver the stuff, even if it does come with new environmental risks?

The answer is that Keystone isn’t meant for U.S. consumption.

In Keystone’s weirdonomics, the pipeline would actually increase prices of gasoline for much of the country, according to at least three studies that have looked into it. Keystone would divert crude from Midwest refineries to Gulf Coast refineries, where it would then be shipped to more expensive markets. Bypassing heartland refineries could drive up prices at home.

For people living in the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, it could add 20 cents a gallon to the price at the pump. 

I try to stay away from sources that people could claim are biased when writing these blogs but sometimes the article is so compelling and summarizes the issues so well that I cannot help myself.  Friends of the Earth has a  great summary of the problems with the XL Pipeline (here) covered in seven paragraphs titled:
dirty tar sands oil
water waste and pollution
forest destruction
indigenous population
pipeline spills
refining tar sands
stopping the pipeline

So why is anybody supporting the XL Pipeline except for TransCanada and the oil companies that stand to make lots of money while potentially destroying our environment in many ways.  You can contact President Obama here and for those of you that live in Minnesota, you can reach Senator Klobuchar here and Senator Franken here.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Is Candidate Obama Back?

Dear Friends,

I have been out of the country for almost three weeks and when I returned, I found that the Barak Obama that I supported, campaigned for and voted for may have returned in my absence.  The legislation that he is proposing still falls short of what is needed but it is clearly a great step forward, and I congratulate him for putting forth his plan.

But more than putting forth his plan, President Obama deserves credit for taking the fight to get his legislation passed to the American people.  It is clear that the Republicans in Congress will not pass any plan that President Obama puts forth unless they fear the wrath of the voters in 2012.  President Obama seems to understand that and is now going to the American people and letting them know who is holding the economy back and who is keeping the unemployment level high.

Here are a couple of segments from the Rachel Maddow Show last night that highlighted President Obama's speech at a bridge between Kentucky (home state of Senator McConnell) and John Boehner's district in Ohio.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I have hope that President Obama will continue to fight for a real jobs bill as he did yesterday.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

[J] It is the jobs stupid!!

Dear Friends,

President Obama still does not understand why the markets are crashing.  Clearly it was not the downgrade of the United States debt since all the people selling stocks today were simultaneously buying US treasuries and interest rates went down and not up.  The problem is not the United States debt level or the dysfunctional government that we have with crazy Republican extremists and a President who is unwilling to confront them. 

Here is a summary of the President's remarks by Holly Bailey (here):

In his first public remarks since Friday's downgrade, Obama blamed political gridlock for the nation's setback and insisted the markets still consider the United States a "triple-A country."
S&P's move, Obama said, was "not so much because they doubt our ability to pay our debt … but because after witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system's ability to act."
"We didn't need a ratings agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction," he added. "That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office."

The market is dropping like a rock because there is no growth in the economy and everybody knows that cutting federal spending will slow or reverse growth.  The only way to get this economy to grow is to increase demand and the only way to increase consumer demand is to provide people with jobs and the only way to get job growth is for the Federal government to spend money and to spend it on infrastructure projects that we badly need.  As long as the President and the Republicans are focused on deficit reduction, the markets will not improve.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama, debt and jobs

Dear Friends,

President Obama continues to spew forth Republican talking points that try despite all evidence to connect the current federal debt level with the appalling lack of jobs.  The New York Times editorial staff called President Obama on his Republican talking points in the editorial entitled "The Worst Time to Slow the Economy" (here) today. 

The Labor Department report showed virtually no job growth in June, with the unemployment level edging up to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent the month before. It seemed to confirm last month’s indication that the economy had stalled. After the report came out, the president went to the Rose Garden and said he hoped that a conclusion to the current debt-ceiling talks would give businesses “certainty” that the government had its debt and deficit under control, allowing them to start hiring again.
Certainty? That sounds like Mitt Romney, or any of the other Republicans who have concocted a phony connection between hiring and government borrowing.

The main thing that is stalling the recovery and preventing any significant job growth is a lack of demand.  Businesses only hire when demand increases, and demand increases when people have money to spend on buying things.  So you need to put people to work so that they can buy things.  The best way to accomplish that result is for the federal government to spend the money needed to improve our infrastructure.  Construction and maintenance of highways, schools, bridges, electrical grids, airports, railways, etc. result in great jobs that have to be done in this country.  It also leads to demand for construction equipment and supplies.  Anybody that has taken Economics 101 can recite all the benefits. 

We know that the Republicans reject reality, but I expect a President that claims to come from the Democratic Party to stand up for reality and true economic theory and the middle class and the poor.  We need a huge jobs program now for the sake of the country.  We need a President who will use his powers of persuasion to cut through the nonsense that is passing for debate in Washington DC today.  Unfortunately, President Obama shows no signs of becoming that President.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama and Jobs

Dear Friends,

What this country really needs right now is jobs.  In The New York Times today there were no articles in the first section about jobs.  How can that be?  The reason is quite simple.  The Republicans only solution to the lack of jobs is to lower taxes.  Trickle down economics has never worked so they don't want to talk about that to the mainstream media.  The Democrats have adopted the Republican narrative that we need to reduce the Federal deficit immediately.  Once you have adopted that narrative, you have taken away the best way to increase jobs which is increased government spending particularly on badly needed infrastructure repairs and maintenance.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains the problem with the economy in 2 minutes and 15 seconds and does a great job.  If you have not seen the clip here it is.


Mr. Reich concludes that we need a strong middle class in order to have a robust economy.  The only way to have a strong middle class is to create jobs.  The only way to create long term sustainable jobs is to create long term sustainable demand.  But you cannot create demand if people have no money and people will only have money if they have jobs. 

As you can see there is a circular problem here.  The only way to break the cycle is for the government to spend money which stimulates the economy.  The most effective and the least inflation producing way for the government to stimulate the economy so that jobs and demand are created is through infrastructure spending - lots of construction jobs and lots of jobs making the machinery that is needed for the construction.  I should note that a construction job for a domestic construction site is a job right here in the United States.  Since the infrastructure of the United States has been neglected for so many years, there is an almost never ending supply of projects that we need done.  Once the jobs have been created through the government spending, then the middle class will create demand because they will want things and new houses and remodeling old houses, etc. 

I should also point out that once the economy is moving again and people have jobs, tax revenue will go up (unless we are so stupid as to give more tax breaks to the rich), and we can begin to address the deficit.  The solution is not rocket science, but it requires the Democrats starting with the President to advocate for stimulus of the economy by the government.  So far President Obama and the Democrats have failed to stand up for the values that have made the Democratic Party great in the past and for the proven methods of spurring economic growth.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal