Tag: robert creamer

Overturning Obamacare Would Make Roberts Court Most Activist, Partisan in Modern History

The question is not whether you will need health care, the question is how you will pay for it when you do.

And in this respect, health care is entirely different than virtually any other commodity.

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From:HuffPost

By: Robert Creamer

“Time was, not long ago, when the right wing railed against the overreach of unelected judges with lifetime appointments who tried to usurp the power of Congress and impose their own vision of society.

That was before the Roberts Court. In fact, it turns out, many extreme conservatives didn’t give a rat’s left foot about the overreach of unelected judges. They simply wanted judges who would impose their vision of society on the rest of us.

Justices Roberts and Kennedy will likely be the deciding votes on the question of whether the individual responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act passes constitutional muster. But they will also decide whether the Roberts Court goes down as the most activist, partisan court in modern history.

Up to now the Court’s decision in the Citizens United case allowing corporations and billionaires to make virtually unlimited contributions to political candidates and “Super Pacs” stood out as its most glaring beacon of judicial activism. Citizens United reversed a century of legal precedent to reach a result that gives corporations the political rights of people, and distributes the right of free political expression in proportion to one’s control of wealth. Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.

It was, of course, exactly what the far Right had in mind. Extreme conservative voices found themselves strangely silent in the face of the Supreme Court’s willingness to substitute its judgment for that of elected Members of Congress and to upend the bi-partisan McCain-Feingold law that had been passed to regulate federal elections.

But if the Court rejects the individual responsibility provisions in the Affordable Care Act, that will take the cake.

In fact, when Congress passed Obamacare there were very few serious constitutional scholars who questioned the constitutionality of this provision.

There is no question whatsoever, that government in America has the right to require our citizens to pay for public goods or for services that we decide can best be provided through government.

Clearly, government can tax homeowners to provide the community with fire protection, for example. You might not need fire protection for years — or decades — or ever — but government can decide that you have to pay into the fire protection district because if your house catches fire, it could affect the entire community.

But, says the right wing, government can’t require an individual to purchase a product from a privatecompany they may not want or “need.”

Now I personally believe that it would make much more sense to expand Medicare to all Americans, and maintain one, efficient government-run insurance system that covers everyone — and cuts out the need to pay huge profits to Wall Street and the big bonuses to insurance company CEO’s.

But some years ago, conservative Republicans like Mitt Romney proposed providing universal health care coverage by requiring everyone to buy insurance from private insurance companies that are regulated through state-based exchanges.

When Romney was Governor of Massachusetts he got the state legislature to pass this kind of system — Romneycare — which has been functioning in the state for many years and whose constitutionality has never been questioned by the Supreme Court.

There is no question that the government can require parents to pay private pharmaceutical companies for their kids’ vaccinations before they enter school — and it can also require them to attend school — because both issues affect the welfare of the entire community.

And there is no question as to the the constitutionality of the many state laws that require anyone who drives a car to purchase private car insurance.

But, you say, the difference is that you don’t have to drive a car — you can simply decide not to get a drivers license if you want to avoid buying private car insurance.

True. But the need for health care is not elective. Last time I looked, everyone ultimately dies. I don’t care how healthy you are, everyone inevitably has some health problem in their lives. The question is not whether you will need health care, the question is how you will pay for it when you do.

And in this respect, health care is entirely different than virtually any other commodity.

First, it is not entirely subject to the normal laws of economic activity. People can’t determine how sick they can afford to be, or which diseases fit into the family budget. You don’t come home one day and say: “Gee honey I just got a raise, now I can have cancer!” Health care needs are not elective purchases like cars or TV’s.

And when it comes to health care, there is often little relationship between cost and value. A ten-dollar vaccine can add decades to your life, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of intensive care can add weeks or days.

But most important, while we might not agree that every American is entitled to a Cadillac (or in the case of Mitt Romney, two Cadillac’s), we do agree — as a society — that everyone is entitled to the best health care that is available no matter their wealth or station in life. We don’t believe that anyone should be left as roadkill after a traffic accident because he or she can’t pay for health care.

That being the case, someone can be young and healthy and vibrant one minute, and in need of massive, costly health care services the next.

The individual responsibility provisions of the Affordable Care Act simply says that everyone be required to pay — at a level they can afford –– for the fact that society won’t leave them by the side of the road to die after an accident — or when they are struck by cancer or a heart attack. It recognizes that in America everyone actually does participate in a form of health insurance system, whether they pay for it or not. It says that young, healthy people should not be allowed to be “free riders” in the system, until the moment they become sick or injured.

The fact is that in the current system, 40 million Americans are not formally part of health insurance plan — most because they can’t afford it without the kind of subsidies provided in the Affordable Care Act. Of course some are also uninsured because they think they are “immortal.” But being uninsured often means that you don’t go to the doctor because you can’t afford checkups or preventive care. It often means that you only go to the emergency room of a hospital or a neighborhood clinic when you already need costly health care interventions that would have been unnecessary had you had the security of a formal health insurance plan.

That costs all of us money, and because they often wait too long, it costs many of our fellow citizens their health and often their lives. What’s more, it places many American families one illness away from financial ruin.

And it could lead us all to financial ruin. The crazy-quilt way we pay for our health care in America has resulted in skyrocketing health care costs that include expenditures for administration and overhead that are far greater than in any other country on earth. These costs put our products and companies at a huge competitive disadvantage with our competitors abroad. That’s because we were the only industrial country in the world that did not provide universal health care to its citizens — until we passed Obamacare.

Well, you say, the states may have the legal right to require Americans to buy private insurance, but not the Federal Government.

Does anyone doubt that the massive health care industry is engaged in interstate commerce?

Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce is explicitly granted by the Constitution. That power has been interpreted expansively and has a long established history, fortified by scores of rulings by previous Supreme Courts.

If the current Supreme Court holds that the federal government has no right to structure the national health care market place, it will be reversing years of precedent. It will brand itself as a band of judicial activists who substitute the will of unelected judges for that of the representative body of Congress.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will not be protecting a minority’s right to refrain from buying health care. That is not possible, since everyone ultimately needs health care. If it takes that extraordinary step, it will simply be substituting its own political philosophy for that of Congress. Just as it did with Bush v. Gore, it will once again be turning the Supreme Court into an instrument of brazen partisanship.”

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partnersand a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer

Emphasis Mine

see:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/overturning-obamacare-wou_b_1385448.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Protecting Access to Birth Control Does Not Violate Religious Freedom — And It Is a Moral Imperative

The moral thing to do is to make certain that every woman who wants it has access to birth control.

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from: Huff Post

by: Robert Creamer

In many respects it is amazing that in 2012 there is a controversy over women’s access to birth control.

Let’s be clear, the current controversy over the Obama administration’s rules that require all employers who provide health insurance to provide birth control without a co-pay to its women employees, has nothing whatsoever to do with religious freedom.

It has everything to do with an attempt to take away women’s access to easy, affordable birth control, no matter where they work.

Birth control is not controversial. Surveys show that 99 percent of women and 98 percent of Catholic women have used birth control at some time in their lives.

No one is trying to require that anyone else use birth control if it violates their religious convictions. But the convictions of some religious leaders should not be allowed to trump the rights of women employees to have access to birth control.

The rule in question exempts 355,000 churches from this requirement since they presumably hire individuals who share the religious faith of the institutions in question. But it does not exempt universities and hospitals that may be owned by religious organizations, but serve — and employ — people of all faiths to engage in decidedly secular activities. These are not “religious institutions.” They are engaged in the normal flow of commerce, even though they are owned by religious organizations.

Some religious leaders argue that they should not be required to pay for birth control coverage for their employees if they have religious objections to birth control. This argument ignores the fact that health insurance coverage is not a voluntary gift to employees. It is a part of their compensation package. If someone opposed the minimum wage on religious grounds — say because they believed it “discouraged individual initiative” — that wouldn’t excuse them from having to pay the minimum wage.

If a Christian Science institution opposed invasive medical treatment on religious grounds, it would not be allowed to provide health care plans that fund only spiritual healing.

Many Americans opposed the Iraq War — some on religious grounds. That did not excuse them from paying taxes to the government.

The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose taking away the ability for women to have easy, affordable access to birth control. A Public Policy Polling survey released yesterday found that 56 percent of voters support the decision to require health plans to cover prescription birth control with no additional out-of-pocket fees, while only 37 percent opposed. Fifty-three percent of Catholic voters favor the benefit.

Fifty-seven percent of voters think that women employed by Catholic hospitals and universities should have the same rights to contraceptive coverage as other women.

No doubt these numbers would be vastly higher if the poll were limited to the employees of those hospitals and universities because eliminating the requirement of coverage would cost the average woman $600 to $1,200 per year in out-of-pocket costs.

But ironically, requiring birth control coverage generally costs nothing to the institution that provides it. That’s because by making birth control accessible, health plans cut down on the number of unwanted pregnancies that cost a great deal more. And of course they also cut down on the number of abortions.

That may help explain why many Catholic-owned universities already provide coverage for birth control. For instance, a Georgetown University spokesperson told ThinkProgress yesterday that employees “have access to health insurance plans offered and designed by national providers to a national pool. These plans include coverage for birth control.”

The University of San Francisco, the University of Scranton, DePaul University in Chicago, Boston College — all have health insurance plans that cover contraception.

And, finally, this is nothing new. Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception.

Of course the shocking thing about this entire controversy is that there is a worldwide consensus that the use of birth control is one of society’s most important moral priorities. Far from being something that should be discouraged, or is controversial, the use of birth control is critical to the survival and success of humanity.

In 1968, the world’s population reached 3.5 billion people. On October 31, 2011, the United Nations Population Division reported that the world population had reached seven billion. It had doubled in 43 years.

It took 90,000 years of human development for the population to reach 1 billion. Over the last two centuries the population has grown by another six billion.

In fact, in the first 12 years of the 21st Century, we have already added a billion people to the planet.

It is simply not possible for this small planet to sustain that kind of exponential human population growth. If we do, the result will be poverty, war, the depletion of our natural resources and famine. Fundamentally, the Reverend Malthus was right — except that the result is not inevitable.

Population growth is not something that just happens to us. We can choose whether or not to reproduce and at what rates.

No force is required. The evidence shows that the population explosion stops where there is the availability of birth control and women have educational opportunity.

That’s why it is our moral imperative to act responsibly and encourage each other to use birth control. And it’s not a hard sell. Children are the greatest blessing you can have in life. But most people are eager to limit the number of children they have if they have access to contraception. We owe it to those children — to the next generation and the generation after that — to act responsibly and stabilize the size of the human population.

The moral thing to do is to make certain that every woman who wants it has access to birth control.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: ‘Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win‘, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.


Emphasis Mine

see:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/protecting-access-to-birt_b_1262530.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Three Reasons Why It’s Better for the Economy if the Super-Committee Fails to Get a Deal

chasdarwin1 Comment

By Robert Creamer, HuffPost

“Last Thursday’s Washington Post headline blared: “Debt panel’s lack of progress raises alarm on Hill.”

In fact it is far better for everyday Americans if the so-called Super Committee fails entirely to get a deal.

The overarching reason is simple: any deal they are likely to strike will make life worse for everyday Americans — and worsen our prospects for long-term economic growth.

Of course that’s not the view of many denizens of the Capitol who are still obsessed by the notion that it is critical for the Congress to produce a “compromise” that raises revenue and cuts “entitlements.” There are three reasons why these people are wrong:

1). Any deal would likely slash the income of many everyday Americans. You could design a plan to substantially reduce the deficit without big cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. My wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who served on President Obama’s Fiscal Commission, designed just such a proposal last year. And, of course, Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit in the first place.

Unfortunately, however, in order to get Republican support any large-scale deal in the Super Committee would almost certainly require big cuts in either Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid — or all of them. Substantial cuts in any of these programs will make life harder for everyday Americans and reduce the likelihood of long-term economic growth.

Without a “deal” in the Super Committee, the current budget plan does not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — and that’s a good thing.

According to the Social Security Administration, the average monthly Social Security check now averages the princely sum of $1,082 — or about $13,000 per year. Next year, for the first time since 2009, payments will increase by $39 per month to offset inflation, but $18 a month of that increase will go right back out the door in the form of Medicare premium increases.

Already under current law, Medicare Part B premiums, that cover services like doctors, outpatient care and home health services, must be set annually to cover 25% of program costs. And remember that Medicare recipients aren’t getting an “entitlement” — they are getting an earned benefit that they paid for throughout their working lives. The same, of course, is true of Social Security.

Mean while, Medicaid is the principle means of assuring that America actually begins to provide health care for all — including nursing home and home care.

The problem with medical care costs isn’t that “greedy” seniors and others are gobbling up too much care. The problem is that the costs of providing care are going up too fast. In fact, the per capita costs of providing health care in America is 50% higher than anywhere else on earth, and the World Health Organization only ranks health care outcomes as 37th, in the world.

Medicare is actually the most efficient means in the American economy for providing health care. Any action by the “Super Committee” that reduces the percentage of Americans on Medicare — say, by raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 — would cost the American economy.

  • According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, if such a proposal were operational in 2014 it would raise total health care spending in America by $5.7 billion per year.
  • This is so because, while it would save the Federal government a net of about $5.7 billion ($24 billion savings in Medicare payments largely offset by $18 billion of increased Medicaid payments and subsidies to low-income participants in exchanges), it would also generate an additional $11.4 billion in higher health care costs for individuals, employers and states — resulting in a net cost to the economy of $5.7 billion.

The one thing you could do to cut Medicare costs without hurting ordinary families or the economy as a whole is to require Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies for lower prices the same way the Veterans Administration does today. That would cut hundreds of billions in costs to the government over the next ten years, but don’t expect the Republicans to include that as an acceptable cut in “entitlements” as part of a Super Committee deal.

Of course, America has no business cutting the income of seniors who get $13,000 a year in Social Security payments regardless of anything else that is in a deal. The deficit problem should be fixed by asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share and by jobs plans that put America back on a path of sustained economic growth. And we have no business reducing access to health care for everyday people so that CEO‘s can fly around in their corporate jets, oil companies can keep their tax breaks, or Wall Street hot shots — who we all bailed out just three years ago — can pack in their huge bonuses.

Even if a Super Committee proposal includes increases in revenue to the government from millionaires and billionaires, that is not reason that normal people — whose real incomes have dropped over the last decade — should also be called upon to “share in the sacrifice.”

The problem isn’t that everyday Americans are gorging themselves on excesses that “America can’t afford.” The problem is that Wall Street, the financial sector and the 1% have gobbled up all of the increases in economic growth that the country has produced over the last two decades.

That has meant that the standard of living for normal people has been stagnant. But just as problematic, it has lead to a stagnant economic growth. Since the incomes of everyday people haven’t increased at the same rate as increased worker productivity, there simply haven’t been enough new customers to buy the new products and services that American businesses produce. That is the formula for recession and depression. And that’s just what happened.

American corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars of cash. The reason they aren’t hiring has nothing to do with the need for more tax breaks. What stops them isn’t lack of “confidence,” it’s a lack of customers.

For decades the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has preached the need for fiscal constraint and austerity. According to the Washington Post, now even the IMF is warning that, “austerity may trigger a new recession, and is urging countries to look for ways to boost growth.”

If you want to lay a foundation for long-term economic growth in America, the last thing you would do is reduce the income going to ordinary Americans — even over the long run. That’s not the problem — just the opposite. We do not need ordinary people to “share in the sacrifice.” We need policies that will increase the share of income going to ordinary people and reduce the exploding inequality between the 99% and the 1%.

Any deal in the Super Committee will almost certainly do just the opposite.

2.). The worst effects of sequestration could be solved without a “grand bargain”. The one big downside of a failure of the Super-Committee to act would be the level of discretionary spending cuts that would be required through the resulting sequestration. This is particularly true of cuts in education funding.

The budget deal that was struck in order to prevent Republicans from plunging America into default last summer requires an additional $1.2 trillion reduction in the deficit over the next ten years. If the Super Committee fails to agree on the distribution of these cuts, they will automatically be spread over defense and non-defense segments of the budget beginning in 2013. But there would be no cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Congress would have the ability to adjust these sequestration requirements between now and 2013, regardless. But the “fast track” authority that would require up or down votes on a proposal from the “Super Committee” would expire if the Committee cannot reach agreement by November 23rd.

The best solution to the problem of big cuts in discretionary spending would be to put together a smaller deal to raise some revenue and reduce cuts in discretionary and – if necessary — military spending — after the mandate of the Super Committee has expired.

The Congress will have a year to help solve this problem, and the pressure to ameliorate some of the cuts in military spending that have so far proved ineffective at forcing Republicans to consider big revenue increase, may be more persuasive when it comes to smaller increases as the actual date of sequestration (2013) draws near.

Of course it’s possible that the Super Committee itself could come with a small-bore deal of this sort, simply to avoid the full force of sequestration. But that would be very different than a $1.2 trillion dollar package that includes cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Progressives should avoid cuts to these programs at all costs, because any cuts that sliced Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits would require changes in the structure of the programs themselves that would last forever. Cuts in discretionary spending — as bad as they might be — are one-time events and do not fundamentally change the structure of the American social contract.

3). There is no reason for Congress to fear that its failure to act on a “Super Committee” agreement will have massive adverse consequences on “market confidence,” since the level of the deficit will not be affected. That has already been set — with a mandate for a $1.2 trillion cut. The Wall Street gang and the ratings agencies might sputter something about government dysfunction for a day or two. But the fundamentals will not be affected, since the level of government borrowing won’t be affected by whether or not there is a deal.

It’s also worth noting that even after Standard and Poor’s downgraded the U.S. debt because of the process leading up to the debt ceiling deal, it had no effect on the interest rates the government is paying for bonds. In fact those interest rates dropped to record lows. U.S. government debt remains the safest investment in the world, no matter what S&P did, and the market reflected that indisputable fact.

In other words then, Congress does not have its back against the wall like it did during the debt ceiling “hostage” crisis. When it came to the debt-ceiling deadline, failure was not an option. In the case of the “Super Committee” failure to come to an agreement is a very real option — in fact, it’s the best option.

There are some in Congress — most notably in the Senate — who truly believe that what the country needs is a “grand bargain” that cuts the deficit by making ordinary people “share in the sacrifice” even if millionaires and billionaires are asked to share some as well.

Hopefully those who are working for such bargain will be thwarted by two important political realities.

First, that cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are politically toxic. People get really angry when you take away something they have earned.

Second, the Republican’s stubborn unwillingness to give an ounce of new revenue from the pockets of millionaires and billionaires – who, after all, are the true core constituency of the Republican Party.

This time a little “gridlock” may be a good thing.”

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.

Emphasis Mine

see: /robert-creamer/three-reasons-why-its-bet_b_1030166.html

Tea Party Time

government – financed by common taxes — is the most efficient provider of so many goods and services.

chasdarwin1 Comment

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/obion-county-fire-tragedy_b_753893.html

Robert Creamer creams the tea party/ GOP ‘less government’ ideology.’

“This week, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported the story of the Cranick family’s house fire. When the family’s Obion County, Tennessee house caught fire on the night of October 5th, the fire department from the nearby town failed to respond since the Cranick’s had forgotten to pay a $75 fee. Firefighters finally responded to a call by Cranick’s neighbor, who had paid his fee. They sprayed the property line to protect the home of the neighbor and watched at the Cranick’s home burned to the ground.

The firefighters had been ordered not to intervene to save the Cranick’s house — even though they were already at the scene — because, apparently, it would have encouraged others not to pay the $75.

The Obion County fire incident is symbolic of the moral and economic bankruptcy of the Tea-Party-Republican vision of government and the economy. And it poses the stark choice facing American voters in the Mid-Term elections.

The Tea-Party-Republicans — including the Republican Congressional leadership – talk incessantly about how government services should be slashed. They believe that society should maximize the extent to which each individual is responsible to fend for themselves. They claim that is more “efficient”. The Obion County fire illustrates clearly why that assertion is simply wrong.

Competitive markets are extremely efficient at encouraging innovation, increasing productivity and distributing goods and services in many arenas. But there are other arenas where history and experience have demonstrated that it is both more efficient and more humane to provide goods and services through government — which, as Congressman Barney Frank likes to say, is the name we give to the things we have chosen to do together.

The core difference in values between the right wing and progressives is whether we create a society where we’re all in this together, or all in this alone.

Mainstream Americans understand that there are a number of areas where it makes much more economic and moral sense to guarantee goods and services to everyone in the society and ask our citizens to finance them by paying their fair share of taxes rather than paying for them “ala carte”.

We came to the conclusion decades ago that government should provide every child with an education, and our public schools have provided the foundation of American economic prosperity.

We use government to provide infrastructure necessary to support our economy — roads, bridges, harbors, airports, sewer and water systems, and street lights.”

N.B.: and the Internet.

“We provide common parks and recreation facilities that are open to public use.

Government provides for our common defense and our domestic security. We don’t require each person to hire a private army or security firm to defend his or her home. That would be stupid, wasteful and lead to anarchy.

Government is particularly efficient when it comes to providing social insurance –– like Social Security and Medicare. The overhead for these programs is tiny compared with other insurance programs (including private health insurance plans) run by the private sector. They have covered everyone reliably and effectively for generations. That’s why they have virtually unanimous public support.

At long last, with the health care reform bill, America joined the company of every other industrial nation, in understanding that it is more efficient and more humane for government to assure that everyone in society has access to health care. Of course one of the signals that prompted this change was the sheer fact that private market health insurance caused our health care cost to skyrocket to 50% more per person than any other nation — with worse outcomes. Almost certainly, the Affordable Care Act is just the first step in reform, since a public option will certainly be needed to ultimately bring our spending in line with other nations. But it was a critical first step.

Of course, most everywhere in America, we provide fire protection through the government. We all pay — through our taxes — to assure that if the time ever comes when we need to call 911 because of a fire, no one will have to check to see if we have paid a fee, a clerical error on payment records will not cost us our homes, and firefighters will not stand by and watch our homes and lives go up in smoke. And of course we also support common protection because fire doesn’t necessarily stop at the property line — just ask Ms O’Leary of the legendary Chicago Fire.

The Obion county story demonstrates what happens when we forget that government – financed by common taxes — is the most efficient provider of so many goods and services.

It makes no economic sense to allow what is likely a multi-hundred thousand dollar home to be consumed by flames because a failure to pay a $75 fee. Now, either the insurance company or the Cranick’s will have to build a brand new home in its place. Their former home was wasted because of the absurdity of the system that had been set up to protect it.

That same absurdity is implicit in so many of the other Republican economic positions. Its ultimate expression is the Republican desire to repeal health care reform and return us to an out of control system run by private health insurance companies that has cost us 50% more than any other country. That system is wasting trillions of dollars that come out of the pockets of middle class Americans — just to allow private insurance companies and their top executives to make obscene amounts of money.

And with fire protection and health care, the moral consequences are also clear. Bad enough that someone’s home was allowed to be destroyed because of the failure to pay a $75 fee. Would the firefighters have been allowed to intervene if the family pets were inside the house — what about a child?

The Republicans want to return us to a health care system that allowed for-profit health insurance companies to brazenly make those same choices everyday. They made life and death decisions that determined whether people were treated or not — and often whether they lived or not — using their own bottom line as their only real guide. They wouldn’t cover you because you have a “pre-existing condition“. They would cut you off when you got sick. They hired armies of bureaucrats who do nothing but deny claims. Some of the worst of these abuses are now history because of health insurance reform. If the Republicans have their way, those new protections will be repealed.

But let’s be clear. The people behind the “drown government in the bath tub” politics are not the kind of folks who run around in three corner hats and George Washington wigs. The Tea Party rank and file is not the principal engine of anti-government fervor. The money for the ads and the buses and the radio shows are provided by big corporations — by people like Rupert Murdoch of Fox and David and Charles Koch.

The Koch brothers own virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate whose annual revenues exceed a hundred billion dollars and is the second largest privately owed company in the country.

The Koch’s combined fortune of thirty five billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

They may be libertarian true believers. But the Kochs would also benefit mightily by making government small and toothless. They would benefit more than most anyone from lowering tax rates for the wealthy. They have a massive stake in lowering the standards for environmental regulation since their oil companies and other holdings have made them one of the top ten air polluters in the United States.

The same goes for the many funders of these ultra-right causes. The money comes from very wealthy families and massive corporations. For them the right wing ideology is nothing more than a vindication for their own wealth — and a justification for their own economic self interest. And the fact is that their economic self interests conflict with those of the vast majority of their fellow citizens.

Progressives cannot be cowed by the anti-government propaganda that spews forth from these giant economic interests even when it’s dressed up in the clothing of the small number of ordinary Americans who have become Tea Party activists.

In fact the Cranicks of Obion County Tennessee are truly emblematic of the victims of the Koch brother’s vision of America. The Cranicks are victims, as are the eight million Americans who lost their jobs because of the greed and recklessness of the big Wall Street banks — because of the traders and CEO’s that ride around in corporate jets and demand that smaller and smaller quantities of their billions be taxed to pay for our common welfare.

The choice we face on November 2nd is between the interests of the Cranicks and the interests of the Kochs.

Hopefully the fire in Obion County, Tennessee will provide the light necessary to illuminate the true consequences of the Tea Party Republican agenda. And it may help provide the spark that is needed to help mobilize millions of Americans to vote November 2nd and reject that agenda at the polls.”

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com.

(Emphasis mine)

Economic polarization and political polarization

We have been undergoing income redistribution in the USA for three decades: from the less wealthy to the very wealthy.

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One hears the term “income redistribution” used to disparage progressive agenda.  We have been undergoing income redistribution in the USA for three decades: from the less wealthy to the very wealthy.

Robert Creamer notes in HuffPost:” We frequently hear pundits pontificating about the rising level of political polarization in Congress.

Often the blame is ascribed to plummeting levels of civility among Members. In fact, ten years ago the House actually conducted several “civility retreats” aimed at fostering a more civil atmosphere inside the body. These events featured motivational speakers and smaller “encounter-group-like” seminars – and were widely attended by Members and their families. Needless to say, this approach didn’t do much for the actual “civility index” in Congress.

And then there are the “centrists” who think that the partisan divide can best be bridged by proposals that seek to “moderate” the Democratic “change” agenda. Of course, most of these “moderates” want to water down Democratic proposals to change the status quo — proposals that would reduce the power of the Wall Street gang, the private insurance industry, the energy companies and Chamber of Commerce. This presents a serious problem to most Democrats because the interests of these special interests are generally diametrically opposed to the interests of the American people. But it turns out they are also counterproductive when it comes to ending political polarization as well. Here’s why:

Several years ago, a group of political scientists that included Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, conducted an important study on the causes of political polarization. Their results were published in a fascinating book, Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Their study found that there is a direct relationship between economic inequality and polarization in American politics.

The team measured political polarization in congressional votes over the last century, and found a direct correlation with the percentage of income received by the top 1% of the electorate.

They also compared the Gini Index of Income Inequality with congressional vote polarization of the last half-century and found a comparable relationship.

Why should this be? It doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that if people have more in common they are more likely to support similar proposals and perspectives. Political polarization in Congress does not result from some new inability to “communicate” or “empathize.” It results from the fact that the major constituencies of the two parties have increasingly divergent economic interests.

To put it simply, Republicans increasingly represent the interests of the wealthiest elements of American society, and Democrats represent everyone else. As the gap between the incomes of these segments of the population grows, so does the gap between their economic interests and the policy proposals they support.

So in other words, if you want to do something about the political polarization of Congress, you have to deal with the underlying cause. You have to reduce the growing level of income inequality in America. Unfortunately, when “Moderate” Democrats attempt to defang Democratic proposals to rein in private insurance companies, Wall Street banks, energy companies, and the Chamber of Commerce they have exactly the opposite effect. The actions of these “Moderates” serve to perpetuate income inequality – and as a direct consequence, the political polarization they are so quick to attack.

We should remember that the level of income inequality is far from being a static feature of American society.

Paul Krugman points out that at the beginning of the Great Depression, income inequality, and inequality in the control of wealth, was very high. Then came the “the great compression” between 1929 and 1947. Real wages for workers in manufacturing rose 67% while real income for the richest 1% of Americans fell 17%. This period marked the birth of the American middle class. Two major forces drove these trends – unionization of major manufacturing sectors, and the public policies of the New Deal that were sparked by the Great Depression.

The growing spending power of everyday Americans spurred the postwar boom from 1947 to 1973. Real wages rose 81% and the income of the richest 1% rose 38%. Growth was widely shared, but income inequality continued to drop.

From 1973 to 1980, everyone lost ground. Real wages fell 3% and income for the richest 1% fell 4%. The oil shocks, and the dramatic slowdown in economic growth in developing nations, took their toll on America’s and the world’s economies.

Then came what economist Paul Krugman calls “the New Gilded Age.” Beginning in 1980, there were big gains at the very top. The tax policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations magnified income redistribution.

In the last 20 years, there has been a massive re-polarization of incomes in America between the wealthiest 1% of the population and everyone else. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that fully two-thirds of all income gains during the last economic expansion (2002 to 2007) flowed to the top 1% of the population. And that, in turn, is one of the chief reasons why the median income for ordinary Americans actually dropped by $2,197 per year since 2000.

From 1990 to 2004, the income of the top 1% of the population has increased 57%. The richest Americans – the top one-tenth of 1% – have experienced income growth of 85%. Yet the median income of the bottom 90% has increased only 2%

  • Now the CEO of the average company in the Standard and Poor’s Index makes10.9 million. That means that before lunch, on the first workday of the year, he (sometimes she) has made more than the minimum wage workers in his company will make all year. That translates to5,240 per hour – or about 344 times that pay of the typical American worker.
  • Most people would consider a salary of100,000 per year reasonably good pay. But the average CEO makes that much in the first 20 hours of the work year.
  • And that’s nothing compared to some of the Kings of Wall Street. In 2007, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged588 million in compensation each- more than 19,000 times as much as the average U.S. worker. And by the way, the hedge fund managers paid a tax rate on their income of only 15% — far lower than the rate paid by their secretaries.

So if all the “moderates” who say they want to help end the polarization of Congress are serious, they need to get to work supporting the Democratic agenda to end the stranglehold of the wealthiest, most powerful economic interests, and support measures to once again increase taxes on the wealthiest among us at least to the levels they were back in the Clinton Administration. In other words, if you want to end the polarization of Congress, you have to end the economic polarization of America….”

see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/to-reduce-political-polar_b_410282.html

(some italics mine)