Owning the Libs

Maybe this has been going on for longer, but I first noticed the politics of "own the libs" right after Losin' Donnie was elected. Sure there was name-calling and mud slinging before, but the politics of schoolyard taunting not coincidently corresponded to the rise of someone who didn't really have any other tools in his political toolbox. 

Donald Trump caught the imagination of Americans who felt that the "other" was overtaking and replacing them. He didn't invent, however, the exaggerated characterization of liberals as whiny "snowflakes" who get offended at anything and everything, the credit for that goes to Rush Limbaugh and his fellow "conservative" media personalities. Trump merely introduced it into everyday political discourse. He was so successful at this approach that it became a hallmark of his presidency. I first noticed the poisonous turn of conversation on Twitter. That social media platform is a bit rough and tumble to start with, but the taunting and insults as kind of shocking. Before long it became normal. Other Republicans, emboldened by Trump's success, began to imitate his approach. Even after his loss in the 2020 election (yes, damn it, he LOST) Republican candidates and elected officials imitated the strategy of doing nothing other than mocking and taunting liberal Democrats. 

The tactic of mindlessly obstructing anything a Democrat proposes in order to deny them a "win" wasn't new to the Trump era. Senator Mitch McConnell, during the Obama administration, used his position to block virtually everything that President Obama proposed, including a Supreme Court nomination. During Obama's first two years the Democrats held a commanding majority in the House and a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate - which was the only reason the PPACA got passed. Once the Senate majority shrunk he was able, by unprecedented use of the filibuster, to frustrate any attempt for the Democrats to get anything done, even though they still possessed majorities in both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. Once the Republicans gained the majority he successfully blocked most of President Obama's judicial nominations. During Trump's final two years, when the Democrats retook the House majority, he refused to even bring to a vote in the Senate hundreds of bills passed by the House. 

What's happening now goes well beyond that.

While old school politicians like McConnell are still playing the long game, many of the newer members of the House and Senate seem content to refrain from legislating and act like media personalities, holding press conferences and issuing statements that are empty of any substance other than insults to Democratic politicians and voters. Liberals aren't the snowflakes that conservatives think that they are. They don't sniffle and whine when things don't go their way, but don't shy away from pointing out hateful and harmful actions and speech. However, a lot of Republican voters think they are, and cheer on the do-nothing Republicans whose whole platform seems to be to "own the libs", no matter what. Even the rare policy of legislative proposal isn't aimed at helping Americans, but rather at dismantling programs that liberals like, simply because liberals like them. Hey, if liberals are for something, it must be communism, right? 

Unlike some, I don't blame the politicians. I blame us, at least the "us" that craves the entertainment that "owning the libs" provides. The great majority of voters are just too stupid, or perhaps just too lazy, to understand the complexities and nuances of public policy. It's easier to boil it down to "it's socialism" than to take the time to understand the pros and cons, as well as the possible benefits and consequences. It's easier to cheer on a Republican Member of Congress who calls a Muslim House member a jihadist than to research the Muslim House member's policy positions. The circus-like antics of today's Republicans continue because they work. 

I don't anticipate it getting any better...there's just too many stupid voters.

Communism, Socialism, Marxism

It seems like every government initiative that aims to help people has been labeled as socialism over the last decade, and now, the opponents on the right have escalated their name-calling to include "communism". And it doesn't matter what Joe Biden or any Democrat comes up with, it's communism according to Republicans and other right wingers. Let's look at what it really is from two angles: (1) Is it really socialism (or communism) and (2) If it is socialism, is it bad?

In the early days of our Republic, the government had a limited role. Many people look nostalgically back to those days as a paradise of freedom (or "freedoms" as the faux patriots of today have taken to calling it). There was no income tax, there were few government regulations and there were places you could escape to where the government couldn't easily reach you, even if it was so inclined. There was also so slavery. And as industrialization grew and spread, freedom became a very elusive concept, not because the government was oppressing anyone, but because a small cohort of wealthy industrialists were. Little by little, often under pressure from unions, and women's rights groups the governement took on the role of protector of those with little or no power. Sure, certain freedoms were curtailed: the freedom to operate unsafe workplaces, the freedom to employ small children, the freedom to abuse workers, the freedom to operate monopolies. Government agencies sprung up to regulate food production, to oversee approval of drugs, to ensure workers' rights. Eventually the New Deal created the Social Security Administration; years later the freedom to discriminate based on race, gender or religion became illegal (although it just went underground - it didn't disappear). By the seventies the government took on the role of protecting the environment by curtailing the freedom to wantonly pollute. All of these things could be categorized as socialism, some more, some less, but can any of them (allowing of course for overreach at times) really be categorized as bad for the country? Aren't they all just establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty? Aren't they good things?

The problem with tagging something as socialism is that most people will conflate social programs in a democratic, constitutional republic with socialist dictatorships. No progressive politician has ever called for common ownership of the means of production, for elimination of private property, or prohibiting the formation of for-profit businesses. No one has called for nationalizing major industries. No one is suggesting that the president should assume dictatorial powers (no one currently in power anyway). Mandating paid parental leave isn't going to turn us into Venezuela or Soviet Russia. With a wide swath of the electorate, all it takes is to call a plan "socialist" for them to be adamantly against it. But even the effectiveness of that epithet is fading, now, in order to really get people riled up, you have to ramp up your rhetoric and call things "communist", which has an even eviler association, especially for people who remember the Cold War. 

So yes, using a broad definition for "socialism", many Democratic programs are socialist, just like minimum wage laws, OSHA, Medicare and interstate highways...even police and fire departments and public libraries. But what they aren't are imitations of socialist failures like Venezuela or Cuba (although it could be argued that much of Cuba's problem is US sanctions) and they certainly aren't a harbinger of a replay of the Soviet era dictatorships. 

As always, thinking is hard work, but I recommend it.

Making the Rich Pay Their "Fair Share" of Taxes - How?

 The problem with the ultra-rich not paying "their fair share" isn't necessarily that they are doing anything illegal (although sometimes that's exactly what it is), it's that the tax code favors the ultra-rich. There are myriad ways to make your income and assets non-taxable, or taxable at lower rates, but most of these methods are only available if you already have a pile of money. I'll use Elon Musk for an example: he claims that he is not taking a salary & his net worth consists of stock, which won't be taxed until he sells it. So how is he living the billionaire lifestyle without any cash?

Debt.

The way our tax code works, income is taxed, but assets aren't. An executive or company owner can be paid in company stock, which isn't taxable until it is sold. The executive or owner then takes out a low-interest loan to finance his lifestyle, with his assets as collateral. Like the assets, the cash obtained through the loan isn't taxable either. Of course eventually these loans will have to be paid off, but in most cases the value of the asset has appreciated much more than the interest that was paid on the loan. Of course, if you're an alleged billionaire like former president Losin' Donnie, you can just default on your loans.

Then there's tax credits.

There are a long list of ways to earn tax credits and book net taxable losses while still bringing in plenty of cash. One shady, yet perfectly legal method is via consulting fees. A real estate developer buys a building and applies for federal tax credits to restore it to historical conditions. The federal government, in addition to awarding credits based on legitimate construction expenses, also allows a "developer fee". IRS standards are that 20% of total rehabilitation costs are reasonable. So the real estate developer creates an LLC for the building. Then, another LLC is created as a developer. The building LLC then pays the developer LLC the developer fee. Assuming the rehabilitation costs, including the developer fee, are $5 million, then the building LLC receives a $200,000 million tax credit for effectively moving $1 million from one account to another, since the building owner is a developer. The $1 million developer fee can also be used as an expense to offset any revenue that the building LLC earns, lowering its taxable income.

The answer isn't necessarily to raise the tax rate on the ultra-wealthy. The answer is to find a way to close the various ways that income and wealth can be shielded from taxation that are only available to the top 0.01%.

Anti-Vaxxers

Why are some people so militantly against, not only the Covid vaccine, but any mitigation efforts? The loudest voices, at least this week, seem to be shouting about freedom. There are two paths of discussion regarding freedom. One is vaccine mandates. Until recently, no governmental entity was instituting mandatory vaccination with the exception of the military. Vaccine requirements are nothing new for the United States military, new recruits receive a number of vaccinations upon entering basic training and receive additional inoculations upon being deployed to certain locations. So, sorry soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardians, your freedom is circumscribed for as long as you are in the service, and that includes the Covid vaccine. (The Biden Administration has recently mandated vaccinations for employees of businesses with 100 or more employees - more on this later).  

 What we are seeing is some businesses and public events requiring proof of vaccination to enter their premises or participate in their events. In many instances this is coupled with a requirement to wear a mouth-and-nose covering. Agree or not, a private company has the right to decide who will enter their business as long as they do not discriminate against anyone based upon a protected class. Of course this goes for businesses that require that you don't mask up as well - I disagree with the reasoning behind such a move, but support their right to do so. Much of what we're seeing lately in the way of furious opposition is at school board meetings where school districts are requiring that all teachers and students wear face masks on school grounds. Again, the rationale is "freedom". 

Despite the reality that in the United States "freedom" doesn't mean and rarely has ever meant that we have license to do whatever we want to. There are speed limits, zoning laws, taxation, regulations of various kinds, licenses and fees required for many professions and activities. Even though untrammeled liberty is more a fantasy than a reality, our culture persists in elevating personal freedom over community responsibility. Virtually every religion makes a virtue of altruism, taking care of your brothers & sisters is admired, the Good Samaritan parable is held up as aspirational; yet when push comes to shove, it's "look out for number one". If Americans believed their own mythos of community and valued it over individualism, they would be glad to do whatever it took to protect, not only themselves, but the greater community. 

There are times when we cannot depend on private businesses or individuals to do the right thing. Read up on the history of the labor movement and the growth of unions in this country. Businesses didn't do the right thing. People were worked to death, sometimes literally; there were no safety regulations; pollution via the waste products of various industries was rampant; there was literally cocaine in soft drinks and "health products"; and must I remind you, a lot of people were enslaved! There are times, when for the greater good, government, as the representative of the people and the steward of our well-bring, must step in and legislate, direct, or mandate what individuals or corporations are unable or unwilling to do. The partial mandate that people get vaccinated or suffer various consequences is not a new phenomena, but consistent with historical public health or other emergency measures. 

In my opinion, cries of "freedom" are only an excuse and don't tell the whole story. The other part of the resistance to vaccination and common sense protective measures is an hysterical belief that the people who have spent their lives becoming experts either don't know what they're talking about, or are lying in order to exert some ephemeral control over the populace. While eschewing the expertise of those who know what they're talking about, they latch on to unproven remedies and conspiracy theories. They search for the tiniest of problems and blow them out of proportion. They readily accept the craziest and most implausible of stories while claiming to be skeptics who don't follow the government like sheep. If these irrational anti-vacciners had complied with public health measures instead of hysterically digging in their heels, we likely wouldn't need mandates. 

The vaccines are not experimental. They have been tested and approved. Are they 100% effective? Do masks protect us completely? No and no. What is effective is a combination of widespread vaccination, mask wearing in public, social distancing, and sanitation. If large segments of the population refuse to take any of these precautions, the virus will continue to mutate and spread. With the exception of the small percentage of people who are medically unable to get vaccinated, the anti-vaxxers are just plain ignorant and are contributing to the continued spread of Covid-19. 

Their objections are based on ignorance. 

The Bastard is Still Out There - Part II

 In addition to his supposed business acumen, the other selling point for Losin' Donnie's candidacy was the perception that he could "tell it like it is" and that he understood and was a friend of everyday Americans. There's a verified paper trail of Trump's consistent screwing over working Americans: time after time when he didn't pay small contractors or suppliers and used his resources to draw out court battles that the little guy couldn't financially maintain. But even without those facts, why does anyone think that an alleged billionaire, who used to live in a penthouse literally covered in gold, who now lives in an actual country club, has anything in common with, or even sympathizes with, the average working American? So what about Losin' Donnie appealed to so many people? 

Could it be...hatred?

Despite the recurring whining about "that's not who we are", for a large segment of our population, hated-filled is exactly who we are. We have a long history of hatred for, persecution of, and discriminating against, the "other" among us. I don't need to outline every example for you to know it's true. Trump's campaign started and finished with stoking fear and hatred of those who were deemed "not real Americans" and even more so for those who wanted to come here but were viewed as unsuitably different than us. Did he originate this mindset? Of course not, but his one skill has always been self-promotion and salesmanship despite general incompetence. He very quickly identified that hate, not hope, would bring him the greatest support. There's an audio clip of Donnie shouting out that he loves the poorly educated. And he surely does, because he knows that most Americans are not educated on the nuances and details of domestic or foreign policy and make decisions based on emotion. And he tapped into that basic of the emotions - fear - to stoke hatred and foster a perverted us versus them scenario. 

And what did he do for the average working Joe or Jane? He gave them rallies. He gave them tweets. He insulted his opponents and categorized them as "enemies". His one legislative achievement was to slightly reduce the individual income tax rate after promising to overhaul the tax code to eliminate loopholes. Few if any loopholes were done away with, but corporations, and by extension the wealthy who run them, received a significant reduction in corporate income taxes. His executive orders mainly benefitted large corporations. His presidency was a bloated vanity project and an opportunity make a few extra (million) bucks. 

Not that politics has ever been a Sunday School picnic, but in a few short years hatred has become the winning strategy, at least in Republican circles. The aforementioned poorly educated have bought into his pseudo-agenda - Trumpism and its attendant fixations are de rigueur for any Republican running for public office, from US Senate all the way to local school boards and small town mayoral races. And there's the distinct possibility that he will run again...and win. 

The bastard hasn't gone away.

The Bastard is Still Out There - Part I

Losin' Donnie lost. I was looking forward to never hearing from him again, but he and his sycophants are still dangling the possibility that he will run again, that he didn't "really" lose the election and Republican politicians and would-be office holders are tripping over themselves to prove who is the Trumpiest. The truth is, that he's still around and he and his brand of hate-based politics is here to stay.

Anyone who followed the tabloids in New York, or followed Losin' Donnie's career looked at Trump as a clown. He inherited a pile of money upon the death of his father (who padded his real estate empire's bottom line with fraud) and immediately set about to crowd out his siblings. It's been said that if Donnie had simply placed all of his inheritance into mutual funds he would be far richer today than he actually is. Despite being handed the world on a golden platter, Trump wasn't satisfied with being an under-the-radar lord of apartment complexes in Queens, no, he wanted to swim in the exclusive waters of Manhattan's moneyed elite. Not satisfied to be anonymously well-off, not only did he want to operate in the high rent environs of Manhattan, but he wanted to be recognized and lauded for his real estate ability. The problem was that he was utterly incompetent at it. He had inherited his father's facility at fraud, but none of his ability to create wealth. What he was good at, was self promotion. 

Any objective analysis of Losin' Donnie's career would reveal failure after failure in real estate and most notably, casinos. Despite his demonstrated ability to lose money and run his businesses into the ground, he managed to time after time convince banks to keep loaning him money and for investors to continue to sink funds into his ill-fated projects. The seemingly endless stream of cash continues to prop him up to this day. While one might think that a serial screw-up would eventually fade from view and be unable to fund his lavish lifestyle, Trump seems to have defied common sense (and the rules of accounting). After the first few failures, Trump learned how to structure (or hire lawyers who knew how) business arrangements so that if things went well, he benefitted, but if they didn't, he was shielded by the use of limited liability companies (LLCs). 

An LLC on one hand will shield its owners from liability while the profits will flow through to those same owners. What if, as in the case of Trump's casinos, the LLC loses money? The owners get to claim it as a loss on their personal income taxes, but aren't actually presented with a bill for that loss. In addition, Trump usually paid himself a developer fee, consulting or management fee that was not tied to the profit or loss of the property. So if the venture tanked, he still received his hefty fee, and got to reduce his taxable income by his share of the loss. If the upfront money was provided by investors, he wasn't personally out any cash. If the project was funded by a bank loan, he habitually defaulted.

So why is he perceived as a successful businessman? "The Apprentice". 

The real world Trump was a serial failure who defaulted on loans, mismanaged businesses, didn't pay contractors and was a bumbling idiot when it came to the myriad details of running a successful business. But the fictional Trump presented on "The Apprentice" painted him as a business genius, and this is the image that people who didn't know any better had of Losin' Donnie. Based on tax returns obtained by The New York Times, Trump's primary income in the nineties was from his work on "The Apprentice", and not from any of his real estate ventures. His actual businesses were losing money, enabling him to pay little or no federal taxes for a decade. Of course his television appearances, paired with frequent coverage in the New York tabloids gave him celebrity name recognition that would serve him well when he rode down that escalator in 2015. 

Trump's fictional business acumen was one of the selling points of his candidacy in 2016. Of course, even being a successful businessman doesn't necessarily translate into being an effective president, governor or legislator. In business, the bottom line is paramount - not so in the world of governance. (But that's another article) Nonetheless, the myth persists being CEO of a large corporation constitutes relevant experience for the office of President of the United States. A lot of Americans bought into that myth, as well as the lie that Losin' Donnie was actually successful. 

Gridlock

Why isn't anything getting done? We got rid of Trump, we elected a Democrat, the House of Representatives has a majority of Democrats, with Vice President Harris' tie-breaking vote, the Democrats have a Senate majority...so why can't Biden's agenda get implemented?

There's several reasons. The main reason is that the majorities in both houses of Congress are razor-thin. And the coalition of special interests that make up the Democratic Party are not in lock-step agreement on how to proceed on many, if not most things. There's a lot of criticism thrown at Senators Manchin and Sinema for obstructing the President's plans, and there's plenty of stones thrown at Senator McConnell as leader of the Senate Republicans for opposing virtually everything the Democrats do. There's the argument that 81 million people voted for Joe Biden because they wanted to see his policies enacted, 7 million more than voted for Trump. That's a pretty weak argument in my view. How many of those 81 million were conservatives at heart, but couldn't stomach another four years of Donald Trump? How many were Democrats who supported other candidates in the primaries? The fact that Democrats in the House of Representatives saw a net loss of seats, with many districts seeing more votes for Biden yet still electing a Republican representative, should give one pause. My neighbors to the north in the Omaha-based District 2 gave Biden their electoral vote while returning Republican Don Bacon to Congress. 

The truth is that on many issues Americans are split pretty evenly. While the filibuster is not something that is provided for in the Constitution, and it has been, and continues to be, used for nefarious purposes, do we really want a narrow majority making sweeping changes that are anathema to the narrow minority? Those of us of a more progressive mindset are frustrated at the inability to implement progressive legislation in the current Congress. But it would not take much for the tables to be turned. Currently there are 220 Democrats and 212 Republicans (plus 3 vacancies - the vacant seats were held by 2Ds and 1 R) in the House of Representatives. If just five districts flip, then the Republicans regain control of the House. Just a net change of one in the Senate and McConnell is once again in charge. Of course with a Democrat in the White House there's not much damage a Republican Congress can do, but based on McConnell's track record, you can forget about any federal judges being confirmed for the rest of Biden's term of office. But my point is that if the Republicans regain control of Congress, and even if they elect a Republican president in 2024, it will still be pretty evenly split - just with the other guys in charge. 

Will we still be so against the filibuster when it's our only chance of preventing right-wing legislation from being enacted? 

A counter argument is that the Republicans have no problem with playing dirty - with changing the rules when it suits them. We have seen that time and again, especially in the McConnell regime. The changing rationale for denying a president a Supreme Court nomination is a case in point. McConnell and his caucus have shown no shame in changing the rules of the game for their own benefit. Why shouldn't the Democrats take the action that the Republicans would surely take in the same situation and eliminate the filibuster in order to advance the progressive agenda. After all, they eliminated it when it looked like the filibuster would stand in the way of confirming Trump's Supreme Court nominees. The problem with that scenario is that the Democrats aren't united. Like it or not there are two Democratic Senators who lean conservative, one of whom would likely lose his seat if he voted for much of the progressive wish list. So, even if the filibuster could be killed, there's a high likelihood that 50 votes (plus Harris' tie-breaker) wouldn't be forthcoming in most cases, so it would be a meaningless gesture that would do nothing but open things up for future Republican abuse. 

Look for an immediate (and even long-term) future of continued gridlock.