THE PUSH FOR INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING

 If you had told me two years ago that Joe Biden would be president, and that he would follow up the most progressive spending plan since the New Deal with another ambitious plan to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure, I never would have believed you.  But here we are. 

Yes, hot on the heel of the stimulus, Biden has now released another big spending plan that proposes to spend around two trillion dollars, paid for by an increase by fifteen years of an increased corporate tax rate.  

The plan basically breaks down into three broad areas of spending: the first is in basic infrastructure, that is, one hundred and fifteen billion dollars for roads and bridges, fifty billion for  disaster resilience, twenty billion to improve road safety, and so on.  Honestly, it's hard to argue against this kind of spending.  Clearly the public needs decent roads and bridges, and the American Society of Civil Engineers consistently gives the public low marks on that score.  Even conservatives know this, remember Trump's pathetic attempts to have an "infrastructure week"?  Another piece of this is an investment in domestic manufacturing and other jobs programs, which, again, should be something that the "America first" crowd should support. 

It's the other two branches of the spending proposal that will cause anger from the right: the first is basically the green new deal, that is, an attempt to shift the country away from gas, oil and coal reliance.   So there's one hundred and seventy four billion dollars for electric vehicle incentives, eighty five billion for public transit, and another hundred billion dollars for electric grids and clean energy.  Some people on the left have already complained that isn't enough, but certainly it's a good start, and it shows a clear design of intent, a blueprint to move into renewable energy sources to do something about climate change. And the spending plan also includes forty billion dollars for new dislocated worker program, to help out people who work in the oil and coal industries.  Obviously the Republican party, with their donations from oil and coal companies, would prefer that America continue to do ignore climate change, but with more and more Americans seeing the urgency of the problem (and the evidence of climate change getting worse with each passing year of record setting natural disasters), this seems like common sense spending.

Finally, there is what appears to be an attempt to undo the terrible legacy of red lining, that practice dating back to the nineteen thirties in which city planners would make sure that poor neighborhoods of color were given the bare minimum of government spending on infrastructure.    So there's over two hundred billion for  affordable housing, one hundred billion for public schools, forty billion for lead pipe removal, and twenty billion dollars to help out underserved communities.  And there's a very interesting part that calls for four hundred billion dollars  to expand access to caregiving for those who are older and those with disabilities, and to improve pay and benefits for caregivers; most of those caregivers are poorly paid women of color.  It's safe to imagine that the Republican party will oppose much of this spending, and get ready to hear cries of "reparations!" on the floors of congress when the proposal is debated.  Which is a shame because these kinds of improvements in poorer neighborhoods will eventually benefit all of America when healthier, better educated children grow up to join the economy.

While the proposal is obviously not a done deal yet, and the inevitable unified Republican opposition will mean that all the Democrats in the Senate will have to support it, it certainly a bold first step in both moving the country into a greener future while also improving the lives of millions of poor and middle class people.  The amazing thing about this proposal is that it is truly progressive in that it literally taxes the rich to help the poor, finally reversing the era of tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts on social programs that Ronald Reagan ushered in back in the eighties.  It's taken a long time, but a plan like this can reverse the widening gulf between the rich and the poor in this country.

THE POWER OF WORDS

On April nineteenth, ninety ninety five, a young white man named Timothy McVeigh exploded a truck outside of a government building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  The explosion killed one hundred and sixty eight people, making it the worst terrorist attack in American history prior to 9/11.  McVeigh, (who was later given the death penalty) was a former army veteran of the first Iraq war who had been radicalized by the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries, claimed that his motivation for the attack was to strike back at the overbearing federal government.  He was especially disgusted by the raid that had been carried out by the FBI against a cult in Waco, Texas two years earlier. 

In the aftermath of the attack, then President Bill Clinton began to hint in some speeches that part of McVeigh's hatred of the federal government could had been fed by the right wing media's continual demonization of "big government."  When right wing media figures began to fire back, he quickly moved on to other things.  But was he wrong?  When you have a media system that pumps out hatred everyday, is it wrong for them to at least be held partly responsible when that hatred leads to violence?  While I'm certainly not calling for any kind of censorship, and McVeigh's anger seems to be as much  linked to his bitterness at being single and in debt than any messages from the right wing media, it's not wrong to say that words can matter, and inspire people to commit terrible acts.

Which brings us to the horrific recent shooting of eight innocent people in Atlanta three days ago.  The confessed killer, Robert Aaron Long is, like McVeigh, a deeply confused young man who killed innocent people out of some alleged transgression.   The victims were all people who worked at massage parlors, and Long claimed that he killed them as a way to remove the temptation he had to visit such places because of his sex addiction.  Six of the eight victims were Asian women, although Long claimed that there was no racial motivation to the killings.

Whatever his crazed justification for these killings, this tragedy draws a sharp focus to the terrible rise in anti Asian violence that has been occuring in this country in the past year.  And, like the right wing media's anti government rhetoric that may have fueled McVeigh's hatred, we once again have a right wing media demonizing a certain group of people.  But this time it's even worse,  this time the hateful speech used to come from the President himself.

Ever since the coronavirus first hit our country, Donald Trump has been calling it "the China virus" and the "Kung Flu."  From his point of view, there were two benefits to this: firstly, by constantly reminding people that the virus began in China, he could deflect criticism of his administration's disastrous response to it, shifting the blame to another country.  The second benefit was that this kind of thinly disguised race baiting was extremely popular with his base.  For a chilling example of this, watch any speech he gave in which he used the term "Kung Flu" and just listen to the crowd roar with laughter and excitement at the words.  To be fair, he did tweet out last March twenty third that  "It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world."  But that didn't change his tone in his speeches, and he  used the term "China virus" in an interview on Fox News just four days ago.  

And his terrible words have led to terrible actions by some people:  The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that anti-Asian American hate crimes reported to police rose 149% between 2019 and 2020.  Overall, over three thousand and eight hundred hateful incidents (some of which were not  crimes) have been reported recently, and the center says that many more go unreported.  They range from screaming epithets to the pushing and shoving of innocent older people.  While nobody in the world has enjoyed all the lockdowns and difficulty that the pandemic has brought, blaming and lashing out at innocent people because of their race is morally despicable and inexcusable in any decent society, displaying the worst aspects of human nature. 

So what do we do?  Sadly, this is no easy answer other than to speak out against such hatred and compel out elected officials and media outlets to do the same.  The fact that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (who is herself half South East Asian) have given speeches condemning both this shooting and the rise in anti Asian hatred in general is a good start.  Let's hope that as the pandemic begins to draw to an close, the hatred that it inspired will also diminish.

THE STIMULUS

Well, it took a global pandemic, but it happened.  Yesterday the US Senate passed President Joe Biden's stimulus plan. It should be ready for him to sign in a few days. While it doesn't have everything he wanted (most notably an increase in the minimum wage), it's still an openly progressive plan.

At a cost of of just under two trillion dollars, it includes an increase in the child tax credit, an extension in unemployment insurance, and lots of money to help schools and hard hit businesses reopen in the coming  months.  It spends about a trillion dollars more than the stimulus plan that Barack Obama passed back in two thousand and eight, and it may be the most broadly progressive aid given to the poor and the middle class that this country has seen since the days of the New Deal in the nineteen thirties.  Oh sure, Lyndon Johnson passing Medicaid in the sixties and Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act in two thousand and nine were also about aiding the poor and the middle class, but they focused on health care.  This bill broadly provides aid to the millions of Americans who have lost ground not only under the pandemic, but that have had trouble keeping up with the economy for decades now.  (Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy says that it may reduce child poverty in this country by half. ) Whether these gains will be long term remain to be seen, but it's certainly an admirable goal to try and balance the huge gulf that has grown in this country between the well off and the rest of us.  Especially because, even as the pandemic has raged in this country, the super rich have actually increased their wealth in the past year due to an inflated stock market.

Unfortunately, the bill's passage  also shows the deep divide our nation is stuck in politically: not one Republican in congress supported this bill, and their half hearted attempts at negotiation attempted to reduce the spending in the bill to such a low amount that it would have lost Democratic support.  In some ways it compares to the tax cuts that Donald Trump and the Republicans pushed through congress back in twenty seventeen.  It too had a cost of just under two trillion dollars, and it passed without a single vote from the other party.  But there is a huge fundamental difference in which Americans benefit the most: the Trump tax cut's main feature was a reduction in the corporate tax rate, which mostly benefited the wealthy CEOs and stockholders at those corporations.  While the Biden plan, as I've already stated, puts money in the hands of the poor and the middle class.

As a progressive, it should come as no surprise as to which kind of economic plan I prefer, but it's not just because of my bleeding heart.  There's a fundamental reason why spending on poor stokes the economy better than tax cuts for the rich: poor people are more likely to spend that money faster.  You see, whenever conservatives defend tax cuts for the rich, they say that the beneficiaries of those cuts are the captains of industry, the people most likely to invest in new businesses or expand existing ones which leads to an improved economy that benefits everyone.  The problem with this argument is that when you are talking about the wealthiest of Americans, you are talking about people who already have plenty of money to invest and expand.  It's kind of ridiculous to consider that people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are waiting for their tax cut to kick in  before they start spending!  The poor and the middle class are far more likely to spend that extra money on themselves and their families right away.  Honestly, I think the real reason that Republicans pass tax cuts for the rich has more to do with the huge campaign donations that those rich people make then any notion of economic growth.

It may be that the pandemic, as terrible as it is, may bring about an economic shift in our nation's priorities: if the Biden relief bill brings strong economic growth (as most economists think it will), the public may start believing in the wisdom of government spending as a positive thing, which could lead to things like universal health care and day care.  (And Elizabeth Edwards's wealth tax plan to help pay for them). Perhaps I'm just dreaming, but the Trump tax cut was not popular with the American public and the Biden bill is, so the country's getting there, even if the politicians are taking their time.   A terrible crisis can really change a country, and the end result of the coronavirus could be a push in the right direction.

OUR DYSFUNCTIONAL SENATE

 The minimum wage was last increased federally in two thousand and nine, from five dollars and fifty five cents to seven dollars and twenty five cents.  For years now there has been a movement to raise that amount to fifteen dollars.  While some conservatives have claimed that this could be job killer, job growth was healthy in the years following the last increase.  More importantly, a decent minimum wage would mean that no American citizen who works full time would have to live in poverty, which seems like common sense to me.  And, according to a Pew research poll, a whopping sixty seven percent of the American public  (including a majority of Republicans) agree with me.

Despite that, yesterday the minimum wage increase (and the will of the people) took a big blow in the Senate.  Why?  Because the arcane rules there state that a filibuster (and the sixty votes it requires to break it) can be avoided and a straight majority can pass a bill through something called  reconciliation.  But that bill can only be passed if all the elements of it will have an impact on federal spending or revenue in some way.  (This was how the Republicans were able to pass an unpopular tax break without any Democratic support in  twenty seventeen).   To make things even more complicated, a ruling has to be made about whether a certain part of the bill qualifies as part of reconciliation.  The person making that ruling is called the Senate parliamentarian,  who is appointed by the Senate Majority Leader.  Our current parliamentarian is Elizabeth MacDonough, who has served since two thousand and twelve.  Yesterday she ruled that the minimum wage increase included in the stimulus bill that President Joe Biden has guided through congress does not qualify for reconciliation, essentially killing it.

In other words, we have a branch of our government in which an unelected person can kill an important part of legislation without any system in place to overrule or change that decision.  Furthermore, the only reason that that person has so much power in the first place is to avoid the use of the filibuster by any member of the Senate that opposes that legislation.  So, in an alleged democracy, we have a law that is supported by the American public, a majority of both houses of congress and the White House, thwarted through the  ridiculous system of our  Senate that gives far too much power to individual members (and one appointed parliamentarian).  An increase in the minimum wage is not only popular, it would improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans.  And yet it has been sunk by the ridiculous rules of the Senate. Is there any wonder that so many Americans are cynical about congress when so little can get done?

The obvious answer here is to finally put a stake in the filibuster (which, as I always mention when writing about it, is not in the Constitution).  Unfortunately that does not appear likely in that a majority of the Senate has to vote to remove it, and the Democrats have the barest of majorities, without any room for dissension.  And Senator Joe Manchin  of  West Virginia, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, has stated that he will not vote to end it.  So it appears that for now the change killing filibuster will remain.  

Although Biden will still be able be able to get most of what he wants in the stimulus bill before he signs it, the excision of one of the most popular parts of the bill just shows how intractable our congressional system has become.  And with the filibuster still around, it will be hard for him to get much done in the upcoming years, (although reconciliation can be used three times a year).  Yes until the filibuster is removed, gridlock remains the main word describing our political system. And things like the minimum wage increase, along with other logical changes like statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington DC, will have to wait.  It's a shame.

LIMBAUGH RIP?

 Today, at the age of seventy, radio personality Rush Limbaugh died of lung cancer.  In many ways, his passing just after Donald Trump exited the White House has a certain perfect symmetry to it; Limbaugh's rambling, hate mongering broadcasts over the years primed a right wing audience for Trump's similarly rambling, hate mongering speeches. And even before Trump, Limbaugh paved the way for the entire right wing media, showing that there was audience for a combination of bigotry, bullying and conspiracy theories.  From Fox News to Qanon,   Limbaugh influenced them all.

While I have always found Limbaugh's politics abhorrent, as an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, it would be hypocritical for me to say that I take any pleasure in his passing.  But I feel no sadness, not just because I think that he was a misogynistic bigot, but also because of the terrible behavior he has promoted over the years.  I'm talking about his advocating for cigar smoking.

Limbaugh has continually promoted cigar  smoking on his show; often he would praise the joys of a "good" cigar, and in most of his promotional photos he would be holding one.  One time on his show he even flat out lied and said that the dangers of tobacco were being overhyped and it wasn't dangerous at all.  This may have had more to do with the fact that tobacco companies tended to make more contributions to the Republicans than to the Democrats than his own personal enjoyment.  

Either way, this was a man who broadcasted for decades to  millions of people.  How many of those people started smoking or decided not to quit because they listened to him?  How many children heard him talking about the joys of cigar smoking and decided to try it?  When you are a media figure that influences millions of people (many of whom proudly proclaimed themselves "ditto heads") isn't it wildly irresponsible to promote something as unhealthy as smoking?  The Center for Disease Control estimates that almost five hundred thousand people die every year from smoking in this country.  How many of those people were fans of Limbaugh?

When you combine his promotion of cigar smoking with his similarly deplorable comments about the coronavirus (which he said was no worse than the common cold, even as it was ravaging the country) it's clear that this man openly endorsed dangerous behaviors.  Politics aside, he had blood on his hands.

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPEACHMENT

 

Today, Donald Trump, a man who has been accused of sexual assault or rape by twenty six different women, and who has spent his life bouncing from one failed business or bankruptcy to another, while somehow retaining an image as a smart businessman, avoided punishment once again. Yes, the most corrupt, lazy and incompetent president ever still has enough power in his party, even when he's no longer in office, to scare Republican Senators out of doing the right thing and impeaching him.

Sadly, Trump's acquittal was a foregone conclusion, with most Republican Senators  dismissing the charges against him even before the proceedings began.  Some of them even made a point of ignoring the trial while it was taking place.  This is all upsetting, as the Democrats case against Trump had been made so strongly, with numerous video clips and maps showing how much worse the capitol riot could have been, and how complicit Trump was in inspiring the rioters.  

On the plus side, the final vote was fifty seven in favor, forty three against (with sixty seven votes needed to impeach), showing that at least some Republicans were willing to stand up to their former president.  In fact, this impeachment vote was the most bipartisan in American history.  And in an oddly surreal moment, Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell voted against impeachment, and then gave an address in which he made a blistering attack against Trump, saying that “There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”  He also added   “He did not do his job. He did not take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored. No, instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily, happily, as the chaos unfolded.”  Despite his harsh words, McConnell really showed the cowardice that the entire Republican party has shown ever since Trump first started his campaign in twenty fifteen.  With every racist comment, every offensive tweet, every violation of any rule of common decency, McConnell and the rest of his party have ignored, shrugged off or explained away everything Trump has done, when they aren't praising him. While I agree with McConnell's words in his address, his vote was still deplorable.  He could have held Trump responsible, and he chose not to.

So was the impeachment trial a big waste of time?  Not at all.  Even if Trump emerged seemingly unscathed, it's hard for most Americans who aren't under his spell to not see how terrible his behavior has been.  Even as he brags about how he won again, his standing in both his party and the country in general should take a hit.

More importantly, this trial was being made to mark a historical record of an unprecedented time in our country.  Although the entire Trump ordeal has been horrible, it has been his behavior in the past few months, after the election was truly over, that has been so despicable.  Never before has any president ever contested an election that he lost.  Never before has any president said so often and so forcefully that the election was somehow unfair.  Trump's short attention span saw him flit from one outrageous lie to another, from the voting machines being rigged to massive illegal voting.  And when his ball of lies inspired a violent riot, a riot that resulted in the death of five people and the injuring of dozens of others, it was imperative of congress to make a case against him, even when he was out of office, to clearly show that America can not allow any person, even the president, from trying to dismantle democracy for their own gain.

It is important to remember that everything said in the impeachment trial will be entered into a permanent historical record.  Trump's speeches, the actions of the mob, Trump's failure to respond, everything.  Hopefully, the trial will be studied as a cautionary tale of what can happen to a democracy when an autocratic leader who refuses to play by the rules is in charge.  America must never have another Trump like president, and this impeachment trial may play a role in preventing that.  And that's no waste of time.

LEARNING FROM TRUMP?

 

Although he lost the twenty twenty election, Donald Trump did get more votes than his first run in twenty sixteen, and he did not do as poorly as most polls predicted.  Amazingly, he actually increased his numbers in non white voters.  There are a number of theories about why that happened, but the one I find most interesting is the simplest: when the first round of stimulus checks were sent out in the beginning of the pandemic, Trump's name was on the bottom of each check in big bold letters.  For voters who don't follow the news much, seeing that name with that check gave them a positive feeling towards Trump, who was, predictably, taking sole credit for something that was accomplished by a bipartisan group of congress people passing a bill before he signed it.  That positive feeling may have been what led to more votes for Trump in twenty twenty.

This kind of grandstanding was nothing new for our former president (who would've taken credit for the sun coming up each  morning if he could).  But the ability (and willingness) to blow one's own horn is a skill a lot of Democrats could do well to learn from him.

Back in two thousand and nine, shortly after Barack Obama took office, he passed a stimulus bill to help pull the country out of a recession he had inherited.  One of the provisions of the bill was that ordinary workers were refunded a small amount of money in their paychecks.  The theory from the administration was that it was better to give workers a small amount per paycheck rather than a lump sum.  The problem from a political standpoint  was that most workers didn't notice the increase, and the Obama administration got no credit for it.  Even worse, when the stimulus spending brought factory and business openings, there was little to no acknowledgement of how the stimulus money made that possible.  No signs pronouncing that this was what the stimulus was all about, or even a picture of the president to hold up at the ribbon cutting ceremonies.  When  Solyndra, a solar panel company, got stimulus money and then went bankrupt, the Republicans were quick to point out the wasted money.  But why didn't the Democrats respond by showing just how much good the stimulus did?  While many economists now think that the Obama stimulus bill should have been bigger, it did succeed in helping to lift the economy out of the recession it was in.  But Obama and the Democrats got little credit for it, and their perceived failure to fix the economy was part of why the Republican party did so well in the twenty ten midterms.  When the stimulus plan passed congress, there were only a handful of Republican house members that voted for it, and zero members in the Senate.  So the Republican party did nothing to help the economy, and then benefited from the perception that the Democrats didn't do enough!

Here are some other relevant facts: most Americans are pro choice, support gay marriage, believe that climate change is real and something needs to be done about it, think that the rich don't pay their fair share  in taxes and that marijuana should be legal.  Add to that a recent New York Times article that pointed out that  since the year nineteen thirty three, economic growth under Democratic presidents has always, on average, exceeded that of economic growth under Republican ones.  So on the issues, most Americans side with the Democrats, and Democratic presidents have stronger economic growth.

Given all of that, why is it that Republicans ever win elections?  Partly because they know how to work the system, how to use gerrymandering, voter suppression and the electoral college to gain an unfair advantage.  Also, there's a right wing media that mostly ignores big issues to focus on smaller, cultural ones to anger their audience (like the so called "war on Christmas").  But I think another reason is that Republicans are just more openly boastful about successes (or perceived ones), than the Democrats are.  Although I don't want the Democrats to swagger like Donald Trump and George W Bush, a little more bragging about what they've done right wouldn't hurt.

Which brings us to Joe Biden's stimulus plan; unlike Obama, Biden is not spending as much time negotiating with the Republicans, seeing as how he remembers how Obama's attempt at bipartisanship resulted in a weak bill that the Republicans still didn't like.  The important thing is that when that Biden bill is passed and helps the economy get back on track (which most economists think it will), he and his party should not be afraid to take credit where credit is due in the twenty twenty-two midterms.  The public should be reminded that is was Republicans in the White House and congress who botched the pandemic response and the economic fall out it caused and that it was Democrats who helped turn the country around.  And yes, go ahead and put Biden's name at the bottom of the stimulus checks.  He's earned it.