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Hold on to your hats — here’s where I compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Perhaps I should explain. When it comes to politics and presidents, everyone’s always looking for precedents. For parallels. Which is why you’ve been hearing so many references lately to 1994. “This is just like 1994!” the pundits cry. “A first-term Democratic president’s first midterm election, and the voters are really angry, and they take it out on the president’s party, and the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives for the first time in generations!” Not a bad comparison. Decision 2010 may turn out to look a lot like Decision 1994. Then there’s the 1980 comparison; I’ve been leaning toward the 1980 comparison lately. Another first-term Democrat in the White House, running for re-election this time, with a terrible economy at home and endless frustration abroad (the Iranian hostage crisis, for instance). But the parallel for me isn’t the Democratic president going down to defeat in November, but all the Senate Democrats who went down with him. See, anytime you have a slew of competitive seats, there’s a tendency to say, “Well, OK, it’s a bad year for our side, so maybe we won’t do as well as the other guys. A dozen seats up for grabs? Maybe we’ll only hang on to five.” But it doesn’t always work that way — and it certainly didn’t work that way in 1980. The results weren’t “a few more here, a few less here.” The results were a virtual sweep. Practically every competitive Senate race in 1980 fell the same way — to the Republicans. They took control. Many of the contests were close, but in almost all of them, the result was the same. A Democratic loss, a Republican pickup. Which to say: When it goes bad, it can go really bad. So 1980 isn’t a terrible comparison either. It’s hardly beyond imagining, even with the likes of a Sharron Angle or a Rand Paul or a Christine O’Donnell on the ballot, that the GOP runs the table — that it picks up the 10 seats it needs to grab the Senate. Unless, that is, the best comparison of all is to 1972 — but not the way you think. This is the part where Barack Obama gets to play Richard Nixon. In 1972, it was a Republican president — Nixon — running for re-election against George McGovern. George McGovern was that year’s darling of the left flank of the Democratic party — against the war in Vietnam, against a bigger military budget, in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That sort of thing. Equally important, the McGovern campaign was… untidy. Undisciplined. Liberated women. Hairy kids. Multiple skin tones. A nominating convention so blissfully self-indulgent that by the time the candidate got his moment in the sun, it was the middle of the night. And — here’s the point, here’s the possible parallel: It took the Nixon campaign roughly three milliseconds to make its move on the rest of the Democrats. “Your party has been captured by the McGovernite wing,” the Republicans declared. “You’re every bit as appalled as we are.” “It’s not your party anymore,” Nixon and his pals told those disaffected Dems. “Come find a new home with us .” And millions did just that — they crossed party lines for the first time in their lives. They voted for Nixon and the Republicans. Many of them never came back. “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party,” they told themselves. “The Democratic Party left me. ” You think there aren’t millions of sensible, middle-of-the-road Republicans today who are looking at the sudden rise of the Tea Party — hearing the ravings of the Angles and Pauls and O’Donnells, the Palins and the Becks — and thinking exactly the same thing? “This isn’t my party anymore.” So the question is: How many milliseconds should it take for Obama and friends to put out the welcome mat? Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist. You can write to him at rickhoro@execpc.com.

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Rick Horowitz: No, Really — Dems Should Party Like It’s 1972

The indiscreet voicemail, left by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) for a lobbyist, sounded a bit like a “shakedown”, which is no big surprise. I know from first-hand experience that Ms. Norton can use veiled threats and thuggish behavior when she wants to have her way. During my time as the Administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), I was the recipient of late night phone calls at my home, during which Holmes wanted to “discuss” why GSA wasn’t doing more to house government agencies in certain parts of the District of Columbia, in particular, in areas where gentrification was occurring slowly. Norton’s voracious appetite for “more” often led her to raise her voice and make veiled threats.  Once, she even trumped up a meeting where she advocated for more business on behalf of a real estate organization that I later learned had donated to her campaign.  When I protested these tactics and refused to attend further such meetings, the political pressure was cranked up and political unpleasantness became the norm.  Norton always claimed she was just doing her job. Many Americans may be shocked to hear Holmes’ indiscreet voicemail, but, from my experiences in Washington, it seems that Holmes may have learned these tactics from the top leadership of her party.  Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Majority Whip, has been especially thuggish in the past, screaming and issuing threats at the homes of federal agency leaders, should one of his pork projects be questioned. The “gimme”, as practiced by some Democrat legislators, can range from subtle and respectful, as is probably appropriate for any request, to disrespectful and threatening.  It seems as if there are some legislators who want to make sure there is no doubt in your mind that if you don’t cough up the goods during the shakedown, then negative consequences will occur. Election years put enormous pressure on elected officials to generate funding and successes.  Many have to contribute to coffers of the party to support their Chairmanships.  Others need the funding and the projects to prove their effectiveness to their constituents. For example, one Massachusetts congressman wanted to increase the number of courtrooms in a federal courthouse being built in his district.  The additional courtroom would extend the project and increase the size of the appropriations required to complete the project.   He was very displeased to find that, since the project was mid-cycle, the costs to increase the courthouse size by a third would be prohibitive and would set the project back by years.  He disregarded the Judiciary’s claim that there weren’t enough federal judges or cases to warrant the increase. The congressman didn’t seem to care about the efficacy of the project, the desperate need from the Judiciary to get a working structure in place or that the Appropriations committee had been quite specific as to how much funding it had to allocate.  It was an election year, and it seemed that the congressman wanted to show his constituents that he had the ability to “bring home the bacon.” Once again, when told “no”, fireworks erupted and accusations abounded. While requesting campaign contributions and requesting building projects in one’s district or state may seem to be different kinds of monetary exchanges, the effect, in essence, of either is that the elected official is able to use the power of his/her position to force contributions.  The campaign funding or the public announcement of the project is a way to enhance his/her candidacy—both are used to advertise the effectiveness of the elected official. Under the current Majority, Americans have seen Speaker Pelosi and the Senate Majority Leader Reid arm-twisting and promising benefits, special projects or money to legislators, in what almost amounts to bribery, in order to sway their votes so that a poorly structured healthcare bill or a bloated, ineffective stimulus could be passed into law.  Pelosi and Reid would probablyclaim they are just doing their job. Is it any wonder that some Democrat legislators, perhaps less sensitive to the nuances of the political give-and-take, follow the lead of the Majority leaders in the House and the Senate and go one step further? Eleanor Holmes Norton’s voicemail would seem to indicate that the answer to that question is–no.

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The Legislative Shakedown

It was a dry bureaucratic announcement appearing in the official Granma web site ( Translation ). It signaled the end of Cuba’s Communist economy. Fidel Castro Here are some excerpts (sometimes paraphrased): “After 52 years, the Cuban Revolution is a living and unshakable direction for the nation, and our people’s will and determination to continue the construction of socialism, and make further progress in the development and updating of the economic model we must follow, and consolidate the gains achieved. … Cuba faces the urgent need to move forward economically, better organize production, enhance productivity and raise reserves, improve discipline and efficiency and this is only possible through the dignified and devoted to our people. Today, the duty of the Cubans is to work and do it well, with seriousness and responsibility, and to make better use of resources available to better serve our needs. In order to update the economic model and economic projects for the 2011-2015 period, the guidelines call for the reduction of more than 500 000 workers in the public sector and in parallel the increase in non-state sector. The timetable for implementation [of the reduction] for agencies and businesses is the first quarter of 2011. … Our state neither can nor should continue to burden companies and productive organizations with services and inflated budgets that weigh down the economy, are counterproductive, create bad habits and distort the behavior of workers. It is necessary to increase production and quality of services, reduce social spending and eliminate bulky improper gratuities, excessive subsidies. Hundreds of thousands of workers will move to self-employment in the coming years. Within the state sector, it will only be possible to go to places with a historical workforce deficit, such as agriculture, construction, teachers, police, industrial workers and others. A matter of singular importance is the salary. We must reinvigorate the socialist principle of distribution, to pay to each according to the quantity and quality of work provided. The unity of the Cuban workers and our people has been key to maximizing the gigantic edifice built by the Revolution and the changes that we are now undertaking she will continue to be our most important strategic weapon.” In brief, the Cuban government will lay off 500,000 workers by April. These workers will have to move to self-employment or private businesses. However, we will reinvigorate the socialist principle of distribution, so this is GOOD FOR YOU. Why socialism and communism always fail I am not making an ideological argument here. I’m making a mathematical argument, further enhanced by a generational argument. It’s easy to prove mathematically that socialism cannot work as population grows. If you’re a serf lord or a war lord and you control a couple of hundred people, then socialism is easy. You just appoint your son to be chief bureaucrat, and have him monitor all commercial transactions. As the population P grows exponentially (proportional to e**P), the number of transactions between two people grows even faster (proportional to e**2P). So as the population grows, the number of bureaucrats grows even faster. So, I was particularly amused by the following in Cuba’s official announcement: “For the union movement and the workers, paying the utmost attention to downsizing, to the process of labor and employment availability, and to ensuring proper utilization of human resources — this is an unavoidable task. It is known that there are an excess of over one million seats in the budget and business sectors.” An excess of over one million seats in the financial bureaucracy!!! That’s amazing, and it shows what happens — what MUST happen — in socialist economies. That’s the mathematics of socialism. I happened to attend the huge CeBIT computer conference in Hannover, Germany, in spring, 1990, just after the Berlin Wall fell. With the border open, for the first time large numbers of East Germans were permitted to visit the show, and the culture shock was enormous for both sides. I spoke to Andreas Heuer, a young man working for Finanzgruppe, and he spoke earnestly of his pain when talking to these visitors from the east. “They visit here and within an hour they have a blackout — it’s too much for them. Their savings banks have no electronic devices to do the work. They do all their work with only mechanical devices.” Pictures of 1950s vintage adding machines sprang to my mind. This is the remarkable thing about all the Communist countries — East Germany, Russia, China, North Korea and Cuba — they were all stuck in the 1950s. There’s a good reason for that. A socialist government cannot allow the introduction of new products, because the bureaucracy can’t handle the huge volume of transactions that would be generated. Mao Zedong must have understood this problem, when he decided to implement “true Communism” with his Great Leap Forward that began in 1958. 500,000,000 million peasants were taken out of their individual homes and put into communes, creating a massive human work force. The workers were organized along military lines of companies, battalions, and brigades. Each person’s activities were rigidly supervised. The family unit was dismantled. Communes were completely segregated, with children, wives and husbands all living in separate barracks and working in separate battalions. Communal living was emphasized by eating, sleeping, and working in teams. Husbands and wives were allowed to be alone only at certain times of the month and only for brief periods. All workers took part in ideological training sessions, to provide for ideological training of the Chinese masses. Mao’s stipulated purpose was to mobilize the entire population to transform China into a socialist powerhouse — producing both food and industrial goods — much faster than might otherwise be possible. This would be both a national triumph and an ideological triumph, proving to the world that socialism could triumph over capitalism. The program failed because of the reasons stated above — it takes too many bureaucrats to closely govern a large population. The result was disaster: management and reporting structures collapsed, and there was too little food to feed everyone, resulting in tens of millions of deaths from starvation. That triggered the collapse of China’s Communist experiment, leading to a kind of “free market socialism” that resembles Nazi Germany’s economic experiment, with central control of only selected industries. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we see a historical pattern being repeated over and over in Communist countries. First off, there’s no such thing as a “slippery slope” towards socialism. The slippery slope is always towards capitalism and free markets, because that’s where the mathematics leads. This should be reassuring to people who are afraid that President Obama is trying to lead us to socialism. A country is susceptible to a Communist revolution ONLY during a generational crisis period, and only when there’s a fault line between two birth-defined demographic groups, one of which is a market-dominant minority. The resolution of the bloody civil war is to confiscate the property of the market-dominant minority. There’s more than one way to accomplish this goal, some more or less dictatorial than others, but Communism provides one of the most convenient dictatorial templates. Geopolitical significance In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez is trying to introduce Communism during a generational Unraveling era. I’m willing to bet that his efforts will collapse. You need a bloody civil war to implement Communism, and besides, Chávez must really be feeling apoplectic these days, watching his pal Fidel and Cuba’s Communism go down the tubes. (For information about generational eras, see “Basics of Generational Dynamics.” ) So Communist revolutions always begin during generational crisis eras. When do they end? The evidence from East Germany, Russia, and now Cuba seems to indicate the mid to late generational Unraveling era. This makes sense, because it’s about the time when the nation’s leaders in the Hero generation of the previous crisis civil war retire or die off (as is happening to Fidel), and when the mathematical tensions become unbearable, resulting in a “bloodless coup.” This brings us to the geopolitical implications of Cuba’s announcement, which may be significant. We’ve already described the effect on Venezuela, but other countries will be affected as well. The North Koreans have managed to use iron-like dictatorial control on the population to keep the Communist economy together much longer than they should have, and they’re now well into a new generational crisis era. The tension caused by economic factors, including globally surging food prices, and by the political situation with Kim Jong-il apparently near death, will almost certainly mean a major change. The collapse of Cuba’s Communist system will give an enormous boost to the reformers in North Korea. But since North Korea is in a generational crisis era, reform will almost certainly mean a civil war, a massive starving refugee crisis, and probably war with South Korea. The implications for China are also potentially enormous. The elders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been experiencing enormous panic and paranoia since 1991, when the Soviet Communist economy collapsed. They’ve been fearing for their lives, and rightly so. Now another Communist economy is collapsing in Cuba, and I can only imagine that Beijing is watching this in horror — and well they should. Ironically, the CCP itself has become a birth-defined market-dominant minority in China, and with tens of thousands of “mass incidents” every year, they know that a full-scale rebellion may be close. China is forced to import huge amounts of food to prevent unrest among the peasants, but as food shortages grow and food prices increase, that can only go so far. Let’s not forget the significance for Cuba itself. The collapse of Communism in Russia and East Germany may have been relatively “bloodless,” but both regions were economic basket cases for years. Cuba does not have any infrastructure to absorb 500,000 unemployed people all at once, and there will certainly be massive economic chaos in Cuba in the next years, with implications for the United States.

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End of Cuba’s Communist Economy: Global Implications

A NEW JERSEY appeals court has ruled that trial lawyers may, during the voir dire process in which potential jurors are questioned, use Google to read up on said potential jurors. Many courthouses have Wi-Fi these days—there is quite a lot of sitting around doing nothing in courthouses, and it’s a godsend. So one enterprising lawyer began seeing if he could find out anything interesting about the jurors in his pool, while actually at the counsel’s table. The trial judge was taken aback: THE COURT: Are you Googling these [potential jurors]? [PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL]: Your Honor, there’s no code law that says I’m not allowed to do that. I — any courtroom — THE COURT: Is that what you’re doing? [PLAINTIFFS COUNSEL]: I’m getting information on jurors — we’ve done it all the time, everyone does it. It’s not unusual. It’s not. There’s no rule, no case or any suggestion in any case that says … . THE COURT: No, no, here is the rule. The rule is it’s my courtroom and I control it. The appeals court disagreed. A case can be made both ways. Would you really want the random things you post in haste on Facebook to be used to judge how you would behave in a lengthy, considered legal process? Would you want to be disqualified (lawyers can exclude a small number of jurors without having to state a reason) for your political opinions? Maybe your opinions on due process or civil rights? It seems to me, from talking to lawyers and also from sitting through voir dire myself , that lawyers like mouldable jurors; the fewer opinions they have coming in, the better. Would Radley Balko or Julian Sanchez ever be selected for a criminal trial? The case in favour of allowing googling is a short one. Information wants to be free, and it should require a very good reason to restrict its flow. So perhaps what should be changed is the rule that allows lawyers to reject jurors without stating a reason. Some of those reasons may be unconstitutional—finding someone’s religious affiliation unlikely to help your case, say, even though the legal principle is that only evidence of actual bias (not possible or probable bias) can be considered. If there are good reasons for keeping someone out of a jury, let them be stated plain.

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What can Google tell a trial lawyer about you?

Some Republicans, joined by a chorus of conservatives brandishing their newly acquired “Tea Party” credentials, appear to have a fascination with doomsday scenarios. It’s not enough that many engineer their own hearty implosion. The latest is a bizarre love affair with the government shutdown, something we haven’t seen or heard since 1995, when it left egg on the face of the House GOP leaders who staged it. Prematurely lighting celebration cigars before polling station hours have even been set, a mixed crowd of Grand Old Party old schoolers and Glenn Beck-ite new school tacticians are already staging a revolution should they regain majorities in Congress. One expectation is gridlock on passing a budget, Republicans all but certain they can’t work through an impasse with the President on such issues. From former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to surprise GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller in Alaska, and the disgruntled former Clinton advisor turned Republican strategist Dick Morris, an increasing number of influential Republicans are urging a 1995-redux. Obviously, they forgot what happened in 1996. The shutdown was the GOP albatross that turned into President Bill Clinton’s life preserver in the ’96 Presidential elections. Not only is such talk “premature,” as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) puts it, but it’s a bit baffling, cynical and somewhat dangerous in this very fragile economic climate. Talk of government meltdown does, however, shed light on one big contradiction – the 800-pound gorilla in the room – in much of the rhetoric coming from the hard right these days. Here you have a bunch of anti-government cats who want to run for elected office and, pretty much, draw a government salary for extended periods of time. If you don’t like the government, why are you running for a government gig? What’s up with that? In that hypocrisy, you find a beast of a scam driven by smooth-talking “insurgents” who are using the unemployed, debt-ridden, foreclosing, unhealthy, poorly educated and working class folks who need government services the most to help them pimp a government shutdown. That’s pretty rich stuff. Far from being a partisan here, but hoping to inject some common sense, it’s difficult to strain the insanity from this. Republicans have not even captured a majority in Congress (yet) and many are already engineering a government shutdown. Rather than present creative ways to make government run smarter, these dudes want to blow it up. How smart is that considering the economy is barely running on a string of federal stimulus? What kind of signal will that send to nervous global markets in the middle of a recession? How will it help if you have hundreds of thousands of federal workers without a paycheck unable to spend into a frail economy that largely depends on consumer spending? Why is it that the GOP, in a bid to impress its tea party friends, feels pressed to screen test “Apocalypse Now” in 2010? What is it about doomsday talk that excites conservatives? If this doesn’t scare Democrats or sensible Independents into mobilized panic, who knows what will. Perhaps it’s the right political move for November, getting your fanatic base riled up like armed gorillas with billy clubs, like a scene straight out of “Planet of the Apes.” And maybe it gets you the short term shot you need to snag that majority you’ve been tasting all year. Worry about the consequences later. But, by the time 2012 voters see how much you mucked it up and vote accordingly – switching it right back to where it was and giving the President you despise another term – you’ll be in a rear view mirror with your hands out begging for a political bailout.

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Charles D. Ellison: Why Conservatives Love to Blow Things Up or Shut them Down

WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest banks have an obligation to pay some of the cost for bailing out mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they sold them bad mortgages, a government regulator said Wednesday. Edward DeMarco, the acting director for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said the banks this summer have refused to take back $11 billion in bad loans sold to the two government-controlled companies, in written testimony submitted for a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday. A third of those requests have been outstanding for at least three months. DeMarco said the banks have a legal obligation to buy back the loans and called the delays “a significant concern.” He said the government may take new steps to force those buybacks if “discussions do not yield reasonable outcomes soon.” In an interview with reporters after the hearing, DeMarco declined to give further details on what the government might do next. He said only that “we’re looking for contractual obligations to be fulfilled.” Fannie and Freddie buy mortgages and package them into securities with a guarantee against default. The two mortgage giants nearly collapsed two years ago when the housing market went bust. The government stepped in to rescue them and it has cost taxpayers about $148 billion so far. The rescue is on track to be the most expensive piece of stabilizing the financial system. Fannie and Freddie have a legal right to return bad loans, especially if they later discover fraudulent statements on applications. Any money they recover offsets their losses. The amount in question is a small fraction of the total government rescue, said Ed Mills, financial policy analyst at FBR Capital Markets. Still, lenders say Fannie and Freddie are trying to return too many loans. And in some cases, they are pushing back loans where it’s not clear fraud was committed, the lenders say. Mortgage industry consultant Brian Chappelle said the requests often apply to loans that met the mortgage buyers’ guidelines at the time. “The industry believes that the pendulum has swung far beyond what is reasonable,” he said. As a result, he said, lenders are being extremely cautious about making new loans. Wall Street has worried that the costs of bailing out Fannie and Freddie could get pushed back on big banks. Fitch Ratings said in a report last month that the four largest U.S. banks could book losses of up to $42 billion if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac force them to take back troubled mortgages they made. It also estimated that JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. could record $17 billion in losses if they repurchase a quarter of the mortgage giants’ seriously delinquent loans. The leading Democrat on the panel, a House Financial Services subcommittee, indicated the banks bear some responsibility. “We must begin to think about approaches for recouping taxpayers’ money in the long run,” said Rep. Paul Kanjorski. “We found a way to pay for the savings and loan crisis, and we can survey find a way to recover the costs associated with this crisis.” A bigger headache for lawmakers is figuring out what to do with Fannie and Freddie in the future. The Obama administration is working on a plan to restructure the mortgage market and make sure home loans are affordable. Officials don’t plan to release details until next year. But Michael Barr, an assistant Treasury secretary, told the panel Wednesday that Fannie and Freddie “will not exist in the same form as they did in the past.” Sorting out the future of housing finance has been a divisive issue on Capitol Hill. And it could grow even more contentious if Republicans take control of one or both houses of Congress. Republicans have seized on the administration’s management of Fannie and Freddie to illustrate Democrats’ push for broadening the reach of the federal government. They say loans acquired by Fannie and Freddie since the September 2008 takeover have put taxpayers at risk. “It’s time for the government to get out of that business,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee. But Democrats and regulators say the loans acquired by Fannie and Freddie before their takeover represent the overwhelming majority of the companies’ losses. New loans acquired since then have been performing well, they note. “There is no urgency,” to reform the two companies, said Rep. Barney Frank, the committee’s chairman. “The pattern of abuse they had engaged in has been changed…Fannie and Freddie are behaving differently and are causing far less problems.”

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FHA: Banks Should Share Fannie, Freddie Bailout Costs

Time.com – A new CNN-TIME survey shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trailing Tea Party challenger Sharon Angle in his home state of Nevada, while Republicans look poised to sweep Ohio

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Poll: Angle Edges Ahead of Reid in Nevada
(Time.com)

In early October 2006, as it was becoming more obvious by the day that Republicans were going to lose big in November, I was approached by a nervous young presidential aide at a White House meeting. He reminded me that I had been around in 1974 when the GOP took a post-Watergate pasting that those who lived through will never forget. Wondering what it was like back then, he asked, “Did it feel like this?” “Worse,” I said, “much worse.” Back then, Republicans knew there was no way out, and the apprehension by October was probably greater than among 1994 Democrats, who managed to remain in denial almost until the votes were counted. This time, though, Democrats know what’s coming and, like their Republican counterparts back in 1974, they don’t know what to do about it. As a result, they’re rushing around the deck of the sinking ship blaming each other, the media and, in some case, the “stupidity” of an ungrateful electorate. With limited funds and a need to focus on incumbents they might actually be able to save, today’s fights among the Democrats are over who ought to be allowed into the lifeboats and who ought to stoically accept their fate. Democratic leaders have triaged candidates they believe are drowning anyway in an understandable effort to save those they can. The problem is that the folks they are preparing to cut loose are politicians who all share the feeling deep down that they are but one commercial or rally away from a political comeback and reelection. When they sense that they are being jettisoned, they’ll forget about the tsunami that has put them in jeopardy and the votes they cast that linked them at the hip to their leaders and focus their dismay and hatred on the people denying them a seat in the lifeboats. The result is chaos on Capitol Hill, a breakdown in party discipline, a realization that legislation Democratic leaders wanted to pass in the closing days of the session is in jeopardy and talk of sending everyone home early. The growing feeling that this time it may be “every man and woman for themselves” is growing, and those trying to keep the troops in line are near panic as their army appears ready to desert. Outside the Congress, Democratic loyalists like Paul Begala have been excoriating candidates who have distanced themselves from the president, Nancy Pelosi and the programs they all so fervently embraced in the heady days following the Democratic sweep of 2008. Begala went so far last week as to name some of those he considered “cowards”: Reps. Jason Altmire (Pa.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Walt Minnick (Idaho) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.), among others, seem to have set him off for not being willing to go quietly, but their numbers have increased since as more and more Democratic incumbents try to elbow their way to the lifeboats. Actually, Begala had a point in describing the “strategy” of distancing one’s candidacy from the party, its leaders and the president as “lunacy.” Candidates who run away from their leaders usually lose at both ends. They are seen as “cowards” by their party’s activist base, the opposition party’s voters don’t buy it, and independent or swing voters see them as unprincipled politicians more interested in a job and a paycheck than in serving their constituents. The problem is that try as they might, Democratic candidates this year find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place. What we are seeing is not a strategy, but panic. For months, Democratic leaders have been telling members that voters who appeared ready to desert them would “come to their senses” about the healthcare bill and stimulus package and rally by Labor Day. That clearly hasn’t happened and isn’t about to between now and Election Day. As a result, no Democrat in a seriously contested race is advertising what Congress and the president have managed to “accomplish” over the past two years; they behold a once-popular president whining about being “treated like a dog” and blaming a little-known Republican congressman and a predecessor for his and their troubles. None of this is helping, and there’s panic on deck. It’s easy enough for those who hope to survive to tell those they’ve decided aren’t worth saving to go down with the ship, but when those about to be abandoned begin to think about just who put the ship in harm’s way in the first place, one can understand their reaction. This article originally appeared in The Hill .

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Dems Jockey to Get Off Ship

DC is talking about cutting Social Security for working people at the very same time it is talking about extending tax breaks for the wealthiest people in history. This is a result of our county’s shift away from democracy and toward plutocracy . This post is about the astonishing change in attitude toward regular people that is the result of this shift. There is a DC “Deficit Commission” that is supposed to be cutting budget deficits (that result from tax cuts for the wealthy and increases in military spending) but is instead talking about cutting Social Security. Get this: Social Security is a fully-funded program that uses no tax money. By law it cannot borrow so it cannot contribute to the deficit! At the same time, the huge military budget (we spend more than all other countries combined ) is completely un funded and faces a huge shortfall every year — but cutting that is off the table . The real problem: Social Security built up a huge trust fund that was spent on tax cuts for the rich, and that money is coming due. DC thinking is to cut Social Security instead of paying back what was borrowed. One proposal under consideration is to raise the retirement age, recently increased to 67, to 70! This at the very time that every social indicator is saying that we should be increasing Social Security and lowering the retirement age. Increasing because people’s savings have been slammed by the financial collapse so they need Social Security as their fall-back position, and lowering because so many people over 50 can’t find work. What About The People Affected? Almost no one has been talking about how this will effect the people whose benefits will be cut. This is because there has been a change in attitudes in America. We are becoming a not kinder, not gentler nation. The crippled compassion component of conservative ideas about citizenship continues to cut into what’s left of our consciences. Kudos to the NY Times for sending a reporter out from a comfortable desk in their air-conditioned offices to look at what cutting Social Security means to actual people who actually work. Retiring Later Is Hard Road for Laborers , A new analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that one in three workers over age 58 does a physically demanding job … — including hammering nails, bending under sinks, lifting baggage — that can be radically different at age 69 than at age 62. Still others work under difficult conditions, like exposure to heat or cold, exposure to contaminants or weather, cramped workplaces or standing for long stretches. A Washington Post story the next day looks at the flood of desperate people trying to get on Social Security disability because their unemployment benefits are exhausted and they can’t find work. Jobless are straining Social Security’s disability benefits program , Social Security officials say they are confident that their vetting process screens out most people who might try to get benefits without being qualified. But, they acknowledge, when jobs are scarce, more workers who might otherwise struggle through with their ailments try to secure disability benefits. McClatchy looked at desperate older people who can’t get jobs and are “taking early retirement” even though it means dramatically reduced monthly checks. Social Security surplus hit by joblessness, early retirement , Led by aging baby boomers and older workers frustrated by the tough job market, record numbers of eligible Americans started receiving Social Security retirement benefits in 2009. . . . Annual jobless rates for men and women age 55 and older were higher in 2009 than at any time since the government started collecting the data in 1948, Johnson said. That forced many to claim retirement benefits at 62, their first year of eligibility, instead of waiting to collect at the full retirement age of 66. The findings: People really need the help that Social Security offers. Cut Social Security? Really? We spent trillions bailing out the wealthy Wall Street elite, we gave huge tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, we spend hundreds of billions on unaccountable “defense” contractors with shadowy addresses concentrated around DC, and we are seriously considering cutting Social Security ? The New American Attitude But this is the new America. We’re helping the rich and taking our frustrations out on the unfortunate and weak: “the help.” I wrote about this attitude change in Simpson Social Security Comments Highlight Battle Of Democracy Vs. Plutocracy These battles over cutting Social Security and extending tax cuts for the wealthy expose the competing worldviews of We, the People democracy vs corporatist plutocracy. Is our country a community of the people, by the people and for the people? Or are we “the help,” only here for the benefit of the wealthy few. In the democracy worldview we are a community that takes care of and watches out for each other. We are each citizens with equal rights and equal value, to be respected equally. Our government and economy are supposed to be for us. In the democracy worldview we should be increasing Social Security’s benefits because people really need it. An effect of moving to plutocracy is that the rest of us need to “know our place.” I mean, just who do we think we are? We have been acting like we own this place, like We, the People are in charge here! We think we are entitled to … entitlements. Things have changed and we need to get with the new program. Our job now is to shut up and be thankful for anything we receive the the behest of the country’s new owners. This is the new attitude: Make Them Work – Citizens As “The Help” That’s right, you have to make them work, or they’ll just sit around and wont be “productive.” They wont face up to the “consequences” of unemployment. These parasites will just suck the blood out of the producers. You hear language like this all the time from conservatives. The unemployed are “lazy,” or “on drugs” etc. They are not “productive.” They are mooching off the rest of us. This is all in sharp contrast to the noble rich, who are an entirely different species biologically and spiritually. They are the “wealth producers” who we must treat with kid gloves and certainly not ask them to pay for their use of infrastructure or government services lest they decide to stop working. They just want to keep working, and what they do is so important, so pure, so necessary to the sustenance of the rest of us that they must be coddled at all times lest we lose their golden-egg magic touch! This is the new attitude: If You Feed Them They Breed — And Other Dehumanizing Conservative Idiocy We Should Ignore The latest nonsense they are spreading is that helping the unemployed keeps them from finding jobs. Good Lord! This is basically the old “if you feed them they just breed” storyline. They say “it makes them dependent” as if hard-working people laid off because of Wall Street’s scams are squirrels. Or, to hear the nasty way conservatives talk about these human beings, they are like rats. “Hobos,” one Congressman called the unemployed! And the DC elite listen, chuckle and repeat. This battle over Social Security, at the very same time as DC fights over extending tax cuts to the wealthiest people in history, points out how it will be as our democracy slides away. If we sit back and accept these changes, we lose. To fight this we need to come back to an understanding of what it means to be a citizen in a country where We, the People are supposed to be in charge. A government of We, the People should be about taking care of each other, protecting and empowering each other and respecting each other. WE are supposed to be the boss of you here. And we are supposed to be in charge. Please add your name to the “Hands Off Social Security” petition . The Deficit Commission should get on to figuring out how to reduce the deficit (clue: it was caused by tax cuts for the rich and military spending increases) and keep their hands off Social Security! This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture . I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary .

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Dave Johnson: Social Security Proposal: Make Them Work — Longer

ONE of the things that surprised me while reporting this week’s story on human smuggling was the sheer percentage of would-be migrants who, in attempting to cross the southern border into the United States, hired a smuggler—90%, according to a new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That statistic covers a wide range of activities, and a smuggler may simply be someone who provides food or shelter along the way. But given the frequent and lurid accounts of migrants being abused by smugglers—kidnapped, extorted, assaulted, abandoned—it still seemed rather high. Two explanations emerged. One is that, as Nestor Rodriguez of the University of Texas at Austin put it, hiring help has proven to be a good investment for many migrants. A coyote from your village, who has a successful track record bringing your friends or neighbours to the United States, who has social ties that would necessitate a good explanation if you fail to arrive at your destination, and who expects payment once you reach your destination, is a less risky prospect than someone you meet at a bar in Juarez who demands cash up-front. The other is that despite the known dangers of being smuggled, the known dangers of crossing on your own—being kidnapped, extorted, assaulted, lost, stuck, not being able to find water, dying of heatstroke—are so much more troubling that it mitigates the sense of risk for hiring any coyote.