Senator Claire McCaskill’s latest Twitter post on economic issues:

Early meetng this mornng with business leaders in St Louis.TALF,TARP,budget,stimulus, tax policy,mark to market,earmarks,EFCA all discussed. about 9 hours ago from TinyTwitter

Okay, another point where you’d like to be a fly on the wall listening in.

The Employee Free Choice Act? “…business leaders…EFCA…” Wouldn’t you like to know what they said? Was it along the lines of…?:

Obama’s next gauntlet: Reviving the middle class

Posted March 5, 2009 at 10:46 am, in From the News

By Robert L. Borosage

Co-Director Campaign for America’s Future

…The real donnybrook will be in the Senate where it has strong majority support but must overcome efforts by a conservative minority to block the vote with a filibuster. The Chamber of Commerce and various business lobbies have threatened to spend $200 million or more to stop EFCA, which Home Depot’s founder, Bernie Marcus, charges will lead to “the demise of civilization…”

[emphasis added]

Just asking.

I don’t know about you, but I’m frustrated that a year after the first shoe dropped in the current financial crisis, we’re still dribbling out tens of billions of dollars to zombie institutions, with no end in sight. And I understand there’s some complexity when it comes to these bonuses, but I can’t help but clench my fists with rage every time I hear about more massive bonuses going out to executives in companies staying afloat with billions in taxpayer subsidies. But I also worry about the possible cataclysmic consequences if we simply do nothing, let the banking giants fail.

I’ve grumbled to my wife about it, put biting observations in my Facebook status, and commented on some blogs about it. If you’re like me, you might have even written a sharply worded letter to your representatives in Congress. I know that I really haven’t done anything else.

Luckily, a few friends who have a little experience in organizing decided to do something to bring a viable solution to the forefront of public discussion. They’ve put together something called A New Way Forward, a day of demonstrations (April 11) calling for the federal government to nationalize the problem financial institutions, and reorganize them into smaller pieces without the same leadership that got us all into this mess to begin with.

How can you help, you might ask? At a bare minimum (other than attending), you can let your friends know about it by e-mailing them, joining the national Facebook group and inviting others, or Twittering about it using the hashtag #anwf. You can also add your own ideas to the discussion,  or even organize your own demonstration, if there isn’t one in your city already. (There’s a list of suggestions with links here, including a handy-dandy e-mail form to pass the word to friends and family.) Also, if you belong to an organization that might be interested in helping out, you can ask them to endorse.

More below the fold on who these New Way Forward people are and what they hope to accomplish.

A few weeks ago, a couple of friends, among them Tiffiniy Cheng and Nicholas Reville, were sitting around watching an episode of NOW with Bill Moyers. The topic of discussion on that week’s episode was the crisis in our banking system, and Moyers’ distinguished guest was the economist Simon Johnson, who has among other things worked for decades in resolving financial crises for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. (Naturally, he has a blog.) In his crisis prevention work, he had helped advise other countries suffering through similar financial crises on how to clean up their banking system, which usually involved nationalizing the banks responsible for the crisis, and reorganizing them into smaller, healthier units back in the private sector. And this is essentially what he advocates that the U.S. government do now.

The group of friends had followed the banking crisis closely, but until that point hadn’t heard too much conversation about nationalization and reorganization, and it seemed rather complex. Upon hearing from an expert like Johnson that it might be a more viable and just solution than the other ones floating around, the friends asked each other, “Why aren’t we doing this in the US? And if this is a viable solution, what do we have to do to get the ball rolling?” Unlike many people who happened to watch the show that night, this group included a few people who have experience in organizing both offline and online. Among them, Nicholas Reville helped found two non-profits, the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Participatory Culture Foundation (although as non-profits, they are not involved in this effort in any way.)  Tiffiniy Cheng helped found the same non-profits and took time off from her work to be an Obama organizer in Joplin, MO. (You’ve got to give her respect for that!) The two of them also developed Downhill Battle, an effort to combat the music label oligopoly. Morgan Knutson is a generous and talented web designer and volunteered to build a nice-looking website. (So nice, in fact, that I wondered what organization was really behind it.)

From their own experience that an ordinary citizen can make a big difference with an idea and a little effort, they decided they would had to find someway of getting this message out to people and to our elected representatives – you know, the people who actually can do something about the situation. The idea is this: create a series of public demonstrations to show support for a three step plan to get this banking crisis behind us. Nationalize, Reorganize, Decentralize. The government should nationalize the zombie banks, reorganize them by sorting out problem assets and flush out those responsible for the crisis in the first place, and finally break them up into smaller, healthier units for the private sector where they will no longer be “too big to fail.”

As a central hub, they built a website at http://anewwayforward.org. There is a list of demonstrations already being planned, and discussion forums with each planned demonstration to share ideas on how to make a successful event. They also have suggestions on how to start your own demonstration and spread the word, if there isn’t one already set up for your area. I’ll be at the one in Saint Louis, and I hope that others around the state of Missouri might hold similar rallies.

One more thing. Tiffiniy, Nicholas, et al are working on a coalition right now to help get out the word and get more people involved – Joe Trippi will be helping out, and others in the online and offline progressive community will soon be signing on. But it was important as a first step for the small group of friends to  ask ordinary citizens through the magic of the interwebs to help out, rather than ask a larger organization or group to set them up and tell their members to show up at a certain place or time, because they wanted it to be a true bottom-up affair, with ordinary citizens taking responsibility for making a difference. This isn’t a set of astroturf protests – this is Americans getting angry, joining together and putting forward a positive solution.

Now all we need is a little bit of your ideas, enthusiasm, and time.

At the town hall forum in Kirkwood last Thursday, the audience was more than polite to Republican Representative Rick Stream, vice-chair of the House Budget Committee. He was there to defend Republican budget cuts to an unsympathetic audience, but they were gracious. Three or four different people characterized him as a man of integrity, and no one even got near an insulting tone. Four panelists from different faith organizations spoke for five minutes each, appealing to his sympathies for the most vulnerable people in Missouri, those affected by the budget cuts. Their tone was deferential.

Politeness will get you only so far, however, when what you’re saying is beside the point, and as far as Stream was concerned, the speakers’ pleas were not germane to making a budget. They were only saying what he had already heard (too) many times. He, on the other hand, believes that hard headed fiscal policy is critical to good state government, and liberal sympathies don’t fit that mold. He told us that because Republicans cut 100,000 Missourians off Medicaid in 2005, the state is in better financial shape now than lots of other states. To his mind, you do what you have to do.

But Stream was not crass in his dismissal of the speakers. He was patient and courteous. He tried to make them understand that there are only so many cherries in the pie, no matter how many people want a bite of it.

And in fact, he maintains that Republicans are not guilty of “budget cuts.” He says they have increased funds for health care, the social services, and education.  The Mental Health budget, for example, is up $9 million, from $1.159 billion to $1.168 billion. The Health and Senior Services budget is up $12 million, from $855 million to $867 million. And the Social Services budget has increased to $7.07 billion from $6.89 billion. He cited these figures in such a modulated accountant’s voice that it was well nigh impossible to disbelieve him.

And I don’t disbelieve him. I’m sure his figures were accurate. But there were some points he neglected to bring up. The rate of inflation is about 5 percent a year–and higher than that for Medicaid and some social services. But the percentage increases of the items he cited work out to be only:

• up .78 percent for Mental Health funding.
• up 1.4 percent for Health and Senior Services funding.
• up 2.61 percent for Social Services funding.

Representative Stream sounded so trustworthy, even generous, when he cited all those increases. But he did glide right by the fact that the budgeted increases are staring at inflationary pressures from the bottom of a well. And we owe even those skimpy increases to reliance on federal funds and deep slashes to state funds, such as the cuts to Mental Health Services, affecting thousands of children and adults with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities.

The cuts to state funds in all three categories stacked up this way:

• State Mental Health contributions went from $616.6 million (see HB 2010 pdf) to just shy of $582 million.
• State Health and Senior Services funding went from $243.6 million (see HB 2010 pdf) to $238.3 million.
• State Social Services funding went from $1.6 billion (see HB 2011 pdf) to $1.5 billion.

What can I say? Beware of Republicans bearing budgets. And such parsimony is unnecessary, what with federal stimulus funds for just such purposes on the way.

Tsk! Rap my fingers with a ruler for being so unfair. As Stream was quick to mention, nobody knows yet exactly how much federal funding we’re going to get, when we’re going to get it, what strings may be attached and when we’ll be allowed to use it. One cannot build a state budget on ifs and maybes. One needs the hard data.

But, as Ruth Ehresman of the Missouri Budget Project pointed out to me, legislators know that they will be getting in the neighborhood of $167 million in the next two years. The funds are to be used to “prevent cuts to critical services during an economic downturn when larger numbers of people are vulnerable, and to maintain and create jobs that will stimulate the economy.”

True, that promise is not the same as having the check in your account, but this is a budget not a bank register we’re dealing with. Say your company regularly does business with a reliable firm that is slated to pay you $120,000 by a certain date. You’d feel safe putting at least $90,000 of that in your budget. You wouldn’t call Laclede Gas and cancel your account–and all of your heat for next winter–because you didn’t have the $90 thou in hand. You’d budget on a reasonable expectation.

The word that’s been floating around–and take this for what it’s worth, but it is consistent with Republican ideology–is that budget chairman Allen Icet wants to use the stimulus money for tax rebates for everyone. Talk about surrendering hard headed fiscal policy in favor of being nice to people! As W discovered last year, tax rebates don’t stimulate much of anything.

Still, reasonable people might disagree about whether it makes more sense to help Missourians pay off their credit card debt or to prevent 70,000 of the most vulnerable from losing state services–like, say, the abused and neglected children of the state who’ve had $1.5 million  cut from the funds that help them. But since our Republican budget-meisters pride themselves on being practical, here’s an unsentimental fact for their consideration: cutting services to 70,000 poor people also means cutting something like 3700 jobs at the clinics and offices that provide the aid. Most of those 3700 will then lose their health insurance, thus deepening the job losses in the health care industry in Missouri. Furthermore, cutting services to the 70,000 makes it less likely they’ll be healthy enough to work and contribute.

Pardon me for being a hard nosed pragmatist, but using that calculus, I think helping people pay off their credit card debt should come in second to helping the helpless.

Stream also used the “we didn’t have the details” defense when asked about why the committee did not increase Medicaid funding, considering that the Missouri Hospital Association is volunteering to raise its own tax rate. The additional millions the Association will contribute each year will draw down almost $93 million in federal funds, for a total of an additional $104 million in absolutely free Medicaid funding.

As I said earlier, this is a budget, not a bank register. The committee knew enough to include more Medicaid funding in the budget. Stream asserted that Nixon made the announcement about the Hospital Association’s offer without actually talking to Republican budget committee members. If so, that’s an oversight on Nixon’s part, but his lapse doesn’t excuse the committee’s stubbornness. I call it stubbornness because the Republicans have, with their shifting justifications, made it plain they don’t want to help people earning less than half the poverty level. When asked about the committee’s decision, Icet said nothing about not having the figures in hand yet. His excuse was that the state couldn’t assume those free funds would be there again next year. Actually, they almost surely will, but hey, if you fix someone’s broken wheelchair this year so that she can take care of herself, it might continue to function next year–so that she can continue taking care of herself, even without Medicaid, thus saving the state the expense of caring for her. (The only speaker that night who came even within shouting distance of being irate was the woman who described just such a case.)

But I can’t resist pointing out that Republicans could have spared themselves looking like skinflints if, when this story broke a week and a half ago, they had at least announced their willingness to accept the Hospital Association’s offer at a future date. And if they had considered raising taxes on wealthier Missourians rather than dumping Medicaid recipients down the cistern three years ago, our state would be just as solvent–more so, in fact, because we wouldn’t have had to forfeit $1.5 billion dollars in federal Medicaid funds. Keep in mind that turning down that 1.5 billion raised health insurance premiums for all of us, and that’s a back door tax, imposed by those who supposedly hate higher taxes. One way or another, Missourians were going to get taxed.

Aside from these practicalities, think of the religious implication for those Republicans who consider themselves devout: if they had helped the poor, their consciences would be more in line with Biblical admonitions to do so.

The audience members who praised Rick Stream’s integrity were quite possibly correct about that. I don’t presume to judge. But I challenge any of them to convince me that he  and his party are hard nosed and sensible about budgeting.  Fiscal restraint is good and necessary. I’m in favor of it. But fiscal parsimony in a deep recession is not only not humane, it’s not smart.  

State Representative Joe Aull (D-26) spoke about the current legislative session for the monthly meeting of the Johnson County Democratic Club in Warrensburg on Thursday evening, March 19th.

On Education:

…It’s kind of like with education. I don’t know if you know the shell game we play with education. [voice: “Oh yeah.”] And being an ex-educator, this, this really frosts me a little bit. We’ve written new funding formula, new state education funded formula. And we had an old formula that was okay. The old formula was really pretty good ’till we quit funding it. And that old formula had a proration factor in. That proration factor was supposed to be one point zero zero. That meant education was being funded a hundred per cent. That proration factor dropped down to eighty five per cent. That’s when people got upset about the old formula, so now we’ve written a new formula that calls for less money. So we’re braggin’ that we’re now fully funding education ’cause we’re fully funding the new formula that calls for a lot less money than the old one did. Without a tax increase. I mean people buy that. It’s all you’re fully funding education and haven’t increased my taxes. But folks, that’s not true. And those, those sometimes are some of the things that, uh, that we have to deal with…

On the state budget:

…We’re dealing with the budget right now. And the budget’s pretty tough to deal with at the, at the state level because we don’t know right now exactly where we’re going. We know every agency in the state’s probably going to see some kind of cuts. But we don’t know what impact the stimulus money is going to have right now. We know it’s gonna pump more money into the state. But we don’t know exactly how much yet. So we’re trying to kind a shoot in the dark and see if we can come up with some kind of a budget. So it’ll be interesting. We go back off of Spring break next week, so it’ll be interesting to see how that all, how that all shakes out…

On TABOR:

…One bill we passed in the House last week, a resolution. It’s called the TABOR resolution. And I don’t know how you feel about this. [voices: “Boo!”] What this resolution did, it says that we cannot increase state expenditures any more than the percentage of the Consumer Price Index. Now, we’re working real hard right now to try and keep taxes down. Nobody likes to talk about new taxes. We’re…I love to go out and say “no more taxes, no more taxes.” We’re giving all kinds of tax breaks. So now is not the time to raise taxes. But I think TABOR’s a bad thing. [voice: “I do, too.”] Somewhere down the line, folks, we as legislators are gonna have to bite the bullet and say, “folks, if we want services, we’re gonna have to pay.” I, I go back to that good old Democrat, Governor Mel Carnahan. 1993. I don’t know if you remember the Outstanding Schools Act, Senate Bill 380….That bill saved public schools. Schools were dying on the vine for. And Governor Carnahan took a lot of heat for that….And he got it passed. And, and that’s, that’s being a good steward, doing what you’re supposed to do. Wasn’t popular, but he did it…Nobody wants to raise taxes, now would not be the good time to do it. But why should we tie our hands ten, fifteen years down the road? [voice: “Amen.”] So, I think the TABOR thing is bad…

On health care for children:

….I was really disappointed, Governor Nixon tried to get the CHIPs, have you heard of the CHIPs program? Childrens health care program. Tried to get that reinstated, to reinstate health insurance for quite a few kids in the state. And the Republicans took that out of the, out of the bill [voice: “Oh, you’re kidding me.”] So right now that’s, that’s on hold…

On campaign finance:

…The last, the last bill I’d mention, this hasn’t come up yet, but I think it’s something we have to address, and that’s campaign finance. If you remember last year the Republicans got a bill passed in both houses to take the caps off of the amount of money that you can contribute to a political candidate. It used to be that you could only contribute so much to a House of Representative or a State Senate candidate, now you contribute whatever you want. And I just think that’s a bad message to send to the public, that, hey, government’s for sale to the highest bidder. I’m hoping that we can get that, can get that reversed some time…

Joe Aull (D-26) does not represent Johnson County in the General Assembly, but he is one of the closest Democratic representatives geographically to the three republican represented districts in the county (120th, 121st – “noun, verb, CPA”, and 122nd).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Man of the Century

an address by William J. vanden Heuvel to the Monthly Meeting of The Century Association

Thursday, April 4, 2002

…FDR was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it…

[emphasis added]

Our previous “Overton Window” coverage:

Senator Claire McCaskill: helping keep the “Overton Window” to the right

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) defends her “moderate” bonafides on her blog:

I worked hard to help elect President Obama. I believe he will be a terrific President because he understands that change means listening and compromise, not political posturing. The way forward is almost always up the middle. I look forward to helping the President find that way forward on health care, energy, and our struggling economy. The left and the right shouting at each other hasn’t gotten much done. Red vs Blue hasn’t been very successful either.

I always try to be an independent voice for Missouri. I evaluate every issue, not as a party vote, but as a policy vote.  There is nothing about the group of moderate Democrats that undermines President Obama. Just the opposite, I believe we can help bring people together around good policy and get away from some of the nasty partisan food fights that have blocked real progress for so long.

[emphasis added]

It all depends on how one defines “middle”, eh? Let’s just not keep tugging it right.

BOOKS: ‘Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations’

…And the phrase “Jaw, jaw is better than war, war” was actually coined by Harold Macmillan in 1958 when he misquoted Churchill’s 1954 comment that “meeting jaw to jaw is better than war…”

In the not so distant past, January 2002:

…Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom…

…States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic…

[emphasis added]

What a difference seven years and unemployed neocons make. President Obama to the people and leaders of Iran:

The transcript of President Obama’s remarks:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE        March 20, 2009

VIDEOTAPED REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

IN CELEBRATION OF NOWRUZ

THE PRESIDENT:  Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.

This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.

In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture.  Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.

Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans.  We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.

For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained.  But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.  Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays — by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.

Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations.  Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams.

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders.  We have serious differences that have grown over time.  My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community.  This process will not be advanced by threats.  We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice.  The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations.  You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.  And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek.  It’s a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce.  It’s a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won’t be reached easily.  There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences.  But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago:  “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

With the coming of a new season, we’re reminded of this precious humanity that we all share.  And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.

Thank you, and Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak.

END

This is a good start.