Category Archives: Bad Democrats

Sequester Closes Cancer Clinic Doors, Congress Does Nothing

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Affluent business flyers inconvenienced by delays = national emergency that Congress immediately fixes. Cancer clinics closing = Congress does squat, goes home. This is just one more story of our corrupt times.

Last week the sequester cuts kicked in at airports and caused affluent business fliers to experience some delays, so Congress acted immediately to fix it. The same sequester has been forcing cancer clinics to send away patients so they can’t receive the chemotherapy that they hope will keep them alive. Is Congress rushing to the rescue like they did for affluent business travelers who faced some flight delays? Not so much. They do have their priorities, after all.

Sequester Causes Cancer Clinic Cuts And Closings

NBC: Sequester cuts hitting cancer patients, (click through for video)

Oncologists claim reduced Medicare funding, which took effect on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

NewsOn6: Oklahoma Cancer Patients Worry About Cuts To Medicare Caused By Sequester.

Albequerque BusinessFirst: Gov’t cuts might force NM Cancer Center to stop treating some Medicare patients,

The Albuquerque-based New Mexico Cancer Center might have to stop treating up to 300 Medicare patients because of cuts to Medicare brought on by the federal sequestration budget cuts, the Cancer Center’s CEO said Thursday.

HuffPo: Sequestration Forces Cancer Clinic Patients To Travel Thousands Of Miles For Treatment.

ThinkProgress: Cancer Clinics: Congress Should Have Restored Our Sequester Cuts Before Addressing Airport Delays,

After automatic budget cuts slashed their funding, cancer clinics have been forced to delay chemotherapy treatment for their patients. Some clinics may actually have to close their doors altogether if the sequester cuts are not reversed. As several cancer doctors told the Hill, they suspect they may not have been at the top at Congress’ list because reduced access to chemotherapy doesn’t personally inconvenience lawmakers in the same way that airport delays do.

WaPo: Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester,

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

It Costs Money, Doesn’t Save Money

The kicker, it doesn’t even save the government money, instead it costs money:

The care will likely be more expensive: One study from actuarial firm Milliman found that chemotherapy delivered in a hospital setting costs the federal government an average of $6,500 more annually than care delivered in a community clinic.

So not only does this sequester kill people, it costs the government much more than it saves.

Deficit Facts

1) The deficit is already falling dramatically. The deficit is already down by 50% as a share of GDP. From See Deficit Falling Even More Dramatically, Few Know It:

2) The intellectual foundation for austerity has been discredited. See anywhere on the web. Especially see The Colbert Report: Austerity’s Spreadsheet Error.

3) Europe’s experiment with austerity has brought nothing but stagnation, recession, unemployment and mass misery and suffering. See ThinkProgress: Austerity Pushes Europe Into Its Second Recession In Four Years, CNBC: Europe Risks ‘Endless Depression’ in Pursuit of Austerity, LA Times: Europe austerity strategy is hurting growth, IMF says, CNN: Austerity drives up suicide rate in debt-ridden Greece and hundreds more such reports…

4) The deficit argument is over. Henry Blodget: The Economic Argument Is Over — Paul Krugman Has Won.

It’s Just Corruption

From March, Surprising Studies Find DC Does What Wealthiest Want, Majority Opposes,

A new study, Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans … sought to gauge the political and policy priorities of the wealthy, and how these concerns contrast with the concerns of the rest of us. Amazingly, the priorities of the 1% match up with the priorities of our political class, while the priorities and needs of the vast majorities of us are ignored.

This is about who has the money, and who gives it to politicians. That is the definition of corruption. It is not “ideology” it is corruption, nothing more.

Very wealthy people are profiting from this austerity push. Dean Baker explains, in Deficits Are Bad and the Sun Goes Around the Earth,

…many people can profit from slow growth and high unemployment. The after-tax profit share of GDP is at its highest level more than 60 years. For those who own lots of stock and are at the top of the income ladder, times are good. These people may see efforts to lower unemployment as posing a risk. With lower unemployment workers may be able to get a larger share of productivity growth. This may be good for most of the country and mean increased economic growth, but it would mean less for the one percent.

Yes, “people can profit from slow growth and high unemployment.” And politicians are being paid to maintain the slow growth and high unemployment and other things that are driving all the income and wealth to a top few. It is just corruption, nothing more.

From January: Call It Corruption Not Ideology,

Getting paid by corporations to block government action from helping We, the People but hurting corporate profits isn’t an ideology, it’s corruption.

Getting paid by corporations to cut taxes and regulations for corporations isn’t an ideology, it’s corruption.

Getting paid by billionaires to cut taxes for billionaires isn’t an ideology, it is corruption

Call it what it is, don’t launder it by calling it ideology. It is corruption.

This is corruption, it is not ideology, it is not “austerity.” Getting paid by wealthy people to block things that help We the People so those wealthy people can profit is corruption, nothing more. Don’t dignify it, don’t let it serve as a mask. It is just corruption.

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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

Has Anyone Calculated The Average Obama Cave-In Time?

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Has anyone calculated an average Obama cave time? Of course, this is a number that will keep going lower, as he caves ever-more quickly…

CBS: White House is “open to looking at” FAA furlough fix,

Under pressure, the White House signaled Wednesday it might accept legislation eliminating Federal Aviation Administration furloughs blamed for lengthy flight delays for airline passengers, while leaving the rest of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts in place.

[. . .] At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said that if Congress “wants to address specifically the problems caused by the sequester with the FAA, we would be open to looking at that.

In Honor Of The George ‘W’ Bush Legacy-Rehabilitation Discussion

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The pundit world is busy rehabilitating the reputation of George ‘W’ Bush. Somehow in today’s America killing hundreds of thousands of human beings illegally invading a country, torture, corruption and “no-bid contracts” to crony insiders, crashing the economy, intentionally creating massive deficits, using phony terrorist-attack alerts to stampede frightened citizens into voting against their own interest, and so much more of the ‘W’ legacy don’t disqualify such a discussion, nevermind instead demanding prosecution for the crimes committed…

In honor of the attempted rehabilitation of George ‘W’ Bush here is a bit from a 2010 post of mine, originally at Open Left. Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

When you sell the farm, the farm’s gone.

Is it already too late for America? I’m starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to the terrible Bush Presidency may have effectively destroyed the country, leaving it bankrupt, corrupt, ungovernable, ruled by a wealthy elite — and we’re only now just starting to realize it. To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing. To satisfy their hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote. We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.

… The conservatives destroyed the regulatory structure of the government. They removed the inspectors, administrators, regulators and replaced them with corrupt cronies.

… The conservatives destroyed the rule of law, leaving behind public perception of rule by cronyism, favoritism and mob.

The conservatives destroyed public understanding of democracy, leaving behind a one-dollar-one-vote system that their Supreme Court just formalized, along with a corporate media that works to keep people uninformed. …

[. . .]

More equitable distribution of the fruits of our economy is another step. Our system worked so much better back when the top tax rate was 90%. The returns from our investment in infrastructure were more widely shared. And back when it took many years to build a fortune businesses had an interdependence with their communities. Executives needed the schools and roads and other public structures functioning well. They needed long-range business and community planning. But just imagine trying to do something about the concentration of wealth today.

So where do we go from here. Is democracy over? Is rule of law a thing of the past? Is predatory monopoly control by the largest corporations the way things are and will be? Does the world now move to governance by a wealthy elite?
Or is the winter and the rain and the snow just getting to me?

What are your thoughts?

Read the whole thing here: Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

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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

Will Social Security Cuts Be The Democratic Party’s “New Coke?”

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All the smartest people in the executive suites just knew that the taste of Coca-Cola needed “reform.” Rival Pepsi was advertising to the “New Generation” and Coke’s executives came to believe their product wasn’t what the “cool” people wanted to drink. Everyone they talked to at the executive-level strategery seminars, and all the other executive-level geniuses they spoke with daily agreed. They were the elites, and they all knew better than their old-fashioned, uncool customers what the company needed. So they all drank the Kool-Aid and came up with “New Coke.” We all know what happened next. (Hint: it was bad.)

It couldn’t have gone better for Pepsi if Pepsi had placed those executives there themselves.

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Jobs

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Everyone knows that during the depression the government hired unemployed people to work on the infrastructure, parks, etc., and isn’t doing that this time.

Back then We the People were in charge, at least to more of an extent than today. So We the People did things to make our lives better. We the People doing things together to make our lives better is called democracy.

Now government just makes the lives of the wealthiest even better. This is plutocracy.

Congress Quietly Repealed STOCK Act That Fought Congressional Corruption

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Do you remember last year when insider stock purchases by members of Congress was in the news? I had this over at Truthout: License to Profit: Legalized Corruption in the US Congress,

This is the shocking truth: elected officials, their staff, and other government employees with access to information and the ability to influence legislation and regulation are allowed to own and trade in stocks. The fact that members of Congress and their staff – and any government employee, for that matter – are allowed to own and/or trade in stocks at all leaves wide open the perception if not the actual fact that they can use information that is not available to others for personal enrichment.

In response to the public outrage Congress passed an anti-corruption bill called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Actually all it did was make legislators and staffers who make more than about $120K to disclose what they are doing. It didn’t prohibit them from trading with insider knowledge gained from their position, just to disclose it.

The Act was set to go into effect next week. Thursday night the Senate, and Friday the House repealed the STOCK Act, with only a voice vote.

Elite-Pundit “Grand Bargain” Frenzy Just Like “Run Up” To Iraq War

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The “Grand Bargain” is about showing the world that we can hurt people, so they will know we are “serious.”

Reading Jason Linkins’ HuffPo account of elite-pundit thinking about the “Grand Bargain,” Passing ‘Grand Bargain’ Voters Don’t Care About Is Critical To Confidence In Government, Apparently, I am struck by the similarity between the (elite pundit) Joe Klein quote Linkins references, and the elite-pundit thinking about invading Iraq.

Time Swampland contributor Joe Klein — who is confident that Congress will agree to a “grand bargain” — says that people like me who contend that voters don’t place a high priority on a grand deficit deal are correct but we need to pass a grand deficit deal anyway because reasons, shut up:

There are those on the left who will object that the deficit issue is overblown and not even a priority among voters. They are right. But we have reached the point where some sort of deal is necessary to restore the public’s, the business community’s and the world’s faith that the U.S. government can, occasionally, take significant action. I predict—tepidly, with no great confidence—that the Congress will finally decide it is time to act.

In other words, Klein is saying the elite punditry has made such a big deal about something we all know is the wrong thing to do, that the public has to see us follow through — “take significant action” — or they’ll lose confidence in the country’s ability to make things happen following a pundit frenzy like this one.

Now let’s remember the words of elite pundit Tom Friedman on why invade Iraq.

Tom Freidman, on Charlie Rose, May 29 2003: (link is CS Monitor, Thomas Friedman, Iraq war booster),

“And what we needed to do was to go over to that part of the world and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically uhm, and, uh, uhm take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it because part of that bubble said ‘we’ve got you’ this bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us and you because we don’t care about life, we’re ready to sacrifice and all you care about is your stock options and your hummers. And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad uhm, and basically saying which part of this sentence don’t you understand. You don’t think we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy we’re going to just let it go, well suck on this.”

Friedman said we had to invade Iraq so the world can see that we can use our immense power to hurt people there. Because Iraq is in “that part of the world.”

Joe Klein says we have to do the Grand Bargain to show the world that we can use our immense power to hurt people here, too.

That’s balance for ya.

The “Grand Bargain” is about hurting regular people (“shared sacrifice”) who have been sacrificing since Reagan. The rich have gotten tax cut after tax cut. Their corporations get breaks and subsidies. Wages have been stagnant since Reagan broke the unions, but prices have gone up. People used up their savings, then went into debt. Meanwhile government services for We the People have been cut, cut, cut. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our transportation and electrical and other systems are just a mess. The safety net has collapsed. College has become unaffordable. Poverty is soaring and the middle class is disappearing.

So now regular people have to “sacrifice” to pay off the money the government borrowed to give the rich their tax cuts and subsidies. That’s the “Grand Bargain” in a nutshell.

P.S. Please read Linkins’ piece, it’s short. Linkins concludes,

” … a deal that will further immiserate Americans with painful cuts to earned benefit programs (like chained CPI) at a time when everyone’s still struggling to get by. Why anyone thinks this would restore the public trust is beyond me. Pundits really need to get out more.”

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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

Reid Threatens Sternly Worded Letter Over Continuing Filibusters

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For years now Senate Republicans have been filibustering … everything. At the end of last year there was an effort to convince Democrats in the Senate of the need to reform the filibuster so things We the People need to get done could get done. At the last minute, however, this effort was scuttled by House Majority Leader Harry Reid who instead made a gentleman’s agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. So now Republicans are filibustering … everything. And Reid, in a strongly-worded statement, threatened to issue a sternly-worded letter.

Silent Obstruction

In the last few years pretty much everything We the People were hoping to accomplish to make our lives better was filibustered by Senate Republicans. So many bills and nominees that were so important to us … the American Jobs Act, a terrible cost. The Bring Jobs Home Act and the Ending Offshoring Act to end tax incentives for sending jobs and factories out of the country, the Public Option, the DREAM Act, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, and the DISCLOSE Act so we could at least know what companies and countries were bribing our politicians. … Just so much cost…

Public Doesn’t Know

The public doesn’t even know that so many important acts and nominees have been filibustered! The public believes a filibuster is Senators taling all night, but rules changes allowed Senators to block bills without doing anything. The media did not report these obstructions as filibusters, only saying things like “the Senate failed to pass a bill to…” or “Senate rules requiring 60 votes …” or, most destructive to democracy, “Democrats failed to gain -passage of …” The public had no idea what was happening, no idea of the extent of the obstruction, and no way to know who to hold accountable for the failure of government to accomplish anything. Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry.

Make Them Talk

So after years of obstruction and non-functioning government it was proposed to change the rules and “make them talk.” The idea was to restore the filibuster to make Senators just talk — exactly what the public thinks the filibuster rule already is. There was an all-out effort to get this done, and a sufficient number of Senators appeared to be on board. But in January, Reid scuttled the effort to Fix the Filibuster,

“I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold,” Reid (D-Nev.) told me this morning, referring to the number of votes needed to halt a filibuster. “With the history of the Senate, we have to understand the Senate isn’t and shouldn’t be like the House.”

Of course, if Republicans take the Senate their very first act will be to end the filibuster so Democrats can’t use it.

So Here We Are

So here we are. Republicans are still filibustering and obstructing everything and everyone. Government continues to be broken. The will of the public continues to be thwarted and the public’s faith in government and democracy to solve their problems further recedes.

But now Harry Reid is fed up! He issued a strongly-worded statement in impassioned floor debate!

And there are rumors that it is possible that he might resort to sending Republicans a strongly-worded letter. So matters are well in hand.

A sternly worded letter and hours of impassioned floor debate! That’ll show ‘em!

If Harry Reid keeps this up I might have no choice but to issue forth an angry tweet.

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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

The 1983 Strategy Behind Today’s Social Security Attacks

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Suppose you’re in a bar and you overhear a couple of guys in the next booth talking about a plan to steal from people’s houses. As you eavesdrop the plan unfolds: one will come to the front door pretending to be from the gas company warning the homeowner about a gas leak down the street. While he distracts the homeowner at the front door, the other one will sneak in the back door and take stuff.

So the next day the doorbell rings, and there’s a guy saying he is from the gas company. He says he wants to talk a while to warn you about a gas leak down the street…

This is what is happening with this constant drumbeat of attacks on Social Security. The attack on Social Security never goes away, it only escalates. As we go into this next round of attacks — this time it is even coming from the President* — it is more than useful to understand the background of this campaign against the program.

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Fight This New Push To Lower Corporate Taxes

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There is a big push going on to again reduce tax rates for the giant multinational corporations. See if you can guess who will make up the difference? (Hint: it will be you paying through cuts, and smaller companies that are trying to challenge the incumbency of the giant multinationals.)

Recently in the post Beware the New Corporate Tax-Cut Scam: LIFT Is A Big LIE, I warned about the LIFT coalition of large corporations trying to get rid of taxes on profits made outside the country. Of course this would result in giant companies moving jobs, factories and profit centers out of the country.

The executives who run the giant multinationals want to be let off the hook for paying taxes on profits they make outside our borders. As an Apple executive said to The New York Times, giant multinationals “don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems.” And to prove it, American corporations are holding $1.7 trillion in profits outside the country – just sitting there – rather than bringing that money home, paying the taxes due and then paying it out to shareholders or using it to “create jobs” with new factories, research facilities and equipment.

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Bipartisan Solutions

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Here is how the DC game works:

- One side proposes to kill everyone in Kentucky and Tennessee. 15% of the public supports this (0% in Kentucky or Tennessee.)

- The other side thinks children should have enough food so they can grow up strong. (85% of the public supports this.)

- A Grand Bargain is reached in which they agree to kill everyone in Tennessee and spare the people in Kentucky, and children will get half as much food as they need.

The DC pundits will say that since everyone is angry at this, it must be the right solution because “both sides” only got part of what they want.

The Democratic Wing Of The Democratic Party

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The House voted on budgets yesterday and austerity won. 84 Democrats voted for the jobs and growth “Back To Work Budget” from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 102 Democrats voted against it. (1 voted “present” and 13 were not voting.) Here is the roll call vote so you can see who voted yes and who voted no.

The Black Caucus budget with some jobs measures and tax increases on the wealthiest got 105 Democrats voting yes and 80 no.

Rep. Mulvaney’s substitute, which was very similar to Senate Committee-backed austerity budget resolution of budget cuts “balanced” with tax cuts got 154 Democrats voting yes and 35 no. The Democratic (Van Hollen) substitute austerity budget that replaced the sequester with targeted cuts and tax increases got 165 Democrats voting yes and 28 no.

The Democratic Wing Of The Democratic Party

Ten years and 6 days ago today: (transcript)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qcQ1XM-Oqk[/youtube]

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