* moving toward a more equitable distribution of income

Robert Reich (former U.S. Secretary of Labor) writes in The American Prospect (2/26/09) …

• President Obama’s new budget represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.
  • By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, the marginal income tax on the highest earners goes back to 39.6 % (from 35 % now), and capital gains rates to 20 % (from 15 % now).
• It’s about time a presidential budget unequivocally redistributed income from the very rich to the middle class and poor.
  • The incomes of the top one percent have soared for 30 years while median wages have slowed or declined in real terms.
    • in the 1970s, the top-earning 1% of Americans took home 8% of total income 
      
    • as recently as 1980, they took home 9%.
      
    • By 2007, the top 1% took home over 22% of total income.
  • Meanwhile, even as their incomes dramatically increased, the total federal tax rates paid by the top one percent dropped. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top one percent paid a total federal tax rate of 37 percent three decades ago; now it’s paying 31 percent.

LMW COMMENT …

The excessive concentration of wealth among the most wealthy is the result of conscious Republican policies since the days of Ronald Reagan (even during the Clinton years, the Republicans controlled Congress for 6 of the 8 years).

These policies were fostered by the rich and those politicians they influenced, with the consent of many less well-off Americans who did not benefit, but who were attracted by the devious conservative social agenda of abortion, guns and gays. In other words, those who voted Republican against their own interests were fooled.

With the resounding election of Barack Obama, it’s clearly time for change. 

The greedy grab of the wealthy for ‘more, more, more’ is not only unfair and reprehensible in a democracy, it is also self-destructive. If the people who buy things have declining discretionary income, who will buy the products and services that create wealth in the first place?

There is nothing wrong with success bringing wealth; in fact there is much that is right in terms of incentives to creativity and the unleashing of productive energy. (This does not include, in my view, the obscene wealth related to our national casino otherwise known as Wall Street speculation, which has brought such chaos in its wake.)

Perhaps, however, we should begin to discuss how much individual wealth is appropriate.

• Are there any limits? 
  • Should a CEO earn 10 times what the average worker does? 20? 50? 600? 
• What would happen to our corporations if executive incomes  (including bonuses) were limited? 
  • Perhaps more funds would stay in the corporation to invest in new product development and to serve as a buffer against inevitable downturns.
• Should we reign in the useless and dangerous speculation in financial instruments which nobody even understands? 
  • I think everyone (except totally tone deaf Republicans) now agrees that the de-regulation policies (so trumpeted by John McCain before he got the memo) have produced catatstophic results.

These are complicated questions, the consequences of which must be carefully considered. But in a democracy, these are exactly the questions which should be asked and robustly debated.

 

Read the entire column at … http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=finally_a_progressive_budget

 

* first Bush’s mess; now our agenda

Paul Krugman writes in the NYT (2/27/09) …

• President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course.
• fears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.
• For this budget allocates $634 billion over the next decade for health reform. That’s not enough to pay for universal coverage, but it’s an impressive start.
• Many will ask whether Mr. Obama can actually pull off the deficit reduction he promises. Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can.
• Right now the deficit is huge thanks to temporary factors (at least we hope they’re temporary): a severe economic slump is depressing revenues and large sums have to be allocated both to fiscal stimulus and to financial rescues.
• But if and when the crisis passes, the budget picture should improve dramatically.
• There’s only so much long-run thinking the political system can handle in the midst of a severe crisis; he has probably taken on all he can, for now.
• And this budget looks very, very good.

LMW COMMENT …

The Obama budget proposal is our first look forward at Obama programs not defined as “cleaning up George Bush’s mess” and I, for one, am very pleased with what I see. Progressive leadership that addresses serious common needs in a pragmatic (not ideological) way. It’s exactly the right way to go.

We could all see the exact moment when the direction changed. In Tuesday night’s speech, when Obama said “we are not quitters” and that even in the toughest times, “there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency and a determination that perseveres.” What he was saying was: now it’s time for my agenda, the one you elected me to carry out.

Next we will watch how Obama brings along both Democratic and Republican members of Congress whose vision has never been so broad. It should be a fascinating political exercise, and what makes it all the more interesting is the role we all have to play. Because it is our continued support for President Obama which will pave the way for his success. We need President Obama and he needs us.

Read the entire column at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?ref=opinion

* Obama’s budget … go for it!

John Harwood writes in today’s NYT (2/27/09) …

• President Obama’s budget is a political gamble of the first order.
• He is asking Congress to take on a wide-ranging set of complicated issues all at once, after years during which it had trouble grappling directly with almost any of them.
• Whether Mr. Obama has overreached or succeeded in putting the nation on a sharply different course will largely depend on the same political skills that delivered him the presidency.
• To keep the pressure on Congress, he will have to keep public opinion on his side through what could be a long, deep recession and through necessary but unpopular steps like allocating hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to bailing out banks.
• Mr. Obama is building a case that an era of Republican dominance has bequeathed a set of problems that demand a more active government capable of restoring fairness to the American model of democratic capitalism.

LMW COMMENT … The man has guts as well as intelligence. It’s time to reverse the Republican agenda that began with Ronald Reagan and bring America into the 21st century.

Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/us/politics/27assess.html?_r=1&hp

 

* Obama’s audacious governance has just begun

E.J. Dionne writes in the Washington Post (2/25/09) …

• President Obama’s message to the nation Tuesday night was plain and unequivocal: The era of bashing government is over.
• So, too, is the folklore of a marketplace capable of producing abundance without regulation, government oversight or public intervention.
• Obama’s rhetoric is soothing and his approach is inclusive. But he is proposing nothing less than an ideological transformation.
• Tuesday night’s speech was the most comprehensive manifesto he has offered yet for his new rendezvous with America’s progressive tradition. 
• If he is right, he will also have rebuilt American liberalism.

LMW COMMENT …

I think it’s misleading to cast President Obama’s philosophy and initiatives in the traditional liberal-conservative framework. What we are seeing is something entirely new, based on pragmatism and solving problems, not ideology. How refreshing! 

Obama’s goal of reducing the deficit by 50% by the end of his first term is breathtaking. Pay close attention to how he proposed to do it.

• 1. End the war in Iraq;
• 2. End the obscene Bush tax cuts for the rich when they expire next year;
• 3. Reform health care to save huge wasteful expenditures that do not produce good health.

So far, so good. But it’s number 4 that got my attention:

• 4. eliminate government programs that don’t work.

In this last endeavor, the President will take on ALL politicians, Democrats as well as Republicans, as everything he proposes to eliminate will be somebody’s favorite program (… think the movie Dave, and remember Charles Grodin drawing lines through budget items).

If Obama can pull this off, he will reverse the sloppy unmanaged approach to government that has afflicted all administrations and Congresses for decades. He will only succeed if he keeps the support of the voters. I think he has a chance.

Now that’s real change!

Read the entire column at … http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/24/AR2009022403350.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

 

* NYT: Obama shows the leadership we need, and puts the “just say NO” Republicans in a corner

 Today’s NYT editorial (2/25/09) …

• If we have had doubts about the way President Obama has been handling the multitudinous disasters bequeathed to him by George W. Bush, starting with the cascading economic crisis, it was that we wanted to see more of Barack Obama the candidate in Barack Obama the president. 
  • He has not been assertive, ambitious, clear — or audacious — enough.
• Mr. Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night was his chance to change that, and he rose to the occasion. 
  • He sounded confident — promising that the nation will rebuild and “emerge stronger than before” — without minimizing the grave problems that must first be surmounted.
• He drew a bright line between his view of the responsibilities of government and that of the Republicans who helped create this mess and have stubbornly provided no help to Mr. Obama in cleaning it up.
• The economic crisis requires immediate, bold and comprehensive action. 
  • And on Tuesday night, Mr. Obama displayed the ambition and the sweeping vision that won him the White House — and that this crisis demands.
• The time to move boldly and rapidly on health care reform is now, while the need is great and Mr. Obama’s popularity is still high.

LMW COMMENT …

President Obama has his foot on the pedal and shows not the slightest inclination to ease off. He is taking on one issue after another as he works to clean up the mess he inherited from George W. Bush and the Republicans. His vision and energy are the best hope for the U.S., and for the world, which needs America to provide leadership on so many fronts.

Meanwhile, the “just say NO” Republicans are fading further into the corner, as evidenced by Gov. Jyndal’s pathetic speech seemingly aimed at 6 year olds. And did you watch the Republican Senators and Congressmen – it looked like all of them – sitting on their hands when Obama mentioned the Children’s Health legislation passed earlier in the month; how do you vote against children’s health, and hope to win re-election?

Read the entire editorial at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25wed1.html?ref=opinion

 

* President Obama’s support among Dems and Independents remains as high as it ever was

NBC’s Mark Murray and Chuck Todd report on FIRST READ this morning …

• According to the latest Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating is now at 63%, which is down five percentage points from his initial rating in January. 
• Also, his disapproval number has doubled from 12% in January to 24% now. 
• But be careful if you’re trying to draw a dramatic conclusion about this slight downward tick. 
• The only group of voters that has moved away from Obama are Republicans, who went from 41% approval in January to 30% now. 
• However, Democrats’ approval has remained steady (88% then, 89% now). And — perhaps most importantly — so has approval among independents (63% then, 63% now).

LMW COMMENT …

Republicans are engaged in a disgraceful campaign to try to gain political advantage from President Obama’s efforts to rescue the country from the mess George W. Bush put us into. It’s not working, and it won’t work.

Any reasonable person knows the unprecedented complexity of the problems Bush left for Obama means that no simple solutions are available. Also that any solution tried may have elements to it that are less than perfect. But we also know that we must move forward aggressively, and that is what President Obama is doing.

Republicans who “JUST SAY NO”, such as the misguided governors who say they will refuse stimulus money in their states, and Senators and Representatives who refuse to participate meaningfully in the bipartisan opportunities being offered to them, will pay a huge price with the American people, who know clearly that President Obama is their best and only hope.

read the FIRST READ post and many other useful articles at …  http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/23/1805411.aspx

* FIRST READ: Obama’s first month

First Read: The day in politics by NBC News 

• Today marks exactly one month since Obama was inaugurated.
• It’s been a month of successes: 
  • passing the largest economic stimulus bill in the history of the country while retaining high approval numbers.
• And pitfalls: 
  • losing the spin war at the outset of the stimulus, Daschle (and other nominee) tax problems, lobbying exceptions, the Commerce Department (just in general — what a mess), Geithner’s TARP II rollout.
• And there’s a whole lot more to come: 
  • Housing, health care, climate change, the labor-business fight, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Israel-Hamas, and on.
• Republicans have been unimpressed. 
  • In an e-mail blasted out (twice) to reporters this morning, they stress this has been a “disappointing month,” one “marked by wasteful spending, failed bipartisanship, and questionable ethics.”
• Ask yourself this, what will be more remembered – 
  • Nancy Killefer’s taxes, field mice and Bill Lynn’s lobbying? 
  • Or that Obama got a more than $700 billion bill through Congress in less than a month
  • and most importantly, to both Democrats and Republicans, whether it works at all?
• The great challenge that this White House is dealing with is the 24/7 nature of the Twittering media that no other president has ever dealt with on the policy front. 
• This environment of incremental up-down rulings by the punditocracy is quite the message handling challenge for this White House. 
  • Right now, it’s chosen to deal with it by flooding the zone
  • instead of pushing one storyline a week, they go ahead and try and sell multiple messages.
  • Can they keep up the pace?

LMW COMMENT … An excellent, keep-things-in-persepctive review of President Obama’s first month in office. Is it possible that it’s only been a month?

read every FIRST READ at … http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/

* it’s right help the undeserving … but it’s also right to get it back

David Brooks writes in today’s NYT (Money for Idiots 2-20-09) …

• The stimulus package handed tens of billions of dollars to states that spent profligately during the prosperity years. The Obama housing plan will force people who bought sensible homes to subsidize the mortgages of people who bought houses they could not afford. It will almost certainly force people who were honest on their loan forms to subsidize people who were dishonest on theirs. 
• These injustices are stoking anger across the country, lustily expressed by Rick Santelli on CNBC Thursday morning. “The government is promoting bad behavior!” Santelli cried as Chicago traders cheered him on. “The president … should put up a Web site … to have people vote … to see if they want to subsidize losers’ mortgages!” 
• Well, in some cases we probably do. That’s because government isn’t fundamentally in the Last Judgment business, making sure everybody serves penance for their sins. In times like these, government is fundamentally in the business of stabilizing the economic system as a whole. 
• To stabilize that communal landscape, sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent. The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we’re all in this together. If their lives don’t stabilize, then our lives don’t stabilize.

LMW COMMENT … I agree with David Brooks, to a point. We do have to save people who don’t deserve it in order to save the rest of us who do. However … we should somehow get the money back, when home values increase, by placing a special tax on future earnings by those who were saved by taxpayer money, or by some other creative method.

Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/opinion/20brooks.html

* radical Republican and Democratic ideologues are comparable to extremist Palestinians and Israelis

LMW COMMENT …

I wonder if anyone else is struck by the resemblance between the fundamentalist ideologues in both American political parties and their extremist counterparts among the Israelis and the Palestinians. Radicals all, the four groups have severely restricted views of their own goals and objectives, while automatically classifying the opposition as wrong-headed and hateful.

None of these extremists have much appreciation for the moderates of their own groups, whose goals are far more practical: like restoring the U.S. economy or establishing peaceful co-existence in the Middle East. They would, it seems, rather scuttle their own flagships on the rocks of militant intolerance than reach a place where those they hate can also share the only common safe harbor.

Too often the attention of the world and the media is on the extremists, while those who labor in the places where real progress is possible are seen as boring, bereft of dramatic sound bites.

Enter President Barack Obama into this hitherto pessimistic landscape. With his extraordinary intelligence and gift of communication, Obama shows signs of being able to transform the pragmatic path to real accomplishment into the exciting road, while making the ideological world of sound bites seem like last year’s stale news.

Partisans at the outer edges of the Republican and Democratic parties may soon see that Obama has them out-flanked, and perhaps this will lead to real progress on healthcare, financial and educational reforms, among other crucial domestic issues.

Is it too much to hope that self-destructive partisans at the outer edges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might also be out-maneuvered by those who can see true glory in the middle road?

* Sen. Gregg’s withdrawal … a clear statement by Republican ideologues who definitely don’t want bipartisan solutions

Senator Judd Gregg has withdrawn his previous acceptance of a nomination by President Obama to be Secretary of Commerce. Here’s what he said …

• it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.
• Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.

LMW COMMENT … It’s hard to believe Senator Gregg is being honest about the reasons for his withdrawal. He knew what the stimulus package was before he accepted the nomination. It seems highly likely that Republican ideologues who have zero interest in bipartisan solutions to America’s problems must have climbed all over him and forced him to renege on his promise to Obama. Overall, this is another Republican disgrace that reflects not at all on a president who is trying to work with people who, unfortunately, want none of it.

Read Sen. Gregg’s entire statement at … http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/gregg_withdrawal_secretary.html