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Taking the Offensive on Defense

Tue Oct. 11, 2005 10:49 AM PDT

In a recent interview with Salon, Sen. Russ Feingold got vocal about the mess in Iraq and the likelihood that we won't be hanging a "mission accomplished" sign over a working democracy in Iraq before it comes time to withdraw troops. Meanwhile, Robert Kuttner notes in the Boston Globe a CBS poll reporting that 64 percent of Americans "oppose Bush's conduct of the war," and hence:

[A]n antiwar candidate such as Feingold would be an odds-on favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination over bigger names disabled by their own fatal caution.

Keep your hat on Hillary, winning the nomination in 2008 will take more than a diplomatic distaste for war, Bush cronyism, and a federal disaster, or even a season of what some on the right are calling Hillary's primetime infomercial.

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Keeping the Poor Out

Tue Oct. 11, 2005 9:40 AM PDT

Recall that Bush, in the wake of Katrina, was able to suspend federal labor laws that require federal contractors to pay a prevailing wage.

That was bad enough.

But now it seems that not only are workers at companies with federal contracts being paid below the prevailing wage, but they are being radically underpaid. Body and Soul links to an LATimes story today which notes that some workers are only being paid $4 an hour!

Jeanne then writes:

If all you care about is putting up structures, cheap is good. If you're trying to rebuild a community, the most important thing is giving people something to come back to. Four dollars isn't it. If anybody cared about the community, they'd be paying way more than prevailing wages, and giving evacuees priority on getting the jobs.
Somehow we have trained these corporations to believe that national disasters are a time for them to profit. But this gets things all wrong. A system that privileges the profit of a construction company over the basic welfare of those who will live in the area after it is rebuilt is a system that has been turned upside down. Indeed, what good will it be to rebuild that community if you underpay the very people who are supposed to live that community?

DNC Outsources Work to Union-Busting Company

Mon Oct. 10, 2005 7:01 PM PDT

There are a few things I expect of the Democratic Party and groups that it hires, employs, works with, etc. 1) Provide great healthcare to all employees and 2) Respect your workers by honoring their right to strike, organize, and collectively bargain.

Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Nathan Newman directed me towards a rather disturbing story: a Denver-based company called Telefund has been allegedly engaging in Union Busting. What makes this so upsetting is that many progressive organizations outsource their fundraising efforts to Telefund, including, among others, The Democratic National Committee, Amnesty International, the Sierra Club, and Mother Jones.

Now, there is no indication that any of these organizations are aware of the union busting activity as it has only just come to light. But now that the story has surfaced, an investigation is needed.

Nathan is right, the DNC (and these other progressive organizations) should not associate itself with any institution that so egregiously violates its workers' rights. I can only hope that they act swiftly to resolve the matter.

[Story originally found at YAL]

Preparing for the Flat Tax Assault

—By

| Mon Oct. 10, 2005 6:11 PM PDT

I see that Andrew Sullivan has made the flat tax his new pet issue, noting, among other things, that the Eastern European countries that have implemented the flat tax have all seen stunning rates of growth in recent years. Well, good for them. Since this issue is likely to come up sooner or later, though, here are a few initial, mostly scattered points:

  • It's unclear what's boosting those Eastern European economies, exactly. These are all countries that have emerged from communism, privatized industry, and seen an influx of western investment over the past decade. You'd expect them to grow quickly, no? I'd like to see more before ascribing magical powers to the flat tax. Slovakia, for instance, had 4.2 percent growth in 2003, "the strongest growth in Central Europe," right before it moved to the flat tax. Huh. And President Ivan Gasparovic has recently said that the wave of new foreign investors are attracted by the country's cheap labor costs rather than its flat tax rates.

  • Similarly, this IMF paper wonders whether Russia's boost in tax revenues following its flat-tax reform in 2001 were due to voodoo economics or merely to better enforcement. See also "Demythologizing the Russian Flat Tax" by Clifford Gaddy and William Gale.

  • Flat-taxers love to hype the simplicity of the "postcard size tax return," but as analysts have pointed since the days of Cain and Abel, the simplicity of a tax system has nothing to do with the tax rates. Progressive tax rates don't make our system complicated. Once you know your income, you can just as easily multiply it by 23 percent as by 17 percent with a calculator. Try it! The real difficulty comes in actually defining one's income and calculating all those deductions and exemptions. That will never be easy for some people, say, Dick Cheney, no matter what kind of tax system we have. We can still have a simplified tax code that happens to have different rates for different income levels. There are good and fair ways of doing this.

  • It's worth noting that when you add up all federal, state, and local taxes, this country already has fairly "flat" tax rates. According to CTJ, the top 20 percent of earners pay about 32 percent of their income in taxes, the next quintile 29.8 percent, the next quintile 27 percent, and the next quintile 23 percent.

  • Popular resistance to a flat tax, at least in the United States, will come from people who don't want to give up the concrete deductions and exemptions they currently have in exchange for theoretical future gains down the road (from supposedly higher economic growth). I have a feeling that this is a psychological phenomenon that's very difficult to get around.

  • Home values would very likely decline in the short term if we switched to a flat tax and eliminated all deductions, on the theory that right now, the home-mortgage deduction enables buyers to bid up the prices of real estate. The price decline wouldn't change anything on net, but people who currently own homes would obviously be screwed.

  • So, for that matter, would many large businesses. Some corporations get deductions for interest on loans that they've taken out to purchase new equipment, as well as deductions for the depreciation of current equipment. Businesses that have been borrowing and investing in new equipment aggressively would get a kick in the teeth if the United States eliminated all deductions and moved to a flat tax. I daresay that manufacturing would suffer the worst; just don't tell Clyde Prestowitz.

  • If Congress can't, for political reasons, eliminate all those deductions and exemptions, then the effective flat tax rate is going to be very, very high. Certainly higher than the 15 percent effective federal rate that about 60 percent of all taxpayers currently pay. Of course, those are the bottom 60 percent of income-earners, and they have precisely zero sway over the current Republican Party, so that's obviously not a political concern for anyone in power.

    • In theory it's possible to design a progressive flat tax, or simplify the tax code in all sorts of progressive and sensible ways, as Dick Gephardt has suggested. But that's not the flat tax that Andrew Sullivan, John Breaux, or George W. Bush have in mind. Any tax reform that lowers the rate on the wealthy will have to raise taxes elsewhere, obviously. There's no getting around this, except with deficits. If I had to bet, I'd bet that the GOP shies away from real flat-tax reform (for reasons #5, 6, and 7 above) this fall and instead just enacts further tax cuts for its allies. Democrats are in danger of coming to power soon; best to leave them a nice big deficit mess and let them reap the political whirlwind.

    Second Term Revolving Door

    —By

    | Mon Oct. 10, 2005 3:34 PM PDT

    The Center for American Progress has a new report out called "The Second Term Revolving Door," documenting new Bush administration officials who have ties to business, as well as former officials who are moving on to plush lobbying careers. In a the abstract, it's hard to see the big deal: clearly a number of appointees in the executive branch are often going to have business experience; nor is it a big deal if civil servants want to cash out after they leave government. This administration, on the other hand, deserves very little benefit of the doubt, especially after it let industry lobbyists infiltrate the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration (see here for a long list) and corporate cronies oversee their former companies in Iraq.

    Perhaps most notably among the current batch, both Philip Perry, the General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, and Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary for DHS, have ties to Lockheed (Perry a former lobbyist; Jackson a former COO). Tim Wiener reported in the New York Times last fall that Lockheed is "increasingly putting its stamp on the nation's military policies" through its corporate connections. That process seems to be accelerating.

    No child left behind, though some may die in Iraq, and others may become invisible

    —By

    | Mon Oct. 10, 2005 3:16 PM PDT

    Thanks to Louisiana Senator David Vitter, the No Child Left Behind Act contains a clause which requires schools to give military recruiters the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of high school students. As most people have heard by now, parents may opt their adolescents out of this process. However, No Child Left Behind also provides that schools that do not hand over the information are subject to losing federal funding.

    In Florida's Duval County, school officials have made a bargain with parents: It's okay to opt your kids out of the military recruiter list, but if you do so, your teenager's photo will not appear in the yearbook, and she will not be listed in sports activities or on the honor roll. Where I come from, this practice is known as extortion, but I'm sure the Pentagon sees it as negotiation. Duval County officials, though they believe they are operating within the confines of the law, have agreed to make some changes next year, which would give parents more options. However, these changes do not appear to effect the "negotiation" aspect of the process.

    Though all credit goes to Senator Vitter for this particular aspect of the mess that is known as No Child Left Behind, it would be unfair of me to not ask alll of Congress to take a bow for its passage.

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    Just the right bit of religion

    Mon Oct. 10, 2005 2:33 PM PDT

    Since the final draft of the new Iraqi constitution was released last Thursday to citizens in Baghdad, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has released a review of its human rights protections, especially those regarding religious freedom. While noting some improvements, USCIRF sees the inclusion of Islam as the state religion and its designation as the "a fundamental source of legislation" as a danger to civil liberties. Especially troubling to the Commission is that the interpretation and implementation of the laws will be determined by the Iraqi high court, which will contain Islamic jurists with no training in western-style civil law legal traditions. The majority Shiite Muslims in Iraq support the final draft of the constitution, while militant factions of the Sunni minority are calling for a boycott of the referendum and threatening participants with violence.

    The concerns raised by the Iraqi constitutional draft and court nominations add an interesting element to the somewhat parallel civic conversation surrounding the Supreme Court nominee debacle in the US. As Miers' evangelical history is simultaneously attacked, right and left by some, and touted as a selling point by others, some Americans may be left wondering exactly when and how the principle of church-state separation gets implemented; then again, some have already made up their mind.

    Plots Aplenty

    —By

    | Mon Oct. 10, 2005 12:34 PM PDT

    Via Cursor.org, the AP has a White House-released list of the ten terror plots that President Bush last week claimed to have disrupted since 9/11. One wonders, though, how loosely the White House is using the word "plot," when something like this appears on the list:

    The Jose Padilla Plot: In May 2002, the U.S. disrupted a plot that involved blowing up apartment buildings in the United States. One of the plotters, Jose Padilla, also discussed the possibility of using a "dirty bomb" in the U.S.

    As far as I can tell, "a plot that involved blowing up apartment buildings" is an actual crime, one for which there are actual consequences. According to the Justice Department, Padilla allegedly met with senior al-Qaeda leaders and scouted sites that would be bombed by a radioactive "dirty bomb"; yet as District Court Judge Henry Floyd said in March, the government faces "no impediments whatsoever" to trying Padilla on precisely these charges in civilian court. For all I know, Padilla really did do these things, and really is a dangerous guy who deserves prison, but the government certainly hasn't proved that to anyone, and until that happens, there's no reason why it should be allowed to tout these arrests as success stories. As the New York Times reports today, Belgian officials are learning how to use the courts to prosecute terrorism and uncover plots, despite the country's fairly weak domestic intelligence capabilities, and there's no reason why the U.S. should be unable to do the same.

    "These guys are bullies"

    —By

    | Mon Oct. 10, 2005 11:00 AM PDT

    I haven't been following the Valerie Plame investigation very closely, but judging from this Time story, it seems like Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor on the case, is really getting to the Mayberry Machiavellis:

    As top Bush aide Karl Rove prepares for his fourth grand-jury appearance, the federal probe into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the media is believed to be wrapping up. But the investigation has taken a toll on White House aides, many of whom now fear that the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, is intent on issuing indictments. "Fitzgerald's office, although very professional, has been very aggressive in pursuing people," the adviser said. "These guys are bullies, and they threaten you."

    Poor babies.

    Arbitrary Healthcare

    —By

    | Mon Oct. 10, 2005 10:35 AM PDT

    Over the weekend, Kevin Drum had a fantastic post about why we need universal health care. Just to add to everything he said, it's utterly bizarre and twisted that a person in this country can receive government health insurance after losing all their life savings in a hurricane, but if a person who loses their job—through no fault of their own—and can't pay for chemo injections, well, tough luck. It's bizarre that Medicaid will cover those under the poverty line but not, quite frequently, those at twice the poverty threshold, or just over the cutoff, or often certain parents below the threshold. At present, people in very similar circumstances aren't at all treated equally, and we'd do just as well tossing darts at a dartboard to determine who gets coverage and who doesn't.