Dysfunctional Democrats - Duh

David Broder dazzles us with daily comments about Dysfunctional Democrats. Duh. The problem is not the schedule of primaries, it is the complete disconnection between the presidential and congressional selection systems.

In our party, we will only select a presidential candidate when we run candidates in the majority of house and senate races and these candidates will be the nominators. When they run for nomination, they will do so by endorsing a presidential candidate. Of course right now we don't have this embarrassement of riches. Eventually we will, as our candidates are not for sale and our plan will give the majority what it wants.

See our detailed plan for both presidential selection and campaign finance here.

Securing Future Fiscal Health

In the August 28 Washington Post, former Senators Bob Kerry and Warren Rudman offer support for a bipartisan commission to make recommendations on closing the fiscal gap, the end result facing an up or down vote in Congress.

This is a good idea, although we only support it with reservations. It should not be used as a vehicle for making the Bush tax cuts permanent or for short circuiting debate on Social Security Reform or Tax Reform.

We have already had bipartisan presidential commissions on both of these issues. (Go to our web page to see our comments to both of these bodies). Nothing has come about so far. In the current political climate, nothing is likely to. No action means that the Bush tax cuts expire. You would think that the Republicans would be more in a hurry to compromise in order to secure at least some of the gains they have made. Of course, all tax changes must begin in the House, and the House has been loath to work bipartisanly. I don't see that changing before the election. It may be that the GOP is betting on gains in the Senate. This could only be assured if there is major cheating in the electronic vote counting now sweeping the country. Barring major fraud, they may lose one or both Houses.

This actually may be the best thing. Unless Nancy Pelosi decides to stonewall any changes, there is likely to be real negotiation on many matters the President is concerned with from tax reform to tax rates to Social Security. Let us hope so - since the truth is often in the middle.

Iraq Spillith Over - Time to Get Out

Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack write about the Iraqi Civil War in the Sunday Outlook section of the August 20 Washington Post. They maintain that we cannot choose sides in this civil war. The only problem is that we already have. For all the history of the region's civil conflicts they left out the genesis of this one, the tribal conflict between Saddam's community and the remainder of the country which the United States helped stoke when it urged the Shia and Kurds to revolt in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. Any analysis that does not start with the premise that we started it is incomplete. This also puts the conflict in perspective, as a tribal conflict may or may not spread as a true sectarian civil war would. Acknowledging our part in the Iraqi civil war gives us a way out. In fact, it shows that getting out is the best option. We need not insist on the existence of an artificial Iraq, but should instead find a Sunni Arab nation or Turkey to occupy that portion where we really were not wanted, perhaps the Baathist Syria or the Hashemite Jordanians. Neither of the last two will be opposed as we are. They will be looked upon as liberators from American tyranny. For more on how and why we got into this, how the U.N. can't help, how to get out, and the problem of American hegemony, see http://www.geocities.com/mikeybdc/Iraq.html.Our involvement in this region has as much to do with the preservation of the defense industrial complex. If we are ever to break free of this we need to redirect our defense industry to the peaceful exploration of space and transform our alliance to an allied government, which as I say in the Iraq essay, is necessary given the current American overreach and the resentment among our allies that George Bush is behaving as if he were king of the world, which our international treaties actually make him. It is time to overthrow this king, and to do this we need a majority of the House to oppose him and two-thirds of the Senate to have an open mind.

Conservatives Without Conscience

I have just now finished John W. Dean's recent book, Conservatives Without Conscience. (Reviewed in The Washington Post August 9th) In this work he uses psychological data on authoritarianism to examine how authoritarians in both the neoconservative and social/religious conservative movements have taken over the Republican Party and how this is could be a step to a larger dictatorship if not watched.

Dean traces authoritarianisms history in the public, although his efforts are not perfect. He mentions the disengagement of envangelicals from national politics from the 1920s until the 1960s. This may be true, however Mr. Dean misses a big piece of American political history by making this contention. What does he think Segregation was if not the ultimate in authoritarianism. The conservative hot button issues of abortion, homosexuality and desegregaton were not present on the landscape in this period because the social revolution the right wing authoritarians are currently reacting to had not yet occurred. Dean calls the right wing authoritarians Radical, but the classic term is Reactionary, since the right wing authoritarians seek an earlier time when sex was back in Pandora's Box (if it ever was). In the time where Right Wing Authoritarians were innactive in national politics they were very active in local politics making sure that Segregation was enforced. I find it hard to believe that the leaders in the segregated South, or the North for that matter, weren's Social Dominators and Right Wing Authoritarians. In fact, for a systematic discrimination to succeed, authoritarianism must be operative. It was never not operative in the American south, since the slave and sharecropper systems required it to function. When coverage of the Civil Rights movement made segregation socially unacceptable, the authoritarians had to find another avenue to power. Luckily the sexual revolution played right into their hands. Dean's problem with the social conservatives seems to be as much their inclusion in the Republican Party as their existence as a political force. This is shocking coming from someone who served in the Nixon White House. It was called the Southern Strategy. Perhaps Dean did not get the memo. What has changed is that these people are no longer as poor as they used to be. The Depression did not treat them well. Now that they are doing better economically, their dollars are sought.

What is new is the union between the Protestant Evangelicals and the Catholic ethnic conservatives. This would have been unthinkable fifty years ago, but abortion politics have made it possible. The Catholic hierarchy's complicity in this is fascinating. I am not sure who is capturing who. In conservative Catholic end times prophesy, the return of the Protestants to the Roman Church is as essential a step as the conversion of the Jews the Evangelicals look forward to. I wonder who is capturing whom.

I am not sure that all elected officials are not, to some extent, social dominators. They may not be out and out segregationists, but most of those elected to high office have, let us say, a healthy dose of self-esteem. In effect, they believe they are a cut above everyone else. Their amorality, especially in sexual matters, does not seem to know party line (remember Monica?). They seem to suffer from compulsive's disease (alcoholism, sex addiction, etc.) at a higher rate than the average citizen. A part of that pathology is a dominating personality. Also, whether they, as a class, are true believers in inequality - rather than exploiters of their followers authoritarianism - is an open question. The case of Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter is a case in point. His first love, whose child he financially supported, was in the class he proportedly hated. Maybe, just maybe, he was speaking into the listening of his constituents. While there are undoubtedly some true believers in racial inequality among the social dominators on the Republican side, they aren't necessarily the norm. As to economic inequality, the tax cuts of the past two decades may be as much about pandering to ones donors as an overarching belief in economic inequality.

The Authoritarianism Dean details can as easily be called Hierarchism as defined in the Grid/Group Theory of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. Looked at that way, the trends Dean highlights are not pathology but a long standing chosen way of life. The existence of dominant personalities in elected office is also nothing new. The parallel Dean draws between Viet Nam and Iraq also shows that adventurism in American policy is not a unique development. Indeed, the Spanish American War and the genocidal wars which opened the American West bear striking similarity to our current situation. What has changed is the coverage and the acceptability of an anti-war movement. Prior generations would have rounded up dissenters or lynched them.

Now, I am in no way arguing that we should left the current coalition unchecked. Indeed, its rise to dominance has as a key factor the inclusion of Catholics who left the Democratic Party in reaction to the partial birth abortion bill vetos of President Clinton. As long as the Supreme Court composition stays the same over the next few months, the issue of partial birth abortion will soon die, since the current Court's balance is not enough to reverse the actions of the lower courts declaring the federal partial birth abortion ban unconstitutional (just in time for the fall election). This issue will be used to mobilize the base and will then fade into obscurity - especially if the War is going badly and the Democrats gain control of one or both houses of Congress. A loss may actually better for the Republican Party as Dennis Hastert, who Dean largely ignored for reasons that are not entirely clear, is governing badly and seems to be out of ideas and way out of his depth. It would be a relief for the Republicans if his time as Speaker were ended through a change in the majority.

So, how do we get out of this mess we are in. The current political landscape is unsustainable. Political change comes when two factions work together and forge a new center coalition. When morally conservative prohibitionists and socially liberal suffregettes joined forces they made progress on both of their issues, winning the frachise for women and banning alcohol (I didn't say the progress was always good). In the same way, if abortion opponents and living wage supporters get together, a new coalition is possible. A ban on early abortion is unlikely, however some restriction on late term abortion is still possible if combined with economic and social measures that make it more unlikely than it already is (only 12% of abortions occur in the latter stages of pregnancy). Indeed, if the right economic reforms are passed, those which I have laid out here in previous entries, the enactment of criminal penalties will be entirely unnecessary since the only late term abortions performed will be for medical necessity.

Forging such a coalition is what the Musings from the Christian Left and the Christian Libertarian Party Manifesto are all about. This entry is cross-posted to both blogs.

The Iraq Civil War

Harold Meyerson writes about the question raised by John Warner on whether to enact a resolution authorizing American troops to remain in an Iraq racked by civil war and how such a resolution would lay bare the failure of Administration policy on Iraq.

Harold is being generous. The fact of the matter is, the United States started the Civil War when it began trying to oust Saddam during Bush 41's Administration. This civil war is not sectarian as much as it is tribal.

Harold is also correct on how we can't solve this. However, because it is an arab tribal conflict, it should be settled by their traditional sovereign, the holder of the Hashemite throne and heir of the Prophet, King Abdullah of Jordan who should settle the boundaries of the division of this artificial nation.

For more on this (including comments on American hegemony), go to http://www.geocities.com/mikeybdc/Iraq.html

House Incumbents at Risk

In July 8th's Washington Post, Peter Baker and Claudia Dean report that House incumbents are in jeapordy. The approval rates for one's own representative are the lowest since 1994, when the Congress last changed hands. However, there is a caveat.

The survey suggests that it is not just Republicans whose incumbents are in
jeopardy. But it includes one important caveat -- as of now, few Republicans
or Democrats plan to stray from their parties in November. The Democrats'
lead stems from a big advantage among independents.

This is an important caveat. If the independents stay home the Republicans could well retain the majority. If this happens in the face of popular discontent, major shifts may be possible in 2008 (like, for instance, the emergence of a new party).

De Facto Welfare Reform

With the Workforce Investment Act locked up in the Senate, the Leadership and Administration slipped in their desired changes in omnibus budget cutting legislation last year. The Washington Post reports that the regulations are about to take effect.

Christian Libertarians take no delight in this development. It is certainly not Christian to keep people in poverty. Neither is it libertarian. The Administration's reforms will not work because they do not provide for educating the chronically illiterat or providing a path to higher education. While cooperative education as part of subsidized higher or technical learning might be a component of a holistic, employee sponsored education reform, it HAS NO PLACE in a program to education people to basic literacy. These individuals should have only one job - becoming literate at a tenth grade level. This is not only morally just but it makes social, economic and political sense.

A class of illiterate workers makes our lives as consumers that much harder. It frustrates both and leads these unqualified workers to seek income in less savory ways - leading in time to more drug abuse, illegitimacy, prostitution and violent crime and their attendant costs. There is nothing libertarian about that.

Our Party offers a better program. Literacy education through faith based adult education programs using credentialed teachers at accredited institutions can be combined with public assistance programs so that the only way to get a check is to go to school. The same education providers would also administer the benefits.

Higher and technical education would be sponsored by employers. Students would have a work requirement, but it would support their educations, not detract from them. They would also have a service requirement, in much the same way that the military services require a term of service for academy and ROTC graduates. Workers would be paid to go to school and would pay student loans only if they leave employment before their term of service is up.

For more information on both of these, see:
http://www.geocities.com/xianleft_michael/education.html
http://www.geocities.com/bindner_space/careers.html

Brands as Government - The Start of a Trend?

Sebastian Mallaby writes in the August 7 Washington Post that brand identity is becoming so important that corporations are increasing their responsiveness to social concerns, often acting ahead of rather than in response to governmental action.

This is a welcome trend, as it mimics the development strategy outlined in the Christian Libertarian Party Manifesto. We believe that employee and union owned firms will do more for advancing worker rights, both here and abroad, than any governmental action. If such firms adopt the changes we have outlined, they will our perform traditional firms and attract the best workers and the savviest shareholders, thereby forcing the competition to follow their lead.

These firms will also be leaders in Social Security privatization - not the President's proposal but one that allows for direct investment in the employer. Privatizing Social Security in this way allows for a massive increase in capital formation, more than any other tax incentives designed to boost the savings rate. It also grants employees even more control over their workplaces - thus decreasing the need for governmental regulation.

These firms will also take the lead in paying a family wage and offering education and health benefits. When tax reform is considered, they will weigh in seeking these changes in the tax code for their benefit and the benefit of other workers.

Finally, using economic muscle for social legislation keeps the playing field level. Paying a living wage is potentially non-competitive. Firms who are leaders in this regard could suffer - and many who would do so have not because they fear a loss of competitiveness. While branding mitigates this it does not eliminate it. Resorting to governmental action keeps them from operating at a disadvantage (which is why minimum wage legislation is gaining traction in the business community).

For more information, see the following links to our Iowa Center for Fiscal Equity think tank site:
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/socialsecurityandownership.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/Governance.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/PayEquity.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/taxreformproposal.html

The End of the Right?

E.J. Dionne writes in the Washington Post about the end of conservatism. He relates that many conservatives do not believe anymore that the Republican Majority is worth saving, since it seems to now care more about keeping its majority than accomplishing its, or any, agenda.

Turnabout is fair play.

It wasn't long ago that people were wondering at the death of liberalism. While some folks are still unabashed liberals, there are many more who don't use the L word to describe themselves.

The truth of the matter is that one cannot exist without the other. When conservative hacks, Ann Coulter comes to mind, get personal in their attacks on liberalism they sign their own political death warrants. If you utterly destroy the legitimacy of your opponents argument, you have no position to stand on yourself. There remains only personal aggrandize, which is what the conservative movement has been reduced to.

The bill in question, which prompted E.J.'s article, was an attempt to raise the minimum wage and reform the estate tax. The Republicans realized that many of their culturally conservative voters would benefit from raising the minimum wage while the Democrats blocked the bill because it would benefit the wealthiest families (although this is debatable, since enough options exist that only those who plan badly end up paying the tax). There was also the spectacle of the Unions and Democrats not wanting the bill to pass as a Republican measure.

One can only wonder what the reaction in the nation will be, especially among minimum wage workers. I don't for a second believe that they will flock to the Republican Party. The sad fact of the matter is, most low wage voters don't vote. Many aren't old enough, educated enough or able to because of citizenship or felony issues. Others are just plain turned off by the process.

Some do vote, however. Others, who are part of the dwindling middle class, must be scratching their heads in wonder. A decade or so ago, the Pew Research Institute and the Washington Post both did studies on how the electorate was broken down ideologically. It found that most people were neither hard core liberals nor hard core conservatives. Most voters are a mix. The escalation of rhetoric is going to turn off more and more of these people in the center. We may be faced with the lowest turnout election in history this fall. Of course, there may be enough dissatisfaction with the party in power to boost turnout, although the way the House is gerrymandering, there is still the question of whether the Republicans can lose. If they end up winning in the face of voter disgust the entire system could implode.

In American history, this happens every so often. The past is littered with parties that lost their way. The original Republicans of Jefferson and Madison. The which, the Federalists. It is past time for another corpse for the pile. When this happens, I am betting that a new consensus will emerge. Many Americans are both libertarian and Christian with a healthy streak of egalitarianism, as odd as this seems to many liberal activists who think I am on a fools errand. (They want to return to the glory days which never existed when there was a Democratic majority, even though that majority always featured southern racists).

To this majority, I offer a solution. Partisans on either side won't understand, but I think what is proposed on this bloc and in the associated book and discussion list will strike exactly the chord they are listening for.

The Estate Tax and the Minimum Wage Vote

Charles Babington reports on the failure of the compromise legislation to raise the minimum wage while permanently cutting the estate tax. Opponents of the repeal argue that it will cost the federal treasury, although most rich people use trusts and other shelters to avoid paying the tax. Only the "unprepared rich" ever pay this tax. Repealing or cutting the tax would leave quite a few of the estate planners who thrive on its provisions out of work, so you wonder whose side the Democrats are really on. Much of the debate is about perception. The Republicans have been, quite rightly, identified with the rich and shameless, while the tax itself is associated with Marxism, since the early Communists had both it and an income tax on its list of interim reforms.

Maya MacGuinneas and Ian Davidoff wrote an article in July offering the possibility of taxing inheritances rather than estates. This is a good approach and is also advocated by the Capital Ownership Group, an online think tank. To make an inheritance tax more pallatable, I would add additional modifications which will shut up the critics on the right.

The first is to tax only cash or in-kind disbursements to heirs. In other words, if a productive asset is liquidated or given over to the personal use of an heir, taxation applies. If, however, the asset is retained for business purposes the tax is deferred until it is liquidated. This would exempt any family farm which is still worked or any stock which is not sold. As long as the family remains in the family business, no tax is owed.

The second modification is related to the first and it goes to the real purpose of the estate tax - to distribute wealth. If an asset is liquidated in a sale to the employees of the farm or firm, whether a qualified Employee Stock Ownership Plan or similar scheme or an employee cooperative, taxes will be waived permanently - just as they would be if the original owner had made such a transfer to an ESOP. Now, there is the codicil that the transfer must be to broad based ownership, not to an executive group. The IRS has been cracking down on such schemes among the living, as the ESOP law is meant to encourage broad based ownership, not the creation of fortunes to the few.

This points to the final point in the estate tax debate - about whether an asset is taxed multiple times. Such an argument is a red herring for one very simple reason. Had the dearly departed fat cat liquidated the assets in the estate, some form of tax would be owed. If the money were distributed, then gift taxes must be paid. If he or she kept the money, capital gains taxes would be owed. Death should not be a way to avoid these taxes, hence the need for a tax on heirs.

For more information on my tax reform proposals, go to my Iowa Center For Fiscal Equity web site for the testimony we submitted to the President's Tax Reform Commission.

Unions, The Estate Tax and a Living Wage

Harold Myerson in the August 2 Washington Post relates the story of how the Republicans passed a minumum wage bill - and it truly is minimal - with an estate tax cut sweetener for their donors. You would think their rank and file would be upset with them, since most of them are not millionaires and more and more of the social conservative Christians make close to the minimum wage as a result of their economic policies. On August 3rd, the Post relates that the AFL-CIO is opposing the bill. Is it just me, or has the AFL-CIO gotten way too partisan? Instead of blocking the bill, they should fight for the inclusion of a provision indexing the wage to inflation. Of course, that might just kill it.

One day, the Republican social conservative and largely Christian base will wake up to the fact that they are getting screwed by their own party. Since their is no way they are going back to the Democrats, perhaps they will come here. Union members have already left the Democratic Party because of the social agenda and because the Democratic Leadership Council has sold them out with NAFTA. They are also unlikely to return to their roots.

Here is what the CLP can offer them both groups:

a. An end to the filing of personal income taxes for all but high income earners or inheritors.

b. A tax credit through their employers for their mortgage interest and each of their dependents of at least $500 per month federal and $500 per month state (in high cost states) to be paid with work or for completing their educations (which will be paid for through loans and employer tax credits for the functionally literate and free through their house of worship if they are not).

c. Taxes on heirs, not estates, and only when the estate is converted to cash or personal use. This does not help the rank and file, since most of them are not high dollar hiers unless their employer becomes and ESOP, which will allow heirs to transfer their shares to it tax free. Then the average worker will become an owner as well. The other parties are not promising this. The Democrats do not believe in doing an end run around the unions to ownership and the Republican leadership does not believe in sharing.

The result of both of these provisions will be a more competitively set base wage as extracting payment for family support and educational attainment brings most workers to an average wage while the advent of workplace democracy in the payment of management salaries and the payment of incentive bonuses for actual accomplishement rather than position complete the trend. This will make a minimum wage quite unnecessary except as device to make sure that employers are not transfering all salary payments to fax free allowances and incentives. In essence, each employer would pay taxes on the average wage of his employees and any profits realized. This wage must be high enough to actually fund the government, although the changes I am advocating will make government less and less necessary with time.

For more information, see these articles on the Iowa Center for Fiscal Equity web page:
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/taxreformproposal.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/Governance.html
http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/PayEquity.html

Banning $1,000 for all the Spam you Can Eat

After listing the current excesses, which keep legislators fundraising rather than legislating, Ruth Marcus offers her perspective on the prospects for reforming campaign finance in August 2nd's Washington Post. It is bleak indeed, as neither option she examines is likely to pass in the near or distant future.

There is another way, although it involves the electorate getting sick of both parties. To truly effectuate reform and make the other parties go along, a third party, such as this one, needs to gain significant strength using a system which is not corrupting. We have two suggestions. The first is to channel all contributions through party coffers - in essence making all PACs leadership PACs, so that all contributions are essentially made to a blind trust. Competing interests will thus cancel each other out. The other is to distribute primary funds automatically. This is done by holding a caucus after all petitions are in where the party faithful show up on behalf of their preferred candidate. Each candidate gathering a minimum threshold of supporters is funded equally with no incumbancy advantages (which we don't have to worry about since we have no incumbants). Candidates who are not funded withdraw from the race. This makes for both news worthy contests and gives the impression of a clean election, thus attracting new voters.

This is not are only calling card, as readers will know. It is a big one, however. For more information, go to http://www.geocities.com/iowaequity/elections.html.