I’ve got an idea about what Obama should do with that post. It’s kind of crazy, but keep an open mind and try not to dismiss it out of hand, no matter how unconventional it might be in today’s political world:
Nominate a fucking Democrat.
That’s so crazy it just might work.
Congressman Bruce Braley of Iowa has formed the Populist Caucus. Ryan Grim of Huffington Post reports that it will start out with twenty-one members. Here they are:
Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY); Pete DeFazio (D-OR); Betty Sutton (D-OH); Leonard Boswell (D-IA); Steve Cohen (D-TN); Joe Courney (D-CT); Keith Ellison (D-MN); Bob Filner (D-CA); Phil Hare (D-IL); Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Hank Johnson (D-GA); Steve Kagan (D-WI); David Loebsack (D-IA); Eric Massa (D-NY); Linda Sanchez (D-CA); Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH); Peter Welch (D-VT); and John Yarmouth (D-KY).
I would expect a few other names to join – Alan Grayson, Kucinich, Donna Edwards, a number of folks from the New York City area, Pete Stark. That is, this is a caucus that is sure to grow.
Update:
I was sick and blogging too fast yesterday. Lukeness in the comments points out that Braley has formed the Populist caucus, not the Progressive one as my post originally said. The entry has been edited to correct the mistake.
There’s a case to be made that since the nomination of Barack Obama to be President, but especially since his election, Paul Krugman of the New York Times has been the leading liberal spokesperson in America. He’s pushed back against timid policies and incorrect statements by the Obama transition hard than any other prominent Democratic figure. And his writing on the stimulus and the Wall Street bailout has been the most critical from the Left, at least in mainstream sources.
As I see it, Krugman is distilling much of the anger and energy of the progressive online movement and filtering it out to a national audience. His main targets have been policy timidity at a time when we can ill afford restraint. Republican ideas have had the spotlight for eight years. The result has been unmitigated failure. Our country heads towards an economic precipice; now is not the time for half-measures between what is wrong and what is right. Krugman’s other main target is bipartisanship, which I’ve recently blogged extensively about and is surely the nextdoor neighbor to timidity. Krugman’s column today, “The Destructive Center” is a confluence of his writings against timid Democratic policy goals and the damage non-ideological bipartisanship does during times of crisis.
During the transition, Obama said that he would take Paul Krugman’s economic advice. It’s fairly clear that he isn’t doing that, but now is the time for Obama’s team to reevaluate and start listening to Paul Krugman. He’s one of the few unabashed liberals in American public discourse and our leadership fails to listen to him at the country’s peril. Moreover, Krugman’s drumbeating columns against centrism, bipartisanship, timidity, and post-partisanship have the ability – far greater than anything the blogosphere does – to create meaningful cover for Obama and Democrats on the Hill to move to the left. He is a powerful voice with a large microphone and there are few people who can currently challenge him for the position as conscience of America’s liberals today.
I know I’m a broken record, but the fact remains that the Democrats have to start actually running against Republican ideology and not just saying they’ll be better Republicans or making promises to change the tone and the process. The people in this country don’t understand that most of what Republicans say with such arrogant assurance is malignant, discredited bullshit. Why would they? Nobody ever challenges it on the merits.
Here’s the result. When Republicans talk it makes “sense” to people because it’s what they’ve been hearing for thirty years. And they figure the other side must be the ones who don’t get it:
[chart removed]
After all the Democratic bowing and scraping, and all the phony baloney GOP sturm and drang about fiscal responsibility, the American people still think all the partisan bickering is the Democrats’ fault. That’s the paradox of the hissy fit.
Look as long as Democrats are incapable of internalizing the value of their own ideas, we can’t expect this to change. Or rather, we can’t begin to apologize for calling Democrats out for not getting self-evident political principles. If you believe your ideas are better than your opponent’s ideas, you have to say why.
The bigger issue, though, when it comes to polling around the attribution of blame for partisanship, if Democrats are incapable of attacking the Republicans’ ideas, then they really are just slowing things down for the sake of partisanship. There isn’t much evidence that our people actually believe their ideas are significantly better than the Republicans’ ideas. After all, if they had ideological backbone, they would by definition be willing to run their policy campaigns against Republican ideologies. This is a scary thought, but after a certain point the simplest explanation for Democratic incompetence may be that they actually don’t believe what Republicans are saying is wrong to the extent that they would directly oppose it.
Via Alex Thurston at The Seminal, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill is putting forward legislation to cap salaries of executives at companies receiving bailout money at $400,000 per year. This stands in stark contrast to David Brooks’ foray into class warfare in today’s NY Times.
McCaskill’s legislation is reminiscent of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth campaign, which gained steam during 1934 in the heat of the Great Depression. Among the proposals in Long’s platform were a cap on net assets, annual income, and inheritance size. In his “Share Our Wealth” speech, Long proposed:
1. The fortunes of the multimillionaires and billionaires shall be reduced so that no one persons shall own more than a few million dollars to the person. We would do this by a capital levy tax. On the first million that a man was worth, we would not impose any tax. We would say, “All right for your first million dollars, but after you get that rich you will have to start helping the balance of us.” So we would not levy and capital levy tax on the first million one owned. But on the second million a man owns, we would tax that 1 percent, so that every year the man owned the second million dollars he would be taxed $10,000. On the third million we would impose a tax of 2 percent. On the fourth million we would impose a tax of 4 percent. On the fifth million we would impose a tax of 16 percent. On the seventh million we would impose a tax of 32 percent. On the eighth million we would impose a tax of 64 percent ; and on all over the eight million we would impose a tax of 100 percent.
What this would mean is tat the annual tax would bring the biggest fortune down to $3 or $4 million to the person because no one could pay taxes very long in the higher brackets. But $3 or $4 million is enough for any one person and his children and his children’s children. We cannot allow one to have more than that because it would not leave enough for the balance to have something.
2. We propose to limit the amount any one man can earn in one year or inherit to $1 million to the person.
3. Now, by limiting the size of the fortunes and incomes of the big men, we will throw into the government Treasury the money and property from which we will care for the millions of people who have nothing; and with this money we ill provide a home and the comforts of home, with such common conveniences as radio and automobile, for every family in America, free of debt.
Long created the Share Our Wealth Society as a national organizing platform (which would have theoretically been the precursor to a presidential campaign run), gaining over 7 million members in short order. Long’s ideas received huge following and were the source of the strongest pressure from President Franklin Roosevelt’s left.
In 1942, long after the assassination of Huey Long, FDR proposed that no American should take home a net annual income of greater than $25,000. This came just as the US was entering World War II and still in the midst of hard economic times. Sam Pizzigati at TomPaine.com writes:
All Americans were asked to pay more in taxes during World War II, and the wealthy were asked to pay the most of all, more in taxes than any Americans had ever before paid. In 1943, America’s most affluent households faced a 93 percent tax rate on all their income over $200,000. The next year, 1944, the nation’s top tax rate would rise even higher, to 94 percent on income over $200,000—the highest rate in American history.
A 94 percent tax? We scan this figure today with no small measure of disbelief. We who live in an era where politicos routinely equate taxes with tyranny cannot imagine a Congress of the United States ever imposing a tax rate so lofty. But here’s the truly incredible part. Back during World War II, many Americans, including the president of the United States, wanted our nation’s top tax rate to rise even higher.
How high? In 1942, only a few months after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a 100 percent top marginal tax rate. At a time of “grave national danger,” the president advised that April, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year. Roosevelt was proposing, in effect, what amounted to a maximum wage—at an income level that would equal, in our contemporary dollars, about $300,000.
McCaskill’s proposal strikes me as more similar to FDR’s annual income cap than Long basic ideas, but both grow from the same place — the hard-nosed progressivism of Huey Long, which enabled FDR’s tax proposal to be palatable years after Long built a national campaign around shared wealth for public good.
True progressive Tom Geoghegan thanks the netroots for supporting his campaign and does a great job telling us what he’s all about. He’s been called the next Paul Wellstone and hearing him speak on issues like the bailout and labor rights, it’s pretty clear that the moniker may well be on the mark. Support Tom’s campaign by donating through ActBlue today.
Things look different when Democrats pass laws about women than when Republicans pass laws about women. The difference, it seems, is the presence of women.
As predicted, 100% of the Republican caucus in the House voted against the compromise laden stimulus bill.
Good thing we put in tax cuts, took out spending on birth control, and didn’t push aggressive for health care, employee free choice, or infrastructure construction in order to win Republican support.
This is simply remarkable, but entirely unsurprising. Republicans are likely not going to vote at all for the stimulus in the House, according to Rep. Castle.
Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., said there could be as many as 10 to 15 Republicans supporting the package, but added, “If I had to bet, I would bet zero.
It’s remarkable that the Republicans are being candid and equally remarkable that Democrats in DC did not expect this outcome.
Tim F. of Balloon Juice is spot on when he writes:
If Republicans plan to deliver exactly zero votes for Obama’s stimulus bill, then why does the bill still have compromises in it? Screw them. Put the family planning stuff back in, take the tax cuts out. If we know for sure that passing a crappy bill still won’t win any votes then just pass a better bill. They won’t scream any louder. The political cost won’t be any greater. Also, and pay attention because this is the important part, a better bill is more likely to succeed.
That any other course of action than what Tim suggests would be possible at this point from the Democratic side is only testament to our party’s tactical ineffectiveness. What goes unsaid from Tim’s post is this – step back while I put on my bipartisan fetishist hat: A hard step to the left in response to Republican obstinance could force moderate Republicans back into the realm of voting for the bill. That is, if it really is more important for the administration and Democrats on the Hill to pass a bill that has bipartisan support than having a bill that works, then responding to Republican partisanship with Democratic partisanship could open the door to that too!
Moreover, if Democrats respond to this by pulling the current compromise-ladden crap fest off the table and putting a good bill built on progressive principles (including birth control funding, supertrains, health care, etc) and the GOP doesn’t respond by begging their way back to the table, then as Tim says – we get a good bill that’s more likely to succeed and help the economy.
I swear to God, watching Democrats function in DC is like watching a group of sky divers who are constantly surprised by the laws of gravity.
Bob Herbert asks a simple question:
The question that I would like answered is why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. G.O.P. policies have been an absolute backbreaker for the middle class. (Forget the poor. Nobody talks about them anymore, not even the Democrats.) The G.O.P. has successfully engineered a wholesale redistribution of wealth to those already at the top of the income ladder and then, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, dared anyone to talk about class warfare.
I would hazard that the reason Republicans are still listened to by the press (presumably the audience Herbert is asking about, as it’s pretty clear the public doesn’t buy their bunk any more) is that the GOP is committed to their busted ideas. They always push tax cuts – they have conviction. Put that up against Democrats who, for example, in the space of 48 hours were arguing vociferously on TV in defense of the inclusion of stimulus spending on birth control to the President “begging” congressional leaders to remove the money from the bill. Between people that re fairly convinced that their ideas are right and a crowd that moves with the political winds, the GOP’s ideas will always sound credible.
If Democrats can’t find courage to stand by their convictions (presuming they have convictions in the first place), they will continue to lose the ideological battle on the economy, taxation, and how government can make peoples’ lives better. The victims in this batttle will not necessarily be Democratic elected official who may be forced into early retirement through elections. Rather the real victims are poor, working, and middle class Americans.
Hold Fast 