Obama/Castro = Chamberlain/Hitler?

Leave it to the United States Congress to turn a worldwide day of mourning into a political food fight.

World leaders came together yesterday to eulogize Nelson Mandela.  President and Mrs. Obama led the US delegation.  They were joined by president’s Bush 43, Carter and Clinton.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Ted Cruz were also in attendance.

As the president mounted the platform to take his place among the world leaders, the first one to greet him was Cuban President Raul Castro.  President Obama shook Castro’s hand and exchanged a few brief comments before moving on to greet the other dignitaries.

As one would expect in today’s toxic political environment, the president’s detractors fell all over themselves to make political points over the meaningless handshake. 

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, of Cuban descent, noted that: “if the president was going to shake his hand he should have asked him about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba.”

Representative Ileana Ross-Lihtinen (R-FL) who fled Cuba as a child, called the gestured: “nauseating.”

Senator John McCain compared the handshake with Neville Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler.

Senator Cruz walked out of the venue as Raul Castro rose to deliver his remarks.

Meanwhile the congressional budget conference committee was announcing with great fanfare that they had avoided a government shutdown by reaching an agreement on a two year budget deal. 

Lost in the euphoria of moment was the fact that the deal does absolutely nothing to address the primary causes of our fiscal difficulties.  No mention of tax reform, entitlement reform, immigration reform, education reform or health care.  It simply kicks the tough, politically toxic decisions down the road while allowing this congress to avoid another politically disastrous government shutdown.

The bar in congress has been set so low, that an agreement on ANYTHING” is cause for celebration.

This is what they do!

Congress is good at finding a microphone whenever it can make political hay.  But when it comes to actually doing the people’s business they are nowhere to be found.

That’s the legacy of the 113th Congress of the United States of America.  Long on rhetoric…short on substance.

          

 

Economics 101

The Republican Party portrays itself as the standard bearer for the free enterprise system.  As such one would assume that they would have a thorough understanding of the economic principles upon which that system is based.  So it is somewhat surprising that their policies often conflict with the concept that stands at the very core of the free enterprise system…supply and demand.

Take for example the current negotiations over the expiring unemployment benefits.  Republicans see unemployment benefits as a “handout.”  They argue that these benefits encourage recipients to become dependent upon government assistance, stifle the country’s creative spirit and produce a nation of slackers.  They believe that discontinuing unemployment benefits will empower recipients to become more self reliant; to find their own creative path toward economic independence.

If we assume that Republicans are correct, that eliminating these government “handouts” will encourage creative economic growth and productivity; then why are they unwilling to apply those same economic principles to wealthy individuals and corporations? 

Republicans are steadfast in their support of tax breaks and loopholes that allow wealthy individuals and corporations to pay little if anything in the way of federal taxes.  They fight tooth and nail to preserve billions in government subsidies paid to wildly profitable corporations.  Are these tax breaks and subsidies not “handouts” as well?

When confronted with this bit of hypocrisy Republicans typically respond with the age old “trickle down” theory of economics.  This theory says that by giving tax breaks and subsidies to the very rich you encourage them to build plants, produce goods and services and create jobs for the masses. The employees in turn use their hard earned wages to buy products and grow the economy.  

So where are the jobs?  Why are millions unemployed?  Why is the economy still struggling?

What we have in this country is a “demand” shortage brought about by a lack of money in the hands of the true” job creators”…the middle class and working poor.  Corporations build products because there is a demand for the product.  Corporations can build all the widgets they want; they will sit in warehouses if there is no demand from the middle class. 

If you want to spur the economy you have to get money into the hands of the masses.  Unemployment benefits do that. Tax breaks for the rich do not.  Unemployment benefits put money into the hands of US citizens who use the funds to buy food, clothing, medicine etc.  Tax breaks for the rich fund stock portfolios and create jobs overseas.  There is a reason Wall Street is flourishing while Main Street is struggling.

Republicans believe that if you give “handouts” to the middle class and working poor you encourage a society of slackers and bums.  But if you give “handouts” to corporations and the rich you encourage productivity and creativity.  The facts simply do not support that theory.

Growing the economy is all about supply and demand.  As the standard bearer for the free enterprise system Republicans should understand that concept.

This & That

-The word out of Washington is that the bi-partisan budget conference committee is close to reaching a two year deal that will avoid another costly government shutdown.  Facing a December 13^th deadline, there are reports that a deal could be reached by the end of this week.  This comes as no surprise as the House is scheduled to leave town at week’s end for holiday recess; not to return until January 7^th.  Nothing motivates congress to act like a delay in their vacation plans.

While any budget agreement coming out of congress is cause for celebration, it appears that this particular version lacks any real substance.  It does little to reduce the $17 trillion dollar debt.  It does not address Medicare or Medicaid, the programs primarily responsible for that debt.  It does not raise taxes. And it does not reduce the sequestration cuts in any substantive manner.

If the leaked details of this agreement are in fact correct, this budget accord fails to address the country’s financial woes in any substantive way.  It does however kick the proverbial can down the road, avoid another embarrassing, costly and politically harmful government shutdown and allow the members to attend to their holiday shopping.  Well done!

-Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Senator Rand Paul.  One of the topics currently being debated by the budget conference committee is the continuation of unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans.  The benefits are set to expire on December 28^th.  Senator Rand Paul believes that these benefits should be discontinued.  He says that these benefits do nothing more than to encourage people to become dependent on the government.  Paul believes that congress would be doing recipients a favor by cutting off their benefits…empowering them to become more self reliant.

Spoken like the well-to-do son of a doctor who has no concept of reality.  The vast majority of the people collecting unemployment want to work.  They are embarrassed to find themselves in the unemployment lines, never believing that this would be their fate.  But a sluggish economy dictates their reality.  Supporting ones family takes precedent over pride. 

Apparently Senator Paul is unaware that we are still working our way out of the country’s worst economic downturn since the great depression.  Roughly 1 out of every 6 Americans lives in poverty.  The income disparity in this country between the haves and the have not’s grows ever wider.  Senator Paul believes that the way to close that gap is to widen it.  Many American cities have tried Senator Paul’s’ idea of empowerment…most notably New York.  It didn’t work.  If the good Senator really wants to empower people and get them off the unemployment lines…then he should stop all the crazy talk and pass a jobs bill.

-Speaking of income disparity, the poor and the unemployed…you should check out this New York Times piece: “The Invisible Child.”  This is a must read if you are interested in learning about the realities of living in the self proclaimed “greatest country in the world.”

http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=0                     

          

Nelson Mandela...

...he changed the world and made it a better place.

GOP "Officially" Considers Impeachment

If you tune into conservative media outlets or engage conservatives in a debate about the nation’s current state of affairs, at some point the topic of impeachment will enter the conversation. While impeaching President Obama has been a frequent topic among the conservative community it has never officially been discussed within the halls of congress.

Until now…

The GOP led House Judiciary Committee met this week and the number one topic on the agenda…the impeachment of the President of the United States. 

Hate is a very strong word…but Republicans “hate” this guy.  They hate his policies.  They hate his executive orders.  They hate his “too cool for school” attitude and his unwillingness to engage in backroom politics.  Some hate him because they believe he is foreign born and therefore an illegitimate president.  Some hate him because they believe he is a Muslim intent on infusing Sharia Law into the government.  Some hate him because he is black.  They called him a liar to his face and refused to take his phone calls.  Hate is a very strong word…but they “hate” this guy.

Republicans could not defeat him at the polls. They could not defeat him in the courts.  They could not scrounge up enough votes to overturn his policies.  They’ve tried to obstruct him with filibusters and procedural games only to sit by helplessly as he imposed his will through executive orders.  So they turn to the “I word.”  “What else can we do” lamented one committee member.

Any discussion of impeachment is without merit.  The president has not committed an impeachable offense; he is simply guilty of not giving into Republican demands.    Even if Republicans could get such a vote in the House it would never pass the Senate.  The fact that Republicans have elected to officially address the subject in committee, ratchets the discussion to a whole new level.

Our economy is struggling, our infrastructure crumbling.  Our education system is failing to prepare our children for the future.  Millions of Americans are out of work and recent graduates see no hope for the future.  Income disparity threatens the very fiber of our Republic.  Yet, instead of addressing these pressing issues congressional Republicans waste time discussing a fantasy.

The 113^th Congress has passed just 55 pieces of legislation thereby making it officially the least productive congress in our history.  Congress’ approval rating stands at 9%; the lowest in our history.

Someone needs to be removed from office…and it’s not the president.      

             

    

We Continue To Fail Our Children

We are failing our children!

According to a 2102 study conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), our children continue to fall behind their global peers in mathematics, reading and science. 

500,000 15 and 16 year olds were tested as part of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).  The program is designed to test the math, reading and science skills of students from across the globe.  The students represented 65 countries and 80% of the global economy.

US pupils ranked 36 among the 65 nations, producing below average scores in mathematics and average scores in reading and science.  Shanghai-China ranked #1 followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.  The United Kingdom ranked 26^th.  

Quoting from the PISA report:  “Just over one quarter (26%) of the 15 year olds in the United States do not reach the PISA baseline Level 2 of mathematics proficiency, at which level students begin to demonstrate the skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life.  This percentage is higher than the OECD average (23%) and has remained unchanged since 2003.  By contrast, in Hong Kong-China, Korea, Shanghai-China and Singapore, 10% of students or fewer are poor performers in mathematics…Only 2% of students in the United States reach the highest level (Level 6) of performance in mathematics, compared with an OECD average of 3% and 31% of students in Shanghai-China.  The proportions of top performers in reading and science in the United States are both around the OECD average.”

This is pretty damning stuff.  We are not providing our children with the “skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life.”  What does that say about us as a society?

Critics will place blame with the failings of inner city schools or single parent households or poor teachers with tenure.  But only 15% of our students attend inner city schools and we are guessing that there are poor teachers and single parent households in Shanghai too.  Yet they seem to succeed while we continue to fail.  We have thrown billions of dollars at the problem without any measurable success.  The numbers don’t lie.

We don’t have the answers…but we know where to find them.  Instead of re-inventing the wheel why don’t we set aside our “American Exceptionalism” for once and examine how other countries are finding success.

Shanghai is a city of 23 million people.  Students in Shanghai perform at a level at least one year more advanced than the average in math, reading and science.  How do they do it?

Sophie Brown @ CNN.com provides an excellent analysis of the East Asian success story.  According to OCED advisor Andreas Schleicher:  “Shanghai…and most East Asian school systems excel precisely because they are capable to leverage the academic potential of disadvantaged students much better than many Western nations do, and because they are able to break the downward spiral between disadvantage, lower performance and lower levels of student engagement…they have devised powerful strategies to attract the most talented teachers to the most challenging classrooms and to get the strongest principals into the toughest schools…they have convinced their citizens to make choices that value education, their future, more than consumption today…students not only believe they control their ability to succeed, but they are prepared to do what it takes to do so…students in most Asian countries believe that achievement is mainly the product of hard work rather than inherited intelligence…teachers have high expectations for every student and realize that ordinary students have extraordinary talents…and nowhere does the quality of a school system exceed  the quality of its teachers.” 

Translation...success comes from hard work and accountability.  The bar is set high and both students and teachers are expected to reach it.

We are failing our children.  It is time that we set aside the false notion of our genetic superiority and come to grips with the fact when it comes to education the only thing we are doing exceptionally well… is failing.  The solutions are out there.  All we have to do is summon the courage…and the humility…to put them into practice.

Kudos to Sophie Brown @cnn.com for her work on this important story.

  

        

    

Can Something Good Come From Their Suffering?

Happy Thanksgiving!  Happy Black Friday!  Happy Small Business Saturday!  Happy Cyber Monday!

Hopefully you and yours’ were able to spend a few quality moments together before engaging in that most cherished of holiday traditions…shopping.  Nothing speaks to the very fiber of the holidays like storming the ramparts of the local Wal-Mart to grapple for overpriced items artificially reduced to encourage such frenzy.  Just as the pilgrims could not wait for their Native American guests to leave so they could flood the local general store in search of bargains on hard tack and corn meal; we too understand the true meaning of the holidays.

But we digress…

Unfortunately for the souls traveling on the 5:54 AM train from Poughkeepsie to New York City, this holiday season will be remembered for something quite different than turkey and holiday bargains.  A commuter train carrying 100 passengers jumped the tracks on Sunday killing four and injuring sixty.  Survivors who frequent the route said that the train was moving at a much higher speed than normal as it entered the Bronx.  There are reports that the incident took place near the area where another train derailed this past July.  Officials are still investigating.

As expected, the New York media went crazy…for nothing sets the world’s most self aggrandizing media on fire like an incident in their self proclaimed “greatest city on earth.”  Once they were able to stop hyperventilating they searched for something, anything on which to focus their incredulity; settling on the city’s expansive train system. 

A torrent of criticism rained down on the city’s transportation system.  Liberals and conservatives crossed ideological lines to trash the city’s infrastructure.  “Worn, loose rusty rails,”  “Chucks of concrete are falling on the tracks,” “Dirty,” “Unsafe,” “Inefficient” “Third world system.”

Setting aside for a moment the emotional outrage…they are correct in their assessment of our nation’s infrastructure.   85%-90% of our country’s infrastructure was built between 1950 and 1970.  It is old, outdated, inefficient and in many cases, dangerous. Many of our highways and bridges are rated “functionally obsolete.”  Ask any world traveler and they will tell you that our infrastructure lags so far behind the other industrialized nations that returning home to our airports and rail systems is like returning to a third world country.      

On August 1, 2007 more than 100 vehicles were traveling over a bridge on I-35W when the bridge collapsed plunging motorists into the Mississippi River. 13 people died that day.  145 were injured.

But that was Minnesota.   The outcry lasted for but a minute…and quickly faded.  Yes, studies were done to determine the quality and condition of our infrastructure.  We learned enough to know that it was bad…outdated, inefficient and dangerous.  We learned that the greatest nation in the world could not safely or efficiently move its people and products from one place to the next.  Then we did nothing.

Our economy is struggling.  We desperately need more jobs.  We desperately need to modernize our infrastructure if we are to compete with the rest of the world.  A comprehensive transportation bill would go a long way toward curing those economic ills. 

Will the tragedy of this train crash in our largest city motivate us to tackle this very real problem?  Will the suffering of those poor souls motivate us to get off our collective asses and do what is necessary to compete in a world economy?  Can something good come from their suffering?

Or will we just go shopping?