The Obama economic team hasn’t been hitting all home runs with regards to dealing with the current crisis. “Cash for Clunkers” and the new homebuyer tax credit weren’t exactly great ideas from an economic point of view. But even with Obama’s missteps, the comments of Will and Greenspan show that the alternative is much worse. It’s as if a large chunk of our political leadership wants to give Herbert Hoover a second try. This is what scares me the most about a possible Republican takeover in Congress this year.

Long-term unemployment is a crisis. Deficit chickenhawks (to borrow a phrase from the Iraq War) like to complain that budget deficits affect generations, but so does long-term unemployment. When people are unemployed for a year or more, they lose skills, they become less employable, and worst of all, their kids suffer. This leads to poverty, and more importantly, lower tax revenues, for years. How will we solve the budget deficit when everybody has to move to a $7 an hour job? How much in taxes does that generate?

We can put at least some of these people to work. Our national infrastructure is crumbling. Build some bridges, fix some sewer systems, create a smarter electric grid. Anything to get people back to work, maintaining their skills, and providing stability for their families. Hooverism didn’t work the first time around, why should we try it again?

• Current Mood: Cybered
• Currently Listening To: "Crosseyed and Painless", Talking Heads

The legislature is nominally a part-time body, but in reality, it’s a full-time job. A full-time job that doesn’t happen to pay particularly well: the yearly salary for legislators is $31,140, an amount that has not increased in more than a decade. This is a low sum considering that it is impossible to hold down a full-time job for the six months of the year when the legislature is in session. Benefits like per diem payments and health insurance can help raise compensation amounts.

Given the time constraints, people who run for the legislature tend to have flexible jobs like consulting, jobs like teaching where it is possible to take a semester off and not teach, or no jobs at all. Another popular job is lawyer, something that Emmer, a lawyer himself, is familiar with. While there’s nothing wrong with a legislature full of lawyers, teachers, retirees, and various consultants, it’s not exactly representative of Minnesota.

Eliminating benefits for elected officials would make it less likely, not more, that people with “normal” 9-to-5 jobs will choose to run for office. Only those people who are already well-off and don’t require a salary or health benefits would be able to run. This would lead to a legislature that is less reflective of the myriad careers in this state. That’s a “redesign” of government, I guess, but not a terribly good one in my opinion.

• Current Mood: Friday

The particular stupidity that gets to me is having the cops determine the immigrant status of anybody suspicious. For a second, ignore the profiling, and ignore the chilling effect that this will have when it comes to police interactions with the community at large. Because aside from that, you’ve got the main problem that determining immigration status is hard. That’s why there are immigration lawyers. Having gone through the immigration process myself (and needing to hire a lawyer to do so!), I know firsthand that determining a person’s immigration status is not easy or logical. If it takes lawyers hours of work to figure things out, what can a cop with no training on the finer points of immigration law do? Sure, you can blame ICE, the federal government, and Congress for this mess, but that doesn’t mean that Arizona, or any other state, can fix it themselves.

Hopefully, Congress will actually pass an immigration reform bill this year. It’s actually not that complicated, or even controversial for such a huge issue. Most of the reform packages floating around actually agree on the major points, such as the fact that we won’t be kicking millions of people out of the country anytime soon. A realistic reform includes:

• A path to citizenship for those already here
• Requiring the paying of back taxes
• Requiring evidence of knowledge of English
• Tightening up the border
• Simpler verification of work status
• Much stiffer penalties on businesses that hire undocumented workers

The latter one is the most important, and predictably the one most opposed by businesses that want cheap, non-union labor. Personally, I think some aspects, like requiring English, are unnecessary, but if that is what it takes to get it through Congress, then I guess that is what it takes. Notice, however, that this list has no overlap with the law passed in Arizona.

In the meantime, Arizona richly deserves every canceled convention and boycott it gets.

• Current Mood: Calm
• Currently Listening To: "Us and Them", Pink Floyd

David Frum correctly points out that given the bill’s rational, and indeed market-based reforms, Republicans who oppose it are doing so against their own beliefs. Moreover, they are doing it contrary to their own political aspirations. Running against this bill and effectively stating that Wall Street should be able to screw over everybody it wants in order to make a buck, instead of providing the capital needed for Main Street business owners to start and expand their businesses, isn’t going to be a vote-winner come November.

Today’s Senate hearings with Goldman Sachs provides even more evidence. No deference is being given to the “financial wizards” at all: these senators are out for blood. As well they should be. From what I understand of the SEC complaint against Goldman Sachs, they created investment vehicles that were essentially designed to go bust, then sold them to investors while they themselves shorted them. As absurd as this seems, Goldman Sachs is claiming that they broke no laws because they were selling to “sophisticated investors”, who should have known better.

Unlike some people, I have no problem with shorting the market or trying to make a buck off of assets that are declining in value. Just like in craps, where you can bet “don’t pass” despite it being seen by most people as unlucky, betting “to lose” it is still a perfectly valid strategy. However, there is a big difference between betting on the dice to fail, and the casino loading the dice against you without letting you know (but you should have better inspected those dice beforehand yourselves!)

As is typical, I do disagree with Frum’s stand on the consumer credit protection agency: I think that when it comes to certain credit, such as payday loans, consumers need less of it, not more. But his overall point is valid: Republicans who are fighting financial reform are going to end up hurting themselves, as well as the economy, in the long run.

• Current Mood: Testy
• Currently Listening To: "Girl With No Eyes", It's A Beautiful Day

I can understand arguments about diluting scarce transportation resources when it comes to our roads. Understand, though not really agree with. I can also understand, from an intellectual point of view, arguments about increasing local mandates, although those who make this argument do it against bills that do not mandate anything. What I can’t understand, though, is how some people argue against this by essentially mocking anybody who does not drive. Not only is it, frankly, intellectually immature, it just doesn’t make sense from a conservative point of view.

I bus to work just about every day, and I bike home when I am able. To me, biking is one of the most conservative modes of transportation out there: it’s cheap, it’s energy efficient, it has next to no impact on the environment, it’s a time saver (I don’t need to spend an hour at the gym if I just spent an hour biking home), it is healthy, it creates little to no traffic disruptions, it doesn’t damage our roads, and I don’t have to give money to unstable Mideast countries to fuel it. When I take the bus, I’m also using a pretty efficient mode of transportation. Given some conservative opinions of biking an busing, though, it’s as if they would prefer that I drive in a single-occupancy car, clogging up the freeway with everybody else. Is that what conservatives want? Thousands of people who currently bike or bus to join them on the freeways, making rush hour worse? That’s hardly conservative.

The only reason I can see for this kind of thinking is that biking and busing is seen as somehow “socially liberal”, done by tree-hugging hippies. Thus, from a political point of view, conservatives have to oppose it, lest they acknowledge the legitimacy of parts of a so-called “liberal” lifestyle. This opposition is misdirected in a couple of ways. First, it’s quite a generalization to assume that all bikers or mass transit users are in the same boat: I just don’t want to waste my time sitting in a car by myself in rush hour traffic, so I’d much rather bus and do something productive like read, or bike and enjoy the fresh air and exercise simultaneously. These are quite common reasons for not wanting to drive. Second, given changes in demographics and energy, we’re heading towards a future where there will probably be more biking, walking, and busing as people become older and less likely to drive, and as oil gets more expensive.

Bikers aren’t just a bunch of moonbats wearing “funny hats and Lycra pants”. From a classically conservative point of view, bikers are making very sane transportation choices. Designing our transportation system to simply take their needs and the needs of all other road users into account is just common sense.

• Current Mood: Sore
• Currently Listening To: "Motion Picture Soundtrack", Radiohead

David Frum’s “Waterloo” post got a lot of attention from both conservatives and liberals when health care passed (it also proved to be the last straw for the American Enterprise Institute, which fired him last week). Frum is a conservative that I certainly don’t always agree with, but argues rationally and speaks what he believes to be the truth even when Republican party leaders do not want to hear it. In college, one of my poli sci instructors put together a list of books by authors from liberal to conservative that he considered to be the best academic writing about politics; Frum’s “Dead Right” was on it, and I dutifully read it, finding it to be quite interesting. The point I’m trying to make is that Frum is the kind of conservative this country needs more of: arguing based on reason and belief instead of name-calling.

After reading his Waterloo post, I added his FrumForum to my RSS feed (joining The American Conservative as the conservative blogs I read, which is another decently written one, although I outright ignore Pat Buchanan’s insane screeds). Sure enough, last week an intelligent post popped up that talked about three important issues that reform will have to address going forward, all of which I fully agree with:

First, employer-based health insurance. I think it’s long past time we totally decouple health insurance from employment. The notion that health insurance is something we expect employers to provide is an accident of history, cemented into place via the tax code. Now that we have nearly-universal coverage for everybody, there is no need for employer-based health insurance. We could eliminate that pretty quickly, but pretty messily, by removing the tax advantages that employer-provided health insurance have, but I think there are better ways to do that. I’m not quite sure who is against changing this. Perhaps unions, who want to be able to negotiate better benefits packages for their workers?

Second, health care value. Spending more has not led to better health outcomes. We have reached the point of diminishing returns, and we need to ratchet back on the wasteful spending that doesn’t deliver. Identifying this, and more importantly, getting rid of it, will be a huge challenge.

Third, improving overall health. Health insurance does make a difference in terms of improving health, but it is certainly not the only thing. Universal health coverage without cutting back on unhealthy activities like smoking, obesity, and a lack of physical activity will just lead to higher health costs with no increase in actual health.

I’m not going to agree with all of the conservative answers to these problems, but it is far better for our country when all sides sit down and agree to take about these real issues, instead of one side talking about death panels and other non-sequiturs. More rational discussion like this, please.

• Current Mood: Weekend
• Currently Listening To: "Hello, I Love You", The Doors

When the reports were rolling in on Sunday, and passage of the bill became more and more inevitable, it made all the phone calls, lit drops, roads trips, and door knocking worthwhile. Sure, there are other important issues other than health care out there. I like fiddling with tax policy and transportation, there’s the environment we need to take care of, there’s energy policy, and a thousand other things. But universal health care is the big one. America has long been on the wrong side of this issue, apart from all other industrialized countries, and our health and pocket books suffer as a result. Universal health care is the last large promise that we can make as community: that if you get sick, you will be covered. Even if you were sick before, even if you aren’t working right now, you will be covered. This is a far cry from a system where you get care if you pay for it, and if you don’t have the money you are at the mercy of others. That’s fine when it comes to luxuries, it’s even fine when it comes to some of life’s necessities. But to dole out health care based on ability to pay is not only unfair, it damages our communities in the long run.

This bill is by no means perfect. It needs to be improved. But the first step has been achieved: health care will now be seen as a right, not something to leave entirely up to the whims of who has money and who doesn’t. We’ll have problems along the way. We’ll screw up. But we’ll also find what works, and we’ll share those solutions. We’ll work together to reduce the cost of care, to reduce mistakes, to eliminate pointless treatments that do no good. We’ll eliminate the dead weight in our economy that this wasteful spending hangs around our necks.

But more importantly, we’ll tell those people who are sick that they no longer have to fear. If they lose their jobs, they don’t have to worry about losing insurance. They don’t have to worry that if they get too sick, or become to “expensive” to their insurance company, they’ll be left to fend for themselves. For people in good health, these seem like academic exercises. For all those people with so-called “pre-existing conditions”, however, this is not abstract. It’s a matter of life or death, and even those people who oppose health care reform will soon know a friend or loved one who is helped by this, if they don’t already. I know that I do.

Am I happy about how this was done? No. I’m saddened that insurance companies, having decades to prove that they could cover everybody regardless of health at a reasonable cost, chose instead to pursue profits at the expense of people. I’m saddened that too many Republicans chose to take themselves out of the process instead of working for common solutions. Ideologically, this bill is incredible moderate. It differs little from what Republican Mitt Romney did in Massachusetts, or what Republican Richard Nixon proposed when he was president. It took single-payer off the table from the start, and abandoned even a public option and Medicare buy-in. If Republicans had been at the table from the beginning instead of trying to torpedo reform, it may have been a better bill. Now we’ll never know.

I’d like to see changes to this bill. I’d like to see a public option. I’d like to completely decouple insurance from employment (as well as decoupling other things from employment like 401(k) plans to reflect a more mobile, fluid, and information-based economy). I’d like to see more flexibility in providing primary care to people: not everybody needs to see an M.D. I don’t care much for the Hyde amendment. We’ll need to see what cost-control measures work best and expand them.

These things will come in time. For now, it feels good to achieve something meaningful, something that fundamentally improves the lives of millions.

• Current Mood: Hopeful
• Currently Listening To: "Another One Bites The Dust", Queen

The view from the balcony at the SD59 convention:

Representative Tom Rukavina, candidate for governor, speaks to the SD59 convention:

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller addresses the SD59 convention after being endorsed:

Mayor and candidate for governor R. T. Rybak addresses the SD59 convention:

Former Representative Matt Entenza, candidate for governor, speaks to the SD59 convention:

Representatives Diane Loeffler and Phyllis Kahn speak on behalf of Margaret Anderson Kelliher for Governor at the SD59 convention:

Congressman Keith Ellison talks at the SD59 convention:

Representative Paul Thissen, also running for governor, addresses the SD59 convention:

The uncommitted subcaucuses moved to the balcony:

• Current Mood: Monday
• Currently Listening To: "The Tourist", Radiohead

The convention got off to a fast start. Since there were no opponents for our current slate of elected officials (Rep. Diane Loeffler, Rep. Phyllis Kahn, and Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller), endorsing them took next to no time at all. Interspersed with the official convention business were speeches by people running for office, including several school board candidates, State Auditor Rebecca Otto, and a spokesperson from Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s campaign. Candidates for the most contested race, for governor, either appeared (Rep. Tom Rukavina, former House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, Mayor R.T. Rybak, Rep. Paul Thissen) or had surrogates speak for them (Rep. Kahn and Rep. Loeffler spoke on behalf of Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, and people spoke on behalf of John Marty and Tom Bakk as well).

There was a minor hangup when it was found that a person running for the Central Committee was, in fact, the Republican opponent to Rep. Loeffler two years ago and former president of the Log Cabin Republicans. Felix Montez was not at the convention to defend himself or explain his party switch, and there was much argument over how best to ensure he was not elected. In the end, another person stepped forward to run and the convention gladly elected him instead of Mr. Montez. Too bad he wasn’t there to speak; that would have been an interesting conversation.

Finally, we got down to the main business of the day: electing delegates to the state convention. We subcaucused and subcaucused again, joining an uncommitted subcaucus (“Uncomitted” eventually narrowly won the delegate count later), and both Julia and I tried to get elected as delegate. Julia narrowly lost a runoff to be a delegate/alternative, while I didn’t really come close. In the end, the delegate totals were: seven for Uncommitted, six for Kelliher, five for Rybak, two for Thissen, one for Marty, and one for Rukavina. If this convention is any indication, the race for governor will not be decided for a while.

One of these times I’d really like to get elected as a delegate to the state convention, but given my zero batting average so far, it may require moving to a part of the state with fewer activists!

I took a bunch of pictures at the convention, so they will be put up as soon as I am done processing them.

• Current Mood: Tired

Let’s face it: in America, the norm is not a collective, “we’re all in this together” sense of community. It’s the rugged individualism of myth. Most people have no problem with seeing others go without: be it jobs, education, shelter, or even food, the sense of a lot of people is that anybody here can just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and acquire all of these things if they really tried, and if they don’t, it’s a problem of character. There are no widespread pushes to build public housing for all the homeless, and even a couple hundred dollars a month in food stamp benefits is seen by many as welfare that just leads to dependency. It’s our culture. Given the mythos that is drummed into us from an early age, these beliefs are at least somewhat understandable.

But when it comes to health care, it’s a bit different, and as a society we have seen fit to draw a line. Make no mistake: there are plenty of people in this country that die from homelessness or lack of food, and by and large, it is accepted, or at least not talked about seriously. But when it comes to health care, where the threat of death is immediate and in your face, at least most Americans don’t think that the poor and the uninsured should be left to figure things out for themselves. That’s why hospitals have to provide care, regardless of ability to pay. The fact that we mandate this without having a sane way to pay for it is troubling, but at least we say “no” to literally letting people die on the sidewalk outside of emergency rooms because they can’t pay for treatment.

The comments from some Republicans these days, however, show that even this level of human decency may be a bridge too far for them. It boggles the mind that they can have such a low level of empathy. Perhaps the reason is that a lot of them have always had heath care and insurance, and literally can’t think of what it would be like to go without. However, it has to go beyond that: I’ve been lucky (and I do ascribe some of it to luck, not just my “hard work”) to have never gone a long period without insurance in my life. But I know plenty of people who have not been as lucky, and I can put myself in their shoes. That’s what empathy means. Perhaps there are other, more sinister reasons. Our journalists, however, have not seen fit to ask them why they believe these things.

I’m an atheist, but I do know the meaning of the phrase “There but for the grace of god go I.” A lot of so-called Christian Republicans seem to have forgotten the meaning of that phrase entirely. When people can be so callous to the plight of the health of the truly poor and destitute in this country, when they can tell them to just figure it out on their own, it is troubling for the very fabric of our society. The thinking behind these statements moves away from a lack of empathy to a place that is even more dark. The question is, can it be stopped?

• Current Mood: Walking Subcaucus Time!
• Currently Listening To: "Girl With No Eyes", It's A Beautiful Day
• Just Watched: Into The Wild