Monday, June 18, 2012

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Imagine if Florida were treated like Greece

newspaper headline collage

Visual source: Newseum

' Paul Krugman agrees that Greece has problems, but says it mostly isn't to blame for the crisis that struck it:

Ask yourself, why does the dollar area ' also known as the United States of America ' more or less work, without the kind of severe regional crises now afflicting Europe? The answer is that we have a strong central government, and the activities of this government in effect provide automatic bailouts to states that get in trouble.

Consider, for example, what would be happening to Florida right now, in the aftermath of its huge housing bubble, if the state had to come up with the money for Social Security and Medicare out of its own suddenly reduced revenues. Luckily for Florida, Washington rather than Tallahassee is picking up the tab, which means that Florida is in effect receiving a bailout on a scale no European nation could dream of.

' Thomas B. Edsall notes that the drifting away of non-college white voters from the Democratic Party is problematic even though that cohort of Americans is dwindling as a percentage of the population:
The defection of these voters was crucial to the ability of the Republican Party to enact legislation'especially tax laws'that favor the affluent; working class support gave the Republican Party protection from charges that it advocated only for the rich and for the material interests of corporate America.

At the same time, the loss of white non-college voters has diminished pressure within the Democratic Party to address the dislocations resulting from globalization and automation, especially the loss of low-to-medium-skill jobs that paid high wages to workers without college degrees.

The result is that the Democratic Party has failed to develop a coherent or consistent set of policies to address what is now the dominant issue of the day, the violent restructuring of the American economy [...]

' Ben Adler says President Obama's move on immigration last week has put Mitt Romney and the Republicans in a difficult position with Latino voters.

' Susan J. Douglas:

While the Republican War on Women has gained national attention, there has been less outrage over the Republican War on Older Americans. But the battles are everywhere. State after state is going after pension funds. Here in Michigan, for example, one of the first things Republican Gov. Rick Snyder did was to impose new and higher taxes on retirement income and public pensions. Making matters worse, our state's long recession forced many people in their 50s to take early retirement as employers downsized. When you retire early, your benefits are lower than if you wait until you're 65. So now, a larger percentage of smaller retirement eggs will be subject to income tax. Why? To make up for cuts in the state's business taxes.

Beyond Michigan, the AFL-CIO finds that older workers who lose their jobs have the highest rate of long-term unemployment, which in turn means significantly reduced retirement income. Plus, they often have to tap into what savings they have to get by.

' Bill Moyers and Michael Winship tally up the efforts of the Super Pac billionaires:
They are, by the way, as we were reminded by CNN's Charles Riley in his report, 'Can 46 Rich Dudes Buy an Election?' almost all men, mostly white, 'and so far, the vast majority of their contributions have been made to conservative groups.' They want to own this election. So if there are any of you left out there with millions to burn, better buy your candidate now, while supplies last.
' Robert Fisk laments events in Egypt:
It was Mubarak's senior judges who permitted the deposed dictator's last Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafik, to stand in this weekend's run-off for President. As Omar Ashour, an academic in both Exeter and Doha, has observed, "when protesters stormed the State Security Investigations [SSI] headquarters and other governorates in March 2011, torture rooms and equipment were found in every building".

And what happened to the lads who ran these vicious institutions for Mubarak, clad alternatively in French-designed suits or uniforms dripping with epaulettes? They got off scot-free. [...]

The belief among journalists and academics that Tahrir Square would fill once again with the young of last year's rebellion, that a new protest movement in its millions would end this state of affairs, has ' so far ' proved unrealistic. Over the weekend, Egyptians wanted to vote rather than demonstrate ' even if the country's security apparatus would end up running the show as usual ' and if this is democracy, then it's going to be of the Algerian rather than the Tunisian variety.

' E.J. Dionne:
Romney will talk a great deal about economic freedom and enterprise, but mostly he wants to make this a classic throw-the-bums-out election. His core message is about as simple as political arguments come: Things are bad. Obama didn't fix them. Try the other guy, i.e., me.

Obama is not blessed with the opportunity to be simple. He has to show that he knows things are bad for a lot of people but also insist that his policies made things a whole lot better than they would have been. He has to argue that the Republicans are blocking his proposals to improve the economy, but he doesn't want to look like a politician inventing an alibi.

' Arlo Skari and John Ladd:
As border-area landowners, we strongly oppose two bills pending in Congress: HR 1505, sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and S 803, cosponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Both bills would give unrestricted power to the Department of Homeland Security on all public lands within 100 miles of the border (land currently under the jurisdiction of the Interior or Agriculture departments, a great deal of which is leased to ranchers and farmers).

This legislation ' ostensibly for national security purposes ' would allow the department to do many things on this land, including using vehicles, building roads, fences, living quarters and airstrips and deploying forward operating bases. For example, national parks advocates have raised concerns that if the department determined it needed surveillance equipment in a park ' say on Chief Mountain in Glacier National Park ' it could install it without any public comment or even internal review process.

' Mark Shields:
Mark Hanna, the Cleveland industrialist who managed the winning presidential campaign of his fellow Ohio Republican William McKinley, offered this timeless insight: "There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second is." [Scroll forward 116 years]:

Add to this the senseless Supreme Court decisions that, for the first time since Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, enable corporations to spend directly ' and even anonymously ' to back or attack candidates and make America safe for millionaires to donate millions to phony, so-called "independent" groups that are frequently operated by the candidate's closest supporters.

According to the trusted Center for Responsive Politics, "Business interests dominate, with an overall advantage over organized labor of about 15 to one."

' Mike Rosen, global warming denier, tries to tar those who don't deny with an extremist brush based on a single academic paper.


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