Warning! Somehow this will lead to sexual perversion and pedophilia!

In another victory for proponents of gay/lesbian rights in the United States, Obama has ordered the HHS to mandate hospitals that receive federal funds to allow same-sex couples the same hospital visitation rights allowed to heterosexual couples. The only thing I can ask is, why is this only happening now? I can understand why some people may feel gay marriage, adoption and civil unions are immoral; but why should a move like this even be controversial? This is a decision that affects only the patient and his/her partner in the strictest sense. If your partner is sick in the hospital, what moral concern is it of some right winger that you go and visit them. The GOP talk on and on about patients' rights in healthcare reform, why not start by embracing this.

High taxes? Yeah right.

As tax day approaches, around 35% of Americans actually believe that Obama has raised taxes on them. The media has been focused for so long on the Tea Party movement that seeks among other things to lower taxes which they view as having gone up under the Democrats. So this will be news to some of the country, that Obama in fact passed the largest tax cut in recent history as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Tax refunds in the form of a Making Work Pay tax credit are at their highest levels for at least twenty years. So what makes people think that the Democrats have raised taxes?

First of all, Democrats have mostly been supportive of tax increases more recently. They opposed the Bush tax cuts, supported Bill Clinton's tax increases, and have proposed numerous other ideas such as the carbon tax and tax on high end insurance policies. The truth of the matter is: Democrats would raise our taxes if presented with the opportunity to do so.

Now I agree with Paul Krugman in that I believe that the Republicans don't oppose taxes because they believe in "fiscal responsibility". The Republicans realized in the 1970s that they could not cut spending on Social Security, Medicare and other popular programs without facing a massive public backlash. At this point they began a strategy that deprived these programs of funding so the government would be forced to eliminate them. And how could they go about cutting spending? By cutting taxes.

Clearly the Republicans are winning the messaging war over the tax issue. When you have Democrats bragging about cutting taxes, clearly there has been a paradigm shift in America. But there is a difference between the parties on this issue. The Democrats have cut taxes on the middle and lower class whereas the Republicans have cut taxes for the wealthy. Liberals, including myself, have always argued that the wealthy should pay the most taxes because they have the ability to pay them. Also, depriving the upper classes of inherited wealth leads to increased social mobility, hence the American dream.

So the next time the Republicans say they want to cut taxes, lets ask them whose taxes they want to cut and for what purpose. As far as the Democrats go, the middle class should not see their taxes go up disproportionately under Obama though everyone will have to help bring down our deficit.

Is this really the best use of our money right now?

We must really be in trouble as a country to hear me advocating for spending cuts in NASA (National Air and Space Association). Obama announced a large cut in NASA spending along with other programs and at the same time cancelled the Constellation project, a rejuvenation of the program that sent astronauts to the moon. Neil Armstrong and others have criticized this for their own personal reasons and the steep price we would have to pay another nation to send humans to space. It is also a good way to develop technology for civilian uses.

Let me assert that I think spending cuts alone are a terrible idea. We already have a very small government compared to GDP, and much of it is defense anyway. Spending 17 billion dollars a year on funding the exploration of space sounds great when your country is the sole superpower, at peace abroad, and going through an economic boom; but is a complete waste of scare funds when the economy is facing a massive structural shortfall, China is threatening our international power, and we are bogged down in two Middle Eastern wars.

Tying this back into my general theme, I don't think we should cut the budget out entirely. Nor do I think we should simply cut the budget and stop there. What should happen is a transfer of spending away from NASA and to areas that will more accurately reflect the challenges we face as a nation.

NASA spending is 0.52% of our budget. Don't even get me started on defense spending.

You can't even call this financial "reform"

The Republicans have once again left the table on financial reform negotiations. They have cited democrats wanting to drive a wedge between the GOP and Democratic Party on the issue. The Democrats have framed the Republicans as supporting businesses and banks over the average American. Lets put this in perspective: Democrats have been the ones pushing for financial regulation all along, even before the crash of 2009. The current legislation (in the senate, at least), is completely watered down to the point it won't even work. If the Republicans really wanted financial regulation, they would be calling for stricter regulations, not more lax ones. Btw guess when Mitch McConnell said his party couldn't support the legislation; right after getting out of a meeting with hedge fund managers. Kind of says it all.

The Green Deal

In my last post I talked about the trouble that Democrats are having with the electorate. I may have said that at a bad time, though their messaging and platform need some work. When Americans talk about the direction that the country is going on, they will overwhelmingly tell you that the economy is their biggest concern. At this point, the Democrats have been content to just tinker at the edges, trying to preserve existing jobs. But what the American economic system needs is a makeover.

When Hillary Clinton was trying to win the presidential nomination in 2008, she proposed a "green deal", a spin on FDR's New Deal policies. I thought this was one of the better ideas she presented and one that is even more relevant today than when she talked about it. The core element of it is a state-encouraged boom in environmentally friendly technology that would begin in the United States and revive the manufacturing base. I think this is an extremely good idea. The goals of this Green Deal would be economic revival, carbon dioxide reduction, and better city planning. I will go through what I think this idea should consist of.

1.) Creating an incentive for environmentally friendly technology- The first step in transforming the economy would be to shift financial incentives away from fossil fuel use. This could include subsidies for renewable energy companies, a carbon tax, and higher fuel taxes. One of the most important things to do would be to redistribute capital away from coal/petroleum/automobile production and transfer it to public transportation/renewable energy utilities. Raising the gas tax would take more cars off the road and make those that are still on the road more fuel efficient. I have always argued that reducing petroleum use is a matter of national security as well. Another important step in this, one that is often overlooked, is to design a new Farm Bill that focuses exclusively on organic agriculture. Our current agriculture used 8 units of energy for every 1 unit of food. It also does not support local farmers and economies. It would be easy to simply shift subsidies away from big agribusiness.

2.) Stop manufacturing jobs going overseas- This is very important. The way our current system is designed to shift any increase in manufacturing jobs to other countries. We have to end tax breaks for countries that shift jobs overseas. We may also consider erecting trade barriers to international wind turbines, solar panels, hybrid cars, etc. This is not necessary though. Without significant change to our problem with outsourcing, there would be no benefit to the middle class from any economic boom in the United States.

3.) End the suburbs and promote public transportation- It is quite obvious that our suburban model of living is broken. Suburbs lead to urban decay, high consumption levels, excessive farmland conversion, loss of natural habitats, congestion, the list goes on. With more and more people living close to the cities and using public transportation, our oil use could be substantially reduced. It would also improve our educational systems, environment, health-care systems and general quality of life. With middle-class and upper class Americans moving to the inner cities, there would be an influx of tax revenue that could lead to urban renewal and investment in public education.

I'm not saying that this model is perfect. In fact, it is far from solving all of our problems. If the Democratic Party could transform the economy along these lines, it could actually lead to a significant improvement in the standard living in this country. It could lead to long-term, sustained job growth. It could also lead to an economy and population that is prepared to deal with a possible peak oil crisis on the horizon.

Looks like being from Massachusetts actually makes you LESS likely to join in on the Boston Tea Party

This really was surprising. Scott Brown, our new Republican senator from Massachusetts, declined to attend a large Tea Party in Boston. This is the latest in a long string of disappointments from the Republican base that elected him. Let me clarify something. Scott Brown was elected because Democratic voters did not show up for the election. Anyway, they elect this guy and the first thing he does is vote for Harry Reid's jobs bill. And now he doesn't like the Tea Party?!?! All I can say is thank god that there are still moderate Republicans in the senate.

On the Democratic Party's low approval rating

Its not news to most people that the Democrats are in trouble. They have had two straight landslide elections, bring with it the largest congressional majority any party has been given since the 1970s. The initial problem was that the base was not energized, compared to the Republican counterpart. Republicans were riled up by Fox News and claims of socialism creeping into the country. Democratic activists were disappointed over their losses on key components of the health reform debate. The passage of health-care legislation has greatly improved the mood among the base, though there is little evidence that independents have been swayed. I would attribute the failure of the Democrats to maintain there position to several factors.

The first of these is their message. The Republicans have had a far superior public relations strategy than the Democrats for a long time. Somehow an ad that says, "Obama is going to kill Grandma" is more frightening than, "Republicans are going to destroy the public safety net that provides for class mobility in our society." It is just funny how the Democratic strategists haven't thought about trying to promote their ideas and further discredit the Republican brand. There are so many things that could be used against them: contradicting statements on national security, ethics violations, corruption and pandering to business interests that could stir equal animosity towards the GOP as we saw during the last months of the Bush presidency. There is a reason that the Republican Party's favorability ratings hang somewhere between 15-20%. People know they don't have the middle class's interests at heart.

The second of these is the fact that the Democrats have let the Republicans define every issue that they have brought up. On the stimulus package, we saw Democrats touting tax cuts rather than focusing on spending that is proven to be much better for economic growth. On health-care, we saw the Democrats scramble to ensure that people could keep their existing coverage, even when that coverage is worse than it could be under real reform. Democrats have to shift the paradigm that America is a center-right country, or we will never be able to enact center-left policies.

Third, Democrats have never thought to blame Republicans for a breakdown in bipartisanship. The public wants to see more bipartisanship, and some polls have shown that a near majority think this is the fault of the Democrats. Its about time to call the GOP out on not negotiating in good faith. Included in this is the inability for the Democrats to control the economy. I think the administration would have the economic situation much more stable than it is now if we could have had more bipartisan support for real jobs and economic stimulus legislation. The economy is not the issue here, I think, it is the framing of the economic situation and who is to fault for it.

One of my next posts tomorrow will be what I think the democrats should do about the economy, so stay tuned.

START up your brain, Fox News

This is good news. President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signing the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Prague several weeks ago. The policy sets new limits on the number of nuclear warheads that can be kept by both countries. The entire country should be happy to see us take a step towards a nuclear-free world.

Republicans who are criticizing this are honestly only doing so for political positioning. The first START treaty, as many remember, was first proposed by Ronald Reagan five months before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now for the fun stuff. John Stewart has a good segment making fun of Fox News's criticism of the treaty. This treaty will still allow us the amount of nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over. It will still allow us to attack countries not party to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (yes, Iran and North Korea). It is not that radical. Fox News should stop whining about having a president getting something done.

And guess who doesn't think we have the votes in the senate for this one. Surprise surprise!