Gas Tax Gimmicks

Today House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) sided with Obama in opposition to a summer ‘tax holiday’ recently proposed by McCain and Clinton to alleviate the brutal impact of rising gas prices. Though ‘reducing the federal tax on oil’ sounds nice to citizens, it fails to get to the heart of the energy crisis our nation is facing. Without investing in research and development of new energy sources, we are doomed to cope with rising gas prices for years to come.

Friedman summed up the trouble with the policy in the NYTimes today. “Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.”

Obama did not go so far as to call it money laundering, but he did call them out for their election year gimmicks. “This is the problem with Washington. We are facing a situation where oil prices could hit $200 a barrel. Oil companies like Shell and BP just reported record profits for the quarter. And we’re arguing over a gimmick to save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say that they did something… This isn’t an idea designed to get you through the summer, it’s an idea designed to get them through an election.”

Most economists and environmental scientists side with Obama’s position on this. The tax holiday will not provide substantial relief to buyers at the pump, and instead would act simply as a subsidy to oil companies- who are making record profits already.

RK quoted Gilbert Metclaf, a economics professor at Tufts University currently working with the National Bureau of Economic Research, as saying “I think it is a very bad idea… If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings. It is a very short-sighted, counterproductive proposal.”

Friedman later points out the real crisis- a lack of creative energy and political will to invest in the larger problem at hand. The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

And the beat goes on

The never ending story of the democratic primary proved true to its nature as Clinton took Pennsylvania last night, 55% to 45% (though that depends on what ‘win’ means).

The bottom line is that not much has changed. The democratic party is no closer to settling on a presidential candidate than it was a month ago. Clinton has gained a whopping 5 delegates’ advantage (including supers) over Obama. The current scored-card is 1,716 to 1,588. On March 18, the differential was 133. It’s now 128. (c/o Andrew Sullivan)

The popular editorial in the NY Times today summed up the sentiments of democrats around the country who are tired of the bloody battle and dreading its’ continuation through to the convention.

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it. Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election…

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics…

After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq…

Earth Day is Great… But….

It seems it would be a cardinal sin not to write about the environment in some way, shape or form on Earth Day. Today the Farm bill remains in conference committee (the 2002 bill expires on Friday), there is a UN summit on rising food prices on Downing Street, and yesterday the UN Chief called for greater efforts to eliminate poverty in Sub Saharan Africa where none of the countries are on track to meet the 2000 millennium development goals.

As earth day, today is taken by many as a chance to applaud recent environmental efforts and educate individuals about the importance of doing more. However, the moment must not pass us by without engaging in the larger discussions about the global impact some of these measures have on those in developing nations- who often are not participants in the environmental debates.

Biofuels have been at the center of such debates, as they bring in a large profit the impact of switching land from food production to producing new fuel sources. The negative impact of biofuels around the world are numerous, as highlighted in TIME magazine last month. But the most devastating aspect by far has been the impact on food crops and therefore on those in developing nations who are hard pressed to buy food.

As fertile land is switched from producing corn for human consumption to more financially advantageous corn for fuel, one of the results has been an increased cost in food products for human consumption. Most first-world shoppers rarely notice the effects as they trickle into our supermarkets, but for the 2.7 billion people who are surviving on less than $2 a day, the effects are profound.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said soaring food prices threatened to plunge more than 100 million people into hunger, leaving a 755-million-dollar shortfall in its 2.9 billion dollar budget, forcing cuts in vital programmes.

…and…

The World Health Organization views hunger as the No. 1 threat to public health across the world, responsible for a third of child deaths and 10 percent of all disease.

“With one child dying every five seconds from hunger-related causes, the time to act is now,” (Gordon Brown at the UN Summit today)

Health care, not Hillary

When Hillary Clinton recently botched the details of a tragic story about a young pregnant woman who died as a result of inadequate health care coverage, the media made the story du jour about Hillary and the botched details. No one thought to engage in a thorough discussion about the essence of the story (which she got right)- our botched health care system.

Krugman at the NYT has a thoughtful piece today on the sad state of affairs of America’s health care system. He tells the stories of two women who have fallen through our system, whose deaths could have been prevented with better coverage. Their stories are not exceptions or rare cases. According to a recent estimate by the Urban Institute, the lack of health insurance leads to 27,000 preventable deaths in America each year. Their research shows that currently, 46 million people (or nearly one in five nonelderly adults and children) lack health insurance in the United States, an increase of 6 million since 2000.

He simultaneously calls out the media for their behavior, and Obamicans for participating in the sport of giving Hillary a hard time for missing some details instead of acknowledging that she’s trying to highlight the fact that our country’s disaster of a health care system is directly contributing to deaths of our fellow citizens.

“In other words, this was a disgraceful episode. It was particularly sad to see a number of Obama supporters (though not the Obama campaign itself) join enthusiastically in the catcalls against Mrs. Clinton’s good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system.

Look, I know that many progressives have their hearts set on seeing Barack Obama get the Democratic nomination. But politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It’s supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

And if being a progressive means anything, it means believing that we need universal health care, so that terrible stories like those of Monique White, Trina Bachtel and the thousands of other Americans who die each year from lack of insurance become a thing of the past.”

To Boycott or Not to Boycott (or How Best to Boycott),That is the Question

After yesterday’s protests, the Olympic torch parade route in San Fransisco was diverted and then the torch was put on a bus for safety reasons. Jim Capple over at ESPN rightly points out that “Relaying the torch by bus is only slightly more dignified than transporting it by clown car, but still far preferable to its scheduled arrival at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing via armored tank.”

The debate is raging about what whether the Olympics are worth boycotting, and if political statements should be made against the human rights policies of the Chinese.

Capple & company argue that boycotting the Olympics is futile, but participating while making a statement is the best way to essentially humiliate the Chinese government.

“It’s easy to say that the rights of synchronized swimmers to perform their five-minute routine isn’t worth tacitly endorsing China’s actions in Tibet or its support for the Sudanese regime. But that’s because it’s always easy to fight for a principle by having someone else make the sacrifice. (After all, it’s how the war in Iraq is being conducted.) There is absolutely no point to a country boycotting the Olympics if it will maintain normal trade relations with China as if everything is fine. It’s also rather painful to do so when China helps to prop up the value of the falling American dollar.”

The more effective strategy would be to visibly protest with Tibetan flags and fist pumps as events are won and medals are donned and for whole teams to boycott the opening ceremonies.

“That’s the benefit of staying in the Olympics. Boycott them and no one notices. Participate and you can make a statement. China anticipated using the Olympics as a giant public-relations gala for the rising country. Just as the torch relay is demonstrating, though, the Games also can be used as a stage to focus the spotlight on China in ways it never imagined when it bid for the Olympics.”

Allison Kilkenny at the Huffington Post suggests a different approach- stop the cash flow of corporate sponsorships.

“You see, though American citizens and politicians are dutifully outraged by the Chinese government’s repression and abuse of its own people, corporations can’t commit fast enough to spending millions for advertising in Beijing.

So if you’re interested in really affecting the Olympics, first you have to stop the steady cash flow, and you can stop the cash by asking (pretty, pretty please) corporations to withdraw their ads from the Olympics.”

We Are Not All Guilty, But We Are All Responsible (Rabbi Heschel)

It is a rare treat to see a variety of reporters, commentators and bloggers talking about the important issues of social and economic disparities and the underlying racial implications facing our country in the 21st century. It is a shame that this conversation comes but once a year, on the anniversary of MLK Jr’s assassination, as judgments are made about how far America has come and whether or not his ‘dream’ has come to fruition.

There is a general consensus that though much has changed in the 40 years since King’s assassination, his dreams have not been fully realized and honest conversations about the relevance of race in America are still needed. The last point has been emphasized with Obama’s recent Philadelphia speech on race.

‘Senator Barack Obama’s recent speech that touched on race has led many commentators to hope that we are on the verge of open and honest discussion on the role race places in American society, not just politics. I believe that America is in desperate need of such a discussion and hope that the facts presented in this report lie at the forefront of the conversation. For those who are serious about moving the country onto higher ground, the continuing significance of racial disparities, despite all of the great changes that have taken place in the nation, should drive any discussion.’ (Michael Fauntroy)

But the discussion thus far has been largely theoretical and more policy recommendations are desperately needed to address the disparities and tensions that still exist. The numbers released in the Institute of Policy Studies’ recent report ‘40 Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream’ articulate the changes in our society, both good and bad.

-The purchasing power of African Americans is estimated at $800 billion, making them the 15th or 16th richest ‘country’ in the world. But it will take more than 537 years for Blacks to reach income equality with whites if progress continues at the rate it has since King’s assassination.

-The African American college graduation rate has increased by almost 400% since 1968. Yet, at this rate inequality in college graduation between Blacks and whites will linger till 2087.

-In 1968 over 40% of blacks lived below the poverty line, with an additional 20% hovering right above it. Today that number is down to 25%, but a third of all black children live in poverty.

Eugene Robinson sums it up these dichotomies nicely in his piece ‘Two Black Americas.’

It’s misleading, then, to make any general statement about the condition of black Americans without recognizing black America’s diversity. Economically speaking, there is one group of black Americans that has achieved success and one that hasn’t — and the distance between those groups is growing.

It is clear that economic justice policies should be of the greatest priority to this nation and our leaders, though in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in the midst of the war in Iraq the current administrations policies often appear to be misguided.

King’s legacy should be carried on in a continued fight for economic justice. As he said…

Our only hope . . . lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit [of America] and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

The dispossessed of our nation – the poor, both white and Negro – live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means to lift the load of poverty.

April 4, 1968 in Indianapolis

On the evening of April 4, 1968 only hours after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Robert Kennedy braved inner city Indianapolis without the assurance of police protection, to give a previously scheduled speech. There he informed the crowds of MLK’s death, and proceeded to give one of his (and our country’s) best speeches.

‘We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization — black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love…

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.’

It is telling that Indianapolis was one of the few cities in which riots and violence did not break out that fateful night. Kennedy’s message of unity and compassion had a profound impact on one city, making his assassination 2 months later all the more tragic.

Ron Klain, a Clinton campaigner in 1992, says this of the 1968 speech and the parallels with the 2008 presidential campaign:

‘Forty years later, whenever I hear people say that a politician’s speeches don’t matter, that campaigns are a waste and that the sort of conflict we have in the 2008 Democratic primary is “destructive,” I think of Robert Kennedy’s words in Indianapolis that night — a speech that would have never happened but for the hard-fought, highly competitive 1968 primary campaign — and the millions of people like me who were inspired by them and their impact on that city.’

81 Pages Worth of (IR)Rationalization

The Bush Administration has come under fire from the usual suspects after the release of the 2003 81 page Memo by Mr. Yoo in which he rationalized a number of acts against prisoners commonly defined as torture elsewhere in the world.

‘You can often tell if someone understands how wrong their actions are by the lengths to which they go to rationalize them. It took 81 pages of twisted legal reasoning to justify President Bush’s decision to ignore federal law and international treaties and authorize the abuse and torture of prisoners.’

His calculated policy prescriptions appear to justify a number of illegal actions and to ensure that none of the policy makers nor the individuals carrying out these acts are not charged with crimes. The systematic justification of constitutionally unsound policies under the Bush administration is appalling. The effect of the memo is eloquently summed up in a 4/04/08 NYTimes Editorial.

‘The memo is also a reminder of how many secrets about this administration’s cynical and abusive policies still need to be revealed. As Senator Edward M. Kennedy noted, the release of the Yoo memo is a reminder that neither Congress nor the American people have seen the policy memos that govern interrogations today. We know of at least two being kept secret for supposed reasons of national security, including one authorizing waterboarding.

When the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public, we were told these were the depraved actions of a few soldiers. The Yoo memo makes it chillingly apparent that senior officials authorized unspeakable acts and went to great lengths to shield themselves from prosecution.’

Actually Supporting our Troops

Today General Wesley Clark, Jon Soltz and Robert Greenwald called for John McCain to sign onto Jim Webb’s ’21st Century G.I. Bill’. The legislation would allocate substantive funds to provide college educations for our Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain has been outspoken about supporting both the war and the troops, but has failed to sign onto this important legislation that is in need of only 9 more signatures to pass in the Senate (with its numerous filibusters).

Ask Senator McCain to actually support our troops.

Honorable to a fault?

Frank Schaeffer has a great piece up on the Huffington Post today about the danger that a military man’s sense of ‘honor’ would bring to the presidency (read McCain). Schaeffer argues that from a historical perspective, military men have not served their country well as president during wartime because military honor does not easily translate into good policy making or civilian leadership.

“…the reason we have civilian leadership of our military is that the military code of honor is great for the military, lousy for the world of civilian decision making. It is even lousy for the military — if the military code is adopted by the nation’s leaders.”

Schaeffer formerly supported McCain but now argues that American needs to deviate from the Bush legacy, and a fresh start with new leadership. Despite the heroic sacrifices that McCain made for his country in Vietnam, his military honor and and personal experiences will not serve him, or that same beloved country, very well in position of civilian leadership. His personal experiences with war and the military have instilled a determination to win, but as leader of our nation, a determination to win in Iraq at all cost, is simply not good policy and not in America’s best interest.

“Until McCain admits that the war he wants to “win” was based on mistakes and defended by lies the mere and endless repetition of the word honor will ring hollow. We need a new Truman for president, not today’s version of MacArthur. The next president needs to guard the interests of the United States of America, not the abstract principles he lives by and his own sense of wounded pride. There is nothing more out of place than a great man at the wrong time, especially an old man living in his past who seems to have forgotten that lasting honor must be based on truth.”