Letter to a Conservative Regulation/Tax Cutter

I read your diatribe against state tax laws and regulations in today's Sacramento Bee. What is distressing is that you would print such ignorant and biased political ilk while sitting on the State Board of Equalization. According to your theory, state regulations and high taxes are what is chasing off business.  You even side with Amazon, in refusing to collect state sales tax, which has given an unfair advantage to Amazon, resulting in at least the "Borders Bookstore" closure, along with hundreds of other retailers in California.   How can you write such biased and one-sided propaganda and still serve on the Board of Equalization.  Your JOB sir, is to advise tax code equally and fairly in the state.  You also, of course, are sitting in a position that is a plumb patronage position, thanks to the Guvenator. What if you are wrong?  What if de-regulating and cutting taxes so weakens the necessary infrastructure that educated entrepreneurs flee?    What if history proves you wrong, which it has and is!   I live in Redding, California, a hotbed of the Tea Party and wacko conservatives.  The county and city leadership have been taken over by the far right, resulting in policies that build mall after mall, retail business multiplies, and we all are starving to death.  Government, that once was one of our largest employers, has been cut to the bone, and the recession just drives us deeper and deeper.    The hole just gets deeper while we enforce your doctrine.  SIR, IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!   "Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result is madness"...California has indulged in over a quarter century of tax cuts and government services reduction, cut our colleges while growing our prisons, passing your child protection laws, with no positive effect.  When have you been called to account for this: Never, you were appointed to the Board of Equalization...good pay....short hours...   California, as you know, is not one of the leading states in taxation level.  In fact, we rank about 7 as I recall.  This is startling, since we are the most populous state. Meanwhile, thanks to your passage of laws worrying more about child molesters than the state of our once great state college and university system, we spend more on incarceration than on matriculation, starving education to death and further weakening the economy.  Our highways are falling apart.  We rank way down on public transportation, our water reclamation projects are over a half century old, our plumbing systems, electricity grid, are all 1930s vintage.   Worse, our citizenry are losing their educational edge everyday to their global competitors.   And you answer, cut regulations, poison the environment, put more people in jail, cut regulations; let private enterprise do anything they want to do.....bring on B.P. let's flood Monterey Harbor with crude!!! Try this on for size!   It's a global, flat world economy.  To encourage state competition between all 50 states,  to cut taxes, cut regulations, turn us into Mexico, provides no competition whatsoever for the nationally economy policy competitors (China, India, Brazil).  Fifty disjointed, feuding and begging states pose no threat to China's monolith, who are using national teamwork to destroy us.  Read this last sentence real slow to yourself.....to destroy us! This is where the fiscal conservatives are killing us, by refusing to even consider a national policy of economic growth, but rather screaming for all 50 states to compete with one another mindlessly.  This "how to herd cats" approach might work in some conservative think tank, but in the world economy it makes it easy for China, for example, to continually clean our clock! The real jobs, the real strength, our manufacturing base, is not in Oregon (as you so so cleverly wrote), but in Vietnam, China, Brazil; etc.   And, the corporations you so much want to court with "sell the farm" tax cuts and no regulations, are MULTI-NATIONAL countries.  They don't give a damn about the citizens of California, just like they don't give a damn about the citizens of Brazil, who work in sweat shops for pennies an hour. So, your  approach is to make us a third world nation, which for the middle class in this country means a precipitous drop in the standard of living?  What does the middle class do when the tax cuts mean U.C. tuition is the same as Stanford's?  They don't get to go to college is the answer.   Every global study of economics I have EVER SEEN, states that education is the key to competing in the global economy.  Cutting public education, while boosting charter schools (check out how many of those have been victimized by opportunistic crooks), means less educational infrastructure, which means we lose! It's a global economy.  We need a NATIONAL policy on energy, education AND economic growth to compete.  Oh yes, put in Health Care as well, which you desperately want to repeal. If we listen to your conservative nonsense we will win alright, we will win and become the banana republics that your right wing friends like to make fun of, and close our borders to. In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland and WWII began. Conservatives like yourself, were so forward looking, they voted against the draft, which passed by ONE vote in the Congress. People of good will, like yourself according to your webpage biography, were dead wrong; nearly costing us defeat in the war. What won the war was teamwork, and a unified national policy. What defeated the Axis Powers, was the United Nations, who fought as one for liberty and freedom. Today, we are faced with economic disaster by countries who are emerging into global status. Luckily it is not war, that we need to unite around; it is economic vitality and survival. By looking back, and not realizing it is a new world, we project a disjointed picture to the global economy, that right now is resulting in disaster. You are wrong, and your views do not become a man who sits on such a prestigious board. Sent from Our iPad

Study Hard, Work Hard, Prosper

Study Hard, Work Hard, Prosper Nothing gets a conservative "worked up" more than when work ethic is introduced in a conversation. Immediately the anger flashes, and you hear how government encourages laziness through entitlement programs. Recently, there has been a frontal attack on the extension of unemployment benefits, claiming this "kills initiative". The flint edged side of life is reflected in phrases like, "I worked my way up; or, look at the welfare moms and cheats; or, why should we reward the underachievers"? Recently, in a reaction to the President pushing for an increase in the super rich's taxes, Bill O'Riley of Fox sputtered, "I may not do this anymore if my taxes are raised". The theory is that higher taxes will kill initiative and the rich will take their money and flee the country. I only hope O'Riley keeps his promise! Another theory is that the rich are all over-achievers, who worked according to the "Horatio Alger" myth, and deserve all that they make. These are all myths, lies, and toxic overstatements. First, the lie that all the rich are somehow deserving as "over-achievers". Much of the wealth of America is inherited. "Old money" is just that, "old", having been passed down through generations. Children of old money often are lazy and shiftless, having never had to work for anything. George W. Bush even got Congress to agree to complete suspend the inheritance tax, culminating in the rich paying NO inheritance tax at all in 2010. I encountered this head on when I matriculated in Stanford. The dean of admissions thought it would be a good idea to diversely match Freshman room mates. So, I was matched with a "Preppie" from New York, whose father was the CEO of a large news organization and also was "old money". In short, my room mate was ridiculously wealthy. He also was a spoiled brat, who told me the FIRST DAY that he was going to flunk out because his father was forcing him to go to college. I immediately thought of my high school classmate, who had higher grades than me but couldn't play football as well as I could, and cried when he was not accepted to Stanford. My room mate then proceeded to do exactly what he promised, he never attended classes, had girls in the room all the time (I was forced to go to the library a lot), but still couldn't flunk out. In those days, Stanford has changed its policy since, rich families were given an admission advantage because they contributed much more to the endowment. Finally, my room mate flunked out. In those days, those that left college lost their deferment and many went to Vietnam. Not my room mate; his "daddie" took care of it and he began traveling the world. The last I heard of him he was selling yachts in Boston Harbor, having never attended college. Have you ever taken a minute to watch the unskilled laborer work? Sometime, when you are traveling in California agricultural areas, stop and watch the "illegals" work. Rich people could not work like that. I couldn't work like that. Poor people work harder than rich people....tell that to Fox News sometimes! Watch your motel maid work, or your landscaper. For that matter, take a minute and watch your waitress actually work. They put in long hours of back breaking work for minimum wages, that the cons constantly want to cut. In short, the work ethic myth, that the rich earned their riches through hard work and over-achievement, has millions of exceptions; and is one of the biggest lies in American folklore. People achieve through a multitude of paths, some earned, many not. A child born into an affluent family is given, through no effort of his own, all the advantages: good schools, good nutrition, educational toys, travel; et al. A poor child gets none of these, save nurturing if they are lucky. I was always interested when I was a Principal how children who acted out and got in trouble often showed the same behaviors no matter what social strata they came from. The poor child and the rich child acted exactly the same, in fact, they often acted out together, becoming partners in crime; especially if drugs were involved. What they had in common was a lack of parental interest and nurturing. The rich child was sometimes ignored by parents too busy with their careers, or spending their parents' money jet setting. The poor children had sometimes been abandoned by care givers, and were living with in-laws due to drug use, criminal behavior; etc. And the behaviors in both groups was the same; rebellion, drug use, anger, disrespect; etc. The big difference was the rich child could mess up all the time and still get bailed out. They would be sent to special schools, get counseling, even be sent to military school. The poor child simply went to jail and were relegated to the dust heap of society. This inequality if endemic in America today. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater. Every day, in the thousands, poor children are lost in a culture that punishes them for "not working hard" when in fact, they are simply being punished because they don't have what the rich kid has, a "get out of jail free card" for life. And, the privileged class are born into a increasingly aristocratic culture, go to the best schools, become C.E.O.s but have not developed any character skills, so they cheat, lie and even steal. The myth that achievers somehow develop character while fighting their way up the career ladder is not true, often there is no career ladder at all; success is guaranteed. If a rich person fails, they are re-cycled back into the system, and move from one company to another, messing up at every turn. They have no sense of failure, or success for that matter, having never needed to develop one. Ever wonder why there is so much cheating at the higher levels of American business, why we are constantly reading about corruption? It is because an increasing number of power brokers never worked to get where they are but inherited the privilege! This is the threat of entrenched aristocracy that I thought America understood when I was growing up. The United States was established in reaction to the aristocracies of 18th century Europe, as a revolution of human values; encouraging human achievement regardless of who you were. That dream is dying every day in today's America. And, the most troubling is how some working class people, are adopting a defensive position for the rich, in the mistaken assumption that they are defending achievement and the "work ethic". Polls always show that a surprisingly high percentage of Americans, even in the depths of the Great Recession, believe that if they work hard they can ultimately become a millionaire, or better. They believe the myth, propagated by the rich, that government aid to the poor, public education, welfare programs, kill initiative and are "unfair" and in a sense will hurt their chances to "make it". The truth is the odds of "making it" are crushingly small! Republicans chant that "only 50% of Americans pay income taxes", or "unemployment payments are creating a class of lazy American" etc., etc., etc. And of course, Fox News hammers away daily with anecdotal stories of how government is assisting people who don't deserve it and are "taking opportunity away from YOU". The public record shows a different story. The gap between rich and poor is wider than since the Great Depression. The top 10% of wage earners make the vast majority of income, the middle class is dwindling, poor people are poorer than in many third world countries. And the rich kid continues to get all the breaks, cynically using them for good and often for ill, and once in a C.E.O. position, screwing up, losing the company or closing it, outsourcing work, cheating on taxes, and paying millions to conservative groups who deny global warming and encourage pollution. Have you ever wondered why the ruling class in this country is constantly in the news for cheating, whether it is through the mortgage "lying loans" scandal, or Bernie Maloof ponzie schemes? It is because many of them never worked for ANYTHING they got, while the poor have to work their butts off just to say alive. The rich class in this country has a real integrity problem. Just like my room mate of long ago, when compared to my work ethic, that got me to Stanford and beyond, who scoffed at the opportunity of Stanford because he never really needed it anyway. Because of his privileged placement at Stanford, he took a spot away from another over-achiever, like my high school classmate. There is no career ladder anymore in America. There is no longer the opportunity that Fox News supposedly protects. What we have evolved into is an aristocracy, whose rich are now firmly entrenched within the Republican Party, who fight equal opportunity initiatives at every turn, while mouthing platitudes that they are " fighting for working people", when in fact they are protecting unearned privilege. It's a world of opposites, where reality is not what is propagandized: many of the rich are lazy without character, many of the poor work unbelievably hard and in fact have much more character than any of us realize. As long as the ruling class in America are rich spoiled brats, we will get no leadership and one disaster after another. George W. Bush was a rich spoiled brat, whose Presidency was marked by one mistake after another, culminating in an economic meltdown that came from basically from a financial sector that cheated. That's right, they CHEATED! This was not by accident, but was a product of a social system that puts people into positions of power who have no character, no integrity, because of the privilege that put them there. George W. Bush is a perfect example of this. In fact he even bragged of his low grades at Yale, and got into the MBA program (drunk by the way) only through the privilege of his father. In short, he never really worked for anything, and failed (unfortunately for all of us) at every business venture he attempted, when he was sober. Once he sobered up and decided to try to achieve, he turned to politics, where the skids were greased since his father just happened to be President of the United States. If he would have been a working class kid, with no connections, he would be in some jail in Texas, or worse. George W. got break after break after break, until finally he got into a position where character did not matter; politics, and Daddy's influence, could overcome his basic character flaws. This may seem like more "Bush bashing" but George W. reminds me so much of my long lost Freshman room mate at Stanford, who had no clue who he was, but fully understood that he didn't really have to do anything to attain all the riches there rest of us were fighting to achieve. So, when the Fox water carriers scream that progressives are "ruining the American work ethic" take some time to really think of the rich and the poor in this country. Finally, after the Watergate Scandal, a Republican Congressman said, "What we have learned here is there is no connection between intelligence and character". He could have added; there is no connection between wealth and character as well.

Why Attack The Have nots?

The following is the text of an email to a conservative op Ed piece that lectured about the immorality of entitlements and the smugness of a person who still has a job and despises those who don't: Have you ever been to Del Paso Heights? Have you wandered into South Central L.A. lately? Your article was very well done and brilliant by the way. It summarized the conservative rich attitude very well, “I’ve got mine, work hard like I did and you can get yours”. The other two articles on the Sacramento Bee’s opinion page you shared, were excellent also. Mr. Brooks summarized the limitations of government, both in stimulating the economy AND in aiding the less fortunate. Paul Krugman, of course, criticized your position as leaning more into the uncaring and cynical. This conversation is exciting, and interesting especially for us political science types. What is it not however, is constructive to a safe, sane and peaceful society. When economies are countries are stressed, inevitably debates begin about the haves and have nots, about the distribution of resources, about work ethic; etc. And, if those debates get mean enough and angry enough, actual conflict including wars develop. America has not been immune from this. The Civil War was essentially over have-nots (slaves) and what to do with a system that immensely rewarded the haves. After a bloody conflict, that saw almost 1 in 10 Americans either wounded or dead, the argument was “temporarily” settled. And now we are having a similar argument. The haves are basically saying that they are “sick and tired” of having part of the “hard earned” wealth go to the have nots. And, of course, they are couching their arguments in “moral terms” as you did in your article: work is good for your, hard work is uplifting; ie., moral. And then Jesus walks into the room. I am sure you are a Christian. How do you reconcile your beliefs with Christian charity? How do you reconcile your “the poor are soft, lazy and basically deserve what they get” with Christ’s famous “the least of these”? Oh, I know, I know, you simply might interpret the Bible differently, Jesus really didn’t mean that; etc. But there are scores of references in the Bible supporting the moral view that Christians should love their neighbor, love god, show mercy, work for JUSTICE and walk humbly with God. As we continue this “great debate” remember that it may culminate in something that is awful for America, as we tear each other apart. For years, after WWII, the rich reluctantly paid their taxes, that yes, on one level were unfair. But, the spector of WWII and the Great Depression was still fresh in their mind. The wealthy had veered close to socialism with the New Deal, and had seen the world almost destroyed, so paying a 90% marginal tax rate, while still getting fabulously wealthy, seemed a good deal. Here is the danger: The rich in Germany threw their support behind Hitler, to counter socialism’s threat to their capitalism. They backed his non-egalitarian ways and hatreds, and stood in shock as the country was literally destroyed both morally and physically. They won the debate, built their munitions factories, made lots of money, and were bombed into oblivion. That is where our “conversation” can take us as well. Just as in 1850, the problem that has made us get into this debate will not go away. Brooks says this well in his article; government cannot cure recessions or depressions. What government can do is mitigate them so that the ugly genie stays in the bottle, and social, political and economic conflicts over haves and have-nots don’t spill over into war. Roosevelt knew that; that is why he worked so hard to reform within capitalism. He could have become a dictator you know. His greatness was not in what he did to grow government, it was he didn’t do. The country then, like now, was scared, and was ready to renounce democracy for a “quick fix”. What social welfare programs do is keep that genie in the bottle, and give the economy time to recover. What social welfare programs do is care for the least of these. You know of course that most beneficiaries, and a majority of the poor are children (who can’t work, oh I forgot, child labor laws are "excessive regulation"). That is what we are playing with right now. As your party swings harder to the right, you are entering the field of fascism plain and simple: not national socialism, but a new brand of American fascism. The implications for democracy are not good. Please rethink your hard edged philosophy. Think of the Book of Matthew, and realize that the peace of our country depends on it. Fascism, even a "constitutional" variety will always destroy democracy and human freedom. Stop the hatred of the poor.

This is Madness

Madness

This is crazy. I was watching a debate between a rich American and a progressive about a tax increase for the rich, to address the deficit. Of course, most progressives feel the Bush tax cuts should have expired a year ago when scheduled, and to maintain them now is adding to the deficit and damaging the economy.

The rich American came up with several defenses, including a statistic that "over 50% of Americans do not pay any income tax at all"; these are the poor, the elderly and college students. So, I assume, we should raise taxes on the poor while letting the rich off? Raising taxes on the poor means hardly any increase in revenues at all, putting tax rates back to what they used to be, will raise billions to offset the deficit...you choose!

The progressive opponent kept saying that a "tax increase" was necessary to deal with the deficit. The rich guy kept saying this would harm the economy, no tax increases during a recession was his chant; they are "job killers".

This is madness: First of all we are not talking about a tax increase, but a return to the tax rates that existed before the Bush Tax cuts. These rates had existed during the 1990s, an economic boom era for most Americans. And, these rates had been permanently reduced from New Deal era rates by the Reagan Administration. The days of a 90% marginal tax rate is long gone.

So, a resumption of the old tax rates is it. No net tax increase. None...no tax increase (repeat after me). There is no suggestion for a tax increase. No tax increase...it is a resumtion of the old tax rate.

Cons have been brilliant in getting us to use THEIR lexicon, calling a resumption of a tax rate after a cut as a tax "increase". There will be no increase. None.

This approach has been hugely successful for an increasingly minority Republican Party in California. California began the "tax revolution" with Prop 13, and has followed it up with one tax cut after another.

Now, the state is in perpetual deficit, making huge cuts to state spending, cannibalizing its eduational system, and is mired in a deep recession, fed now by cuts in government workers. Sacramento for example, is running an unemployment rate of over 10%, with thousands of unemployed state and local government workers.

Essentially, the private enterprise recession in the United States, has grown into a public recession as well, because we will not simply renew tax rates that were cut years ago. State cuts by conservative governors, have only fueled the recession, cutting local and state jobs.

In 2010 Republicans made large gains in the Congress, particularly in state races. Many conservatives were swept into office by an electorate made up of conservatives who bothered to vote while Democrats stayed home. People sent a message that they wanted the recession to end, and a lack of jobs was the problem. Republicans smartly chanted "jobs, jobs, jobs" and were swept into power. (Interesting because the same party caused the economic meltdown of 2007-08). Americans, tragically have notorious short political memories.

Tragically, the wrong party for this task was selected. Republicans talked a good jobs, jobs, jobs platform, but have done absolutely nothing to grow jobs either nationally or locally. In fact, state governors have taken a meat cleaver to public spending, because of the deficits in state budgets caused by the recession and mindless tax cuts; only adding to the unemployment rate and making the recession worse.

As more jobs are lost, less demand for goods and services is generated, and lower and lower into the depression we go. It is 1932 all over again!

And still, conservatives use the "tax increase" as a "job killer" and still the American public buys the lie.

Regardless of the lie, the conservative approach is not working; in fact, it never has worked. Much of our economic condition is a product of the global economy, which has nothing do with tax rates; nothing.

The global economy has cost millions of American jobs, simply because poor countries have work forces that will work for a fraction of what American workers make. Moreover, the profits that come for this "rise in productivity" are going to multi-national companies who have absolutely no allegiance to the United States worker. So, our people are fired, while Brazilians are hired. Conservatives and progressives have both been "free traders" in this madness, literally outsourcing us into a depression.

Other countries have at least tried policies to discourage out sourcing, or punishing it with taxes and other disincentives. The United States has taken a total free trade approach, leading to mass lay-offs and economic misery. There is no national economic strategy in the United States to deal with the global economy. Every other "developed country" on earth has one, we instead, rely on the "free enterprise, free trade system." Once again this lack of regulation and self interest has harmed millions of Americans, who have been thrown under the bus of the global economy, enriching multinationals and making the rich spectacularly richer.

The middle classes of the "developing countries", Brazil, China, India; etc., are growing while America's dwindles. Much of this may be unavoidable, but it seems conservatives are making it worse by insisting that tax cuts that are rolled back are "increases" are job killers. This only starves government, laying to even more layoffs, which leads to more layoffs.

There is little connection of a tax cut to stimulate the economy, because we are talking about national fiscal policies and actions on a global economy; their is minimal effect. A tax cut in America might stimulate consumer demand slightly, but when the middle class in China moves up 1%, the global economy stimulus is huge.

This is the same thing as when we talk about increasing our local drilling for oil, to "remove our reliance on foreign oil". The vast majority of American think when oil is pumped from off shore "American" wells, it is "ours".

This is nonsense! Shell Oil, for example, is not run by Americans. It pumps oil from Alaska, then refines it and sells it to the highest bidder. We could increase our pumping of oil by a hundred fold, and still there is no guarantee that gas will be sold at cheaper prices to Americans.

It is a global market remember, with emerging middle classes in countries with huge populations who are hungry for the same natural resources we have always assumed were ours by "divine right".

So, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, by refusing to renew the Clinton era tax rates, and not realizing that it is a global economy that is the root cause of our economic woes.

Americans have long been ridiculed by Europeans for being too provincial and not having a global view. These weaknesses are now killing our economy, because we can't see the massive paradigm change that has occurred.

We continue to cut jobs, cut spending, and cut taxes, and can't realize that this is killing our economy. We have no national strategy for economic survival, no strategy for energy, no strategy for national educational achievement. We have 1/3 at least of our political focus controlled by conservatives who actually want to roll back national approaches to problems to a "states rights" approach. Huh? States by themselves can participate in the global economy against nationalistic strategies of China, India, Germany and Brazil? This is madness!

It's a global economy, stupid. The more provincial we get, the less effective we will be in adapting to the global economy; and the more we will sink into economic defeat.

This is madness!