In my conversations with members of the current radical conservative-libertarian movement, I have found them to be into a fairy tale, fantasy view of American history.  Most of them wave the U.S. Constitution around, quote Thomas Paine (see below), and parrot Ron Paul’s attack on Social Security, Medicare, the Federal Reserve, and government in general.  However, they have obviously not done the hard work of reading historical documents such as the Federalist Papers, credible histories, and case law.

A couple of students staffing a Tea Party table in the KU Union the other day told me they were libertarians.  They were distributing copies of the Constitution, Ron Paul’s books, and a few other artifacts of the movement.   I asked them to explain their platform.  It consisted of “shrinking government” and “going back on the gold standard.”  They weren’t exactly certain about how they would shrink government and the “gold standard plank” speaks for itself.

The mainstream media in general has not challenged these people.  In fact, quite the opposite:  this movement has been presented as “the people are angry,” without any indication of which people; without much, if any, indication of the completely absurd, irrational, and wacky nature of ideas pushed at Tea Party/Tea Bagger rallies; and, without any indication of who is funding this movement.  Hence, I suggest that progressives write letters to editors and challenge the historical nonsense that the news media has ignored and has, thereby, validated.  The following is a letter that I have submitted to the Lawrence Journal World:

Thomas Paine & the Tea Party Movement

I find it interesting that the following Thomas Paine quote appears on what is obviously a professionally and commercially prepared icon of Tea Party rallies:  “The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants from time to time.”  Given that this movement opposes large government programs such as Social Security, I wonder what Thomas Paine would think about the use of his name on behalf Ron Paul, Glen Beck and others who would like to end “entitlement programs.”  In his pamphlet entitled Agrarian Justice, Paine proposed a social security system that would have been funded through an inheritance tax on property.

Although he favored a more pure form of democracy than the constitution of the framers, Thomas Paine believed that government should provide for the general welfare of the people in many ways that today’s conservative/libertarians would find unacceptable.   Also, it is rather strange that the Tea Partiers that I have encountered have an emotionally charged, almost religious attachment to the U.S. Constitution, the “framers,” and Thomas Paine – all at the same time.

Thomas Paine’s ideas about government mortified most “framers” and members of the elites responsible for ratification in the states.  John Adams disdained him.  Having considerable fear of Paine’s ideas, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (authors of the Federalist Papers) presented an argument for a Federalist-Republican framework designed to check the power of the masses.  Such a constitution was indeed ratified.  Nevertheless, I find it hard to believe that Thomas Paine would think that the election of Barack Obama could be remotely related to what he meant by tyranny.  Nor, I believe, would he think it intelligent, wise, or democratic to show up at rallies with a gun and a menacing sign on which is a “sound bite” attributed to him but taken out of context.

Through the newly appointed deficit reduction commission, the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party is preparing for the biggest sell out of the party base since the Clinton Administration’s so-called welfare reform (war on the poor) legislation.  The Tallgrass Activist will be working hard to provide readers with the truth about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  If the U.S. Government honors it debt obligations to the Social Security Trust Fund, and if Congress attacks the greed and corruption besetting the health care system, then we can be confident that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will do just fine financially. 

My previous blog discusses this issue.  I will continue blogging the truth about these programs and the massive deficit.  I know most people don’t want too much to read at any one time.  Hence, I will keep my posts as short as possible with frequent short updates and evidence concerning the real problem.

Please pass this blog around to friends – especially to friends who think they will need all of their promised Social Security and Medicare benefits when they reach retirement age.  I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of hearing about what a big problem the health of “baby boomers” will be for the fiscal health of the United States.  Remember, you and your employer are paying 15% of each and every one of your paychecks into Social Security and Medicare until your salary reaches $102,000, at which time you will continue paying 2.9% of your check for Medicare along – no matter how much you make.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DEFICIT REDUCTION COMMISSION IS MORE LIKELY TO ATTACK THE SAFETY NET THAN IT IS TO ATTACK GREED.  With conservative Republican Allan Simpson and conservative Democrat Erskine Bowles leading a commission that is for all practical purposes evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans, Medicare and Social Security benefit reductions will be a highly probable outcome of the charade that is about to take place.  Why Democrats?  Why?

This is reminiscent of another Democratic Administration, i.e. the Clinton Administration, which cowardly slashed the safety net for poor women and children.  After decades of neo-conservative propaganda disguised as social science, President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and proceeded to prove it by cooperating with Republicans to make life much more difficult for families needing public assistance.  

Yes, I said neo-conservative.  They were around long before they beat the drums for war in the Bush II Administration.  This group of conservative guiding lights, led by the ex-socialist Irving Kristol, populated the conservative, so-called, “think tanks” such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Bradley Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation and others in and around Washington, D.C.  Their mantra was as follows:  give people public assistance and they will become dependent; kick them off of AFDC (now TANF) and you will be doing them a favor.

This nonsense was spread by, amongst others, Edward Banfield, Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, George Gilder, and Charles Murray (one of the authors of the viciously racist Bell Curve).  The neo-cons gained academic respectability through their now defunct journal The Public Interest.  These fraudulent academics were funded by the same bunch of right-wing billionaires that are now funding the tea baggers.

  Make no mistake about it, the mainstream media bought into the idea that budget deficits were due to lazy, shiftless people who needed a jolt of tough love.  Now the mainstream media has bought into the idea – pushed by the right wing – that Social Security and Medicare will cripple the U.S. government.  The New York Times, in a news item rather than an editorial, had the following to say yesterday, February 19^th:

“…Whether or not the commission succeeds in sending proposals to Congress after Dec.1, its deliberations will force both parties to address whether to raise more revenues and make long-range reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – the tough steps many economists say are essential to controlling a debt growing larger than the economy.”

Which economists are saying this?  It is interesting that the “news” article (“Bipartisan Commission Is Established To Cut Debt”) didn’t say which economists are saying that “reductions in these programs are essential to controlling the deficit.  The following is what Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman had to say in an op ed piece in the very same newspaper on March 28, 2008:

 “The Social Security system won’t be in trouble:  it will, in fact, still have a growing trust fund, because of the interest that the trust earns on its accumulated surplus.  The only way Social Security gets in trouble is if Congress votes not to honor U.S. government bonds held by Social Security.”

In future posts, I will be discussing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in depth.  I will present evidence that controlling greed on the part of the Hospital-Insurance-Pharmaceutical-Medical Device-Physician Complex, which funnels massive amounts of money to political campaigns, is the path to a sane health care system for the elderly.  I will discuss the Greenspan Commission’s fix of Social Security and other taxing issues.

Joseph Goebbels understood the big lie.  Make it big and continuously repeat it. As he said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

The big lie these days goes as follows:  Ageing baby boomers will put such large fiscal demands on the U.S. budget that the very economic viability of our government depends on containing the pressure they will put on Social Security and Medicare. The generation about to retire is, for no other reason than its sheer numbers,  a dire threat to U.S. security.  This blatantly false and scapegoating mantra has become so widespread that hardly any politician dare question it.

Even Christine Roemer, Chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, was spreading this falsehood on the Charlie Rose show the other night.  She expressed her belief that the biggest fiscal crisis facing the U.S. will be the number of retirees drawing on the Social Security and Medicare system.  She failed to mention that the Social Security problem is not a problem unless the U.S. Congress chooses not to pay back the 2.7 trillion dollars it borrowed to cover wars and tax cuts for the wealthy.  As the Nobel Laureate Economist Paul Krugman stated in a New York Times op ed piece:

“The Social Security system won’t be in trouble:  it will, in fact, still have a growing trust fund, because of the interest that the trust earns on its accumulated surplus.  The only way Social Security gets in trouble is if Congress votes not to honor U.S. government bonds held by Social Security” (March 28, 2008).

Republicans and conservatives in general hate Social Security and Medicare.  We can expect them to spread misinformation and negatively stereotype the elderly.  But we should and can expect the Obama Administration and the Democrats to make the case for truth and social justice.  Christine Roemer must know that Social Security is a pension program with a separate trust that is actuarially sound – recipients’ benefits are determined by their payments (payroll deductions) during their time in the workforce.

Medicare is an insurance program paid for through a dedicated tax of 1.45% of every bit of an individual’s pay.  Recipients also pay a premium for Medicare Part B as well as a premium for Medicare Part D.  Furthermore, individuals can purchase other coverage.  There are several causes of the fiscal drain on Medicare, none of which is the fault of the individuals eligible for the benefits.

When Medicare Part D was passed by the Congress, a provision prohibiting negotiation of drug prices was included in the legislation.  Hence, Part D, pushed by conservatives and the Bush Administration, is a huge drain on the Medicare system.  According to Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management & Budget, Part D will cost approximately 1 trillion dollars over 10 years.  Part D was intended to be a major benefit for Big Pharma and the insurance industry.  Prescription drugs could be provided to the elderly at a drastically reduced cost but Medicare is prohibited from using its massive clout in reducing costs.

Furthermore, the U.S. government and the Medicare system is failing to take simple steps reduce fraudulent billings, which are costing the Medicare Trust Fund 60 billion dollars per year.  It is just a matter of putting controls in place.  There are a large number of other Medicare cost controls that can be put in place without reducing benefits, which are too numerous to discuss in this post but which will be discussed over time.   

Problems with the fiscal viability of Social Security and Medicare are not the fault of “Baby Boomers” – now or in the future.  It is the fault of the corruption that has infected our United States Congress.  However,  propaganda that it is the fault of the elderly serves as an excuse to deny social justice to all age groups – including children.

Ageism is characterized by negative stereotypes of, and discrimination against, people in specific age categories such as the elderly and adolescents (although neither group can be clearly delineated).  Generally, the underlying causes of ageism can be connected to economic restructuring.  When a group is seen as unnecessary, unproductive, or burdensome, its members are stereotyped, caricatured, and blamed for dysfunction in the economic system.

Like a Supreme Court justice said about pornography, I can’t define ageism but I know it when I see it.  The self described neo-conservative David Brooks – a shallow pundit, if ever there was one – provided a sterling example of ageism in a New York Times op ed piece last week.  The column, entitled “The Geezers’ Crusade,” set forth the following three complaints about the older generation (however that is defined): (1) “Far from serving the young, they are now taking from them,” (2)they are taking freedom because, “in 2009 every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs,” and (3) they are taking opportunity because they are causing higher tax rates, which “mean less growth and fewer opportunities.”

In his vicious attack on older Americans who need Social Security and Medicare for survival, no distortion was beneath this rich, white guy.  For instance, he claims that “the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children.”  This is blatantly false and is designed to pit one group of Americans against another – a tactic we have seen employed by reactionaries throughout U.S. history.

Adolescents and young adults are also catching it these days.  Have you looked at The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein?   This author thinks the younger generation is going to hell in a hand basket due to digital technology characterizing the era in which they have grown up.  I become especially incensed when I see these attacks on youth.  I am around college students on a frequent basis.  What a great group of young people we have coming up these days!

Until very recently, adolescents and young adults played a vital role in capitalist economic systems.  Furthermore, they had to work to help the family survive.  They provided low wage labor while they learned work habits and matured into adults.  As adolescents and young adults are needed less and less in the workforce, they are increasingly seen as a threat.  Hence, they have been the primary target of legislation because of a societal problem such as drunk driving.  I am certain we will find plenty more for which they can be blamed.

It should be obvious to anyone who reads newspapers that the Kansas legislature is extremely conservative and is currently given to introducing anti-national-government legislation.  Paradoxically, this “hate national government” legislation could be the best thing that has happened to sane and rational conservatives (of the Eisenhower type), moderates, and liberals.

The tea bag movement, along with their patrons and promoters, are constantly using demagoguery to warp the “Founders’ intentions” into their own views of government.  I would love to have a debate concerning the Founders’ intentions – as well as Supreme Court interpretations of those intentions – with my tea bagger friends and other extremists on the right.

For instance, Kansas Senate Concurrent Resolution 1615 claims that “Many federal laws are in direct violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”  The resolution doesn’t say exactly which federal laws are unconstitutional.  Nor do they say why these laws have not been tested in the courts – especially in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ironically, the resolution does reference a Supreme Court decision (New York v. United States, 505, S. Ct. 144), which seriously undermines the very argument the conservatives are trying to make.  The decision, written by Sandra Day O’Connor and joined by a very conservative majority of Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and the more moderate Souter, does indeed say that the federal government cannot “commandeer” ( word used in the resolution) a state government.

The case simply held that the U.S. Congress could not, through legislation, force a state to regulate low level radioactive waste.  However, the opinion made it clear that Congress could provide for federal regulation of low level radioactive waste.  In the same vein, the Congress cannot force states to pass occupational safety and health legislation but the Occupational Safety and Health Act is constitutional and employers are bound to adhere to safety standards as promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.  One can think of an inordinate number of such laws, passed with good reason, to which employers, institutions, and individuals are bound.

The U.S. society is just too big and complex – with serious problems that span the entire nation – to leave many issues to the States alone.  In fact, in regard to the constitutional framework intended by the founders, Justice O’Connor wrote the following in New York v. United States:

“This framework has been sufficiently flexible over the past two centuries to allow for enormous changes in the nature of government.  The Federal Government undertakes activities today that would have been unimaginable to the Framers in two senses; first, because the Framers would not have conceived that any government would conduct such activities; and second, because the Framers would not have believed that the Federal government, rather than the States, would assume such responsibilities.  Yet the powers conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution were phrased in language broad enough for the expansion of the Federal Government role.”  (Page 157)

I am hoping that this resolution and a pending constitutional amendment (about which I will blog at a later date) make it through the legislature.  LET’S BEGIN THE DEBATE! This is a discussion I would love to have.  I would love to engage my extreme-right-wing-libertarian friends in an argument about the benefits of federal programs.  The following is a list of just a few of the items I would like to see on the agenda for discussion:

• What has the intersection of two interstate highways done for the City of Salina?
• Why did the entire Kansas delegation fight for the bio-terrorism facility coming to Manhattan, Kansas?
• Do the conservatives in the State and National legislatures want to introduce bills that would repeal Medicare and Social Security?  Do they want the Federal government to stop all funding of grants at our Universities? 

These are just a few of the items that should be up for discussion.  I would definitely like to hear what Congresswoman Jenkins and the other Republicans representing us have to say about them.

If you are not alarmed by the conversation taking place in Washington about Social Security and Medicare, you are not paying attention.  The narrative goes like this:  “The elderly hordes are about to descend upon the Social Security and Medicare systems and this will be a budget buster.” Of course we are hearing nothing about the five trillion dollar Iraq war or the multi-trillion dollar Afghanistan war.  We are hearing nothing about the massive tax benefits awarded to the upper ten percent income/wealth stratum.  We are hearing nothing about the blatant rip off of the Medicare program by pharmaceutical companies.

What we are seeing before our very eyes is a set up for reducing the budget deficit by reducing benefits for the elderly.  Here is how it works:  set up a commission to study the issue and make recommendations for cost reduction.  Politicians like this idea because it takes them off the hook. Senators Gregg (Republican) and Conrad (Democrat) attempted to do just that by introducing a bill that would set up a commission, the recommendations of which would be fast-tracked through congress.

Amongst all kinds of other schemes, this commission could recommend a cap on Medicare benefits, a raise in the age for eligibility for Social Security, increase Medicare premiums, or, even worse, renew the push for privatization of  Social Security.  Thanks to progressive Democrats in the Senate, this bill did not fly.

President Obama, being upset about the failure of the Judd-Conrad scheme has said that he will set up a commission by executive order.  Recommendations of that commission would not carry the weight of a commission legislated into existence.  Nevertheless, it is something that we must closely watch.

I would have some questions for a commission – as well as for my senator or congressperson.  Where is the 2.7 trillion dollars owed to the Social Security Trust Fund?  This is money borrowed by the U.S. Treasury to pay bills resulting from war and to cover for loss of tax revenues due to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.  With the return of this money to the SS Trust Fund, there will be no crisis into the foreseeable future. 

What would happen to the cost of Medicare if the provision prohibiting negotiation of drug prices in legislation enacting Medicare Part D were to be repealed?  Senator Dorgan recently introduced a bill to do just that but lost that vote due to some Democrats joining the Republicans in opposition.

I think we need a commission that will come up with recommendations for getting out of costly wars and for staying out of them in the future.  Perhaps another commission could come up with ideas for reforming the tax code.  Can you imagine how much tax loop holes and a low capital gains tax is costing the U.S. treasury?

A recent study by Kansas Hospital Association economists indicates that the health care industry provided 290,000 jobs in Kansas in 2006. To put this in some perspective, the Kansas workforce is currently 1.8 million.  Hence, the health care industry is responsible for 16% of Kansas employment.  It stands to reason that universal health care would vastly increase the need for employees in hospitals, clinics, as well as all the other institutions and businesses providing health care services.

Jobs generated from government programs and funding is the only answer to what has become an intractable unemployment problem.  Job losses in manufacturing and the service sector are due to globalization and cheaper foreign labor markets.  Democrats as well as the Republicans refuse to tell the public the truth about the structural nature of the current unemployment problem.

As just one example amongst many, consider IBM, a company founded and grown in the United States into a conglomerate with revenues of $25 billion and 380,000 employees.  Over the past few years, IBM has reduced its U.S. employees to 115,000 and has set aside $400,000,000 in severance benefits for the purpose of further reductions.  Where are IBM jobs going?  Mostly to India.

Having sold its laptop business to China, IBM is out of the hardware business and is building its current business around services and software.  This international conglomerate recently purchased SPSS, a successful, very profitable software company, spun out of an American university.  Having worked with this software from its early days, I am quite familiar with the company and have visited its Chicago headquarters on many occasions.

A large number of highly educated programmers, statisticians, and other technical personnel occupy several floors of a sky scraper on the Miracle Mile.  It is likely that these jobs will be lost to a cheaper labor market.  If that happens, U.S. citizens should be outraged.  The University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and practically every other major U.S.  public university,  each spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on SPSS software each year.  U.S. taxpayers will be subsidizing jobs located in a foreign country.

In spite of all the political rhetoric about tax cuts, bank loans, getting the economy moving again, and bla, bla, bla, the capitalist, free market economy will not pick up the slack in employment.  Jobs are leaving the U.S. and will not be coming back.  Much needed government programs are the answer.

Right wing attacks on health care reform and the inability of Democrats to fight for and sell their legislative proposals constitute a tragedy.  Not only will sick people continue to be denied access to health care, a massive number of jobs will not materialize.

What can we say about the election of a right wing, reactionary Republican in a blue state like Massachusetts?  Well, we can say that the rest of the nation might stop asking “What’s the matter with Kansas?”  We can say that the voters of Massachusetts will find out what it means to be represented by a reactionary Republican senator.  We will know what they think when Brown has to run again in 2014.

Maybe the Democrats will realize that they don’t appear to be tough, committed, and ready to go to the wall for what they believe and , because of that image, they don’t have respect.  Maybe they will realize that it is no use to reach out to “junk yard dog Republicans and tea bag agitators.”  Maybe they will come up with a message about core values, learn how to get it out, and show that they are willing to fight for the people rather than insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

It remains to be seen if Democrats can figure this out.  Senator Jim Webb is already suggesting that Democrats just run for cover.  I wonder if it has ever occurred to the DNC and the mainstream Democrats that they are letting the right wing write the narrative and convince independents and even some Democrats that “Democrat means “government,” means “bad.” 

I hope President Obama takes Ed Koch’s advice and governs like he doesn’t care if he gets reelected.  We will see signs of that when he fires Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Rahm Emanual and sends them back to Wall Street.  We will see signs of it when he sends a public works bill to congress that provides the jobs that private industry can’t or won’t.  We will see signs of it when he fights like hell for consumer protection.  We will see signs of it when he fights for a fair tax code that stops the redistribution of wealth to the wealthiest few.

If he does these things and more, and the Democrats have the chutzpah to support him, this election will just be a blip in the road.  Without some chutzpah, the Democrats will be in real trouble.

Although only .5 percent of voters in Kansas are registered in the Libertarian Party, the current narrative written and controlled by the libertarian, tea bagger movement (with a wholly inadequate response from us liberals and progressives) has gained considerable traction.  The narrative is simply that “Federal government is bad and is intruding on state and individual rights.”  They point to proposed mandates to purchase insurance that would be included in health care reform as one example of trampling on individual rights and a violation of Article 10 of the Constitution.

Backed by the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity, the tea baggers were able to assemble a bunch of followers (about 100 according to the JW) and rally in support Senate Concurrent Resolution 1615, which is a nonsensical piece of legislation stating that the Federal government has only power specifically stated and provided to it in the Constitution.  From the time of the very first Supreme Court case (McCulloch v. Maryland), this interpretation of the 10^th Amendment has been rejected.

I dropped the ball and did not make it to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on this resolution.  According to the JW there were no opponents speaking against the resolution.  State Senator Laura Kelly has told me that a teacher/debate coach, from Wichita Collegiate spoke articulately against the proposed legislation.  If and when it comes up in the House, he should not be alone.  I will be prepared to appear before a House committee and round up as many opponents as possible.  Surely, we can find a cadre of liberal constitutional lawyers to present the argument against this ill conceived piece of legislation.

Liberals/progressives must begin to develop our own narrative.  Legislation plus case law pertaining to Article 1, Section 8 arguments concerning the “general welfare” and “common defense” (“implied powers”) clearly invalidates the tea bagger position on the constitutionality of Federal programs.  Otherwise, there would be no Social Security, Medicare, NLRB, no interstate highway system, and literally thousands of other programs that the Republicans would never have the courage to propose legislating out of existence.

Our narrative should be rather easy to communicate.  The tea baggers and their patronizing legislators such as Lynn Jenkins are against cherished programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and the FDA.   We need to organize and get our bodies to events.  There is no reason we cannot pack hearing rooms.  There is no reason we cannot educate the public about what the framers intended and case law interpreting the constitution.  When I Google Article 10, “implied powers,” “general welfare,” and other matters related to Article 1, Section 8, I find right wing blogs.  Some of them are well written.  Their arguments, although not valid, resonate with a large segment of the public.  If an unanswered message, even a big lie, is incessantly repeated, it will eventually become believable to the uninformed.