Repudiating the Bush Era

NDN's newest fellows, Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, offer some excellent analysis today of the important role Millennials will play in tomorrow's election. They posit that "this year, the sheer size and overwhelming unity of Millennials is likely to provide Barack Obama with a much larger advantage" than John Kerry enjoyed among this group in 2004.

I'd just like to offer a quick piece of anecdotal evidence to back this up. I was on Facebook just now (for work purposes of course), and noticed that more than half a million people have now signed up to have their status automatically updated to display a GOTV message. Users can choose whether the message says to get out and vote for Obama, McCain, or just to get out and vote, and then pass the word on to up to 40 friends at a time. Here are what people have chosen so far:

So far, Facebook users are breaking more than four to one for Obama. That's what we Millennials might call "PWNAGE."

10:45 PM UPDATE: More than 840,000 people have now signed up (!)

Las Vegas -- NDN, a Washington, DC-based progressive think tank, yesterday held a news conference with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and several Hispanic community leaders -- Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated individuals -- to denounce deceptive practices targeted toward Hispanic citizens in an effort to prevent them from voting.

According to news reports and anecdotal evidence, some Hispanic voters have received calls asking for personal information and telling them they can vote over the phone, which is not a legal practice. Reid, NDN and others urged Hispanic citizens to make their voices heard by voting on Election Day.

Said Senator Reid: "Any effort to silence voters' voices is despicable and runs counter to the principles of our democracy. I commend Univision and others for taking this matter seriously and for taking action. I call on the people who are behind these tactics to stop immediately so we can have a fair election that allows every voter to be heard."

Said Andres Ramirez, Vice President of NDN's Hispanic Programs: "Any voter who has encountered disturbing suppression tactics should call the Nevada Secretary of State. We are increasingly concerned about the smear campaigns and deceptive tactics targeted at the Latino community, and we want to educate voters about their rights."

Citizens who feel they have been victims of such a scam should call the Nevada Secretary of State at 775-684-5705.

At yesterday's news conference, Reid, Ramirez and the public officials and community leaders unveiled a new PSA airing on Univision in Reno and Las Vegas taped in response to the disturbing phone calls. Univision-affiliated radio stations in Nevada also are airing this PSA on radio. Click here for Fox News video of the conference.

Reid and NDN were joined at the news conference by several Hispanic leaders, including State Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen, State Assemblyman Moises Denis and Geoconda Arguello Kline, President of the Las Vegas Culinary Union Local 226.

Following this effort in Nevada to safeguard the Hispanic vote, Fundacion Azteca America encouraged the Hispanic community to get out and vote with a "No Te Espantes Ve y Vota" ("Don't be Scared, Go Vote") voter turnout rally today in front of the L.A. City Hall, aiming to dispel any misconceptions, fears or doubts that first-time voters may have leading up to the November 4 elections.

Participants included: Luis J. Echarte, Chairman of Fundación Azteca America and Azteca America Network; Nora Vargas, Executive Director Latinos Issues Forum; Eric Garcetti, President of the Los Angeles City Council; Gilbert Cedillo, California State Senator; Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles City Attorney; John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of MALDEF and Los Angeles City Council members Richard Alarcon, Jose Huizar, Janice Hahn, Jan Perry and Tom LaBonge.

The ad "war" has become more of a "conquista" in the case of Spanish-language media. The fact is that Sen. Barack Obama has at least two or three times the amount of resources available than that of Sen. McCain to spend on Spanish language media, and he's spent this week making one last big push "en Español." The big news last night was Sen. Obama's half-hour infomercial during which he made "closing arguments" to the American public, and he demonstrates his recognition of Spanish-dominant Hispanics as part of the American fabric by also airing his ad on Univision, Telefutura, and Telemundo - all major Spanish-language networks. Sen. McCain has not put out a Spanish-language ad in weeks, while Obama has had several new ads up every week. Obama's latest ad, "Por Encima" or "Rising Above," caps the most aggressive Spanish language media effort in presidential campaign history. "Por Encima" follows T.V. and radio ads on health care, taxes, immigration, college affordability, early voting and "The American Dream," which features Senator Barack Obama as the first presidential candidate to speak in Spanish for the entirety of a 30-second general election television ad. This is not only a momentous occasion for presidential politics, this is an historic reflection of the importance of the Hispanic community.

NDN's long-held analysis on the significance of the Hispanic vote is now common knowledge, as further evidenced by Chuck Todd's report, but an important challenge remains in the less than 150 hours until Election Day - the only way the potential of the Hispanic vote, and all registered voters, will translate to an electoral reality is by ensuring that all precincts have the capacity to handle a 90-98% turnout based on 2008 registration numbers. Actual turnout will depend on: 1) making sure people understand how to vote, and 2) access to the polls.

During early voting, some states have already far exceeded turnout from 2004: in Georgia, early voting is already at 180 percent of its 2004 total, Louisiana (169 percent), and North Carolina (129 percent) - all states with large minority populations. Precincts should be prepared to handle twice the number of voters from 2004. We shoud be wary when precincts report that they are prepared for 90% turnout, as opposed to 80% from 2004 - they should have enough machines and/or paper ballots to accomodate the number of all registered voters in 2008, not just enough for a fraction of registered voters based on 2004 numbers.

Florida, with an estimated 12% of Hispanic voters, has already declared an emergency and extended voting hours to 12 hours a day as a result of voter turnout - this with only about 10%, or 1.2 million of registered voters statewide having voted as of Monday. In Georgia,some people waited for eight hours at the polls. By Tuesday the lines were down to "just" four hours, so the GA Democratic Party Chair, Jane Kidd, urged the Secretary of State to keep the polls open: "today, it is clear that we are in a crisis, and it is unclear even if there is enough time for the remaining four million-plus Georgia voters to cast their votes in an efficient and timely manner." By the way, GA state law doesn't provide for weekend voting and prohibits voting on the Monday before Election Day.

In Virginia, a state that's now a "tossup," we're already seeing voting problems thanks to everything from phony fliers stating the wrong date for Election Day, to alleged "gerrymandering" of voting equipment. A lawsuit has been filed against the state of VA charging that some primarily minority neighborhoods are allotted a lesser number of voting machines per person as compared to other areas, leading to longer lines and arguing that this constitutes a "time tax" on the right to vote, as some voters might give up and go home. Voting problems would disproportionately hurt the Democratic Party and Sen. Barack Obama. According to the new ABC/Washington Post poll, during early voting Sen. Obama picked up 60 percent of the vote, to John McCain's 39 percent. According to Gallup, between Oct. 17 and Oct. 27, early voters turned out 53% for Obama over 43% for McCain.

In the meantime, candidates continue to push early voting, as seen in the Obama ad below. Luckily there is also a push for instructional videos on how to vote, in English and in Spanish:

Another crisis has emerged on top of the unraveled financial system, hyper-volatile stock markets, and accelerating economic downturn: There’s no one at the helm of the economy or the piecemeal bailout and the other schemes devised to make it right. President George W. Bush is nearly absent and his credibility is exhausted. The Treasury Secretary’s authority is only slightly less damaged, and he cannot commit the nation to new policies. And now the Congress has left the city to campaign. The two presidential candidates, including whichever one becomes the next president, cannot assert any authority even if either of them wanted to. There’s no Congress around to pass on what Obama and McCain might call for. Further, President Bush couldn’t respond to an Obama recommendation without undermining his party’s candidate, nor respond to a McCain proposal without reinforcing the Democrats’ case that the two are in joined at the brain.

So, the economic crisis has continued to worsen. The problems in housing, finance and now the overall economy aren’t on recess, nor will they hold their fire until the next president is inaugurated. In fact, more economic and political problems will emerge. For example, last week, three of the nine banks slated to get the first bags of cheap, federal bailout money reported very respectable third-quarter profits. Wells Fargo, State Street Bank, and J.P. Morgan-Chase together earned profits of $2.6 billion for the quarter, even as they agreed to accept $25 billion each in cheap, new capital from American taxpayers.

Of course they agreed: The money will cost them 5 percent or half of what Warren Buffet received for his $5 billion capital investment in Goldman Sachs last month, so now they can expand their businesses at a cut rate. The CEO of J.P. Morgan-Chase called his $25 billion injection a “growth opportunity.” By what methods of accounting do they need emergency government assistance? And where are the deciders in the administration? The Treasury spokesperson said, ‘We are not here to make money off these companies,’ a view which almost certainly would draw sharp attacks from most members of Congress if they were here, as well both campaigns and most Americans. In fact, if interest rates rise before the banks pay back the government’s gifted capital, these loans to healthy, profitable banks will actually cost taxpayers plenty, since every cent of their $75 billion will be borrowed, and the recipients are paying below-market rates.

Presumably, the Treasury has criteria for extending these bailout loans, but since there is no transparency and, with Congress gone, no one to call for it, we cannot know what or whose criteria they are. But what could those criteria be, if sound, profitable banks qualify for emergency capital infusions? With a sinking economy and millions of Americans facing unemployment and home foreclosures, is it the first priority of those in charge to finance new growth opportunities for profitable banks? Is that the government’s reward for their managing to avoid bankruptcy? In fact, it looks like one of the final acts of an administration that now has injected a big dose of Asian-style “crony capitalism” between the most senior officials of the White House and the Treasury, and Wall Street.

This is happening, in part, because in the midst of genuine economic crisis, the United States is nearly leaderless. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other European leaders last week called for a ‘Bretton Woods II’ summit to redesign the global financial architecture, and last weekend President Bush called for his own summit. The Brits and Bush both want everyone to meet within a few weeks to begin the figure out how the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements should operate in this new era and, presumably, to discuss new terms for overseeing capital flow among countries. Who would speak for the United States? It’s likely that Barack Obama will be president-elect by the time they meet, but he still won’t be president and therefore unable to exercise presidential authority. The man who will still be president, George W. Bush, will also be utterly without domestic support or credibility in economic matters, with no means of selling a new international package to the American people or Congress. These kinds of issues come up during any presidential transition; but they’re especially worrisome this time, because we find ourselves in the middle of a cascading economic crisis that will not wait until next January.

Senators Obama and McCain need to prepare now. Both candidates should convene a group of trusted economic advisors to review the current options for dealing with the deteriorating housing market, the instability in our financial system, and the real economy’s accelerating problems, without reference to the campaigns. This group should report its findings and recommendations to the president-elect on November 5, and he should present his recommendations to a lame-duck Congress that same week. Campaign operatives may assume we have until January, but the man who becomes president-elect must know that he will have to take action as soon as the votes are counted.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama today rolled out a new TV ad on the economy, entitled "Better Off." Watch it here:

Senator Obama's emphasis on helping the middle class prosper and alleviating the struggle of every day people seems to be resonating with voters. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post notes that, despite persistent assertions from U.S. Sen John McCain's campaign that Obama's tax plan is "socialist" and that he wants to "spread wealth around," a recent Pew poll found that "50 percent of registered voters questioned in mid-October thought Obama would do the best job in 'dealing with taxes,' compared with only 35 percent who said that of McCain. Back in September, Obama also led, but more modestly, 44 percent to 39 percent." 

Furthermore, a new Pew poll today finds that almost 40% of voters believe McCain would do "too much for the wealthy" if elected president. It seems that, Republican base voters aside, most Americans are simply not buying the argument that anything more progressive than Bush's economic policies constitutes "socialism" (heck, just ask real socialists). 

Barack Obama's latest ad is not only in Spanish, but it has Barack Obama speaking in Spanish through the entire ad - not an easy feat.  He has a good accent, better than George W. Bush's.  And as we saw in the case of then Gov. Bush, the Hispanic community doesn't care so much about a candidate being able to speak perfect Spanish, they care that they try - and I must say, Sen. Obama pulls it off seamlessly here.  By contrast, Sen. McCain hasn't so much as tried to learn the "I'm John McCain and I approve this message" tagline in Spanish.  This ad is part of something historic.  Barack Obama has now spent more than any other presidential candidate in history on Spanish language media.  And he is only the third or fourth candidate that I can count that has cared to speak to this demographic in their language of origin.  As reported in the documentary, "Latinos 08", Jackie Kennedy filmed a message in Spanish on behalf of her husband when he ran for office, George W. Bush spoke some Spanish here and there, and Howard Dean tried his hand at it as well, but the Obama campaign has spent a record amount of resources on a record amount of Spanish language ads.  And it seems to be paying off.  According to the latest polls, Barack Obama now holds a 40-50 point lead among Hispanics.  This is his second Spanish-language address, the first having been an ad in Puerto Rico during the primaries. Here, he is trying to bond with the Hispanic community by speaking of the "American Dream" that motivated so many of them to come to this country, thus trying to add an emotional connection to the support among Hispanics that seems largely driven by issues and party identification. 

And a translation of the ad:
BO: We share a dream,  That through hard work your family can succeed.
That if you're sick, you can have access to medical insurance.
That our children can have a quality education, regardless of whether you are rich or poor.
That is the American Dream.
I ask you for your vote, not just for me and the Democrats, but so that you can keep that dream alive for yourself and for your children.
I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message.

Obama's most important lead after last night's debate may have come among Hispanic voters, who favored him by a 50-36 percent margin according to the national Politico/InsiderAdvantage survey of undecided debate-watchers. The candidates were evenly matched among white voters, with McCain holding a 49-46 percent advantage - equal to the three point margin of error. African Americans picked Obama as the winner by 88-10 percent. You can trace Hispanics' support of the presidential candidates through Gallup's weekly poll - the poll shows Obama with a consistent comfortable margin of at least 20-25 points ahead of McCain. The latest Gallup poll shows Obama ahead by a 60-31 percent advantage.

As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, Joe the Plumber is a registered Republican and McCain supporter, who in fact would qualify for a tax cut under Obama's plan, does not pay his taxes anyway, and is not even a certified plumber. 

But that is the least of what's wrong with the Joe the Plumber narrative. Let's listen to Joe in his own words:

But to -- just because you work a little harder to have a little bit more money taken from you, I mean, that's scary. You know as opposed to other people. I worked hard for it. Why should I be taxed more than other people?

The basic assumption here is that hard work = more pay, and that therefore if people aren't making enough money, they simply aren't working hard enough - Joe works hard "as opposed to other people." This is the absolute granddaddy of all conservative fallacies; for years, Americans' productivity has continued to rise, while their real wages have stagnated or fallen - nearly all of the benefits of our GDP growth have gone to the rich. Many Americans are working just as hard and are still struggling just to get by, which is why I have less sympathy for Joe. 

And what of this idea that with hard work, a person can climb the ladder to wealth? As Paul Krugman points out in "The Death of Horatio Alger," upward mobility in America is largely a thing of the past:

It is true, however, that America was once a place of substantial intergenerational mobility: Sons often did much better than their fathers. A classic 1978 survey found that among adult men whose fathers were in the bottom 25 percent of the population as ranked by social and economic status, 23 percent had made it into the top 25 percent. In other words, during the first thirty years or so after World War II, the American dream of upward mobility was a real experience for many people.

Now for the shocker: The Business Week piece cites a new survey of today's adult men, which finds that this number has dropped to only 10 percent. That is, over the past generation upward mobility has fallen drastically. Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers' and sons' incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you're quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born.

As Governor Palin might put it, "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

UPDATE: Joe the Plumber "does not believe in Social Security." Maybe that's why he doesn't pay his taxes.

As Melissa just pointed out, the star of last night's debate was Joe the Plumber (who does not hold a plumbing license, makes less than $250,000 a year and has not paid his taxes anyway, rendering the whole argument utterly moot). US Sen. John McCain brought Joe up in order to paint US Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan as class warfare - he accused Obama of wanting to take Joe the Plumber's wealth and spread it around (although in liberally-biased "reality," it turns out that Joe would actually receive a tax cut under Obama's plan), and repeatedly asked why Obama would want to raise taxes on anyone in these difficult times. McCain even asserted that there could be no possible justification for Obama's tax plan.

Really, Senator McCain? How's this for a start; Obama's tax plan does nothing more than to partially (and not even completely) reverse Bush's tax policy. Under the Bush tax cuts, which Senator McCain supports and wants to extend, the bottom 20% of earners got 1% of the tax cuts, while the top 1% got a whopping 33%. The top 5% got almost 50% of the tax cuts.

This isn't just a problem of fairness, as Joe Biden argued in the vice-presidential debate (although this question of fairness in our tax structure certainly merits a more sustained philosophical discussion). It also happens to be bad economics; because lower and middle-income people have a higher marginal propensity to consume, more of the money that goes to them in tax cuts goes back into our economy, resulting in a larger multiplier effect and a greater increase in aggregate demand. This, of course, is simple common sense; give tax breaks to the people that actually NEED them, not the top 1% who are already making an average of $13+ millon a year.

The growing inequality in our country is making our economy increasingly unstable and our current form of government untenable and unsustainable. But don't just take my word for it: ask the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, Paul Krugman. In a fantastic piece from 2003 in the New York Times Magazine entitled "The Tax-Cut Con", Mr. Krugman laid out a prescient analysis of where the Bush economic policies would lead us. It turned out that he was right, yet Senator McCain continues to espouse the same flawed and discredited economic arguments. It is high time that progressives pushed back, hard. At the end of this must-read article, Krugman says this:

The astonishing political success of the antitax crusade has, more or less deliberately, set the United States up for a fiscal crisis. How we respond to that crisis will determine what kind of country we become.

If Grover Norquist is right -- and he has been right about a lot -- the coming crisis will allow conservatives to move the nation a long way back toward the kind of limited government we had before Franklin Roosevelt. Lack of revenue, he says, will make it possible for conservative politicians -- in the name of fiscal necessity -- to dismantle immensely popular government programs that would otherwise have been untouchable.

In Norquist's vision, America a couple of decades from now will be a place in which elderly people make up a disproportionate share of the poor, as they did before Social Security. It will also be a country in which even middle-class elderly Americans are, in many cases, unable to afford expensive medical procedures or prescription drugs and in which poor Americans generally go without even basic health care. And it may well be a place in which only those who can afford expensive private schools can give their children a decent education.

But as Governor Riley of Alabama reminds us, that's a choice, not a necessity. The tax-cut crusade has created a situation in which something must give. But what gives -- whether we decide that the New Deal and the Great Society must go or that taxes aren't such a bad thing after all -- is up to us. The American people must decide what kind of a country we want to be.