All Posts, civil rights, donald trump, justice, race

BEWARE OF NOISY BULLIES

Most of the time we Americans are not even aware of our freedom.  It surrounds us in seemingly endless supply, like the air that we breathe.   But if there’s no air to breathe we quickly become uncomfortable and do something about it.  If we see another person choking, we try to help him breathe.  Just as we defend our right to breathe, we should defend each other’s freedom.

Non-conformity is sometimes admirable, but it has consequences.  Others are free to disapprove, dislike, and not associate with you.  That’s their right.  Unless you are protected by a union or employment contract, most states allow private employers to fire you or refuse to hire you for expressing views that they don’t like.  There are circumstances where that makes sense.  An employer might have a policy that prohibits wearing lapel pins supporting political parties, candidates, or causes at work. Its purpose might be to keep everyone’s attention focused on producing good work rather than the distraction or offense to customers that might accompany the pins.

With those thoughts in mind, let’s look at the case of Colin Kaepernick, the NFL, and President Donald Trump.  The controversy began more than a year ago when Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, didn’t stand for the national anthem.  He had done the same thing before two previous games, but the press didn’t take notice.  On the third occasion, he was asked about it and he gave an extensive post-game interview.

Kaepernick made it clear that he believes America is not living up to our ideals.  He contended that racial inequality is still institutionalized and that abuse of African-Americans by police is often tolerated by our government.  He said he would resume standing for the anthem when those concerns were addressed.  He emphasized that he meant no insult to our flag, anthem or service members; pointing out instead that he wants our government practices to live up to the values that our military defends.

Colin Kaepernick acknowledged that he could be fired for his actions:  Q: “Do you think you might get cut for this?”  Kaepernick: “I don’t know. But if I do, I know I did what’s right and I can live with that at the end of the day.”  He was cut from the team, accepted that fact, and continued working on issues that he thought were important.  To at least some small degree, he was achieving his goal of encouraging conversations across racial lines about inequality.

The conversation exploded when President Trump, behaving as if he was elected Bully-in-Chief rather than President, insulted Kaepernick and other NFL players who had adopted his form of quiet protest, calling them “sons of bitches” and telling NFL owners to fire them or watch their businesses “go to hell”.   Trump lied when he claimed that the protests were against our military and our flag.  Kaepernick and other protesters had made it clear from the beginning that the protests were about perceived racial injustice. Trump ignored concerns about racial equality and changed the subject to patriotism.  When a President of the United States lies some of his loyal base will believe whatever he says.  Others in Trump’s party may simply stay quiet – exactly the kind of inaction that Kaepernick is protesting.

Our President has behaved as a shameless bully and liar, dividing us into factions and urging his supporters to impose their will on others through the power of government and employers.  It’s dangerous to our constitutional democracy when our President uses his power to try to silence others.  At the core of American freedoms is the right to be a nonconformist – to believe, speak, and live according to your own conscience.  Whether I agree with Colin Kaepernick or not, it is my duty as an American to defend his right to speak and to demand an apology from President Trump for his lies and his language.

The President’s actions bring this adage to mind. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”  We Americans need to move ahead with serious conversations about race relations.  It appears that we’ll have to do that in the face of presidential opposition rather than with constructive presidential leadership.  That, perhaps, is why so many NFL players and owners have linked arms – showing the way to honest conversation and teamwork – and standing up to the biggest bully on the block.

 

Read or view Colin Kaepernick interview HERE

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, war

GHOSTS OF WAR

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I don’t know whether to thank or curse Ken Burns and PBS for bringing back the ghosts of the Vietnam War – exhuming feelings and memories that I had buried deep in the past.

TO WATCH THE SERIES CLICK HERE

I can again see the ghost of Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk who doused himself with gasoline and set himself ablaze on a Saigon street in June, 1963.  He was protesting actions of the US-supported South Vietnamese government.  Although the nation was more than 70 percent Buddhist, French and American military had supported a Christian-dominated government that severely limited religious freedom and Buddhist participation in society.  His last words were, “Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.”

When it became apparent that the Buddhist majority would oppose the government, the US supported a coup by the South Vietnamese military and ramped up the American troop presence to fight against a North Vietnamese government spawned from resistance to French colonialism. Simply stated, we took a side in a Vietnamese civil war. The Soviet Union and China took the other side.

An American Quaker pacifist, Norman Morrison (no relation that I know of) became my second ghost.  He poured kerosene over himself and lit his fire under the office window of Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of defense.  At least half a dozen other Americans and far more Vietnamese committed similar self-sacrifices to protest the war.

Those ghosts urged me to abandon the blind trust of American foreign policy and wars that was taught in our public school history books.  If we were on the side of freedom, justice and fairness, why would people commit such horrific suicides to bring attention to the actions of the South Vietnamese government that we enabled?

The war soon became personal. By the time I finished high school in 1965 I knew that boys who graduated one or two years ahead of me had already died in Vietnam.  I got a draft deferment because I went to college. Then came the lottery.  I drew #51 – sure to be drafted for a war that I did not believe in – to invade a nation of people who had done me no harm and try to kill them before they killed me.  I didn’t want to go but didn’t want to go to Canada or dodge the draft some other way…what to do???  In 1969 I went for my draft physical and flunked it because I was a few pounds underweight – 6’1″ and 123 pounds. I’m still not convinced that their scale was right but didn’t argue.  48 years have gone by since that physical exam and I still wonder what I would have done if I’d passed.

Today, I am haunted by the ghosts of those who gave their lives serving in our armed forces, and those who died fighting on the other side.  They are joined by ghosts of American college students killed by American soldiers during an anti-war protest at Kent State University. The government of Vietnam estimates that two million of the ghosts were civilians whose lives were lost in the no man’s land of war.

We don’t see many protests against today’s sanitized wars.  Precision munitions, guided from safe locations, assure that most of the death and suffering is among foreigners.  The men and women (some barely older than boys and girls) who fight our wars are volunteers.  They don’t complain much.   Can they trust the rest of us to send them to war only in support of self-defense, freedom, justice and fairness?

I hope that others will also watch the PBS documentary and apply whatever lessons you find to 21st century America.  Those who are as old as me are likely to find some ghosts of your own – including friends and family who died in the war.  We have enough of them.  We do not need more ghosts.

All Posts, immigration

Adiós mis amigos

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The title of this column is borrowed from Woody Guthrie’s song “Deportee” about undocumented Mexican laborers. Thirty-two people died in 1948 when a U.S. Immigration Service plane carrying them from California to Mexico crashed.  News accounts listed the names of the four person flight crew but just described the other 28 as “deportees”.  That disrespect inspired Guthrie’s song.

President Trump has decided to end President Obama’s DACA policy that allowed children brought to the US illegally to remain here as non-citizens.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions made it clear that unless congress passes a law protecting them, the USA will arrest and deport these young people who have been here for most of their lives.

Some of your neighbors and classmates have no idea what comes next for them.  Without a revised immigration law they will be deported, but to where?  The nations from which their parents emigrated may have no records of their existence. They may not have citizenship rights anywhere.  They will be sent to places where they have no job and no means of support.  Their education has been in English and they are culturally American.  Amidst such uncertainty, one thing they will know is that the role of law enforcement is to deport them.  There will be no trust.

Sessions explained that he and President Trump are just doing their jobs.  He is correct that President Trump has the authority to rescind the executive order that created DACA and that we are a nation of laws; where the role of the executive branch is to enforce the law, not to make it or judge it.

Mark Twain said that “A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.”   The justification offered by Sessions and Trump is a half-truth that ignores the role of American government and business in allowing and encouraging illegal immigration.  That half of the truth has continued unabated since long before Guthrie wrote his song.

I’ve seen truckloads of migrant workers traveling to and from fields where they harvested our fruits and vegetables; and I knew that many of them were here illegally.  I’ve known some of the farmers who built simple housing where migrants lived until the harvest was complete.  That’s still going on from California to North Carolina.  I’ve seen thousands of immigrants working in textile, furniture, and other manufacturing plants.  I’ve toured construction sites where you needed to know Spanish in order to understand the conversation among people doing demolition, hanging drywall and painting.  I’ve also seen that among those who earn a living in landscaping, golf course maintenance, roofing, cooking, hotel housekeeping…the list goes on. You’ve seen it too.  But have you ever heard of law enforcement raiding a giant chicken processing plant, farm or business and arresting the executives who employed undocumented workers?  Neither have I.

I knew that many of those workers were here illegally and I knew that they brought their children along.  I saw them in my local schools, where some of them graduated with high honors.  Some have given their lives in our armed forces.  You’ve seen the same things and you know what I know – that American employers sought out immigrants as a source of inexpensive labor.  We also know that law enforcement looked the other way while business profits soared, due in large part to immigrant labor.

We all know that some laws have been unjust and immoral; and that some businesses won’t let legalities or morality stand between them and profits.  That’s the same now as it was in the 1940s. Today, the children of immigrants are settling in and succeeding as Americans.  The second half of the truth is that laws which force them to leave their homes, communities and families are immoral and unjust laws.

The laws and enforcement policies of the 1940s were about using cheap, mobile labor until it was no longer useful and then deporting the workers.  That was wrong then and it’s wrong now, even if deportation is legal.  It’s time to respect the people who have done some of our least rewarding work and their children by providing a pathway to full citizenship.  They have earned the rights that the rest of us received at birth.

Listen to Woody’s song at the link above. Think about it. Speak up.  And sing along.

All Posts, civil rights, north carolina, race, randolph county north carolina

LEST WE FORGET

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“Lest we forget” – That inscription is carved into the stone foundation upon which a bronze Confederate soldier stands, fully armed, at the entrance to the public building where my County Commissioners meet.  A century and a half after the Civil War, it’s time to free this young man, probably a draftee forced to fight for the long defunct Confederate States of America.  And it’s time

Confederate Soldier at Randolph County Courthouse
Confederate Soldier at Randolph County Courthouse

to move ahead in creating the future of the United States of America.  “Lest we forget”, the outcome of the Civil war was preservation of the Union, our nation, and it’s flag to which we pledge allegiance.  The failed purposes of the Confederacy included breaking that Union – treason.

Some argue that we can’t (or shouldn’t) change history.  Certainly they are correct that facts and events of history are what they are.  We fought a long and bloody civil war.  Its events are well documented.  The statue was placed to honor the memory of Randolph County veterans who served the Confederacy.  Those are facts of history that we couldn’t change even if we wanted to.

There’s more to our history than a list of events and dates.  The war arose from a conflicting sense of right and wrong – values – regarding slavery, economics and national unity.  Today our decisions about whom and what our government will officially honor are based on the values of today’s Americans.  Change is part of our history, as it is for every nation and civilization.

When Rome became a Christian empire, it replaced the statues of Greco-Roman Gods with statues of saints and old-testament figures.  They didn’t change the facts of their history or the mythology of Roman Gods.  They did change who was honored in public buildings.

When Germany lost World War II, the Allies took down many Nazi era statues and symbols.  The Germans removed the rest from places of honor but they relocated some and re-interpreted their history.  German schoolchildren are required to visit museums and learn the horrors of Nazi rule – lest they forget.

The slogan “Lest we forget” comes from a Rudyard Kipling poem about the military conquests of the British Empire.  Its original meaning in the poem is similar to the maxim “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”  We should keep that meaning in mind today.

Here in North Carolina, the majority of citizens voted against secession.  In Randolph County, the reported vote was 2579 against secession and only 45 in favor!  They did not want to dissolve the Union or join the Confederacy.  But in order to preserve slavery, the basis of their wealth, legislators seceded from the union and joined the Confederacy – overruling the will of voters.

Then the Confederacy created a military draft.  North Carolina provided more soldiers than any other Confederate state.  North Carolina’s Governor, Zebulon Vance called the conflict “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”.  There were so many draft resisters and deserters in Randolph County that the Confederacy imposed martial law.   If our statue represents a Randolph County soldier, there’s a good chance that he was a draftee, not a volunteer.

Surely there were many Tarheel soldiers who fought courageously for the Confederacy, as German soldiers did for the Third Reich.  Today’s values judge that their sacrifices were on the wrong side of history – in support of slavery and in absolute opposition to the proposition that “…all men are created equal.” Confederate statues and battle flags are part of our history but they don’t belong in places of honor financed and maintained by the governments of free people.

Blood has again been shed over white supremacy, and it should come as no surprise to see Confederate battle flags waved by people shouting Nazi slogans such as “blood and soil”.  White supremacy ideology was suppressed but now its advocates parade on our streets carrying clubs reminiscent of the axe handles distributed by racist governor Lester Maddox of Georgia.  Our President’s election campaign was eerily similar to George Wallace’s nationalist/racist campaigns in 1964 and 1968.  Both railed against polite (politically correct) conversation and both helped unleash pent-up racist rage.

We may never be totally rid of supremacists, but our government should not honor their ideas with statues, license plates and flags.   Lest we forget, issuing license plates with Confederate battle flags and honoring Confederate heroes on public property is honoring both white supremacy and treason against the United States.

All Posts, budget, health

CITIZENS MUST LEAD THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE

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Politicians seem weary of hurling half-truths and insults at each other in their years-long shouting match over health care. Nobody won.  All of us lost.  It’s easy to blame them, but conversations with a physician friend helped me realize that lawmakers can’t work well together until voters agree on our values and goals.  My hope is that this column will shed some light on key questions and help readers think through them with family, friends and neighbors.  Let’s open our minds, listen, and look for ideas on which we can agree.

Three important questions are:  1) Which kinds of health care (if any) should be basic rights guaranteed to all Americans?  2)  Who will pay for it? and 3)  What can we do to make health care more affordable?

Hospitals and doctors practicing there are required by law to provide certain emergency services without regard to a patient’s ability (or willingness) to pay.  The cost is built into the prices paid by benefit plans and by individuals who do pay. That is very clearly an undocumented tax on everyone who pays for health care.  Any health care that is promised by government as a right for all Americans will be taxpayer-funded, one way or another.

Our decisions regarding which kinds of health care will be a basic right need not be an “all or nothing” choice.  We could conclude that government (taxpayers) will fund some kinds of health care but not others.  A government-guaranteed plan must have a way to update which services are covered based on our values, goals, scientific advances, and budgets.

By providing wellness services such as vaccinations and screening with no out-of-pocket cost, we might improve our health and reduce our long-term costs. Colonoscopy is an example of a screening that might prevent enough colon cancers to reduce lifetime costs, but it doesn’t make financial sense for short-term, employment based insurance because the savings come later in life when someone else (likely Medicare) is paying the bills.

There are high cost services that are of questionable value.  Suppose that a cancer treatment has a 20 percent chance of extending a patient’s life for not more than three months at a cost of $500,000.  Maybe that treatment wouldn’t be included as a government guaranteed  service.  That wouldn’t mean that you can’t have it.  It simply means that you have to pay for it yourself  through a supplemental insurance plan or out of your own pocket.  Insurance companies and Medicare are already making those coverage decisions today.

The Obamacare individual mandate to purchase insurance is an attempt to answer the “Who pays?” question and (according to the US Supreme Court) it is a tax.  But why do we want to levy special taxes to fund whatever health care we guarantee as a right for all?   Generating government revenue is a budget issue, not a health care issue.   Compare this to the way we pay for public safety.  We’re all guaranteed a good, basic level of protection by law enforcement agencies and we don’t pay a special tax for that or tie eligibility to employment.  If you are wealthy and want more protection you can pay for a gated community or private security.  Why should paying for health care be different from paying for public safety?

The third question, regarding making health care more affordable, deserves serious attention.  American health care spending is roughly double that of other high wealth nations.  All of them guarantee a broad range of health services to all of their citizens.  The astonishing truth is that per person American government (taxpayer) spending exceeds all health spending (including government, individuals and employers) in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the U K.2016 PER PERSON HEALTHCARE SPENDING IN DOLLARS

The reasons why our health costs are so much higher than other nations is a subject for another day.  For now, I’ll just point out that citizens of other  nations  are getting more care for far less money.  We would be wise to carefully study how they are doing that before we make up our minds about the future of American health care.

Please engage your friends and family in the discussion.  What health care do they want for you if you fall ill and have limited financial resources?

CLICK HERE for the OECD website where you can explore the cost of health care, who pays and health outcomes in most of the world’s developed nations.

Below are three comparisons that I created as research for this column.  You can see international comparisons and track how US  spending has changed since 2010, when Obamacare was just being created.  Click the chart to expand it.

TOTAL SPENDING BY NATIONOECD total health spending

 

 

 

 

 

GOVERNMENT SPENDING BY NATIONOECD government health spending

 

 

 

 

 

PRIVATE SPENDING BY NATIONOECD out of pocket health spending

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, donald trump, islam, Terrorism, war

Do something – even if it’s wrong?

President Trump’s top advisers are considering hiring mercenaries to replace US Troops in Afghanistan.  Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater Security (who is also the brother of  Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos), Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner are promoting the idea that mercenaries can succeed where our armed forces have not, by imposing a stable government in that nation.   Blackwater is the same contractor that caused so many problems in Iraq.

How did we get to this point?

After 9-11, President Bush and many Americans seemed intent on “Doing something, even if it’s wrong.”  Secretary of State Colin Powell warned “If you break it, you own it.” meaning that  if we deposed Saddam Hussein, we Americans would be responsible for assuring the security of the Iraqi people until a stable, democratic government could be established.

Based on the mistaken notion that Iraq threatened us and our allies with weapons of mass destruction, we became the occupying power that deposed Saddam Hussein and destroyed the authority of Iraqi institutions; but we did not successfully replace them.  The US proved that we could remove a Middle East dictator quickly and efficiently.  That seemed to inspire rebellion and revolution against repressive governments across the region.  But rather than freedom and democratic government, the result was a power vacuum where competing ideologies and religious sects fought to impose their will on the rest of the population.

Arguably, the principal glue that held Iraq together was the rigid and sometimes cruel control imposed by the dictator that we had deposed. The nation fell into anarchy and chaos, an ideal environment for extremists to spawn ISIS and other terrorist groups.  A multitude of Iraqi religious and political groups fought for power.  No one succeeded in uniting the people.

Inspired at least in part by events in Iraq, a spirit of revolution spread.  The governments of Libya and Egypt fell.  Syria is in a protracted civil war with Russia propping up the dictator while the US insists that he give up power.  It seems unlikely that either of those outcomes would result in a free and stable nation.

Revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa have produced a horrendous refugee crisis.  Individuals and families have fled nations where they fear becoming victims of violence, starvation, abuse and disease.  Anarchy – the collapse of government – has allowed the most despicable aspects of human nature and behavior to thrive.  Children have been taught to decapitate others for practicing a different version of religion while other innocents are sold as sex slaves.

The refugee crisis spread to Turkey, then across the sea to Cyprus, Greece and into Europe.  That has created instability in the European Union.  Some nations, led by Germany, have welcomed refugees and tried to create opportunities for them.  Hungary, Poland and others strongly disagree and want to reject refugees.  The UK’s decision to secede from the EU was motivated in part by a desire for a strong national border and control over who crossed it. Back in the US, Americans elected a President who campaigned on the promise to ban Muslim immigration.  Just as in Europe, Americans are bitterly divided about whether to admit refugees from the greatest human tragedy of our lifetimes.  Without our invasion of Iraq, would any of it have happened?

As citizens of a free and democratic nation, we Americans are individually and collectively responsible for the actions of our government.  “If you break it, you own it” should have clear and personal meaning for each of us.  The cascade of events across the Middle East and North Africa and the direct line to today’s conditions should have taught us how actions intended as controlled and limited wars can spiral out of control.  We can’t change the past, and it’s hard to see how more “help” from us will be well received.

We now have a President who seems fond of saber-rattling and doesn’t like constraints (including the prohibition of torture) so he is considering turning the American military role in Afghanistan over to private contractors (mercenary corporations).  Americans would pay the bills while corporations and foreign governments set the rules of engagement as they see fit – unleashed from the Geneva Convention and other moral standards that govern American armed forces.

If President Trump hires mercenaries, we Americans will be individually and collectively responsible for the actions of our hired guns.  There are two adages to remember.  “If we break it we will own it.” and “Forewarned is forearmed.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND READING:

NY Times report of trump Administration considering mercenaries for Afghanistan

Colin Powell on US Policy in the Middle East

Colin Powell on the Pottery Barn Rule in Syria

All Posts, American Foreign Policy, donald trump, ethics, Russia and Trump

HUG A JOURNALIST TODAY

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Donald Trump, Jr has admitted arranging a meeting with someone introduced to him as a representative of the Russian government.  The stated purpose of the meeting was to receive Russian information that might damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy (and thereby help his dad’s).  Junior had already been notified that the help would be provided as “…part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump…” He angrily denied all of this until he learned that persistent journalists had proof.  Then he began trying to explain it away.

Junior Trump arranged for candidate Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner to join him in a meeting with the Russian.  It was held at the Trump Tower in June 2016 while candidate Trump was present in the building; but the President’s press secretary now says that Trump knew nothing about it until the New York Times broke the story.

This stunning news contradicts a full year of denials by Donald Trump and his entire team of any Russian involvement or support for their campaign; and it’s clear that they would not have admitted it if the press had not uncovered evidence.  Do you believe that Junior Trump brought people that he had been told represented Russian government into Trump tower for a meeting with Senior Trump’s top advisers and none of them mentioned it to Senior Trump?  You can bet that journalists will be digging for evidence, one way or the other.

However they voted, most Americans wanted to believe the Trump team was honest.  Many still do, but evidence of lies and deception began mounting even before the inauguration.  They have blamed it on “leakers”, on the FBI Director’s incompetence, on fake news, and on the mainstream (lamestream they like to call it) press. Without professional journalists digging for facts we would have little basis for judging the integrity of our officeholders, regardless of political affiliation.

This phenomenon is not limited to the Trump administration.  It was the press who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers with evidence that multiple administrations intentionally misled the public and the Congress about our involvement in Vietnam and the ensuing war.  They documented President’s Nixon’s crimes including the Watergate burglary and his “plumbers” unit which burglarized a psychiatrist’s office to obtain medical records that would discredit an opponent of the war.  Those stories resulted in Nixon’s resignation and Johnson’s decision to not seek reelection.  It was the press who uncovered and reported on J. Edgar Hoover’s abuse of his power as FBI Director, including spying on Dr Martin Luther King, Jr in order to obtain any information that could be used to blackmail him.

Government officials who had violated public trust tried to cover up and deny their misdeeds.  They blamed leakers, liars and biased reporters.  They even arrested and jailed journalists for reporting true stories.  But journalists and news organizations persist.  They not only cover world-changing news, journalists are the ones who keep us informed about state legislatures, school boards, health departments, city councils, sports and weather.  Because of them we know that Flint is only one of the cities with lead in its water.  They inform our discussions about the local effects of charter schools, climate change, and myriads of issues affecting our lives.

Journalism can be messy.  Some  organizations sensationalize news in hopes of improved TV ratings or ad sales to the point where an arrest for jay-walking sounds like “breaking news”.  Some have liberal or conservative or religious or ethnic biases.    Just choosing which stories to cover and which to pass up is based on the judgments of journalists and editors.  And sometimes even the best of journalists make mistakes.

We Americans have plenty of sources with lots of different perspectives and fortunately for us they tend to fact-check each other. If we’re paying attention we can check their accuracy by comparing several sources.  And if any news organization is consistently wrong with the facts, they eventually pay a price in public trust.

At this critical time in our history journalists are ferreting out facts despite concerted efforts to stop them; and truth is gradually emerging.   Without them,  our freedom would be imperiled.  It is indeed the truth that makes us free.  This is a good time to hug and thank a journalist.

All Posts, budget, Congress, deficit, economy

MAKING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE GREAT AGAIN

We must maintain our existing infrastructure while we build more of it; and we need to agree on how to do that.  One guiding principle for those decisions is “TANSTAAFL”.  That’s the acronym for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”.  Infrastructure is expensive.

The report card on American infrastructure published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is probably the most comprehensive analysis available.  It identifies a multitude of current and anticipated concerns.  Our Congress has paid only scant attention to ASCE warnings about our backlog of maintenance and construction needs.

President Trump has proposed spending $1 Trillion on infrastructure over the coming decade and has pointed out that a lot of new jobs could be created through such a program. He has yet to clarify how projects would be selected, who would own them and how they would be funded.

Our existing infrastructure has been built and is owned by a sometimes bewildering mix of local, state, regional and national government entities along with utility companies, railroads, airport authorities, and various kinds of public-private partnerships.  Sometimes, as in the case of abandoned dams and waste disposal sites, ownership is not clearly identified.

Even if the congress could agree on a way to standardize and prioritize our infrastructure ownership and financing, it would probably be a bad idea.  The ways of doing things that work well in rural America are often different from the best ways to do things in urban areas.  The process of deciding what to build, how much government money to spend and how to organize the effort will necessarily be complicated, messy, and sometimes controversial.  Despite that, it’s worth doing.

We should look back at the last serious effort to renew our infrastructure in hopes that this effort will succeed where the last one failed – in the United States Senate.  In 2011, President Obama proposed a more modest and more specific infrastructure plan that called for $50 billion in federal spending on highway, rail, airport and transit improvements plus another $10 billion to start a “National Infrastructure Bank” intended to spur public-private partnerships.  The proposal passed the Senate by a 51-49 vote but was blocked by a Republican filibuster – as were most Obama initiatives.

President Obama proposed to pay for his plan by imposing a surtax of 7/10 of one percent on incomes in excess of $1 million.  President Trump’s more ambitious proposal appears to call for $200 billion in federal spending plus unspecified local and state spending and unspecified private spending accounting for the rest of the $1 trillion price tag.  He has not announced a plan to pay for it other than by mentioning that our low interest rates make this an inexpensive time to borrow money.

This complicated but important issue is the kind that our traditional Congressional procedures were designed to address.  Advice from experts will be needed, followed by a great deal of negotiation and compromise. There is no perfect plan for such complex needs.  There will be negotiations to determine which states and communities get their projects approved.  Every decision will be subject to criticism and second-guessing.   That’s how it was with big federal projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and facilities for NASA, our armed forces and other federal departments.  The planning was complex and  controversial but certainly worth the trouble.

Leaders in both political parties know that our national infrastructure needs renewal and expansion.  Both parties have proposed it when they were in power.  Are they up to the task of responsibly designing a way to achieve and pay for that ambitious goal?  Their predecessors in the 1930s through the 1960s figured out how to establish a national power grid, phone service, interstate highways, NASA, hydroelectric dams, public water and sewer systems, national parks, airports, hospitals, schools…the list goes on.  They facilitated public-private collaboration in ways that worked for American citizens – things like blending rural utility co-ops, private utility companies, and municipally owned utilities into national electric, gas, and phone systems.

Today about 18 million Americans are served by water systems that violate lead safety standards.  That’s just one example of our problems.  There are similar concerns in every category of infrastructure and there are no simple answers.  We need a congress that is willing to do their homework and make hard decisions on behalf of the citizens who elected them.  That can happen if voters demand it.  TANSTAAFL.

All Posts, Congress, economy, health, medicaid, north carolina

Congressional Legislative Malpractice

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The 13 Senators who drafted a bill to replace Obamacare are all Republican, male, white, over age 40, and prosperous.  California, Florida and New York, which together account for one-fourth of our population, were not in the room but there were two Senators from number fifty Wyoming.

Discussing diverse opinions is one way to identify and avoid unintended consequences of new legislation. Do Republicans think that women, middle class, minorities, young, poor, and other Americans left out of the process have no ideas worthy of consideration?

They did their work in secret meetings without input by experts in health policy or economics, out of the sight of the public and the press.  The result is a political bill to satisfy Republican ideology with little regard for facts or alternatives.

Previously, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a similar bill that was designed behind closed doors without serious public hearings, expert testimony or debate.  They proceeded despite a Congressional Budget Office projection that it would cause 23 million Americans to become uninsured.  The CBO’s estimate of spending reductions from the bill  amount to $43 per month saved for each person who loses health benefits – not a good deal!

There’s no doubt that Obamacare has serious problems in the individual and small employer exchanges.  Republicans try to mislead us into believing that those troubles mean that the law is failing.  It isn’t.   Because of Obamacare 20 million more Americans are now insured and the rate of growth in total health care spending is lower than it was before Obamacare.  It is a successful law that needs improvements.

Bluntly, Republican lawmakers don’t believe that all Americans should receive basic health care regardless of their ability to pay and they’re willing to let other Americans die for that ideology.  Republican leadership intends to pass their bill before Americans understand that it will cause more people to lose health benefits,  more healthcare related family bankruptcies and more individuals suffering death or disability.

Rushing ill-considered bills through a legislature to satisfy an ideology is not limited to the congress.  North Carolina Republicans imagined an “emergency” when Charlotte passed a civil rights ordinance allowing transgender citizens to use restroom facilities consistent with their gender identity (and, in most cases, consistent with their physical appearance).  Rather than holding hearings and carefully considering what (if any) legislation was needed, they packed the infamous HB-2 with unrelated and controversial provisions then passed it as “emergency” legislation.  If standard legislative processes had been followed, a more appropriate response (or no response) to Charlotte’s ordinance might have been made.  HB-2 has been mostly repealed, but the damage to the state’s reputation remains and some economic losses will never be recovered.

Similarly, North Carolina Republicans gerrymandered the state’s congressional and legislative districts through secret processes.  They hired attorneys who hired consultants to design legislative districts that would give massive election advantages to Republicans.  Because the work was done through attorneys, they were able to claim attorney-client privilege as justification for refusing to let the public and the press see exactly how they instructed the consultants.  The US Supreme Court ruled that the result of their work was racial discrimination.  It again seems obvious that an open process with public hearings could have produced a better outcome.

If Republicans were practicing medicine rather than legislating, their negligence would be called malpractice.  They circumvented the rules and procedures  that  assure thoughtful deliberation before laws are passed. That violates American values, undermines trust in government and exposes us all to the negative consequences of ill-considered laws.

Senate Republicans plan to debate, amend and pass a healthcare bill back to the House of Representatives in 10 days, with no public hearings and no expert testimony.  As an example of the unanticipated consequences of doing that, unemployed Republican rural voters in the coal mining areas of the Kentucky mountains will probably lose their Medicaid benefits and see closure of clinics opened to serve them under Obamacare.  Health care has added more jobs than mining lost in the Kentucky mountains.  Similar outcomes are inevitable in other places.  The damage to the credibility of our legislative processes is severe.  Worst of all, Americans will die as a result of Republican legislative malpractice.

All Posts, Congress, Constitution

PERSEVERANCE AND POLITICS CAN BRING SUCCESS

Many Americans seem to believe that our nation is declining and in danger of failure.  I don’t think that facts justify that belief.  For example, did you know that the number of law enforcement officers killed as a result of crimes peaked at 134 in the year 1973?  By 2015 it had declined to 46, about one-third of the peak number.  Any killing is one too many but failure to notice improvement encourages unsubstantiated beliefs that our nation is declining. Why are we losing our self-confidence and self-respect when objectively we are making progress?

I recently read a relevant commentary by Lee Hamilton, a retired congressman that I’ve admired for many years.  He represented my conservative Southern Indiana hometown as a Democrat from 1965 through 1999 then served as co-chair of the 9/11 Commission after his retirement.

During Hamilton’s years in congress the issues faced by voters and elected officials were arguably even more contentious and vexing than the ones we face today: voting rights act, Vietnam War, school desegregation and busing, proliferation of nuclear weapons, cold war, creation of Medicare and Medicaid, impeachment and resignation of President Nixon, Equal Rights Amendment, Roe vs Wade decision, and assassination of civil rights and political leaders.

Why did conservative, predominantly rural and white Southern Indiana continue to send a moderate Democrat to Washington for so many years?  After reading his May, 2017 column, I remember why so many of us, Democrats and Republicans, voted for him.  He believed in the perseverance of his constituents; believed in American institutions; and worked honestly to improve those institutions for citizens.

Hamilton opened his comments this way, “I’ve had a number of conversations recently that convince me our country is divided into two political camps separated by a deep and uncomfortably wide gap. No, I’m not talking about liberals and conservatives, or pro- and anti-Trump voters. I’m talking about people who believe in politics and our political system, and people who don’t.”

He points to distrust of institutions and elected officials; popular belief that they are unable or unwilling to solve national problems or help individuals; the excessive influence of big money on policy making, and belief that elected officials are working for personal gain rather than for the public good as subjective reasons why Americans are losing confidence in the nation.

Hamilton makes the case that politics is a worthy profession and urges us to participate.  Rather than a struggle between good and evil, he points to politics as “…our opportunity to help our neighbors, to give us better schools and hospitals and highways, to make our communities safer and more orderly. It’s a means of resolving our differences through dialogue and compromise, rather than through ideological battle or pitched warfare. If you pay attention, you’ll see a lot of politicians who go about their business intelligently, quietly, and competently — and who get good things done.”

We can find many flaws and failures in American history, but if you look at how we developed from thirteen fragile colonies to the USA of today two things are apparent.  One is the remarkable perseverance of American citizens – our belief and our pride in continuously making our nation better.  We’ve never been satisfied, nor should we be.  Instead we continue insisting on improvement.  The second thing that is apparent is that politics and the institutions of government have been our tools to facilitate the changes that we want.

Perseverance and politics helped create our national success.   Despite the messy and contentious nature of our politics, we should respect how much better it is than anarchy.  Hamilton argues for citizen involvement in politics as a means to improve our own lives, communities and institutions; and in particular he points out the responsibility to “…encourage young people’s engagement with the problems we confront.”  Through personal involvement we can understand the difficulty of reaching agreement and the amount of work required to make progress.  It’s hard.  But the alternative is surrender to the status quo.

Hamilton closes his commentary with this argument, “Those of us who believe in the system must shoulder the burden of persuasion — and I’m worried about what happens if we don’t meet it. If we lose the argument and the next generation turns away, we face dangers and risks — chaos, authoritarianism — that are far worse than what we face now.”

finding ways to to form a more perfect union