There’s No Good Way To Sell An Occupation
Last Friday, the Washington Post reported on a new Pentagon plan for seeding Iraqi pro-Americanism:
The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.[…]
The military’s role in the war of ideas has been fundamentally transformed in recent years, the result of both the Pentagon’s outsized resources and a counterinsurgency doctrine in which information control is considered key to success. Uniformed communications specialists and contractors are now an integral part of U.S. military operations from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and beyond.
Marc Lynch writes that such propaganda efforts “fatally compromise the long-term objective of building free, credible and independent media as the foundation of a democratic system”:
Only a free and independent media can provide the flow of information, the transparency and demands for accountability, and the open contestation of political ideas necessary for real political pluralism and democracy. Turning the media into a tool for spreading propaganda compromises not only the very media which we should be promoting but also our own credibility in arguing for a free and independent media. […]
When the payments are exposed, as they inevitably are in today’s global media environment (for example, with page one stories in the Washington Post), they then discredit not only the specific messages but also every other pro-U.S. message which will quite reasonably then be dismissed as “paid for by the United States.”
Lynch notes this as part of a disturbing trend in which public opinion is treated simply as another front in the war. This was precisely the idea behind the Pentagon surrogates program — revealed by the New York Times last April — which provided talking points to former military officers serving as TV analysts, first to sell the invasion by falsely portraying Iraq as an imminent threat, and then later to pretend that all was well even as Iraq collapsed into civil war.
Yesterday, US News reported that the Federal Communications Commission has notified several of those analysts “that it is probing congressional complaints that [they] did not properly disclose their ties to the Pentagon when reviewing the war in Iraq on air.”
According to a copy of the October 2 FCC letter to one of the pundits, the probe was prompted by Reps. John Dingell and Rosa DeLauro, who filed a complaint with the agency after the New York Times reported that some of the pundits were working on or bidding on Pentagon contracts and had also taken free military trips to Iraq. “When seemingly objective television commentators are in fact highly motivated to promote the agenda of a government agency, a gross violation of the public trust occurs,” the duo wrote to the FCC.
While none of the Pentagon surrogates were paid, as far as we know, I’d argue that the effect of these ostensibly objective “experts” acting as propagandists for the defense establishment was pretty disastrous, coming and going. By helping to sell the invasion, they helped get the U.S. involved in a disastrous intervention with no end in sight, and the revelation of their relationship to the Pentagon has further poisoned the discourse about Iraq, and further contributed to cynicism about government.
And then there’s Max Boot, who’s so committed to the Iraq war that he’s there now scouring the countryside to find Iraqis who will testify in support of and indefinite U.S. presence. Is Boot working on behalf of the Defense Department? Or is he just shilling for free? And how can we know?
SEC Censors Report Finding That Bear Stearns Warning Signs Were Ignored
According to a report by Bloomberg News, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - which is the federal agency charged with protecting investors and maintaining fair markets - censored a report by its own Inspector General showing that “regulators stood by as shrinking capital ratios and growing subprime holdings led to the collapse of Bear Stearns Cos.”
Bloomberg stated that “before [the report] was released to the public on Sept. 26, [SEC Inspector General] Kotz deleted 136 references, many detailing SEC memos, meetings or comments.” These deletions came “at the request of the [SEC’s] Division of Trading and Markets (TM) that oversees investment banks.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who initially asked that the SEC examine its regulation of Bear Stearns, said that “people can judge for themselves, but it sure looks like the SEC didn’t want the public to know about the red flags it apparently ignored in allowing Bear Stearns and other investment banks to engage in excessively risky behavior.” SEC spokesman John Nester said the deletions were made because “the requests from the Division of Trading and Markets covered non-public information.”
According to Bloomberg, the portion of the report that was removed found “that the Division of Trading and Markets knew Bear Stearns’s capital ratio had dropped to 11.5 percent in March from as high as 21.4 percent in April 2006.” And while the SEC regulators “inquired whether Bear Stearns was contemplating capital infusions,” the regulators “didn’t formally or informally pressure the firm to do so.”
The original, censored version of the report still found fault with the SEC for “not fulfilling its obligations” in regards to assessing risky behavior within broker-dealers like Bear Stearns:
TM is not fulfilling its obligations in accordance with the underlying purpose of the Broker-Dealer Risk Assessment program in several respects. First, TM has failed to update and finalize the rules governing the program, which would ensure that broker-dealers file pertinent information with the Commission in a timely manner. Second, TM has failed to enforce the temporary rules’ document retention and filing requirements that are incumbent upon broker- dealers. As a result, nearly one-third of the firms failed to file 17(h) documents as required by the rules.
The Wonk Room has previously noted the regulations that the SEC actively eliminated in the last five years, which contributed to the current financial crisis. Today, the New York Times also reported that “a federal inquiry has concluded that the Securities and Exchange Commission should consider disciplining its director of enforcement and two supervisors for their role in handling an insider trading investigation.” This newest report contributes to the picture of an SEC both unwilling to enforce existing regulations, and ready to cover up that unwillingness.
McCain Reveals His Health Plan Will Force Benefit Eligibility Cuts In Medicare And Medicaid
Karen Davenport and Ellen-Marie Whelan contributed to this post.
The Wonk Room has long argued that to finance his health plan, Sen. McCain would have a tax increase of $1,100 on the average family—and that absent the tax increase there would be a $1.3 trillion budget shortfall. Now, McCain has dramatically changed his proposal. As explained by McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the McCain plan will keep the payroll exemption for health insurance and, instead, cut $1.3 trillion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs to finance his health care plan.
Bearing a strong resemblance to the cuts that were sought by former-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, McCain’s call for radical cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will undermine their vital role in our health care system, putting affordable health care out of reach for millions of seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families, and driving up the cost of health insurance for everyone else.
Assuming that the $1.3 trillion cut is taken proportionately from both Medicare and Medicaid:
- Medicare: The McCain plan will cut $882 billion from the Medicare program, roughly 13 percent of Medicare’s projected spending over a 10-year period. At this level, Medicare spending will not keep pace with inflation growth and enrollment increases – 4.5 percent compared to over 7 percent — thereby requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility or both.- Medicaid: The McCain plan will cut $419 billion over 10 years from the Medicaid program, roughly 13 percent of Medicaid’s projected spending over this period. At this level, McCain’s Medicaid spending growth – 5.5 percent – does not keep pace with inflation growth and enrollment increases (at 6 percent), thereby requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility or both. Because federal Medicaid funds match state spending, this cut in federal funds would likely yield a parallel cut in state funding, for a total reduction in Medicaid spending of $738 billion over 10 years—more than the cost of providing benefits for all Medicaid beneficiaries for two years. These cuts could also cascade into the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, the federal progam that covers millions of children who otherwise would not have access to health insurance.
- Private Insurance: As the government’s support of public programs fall, those with private insurance will end up paying more as health care providers shift costs to private payers.
McCain’s Health Care Concession
In one of the more bizarre parts of Douglas Holtz-Eakin’s health care memo, the McCain senior policy adviser argues that McCain’s health care plan preserves employer coverage because “younger and healthier employees with the McCain health care tax credit will have a bigger incentive to stay with the employers“:
For example, a 25-year-old employee in the 25 percent tax bracket with a $2,500 tax credit could either purchase a policy in the individual market for the same amount or stay with his employer plan and receive a $5,000 policy with an additional $1,250 to invest in a portable health savings account. Why would people choose worse insurance and less money?
Ironically, Holtz-Eakin highlights the inefficiencies of the individual market and undermines the very rationale behind McCain’s health care plan.
For months, the McCain campaign has maintained that the senator’s health care proposal would lower costs by allowing healthier Americans to find cheaper coverage in the individual market. During the unveiling of his health care plan in April, McCain argued, “Americans need new choices beyond those offered in employment-based coverage. Americans want a system built so that wherever you go and wherever you work, your health plan goes with you.”
Free market capitalism is at the very heart of McCain’s proposal. By equalizing the tax treatment of individual and employer health care plans, McCain hopes to entice healthier workers (the only ones who could find affordable coverage in the individual market) to opt out of the employer system and invest in their own health, make their own health care decisions.
McCain surrogates have suggested that unfettered from burdensome mandates and regulations, insurance companies will develop innovative health care plans with dramatically lower premiums, and out-of-pocket expenses. Competition and a national health insurance market will rein in growing health care costs and Cadillac and caviar health care plans will become a thing of the past.
So why the flip? Well, in order to defend the McCain health proposal from critics who charge that it would undermine existing coverage, the campaign is awkwardly trying to convince Americans that healthier workers won’t flee employer-insurance pools and increase costs for those who are left behind. In the process, they’ve admitted that the individual health insurance market offers inferior coverage, conceded that workers value the employer health contribution, and have stepped all over their talking points.
All in all, it’s kind of fun to watch.
McCain’s New Health Care Plan Delays the Tax Increase
Our guest blogger is James Kvaal, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
The McCain campaign has altered its health care plan again. The new plan reduces the number of families facing tax increases, but it requires deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and still will eventually require most middle-class families to pay higher taxes.
The original McCain plan imposed both income and payroll taxes to health benefits. The campaign never said so explicitly, but its figures for the plan’s budget cost and its impact on a typical family could not be understood any other way.
The plan would raise taxable income by about $13,000 for an average family with health benefits. That’s a hefty tax increase on the middle-class. We estimated that a typical middle-class family making $60,000 would pay $1,100 more in taxes in 2013.
The new McCain plan imposes only income taxes on health benefits, according to figures released over the weekend by McCain aide Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Without higher payroll taxes, fewer families will be socked with higher tax bills but taxpayers must pony up an additional $1.3 trillion. (Igor has more on McCain’s plan to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid.)
Some families still face an immediate tax increase under McCain’s plan; those with incomes and premiums that are higher than average are most likely to see higher taxes. Some families must pay more in premiums because they have significant health needs or live in a costly area of the country.
A middle-class family paying 25 percent in income taxes and 5 percent in state taxes would pay more under McCain’s plan right away if their premiums are more than $16,700 – which would make it a relatively costly plan but hardly the most expensive out there.
Moreover, more and more families will pay higher taxes over time. That’s because McCain’s tax credit will increase no faster than inflation (about 2 percent a year). In contrast, the new tax on health benefits will increase along with premiums (about 7 percent a year).
By 2014, a middle-class family (who is in the 25 percent tax bracket and pays average premiums) would pay $300 more in taxes. Every following year, the tax hike would get larger. By 2018, it would be more than $1,400.
The original McCain plan featured an unappealing tax increase on middle-class families. The new plan cuts Medicare and Medicaid, but it only delays — rather than eliminating — the tax increase on middle-class families.
Palin’s ‘Safe’ And ‘Environmentally Friendly’ Drilling: Millions Of Gallons Of Oil Spills
In the vice-presidential debate last week and on the campaign trail today, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) — the person McCain has tapped as his “energy expert” — is repeating the absurd claim that oil and gas drilling is “safe” and “environmentally friendly.” Watch it:
But saying it’s so don’t make it so. Normal drilling operations cause significant pollution, environmental damage, and of course have tremendous global warming impacts. And frequent oil spills caused by global-warming-fueled storms mean that drilling is anything but “environmentally friendly.”
A new analysis by the Associated Press shows that Hurricane Ike “destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines,” resulting in: “At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marches, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas.” The Coast Guard has responded to more than 3,000 pollution reports. “At times, a new spill or release was reported to the Coast Guard every five minutes to 10 minutes.”
Ike’s enormously destructive wreckage adds further proof that conservatives’ claims regarding the safety of offshore oil drilling are totally false. With the “drill, baby, drill” chant, conservatives repeatedly insisted that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “didn’t spill a drop” of oil. Even the Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman, claimed that during Katrina and Rita, “there was not one case where we had a situation with oil or gas being spilled in the environment.” This is a lie: Those hurricanes caused 595 different oil spills, totalling 9 million gallons.
Sadly, the clear evidence of Ike’s environmental damage comes just days after House progressives caved to conservative pressure and allowed the ban on offshore oil drilling to expire, potentially clearing the way for hundreds of new rigs to be built — and for just as many opportunities for new oil spills to be created. As Palin might say, “Spill, baby, spill!“
House Conservatives Against Regulations Because Bankers Will Just ‘Find Ways Around’ Them
Today, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the causes and effects of the failure of Lehman Brothers, the investment bank that filed for bankruptcy on September 15. This is the first of five hearings aimed at unraveling the causes of the current financial crisis.
Prior to the hearing, Republican members of the Oversight Committee released a report in which they concluded that deregulation is not to blame for the current trouble in the financial system.
The report goes on to discuss the net-capital rule, which is a regulation limiting the amount of debt that financial institutions are allowed to take on. In the report, House Republicans argue that there should be no such rule, because bankers will just “find ways around” it:
Banking regulations require financial institutions to limit their asset risk per unit of capital, but writing regulations that simply mandate an appropriate level is unlikely to work for very long because it is in the interest of bankers to find ways around these requirements in pursuit of profit.
However, the report completely fails to note that financial institutions carrying huge debt-to-capital ratios contributed to the recent meltdown. Furthermore, it was the Bush administration, through the auspices of the Securities and Exchange Commission, that actively relaxed the debt-to-capital regulation.
In 2004, the SEC loosened the rule mandating “that broker dealers limit their debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.” The five investment banks that qualified for an alternative rule - Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley - were allowed “to increase their debt-to-net capital ratios, sometimes, as in the case of Merrill Lynch, to as high as 40-to-1.”
According to the New York Times, the investment banks themselves lobbied for the rule change, because it would “unshackle billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments.” However, when the subprime mortgage bubble burst, the investment firms no longer had enough cash on hand “to weather the storm.”
Chairman of the Oversight Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), said this lax regulation “proved to be a temptation” that the investment firms “could not resist,” but “when asset values decline — as the subprime market did — leverage rapidly consumes a company’s capital and jeopardizes its survival.
Barry Ritholz wrote that the SEC exemption is “in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years — as well as the massive current unwind“:
The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms. You read that right — the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules.
So bankers don’t really need to “find ways around” regulations, when the Bush administration is willing to knock the regulations out of the way.
McCain Proposes Medicare And Medicaid Cuts To Pay For Health Plan
Despite previously insisting that their health plan would allow Americans to keep their current insurance coverage, the McCain campaign has now admitted that it would slash $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years.
McCain’s cuts echo a 1995 effort to “cut $270 billion, or 14 percent, from projected Medicare spending” over seven years and force millions of elderly recipients into managed health care programs or HMOs. As Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admitted, “We don’t want to get rid of it in round one because we don’t think it’s politically smart,” he said. “But we believe that it’s going to wither on the vine because we think [seniors] are going to leave it voluntarily.”
Shifting individuals out of Medicare/Medicaid/Employer insurance is the goal of McCain health reform. In fact, throughout his career, McCain has regularly supported slashing Medicare benefits and limiting eligibility:
- McCain has voted to cut, restrict, or underfund Medicare at least 28 times.
- McCain voted to restrict access to Medicare at least two times.
- In 1997, McCain voted in favor of raising the eligibility age for receiving Medicare from 65 to 67 with the change being phased in between 2003 and 2027.
- McCain voted against ensuring Medicare’s future by opposing efforts to extend its solvency at least 9 times.
McCain’s latest proposal will undermine Medicare and Medicaid benefits, increase costs, and further burden state budgets. But for the senator, this is no bother. In fact, his $1.3 trillion trim compliments his overall health care philosophy. Remember, McCain believes that Americans use too much health care. His solution to the health care crisis is simple: push Americans into the individual health insurance market and leave them alone to pay their health care bills.
UPDATE: During a conference call, former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) observed that McCain’s proposal “would cut Medicare and Medicaid by over 20% over the next 10 years…it would dramatically reduce the quality of health care for older Americans and the poorest and sickest Americans while at the same time adding to the burden of state governments”
It’s Time To Build The Green Collar Economy
Our guest blogger is Van Jones from Green for All, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
At best, the federal government’s bail out of Wall Street will help the U.S. economy — which is already in a ditch — avoid a total meltdown. Fine. Now we need a plan to jumpstart the economy and actually get America moving again.
In my new book, The Green Collar Economy, I propose a bold, green cure for the economic mess we are in. Think of it as a comprehensive plan to bail out ordinary people — and the planet, too.
We just found $700 billion. Let’s find another $350 billion. That’s half the price tag of the Wall Street rescue — which has no guarantee of success. But with $350 billion investment, we absolutely and positively could retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy — and create millions of new jobs, in the process.
In other words, a comprehensive “green bailout” could give America TWICE the bang … for half the bucks. Other experts agree with me. A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create more than 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.
Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.
The time for choosing has arrived. Looking at both our energy system and our financial system, we face some hard choices. Our energy system can create awesome storms. Or it can create awesome jobs. Our financial system can become a global sinkhole — or a global springboard.
The gray economy that is collapsing is based on consumption, debt and environmental destruction. The green economy that is emerging will be based on production, smart savings and environmental restoration.
The bottom line is: you can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart bio-fuels and massive, a program to weatherize every building and home in America.
A green economy would be less vulnerable to oil shocks and financial bubbles. In a green economy, we would rely on less credit from overseas and more on creativity right here at home. It’s time to stop borrowing and start building.
As Thomas Friedman says, “We don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup.”
Rather than just giving platinum parachutes to those who wrecked the economy, let’s throw a green lifeline to the ordinary people who want to rebuild it. We can’t drill and burn our way out of our present mess. But we can invent and invest our way out. And in The Green Collar Economy, I suggest a game plan for getting started.
Join MicCheck Radio to hear an exclusive interview with Van Jones about the Green Collar Economy.
UPDATE: Living on Earth’s Jeff Young explores the “elements of a green economic bailout” with CAPAF fellows Bracken Hendricks, Carol Browner, and Van Jones:
As Washington rescues Wall Street, a growing chorus of big thinkers from the left and right are calling for a greener approach– using investment in clean energy and efficiency as a way to stimulate the economy.
On ‘Killing Civilians’ And Effective Counterinsurgency
Back in August 2007, Barack Obama said this about his plan to strengthen the U.S.’s failing effort in Afghanistan:
We’ve got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.
Sen. Obama’s comments came in the context of mounting Afghan protests at the civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led operations there. Afghan President Hamid Karzai made this case again at the United Nations last month:
The death of innocent Afghan civilians in foreign bombing raids could seriously undermine the efforts to fight terrorism, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai told the UN General Assembly Wednesday.
The deaths hurt “the credibility of the Afghan people’s partnership with the international community,” Karzai said.
An Associated Press fact check stated that Western forces in Afghanistan have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents have been killing civilians, noting that as of Aug. 1, “while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286.” This is, in fact, causing enormous problems there.
Minimizing civilian casualties is key to a successful counterinsurgency effort, which is one reason air strikes — which tend to result in a lot of collateral damage i.e. dead civilians — are poorly suited to counterinsurgency. Currently, the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan has been forced to over-rely on air power because of the commitment of troops and resources to Iraq.
As discussed in the Center for American Progress report The Forgotten Front, this is yet another example of how the Iraq war has undercut the U.S.’s ability to effectively fight terrorism.
Palin Claims McCain’s Health Care Plan Is ‘Budget Neutral,’ Which Means It’s A Middle-Class Tax Hike
There is a contradiction in the way John McCain has been selling his health care plan: either it busts the budget, or it raises taxes on middle-class families. It has to do one or the other.
Lately, John McCain’s campaign has been going around saying he won’t raise taxes on middle class families.
But last night Governor Palin twice insisted that John McCain’s health care plan is ‘budget neutral’ too:
He’s proposing a $5,000 tax credit for families so that they can get out there and they can purchase their own health care coverage. That’s a smart thing to do. That’s budget neutral. That doesn’t cost the government anything…But a $5,000 health care credit through our income tax that’s budget neutral. That’s going to help.
Watch it:
By insisting that his health care plan is ‘budget neutral’ Palin is implying that John McCain raises taxes on middle-class families. If it doesn’t raise taxes, it’s not ‘budget neutral.’
Here’s how it works:
Giving every family a $5,000 tax credit costs $3.6 trillion over ten years, according to the McCain campaign. McCain wants to pay for it by taxing employer health benefits as income.
If he makes families pay both payroll and income taxes on their benefits, the Joint Committee on Taxation projects McCain can raise the $3.6 trillion, making the proposal ‘budget neutral.’
If he subjects benefits only to income taxes, as the McCain campaign now claims they would, the Tax Policy Center showed that he would fall $1.3 trillion short in paying for his plan. Under any definition that’s not ‘budget neutral.’
The ONLY way to make McCain’s plan ‘budget neutral,’ as Palin insists it is, is to repeal the entire exclusion for health care from both income and payroll taxes. And if this is what he does, then he raises taxes on the typical family making $60,000 by $1,100 by 2013.
In either case families would see their taxes go up eventually because the tax credit grows by the rate of inflation (around 2%/year) and the current exemption grows with the rate of health care costs (close to 7%/year). But if both payroll and income taxes are imposed on benefits, McCain’s tax increase would be much larger much sooner, and would fall most heavily on the middle class.
Senator McCain and Governor Palin are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
$1.4 Billion In McCain Tax Cuts For ‘Mainstream Media’
Conservatives continue to cry “liberal media bias” to explain away the unpopularity of the right-wing agenda, despite the stark economic realities for all but the super-wealthy in America. These tired claims ignore the reality that the right-wing agenda actually benefits the “mainstream media.”
The multinational corporations that run the mainstream media — GE (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corporation (FOX), and Viacom (CBS) — stand to benefit hugely under a McCain presidency. The centerpiece of Sen. McCain’s economic plan — actually, the whole plan — is large tax cuts for corporations. It would deliver $1.44 billion in tax cuts to the five largest media companies, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
These giveaways are just one part of McCain’s doubling of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which would create the largest deficits in 25 years and drive the United States into the deepest deficits since World War II. McCain and Palin have promised that the $700 billion bailout would not threaten these tax cuts.
The Annals Of Neoconservative Denialism
Commenting on a recent BBC poll showing that majorities around the world do not regard US-led efforts against al-Qaeda as successful, Commentary’s Abe Greenwald writes that he’s not surprised, “considering the candidate in the lead for President of the United States feels the same way.”
Debating John McCain last week, Barack Obama dropped this whopper on 53 million American viewers and another 60 million viewers and listeners worldwide: “Al-Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than any time since 2001.” When the loudest, most revered American voice on the planet insists that U.S. victory is U.S. defeat what is the rest of the world supposed to think? And what are we supposed to think? Is this what Obama means by restoring America’s standing in the world?[…]
A U.S. that doesn’t deny its successes won’t necessarily inspire the rest of the world to join in the celebration. But it will halt the course of the self-fulfilling prophecy of America’s decline.
Interestingly, last year’s National Intelligence Estimate (pdf) contained a similar whopper:
Al-Qa’ida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremist Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership. Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qa’ida senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qa’ida will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.
As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.
In June, a New York Times article on Al Qaeda’s gathering strength in Pakistan quoted Pentagon consultant and RAND Corporation terrorism expert Seth Jones telling whoppers:
The United States faces a threat from Al Qaeda today that is comparable to what it faced on Sept. 11, 2001.
So Greenwald’s suggestion that the problem with America’s war on terror is that American politicians haven’t declared victory enough — as if people around the world needed Barack Obama to tell them that the Bush administration has been a disaster — is merely preposterous. Greenwald’s suggestion that criticisms of Bush’s anti-terror policies are themselves contributing to “America’s decline,” however, is genuinely craven.
The Palin/McCain Job Plan Cuts Corporate Taxes And Doesn’t Create Jobs
During the Vice-Presidential debate last night, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) spent ample time claiming that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) economic plan will create new jobs and cause the economy to grow:
PALIN: We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here…We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce. […]
You’re going to have a choice in just a few weeks here on either supporting a ticket that wants to create jobs and bolster our economy and win the war or you’re going to be supporting a ticket that wants to increase taxes, which ultimately kills jobs, and is going to hurt our economy.
The McCain/Palin economic plan consists of a cut in the corporate tax rate, a permanent research and development tax credit, and a provision allowing full expensing of business equipment, which they claim “focuses on how to help our economy create more good jobs.”
This plan, however, spends hundreds of billions of dollars, while not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the number of new workers entering the workforce.
In an analysis for the Center for American Progress, Brian Levine finds that McCain’s plan “would create only about 450,000 jobs in 2009, at a cost of $280 billion.” Meanwhile, “the United States needs to generate 1.5 million jobs a year just to keep up with the new workers entering the labor force.”
Furthermore, Levine notes that “the number of jobs created would be decidedly unimpressive relative to the size of the tax break given to corporations.” By cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, McCain and Palin will be giving $175 billion in tax breaks to America’s corporations, including $45 billion to the Fortune 200. And as the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, a corporate tax cut “does not create an incentive for [corporations] to spend more on labor.”
Today, it was announced that employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate did not drop from its seven-year high of 6.1%. Thus, a plan that actually creates jobs is vital, and as Levine concludes, “a well-designed economic stimulus plan, costing the same amount [as McCain’s plan], would create 2 million jobs.” The McCain/Palin plan, simply put, costs a lot while doing nowhere near enough.
Palin References Reagan’s Opposition To Medicare
Matt Yglesias notes that during yesterday’s vice presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) quoted a 1961 advocacy ad by Ronald Reagan. In the ad, Reagan urges his listeners to oppose the growing menace of socialized medicine and argues that Medicare legislation will lead to national socialism:
PALIN: We’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.
REAGAN: One of these days, you and I, are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America, when men were free.
Watch Palin’s remarks and Reagan’s quote in context:
Reagan’s rhetoric is eerily similar to McCain’s argument against comprehensive health care reform. During the 1960s, conservatives regularly claimed that Medicare would destroy the doctor-patient relationship, interject government into every-day decisions and undermine personal freedoms. Forty-seven years later, Maverick McCain is making the same argument.
Reagan was wrong then as McCain is wrong now.
WSJ Writer Blames CRA And Fannie/Freddie For Crisis, But Isn’t Sure If The Case Is ‘Sturdy or Just Suggestive’
Our guest blogger is Tim Westrich, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
On the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page today (“How Government Stoked the Mania”), Professor Russell Roberts is the latest on the conservative bandwagon blaming the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac for the subprime mortgage mess, a claim that is simply not true. Roberts seems to be shoveling numbers to conservative pundits who have been making the case on TV, radio, and in columns.
Problem is, Russell Roberts admitted in his own blog just today that he’s not even sure if “the case is sturdy or just suggestive” and that he’s “working on getting more data“:
Here is my piece in the WSJ on government’s role in the mess. It’s a work in progress. I am working on getting more data to see if the case is sturdy or just suggestive. And of course this is an ex post narrative. I tried to be careful to say that it is part of the story and perhaps the essential part. The people who are saying it ISN’T Fannie and Freddie, or it isn’t the CRA or it isn’t the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 or Greenspan’s role in cutting interest rates are probably right. No one of these is THE cause. But I think the combined effects are potentially as compelling once I dig up all the numbers. And I certainly prefer the combined effects to the one cause explanation of greed or markets failed.
Of course, his blog post — where Roberts is careful to say the case is “a work in progress” — will be seen by a lot fewer people than his opinion piece in the WSJ’s print and online versions, where Roberts is much more certain about his facts.
The root cause of the financial mess is the failure of Bush administration officials to take action when they saw what was happening in the U.S. housing market and the overall economy to prevent disasters from happening. They need to accept the fact that their cries for less government persuaded regulators they appointed to their posts to turn the other way as lending abuses piled up in the subprime mortgage market.
Chet Edwards: McCain’s Veterans Access Card ‘Would Be Devastating’ To Veterans Health Care
Yesterday, ThinkProgress interviewed Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) about Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) proposal to “give veterans the option to use a simple plastic card to receive timely and accessible care” outside of the VA health system.
Edwards noted that “virtually every major veterans organization in our country opposes” McCain’s Veterans Access Card Plan, and that even the new VA secretary called the plan “dangerous”:
It sounds good on the surface, but the reality is it would undermine the expertise, the credibility and the resources that we we have at our veterans hospital, where a vet knows he or she is going to be treated with special care or attention.
Watch it:
According to a report published by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, contracting out health care for rural veterans on a broad scale would undermine the existing VA system, “a system of immense value to veterans”:
- “The VA’s specialized health-care programs…would suffer irreparable impact by the loss of veterans from those programs.”
- “The VA’s medical and prosthetic research program…would lose focus and purpose were service-connected and other enrolled veterans no longer present in VA health care.”
- If veterans turned to private practice, “they would lose the many safeguards built into the VA system through its patient safety program, evidence-based medicine, electronic medical records and bar code medication administration,” resulting in “lower quality of care for those who deserve it most.”
“If you look at John McCain’s record on veteran’s issues, it’s a failed one. Not according to me, but according to some of the most respected veterans organizations in America…If his record had prevailed, veterans would have poorer health care and fewer benefits than they have today,” Edwards said.
Palin’s Bad Oil Math
In tonight’s debate, Palin suggested that the “$700 billion” the U.S. spends a year on imported oil (the figure is actually closer to $536 billion) could be replaced by domestic sources. She further claimed that Alaska’s “energy” supply (by which she means only oil) is helping America on the path to energy independence.
But the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler points out that “various government agencies” have concluded that “crude oil production could be increased at most between 1 and 3 million barrels per day, on top of the 5 million barrels a year already produced domestically. The United States currently consumes about 20 million barrels annually, so an expansion of domestic drilling would make barely a dent in that amount unless consumption also is reduced.”
On Energy, Exxon Advises Palin, Palin Advises McCain
On behalf of the oil and natural gas industry, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has opposed federal protections for the polar bear, whose existence is threatened by drilling operations and their global warming pollution. A new report from the Guardian reveals that the “science” Palin relies upon to claim all is hunky dory in Alaska comes from notoriously right-wing flaks funded by Big Oil. It has been previously revealed that Palin suppressed the work of her state’s staff scientists. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington explains Palin’s use of climate change skeptics:
In official submissions to the US government’s consultation on the status of the polar bear, Palin and her team referred to at least six scientists who have questioned either the existence of warming as a largely man-made phenomenon or its severity. One paper was partly funded by the US oil company Exxon Mobil.
Palin’s complaint to the Department of Interior cited the pre-publication Exxon Mobil paper — “Polar bears of western Hudson Bay and climate change” — six times, and even attached a copy. “Polar bears” was eventually published by the obscure Journal of Ecological Complexity, with funding not only by Exxon Mobil, but also the American Petroleum Institute (Big Oil’s lobbying shop), and the Koch Industries money machine:
This paper was authored by Alaskan scientist Markus Dyck, Timothy Ball, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, and David Legates. All but Dyck are notorious climate skeptics with extensive ties to the Exxon-Bush right wing machine. As polar bear biologist Andrew Derocher told the Alaska Daily News, “I would venture to guess that, beyond Markus Dyck, none of them had ever seen a polar bear.”
Six Years After Cheney Said ‘Deficits Don’t Matter,’ The National Debt Hits A 50-Year High
In 2002, Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Bush administration’s economic team met to discuss a second round of tax cuts, which would follow Bush’s 2001 cuts. At the meeting, “then-Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill pleaded that the government — already running a $158 billion deficit — was careening toward a fiscal crisis.” Allegedly, Cheney replied by saying that “deficits don’t matter.”
Six years later, the Bush administration’s consistent belief that deficits don’t matter has increased the national debt to over $10 trillion. This is the highest dollar amount ever, and pushes the debt to 69% of the gross domestic product, which is the highest percentage since 1955.
Bush has presided over the largest increase in the debt of any president in history. When he took office, “the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion.” In eight years, there has been an increase of over 70%.
And the Bush administration has seemingly not learned any lessons from this, as the FY2009 budget had a near-record deficit of $407 billion. This deficit was calculated before the administration spent $900 billion rescuing troubled financial institutions and proposed a $700 billion economic bailout. The bailout bill put forth by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson increased the federal debt ceiling - the amount to which the debt is legally allowed to go - to $11.3 trillion.
As the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities has shown, 42% of the “fiscal deterioration” and explosion of the deficit that occurred under Bush was due to tax cuts:
The key factors have been large tax cuts and increases in security-related programs. For fiscal 2009, some $1 trillion of the $1.3 trillion deterioration in the nation’s fiscal finances stems from policy actions, and tax cuts account for 42 percent of this $1 trillion deterioration.
The conservative practice of cutting taxes while spending millions on wars has led to the largest debt in half a century, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is proposing exactly the same policies. An analysis by the Center for American Progress found that if McCain’s economic plan was in place for eight years, it would leave a debt of $12.7 trillion, besting Bush’s record.
McCain Pays $300 In Health Deductibles, He Wants You To Pay 10 Times More
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is having a hard time finding anyone who agrees with his health care policy. While the campaign claims that McCain’s health care plan “relies on the traditional source of health insurance, which is employers,” analylses by The Tax Policy Center, Health Affairs, and Commonwealth Fund, conclude that under McCain’s proposal to shift more Americans into the individual health insurance market, “the health care cards that you get from your employer, that you keep in your wallet, is at risk.”
At least 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage, but McCain won’t be one of them. As a member of the senate, McCain receives his health care through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP), a health insurance exchange in which “federal employees across the country must use their employer-provided contributions to buy plans selected through the federal government.”
The program allows the senator to tailor his government-funded health insurance to meet his unique needs, and “choose from among Fee-for-Service (FFS) plans, and their Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), or Plans offering a Point of Service (POS) Product, or Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO).”
In fact, McCain probably pays less for health insurance than someone covered under his health insurance plan.
“Currently, the FEHBP plan with the highest enrollment is the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Plan option.” This most popular FEDBP option has significantly lower deductibles and co-payments than a comparable plan in the individual market:
- $300: FEHBP Deductible.
- $2,750: Individual Market Deductible.- $15: FEHBP Co-Payment.
- $29-$37: Individual Market Co-payment.
Admittedly, individual insurance market plans “often have low premiums” — but their high deductibles and other cost-sharking lead to much higher out-of-pocket spending. One analysis of McCain’s plan concluded that his proposal would “lead to reductions in the comprehensiveness of coverage in that market through deregulation, and encourage employer-based coverage to become less generous as well. These changes would have the effect of shifting costs from insurance premiums toward out-of-pocket payments, and people with chronic or acute illnesses would likely incur much higher out-of-pocket health care costs than they do now.”
As Elizabeth Edwards has pointed out, McCain would not be able to find coverage under his own plan. Unfortunately, he also wants Americans to pay more for health care than he does.