Editorial: Rs May Boost Single-Payer

Mitch McConnell seems to resemble Wile E. Coyote in his attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but if the Senate Majority Leader ever succeeds in mustering the bare majority of Republicans to overturn “Obamacare,” which has reduced the percentage of uninsured Americans to historic lows, Democrats should start drumming up public support for implementing Medicare for All at the earliest opportunity.

With only two weeks remaining in the fiscal year, when the authority to repeal “Obamacare” with a simple majority of 51 in the Senate under special budget reconciliation rules expires Sept. 30, Republicans stopped negotiating with Democrats on possible fixes to the ACA and instead brought up another “repeal and replace” bill drafted in secret by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) with no participation by Democrats.

The Graham-Cassidy bill would do away with many of the ACA’s consumer protections and it would eliminate the subsidies ACA provides for insurance coverage for lower middle-class families. The Republicans also would convert much of Medicaid into block grants that would go to each state so state officials could develop their own health care plans.

Neither the White House, nor many senators, knew details of the bill, and a comprehensive report from the Congressional Budget Office was not expected before the Senate voted on it. But, based on the previous repeal-and-replace bills, independent analysts estimated the latest bill would cause 32 million people to lose their insurance by 2026, obliterating the gains made since the ACA was implemented in 2013.

The new repeal-and-reform bill came under fire from a diverse array of critics, including medical associations, insurance lobbyists, hospitals, bipartisan governors across the country, Medicaid directors from all 50 states and late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who has become a prominent critic of Republican efforts to roll back requirements for insurance coverage since his son was born in April with a congenital heart defect.

A report from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) obtained by Axios projects federal health care spending would be $18 billion lower in 2026 under the Republican health care bill than under current law, but that’s on the low end of estimated lost funds. An analysis by the nonpartisan health consulting firm Avalere found that the Medicaid funding caps in the Graham-Cassidy bill would reduce federal funds to states by $215 billion between 2020 and 2026. Within two decades, states would suffer from cuts in federal health care funding of more than $1 trillion.

The bill also would do away with the ACA’s prohibition against insurance companies charging more because of a pre-existing health condition. Despite the assurances by the bill’s authors that the bill protected people with chronic health problems, an analysis by the Center for American Progress found that a 40-year-old diagnosed with metastatic cancer could be forced to pay an additional $140,510 on their annual health premium, while patients with more common conditions, such as diabetes or asthma, could see their premiums double.

The Republican bill would allow insurance companies to resume denying coverage for a series of basic medical treatments, including pregnancy and maternity care; prescription drugs; mental health services; reproductive health services, including birth control; and substance abuse treatment.

Nor were seniors spared. A report from the American Association of Retired Persons found that a 60-year-old earning $25,000 a year could see their premiums and out-of-pocket costs rise by $16,174 if they wanted to keep their current coverage.

The Graham-Cassidy bill would also allow states to charge older adults more by waiving federal protections that limit age rating, a move that the AARP concluded would make insurance “simply unaffordable” for seniors who don’t yet qualify for Medicare.

The Republican bill also could finish off hundreds of rural hospitals that rely on Medicare and Medicaid payments to keep them from shutting their doors. That would leave millions of rural residents isolated from health care.

As we went to press, Republican leaders had reworked the bill to steer more federal funds to Alaska, Arizona and Kentucky in a desperate attempt to gain the votes of Sens. Lisa Murkowski, John McCain and Rand Paul, but Susan Collins of Maine, McCain and Paul announced they still would vote against the bill.

Even if McConnell fails to get the votes to pass the Graham-Cassidy bill under the budget reconciliation rules, Republicans will get another shot at the reconciliation process next year. But that will be an election year, and Republicans would like to put at least a year between the election and their vote to make insurance unaffordable for 32 million potential voters. And a CBS News poll released Sept. 25 found only 20% of Americans support the repeal bill. Most people want Obamacare to be improved, not repealed, as 9% said it should be kept in place and 65% said it has good things but needs changes.

The good news is that any major changes are unlikely to take place until 2020. By that time, voters awakened to Republican perfidy on health care matters can put Democrats in majorities in the House and Senate, where a progressive majority could use the same budget reconciliation rules that Republicans have abused to simply expand Medicare to cover all Americans — and dare Trump to veto it.

Democrats are not going to regain majorities in the House and Senate in 2018 by simply promising the same incremental improvements that have failed to excite voters in the past few elections. Democrats need a net gain of three seats in the Senate to regain the majority, but there are only two Senate Republicans who Democrats have a solid shot at unseating out of eight Republicans up for election next year. At the same time, Democrats must defend 23 Senate seats, in addition to two independents who caucus with them.

The main pickup opportunities for Dems appear to be in Arizona (Jeff Flake) and Nevada (Dean Heller), with a longshot attempt to unseat Ted Cruz in Texas. But Dems will be defending incumbents in states Trump won, including Bill Nelson in Florida, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Jon Tester in Montana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin in West Virginia and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. If Republicans pick up a couple seats in 2018, they could finally repeal “Obamacare” in 2019.

Democrats need to gain 24 seats in the House and, while severe gerrymandering his made the House Republican majority seem nearly invincible, Hillary Clinton carried 23 House districts held by Republicans, and Donald Trump got less than 50% in 17 other districts held by Republicans.

Republicans have spent the last 45 years determined to block Democratic attempts to show that government can help working people and the oligarchs have tried to convince voters that Democrats are not interested in helping white people.

Insurance companies had their chance with the ACA to show they could play a part in providing universal health care, and they failed. It’s time to expand Medicare to cover everybody, as was planned when Medicare was adopted in 1965. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) have filed the bills, we’re already spending twice as much on health care per capita as Canada, with less to show for it, and recent polls show solid majorities of voters support it.

This could be the game-changer that demonstrates a key difference between Democrats, who would improve Social Security and Medicare, and Republicans, whose determination to defund the ACA bows to the demands of wealthy donors to divert funds from Medicaid and insurance subsidies for working families to pay for massive tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2017

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Selections from the October 15, 2017 issue

COVER/Steven Rosenfeld
GOP plows ahead to hijack the vote and rig elections

EDITORIAL
Rs may boost Bernie’s single-payer bill
.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DON ROLLINS
Transportation key to getting out of poverty

RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
No erosion among rural Trump supporters

DISPATCHES
Medicaid cuts could kill rural hospitals;
Repubs seek $1.5T tax cuts;
Puerto Rico desperate while Trump tweets about NFL, NBA;
Polls show voters reject GOP agenda;
Republicans persist with terrible Obamacare repeal bill;
Trump limits access to healthcare.gov during enrollment;
Dems flip GOP seats in OK & NH;
Solar industry braces for giant blow, as Trump gets tariffs;
Climate deniers cheer study that shows Trump policies will destroy America;
Flint had a lead crisis; now it has a fertility crisis 

ART CULLEN
What happened

JILL RICHARDSON
Finding a common language on climate

JOHN YOUNG
Downgrading Hurricane Steve

BOB BURNETT
The aftermath of Hurricane Donald

SAM PIZZIGATI
New data on tax havens and income reveal America’s great divide

BOB LORD
Trump’s tax plan: A billion or three for guys like him

DEDRICK ASANTE-MUHAMMAD & CHUCK COLLINS
Racial inequality is hollowing out America’s middle class

RICHARD ESKOW
Medicare for all can reshape the ‘art of the possible’

JASON SIBERT
People need their own representatives

SETH SANDRONSKY
California community colleges win against corporate reformers

HAL CROWTHER
Statuary offenses

HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
A Scrooge-test: How much did it cost? 

SAM URETSKY
Eternal vigilance is the price of affordable health care

WAYNE O’LEARY
Marble men

JOHN BUELL
Nature as actor

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Let them eat chocolate cake

JOEL D. JOSEPH
Why President Trump should support single-payer health insurance

ROB PATTERSON
Nobel Prize for stolen goods?

SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
You Had Me at 너 한테 쓰레기를 던질거야.

MOVIES/Ed Rampell
‘Shot’ takes aim at gun violence

and more ...

Moral aspect of tax policy: How much do “deserving” rich really deserve? Not as much as they think

By Marc Jampole

As Donald Trump and Republicans roll out their proposal to provide wealthy people with a massive tax cut while giving everyone else a small break or nothing, they are restating that old lie that reducing taxes will make the economy grow so much that tax revenues will be more than before. It wasn’t true when Arthur Laffer proposed it in the late 1970’s and it’s not true now, as the recent experiences in several states show. Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana (no matter how much Republicans and the New York Times try to scrub the numbers) all slashed taxes drastically and ended up with weaker economies and budget shortfalls.

If history is any guide, the Trump-GOP tax cut would be part of a two-part swindle. In the first part, everyone gets their taxes cut—the rich massively so—and in the second part, the poor and middle class get their taxes increased or the benefits they receive from the government cut. The GOP successfully engineered the two-part swindle under a mediocre Hollywood actor. Now they’re trying it again with a reality television star in charge.

All the rightwing arguments in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy are false.They don’t create new jobs. They don’t create much new spending. And, they can lead to a recession if the wealthy put too much of their new largess into bubble-prone assets. As they always do.

But the right wing also has a moral argument in favor of tax cuts and low taxes for the wealthy, which goes something like this: They earned it and they deserve it. The rich certainly don’t deserve to give up their hard-earned money to the undeserving, the lazy and those who didn’t work as hard as they did to get where they are. After all, America is the land of opportunity in which anyone and everyone can climb to the top and make the big bucks. Behind this argument stands a basic tenet of the Protestant ethic: that the good do well and the wicked do poorly. The subtle but subversive power of this argument is that it puts everyone who pays taxes on the side of the wealthy, since all of us deserve to keep as much of our money as possible. We put in the work and we don’t deserve to have our largess stolen by government!!

In the recorded history of self-serving crap, no crap has ever been more self-serving than the idea that the wealthy deserve their wealth because of their talent, education, hard work, drive and general goodness. First of all, much of the success of any given person depends on the economic, physical and social infrastructure that society provides, usually through government spending. The roads, bridges, tunnels, mass transit and airports that a high-tech genius, her employees, vendors and customers use, the public schools that educated her workers, the consistent operation of society which the maintenance of laws and standards of operation, weights, measures and safety ensure, the safety maintained by the police and armed forces, the subsidies to our health care and retirement systems that allow her to pay her employees less. All this and more is what President Obama meant when he inarticulately said, “You didn’t build this.” He really should have said, “Whatever you built would have been impossible without the efforts of the rest of society.”

More significantly, much more of the success of virtually all of us has always resulted from the luck of the draw than from the virtues of the individual. As philosopher Daniel Robinson detailed in Praise and Blame: Moral Realism and Its Applications, luck determines most of our fates, the good and the bad, the successful and the failures.

The factors that affect our fate include:

• Having a wealthy or prominent family.
• Marrying into a wealthy or prominent family.
• Growing up in a family that has not been devastated by poverty, food scarcity, substance abuse, criminality or mental illness.
• Being born with a special skill or more intelligence than the average person. No matter how hard a 5’9’’ male athlete of average speed and strength works on his game, he’s not going to be able to keep up with the 7-foot Shaquille O’Neal.  No matter how much a person of average intelligence studies, he or she won’t be able to keep up with someone with a photographic memory. Shaq did nothing virtuous to attain his size. The genius was likewise born with the photographic memory.
• Being in the right place at the right time, which can mean being the assistant of someone who makes a great discovery or taking a job right out of high school at Apple instead of the post office in the early 1980’s.
• Being born at a time in history when your skill is appreciated or your weakness not a problem. This last point can be illustrated by imagining Willie Mays if he were born into slavery in the first part of the 19th century or Stephen Hawking before the development of motorized and digitized aids for people with physical disabilities.
• Meeting a mentor or someone with connections who will take a special interest in you.
• Not having an accident or dying young in a war or epidemic.

These factors determine not only whether people will achieve wide recognition for their life work, but also the fate of the average person. For example, researchers recently tested Indian sugar cane workers before the harvest when they were broke and after the harvest when they had lots of money. The difference in scores amounted to 9 or 10 points on an I.Q. test, which measures certain intellectual capabilities correlated with success in school and in professional employment.  On an I.Q. test, 9 or 10 points means a lot: for example, about 28% of the population scores between 106-115, while only 9% of the population scores between 116-125. Thus, the physician with an I.Q. of 120 from a wealthy family could work 60 hours a week and earns $400,000, while a lab technician with an I.Q. of 110 whose poor family could not afford SAT prep courses and summer enrichment could work the same 60 hours a week and make $65,000. Who is more deserving of the additional money and respect? Who would get to go to school for more years, score higher on tests, achieve more and make more money if the tables were turned?

One thing that the latest studies on wealth and income inequality have shown is that the United States has very little socio-economic mobility, and less today than ever before. The so-called land where anyone can make it big sees fewer people making it big who weren’t already big than most other industrialized nations.

The concept of the deserving rich and the undeserving poor is therefore built on a fraudulent understanding of the way individuals and society interact. Neither rich nor poor deserve their fates. In a land of abundance, isn’t it up to society to balance the scales and assure that all people have at least a minimum standard of living as defined by healthcare, education, retirement and housing? From the moral point of view, instead of lowering taxes on the wealthy, we should be raising them to help level the playing field. Raising taxes on the wealthy not only makes good economic sense, but also gibes with our basic morality. When the rich advocate for lower taxes to be paid for by cutting social programs and infrastructure investment, they are behaving out of pure anti-social selfishness.

If you want mainstream media to like your book on American decline, blame the 60’s. Fantasyland latest to do so

By Marc Jampole

It seems as if no social critic can get a fair hearing in the mass media unless she-he blames it on the sixties. If you Google the expression “blame it on the sixties,” you summon up references to a wide range of articles and books in which experts and pundits blame a variety of current social and economic problems on changes in the attitudes, customs and mores of the 1960’s. My perusal of the first three pages of search results found the 1960’s and early 1970’s faulted for the rise in child abuse, our economic decline, political correctness, the vote in the Electoral College for Donald Trump, the increase in obesity, crime and growing drug abuse.

You’d think that most of the sixties-haters would be religious and social conservatives, because, say what you will about that decade, it did witness the sexual revolution that led to more open attitudes and greater social acceptance of sexual rights for women and all kinds of sexual experiences between all kinds of people. But as it turns out, a substantial number of sixties critics are self-flagellating liberals, you know, pundits who claim to be liberal but butter their bread by always blaming liberals for their own predicament. For example, after the election, a slew of Democrats blamed Clinton’s loss on the Democrats depending too much on “identity politics,” i.e., caring about civil rights. With friends like that…

The latest liberal self-flagellator to blame the sixties for the deplorable state of the world is novelist and journalist Kurt Andersen, in his glib and often superficial Fantasyland. Anderson’s description of today’s American Fantasyland is attractive and largely accurate. The insidious spread of fake news; the new level of lying by politicians; the basing of social and economic policy on disproven or bad science; the great numbers of Americans who believe in demons, the absolute existence of a god with male features and/or a literal interpretation of the Judeo-Christian genesis myth; the large number of adults whose lives revolve around electronic games, comic book superheroes, cosplay and other escapist fare; the climate change deniers, the evolution deniers, the birthers—these snapshots of the irrational are but a sampling of the evidence that Andersen musters to show that current American society is based on lies and myths, that we surround ourselves with fantasy.

Andersen is also right when he asserts that fantasy has played a major role in American society since the search for the Northwest Passage and the Salem witch trials. His history of irrational thought in America reads like an outline or a greatest hits list: each major figure in an irrational movement or trend gets a paragraph or so. For readers who want to delve into the long history of irrational thought in America, Fantasyland can serve as a syllabus that sends you to the right people and primary sources to read.

But the third part of Andersen’s thesis—that the sixties marked a turning point, after which instead of being a peripheral trend, irrationality took center stage—is dead wrong.

In sixties terminology, Andersen’s mistake is to conflate “do your own thing” with “believe your own thing.” Yes, a lot of people believed in some pretty weird stuff in the 1960’s. Like the First (1730-1740) and Second (1800-1860) Great Awakenings and the Roaring Twenties, the sixties saw an uptick in interest in the occult and the irrational. But lots of the doing of your own thing in the sixties and early seventies involved overthrowing old myths and lies and asserting the truth of empirical science, such as the anti-Vietnam War, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, environmental, anti-nuclear, organic gardening and sustainable living movements. All products of a very rational sixties. And in every case, it was the government or the majority of those with influence who were living in a fantasy.

Andersen takes particular note of the rise of the Pentecostal movement and televangelism in the 1960’s. True enough, but morality is not inherently contra-factual. Morality motivated a lot of the antiwar activists and poverty workers. Remember, too, that a Christian left and right wing have existed in this country since at least the abolitionist movement got its start. Even if we accept the core beliefs of the Christian right wing that have persisted for at least 140 years, a rise in a concern for moral issues doesn’t in and of itself suggest the society is entering a fantasyland. I can be against a woman’s right to control her body for moral reasons and still be living in the real world. I enter Fantasyland only when I believe that an abortion causes future health problems, that life begins at conception or that vaccines cause autism.

All of society bases part of its existence on fantastic notions, typically related to ethnic superiority, national character, religion and the convenience of rich folk. Certainly since Columbus made his voyages, religious and irrational beliefs have harmed the United States. Our economy before the 1860’s was largely based on the myth that Africans were inferior people who needed the white man’s guidance and therefore benefited from slavery. What about the medical, economic and social impact of the myths that led to the anti-marijuana laws of the 1930’s? TR, Henry Cabot Lodge and William Randolph Hearst shoveled a lot of bull hockey at Americans to build support for the Spanish-American War and our later atrocities in the Philippines. I would like to prove that the inflection point at which belief overran rationality was during the Reagan era, when so many edifices of lies were built and then used to justify horrific policies; lies and myths such as welfare queens, supply side economics, the failure of government, the failure of public schools and the benefits of the unimpeded free market. But reading history books like Stephen Kinzer’s The True Flag about the Spanish-American War epoch and Matthew Karp’s This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy about pre-Civil War U.S. foreign policy demonstrates that the Bush II and the current administrations aren’t the first times the United States has been run by a band of reality-denying ignoramuses guided by myths with no basis in reality and representing a sizable minority but not all the people.  

If we, as I do, place primary blame for the growth of the American Fantasyland on the increase of lies and myths knowingly perpetrated by the news media, we can’t really locate in the 1960’s the inflection point after which fantasies begin to dominate the media and, by inference, American society. Since the original scandal sheets and yellow journalism of the Gilded Age, mass media has been growing inexorably, and as it does, so has the ubiquity of advertising, the focus on celebrity and the increase in myths being presented as truth—in commercials, by televangelists, well-funded rightwing think tanks and rightwing television and radio, on alt-right and UFO websites, in social media and fake news. Let’s look at some of major events in the history of media’s creation of Fantasyland: yellow journalism emerged at the end of 19th century, free market commercial radio developed in the 1920’s, the first radio evangelists started broadcasting in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the rise of commercial television and the beginning of the right wing creating alternative distribution channels for their myths occurred in the 1950’s, the federal law that allowed companies to own more TV and radio stations passed in the 1980’s, rightwing radio was born in the 1990’s, the Internet was the 2000’s, the Citizens United decision in 2010. You get the idea.

Why then blame the 1960’s? We would have to read into Kurt Andersen’s heart to know the answer as it pertains toFantasyland. I am, however, quite confident that the larger phenomenon of blaming the 1960’s (and early 1970’s) for every social and economic ill since then results from the mass media applying a screen: Blame the sixties—we like it; blame another decade—reject the article! For the most part rich folk who like the status quo own the mass media and the companies which support media outlets with advertising. While rich folk include a spectrum of beliefs from left-leaning to ultra-right (there are very few socialists of any ilk among this group), they mostly lean right and mostly want to protect the prerogatives of the wealthy.

And they don’t like the true story of what happened in the sixties: It was the absolute high point for equality of wealth and income in U. S. history and the high point of union power (if not of union membership, which occurred in the 1950’s). While not the inflection point for American irrationality, it certainly was for the movement to provide equal rights in courts, the marketplace and workplace to all Americans—plenty happened afterwards, but the turning point certainly came in the 1960’s with the maturing of the Civil Rights movement and the start of other inclusion movements. The 1960’s thus represent the start of the threat to the special position of white males.

In other words, the real “evil” of the 1960’s is not that it created an American Fantasyland, or that it led to a decline in morals or educational standards or the work ethic. No, what the mass media hates about the 1960’s is that for a few brief years we saw a way to institute a true social democracy in a fairly equitable society with a fairly level playing field, kind of like the model developed in Europe after World War II. The Reaganites saw another way, but to make it work, they had to denigrate the real ideals of the sixties—government spending to solve social problems, a level playing field that did not favor individuals of any group, the importance of ending poverty and giving people a hand up, enlightened stewardship of natural resources, a foreign policy not dependent on America bullying other nations. These core beliefs—all based on facts and science—contradict everything the right stands for. Thus the desire, even today, to blame everything on the 1960’s.

I stopped reading novels about writers or university teachers about 30 years ago. I think it might be time to stop reading books that blame the 60’s.

Kudos to protesting players. Part of being role model is standing up for important causes. Trump doesn’t get it

By Marc Jampole

The hundreds of professional football players who protested during the singing of the national anthem at football games this week were making three messages:

1. The original meaning of Colin Kaepernick’s lonely protest in favor of social justice: that the flag also stands for the continued oppression of minorities.
2. In protest against Donald’s Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, sexist and autocratic statements and actions.
3. A reminder to the NFL that no team has yet to give Kaeperick a tryout this year.

While all three messages are consistent with American ideals, the later also resonates with the free market ideology that the ruling elite believes and tells us goes hand in hand with democracy and personal freedom. The market is not supposed to discriminate. The market is supposed to reward the best. For all we know, Kaepernick is washed up from all the beatings his injury-prone body has taken. On the other hand, I understand that while on the field last year, the guy threw 16 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. Those are great numbers for a starter, and for a back-up, they are incredible. He definitely has the pedigree and recent performance to deserve a try-out.
That’s the level playing field that sports is supposed to be about. Athletes are taught that during the game they are not supposed to care about what happens off the field: your teammate is your teammate and the best guy plays the position. The only thing that matters is who can throw and catch the ball the best, run the best, tackle the best, coordinate with other players the best. Who is the fastest, strongest, quickest, most accurate. The level playing field—a myth in the real world—operates most effectively in the fantasy world that is professional sports. If businesses and executives so often use sports metaphors, it’s because they would like us to think that the virtues of sports—hard work, the level playing field, team spirit and practice—rule in the real world. Of course, the hard-working poor and middle class of the past forty years might disagree. So would the owner of the company that lost that first big contract to the inferior technology Microsoft offered because the loser’s mother wasn’t on the board of IBM.

What’s interesting about the message to Trump is that Trump has taken a traditional management position, but in such an overtly racist way that management can’t agree with him without risking alienating the players. Trump and the other White Housers who have commented essentially are saying that the athletes should shut up and do their job. Yes-suh and No-suh, yes’m and no’m. I don’t agree with that idea. We demand that professional athletes be role models, and part of being a role model is speaking your mind when you see injustice and lending your trusted and recognized voice to important causes. On the other hand, management asking an athlete to remain silent is not inherently racist, only un-American. Trump makes it racist by exclusively going after minority players. He makes it racist by going after a player whose so-called transgression was to protest racism. He makes it racist by his use of language and code words. In the case of the entirely inappropriate “son of a bitch” quote, Trump also demonstrates his total lack of understanding of the sports world. I have heard “son of a bitch” and SOB used by an athlete or coach innumerable times about whites, blacks, Hispanics and even a Chinese left fielder, but only in admiration of an opponent, as in “that sumabitch hit my best fast curve ball.” Management never wants to run its own sons of bitches off the playing field, just the other guy’s!

My own personal view is that the main purpose of singing the “Star Spangled Banner,” a war song from the early 19th century, at sporting events is to give people something to protest. At heart, it is a jingoistic and war-mongering custom meant to brainwash patriotism into us. Until Kaepernick, I had long advocated ending the singing of this musical monstrosity before games. Until 2001, I would sit with my hat on during the pseudo ceremony. Now I just stand there, hands at my side, and look at my feet silently, afraid to enrage another fan. But I’m fantasizing a scenario in which athletes engage in more and more elaborate protests during the singing of the national anthem, dividing the country and affecting attendance. People in the stands start to participate, too, maybe by not singing. Rather than keep the controversy alive, one team will experiment with no having the anthem, maybe replacing it by rotating the singing of uplifting sectarian songs such as “Imagine” and “If I Had a Hammer.” After an initial wave of protest against ending the anthem, maybe things will settle down and more teams will end the practice. The announcer will merely cry out “play ball” and the game will begin…

But the television blare of the national anthem before the Yankee game jerks me awake from my day dream of an anthemless sporting world. Uh, oh. The game is about to start. Where’re my grapes? I suddenly realize that the real function of singing the national anthem is to give the folks at home an extended break to go to the bathroom and get a snack and drink.

A new Contract with America: economic equity, health care for all, integrated quality public schools, reduced military

By Marc Jampole

During the heat of the 1994 mid-term elections some 23 years ago, Republican Congressional Representatives Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey rolled out their Contract with America, a pledge to pursue a conservative legislative agenda once the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives. The Contract listed eight reforms the Republicans promised to enact and ten bills they promised to bring to the floor. The proposed legislation was typical conservative claptrap: require balanced budgets; institute harsher criminal sentences; end welfare; cut payments to the United Nations; and, as always, cut taxes on the wealthy. Interestingly enough, social conservatives did not seem to have a hand in the making of the contract, which was free of any anti-choice or other divisive social issues. After the Republicans wiped out the Democrats in November of 1994, they were able to pass some of the Contract’s proposal, but not all of it.

Despite its mixed success, the Contract with America was a significant symbolic victory for conservatives in their thirty-year war to install an economic and political regime that benefits the wealthy. The Contract set the stage for all political discussion until well into the Great Recession. Conservatives still espouse many of its false notions, such as the idea that tax breaks on the wealthy create more jobs. But most importantly, it has served as a proud and palpable symbol of conservative principles. Not so much anymore, but for years, Republicans would pledge to the Contract as a means to demonstrate their sincerity and commitment to the movement. The Contract became conservatism, as Marshall McLuhan predicted might occur when he said in the 1960’s that the medium was the message.

Since the election, I have been thinking a lot about the Contract with America. The Democrats should revive the idea and present a 21st Century Contract. By becoming a touchstone for Democratic candidates, a new Contract could establish the terms of public debate looking forward, especially in light of Trump’s splintering of Republican solidarity and the emergence of economic equity as an issue.

I’ve taken a hand at creating a first draft of a 21st century contract. It aggressively advances the idea of European democratic socialism, but it takes into account the views of all contemporary Democrats, except for those with heavy ties to the financial industry or who have forgotten the central importance of trade unions in creating a fair, just and equitable society. My contract addresses just about every issue facing Americans except the spiraling cost of higher education, although putting this contract into law will mitigate that problem to a large extent.

Here is the contract. I intend to send it to my Senators and Congressional representative and demand they make the pledge. I ask my gentle readers to follow suit.

THE NEW CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

If elected to office, I pledge aggressively to support legislation to:

• Create a more equitable distribution of wealth and income.
• Ensure that all Americans have the basics that all humans deserve, including education, health care and a secure retirement.
• Create real opportunity for all people, regardless of race, religion, sex, beliefs or economic class by creating a level playing field.
• Protect the environment for our children by mitigating the effects of climate change and transitioning to a sustainable economy and society.

To achieve these objectives, I will support the following specific legislative actions:

1. Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and remove all current exemptions, including for farm workers and interns.
2. Remove the cap on income assessed the Social Security tax.
3. Reform the federal income tax system to raise more revenue from the wealthy, who have gotten a free ride for three decades, as follows:

• Increase the number of individual tax brackets and tax the highest bracket—income over $1.0 million—at 70%
• End the lower capital gains tax except for investment in initial public offerings of stocks.
• End the carried interest deduction.
• Increase the federal tax on gasoline by one dollar and earmark 75% of it to the development of rail-based mass transit within and between cities and the rest to maintenance of highways, bridges and sewers.

4. Replace the exchanges for individual health insurance with Medicare coverage (the so-called public option) for anyone lacking health insurance coverage through work or Medicaid.
5. Replace district public school funding with statewide funding that provides all public schools with the same amount per student and redistrict schools to promote integration.
6. Pass a new omnibus Civil Rights law which explicitly protects the rights of LGBTQ people; gives ex-cons the right to vote; ends Jim Crow sentencing laws; directs all states wishing to receive any federal funds to extend voting hours and end voter ID laws; and mandates equal pay for women and minorities for the same job with the same experience.
7. Outlaw state right-to-work laws and all charter schools run by for-profit organizations or that hire non-union staff when the local public school is unionized.
8. Give legal citizenship to all “dreamers” immediately and create a path to citizenship that takes no longer than five years to any undocumented immigrant who can prove residency before 2016.
9. End all federal and state subsidies for oil & gas exploration and production and nuclear electricity generation and redirect the funds to supporting the development of wind and solar energy and technologies for cleaning up the environment.
10. Cut the military budget to $400 billion a year and end all funds for the development of newer nuclear weapons or automated (robot) weapons.

Trump acts and talks like a stand-up comic, but the joke is on the American people

By Marc Jampole

At first listen, Donald Trump’s speaking style when he eschews the teleprompter seems chaotically free form, as if he tossed a few dozen tweets and sound bites into one of his “Make America Great Again” caps and picked a few out, one at a time, not bothering to supply connective material or an overarching direction. But there is a method to Trump’s rhetorical madness—a tried and true method that has been around since at least the British music halls of the 19th century.

It’s called stand-up comedy, a style of public speaking with which voters are familiar from late night comedy shows and prime time specials, a style which generally makes its live and broadcast audiences feel good because it makes them laugh, even when the comic is discussing something serious or infuriating. Talking like a stand-up comic may be as significant a part of Trump’s appeal to his core as his nativism, racism, misogyny and isolationism.

Most elected officials and candidates use the same speaking style, which after salutations and a short joke follows a basic three-part structure: 1) Tell them what you’re going to say; 2) Say it; 3) Tell them what you just said. Within that overall framework, the typical political speech will go from issue to issue. In each part of the speech, the speaker will employ a rather limited set of rhetorical devices: using more words than are necessary as opposed to speaking directly; referencing a mix of anecdotes and isolated statistics; and hedging bets with such weaselly phrases as “anticipate” “start to address” and “return to American traditions.” The speaker typically builds tension through repetition, especially of the first few words of a sentence, as exemplified by Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream…” speech. For example, in a speech warning of the danger of electing about Trump that Hillary Clinton made in June 2016, she repeated “He said…” to begin a series of five sentences in a row, and later repeated “It’s no small thing…” to begin three sentences in a row. In a typical stump speech, Bernie Sanders would embed the emphatic rendering of the simple phrase, “we are going to” in four or five sentences in a row.

Except for the use of anecdotes and statistics, both often fabricated, Donald Trump rejects this standard stump speech style in favor of stand-up comedy.

We can identify several characteristics of stand-up comedy that Trump has repurposed for the political arena. First and foremost is the lack of a recognizable formal structure in Trump’s rants. The contemporary comic for the most part doesn’t tell traditional jokes, but rambles from topic to topic, free form and without apparent goal, occasionally telling a story or saying something funny or zinging a sacred cow or well-known human foible. You never have the feeling that the contemporary comic is scripted, but rather speaking a spontaneous stream of consciousness rap. And yet she-he manages always to tell the same jokes and even sling the same insults at audience members in all routines. Doesn’t that sound like Trump? For Trump, the jokes are the insults, the zingers, the boasts, the false facts, the inaccurate characterizations and the unrealistic promises. Instead of starting with the standard “Great to be here,” Trump will often begin in the middle of an anecdote, sometimes even borrowing the “A funny thing happened on my way to the show” joke that begins many classic stand-up comedy routines. For example, the first words of his speech of his victory tour, in North Carolina, were “So the weather was really bad, really bad, and they said, ‘You know these are great people in North Carolina. They won’t mind.’ No, but they said, ‘they won’t mind, sir, if you canceled and made it another time.’ And I said, what?”

The contemporary comic will take a complex social issue, reduce it to one or two points which will be inflammatory but not necessarily salient and then melt away our anxiety with simplistic, often aggressive and senseless exhortations. Lewis Black and Chris Rock both take this approach. Doesn’t it also sound like what Trump has done to many issues, for example, reducing the complexities illegal immigration to building a wall and the fight against terrorism to limiting immigration from Muslim countries?

Stand-up comics frequently find humor in playing on stereotypes or insulting people.

Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock, Ron White, they all reduce people to stereotypes consisting of one or two traits, and then make funny remarks or tell stories that exemplify those traits. It’s what Trump does to issues and to other politicians—“Crooked Hillary,” “Lying Ted, “Little Marco.” While some comedians, such as Don Rickles, Dom Irrera and Lisa Lampanelli, built their routines entirely around insults, most will throw in at least some name-calling, sometimes of the audience, sometimes of well-known people, sometimes of themselves. Insult humor is also a mainstay of situation comedies like “Big Bang Theory,” “Two Broke Girls,” “Everybody Love Raymond” and “Two and a Half Men,” for example.

In stereotyping people, stand-up comics will often briefly leave their own persona by changing their voice and body movements to imitate another person. A wide range of comics will play several parts in their routines, from Bill Cosby to Chris Rock. Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher often breaks into their respective versions of Trump’s voice for a sentence or two. A few extremely gifted mimics like Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams have built their entire routines going from character to character. Some of Trump’s most notorious moments occur when he is briefly playing another person, such as his imitation of a reporter with a physical disability. Trump imitated others in the North Carolina speech referenced above. No other politician of recent vintage would dare take on the voice and gestures of another person.

The contemporary comic is self-referential, either drawing from her or his own life or interrupting a thought process to refer to her or himself—how the performance is going, why something makes the performer angry, the effect of current events on the comic’s personal life or something else just as extraneous to the topic at hand. Those who believe that Trump is unqualified for office because of his instability often cite his extreme narcissism as a character flaw. Many of his lies stem from an irrational desire to self-aggrandize. His early speeches after the inauguration, to the Central Intelligence Agency and members of the military, started with and returned often to his personal issues—poll and voting results and insults he may or may not have hurled. There are many comics who focus on themselves, from Jack Benny to Rodney Dangerfield on to Elaine Boosler, Wendy Liebman, Amy Schumer, Lewis Black and Jeff Foxworthy, among myriad others.

Other than talk-show hosts who pretty much deliver jokes in the tradition of Bob Hope, most contemporary stand-up comedians play a comic character that is a well-known stereotype. There are red-neck comedians like Ron White, Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy. Wendy Liebman and Sarah Silverman are promiscuous Jewish-American princesses. Chris Tucker is an angry black man. Amy Schumer is always a party girl. George Lopez plays a series of Hispanic stereotypes and D. J. Hughley and Eddy Murphy play a series of African-American stereotypes. Playing a role is a cherished tradition of stand-up comedy: Jack Benny was a miser. Red Skelton was a clown. Lenny Bruce was a hipster; Cheech and Chong were dopesters. Irwin Corey was a gasbag.

Trump plays a stereotype character whose roots go back to the Italian commedia dell’arte in the Renaissance. But every comic type with origins of a thousand years will have many manifestations. The left, Democrats, many centrists and the mainstream news media see one version of the classic type upon which Trump has modeled, subconsciously or not, his public person. But Trump supporters saw a different version, comic to be sure, but also heroic.

At essence, Trump is Pantalone—the older, wealthy man, often vain, often a lecher, often a bully, often pompous and ignorant, who usually gets his comeuppance in commedia dell’arte skits, sometimes even wearing the horns of a cuckold. Moliere’s “bourgeois gentleman” is the classic example of this comic type. A friendlier, sunnier and definitely de-sexed precursor to Trump was Ted Baxter of the Mary Tyler Moore show, played by Ted Knight.

Most of the intelligentsia across the political spectrum view Trump as the know-nothing buffoon version of Pantalone, the bourgeois gentleman who thinks he knows more than the dancing, speaking, music and other experts he has hired to aggrandize his reputation, or perhaps a Ted Baxter as a sexual predator.

To New Yorkers, Trump has long been a puffed-up and vain buffoon—a wealthy fool, someone with a lot of money but no taste. Before running for president, the properties he built were garish. His private life exemplified what used to be called the “nouveau riche,” those who have money but spend it tastelessly and foolishly. His “Apprentice” TV show was a parody version of the business world, his gruff and insulting style a parody of a type of executive who is not all that prevalent nowadays, certainly not among public companies responsible to shareholders.

But the rich and pampered oaf is not what his followers saw in Trump. To Trump voters, he was the Rodney Dangerfield and Jackie Mason characters of the two Caddyshack movies of the 1980’s that are still frequently aired on a number of broadcast and cable stations. Both play extremely rich white males who made their money at least partially in real estate development. Their vulgarity, apparent ignorance of social etiquette and kind treatment of the “hired help” turn them into average Joes who are breaking down the barriers of elite institutions. Viewers may laugh at Dangerfield and Mason as they commit social faux pas or make ridiculous statements, but we treat them as heroes who upend the social order for the good of the whole when they insult, trick or defeat pompous and snobby rich folk. There is no difference in what the audience feels for these rich disrupters in the Caddyshack movies from what supporters feel about Donald Trump. In the numerous interviews with core Trump supporters since the election, they forgive his vulgarity and stumbling as part and parcel of his outsider status.

How much has Trump’s stand-up comic style contributed to his success in connecting with enough former Democratic voters to win an electoral majority? Did delivering his nativist, racist, misogynist messages like a comic serve to enhance his dystopic ejaculations? It certainly made them seem “funny” to those who despise so-called “political correctness,” but did his voters respond to the jokes positively, or would Trump have won by a greater margin if he had delivered his material in the traditional style that characterized every other candidate on the campaign trail this year?

The very fact that Trump’s language and rhetoric so little resembles the standard fare certainly contributes to the view that he is a disrupter. That he distills his messages into short statements—be they insults, lies or simplifications—make them easy to remember, transmit on social media and use in television news, which now favors quotes of less than ten seconds. His performance might steal a movie satire of elections. On the other hand, the news media treats his rally speeches and early morning tweet rant as manifestations of instability, inexperience and ignorance.

We can’t really know whether his performance helped him win the election unless a progressive Democrat attempts the same approach. I’m certain that any number of Hollywood and New York comedy writers would love to help a candidate of the left try the stand-up style.

Meanwhile, we can anticipate that Trump is going to ramp up campaign style rallies to rile his base as his ratings continue to tumble and he continues to implement unpopular policies and made racist, sexist and otherwise distasteful statements. Like any stand-up comedian, Trump loves the immediate applause, the laughs and the hoots, the love and attention unmediated by polls, computers, experts or media spins. It’s the love of attention that has Trump now actively seeking deals with the Democrats.

Like any professional comic, Trump’s inventiveness feeds off the audience response. Playing to live audiences will therefore likely incite Trump to make more of the type of embarrassing and ignorant statements that marred his campaign and that he has continued to make in the first year of his administration. In the best case scenarios, Trump or others walk back the assertions he makes via Twitter, news conferences and large rallies by twisting the meaning, denying he said it or quietly restating long-standing American policy. We have already seen this dynamic play out again and again—with North Korea, Charlottesville, transgender military service, Israeli settlements and the one China policy. The worst case scenario, as may happen with DACA, has Trump turn a federal department on its head to implement a legally suspect executive order that hurts individuals and the economy, all so that Trump can say he delivers on a promise he makes in his large tent meetings.

In other words, Trump may talk and and act like a stand-up comedian, but the joke is on the American people and the world.

If the goal is a strong economy, tax reform should lower taxes on poor & raise them on wealthy

By Marc Jampole

Politicians of both parties seem to take for granted the idea that a tax cut leads to economic growth and more jobs. As it turns out, they are only half right. Tax cuts to the poor and middle class lead to growth and jobs. Tax cut on the wealthy create no new jobs and generate no new economic growth.

One reason for this phenomenon is that poor and middle class people spend more of the extra money produced by a tax cut and save little, if any, of it. By contrast, the upper middle class and wealthy will save most of the additional money, typically burying it in deep holes that have no real impact on job creation except when a burst bubble leads to massive layoffs—in stocks on the secondary market, artwork, collectables, real estate and other non-productive investments. Remember that when you buy a share of IBM or Apple, not one penny goes to the company to expand or develop; the company only collects from selling the initial sale of a stock offering.

To understand the other reason that raising taxes on the wealthy creates jobs and economic growth, compare the spending and saving patterns of all people and the government. Poor folk spend a lot, save a little. Even the most spendthrift of rich folk eventually run out of things to buy and end up burying their money in non-productive assets. But the government spends every dollar we send it—circulating trillions of dollars back into the economy by sending checks to millions of individuals and businesses. That spending grows the economy and creates jobs.

While paying a bit more in taxes than a few years ago thanks to Obamacare taxes and the unwinding of some Bush II tax cuts, the wealthy are still paying much less in taxes than they did in the golden age of the American economy, approximately 1945-1975. Compared to other industrialized democracies since the beginning of the 20th century, the current rich in the United States pay historically low rates and amounts.

Economists have discovered that one beneficial side effect of high tax rates on the wealthy is that it leads to greater equity in income and wealth. When the highest incremental tax rate was 90%, executives had less incentive to pay themselves large salaries and so plowed more of their company’s earnings into R&D and salaries and benefits for other employees. As top individual tax rates declined—from Kennedy to Reagan to Bush II—the salaries of top execs soared, while those of everyone else stagnated or diminished. In the 1960’s, for every dollar the average factory worker made, the average chief executive officer made $42. By the 21st century, the ratio exploded to anywhere from $340 to $540 paid to every CEO for a dollar paid to factory workers, depending on the year. In Europe, by the way, the ratio is a much lower 25 to 1! Thus by raising taxes on the wealthy, we will not only give the government more money to spend on education, healthcare, infrastructure, alternative energy development and the social safety net, we will also encourage large companies to invest more and give more to employees, which will grow the economy and reverse decades of growing wealth inequality.

Donald Trump and Republicans are clamoring for a cut in the corporate tax rate. While the rate is high, with all the loopholes and deductions corporations are paying less now than they did 20, 30 and 40 years ago, and, depending on the survey you see, about the same or a little less than corporations pay in the rest of the developed world. It’s those loopholes we have to look at. Which of them serve a policy end and which merely make it easier for corporations to reduce their taxes? Take the social policy of protecting the environment and transitioning to renewable energy. Our current corporate loopholes and deductions heavily favor oil and gas exploration and use. We would be much better off ending all subsidies to the oil and gas industry and replacing them with greater incentives to develop and use alternative energy and pollution-lowering devices and systems. In the end, whatever the set corporate tax rate and systems of deductions, the real rate corporations pay should rise a little, and certainly not be lowered.

One of the big lies of right-wing economic policy is that Americans pay more in taxes than most other countries of the world. We pay very low taxes when compared to the rest of the developed world. The Tax Foundation found that the total tax burden faced by average wage earners in the United States is 31.7 percent of their pretax earnings, which 24th highest of the 35 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), far below the 34-country average of 35.9 percent. Maybe that explains why most of the rest of the industrialized countries have universal health care, better kept roads, more extensive mass transit systems, lower-cost higher education and better retirement plans. According to the Tax Policy Center, total U.S. tax revenue—individual and corporate—now equals 26% of gross domestic product, well below the 34% average for developed countries.

If the goal is to transfer wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, than the best tax reform is to lower taxes on the wealthy, like Trump and the Republicans seem to want to do.

If, however, the goal is to create more jobs, improve the economy and invest in our future, we should keep taxes as they are on the poor and much of the middle class and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Editorial: Let Our Dreamers Stay

It remains to be seen whether the hurricanes that ravaged the Texas and Florida Gulf coasts will cause Donald Trump to reconsider his dismissal of the effects of climate change. But it might give Trump a pretext to rethink his campaign promises to expand the wall along the length of the US border with Mexico and his determination to expel the children of undocumented immigrants who have remained in the United States under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

Trump is capable of mental gymnastics to justify whatever he really wants to do. On Sunday, Sept. 10, Trump cited Hurricane Irma, which had just made landfall in Florida, as his rationale to ask Congress “for a speed up” on his proposed tax cuts for the wealthy.

“We will discussing our plan for dramatic tax cuts and tax reform. And I think now with what’s happened with the hurricane, I’m going to ask for a speed-up,” Trump told his cabinet at Camp David. “I wanted a speed-up anyway but now we need it even more so.”

There was no need for a tax cut before the hurricanes hit the Texas and Florida Gulf coasts. If anything, the federal government needs more revenue to pay for infrastructure improvements, including seawalls and other protections against flooding and higher winds as a result of climate change. And Republicans who voted against $15 billion in emergency appropriations to address needs in Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast because they objected to further driving up the national debt now have no excuse for supporting tax cuts that will increase the debt even further.

The grassroots resistance to Trump has bolstered Democrats’ determination to oppose Republican plans to repeal Obamacare, build a border wall and “reform” the tax code, which would give more advantages to corporations and the rich at the expense of the working poor. Republicans have yet to offer anything but broad concepts on tax reform and many oppose the border wall. And that was before Trump threw Republican leaders for a loop Sept. 6, when he agreed with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to accept a three-month fix on spending and the debt ceiling and a six-month stay of execution on the order to deport as many as 800,000 young “Dreamer” immigrants.

The tax “reform” bill would require a 60-vote supermajority, as long as Senate Republicans keep the filibuster rule on legislation — and many Republican senators want to keep the filibuster because they prefer to let Democrats save them from casting record votes on some of the crazy ideas House Republicans send them.

Trump has given the Republican Congress an ultimatum: Pass a bill within six months that replaces DACA, or Trump will decide whether to scrap the program and start deporting those young would-be Americans. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly pressed Trump to end DACA. House Speaker Paul Ryan has promised a fix, but nativist Republicans such as Steve King (R-Iowa) are vowing to stop anything that looks like amnesty.

In the meantime, US immigration agents continue to round up and deport undocumented immigrants, as well as women and children who have fled murderous gangs and narco-terrorism in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The presence of millions of undocumented immigrants in the US continues to enrage Americans who have seen high-paying industrial jobs moved to Mexico or overseas. As they see it, they have to compete with immigrants who are willing to work for lower wages. But middle-aged white men who don’t want to compete with young Dreamers for minimum-wage jobs at $7.25 an hour should support an increase in the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour and focus their complaints on the corporate executives who look to Mexico or overseas for lower-wage workers to increase their corporate profits. And despite the statement by Sessions, in announcing Trump’s decision to rescind DACA, that the program “denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same jobs to go to illegal aliens” stretches the truth, as the Department of Labor reported a 4.4% unemployment rate in August, which is considered full employment, particularly since a record six million jobs remain unfilled in the US. We need immigrants to work on farms and nursing homes, mow lawns, clean hotels and bus tables at restaurants, and do other jobs that Americans won’t do, at least not for the minimum wage.

It is ironic, of course, that many farmers who voted for Trump now find it hard to hire field hands, as ICE agents go after undocumented immigrants. We’ll need all hands available, including undocumented immigrants, to help rebuild cities on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Southern Florida.

Sessions also argued that ending DACA “protects taxpayers,” which is inaccurate since undocumented workers pay taxes but don’t get access to most social welfare programs. DACA recipients and other undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal means-tested welfare, such as cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid or most other federally funded programs, but the Social Security Administration estimated in 2014 that unauthorized immigrant workers paid $13 billion in payroll taxes in 2010, its most recent estimate. If the immigrants aren’t paying federal taxes, it’s because their employers are not withholding those taxes. Go after them.

Nichole Chavez reported at CNN Sept. 6 that DACA recipients have paid $2 billion in state and local taxes, but they are not eligible for Medicaid. In seven states they do not qualify for lower tuition as state residents, but they must have at least a high-school degree to enter the program and 36% of DACA recipients older than 25 have a bachelor’s degree while another 32% are pursuing a bachelor’s degree, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

“The NAS finds that among recent immigrants who entered as children, those with a high school degree are positive to the government, to the tune of $60,000 to $153,000 in net present value, meaning it’s like each immigrant cutting a check for that amount at the door. For those with a bachelor’s degree, it’s a net positive of $160,000 to $316,000. Each DACA permit canceled is like burning tens of thousands of dollars in Washington,” David Bier of the Cato Institute wrote in the Washington Post Sept. 7.

Sessions also claimed that DACA repeal “saves lives” and “protects communities,” and he implied that DACA “put our nation at risk of crime.” But DACA participants are not criminals, Bier noted. “Unauthorized immigrants — the applicant pool for DACA — are much less likely to end up in prison ... More important, to participate in DACA, applicants must pass a background check. They have to live here without committing a serious offense. If they are arrested, DACA can be taken away even without a conviction.”

The Senate in June 2013 passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill 68-32, as 14 Republicans joined the then-Democratic majority. The bill, proposed a pathway to legal status and eventually citizenship for undocumented residents with otherwise clean records, as well as more resources for border security, but not a bigger wall along the US-Mexico border. Teabaggers prevented the bill from coming up for a House vote, and that failure in the House prompted Obama to order DACA.

Congress should pass a law formalizing the DACA provisions, but they also should dust off the 22013 immigration reform bill and put it forward again. It could easily pass the Senate and it would pass the House if House Speaker Paul Ryan denies the teabaggers’ veto of bipartisan legislation. We don’t need a border wall, certainly not as long as there are cities along the Gulf Coast — as well as the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — that desperately need infrastructure improvements to survive the next few decades of rising sea levels and fiercer storms induced by climate change. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2017

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