More Tea Parties - Please

The domination of the right in Republican primaries is one of the reasons the party is losing its appeal to the growing contingent of independent voters, a phenomenon that has been particularly evident in California. The number of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans has slipped to a quarter-century low of 21 percent.

Arlen Specter is not the only one who has grown disenchanted with a party that once prided itself as a "big tent" that welcomed divergent views.

see full article from the San Francisco Chronicle

Thank You Ronald Reagan

Emmanuel Saez, 36, a public economics expert teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, was awarded the 2009 John Bates Clark Medal last week. Nobody has done more to describe the broad changes in income distribution in the United States that have taken place during the last ninety years.

This best off decile of earners had one heyday in the “Roaring 1920s,” when their share reached nearly 45 percent of national income. There they remained until about 1940, when norms associated with the conduct of World War II apparently knocked them down to around 33 percent of the total. Their share remained remarkably stable for the next three decades, at around a third of national income, until the mid-1970s. 

Then the top decile’s share began to climb again, hitting 49.7 of national income in 2006, higher than any year since 1917 and surpassing its level in 1928, Saez found. It took $104,700 in market income for a family to make the top 10 percent in 2006.

Moreover, most of that improvement owed to record gains for families in the top one percent of income (earning more than $382,600). It was the very rich whose fortunes seemed to have been at the center of the story of income distribution, Saez wrote in "Striking It Richer" in the Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality’s Pathways Magazine – from nearly a quarter of the whole in the late 1920s, to less than 10 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, before climbing back to nearly a quarter by 2006.

Vetoing Sales Tax Increase

  
Dear Friends,

This morning, I sent a letter to all of the members of the legislature regarding the debate about raising the sales tax. The letter, which follows, details my position that without final and satisfactory action on the several reform proposals before the legislature, I cannot support a sales tax increase and will veto it if it comes to my desk.

I ask that you forward this email to all of your friends, family, and colleagues so that they too can be informed of this very important issue facing our state.

Sincerely,

Governor Deval Patrick

 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

April 27, 2009

Massachusetts Senate
Massachusetts House of Representatives
State House
Boston, MA 02113

Dear Member:

This afternoon, as the House considers its budget proposal for FY10, members will be asked to consider an increase in the sales tax. Without final and satisfactory action on the several reform proposals before you, I cannot support a sales tax increase and will veto it if it comes to my desk. 

I appreciate the need to raise additional revenue for essential services, and have proposed a number of targeted measures and reforms to help meet the need. Our proposals were thoughtful, data-driven and specific, and, in the case of the gas tax in particular, would create jobs and support economic growth. I have deep reservations about imposing a higher sales tax on people during these difficult economic times, especially at the risk of costing the Commonwealth jobs and at a time when we can least afford that trade-off. Doing so without meaningful results on the reform agenda is unacceptable. 

Before we consider any broad-based tax increase, we must first regain the public's confidence in government's ability to steward public funds wisely. That's what our reform agenda is about. On that front, we have unfinished work. 

The transportation reform bill is now in conference. Real transportation reform requires simplicity, accountability, regional equity and true cost savings. We are not there yet. As I have said repeatedly, without real reforms, I will not support new transportation revenue. Without new revenue, we will unfortunately be forced to rely on toll hikes and MBTA fair increases and service cuts to meet our transportation responsibilities. 

Pension reform is now also in conference. We must end the abuses and loopholes that justifiably outrage the general public and embarrass everyone in state government. A final bill that applies only to people not yet on the public payroll does not meet that test. 

The Senate has taken no action at all yet on our ethics reform measures. Several municipal reforms, including (but not limited to) an easier path into the cost-saving GIC for municipal employees and elimination of the telecom exemption, still await action, leaving unchanged the pressure on local property taxes. Our proposals to end sales tax exemptions on alcohol, soda and candy to fund public health and wellness programs have not moved. The failure to take up these latter issues has caused us to have to make deeper cuts in local aid and other programs in the current fiscal year. 

Crafting this year's budget is more challenging than any other in decades. As you consider the task before us in the coming weeks, be mindful that the times demand that we think and act differently than we have in the past. Together we must make the hard decisions that will deliver meaningful reform in transportation, pensions, ethics and municipal finance now. We must also reach agreement on how to dedicate any new revenue to specific unmet needs in education, health care, human services, transportation, public safety, local aid, and a worsening revenue gap for 2010. 

We owe it to the people of Massachusetts to use this opportunity to change the way we approach these problems, and to work together on a more comprehensive solution that will provide the revenue we need while delivering real reforms and real change in the way we do the people's business. Without this, I will veto a sales tax increase if it comes to my desk. 

I look forward to working with you to bring about this change. 

Respectfully,
 
Deval Patrick 
 

100 Day Hoopla

From today's Times:

“If I were writing about George H. W. Bush, I don’t think I’d spend two seconds on his first 100 days; I’d say the same thing about Nixon,” said Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian. “But in this case, if you’re imagining a future historian in a distant moment looking back on an Obama presidency, it’s very hard to imagine where what he’s doing for the first three months does not loom very large.”

Newburyport Celebrates Obama's First 100 Days

Wednesday April 29th marks the 100th day of the Obama Presidency. At last week's Newburyport Democratic City Committee meeting, member Diana Kerry came up with a great idea: convene a sign-waving visibility to celebrate President Obama's First 100 Days.

Here is a link to a Joe Klein piece on the 100 days http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1893277,00.html?iid=perma_share

The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. "In a way, Obama's 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt's," says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that's really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.

To be sure, the historic unpopularity of the Bush Administration has been a convenient foil for Obama. He has also been lucky in his enemies, a reeling Republican Party that lurches from gimmicks to hissy fits, including frequent, unbidden appearances by such unpopular characters as Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, whose rants about everything from Obama's decision to repudiate the torture of enemy combatants to his handshake with Chávez seem both ungracious and unhinged. "We obviously haven't found our voice yet," says Senator Lamar Alexander, one of the more thoughtful GOP leaders. "The American people sent us to the woodshed. And when you go to the woodshed, the best course of action is to sit there, be quiet, figure out why you're there and what you can do about it."

Therefore we're encouraging Greater Newburyport Democrats and other supporters of the President to meet at Market Square, Newburyport on Saturday, May 2 from 10am-11:30. Bring any signs you have leftover from the campaign or make your own homemade sign. Because it seems to have special resonance at the moment, we will be serving tea.

As of that meeting and still today, we've not heard of anyone else nationally doing this, so perhaps we're breaking new ground.

Please join us in supporting the President and his efforts to get our country moving.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Earth Day

• Half the world’s tropical and temperate forests are now gone.  
• The rate of deforestation in the tropics continues at about an acre a second. 
• About half the wetlands and a third of the mangroves are gone. 
• An estimated 90 percent of the large predator fish are gone, and 75 percent of marine fisheries are now overfished or fished to capacity. 
• Twenty percent of the corals are gone, and another 20 percent severely threatened. 
• Species are disappearing at rates about a thousand times faster than normal. 
• The planet has not seen such a spasm of extinction in sixty-five million years, since the dinosaurs disappeared. 
• Over half the agricultural land in drier regions suffers from some degree of deterioration and desertification. 
• Persistent toxic chemicals can now be found by the dozens in essentially each and every one of us.

James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the End of the World, Yale University Press, 2009.

Speth is Dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University

TORTURE

"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

See the whole article from McClatchy here.

Graph of the Week

Another name for Reagan Democrats: CHUMPS

Last Comment on Tea Bag Protests

I'm sorry.  I just can't help myself.  This is from The Syracuse Post-Standard.

Organizer # 1 of the Syracuse Tea Party:

"After a lifetime of working, paying taxes and raising three children on her own, Wilder is struggling.

She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors.

She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low".

"I don't want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we're in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines," Wilder said.

Organizer # 2:

"Americans need safety nets, but Obama and Congress are pushing programs that foster dependency and weaken capitalism, said Smith, who acknowledged he collected food stamp benefits for a few months last year".

I wonder if they noticed that everyone else at the Tea Parties was protesting them?

Thanks to Eschaton for the link.

Graph of the Week - This One's a Downer

We Don't Need No Stinking Stimulus Edition

Mr. Earls goes to Washington

Sorry it took me so long to post this, but I was mightily impressed by Elias at the 3T 2C breakfast!  I'm just sorry he had to wait so long to have his say!

Wish I Had Said That Category

Joe Klein at Time Magazine:  

"The constant sniping from Rove, Wehner and the others during Obama's first 100 days is a deeply neurotic reaction to the enormity of their own cockups in office. It shows a profound lack of class or grace, but then, that's no surprise with these guys, is it? They ran the country like thugs, and thugs they remain".

Question of the Day

If the weather had been bad - say a little rainy or cold - do you think Sam Adams and his boys would have stayed home on December 13, 1773?  Just asking.

English Breakfast or Darjeeling?

Just in case you need some references for talking points tomorrrow.

This post on the Atlantic site is a good summary of the well-funded powers behind Wednesday's mass right-wing protest rallies. 

And see you at the City Committee Meeting at the Public Library.

Newburyport Current

Great article on the 3T & 2C Breakfast by Barbara Taormina in today's Current (OK - she said nice things about me and Nancy Weinberg and this blog). Check it out here.

HUH???

In a poll released today Rasmussen reported the following data from a survey of adult Americans:

1* Which is a better system - capitalism or socialism?

53% Capitalism 
20% Socialism
27% Not sure

Whoa! Look at the demographics:

Under 30

37% Capitalism 
33% Socialism 
30% Not sure

Thirty-somethings

49% Capitalism 
26% Socialism

Over 40

just 13% reported Socialism better

I would have to pay to get the cross-tabs.

What is this about? Could it be that the Republican penchant of late to call everyone to the left of Mussolini a socialist has backfired? That’s what Pandagon (this is a link - click on Pandagon and you will go to his blog comments) thinks . What do you think?

Graph of the Week

Fourth Annual 3 T & 2 C Democratic Breakfast Celebration

At Saturday’s “3 T and 2 C” (Three Towns and Two Cities) Democratic Breakfast, Congressman John Tierney highlighted a major difference between Democrats and Republicans: “Democrats are not inclined to do nothing” when faced with tough challenges.

Before a capacity crowd of Democratic activists, the Congressman, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray, State Senator Steven Baddour, Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, Governor’s Councilor Mary-Ellen Manning, State Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh and Newburyport High School student Elias Earls all gave testimony as to why the Democratic Party has once again become the majority party not only in Massachusetts but also across the country.

State Representative Harriett Stanley was also in attendance although she had to leave to attend to House Budget Committee work.  State Representative Michael Costello could not attend as he was participating in an American Bar Association Conference where he was helping to draft ABA guidelines to reduce recidivism among prisoners.

photo by Nancy Weinberg

Lieutenant Governor Murray started by listing the accomplishments of the Patrick Administration. He noted that Republican Administrations had “abdicated” their responsibility to future generations by failing to invest in the state’s educational system, transportation infrastructure, broadband capacity, life science sector, energy systems, environment and public parks. In spite of the very tough current economic conditions, he said that the current Administration, working with Democrats in the State House and Senate, had created a blueprint for “sustained and robust” economic growth.

photo by Nancy Weinberg

State Senator Baddour, Chairman of the State Senate’s Transportation Committee, spoke to the fact that, after this current economic crisis had passed, residents of the Commonwealth would see a “different state government” than the one they had seen in the past.  From reform of the broken transportation system to pension reform he pledged a fundamental change for the better.

 photo by Nancy Weinberg

U.S. Congressmen Tierney started by saying that no Democrat in Washington was happy with the large deficits resulting from the Stimulus Package and FY10 Budgets, but they saw no choice when confronted with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. In contrast, he noted, Republicans had offered nothing other than “Hoover Economic Policy” and more tax cuts for the rich.

He reminded people that Democrats, eight years ago, had plenty to be angry about. Many thought that Bush’s election was the result of questionable Republican activities in Florida to say nothing of the fact that he was selected by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress worked with President Bush in a bi-partisan manner.  There was plenty in the Bush Education Bill that Democrats disliked but, led by Senator Ted Kennedy, they compromised and helped pass Bush’s legislation.  What a difference from the Rush “ditto-heads” who profess that they want President Obama to fail.  

Tierney said Democrats and President Obama were not going to stand pat. They would deal with the economic crisis and simultaneously build a foundation for the future based upon a vigorous new approach to education, health care and energy independence.  He finished by saying that Democrats were the real patriotic Americans because we aren’t “trashing” America; we are moving it forward.

photo by Nancy Weinberg

With a comment both on last week’s protest and more generally post-election politics, Master of Ceremonies Dave Tibbetts offered a new slogan for our opponents: “Republicans Are Revolting.”

 photo by Nancy Weinberg

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett continued with the theme of the day by speaking to two successes: 1. a tough new domestic violence bill with five year sentences for serial batterers and 2.  Essex County’s Youth Diversion Program that serves to prevent kids who make mistakes from falling into further trouble.

  photo by Nancy Weinberg

Next, Governor’s Councilor Mary-Ellen Manning said that there was no more important task than the selection of fair judges at a time when people were worried about whether or not they would be able to “hold onto their house, or their job or even their family.”

 photo by Nancy Weinberg

State Chairman John Walsh told the crowd that "tough times are not times to do nothing"  and that Democrats "are not hiding and running" from the challenges presented by tough times.  He raised the qustion: "Can we survive?" and answered in a phrase from the Obama campaign with a rousing: "Yes we can!"  He exhorted Democrats not to rest on their laurels (having won all 15 open seats in the state legislature - three of them previously held by Republicans) but to be community organizers and build ever broader connections in expanding the democratic base.

     photo by Nancy Weinberg

Finally, Elias Earls, a Newburyport High School student who attended President Obama’s Inauguration, inspired Democrats with his description of the joy and hope infused throughout the huge crowd that had gone to Washington to witness the beginning of a new age for America. 

THANKS TO Nancy Weinberg for all the great photographs (click here for a really spectacular slide show of Nancy's breakfast photographs)

Issues Straw Poll Results

filling out the straw poll

photo by Nancy Weinberg

3T & 2C Breakfast - April 4, 2009

At yesterday's breakfast a straw poll was held to gauge the sentiments of democrats on issues facing both the nation and the Commonwealth.

People who voted were asked to name their top two preferences for ways in which the Commonwealth should seek to balance the state budget as constitutionally mandated.  Here are the results:

1. State Pension Reform - 38
2. Hike in Gasoline Tax - 37
3. Revenue from Gambling – Expanding Slot Machines and Building Casinos - 18
4. Toll Hikes on State Bridges/Highways - 7
5. Implement Budget Cuts, with a corresponding reduction in Services, and Layoffs of State/Local Employees - 9

People were also asked to name what they thought should be the top priority of the Obama Administration and Congress.  The results were: 

1. Improve Regulation and Oversight of the Banking and Financial Industry - 27
2. Implement Health Care Reform - 21
3. Pursue Energy Independence - 16
4. Pass the Employee Freedom of Choice Act - 2
5. Increase Tax Rates for Top 5% of Wage Earners -2 

Surprise! Republicans Misrepresent Tierney Community Meeting

The following appears in the Republican City Committee’s report on Congressman Tierney’s Community Meeting in Newburyport:

“During his 90 plus minute meeting, Congressman Tierney only made one error; he called on a young man who happened to challenge him with a question from the opposition. Well that error was not repeated for the duration of the meeting. Unfortunately, this was the first opportunity in many years for healthy debate in the Essex County but Congressman Tierney would have none of it. He carefully chose his questions from the handpicked audience”.

It should not go unchallenged. Like the national Republican Party it seems that the locals do not mind reverting to misrepresentation in order to maintain their particular perspective on politics.

Below is a list of all questions or statements made at the Community Meeting. The ones in bold are questions that by my own subjective evaluation could be deemed as being reflective of the gripes of the protestors.

Gee…it sure seems like the Congressman continued to ask questions from potentially hostile audience members.

1 National Health Insurance Act
2 Afghanistan
3 Pelosi is corrupt - taxpayers pay too much
4 Health Care - dental not covered
5 Support for Single-payer Health System
6 Stimulus package not sufficient to promote energy efficiency
7 Plum Island Dredging
8 Energy efficiency grants and city population
9 trade deficit a problem
10 this is a charade: you vote along party lines (gasp!)
11 Employee Freedom of Choice Act
12 Regulation of small farmers
13 education aid in stimulus package not helping NBPT
14 Local housing market shows signs of recovery
15 Question on 'Prescription Advantage'
16 Critique of use of 'out of state' contractors for DPW work
17 Question on 'cram down' and large bank bailouts
18 question on bank bailout and bonuses
19 where in constitution does Congress have authority for bailout?/right to life
20 Please watch collateral damage to small farms from HR 875, Agricultural Bill
21 support for universal health care
22 How much money do you take from insurance companies?
23 Opposition to Universal Health Care
24 Will SS be there for me? (question from High school student)
25 trade deficit a problem
26 Electric Company delivery charge - what can be done?
27 How can we put teeth in the law to regulate corporations?
28 Concern on Global warming what can be done?
29 Plum Island concerns/don't see a major theme to recovery act
30 Why is the SEC still in existence - they didn't do their job
31 Afghanistan
32 Energy efficiency grants and city population
33 Does the CBO deficit projection bother you?
34 more control over the Federal Reserve Bank

Help Democrats Keep the Republicans from Stealing an Election

On March 31, 2009, Democrat Scott Murphy overcame a once 21 point deficit in the polls to win a majority of the vote in the NY-20 special election. This is the seat formerly held by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Republicans outnumber democrats in this district by 70,000 votes. Murphy’s margin of victory is now 65 votes. The Republicans are flying in lawyers from around the country with the aim overturning these results. In addition, they've already claimed that Democrats were trying to "steal" the election, even though it was the Democrat who finished the night with more votes.

We have to keep them from lawyering away a hard fought victory in NY-20. You can help.

Here’s the link if any of you are inclined to help.

http://www.actblue.com/page/protectny20