More liberal, populist movement emerging in Democratic Party ahead of 2016 elections

By Zachary A. Goldfarb, Published: November 30 E-mail the writer

For more than two years, President Obama has endorsed reducing Social Security payments as part of an ambitious deal to tame the national debt. But then Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — viewed by supporters on the left as a potential 2016 presidential candidate — embraced a far different proposal: increasing benefits for seniors.
As Obama struggles to achieve his second-term domestic agenda, a more liberal and populist voice is emerging within a Democratic Party already looking ahead to the next presidential election. The push from the left represents both a critique of Obama’s tenure and a clear challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party’s presumptive presidential front-runner, who carries a more centrist banner.

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She's been in the Senate for less than a year, but Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren's grasp extends beyond Capitol Hill - thanks to her YouTube presence.

The left’s influence will be on display in coming weeks when a high-profile congressional committee formed after the government shutdown faces a deadline to forge a budget agreement. Under strong pressure from liberals, the panel has effectively abandoned discussion of a “grand bargain” agreement partly because it probably would involve cuts to Social Security.

“The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 — at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors — is allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch,” Warren said recently on the Senate floor, announcing her support for a bill that would expand the program.

Liberals say Social Security is one example of how Democrats are likely to face sustained pressure in coming months to move in a more populist direction on a host of issues.

“The first Obama administration was focused too much on saving the banks and Wall Street,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a liberal who is retiring after four decades in Congress. “There’s going to be a big populist push on whoever’s running for office to espouse these kinds of progressive policies.”

Senate Democrats’ recent decision to abandon the filibuster for almost all nominees was a major victory for liberals, who had long championed the change, and paves the way for left-leaning nominees to join courts and helm agencies.
In addition, liberals have accelerated their push for a higher minimum wage — successfully persuading Obama to support a $10.10-an-hour proposal after he suggested $9 an hour this year. They also are making a case for tougher financial regulations, specifically targeting massive banks they would like to break up.
More broadly, liberals argue that the nation must do more to narrow economic inequality, to expand the safety net to help those who have lost jobs to globalization and to relieve some of the burden of student debt — goals that the president generally shares.
Obama’s defenders say he has a wide array of proposals to help the middle class that have been stymied by Republicans in Congress. Even his willingness to trim Social Security payments — by adopting a stricter formula for calculating benefits — includes protections for the poor, they note.
“It’s real things in the economy that Democrats have been too timid to address or Republicans have blocked them from addressing,” said longtime liberal activist Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future.
 But the push from the left carries political risks for Democrats, who could be accused of being reckless about the national debt or insensitive to the demands of business and economic growth. What’s more, many Americans are uncomfortable with the notion of the government redistributing income far beyond what happens today in order to accomplish basic elements of the populist agenda. Liberal congressional or presidential candidates could pressure more moderate candidates to veer to the left, perhaps reducing their electability.
The arena where the populist push is likely to play out most clearly is in the nascent 2016 presidential campaign. Warren is the object of admiration among liberals, drawing huge audiences for her speeches. She has said she doesn’t plan to run for president, but she hasn’t made a firm commitment to stay out of the race. A spokeswoman said she was unavailable to comment.

At the same time, many on the left view Clinton suspiciously, arguing that longtime advisers to her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, are too close to Wall Street.
Many liberals also argue that it was these same Clinton advisers — disciples of former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin — who led Obama away from a more populist agenda, embracing conservative thinking on the virtue of spending reductions and entitlement cuts.

“I personally have Clinton fatigue, noting that it was a Clinton team that has been running Obama’s economics,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute. “A Clinton administration seems like a continuation of the same team.”

Some consider the debate an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to embrace a more populist message. Bill de Blasio (D), her New York campaign manager in 2000, was just elected mayor of New York on an inequality agenda.
Top officials at the Center for American Progress — sometimes viewed as a Clinton shadow cabinet — started an independent think tank several weeks ago, the Center for Equitable Growth, to study income inequality. At its Washington opening, Chairman John D. Podesta, who was Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff, hinted about restoring the domestic success of the 1990s.

“All the gains, I think, to fight poverty and reduce the poverty level during the Clinton administration in which I served have been washed away,” he said.

In an interview, Podesta said the think tank is an academic effort not intended to benefit any candidate in particular. But he said he has no doubt that Hillary Clinton would be able to succeed on populist political terrain.

“I’m an admirer of Senator Warren’s, but I think that Hillary Clinton really connects with working people and she showed that in the 2008 race against Obama,” he said.

Liberals, however, are fawning over Warren, who was the brains behind the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and focused on the economic condition of the working class when she was a professor at Harvard. In addition to calling for breaking up the big banks and expanding Social Security, she has proposed a range of new policies to cut student debt.
Warren received a resounding response when she spoke at the AFL-CIO convention this past fall in what many considered an encapsulation of her populist message going forward.

“We know even though pundits and big corporate lobbyists in Washington might need to be dragged kicking and screaming, we know America agrees with us. We believe Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement. And you know what? So do more than 80 percent of people,” she said. “Wall Street will fight us, but the American people are on our side.”

Another potential source of pressure building on the left is Sen. Bernard Sanders (Vt.), an independent who caucuses with Democrats. He has said he might run for president if no liberal he considers adequate steps up.
Although his chances would be slim at best, he could serve as an agitator who pulled other candidates to the left — or as a potential spoiler if his campaign got off the ground.

“I don’t wake up every morning saying, ‘Oh my goodness, I really want to be president,’ ” Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, said in an interview. “But somebody’s got to be out there, and if nobody is, I’ll do it."

Elizabeth Warren to Congress: Grandma "Will Be Left to Starve" If We Cut Social Security

Political MoJo

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Mon Nov. 18, 2013 3:31 PM PST

On Monday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered a speech on the Senate floor slamming those on Capitol Hill who want to cut Social Security in order to balance the budget, and calling on Congress to expand the program instead.
"This is about our values," the senator said, "and our values tell us that we don’t build a future by first deciding who among our most vulnerable will be left to starve."
Lawmakers have to come to an agreement to fund the government by mid-January, and some are floating Social Security cuts as a bargaining chip in a possible budget deal. Even President Barack Obama's last budget proposal contained cuts to the program.
Warren says slashing retirement benefits for elderly Americans is an absurd idea. Warren noted that Social Security payments are already stingy, averaging about $1,250 a month. Plus, an increasing number of Americans can no longer count on healthy pensions through their job. Two decades ago, 35 percent of jobs in the private sector offered workers a traditional pension that provided monthly payments retirees could rely on. Today, that number is only 18 percent. Some 44 million workers get no retirement help from their employers.
Because of the growing "retirement crisis" in America, Warren argued, "we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits—not cutting them." She noted that several senators, including Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have been pushing for just that.
Seniors are not going to get more generous retirement benefits as long as the GOP-dominated House opposes the idea. But most Democrats have said they won't agree to entitlement cuts without new revenues, and Republicans refuse to raise revenues, so real cuts are unlikely, too. Rather than hashing out a grand bargain that includes cuts to the safety net, Congress will probably kick the can down the road, and come to another modest, last-minute, short-term budget accord early next year.
But Warren's speech was about more than staving off immediate cuts to retirement benefits. It was yet another move to cement her role as Congress' star defender of the middle class. Warren has said she will not run for president in 2016. But this is one of many issues on which she has staked out a position to the left of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is widely expected to run. In a speech at Colgate University last month, Clinton did not rule out the idea of limited cuts to entitlement programs as a means to reaching a budget deal.

Why do 'red states' have more poverty?

Tampa : FL : USA | Feb 24, 2013 at 10:56 AM PST

By itobin53

Why do Red States have more poor people? Image: Upworthy.com

Americans do not have to guess what the country would be like if the small-government, conservative economic agenda were implemented on a national scale.
Many Republican-controlled, predominantly Southern “red states” already have. The result is not an abundance of prosperity from under taxed “job creators,” as often touted in sound bites and on the conservative candidate campaign trail. Instead, according to the numbers, it’s quite the opposite.
Smaller government austerity policies in red states have created macroeconomic societies with high poverty and low education rates. Low-paying jobs and lack of health care also dominate states that have implemented the smaller government theories of conservative ideology.
In Texas, for example, decades of Republican control, from the governor’s office down to state and local legislatures, has kept the Tea Party ideological model in place. And it has the highest poverty rate of “any large industrial state,” according to Texas Politics data.
The data showed similar high poverty rate numbers for other red states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Lack of health care is also a bigger problem in states following the conservative Republican ideological view of less funding for government assistance programs.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott recently acknowledged the serious economic problems associated with having more than 21 percent of the population without health insurance. The costs for hospitals treating the uninsured is so high, Scott surrendered to pressure from Florida health care providers and accepted the Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare.
Hunger is also a bigger problem among states where Republicans have had their way with local budgets. And while southern red states do not have a lock on growing US poverty rates, they still lead with the worse numbers. More than 24 percent of the people in Mississippi suffer from food deficiencies, with Alabama coming in second at nearly 23 percent.
Red States also top the charts for populations with lower education levels. The top 10 include Oklahoma, Tennessee, Indiana, Nevada, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia, according to Fox Business.
There is a disturbing correlation between Republicans and high poverty rates. CNN reports that the 10 poorest states in America tend to elect Republicans. Is this because they haven’t made the connection between conservative government policy and the need for the social safety net? Or have they simply been convinced by right-wing political rhetoric to vote against their own best interests?
In addition to the disconnect between conservative policies and economic security, it has been demonstrated in states completely controlled by Republicans that consolidated power can lead to loss of personal freedom and the most fundamental elements of democracy.
In the 2012 elections, the people of Michigan voted by a 53 to 47 percent margin to repeal the state’s power to replace their local elected representatives with appointed emergency managers, in areas with struggling budget issues. “The law was intended to help municipalities avoid bankruptcy or default, but it has been criticized for infringing on the rights of local governments,” according to the New York Times.
Rather than listening to the voice of voters who repealed the law at the ballot box, Michigan legislators have ignored court orders to remove “emergency managers” and reinstated the legislation, this time adding a clause that blocks any further attempts by the public to make it a ballot initiative in the future.
Republican-controlled legislatures have also used their power to strip unions workers of their rights to collective bargaining, as Gov. Scott Walker did in Wisconsin.
So not only are Republican’s changing the fundamental economic structure of America, they are using scare tactics and misleading campaign ads to try to gain monopoly-control of as many branches of government as they can.
Salon.com put it this way:
This is the formula for a reactionary politics that does not serve the collective good….
Elites who have long been disconnected from the masses manipulate this anxiety into a politics that serves to gut the social safety net and chase down the chosen bugaboos of the Right--the "evil" unions, "liberals," "intellectuals," teachers, Muslims, immigrants, racial minorities, gays and lesbians, "overpaid" public employees, and/or anyone who is not a "real American."
In the end game, the authoritarianism infused White reactionary Tea Party AstroTurf politics of the New Right are the road to inverted totalitarianism--an order that rises out of a failure of democratic politics, a collapsed and exhausted economy, a triumphant corporatism, and the false promises of popular Conservatism.
In the 2012 elections, voters did indeed reject the policies of right-wing Republicans by giving Democratic House candidates over a million more votes. However, Republican gerrymandering after the 2010 census prevented those votes from counting toward democratic control of Congress.
Today, the only thing preventing the United States from becoming the poverty-ridden, low education, no health care, totalitarian-style government that has taken over red states is the Democratic majority in the Senate and Barack Obama in the White House.
Will voters in 2014 make the connection between their own economic interests and adversarial conservative policies and reject GOP monopoly rule? Or will they continue to vote for candidates who have demonstrated that their best abilities lie only in creating less opportunity, and more hardship and poverty than their blue state counterparts?
If you like to write about US politics, enter Allvoices’ "The American Pundit" political writing contest. Allvoices is awarding four $250 prizes each month between now and Nov. 30. These monthly winners earn eligibility for the $5,000 grand prize, to be awarded in December. If you do not already have a free account, sign up here.
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Recommended:
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Wayne LaPierre: Guns are for Armageddon and 'fun'
Is Apple’s edge gone without Steve Jobs?
Sources and more info in addition to the links above:
Child poverty in the South getting worse
'The Hunger Games' Are Here. And They Are Very, Very Real.

itobin53 is based in Tampa, Florida, United States of America, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.

What FDR would say about Obamacare's botched launch 

 

By Michael Hiltzik

October 24, 2013, 2:32 p.m.

Yes, Obamacare's website debacle is a problem for the healthcare reform program and for many customers still unable to apply for and secure health insurance. But no, it's not the first time a big government program experienced birth pangs.
The go-to source on how to manage the launch of a major federal undertaking, of course, is Franklin D. Roosevelt, who launched dozens of such programs during the New Deal--several of them every bit as revolutionary as the Affordable Care Act.
As I mentioned in a just-published interview with the New Republic's Jen Kirby connected with my book about the New Deal, the rollouts of many of these programs were not without glitches. Some, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, were left in the hands of state and local officials to manage. In some states, as a result, the CCC institutionalized racism by denying desperately needed job slots to black youths.
Other programs were cut back at their inception to save money--a strategy that only imposed costs that had to be addressed later. That happened to Social Security, which was envisioned as a universal pension program. At the last minute, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau demanded that huge swaths of the American workforce be cut from the program, especially farmhands and domestic workers. They didn't start getting added back to the program until the Truman administration. Today almost every wage-earner in America is covered.
But FDR's real gift was for communicating to voters the value of his programs, and putting their launch problems in perspective. The best example of this was his response to conservatives who complained that his Works Progress Administration, the biggest work relief program of his time, was rife with inefficiency and wasteful spending. Here's how he responded in a Fireside Chat on April 28, 1935:
"When an enterprise of this character is extended over more than three thousand counties throughout the Nation, there may be occasional instances of inefficiency, bad management, or misuse of funds. When cases of this kind occur, there will be those, of course, who will try to tell you that the exceptional failure is characteristic of the entire endeavor. It should be remembered that in every big job there are some imperfections. There are chiselers in every walk of life, there are those in every industry who are guilty of unfair practices;...but long experience in Government has taught me that the exceptional instances of wrong-doing in Government are probably less numerous than in almost every other line of endeavor. ...
"It is time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a Democracy cannot be honest and efficient....I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices prevail. Neither you nor I want criticism conceived in a purely fault-finding or partisan spirit, but I am jealous of the right of every citizen to call to the attention of his or her Government examples of how the public money can be more effectively spent for the benefit of the American people."
That's an example of FDR reminding the American people that, to employ a cliche, Rome wasn't built in a day--but that entrenched interests who don't like change will seize any chance to ask why not. If President Obama needs a guide for how to answer those who argue that the flawed rollout of a complicated website mean that a priceless chance to improve the lives of millions of Americans should be scrapped, he should look to his political forebear.
 

Reach me at @hiltzikm on Twitter, on Facebook or by email.

 

Social Security Pumps $2 Into US Economy for Every Benefit Dollar Spent

Social Security Pumps $2 Into US Economy for Every Benefit Dollar Spent 

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Just as Food Stamps stimulate the economy by creating about $1.80 of economic activity for every dollar of Food Stamps spent, Social Secuity pumps up job-generating and business activity by about $2 for every dollar recipients spend.  This is according to a new study by the AARP:

A new report by the AARP Public Policy Institute, "Social Security's Impact on the National Economy," found that Social Security adds more than $1 trillion to the U.S. economy each year. People who receive Social Security benefits are not saving that money for a rainy day. They're spending it on goods and services — pumping it back into the economy. We have to remember that the typical older American has an income of about $22,000 a year, and Social Security accounts for about half of a typical older family's income.

Businesses use the income to purchase more goods and services, to realize profits and to hire more employees. Those employees, in turn, spend their wages on more goods and services, which creates more spending and income for more people. This creates a powerful multiplier effect that benefits the economy, businesses and workers. In fact, our report found that every dollar in Social Security benefits paid out generates about $2 of total output for the U.S. economy.

In short, Social Security is a vital component of a vibrant economy.  Florida is just one example of a state that would be devastated without the delivery of monthly Social Security checks.  However, the entire United States economy would be seriously harmed.
With the hue and cry against Social Security benefits becoming too burdensome on the treasury (even though it is an earned benefit, not an entitlement -- if you don't pay in, you don't get Social Security, and your allotment is based on what you contributed over your lifetime), you would think taxpayers were being fleeced by the elderly.
William Pitt, indefatigable columnist for Truthout (and a BuzzFlash editor), writes about the despicably dishonest campaign waged against elderly Americans who earned their Social Security:

Here on the other side of the world in America, another sort of fire is threatening to burn out the futures of millions of people. A bunch of billionaires are working hammer and tong with their bottomless pockets, their hired Congressional stooges, their idolaters in the press, and all those useful idiots who hate government but love Medicare and always vote, to destroy Social Security and Medicare because government programs that actually work really well are the enemy, and must be scourged.

At the forefront of this crusade is the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which has already spent a billion dollars trying to convince Congress to come together on a "Grand Bargain" that eviscerates the social safety net represented by Social Security and Medicare, which are only the two most successful and important government programs besides the GI Bill.

Peterson's wingman is billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, formerly of Duquesne Capital, who is spending gobs of cash trying to convince young people that Social Security is the reason they're looking down the barrel at an increasingly grim economic future.

While billionaires who commit massive institutional financial fraud have an open door at the White House and Department of Justice, among other government offices, do you know what the average Social Security monthly check is?
According to the US Social Security Administration, "The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012."  That comes out to $14,760 a year, which qualifies one for the cat food brigade.
Yet, even this meager earned benefit (remember Social Security is a mandated retirement savings plan, not an entitlement) pumps up the American economy.
Even Democrats who once were seen as moderately progressive have accepted the GOP 1% meme that Social Security needs to be cut back or else the US will be ruined.  (We won't even get into how the Social Security fund is used to finance other government programs -- remember Al Gore's idea of a lock box?)
But there are many alternatives to implementing a CPI or raising the retirement eligiblity age.  How about "raising employee and employer FICA taxes on wages above $106,800" (the income level where the payroll taxes currently stop increasing)? As a writer in firedoglake.com comments:

According to a 2010 Lake Research Partners Poll 82 percent of Americans oppose cuts to Social Security to reduce the deficit. That breaks down by Party: Democrats — 83%; Republicans – 82%; Independents – 78%; and Tea Partiers – 74%. Those numbers are overwhelming, as polling data goes. It’s pretty clear that making cuts to Social Security would not be acceptable to the American people, generally, and probably even less acceptable to Senator Durbin’s heavily Democratic constituency in Illinois.

One wonders, what kind of Senator puts forth a proposal that more than 80% of his constituents oppose? It can only be one who has decided to fit himself for a duncecap; or one who’s convinced that “the banks run the place,” or one who doesn’t think that the rest of us have the intelligence to understand that there are other alternative to handling any such problem apart from “reforming,” meaning cutting entitlements. But it can’t be one who cares about whether his political party can hold the Senate after 2014.

But that’s not all, when asked about a proposal to require employee and employer FICA taxes on wages above $106,800 annually in order to make Social Security more solvent, 66% of Americans were in favor of that proposal. And that breaks down by Party: Democrats — 73%; Republicans — 59%; Independents — 66%; and Tea Partiers — 60%. That is very solid support for this proposal for solving any perceived Social Security solvency problem, particularly among the Democratic base. Also, the Tea Party support for raising the payroll tax cap is greater than the Republican Party’s for that, an indication that Tea Partiers, like the rest of us, value their Social Security highly.

So there's no real case for cutting Social Security benefits other than that many leading Democrats accept the GOP 1% notion that people who have labored a lifetime and made it into retirement don't have the financial clout in DC that the wealthiest Americans do.  It's really that simple.
Because if you want to keep the US economy strong, Social Security is a vital component.
That's not to mention that recipients of Social Security have earned their retirement checks.  Talk of the "Grand Bargain" that would see Social Security and Medicare cut is really talking about looting senior citizens who are on the economic margins as it is.