Harold Ford proposes a middle class flat tax

Former Congressman and Democratic Leadership Council Chairman Harold Ford has an excellent tax reform proposal to benefit middle and working class Americans. I have my differences with the DLC especially on economic issues but Ford's idea appears to be sound public policy and good politics. Ford is handing Democrats the kind of idea that wins elections.

Making his case for a middle class flat tax in a Washington Times column http://www.washingtontimes.com/ published on November 29, Ford states: "This is simple and fair: no middle-class family with an income of under $150,000 should ever pay an effective tax rate of more than 10 percent. If what they owe after calculating their taxes is more than 10 percent of their income, they won't have to pay a dime above 10 percent. If they owe less than 10 percent, they pay the lesser amount."

Ford writes:

We ended the last century with America's economic might at its zenith, with Americans at their most optimistic, and with nearly all who endeavored to make the most of their opportunities and talents getting ahead in life. John F. Kennedy's declaration that a rising tide will lift all boats was alive and well.

Middle-class Americans generate little or no national savings. We've had four straight years of rising productivity and falling incomes. Many Americans are earning less, while the costs of a middle-class life have soared: In the last five years, college costs are up 50 percent, health care up 73 percent, and gasoline more than 100 percent. Rising housing costs have driven people farther and farther from their work.

These trends undermine our way of life because middle-class strength and growth represent the backbone of American life.

Our national political discussion about how to grow the middle class often becomes just that, a political discussion punctuated by harsh talk of "class warfare." In fact, class warfare is under way — as billionaire Warren Buffet is fond of saying — and the middle is not winning.

To address the challenges of the middle class, Democrats should advance an agenda that aims to do something loftier than just repeal the Bush tax cuts on millionaires. It should boost incentives for average Americans to increase savings and investments, and help them participate more fully in the upside of economic growth.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071129/COMMENTARY/111290014/1012

As Ford argues for a middle class flat tax, many Republicans are promoting tax changes that would transfer more wealth to the super rich.

Writing in today's LA Times http://www.latimes.com/, columnist Michael Kinsley exposes the flaws in the so-called flat tax and fair tax proposals of Republican Presidential contenders Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee. As Kinsley points out, middle and working class Americans would pay higher taxes as the rich get huge reductions in taxation under these GOP plans.

Kinsley writes:

The central gimmick of Fred Thompson's recently announced tax plan is to offer people a choice. They can pay taxes under the current rules -- with some juicy new breaks added from the big- and small-businesses wish lists -- or they can pay a so-called flat tax, with lower rates and fewer deductions. So anyone who wants a simpler tax code could have one. But for people who get a lot of deductions now, the simpler tax would be a higher tax. How many people, do you suppose, would choose simplicity over complexity, even if simplicity would cost them more? My bet: approximately zero.

Like most flat-tax advocates over the years, Thompson puts a thumb on the scale by combining flatness with a large tax cut. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation figures that Thompson's plan would fall a mere $2.5-trillion short of revenue over the next decade, compared with the current system. If you can borrow $2.5 trillion, it makes it easy to arrange for more people to see their taxes go down than up if they choose the flat-tax alternative.But this has nothing to do with simplifying the system.

If you don't care how much debt you run up, you can give everyone a tax cut without bothering about simplification. You can stop collecting tax at all! That would be nice and simple. The real strategy of Thompson's plan is a familiar one from past Republican tax plans: Give large breaks to business and the wealthy (such as abolishing the estate tax), bribe the middle class to go along by offering smaller breaks to them, and don't worry about paying for it all.

Mike Huckabee, currently enjoying his 15 minutes, makes a slightly different political mistake, which we might label, for lack of a better term, "total honesty." He has endorsed something called the Fair Tax proposal, which involves repealing all federal revenue sources -- the income tax, Social Security tax, estate tax, everything -- and replacing them with a 23% sales tax on everything except education.

The Fair Tax propaganda says it is intended to be "revenue neutral." That is, it would bring in just as much money as the taxes it replaces.This makes it easy to figure who would win and who would lose. It's a zero-sum game: Every dollar someone's taxes go down is a dollar someone else's go up. What you spend every year is the amount you earn minus the amount you save.

On average, Americans save practically nothing, but wealthier people save more. Very poor people actually spend more than they earn, while Bill Gates and Warren Buffett couldn't spend more than a small fraction of their income. So wealthy people are going to see their taxes go down, which means that poor and middle-class people are going to see their taxes go up.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kinsley1dec01,0,1162496.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Kinsley is right. Thompson and Huckabee are just selling us more "trickle down" snake oil ! We need tax policies that will help working families instead of more tax cuts for the rich. Harold Ford has given Democrats a winning issue with the middle class flat tax. Democratic candidates need to take this idea and run with it.

Power To Save The World: former foe makes the case for nuclear energy

Gwyneth Cravens was an activist fighting against Long Island's Shoreham nuclear power plant during the 80's. Today, Cravens is supporting expansion of nuclear power plants. Random House has just released a new book by Cravens titled "Power To Save The World." She explains her reversal on this issue in a recent NPR interview and video clip from ForaTV.

http://tinyurl.com/3csjcr

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15654553

Here is a summary of "Power To Save The World" from the publisher's website:

In this timely book, Gwyneth Cravens takes an informed and clarifying look at the myths, the fears, and the truth about nuclear energy.

With concerns about catastrophic global warming mounting, it is vital that we examine all our energy options. Power to Save the World describes the efforts of one determined woman, Gwyneth Cravens, initially a skeptic about nuclear power, as she spends nearly a decade immersing herself in the subject. She teams up with Dr. D. Richard Anderson, a leading expert in risk assessment and nuclear safety who is also a committed environmentalist, to trace the path of uranium—the source of nuclear fuel—from start to finish. As we accompany them on visits to mines as well as to experimental reactor laboratories, fortress-like power plants, and remote waste sites normally off-limits to the public, we come to see that we already have a feasible way to address the causes of global warming on a large scale.

On the nuclear tour, Cravens converses with scientists from many disciplines, public health and counterterrorism experts, engineers, and researchers who study both the harmful and benign effects of radiation; she watches remote-controlled robotic manipulators unbolt a canister of spent uranium fuel inside a “hot cell” bathed in eerie orange light; observes the dark haze from fossil-fuel combustion obscuring once-pristine New Mexico skies and the leaky, rusted pipes and sooty puddles in a coal-fired plant; glimpses rainbows made by salt dust in the deep subterranean corridors of a working nuclear waste repository.

She refutes the major arguments against nuclear power one by one, making clear, for example, that a stroll through Grand Central Terminal exposes a person to more radiation than a walk of equal length through a uranium mine; that average background radiation around Chernobyl and in Hiroshima is lower than in Denver; that there are no “cancer clusters” near nuclear facilities; that terrorists could neither penetrate the security at an American nuclear plant nor make an atomic bomb from its fuel; that nuclear waste can be—and already is—safely stored; that wind and solar power, while important, can meet only a fraction of the demand for electricity; that a coal-fired plant releases more radiation than a nuclear plant and also emits deadly toxic waste that kills thousands of Americans a month; that in its fifty-year history American nuclear power has not caused a single death. And she demonstrates how, time and again, political fearmongering and misperceptions about risk have trumped science in the dialogue about the feasibility of nuclear energy.

In the end, we see how nuclear power has been successfully and economically harnessed here and around the globe to become the single largest displacer of greenhouse gases, and how its overall risks and benefits compare with those of other energy sources. Power to Save the World is an eloquent, convincing argument for nuclear power as a safe energy source and an essential deterrent to global warming.

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307266569

Link to Huffington Post column on nuclear energy by Gwyneth Cravens.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gwyneth-cravens/the-truth-about-nuclear-e_b_71193.html

A Warning from China

RTT News gives us a disturbing report that received little coverage in the mainstream media or in the blogsophere.

11/10/2007 5:06:50 PM During a major military exercise in the Pacific Ocean, U.S. Navy officials are concerned over the unexpected appearance of a Chinese submarine.

Senior NATO officials said that since the Chinese vessel surfaced in the middle of the recent military exercise, U.S. Navy officials have been shocked by the advanced technology used by their Chinese counterparts, The Daily Mail reported Saturday.

One official said that based on the ease at which the submarine avoided 12 U.S. warships to surface near a 1 thousand-foot carrier, Navy officials are reconsidering the potential dangers posed by Chinese subs. While Chinese officials have said the entire incident was a simple coincidence, some U.S. diplomats have accused the vessel of “shadowing” the U.S. fleet during the exercise.

http://www.rttnews.com/

Skelton: Refocus On 'Forgotten War'

Kansas City's KMPC-TV reports:

Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton has a new take on the war on terror -- he is advocating taking some troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan.

Skelton said the Iraq invasion has turned the campaign in Afghanistan into "The Forgotten War," and it is now a place where the Taliban and the drug lords are coming back.

"I believe we must reinforce the success in Afghanistan by sending some portion of the forces being withdrawn from Iraq to Afghanistan," Skelton said Monday in a speech at the Truman Library.

The speech was streamed on the Internet by Webster University as part of its public policy series.

Skelton is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/

Bill Bradley: The New American Story

Politics is stuck,” writes Bill Bradley, in his latest book "The New American Story", but “idealism isn’t dead. It can be reawakened." Bradley calls attention to the polarization of American politics resulting from the power of ideological extremes within both parties and partisan gerrymandering of Congressional districts. Bradley says that the drawing of Congressional districts by partisan politicians in control of state legislatures has reduced the number of competitive U.S. House districts to 40. Since the vast majority of members of the House come from districts that lean heavily toward one party, they often cater to extreme factions within their party to ward off potential primary challenges rather than more moderate and independent-minded voters.

One of the great myths of modern politics challenged by Bradley is the red-blue divide. Bradley cites polling data indicating that 72 percent of blue state voters favor capital punishment and 62 percent in red states oppose job and housing discrimination against gays.

Bill Bradley makes some good points. At some point, we look have to look beyond the ant-hill mentality of single issue fanatics on both sides and focus on the big picture. The party that stands up to the single issue zealots and appeals to mainstream America will be rewarded at the polls. That is not to say that the burning social issues are not important (I happen to be passionate about a number of issues) but a lot of critical matters like energy independence are being downplayed.

I do think certain critical issues have to take priority given the mess that we are in right now thanks to short-sighted politics in both parties. Issues like abortion, gay-lesbian rights, gun control, the role of church and state are not going to be important to us if we lack energy, jobs, housing and health care.

Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Deserve New GI Bill

Our troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have endured long deployments and repeat tours of duty. It is time on this Veterans Day to remember these men and women. We must demand that our Congress improve their GI Bill benefits. If these great Americans can make huge sacrifices for our nation, then we have an obligation to repay them with a college education. Furthermore, it should be noted that a 1988 Congressional study found that seven dollars were returned to the national economy for every one dollar spent on the original GI bill. Senator Jim Webb is leading the fight for a GI Bill for post 9-11 veterans and sends this Veterans Day mesage:

As someone who hails from a family with strong military roots, I hold immense personal pride in those who answer our nation's call to duty. My father served our country for 26 years as an Air Force pilot and as a pioneer in the Thor and Atlas missile programs. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as an infantry Marine in Vietnam. My brother served as a Marine helicopter pilot. And my son Jimmy has joined the tradition, recently home from serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

If you have served in our nation's military or have friends or family who have served, I want to take a moment to thank you. I'd also like to take this opportunity to share with you an issue I've been working on since my first day in office -- a revitalized GI Bill for our returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Warmest regards this Veterans Day,

Jim Webb

Under legislation sponsored by Webb (S.22 in the Senate, H.R.2702 in the House), returning service members could earn up to 36 months of benefits, equivalent to four academic years, which would include payment of tuition, books and fees, as well as a $1,000 a month living stipend for those veterans whose military service qualifies them for the program.

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2007 has been endorsed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), the Air Force Sergeants Association (AFSA), the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States (EANGUS), the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC).

“Once an enlistment enticement, educational assistance has now become a transition necessity. This legislation is the right thing to do for those who are willing to take up arms and defend this great nation, something less than one percent of Americans are willing to do,” said Frank Yoakum, SGM (ret.), Legislative Director, Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States (EANGUS).

“Education is an expensive endeavor; many veterans can not afford to use the current G.I. Bill. The measure proposed by Senator Webb and Congressman Scott is an investment in our troops, an investment in our veterans, and an investment in our nation,” said Eric Hilleman, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Patrick Campbell, Legislative Director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America shared the following testimony with the U.S. Senate Committee on Veteran's Affairs on July 31, 2007. Campbell makes a good case for why we need to improve our GI Bill benefits for our service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan:

Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, on behalf of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), thank you for this opportunity to address the issue of VA/DOD Cooperation and Coordination on Educational Assistance.

After World War II, nearly eight million service members (more than half of the entire American fighting force) took advantage of the education benefits afforded them by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. A veteran of WWII was entitled to free tuition, books and a living stipend that completely covered the cost of education. Since 1945 over 21,400,000 service members have utilized at least some of their educational benefits and over the past 10 years at least 66% of active duty and 42% of Reservists and National Guard have gone to school on the "GI Bill."

Sixty years later, we are still reaping the benefits of one of the greatest social investment programs ever implemented. A 1988 Congressional study proved that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue. Today we have the opportunity to renew our social contract with our servicemen and women. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) supports reinstating a World War II style GI Bill (S.22 or S. 1409) that will cover the true cost of education.

The current Chapter 30 Montgomery GI Bill, as created in 1984, was conceived in peace-time and contains several obstacles to a veteran trying to use their well-earned benefits. First, active duty educational benefits require a hefty $1,200 initial buy-in. Although nearly 95% of active duty service members buy into the program, only 8% of service members use all of their educational benefits and more the 30% never touch their GI benefits (returning over $230 million to the US Treasury).

Second, service members are required to pay tuition, room & board and textbook costs up-front and are then reimbursed over the course of the semester. Before a servicemember can attend a single class they must pay tuition and fees amounting, on average, to $5,836 for a public school and $22,218 for private schools. Servicemembers are faced with the daunting task of taking multiple jobs to raise the money, attending a less prestigious institution, taking out student loans and/or "living on mama's couch" to cut expenses.

Lastly, educational benefits have failed to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of higher education. As per statue, educational benefits are increased yearly based on inflation rates. As evident from the chart below, the cost of education has outpaced inflation by over 100% since 1984.

(Pulled from the College Board's "2006 Trends in College Pricing.")
In 2006, Chapter 30 benefits only covered 75% of the cost of a public school education and 32% of a private school education.

IAVA believes that a World War II style GI Bill is more than just a social investment; it's an important readiness tool. The military needs to recruit an additional 70,000 active duty service members over the next two years. Improving educational benefits for veterans is an important strategy for accomplishing this goal. The alternative is to continue to lower recruitment standards and increase enlistment and retention bonuses. We have already seen the military double the number of GED waivers and increase the number felonies allowable by a new recruit. Enlistment and retention bonuses have already climbed to $20,000 and could grow even higher.

The GI Bill is the military's single most effective recruitment tool; the number one reason civilians join the military is to get money for college. As our military recovers and resets in the coming years, an expanded GI Bill will play a crucial role in ensuring that our military remains the strongest and most advanced in the world.

http://veterans.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?pageid=16&release_id=11177&sub_release_id=11258&view=all

Contact your Senators and Representative and urge them to support S.22 and H.R. 2702.

Why Right Democrat No Longer Calls Himself a "Blue Dog Democrat"

As a Southerner, many in my family once regarded themselves as "Yellow Dog Democrats." If you are a Democrat from a red state like me who is populist on economics and traditionalist on social issues, then you must be a "Blue Dog." For a long time, I reluctantly accepted the "Blue Dog" Democrat label. The "Blue Dog" moniker always struck me as too much of a quaint Southernism that might be confused with the old "Dixiecrat" label. "Mainstream Democrat" or "Populist" seemed like a better description but I went along with my fellow grassroot populist-social traditionalist Dems who think of themselves as Blue Dogs. During the 2006 election, Blue Dog Democrats were widely described in the media as being the kind of pro-life, pro-gun rights, anti-illegal immigration and anti-globalization types who could make our party competitive again in the red states.

My research into the voting records of many of the Blue Dog Democrats made me skeptical. A couple of years ago, all but three of the members of the Blue Dog Caucus voted for a bankruptcy bill that was in the interests of credit card companies and not working families. I also noticed that only group photo of Blue Dog Caucus members on their website was taken on Wall Street. http://www.bluedogdems.com/what.html Some of the Blue Dogs in Congress had records of support for abortion rights and favored amnesty for illegal aliens. The main focus of the Blue Dogs was always deficit reduction which is important but the caucus also failed to take a position on many other issues critical to our nation's survival. I discovered that some of the most conservative Democrats in Congress chose not to join the Blue Dog Coalition and that a center-right Democrat like Nancy Boyd of Kansas (who has shown far more courage on the illegal immigration issue than most Blue Dogs) was rejected for membership. Our Congressional Blue Dogs seemed to have very different agenda than most grassroots Blue Dogs.

After the 2006 election, I had high hopes that Democrats would again become the party of working families and embrace economic populism. The vote on the Peru "free trade" agreement suggests otherwise. A review of the roll call suggests that only 116 House Democrats will stand up for America's workers while 103 House Democrats are clearly in the pocket of Wall Street. In fairness, it should be pointed out that only 16 Republicans dared to challenge Wall Street in the latest "free trade vote" while 176 Republicans are clearly controlled by big business. There is little hope that any genuine economic populist movement could influence the Republican Party but a large number of Democrats are also under corporate control. See roll call vote

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071108/APW/711080705&template=apart

How did the Congressional Blue Dogs vote on "free trade" ? 30 members of the Blue Dog Caucus voted to send more of our jobs to Peru. 15 members of the Blue Dog Coalition were willing to oppose Wall Street and voted no. Two Blue Dogs decided to go fishing and didn't vote. I was especially disappointed with the yes vote by newly elected Congressman Brad Ellsworth of Indiana - previously thought to be one of a new breed of Democrats who mix populism with mainstream values.

To their credit, some Congressional Blue Dogs like Mike Michaud of Maine and Gene Taylor of Mississippi (who represents the most Republican district served by a Democrat in Congress) have consistently defended American workers and newly elected Heath Shuler of North Carolina votes like a real populist. But there are twice as many Congressional Blue Dogs who are puppets on the string of corporate America. I will not advocate the defeat of the "Wall Street" Dogs (as they would likely be replaced by "Wall Street" Republicans) but they certainly fail to represent my vision of what the Democratic Party or even red state Democrats should be. That's why Right Democrat has printed his last Blue Dog Coalition news release and no longer calls himself a "Blue Dog" Democrat.