Gubernatorial Candidate Roundup

Early voting in the primaries starts Tuesday next week so let’s time to talk about the Democratic candidates for governor. While there are officially nine, only five are worth talking about as the rest seemed to have filed because they woke up and decided it would be great to be governor. In no particular order the five to actually consider are Jeffrey Payne, Tom Wakely, Lupe Valdez, Andrew White and Cedric Davis, Sr.

Jeffrey Payne seems to be earnest and thoughtful, he’s been campaigning since last fall. Payne is an entrepreneur who owns a wide range of businesses including a court reporting operation and a bar among others. I’m confident he has the best interests of Texas at heart, I think he genuinely cares. My problem with him as a potential governor is he lacks any governmental experience at all.

Tom Wakely is a long time activist, I’ve met him several times over the last few years. Wakely ran for congress unsuccessfully last term, he too has been actively campaigning since last fall. Wakely has made numerous trips around the state and is actively seeking support in some of the more forgotten communities in Texas. His strong populist message deserves the attention of all Democrats and especially voters in underserved communities where raising the minimum wage and treating health care as a human right would go a long way toward improving life. Wakely is a Viet Nam era Air Force veteran and a former union organizer who worked with Cesar Chavez in San Antonio in the 1970’s. He now runs a hospice for the terminally ill. Wakely’s only weakness is that he has no experience in government at any level.

Lupe Valdez is a retired U.S. Army captain, she’s been a federal agent and a four term Sheriff of Dallas County. Valdez is from a large family of migrant farm workers. Her parents taught her to work hard and the value of education which is why she believes we have to invest in Texans and help them find their path whether that’s university without massive debt, free community college, trade skills, or the tools to start a small business. Valdez believes health care is a human right and is committed to expanding Medicaid, passing paid family and sick leave, stopping the attacks on women's healthcare, and ending the medical deserts in urban and rural Texas. Having been elected four times she knows how to campaign and win and having served in public office for over 12 years she has experience in government. I think she’s a solid candidate.

Andrew White is only on this list because he’s generated big money in campaign contributions. White is an entrepreneur like Payne above who has no experience in governance and unlike Wakely has shown no interest in working to make Texas better. When first exploring whether or not to run he publicly stated that he could see himself running as a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican. That tells me all I need to know as he doesn’t stand for anything. Perhaps he feels entitled as he is the son of former Texas governor Mark White.

Cedric Davis, Sr. is a Desert Storm veteran, as well as civic activist, policeman, teacher, civic leader and the first African American Mayor of Balch Springs near Dallas. Davis wants to raise minimum wage, expand Medicaid by taking the nearly $100 billion available to Texas under the Affordable Care Act. Davis says he’ll work to restore state funding for public education and believes criminal justice reform is an important part of making Texas a better place.

Layoffs, Tolls, and Trickle-down Economics

Ten days ago Trump gave his first State of the Union address. An important but little discussed point involves the proposed public-private partnerships in his infrastructure plan. None of this should be a surprise as Trump talked about such public-private partnerships during his campaign. The Trump administration expects that by providing 15-20% of the funding state governments or private companies will be encouraged to provide the rest of the funds needed to construct roads and bridges as well as other projects. He claims that $200 million of federal money will drive construction of up to $1.5 trillion in infrastructure.

Regarding state government projects such a partnership is not unusual, think of interstate highways as an example. What Trump failed to mention is that private companies have no incentive to build a road and let people drive on it unless they can charge them to use it, that means a toll road. Every other project a private company might be willing to build involves that company charging the public to use it.

Most folks I know regardless of political persuasion hate toll roads. Trump thinks they’re just dandy as do his servants in congress. Remember that when elections roll around in November.

Of course, Trump also touted his big “accomplishment” the tax cut that mostly benefits the top 10% and multi-billion dollar corporations. Yes, a few companies will give bonuses, a few others will give small raises. Mostly the tax cuts will end up in stock buy-backs, stock dividends and CEO pay. Worse than that are the companies that are hiding large layoffs behind small bonuses. That list includes:

Kimberly-Clark, manufacturer of consumer products like Kleenex, Viva paper towels, and Huggies diapers, announced it will use its tax cut windfall to pay the costs of closing 10 factories and laying off as many as 5,500 employees.

AT&T was the first to announce one-time bonuses as a result of the tax bill. Just days later, it reported plans to lay off more than 1,000 employees in early 2018.

Walmart announced it would raise the minimum wage for its workers to $11 per hour on January 11 but, that same day, announced the closure of 63 Sam’s Club stores and that about 10,000 workers will be laid off. Walmart also laid off between 400 and 500 corporate employees at its headquarters last week.

Comcast announced 100,000 bonuses of $1,000, while around 500 managers, supervisors, and salespeople were fired.

Of the Fortune 500 only 29 (5.8%) report giving one-time bonuses and just 17 (3.4%) report providing wage increases.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention that Carrier, the company Trump claimed kept jobs in Indiana because he negotiated a deal, announced another 200+ employees will be laid off in addition to the 340 laid off last summer.

It’s nice that some folks are getting one time bonuses, but considering that the tax breaks their employers are getting are permanent shouldn’t the employees be getting raises instead so they can share in the benefits of the tax cut?

If you never understood the term trickle-down economics before, now you do, especially if you or a loved one is on the laid off list even though corporate profits are at record levels.

One time bonuses instead of raises, layoffs and tolls, this is what Trump and his minions in congress expect us to accept. This November you’ll have a chance to let them know just how wrong they are.

A Saturday with Other Angry Texans

I spent last Saturday in San Antonio in the company of a few hundred angry people from all over Texas. We were there because we believe our state and federal governments have long been run for the benefit of the wealthy and the privileged and yet we remain hopeful that we can change that. We gathered together to in the belief that if we organize ourselves and devote our energy to our common cause we can create a better world for everyone.

Our group is Our Revolution Texas and at our state convention there were delegates and activists from the eleven regional organizations. One of the main priorities was to create a declaration of principles to guide our actions as we work for a better future. Among those principles is opposition to the rise of oligarchy in modern society. We recognized that the deregulatory agenda of the American right has led to the most shocking and intolerable inequalities of wealth and income in the history of the modern world.

We agreed to demand from our elected officials that the current embrace of greed and economic inequality be replaced with a more just society in which resources, wealth, and the fruits of human labor and inventiveness are more justly shared by all persons as a human right.

Our Revolution members believe that our nation and our state must adopt living wage legislation setting the floor at $15 per hour and indexing it for inflation. Those skilled workers already at or near that rate are underpaid and should have the right to organize and join strong labor unions in order to collectively negotiate conditions of employment including fair pay, sick leave and the like.

It is our position that medical care is a human right without regard for ability to pay that society as a whole must provide legislatively through a universal health care program such as Medicare for All.

While progress has been made over the last century we agreed that there is much to be done in order to remove the social and economic barriers women face in achieving equal rights. Our society’s tragic history of male supremacy must be overturned and perpetrators like Steve Wynn, the disgraced former Chair of the Republican National Committee who resigned earlier this week, must be cast out.

Sadly, it isn’t just male supremacy that we suffer from, white supremacy has also created social, political and economic barriers to equal rights. It is utterly intolerable that 150 years after the end of slavery our society still treats people of color as second class citizens. We affirm that Black Lives Matter.

We believe that no human being is illegal and that immigrants are entitled to equal protection under the law. We call for the speedy passage of enactment of laws to provide a path to citizenship for those previously covered under DACA and an end to the inhumane detention practices which break up families.

We recognize that our beautiful earth and life-protecting environment is being pillaged to benefit those whose rampaging greed is insatiable. We insist that our elected officials devote immediate attention to reversing the tragically accelerating process of climate change for which unnatural human interference in the environment is the primary cause.

The members of Our Revolution Texas stand committed to the hard and laborious long-term work of organizing a powerful mass political movement for the accomplishment of all aspects of this vision.

Published in the Seguin Gazette, February 2, 2018