Democrats Must Do Better Than Biden

I’m convinced that Donald Trump can be beaten in the 2020 election by several of the potential nominees. Recent polling even shows that Joe Biden can beat him here in Texas. Biden currently has the highest national ranking among Democrats who are running for the nomination. I’m just not sure he can actually win because this will be an election much like 2016 where turning out voters is more important that persuading so called swing voters and Biden isn’t that inspiring to the folks who too often don’t vote.

I don’t see him getting support from the people who we need to get to the polls in Texas in order to win a majority for president or possibly more importantly providing the coat tails to win the federal and state legislature. His support is primarily older voters who already turn out to vote in most elections. The people Democrats need in order to win the majority in the state and federal legislature are the young and minority voters. Many of those voters find Biden too middle of the road and his recent statements claiming that Republicans will work with him as well as telling business executives that not much will change just prove he’s not the change so many were looking for when they voted for Obama then Trump. That’s not to say Biden won’t get the nomination or even win in 2020 but if he does I worry he’ll end up with a Republican controlled Senate which will prevent him from achieving even slight reforms and that will lead to another Trump like president in 2024 as voters continue to look for change.

Even if Biden wins and gets to work with a majority in both houses of Congress his own statement that not much will change suggest his administration won’t provide the push to move forward on climate change, social justice, or any of the other reforms our nation so sorely needs. Yes, it would be more minority friendly, more LGBTQ friendly, less reactionary, and a better international partner but that won’t be enough for people who don’t see our government as responsive to their needs. It won’t be enough to inspire them to vote again in 2022 and 2024 and if they do vote it won’t keep them from turning to another charlatan selling snake oil in the hope that they’ll shake things up.

I’ll vote for whoever is the Democratic nominee in 2020 because none of the candidates can be worse than Trump or for that matter anyone who could possibly win the Republican nomination. I simply fear that having a “moderate” win our nomination and then the presidency invites disaster for the future of our nation. Next Wednesday and Thursday on NBC the public will have a chance to hear from twenty of the candidates and I hope that readers will take that opportunity to begin getting to know the candidates.

Wednesday, June 26, will start at 8pm and the candidates on stage will be: Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Rep. John Delaney, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former US Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Rep. Tim Ryan, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

The following night, Thursday June 27, also starting at 8pm, the lineup will be: Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris, former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Michael Bennet, author Marianne Williamson, Rep. Eric Swalwell, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 21, 2019

Trump Administration Most Corrupt in a Century

Even putting aside the numerous corrupt and criminal actions by the current occupant of the White House such as obstruction of justice as documented in the Mueller report and violations of the emoluments clause by receiving large amounts of money from various foreign countries and businesses through his hotels the Trump administration is without a doubt the most thoroughly corrupt since at least Warren G. Harding was president from 1921-1923.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price was run out of the administration for using tax payer funds to pay for charter flights to various speaking engagements but wasn’t prosecuted. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin got a slap on the wrist for doing the same thing to the tune of over $800,000 and is still a Cabinet member. Former Texas governor and now Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, has been investigated for using $56,000 in taxpayer money to pay for charter flights that could have been made on scheduled airlines for far less.

Before resigning in December, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke was being investigated for possible self-dealing involving a developer working on a project near land in Montana owned by Zinke and his wife, Lola. The question is whether Zinke used his office for financial benefit; the Interior Department’s inspector general referred the matter to the Justice Department. He also spent thousands of dollars of public money on charter flights that he could have made on regularly scheduled airlines for a few hundred dollars. In addition friends and campaign contributors of Zinke were awarded a $300 million dollar contract to rebuild the power grid in Puerto Rico even though their company consists of only two people and the company has no experience with such a large scale project.

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt was under investigation by the inspector general of his agency prior to his resignation. The inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency said that former Administrator Scott Pruitt wasted nearly $124,000 of taxpayer money on excessive travel, including first-class airline tickets. Pruitt had EPA staff help his wife, Marilyn, seek employment with an annual salary of more than $200,000. Just three months after Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Pruitt used agency staff to contact Chick-Fil-A about his wife becoming a franchisee. Pruitt paid just $50 a night to stay in a Capitol Hill condominium linked to a prominent Washington lobbyist whose firm represents a long list of fossil fuel companies like Exxon.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson spent about $45,000 refitting his office, including $4,000 for new blinds, more than $8,000 for a dishwasher, and nearly $32,000 for a dining-room table. In March 2018, Congress asked the GAO to investigate the spending. While the blinds were found to be acceptable the table and dishwasher broke the law.

In February, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) refused to certify Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s financial disclosure statement because he hadn’t sold a stock that he claimed he had. Ross insisted the error was simply a mistake. His claim might have been more believable if the OGE hadn’t already had to warn Ross about inaccuracies in previous disclosures, and if he hadn’t also been caught lying to the press about his finances.

Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump began using the slogan “Drain the swamp” to represent his purported intention to stamp out corruption and self-dealing in Washington. From the examples above its pretty clear he didn’t mean what he said.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 14, 2019

Mexico Tariff Foolishness

Barring some last minute deal that Trump’s negotiators make with Mexico which at least appear to reduce immigration to the United States next Monday everything imported from Mexico will go up in price by 5%, that’s an extra $180 that the average American family will spend to buy the same beer, avocados, laptop computers, and automobiles. Some other items that will cost more due to Trump’s trade war with Mexico include televisions, phones, medical and surgical instruments, refrigerators and air conditioners, dates, figs, and pineapples. If nothing changes Trump promises that the tariff will increase another 5% every month until it reaches 25% or an extra $900 for those products. Remember that tariffs are taxes so this means Trump is raising your taxes as much as $900 each year.

Compare that $900 tax increase to the income taxes you paid this April 15 versus last year. For the few non-billionaires who actually noticed a reduction in their federal incomes taxes this year most or all of it will be offset by the increases in the price of goods we’re paying on items imported from China and perhaps Mexico. Trump’s argument is that the manufacturers will see it is in their interest to move manufacturing back to the US to avoid the tariffs but that hasn’t been the case when exchange rates shift and it hasn’t noticeably caused the return of manufacturing jobs from China. Instead two things have happened, offshore manufacturers simply moved to another low wage country that isn’t subject to the tariffs or they bring manufacturing back to the US but in highly automated form such that hardly any jobs are created.

Meanwhile US manufacturers like Harley Davidson actually moved some production to Europe so as to avoid retaliatory tariffs imposed by EU nations. Some small US manufacturers have even gone out of business because the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods increased the cost of the materials they used to make their products making them uncompetitive with similar products made in other countries not subject to the same tariffs.

American farmers, especially those growing soy beans, have taken a real beating from Trumps China tariffs. China retaliated by raising tariffs on agricultural products so Chinese buyers found alternate sources of soy beans leaving American farmers with huge surpluses no one wants. Trump’s solution is to give $19 billion in aid to mid-West farmers but that doesn’t come close to making up the price difference so now we’re seeing higher than normal rates of farm bankruptcies in the mid-West. At the same time Trump’s effort to insulate himself from the ire of farmers increases the federal deficit.

In 1930 as the Great Depression was getting wrecking the lives of most Americans, Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs into law exacerbating the damage. Among economists today there is some debate on just how much those tariffs hurt America but there is broad consensus that they did hurt and not help. More than a dozen Republican Senators are ready to vote to disapprove the Mexico tariffs, if they can must 18 they can put a stop to it. John Cornyn has spoken against the tariff but he hasn’t committed to voting against it. He’s up for election in 2020 and it’s likely to be a close race so now would be a good time to call him and let him know you want him to stop the madness and vote against the Mexico tariffs. You can call his San Antonio office at 210-224-7485.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 7, 2019

Freedom of Reproductive Choice Left and Right

While the rate of abortions is the lowest since the early 1970’s before the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized it and about half the peak rate which occurred in 1984 Republicans aren’t satisfied. Several state legislatures have recently all but outlawed abortions. Alabama’s new law is the most restrictive only allowing exceptions "to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother," for ectopic pregnancy and if the "unborn child has a lethal anomaly."

You can tell a lot of the legislators passing such bills a truly ignorant of human reproduction. Republican state Sen. Clyde Chambliss, who pushed Alabama’s bill stated on the Senate floor that there is a "window" of time between conception and when a woman knows for certain that she's pregnant which he believes to be seven to ten days. Reality is that most women don’t know they’re pregnant for six to eight weeks and often longer.

Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Ohio all passed bills prohibiting abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, that’s six weeks. In other words by the time a woman even knows she’s pregnant these lawmakers have eliminated abortion as an option. In Missouri the governor signed into law a bill banning abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy, without exceptions in the cases of rape or incest.

Some state legislatures controlled by Democrats are expanding abortion rights and access. In Maine new state law will allow nurse practitioners to perform abortions, expanding the possible number of care providers in the state. Nevada’s legislature voted to reverse some restrictions. Vermont's legislature recognized “as a fundamental right the freedom of reproductive choice," including “rights to choose or refuse contraception or sterilization or to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to obtain an abortion”—and its Republican governor won’t veto the bill.

The Illinois state House has passed a bill that, like Vermont’s, affirms reproductive freedoms and also repeals some restrictions on the books in the state. Massachusetts is considering the ROE Act, which would remove some restrictions, including a parental permission law for teens and a waiting period that isn’t currently being enforced anyway, as well as expand rights to abortion after 24 weeks in case of serious fetal abnormalities and create a safety net to ensure that abortion is treated like other medical care for women who don’t have other health coverage.

Research from around the globe shows restrictive laws don’t actually seem to reduce abortion rates. Instead, they are linked to unsafe abortions, which put women at risk of serious health problems and even death.

States that emphasize abstinence-only programs have the highest rates of teen pregnancy and teen birth. In 2003, California lawmakers instead passed the California Comprehensive Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Act which forbade public schools from promoting religious doctrine or bias against people, and said that all sex education programs had to be medically accurate, age-appropriate and comprehensive. By 2005, California’s teen pregnancy rate was 75 per 1,000 teens, a more than 50 percent decline that dwarfed the corresponding national decline of 37 percent.

To this day, a large minority of teen pregnancies tend to end in abortion. But with California’s decline in teen pregnancy rates came declines in both teen births and teen abortions. Abortions, in particular, dropped from 76 per 1,000 teens in 1988 to 26 per 1,000 in 2005.

If Republicans really wanted to reduce abortions they’d improve sex ed in our public schools, instead they just pander to religious conservatives.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 31, 2019