2021 Democratic Accomplishments

As this is the last column of 2021 I thought it important to review some of the things that Democrats led by President Joe Biden have accomplished this year. Democrats worked hard to overcome the obstruction of Republicans like our senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. While they haven’t done everything I think they could or should have, I firmly believe that the country is better off for their efforts. Many of our families, friends, and neighbors have benefited from the legislation and policies pushed by the Biden administration with the support of Texas Democrats like our congressman, Vicente González.

To me the most important act Biden took upon his inauguration was to rejoin the Paris climate accord which former President Donald Trump had left. His action put the U.S. back in line with the majority of the world's nations and also helped place the Biden administration at the center of efforts to tackle global climate change. While Biden has repeatedly stressed the need to curb climate change by transitioning to clean energy, the administration's approach has often disappointed me. The U.S. not signing the pledge to end the use of coal power announced at COP26 conference is one of those disappointments. On the positive side, last month the president unveiled a 100 country pledge to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas methane by at least 30 percent by 2030 and joined another agreement to end and reverse deforestation. This month the Biden administration ordered U.S. government agencies to stop financing carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects abroad.

Biden, an opponent of the federal death penalty, has reinstated a 17-year pause on federal executions on federal executions that former President Trump ended allowing 13 people were put to death between July, 2020 and January, 2021. It’s important to remember that according to a study published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” at least 4% of people on death penalty/death row were and are likely innocent. Biden has pledged "to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow."

President Biden supported by the 50 Democratic senators has seen 40 federal judges confirmed so far more than any president in their first term since Ronald Reagan in 1981, and twice as many as Trump appointed during his first year. Now he just needs to address the 6-3 conservative dominated Supreme Court.

Many Americans are pessimistic about the U.S. economy given inflation at a 40-year high, yet it’s important to remember that Biden's first year in office has seen significant improvements in job and wage growth. The national unemployment rate fell from 6.3% in January to just 4.2% in November, the lowest since March 2020 and jobless claims fell to their lowest levels since 1969 in early December.

Yes, inflation has increased but more importantly wages and salaries paid by private businesses rose more, outpacing inflation by 2.4% from January to October and disposable income grew 3%. The American Rescue Plan, passed on a near party line vote and the historic economy recovery, combined to cut child poverty in half.

Next week I’ll cover what we have to look forward to in 2022 and what Republicans are doing to prevent the climate and economic recovery we so desperately need through voter suppression and gerrymandering.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 29, 2021

Hope for a Happy New Year

 As much as the two time popular vote loser has angered me along with millions of other Texans by pardoning his cronies and potential witnesses against him I thought that given we’re about to start a new year I should write about something positive instead so here are a few things that our incoming president, Joe Biden, can and should do even if Georgia fails to elect two Democrats to the U.S. Senate.

Biden has promised to fight the COVID-19 pandemic by immediately appointing a “national supply chain commander” and establishing a “pandemic testing board” upon assuming office. Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain coordinated the federal government’s response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

For the last four years the Department of Justice was not interested in fighting voter suppression. That’s likely to change quickly regardless of who Biden nominates to head the agency. Strict voter ID laws have been the main tool in the Republican voter suppression toolbox. One powerful step that Biden could take is giving people the option to add a photo to their Social Security card, since most people already have one, and that would ensure that they can’t be barred from voting in the red states like Texas  where concealed carry licenses are fine, but student IDs are not accepted. It’s a simple administrative rule fix requiring no congressional approval.

The president-elect has already stated he will bring the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Accord as one of the first orders of business. This pact is an agreement among nations to reduce emissions. Biden does not need the Senate to do so, because the Accord is an executive agreement; Biden just needs to send a letter to the United Nations stating his intent to rejoin. Furthermore, Biden can reverse the more than 125 environmental rules that Donald Trump overturned by fiat, such as rules on energy efficiency, oil exploration, and use of biofuels.

To help our low income citizens keep more of the money they earn the new administration could institute postal banking.  Unlike the other 49 states North Dakota has a very popular public bank that competes with private banking. President-elect Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders convened a task force to look into the creation of a public banking option. Such a public bank would be set up through the U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Reserve to provide low-income and middle-income families with low cost widely available banking services where they could cash payroll checks and get small short term loans are reasonable rates unlike at commercial pay-day lenders. Biden can do some of that work without any legislation, such as USPS offering their own refillable, prepaid debit cards.

Student loan debt is the only debt that you can’t discharge through bankruptcy, thanks to a 2005 law. President Biden can undo this debt the first day he takes office with the stroke of his pen. Over 90% of the student debt in this nation is owed to the federal government. Student loan debt is a huge burden to millions of people who are currently paying at 10% or more of their income every month, and will for at least a decade. Forgiving it can provide much-needed relief during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as spur economic recovery.

There are many other actions Biden can take upon assuming office that don’t require a single vote in Congress such as rewriting rules on who is eligible for overtime, extending the enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act, restoring government unions, breaking up monopolies, rescheduling marijuana and more.

Happy New Year!

Published in the Seguin Gazette - December 30, 2020

Republican Dodgeball

When Donald Trump, Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott were kids I’ll bet they were all great at dodgeball. Today they dodge taking care of real pressing issues by latching on to fringe issues like a pit bull grabs its prey by the neck and shakes it until its neck is broken. There are many important issues our elected officials could address which would improve the lives of most Americans if they were willing to raise taxes on their super-wealthy campaign donors but rather than lead they avoid biting the hand that feeds them.

Most Americans now understand that climate change is a real and pressing threat to our way of life and human civilization as a whole. Instead of working to address it Trump has announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. He dodged the issue by claiming that converting to green energy sources will cost Americans their jobs. The reality is that there are already more people working in the solar energy field than there are in the coal industry and the difference is exploding.

Instead of leading on addressing climate change Trump is still pushing his Muslim travel ban which multiple federal judges in a variety of jurisdictions have tossed out. Even if his ban were to go into effect it is unlikely to stop a single terror attack. Most terror attacks carried out in the U.S. and Europe since 9/11 have involved either citizens or long term residents not recent immigrants. In fact more than half of all deaths in terror attacks have been caused by white United States citizens.

Democrats in Congress have been pushing for a climate agreement for years and President Obama finally was able to sign one last year. If anything staying in the agreement and fulfilling our goals, which are strictly voluntary and have no enforcement measures would have been a boon to our economy creating tens of thousands of jobs but costing oil, gas and coal companies profits.

Here in Texas our Lt. Governor, Dan Patrick, spent the entire legislative session pushing his infamous Billion Dollar Bathroom bill, SB 6, which could cost the state up to $8.5 billion and 185,000 jobs. This legislation is a solution in search of a problem which Speaker of the House, Joe Straus, wanted nothing to do with. Dan Patrick just didn’t want to deal with finding the money to adequately fund public education in Texas. He made lots of noise and satisfied some of his small minded voters while avoiding raising taxes on his campaign donors.

Democrats in the state legislature have fought tooth and nail to address the outdated and inadequate public school funding formula. Now Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special session which among other things will address Dan Patrick’s Billion Dollar Bathroom bill. Gov. Abbott has also included formation of a public school finance commission but if Dan Patrick hadn’t wasted so much time on who uses which bathroom this could have been dealt with during the regular session.

None of that gets Greg Abbott of the hook though as the special session call includes such terribly important issues as anti-abortion insurance legislation. He’s asking the legislature to make it illegal to sell health insurance that covers abortion.

Democrats in the legislature would rather work on strengthening the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) by fulling funding it rather than cutting benefits to the people who taught most of us the three R’s but again that would cause a few billionaires to pay more taxes and they pay good money to avoid that.

Published in the Seguin Gazette June 9, 2017