Thursday, March 12, 2020

Simple Fact About Why We are Behind the 8 Ball On the Coronavirus

Here is a quote from the current issue of the economist examining why America is doing so poorly in responding to the Corono Virus.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/03/12/covid-19-is-spreading-rapidly-in-america-the-country-does-not-look-ready?utm_campaign=the-economist-today&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-03-12&utm_content=article-link-1 )

"You can’t have surge capacity if you’ve already been cut to the bone,” says Scott Burris, director of the Centre of Public Health Law Research at Temple University. In 2010 the CDC budget was $12.7 bn in current dollars; today it is $8bn."

Donald Trumps current budget proposes further cuts to the CDC.  News reports quote Trumps Budget director as saying they were still looking for those cuts to the CDC as part of their budget.  https://www.salon.com/2020/03/12/trumps-budget-director-stands-firm-on-plan-to-cut-cdc-budget-by-15-percent/


Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Are Our Primary's Making Us More Partisan?

As the ongoing tally in the Washinton State Democratic Primary highlights, early voting by mail has thrown a wrench into primary voting.  Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, the two remaining candidates, are splitting about 75% of the vote.  25% of the vote has been largely disenfranchised by voting for a candidate that subsequently dropped out of the race.

The same thing happened here in California.  

In 2016 the majority of Republicans did not support Donald Trump in the primary.  He got a consistent 30+%, yet he ended up the with the nomination because there were so many other candidates more moderate voices could not sort themselves out to support a single candidate, so Trump won enough primarys to lock up the nomination.

The current primary system on both the Republican and Democratic side favors ideologically pure candidates at the far ends of the political spectrum.  In large states where folks can vote by mail people vote days or even weeks before election day, often before candidates start dropping out.  The ideologically pure candidates have their following but more moderate candidates tend to be splitting votes with a number of other joderate candidates.

The Democratic and Republican party should use ranked choice voting in primaries.  That will make it more likely everyones vote will count even if some candidates drops out, and it probably would produce a more cooperative and less partisan politics.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Flash: Donald Trump Confirms Republican Plans to Kill Social Security

About a month ago I blogged about my perception that the reason Republicans have run up the National Debt from 30% of GDP to around $110% of GDP is because they want to use the debt to justify killing social security - on the basis we can't afford it.

https://motrvoter.blogspot.com/2020/02/will-social-security-survive-our_9.html

Yesterday President Trump proposed cuts in the Payroll Tax (which supports Social Security) as a mechanism to fight the current economic downturn. 

Wow.  How transparent.  Out of the hundreds of ways the President could inject a little cash into the pockets of consumers to give a little caffiene jolt to the economy, he thinks the best choice is to take money from the payroll tax that funds social security.

Cutting payroll taxes will provide a boost to the amount of some workers paychecks small enough that probably many will hardly notice.  It will do nothing for the folks sent home from work, or not working.  But it serves the super-rich desire to undermine the Social Security tax trust fund that pays for Social Security.  Somewhere between 30% to 40% of our National debt is already owed to the Social Security trust, borrowed by Congress to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.

President Trump must think working folks are stupid.

Are we?

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Is A Good President a CEO? Or an Arbitrator?

Last night a friend described Joe Biden as an empty vessel.  It struck me immediately as an apt description, and along with it came a negative connotation I immediately linked to Joe Biden.

But as I think about it I realized maybe the negative connotation had more to do with the politics bequethed on us by ambition of politicans than what our founding fathers sought in our constitution.

Should we be looking for a President who is more like a CEO shaping the country to his/her vision?  Or an arbitrator who applies common sense to strike a balance between those committed to advancing particular ideas who are perhaps in too much of a hurry to implement their ideas to consider unintended consequences?

Certainly in reality a President needs to the capacity to wear both hats, so the question becomes one of which way a candidate might tilt.  Both views have their weaknesses.  

A president who is a committed advocate for a particular change will have a hard time not dismissing opposition rather than considering whether they have a good point.  I think of Viet-nam - Eisenhower, fundementally more of an arbitrator, limited our involvement in Viet-nam.  Kennedy, the idea man, the visionary, responded to the hyperbolic anti-communism of the time by pushing us too deep into the Vietnam to extract ourselves. 

An arbitrator on the other end may lean too far toward maintaining the status quo in the absence of overwhelming evidence. 

Our Constitution made Congress the body that makes law, not the President.  A powerful President sounded too much like it could evolve into a new King like the one they had just fought the Revolutionary War to get out from under.  George Washington was chosen as the first President because everybody respected him and he didn't advocate for any particular policy other than finding a way to preseve the new union.  Many Republican candidates in the 1800's who got elected routinely pledged to serve only one term and did step down at the end of the term.

To me there is no right answer.  But it is worth reminding ourselves as voters of the pluses and minuses of the two approaches to being President.  A President that can wear both hats is perhaps ideal.  But I do think Congress should be the initiator of change.  

At this time where we have a President who routinely fires anyone who questions what he thinks or says I would not be unhappy to see Bernie and Elizabeth remain in Congress to advocate for their positions and have a President perceived as more nuetral.