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Democrat Candidates For Ohio State Assembly Fail To Challenge Republicans On Crucial Budget / Tax Issues

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Mike Bock

Early on, I thought Democratic Candidates for Ohio’s State Assembly would have a good chance to win Districts that usually go Republican. After all, Republicans have had complete dominance in Ohio’s Assembly for many, many years. The facts of long time Republican incompetence, mismanagement, and flawed operating principles in Ohio are written large for everyone to see. Republicans have a lot to account for.

I hope Democrat candidates for State Assembly, particularly, those running in gerrymandered Republican Districts, will prevail tomorrow. Voters who normally vote Republican, I feel, are looking for a reason to switch their vote. Good grief, this should be a year for Democrats. But, overall, I’ve disagreed with the strategy that Democrat Assembly candidates have used in this campaign.

I wrote early on, Republican Ohio Assembly Candidates Must Be Punished For Ohio’s Decline. But Democrat candidates, overall, have not made the case. Maybe, voters will be voting for that big D, just as a means of protest. But, I’m disappointed that Democrats have not been more aggressive in distinguishing themselves from Republicans, specifically, by talking about Ohio’s budget and tax challenges.

The word “tax” has such power, it seems, Democrats are afraid to utter the word. Barack Obama, even with his zillions of dollars to spend, has had a mighty difficult time explaining his tax policies, and maybe Democrats for these low expenditure Assembly races think the arc of explanation of real issues is simply too difficult and explaining tax policies too likely to make one vulnerable to unfair attack. It seems Democrats running for the State Assembly are trying to get elected without taking any definite stands about tax issues. The strategy of these Democrats running in heavily gerrymandered Republican Districts, seemingly is: Don’t offend, don’t challenge, don’t talk about controversial issues.

Chris Widener is the Republican candidate for state senate running against Roger Tackett. He is spending a lot on money deriding “Tackett Taxes.” But Widener gives no evidence that he has any understanding of the budget crisis that Ohio faces. I wrote early on: “Chris Widener, Republican Senate Candidate, Boasts About Tax Cuts, But How Will He Solve Ohio’s Budget Crisis?”

Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction Law (worth $2.2 billion each year) gave over $500 million to the top 1% of Ohio incomes — incomes in excess of $340,000. It reduced business taxes by over $1 billion each year.

As it is, because of this decrease in revenue to the state because of tax cuts, and because of the deepening recession, Ohio faces some huge challenges in forming its next budget. This year, Governor Strickland has already cut over $1.2 billion from the state budget and the challenges for the next budget promise to be horrendous.

Forming the next budget is the primary responsibility of the State Assembly. I wrote “Assembly Candidates Should Take Stand: Will Ohio Raise Taxes Or Will Ohio Cut State Services?”

I understand why Republican candidates in this campaign chose not to look at the question of the budget in honest detail. Widener and the Republicans want to boast about tax cuts, but they don’t want to talk about cutting back Grandma’s medicaid, or cutting expenditures to local governments. Ohio is facing some hard realities, and, it seems to me, it was a wrong strategy for Democrat candidate’s to the State Assembly to ignore this hard reality.

Widener was a state representative in 2005 when Republicans passed a massive income Tax Reduction Bill that greatly favored the wealthy and corporations and unfairly shifted tax burden onto the poor. John Husted, Republican candidate for the State Senate in District 6, opposed by Democrat John Doll, was the Speaker of the House. This was sterling Republican legislation and I’m sure that every Republican running for the State Assembly would defend and boast about that 2005 Tax Reduction Law. Republican campaigns are all about defending fantasy land.

Democrat campaigns should have been about reality, but, overall, weren’t. This is unfortunate because, it seems to me, many voters, if they understood Ohio’s budget, would fundamentally disagree with the Republican principles that directed the writing of this 2005 Tax Reduction Law. Republicans should have been forced to defend This 2005 Tax Reduction Law but Democrat State Assembly candidates, on this issue, have basically given the Republicans a free ride.

I wrote a post explaining that “Ohio’s 2005 Tax Reduction Law Diminished, By 21%, The Progressivity of Ohio’s Tax Code.” This change of progressivity in Ohio’s tax structure deserved to be debated, but, in this campaign was ignored

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Union Leader Accuses Paulson of Gifting Bailout Money; Naomi Kline Cites “Frantic Looting” Of Public Wealth

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Mike Bock

Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, condemns the waste and fraud presented in the recent $125 billion bailout of financial institutions. Gerard accuses Paulson of paying twice as much for the government’s investment than what was a fair price.

In his letter, Gerard makes a detailed comparison of what Warren Buffet received for his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sach’s to what The US Treasury received and shows that Paulson paid more than twice what should have been paid.

Gerard says, “You paid $125 billion for securities for which a disinterested party would have paid $62.5 billion. This means that you gifted the other $62.5 billion to the shareholders of these nine institutions. … This is no different than if you paid me $10,000 for a car for which no one else would pay more than $5,000. You bought it for $5,000 and gifted me the other $5,000. In my world such gifts are rarely offered to working people.”

Gerard says, “It has been reported in the media that these firms have no intention of using this money for its intended purpose.” He complains that,“$25 billion per year that the firms pay out in dividends to their shareholders” will continue.

Gerard says, “Secretary Paulson, out in the real economy, the unbridled pursuit of greed that you and your friends on Wall Street have celebrated as a national religion has taken a terrible toll on ordinary Americans. Jobs with stagnant real wages have now given way to massive lay-offs, home foreclosures and real suffering.

“Out in the real economy, we need to once and for all bury the philosophy that worships only business, free markets, deregulation and free trade, and replace it with an economic program that restores the balance of power between workers and business, rebuilds the middle class and curbs corporate excesses.”

Naomi Klein in a recent Nation article, “The Bailout: Bush’s Final Pillage,” accuses the “Bush gang” of conducting, “a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.”

Klein writes, “When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.

“The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: ‘distressed asset’ auctions and the ‘equity purchase program.’ But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese–a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.”

Klein says, “Whoever wins the election on November 4 will have enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds–not after the inauguration, but right away. All deals should be renegotiated immediately, this time with the public getting the guarantees.”

Posted in Special Reports | Tagged Add new tag, bailout, naomi kline | 1 Comment

In Divided America, Partisans Read Different Books, Watch Different Videos

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Mike Bock

Interesting article in Slate by Bill Bishop, “America’s Partisan Reading List,” that reports on work done by social scientist Valdis Krebs. Krebs has made elaborate charts showing how political books purchased at Amazon cluster together. These charts show clusters of books and show that liberal readers choose books from the universe of liberal books and conservative readers buy books from the universe of conservative books.

In the past there have been “connector books,” that were purchased by both camps. Past “connector books,” included, “What Went Wrong,” “Sleeping With The Devil,” “All the Shah’s Men,” and “Bush At War.”

Now there seem to be no connector books.

Bishops says this clustering of books is indicative of how, as a nation, we are separated: “We read apart, live apart, watch apart, blog apart, and drive apart; we are one country that lacks any shared experiences or, it seems, common purpose.”

Bishop writes, “Given a choice, people will go to places where their beliefs are reinforced. In a recent study of Yahoo Finance discussion boards, three University of Texas business professors found that stock-pickers cluster. Those who think Apple is going up talk to each other on one thread. Those who think GE will fall even more find their way to the same little spot on the Web. Technology doesn’t help people find new ways of thinking or seeing the world — even when it might be in their financial interest. We still hunker down with those who hold our opinions.”

Bishop refers to this interesting web-site that has a great chart that shows how You-tube videos also “swarm” — some downloaded by liberal web-sites and blogs, some downloaded by conservative web-sites and blogs. Most popular on liberal sites is Wassup, downloaded by 209 liberal web-sites and only 21 conservative web-sites. Most popular on conservative sites is Obama 2001 comments about Redistribution of Wealth, downloaded by 452 Conservative sites and 51 Liberal sites.

A few videos were in the middle. “Take Me On,” a clever music video, was downloaded equally by liberal and conservative sites. And “Chimpanzee Rides Seqway” was equally downloaded.

“Chimpanzee Rides Seqway”