In the real world there is no such thing as purity.

A progressive agenda as defined by many at TPMCafe will drive the United States economy into second rate status. It will give rise to a new Reafgan who will blame everything on government and enact new tax cuts.

It might be time for those not in government to recognize that ideology of the Right and Left is largely foolish because the world is more complicated than that.

The current tendency to annoint a new media darling as the champion of the Left or the Right without knowing much about the person or what policies really work is interesting. It would seem that blogs and the ability to disucss real policies would reduce this problem.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Most legislation that actually passes does so on a bipartisan basis. This is especially true now, with Bush still in the White House and the thinnest possible Dem majority in the Senate.

There is a raft of legislation that has not reached the floor because Republicans are well aware that their positions are unpopular. Bush will be under enormous pressure from his colleagues in the Congress to sign bills like the mininimum wage increase, cutting of oil industry subsidies, changes in the Medicare drug plan, reduction of student loan interest rates and so forth.

He may nonetheless veto those bills. But that will just set the stage for another wave, in the Senate in 08, perhaps with a republican president. (The dem candidates don't look so hot at the moment, and we've just had a lesson in what can happen when you have undivided government.)

You've hit upon the choice that the Democratic party, and the nation as a whole have to eventually face: How are we going to pay for the things we promised to the American people? In the next 5-10 years, the baby boom will start to retire in large numbers. The succeeding generations are nowhere near as large, and based on the current social security system, we may have a serious shortfall of funding. Same with Medicare.

We have all of this financial obligations along with a massive military budget. And top that off with the fact this country is in a huge amount of debt. It leaves us with fateful choices: Raise taxes and cut spending; Raise taxes and increasing spending or cut taxes and cut spending even more. Cutting taxes and increasing spending has, thanks to Bush, been discredited.

Raising taxes and spending, as suggested here, is probably the approach that would help ensure funding for all the nifty programs Dems like to have. The problem is with this is people are only willing to pay so much. Tax increases have never been popular. You still have a sizable number of people who believe that government should stay out of their bedrooms AND their pocketbooks. Some of them even voted Dem this past election, not because of a desire for higher taxes and more services, but because of Bush's incompetence.

Some would say if we only cut the military budget then we could pay for everything else on the progressive wish list. Fat chance - the military is the sacred cow of American society. We barely did it at the end of the Cold War (we cut the military a little, but not much), but if the Dems were to advocate this now (while we still have the issue of terrorism to deal with), they would quickly go back to minority status.

Personally, I think we have to bite the bullet and get out of debt entirely. It would be a lot better if we were no longer beholden to the Chinese or Saudis.

Any Baby Boomers in my situation won't be retiring at all. I make good money and as a result no significant grants were available, so I'm carrying college loans for my children equivalent to a mortgage.

I'll be contributing to general revenues and Social Security for a while yet.

For evidence of true progressive inclinations on the economic front, I look for advocacy of new spending initiatives financed by new taxes.

It is, of course, silly to talk of federal spending being "financed" by taxes, since the Federal government is the monopoly issuer of fiat currency, and can spend its own fiat-currency without any finance whatsoever. The problem, of course, is that doing that beyond the capacity of the private sector to mobilize unemployed resources leads to price inflation, and if pushed too far undermines the status of the government's fiat currency as money.

Thus, when government spends, it creates new purchasing power, and the role that taxes play is to remove sufficient purchasing power to maintain macroeconomic balance.

However, there is certainly a strong case that can be made that government consumption spending should be matched by corresponding taxes. Therefore, for people focusing on government consumption spending, talking of taxes as "financing" government spending is a convenient way to avoid working through the argument for people indoctrinated into the "pile of treasure" image of public finance.

On the other hand, for government investment that will increase the future productive capacity of the economy, it is hard to make the case that the government should refrain spending more on those projects than are collected in taxes, even in a period of sluggish growth such as the most recent expension, and certainly in the period during and immediately following a recession.

And there is a tremendous amount of public and private investment that can, and under a progressive agenda should, be pursued, from providing the infrastructure to make driving an option rather than a necesity for more transport tasks around the country, to installing the smart electric grid that we will require to allow for a larger share of electricity production from renewable sources, to substantial retrofitting of the existing housing stock to reduce energy inefficiency and increase energy production.

The most economically damaging aspect of the Bush deficit is not, after all, its size, but the location of the spending ... large military expenditures on ill-advised overseas adventures drives up the trade deficit, government investment spending is suppressed in the name of "supporting the troops", and the resources pulled into armaments production installs promotion of armament exports as part of the response to the trade deficit crisis that the focus on the military helped create.

Where is your evidence that "economic sanctions result[ed] in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children."

You can't just make an assertion like that with no evidence to back it up as if it is conventional wisdom.

What was your preferred policy back then? It's not like Saddam gave us good options. Surely you don't think we should have let his post '91 human rights violations continue without a word.

I think it's been well-documented, but I'm not going to go look for the cites. Ms. Albright did not deny it when asked.

As for alternatives, I agree that is a difficult question to answer. Ideally sanctions would have prevented imports of big-ticket military equipment, as well as WMD-related stuff, but not ordinary stuff. There was also the 'single-bullet' option for SH and his revolting offspring.

As for leaving Saddam be, you can always match his human rights record with the horrific aftermath of the U.S. invasion.

Max B. Sawicky

http://maxspeak.org/mt

max@maxspeak.org

From my published in 1949 college text on Western Civilizations: "The Cost of Modern War." Total cost $1,384,900,000,000 (WWII)

A $16,000 house for every family in the US, Britain, France, Belguim, Spain, and Portugal; A $10,000,000 library for every city of 200,000 inhabitants and over in the US, Great Britain, and Russia; A $50,000,000 university for each of the (above) cities; A $2000 automobile for every family in the US, GB, France, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Norway; The salaries of 100,000 teachers and an equal number of nurses at $3000 a year for 100 years; A free college education (at an estimated cost of $6000) for every boy and girl in the US from 17 to 21 years of age.

It was probably because I read that in 1950 that every time we have a war, and that seems like all the time, I sigh.

What a cheap shot. Post after post here at the Cafe is anti globalization, seeks to make war on Wal-Mart, and at heart would like to see a European like welfare state.

What is also too common is thoughtless replies that call something a "strawman" when it is true and provides no cogent answer. This suggests an ideological rather than factual world view. Not all that different from the Bush like Right.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

You might want to rethink your assessment of John Murtha, Max. It's true that he's the most conservative democrat in the House outside of the deep south. He has defense industry pork problems, earmark problems & some past ethical improprieties, but in addition to being right about the Iraq war, he's also an economic nationalist who has voted against every single trade deal & opposes increased mexican immigration. I don't think there's anything much good about him personally, save a willingness to tell the truth about Iraq, but as he is a conservative trade reactionary, I figure he might be up you & your team's alley.

Talking reality on spending and taxes is a non-starter politically.

Exactly. 

As to the stereotype, I plead guilty.  I didn't say it was a winning political strategy.  I said a winning political strategy is to reject genuine liberalism.  Unfortunately.

cheers.

But gee, Phelicity, if we spend the billions on housing people, medical care, education, libraries and such, who is going to get to be able to make mega-profits on the side? If only Halliburton would take over all those entities they might get some attention. Of course it wouldn't filter down to actually housing people, educating students, or caring for sick people, but what the hey, at least our priorities would sound familiar!

Jan Knaus

No. Just a guy who thought your comment (and the majority of your comments) were unproductive. I also don't take it their are many "seth edenbaums" who aren't white boys themselves, so excuse your racial remark.

Why don't you go back to Indy Media and let the grownups discuss politics here, Ok? Thanks. Buh-Bye.

The case for Murtha is that the Speaker gets along with him and they're loyal to each other -- Steny Hoyer, not so much.

Pelosi's got enough on her plate without spending the next two years guarding her flanks. 

he's also an economic nationalist who has voted against every single trade deal & opposes increased mexican immigration.

That'll do.

Originally the economic rationale for Free Trade was constructed by the "classical economists" like Marshall . And for the first 40 years of his life Keynes accepted and brilliantly defended that reasoning. But by his mid 40s he changed his position and testified to Parliament that :"The virtue of protection is 'it does the trick' ".

The position he held for the remainder of his life.

I'm not aware of any new economic thinking in the years since that would have compelled Keynes to change his mind. Or me.

What a tool you are. Someone who you normally disagree with takes a stance you do agree with and you imply he's too stupid to be on your team.

I'm sure Max Sawicky is quite aware of Murtha's stance on trade bills.

And yet, he doesn't back Murtha. How incovenient for your team-vs-team mentality.

We shouldn't make war on Walmart? Anyone who knows how Walmart plays the game and knows the influence it has had on the American economy and the local communities in which it operates its stores and the states in which its workers must rely on welfare services should want to make war on Walmart.

I don't think most of the people here are against globalization, but they are against allowing the megacorporations to use globalization to drive more and more people into a life of working poverty while making a few people at the top richer than King Midas...

Do most of us here want a European-style welfare state? Probably not, since we're definately not run like a European-style welfare state. But do we want national health care? What's the intelligent argument against it? At at time that consciously-chosen (by Bushco and their supporters in both parties and the MSM) policies are driving more and more working-all-their-lives-with-nothing-to-show-for-it Americans ever closer to a constant state of living on the edge of losing everything, do we want a much larger support system (more accessible college education, health care, etc.) and a better safety net for the people that are made disposable and disposed of by those consciously-chosen policies? Yes, I think so.

I think that's what it means to be progressive.

(I think we now spend more on our military than the next sixteen or so nations combined. Do we really need to be increasing military spending?)

Of course, if you believe in Social Darwinism, then all of the above about class warfare, militarization, and the (un)survival of the clearly unfit sounds just about right.

Bushco delenda est

Steny Hoyer is against Net Neutrality

That would be consistent with the corporate interests of the DLC

Well, I see below that Max owned up to this role. And you certainly have a point re globalization.

Nonetheless, I still prefer to see positions attributed to actual people, rather than "some people."