Errol Louis, one of my favorite political columnists, has this column about Chris Dodd, his longshot presidential candidacy, and the Senate Banking hearings on subprime lending.
Money quote: "It's the kind of fight that could endear Dodd to millions of Americans who need help, and turn himfrom a presidential long shot into a contender."
I admit that my first reaction when hearing that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer had returned (aside from deep sadness for her and her family) and that her husband was nonetheless, going to continue with his campaign, was surprise. I found it difficult to see how the campaign could move forward with this new situation, but now, a few days later--and after reading reports of her prognosis, among other things, I have great admiration for their decision.
As a breast cancer survivor myself, it's difficult to look at Elizabeth Edwards and not wish her well--but there is more. I hope that her public stature brings attention to the need for how cancer patients are treated in our society, and especially regarding the precarious nature of health coverage and health insurance for those of us with a history of cancer.
Anyone who doubts that the political right in this country is pathological should visit one of their websites to read reactions to Mrs. Edward's cancer recurrence.
While much of Washington has been focused this week on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and the fate of Alberto Gonzales, debate has begun on another vital matter: the nearly $3 trillion federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Moments ago, the U.S. Senate adopted its plan for the budget, 52-47.
The way the federal budget is put together involves a long and tortuous process. It began last month, when President Bush submitted a budget proposal to Congress that called for $2.9 trillion dollars and a putative $61 billion surplus by the year 2012. But Democrats and budget observers noted that the president asked only for $50 billion in 2009 and nothing thereafter for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terror. And the president assumes that revenues coming in to the government would increase at a seven percent annual rate – roughly twice his assumed GDP growth rate. So the president’s budget was roundly dismissed as fanciful and unlikely to come near producing a surplus.
Both neoconservatives and liberals have overestimated the extent to which one nation, even a superpower with United Nations support, can re-engineer regimes. Neoconservatives believe forced democratization is possible; liberals believe in the transformative power of foreign aid, debt relief, trade concessions and support for reformers. The tragic reality is that both approaches to long-distance, large-scale social engineering have failed in most cases.
Many readers have noted that, despite my book’s subtitle, How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture, my posts so far have been about Dobson’s slipping grip on the Christian Right as evangelicals branch out beyond abortion, gay marriage, and returning religion to the public square. But the truth remains that Dobson is the most powerful Christian Right standard bearer that the movement has ever known. That’s because Dobson, unlike Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or Ralph Reed, cultivated a huge following by dispensing family advice and helping people through crises in their personal lives—not by brandishing his political views. The same is true of Focus on the Family, the most powerful political organization in Christian Right history despite the fact that most of its work is not overtly political.
We'll have Dan Gilgoff's final piece today, and the work/family conversation will continue with thoughts from Cafe regulars. Today, I really will let you know who's coming to join us next week.
If you're looking for something to do, check out NPR's nice story about us here or use this thread to share some thoughts.
The shockwaves from the subprime mortgage meltdown continue to ripple outward. As today's New York Times reports, Cuyahoga County, Ohio had 15,000 home foreclosures in 2006, a seven-fold increase from a decade ago. The Cuyahoga County treasurer estimates that 3/4 of the home foreclosures involved subprime mortgages.
These vacant homes make an attractive target for vandals, looters, squatters and drug dealers. Local governments have been faced with the choice of installing security systems, mowing lawns and performing general repair work on these homes or risk the flight of their remaining residents.
The fallout from reckless subprime lending doesn't stop with the families who lose their homes. It ripples outward blighting once vibrant communities.
(Confidential to the contenders for the presidential nomination: Yes, THAT Ohio, the political bellwether one.)
EJ Graff and Ruth Rosen argue that eliminating barriers to integrating paid work and caregiving is more that a "woman's issue" -- and they're right. Implementing new worker- and family-friendly policies in the U.S. could relieve some of our most pressing social problems, from high rates of child poverty to the dwindling well-being of middle-income families. Which is a good thing -- because even if the U.S. adopts a full slate of effective work-life reconciliation policies, it may not lead to gender equality.
EJ Graff and Ruth Rosen argue that eliminating barriers to integrating paid work and caregiving is more that a "woman's issue" -- and they're right. Implementing new worker- and family-friendly policies in the U.S. could relieve some of our most pressing social problems, from high rates of child poverty to the dwindling well-being of middle-income families. Which is a good thing -- because even if the U.S. adopts a full slate of effective work-life reconciliation policies, it may not lead to gender equality.
When the Justice Department releases 1,500 pages of material, I guess you can expect some surprises. But we weren't expecting this. Late last year, an official of the Justice Department reportedly told Senator Pryor and the media that they didn't appoint a female first assistant U.S. Attorney as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas because she was on maternity leave. If that's true, the Justice Department has some explaining to do.
When the Justice Department releases 1,500 pages of material, I guess you can expect some surprises. But we weren't expecting this. Late last year, an official of the Justice Department reportedly told Senator Pryor and the media that they didn't appoint a female first assistant U.S. Attorney as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas because she was on maternity leave. If that's true, the Justice Department has some explaining to do.
It's beyond question now that the purge of eight U.S. attorneys was motivated almost entirely by politics and directed from the White House "OPA" through Kyle Sampson. Prosecutors who were either going after Republican office-holders or not prosecuting alleged Democratic crimes represent at least five of those purged.
But there is still a puzzle here. What did the administration expect to accomplish? This is a serious question. If David Iglesias's offense was in not bringing indictments against a prominent New Mexico Democrat, or prosecuting voter fraud, in time to help Rep. Heather Wilson's reelection, firing him won't undo that fact. Similarly, Carol Lam's investigation of Randy "Duke" Cunningham is out of the gate; it would be pretty difficult for a new U.S. Attorney to stop it before it leads wherever it leads.
The final installment of Dan Gilgoff's series will continue tomorrow, but today you can look forward to more on work/family issues and the everyday wisdom of front page writers and your fellow readers. Also, later today I'll fill you in on who will be joining us next week and what they'll be discussing.
Contribute if you can. Thread on.
Speaker Pelosi's blog has this post (with video footage) about today's House Oversight Subcommittee on Domestic Policy hearing regarding "the predatory mortgages, payday loans, and foreclosures that plague inner-city America."
In my post about working families' issues on Monday, I mentioned, but didn't post, my own recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review. That article is now getting enough comment elsewhere (for instance, at both TAPPED and TNR's blog) that I thought it might be useful to publish in its entirety here. Do note that you can find more information (footnotes, additional information, links to the underlying research, resources for research and activism) at the Schuster Institute's website.
On October 26, 2003, The New York Times Magazine jump-started a century-long debate about women who work. On the cover it featured “The Opt Out Revolution,” Lisa Belkin’s semipersonal essay, with this banner: "Why don’t more women get to the top? They choose not to." Inside, by telling stories about herself and eight other Princeton grads who no longer work full-time, Belkin concluded that women were just too smart to believe that ladder-climbing counted as real success.
On Sunday, Nick Kristof published a teriffic column in the New York Times called "Talking About Israel."
It has already produced angry and hysterical responses from the usual suspects.
That is why the Progressive Democrats of America has set up a "Thank You, Nick Kristof" website where the vast majority of us, who want to see Israel leaving at peace with Palestine can express support for the columnist.
Believe me, he's hearing from the other side. Make sure he hears from us.
In yesterday’s post, I traced the ascent of the New New Right to the evangelical push for the International Religious Freedom Act in the late 1990s. Today, no issue better illustrates the battle between this big-tent contingent of the evangelical movement and the old-line Christian Right than global warming. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and his allies recently grabbed national headlines by attempting to silence or fire National Association of Evangelicals chief lobbyist Richard Cizik, who has been leading the evangelical environmental movement he calls “Creation Care.”
Dan Gilgoff will have his second post from The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War today and the discussion of the Care Crisis and the framing of family/work issues will continue on! We're raising cash for TPM expansion here, so check it out and offer us your support if you want to see us grow.
The thread is yours.
Greg Mankiw has a quick but interesting post on one of the least sensical sacred cows in the Internal Revenue Code: the substantial anti-renter discrimination.
Subprime lending has been so profitable in part because people have pursued home ownership even when it was financially unwise to do so, and have taken out highly risky loans as means to that end. The tax code systematizes that problem for many families seeking a firm grip on middle class existence.
I don't expect anyone in a position of authority to recommend fixing the problem, but it's worth considering in the context of the current crisis.
I came home tonight to find three envelopes from Citibank in the mail. Two were identical credit card offers. The third envelope contained a brief notice tucked inside a harmless-looking Privacy Disclosure. What did it say? Citibank has decided to change the terms of my credit card contract. From now on, they'll continue to charge a 3% transaction fee on balance transfers, but they're removing the maximum fee cap. In other words, if I transfer a balance of $10,000, they'll charge me $300, and so on. So much for those voluntary "concessions" the banks made during the Senate hearings earlier in the month.
Why the hiked fee? Surely Citibank can't claim with a straight face that it would cost them $300 to simply send a payment to another lender. Heck, I can pay all of my bills online -- credit cards included -- for free. So, what's the deal? Well, maybe they've magically discovered that balance transfers are associated with "risk" increases; after all, you are transferring a balance rather than paying it. But wait, isn't that why transferred balances are subject to substantially higher APRs? Also, isn't it true that Citibank wants that business and that risk, because they derive the bulk of their revenue off of people carrying over substantial balances?
Uh oh, we're out of justifications. Here's an explanation instead: naked greed. I encourage everyone reading this who holds a Citibank card to cancel it and go elsewhere for your credit.
Like others who have written here (Anrig, Faux, Newman, Ryan, Sifry, Waldman), I find Mark Schmitt’s recent post and article both insightful and provocative. I agree with much of what Mark says, including his major point that campaign finance reformers would be wise to focus on reforms that empower ordinary citizens within politics rather than reforms aimed primarily at restricting and regulating money within the process. And the corner may already have been turned on what the campaign reform community sets as its priorities.
Today, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced their Fair Elections Now Act which allows candidates for Congress to turn away from the big money chase and rely completely on donors of $100 or less to run a well-funded competitive campaign. A House companion measure will soon be introduced by Rep. John Tierney (D-MA).
The media are not responsible for women's sense that they must choose between family and work. The problem is more systemic, and for social change to occur, we must remember our own history of turning private problems into public policy debates, which ultimately resulted in changes in the law and in customs.
To what EJ has said, I'd like to add my historian's perspective.
I appreciate all the responses to my essay in Democracy on campaign finance reform, which were a reminder to me that much of the rethinking about how to prevent economic inequality from being reinforced by political inequality that I called for is already underway.
Most of the responses were either expansion or clarification of my points, or thoughtful alternate views, and don't really call for any reply other than gratitude. I should, however, reply to the more comprehensive critique from Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center. And at the end, I'll say a bit about Jeff Faux's suggestion of a constitutional amendment giving Congress the power to limit spending.
I had a lot of trepidations about the article and the possibility that I had overstated the argument that limits-based reformers were blind to shortcomings of their own approach of endlessly chasing loopholes.
In these pages, we have often complained about the mortgage broker industry, and especially the yield spread premiums that they receive from lenders when they stick consumers with loans that are worse than they qualify for. While the subprime market is melting down, this might be just the time for reform. Professor Jack Guttentag at UPenn has proposed a solution that would align the interests of consumers and brokers.
Yesterday gunmen associated with Hamas shot and wounded an Israeli electrician who was doing his job on the Israeli side of the Gaza border.
Hamas claimed credit for the shooting while the Israeli government said that the shooting was inspired by the new Palestinian unity government's endorsement of the "right to resist occupation," a key Hamas tenet.
From the National Association of Evangelicals’ recent campaign to combat global warming to presidential hopeful (and Baptist preacher) Mike Huckabee’s frequent line about being pro-life before and after birth in explaining his support for improving public education and health care, it’s clear that the evangelical movement is branching out politically. Such developments are bending the very definition of the term Christian Right. “For the first time in 25 years, since the rise of the New Right, there is really a new New Right,” a top Washington strategist close to the White House told me during the course of reporting for my new book The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War. “When you talk about the social issues now, it's not just abortion and same-sex marriage. You also have to have something to say on Sudan and HIV/AIDS. In those [evangelical] subcultures, people want to know: What's your plan?”
In this excerpt from the book, I trace the rise of the new New Right to the push for the International Religious Freedom Act in the late 1990s—and show why Christian Right titans like Dobson are trying to keep the New Right old.
The political climate on climate change is changing faster than climate change, and not a moment too soon. Al Gore testifies to Congress this week. A demonstration featuring important Democratic Congressmen, including Ed Markey in particular, will occur in front of the Capitol. The news pages every day carry accounts of effects, remedies, new investment ideas. Look to the candidates to advance multiple suggestions, creating a kind of litmus test for getting elected. The mood is changing. A movie made it happen? One man made it happen? Not necessarily so...but sometimes a person, a video, a song can each constitute a tipping point. As Al Gore used to say, quoting a Zen master, as I recall: Be the change you wish to see. He has been exactly that.
Shlomo Ben Ami, the former Israeli foreign minister, writes in Ha'aretz today that the best vehicle for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains the Clinton plan, the plan President Clinton announced and delivered at Israel Policy Forum just before leaving office.
The Clinton plan (full text here) did in fact bring the two sides closer than ever before. I believe that if the recount in Florida had continued, the Clinton plan (by then known as the Gore-Clinton plan) would have been put into effect within six months of Gore's inauguration.
The good news is that it is still viable today and probably will be in January 2009. It could be that President Clinton's spouse, Hillary, will have the opportunity to put the plan into effect. I can certainly see Sen. Obama doing so. In fact, any of the Dems (and Chuck Hagel on the GOP side) would probably go with it.
In any case, Ben-Ami makes a strong case for the Clinton plan and the former President made an even better one in 2001. Definitely worth revisiting.
I just got a scoop on who the next publisher of The American Conservative is going to be -- and it's an intriguing choice.
I read The American Conservative because Vice President Cheney hates the publication and thinks that its editorialists run in the same gaggle of "Not-Republicans-Enough-for-Cheney" as Chuck Hagel and Chris Shays.
In a mainstream media that regularly imagines the possibilities of racism in everything from medical mis-treatment of hypertension to inequitable application of agricultural price supports (actual stories, if you will check), there was surprisingly little attention paid this week to an actual example of bigotry voiced by the nation's highest ranking military official.
Is my hearing or vision bad, or didn't the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tell the Chicago Tribune that the daughter of the Vice Commander-in-Chief and tens of millions of other Americans are immoral because of who they love?
I’m feeling hopeful. The ongoing crisis in so many American households—a crisis euphemistically referred to as “work-family issues”—is finally hitting the nation’s political agenda. Let me explain why I think so, suggest why it’s important, point to some resources for more information, and ask a couple of questions to kick off this week’s discussion about issues that are critical not just to individual American families but also to the American economy, to a new concept of national security, and to our democracy.
Here’s what I see. “Most of our nation’s children live in homes where all adults are employed,” as Senators Dodd and Specter note in their letter launching a new bipartisan caucus on children, work, and family. Those adults face overwhelming pressures and problems in handling their work and family responsibilities successfully—and working moms usually bear most of the burden. For far too long, the demands facing working families have been framed and understood as personal issues for individual mothers to solve rather than as a reason to make major public policy change for a successful economy. As a result, each family feels it must tackle these issues alone. But now a generation of women and men appear to be fed up with the “mommy wars”—the marketing conceit that posits mothers who work and mothers who stay home as each others’ enemies (as if fathers have no family responsibilities besides bringing in cash). Women of several generations are starting to talk about the fact that, collectively, they’re pinched between the all-or-nothing demands of today’s 24/7 jobs, the need to work to keep a roof overhead, and the very real demands of caring for their families.
Mark Schmitt is right “that the most fundamental problem to be addressed in American politics is the extent to which radical economic inequality reinforces and in turn is reinforced by inequality in the political system.” He and others who have weighed in are also right that the failure of public financing demands a strategic re-thinking about how to build firewalls between the inequality of the market and the equality of citizenship that democracy requires.
But pouring more money into the system through subsidies for small donations doesn’t rise to the level of the problem. Rather, Mark’s admonition to think of values “other than corruption,” appears to throw in the towel on the fight against undue influence by the rich and powerful. This is a classic liberal retreat – “throwing money at the problem” (Having done it myself, I know it when I see it) rather than digging in and fighting for structural change.
Here is the real scandal of the subprime bubble that tanked Wall Street last week-- and is why 2.2 mllion subprime borrower face foreclosure on their homes.
State governments actually passed a range of anti-predatory lending laws to stop ripoffs by subprime lenders, but as we discuss over at Progress States today, Bush's White House legally worked to shut down many of those state efforts. More below the fold:
Most people who post commentaries on this and numerous other blogs do not reveal their true identity; instead they are using various aliases. Much of this seems simply a force of habit and convention. “This is the way it is done.” However it seems to me this habit deserves some deliberation. Dialogues are enriched when we know something about those with whom we exchange ideas. When I wrote some articles about sex offenders and received mail from people in federal penitentiaries, I paid special mind to these messages. When I read a posting by someone whose work I read before, it helps me to understand where they are coming from. Even such small details, say the gender of the person, are telling: is the person arguing for the rights and well being of his or her group, or for social justice for the members of another?
It's going to be a fun week here at TPMCafe:
And, of course, you'll get daily wisdom from all of the regulars.
Alright, the thread is yours.
Is water a human right or a commodity to be marketed for profit? Should water be run by local governments or by distant corporations in order to make a profit? Why do we pay more for a six-pack of bottled water than for a gallon of gasoline?
These are some of the tough-minded questions Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman first asked in their provocative and memorable 2004 documentary, also titled "Thirst." In that film, they exposed how foreign corporations are privatizing water all over the world. Among the stories they recounted was the rebellion of Bolivian citizens against Bechtel, which privatized water and then raised its price. "Water for life, not for profit!" local residents chanted at demonstrations. Eventually, after riots and too many deaths, Bechtel was forced to leave.
In their new book, "Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water," the authors focus on our own country and investigate how the growing "water business" is trying to privatize water systems in cities scattered across the United States.
A baby is born. A child develops a high fever. A spouse breaks a leg. A parent suffers a stroke. These are the events that throw a working woman's delicate balance between work and family into chaos.
Although we read endless stories and reports about the problems faced by working women, we possess inadequate language for what most people view as a private rather than a political problem. "That's life," we tell each other, instead of trying to forge common solutions to these dilemmas.
That's exactly what housewives used to say when they felt unhappy and unfulfilled in the 1950s: "That's life." Although magazines often referred to housewives' unexplained depressions, it took Betty Friedan's 1963 bestseller to turn "the problem that has no name" into a household phrase, "the feminine mystique"--the belief that a woman should find identity and fulfillment exclusively through her family and home.
The great accomplishment of the modern women's movement was to name such private experiences--domestic violence, sexual harassment, economic discrimination, date rape--and turn them into public problems that could be debated, changed by new laws and policies or altered by social customs. That is how the personal became political.
Although we have shelves full of books that address work/family problems, we still have not named the burdens that affect most of America's working families.
Call it the care crisis.
George Soros, the billionaire funder of a myriad of liberal causes and the Democratic party, has just published this piece on Israel, AIPAC and his relation to Israel and the Jews.
It is fascinating stuff and worth reading.
Then there is Nick Kristof's first column ever on Israel in the Sunday New York Times (which incidentally quotes me).
And then the Economist on the AIPAC conference. All below.
A number of Warren Reports posts over the past week have addressed the subprime mortgage meltdown. Many angles have been discussed, but it's also worth taking a look at a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) that suggests how the federal government should respond to rising foreclosures. You can check out the full report here.
Many state legislatures were already considering bills to expand foreclosure assistance before the release of the latest numbers. Here in Massachusetts, for example, Sen. Jarrett Barrios and Rep. Kevin Honan each have a pending bill that would create homeowner protection funds to help families avoid foreclosure. However, CAP does an excellent job showing the important role the federal government can also play here -- and the new data underscores how much is at stake not only for families that suffer foreclosure, but also for the communities that surround them.
Last month, Education Sector, a nonpartisan education policy think tank, launched a new report, Eight for 2008: Education Ideas for the Next President. The report presents some interesting, and innovative, ideas for reshaping education policy over the next five years. Let’s take a closer look.
July 21-25
|
July 28-August 1
|
August 4-9
|
August 11-15
|
August 18-22
|
September 1-4
|
September 15-20
|
|
