Nathan Newman's Blog

Nathan Newman Commented on Progressives (and Obama) are Doing Better Than We Think -- and We Won't Know What We've Got 'Til It's Gone by Nathan Newman

2009-11-30T23:20:25Z

What counts as the middle class not being helped here? Autoworkers were helped; new car and homebuyers were helped. Middle class folks losing jobs were helped with extended unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies. Middle class folks with kids were helped with school funding. Middle class folks with college kids were helped with expanded university funding.

In what ways don't all of these programs help the middle class?

Nathan Newman Commented on Progressives (and Obama) are Doing Better Than We Think -- and We Won't Know What We've Got 'Til It's Gone by Nathan Newman

2009-11-30T20:28:33Z

Honestly, when I hear progressives dismissing hundreds of billions of dollars to provide food stamps, housing aid, and unemployment insurance for the poor as a trivial accomplishment, a little mockery seems insufficient.

There is a reason that black and latino voters have not dropped in their support of Obama; it's not identity politics but a larger proportion of their communities seeing the concrete help the stimulus is making in alleviating the real pain being suffered out there. Maybe they are also more realistic about change and don't expect miracles in one year, but think a medical clinic in their community not being shut down is actually something to be valued.

Nathan Newman Commented on The Stimulus was not a Tiny Win by Nathan Newman

2009-11-30T20:24:04Z

And this poll reflects what the media and both the rightwing and, as comments here reflect, much of the left has been saying. And they're wrong.

Most economists recognize the big picture help the stimulus gave to the economy. The hard reality is that there is no force on earth that can completely prevent recessions, but the stimulus prevented full-scale meltdown and eased the trauma on many families.

If any parents have kids in that poll, they are missing the fact that their kids classes would be more crowed without the stimulus, that fewer of their kids would be going to university, and those facing layoffs would be suffering more with less unemployment insurance and less help like Food Stamps.

Nathan Newman Commented on Senate Bill: Two-thirds of Newly Insured in Public Plans by Nathan Newman

2009-11-19T18:33:52Z

I may if I find time do a series on why progressives are doing better than they think. There's a lot of glass half-empty thinking out there, instead of figuring out what we've won and how to build on that to win more down the line.

Nathan Newman Commented on Senate Bill: Two-thirds of Newly Insured in Public Plans by Nathan Newman

2009-11-19T14:22:41Z

Depends on how it's designed. As long as the exchange is that the individuals get an even better deal, they'll be thrilled. If the subsidies are combined to create a public option for everyone in the state not insured by their employer with premiums lower than the private alternative people would have bought even with subsidies, there's no problem. And assumably, states will raise some additional revenue themselves -- say with a more robust "pay or play" state employer mandate, to sweeten the pot and make those individual plans even cheaper. Plenty of models for this around the country.

Nathan Newman Commented on Grover Norquist and Anti-Tax Movement Big Loser of the Night by Nathan Newman

2009-11-05T15:25:28Z

Damn-- I never realized all those businesses out there who take out loans to invest in equipment and product development were idiots.

So every firm that takes on debt is a bad business and that only firms that spend only out of current income succeed. Wow-- those idiots at Google who borrowed and spent for years without turning a profit really are failures.

Sarcasm off-- the above comment by Johann pretty much summarizes the intellectual bankruptcy of the balanced budget teabagger rhetoric. In fact, no company or society has succeeded without debt-- most economic historians actually understand that the ability to borrow against future growth to fund investments that pay off over time was the key to modern economic growth patterns.

But the mantra that prosperity will come from slashing services and investments is exactly the retro economics that mired economies in repeated depressions throughout the nineteenth century and early 20th.

Nathan Newman Commented on Grover Norquist and Anti-Tax Movement Big Loser of the Night by Nathan Newman

2009-11-05T08:16:25Z

Obama's tax cuts were not larger than the 10-year Bush tax cuts and his tax cuts, while not ideal, were short-term stimulus-oriented ones that went into the pockets of working families, not the typical giveaways to the wealthy a la Norquist.

And Obama has committed to ending Bush tax cuts on wealthier taxpayers-- something Norquist and company denounce completely.

Nathan Newman Commented on Progressive Values Dominant-- But Need to Rebuild Trust in Effectiveness of Government Action by Nathan Newman

2009-11-03T22:56:52Z

Higher education in the U.S. may be expensive but it's actually one of the areas (along with Hollywood) where the U.S. is an unquestioned global leader-- the world may not like our cars and thinks our health care system doesn't deliver value -- but people pound on our doors to come to our universities. So not a great example.

As for health care and the financial industry, government may have messed them up but it's precisely because of conservative policies. As I noted, folks rightly do worry about corporate and elite control of government screwing them over and those areas are obvious examples.

Nathan Newman Commented on Why the Employer Mandate Matters by Nathan Newman

2009-09-11T21:21:14Z

Technically, if they came from Mexico or even Brazil, they're still Americans-- it's always been a bit of imperialism to appropriate the word just for the U.S.A.

And many countries have declared that residents, who may have lived their for decades, aren't real members of those nations-- but it's not a healthy attitude. Making crossing borders a crime is an odd place to make a law and order stand, since Americans spent a lot of years condemning the Berlin Wall and other repressive laws against crossing borders.

But that's the immigration debate-- my point is actually aimed at pro-immigrant progressives who should understand why their prized public option is complemented by an employer mandate to cover services for many people who may not get access to that public option.

Nathan Newman Commented on Defending President Grant by Nathan Newman

2009-09-11T21:04:41Z

Political divisions are always complicated; there are usually self-interested partisans who care nothing for the substance of disagreements and choose sides only based on opportunistic alliances to feather their own nests. But just because many involved then (as now) were looking out for themselves, that doesn't mean there wasn't substantive differences in viewpoints, however muffled, that led to the divisions in the first place.

And as for Erik Loomis's points below, Grant could have been tougher but it's worth noting that before the 1872 elections, his administration's attacks on the white Klan types was so effective that progressive Republicans were elected across the South. And as noted in one of my links, it was because of court decisions ham-stringing enforcement starting in 1873 that much of the force of Reconstruction began to fade. Yes, Grant could have been tougher but the election of the first black Congressmen and Senators on his watch is a testament to the seismic changes in political life on his watch.

Grant was not as progressive on economic policy and his orthodoxies did reinforce the depression of the 1870s, but he never had the rightwing economics of his GOP rivals (some of who ran against him in 1872 in combination with the Democrats). Hardly perfect but a very unfair denigration by history.