While the ability of government to quickly replace those jobs is inherently a slow process, the one thing government can do is ease the financial burden on the unemployed going through that process. Unfortunately, in past recessions, budget cutbacks at both the federal and state level have often just increased the suffering of the unemployed.

But this recession is different. Because of massive progressive victories, as I highlighted quickly in this post yesterday, there have been unpredented funds dedicated to support the unemployed, from expanded unemployment insurance benefits to more health care available to basic support expansions for Food Stamps and expanded worker retraining funds. This post will go into a bit more detail on those changes compared to past recessions.

Unemployment Insurance Benefits:   Quietly, because of stimulus money committed at the beginning of the year, America has adopted unemployment insurance benefit periods that approach European levels, with many states facing the highest unemployment giving unemployed workers 99 weeks -- almost two full years -- of benefits.   The dollar level of benefits in states are still too low by international standards but they were beefed up by the stimulus by over $1000 per year.

Still, compared to the normal period of 26 weeks of unemployment insurance and eligibility periods, or slightly longer extensions in past recessions, the long-term unemployed are being guaranteed financial help that can help sustain them during a longer process of finding new work than ever in the past.

As importantly, many workers, whether low-income, part-time or in other classifications, have long been completely excluded from unemployment insurance help.  In fact, because of state rules, only 37% of the unemployed qualified for benefits in the past.  To deal with this problem, the recovery plan included $7 billion in incentive money for states to change their rules to cover low-income, part-time, workers leaving work for family reasons and helping those with dependant family members with additional financial help.

Largely with the leadership of the National Employment Law Project, states passed one of the most sweeping changes in unemployment insurance coverage in history. (The map below is a snapshot from June-- more states modernized their systems since then.)

Medical Coverage for the Unemployed:  While the unemployed have the right to maintain their old employer-based health coverage, they are required to pay the premiums themselves, usually financially prohibitive.  In a radical innovation, the stimulus dedicated  $25 billion in subsidies to help the unemployed afford the COBRA premiums by paying 65% of COBRA premiums for 9 months after a job is involuntarily terminated.   

And for many low-income working families, they also had the option of coverage under Medicaid or SCHIP for their children, help hardly existent in most past recessions.   Because of state reforms, many states now offer Medicaid coverage for parents up to 200% of the federal poverty line and for kids coverage up to 350% of the poverty line.  While other states are below that level, it's worth remembering that it was common for almost all states to provide Medicaid for no family higher than 40% of the poverty line as late as the early 90s.  State-by-state and with federal help such as the SCHIP program, help for low-income families including those facing unemployment has massively expanded in the last two decades.    And beyond Medicaid, a number of states have programs like Healthy NY or Washington State's Basic Health plan that provide additional help for families not qualifying for Medicaid.

To capture some sense of the difference in this recession versus past recessions, take this story saying:

The number of people on Medicaid and state spending on the program are climbing sharply as a result of the recession... according to a survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

In 2002, in contrast, the Center on Budget Policy Priorities reported in this press release in 2003:

"Some 1.2 million to 1.6 million low-income people -- including 490,000 to 650,000 children and large numbers of parents, seniors, and people with disabilities -- have lost publicly funded health coverage as a result."

Or back in 1982 from the Washington Post (no link available)

Medicaid Cuts Put Urban, Public Hospitals at the Crunch Point

Congress reduced the projected cost of the Medicaid program by $932 million, with $327 million to $347 million of that directly affecting hospitals, according to the American Hospital Association...A new survey by the Intergovernmental Health Policy Project in Washington shows that about 30 states have acted to cut services, eligibility or reimbursement to hospitals, doctors and clinics.

Instead of slashing Medicaid as in past recessions, the federal government stepped up and provided large amounts of cash to states so that not only were low-income folks not thrown off the rolls, but new funds allowed states to absorb the new unemployed needed health coverage as well.   Now states are still under financial pressure, but the federal recovery dollars made all the difference this year in assuring that medical coverage was there.

Food Stamps and Other Support:  Beyond unemployment insurance and medical coverage, we have seen a quite large reinvestment in the food stamps program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), with the recovery plan spending $20 billion to the program along with other nutrition help.    This is available to those at around 130% of the poverty line or less, but 36 million Americans, one in eight Americans and one in four children, now benefit from SNAP benefits.   A family of four meeting food stamp eligibility requirements, now receives $668 per month in food help, a lifesaver for many families.    Add in child care, TANF and billions in affordable houisng aid and many of the newly unemployed have help completely unavailable compared to many recent recessions.

Retraining Funds:  States received an additional $3.95 billion provided for the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to fund job training and employment services, which includes a range of help from peer counseling to rapid-response help in fighting layoffs in the first place.   The recovery act also expanded coverage under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which specifically helps workers who lost their jobs because of increased competition from imports.  Instead of restricting help just to goods-producing firms, the new law extends eligibility to trade-affected workers in the service and public sectors, including secondary workers providing services to trade-impacted firms. It added $575 million in funding for training services in FY 2009 and 2010.  Those covered by the TAA receive much higher levels of unemployment support, health care and training benefits.

Claiming Victory:  While no one thinks such support is a good substitute for a job, it's far better than the alternative.   Progressives have fought for decades to strengthen the safety net for the unemployed and, combined with the massive spending support from the stimulus, we have made this recession far less brutal for the unemployed than recessions over the last few decades.

That is a victory we all should be proud of, even as we continue to fight for new programs to put all of the unemployed back to work as soon as possible.

Comments on my last post do seem to show that the old adage that a "billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money" just doesn't hold for folks these days. But a $787 billion stimulus that funded schools for working and middle class parents, gave tax rebates to working and middle class parents, that is providing unemployment insurance relief for millions of middle class families facing job loss-- all of these are incredible gains.

Put this in perspective, Clinton couldn't get a $16 billion jobs bill passed over a filibuster in 1993. And remember, the stimulus money is not being handed out over decades but isn't being distributed over just a couple of years; literally, I don't think anyone can point to a larger domestic spending increase by the federal government on a per-year basis in American history.

Polls show the Democratic base is unmotivated to turnout in 2010-- and it's no wonder given all the rhetoric that Obama hasn't done much with his 2008 victory.  Those attacks from the rightwing are understandable from a partisan position, but many progressives seem to oddly be aping similar rhetoric-- wallowing in glass half-empty complaints of what Obama and Congress haven't delivered while failing to actually educate the public on the successes they have.  We should be able to demand more while publicly praising what we do achieve -- basic political walking and chewing gum at the same time -- but a lot of progressives seem not to have mastered the skill.

Maybe it helps that I had such low expectations of Obama's administration to begin with-- but then I thought significant federal reforms would fail due to the filibuster. So the progress actually made is a pleasant surprise.  And those successes are large and profound.   This post will summarize those gains, and even in summary form will be quite long, reflecting  the incredible victories involved.    Yes, we all wish for more, but the best way to get there is to educate the public -- and especially the progressive base -- about what we got in the last year and how replacing moderates and conservatives with more real progressives could deliver even more in the future. 

Quick Summary of 2009 Progressive Victories (more explanation below)

• Three major health bills (SCHIP, tobacco regulation, and stimulus funds for Medicaid, COBRA subsidies, health information technology and the National Institutes of Health) enacted even before comprehensive reform
• Stimulus contained myriad other individual policy victories, not only preventing a far worse depression but also:
  • Delivered key new funds for education
  • Expanded state energy conservation programs and new transit programs
  • Added new smart grid investments
  • Funded high-speed Internet broadband programs
  • Extended unemployment insurance for up to 99 weeks for the unemployed and  modernizing state UI programs to cover more of the unemployed
  • Made large new investments in the safety net, from food stamps (SNAP) to affordable housing to child care
• Clean cars victory to take gas mileage requirements to 35mpg
• Protection of 2 million acres of land against oil and gas drilling and other development 
• Executive orders protecting labor rights, from project labor agreements to protecting rights of contractor employees on federal jobs
• Stopping pay discrimination through Lilly Ledbetter and Equal Pay laws
• Making it easier for airline and railway workers to unionize, while appointing NLRB and other labor officials who will strengthen freedom to form unions
• Reversing Bush ban on funding overseas family planning clinics
• Passing hate crimes protections for gays and lesbians
• Protecting stem cell research research
• Strengthening state authority and restricting federal preemption to protect state consumer, environmental and labor laws
• Financial reforms to protect homeowners and credit card holders
• Bailing out the auto industry and protecting unionized retirees and workers

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE OTHERS TO ADD!

Detailed-- Let's start with health care.   Even if the public option doesn't make it, we are on the verge of passing a federal reform bill that, at minimum, is projected to add health coverage for 31 million Americans in the next decade, devoting $347 billion to add 15 million people to Medicaid and CHIP programs and $447 billion to subsidize coverage for other working and middle class families. 

And remember, if passed, this will be the fourth major health care bill passed in Obama's first year in office. 

• The first was the passage of the Children's Health Insurance Bill , which itself will expand coverage for an additional 4 million uninsured children by 2013 on top of continuing coverage for 7 million currently enrolled in the program. And for the first time, it allowed states to cover many documented immigrant children who previously were not eligible
• And Congress passed its bill to give the government the power to regulate tobacco, something progressives had been seeking since the early 1990s.
• And then there was the stimulus money for health care, which dedicated more than $145 billion to investments and reform of health care systems,including
  • $87 billion to states in just the next couple of years to maintain Medicaid programs
  • $25 billion to help laid-off workers afford their previous employer's health care via COBRA
  • $19 billion for Health Information Technology (HIT) deployment and
  • $10 billion in additional funds for the National Institute of Health.

Really, you should count the COBRA subsidies, HIT expansion and NIH funding as three additional health care bills passed, since each in a normal year would have been considered a profound and singular legislative achievements. 

The Stimulus Plan as Multiple Progressive Achievements:  But that's was one problem with the stimulus bill-- it was so large that it's treated as one thing, instead of a whole array of legislative achievements pulled together to also help save the economy from depression and collapse.  So let's step back and pull the recovery plan apart into it's multiple progressive achievements.  The list of individual programs may seem long, but when you are talking about billions of dollars for each one handed out over a relatively short period, they are worth remembering for their individual progressive achievement and for the billions committed, especially for many programs starved for funds for decades.  I'll summarize some of these below, but you can see more details in Progressive States' Implementing the Recovery Plan.

• Stimulus Saving the Economy:  Before going into all the individual programs, let's talk about the overall achievement of the recovery plan in stabilizing the economy.  Most progressives will agree it should have been bigger, but key economists agree it was critical to staving off an economic collapse; as Paul Krugman wrote, without the stimulus plan, "we would have had a full Great Depression experience...Deficits, in other words, saved the world."  Including not only direct jobs created but the ripples of jobs created through indirect stimulus, the Economic Policy Institute confirms the stimulus' was responsible for creating or saving from 1.1 to 1.5 million jobs since its passage.   A large part of this effect was in preventing catastrophic layoffs of teachers, nurses and other state and local employees by offsetting revenue losses at the state and local level.  While there seems to be some kind of sexist media meme that only highway jobs, presumably manned by manly men, count as "real jobs", the stimulus however has kept hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and child care workers on the job-- one of the most important anti-recession government employment programs of the last half-century.

• Education Funding:  This emphasizes that along with being a major health care bill, the stimulus was one of the largest federal education bills in history.  It devoted $139.24 billion to education funding  over a couple of years, including:  
  • State Fiscal Stabilization Fund of $53.6 billion to help state and local governments avert budget cuts
  • $39.5 billion in educational block grants allocated by student and general population measures
  • $5 billion for incentive grants and other purposes. 
  • $24.8 billion for School Construction Bonds
  • $11.3 billion for special education
  • $10 billion for Local Educational Agencies
  • $3 billion for School Improvement Grants.
  • Higher education funding of approximately $30 billion was distributed directly to students and their families, but an estimated $15 billion for scientific research flowed partly to universities. 
    
• Clean Energy and Transportation Investments:  Estimates on potential green energy investments in the recovery package, including upgrading our transportation infrastructure, range from $70.6 billion to $113.5 billion depending on what is included, but the bottom-line is that this package is the largest investment in energy independence in American history. These included:
  • Over $14 billion for various State Energy Conservation Programs, including $5 billion for the chronically underfunded Weatherization Assistance Program to help low-income families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes.
  • $11 billion for  smart grid technology aimed at improving the energy efficiency of electrical grids around the country, a key to making alternative energy production and distribution viable.
  • The recovery plan was also a key "down payment on a new transportation vision," in the words of the coalition Transportation for America, including $27.5 billion allocated to the traditional highway program, $8.4 billion for public transportation, $9.3 billion for intercity and high-speed passenger rail, and $825 million for projects that will make our streets safer for walking and biking. Significantly, the law included unprecedented flexibility in using "highway" funds on ports, transit, passenger and freight rail, or other projects.
    
• Broadband Investments: The recovery plan allocated $7.2 billion to promote high-speed Internet programs for rural, unserved and under-served areas and for initiatives that expand public community centers' capacity and for the development of a national broadband map.
  
• Unemployment Insurance Extension and Reform:  While the present recession is bad, one reason many unemployed workers and their families are better off than in past recessions is that help for the unemployed has been far more extensive due to the stimulus plan.
  • First, the stimulus plan included extended federal weeks of help for the unemployed (help which was recently further extended with a new law) to up to 99 weeks of help in the worst hit states -- compared to just 26 weeks normally available before the recession-based reforms and no more than 52 weeks in recessions over the last three decades. 
  • While benefits are still too meager by international standards, the stimulus, over 17.9 million Americans will receive a $25/week increase in their UI benefits.
  • As importantly, $7 billion in incentive money was provided to states to modernize their unemployment insurance systems to including low-income workers, part-time workers and workers who had to leave jobs for compelling family reasons-- workers previously completely excluded from UI help in most states.  The result has been what the National Employment Law Project calls an "unprecedented wave of state reforms" to expand access to state unemployment help.
  • Add in the 65% COBRA health care subsidies mentioned above and progressives have won broader and deeper relief for the unemployed than in any past recession.
    
• Supporting the Safety Net:  And for those already suffering in poverty -- or plunged into it because of the recession -- the stimulus bill extended additional help as well:
  • Nutrition  Programs: Over $20 billion was added to the Food Stamps program (now called SNAP), WIC and other food programs, and the law lifted restrictions on how long unemployed individuals without children can receive SNAP benefits.
  • Child Care:  Over $4 billion was added for child care block grants, Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
  • TANF:  $5 billion was added to basic TANF welfare programs. While not repealing the 1996 welfare law, provisions did roll back rigid rules that would have denied funds to states that couldn't find work for rapidly expanding caseloads of the poor.
  • Affordable Housing Aid: Added  $13.5 billion in funding for a range of affordable housing and homeless prevention programs.
    
• Expansion of science investments--  Notably, between the stimulus and other budget spending, no less than the Wall Street Journal calls Obama's investments in science, especially green technology, a "once-in-a-generation shift in U.S. science," reinvigorating 17 giant U.S.-funded research facilities, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, as well as university research facilities .

So those are many of the myriad program gains from the recovery plan (there are more whose dollar amounts were less but who mattered greatly to those effected).   But there have also been additional policy gains outside the stimulus on the environment, labor rights, gay and abortion rights, and financial reforms.

Environmental Victories: Two notable victories promise to have long-lasting legacies for the nation, even before climate change legislation comes to a vote in the Senate:

• Victory on clean cars mileage rules--  For literally decades, automakers blocked higher federal gas mileage rules and the Bush administration blocked state laws seeking to establish higher standards in their states.  Obama engineered a new rule that by model year 2016, the average mandated fleet fuel efficiency standard will be 35.5 miles per gallon.  Add in the$2 billion in stimulus cash for advanced batteries systems and the nation should see significant fuel savings in the near future.
• Landmark U.S. conservation bill -  Signing a package of more than 160 bills, Obama designating roughly 2 million acres -- parks, rivers, streams, desert, forest and trails -- in nine states as new wilderness and render them off limits to oil and gas drilling and other development.

Labor Rights:    On labor rights, we haven't gotten the Employee Free Choice Act, but key Bush executive orders have been reversed, new personnel are being added to the National Labor Relations Board, and Congress has passed key new laws. These include

• Executive orders to allow use of project labor agreements on federal projects, requirements not to displace qualified (often unionized) workers when changing contractors, and require all federal contractors to notify their workers of their rights to form a union.
• Passage of the Lilly Leadbetter Law and  Equal-Pay Legislation to protect workers from pay discrimination.
• The Federal Mediation Board has moved to make it far easier for rail and airline workers to form unions.
• Obama's appointees at the Labor Department and NLRB are some of the strongest labor advocates possible, most of them drawn from pro-labor organizations.

Social Issues: Progressive mades a number of advances on hot button "culture war" issues this year:

• Family Planning: Obama reversed George W. Bush's funding cutoff to overseas family planning organizations -- probably saving millions of lives.
• Hate Crimes:  Congress passed a lawexpanding hate crimes protection to gays and lesbians.
• Stem cells: Obama signed an executive order removing research barriers.

Strengthening Authority of States to Build on Federal Reforms:  For years, states have increasingly seen their hands tied by a federal government declaring that preemption voids state consumer, environmental and labor rights laws.  The Bush administration in particular used its regulatory authority aggressively to block state law after state law.   In May, the White House emphasized its new commitment to respecting state regulatory rules by issuing a broad Memorandum on Preemption to all heads of executive departments and agencies, ordering them to avoid the preemption language routinely included in Bush-era regulatory preamble statements or in codified regulations unless there is "full consideration of the legitimate prerogatives of the States and with a sufficient legal basis for preemption." 

The administration's affirmation of state "clean car" authority, protection of higher state consumer health care protections, and ending Bush's war on medical marijuana in the states have all been part of this movement towards of collaborative federalism that will strengthen progressive power in the states for years into the future.

• Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act -these pieces of legislation make it easier for homeowners to access financial help, established protections for renters living in foreclosed homes, and established the right of a homeowner to know who owns their mortgage, while giving the Department of Justice the ability to prosecute at virtually every step of the process from predatory lending on Main Street to the manipulation on Wall Street.

• Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (or Credit CARD Act) of 2009-   limits when credit card interest rates can be increased on existing balances and allows consumers whose interest rates have been increased to reduce their annual percentage rates (APRs) to previous levels if they've been good and paid their bills on time for six months.  It also limits when interest rates can be increased, bans universal default and double-cycle billing, and restricts credit cards for minors.

Auto Bailout-  Saving a core industry of our economy and as many of its attendant jobs as we can should have been a no-brainer, especially as many construction and real estate jobs are inevitably disappearing forever. And the Obama rescue was done in an extremely progressive manner, liquidating the shareholders who tolerated terrible management while safeguarding retirees and preserving a strong union for workers remaining in the industry.  The "cash for clunkers" plan may have been a bit of a giveaway to the industry, but then since the U.S. government owns a chunk of the industry, reviving industry profits means returning some of the money to the government itself as a shareholder..

And More to Come:    Many more progressive achievements are within reach as well, moving through the meatgrinder political process too slowly for some progressives but still quite possible in the next few months. From fundamental student loan reforms to remaking banking regulations to climate change legislation to immigration reform to labor law reform, high profile progressive initiatives are still being promoted by both the administration and Congressional leaders.

Again, we should always be demanding more-- and planning electoral responses where possible against the Congressional repesentatives and Senators blocking better reforms -- but we also need to highlight what we've won, keep allies and the base of progressives excited so that they will have the energy to fight those fights.

Progressives have been winning in the last year.  We just need to keep reminding ourselves and the public of how full the cup is-- and planning to fill it the rest of the way as we win more elections in the future.  It's worth remembering that large parts of what we consider the New Deal were not enacted until many years into FDR's Presidency.  Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act were enacted only in 1935, three years into his term, while the federal minimum wage was enacted only in 1938, in FDR's sixth year in office.   But along the way, progressives won individual victories that continually fed progressive energy for the next fight.    That's the challenge now for progressives, to claim existing victories and build on that energy for fights to come.

Here's the good news from the Senate bill: of the 31 million uninsured projected to gain coverage under the Senate plan by 2018, the Congressional Budget Office projects that two-thirds of them will gain coverage via some form of public plan. Yes, the limited public option will enroll only a projected 4 million folks, but expansions in Medicaid and SCHIP will enroll 15 million more people than would be expected under current law. 54 million people will be covered by Medicaid, CHIP or the public option by 2018.

Step back from the mechanics and the dollars invested are impressive. $347 billion in additional funds will go directly to Medicaid and CHIP programs.

• By 2014, most nonelderly people with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty line would be made eligible for Medicaid. The government would pay for this whole expansion through 2016 and roughly 90% of the costs thereafter.
• Federal support for childrens health insurance plans (CHIP), which cover kids much farther above the poverty line, would expand to an average of 93% of costs under the bill.
• States would pay a total additional $25 billion over the ten-year period.

In both states, voters rejected so-called TABOR ("Taxpayer Bill of Rights") initiatives that would have created rigid tax raising formulas that would have crippled those states' capacity to provide services like education, health care, emergency services, and public safety. Voters in Maine also rejected a proposal to slash the excise tax on new and hybrid cars, which would have undermined local revenue around the state.

Across the country, over thirty state legislatures raised taxes to deal with deficits this year and a number have specifically targeted tax increases on the wealthy - a bugaboo of the rightwing. And at the ballot, the anti-tax right has just lost and lost.

Back in the early 90s, the rightwing managed to pass a TABOR system in Colorado at the ballot box, which led to  terrible results, including large declines in K-12 funding, higher education tuition rates, and hindering the state's ability to address the lack of medical insurance coverage for many children and adults (see a PSN Dispatch on "TABOR's Disastrous Record in Colorado").  Voters partially repudiated TABOR at the ballot in 2005; when the rightwing tried to enact TABOR-like initiatives in states across the country in 2006, progressives highlighted fraud in signature collecting in multiple states and issue was thrown off the ballot in Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma and Missouri. On Election Day, voters in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon finished the job in voting down the remaining TABOR initiatives.  And in 2008, anti-government tax measures were defeated overwhelmingly in Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oregon.

Here's the dirty little secret.  The anti-tax movement is a paper tiger.  They force progressives to waste a lot of money and time fighting their initiatives, but when voters are informed of the details, they walk away, preferring needed public services to the rigid anti-tax nostrums of Norquist and his allies.

While Corzine may have lost the election last night, the New Jersey state legislature which has voted for multiple tax increases in recent years was hardly touched by voter action last night.  In fact, after the New Jersey legislature voted to raise taxes on the wealthy back in 2004, they expanded their legislative majority in 2005 to its present hefty margins.  There's almost zero evidence of elected officials being punished for tax increases alone in recent elections.

Facts on Taxes, Jobs and Economic Growth:  The public just recognizes that rightwing attacks tax increases as undermining economic growth are just rhetoric unsupported by facts. 

Earlier this year, Economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote state leaders in New York in support of proposed tax increases on wealthier New Yorkers, highlighting the short-term economic gains from shifting that money towards state spending for low- and moderate-income families.  But he also emphasized that such spending was crucial to long-term economic growth as well:

"Raising taxes and maintaining public expenditures (including investments) also helps America in meeting its long run needs.  America today faces two major problems -- inadequate investments, especially in infrastructure, and growing inequalty...Investments in infrastructure also increase the productivity of private investment -- another important spillover."

The Wealthy Don't Leave High-Income Tax States:  And despite rightwingers inevitably predicting economic doom, tax increases on the wealthy do not lead to wealthier residents leaving the state:

• From 2004 to 2006, following California's implementation of a new national top rate of 10.3% on income over $1,000,000, there was a 38% increase in the number of millionaires in the State.
• The number of half-millionaires in New Jersey grew by 70% since the state increased their highest rate from 6.37% to 8.97% in 2002, from 26,000 in 2002 to 44,000 in 2006.
• New York experienced a comparable increase in high-income tax returns
  after temporarily raising income tax rates earlier in the decade, from
  250,000 in 2003 to over 325,000 in 2005, representing a 30% growth.

However, as the rest of this post (crossposted from PSN) will detail, if we understand the public support for progressive goals, it can inform our political messaging which should embrace a clear progressive agenda, even as we recognize that trust in government needs to be rebuilt after decades of right-wing attacks on its functioning. And we should also act with confidence, knowing that younger voters are even more progressive than their parents and grandparents, so our ability to move policy forward will only grow with each election cycle as these new progressives become a larger and larger share of the electorate.

Support for Progressive Values and Policy

One notable trend is that the American public is quite favorably disposed to the "progressive" label itself, far more so than even a few years ago. In 2009, 67% of the public view the term favorably, equal to those who view the term "conservative" favorably. But more people have an unfavorable view of "conservative" (28%) versus only 21% of the public viewing the term "progressive" unfavorably, giving "progressive" a much higher net favorable rating. (CAP-beliefs)

Notably, favorability for both "progressive" and "conservative" ideological labels is not highly partisan, with 50% of Democrats rating "conservative" favorably and 53% of Republicans rating "progressive" favorably. ("Liberal" has a more partisan flavor with only 21% of Republicans rating "liberal" favorably). In fact, 46% of the public believes that a "progressive" is something entirely different from a "liberal" or a "conservative." (CAP-beliefs)

The Center for American Progress found that when presented with two broad philosophical options, Americans overwhelmingly chose the "progressive" option over the "conservative" philosophical viewpoint:

• Six in 10 Americans believe that "government should do more to promote the common good," versus 37 percent who feel that "government should do more to promote individual liberty." ("CAP-beliefs")
• 57 percent of Americans believe that "freedom requires economic opportunity and minimum measures of security, such as food, housing, medical care and old age protection," compared to 38 percent who favor the idea that "freedom requires that individuals be left alone to pursue their lives as they please and to deal with the consequences of their actions on their own." ("CAP-beliefs")

The Rejection of Right-Wing Economic Ideology: While laissez-faire ideology was never as popular as the media sometimes made it out to be, the recent economic breakdown has just reinforced the long-term public view that our economic system is too corporate-dominated and too unequal. While most Americans respect the importance of businesses in the economy, they reject the ideology that this should translate into corporate control of the political decisions or the degree of economic inequality that has been a product of past policies. A few key polling results:

• Opposition to Corporate Power: 77% of Americans say that "there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies" and a 62% majority says businesses make too much profit. (See chart from Pew) As far as Wall Street's overall impact, 49% believe that it "often hurts the economy more than helps it;" only 37% disagreed with this negative assessment of Wall Street.(Pew)
• Ending Economic Inequality: The public does not accept the idea that present economic inequality is natural and earned by the wealthy on their own. 60% of the public agree that "Rich people like to believe they have made it on their own, but in reality society has contributed greatly to their wealth" - with 30% strongly agreeing with this; 62% believe "The gap between rich and poor should be reduced, even if it means higher taxes for the wealthy" - with 38% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs)
• Importance of Government Investments: 79% believe "Government investments in education, infrastructure, and science are necessary to ensure America's long-term economic growth." - with 45% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs)
• Need for Regulation of Business: 73% believe "Government regulations are necessary to keep businesses in check and protect workers and consumers"- with 32% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs) 59% believe "Government must step in to protect the national economy when the market fails" - with 27% strongly agreeing (CAP-beliefs)
• Necessity of Labor as Counter to Corporate Power: Roughly six-in-ten (61%) agree that "labor unions are necessary to protect the working person;" 34% disagree, although there has been erosion in union support in the last few years.

Progressive Views Dominate Policy Choices: And on key policies, the public overwhelmingly supports progressive goals:

• Aid to Those in Need: 69% believe "Government has a responsibility to provide financial support for the poor, the sick, and the elderly" - with 33% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs) 63% believe government should "take care of people who can't care for themselves" and 62% believe government should "guarantee food and shelter for all." (Pew)
• Environment: 67% believe "America must play a leading role in addressing climate change by reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions and complying with international agreements on global warming" - with 38% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs). 83% believe "There needs to be stricter environmental laws and regs to protect the environment." However, the economic crisis means there are more worries about the costs of environmental enforcement-- a majority (51%) support protecting the environment "even if it causes slower economic growth) but that is less than in 2007 (when 66% held that position). (Pew)
• Health Care: 65% believe that government "should guarantee affordable health coverage for every American" - with 44% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs). Pew found 86% public support for the idea that "gov't needs to do more to make health care affordable and accessible." (Pew)

Addressing Fears on the Effectiveness of Government Action

If an overwhelming majority of the population supports progressive goals, a key obstacle to building a dominant progressive coalition are fears by many moderate voters that government won't be effective in achieving them.

Part of the problem is, ironically, the broad criticism of corporate power in our society, since 65% of the public believes "Government policies too often serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy" - with 34% strongly agreeing. (CAP-beliefs) However, this is combined with a deeper skepticism of government effectiveness, with 61% of the public believing that "government spending is almost always wasteful and inefficient" - with 30% strongly agreeing. (CAP- beliefs). This is similar to Pew numbers finding 57% believing government is "usually inefficient and wasteful."(Pew) Given the institutional and seemingly purposeful incompetence of conservative leadership in Washington, D.C. that mired us in Iraq and allowed Hurricane Katrina to devastate a city, that skepticism is hardly surprising. Filibusters in Washington, D.C. are just one more element that feeds the perception fed by the right-wing of government ineffectiveness.

The end result is that, despite supporting many progressive policies in practice, slight majorities end up opting in the abstract for anti-government beliefs, such as:

• 57% believe "Free market solutions are better than government at creating jobs and economic growth" with 25% strongly agreeing.(CAP-beliefs)
• 55% believe "Limited government is always better than big government" - with 31% strongly agreeing.(CAP-beliefs)

Rising Support for Government Action: Still, Pew found that skepticism of government has eroded in the last two years, no doubt due to the economic crisis. While a small majority (55%) still fears that "the federal government controls too much of our daily lives", that is down from 64% back in 2007. Notably, fears over the inefficiency of government spending, while still strong, are far less than in the early 1990s and less even than two years ago.(See graph from Pew to the right).

So while in the theory, the public has reservations about government action, Pew finds strong support (62%) for the idea that "a free market economy needs govt regulation in order to best serve the public interest." (Pew) And the overwhelming support for government acting to make health care more affordable means only 46% agree that they are "concerned about the govt becoming too involved in health care."

Messaging on Positive Role for Government: What this emphasizes is that most moderate voters do not have to be convinced of the importance of progressive goals but rather need assurance that the means to achieve those goals will be effective. A recent policy brief, Promoting Broad Prosperity, by the Topos Partnership and Demos details some key approaches to progressive messaging on the role of government. These messaging approaches include:

• Instead of talking about government in the abstract, emphasize that "public structures" created and maintained by government are foundational to prosperity and economic stability, as well as the strength of the middle class.
• True prosperity rests on collective success, not just individual opportunity or success. Systems (like the FDIC, community colleges and Social Security) are built collectively and yield collective benefits.
• Since Americans are relatively unaware of the many ways in which policy inevitably shapes the distribution of income and wealth, explaining how government policies direct the flow of money to different parts of our society helps people focus on how policies lead to particular social and economic outcomes.

The key is to avoid falling into the trap of talking about government in the abstract, where the public retains some skepticism, but instead to emphasize existing public structures like schools or other concrete programs that people support and see working every day.

The Increasingly Isolated Right-Wing

One trap progressive leaders should avoid is thinking that compromising with conservative groups, who are ideologically opposed to progressive values as well as the means of achieving them, will somehow appeal to most moderate and independent voters. That hard right-wing bloc is quite distinct from most independent voters, including independents that might self-identify as conservative in some cases but in fact share many progressive values.

Diminishing Power of "Wedge" Issues: Hot button issues like abortion, gay rights or immigration still play a factor in uniting the values of some moderates with the right-wing, but even on those issues, the right-wing is finding itself isolated:

• 59% of Americans believe "Religious faith should focus more on promoting tolerance, social justice, and peace in society, and less on opposing abortion or gay rights" - with 36% strongly agreeing (CAP-beliefs)
• Only 42% believe "Immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs and abuse government benefits" - and only 22% strongly agree. (CAP-beliefs) In fact, Pew found that support for "providing a way for illegal immigrants already in U.S. to gain legal citizenship" increased between 2007 and 2009 from 58% in support to 63% in support.
• Only 34% believe "Homosexuality is unnatural and should not be accepted by society" - and only 22% strongly agree. (CAP-beliefs)

The Isolated Right-Wing: This leave a hard right minority driving anti-progressive rhetoric in the media and society that is quite isolated from mainstream American sentiments. Because fewer people are identifying as Republicans, this has made the remainder of self-identified Republicans more conservative than in polling in past years. Much of the anti-government sentiment comes from that hard-right faction of the GOP, with 72% of Republicans fearing the "federal government controls too much of our daily lives."(Pew) In fact, since 2007, belief that "regulation of business usually does more harm than good" fell among both independents and Democrats, but actually spiked upwards from 55% in 2007 to 75% in 2009 among Republicans -- creating a stark current difference in views on regulation.

Democracy Corps conducted focus groups recently among what the pollsters identified as the hard conservative base, roughly one-in-five voters, and found that this group of voters has a very distinct and isolating view of the country. They dismiss health care reform out of hand and see the Obama Administration as ruthlessly advancing a 'secret agenda' to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism. Markedly, they see themselves as having special knowledge gleaned from access to conservative media like Fox News and pundits like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. This same group are not particularly partisan supporters of the Republican Party institutionally, since they see the party establishment itself as betraying conservative values.

Independents Distinct from Right-Wing: Interviews by Democracy Corps with conservative independents show that those independents share neither the ideology nor conspiracy theories of these right-wing voters, the staple of "Tea Party" protests, but rather fit the model discussed above of moderates wanting progressive outcomes but skeptical of government delivering it.

What this means is that compromising progressive values and goals to appease the right-wing faction won't help with reaching independents. Instead, messaging to independents needs to emphasize the shared goals of achieving progressive policy while continuing to address the independents' fears around the efficacy of government action.

The Future Will Only Be More Progressive

All of the above is a static snapshot of the current electorate, but the reality is that the fastest growing parts of the population -- young people and communities of color -- are far more progressive than the overall current population. So the future electorate promises to be even more progressive.

The following is from two other Center for American Progress reports -- New Progressive America: Twenty Years of Demographic, Geographic, and Attitudinal Changes Across the Country Herald a New Progressive Majority (hereafter "CAP-Change") and New Progressive America: The Millennial Generation (hereafter "CAP-Millennial).

The Coming Millennial Revolution in American Politics: Voters born since 1978 -- the so-called Millennial Generation - voted for Obama by a margin of 66% to 32%, but that is, according to the Center for American Progress, only part of a "deeper story of a generation with progressive views in all areas and big expectations for change that will fundamentally reshape our electorate." Millennial voters eligible to vote are increasing by about 4 million a year-- by 2020, there will be 90 million Millennial eligible voters, just under just under 40 percent of America's eligible voters.

On specific issues, Millennials are more progressive than the population as a whole (the following is from the CAP-Millennial report):

• On health care, 71% of Millennials support a federal government guarantee of health care coverage for all Americans, compared to 65 percent among the total population.
• On the minimum wage, 63% of Millennials ranked raising the minimum wage as a top priority, compared to 54 percent of the total population.
• On taxation, 60 percent of Millennials said raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year will be good for the economy, compared to 47 percent of the general population who said it would be good for the economy.
• On labor unions, 75 percent of Millennial voters agree that labor unions are necessary to protect the working person, compared to 64 percent of 30- to 59-year-olds and 66 percent of people over 60.

Ending the Culture War and Strengthening Belief in Effectiveness of Government: The growth of Millennials in the electorate will increasingly end the relevance of "culture war" wedge issues: 58% of Millennials support allowing gays to marry, strikingly different from older cohorts where only 31 percent support marriage equality. Millennials support a path to citizenship for immigrants by far larger margins than the population as a whole and support more religious tolerance and teaching evolution by higher margins than older voters.

Crucially, young voters are notably less cynical about the effectiveness of government as a tool for achieving those progressive goals. When asked in the 2008 National Election Study whether the free market can handle key problems without government's involvement, Millennials instead demonstrated an overwhelming preference for strong government by a margin of 78 to 22 percent. 63 percent of Millennials in surveys believer that "government needs to do more to address the major challenges facing our country," while only 37% agree that "government is already too involved in areas that are better left to individuals or the free market" (CAP-Millennial) Similarly, Pew shows that young people have far more belief that government can be effective, with only 43% of those under 30 saying government is inefficient, compared with 64% of those 65 and older. Just 39% of those under 30 say they are worried about the involvement of government in health care, while 53% of those 65 and older do so. (Pew)

Diversity and the Future of America: Increasing racial and religious diversity will just solidify the progressive trend in the next decade or so. Between 1988 and 2008, the minority share of voters in presidential elections rose by 11 percentage points and the United States will be majority-minority by 2042. In fact, when you include religious diversity into the calculation, by the election of 2016, it is likely that the United States will no longer be a majority white Christian nation. (CAP-Change) While white Millennials are far more progressive than their parents, non-white voters generally support progressive policies by even greater margins.

Conclusion

The bottom-line is that progressive values and support for progressive policies are widespread in the electorate. If progressives can clearly articulate why particular government means will be effective, there will be deep support for progressive policy goals. As importantly, progressive leadership needs to avoid the trap of muffling a strong progressive vision out of fear of the noisy wing of an increasingly isolated right-wing. Instead, if progressive leaders articulate that vision clearly and hold the loyalty of the growing bloc of Millennial voters and communities of color who, progressives will be able to solidify long-term support for progressive policy in our communities and nation.

Resources

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press report, Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009
Center for American Progress report, State of American Political Ideology, 2009: A National Study of Values and Beliefs
Democracy Corps - The Very Separate World of Conservative Republicans
Topos Partnership and Demos - Promoting Broad Prosperity
Center for American Progress - New Progressive America: Twenty Years of Demographic, Geographic, and Attitudinal Changes Across the Country Herald a New Progressive Majority
Center for American Progress - New Progressive America: The Millennial Generation

Crucially, in the current proposed version of the legislation, the ability of states to also enforce their own tougher lending laws against national banks will be explicitly protected. Keeping this provision in the bill is shaping up to be the big fight as the legislation moves through Congress.

The main non-preemption provisions in the current version of the CFPA Act include:

• Federal law would preempt only inconsistent state laws and regulations, and only to the extent of the inconsistency. State laws and regulations that provide greater protection are not inconsistent.
• Concurrent state attorney general enforcement authorized. State AGs can bring any action in court to require bank to produce records relating to investigation of state or federal consumer laws or to enforce applicable state or federal law as authorized by such law.
• Bush-era rules preempting state regulation of national banks would be overturned. State consumer laws of general applicability, including UDAP laws, consumer fraud law, repossession, foreclosure, and collection law, would apply to national banks.
• It would assure that states could, for example, limit negative amortization and protect the right of states to regulate terms such as prepayment penalties on all mortgages, including ARMs.

In order to preserve the anti-preemption language in the CFPA Act, state lawmakers and advocates will need to make clear to House Financial Services Committee Members that retaining the power of the states to enforce their own consumer protection laws against nationally chartered banks is imperative. Efforts to strip states of this power will be central to the committee markup process soon to begin. Without strong progressive support for states' rights in this area, we can expect any new national protections to come at the expense of what the states are already doing.

Progressive state legislators have a critical role to play in convincing their counterparts at the national level how important state enforcement of state laws is to your constituents. House members must be educated about the regulatory failings that led to the current crisis, how states were hamstrung and couldn't step in to protect consumers, and how this scenario will repeat itself if the financial services industry gets its way. Because state legislators are closer to the ground and are likely more aware of predatory lending practices and products in their districts, they have an important perspective to impart.

Why State Action is Crucial for Consumer Protection in the Financial Industry :

Why does state oversight matter?

• States can catch problems early, before they become nationwide: States are closer to the ground, and have been better able to see emerging issues and problems. For years before the recent mortgage meltdown, states were canaries in the coal mine, sounding warnings of fundamental problems in the mortgage market.
• State laws provide useful data-points for federal policymakers: Congress has often looked to the states for workable solutions to take nationwide in consumer protection, as in other arenas. Iowa, for example, pioneered a legal framework for electronic funds transfers that was used as a model for the federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act in the 70s. Congress has looked to those state laws in crafting some of the current proposals. This is more than just saving Congress work. Without the creative input and local action of states protecting consumers we can expect financial institutions to remain several steps ahead of regulators, just where they have been for the years leading up to the current financial crisis.
• States must be able to address local problems: Not all problems that arise locally are destined to metastasize to national problems. But that does not mean that states' hands should be tied by preemption. While a higher federal "floor" for regulation is needed, that federal floor should also assure that states have the right - and the responsibility and accountability - to address local problems. State enforcement of financial protections are necessary therefore because even when a predatory practice is identified by the feds, action is only taken when the problem becomes regional or national in scope, so the majority of predatory practices will not be curbed by the feds until many local families have already suffered.

Federal Enforcement is not Enough: Opponents use false arguments that "patchwork regulation" will add costs to banks which will then pass these costs to consumers, yet these are the same opponents who justify abusive fees imposed on consumers by those same banks. The egregious overdraft practices that strip an estimated $17 billion (and rising) from deposit accounts (hitting the elderly especially hard) have become industry standard. The reality is that the federal banking regulatory agencies issued "guidances" and "best practices" for these unfair, deceptive and wealth-stripping "conveniences," but did nothing to enforce them.

If we have learned anything from the recent financial meltdown, it is that trusting any single institution to safeguard the financial system is misguided. More eyes, both at the state as well as federal level, are the best guarantee that malfeasance and illegal activity will be stopped before the damage gets out of control. Even with a renewed federal effort to prevent abuses by national banks, there are almost 20 times as many enforcement personnel in the offices of state attorney general than there are at OCC. As a comprehensive report produced on behalf of the nation's state attorneys general details in analyzing the need to allow greater state enforcement in new legislation:

Like the existing federal regulators, no new agency created to protect consumers will ever have enough resources to comprehensively reform the financial marketplace across the entire nation. State authorities can maximize resources and bring a more localized focus to ensure widespread compliance with the new rules.

States therefore have a critical role to play in adding cops on the financial protection beat. It is clearly impossible for federal regulators to monitor the local practices of every national bank, so strengthening the role of the states is a key step to cracking down on consumer abuses across the nation.

State Strategies for Protecting Borrowers in 2010

• Mandatory Mortgage Mediation: Requiring that banks or servicers go through a mediation process to attempt a workout of delinquent mortgages is a no-cost reform that should greatly increase the number of loan workouts lenders make. Most borrowers never have any direct contact with their lender before foreclosure is begun, in these situations there is little opportunity for a resolution short of losing one's home. Miami recently began such a program, and Philadelphia has kept thousands in their homes with mandatory mediation.
• Anti-Blight Measures: Requiring lenders to maintain foreclosed property, and fining them if they don't, is a strong way to decrease the blight that the foreclosure crisis has brought to many communities. These laws also help cash-strapped municipalities that have taken on the burden of maintaining these homes themselves in order to preserve their neighborhoods and property values.
• Own to Rent Statutes: Requiring lenders to allow borrowers whose homes have been foreclosed on to remain in their homes as renters for a specified number of years is another no-cost solution to the collateral consequences of the crisis - displaced families, broken communities, joblessness, and homelessness. Under this law owners would become tenants if they could afford market rent as determined by an independent appraisal.
• Whistle blower Protection for Financial Services Workers: Protecting the employees of financial institutions from retaliation when they reveal criminal or unethical conduct by their employers can help bring predatory practices to light. Many tellers, loan officers and other retail banking employees report a culture of corruption with managers firing workers who don't engage in predatory practices. Many of these employees want to do the right thing and put a stop to these practices which undermine the financial well-being of their clients, but fear for their jobs keeps them from doing so. Statutory protection against retaliation for workers who file administrative or legal complaints, or testify in an administrative or legal proceeding regarding prohibited practices by the employer, are essential to bringing these practices to light.
• Protections Against Engaging in Predatory Practices: States can go even farther in empowering workers to resist pressure to engage in illegal or unethical conduct by giving workers specific protection when they refuse to participate in, any activity, policy, practice, or assigned task that the employee reasonably believed to be in violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or to be unfair, deceptive, or abusive and likely to cause specific and substantial injury to one or more consumers." This would empower the employee to stop the bad practice right away by refusing to cooperate, instead of having to wait until they made an official complaint to receive whistle blower protection.

Ultimately, collaboration between states and the federal government leads to more effective oversight. Delivering that message to Congress will be critical during the coming debate on financial reform.

Garfield was a decent Congressman on racial issues but he readily embraced withdrawing federal troops from the South after 1877 and he was allied with the rightwing economic wing of the Republicans, a "hard money" man who called regulations of railroads "Communism in disguise." This was the era when Rutherford Hayes began the new tradition of using federal troops redeployed from the South to break strikes in the North. Former President Grant acidly remarked at the time that this anti-labor wing of the Republicans were the same people who had resisted using federal troops "to protect the lives of negroes. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens."

So while I understand why M.J. would bring up the Garfield comparison, given the dangerous anger directed at Obama and the danger of assassination, it really is a horrible insult to Obama to compare his in any way on substance to Garfield. And a terrible libel to ignore the much more progressive history of Grant and why many Stalwarts were so loyal to him. Yes, many political leaders no doubt saw it merely as a fight over patronage of rival factions, but others saw it as resisting the complete rightwing ideological takeover of the GOP at the time. No doubt it was too late by that point with Guilded Age corporate power rising throughout American politics, but Garfield was allied with the most corporate wing of the GOP and had been a key part of abandoning Reconstruction under Rutherford Hayes.

So no hazy memorials to Garfield as some kind of Obamaesque insurgent. He was merely part of the general upsurge in pro-corporate and laissez-faire ideology in American politics.

And the reason it's important is, at least partly, because Obama did not lie-- despite Congressman Wilson's shout, all the public options as designed will not be available to undocumented immigrants, so for millions of undocumented Americans, employer-provided health care will likely remain the only source of health services outside of emergency rooms.

Similarly, given rightwing pressure, the public option will likely severely restrict funding for abortion services and I've seen few details on whether domestic partners will have the same access to health care under the public option as many do under employer-provided plans.

Like many folks, I've done quite a bit of organizing on behalf of the public option, but given some of the restrictions being put on it, I end up agreeing with Obama that it's only part of the solution. And I hope advocates keep their eye on maintaining strong employer mandates which will likely be crucial to delivering more health care to more people that even the public option.

But under pressure of boycott by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based organization that has led a campaign to improve wages and working conditions for Florida farm workers, Chipotle agreed to pay an additional penny per pound, a wage increase of 64 percent for workers picking tomatoes for Chipotle.

One of the reasons I ignore the constant drumbeat of negative speculation about the future of unions (which has lasted pretty much non-stop for well over a century or more) is that workers keep standing up and organizing and winning, yes suffering setbacks on occasion, but then moving forward as well.

ACORN quality control staff had spotted the fake registration cards and contacted the authorities in June of 2008. "It could not have impacted the voting process whatsoever. Nonetheless, we cannot turn a blind eye to this,'' Rundle added.

Of course-- that's not how the rightwing will frame the story. Expect them to ignore the prosecutor praise of ACORN and the fact that the problems were identified by ACORN months before the November election. Instead-- expect things like this at Freerepublic.com-- Breaking FOX news banner 11 ACORN arrests for voter fraud.

The reality is that ACORN registers lots of voters across the country and employs many people in doing so. Some fake registrations to justify their pay, a problem faced by everyone hiring anyone to register voters for elections or on initiative petitions. Precisely because they have been subject to malicious attacks by the rightwing, ACORN actually has a very aggressive anti-fraud operation internally, as evidenced by the story above.

As progressives, we need to get that story out there and repeat stories like Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle praising ACORN for its aggressive anti-fraud operations.

The US government...is sitting on a paper profit of almost $11bn on its 34 per cent shareholding in Citigroup, its only direct stake in a large financial institution...The government said it had earned an annualised return of 23 per cent from its $10bn investment in Goldman Sachs under Tarp. In June, Goldman returned the $10bn and later paid another $1.1bn to buy back warrants attached to Tarp aid. Morgan Stanley, American Express and other banks have done the same, leaving taxpayers with substantial profits.

Even the financial blackhole that is AIG may be turning a corner at minor profits begin to replace the hemmoraging losses of last fall. And taxpayers are promised some relief although most analysts are rightly skeptical that the AIG bailout -- notably begun before TARP was implemented -- will get repaid. But at least the losses look to be less than those initially feared as well.

Was TARP ideal? Hell no. Nationalization would have been better and would have increased the upside for taxpayers as banks recovered, instead of hundreds of billions in profits being pocketed by many of the idiots who caused the financial meltdown, then got to benefit from public intervention to end the credit death spiral. Ideological opposition to temporary government ownership of the banks meant that taxpayers lost out on profits that were due that government intersection-- a classic example of anti-government ideology forcing government to be less effective and more costly than it should have been.

But I also think some knee-jerk ideology on the left contributed to the problem as well. TARP when proposed was not ideal, but most progressives should have been cheering on the provisions for equity stakes in distressed firms as a big step forward compared to mindless subsidies and insurance programs that leave little or no financial upside for taxpayers. Instead, too many progressives fixated on the "costs" of the bailout, ignoring the fact that an equity stake is not spending per se but merely a transformation of government cash into an alternative investment of financial value (whether less or more in the future depending on financial results).

The deep lesson that progressives should be focusing public attention upon is that when companies come asking for a bailout, the government shouldn't ever be handing out subsidies, tax breaks or other goodies to private firms without taxpayers getting a stake that can return value to the Treasury. Federal and state governments currently hands out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and other forms of economic subsidy, yet taxpayers rarely get an equity stake or at least some kind of income-generating bond in return.

In fact, state governments have been experimenting with creating profit-generating public venture capital funds that can play a more dynamic role in nurturing economic growth in their states. Most are modest but generate both new jobs and returns to taxpayers.

So far, the federal government has ventured into equity stakes only in companies that financial or corporate basketcases -- ie. AIG, General Motors and so on -- but imagine the returns to taxpayers if some of the subsidies the public hands out to healthy firms came with some kind of longer-term financial return to taxpayers? Instead of such corporate handouts being a cost to taxpayers, it could be an income generator to help pay for everything from health care reform to infrastructure investments.