Who is the progressive choice to succeed (bankers' friend) Sen. Chris Dodd?

I was quite pleased to see Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd announce his retirement.

He historically has had too close and friendly a relationship with the banking industry. As we see from this post, November, 2009, the Open Secrets site has gone into how Sen. Dodd got many generous contributions over the years from the banking industry.

Note: the following article updates a profile of Dodd that first appeared on Capital Eye in January.

(CORRECTION, 12/7/09: This article originally misstated information about Dodd's purchase of his cottage in Ireland. Dodd did not purchase the estate with Bearn Stearns principal Ed Downe. Rather, Dodd and his long-time friend, William Kessinger, purchased the estate together (and Dodd later bought out Kessinger). Kessinger and Dodd became friends through Downe, who was convicted of insider trading and later pardoned by President Clinton. Downe signed the official transfer document as a witness but had no financial role in the transaction. The Center regrets the error. The article has been updated accordingly.)

Name: Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)

PowerPlayers.JPGPosition: Chris Dodd is a native of Connecticut and the state's longest-serving U.S. senator, at nearly 30 years. His father, Thomas Dodd, also represented Connecticut for more than a decade as a Democratic senator, from 1959 to 1971. After college, Chris Dodd joined the Peace Corps and worked in the Dominican Republic. Upon his return, he served in the U.S. Army Reserve, while earning his law degree at the University of Louisville. In 1974, voters elected him to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until he ran for Senate in 1980.

Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate in 2007, Dodd has chaired the powerful Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. His committee oversees the nation's financial institutions, housing and mass transit programs. In this role, he has helped shape legislation to jump-start the economy and assist floundering companies. He is also at the helm as the committee debates new regulatory efforts.

Money Summary: Dodd has raised a total of $46.5 million since 1989 and has spent $45.5 million. His large war chest can be attributed, in part, to his presidential bid in 2008, which he abandoned after receiving less than 1 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus that kicked off the primary season. He raised $18 million in his attempt to win the White House.

Overall, Dodd has received 62 percent of his contributions from individuals (rather than the political action committees of unions and corporations) and is a popular beneficiary of Wall Street money, collecting $5.4 million from donors in New York City -- more than any other metro area. He's given other lawmakers and candidates 23 percent of the total $2.3 million that his leadership PAC, Chris PAC, has raised since the start of the 2004 election cycle.

Campaigns Donors: Not surprisingly, Dodd's most generous sector is finance, insurance and real estate, which is filled with companies directly affected by legislation shepherded by the Banking Committee. The finance, insurance and real estate sector has given Dodd a total of $13.9 million since 1989 -- nearly 3.5 times more than the next sector. In a distant second place, lawyers and lobbyists rank as Dodd's second most generous backer, giving him $4 million since 1989.

The securities and investment industry, insurance companies, real estate industry, commercial banks, accountants and finance and credit companies all rank among his top 20 industry donors.

Between 2005 and 2008, Dodd was among the top five recipients of money in the Senate from 19 industries, many of which are finance-related. He's currently the top recipient in the Senate of money from mortgage bankers and brokers, and the Senate's second highest beneficiary of money from insurance companies and finance and credit companies.

The $819,950 he has received during the past 20 years from hedge funds, which are a big industry in Connecticut, ranks him as the largest beneficiary of the industry currently serving in the Senate. In 2007, Dodd expressed concern over a bill that would have increased taxes on private-equity firms and hedge fund managers.

Dodd's most generous donors include many of the companies that have filed for bankruptcy or sought government help during the last year and a half: Citigroup ($427,700), Bear Stearns ($347,350), AIG ($281,000), Goldman Sachs ($274,450), Morgan Stanley ($211,300), Lehman Brothers ($185,100) and Merrill Lynch ($185,000).

Not all of Dodd's financial supporters, however, come from Wall Street.

Law firms, lobbyists, pharmaceutical companies, health professionals and the entertainment industry also rank among his most generous industries. During the race for the White House, the International Association of Fire Fighters endorsed Dodd and spent $202,300 independently to help him win. Dodd has sponsored bills to provide more funding to fire stations for equipment, training and staff.

Series_logo.JPGOn Financial Regulation: Dodd sponsored legislation (which President Barack Obama signed in August) to crack down on credit card companies. Provisions of the bill targeted "any time any reason" interest rate increases, charging interest on balances that consumers have already paid, deceptive marketing to young people and skyrocketing penalty interest rates.

Dodd is now spearheading new efforts to tackle financial sector regulatory reform. On Nov. 10, he unveiled new legislation with eight other Democrats on the Banking Committee. Dodd's proposal calls for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a new federal agency to advocate for consumers. It also seeks to end the concept of "too big to fail," including a requirement that large and complex financial institutions develop their own "funeral plans" for how to safely shut down without destabilizing the financial system.

The legislation also creates new regulations for payday lending, over-the-counter derivatives, hedge funds and other asset-backed securities. And it requires that the sponsor or broker of these investments retain "skin in the game," that is, maintain a certain level of financial investment in its performance. Furthermore, the bill would give shareholders more say in how executives are compensated, and it requires more transparency and accountability from credit rating agencies and the quality of their ratings. Dodd's plan would also keep in place a second system of banking for small community banks that pose less systemic risk.

Industry Favors: The U.S. Senate was called on in January to release the second half of the $700 billion bailout money. Despite strong financial backing from Wall Street interests, Dodd pushed for stronger oversight provisions and limits on executive compensation for the companies receiving a handout. Yet he also amended his executive pay limit provision at the time -- at the direction of the Obama administration and U.S. Treasury. The resulting change allowed some retroactive bonuses for bailout recipients, including insurance giant AIG. Dodd says this effect was unintentional and that he did not know that AIG would benefit from the amendment, but it still made him the target of significant public ire.

Invests in: Compared to the rest of the Senate, Dodd is middle class. In 2008 he was worth between $534,018 and $1.7 million, ranking him 66th among all senators. Like many lawmakers and investors during the recent economic crisis, his personal fortune has taken a hit. Between 2007 and 2008, his net worth fell by 15 to 20 percent. According to his most recent personal financial disclosure reports, the largest stock holding of he and his wife was $100,000 to $250,000 invested in company that runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. They further own between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of holdings in both Blockbuster and Brookdale Senior Living. They also have a few smaller investments in drug manufacturers including Pear Tree Pharmaceutical (worth between $1,001 and $15,000), Cardiome Pharma (worth between $0 and $4,000) and Javelin Pharmaceuticals (worth between $0 and $3,000).

Dodd also owns a cottage and a 10-acre estate in Ireland, which he purchased with a long-time friend whom he met through a Bear Stearns principal who was convicted of insider trading and later pardon by President Bill Clinton, reportedly at Dodd's urging. According to the 2008 filing, this estate is valued at 470,000 euros -- a value that puts it in the range of between $500,000 and $1 million on the same form.

Other Money Matters: When mortgage buyers Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were in dire financial straits last year and seeking help from the government, Dodd came under some fire for having received more money from the two companies' employees and political action committees than any other lawmaker over time -- at $165,400. Dodd helped push through a rescue plan for the two companies last year, including better regulatory oversight in the measure.

The Senate Ethics Committee recently investigated Dodd over allegations that he received preferential treatment by Countrywide Financial when, in 2003, he refinanced his home mortgages. Dodd benefited from a VIP program, known as "Friends of Angelo," named after the Countrywide chief executive Angelo Mozilo. In August, the ethics probe cleared Dodd of any wrongdoing, saying there was "no substantial credible evidence" that the refinanced mortgages violated ethics rules or that Dodd used his position for personal gain.

In His Own Words: "We need to take action to restore Americans' confidence, their sense of optimism -- and their financial security -- by reforming a regulatory system that still contains far too many gaps, loopholes, and redundancies," Dodd said during a committee hearing earlier this fall. "The 20th century regulatory structure has been outpaced by the 21st century innovations in the financial services industry, and if we don't fix it, we could be right back where we were a year ago, facing a another dreadful choice between a massive outlay of taxpayer dollars or an unimaginable economic disaster for our nation and others around the globe."

I had often wondered: why did progressives pour all of their scorn on Joe Lieberman and not Chris Dodd? It was so intense, with so many plays on Lieberman's name. I wondered whether there was some anti-Semitism as the motivation.

*PROGESSIVE REPLACEMENTS?*
So, I hope that MoveOn, Progressive Democracy and other progressives can get into the open, the discussion: who is the more progressive of the potential replacements for Dodd?
*Former vet and Al Gore aide, Merrick Alpert
*Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal
*Former Bill Clinton aide, and 2002 gubernatorial candidate (to challenge John Rowland) Bill Curry
*Former eastern Connecticut Congressman, Sam Gejdenson
*Cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont, 2006 Democratic nominee, and challenger to Lieberman.
Chime in, at right, in my unscientific poll.

FDR Didn't Govern from 'the Center' -- Neither Should Obama

From alternet.org, another articulate voice calling on President-elect Barack Obama to govern in a progressive direction, not from the cautious, timid center:

Gray Brechin, "FDR Didn't Govern from 'the Center' -- Neither Should Obama":
We can't forget what bold and ingenious leadership can accomplish against the caution of low expectations in harsh economic times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasted no time cautioning Americans that they should not let their hopes run away with them just because the Democrats scored an electoral landslide. Calling herself a "proud progressive," Pelosi advised president-elect Obama's supporters to exercise the diminished expectations of political prudence: "The country must be governed from the middle," she said a day after his victory.

November marked the 75th anniversary of one of the least known relief agencies to come out of the New Deal -- the Civil Works Administration. At a time when the press regularly fuses FDR's jaunty image with that of Barack Obama's -- and when the president-elect himself vows to create 2.5 million new jobs within two years as "a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face" -- we should remember how much more one short-lived agency accomplished through the winter of another economic crisis.

The Speaker, whose father represented Baltimore as a New Deal Democrat, must know that Franklin Roosevelt did not govern from the middle. He chose a Midwestern social worker steeped in the Social Gospel movement at Iowa's Grinnell College to run his relief programs, Harry Hopkins knew that legions of impoverished Americans could not wait for the cautious policies of Harold Ickes' Public Works Administration to provide them with jobs. Neither could his boss.

On November 9, 1933 President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Civil Works Administration. He did so by moving $400 million ($6.4 billion in today's dollars) previously allocated to the PWA into the CWA account. A meeting of governors, mayors and other public officials six days later at Washington's Mayflower Hotel effectively launched the agency.

Five days later, Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a White House gathering to organize women's participation in the program. Three days after that -- with the Government Printing Office working round the clock to cut checks -- CWA workers shared wages of almost $8 million. On November 28, Hopkins created a Civil Works Service to employ white collar workers as teachers, surveyors, artists, nurses, librarians, musicians, and other public servants.

By December 7 -- less than a month after Roosevelt's executive order -- the CWA had two million Americans working on a vast array of socially beneficial projects. By January 18, employment had doubled to more than four million. U.S. population was then less than half of today's.

Hopkins likened the CWA workers to foot soldiers with the difference that, "The results achieved have been the reverse of those usually brought about by old-style wars." The CWA's work was, like the title of a famous William James essay, "the moral equivalent of war." As such Hopkins noted that "Hardly a community but can show some lasting benefit derived from Civil Works activities: a street paved, a school-house reconditioned, a nursery school installed, a new playground."

CWA workers toiled through a hard winter building and repairing 244,000 miles or roads, laying water and sewage mains, constructing 350 swimming pools and 4000 athletic fields. Their jackhammers broke frozen ground to make Newark's airport, one of a thousand built around the country. New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses set three shifts of CWA crews working around the clock to renovate Central and Prospect Parks. A team of artists painted frescos in San Francisco's Coit Tower while CWA orchestras and bands performed concerts free to the public. The agency employed as many as 50,000 teachers and built or refurbished 4000 schools to revive the nation's dying public education system. CWA workers restored historic buildings and launched the Historic American Building Survey which continues to meticulously record historic structures for the Library of Congress 75 years later.

Hopkins and Roosevelt intended the CWA only to bridge an emergency. It was terminated on March 31, but the Depression, unfortunately, was not. A year later, the more famous Works Progress Administration picked up where the CWA had left off, employing 8.5 million people in its seven productive years. Harry Hopkins ran that as well.

Hopkins hoped that "Long after the workers of the CWA are dead and gone and these hard times are forgotten, their effort will be remembered by permanent useful works in every county of every state." Alas, he was wrong, though as he predicted we "ride over bridges they made, travel on their highways, attend schools they built, navigate waterways they improved, do [our] public business in courthouses and state capitols which workers from CWA rescued from disrepair."

Unlike the WPA, the CWA left almost no markers to commemorate the achievements of four and a half months of heroic activity. We unwittingly take the achievements of the CWA -- like so much else of the New Deal -- for granted while the New Deal's eternal enemies echo the fable that federal workers did little but lean on their shovels. But as winter approaches, the CWA's record reminds us of what bold and ingenious leadership can accomplish against the caution of low expectations in harsh economic times. Indeed, it must.

Jello Biafra asks Obama to go progressive

Jello Biafra, formerly leader of the Dead Kennedys,
has fittingly written an open letter to President-elect Barack Obama.

He has called on him to reform our foreign policy away from imperialism, replace a regime of torture with the rule of law, and so on.

These things are all good. However, as many American leftists, he first off devotes his attention lengthily to the above-mentioned foreign concerns. Since the 1960s American leftists have given second (or sixth, more likely) thought to economic justice.

I print Biafra's economic justice planks that he calls on Obama to follow. As I have earlier complained, the Obama administration is ignoring progressive economist voices, such as Joseph Stiglitz. He has adopted --almost entirely-- the old Carter/Clinton coterie of mainstream corporate/ Wall Street types. The economic justice portions of his open letter to Obama:

ECONOMIC STIMULUS – START WITH PEOPLE WHO NEED IT MOST

I'm glad there seems to be a sense up top that national security, the economy, climate collapse and the environment are all intertwined. Think about it. No rogue state or terrorist threatens our national security nearly as much as our collapsing economy. The growing gap between the rich and poor is what is tearing apart the lives of average Americans and their families.

National security means:

• Everyone has a home.

• Everyone has enough decent food to eat.

• Everyone can drink the water without having to buy it in a bottle from Coke or Pepsi.

• No one has to worry about getting their hand cut off at work or having their job outsourced overseas.

• Everyone can be who they are without fear of being detained and tortured without trial.

• Everyone can vote without fear, knowing their vote will be counted—accurately.

• Every woman has the right to choose what to do with her own body.

• Everyone has enough money for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

• Everyone, even if they don't have money, has the right to see a doctor if they're sick or hurt. In so many other countries this is a guaranteed human right by law.

Stimulating and reviving the economy will only succeed from the ground up. This means getting a lot more money quickly to the people on the bottom who need it the most. When they finally have some cash in their pocket they will be more than eager to spend it. Stores perk up, jobs are saved, and the train is finally rolling out of the station. This is why leaders as diverse as Martin Luther King, Milton Friedman and even Richard Nixon have at different times proposed a guaranteed annual income so that everyone can participate and keep our economy humming. Raise the minimum wage to a living wage: $9.50 an hour helps, but $12 an hour is closer to a true living wage. Welfare should not be a dirty word, especially after PBS reported last month that if you count all the Americans who have given up looking for work because they can't find any and dropped off the radar screen, unemployment is actually around 12%! So please remove the time limits on unemployment compensation, welfare benefits and Aid to Families with Dependent Children that were slapped on the least fortunate during the Clinton years.

But where will the money come from when we burn it all up shoveling it down the mouths of the dragons on Wall Street? You are right to point out that trickle-down supply-side economics never trickled down. It wasn't supposed to. How will this be any different? To the average taxpayer this so-called bailout looks more like the last great looting of our treasury before Bush and his cronies get the hell out of dodge. There is also growing concern about the appearance of self-dealing by officials with connections to Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

So far your own economic team seems alarmingly slanted toward the robber barons who helped create this mess in the first place. Where is Joseph Stiglitz? Where is Robert Reich? Are we still all in this together? Your Economic Advisory Council is supposed to be a council, not a choir! You say you want a support staff that debate and give you diverse ideas. So even if you do not agree with them, how about adding William Greider or Doug Henwood or even Naomi Klein as well?

GREEN JOBS THROUGH GREEN AID

Let's move even faster on climate collapse. The clock is ticking…

Your proposal to spend $150 billion on our crumbling infrastructure is a good beginning. But it is only 10% of the $1.5 trillion in urgent repairs the American Society of Civil Engineers says we need right now to avoid more disasters like the freeway bridge collapse in Minnesota. This does not even account for restocking the Bush-depleted Superfund to clean up toxic waste, or creating affordable housing for everyone. Your plan states, "We'll put people back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel efficient cars and the alternative energy technology that could free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead." Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to spend whatever it takes to weather-strip and winterize old homes and buildings now if the owners can't afford it. It will reduce our swollen carbon footprint dramatically and save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few years. How about aid for solar panels? Home windmills too? Not just tax breaks, aid. Most people just don't have the money for this. Time magazine reported in 2001 that an American farmer could get $50 for an acre of wheat and $2000 for an acre of wind power. We either pay to do this now or pay a lot more later. Europeans are already way ahead of us on this one.

Also, look for ways to accomplish two or three things at once with every renewal project. Replacing the water or sewer lines? Lay fiber optic cable! Our not-so-liberal mayor in San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, nixed that idea because there was not enough graft in it for telecom companies. His own silly plan for wi-fi towers fell on its face, so a smart opportunity was wasted.

AUTO AID – REQUIRE GREENER CARS

Ever seen a documentary film called Who Killed the Electric Car? They worked so well their owners did not want to give them back. But when their leases came up, Detroit snatched them away and destroyed them. Now Detroit wants a great big handout? Then another? Then another? There should be no bailout for carmakers if all they are willing to offer in return is more fuel-hogging clunkers like the Ford Flex. No aid until they bring back the electric cars! If the Chevy Volt is so great, why aren't they selling them now? For almost 30 years, people who go to design schools have told me that the car designers almost always pursue jobs overseas because Detroit is still unable to adapt as quickly to fresh ideas for the future.

So far "clean coal" seems to be about as clean as our mountains of "clean nuclear waste." Again, no aid to big coal companies unless they end their environmentally devastating "mountain top removal" plundering once and for all.

TRAINS MAKE SENSE – PEOPLE ARE READY

Another crucial way to fight global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil is to wake up and get serious about a nationwide high-speed rail system and better rapid transit in the cities. Again, Europe, Japan, and even China are way ahead of us. When I do my speaking tours in Europe it is so much easier and less expensive than traveling here: Just take my backpack and go. Even a normal train is often faster than flying. No traffic jams getting to the airport, no long security lines, no baggage claim wait, no traffic jams back into the next town. I just get on the train and get off the train, right downtown. The scenery is pretty cool too.

Amtrak has hemorrhaged money year after year. But ridership is finally going up, in spite of the decimated service. People have finally grown so fed up with traffic jams, fuel prices and the arrogance of our bumbling airline industry that a proper train system would now do very well. Just ask former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson, another intriguing choice for a high position in your administration. Californians finally passed a bond issue to begin work on a long-overdue bullet train system between San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles. People I have talked to in random conversation are almost as excited about this as they are about your own election. A similar initiative passed in Florida in 2000, but Governor Jeb Bush impounded the funds.

Surely we can find the money by canceling a few aircraft carriers, tanks and planes we don't need, and by shutting off the faucet for the hundreds of billions wasted on Reagan's star wars fantasy—now known as "missile defense." Are those new installations in the Czech Republic and Poland really worth all the grief they're stirring up with the Russians? The Czech and Polish people don't even want them there!

Green energy technology should also be shared, even given, to the Chinese ASAP. Here on the West Coast I have to wipe a brown sooty film off my windshield every couple of days—and my car is in a garage! It is coal dust from Chinese factories. They open a new coal plant ever few days. According to Mother Jones, sustaining an American lifestyle for a Chinese middle class predicted to reach 600 million will require the resources of several more Earths!

COMPETE GLOBALLY – TAKE BETTER CARE OF OUR PEOPLE

Other countries prefer a healthy workforce and are willing to pay for it. Here we stick our workforce with fat, greedy insurance companies who serve no purpose but to act as a tollbooth or a gatekeeper and charge exorbitant fees before a person can even see a doctor. The result, of course, is the most expensive healthcare system with the least benefit for the buck of any in the industrialized world. You say the big insurance companies "should have a place at the table." Aren't these companies the problem?

Other counties want their workforce to be as well-educated as possible to better care for themselves and compete in the global economy. So they are willing to pay to make sure this happens, instead of kicking them in the face with back-breaking student loans and cutting school funding to the bone.

Other countries want their children to grow up well-nourished and loved instead of dysfunctional. They are happy to pay welfare for single parents to stay home with their little ones, and for 12-18 months maternity leave with 80-90% pay for either parent to make sure no child is left behind.

Traveling overseas it is not hard to notice that many European countries, and not just Scandinavia, have a higher standard of living than we do, and the gap is widening. The reason is they are willing to pay for it.

HUMANE TAX REFORM

Please do not break your promise to raise income taxes on the wealthy and close those Titanic-sized loopholes that allowed two-thirds of US and foreign corporations who do business here to pay no tax at all between 1998 and 2005. We used to have a tiny tax on security speculation and stock transactions. Britain still does. If the annual amount of wheeling and dealing in the stock market really amounts to the reported $500 trillion a year, a mere 1% tax could raise $5 trillion per year and Wall Street would not even feel it! Other ways to raise badly needed revenue without hurting Joe the Plumber would be to tax companies who pollute, divert funds overseas, and ship jobs out of the country, as well as taxing stock windfalls rewarded by Wall Street for balancing the bottom line with employee layoffs.

Last September the Bush administration quietly dynamited Section 382 of the tax code allowing big banks to run off with as much as $140 billion dollars in new tax breaks that many suspect are illegal. Was this illegal? Please enforce the law and stop the bleeding now.

We could also follow the lead of Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, and even the state of Maine and encourage cities to start their own municipal or community banks. Being a non-profit, these banks would provide low-cost loans for homes and small businesses. They would also save cities millions of dollars apiece that they now waste on private banking fees.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D - IL) proposes generous tax breaks and shareholder advantages to "patriotic corporations" who limit management salaries to 100 times the lowest-paid fulltime worker. I think 10 times is better. Shareholders need better legal tools to limit runaway CEO pay and looting by top executives.

Schakowsky would also give tax breaks to corporations that: produce at least 90% of their goods and services in the United States; spend at least 50% of the research and development budgets here at home; stay out of employee organizing drives; are clean with the EPA, OSHA and the NRLB; and provide their employees with generous and portable pension funds and health insurance. They must also agree not to price-gouge consumers.

So how do we convince Americans that it is in our best interest to help pay for all of this? It would help if you use your power to inspire and persuade, to get through to people in this country that not all taxes are automatically bad, especially when spent in a way that benefits them directly. Starting with the Boston Tea Party in kindergarten, it is drilled into us that taxes are this terrible violation of our freedom. As adults we have had 30 plus years of media sermons from both parties that we are no longer a community, but a marketplace, and that competitiveness is more important than caring about one another. Isn't it interesting that the people least interested in paying taxes are often the first to complain when a government service they take for granted doesn't work any more?

To wise people up and chip away at this I suggest pointing out what happened to California when voters passed Proposition 13 and gutted what was once the number one education system in the country, if not the world. It is now almost dead last. According to the ACLU, some schools in Los Angeles are not only short on books and desks, they don't even have toilet paper. Californians also voted down an initiative guaranteeing universal healthcare after the Disease Industry ran a blitz of TV ads claiming it would raise people's taxes. They banked on people failing to do the math and see how a slight tax increase would dramatically reduce their own medical bills.

Another example is the tale of two of the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. In the 1990s, Rock Island, IL voters were willing to raise taxes to build a floodwall. Voters in Davenport, IA rejected a wall three times because it would raise taxes. Guess whose town was devastated the next time the Mississippi flooded? To raise local money for local and state projects voters have to be shown that it is worth raising taxes to pay for these things.

Taxes also wouldn't hurt so much if the people had more say in where their money went. How about placing 12-15 categories in US income tax forms so people can vote what percentage of their tax money they want spent where? I'll bet education, the environment, infrastructure, and services would go straight up and our bloated military cash cow would go straight down.

HELP PEOPLE RESIST FORECLOSURES

To fight the plague of foreclosures, I suggest following the lead of the Cook County Sheriff in Chicago by declaring a moratorium on foreclosure evictions. Debts to predatory lenders should be forgiven at once. Many families are fleeing their homes because they are so frightened of the cruel Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, they are willing to default on their mortgage just to keep up with their credit card debts. You voted against this law. Now let's get rid of it. I am inspired by City Life/Vida Urbana in Boston who have said "Yes We Can" to reviving the Depression-era practice of volunteer rolling brigades who show up to defend people's homes from eviction, and if need be take all the furniture and belongings back from the curb into the house. In addition, they alert the media to help shame the banks and predatory lenders from coming back. In many cases it has worked.

The most intriguing proposal flying around the Internet is for everyone who files an individual tax return to be given $1 million dollars on the condition that they use it to pay off their mortgage in full (thus bailing out the banks) and buy an American car within the next three years. Whatever is left over is theirs to keep and invest. Unfortunately the math does not add up. Even the staggering estimated total of $8 trillion thrown at our collapsing economy would only bring $57,971.01 for each of the 138 million individual tax returns filed each year. Too bad, it is an interesting idea.

"THIS MOVEMENT IS NOT JUST ABOUT ONE PERSON…"

I'm glad to hear you say that, but I keep waiting for you to expand and take it further. To point out how much it also matters who is in the Senate, who is in the House, the Governor, the State legislature, mayors, city councils, school boards, ballot initiatives, county commissioners, you name it. To say that if a person is not satisfied with what is going on in their community, they should get involved. If they are not satisfied with how they are being represented, they should consider running for office themselves. A lot of inspired people would. What else can we do in the meantime to make things better? What simple, easy steps can we take in our own lives? You have two more chances—Inauguration and the State of the Union. Before people return to the slumber of Soundbite McNews.

Bill Clinton could have won back Congress in 1996 if he had used his popularity, convention speech and pulpit for something besides his own shoo-in re-election. But he didn't. I was in the room for Al Gore's acceptance speech in 2000. He didn't bother either. It was just about one person.

I'll be amazed if Mr. Obama or anyone close actually reads this, so this last part is for you folks who have. To me, if there is an Obama movement, it is more like the Pope-mobile. You know, that cage of bulletproof glass on wheels that rolls around with the Pope inside, waving at his adoring flock, "Yo! I'm here! Look at me, I'm the Pope!" Then everybody goes home. But who is driving the Pope-mobile? Can a crowd organize to block the wrong turns and steer it in a better direction?

I did not vote for you, but I dearly want you to succeed at delivering the change you have promised. We have very little time and may not get another chance. Recent history shows we have eight years maximum before the pendulum swings back the other way—and hard. She may lose once or twice, but I fear the Pitbull with Lipstick will one day be bigger than Reagan.

In many ways, people seem to be looking to you as their new great-and-powerful Oprah as much as they look at you as their President. This can be useful too. To revive people's sense of community and what it entails. To persuade people that voting for small local tax increases brings much greater benefits for everyone down the road. To encourage people to not just recycle but look for ways to stop wasting so much. Those same European countries whose standard of living seems to be higher than ours use a fraction per capita of natural resources we do. How do they do it? Think of all the forests we could save just by showing people how much paper they can save just by writing on the other side before they throw it away? Imagine if lawyers figured this out.

HONOR AND RESPECT YOUR MOVEMENT

Please don't ever forget why so many people who had given up hope are investing so much of their hearts and hope in you. If that hope is shattered and they feel betrayed, a great deal more will collapse for good.

So to keep your movement alive—and help it grow beyond you—keep those texts and e-mail lists alive! Keep your Blackberry. Does it matter if it all becomes public record? How about a posting a daily log of what you did and who you and your staff met with, including lobbyists. Why not keep all those campaign offices you opened all over the country alive too? Convert them to branch offices. Senators and House members have branch offices all over their districts. You now represent the whole country. Keep the branches.

Above all, be a leader, not a dealmaker. There are times when cutting a deal is the same as cutting and running. To put it mildly, we can't afford that anymore. There are no sails left to trim.

And if this is a movement about change and not just about one person, it is up to the movement to drive the President, not the other way around. Please do not stand in the way.

Sincerely,

Jello Biafra

Krugman for a economic progressive Obama/ What progressives must do

{{First: a Times reader put it very succinctly: "Barack Obama does not need to move to the center. He needs to MOVE the center. The times demand it." Artie Gold, Austin, Texas}}

Friday, NY Times economics columnist Paul Krugman, in "The Obama Agenda" defended the interpretation of the election as a mandate for progressive change:

"Bear in mind, also, that this year’s presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies — and the progressive philosophy won."
"Since then [2004], Democrats have won back-to-back victories, picking up at least 12 Senate seats and more than 50 House seats. They now have bigger majorities in both houses than the G.O.P. ever achieved in its 12-year reign."

And --excepting LBJ's 1964 victory-- this was the biggest Democratic presidential victory in the last 60 years.
(Robert Borosage and the Campaign for America's Future have
documented how voters gave a mandate for progressive change.
Here is the link to the entire CAF report.)

And Krugman gave the pitch for Keynesian economics to restore the nation's economy:

"What about the argument that the economic crisis will make a progressive agenda unaffordable?" . . . .
"But standard textbook economics says that it’s O.K., in fact appropriate, to run temporary deficits in the face of a depressed economy. Meanwhile, one or two years of red ink, while it would add modestly to future federal interest expenses, shouldn’t stand in the way of a health care plan that, even if quickly enacted into law, probably wouldn’t take effect until 2011.
Beyond that, the response to the economic crisis is, in itself, a chance to advance the progressive agenda."

Click here for link to the entire column.

Recalling the Clinton administration-supported legislation that led to financial troubles
The Clinton administration supported the Financial Services Modernization Act (FMSA, or in its legislative form, Gramm-Leach-Bliley) in 1999. The act essentially repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The act served to put up a wall separating investment banking and commercial banking. And it mitigated against insider trading.
(Incidentally, the Center for Responsive Politics noted that there was large gap in financial industry contributions to the Congressmen that supported the act and those that opposed the act: "[T]he Democrats who supported the Financial Services Modernization Act had received an average of $179,920; . . . the 59 Democrats who opposed it received just $83,475.")

From Daniel Gross, "Shattering Glass-Steagall: Lehman's failure marks the end of an era" in Newsweek, Sep. 15, 2008:

Glass-Steagall was one of the many necessary measures taken by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Congress to deal with the Great Depression. Crudely speaking, in the 1920s commercial banks (the types that took deposits, made construction loans, etc.) recklessly plunged into the bull market, making margin loans, underwriting new issues and investment pools, and trading stocks. When the bubble popped in 1929, exposure to Wall Street helped drag down the commercial banks. In the absence of deposit insurance and other backstops, the results were devastating. Wall Street's failure helped destroy Main Street.

* * *
What Progressive should do: take pages from the New Deal and the 1960s
Let's clearly recall the history of the passage of progressive legislation under Franklin D. Roosevelt (Social Security, ending child labor, public works programs) and Lyndon Johnson and civil rights and the "Great Society" (desegregation, restoration of voting rights, Medicaid, Medicare) came after activists outside of those administrations advocated change. Those activists were not cowed by fear of being called radical, they did not buckle under obligations to be nice centrists or moderates. We got Obama elected. It is activists' task to press Obama to have the progressive economics that America voted for.
It is about doing the right thing, not buckling under to tradition and convention. We need leaders that will hew to principle, rather than to expediency. Let's recall Johnson's signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964: "We lost the South for a generation." He signed the bill, doing the right thing, even though he suspected that this would hurt the Democrats for decades.
The current crisis is the product of center-right economics. George W. Bush was not the only figure responsible. The patterns of policy reach back deep into Bill Clinton's administration. The new president must depart from the center-right policies of both of those presidents.
Again, "Barack Obama does not need to move to the center. He needs to MOVE the center. The times demand it."

Major Groups Demand Bailout Conditions

From commondreams.org:

Major Groups Demand Bailout Conditions Together
Statement Tells Congress, “Don’t Write President Bush A $700B Blank Check”, Hundreds of Events To Be Held on Thursday Calling For Conditions

TEXT OF LETTER
DEMANDING BAILOUT CONDITIONS

A Call for Common Sense

Every man, woman, and child in America is now being told to ante up $2,000 – an estimated $700 billion in all – to bail out Wall Street’s recklessness, or the very people who created this crisis are telling us that they will bring down our entire economy.

The Treasury Department’s proposal that the Secretary be given essentially unlimited authority to spend $700 billion to bail out any financial institution across the world is irresponsible and unacceptable.

We urge the Congress to insist on some basic conditions for any bailout.

1. Public Oversight. This kind of power can never be centralized in a single individual – much less one who did not even stand for election. Any funds must be controlled by an independent entity, with consumers and workers given seats on its board. Congress should be empowered to name independent monitors and to approve all board members.
2. Protect the Taxpayer. The Treasury bill would have taxpayers buying paper that nobody else wants at prices far above its current value. If a firm wants to auction off its toxic paper to the US Government, taxpayers should get equity in that firm equal to any amount paid in excess of the paper’s value. This will deter profitable firms from using the government as a dumpster for their toxic paper. And it will insure that if the bailout works and the firms become profitable, taxpayers, not simply bankers, benefit from the upside.
3. Curb the casino. This crisis was caused because sensible regulations of the banking system that worked for dozens of years were dismantled or went unenforced. No bailout can go forward without requiring the necessary regulation to insure this does not happen again. Any institution, which receives assistance, should agree to come under a microscope going forward in terms of disclosure requirements, and it should have stringent capital requirement imposed upon it.
4. Invest in the real economy. Ending the bankers strike is not sufficient enough to avoid the recession into which we have been driven. Major public investment in new energy and conservation, rebuilding schools and infrastructure, extending unemployment and food stamps, helping states avoid crippling cuts in police and health services – is vital to get the real economy moving and put people back to work. No bailout should proceed without being linked to support for a major public investment plan to get the economy going.
5. Hold CEOs and Boards of Directors Accountable. Wall Street CEOs shouldn’t be pocketing millions while taxpayers are forced to bail them out. Any firm that applies for relief must agree to cancel all stock option programs and CEOs should have stringent limits placed on their compensation until the Company has repaid all taxpayer assistance.
6. Aid the victims, not just the predators. Both bankers and home owners made foolish bets that home prices would keep rising. Many homeowners, however, were misled by predatory lenders into taking mortgages that they didn’t understand and couldn’t afford. It would be simply obscene to help the predators and not those that they preyed upon. No bail out of the banks should take place without measures to help people in trouble stay in their homes. Explicit provisions should ensure use of the full array of financial and legal tools available to the government to stop foreclosures and restructure home mortgage loans for ordinary Americans, including amending the bankruptcy code to allow judges to modify mortgages. Where workouts are not feasible, people should be allowed to stay in their homes as renters.

Blue Republic of America

What this page is about: Promoting the values and the cause of the Democratic Party of the United States, and in a progressive direction. --And pursuing the question and the quest: how do we convert more voters and more states in the blue (Democratic of course) direction.

As to the word, Republic, our country is a republic, not a democracy. Let's go back to middle school or high school, or in case you learned it later . . . a democracy is a government in which the people directly rule, legislate (pass laws). A republic is a government in which the laws are made by a separate government, and in other definitions, the government is made of elected representatives, representing the will of the people.

Before I lose you, we --Democrats-- stand a risk of losing this election (2008 presidential election) again. For, as in the case of the 2000 election, the Electoral College potentially could play the breaking role in the election. Let's just review, in the 2000 election, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman decisively defeated George W. Bush and Dick Cheney by over 540,000 votes in the popular vote.

Who are the electors of the Electoral College? Article II of the U.S. Constitution established the Electoral College as the body that would elect our President. (It was amended by the 12th Amendment, 1803, to correct problems in the first two Presidential Elections, 1796 and 1800.) The electors, not the national electorate, are the people that elect our president. The electors are individuals that are presented by the political parties in each state to act as representatives of the state in the Electoral College when it meets. The electors are obliged to vote for the political party's nominee for president at the Electoral College's meeting in mid-December.

(Are you still with me? Do you think that we have a democratic republic for our government? Are we selecting our president?)

How do some Electoral College votes result in victories for the losers of the Popular vote? The number of electors is not proportional to the number of people voting or living in each state. I'm getting bored already; how does this affect the elections?

Each state gets its electors by the number of Senators (2 -since each state, no matter its population, gets two Senators) and the number of Representatives that it has. (The Representatives are assigned to each state on the basis of their population.)

SO, here's how the system can give lop-sided victories:

A small state like, Wyoming, our least populous state, with only 515,000 (per infoplease.com), gets two Senators. Meanwhile, California, our most populous state, with a population of 36 million, also gets two Senators.

This means that the weight of one person's vote from a small state, like Wyoming, carries greater strength in the Senate and in the Electoral College than that of a voter from a larger state like California, Texas or New York.

In the 2000 election, Bush and Cheney sewed up the less-populous-state vote with Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, the Dakotas, and so on. Basically, look at election maps, and look west of the 95 degree longitude. Notice how the states to the west (excepting the Pacific Coast states) are solidly Republican.

So, we are at risk, again, of an Electoral College loss to the Republicans.

If this becomes the situation again in 2008, we should show our disdain for this arcane impediment toward a democratic selection of our president. We should have mass protests, as in the "Orange Revolution" of the Ukraine and as in the pro-Lopez Obrador protests in the 2006 Mexican presidential election. We should agitate to reform this method of electing our president. On the other hand, we should not be naive: changing this would require amending the Constitution. And amending the Constitution will require the cooperation of small states.

In the short run then, we must agitate for ensuring the integrity of the vote, especially in marginal, or swing states, such as Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida.