Winning Progressive

By Josh Marks

Many progressives will never forgive former President William Jefferson Clinton for the sin of signing away the Glass-Steagall Act. Also called The Banking Act of 1933, Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking activities after the Great Depression in order to prevent another economic catastrophe. In 1999 Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act because Citibank merged with Travelers Insurance a year earlier and a law needed to be passed to make the merger legal. While repealing Glass-Steagall didn’t directly lead to the 2008 financial crisis, it was one of a series of post-Depression financial industry regulations stripped away, starting when Ronald Reagan took office, that allowed Wall Street to bring the world to the brink of another Great Depression. (Click here to read an appeal by former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich to bring back Glass-Steagall).

Could Clinton have known how ruinous to the economy repealing Glass-Steagall would be when the financial industry went into a tailspin more than a decade later after years of risky bets? How many countless Americans have lost their jobs and their faith in the American system after this economic collapse?

Well, I’m here to tell you that Clinton is making amends and his new book “Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government For a Strong Economy” is a must read. There is a lot for progressives to like about Clinton’s approach to solving the big issues of the day.

That said, Clinton still doesn’t take full responsibility for the damage done when he repealed Glass-Steagall, however he does point out that he regrets not making a bigger push to regulate financial derivatives, although he was up against a Republican Congress hostile to any regulations.

Clinton starts out “Back to Work” with an impassioned defense of the important role government plays in society and calls out the Tea Party wing of the GOP for its irrational and self-destructive hatred of the public sector. What Clinton does in this book is give a global perspective to America’s political paralysis and inability to work towards solutions to our problems. This, I believe, is a result of the humanitarian work Clinton has done around the world through the Clinton Foundation, where he has helped poor people around the world improve their health care and be economically empowered. Through the book, Clinton compares the United States to other countries, giving perspective to our problems. In the opening chapter he lays out his vision for a more prosperous and fair society.

“I believe the only way we can keep the American Dream alive for all Americans and continue to be the world’s leading force for freedom and prosperity, peace and security, is to have both a strong, effective private sector and a strong, effective government that work together to promote an economy of good jobs, rising incomes, increasing exports, and greater energy independence. All over the world, the most successful nations, including many with lower unemployment rates, less inequality, and, in this decade, even higher college graduation rates than the United States, have both. And they work together, not always agreeing, but moving toward common goals. In other countries, conservatives and liberals also have arguments about taxes, energy policy, bank regulations, and how much government is healthy and affordable, but they tend to be less ideological and more rooted in evidence and experience. They focus more on what works.”

This is Clinton’s framework to set up a scathing rebuttal to the anti-tax, anti-government ideological extremists who have hijacked the political system in this country for the past thirty years.

Clinton is very effective when he uses charts and figures to explain our positions relative to other nations. For example, the United States spends only 1.7 percent of GDP on infrastructure, compared with 4 percent in Canada or 9 percent in China. And the World Economic Forum ranks the United States 24th in the quality of overall infrastructure, right behind Malaysia (Switzerland ranks first). Also, the U.S. ranks 15th in broadband connection speed, just behind Luxembourg. No. 1 South Korea’s broadband connections is four times faster than ours. And Clinton points out that the U.S. spends a whopping 17.4 percent of GDP on health care compared to France at 11.8 percent and Japan at 8.5 percent.

Not everything Clinton writes will please progressives. For example, he isn’t critical of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for not being big enough in stimulating job creation. Clinton believes that the $800 billion stimulus (only a third went into direct job projects) “was designed to put a floor under the collapse and begin the recovery.” That’s all well and good, but economists like Paul Krugman were warning that the stimulus wasn’t big enough and that the Republicans would manipulate the slow job growth that follows as saying that government spending doesn’t work. Now it is nearly impossible to pass a second stimulus, as President Obama tried to do with the American Jobs Act. So it would have been helpful if Clinton would have admitted the stimulus wasn’t big enough and that we need more fiscal stimulus to plow our way out of this depression (I’m reading Krugman’s excellent new book “End This Depression Now!” and plan to write a review).

Clinton also devotes an entire chapter to the debt (Krugman makes a compelling case that deficit hawks are misguided and that the debt is blown way out of proportion when the focus should be on the government creating jobs). However, Clinton does acknowledge that dealing with the deficit needs to be delayed until full employment is achieved and healthy economic growth is restored. With the ridiculous obsession with the debt and deficits among the political and media class in Washington, it is encouraging to hear a voice of reason like Clinton’s saying that, yes, we need to tackle the deficit (although again, Keynesian economists like Krugman would argue that deficits aren’t as bad as people think), but right now the sole priority and topic of conversation should be focused on how government spending can create jobs and grow the economy.

Ultimately Clinton is optimistic, and he is confident America will get past this current state of dysfunction and ideological warfare.

“We’re in a mess now. At the dawn of the new century, after years of strong job growth, rising incomes, and declining debt, we abandoned a proven path to shared prosperity in favor of doubling down, once more, on anti-government ideology. Now we’re paying for it. The only sensible thing to do is for all of us to take some responsibility for changing things. The world is moving on, and if we want to stop falling behind, we have to get back in the game. Let’s ditch the stale certainty of ideology and bring our values, ideas, experiences, and dreams to a real debate about the future. Think how exciting it would be if all of us — Democrats, Republicans, and independents, conservatives, liberals, progressives, and libertarians — had real arguments based on real facts that produced real results through principled compromise based on what works.”

For this weekend’s reading list we have a website urging North Carolinians to vote Against the anti-LGBT Amendment One on May 8, an excerpt from Paul Krugman’s new book, an accounting of the SEC’s increased criminal and civil prosecutions of financial fraud, a report on the importance of immigration to our economy and fiscal future, and essays on how coalitions and strategies around the fight for LGBT equality can provide instructive examples of how progressives can win in other policy areas.

Know and Love – A collection of videos of North Carolinians speaking out against Amendment One, the anti-LGBT state constitutional amendment that is on the ballot on Tuesday, May 8.  Many North Carolina voters appear to be unaware that Amendment One would bar not only marriage equality but also legal recognition of all civil unions and domestic partnerships.  If you know people in North Carolina, please urge them to vote Against Amendment One on Tuesday, May 8.

The SEC: Outmanned, Outgunned, and On a Roll - the story of how the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has undertaken an unprecedented number of criminal and civil actions against financial malfeasance over the past few years.  In 2011 alone, the SEC filed a record 735 enforcement actions and collected $928 million in penalties, almost four times the amount it collected in 2008.

How to End This Depression – an excerpt from Paul Krugman’s new book End This Depression Now! on how we can achieve government policies that would finally bring economic recovery and strong job growth.

How Organized Labor Helped Win Marriage Equality in Maryland and Washington, And What We Can Learn – how SEIU, UNITE HERE, UFCW and other unions worked with LGBT activists to achieve marriage equality in Maryland and Washington, and how labor and LGBT groups can continue to work together on achieving labor victories for both groups.

America’s Secret Growth Weapon: Why Immigration Really, Really Matters – an accounting of how immigration is critically important to economic growth in the US, and in keeping our population younger so that Medicare and Social Security can stay afloat.

What Gay Rights Activists Can Teach the Left About Winning - the story of significant progress on LGBT equality during the Obama Administration demonstrates the importance of progressives figuring out how to constructively pressure the Administration to take progressive stands, rather than either assuming the Administration will do so on its own or pretending like President Obama is no better than the Republicans.

(By Fay Paxton, cross-posted at The Pragmatic Pundit)

I’m always a little amazed at how easily people refer to the President as a liar.  First, because it is such a show of disrespect and a lack of good manners and secondly because I think President Obama has, in the face of unyielding opposition, done a far better job at keeping his promises than anyone has a right to expect.

I found myself in a discussion with a group of what are otherwise intelligent, well-informed people.  Many of them had the usual stinging attacks for the President that I’ve come to expect.  But what I found amazing was the response when someone took up the mantle and explained why or how certain legislation had passed.  Invariably,  people would say, “Oh, I didn’t know that” or “I had no idea”.  The President is far from perfect, but one can only wonder, given the amount of misinformation, about the source of such staunch disapproval.

So what follows is information about some of those promises. I focus primarily on the much contested Stimulus.  Not in an effort to excuse, but merely to explain what many people seem to have either forgotten or never knew.

Read executive order on Guantánamo

The New York Times

It’s Congress’ Fault That It’s Still Open

Congress has effectively frozen in place one of the most counterproductive aspects of our national security policy – and given Al Qaeda just what it wants.

…..Congress has barred Obama from transferring any detainees to the United States, not even to stand trial in a criminal court, and has put onerous conditions on their being transferred to any other country.

The Washington Times

House acts to block closing of Gitmo

Congress on Wednesday signaled it won’t close the prison at Guantanamo Bay or allow any of its suspected terrorist detainees to be transferred to the U.S., dealing what is likely the final blow to President Obama’s campaign pledge to shutter the facility.

People seem to forget the President compromised, extending the Bush tax cuts in order to maintain tax cuts for the middle class and an extension of unemployment. Was the preference that taxes go up on the middle class and unemployment end?  He broke one promise in order to keep one to the middle class.

In response to the economy, I hear even the most informed politicians and pundits declare, “Instead of spending time on healthcare legislation, President Obama should have concentrated on the economy.”  Is it me?  That’s what the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, better known as the Stimulus was about!

When it was initially introduced, the Stimulus totaled just under $1 trillion. Everyone should be able to recall the original uproar and outrage about the price tag; headlines looked like this:

Stimulus package ‘too big’; Galaxy Poll findings

Area Republicans criticize stimulus as too expensive

Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card: Stimulus too costly

Stimulus Too Expensive – Sun Sentinel

In fact, President Obama never made such a pledge.  The projection is the result of a Jan. 9, 2009 report “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan” from Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economic adviser.

The report was issued with heavy disclaimers:

“It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error,” the report states…. the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.”

In 2011, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and The Bureau of Labor Statistics unveiled a revision of data which showed that the Great Recession was even worse than initially thought. The BEA’s first estimate of output, published in January of 2009, showed a contraction of 3.8% (this would have been the number used by economist who wrote the Stimulus), but a year later revised it to a 6.8% drop. The figure changed yet again in 2011, to a shocking 8.9% fall in GDP.  Clearly, the Stimulus was a recovery plan based on available, but what turned out to be, false data.  A fact that is seldom, if ever mentioned.

New government data shows 2007-2009 recession inflicted more severe than previously estimated

The numbers keep being revised inexorably downwards

Remarkably, the Stimulus met it’s goal; stabilizing a flailing economy; saving and creating jobs (despite Republican efforts to sabotage growth by laying off masses of employees and voting against all job-creating legislation).  One can only speculate what the result might have been if the initial GDP figures had been correct.

I concentrate on the Stimulus because it embodied in many ways an attempt to fulfill many of the promises the President made.  What seems forgotten is that in response to the “Stimulus uproar”,  a group of Senators, Republicans and Democrats,  led by Republican Sen. Susan Collins  cut billions from the original stimulus.  In the interest of bipartisanship (another promise), and because Republican votes were necessary for passage (there were not 60 Democratic senators seated) job-stimulating measures were traded for tax cuts.

Here is what was cut:

•    $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings

•    $75 million from Smithsonian; for repairs, refurbishing and upgrading

•    $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund – for tank removal, drilling, soil sampling, etc.

•    $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – for habitat restoration, vessel maintenance, construction and repair of NOAA facilities, ships and equipment.

•    $100 million from FBI construction

•    $65 million for watershed rehabilitation

•    $25 million for Marshall’s Construction

•    $300 million for federal prisons; repairs and upgrades to construction and security

•    $55 million for historic preservation

•    $165 million for Forest Service capital improvement

•    $16 billion for school construction

•    $3.5 billion for higher education construction

•    $2.25 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization – - for road, bridge and trail maintenance; including related watershed restoration and ecosystem enhancement projects; facilities improvement, maintenance and renovation.

•    $1.2 billion for retrofitting Project 8 housing

•    $100 million for Farm Service Agency modernization

•    $300 million from federal fleet of hybrid vehicles

•    $1 billion for Energy Loan Guarantees – to encourage improved technologies in energy projects that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or  emissions of greenhouse gases; and employ new or improved technologies; issue loans to automobile and part manufacturers for cost of re-equipping, expanding, or establishing manufacturing facilities.

•    $100 million from law enforcement wireless

•    $440 million for BYRNE grant program – funding would have focused on preventing and reducing violent crime; expansion of the COPS program; reducing mortgage fraud and crime related to vacant properties and improving resources and services for victims of crime.

•    $10 million state and local law enforcement

•    $50 million from Department of Homeland Security

•    $200 million Transportation Security Administration

•    $50 million for Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service

•    $100 million for distance learning – a process to provide access to learning when the source of information and the learners are separated by time and distance, or both.”

•    $98 million for school nutrition

•    $1 billion for Head Start/Early Start

•    $600 million for Title I (No Child Left Behind)

In fact, all kinds of healthcare benefits were eliminated in favor of tax cuts, including $2 billion for Health Information Technology Grants that would have enabled the coordination of care as well as the maintenance of the continuum of care across the nation.  Also eliminated,  $2 billion for broadband; $400 million for science and research.

These were some of the programs left on the cutting floor in favor of tax cuts:

•    $50 million for NASA – to among other things re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council

•    $50 million for aeronautics

•    $50 million for exploration and support of a human mission to the moon by 2020

Promises about Space on The Obameter

The idea that the President doesn’t fight or that he “caves” is sheer silliness.  It isn’t his job to plant his feet in order to appear to be a bad ass while everything falls apart.  It’s a fair assumption he knows how to count.  And if the votes aren’t there, all the bitching and moaning in the world won’t pass a bill.

If you ask me, Americans have no one to blame but themselves.  They should have stayed engaged.  They should have supported their President, especially once they saw that so many forces were working against him.  Like the Tea Party, Democrats should have gotten rid of representatives who stood in the way of legislation they felt important.  But more than that, they really need to connect with sources that can will give them the facts.

(By Fay Paxton, cross-posted at The Pragmatic Pundit)

Republicans talk about being conservatives who believe in small government and reducing the federal workforce. The numbers don’t bear out their claims.  In a press conference, House Speaker John Boehner said, “In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs.”  The Republicans even advanced legislation calling for a reduction of 200,000 federal employees.

Here’s the truth:

According to the Office of Personnel Management, it is true that the federal workforce increased by 237,000 employees. What Boehner does not tell…150,000 of the employees added to the roles were uniformed military personnel, no doubt to accommodate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 237,000 figure also includes temporary Census workers.

Despite claims of huge government expansion, historically, Democratic presidents reduced the size of the federal government workforce. The federal employment numbers, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the department charged with tracking the number of employees, the data shows the following:

For this weekend’s reading list we have stories on the impressive scope of President Obama’s achievements, the $635 billion we have wasted militarizing police forces, why full employment is good for the working class, why environmental funders need to focus on building a grassroots movement, and a debunking of climate deniers.

If you have feedback on any of these articles, or would like to recommend a story for next weekend’s reading list, let us know in the comment section below, or at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama – a thorough accounting of how President Obama has achieved more in the first three years of his Presidency than any other President has in decades. Here is our list of accomplishments achieved by the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats in 2009 and 2010.

The Cost of America’s Police State – a report on the nearly $650 billion we have spent since the September 11 attacks militarizing police forces throughout the US against a threat that is largely non-existent.

The Case for Full Employment – an analysis showing how having full employment – i.e., the lowest unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation – as the goal of our economic system benefits working and middle class Americans and reduces economic inequality.

Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders - a critique of how funders of environmental causes have focused too much on top-down, D.C. based strategies and not enough on building a grassroots movement to support and push the environmental agenda

Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong – a debunking of myths offered by climate deniers regarding whether climate change is occurring, how humans are causing climate change, how it will impact us, and whether climate scientists are profiting off concerns about climate change.

For this weekend’s reading list we have a moving photo essay about the human toll of coal mining, the dangers posed by the lawsuit to strike down the anti-marriage-equality Proposition 8 going to the Supreme Court, ways to save the global economy, the importance of unions to democracy and the middle class, and the political benefits of President Obama’s contraception compromise.

If you have any feedback on these articles, or would like to recommend an article for next weekend’s reading list, please let us know in the comments section below or at the Winning Progressive Facebook page.

Coal – The Big Picture – a moving photo essay of the terrible human toll that the mining of 7000 megatons of coal has on people in the nearly seventy countries worldwide that mine coal.

Gambling With Gay Marriage - An essay detailing how, for all of the legal merits of the federal court challenge to California’s anti-marriage-equality Proposition 8, the case poses a huge political risk of either a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in favor of bans on marriage equality or a 5-4 pro-equality decision that triggers a political backlash against marriage equality.

13 Out of the Tinderbox Ways to Save the Economy – A series of essays in this month’s Foreign Policy magazine about ways to save the global economy, including essays calling for reducing military spending, increasing inflation, a $1 trillion global investment in infrastructure, and greening cities.

Unions Make Democracy Work For the Middle Class -  A new report from the Center for American Progress about how unions are critical to both a secure middle class and a vibrant democracy

Contraception Row Could Rebound in Obama’s Favor - an argument that President Obama’s contraception “compromise” – which still ensures that everyone has access to no co-pay contraception – should politically benefit Obama as he has shown himself to be reasonable while the GOP has loudly taken a public position that is opposed to the views of the majority of Americans.