Taibbi: Dems already throwing '08 race?

THE LOW POST: Observations About the First Democratic Debate

In honor of the '08 freak parade's first formal debate, the Democratic party rolled out its A-team of craven auto-flagellants

MATT TAIBBI | Rollingstone.com
Posted May 03, 2007 10:09 AM

The strangest thing about the premature reappearance of the presidential debates is the palpable, seething contempt they inspired in commentators everywhere, liberal and conservative. One after another, columnists lined up to shit on the candidates, calling them names like phony and desperate and grasping and clown, and rightly so -- for there was something obviously perverse and obnoxious about these terminal ambition cases hogging the airwaves already, pushing us to get on board with their insane power-fantasies a full fifteen months before most of us should even start thinking about the next election.

An American Enterprise Institute analyst graded the candidates on their "creepiness" factor. The Houston Chronicle compared the debates to a stock car race, where everybody is really watching in hopes of seeing a crash. The Plain Dealer said the debate was like a "political beauty pageant in which the mission of the contestants was to hop, skip and swerve without falling on their faces," the result "more dizzying than edifying." And so on and so on...more than one reporter cracked that it was a far cry from Lincoln-Douglas, etc.

They were right, of course, and in that sense there was nothing strange about the names the media honchos threw at the candidates. What was strange was the context. Here you have a mainstream power ritual mocked openly by the mainstream media. The brutal humiliation of the candidates as people has become part of the process in our democratic transfer-of-power ritual; even the candidates who are "taken seriously" by the major press organs and said to "have a real chance" are savagely abused at times like this by the campaign scribes, who go out of their way to depict the presidential hopefuls as shameless, greedy buffoons who will do or say anything for a chance at the throne. Particularly now, where their mere participation in such silly early debates is openly ridiculed.

By the time a candidate wins the nomination, of course, the winning candidate will have been made to jump through ten thousand grossly humiliating hoops, forced to wear closetfuls of stupid hats, posed with footballs and hockey sticks, asked to play the saxophone and the clarinet, grilled about his teeth and his haircut and the fat girl he banged in high school, and basically been made to perform like the lowest, scraggliest, street-hungriest organ grinder's monkey the world has ever seen. Anyone who can still respect the candidate as a human being by the time he's reached this stage has a serious defect of perception -- he's just not paying attention. Because stripping the candidate of the last shreds of his self-respect is clearly an important part of the ritual, especially early on.

There must be something to it -- it must be beneficial to the American power apparatus somehow to demean the individuals who seek to occupy its highest offices. Maybe it's because while dignified human beings are unpredictable, an old turned-out whore can be counted on to do anything for forty bucks -- and these are the kinds of people we need in the White House. Who knows what it is. Whatever the reason, they're starting the seal show earlier and earlier each cycle. And this year, the first round of the freak parade took place in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where the Democratic party unveiled its '08 team of craven auto-flagellants.

I watched the debate. Here are three things one can deduce about the race from this first performance:

1) In the '08 campaign, the media has replaced the word "electable" with a "tier" system.

I must have missed the memo on this one, and if anyone out there knows the source of the phenomenon, please don't hesitate to let me know. But virtually every single post-event write-up of the debate included a self-conscious breakdown of the candidates into "tiers," with a number of papers using lines like "Among the so-called 'top tier' candidates, Hillary Clinton performed best..." The tier thing was so universal and ubiquitous that I found it frightening -- it was very difficult to find a post-mortem that lacked it. Some examples:

"Indeed, [Dodd] could be bitter that the so-called top tier of candidates, his Senate colleagues Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and his former colleague John Edwards have a combined tenure in the chamber barely half Mr. Dodd's 26 years."

-- Mark Leibovich, New York Times

"And among the top tier candidates, it was done in ways that only gently challenged one another."

-- Scot Shepard, Cox News

"Watch for a breakout performance by one of the 'lower-tier' candidates. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, probably the best-credentialed guy in the race, wants a chance to sport his resume."

-- Candy Crowley, in between doughnuts, CNN

"The lower-tier candidates can't be hitting singles. They have to hit the long ball."

-- Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, senior strategist for Edwards, as quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times

"Biden was by far the best of the so-called 'second tier' candidates."

-- Zach Epstein, the Daily Colonial

"Other Democrats considered to be in the top tier of their party's nomination race -- Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina -- initially did not even allude to a military response."

-- Craig Crawford, Congressional Quarterly

"Richardson came into the debate as the candidate most likely to eventually join Edwards, Clinton and Obama in the top tier. Maybe. But his performance didn't get him any closer to that goal."

-- Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

Note how many of these passages had the phrase "top-tier" in quotes or alongside the words "so-called" -- as though the writers were self-consciously referring to a current buzzword, something that was in the air. The breakdown was pretty obvious and more or less universally agreed-upon: Hillary, Obama and Edwards in the "top" tier, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden with a "chance to move up" to the "top," and Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel firmly in the "bottom tier." It goes without saying that this is just another take on the age-old press habit of deciding for the voters who is a real candidate and who isn't, a phenomenon already much analyzed and discussed to death by whining press critics like myself. What's weird about this is how quickly everybody got the memo to switch word choices. Mysteriously disappeared are old catch-phrases like "serious," "viable" and "electable," and all of the sudden, out of thin fucking air, we get this tier thing. Where does it come from? It's bizarre.

2) The "campaign as screenplay" form of political journalism is here to stay.

We've all seen these movies -- you know, the ones written by those hacks who go to five-step screenplay-writing schools. Every character has to have an "arc," and the arc moves from idyllic if uneasy stasis in the beginning of the film to chaos and an upset equilibrium in the middle to triumph and a satisfying resolution in the end. Cop made gunshy after losing his partner in a shootout flies a desk in the beginning of the film; he is plunged into a scary hostage crisis in the middle, his daughter's life hanging in the balance; in the end, he overcomes his fears and shoots the bad guy, saving the day. You know -- the Die Hard model. Similarly, the networks, always anxious to find a way to sell the campaign to casual viewers, have become expert at turning the race into a movie in which each of the candidates is forced to heroically overcome a flaw. The Orangeburg moderator Brian Williams put it this way, at the beginning of the debate:

WILLIAMS: We enter now the second phase of tonight's conversation. The in-house title for these questions was, Elephants in the Room, according to our political staff -- what may be uncomfortable questions about issues or beliefs attached, for whatever reason, to all of you -- perception issues, for lack of a better word.

And then Williams went down the list. He asked Edwards about his penchant for fancy haircuts; he asked Kucinich why no one takes him seriously even though his views on the war are popular; he asked Biden about his habit of putting his foot in his mouth; he asked Dodd about the perception that he is too close to special interests; he asked Hillary about her high negatives, and so on.

Now, if you're making a reality show about ten people stranded on Campaign Island who are each trying to win a series of contests to determine who becomes president, then obviously this shit has to be in there. Can Barack learn to get along with Hillary? Can chilly Hillary make the others like her? Will Johnny learn to stop worrying about this hair and get with the program (our judges will secretly give him ten points if he can pass a mirror without looking in it!)? Can Joe learn to shut the fuck up? Tune in next week as our ten Survivors tackle the ten deadly Elephants in the Room!

But obviously none of this stuff has anything to do with anything meaningful. It's just theater, and cheap formulaic theater at that. But things are set up now so that the campaign basically becomes about how the candidates respond to these artificial challenges -- not what the candidate stands for. Canny observers of the first debate will have noted that Bill Richardson got the best reviews, mainly because he did the best job of throwing off his personal media albatross -- namely, his reputation for being a little too much of a jokester. Here's how the Washington Post put it:

We've noted previously... that Richardson's occasional tendency to appear more like a stand-up comic than a candidate for president complicates his chances of being taken seriously in the primary process. And, to his credit last night, Richardson was serious...

The Daily Show parodied this phenomenon by pegging Obama's problem as being the littleness of his ears -- and suggesting that he can improve his electability by the later stages in the race by having them enlarged. They then showed a computer-enhanced photo of what the "improved" Obama might potentially look like -- a grinning goon with huge ears. Of course, the problem with the Daily Show lately is that it's not quite far enough from reality to really be comedy. Not when John Edwards responds to charges of being too much of a rich pretty boy by dragging his Dad out in the middle of the debate -- literally pointing him out in the audience -- and telling a story about how said poor loser Dad used to be too broke to buy his kids breakfast after church.

3) The Democrats keep failing the Dukakis test.

The key moment of the debate, as far as I was concerned, came toward the end, when Williams hit Hillary with this question:

Senator Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani, a friend of yours from back home, said this past week, quote: "The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us." Another quote: "America will be safer with a Republican president." How do you think, Senator, it happened that that notion of Republicans as protectors in a post-9/11 world has taken on so?

Translated into human speech, that question read something like this:

Senator Clinton, a Republican presidential candidate recently said Americans feel more safe under Republicans. How do you think the notion that Americans are more safe under Republicans came about?

I mean, seriously, folks, this is not a tough question to answer. All Hillary had to say was, "Rudy Giuliani says Americans are safer with Republicans, and suddenly you think it's true? How did you ever get a job in journalism?" and that would have been that. But the Democrats never balk at the inane questions that get thrown their way. For instance, no one ever accuses a Republican candidate of being "too conservative." But every Democrat politely and nervously answers charges of being "too liberal" every election. It is the Democrats' cowering, craven responses to these questions that validate their otherwise fallacious premises.

When media figures hound them with the same list of witch-hunting talking points each season -- Dems are incapable of protecting the country, middle America won't tolerate a "liberal," voters won't elect an "intellectual," etc. -- the Democrats unfailingly become accomplices in the conspiracy by dignifying the questions with serious responses. We first saw this back in the famous Bush I-Dukakis debate, when CNN's Bernard Shaw asked Mike Dukakis if he would advocate the death penalty if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered. Instead of angrily telling Shaw to fuck off, Dukakis calmly answered the question in a professorial tone, solidifying his reputation as a spineless wuss in the eyes of the whole country.

In this case, a string of Democrats again swallowed the Giuliani premise whole. Hillary began her answer by saying, "Well, Brian, I think that, as a senator from New York, it is something that I've worked on very hard ever since 9/11 to try to convince the administration to do those things that would actually work to make us safer..." Blah blah blah blah. Dodd was even worse. His answer began with the line, "Well, that's a great question, Brian..."

That's a great question, Brian? Is Dodd fucking kidding? He might as well have said, "Thank you sir, may I have another?" And the thing is... While I have to believe Dukakis really was blindsided by the Shaw ploy, and also genuinely a turd when it came these matters of spine and toughness, these modern Democrats have had plenty of time to prepare for and study these questions. And yet they refuse to take their media inquisitors on, making sure at all times to play by the rules and keep in sniveling, wusslike character. As a result the debates smell suspiciously like a rigged game. I don't want to say the Democrats are throwing the races, but what stands out to me is that rather than simply show some balls before the Brian Williamses of the world, the Democratic Party's response to its "toughness problem" is always to try frantically to match Republican defense spending, and to vote for wars it plays at not really believing in -- as if that's the only way to look "tough."

That is a suspiciously convenient solution to a "toughness problem" that suspiciously never goes away, no matter how many wars the Democrats vote for or how many hundreds of billions they spend on defense. Seriously, think about it -- the Democrats in this Congress, who include debaters Obama and Clinton and Biden and Dodd, just decided, on their own, to spend nearly seven hundred billion dollars on defense this year, smashing the old record. And yet they were still very fast to concede in this debate that the "notion" that they are not tough persists. So... gosh, we'll just have to spend more on the F-18 next year! Quel dommage! Is no one struck by how absurd this all is?

Of course, this is just the beginning. They have eighteen months to make this process even more disgusting...

CNN: Why we can't leave Iraq

Below is the "consensus" view on why we can't leave Iraq. It is serious and deserves a serious response. The argument for staying in Iraq for years – even decades – to come is laid out below in earnest, stark terms by expert analysts at "liberal" CNN.

This is the real nitty-gritty. I will rebut their main arguments, one by one:

1. "A rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops would hurt America's image and hand al Qaeda and other terror groups a propaganda victory that the United States is only a 'paper tiger.'"

As Sen. Chuck Hagel recently said, U.S. intelligence shows that al Qaeda represents "maybe 10 percent" of the problem in Iraq. We should be more worried about the other 90% of the Iraq problem, which is caused by Iraqis, whom we are "at war" with now. 90% of the problem that we face in Iraq didn't exist before Bush invaded in 2003.

If we choose to withdraw now, Iraqis will know, and anyone in the Mideast with a radio or television will know, that the reason for our decision was not the "might" of al Qaeda. Only Americans still believe the U.S. is fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Qaeda is a self-aggrandizing irritant to Americans and Iraqis alike, with weapons in one hand, and cameras and laptops in the other. Only Americans – Bush & Cheney included – seem willing to believe al Qaeda's propaganda that it controls events in Iraq.

As I've argued before, we can't make U.S. foreign policy based on what will help or hurt al Qaeda's propaganda machine. If we go down that road – as I think we're doing now – we leave ourselves open to cynical manipulation.

Real strength means fighting on our own terms, at the time and place of our choosing. Weakness is letting al Qaeda choose the time and place of the battlefield.

Finally, to entertain the notion that America is a "paper tiger" ridiculously ignores the fact that we spend more on our military than every other nation on earth combined: at least $600 billion per year. Withdrawing from Iraq won't change that; indeed withdrawal will free up more of our military power for worldwide operations.

2. "Rapid withdrawal" could also make the U.S. look like "an unreliable future ally or coalition partner."

How many military coalitions came you name in the past 20 years that didn't include the United States? It's ludicrous to argue that, if the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, traditional U.S. allies like Australia, Britain, or France would refuse to participate in future military operations.

Just the opposite: Our traditional allies are even more reluctant to cooperate with the U.S. militarily, because they don't trust America's judgment, and don't want to be tied down with the U.S. in another quagmire.

U.S. allies want to know that America will make honest, realistic judgments about what military power can achieve, and when. Right now, America's allies are very worried.

3. America's "fast withdrawal" from Iraq would result in "increasing attempts by terrorists to establish a training sanctuary in Iraq" … "along the lines of what they did in Afghanistan in the late '90s."

Probably true, to some extent. However, terrorists already have a lot of breathing room in Iraq to train and re-arm for future attacks. Al Qaeda's presence in Iraq is not limited by U.S. power; rather, it is limited by how much Sunni Iraqis are willing to cooperate with the foreign terrorists, and give them sanctuary. Right now, Sunni Iraqis and al Qaeda have a common enemy: the U.S. foreign occupier, and to a lesser extent Iraqi Shias. Once America withdraws, what purpose will al Qaeda serve for Iraq's Sunnis? Why should tribal-oriented Iraqis tolerate these foreign terrorists who have no local roots and speak Arabic with funny accents? And unlike American troops, Iraqi Sunnis will be able to spot foreign fighters a mile away. They'll stick out like sore thumbs. At that point, al Qaeda's usefulness to Iraqi Sunnis will have been outlived, unless…

4. "Iraq's neighbors would be drawn into the all-out civil war likely if U.S. forces left too quickly. Iran could move in to further strengthen its influence in southern Iraq; Turkey likely would move against the Kurds in the north; and Saudi Arabia would be inclined to take action to protect Sunnis in western Iraq."

… Full-scale civil war erupts along Sunni-Shiite lines in Iraq. What would happen then? Probably yes, Iraq's neighbors like Iran and Saudi Arabia would send money and weapons to influence the civil war. My guess is that, once America leaves, most al Qaeda fighters will lose interest and move elsewhere. But let's suppose that, after a U.S. withdrawal, al Qaeda decided to fight on the side of Iraqi Sunnis, killing their Shia Muslim brethren. That would be bad for America… how?

Anyhow, Iran, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are already sending money and weapons to Iraq. If rapid U.S. withdrawal resulted in a full-scale Iraqi civil war, the only difference in foreign interference would be in its scale, and openness.

However, a U.S. military that is not a sitting duck in Iraq is in a much different position to pressure the likes of Iran, for example. Right now, Iran can secretly arm and train Shia fighters to kill us in Iraq; and because of that, they have some leverage. But with no U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Iran has no leverage. Let's face it: we Americans don't really care if Iraqis decide to kill each other, or who helps them do it. If we cared about preventing deaths from other countries' civil wars, we'd have U.S. troops in Sudan (Darfur) right now.

If Iran insists on funneling weapons, money, and specialists into Iraq, America would at last have its dreamed of pretext to bomb Tehran. However, before it withdraws, the U.S. should make it very clear to Iran what would be the consequences of interference in a sovereign Iraq.

We have much more leverage over Saudi Arabia, and long-standing diplomatic and economic ties. The Saudis have much to lose by angering the U.S. with open interference in Iraq.

In sum, America's plan for Iraq post-withdrawal ought to be containment: If full-scale civil war erupts, contain it to Iraq's borders; and punish any neighboring country that tries to decide the outcome of that civil war. Let Iraqis fight it out if they want to, and let Iraqis determine the outcome.

Think that sounds naïve? Risky?

Is it any more naïve than to think that Iraq's neighbors aren't interfering there right now, knowing there is virtually nothing we can do about it? Is it any more risky than to plan on a decades-long occupation of Iraq, which would bankrupt the U.S. treasury and prevent our armed forces from doing anything besides babysitting Iraqis for the next 10 years at least (if our all-volunteer army doesn't fall apart first)?

"Victory" in Iraq is possible, perhaps – but at what cost, and at what date in the distant future? Realistically, you have to ask yourself: Would I live long enough to see that day?

Are Americans really ready to forfeit U.S. leadership, prestige, and military dominance voluntarily, all to save Iraq from a civil war that is already happening?

There is uncertainty and risk involved in withdrawing from Iraq, no doubt about it. But there is certain danger in staying. And as even the experts who support continued occupation admit below, the only realistic hope for a good outcome for the U.S. occupation is decades away.

No safe way for U.S. to leave Iraq, experts warn

May 3, 2007
CNN.com

Pulling U.S. forces from Iraq could trigger catastrophe, CNN analysts and other observers warn, affecting not just Iraq but its neighbors in the Middle East, with far-reaching global implications.

Sectarian violence could erupt on a scale never seen before in Iraq if coalition troops leave before Iraq's security forces are ready. Supporters of al Qaeda could develop an international hub of terror from which to threaten the West. And the likely civil war could draw countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran into a broader conflict.

President Bush vetoed a war spending bill Tuesday precisely because the Democrat-led Congress required the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn by October 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.

Bush said such a deadline would be irresponsible and both sides are now working on new proposals -- which may have no pullout dates.

A rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops would hurt America's image and hand al Qaeda and other terror groups a propaganda victory that the United States is only a "paper tiger," CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen said.

"It would also play into their strategy, which is to create a mini-state somewhere in the Middle East where they can reorganize along the lines of what they did in Afghanistan in the late '90s," Bergen told CNN.com.

It was in Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda allied with the Taliban, and were allowed to run terror bases and plan the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.

Bergen says it is imperative that the United States not let that happen in Iraq.

"What we must prevent is central/western Iraq [from] becoming a Sunni militant state that threatens our interests directly as an international terror hub," he said.

Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major-general and military analyst for CNN, agreed that Sunni Muslim fighters who support al Qaeda would seek an enclave inside a lawless Iraq likely riven along sectarian lines into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions.

There would be "increasing attempts by terrorists to establish a training sanctuary in Iraq," Shepperd said.

That's one of the reasons why a fast withdrawal will not happen, whatever the politicians say, the analysts predict.

"Everyone wants the troops home -- the Iraqis, the U.S., the world -- but no one wants a precipitous withdrawal that produces a civil war, a bloodbath, nor a wider war in an unstable Mideast," Shepperd said, adding that the image of the United States was important too.

"And we do not want a U.S that is perceived as having been badly defeated in the global war on terror or as an unreliable future ally or coalition partner."

Shepperd, a veteran fighter pilot of the Vietnam War, has served as a CNN analyst of the Iraq war since it began. Bergen was one of the first Western journalists to ever meet with bin Laden, and is considered a leading authority on al Qaeda.

Shepperd said Iraq's neighbors would be drawn into the all-out civil war likely if U.S. forces left too quickly. Iran could move in to further strengthen its influence in southern Iraq; Turkey likely would move against the Kurds in the north; and Saudi Arabia would be inclined to take action to protect Sunnis in western Iraq, he said.

The oil sector could also get hit hard, with Iran potentially mining the Persian Gulf and attempting to close the Straits of Hormuz, putting a stranglehold on oil flow, Shepperd says.

"Oil prices would skyrocket," he said -- perhaps soaring from current prices of about $60 a barrel to more than $100 a barrel, with consequent rises at the gas pump.

And that could bring further trouble, Shepperd added. "Saudi Arabia will not allow increasing Iranian dominance to endanger its regime and oil economy."

On top of that, Iran could speed up its nuclear ambitions, causing a "daunting and depressing scenario" of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Turkey trying to get a nuclear bomb, Shepperd says.

Observers such as Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, say a wider Mideast conflict could be avoided.

But Alterman also fears that an Iraq left without U.S. support could turn into a center for international terrorism and a proxy battlefield for regional powers like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

"All the surrounding countries would think their interests are much better maintained not by directly sending troops but by continuing to send money and weapons to the people fighting that war," he said.

"In my judgment, it would take decades for such an insurgency to quiet down."

There are 120,000 Iraq soldiers now classified as trained by the U.S. military in Iraq, along with 135,000 police force members. But the head of the Iraqi ground forces, Gen. Ali Ghiran-Majeed, recently told CNN that some of his soldiers don't even get paid, and that on any given day one quarter of the force is on vacation.

For U.S. troops on the ground, the idea of withdrawal is vexing.

"I think it would cause a huge vacuum that the enemies of Iraq -- enemies of the government -- would take advantage of," said U.S. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, the commander of the Iraq Assistance Group.

Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre is one U.S. soldier who's come to the conclusion the United States cannot win the war, but he says he also fears the consequences of withdrawal.

"We are the buffer right now and when we pull out, the people who support us are going to feel the wrath, and the people who are against us ... they're going to ultimately win. And I think that's unfortunate," he said.

That is a prognosis that concerns many, though Shepperd sees a viable solution for Iraq, albeit one with a U.S. presence there for years to come.

"Done properly we should be in Iraq for years, not in a combat [role], but an embedded advisory role," he said.

CNN Correspondent Hugh Riminton in Baghdad and CNN.com Producer Wayne Drash in Atlanta contributed to this story.

How the Dow can soar, while Americans stay poor

Double Decoupling

The rest of the world's major economies no longer depend on America's. Neither do America's own largest corporations.

By Robert B. Reich
AmericanProspect.org | 05.02.07

I'm spending my spare time these days debating supply-siders who are convinced that the record-breaking Dow proves the correctness of the Bush tax cuts.

Yes, the Dow did reach a record high last week. But the Commerce Department also reported that economic growth slowed to its weakest pace in four years. How can investors do so well while the real economy is doing so poorly? My supply-side friends don't have an answer, but I do.

It's because of two great decouplings that have occurred in recent years. First, the rest of the worlds' major economies have decoupled from the United States economy. China, India, Japan, and Europe are now such large markets they can grow briskly even as America slows.

Second, America's largest corporations have decoupled from the United States. Their overseas subsidiaries are booming even as their American operations stagnate. General Electric expects more than half its revenue this year to come from outside the United States for the first time. More than half of Boeing's new orders are from overseas. Ford is struggling in America but doing well in Europe.

In other words, the president's supply-side tax cuts are great for America's global investors, who have been investing their extra money around the world -- either in foreign companies or in global American-based ones.

But little or nothing is trickling down to average working Americans. Half of U.S. households do own some shares of stock, usually through their IRAs or 401-Ks. But the vast majority own less than $5,000 worth. Their equity is in their homes, whose values have slumped. They're paying far more for health insurance and fuel. And their wages haven't kept up.

Bottom line: The Bush tax cuts have delivered for Wall Street but done zilch for America's Main Streets.

12 Steps to Cut U.S. Poverty in Half

Twelve Steps to Cutting Poverty in Half
Posted 04/30/2007 | TheNation.com
Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Last Wednesday, at the Center for American Progress (CAP) in Washington, the CAP Task Force on Poverty released the results of fourteen months of work in its report, From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half.

The report offers twelve concrete recommendations to reduce over the next ten years, creating a stronger middle class and setting our country on a course to end American poverty in a generation.

Sen. Edward Kennedy and Ways and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, were both on hand to pledge their leadership on what Task Force co-chair Peter B. Edelman, professor of Law at Georgetown University, called "a national shame…. There should be no one [in this country] who's poor."

This is one of the great scandals of our times. In the richest industrialized nation in the world, 37 million Americans--one in eight citizens--live below the official poverty line (just $19,971 income for a family of four); in 2005, more than 90 million Americans had incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold (less than $40,000 for a family of four); the United States ranks 24th out of 25 developed nations in the share of the population with an income below 50 percent of the national median income--and the US is dead last among 24 rich nations when the same measurement is used to assess child poverty. Nearly 20 percent of American children are poor, and it's estimated that allowing children to grow up in persistent poverty costs our economy $500 billion per year. Lastly, income inequality has reached record highs and is getting worse.

"From 1947 to 1973, we saw every economic quintile growing together, and those at the lowest level were growing the fastest," Kennedy said. "In 1980, with President Reagan, you see the beginning of growing apart...And now, those at the lowest end of the ladder are not even keeping up while there is an explosion at the highest level."

In fact, the post-tax income of the top 1 percent rose $145,500 between 2003 and 2004; it rose just $200 for the bottom fifth during that same period.

"The goal to cut poverty in half over the next [ten] years is not an overly ambitious task when you look at what other industrialized countries are doing," Kennedy said. He noted that Great Britain has raised its minimum wage to $9.78 an hour and brought 900,000 children and 2.5 million workers out of poverty in the last three years. Ireland has reduced childhood poverty by 40 percent with a minimum wage of $9.60.

"No single measure is going to answer the problem," Kennedy said. "But nonetheless we can see how important it is that we put [actions] together... [The Task Force] summary of what we can do to move a whole group of our fellow citizens forward makes enormous sense."

"With the exception of getting the hell out of the Middle East," Rangel said, "I can't think of anything more patriotic that we can do than eliminate poverty."

Edelman said that the Task Force worked hard to pull out some key points from the extensive list of what needs to be done to address poverty. It was not a top-down process, he said, but rather a response to what people in diverse communities feel is needed.

"The focus here is not just what we technically call 'poverty' in this country," said Edelman. "That's a concept that's deeply flawed. Thirty-seven million people is bad enough. But when you take the idea that an income of a little bit over $15,000 gets a family of three out of poverty, an income of $20,000 gets a family of four out of poverty, it's a really bad joke. It's not true. In vast, vast, vast parts of this country, when you get a dollar over those numbers, you're not out of poverty. And so this report is really about everybody in this country who's having a difficult time... who has trouble making ends meet, who has trouble paying the bills at the end of the month...Who has to make a decision whether or not to go see a physician for something quite important because they're not sure that they're going to [be able to] pay for it. And so really this report is about roughly 90 million people whose incomes are up to twice the poverty line… all the way down to the bottom--those nearly 16 million people who have incomes below half the poverty line--below $7,500 for a family of three--astonishing! And that's gone up by over 3 million people under the current administration. Our focus is on full inclusion in this country for everybody who has a tough time."

The twelve recommendations revolve around four core principles: promote decent work that pays enough to avoid poverty, meet basic needs, and save for the future; provide opportunity for all--maximizing people's opportunities for success from childhood through adulthood; ensure economic security so that no American falls into poverty when work is unavailable, unstable, or doesn't pay enough to make ends meet; and help people build wealth so that they can weather periods of flux and have the resources that may be essential to upward mobility.

Here are key excerpts from the twelve recommendations:

1. Over a 10-year period, raise and index the minimum wage to half the average hourly wage--that would presently be $8.40 an hour. The report notes that for most of the 1960's and 1970's a worker with a full-time minimum wage job could lift a family of three above the poverty line. Now it's at its lowest level in real terms since 1959.

2. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. The EITC is an earnings supplement that raises incomes and helps low-income working families build assets. The Task Force recommends tripling the EITC for childless workers and expanding help to larger working families. The Child Tax Credit provides a tax credit of up to $1,000 per child but provides no help to the poorest families. It should be made fully refundable so that it's available to all low- and moderate-income families. (Currently people with incomes below $10,000 do not receive this credit. "Totally absurd," Edelman said. "This is a powerful anti-poverty step…. It will get over 3 million people out of poverty just from that one, single public policy step alone.") Doing all of the above would move as many as 5 million people out of poverty.

3. Promote unionization by enacting the Employee Free Choice Act. This would require employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers signs cards authorizing union representation. "It's very important that we get this legislation enacted this year," Edelman said. "Unions are absolutely a backbone of getting fair labor standards and fair wages in our country."

4. Guarantee child care assistance to low-income families and promote early education for all. Federal and state governments should guarantee child care help to families with incomes below about $40,000 a year. "We're not going to achieve this unless communities take the initiative with civic leadership to pull that together," Edelman said. "We would have an Innovation Fund as part of that effort." The funding would be about twice the level of current federal funding for quality state initiatives. This childcare expansion would raise employment among low-income parents and help nearly 3 million parents and children escape poverty.

5. Create 2 million new "opportunity" housing vouchers, and promote equitable development in and around central cities. Nearly 8 million Americans live in neighborhoods where at least 40 percent of residents are poor. We should seek to end such concentrated poverty. Over the next ten years, the federal government should fund 2 million new "opportunity vouchers" designed to help people live in opportunity-rich areas. "The housing vouchers that we currently have reach only a quarter of the people who are eligible," Edelman said. "People should also be able to choose where they live, they should be able to live near the jobs and get to the jobs." Any new affordable housing should be in communities with employment opportunities and high-quality public services, or in gentrifying communities.

6. Connect disadvantaged and disconnected youth with school and work. About 1.7 million poor youth ages 16 to 24 were out of school and out of work in 2005. The federal government should restore Youth Opportunity Grants to help the most disadvantaged communities and expand funding for effective and promising youth programs--with the goal of reaching 600,000 disadvantaged youth through these efforts. A new Upward Pathway program would offer low-income young people opportunities to train in fields that are in high-demand and provide needed public services.

7. Simplify and expand Pell Grants and make higher education accessible to residents of each state. Low-income youth are much less likely to attend college than their higher income peers, even among those of comparable abilities. Pell Grants play a crucial role for lower-income students. The Pell grant application process should be simplified, and the grants gradually raised to reach 70 percent of the average costs of a four-year public institution. States should develop strategies to make post-secondary education affordable for all residents, following promising models already underway in a number of states.

8. Help former prisoners find stable employment and reintegrate into their communities. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world--600,000 prisoners are released to their communities each year. Most are low-income, minority men returning to high-poverty communities. Two-thirds are rearrested within three years and about half return to prison. States should not bar former prisoners from receiving public benefits like food stamps or deny them the right to vote. All states should develop comprehensive reentry services aimed at reintegrating former prisoners with full-time, consistent employment.

9. Ensure equity for low-wage workers in the Unemployment Insurance system. Approximately 35 percent of the unemployed, and a smaller share of unemployed low-wage workers, receive unemployment insurance benefits. States should reform eligibility rules that screen out low-wage workers, broaden eligibility for part-time workers and workers who have lost employment as a result of compelling family circumstances, and allow benefits to continue when workers are in programs that upgrade their skills and qualifications.

10. Modernize means-tested benefits programs to develop a coordinated system that helps workers and families. A functional safety net should help people get into or return to work and ensure a decent level of living for those who cannot work or are temporarily between jobs. Our current system fails to do so. The government should simplify and improve benefits access for working families and improve services to individuals with disabilities. The Food Stamp Program should be strengthened to improve benefits, eligibility, and access. And the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program should be reformed to shift its focus from cutting caseloads to helping needy families find sustainable employment.

11. Reduce the high costs of being poor and increase access to financial services. Lower-income families often pay more than middle and high-income families for the same consumer products. Federal and state governments should address the foreclosure crisis through expanded mortgage assistance programs and by new federal legislation to curb unscrupulous practices. The federal government should also establish a $50 million Financial Fairness Innovation Fund to support state efforts to broaden access to mainstream goods and financial services in predominantly low-income communities.

12. Expand and simplify the Saver's Credit to encourage saving for education, homeownership and retirement. For many families, saving for purposes such as education, a home, or a small business is key to making economic progress. The federal "Saver's Credit" (a relatively new tax provision which matches voluntary contributions to retirement savings accounts with a tax credit) should be reformed to make it fully refundable. This Credit should also be broadened to apply to other savings vehicles such as individual development accounts, children's saving accounts, and college savings plans.

The Urban Institute studied the impact of just four of the Task Force recommendations--the minimum wage, EITC, child tax credit, and child care assistance expansion--and found that together they would reduce poverty by 26 percent, more than halfway toward the ten year goal.

The combined cost of the twelve recommendations is approximately $90 billion a year. The current annual costs of the Bush tax cuts (skewed for the wealthy) enacted in 2001 and 2003 are approximately $400 billion. In 2008, the value of tax cuts solely for households exceeding an annual income of $200,000 is projected to be $100 billion.

"Making a commitment to cut poverty in half in a ten year period is a bold goal," said Angela Glover Blackwell, Task Force co-chair and Founder and CEO of PolicyLink. "This isn't just about lamenting the fact that we have so much poverty, this is about doing something about it, and doing something in a time period that people can measure and hold us to…. Also, this report comes at a time when the mayors, when the faith institutions, the civic organizations, are all looking at what we're going to do about poverty… [So it] comes into an atmosphere in which Americans are saying 'we can do something about this'."

"What we need here is a massive effort to reach out both through every communications method and the grassroots," Edelman said. "Maude Hurd, National President of ACORN is a member of the Task Force--they work with millions of people around the country who are struggling for economic justice. [We are] working with the unions--Linda Chavez-Thompson [(Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO)], was on the Task Force...with faith-based groups...This has got to reach all around the country and people need to own it, and bring it back, and say this is what we have to do...We know what to do, we know what it will accomplish. The question is the political will. Are we as a nation going to do what we should be doing?"

Mission Unaccomplished - Key stats

‘Mission Accomplished’ By The Numbers

On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood underneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner and announced that “Major combat operations have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at the situation then, compared to the situation now:

	May 1, 2003	Today
U.S. Troops Wounded	542	24,912
U.S. Troops Killed	139	3,351
Contractors Killed	69	916
Journalists and Media Assistants Killed	11	167
U.S. Forces in Iraq	150,000	146,000
Size of Iraqi Security Forces	7,000-9,000	334,300
Number of Insurgents	less than 5,000	~70,000 (Sunni only)
Insurgent Attacks Per Day	8	148.9
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers	$79 billion	$421 billion
Approval of Bush’s Handling of Iraq	75%	24%
Percentage of Americans who Believe The Iraq War Was “Worth Fighting”	70%	34%
Bush’s Overall Job Approval	71%	32%