Slate Magazine: Matthew Yglesias: Work-Ethic & The Welfare State

Source:The New Democrat

This is the real debate we should be having when it comes to poverty in America. How to encourage people who are on Welfare whether they are working or not working either continue to work or go to work or go back to work. And when you have a safety net where people can get more in benefits not working at all or working fewer hours or making less money because they could get more money at home collecting public assistance, you are not encouraging people to work, but encouraging people not to work at all.

This is why the minimum wage debate is so critical because that is at the heart at this debate. If you want people to work, then work has to pay and when you are looking at jobs that only pay the minimum wage which is just $7.25 an hour and people at these jobs could collect more in public assistance benefits, you are incentivizing low-skilled workers to not work or quit their jobs. Because they could get more money collecting Welfare Insurance, Public Housing, Medicaid, Food Assistance and other benefits.

This is also why this little discussion about the Earned Income Tax Credit is so important. Something that was signed into law by President Richard Nixon no one’s Socialist in the early 1970s. And called the most successful anti-poverty program in history by President Ronald Reagan no one’s Liberal. Even though he does look pretty liberal compared with the Far-Right of the Republican Party today. But now you have Tea Party Republicans saying we should repeal that. Even though the EITC encourages people in low-income jobs to continue to work and not quit their jobs to collect public assistance.

So what I would do is to increase the minimum wage to ten-dollars and hour or more. With a thirty percent tax break for small employers which would have to be clearly defined. And apply today’s minimum wage for a full-time worker on minimum wage to people on Welfare Insurance. While they collect their other public assistance benefits as well. Including things like assistance for education and job training so they can get themselves a good job.

Expand the EITC to singles making twenty-five thousand dollars a year. And for couples up to thirty-thousand dollars a year to encourage these people to work. And also include benefits for them so they can get the education and job training they need to get a good job and get off of public assistance. This is how you encourage work over Welfare by making it clear to people they can make more money working. Whatever the job is than not working at all.

Slate Magazine: Tanner Colby: How The Left's Embrace of Busing Hurt The Cause of Integration

Source: Slate Magazine-

Source:The New Democrat 

As a Liberal I believe in things like equal opportunity, Equal Justice Under the Law, wrote a blog about that yesterday. Equal Protection Under Law all of these great liberal values that I believe puts me in a solid majority in America. And Equal Protection Under Law covers things like not denying people things simply because of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion and I would add sexuality to that as well. And as good as integration is and the benefits of America when we are able to work together as a country because it combines the strengths of the entire country and uses all of those strengths together, these things only work together when they are voluntary.

We can write all the laws that protect our constitutional rights and to make sure they are all enforced equally for all Americans. And I support those things, but we can’t force people to socialize with each other. To live with each other and even to work with each other or go to school with each other. What we can do is teach people especially kids that none of us are better because of our race or ethnicity, or gender. And teach people not to hate or to love or to judge people especially people from different backgrounds because of these factors. But we can’t force people to live, work and socialize with each other either.

Integration by law meaning that it is legal is great because it means we can’t be denied things simply because of our heritage and how we were born. That instead we are judged by our personal and professional qualifications, but not because of how we were born. But when you try to force people to go to school or to work or to socialize or to live with each other, you are taking people’s freedom to make the most personal of decisions away from them. And are now forcing integration on to people instead of making it an option for them.

Forced integration is just as bad as forced segregation, because instead of forcing people to be separate because of their race, you are now forcing people to be integrated because of their race. And taking the power and choice out of the people’s hand and now forcing it on them. If you treat people to be tolerant and love people for being people, then most likely they’ll decide to integrate with others as they meet them. Because they’ll learn they have things in common with other people and make that decision for themselves.
Source:WHS Digital Stories

The New Republic: Noam Scheiber: Socialized Law: A Radical Solution For Inequality

Source:The New Democrat

This is an issue even though I haven’t been blogging much about it in the last few years. A few posts here and there, but it is an issue that I’ve thought a lot about a Liberal who does believe in Equal Justice Under the Law even though we may never achieve that. It would sort of be like trying to wipe out poverty or racism or something. But still like a lot of issues that America deals with is an issue just because of who we are as a people and the resources that we have in this country is something we can do a lot better on especially since we are pushing the point of achieving universal health coverage in this country.

If we can get to universal health coverage in this country, universal quality education something we can achieve as well, we can get at least damn close to universal legal services in this country. Where everyone has access to quality legal representation either in criminal or civil court. No matter their economic and educational levels with something like a legal insurance system. Legal savings accounts and beefing up legal aid in this country by encouraging good qualified wealthy lawyers to work for legal aid offices. We could accomplish universal legal services in this country as well.

This is an issue I think a lot about especially as I’ve blogged about the criminal justice system and criminal justice reform and seeing all of those Americans in prison in the United States. A lot of them for illegal narcotics or other non-violent offenses. And then seeing that a lot of these convicted offenders come from low-income backgrounds and thinking would they have been in that situation had they had the resources to get the type of defense that they needed. Now a lot of these offenders are guilty and I’m not disputing that, but some of these offenders could’ve at least gotten a better and shorter sanction if they just had better access to legal services and not represented by someone whose probably overworked and just trying to get through the case.

What we have right now when it comes to legal services is basically the Medicaid of legal services. A bare bone operation that is overworked and underfunded. Not enough people working in legal aid or public defenders offices and the people who do work there are overworked and underpaid for all the work that they are doing. And we can do better than that by setting up a legal services insurance system where people could put money away tax-free. As well as legal savings accounts where can people could put money away tax free. And even expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income workers so they could save money for this as well.

We could also require wealthy law firms to give away free services to low-income clients and defendants. Money they could get back from their taxes and require well paid and resourced lawyers to defend low-income defendants and clients for free. Again money they could get back from taxes and have them donate some of their time to legal aid offices. So that all Americans can have access to the legal representation they need so they have the best defense, or representation that they need. And where the wealthy no longer get’s off simply because they are wealthy.

The Hill: Judd Gregg: Progressives Play With Words, Truth

Source: The Hill- U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders & Elizabeth Warren.

Source:The New Democrat

When I think of liberalism, I look to the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights, our Constitutional Amendments, because that is where the core of liberalism is. Whether it is modern or classical and the reason I mention that is because classical liberalism is modern liberalism that is liberalism when it first came to America was about individual rights and freedom today and it still is. The difference being that people who are called Liberals really aren’t Liberals in many cases. The purpose of this post to explain that.

When you think of what is supposed to be called progressivism, but it certainly isn’t progressivism in the Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt or perhaps even Henry Wallace tradition of progressivism, what is supposed to pass as progressivism today in short is a form of leftist collectivism. The main core of it is that "some people simply have too much and that is not fair. And what we need to do is take from them to make sure everyone has what they need". And of course the Federal Government will decide who needs what and can have what.

Where I agree with Senator Judd Gregg in his column in The Hill today, is that modern progressivism is really a form of socialism or modern socialism. Not Marxist socialism intended to wipe out private enterprise, but that "you need a central state big enough to make sure that no one has too much or too little that we move better or forward progress even when we are moving together. And that allowing people to move forward on their own, Some will make mistakes and others will do too well even and that is somehow unfair".

It is not just that let’s say Modern Progressives or Collectivists, Socialists even are different from Liberals when it comes to economic policy, but social policy as well. It is not just economic freedom that is dangerous to the collectivist mind, but personal freedom as well. That the idea of prohibition that "government needs to be able to protect people from themselves in how they spend their money and even what they can do with their own bodies. And what they can put in their own bodies as well". And how we can talk to each other with the political correctness movement. And trying to create a nice society through law even.

The main difference between the Modern Progressive or Collectivist and Liberal has to do with the Collectivist Society versus individual rights and having an Educated Society. In the Collectivist Society we would all move together as a country in one direction. With the central government leading the way to decide what is best for us. With a Liberal Educated Society, the individual would have the freedom because of their knowledge to be able to make these decisions for themselves. And that is also the difference between the far-left and center-left in America.

Brookings Institution: Robert Moffitt: Questions About EITC's Role in the Safety Net

Source:The New Democrat

The whole point of the Earned Income Tax Credit which was signed into law by Richard Nixon or Gerald Ford, hardly Socialists, or even Liberals, was to encourage low-skilled workers to work even for low- income jobs. Instead of collecting all of their income from public assistance. So these workers can at least get some work experience even at entry-level service jobs and not be completely dependent on public assistance for their economic well-being. And by this standard the EITC has been very successful in the United States. And has probably contributed to keeping our unemployment rate lower than it otherwise would’ve been. Had people making ten to twenty-thousand-dollars a year not enough for most of the country by itself. Especially If they had to pay federal income taxes as well.

The Washington Post: Robert J. Samuelson: The Debate That Wasn't

Source:The New Democrat

I agree with Robert Samuelson that Washington really hasn’t been debating the size of government. But avoiding tough decisions and when they find things they actually want to do that is both parties they either borrow the money to pay for it, or try to cut something they think not a lot of people would notice so they do not have to pay a political price for it. And the latest Farm Bill where they actually cut Food Assistance for millions of Americans who would go hungry without it is a perfect example of that. Instead of cutting subsidies to corporate farmers people who have money, they cut the people who do not have much of a voice in Washington and can’t hurt them politically.

The best way to reduce debt and deficits if that is your goal, is first to figure out what you need government to do and how much money it needs to do those things that can’t be done anywhere else, or done as well. Or perhaps done in other places, but you need the Federal Government to play a role there as well. And medical research from the NIH would be a perfect example of that. Right now in these so-called budget debates both sides are debating on the margins instead. Cut a little here, perhaps raise a little revenue like with the so-called fiscal cliff debate in late 2012. But neither party really has laid out a vision for the country at least when it comes to the size and scope of the Federal Government.

Even with the Tea Party in the Republican Party as much as they may bash Washington and big government they are the first to make sure no one cuts their Social Security and Medicare. And the first to get their share of whatever pork that is being offered for their states or districts. The so-called Paul Ryan plan from 2011 and 2012 doesn’t erase the budget deficit even by 2023. And most of the budget cuts in it are targeted towards people in poverty who again do not have the resources to complain. And that part of the budget is pretty small compared with the rest of the Federal budget. And leaves the current budget at about where it is right now as far as a percentage of Gross National Product. In the low twenties.

The only faction in Washington and in Congress that has a long-term vision for the size and scope of the Federal Government are the people with the least amount of power in Washington. The so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, but they seem to have a Federal program and tax increase for everything the country has to deal with. Including raising taxes by trillions of dollars to spend all that money on current Federal programs. And create new economic and social programs to generate economic and job growth not to pay down the debt or deficit. As part of what they call the People’s Budget.

If this was a real debate about the size and scope of the Federal Government, both the Democratic Leadership would have their plan and the Republican Leadership would have there’s. They would both be different and they would both be about limited government. Since neither party at least at the leadership levels are social democratic parties and are both mainstream parties on the Left and Right. At least at the top with factions further to the Left and Right on down their party. But they would both say we need an effective Federal Government with the resources to do what we need it to do. This is what we need it to do and this is how we would pay for it. And let the voters decide who has the better plan.

Radical Films: U.S. House Un-American Activities

Source:Radical Films- Name that church! 

Source:The New Democrat 

The House Un-American Activities Committee and then later the Joe McCarthy Government Oversight Committee in the Senate were classic cases of guilt by association. Because they assumed some Americans were Un-American and not deserving of being Americans simply because of people they may have associated with and political positions they may have held. Not because of any illegal activities they have been involved in. Which is how we are supposed to judge people’s involvement in criminal activity.

Source: Radical Films- U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC for short 

The United States a liberal democracy where Americans have the right to believe what they believe. And say what they want to say with a few exceptions. Like encouraging violence or libeling people without any basis in fact. Yelling fire in tight public spaces. But for the most part our own politics is our own business. And we are free to either express our own political opinions, or opinions about any other subjects or not. And not be held criminally libel because of what we believe.

Source: The Scott Rollins Films & TV Trivia- Howard Da Silva 

But what we got instead from these Congressional communist investigative committees was guilt by association that ruined a lot of good productive Americans lives. And for what, so people on the far-right and people simply just looking for political advancement, Senator Joe McCarthy comes to mind, could have a big issue and use it to advance their own political careers. No matter who they may hurt along the way which is about as Un-American as it gets.
Source:Radical Films