Will The Real Tea Party Please Stand Up...?

Note:  Apologies to those who are regular readers to BTPS.  I have been working on a few projects to be published soon.  Needless to say that these projects have kept me noticeably absent from regular blogging. However, I promise that I will soon be back to full-blogging strength here and on my various other blogs.

When you’re dead, you don’t actually know you’re dead; it just affects those around you. Being a political extremist in America is a lot like being dead; you don’t know you’re an extremist, but it affects those around you just the same. One of two major differences between the two realities is that the dead cannot convince themselves that they are dead—as they are absent of consciousness—while those who make their intellectual homes with the margins of political fringe thinking can routinely convince themselves that they are “true patriots” or “real Americans.” The rest of us apparently are self-delusional, intellectual dullards who took the blue pill.
Now that Congress has successfully kicked the budget can down the road until early next year, it should become apparent that this is the reality of the state of politics within our government. Egged-on by the “real Americans” known as the Tea Party, favorite party son, Senator Ted Cruz of Florida led a doomed-from-the-start effort to tie creating a federal budget deal to continue to run the government’s day-to-day business with his (and the Tea Party’s) disdain for President Obama’s signature health care reform law, hoping to get the last defunded—or revoked entirely. Ostensibly, this effort on the part of Cruz to revoke funding for the health care law was to trim the budget and curtail federal spending by the government. If it were the true motive, it would indeed be laudable. However (and at the risk of painting all Tea Party-backed

                     Florida Republican Senator (and Tea Party favorite) Ted Cruz

Congressmen with a broad paintbrush), most of the grandstanding on the part of Cruz and his Congressional cohorts was mostly political, a transparent effort to garner favor with the “real Americans” back in their home districts (although I will concede the benefit of the doubt and grant that not every member of the Tea Party caucus in Congress are as self-interests-driven as Cruz and the other “patriots”). Needless to say, despite being cheered on by supporters, the effort failed miserably. In fact, this effort on Cruz and the Tea Party’s part to avoid compromising on any budget proposal in exchange revoking funding for Obama’s (bad attempt to reform) health care failed to not only trim government spending, but the resulting government shutdown cost the country some $24 billion in lost economic output according to the Standard and Poor’s ratings agency (see: “How Much Did the Shutdown Cost The Economy?”). Even anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist called

Cruz and his allies as “defund terrorists.” Norquist previously slammed those who tried to use the government shutdown to roll back the Affordable Care Act by saying, “They hurt the conservative movement, they hurt people’s health care, they hurt the country’s economic situation and they hurt the Republican Party” (“Grover Norquist Slams Ted Cruz”).

Already, Cruz and many within the Tea party have attributed the failure of the effort to defund Obamacare and the lack of any tangible results—at least by their standards—to “turncoat” mainstream Republicans who dared to strike a compromise rather than support the Tea party’s failed effort. Of course it would never cross their minds of Cruz and the Tea Party that they represent an extreme point of view, that they lack general support because of this, or that they are on the fringes of political ideology…it’s the rest of us. It's what they "see," not how they see it that's at fault.  Of course!
Part of their philosophy (and political strategy) is to "prove" how “overstated” forced spending cuts like those from the sequester from earlier this year, the shutdown from 2 weeks ago, and failure to raise the deficit ceiling is, and that such sudden spending halts would be more beneficial to the nation’s fiscal solvency than the harm that almost every reputable economist has projected.  But to Tea Partiers, the more level-headed among the rest of us are either “RINOs” (Republicans In Name Only), “liberals,” “brainwashed by the media,” or “socialists.” Their mantra is simply to “stop government spending,” with no hint or reasonable suggestion as to how.
A proposed Balanced Budget Amendment wouldn’t work simply because inflexible requirements to spend within a budgetary limit every year are not realistic—they do not account for cycles of economic boom and bust and the need to readjust spending to compensate. And inserting provisions to allow for exceeding budget spending limits based on exigent circumstances wouldn’t work because—as we have seen—the two major parties can’t even agree on what day of the week it is, yet along be expected to compromise on major spending issues such as what defines extenuating circumstances that calls for more (or less) spending.
All-out cutting much needed programs would harm those who need them (although I will admit that some programs are surely riddled with costly lack of oversight and (as a result) abuse.  And besides that, austerity spending measures worked so "well" in Europe... (sarcasm alert).
Reforming entitlements is a good start, but let’s face it…neither party wants to give up any sacred cows that might cost their membership(or their party) an election or legislative control. What will work? Unfortunately I don’t have all the answers, but holding policymaking hostage to ideological demands, and basing policy on ideology rather than the reality of need and pragmatism is definitely not the way.  However, the most logical start to balancing the budget would be a combination of taxes and hard-choice spending cuts (which includes accounting for every paperclip or errant piece of paper if necessary).
The Tea Party has proven itself capable of exerting political pressure, getting their favorite elected officials to office, and organizing itself into a formidable political force. But its extremist views and rigid adherence to ideology (rather than reality) does not benefit all Americans (deny if you will, but it’s the truth). This organized group counts among its membership (and supports) the most intolerant and xenophobic of Americans. Those who have kept up with their various marches, rallies, and public protests have seen the pictures and heard the quotes—they are present at almost every numerically significant Tea Party rally (I provided a few in the event that denies attempt to portray these appearances as aberrations with the organization).

Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch (a conservative political advocacy group) and Tea Party ally during the government shutdown. According to Klayman, American is "ruled by a president who bows down to Allah," and "is not a president of 'we the people.'" "I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out" (see: “Larry Klayman Defends Obama-Islam Link”). 

Its funny how being dead and being a political extremist in America seem to have some things in common. The other major difference between the two is that it seems to be easier to convince of a dead person of their station in life than to convince one of these so-called “real Americans” that they are not purveyors of true American ideas, but are obstructionists who could refocus their goals and energy on something that could benefit all Americans, and not just those who they deem as “real Americans”—their rhetoric about “personal rights” notwithstanding.

Tea Party supporter and protester Michael Ashmore stands in front of the White House recently during the Congressional breakdown in budget talks and the attempt to defund Obamacare by Senator Ted Cruz the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives. 

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The Sequester Cuts...Be Careful What You Ask For!

As of midnight, two points became more or less salient; sequestration is here, and Americans seem to be expendable pawns in the game of politics between the Republicans and Democrats in Washington. Hardly any surprise if you haven’t been in a come for the last 20 years or so.
Because of the legislative impasse between the White House and the both parties in Congress, the much-vilified automatic across-the-board spending cuts—compiled back in 2011 as a means of motivating each party to address the federal deficit—became a reality after President Obama signed the order triggering the cuts to every federal government agencies.
To the lawmakers involved, the effects of the cuts probably seem abstract, especially since the paychecks, the government-sponsored healthcare, and retirement packages of these lawmakers enjoy won’t be affected. However, for those less secure in their well-being, the effects of the sequestration are very real. One prime example is the unemployed. In an estimated 2-3 weeks, unemployment payouts will be cut by about 10% for those receiving them. In many cases, such an amount can make the difference between a utility payment and a shut-off notice.
In many other places, the sharp budget cuts have the potential to touch us all in some way. Other programs facing the budget knife due to lawmakers’ inability to strike a budget compromise are:

$633 million cut from the Department of Education’s Special Education programs

$71 million cut from administration at the Office of Federal Student Aid

$116 million cut from Higher Education

$86 million cut from Student Financial Assistance

$79 million cut from Embassy Security, Construction, and Maintenance

$604 million cut from National Nuclear Security Administration

$928 million cut from FEMA’s disaster relief money

$6 million cut from Emergency Food and Shelter

$70 million cut from the Agricultural Disaster Relief Fund at USDA

$53 million cut from Salaries and Expenses at the Food Safety and Inspection Service

$20 million cut from the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Programs

$10 million cut from the World Trade Center Health Program Fund

$168 million cut from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

$199 million cut from public housing

$96 million cut from Homeless Assistance Grants

$17 million cut from Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS

$19 million cut from Housing for the Elderly

And given the recent attention given to certain issues tied to these cuts (the cuts to embassy security & construction being the most obvious in light of the Benghazi affair), one has to wonder whether any political issue is of genuine concern to Congressional lawmakers outside of the political value they might gain from invoking and using them against their across-the-aisle archrivals.
So why did it come to this? The usual cross-finger pointing by both parties.

The White House places the blame for the impasse and budget cuts on Congressional Republicans. According to President Obama, "They've [the Republicans] allowed these cuts to happen because they refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit." The Republicans’ stance was summed up in the words of House of Representatives speaker John Boehner. Boehner chided that, “the president got his tax hikes on Jan. 1” ("Obama Signs Order to Begin Spending Cuts").
Needless to say, the American people are already placing blame on one party or the other, the President and/or Congress. This reveals the political schizophrenia that plagues the minds and hearts of the American people. We complain about federal spending, but now that the cuts starting, some of us are already crying “foul.” We want our cuts, but apparently only insofar as they affect other people…not the particular program that benefits us. We want our elected representatives to represent the ideas that we hold dear, but whine when our legislators cannot reach a compromise. Apparently our individual idea of “compromise” is when the other guy caves in to our point of views.
We cannot have it both ways. Either we allow our elected officials to address the issue of government spending, or we sit back and enjoy the fruits of the spending. If we actually want to curtail government spending, then every program must be on the chopping block…the programs we like individually as well as the programs the other guys like. And yes, all of us must be willing to pay!
Be careful what you ask for...

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The Problem With Capitalism...

A friend sent me the email below… And it made me think this:

The problem with capitalism is that the people who know how to make money, spend their time making money. The people who don’t know how to make money become politicians. Then they overspend taxes and the country ends up in debt.

Do you agree?

Something to think about...

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Issues In The News (For Dummies!)

As a first for Beyond The Political Spectrum, I recently got the inspiration to start posting exceptionally insightful political satire (via political cartoons) about various social and political issues currently in the news.
For my first such posting, I thought I post some very sharp political commentary, courtesy of The Houston Chronicles' Nick Anderson (disclaimer: don't shoot the messenger!)

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What's Right & Wrong About The Tea Party, Conclusion

...Continued From Part 2

Perhaps one of the biggest paradoxes of the Tea Party is that many of the rank-and-file members who work in local communities probably believe that they are working in the best interests of the country by protesting what they feel to be exorbitant taxes and unchecked government spending. However, upon closer examination of the reality of the beliefs which they are protesting against, an almost exclusively cynical view of the movement tends to become the basis of doubt.
Take for instance the inference of their movement’s/organization’s acronym, Taxed Enough Already and their protestations that they pay too much in taxes. In a world where perception is often reality, the movement has convinced many Americans that taxes are exceedingly high. But according to the latest information, only 18% of Americans say that they support the Tea Party movement, and half of them have indicated that their taxes are fair (www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002487-503544.html). But it is only upon closer examination of the research that the picture starts to gain a new focus; only the most active within the Tea Party say that their taxes are too high, most often represented by Tea Partiers who attend public rallies and related functions such as the Tea Party Convention held last February in Nashville. Of them, 55% make no bones about their taxes being too high.
Not only do the numbers within the Party of actual adherents to its base claim misrepresent the validity of their protestations, but the validity of their claims simply does not gel with the reality of facts. According to most research, taxes are at an all-time low when measured against the historical trend, especially for those in the middle-class income brackets, which most Tea Partiers are if the statistics are accurate (According to a recent CNN poll, 32% of those identifying themselves as “Tea Party activists” reported earning between $50,000-$75,000, 18% reported earning $30,000-$50,000, and only 8% reported earning less than $30,000 (34% earn more than $75,000. As a group, those incomes are higher than nationwide averages, but not so much that their tax burden is even close to being equivalent to the highest wage earners, who have the highest tax burden. http://www.thefourthbranch.com/2010/04/taxes-at-lowest-level-in-60-years-so-why-are-tea-partiers-angry/). And this doesn’t even take into account the fact that those in the same income brackets benefited from the tax reductions that were a part of the Obama Administration’s 2009 stimulus package). Furthermore, capital gains taxes have had modest reductions in recent years. So to quote a famous line from the 1980s, “Where’s the beef?”


Click on image to enlarge shrinking income tax and capital gain burdens on various groups

Another point where such a movement loses it perception of populism is when it has professional talking heads representing the movement, who engage in spin instead of actually listing its grievances and allowing the public to judge for itself. A recent airing of Headline News’ Joy Behar Show (below) demonstrates this to the utmost degree.



What the video demonstrates is a tried and proven propaganda method for gaining credibility (and legitimacy) in American politics when it comes to individuals and organizations. The method involves either espousing populist ideas, and/or clothing oneself in patriotic beliefs; in this respect, the Tea party is unlike most other such movements in American history. Expert talking heads representing this movement (as others representing themselves in such a manner) can and do take the most straightforward of questions about their movement and twist the answers to where they come off as victims of or guardians against an imaginary threat. And while there is no doubt that many of the movement’s grassroots (i.e., community level) activists truly believe in the movement’s cause, it’s a little hard to understand why so many cannot think beyond their allegiance to their political ideologies to think independently. For example, why is spending such an issue now even after a record budget surplus built under the Clinton Administration (and a Republican-controlled Congress), and its subsequent erosion under the Bush Administration? This is what the Tea Party movement has managed to do to such a degree that many of its grassroots activists truly believe that they are working in the interests of the country as a whole.
So what the phenomenon of the Tea Party appears to be is an organization where the most active members are a minority among a minority, one that the majority of them will surely make an attempt to pass off their numbers as representative of a consensus of Americans. Do I believe that the Party has “tapped into an undercurrent of discontent” among the voting American electorate? No more so than they represent what is has always been a perpetual sense of disgust toward the sense that government is corrupt. But I am reminded of the quote by former Republican Maine Senator Bill Cohen, "Government is the enemy until…you need a friend.”

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What's Right & Wrong About The Tea Party, Part 2

...continued from Part 1.

Just as I can pile on my personal beefs with many aspects of Democratic Party/liberal ideology, I can do the same with Republican Party/Conservative mantra…more so because of its self-crafted perception that it’s the party of all things unquestionably moral, patriotic, and good (and while yes, I’m very much an adherent of morality in policy, I draw the line at sanctimony). Take for example the phenomenon of the Tea Party movement making headlines almost daily for the last year or so.
It has been self-billed as a movement of “ordinary Americans” who are concerned about the welfare of the country’s future, mostly as it relates to the federal government’s current fiscal policies. And based on these surface perceptions, I listed in the first part of this posting what was admirable about the movement. But given what I have seen in the media, what has actually come from the mouths of the movement’s organizers and supporters, and how those within the movement portray their cause, there is just as much to dislike about the Tea Party movement. Among what is wrong with (i.e., questionable) the Tea Party is

· …the timing of the “movement’s” current activist activities. In a world where timing is everything, this calls into question whether the movement is truly a grassroots mobilization of ordinary Americans against out-of-control government spending, or just another ideological vehicle for one of the two major political parties to gain (or regain) control of Washington (and by extension become patsies of interests who desire a more business first, people-be-damned Free Market at-any-costs atmosphere). Yes, the Tea Party movement has been around for a few years, but it was given a shot in the arm in recent times by its support of former presidential candidate Ron Paul’s failed bid for the 2008 Republican Party nomination. Paul’s populist beliefs struck a resonate chord with many conservative Americans, who gave tepid opposition to President George Bush’s plan to help bailout Wall Street financial institutions (TARP loans) to stave off a wholesale financial meltdown, but has given opposition with both barrels to President Obama’s policy of continuing TARP loans and extending loans (ie., bailouts) to America’s failing auto industry. More to the point, this organized opposition to Obama’s policy proposals was gaining steam even before he took office. So to say that “runaway government spending” is the movement’s motivation can be looked at—cynically so—as being an ostensive opportunity for what many on the Conservative Right in general, and the movement in particular to irrationally view and/or paint the Obama Adminstration as a “threat” to American Free Market values in the form of being a harbinger of a “Socialist form of government” (via his drive to reform health care insurance to cover more
Americans).

· …how the Tea Party misrepresents and allows itself to be misrepresented. Many within the movement assert that runaway government spending and exorbitant taxes are the reason for its activism and opposition to the current administration’s policies. Furthermore, they declare that they are against and will work to unseat any elected official (mostly at the federal level) whose voting record adds to government spending. But again, timing and perception are everything. With the extremely rare exception, most of those whom the movement oppose for re-election are Democrats and/or Liberals, so one has to ask where was the movement’s current level of organization and opposition when the previous administration’s policies ran the national deficit up from $5.7 trillion to some $10 trillion under a Republican-controlled White House and Congress for the previous 8 years?
In addition to seeming to represent more of an effort to influence partisan party politics rather than a true representative grassroots efforts, the movement’s overall message of being “Taxed Enough Already” (its acronym) seems to be at odds with reality. A highly-publicized recent CBS/New York Times poll indicated that most Americans consider the current income tax level they pay to be fair, regardless of political persuasion or income level (www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002487-503544.html).
The poll was criticized in some conservative circles—predictably so since the Tea Party seems to represent their ideological views—as being inaccurate since most other research indicates that between 45% and 48% of Americans don’t even pay income taxes when refunds and various tax credits are factored in. A valid point under most other circumstances, but what the criticism fails to acknowledge is that the poll included many professed Tea Party supporters, whom were “oversampled…and then weighted back to their proper proportion in the poll. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for both all adults and Tea Party supporters.” What’s more is that “forty-five percent of self-identified "Tea Partiers" make less than $50,000 per year, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll.

Click on graphic to enlarge (Courtesy CBS News/New York Times)

Similarly, 50% of the total population makes less than $50,000 in the same poll. Based on reason alone, it seems safe to assume that if about half the country avoids federal income taxes, a similar percentage of the Tea Party movement doesn’t pay taxes as well, even as they protest about their tax “burden.”


To Be Concluded...

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What's Right & Wrong About The Tea Party, Part 1

So where do I begin? I suppose the first thing I should say is that although I can sit and wax venomous about what I don’t like about members of the Democrats (as well as the Party itself), suffice it to say that there is much about both established parties and their respective policies that simply is too ideologically-grounded rather than what’s practical and needed by the American people (e.g., affordable universal health care coverage/reform was needed, as is an end to anti-life policies such as abortion and the death penalty).
One of the policies that the American people have needed for far too long is fiscal responsibility, both personal and among our various levels of government; simply put Americans lack financial discipline. More to the point, our representative levels of government both share and reflect our irresponsibility as a people in our inability to craft, spend, and oversee budgets related to our year-to-year spending of income. And in regards to government budgets, that income is the taxes which you and I pay.
Can the federal government do better in regards to the way in which it spends our tax dollars? Absolutely. But at the same time, the government that we pay taxes into has a moral obligation—capitalist ideology notwithstanding—to help those who by the designs of Fate cannot fully assist themselves to the best of their abilities. No, I do not mean that government should throw money at the poor to perpetuate a cycle of impoverished thinking and living. What I mean is that some things like medical care should not be a marketable commodity but a human right, and if necessary, one which government should assist in providing for if it has the resources, and the people are forced to realize that the Free Market is not able to create conditions conducive to universal affordability.
On the other, in a capitalist society such as ours, the same survival-of-the-fittest dynamic of the Free Market should be allowed to weed out business models which clearly do not work, especially if there are ample market signs pointing to the need for certain businesses to restructure or perish, such as with the bailouts of the automobile industry of late. With all that having been said, I’d like to go on record as saying that in principle, the Tea Party (an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already”) movement is right in its opposition to government overspending. But not being one to take things at face value, it’s simply not enough for me or anyone with an inquiring mind to agree with something; even in principle, its requisite that research and objective reasoning be a foundation for arriving at a conclusion. As such, I can start by saying what’s right with the Tea Party.
• The Tea Party is the expression of the basic rights we have as Americans—the rights to assemble, to speak freely, to associate, and to influence the political process.
• The Tea Party is inherently right in that our government(s) is/are not engaging in responsible spending of our tax dollars.
• On the surface, the Tea Party is expressing a pragmatic concern for the future of America.
• Rank-and-file members of the Tea Party believe in the justness of their cause, and are willing to protest as a testament to this belief.
But as with any effort to look beyond the surface of any belief system, cause, or organization, there are explanations, facts, and quantifications that compel scrutiny. As a preview, take note of the following piece about the Tea Party movement on a recent airing of Headline News’ Joy Behar Show.






To Be Continued...

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It's Good To Be The King...Or Maybe A Congressman: Part 3

Continued from Part 2: http://beyond-the-political-spectrum.blogspot.com/search/label/Congressional%20Perks

When it comes to the benefits of power, the elected federal lawmakers who make up the House of Representatives and the Senate—Congress—are without par; even former United States presidents cannot hope to match the level of excess, greed, sense of entitlement, and what I like to call the residual effects of public office that Congress offers its office holders. The problem is that such an extensive network of material and institutional benefits has seemingly created a sense of entitlement to the point where when viewed collectively, the perks that Congressional lawmakers receive are more reminiscent of royalty rather than elected representatives.
Consider the double-standard for criminal by which defrocked Congressional legislators benefit from. The recently convicted likes ex-Congressmen Duke Cunningham, Bob May, and William Jefferson Clinton not only get to keep their government pensions (which, unlike military retirement pay, may be revoked under only on conviction for a "high crime" such as treason), but if history is any indication, will likely parlay their Congressional tenures into private-sector opportunity with potential links to (you guessed it) government. This seemingly perennial propensity for Congressional lawmakers skirt or break the law creates—or maybe is born from—the sense of entitlement and above-the-commoner attitudes that many have with regard to the law. For instance, you know that law that makes it illegal for private- and government-sector employers to discharge, demote, or sanction an employee for having to fulfill their military obligations whenever they given orders to mobilize? Well, Congressional employers have given themselves an exemption from having to obey the same law; military enlistees can and have been given the boot for obeying orders to serve their country.
This sense of imperial above-the-masses thinking even applies to the smaller aspects of rules and laws. For instance, there are more than a few cases on record where Congressmen have had traffic tickets fixed (some after exerting the power and influence of their office) after breaking rules of the road for no good reasons, reflecting the belief that they believe themselves exempt from the same laws that govern the rest of us. Fortunately though, some Congressmen, most notably Senator John McCain have fought against the excesses and abuses of privilege and entitlement than many Congressmen routinely engage in

Lawmakers claimed the right to exempt themselves from [a] system of "fines" known to children across America -- those applying to overdue library books. In 1994, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced the "Library of Congress Book Protection Act," in response to official estimates that 1/3 of the books on loan from the Library of Congress were overdue, and that $12 million worth of books were "missing." In many cases, Senators, Representatives, and Congressional staff members were implicated (Congressional Perks: How The Trappings of Office Trap Taxpayers. National Taxpayers Union Foundation).


However, not all attempts to eliminate Congressional perks have been so unsuccessful. Below is a list of excesses that have been eliminated during the 1990s (mostly to the fact that their existence came to public light).

Click on Image To Enlarge Chart Image

Despite this list, many other such questionable benefits exist for members of both houses such as:

* Annual general offices expenses allowances of $1.3 million for rank-and-file member of the House (with highest-ranking member expenses reaching $4.5 million) and $2 million for Senate members. The only restriction they face is the prohibition against using the money for campaigning.

* Congressional delegation trips—Codels—are available for members of Congress, their staff, often their spouses on government jets. Aside from the occasional fact-finding mission to the world’s trouble spots and to home districts, many codels are nothing more than junkets to exotic locales and well-established vacation spots (such as resort towns).

* Free unreserved (and not surprisingly) prime parking spaces at Reagan and Dulles International Airports.

* In addition to the traditional government holidays, members of Congress receive far more generous compensated time off. For example, during the Memorial Day holiday legislators get the entire week off. They also receive additional recesses, some lasting as long as a month. Members prefer to call these periods “District Work Periods” in lieu of “vacations,” despite the absence of requirements for them to be in their home districts during these times.

* Exemptions and immunities from tax, pension, and other laws that burden private citizens — all crafted by lawmakers themselves (example: a $3,000 annual income tax deduction for a maintaining a second residence).

* Health & life insurance approximately 3/4 and 1/3 of whose costs, respectively, are subsidized by taxpayers (previously discussed).

* Access to valuable (and in some instances priceless) artwork from the Smithsonian Institute to decorate the offices of Congressmen (and Congresswomen).

* The “Franking Privilege,” which gives members of Congress millions in tax dollars to—among other things—create a favorable public image by allowing free postal mailings to their constituents…while the US Postal Service is swimming in red ink.

Naturally this list is hardly exhaustive of the many perks of being a Congressman, but suffice it to say that there are many more lesser-known benefits of being a Congressman. However, there is one benefit that continues to thrive, despite calls for reform from many quarters. Stay tuned...

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It's Good To Be The King...Or Maybe A Congressman: Part 2

Continued Part 1 (http://beyond-the-political-spectrum.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-good-to-be-kingor-maybe-congressman.html)


Whenever I think of the level and extent of the various non-compensatory benefits that our Congressional representatives receive—especially in relation to the week-to-week struggles that the rest of us must endure in these lean economic times—I am reminded of a now-famous line from Mel Brooks’ 1981 “History of The World, Part 1.” In one segment of the comedy classic, Brooks portrays King Louis XVI, lampooning the French Monarch’s penchant for personal excesses (such as demanding sexual favors in relations in return for requests from the peasantry) by repeating the phrase, “Its good to be the king” whenever he receives “compensation” for services rendered. So in the contemporary, if a member of the political class can be paid for their “service” with an amount that puts them in the top 10% of wage earners in the country, and receive an additionally valuable compensation such as affordable health insurance and health care while just one of the same is out of reach for 30 million or so of those they represent, what Congressperson wouldn’t be able to say “It’s good to be a Congressman/woman
For many Americans, myself included, we live with a reality that is markedly different from those we vote to represent us in the halls of Congress. For many of us, part of our week-to-week routine includes the difficult choice between paying for medicine or food, or going without basic health care altogether due to its inaffordability (and the ideologically intractable belief that the Free Market will eventually remedy this inequity). To be fair, the members of Congress receive the same health care plan choices that the other approximately 9 million plus federal government employees are offered. The most popular offering from Blue Cross/Blue Shield cost each individual member $175.08 per month, “with the government contributing an additional $363.16. The hypocrisy in this setup is that many of the same members of Congress often assert that if the government were to similarly subsidize health care for you and I, it would be an example “socialism;” apparently a practice that would herald the coming of Satan himself insofar as those who favor the notion that market forces will solve this dilemma (ignoring the fact of course, that if such were possible, in all likelihood it would have already happened). And in much the same way that 3/4ths of the actual cost of health insurance for members of Congress is subsidized by taxpayers, the life insurance options for the lawmakers is also likewise subsidized to the tune of 1/4th of the total cost to the average American.
Additionally, members of Congress don’t see the long lines outside emergency rooms one usually finds in [the] hospitals that dot lesser affluent areas of the country; they receive “free VIP treatment at military hospitals” without the wait. There is also the little known health benefit of on-the-Hill medical treatment by the capital-based Office of the Attending Physician of the United States

For an annual fee of $503, House and Senate members can designate the official congressional physician to be their primary care doctor—meaning they never have to deal with crowded doctor’s offices or be subject to the same type (lack of care) from a doctor as the rest of us (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Lawmakers Get Bounty of Benefits." http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/lawmakers-get-bounty-of-214897.html

Despite this service being purely optional among Congressmen, it is an existing option that many of us common folk can only dream about.



The retirement schemes for members of Congress are even more—if one can believe it—favorable for this elite club of legislators. While many Americans have to face the very real possibility of having to delay retirement due to the plummeting net worth of their various retirement plans in the current crippling recession, members of Congress enjoy a taxpayer-sponsor variation of the corporate “golden parachute” which addresses the problem of post-retirement income for the aged. Like their salaries, Congressional pensions are determined by a combination of time in office, age at retirement, and the current salary of each member at the time they leave (or are voted out of) office. The rates at which these pensions accumulate value are second only to the pension value of the president in terms of generosity. Moreover, for many career members of Congress, the longer they have served the earlier they are able to collect pensions…an option unheard of among the majority of American employees, even within the federal government. According to the National Taxpayers Union, the end result is that, between the generous accrual rates, the eligibility of early retirement collection, and the likelihood that many members will serve multiple terms totally 10-20 years (or longer), today’s members of Congress can collect a million dollars or more in pension security…less than the luckiest corporate CEO, but significantly more than what the average American will make over their active working lifetimes. What’s more, members of Congress do not lose their pensions upon violations of the law, whether they are found guilty of misdemeanors or felonies; they are allowed to even keep the incremental cost of living increases they receive during their retirements (just ask those convicted former Congressmen who have no worries about their retirement futures). So the 1.3% of their salary that members of Congress must pay toward their government pension plans yields far more in bankable returns than the earnings liability it appears to be on the surface. And this pension scheme doesn’t even include earnings that could be collected if members of Congress participate in a separate 401(k)-style savings plan, which allows them to set aside part of their salaries with a 5% government match. If you’re not outraged yet, stay tuned…

To Be Continued…

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It's Good To Be The King...Or Maybe A Congressman: Part 1

It’s Black Friday, the shopping debacle that marks the day immediately after Thanksgiving. And unless you’re one of the federal lawmakers we vote into Congress to represent us every 2-to-4 years, you’re probably one among the besieged masses of this current economic climate struggling to not only find the money to even buy your loved ones a present, but to—at the same time—maintain the necessities of a marginally decent livelihood. But if you are a member of Congress, these are great times. Despite being the authorities who determine how much we as citizens are to contribute in taxes, the amount to be appropriated to operate the government from year-to-year, and whether or not the rest of us are to even have access to affordable health care, the members of Congress not only don’t have such concerns, but enjoy a level of benefits above and beyond what can reasonably be attributed as fair compensation for their “service.” What’s more, the plethora of perks that permeate almost every part of Congressional lawmakers’ professional lives seems to create an atmosphere of entitlement thinking in and around Washington D.C., which translates into a double-standard between this “political class” and the rest of us serfs.
Although the idea behind my criticisms of Congressional perks has been in the back of my mind for some time, yesterday’s article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (“Lawmakers Get Bounty of Benefits." http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/lawmakers-get-bounty-of-214897.html) provided me with the motivation to chronicle this long overdue revelation. In the article, reporter Bob Keefe highlights among other things the basic salaries of Congressional lawmakers, which start $174,000 for “rank-and-file House and Senate members,” and puts them firmly among the top 10% of income-earners in America. In and of itself, this is not an unreasonable amount of compensation. However, considering the fact that many members of Congress are quick to label their positions as “public service” and that 237 members of Congress are already millionaires, this level of compensation amounts to one among many perks that lawmakers enjoy beyond their duties. And for higher-ranking members of Congress the financial perks even sweeter; the majority and minority leaders of the House of Representatives receive about $193,000 annually, with the speaker earning even more. Additionally, members of Congress can and do vote themselves pay raises, even though the majority of Americans have become victimized by stagnant wages during the last decade. Sadly, although money seems to be at the root of most perks, it is hardly the only one.


To Be Continued…

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Citizen Protesters, or Ideological Spin Doctors? Part 2

Continued from Part 1


"It is not the state that orders us. It is we who order the state."

With regard to the anti-tax & spending protests of last weekend in Washington D.C., that quote could just as easily be assumed to be the mantra of those who participated in the protests. However, those are not the words of some famous American patriot who uttered them in defiance of presumed government tyranny, and whom we are so proud of that we immortalized them in the pages of elementary school textbooks. They were not words of the leader of some populist movement leader who turned a cleaver phrase to gain popular support for progressive policy. They are not even the words of an American. They are the words of the former chancellor of Nazi German, Adolf Hitler. But such was the message ostensibly carried to Washington last weekend by the protesters.

Now before I’m inundated with protests myself about how I’m making negative aspersions, I am NOT attempting to compare the mostly conservative activists among the protesters to Nazis. However, what I am doing is illustrating how the tactics of traditionally progressive activists can be hijacked by an ideologically-bound or self-interested few to give the impression of general consensus. That is what the protests in Washington were all about. So this then is a challenge to the protesters’ intent.
Why? Because first and foremost their selective memory when it comes to their complaint that “government spending is out of control.” Take the non-Social Security of the government spending for the last 55 years. The greatest amount of deficit spending (borrowing) occurred under the watches of Republican presidents, with Ronald Reagan and Bush II’s administrations being responsible for the lion’s share of deficit spending during this period. In fact, it was the spending and ill-advised tax cuts of the second Bush which helped to eradicate the budget surplus and pay-down on the national deficit which started under former President Bill Clinton (naturally, die-hard ideologues from the conservative right have disputed this fact by engaging in esoteric hair-splitting of economic theories which challenge the bottom line--that it was under recent conservative stewardship of the government that the deficit spending began to balloon out of control). Furthermore, Bush II had the advantage of a Republican-controlled Congress for much of his presidency. "The Reagan Budget: The Deficit that Didn't Have to Be." http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=879 The Cato Institute; "Bush to Fund a Third of Non-Social Security Spending This Year with Borrowed Money" http://www.ctj.org/html/debt0603.htm Citizens for Tax Justice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms

This is not leftist propaganda meant to make conservatives look bad; these are historical and economic facts supported by the numbers. And the selective memories of the protesters and their activist organizers ignores the major difference between the motives for spending by the aforementioned presidents and President Obama; neither Republican president didn't have to contend with crafting policies meant to curtail the effects of an unprecedented economic downward spiral, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Great Depression (although to his credit, Reagan did start out with the intent to challenge the growing budget deficit). True, spending is out of control, but so is the economy...desperate times, desperate measures.
So, after years of deficit spending, no fiscal restraint by either political party, and the continued practice of Congressional earmarks—a practice vociferously supported by both moderate and conservative Republicans –why all of a sudden have conservatives found the testicular fortitude to suddenly don the mask of consensus, take to the streets, and protest government spending?
The reasons are simple. It’s a rejection of the legitimacy of the duly-elected Obama Administration which cloaking itself in the free exercise of civil liberties and ideological differences. Its also fear of change (no pun intended), with hints of xenophobia, nativism, ethnocentrism, and willful ignorance, with the latter propensity resulting in the labeling anyone who desires to help the poor and/or disenfranchised as tantamount to “Socialism.” It is a rejection of policy and government based on lies, innuendo, scare tactics, slander, and misinformation by those who unflinchingly hold on to ideological political beliefs in the hopes of shaping the country according to their particular view of how things should be. It is an embracing of the absurd belief that a particular individual or group wants to reshape the American way of life which we have become accustomed to in ways which are alien and antithetical to our core values; heaven forbid that someone simply sees an inequality and wants to address it through the established legislative process. It is a movement which even challenges the legitimacy of birthright, and revealing how easy it is for a relative few to stir up unfounded fears among those who did not have the legal process go the way that they would have liked.
I’m a firm believer in the right protest unpopular policy. I also believe in unfettered free speech—even unpopular speech—mostly because free speech is how great ideas are exchanged and eventually become policy. I am for progressive policy based on need, not ideological adherence. And with 30-40 million Americans without health insurance (many unknown more chronically underinsured), and an economic crisis which has the country a few steps away from a wholesale economic collapse, this is not the time to cling to the safety of economic timidity. We are not going to eradicate these and other problems without spending money. At the same time, we must learn to practice fiscal restraint, an idea the protesters of last week promote, and one in which I share. However, in order to find a policy which works to the best of both our country’s creed of opportunity and of preserving the system we live by, the selfish intent of people like the protesters must be revealed insofar as their desire to portray themselves as representing the best interest if the entire nation as a whole.

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Citizen Protesters, or Ideological Spin Doctors? Part 1

It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with great intentions. This caveat is true, whether we choose to ignore it with regard to the decisions we make as the heads of our households, or with consideration to the social and political policies we choose to follow. Perhaps no single recent policy decision illustrates this better than our choice to go to war in Iraq, a decision which has run up a tab of some $700 billion dollars to date, a death toll of over 3000 American soldiers, and a cost to the country’s global image and credibility which will no doubt take years to repair…all with the intention to protect the country from the perceived dangers of a “rogue nation” with “weapons of mass destruction” in a post-9/11 world. In the time since the rationale given the American people for going to war was proven incorrect, the criticism for this costly venture has been limited to political posturing, what amounted to token investigations resulting in no particular blame, and [the] hundreds of publications revealing how in hindsight pre-war intelligence was both wrong and wrongly interpreted.
In yet another policy intention—this one questionably so—a segment of the American people have (and their leadership) have opted to only now concern themselves with the amount of spending that the government engages in on our behalf.
This past Saturday, tens of thousands of mostly conservative marchers gathered, marched, and rallied in Washington DC against the policies of the Obama Administration with regard to the spending it has employed in its effort to shore up the ailing economy, as well as its proposal to revamp access to health care for the uninsured.
In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with marching and protesting as a way to illustrate to our leaders that the American people speak with one voice; its what led the way toward the signing of civil rights legislation and the country out of the quagmire of the Vietnam War. However, it seems the opponents of progressive policy have learned how to take the tool of mass street rallies often employed by progressives, and use it to project the image that they represent the desires of the American people. These so-called “Tea-Partiers” and other conservative anti-tax activists march with the goal of influencing the government to start limiting spending. Not an altogether bad goal considering the national deficit is $10 trillion and growing.
But for many reasons, these “protests” lack either the credibility or the nobility of a true expression of the collective American will (as exemplified by either the 1963 March on Washington or the anti-Vietnam war protests of the late 60s & early 70s). Consider the lack of broad spectrum ideological representation. Are we to believe that these mostly conservative activists and voters represent the will of all (or even most) Americans? Where are the ethnic Americans who believe that the government is overspending in these protests? The Democrats (or their leadership in substantive numbers)? The Liberals…the Moderates? How about those without insurance who feel that government spending is spending too much in the name of the public interest? Considering that there are somewhere between 30-40 million of them, its hard to believe these individuals represent a cross-section of the American electorate.
But during the television interviews of these protesters over the weekend, many seemed to go out of their way to assert that they represented mainstream Americans, and that they were not “fringe” Right-Wingers. Indeed, there were many protesters present representing many age and geographic differences, some with their children and even pets in tow. Strictly speaking, this is true…these are indeed mostly Middle-Class Americans, many who have no economic stake in the companies and business which benefit directly from the bailouts and spending the government has used to prop them up during this economic downturn. However, it’s a good guess that these individuals are probably and overwhelmingly not among the Americans who voted for President Obama (or any Democrat for that matter) in the first place, so it’s a little hard to believe that they are being objective about the reasons for why the government seeks to infuse large businesses with federal funds. One look at the protest signs carried to Saturday’s rally is proof positive that their motives and fears are more ideologically motivated rather than borne of a measured consideration of need.

A group of anti-tax protesters from Saturday, September 12 (take particular note of the signs, indicative of the ideological bents of their political--not populist--position)

Do I believe that government spending is out of control, of course. But what should be of concern is the selective memory of the protesters as well as their propensity to engage in a revisionist view of reality as they justify their opposition. This in turn calls their intent into question.
What's funny is that only now do Conservatives find alarm in the government’s “rampant level of spending,” when it was former President Ronald Reagan who initiated the era of big spending in the modern era of government.

The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation (“Reagan Policies Gave Light to red Ink,” The Washington Post, June 9, 2004). http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8?language=printer

For conservative leaders who support deficit spending, it didn’t seem to be a real issue as long their political party was the one in power and engaged in tax cuts with no commensurate cuts in federal spending spent. Indeed, former Vice-President Dick Cheney validated this as much when in 2002 he was alleged to have said that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" in regards to former President George Bush’s economic stimulus policies.

To Be Concluded...

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