Dean Baker Column

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Published on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 by Huffington Post

The Budget Deficit Crisis: The Blame Is Bipartisan

by Dean Baker

The country is being bombarded with stories claiming that record budget deficits threaten our children's future and jeopardize the credibility of the dollar. These stories are a serious problem -- they have hugely confused the public about the nature of the country's economic crisis. And both parties share the blame.
Starting with the reality behind the scare stories -- trillion-dollar deficits are really huge relative to the money that any of us will ever see in our lifetime. But this is an absurd measure. The United States is a country with more than 300 million people. It doesn't matter that a trillion dollars is a huge amount to any of us individually. What matters is the size of the deficit and the debt relative to the size of the economy.
Only people who want to deceive the public would talk about the deficit or debt in "trillions" of dollars. This is a very simple lie-detector test since honest economists and policy analysts always refer to these sums relative to the size of the economy.
Relative to the size of the economy, the deficits that we are running are large and the debt that we are projected to incur is substantial, but the deficit level is still not coming close to the levels hit in World War II. Nor is the debt level projected to reach post-war peaks or the levels sustained by countries like Italy and Japan. The idea that we are near some debt-driven crisis is absurd on its face.
The United States had the strongest period of growth in its history in the three decades following World War II. This undeniable fact should put to rest the idea that our debt levels will threaten the prosperity of future generations. We hand our children a whole economy and society. If we give them a bad education, a decayed infrastructure, a ruined environment, then we will be jeopardizing our children's economic well-being. However, the debt levels we are currently projecting aren't even large enough to make it to the list of serious problems.
The claim that the dollar faces an imminent crisis because of the budget deficit or national debt is readily refuted by the example of Japan. Japan already has a debt to GDP level that is far larger than we are projected to have by the end of the next decade. In spite of this debt burden, investors are willing to hold ten-year Japanese government bonds at just a 1.5 percent interest rate. If these debt burdens are supposed to make Japan a high risk, someone forgot to tell the people who are putting billions of dollars on the line by holding Japanese government bonds.
There is another side of this Japan story that makes the idiocy of the deficit scare stories even more apparent. According to the deficit fear mongers, the dollar has been falling in recent months because investors are becoming increasingly worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt. But one of the currencies that the dollar has fallen against is the yen. Are investors who are worried about the U.S. government's ability to pay off its debt selling dollars to buy the bonds of the Japanese government, which has an even higher debt burden?
Let's face it: The deficit hawks will say anything to advance their agenda. Even worse, the media will print it.
This deficit nonsense should have been put to rest long ago, but both parties have hyped it to advance their ends. Currently, the Republicans are making headway in the polls by blaming the Obama administration for a deficit that is primarily the result of economic mismanagement during the Bush years.
But Republicans don't have a monopoly on demagoging the deficit. During the Bush years, many Democrats spoke of the Bush deficits in cataclysmic terms. This was absurd. The deficits were larger than was desirable during part of the Bush administration (large deficits in 2002 and 2003 were helpful in boosting the economy), but they were not hugely out of line. There is certainly no story that can pass the laugh test in which these deficits are responsible for the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent recession.
There were plenty of grounds to attack President Bush for the economy's performance under his watch. Most importantly, he let an $8 trillion-dollar housing bubble grow unchecked, and giving big tax cuts to the wealthy is not the way to create an educated workforce and a modern infrastructure.
But the Democrats often hyped the deficit -- it was the easiest way to score political points. That helped to give us a situation in which tens of millions of people somehow think the deficit is the cause of the economy's problems when in reality it is the only thing keeping it afloat. In short, the Democrats are paying the price of their own political opportunism. Unfortunately, so is the rest of the country.

© 2009 Huffington Post

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer ( www.conservativenannystate.org) and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

Press Release From Candidate Oscar Arce

I am originally from Costa Rica; I came to the US in 1984 and have been a Greenfield resident since 1999. Through this time, I have built a record of community outreach, organizing and advocacy, including political and social campaigns committed to empowering individuals of diverse cultural and economic backgrounds.  

I have had the opportunity to meet and work with inspiring community leaders on behalf of many different issues, and the common denominator has consistently been focused on making a difference to improve the quality of life for local residents.

In this role, I have worked with colleagues of differing political philosophies, but we recognize that in joining efforts we can accomplish more by working together and motivating others to get involved as well.  This is how we achieve success in a democratic society.

I am committed to community service; it is a passion and an honor to have the opportunity to work on behalf of neighbors and residents in the community and to advance social and civic issues.

Now I would like to represent the Second District in Massachusetts. I will advocate tirelessly for this community, working with the local leaders, listening to their concerns, and facilitating a voice for local constituents at the State level. If chosen to represent the Second District in the State House, it becomes my duty to bring the Government back to the community, meaning that people have the right to know what issues are being addressed and express their feelings directly to me so I may represent the collective interests of the community.

I want to engage with other State representatives to build coalitions, share information and support one another’s goals in order to find effective solutions to the needs of our communities.

We are going through tough economic times. We must gauge public opinion to address the needs of the community and engage the people and resources necessary to resolve the most pressing issues. This must be presented to the constituency in a manner that is accessible to all and easily understood, and the outcomes easily measured.

As a member of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, I have the know-how to represent this community:

• I am a member of the affirmative action committee, working to advance opportunities and training for minorities.
• I am on the board of the Massachusetts Stonewall Democrats, working on behalf of our LGBT community.
• I am on the board of the Greater Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls, helping to educate the public about the Silvio O. Conte National fish & wildlife refuge.

I am involved with many civic causes because as a social activist and community organizer I recognize that it is our responsibility to work trying to improve the quality of life in Greenfield and surrounding communities.

Do your best for those that defend us, Many thanks,..........................................Oscar

Time for us to Call Our Senators

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Published on Monday, November 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Before You Carve that Turkey: All In for Bernie Sanders

by Donna Smith

Those millions of us who support a Medicare for All, single-payer, reform for the healthcare crisis in this nation have some work to do over the next few days.  Senators are on their way to their home states for the one-week Thanksgiving recess - and they need a little up close and personal constituent attention before dinnertime on Thursday.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a stalwart supporter of doing the right thing for his state, our healthcare system and this nation - and he has said repeatedly that moving toward a just and economically sound system is possible through Medicare for All, single-payer.  In the purest sense of giving patients control over their own healthcare, single-payer gives us all control over our choice of providers - and it gives our healthcare professionals the freedom they need to advise us on the basis of health rather than payment source.
So, even though the current Senate bill is not what we want - Senator Sanders will offer an amendment that would be a substitute for that bill and is mirrored on S. 703, The American Health Security Act.
We need to make it clear before our Senators are immersed in their own holiday events and then in traveling  back to Washington, DC, that we want them to support Senator Sanders' amendment. 
Call today, call tomorrow and keep calling until the home offices of the Senators close for the holidays - and many will stay open until Wednesday at noon.  Tell the staff you want to talk turkey about the Senate effort.
Time is drawing short for our Senators to hear from us.  Debate will begin on November 30 on the current Senate bill.  Senator Sanders needs support.  He has already told us that he does not expect a win on his amendment.  But we are all laying groundwork for this nation to move in the right direction before long - we know that the current bills do not "bend the cost curve" enough and we know they certainly do not bend the death or bankruptcy curve nearly enough to make the bills what this nation needs.
Additionally, we want the legislation to contain language that will allow states that opt in to a single-payer system to be able to do so with the appropriate waivers from federal legal provisions which might otherwise present obstacles to doing so.
So, the ask of our Senators - each and every one, liberal, centrist or conservative - is two-fold and urgent:

1.       Vote with and for Sanders' S. 703 substitute amendment; and
2.       Support state single-payer enabling language in the final bill.

Calls to DC won't be effective this week.  We can all return to that effort next week.  Thanksgiving week calls must go to your Senators' offices in your state.  Look them up here, using your zip code: http://www.votesmart.org/
Tell friends, neighbors and relatives.  This year, talk a little turkey about healthcare.  Ask folks how thankful they would be to have healthcare as a basic human right for their neighbors and for themselves.  And then help them look up their Senators' contact information and tell them how easy it really is to call and log your concerns and your expectations for an affirmative vote for the Sanders' amendment.
Oh, and don't forget to thank one another for caring enough to join in the struggle.  It matters.   Everybody in, nobody out.  Thank you all for believing that together we can change this, because we can.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

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Some Single Payer Advocates To Oppose Health Bill

Published on Monday, November 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Single Payer Activists to Congress: Defeat Democratic Health Bill

by Russell Mokhiber

The Democratic health care bill is a massive bailout of the private health insurance industry.
It is convoluted and complicated.
And it should be defeated.
That's the take of a number of leading single payer activists.
They will hold a press conference the day before Thanksgiving.
And call on Congress to defeat the more than 2,000 page bill.
Start from scratch.
And pass single payer, Medicare for all, national health insurance.
The press conference will be held in the Murrow Room at the National P ress Club in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at 10 a.m.
The press conference is being organized by Single Payer Action.
Speakers include:

• Russell Mokhiber, Single Payer Action.
• Dr. Margaret Flowers, Physicians for a National Health Program.
• Kevin Zeese, Prosperity Agenda.
• Dr. Carol Paris, Physicians for a National Health Program.

Mokhiber, Flowers, Zeese and Paris are four of the Baucus 8 - the eight protesters who were ordered arrested and charged with "disruption of Congress" by Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) in early May 2009 after they rose to ask Baucus why single payer was taken off the table by the Democrats.
Baucus had scheduled 41 health care experts to testify over three days of hearings of the Senate Finance Committee.
Not one of the 41 experts was an advocate for a single payer system.
This despite national polls showing a majority of Americans and a majority of doctors support a Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all single payer system.
On Wednesday, the Baucus Four will call on single payer supporters in the Congress - like Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) - and the 88 members of the House who are sponsors of HR 676 - the single payer bill - to stand with Congressmen Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Eric Massa (D-New York) - and vote against the pending legislation.
HR 676 is about 30 pages in length.
It's simple.
It covers everyone.
And it saves money.
Kucinich and Massa were the only single payer supporters in the House who voted last week against Obama and the Democratic leadership.
Kucinich called the Democratic bill "a bailout under a Blue Cross."
Massa said the bill would "enshrine in law the monopolistic powers of the private health insurance industry."
"The Obama health care legislation is a 2,000-page turkey," said Mokhiber. "It should be defeated and served up to the American people as an example of what happens when corporate lobbyists hijack Congress."
Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, earlier this month called on Congress to do nothing instead of passing the Democratic bill.
"Is the House bill better than nothing?" Angell asked. "I don't think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right."
Healthcare-Now! - a coalition of labor unions and other single payer activists - adopted a resolution earlier this month at its national strategy conference in St. Louis - calling on Congress to defeat the legislation.
The Healthcare-Now! board is co-chaired by Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers Union, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association, Dr. Quintin Young of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Jim Winkler of the United Methodist Church.