Does quid always mean quo?

Mitt Romney said it “looks like” Hillary Clinton committed “ bribery” , based upon what he read in a New York Times story, regarding dealings of a Russian purchase of interest in a US uranium company.  He, coming from the investment world, of all people, should know to wait until all facts were known and that there is proof that a quid resulted in a quo.

I once had an international investment banker whose job it was to negotiate finance deals with foreign governments and corporations sit down and tell me how corruption works in business dealings abroad.  . The problem is that most many countries who do business around the world think that even the more honest countries work the same as they do.  They give a quid and expect a quo.  Often they give quids without being asked.  They just believe they will get a quo anyway.

 My banker friend gave me an example.  His firm was competing against other international

banking firms from various countries for a lucrative deal in an eastern European country emerging from Communism.  It was famous for corruption.  One gimmick was that the ruling strong arm president, allegedly elected democratically, set up a charitable foundation in the name of a family member, who in this case used the foundation as a cash cow. The winning ticket depended on making a sizeable contribution to the charity.   The request for a donation was made in advance of the contract being awarded.  Incidentally, both US law and his firm would not allow it, and his firm lost the contract.

When you hear about the Clinton Family Foundation commenting that not all of those donations from foreign governments were given from the goodness of their hearts, realize that most of the world believes their quid, even if not tied to a quo in advance, will result in a quo and giving to a family foundation provides the mechanism.

What Hillary Clinton must show there was no quo there and to answer every one of the instances raised by her attackers. She has begun. The State Department Assistant Secretary of State who chaired the committee approving the Russian uranium deal issued a statement attesting that Clinton never intervened. The statement from the Assistant Secretary got buried in the very end of a New York Times article bringing the matter to public attention.

One part of the story particularly raising eyebrows is that Russian contributions to the Foundation were never disclosed. The Foundation admitted the error that the Russian gift was co-mingled with non-governmental donations in their report and tax filings, but it was listed in the annual reconciled audit statement posted on the Foundation’s web site.

 That was shoddy work the part or the New York Times and the Clinton Cash author, in their eagerness to rake some muck. Hopefully going forward, Clinton’s defense gets media coverage equal to the allegations and others eager to comment read the whole article or wait for the accused’s defense.

important update: No Clinton was on the Foundation payroll but the Foundation paid their airfare...a finding by a charity watchdog organization, buried in a sentence in a NY Post article: http://nypost.com/2015/04/26/charity-watchdog-clinton-foundation-a-slush-fund/

A version of this was published in the www.skyhidailynews. com   May 8, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0

https://medium.com/@ClintonFdn/a-commitment-to-honesty-transparency-and-accountability-f3ccba8bb033

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3054026/Mitt-Romney-says-Hillary-Clinton-s-latest-scandal-looks-like-BRIBERY-s-hammered-hiding-involvement-sweetheart-

Gifts were not why the GOP lost; attitudes, policies toward minorities and women were the culprits

While the GOP sorts out the reasons they lost in November, Democrats can only hope they come to the wrong conclusions, keeping the U.S. swinging blue for years to come. Here is some advice to Republicans:

The first step in the GOP's recovery is understanding that both their policies and the attitudes of their members need an extreme makeover. They need more than cosmetics, candidates who have Spanish surnames, a certain racial complexion, or a different gender. They need more than a better sales job. The GOP tried this election to make the case more conservative social policies and trickle down economics would be better for them, but other GOP attitudes and policies drowned out those messages.

Mitt Romney's post-election rationale for losing, that President Obama won by giving “gifts” to certain targeted groups, exemplified a wrongheaded attitude. Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal put his finger on it, calling Romney's “gift” remarks as “absolutely wrong ... If we want people to like us, we have to like them first. And you don't start to like people by insulting them and saying their votes were bought."

Romney's “gift” remark was revealing. In the spring, Romney made comments to the Florida fat cat contributors that 47 percent were not going to vote for him because they did not pay taxes and liked being dependent on government programs. Romney's blaming “gifts” has become the defining evidence that his comments were more than inelegant; they showed a basic misunderstanding of those he disdained.

What Romney did not understand was that lust for more gifts did not drive those groups so much as it was the fear a GOP victory would take away gains already made and a party would control Washington that supported policies that were unsympathetic to their needs and tolerated those who were hostile toward them.

Certainly, Hispanics feared they would lose any hope that Obama's commitment for a path to citizenship for their undocumented relatives would be fulfilled since the GOP was opposed to “amnesty” and certainly Hispanics welcomed a temporary dream act, but it was more than just a matter of immigration policy differences. Even Florida Puerto Ricans and Cubans (the first time in modern history) who already had citizenship rights voted for Obama over Romney.

Minorities also saw many GOP supporters expressing “nativist attitudes.” A poll conducted by Latino Decisions before the primaries found “forty-six percent of Latino voters said Republicans ‘don't care too much' about Hispanics, and another 27 percent said they are being hostile.”

Let's face it. The GOP these past four years has tolerated and supported candidates who “dog whistled” to Southern racist attitudes (“welfare queens, train their kids to be janitors”). They have been over the top in their vehement support of policies that are targeted against racial groups, the Arizona “show me your papers” law, restriction of poll access by making poll schedules inconvenient and proof of citizenship more difficult, and “self deportation” as the solution to the undocumented problem. Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) dared to take a moderate position on immigration and was ridiculed and drummed out of the primaries.

For women, the issue was loss of control over their health care that they already had. The GOP tolerated candidates who advocated government and physically intrusive policies, including radical definitions of when life begins that would ban forms of birth control, promising to overturn Roe v. Wade, raising the cost and access to care from mammograms to pills, requiring vaginal probes, and calling some rapes legitimate and others not. The accumulative effect was that for many women it looked like the GOP was hostile to them. The GOP had hoped futiley that women cared more about economic issues than having rights taken away, but the gender gap did not close.

Also published in the Sky Hi Daily News today.

Mitt Romney's moral fools gold on plans for the poor

My column in the Sky Hi News today
have heard arguments this campaign season that I have not heard since the 1960 debates over President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

One repeated often by conservatives is “it is immoral for government to help the poor because we are making them dependent.” That is a fools gold kind of morality, lots of glittering rationale for those who care about the poor but still want to feel good about themselves while they support policies that hurt them.

Mitt Romney expresses concern for the poor from one side of his mouth: “I am not worried about the poor because they have a safety net” and “I have an absolute moral commitment to help every American help themselves”( by providing them jobs). Out of the other side of his mouth he proposes to poke holes in the safety net and make cuts in other programs that make it much more difficult for the poor to help themselves.

These comments appear to be Romney's response to the Catholic bishops calling it immoral to cut the social safety net in order to pay for the tax benefits to the rich and higher defense spending as the Ryan/House GOP budget proposes, and Romney called “marvelous.” Romney's own particular spin is it is more moral to provide jobs so the poor can “help themselves” than to make them dependent on government assistance.

No one can argue that work is better than welfare for those who are able to work and have the qualifying skills. Clinton-era welfare reforms did much to address this. However, the fix that Romney proposes is a flub. He bases his case on economic theories that have never worked well to create jobs in an economy recovering from a recession, he failed to apply his self-extolled job creating expertise to public policy, and he has a disconnect from realities of the poor's ability to find work.

Romney supports economic theories of trickle down and European-like austerity that have failed to create jobs in the past. Gov. Romney had a dismal job creation record in Massachusetts and when he left office, unemployment was still higher than the national average. Pumping up “job creators” with deregulation and low taxes does not necessarily spring loose investment in manufacturing capacity unless business anticipates more demand.

But Romney's plans are demand killers. Fighting Obama's jobs bill and/or any aid to rehire state and federal employees, such as teachers, firefighters and police, the core of GOP austerity plans, leaves less money in consumer pockets to buy products and services.

When Europe undertook austerity cold turkey, demand dropped and unemployment soared, a pertinent example. The conservative line on the “dependence” issue is, “If we reduce their safety net, more poor will go to work.” Even if jobs are created, will the poor benefit? Reducing access to a good education (Per Romney: “we do not need more (teachers)” and good nutritional brain food needed to learn, we are guaranteed pools of manual laborers who do not have the skills to be hired in today's or tomorrow's tech economy.

The GOP disconnect: Most of these safety net programs are for children that give them tools to escape dependence. Three-quarters of food stamp recipients are families with children. Of the nutrition programs for the poor (8.7 million recipients), 4.3 million are women with children, 2.2 million with infants. National school lunch programs: 30.5 million kids benefit. Children's health programs (CHIP) keep them healthy enough to go to school and Head Start gets them ready to enter first grade. By reducing money to these programs, we guarantee more poor do not have good nutrition needed to learn, or to gain the ability to qualify for jobs Republicans hope to create.

Romney and the GOP are trying to fool well meaning conservatives, but presenting their plans for the poor as a jobs program or a moral plus is a shameful deception.

For more, go to www.mufticforum.com and www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com

Mitt Romney...he made me sick

There is an ad running in Colorado on behalf of Pres. Obama’s reelection that is  an  opportunity to make a point it besides the one it intended. It underscores the fear that loss of a job means loss of health care and the lesson is that health care reform would eliminate that fear.  The ad features an older woman with Parkinson’s like symptoms who said that when Bain capital (Mitt Romney’s firm) bought the profitable company for which she had worked for many years, she lost her health insurance and pension, even though she was 2 and a half years from retiring.  The punch line: “Mitt Romney…….he made me sick”. The point: Romney did not care about the damage his brand of capitalism caused to human beings. As we wait for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Health Care Act (“Obamacare” to the disaffected),  we should also  understand that if the woman had lost her employer provided health insurance and income, she could have received health care she could afford even if she had a pre-existing condition if ‘obamacare’ were in effect.  That fear…loss of job means loss of health care.. is  a fundamental dread  to those who face a job loss or change and that advantage of health care reform is rarely highlighted or understood.  

Right problem, wrong solution, right solution

My column in the Sky Hi Daily News today

According to recent polls, President Obama has plateaued at 48 percent, with Mitt Romney trailing slightly.

After a boost earlier this year, the job creation rate is disappointing though the economy is still growing slightly and jobs are being added. Economists predict recovery will limp along until November in the U.S.

To win decisively in November, Obama must convince more  voters GOP/Romney plans to heal the economy going forward are the wrong solutions and his plans are the right ones.

Last week former President Bill Clinton raised a ruckus when he criticized Obama for taking an anti-business tone by dwelling on Romney's mixed job creating record at Bain Capital. Lost in the resulting noise was a very important point Clinton made that could be the key to the president's winning the argument about the economy.

Clinton opined that Obama's plan for improving the economy was better than Romney's. That approach has real potential.

Such a comparison should include  more than rehashing the “trickle down economics vs. relief to the middle class” debate. The GOP's plan to stimulate growth is lowering taxes on the rich because they are the “job generators” and their wealth will trickle down to the rest but paid for by cutting programs that are perks for the middle class. Never mind the trickle trick never worked well, but history is not much of a political teacher.

Romney's newest argument is that if the president's policies had worked, we “would be much better along in the recovery.” That line is full of holes. The president was unable to do all he wanted to do because of obstructionist Republican Party control of the House, defeating the bill that would have added 2 million jobs. Obama could also argue that if Romney had been president we would have lost 3 million auto industry jobs because Romney's solution was to let the industry go bankrupt.

The other is that the GOP approach of nearly complete reliance on cutting government services was similar to the European austerity plans that resulted in loss of jobs, double dip recession or zero growth, and higher debt, and lowered demand. One wonders how much worse unemployment and the economy would be now if Romney had controlled the White House.

The GOP gives Obama no credit for coming so far along in the recovery, either. To Republicans, “partial success is total failure.” At least Obama's stimulus plan succeeded in reaching the goals he set in early 2009 when the depth of the recession was unknown and his stimulus/tax cut combination did create jobs. In spite of the GOP obstructionism, 4 million private sector jobs have been  added compared to the 700,000 per month we were losing. The economy is growing , the banking system and corporate profits are robust.

Romney has tried to head off any comparison of his plans with the failed European approach by saying he would only make changes “gradually.” “Gradual” is not what the Tea Party, the Republican base, or the under- and un-employed seek. Romney could find himself butting heads with his party's right wing on that one. Granted, Romney's plans are similar to the GOP plans that would require cutting spending drastically, depending too heavily on fundmental changes in Social Security and Medicare systems, back door privatization by using vouchers, and higher copays, while increasing defense spending.

Obama could also embrace the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission that would keep the entitlement system in place we have now, but would simply gradually raise the retirement age and cut defense spending. If he adopted the Simpson-Bowles debt reduction recommendations now, he would be in even better shape to argue he has the right solution and Romney has the wrong one. 

For more, visit www.mufticforum.com and www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com

and Romney wants to roll back Wall Street reform?

Romney deserves a raspberry for a  policy he promotes.. to roll back  Obama supported  Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation …freeing big banks from more regulations so  they could resume the same practices  that led to the crash of 2008.   This month a revered Wall Street firm,  JP Morgan, lost   two billion dollars of proprietary trades gone bad. Luckily JPM is strong enough to survive, but the same could not be said for other  banks. . Had Wall Street Reform with its Volcker rule been implemented, it would not have happened because  the rule would keep  banks too big to fail from investing their own proprietary funds in certain risky instruments as an insurance policy,  betting  against their own customer’s  investment interests.  The financial sector  lobbyists have successfully delayed implementation of  Wall Street Reform that includes the Volcker rule.  The result: JPMorgan was a victim of their own practices that the Volcker rule could have prohibited if worded correctly

Romney’s banking  expertise does not automatically translate to good judgment, or good public policy, or even good banking practices.....

The gender gap and why Romney will have a hard time closing it

My column in the Sky Hi News Apri

Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist employed by CNN, created a political storm when she criticized Ann Romney for being the messenger and spokesperson for her husband Mitt Romney on what women were thinking.

Rosen commented that Mrs. Romney had “never worked a day in her life,” implying that she could not know the struggles of women less privileged. GOP pundits immediately seized on the comment as “a war on stay at home moms.” The Democrats, including President Obama, took issue with Rosen and were quick to pay homage to the tough job that stay at home moms have.

Republicans exploited the unfortunate sound bite to try to win back the support of women they had been losing. Lost in their noise was a valid point: It is not about whether stay at home moms work hard and deserve our respect. It is about the ability to choose whether to stay at home or work. Many women have no choice. There are women who would like to stay home, raise their kids, and be a homemaker, but they are either single or their husbands cannot bring home enough bacon to cover the costs of raising their family.

One important question women should be asking is which contender for president in November will make life easier for women who work or who want to work. Currently 65 percent of women with school-age children work outside the home.

The GOP and Romney have been making a case that job creation and improving the economy are so important to women, they will forget the dust-up that caused the women's flight to Obama, who has a nearly sterling record of supporting pro-women's rights policies. The Romney forces are miscalculating.

Event heaped upon event changed perceptions earlier this year. State legislatures dominated by the religious right attempted to force intrusive methods of ultrasound on women seeking abortions and advocated personhood amendments that could make contraceptives and even early term abortions murder. Opposition in the US House of Representatives to Obamacare provisions requiring employers to provide contraceptives with no co pay passed the Blunt Amendment that would exempt all employers who objected to contraceptives from compliance.

Women suddenly woke up and realized that their access to low-cost contraceptives and even affordable non-abortion-related health care was endangered. Women understand that access to family planning makes it easier to go to work because they have control over their reproductive lives.

Romney had tried to establish conservative credentials by endorsing de-funding of Planned Parenthood and the Blunt amendment. He gave a tepid, tardy response when asked if he supported the Obama backed Lilly Ledbetter equal pay law, saying he would not repeal it. To make a case that it was Obama who is bad news for women (even though Obama's position is nearly sterling in support of women's rights ), Romney claimed that 92.3 percent of jobs lost since Obama took office were lost by women. Fact checkers quickly called those claims mostly false. (www.politifact.com and www.washingtonpost/blogs/fact-checker ). Others pointed out that the jobs Romney wants to cut in his rush to approve the Ryan-GOP budget plan are mostly those held by women who dominate the workforce of health care, teachers, and government workers.

There are several factors that could dim Romney's hope women will swing back to his column.

• Many women remain in shock that long-established rights are under attack with the GOP's and Romney's tacit or expressed approval.

• Today's media provides records of Romney's position. Expect campaign ads run by Democrats reminding women on whose side Romney was in the spring.

• Romney's embracing of the same economic policies that caused the most epic job loss since the Great Depression will get great play by Democrats challenging the GOP's case that Republicans would improve the economy and create jobs for women at a better rate than the Democrats.

For a more personal take on the issue, visit www.mufticforum.com

l 18, 2012

HUD...What ..the department does Romney wants to eliminate

At a Florida fundraiser this past weekend, he was over heard telling donors what departments he would eliminate or consolidate.  Aside from reducing the size of the department of Education and moving it in with another unnamed department, he said he would eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  What does he want to eliminate? What does HUD do? It enforces fair housing rules against discrimination.  From the HUD website, here is what it also has done:" Behind the formulas and the grant eligibility criteria of our programs are the stories of people's lives, whether they are among the 1.6 million responsible first-time homebuyers the FHA has supported since President Obama took office; the 1.8 million people with disabilities we serve through Housing Choice Vouchers, the Section 811, Public Housing programs, and other initiatives; or the more than 900,000 seniors who live with the care they need and dignity they deserve thanks to our Section 202, Project-based Section 8, and Public Housing programs."

Freedom v Fairness in 2012

My column in the Sky Hi News today
In his Illinois and Wisconsin primary victory speeches , Mitt Romney reset his campaign to his original theme: Experience in business gives him special insight into how to restore the economy. His formula: “freedom” for business interests.

President Obama has emphasized: “fairness.” Those words chosen by both men reflect their backgrounds, with whom they connect, and in whose interest they would govern. Now each is branding the other as the most out of touch.

“Fairness” seems to be touching more of the voters. Romney's favorability ratings plunged to 34 percent in a March 23 ABC poll. Obama's ascended to 53 percent. Why?

The rough GOP primary, getting bin Laden, and the slowly improving economy weakened Romney's case that Obama was a failure. Rick Santorum raised the public's consciousness that there was a difference between a person raised in privilege and a coal miner's descendent. Romney helped make that point by committing one gaffe after another, from Cadillacs owned to hefty bets on trivia.

Romney is now ridiculing the president for being ignorant about economic matters, dismissing Obama as an out of touch professor and a government-loving community organizer. What he slyly didn't acknowledge is Obama's life story, coming from the struggling middle class, which Obama is of, by, and for.

Romney's understanding of the economy is of, by, for, and limited to his own world of finance and the self-serving theory that tax cuts restored to the rich create wealth that trickles down to the rest. Trickle-down taxation policies between 2001 and 2008 failed. The rich got 275 percent richer; the rest, 6 percent poorer, and the private sector lost 650,000 jobs. Somehow he missed those facts.

Romney equated his experience in private equity to his ability to create jobs, but what is good for Wall Street does not necessarily translate to what others think is in their interest. In analyzing the auto industry through the eyes of a banker, he concluded it was good public policy that auto manufacturing should go bankrupt in spite of resulting job losses. This sank his poll numbers in some Rust Belt swing states.

His plan to restore the economy is to govern on behalf of business, to free business from more regulation, and to “make the regulators the allies of business.” In repealing Wall Street reform and installing foxes to guard the hen house doors, he would restore the same practices that caused the 2008 crash, epic losses of jobs, and the fleecing of the home-owning middle class.

We know in whose interest Romney would not govern. Last month Romney criticized women for wanting to receive pills and mammograms free of copays through Obamacare and he pledged to end support of Planned Parenthood. He claims those issues are not as important to women as the economy. Both are important, and his support from women has dropped dramatically.

We know in whose interest President Obama is governing and why. He has said his priority for health care reform was inspired by his dying mother's struggle to pay medical bills. His issuing rules to alleviate the staggering burden of student loans was born of his own difficulties in paying them off. His income tax proposal would have the rich pay proportionately no less than the middle class (the Buffett rule).

Unlike Mitt Romney's life experiences , Obama learned much about the poor as a community organizer. He saw firsthand the pain of factory closings and the need for a hand-up to escape poverty when the free market cannot or did not provide it. Freedom to stay poor is a poor kind of freedom.

Whatever happened to the GOP?

My column in the Sky Hi News March 6, 2012
For a political junkie like me, this Republican contest for the presidential nomination has been like watching a hard fought game to determine who goes to the Super Bowl, yet the players do not resemble any team members I recognize. I wonder whatever happened to the GOP I used to know.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) concluded there is no middle road and has announced she will not run again. It appears the Senate has no room for a moderate Republican. Republicans are not my late father's party, either. There are new meanings attached to the GOP, the Grand Old Party's initials.

To my father, the Republican party was indeed Grand and that was his team. To him conservatism was looking at any extreme deviation from a policy he perceived had been successful, with skepticism and a “show me the policy will make things better” attitude. He supported the interests of private enterprise and promoted fiscal and self-responsibility, but not to the extent that he failed take into account societal and national needs. He voted for FDR twice and accepted Medicare as a necessity. He was solidly pro choice and he resented religion using the political process to advance theological missions.

Compromise was not a dirty word; it was what a rational democracy should do. Sen. Snowe and he would have been mostly on the same page.

The Grand Old Party is no longer constructively working with opponents to solve the nation's problems in the most economical and rational way. It has become the “Get Obama Party.” After all, the GOP opines, Obama alone is responsible for the size of the debt and he has failed to fix the worst crash since the Great Depression that George W Bush left him. The answer to all is to repeal Obama.

The reason they give is that the Obama future is causing the present woes. Their irrational position: We need to roll back the future to solve our current problems. They blame high unemployment and the faltering economy on Obama's health care plan, which will be implemented in 2014-2020, and Wall Street reform, which also not yet been implemented. The low tax structure carried over from the prior administration is not yet revamped and the Keystone pipeline (which Obama signals future approval) is years away. Funny: Somehow the jobs and GDP are mysteriously improving in spite of a president who the GOP claims is clearly a failure.

Mitt Romney, who sees himself as the Good Ol' boys Party standard bearer, just threw fiscal responsibility under the bus in his rush to dominate the Get Obama Party. His retooled tax plan is a tax cut chicken for every income bracket's pot. Unfortunately he failed the “show me” test of what government programs would be cut to pay for it, which loopholes would be closed, or how much revenue would be generated.

The rest of Romney's proposals are changes for the worst, not for the better. His panacea for 30 million unable to afford health care: Shove the responsibilities to states, which have not even the wherewithal to pay for traditional responsibilities of education, crime or infrastructure. To deal with the excesses of Wall Street that led to the biggest financial sector failure since the Great Depression, Romney wants to gut our protections provided us in Obama's reform legislation and to return to the practices that caused the crash of 2008. Like gas prices now? He advocates aggression and intervention in Iran, jeopardizing the straits of Hormuz, and most of the world's oil supply.

At least Romney is not trying to change the GOP into God's Own Party, as Rick Santorum wants, nor is he rocking the boat as Ron Paul proposes in his version of the GOP as Go On-Your-Own party with wacky economics, nor does he share the nihilism underlying mischiefmaking Gingrich's Ornery Party.

Nonetheless, I liked my father's version of the GOP better.

How candidates' first impressions count and how policy positions fortify them

My column in the Sky Hi News today..
Print

Copyright 2012 Sky-Hi Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. January, 24 2012 3:01 pm

Felicia Muftic: This long trial by fire

Sky-Hi Daily News

The cost of modern presidential campaigns is staggering, and the money flowing into the process is corrupting.

The length of it is brain-numbing, but there is an offsetting value. This long trial by fire gives us greater insight into the candidates' character, perspectives, priorities, and background that soars beyond the issue of the moment.  We get a better initial impression of which direction his/her knee will jerk, and how that translates into policies that affect us.

Publicly stated Issue positions and platforms are still important because they support or contradict first impressions . A wealthy candidate may be “of and by” a certain background, but what that candidate is “for” could either contradict or validate first impressions. We have had many wealthy presidents who still advocated policies benefiting the less fortunate. Mitt Romney does not fit that mold.

Barack Obama in 2008 made some good initial impressions: In ringing rhetoric and quiet interviews he convinced Americans he understood them because his life story of coming from a white, struggling middle class family of loyal American grandparents. He was of, by and for policies that recognized the declining income of the middle class relative to the upper 20 percent that began years before the Bush crash of 2008.

That impression, fortified by supporting policies, trumped the attempt by the Republicans to paint him as an angry black, or a secret Muslim who would sell out America to the  jihadists.

Familiarity can also bring contempt. Documented character flaws could be Newt Gingrich's Achilles heel, but so far it has not stopped him. It is yet unknown how that would translate on the national stage when contrasted with Romney's or Obama's living the ethic of family values.

Romney is coming across as not being comfortable in his own skin. He seems to be a person who fears that if voters realize what a cold-hearted, privileged businessman he is, they would not believe he has their good interest at heart. His caginess about releasing his tax returns and discomfort with his 15 percent personal income tax indeed plays right into the hands of the Occupy Wall Street movement that  raised the awareness of the unfairness of income disparity.

An initial impression of Romney as a rich guy disconnected from the middle class is backed up by what policies he supports. They are not for the middle class. On public record is his throwing Romneycare under the bus, dumping it on the states with no requirement to make heath care affordable to many more than can pay for it now. On his website he promotes a tax structure that decreases taxes on the rich and increases taxes on some poor. Missing is how he will pay for increasing spending on the Pentagon, a more interventionist foreign policy, and reduction of the wealthy's income tax contributions to the Treasury. His priorities would leave little money for investment in education to enable the middle class to achieve their American dreams or to provide infrastructure job creation or to fund block grants to states to provide services, in spite of his lip service to those goals.

Romney has been a flip-flopping pig in a poke when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. He has changed views and now differs from the remaining GOP field by not yet subscribing to their “privatization” or “replacing it with savings accounts invested in Wall Street.” His disquieting solution: Let's sit down and talk.

However, for sure he wants to make employees pay entirely for their own unemployment insurance by investing it in a savings account. He proposes no safety net if those unemployment savings accounts run dry . He rests most solutions on his brand of job creation proposals, lax regulation of business and lower taxes for the well off, the very same policies that led to the middle class's income disparity and the economic disaster Obama inherited.

Recommend

Romney and the real pious baloney

Column in the Sky Hi News Jan. 18 2012
The world of politics should be forever grateful to Newt Gingrich for introducing to the English language “pious baloney,” or how to call an opponent a hypocrite without using words not suitable for primetime.  

I recall another primary that gave birth to an icon of political speech, “Where's the Beef.” Walter Mondale in 1984 fired away at Presidential nomination contender, Gary Hart, for sloganeering his “New Ideas” without explaining its substance. The phrase was a play on a hamburger business' ad that was dramatized by a feisty senior complaining about a competitor's miniscule patty in a big bun.

This year's icon is the 1 percent (or the 99 percent, depending how it is used in context). Thanks to Occupy Wall Street, it is shorthand for either class warfare or “fairness.” 

Most politicians are guilty of pious baloney, some to a greater degree, some to a lesser degree, shorting the beef, and appealing to a class or special interest. To paraphrase George Orwell's “Animal Farm,” “all politicians are equal; some are more equal than others,” and this year Mitt Romney qualifies for the “more equal” category.

Gingrich attacked Romney for trying to appear as something that he was not. Such posturing happens when a campaign consultant looks at the polls to see how best their candidate could position him/herself, and then attempts to cram the client into a costume that does not cover the body. In the game planning for 2012, a poll must have shown voters wanted a non-DC insider, probably because they were disgusted with the gridlock antics of politicians within the Beltway.

To use Bill Clinton's 1992 iconic phrase, the top concern of voters this year? “It's the economy, stupid,” so drawing on Romney's business background, his advisors saw a good match. A successful businessman, even a cold-hearted “vulture capitalist,” was a person who knew how to cure the slow recovery. Exclusively accenting his business background served more purposes, too, helping the GOP overlook some of his less than conservative record as a governor and his fatherhood of Obamacare. As Gingrich pointed out, Romney had been an aspiring candidate for office throughout much of his life, anyway, and was hardly the non-politician he portrayed himself.

Others in the Republican field are or were not as vulnerable. Rick Santorum is mostly “pious.” Ron Paul is true to an ideology of every person on his/her own and for his/her self regardless of wordly realities, fair or not. Rick Perry's less than intellectual astuteness could not have been invented by any campaign consultant.   Less said about Herman Cain the better, but his 999 flat tax proved to be unfair to the 99 percent. Former candidate Michele Bachmann's frequent gaffes that did not pass the fact checkers substituted some baloney for the beef. Ron Huntsman failed to qualify as a politician since his support was nearly none. 

Romney is not out of the woods, yet. In an era of populist anger at whatever is big (government, corporations) and with 50 percent of America poor or nearly poor,  he is an icon of the 1 percent, of, by and for Wall Street, while Obama is from a struggling middle-income family and genuinely gets the fairness factor. 

Last week Romney tried to convince us that “he is concerned about the middle class,” while at the same time condemning “class warfare” and defending his questionable job-creation record. More pious baloney. Romney's balm to middle class pain is to kill Obamacare that would make health insurance affordable in all 50 states for even those without employer insurance. He promises to kill Wall Street reform with its protection bureau empowered to save consumers from predatory credit practices. His tax proposal would increase average taxes on many poor and would decrease taxes on the rich, per an analysis in the current “Atlantic Monthly.” With friends like him, the middle class does not need enemies. 

US power limited by actions of others and recession

US power is limited by actions of others and recession

My column in the Sky Hi News today
The Greek debt theater and the dizzying rise and plunge of the U.S. financial markets within a 24-hour period brought sharp focus to the fact that there are external events and conditions that limit the ability of our U.S. political systems and leaders to control our own destiny.

The U.S. has two problems: We are not the only power in an interconnected world and the often lamented structure and practice of our political system allows difficult, hard decisions to be uncompromised into inaction. There has been much less attention in this difficult economy paid to foreign and military policy, yet they have equal bearing on our economic well-being. It is time we sit up and pay attention.

The U.S. was in a unique position after World War II because the powers that challenged us or were allied with us were in ruins. Fortress America had survived and we basked in the illusion that we had the military force and leadership to continue as numero uno for our lifetimes. That did not last long.

The Cold War began soon after and the Soviet Union balanced our power and defined our foreign affairs for the next 40-plus years. We had the economic system that allowed us to increase our military might and we were able to spend the weaker communist system under the table.  The resulting illusion then was that we were almighty.

That too did not last long as Europe united and China and India arose. Our mentality is stuck in nostalgia, that post World War II, post Cold War were the natural state of our being. In reality, we have spent most of the post World War II constantly challenged, reacting mostly with military action both threatened and conducted as a succession of powers emerged. We succeeded, but the nagging recession is a new reality.

To continue to look at the world through the prism of military power alone could result in our spending ourselves under the table, too. Our economic ability to rely on continued high military spending, to invade and occupy, is shaky, either because we lack the will to pay for it or even the resources.

Instead of going solo, we need allies and alliances to chip in their blood and treasure. We also need foreign policies that do not goad potential world rivals to fight us with the sword. Trade and diplomacy should help us avoid expensive military action instead.

That is why I shudder when I hear the chauvinistic declarations of some GOP candidates who are either naïve or who appeal to our nostalgic pride in America to see the world from the perspective of solely a military power. The GOP debate this week will be about foreign policy. So far the candidates, save one or two, have shown lack of interest or sheer ignorance of world affairs. One who has ventured to offer an opinion is Mitt Romney, whose pronouncement so far has been to roll back every recent cut to the Pentagon  budget and increase military spending by 20 percent.

Most GOP presidential candidates so far have been united in their approaches: to criticize President Obama for withdrawing our nine year long occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and for his leading from behind by playing a supporting role in Libya. In the meantime, there is no will among any of those candidates to raise taxes or to do more than decimate any social programs to pay for longer engagements .

Another policy proposed by Romney has been to stop trade and engagement with China to force them to adopt policies more favorable to us. China could be our largest future trading partner. Economic interdependence with us could be the best deterrent to future military conflict. The antithesis of the Romney approach has been engagement, favored by Jon Huntsman, former ambassador to China. While Huntsman has little chance of being the GOP candidate, a dialogue between the two may expose Romney's narrow  global vision.

Defining American Exceptionalism

My column in the Sky Hi News today

“American exceptionalism” is the new GOP rally phrase of the day.

Sounds great. I am a believer that we live in the greatest country on earth, but we need to look behind the flag-draped curtain into the definition some Republicans give it by asking a few tough questions.

It is almost exclusively defined in the mind of Mitt Romney, for example, as militarism. His proposal is to roll back all cuts inflicted on the Pentagon, increase spending on our military and missile defense systems. He needs to be challenged on the “pay for” realities.

How? If not by raising taxes, what exactly would he cut while reducing the deficit at the same time? Earned safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare? Our nation's future development of the next generations by cutting money to education? Infrastructure?

Is indefinite occupation of troublesome nations with our boots on the ground the policy a President Romney wants to perpetuate as he berates Obama for our combat troops departing Iraq? If so, how much of the cost of $2 billion per week just for Afghanistan and Iraq should he want us to continue to spend?

American Exceptionalism to many in the GOP means that the U.S. should never undertake military action in conjunction with anyone and that we should always lead, and never lead from behind. Does that mean we should also shoulder all the financial burden of any action ourselves? Does it mean we should unilaterally take action even though the rest of the world, especially our allies, should not be expected to contribute their blood and treasure and leadership?

Would President Romney give the Pentagon a blank check to proceed with weapons systems that reflect yesterday's tactics ? Or would he shift resources to enhance the techniques we have found to be so successful against terrorists who embed themselves among civilians in failed states, or in aiding those engaged in the Arab spring? Drones, air cover, command and control abilities, and special ops, State Department democracy trainers, private security contractors have proved lately to be very effective in taking down al-Qaida and others who have terrorized us. Besides being more effective, these new tactics have resulted in fewer deaths of civilians and it has given us the ability to conduct war on the cheap.

What I have noticed is the U.S. flag is not being burned by the Arabs. On her visit to Libya the day before Gadhafi was killed. Hillary Clinton was greeted by Allah Akbar, and that was just a month after President Obama in no uncertain terms at the United Nations reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel. When has anything like that ever happened? Or when did other Arab nations ever give us material support in an action against another Arab state as they did in Libya?

It was not the U.S. exceptionalism of military might the Arab Spring movement sought to emulate, either. It was their goal to establish democracy and human rights along the principles Obama laid out in his Cairo speech that helped spur them on.

It is true Pakistan, Syria and Iran remain on the unfinished business list. What does a President Romney plan to do that differs from President Obama's approach? Unilaterally invade and occupy ? We know what that got us in Iraq and Afghanistan. More economic isolation? We need more than unilateral action to make that work. More covert action? Covert by definition is secret so we do not even know if we could do more.

Sadly, too, American exceptionalism is taking on a new meaning. We are exceptionally behind most of the rest of the industrialized world in any measure of health care outcomes, in education, and in the conditions of our highways and roads, and our universal access to efficient communication provided by broadband. We are a nation overburdened by debt. That is not the kind of exceptionalism of which we should be proud.

Timing, politics, and Mitt Romney

Republicans want voters to forget the mess the Bush administration left for Obama, the seriousness of which was not evident until the first quarter of 2009, but the damage was caused prior years by government policies of deregultion, failure to enforce regulation, and loose credit standards. A little bit of folk wisdom: the deeper the hole,the harder it is to dig out. To ignore the Bush mess is to deny history.  The Romney announcement pins 100% of the blame on Obama and failed to do more than outline goals for the economy which even Democrats approve.  My column appearing on the on line edition of the Sky Hi Daily News today goes into more thoughts on the Romney announcement speech:
"

Timing in politics can be a matter of astuteness. Mitt Romney launched his presidential campaign the same day economic reports were released that showed an increase in joblessness and the housing sector's double dip. His single-issue pitch was that Obama had failed the American people on economic issues.

Romney's opening announcement was mostly an attack ad against the Obama administration. He latched on to the negatives and failed to accent any positives. While setting goals for the economy, Romney was MIA on the hows and whats he would do better, only asking voters to trust him because he had a great resume. The time is going to come when his political opponents are going to demand that he presents his business plan for the nation in detail.

President Obama carefully timed his rebuttal by visiting a Chrysler plant in Toledo soon after to visually dramatize how he had created jobs by bailing out the auto industry, claiming that if the Republicans had the majority vote in Congress, the U.S. auto industry and one million jobs would have gone down the drain. Obama was inferring that without the stimulus, the hole we are climbing out of could have been much deeper.

Pundits hyped the economic dip as a probable backslide in the recovery. Time will tell if this is a bump or a downward trend. What will count will not be what the economy was in 2011; it will be what the economy is in 2012.

As the Bible says, there is a time to sow and a time to reap. No one on either side of the aisle disagrees we need to sow intermediate and long-term plans to reduce the deficit, but given the lingering fragile nature of the economy, real fear exists that cold turkey austerity at this time as Republicans want could kill off economic growth, delaying the time for any economic harvest.

Republicans holding any agreement on raising the debt ceiling hostage to their ideologically based plan for cuts beginning now are already causing jitters. This may be an effective legislative strategy, but they have created uncertainty about Congress' ability to resolve this. Their actions do nothing to encourage industry and banks to invest the abundant cash they hold are holding in reserve to expand. If Republicans dare carry out their threat to block raising the debt ceiling, interest rates will rise on everything for which consumers use credit, whacking job creation and business recovery in the knees.

Obama had already enacted cutting payroll tax deductions, reforming some job killing regulations, extending the Bush tax cuts, and offering business investment tax credits. These are all short term measures geared to bolster private sector job creation and they are just taking effect.

He had also proposed a long term plan to reduce the deficit by nearly as much as GOP'S much-panned Ryan plan that would have caused seniors to pay more from their own pockets for health care. Instead of running away from the plan, Republicans have decided to defend it. Polls show it will be a hard sell.

Obama's long term plan includes tax increases of a dollar for every three dollars of cuts, saving Medicare as we know it.  While the GOP stubbornly opposes any tax increases down the line on ideological grounds, all commissions studying the deficit problem have concluded deficit reduction will not work without them. The Republicans will have to buck nonpartisan experts on that issue.

The tasks for the coming year for both the GOP and Democrats are straightforward. Dems should and can make a strong case that GOP's cure for the deficit and the economy is worse than the disease and another formula will work nearly as well without the side effects. The GOP will need to assert with credibility that their past judgment calls that events and results have proved wrongheaded are not an indicator of their future performance. The game clock is running."