Open letter to Mr. Huckabee on the recent election

Dear Mr. Huckabee, 

You believe that the defeat of your party in the most recent election must be evidence that "our country has slipped into a deeper state of dependence on government than I wanted to believe."  I am confused as to how an election victory for one party can have anything to do with our "dependence on government" unless of course you believe that anyone who votes for a black man must ipso facto be either of color, dependent on government, or both.  Since most of those who are dependent on government - through programs from social security and Medicare to Medicaid to veterans benefits to food stamps - are white, and many of them voted for Mitt Romney, how does this support your thesis?  Do you really believe, as your colleague at Fox News Bill O'Reilly claims, that minorities are looking for handouts from their government, like children looking for free candy?  What evidence do you have from exit polls or other demographic data do you have that this is the case?  

As a man well-versed in Biblical allegories, you compare your national government to "Goliath."  Since Goliath was a giant individual, not a giant government, is this not an odd comparison?  Also, in the Biblical contest between David and Goliath, David, not Goliath, won.  If you are trying to make the case that Mitt Romney was trying to slay what you call the "Goliath of government", why did he lose?  Since the Old Testament story is an attempt to show that god favored David even over a giant, doesn't the latest electoral outcome say exactly the opposite - that god must (at least this election cycle) favor what you see as a giant government?  Or perhaps Mitt just wasn't up to the role of playing David. 
Of course, for any of this to make sense, President Obama must have been responsible for runaway growth of this "Goliath" of a government. As it turns out, most of the growth in government came from his predecessors, particularly the last one, and only two presidents since Eisenhower have had lower rates of government growth than President Obama. 

You go on to claim that our "real problems are not political, but spiritual."  Do you really believe that those flooded out of their homes, men, women and children of all faiths, would agree with you?   Do you think FEMA should be put in charge of setting up places of prayer rather than distribution shelters for food and shelter (through cash vouchers)?  Do the one out of five American children in poverty many of whom have to skip at least one meal a day and go hungry - many who belong to devout families - really need spiritual fulfillment more than food in their bellies?  And why can't they have both?  Since both campaigns generally agreed on the problems facing our nation from the effects of the Great Recession to foreign policy difficulties abroad, what puts you in a position to be able to second guess both, identifying "real problems" that were evident to neither Obama nor Romney?  Since Romney never offered a spiritual solution for what ails us, how would voting for him have solved these "real problems" you believe actually face us? As you admit, "both parties have failed to acknowledge that" (meaning agree with you).
You claim that "Democrats have not wanted to even acknowledge the need for God in our public institutions" to which I must respond that you have not even wanted to acknowledge the need not to split infinitives.  

But I digress.  In virtually every public address, President Obama, a Christian, has acknowledged god in some form and has led prayers during time of national tragedy.  At no time has he moved to strip religious language from the Pledge of Allegience, for example, even though it was inserted in 1954 during the McCarthyist era.  He has not challenged any courthouse displaying the 10 Commandments, and has gone out of his way to please the bishops lobbying against having to implement healthcare reform, offering them multiple exceptions that they have publicly and loudly denounced through press conferences (rather than negotiating in good faith). 

You further claim that Republican leadership mentions god not to out of humility but only selectively, such as in the unquestioning, unconditional support of the current right-wing Government of Israel, which you describe as a "badge of courage."  I can agree with the absence of humility part, but how are Republicans behaving like lambs on the issues of "life and marriage"?  As I recall, they quite vocally opposed abortion prohibition even in the case of rape or incest and the life of the mother (which they believe is never endangered by pregnancy, something that many obstetricians would be curious to hear), and as recently as a week ago, Paul Ryan was telling evangelical Christians that President Obama was waging a "war on religion." The Republican party even went so far as to claim that conception through rape is god's will and that in the case of "legitimate" rape a woman's body has a way to "shut that whole thing down."  Is this lamb-like behavior?  

Regarding the Lion of Judah, his mention in the Bible is not associated with a war on abortion or gay marriage, none of which are really mentioned in the Bible at all.  In your Christian tradition, the Lion of Judah has come to represent Jesus who is allegedly (according to one Biblical version, contradicted by another) from the tribe of Judah.  In Revelation 5:5, this lion makes a cameo appearance:  

And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.  

Again, loosening seals is not very violent and has nothing to do with gay marriage.  Even the version of the Lion of Judah that entered pop culture through Aslan in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia does not rant against marriage equality or in vitro fertalization or stem cell research, as you seem to imply he should. 

You suggest the Republican party should "gear up and get ready for the next battle."  What battle?  We transfer power peacefully in this country via ballots, not bullets.  Are you advocating a coup?  And if you just accused the GOP candidates of being lambs rather than lions, why do you write next battle?  You just said they didn't really fight for what you call our "real problems."  I am confused. 

You claim that the Republicans are a "party of principle" but what principle are you referring to?  Do you not mean principal - it's accumulation and freedom from taxation?   Are you implying that the Democratic party is not a party of principle?  Or could it just be that we share many principles, but prioritize them differently, or that we see different means of achieving the same ends from alleviating poverty, providing healthcare to all citizens, ending war and capital punishment, and other Christian mandates?   Is it really your role, as a mortal among mortals, to be claiming that yours is the party of god and that any Christians who vote for President Obama would go to hell as you did prior to the election?

After bemoaning how the Republican party didn't mention god enough or in the right way, you then claim that they should not "stop believing what we believe" but rather "do a better job of doing what we're supposed to do."  Circularity aside, that claim seems to negate everything you said earlier.  

Finally, you claim that [only by Republicans] "attract[ing] voters and win[ning] elections" can you "save America from herself." Why are you so mistrustful of America that you feel she is inherently self-destructive and needs to be saved?  And do you honestly believe that this salvation can only come from the Republican party?  Since America is not a fixed entity, but a work in progress and a democratic one at that, who says America has to agree with you?  Apparently "she" doesn't.  You seem to confuse losing an election with losing a great Biblical battle between good and evil.  Isn't this a tad grandiose?

One thing the Bible does warn us against is idol worship.  When agreement with our own ideas becomes a litmus test for godliness and righteousness, are you not really saying "my will" rather than "thy will" be done? And if so, how is this compatible with the humility of a good Christian?


Sincerely,


Mike Victor


Appendix:

Growth of government:
After the spending burst of 2009, Mr. Obama, constrained by Congress and aided by repayments of bank and auto bailouts, increased spending just 0.5 percent a year over the next three fiscal years when adjusted for inflation; only two other three-year periods since Eisenhower had lower spending growth. - New York Times


Full O'Reilly and related quotations:

– BILL O’REILLY: “The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?” [Fox News, 11/6/2012]

– RUSH LIMBAUGH: “It’s just very difficult to beat Santa Claus. It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Clause especially if the alternative is being your own Santa Claus. [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/7/2012]

– SEAN HANNITY: “One other thing that we need to come to terms with as a result of last night. What appears to have happened is that the liberal welfare state in this country has now grown. More and more Americans have become dependent on that welfare state. As they have, they have found themselves siding with the party of government.” [Fox News, 11/7/2012]

– STUART VARNEY: “With Obama’s victory, the takers have taken over. The makers are clearly in the minority.” [Fox Business, 11/7/2012]

Twelve Things the Republican Party might learn from this election.

Twelve Things the Republican Party might learn from this election



To my Republican friends:  I know what you are feeling right now.  We went through it in 2004.  We survived and you will too.
But here's the thing.   Buried in that campaign are some nuggets of true wisdom.  As Ben Franklin once said, That which hurts instructs.  Perhaps this isn't the best teaching moment and I really do not write this in a spirit of gloating (it was a close, painfully expensive election after all). I simply hope that we can stop the food fight, grow up, roll up our sleeves and work together as adults.
In that spirit, I offer you twelve things Republicans might learn from this election.

Don't lie.  It worked with Iraq, it worked (to a certain extent) with the intelligence failures leading to 9-11, but I really do think the American people have a learning curve.   Don't talk about Jeep moving jobs to China when the CEOs of those companies have internet connections and are bound to hear those whoppers sooner or later.   Don't say the economy is going in the wrong direction when you know damn well that a.) it was in freefall when President Obama took office and b.) it may not be moving as FAST as you like, but the DIRECTION has been UP since it bottomed in 2009.  Don't talk about a War on Religion (see below) that does not exist.

Don't tell the truth.  I know this sounds contradictory, but if you are going to run on a platform by the 1% for the 1% don't ever actually say that out loud, especially if someone might be recording you.  If you do lie, lie consistently, otherwise the times you do tell the truth, we will discover not just the fact that you were lying all along but the complete disdain you have for most Americans, including soldiers, veterans, retirees, the poor and disabled.  In an age of tiny cameras and YouTube there are no closed doors anymore.  To solve this problem, how about writing a platform and running a candidate that honestly represents all Americans?  It would end up being a lot easier since you don't have to keep track of what version of Romney you are supposed to be today.

Don't make up goofy stuff about the president.  If you don't like his policies, his values, or even the color of his skin (I'm looking at you, Glenn), just say so.  People might even forgive you for saying that you are harboring a little racism even in 2012, but it just sounds weird to have Donald Trump out there fronting your latest conspiracy about his birth certificate or college transcripts or a black power transformative agenda rooted in Kenyan anticolonialism (Newt).  Just say it:  he does not look like your image of a president which is closer to George W. Bush on a circling aircraft carrier in a custom made flight suit in front of a Mission Accomplished banner.  That sort of thing.

Stop attacking women.  They make up half the electorate and they vote.  Perhaps your staff didn't tell you that, but most women, even those who might agree that abortion rights should be restricted a bit here and there, do not like the idea of having men in government coming up with all sorts of nutty ideas about how they are going to force rape victims to get a vaginal ultrasound probe that doctors say they don't need and women say they don't want.  And for god's sake drop the whole contraception thing.  It's weird.  That was settled law a century ago and the science hasn't changed all that much.

Don't misrepresent science.  If you don't think oil companies and coal companies who contribute mightily to your campaigns would be as profitable if they were regulated a bit more or had to compete with a thriving solar or wind power industry, just say so.   Some Americans might forgive you.  But don't make jokes about not intending to do anything about rising sea levels because those rising sea levels might rise in a major, election-changing way days before the election.  American education might not be as strong as it should be in this area, but most Americans trust NASA, the National Institute of Health, the CDC, and scientists in general far more than they trust lawyers in suits writing laws saying that climate change doesn't exist (or that abortion causes breast cancer or never is needed to save the life of the mother).

Don't talk about rape except to say how you would prevent it.  Rape is not funny and there is no way to put it in a cute little evangelical package and use it as a vehicle to sell your anti-abortion stance to the American people.  Most (but not all) rape victims are women and you are not going to get any mileage with them parading men in front of the cameras telling them how their bodies have way to "shut that whole thing down" (if it's "legitimate" of course) or how it's a gift from god (yes, you were referring to the baby, not the rape, but no rape, no baby).  It's your weakest argument against abortion and take my advice - just don't go there.  Ever.

Vet your candidate.  If you demand to see all of his tax returns before he runs, guess what - the American people are going to want to also.  Maybe his tax returns are as boring as his anecdotes about his wife falling on her rump on a stage once (true story), but the more they are withheld and the more Mrs. Romney said she had told "you people" all we needed to know, the more our imaginations went to work.  It's like an obscenity.  Just say the word.  Bleeping it out only makes our mind fill in the blanks with all sorts of dastardly things that might not even be there.  And if they are... well, perhaps the GOP should run another candidate with less dirt.

Stop talking about a war on religion.   Wars involve killing people.  Wars on religion often involve rounding people up, putting them in ghettos or camps, then killing them.   Asking religiously-affiliated universities and hospitals (that receive massive amount of federal funds) to play by the same level, federally-mandated playing field as everyone else is not the same as the Holocaust or the Crusades.  No one is forcing bishops to use contraception, but if they offer their employees healthcare, that plan has to include copayment-free access to them.

If you are running on a platform that is essentially that of President Bush, at least have the decency to invite him to campaign and to the Convention.   It's hard to sell another package of tax cuts and a more muscular foreign policy (does this mean another war?) to the American people without explaining why this would be less disastrous than the first time we tried that.  And who better to explain the nuances of how a Romney first term would really be a Bush third term, than W himself?  Admittedly he is not the most articulate of spokesmen, and probably has an awful lot of brush to clear on his ranch, but he, like Romney before the first debate, can be coached.  Not having him even attend, much less speak at a Convention that highlights and amplifies all of his policies is just plain weird.  His silence on the campaign trail was palpable.

Don't try to buy an election - it's a waste of money.  You guys spent billions (and so did the Democrats admittedly) raising limitless corporate donations, but even Karl Rove and the Koch brothers were slapped down this cycle.  It doesn't mean you can't dust yourself off and figure out a way to come roaring back in 2 or 4 years, but you need more than money.  You also need honesty, a commitment to reality as the rest of us know it (facts and stuff), and a plan that is different than the one that got us in the mess you criticize President Obama for not having fixed fast enough.  It still comes down to one citizen, one vote, and more of us are voting than ever before.  And most of us don't watch Fox.

Don't exploit a terrorist attack for political gain.  All right, admittedly it worked for you in 2004 when you almost literally ran on the legacy of 9-11 (a masterful twist since this happened on your watch).  But don't try to create a conspiracy over the tragic deaths of 4 Americans abroad when you guys ran an election on your failure to prevent the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans.   You can't have it both ways, as much as you would like to.  And when Americans die abroad, please have the decency to keep your "unraveling" theories to yourself.  It's mean-spirited and at least one of the victim's relatives asked you to stop.

Finally:  Leave Big Bird out of this.  He may have a funny voice but he is like ten feet tall and is a hell of a lot more popular than your candidate.



And before you get out your tea bags and assault rifles and orthographically-challenged signs demanding your country back (again), please consider how that turned out the first time.  We got healthcare done anyway, the Supreme Court upheld it, and - what do you know? - President Obama is still your Commander-in-Chief.  The American people chose him not once but twice.

Be adults.  Let's work together on real problems.  God knows we have enough to solve.

What if Every American Voted and Every Vote Were Counted?

What if Every American Voted and Every Vote Were Counted?
Answer:  few Republicans would win the presidency.

Most Americans don't realize it, but we live in a far more Democratic country than the national polling figures (which survey likely voters) would have you believe.   Using some recent population and voting data and making a few simplistic assumptions, it's clear that the GOP's efforts to limit franchise (suppress the vote) reflect a reality-based fear of what would happen if all Americans could vote and all votes were counted.  

The first question is what proportion of Americans fall into each ethnic group which is a much harder question to answer since so many Americans identify more than one race. 

Race / Ethnicity	Number	Percentage of
		U.S. population
Americans	308,745,538	100.0 %
White or European American	223,553,265	72.4 %
Black or African American	38,929,319	12.6 %
Asian	14,674,252	4.8 %
Hispanic or Latino	50,477,594	16.4 %

To simplify, I adjusted the number of Latinos downward to make the percentage equal 100%, I came up with the following based on 2010 Census data.  This is not entirely unjustified since those identifying as Hispanic or Latino are also far more likely to identify as also belonging to another group. Note that this understates how much Republicans would lose in a demographically balanced contest since I am reducing a group that votes Democratic by 2:1:

Race / Ethnicity	Number	Percentage of
		U.S. population
Americans	308,745,538	100.0 %
White or European American	223,553,265	72.4 %
Black or African American	38,929,319	12.6 %
Asian	14,674,252	4.8 %
Hispanic or Latino	31,588,702*	10.2%*

 *truncated

The second question is that although not all members of each group are of age to vote or legally able to vote (another issue altogether), what would happen if the proportion of voters falling in a certain racial group equals the proportion in the population?   This assumption would not be true for those groups with very high proportions of under-18 although with time, ceteris paribus, the young cohorts will eventually be of legal voting age.  

A critical assumption is that each group votes roughly in proportion to its most recent race-specific party preference (to keep the number of columns to a minimum, I will report only Democratic affiliation and ignore (sorry) independents or third parties that have fewer than 5% of the vote in recent elections):  

Race / Ethnicity	% of votes cast for Democratic candidates by group
White or European American	45% **
Black or African American	95%
Asian	60% *
Hispanic or Latino	67%

   ** 45% Democratic, 55% Republican is a longer term historical white vote split; the ugly reality is that the recent 39% : 61% split in 2012 exit polls seems a function of racism of white voters against an African American presidential candidate, a bias that Republicans cannot count on in future elections. 

- sources:  2008 exit polls, also mypolitikal.com, NPR
 
Now it should be pretty easy to calculate what proportion of the overall electorate would vote Democratic if all Americans voted in proportion to their numbers and preferences:

	% of each group voting Democrat (as a % of all votes cast):
All Americans:	54.26%
White or European American	32.58%
Black or African American	11.97
Asian	2.88
Hispanic or Latino	6.83

In other words, each presidential contest should result in over 54.3% of the electorate voting for the Democratic candidate versus 45.7% voting Republican.   By comparison, President Obama won the 2008 election with 52.9% of the popular vote.  (See below for some more election outcomes.)  Had he won with the actual demographically-predicted vote, he would have won by a margin of 11,034,525 votes instead of the actual 9,522,083 vote victory.  The reassuring thing about 2008, however, is that far more African Americans and other traditionally underrepresented voting groups cast ballots, bringing the 52.9% closer to the 54.3% ideal.

But these numbers should worry the GOP since in order to win a national contest, they must continue to have whites vote and have their votes counted more proportionally than any other racial group.  If you crunch the numbers, for Republicans to win, white voters must make up 87.4% of the ballots cast and counted (120.7% of their actual 72% demographic makeup), and that would only allow them to squeak by with a 50.1% to 49.9% victory. And if current demographic trends continue, the situation will only become more challenging as white voters drop as a proportion of the population.

So don't be surprised if you see two parallel goals continuing and intensifying in the GOP: 
- appeal to more white voters especially with racist overtones ("food stamp president" and all the Birtherism nonsense come to mind); and 
- suppress the non-white vote by measures designed to make it more difficult for African Americans in particular to cast their votes and have them counted (voter ID laws, racially charged redistricting, shutting down early voting, and cutting budgets for polling places (which disproportionately affect already under-served African American polling sites).


Other historical election percentage outcomes
Bush won in 2004 with 50.7% of the vote and in 2000 lost the popular vote, 47.9% to 48.4%.  
The last time a presidential candidate won with more than 54.3% of the popular vote was in 1984, when Reagan carried 58.8% of the vote (in 1980, however, he won a more modest 50.7% of the vote) or 1972 when Nixon won 60.7% of the vote.  
No one in recent memory topped Lyndon B. Johnson's 61.1% victory in 1964, however.  Even Eisenhower won only 57.4% in 1956.  

Romney, meet a few members of the 47% not taking personal responsibility for themselves

Unemployment Rate Falls Below 8% to the Lowest Level Since President Obama Took Office

Unemployment Rate Falls Below 8% to the Lowest Level Since President Obama Took Office



These BLS data beneath the headline might put to rest the Romney talking point that the drop in the unemployment rate is a function of fewer people looking for work:

 There were 802,000 discouraged workers in September, a decline of 235,000 from a year earlier... Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them...
 The number of unemployed persons, at 12.1 million, decreased by 456,000 in September.
 Total employment rose by 873,000 in September, following 3 months of little change. The employment-population ratio increased by 0.4 percentage point to 58.7 percent." - source:  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Jesus and the 47%

And he gathered his disciples together and said, "I say unto you - well 47% of you anyway - that you have grown dependent on a handout. Verily, I say unto you, as you treat the least of these (except for the free-loading 47% - you know who you are) so do you do unto me. And those among you who are outcast, downtrodden, without taxable income - you are now uninterested in caring for yourself. And those who have much will have more as long they create jobs which they do not need to do until a Republican is president. And if you are struck on the cheek by an enemy, turn the other cheek, unless that enemy is a member of the 47%. Oh, wicked 47%ers, what profit you if you win a free meal but lose your potential for corporate personhood?

Jesus - at least the Jesus who comes to us through the oral tradition that was later written down, edited, rewritten in parts (there is no other Jesus) - was obviously speaking like someone who felt, as he put it, that the Kingdom of Heaven was nigh. His movement was essentially an apocalyptic one, predicting an end of the world as they knew it before some of his followers had tasted death, as he put it, meaning in their life times. Therefore, if your time horizon is contracted, your priorities change. You behave differently if you believe the ship is about to sink than if it will reach the port safely (and your kids' college bills are there waiting to be paid). Give everything away and get ready was essentially his message. Live as the birds in the field live, he said in Matthew, who do not (according to belief at that time anyway) gather food for the future but have faith they can find sufficient food each day. One of the essential difficulties with Christianity is that this short-term model is not viable long-term economically if taken literally, so a balance must be found, not just in my humble opinion, but in that of most of those who have identified themselves as Christians in the centuries that past after all his followers tasted death but the world was very much its old bloody, labor-demanding, investment-rewarding self.
Mitt Romney's solution to this problem seems essentially ignore it, pretending Jesus never said these things, or if he did, that he was just kidding. Hoard, invest, don't be bothered helping the poor who are, he tells us in a moment of candor, simply looking for a hand-out and will only be enabled by your helping them.
But Jesus did say these things and most of what he said had to do with such a radical view of wealth redistribution and personal material wealth (eschew it in favor of spiritual wealth) that he would never have been invited on Fox and Friends had it existed, Glenn Beck would have warned his listeners (viewers?) not to listen to his message, and O'Reilly would have devoted an entire season to bashing the War on Wealth launched by this long-haired hippie-looking Jewish teacher spreading a subversive message of class warfare.

Romney's Tortured View of Money, Logic, and What it Means to Pay Taxes

Links to the complete video of Mitt Romney's May 17th "47%" remarks were released along with a transcript and if you wade through the remarks, they raise all sorts of interesting questions.


The comment that got him in the most trouble was the 47% Mitt Romney will "never care about":

47% of Americans pay no income taxes. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect... And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for for their lives. 

Wow. So if you don't pay federal income taxes, you are not taking personal responsibility or caring for your life?

The most interesting question is why he didn't disown his remarks immediately after they were made public. Not Mitt.  He seemed to endorse them, quibbling only that they were not elegantly expressed.   Not elegantly stating something is when you call your friend fat instead of "heavyset" or "stocky." Either way, you are still saying they are heavy.
Mitt just called 47% of the country dependent on the federal government (which is silly) and therefore (as night follows day) pro-Obama. I am not sure how he could have stated that more elegantly. The idea was rude (and baseless) not its expression.  (For the record, I neither depend on government aid, pay zero federal taxes (I pay a higher rate than Romney), but I do support President Obama.)
The issue is not that the video was put out there or even that it was taken but that Mitt Romney, a candidate for president of 100% of the people, actually said these things about 47% of the people he would like to represent. Instead of admitting that we got him and he really doesn't think those things (the "I was lying to a bunch of people to get $10,000 a plate from them" defense) he doubled down and essentially endorsed the idea, quibbling only about the elegance of its expression.

Romney has a very strange view of money. On one hand, he believes that his father's money played no role in defining him. His father's wealth and political connections had nothing to do with his wealth and political connections. (Why, he might even be better off if he were Mexican!)
On the other hand, if someone is poor,disabled, unemployed, or leaves the workforce to care for an elderly parent, the absence of taxable income automatically makes that person irresponsible and not caring for themselves.
So, to review, high family income has no effect on individual worth (meaning any financial success must come from some other factor, such as talent for hard work).  Low or modest family income, however, automatically means the person is irresponsible. (Even worse, it means they vote Democrat.)
When I hear Mitt Romney talk about the poor or even the middle class, he reminds me of an opinionated barber sounding off loudly about parts of the world he has never visited.  As David Brooks points out in his column Thurston Howell Romney:

It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.
It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.
The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.
Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.

And what sort of view of taxes does Romney really have?  He is on record as saying that he pays not a dime more than he legally has to and I know from the tax record he has released that he pays a much lower marginal income tax rate that I do, but after months of being criticized for this low rate and what it might say about him as a person, it seems Romney actually agrees that there is a direct relationship between taxes paid and personal responsibility.
But having Romney lecture us about paying our fair share of income tax is like having George W. Bush lecture us about serving in the military in a time of war. These guys always act as though we are incapable of Googling them.

Here is a thought experiment: since Bush was working so hard to lower taxes and theoretically (if his rhetoric was true and these were not just tax cuts for the very rich) increasing the number of Americans at the margin who pay no income taxes, are the Republicans trying to increase the number of people who "are not taking personal responsibility or caring for" their life? If the Tea Party gets its way and government is shrunk to as close as zero as they can get it, doesn't that mean that most Americans will turn into deadbeats by Romney's definition of those who pay no taxes?  Is the Tea Party and the GOP therefore promoting irresponsibility?

Here is another thought experiment: if a population ages and a greater proportion is elderly, most of whom pay no income or low income taxes, does this mean that medical advances and the care of our elders create personal responsibility? Is a society with less advanced medical care and no social security or Medicare equivalent more personally responsible therefore? Should a medical researcher be discouraged from developing the next generation of artificial hip or a cancer drug out of fear that such developments are mathematically guaranteed to make the number of irresponsible people not caring for their lives rise, all things being equal?
Ditto for abortion: consider that most terminated pregnancies are unplanned for and unwanted. If forced to bring every pregnancy to term, the resultant children would be much more likely to be poor and a net consumer of federal, state, and local resources. By Mitt's logic, these children are irresponsible and not caring for their lives. So is Mitt Romney making a case for abortion? Or does he think he will encourage a pregnant woman to carry an unintended pregnancy to term by calling her and her child irresponsible and not caring for her life?


But in another setting, Romney tells us that he would have been better off Mexican.  Yes. If he were Mexican and he could find someone like his dad who paid for his private school, tutors, college, law school, and bought his house for him. And if no one discriminated against him along the way or asked to see his papers then got a little trigger happy when he was reaching for them. If he didn't "self deport" out of frustration for Arizona's discriminatory immigration laws White Guy Mitt supports. That sort of thing.

It's a very strange world where someone with ideas so offensive is polling at 45%.

No Apology: This Book is Terrible - a Review of Romney's Opus for Americanus Terribulus

The first questions begged by this book's title is who is apologizing and who is making the argument that America should not be great.  It's a bit like titling a book, The Case for My Daughter's Being Valedictorian.  What father would not like his daughter to excel and who would make a cogent argument against such excellence?  But greatness of any sort must be earned, not argued for.  I love America, but imagine the Australians, Japanese, and Swiss love their countries also.  What Romney argues in this book is not that America should be great but that it should use its military and economic might to win greatness whether it has earned it or not.
He begins with a quotation from an unlikely source, Dwight Eisenhower, the man who warned us of the dangers of a perpetual war footing that Candidate Romney seems to think is just swell, even coining the phrase "military industrial congressional complex" (he left the congressional part out at the last minute considering it was Congress after all he was going to be giving his warning-laced farewell address to).  "We must be ready to dare all for our country," Ike intones from the frontispiece of Romney's book.  Wow.  Coming from a man who did not even serve in our country's military and who has consistently argued that having to pay 13% or so to his country in taxes is unfair, I can hardly wait for how Romney reconciles the bold words of the Supreme Allied Commander with the comfortable, fabulously wealthy lifestyle of Willard Romney.
We must secure our "freedom, peace, and prosperity" he tells us.  How?  "By strengthening America."  A sentence later he circles back, saying with no more clarity that a strong America will enjoy prosperity following a period of hardship.  He implies we are in a period of hardship as great as the Civil War, World War I or II, and that - perhaps with the help of his book - we can rise up and do it!  What remains unclear, but he spews out these general tautologies with the breathlessness of someone saying Something Really Important.
His idea of hardship sounds almost insulting to Americans struggling to feed children or find healthcare:  pulling weeds on his admittedly "prosperous" estate as a child.  
He borrows from his father's story and grandfather's story, morphing it into his own.  My grandfather left behind his possessions once in Mexico so somehow that should make Mitt understand the middle class today.  My dad made the cover of Time Magazine, turning GM around, so gosh golly that shows that if you trust me, I'll turn America around too.  From what exactly?
Romney launches into a rambling survey of American history.   Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush won the cold war, he tells us, ignoring the role played by millions of nonviolent demonstraters who courageously rose up in Eastern Europe and later the Soviet Union without any assistance from us (giving a single rousing speech doesn't count).   He also ignores the role played by the mujahadin, including one Osama bin Laden, in bleeding the Russians dry in Afghanistan and showing the futility of even the mightiest of superpowers against determined Islamic fighters not afraid to die.
Like many people ungraced by military experience, Romney seems to believe military might (or "greatness") is a matter of counting things that go boom.  He is particularly keen on counting boats.  George Washington had few ships; the British had many.  We now have "over one hundred ships" fewer in our navy.  Ipso facto, we must be less great.
A single astonishing paragraph illustrates everything that is wrong with this book and by extension the man trying to sell himself through it.  On page 9, he summarizes the greatest economic expansion in human history that took place under President Clinton (although you would never know it since Romney does not name him) as "in some ways, we advanced as a nation during these years."  But did we really, he asks?  We decreased our military by 400,000 troops, got rid of those ships and "more ominously, we gutted our human intelligence capabilities."  As a former military intelligence officer, this is news to me, unless he is referring to the dozens of Arab linguists fired because they were gay, a policy Romney supported until recently.  Somehow - in the same paragraph! - he goes from this sweeping indictment of our military and intelligence services to a tongue-clucking musing about teen pregnancy, drug use, and pornography.  In the mind of Romney, these are somehow related, as though a sweaty encounter in the backseat of a car is made more likely because we have fewer ships in our fleet.
He dismisses the massive Wall Street-inspired meltdown of 2008 as a "panic" and the modestly increased financial regulation still bogged down in committee or stripped of any real teeth as "intemperate actions."  But maddeningly, as is true throughout the book and the campaign, Romney offers no specifics.  This is barbershop politics, the finger-wagging lament of a wealthy white man who believes he is among friends and can let loose with a tirade of stereotypes - untethered to any real facts - about how the country is going to hell now that a black man runs it.
So what would have Romney have done in 2008 that was not "intemperate" and what evidence does he have that it would have been as successful at stopping the financial implosion then reversing it?  He doesn't say.  He just says it would work, trust him on this one, just like Pop's plan worked at General Motors.
What exactly is he saying in a sentence like this:  "It is time for America to pursue the difficult course ahead, to confront the looming problems, to strengthen the foundations of our prosperity, and to secure the sources of our liberty and safety"?   Good thing Mitt thought of it (whatever it is) and isn't it just awful that the Obama administration (by implication) is doing none of these things, or not doing them effectively?  If you're not asleep by the end of this sentence, you're disappointed to have stayed awake for this pulp.
America is sick, he seems to be saying, so sick that it requires a radical treatment, although he is as vague about this treatment or its probability of success as he is about the diagnosis or why we should abandon the current treatment plan which - although far from perfect - is at least moving in the right direction.
Those on the far right (although Romney was once moderate, he is now courting the far right who dominate the Republican party, so must talk and write like one) have an unenviable problem:  they must make the case that the country is in terrible shape while not appearing to be defeatist or even anti-American.  They must criticize the federal government while making clear that somehow that does not mean that they hate the country of America which by their definition ignores the one out of five Americans working for or supported by the federal government, including the military they profess to love.  They must play up the fact we have not recovered completely from the horrific mess President Obama inherited without reminding voters who created that mess.  They must never mention Bush and hope everyone just forgets that Romney's antidote to what ails us - deregulation and lower taxes - is what got us in this mess in the first place.   Romney also has a far larger philosophical problem that he does not even begin to tackle in this book:  why we should trust a party that alleges government can do nothing right to run said government.

Romney's "politics of envy" charge is as insidious as it is dishonest

1/13/12  Mitt Romney has made some pretty interesting claims recently.  President Obama, who extended Bush's tax cuts and yielded to GOP demands for draconian cuts to government programs that help the least among us - in the midst of a severe economic downturn no less -  is engaging in a fundamental "transformation" of American society.  He is "divisive" never mind that he won a Nobel Peace Prize in large part because he was seen as a unifying figure in a country and world torn by 8 years of hyper-partisanship.   He has weakened our military, never mind that he increased Pentagon spending every year, concentrated forces in Afghanistan in the fight against al Qaeda, and killed Osama bin Laden, something Bush claimed not to be all that interested in doing after his initial attempts failed.
But perhaps the most insidious accusation Romney made was his charge that those arguing for a more progressive income tax and curbs on corporate greed are engaging in "politics of envy."
This is one of those sly little begged questions, an mini-argument wrapped in an easily digestible, mild-appearing package.  Like the "death tax", "tax burden", or "class warfare" the phrase "politics of envy" makes a subtle but important charge without overtly making it.   This phrase, no doubt created in the same spirit as that of the speech writers who brought us "Axis of Evil" and "welfare queens", is the latest in a series of shameless Republican attempts to redefine a sin as a virtue and a virtue as a sin.
Throughout the Bible, but particularly in the teachings of Jesus, greed, materialism, and contempt for the poor are universally condemned.  Romney, who considers himself a follower of these teachings (plus some additional teachings added by Joseph Smith (such as the idea that Jesus visited North America or that the Native Americans are a lost tribe of Israel (they just don't know it so require Mormons to reeducate them)) surely understands this, and much that Romney 1.0 (the version running for governor of Massachusetts) said reflects this understanding that Romney 2.0 (beta) seems to have forgotten. 
It may be that some who criticize those for the sin of greed are themselves acting at least in part out of "envy."  I would be surprised if this was not the case, but frankly I don't care and neither should Romney.   Ignoring the fact that reading minds to discern sinister motives is impossible to verify (however fun it may be to speculate upon) it is possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.   Indeed, the entire economic system which Romney seems to be defending takes it as a given that selfishness and greed at the individual level can translate counter-intuitively into tremendous good at the societal level.  As Adam Smith put it so eloquently in Wealth of Nations:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages.

So the question should not be whether the motivations of some in the bottom 99% are less than pure, but whether what they are advocating is true, and more importantly whether the sorts of reforms Romney opposes would provide the greatest benefit to society regardless of why some might advocate them.
And at any rate, the envy of some in the bottom 99% does not not absolve the most egregiously greedy in the top .1% of their sins.    Rupert Murdoch or David Koch, who serve as Exhibits A and B as to why greed gone wild can be so destructive, are no less harmful to our Republic or its values simply because some who want to hold them accountable also envy their ill-gotten gains.  There is nothing envious about questioning why a man should be rewarded billions for running a sensationalistic chain of news outlets that among other things hacked the voicemail of a 13 year-old murder victim (possibly interfering with the desperate attempt to prevent her murder and giving the parents cruel hope that she was alive (deleted messages indicated she might have her phone and be checking it)) . 
I want a progressive income tax, but am not envious.  A progressive income tax would hurt my personal economic interests and it's hard to understand what it is I envy - I am more than comfortable materialistically.   My motivation in criticizing the greedy and arguing for policies that attempt to curb it or to correct the damage it causes is not one of envy.
The most compelling arguments for financial reform and a return to historically normal tax rates are based on fairness, not envy.   Few object to someone accumulating astonishing levels of wealth who has earned it - Bill Gates and Warren Buffet come to mind - but it is much more difficult to defend wealth for wealth's sake, regardless of source.  Indeed, recent polls suggest that about 43% of Americans believe most wealth is earned and therefore deserved.  But there is something disturbing about the idea that the chief executive of UnitedHealth Group, for example, Stephen J. Hemsley in 2009 being awarded almost $100 million, especially if one realizes that every penny of that bonus must have been offset by denied mammograms, pap smears, and chemotherapy, since ultimately the business of collecting premiums and disbursing payments is a zero-sum game; executives can only pay themselves what they withhold from providers and patients.  Similarly offensive is the idea of a former government employee, such as Rick Santorum, cashing in on his access to privileged information and being paid hundreds of thousands by lobbyists wanting the inside scoop on how best to manipulate Congress.   Or a CEO taking hundreds of millions from workers, shareholders, and taxpayers simply because he had a sleazy lawyer write a "gotcha" contract that mandated he receive this money in the event he was fired (I wish I were making this up; Home Depot CEO Richard Nardelli took home over $210 million after being fired 1 year into his job in 2007).
In boom times, such misappropriation of wealth is at least unethical even if not always technically illegal (as the rules are currently written, rules Romney does not want to change).  In hard times with so many millions of Americans without incomes, losing their homes and their access to healthcare, such behavior is egregious, even treasonous.  Resources that could be used to strengthen the backbone of American society - the middle class - are shunted instead into the coffers of a handful of individuals who in turn wield extraordinary power to fight reform, reframing it as greed-driven or even class warfare.
To use another analogy, I have no problem with someone who paid twice as much for a cruise getting a cabin twice as big, but if the ship goes down and there are people drowning in the water, the idea that those who paid more for their ticket should get more room in the lifeboat (regardless of whether there is enough room for everyone) becomes morally indefensible.  Those drowning for want of lifeboat space the Murdochs and Kochs of the world don't want to bother granting are not envious.  They simply want to live.
Similarly, the person who advocates for universal healthcare so someone else's child can receive cancer chemotherapy, let's say, is not acting out of greed, but compassion.   Most of the reforms I support do not directly affect me, but they would help our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, people I have never met.   I don't know why it bothers me so much that there are such unfortunates, but I don't want to spend my life protecting my loot if it means ignoring their plight.  As Martin Luther King once put it, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
There is no envy motivating those who want to shut down payday lenders or force credit card companies to stop preying on those most vulnerable, such as indebted college students or the poor.   Forcing coal mining companies to change their carbon monoxide detectors' batteries is not a question of greed but of fairness and respect for the sanctity of human life.  (Or is the life of a coal miner worth less than that of a fetus or stem cell?)
In the same book so many conservatives cite with almost biblical authority (although I wager few have read it), Adam Smith advocated a strong government role to reign in corporations and protect the least among us:

But in every improved and civilized society, this is the state [of neglected moral and physical development] into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.  [emphasis added]

There is a difference between nudging up a top marginal income tax rate 3-5% and confiscating all private property.  Romney either does not understand this or wants American voters not to understand it.   If Romney is to be taken seriously, then Reagan was engaging in the politics of envy when he raised taxes in 6 out of his 8 years in office.  Was Bush I when he had to raise taxes to pay for the deficits his predecessor created?  If fighting for social justice and opposing greed are the "politics of envy" then Jesus must have been one of the most envious historical figures.   There is nothing wrong, of course, with running on a platform of materialism.  Nor is there anything wrong per se with reminding voters at every opportunity that you consider yourself Christian.  But doing both simultaneously is intellectually and morally dishonest.