Archive for the ‘Election 2012’ Category

Background Check Bill Highlights Need to End the Filibuster

Posted on: April 17th, 2013 by Kyle. | No Comments

I’ve long been a critic of the filibuster. The Senate’s rules that sixty percent of its members vote in favor of a measure is an onerous requirement for a democratic society accustomed to majority rule. Today, the chamber once again showed how ineffective it is at governing when a 55-45 majority voted in favor of expanded background checks. You read that correctly. Fifty-five senators voted “Yes” and the amendment still failed because of the archaic rules of the Senate.

The universal background check proposal negotiated between conservative Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Blue Dog Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia was a watered-down amendment that would have required a background check for purchasers at gun shows and online. Previous proposals offered by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York would have also included private sales between friends, neighbors and family. The Toomey-Manchin amendment stripped this language to accommodate conservative senators.

The reason that the measure failed to reach the sixty vote threshold is clear: the NRA opposes any attempt to thwart gun purchases, even if it means allowing criminals and the mentally ill to purchase a gun. They continually lied about the bill in alarmist fashion, saying that it would lead to a gun registry and eventually to confiscation. Then they used threats against senators: a vote in favor of common sense background checks would be considered a vote against the Second Amendment, promising to unleash hordes of cash to defeat their re-election bids.

I’ve argued in the past that the filibuster is itself unconstitutional and should be abolished. The Constitution calls for a majority vote in the House and a majority vote in the Senate with the Vice President acting as the tiebreaker. The Vice President never needs to fulfill his role, however, because the rules of the Senate simply allow minority members to bottleneck any action with as few as 41 senators. This practice must end. Contact your senator and tell them that you support eliminating all filibusters. We cannot allow a small minority of extremists to grind our democracy to a halt.

Obama Backstabs Seniors with Proposed Social Security Cuts

Posted on: April 6th, 2013 by Kyle. | No Comments

Voters who cast their ballot for Barack Obama in November have a right to be angry. After criticizing Mitt Romney as a “reverse Robin Hood” and deriding Paul Ryan’s budget plan as “social Darwinism” (a plan which would privatize Medicare, costing the average senior an extra $6,350 in out-of-pocket medical expenses), the president has proposed a “compromise” budget that would take the ax to Social Security.

“Disguised as [a] deficit reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It’s nothing but thinly-veiled Social Darwinism. It’s antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everyone who’s willing to work for it — a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last — education and training; research and development — it’s a prescription for decline,” the president described Paul Ryan’s budget during the campaign.

Now the president takes his own swing at social Darwinism. Politicians in Washington have found a nice new term for cuts to Social Security. They call it “chained CPI“, which would reduce cost of living adjustments (COLA) to less than inflation. The chart below reflects different COLA projections: blue represents a more generous COLA for the elderly due to higher health costs, red is the current model, and green represents chained CPI.

The president pretended to be a defender of the poor and middle class in the campaign, declaring that “no current beneficiaries should see their basic benefits reduced” and “the administration will not accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations.” Now that he has won re-election on a mandate to preserve both Social Security and Medicare, the president has reversed course and is looking to strike a “grand bargain” with Congressional Republicans on deficit reduction. The problem is that he plans on doing so not by addressing the main drivers of our deficit – the bloated military budget which is rapidly approaching an unsustainable trillion dollars a year or historically low tax rates – but instead by targeting the very program that defines the modern Democratic Party.

Forty-four percent of seniors would live in poverty if Social Security were not in existence today. It is a vital program for the well-being of this nation’s most vulnerable citizens. It has greatly reduced the incidences of homelessness and premature death.

Any tampering of the Social Security system should keep these facts at the forefront of discussion. But in Washington, the impact that cuts have is often one of the least concerns. Many politicians, especially on the right, see Social Security as just another line on the federal budget.

This is a problem for a number of reasons. Social Security is a program that is fully financed by beneficiaries. Social Security is a retirement insurance program that you pay into your entire life. It is a guaranteed benefit, a social contract that our government has had since the New Deal.

Second, a quick look at the budget will show that Social Security does not contribute to the budget deficit and has not for decades. In fact, the federal government has raided the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for things such as wars, tax cuts and stimulus measures. Amazingly, $2.7 trillion was owed by the federal government to the Social Security Trust Fund in 2011, according to a Trustee report.

In other words, the government has taken your retirement money to pay for its pet projects. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars, for instance, are estimated to cost a stunningly high $4 to $6 trillion over the long haul due to veteran medical costs and interest on the debt. Now politicians in Washington want to add insult to injury by cutting benefits to retirees after they blew their life’s savings on everything except for Social Security.

As is typical in Washington parlance, instead of calling chained CPI what it is – a benefit cut – they are instead referring to it as “savings”. And for his part, President Obama says that his proposed budget is a “compromise” which includes chained CPI as a component to deficit reduction.

The problem is that Congressional Republicans weren’t even at the bargaining table. Speaker Boehner rejected the plan out of hand on the basis that it includes any tax increases at all. In fact, it’s a remarkably generous proposal that offers $2 in spending cuts (to Social Security and other cherished programs of Democrats) for $1 in tax increases.

“If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there’s no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes. That’s no way to lead and move the country forward,” Boehner said.

Once again, the president has negotiated with himself. Boehner can now turn around and say that Obama’s “compromise budget” is the starting point for negotiations and we end up near the Ryan budget as an end point. This is not how a negotiation is supposed to work.

The president has failed voters who believed in his message of fairness. He has thrown seniors and future retirees under the bus in favor of an ever-elusive “grand bargain”. Let the Republicans be the ones to call for cuts to a program that is vitally important for seniors. They’ve been doing it since the program was founded nearly a hundred years ago. We’re Democrats. We believe in strengthening Social Security, not leaving seniors at the mercy of overzealous bean counters who harp about the deficit but ignore its true causes. President Obama, we deserve better.

Another Self-Inflicted Economic Crisis

Posted on: January 2nd, 2013 by Kyle. | No Comments

Charles Blow is spot-on yet again with his latest column in which he bemoans the continuous nature of the self-inflicted economic crises that we have witnessed over the past couple years: first with the debt ceiling and then with the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of tax increases and cuts to defense spending and Medicare. While yesterday’s vote to stave off a tax increase on the middle class was a success, it was done by kicking the can down the road rather than resolving fights over the debt ceiling and spending cuts. Blow writes:

“Be clear: there is no reason to celebrate. This is a mournful moment. We — and by we I mean Congress, and by Congress I mean the Republicans in Congress — have again demonstrated just how broken and paralyzed our government has become, how beholden to hostage-takers, how vulnerable to extremism.

A fiscal cliff deal was cut at the last possible minute, covering a minimal number of issues. It was far from perfect and barely palatable. It was a compromise, and compromises are inherently imperfect. No one likes the whole of it, but they balance the bad parts against the good and see beyond dissension.

As the fiscal cliff votes came down to the wire, many repeated the aphorism: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But sadly, we are beyond even that. Now the perfunctory has become the victim of the grueling.

The American people suffered through another moment of manufactured suspense brought on by political malpractice. There was no grand bargain. There was only a begrudging acquiescence.”

Blow goes on to note that the Congress ending on Thursday will be the least productive one in modern history with only 173 public laws past by the end of 2012. Even the “Do Nothing” Congress, which Harry Truman bashed on his way to an electoral victory, enacted 906 laws in their two year period between January 1947 and December 1948. The one main function of Congress, to pass laws, is rendered ineffective by an intransigent group of extremists who are hell-bent on blowing up government itself.

Steps at the U.S. Capitol Building - Washington, D.C.

Now if your goal is to gum up the works of government, one would say that this Congress has done a pretty good job. Many conservatives would be gleeful to see the government shut down and the credit rating of the United States downgraded. But what exactly does that mean for the business community who so dutifully funds the Republican Party?

During the last debt ceiling crisis, in August of 2011, the stock market shaved off over 4 percent of its value, the steepest decline since the start of the recession in 2008. It eroded U.S. GDP growth and slowed the pace of job recovery. With no certainty over fiscal policy, thanks to ideologically rigid politicians, investors are left to seriously wonder whether the U.S. government (i.e. Congress) will make good on its debt obligations. Why would anyone in their right mind invest in a country where every few months there is a new self-inflicted economic crisis?

And let’s be clear on that: the debt ceiling and the so-called “fiscal cliff” are self-inflicted wounds that did not have to happen. In fact, the “fiscal cliff” was created in the aftermath of the debt ceiling debacle of 2011 when Republicans in Congress refused to extend the country’s debt ceiling – even though they had already committed the money in their budgets – unless cuts were made. Now they want to undo the cuts that they themselves had negotiated and extend tax cuts to millionaires. Thankfully, they lost on at least one of those issues but are positioned to yet again drag the country through another economic turmoil over the debt ceiling in roughly two months from now.

Unfortunately, there’s not a simple political solution, either. Many of the Republicans who would be willing to vote for an economically sane approach to governance fear a primary challenge from the right more than they do a general election from the left. This is due in large part thanks to gerrymandered districts, created by politicians in statehouses across the country for political gain to both ensure their party’s control and to protect incumbents. Unless the Supreme Court rules that gerrymandering is unconstitutional (it clearly is a violation of the First Amendment when politicians can silence voters through the lines that they draw) or voters pass state-by-state referendums to create independent map-drawing commissions, we are likely to continue to see a Congress that is inflexible and unresponsive to the demands of voters.

This Congressman Is What’s Wrong With Washington

Posted on: December 21st, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

If you want to encapsulate what is wrong with Washington in a 15 minute video, watch this segment from Morning Joe:

Representative Huelskamp of Kansas came on the show to talk about the so-called “fiscal cliff” and solutions to gun violence. He ended up showing a stunning lack of reasonableness as he refused to budge on absolutely anything. This has been the story the past two years with the Tea Party Congress. Take a far-right position, dig in and never negotiate with the other side in good faith.

Romney Blames Loss on Blacks, Latinos and Youngsters

Posted on: November 14th, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

A week after a resounding electoral defeat, Mitt Romney complained to campaign donors that his loss was due to nothing that he did but was instead on Obama for supposedly giving political gifts to blacks, Latinos and young voters. (He left out the gays!) “The president’s campaign,” Romney said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

It’s not clear what “trillions of dollars” he is referring to, but the deferred action program for undocumented DREAMers is paid for by fees. The restructuring of student loans actually saved the government money by eliminating bank middlemen and instead lending directly to students. Young voters also benefited from being allowed to remain on their parents’ health insurance coverage until the age of 26 but it costs the government nothing. His gripes about black voters must refer to his race-baiting claims about Obama being a food stamp president.

Clearly, Romney is venting but it’s not something you see publicly very often from a failed presidential candidate to list grievances with specific voter groups. Never mind the fact that he ran a horrible campaign. Romney was the least consistent presidential candidate in modern history, wrote off 47% of the country as leeches and supported policies that would adversely affect each of the groups that he mentioned. What did he expect?

Election Prediction 2012: President, Senate and House

Posted on: November 5th, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

The 2012 election cycle has been a long and costly battle against two very different ideologies. By this time tomorrow night we may very well know who the next president will be until January 2017. The most likely outcome based on polling, trends and historical state allegiances portends well for President Obama, Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

President

As I posted on Saturday, President Obama is a heavy favorite to win the Electoral College and thus the presidency. Nothing has changed in the two days since then to disrupt the status quo of the race. In fact, the numbers that have come in since then reinforce a narrow win for the incumbent. Based on the polling average from Pollster.com and on the trends of the race, I predict President Obama to be a 2-3 point favorite in the popular vote and a 332 to 206 favorite in the Electoral College.

For a deeper explanation of where these projections come from I would suggest reading Saturday’s post. The bottom line is that President Obama has a solid base of support in Democratic-leaning states along with consistent leads in a number of swing states (most notably Ohio). Obama has momentum in Florida and Colorado that should be enough to put him over the top in those states on Tuesday night. The map is below:

Senate

After losing six Senate seats in the 2010 election, Democrats looked likely to repeat a decline in their ranks in 2012. It was almost universally accepted that Democrats would lose control of the Senate, given the grim map where they had to defend 23 seats to only 10 for the GOP. A number of incumbent Democratic senators decided to retire in red states, making the situation that much worse for Democrats.

Against all odds, Democrats look poised to actually gain seats after this year’s election. A number of strategic blunders on the part of Republican primary voters, gaffes by candidates and surprisingly strong recruitment by the Democrats has led to a situation where I am predicting a net gain of 2 seats from 53 to 55.

Nothing underlines the Republican Party’s collapse in this year’s Senate races more than Todd Akin, who suggested that the female body had a way to “shut down” an unwanted pregnancy that resulted from rape and thus abortion in such cases was unnecessary. National Republicans pressured Akin to get out of the race but he stayed in and will likely cost their party a seat that they were otherwise likely to pick up from Senator Claire McCaskill. McCaskill is a first-term senator with middling approval ratings who won in the wave election of 2006 with less than 50% of the vote.

Republicans threw away another senate seat when they knocked off Indiana’s long-time senator, Dick Lugar, in a Republican primary. It is still not clear what exactly Lugar did to invoke the wrath of Tea Party conservatives – Lugar remains a stalwart conservative – but their choice of Richard Mourdock has not gone over well in Indiana. Mourdock’s Akin-like comment that God “intends” for pregnancy to occur from rape essentially guaranteed that Joe Donnelly would pick up the seat for Democrats.

A third candidate, Olympia Snowe, decided to retire rather than face the will of far-right Tea Party primary voters. Independent Angus King, who is heavily favored to win Tuesday, will caucus with Democrats. These three seats alone, which were otherwise shoe-ins for the Republican candidates, are the difference between Republicans gaining and losing seats. Democrats will at worst retain their majority on Tuesday and at best gain two seats.

House

Democrats hoped that the gain of over 60 seats for Republicans in 2010 would mean that the tide would fall back and result in a net gain of at least the 25 seats that are needed for Dems to win a majority. It does not appear to be in the cards. The average of polls shows the national popular vote for House races to be neck-and-neck. Gerrymandering by Republican legislatures in a number of large states, including Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, make reaching the necessary 25 seats unlikely. Republicans will retain their majority but Democrats will gain between 5 and 10 seats.

Conclusion

In 2008, I accurately projected the outcome in every state except three: Florida and Indiana (which went for Obama) and Missouri (which went for McCain). Ultimately, I was too conservative in my view of Obama’s performance in 2008. In 2010, I correctly projected the outcome of the country’s Senate races. We’ll see how 2012 turns out in the days to come as ballots are cast and votes are counted. I’ll analyze the results in a new post when all of the data is in. Until then, go out and vote!

*Edit*

A previous version accidentally colored West Virginia blue. The estimated Electoral Vote total of 332 is unaffected by this error.

President Obama Heavy Favorite For Tuesday

Posted on: November 3rd, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

President Barack Obama is a heavy favorite to win on Tuesday against Republican Mitt Romney according to an analysis of state-by-state polling data. It appeared after the first debate that Romney might make a race of it with polls showing a surge in his direction, but within two weeks of the first debate the polling averages settled towards a statistical tie. The majority of national polls now either show a literal tie or a slight Obama advantage nationally.

U.S. President Obama Speaks at Intel's Fab 42

The president will have plenty of reason to smile if the polls hold up.

Even more important than the national popular vote, though, is of course state-by-state results. If current polling is accurate, Obama will win in the range of 281-347 electoral votes. Obama importantly holds consistent polling leads in Ohio where eight of the most recent polls have Obama ahead, one shows a tie and only one has Romney ahead (and it is sponsored by a Republican affiliated pollster). Likewise, Florida has moved in recent weeks from leaning toward Romney to becoming a true toss-up. Obama leads in four of the ten most recent polls out of the Sunshine State, Romney leads in four and they are tied in two. It is literally a toss-up, although momentum favors Obama. Even more bleak for Romney: the twenty-two swing state polls released on Friday showed Obama leading in nineteen, Romney in one and two ties.

Ultimately, Obama has a much stronger base of Democratic-leaning states than Romney has GOP-leaning states. If you give Obama all of the states that have went to the Democrat in the past five straight elections, Obama has 242 Electoral Votes (EVs) of the 270 that are required to win the White House. Add in Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico (where he has polled consistently ahead in each state by respected non-partisan pollsters) then you would reach 281 EVs, which I consider the low end of Obama’s likely results on Tuesday night. Throw in Colorado, which is close but has leaned more Obama than Romney most of the cycle, and you reach 290. He would reach 332 by adding Florida and Virginia to Obama’s column, both possibilities but still less likely than the other states as they are near literal toss-ups. Finally, he could reach 347 by winning North Carolina, but he has polled worse in NC than any of the other states. Frankly, North Carolina is the only “swing state” that Romney can more or less count on. For Romney to win he would need to sweep the table of all of these states, plus pick off

Of course this analysis is based on polling data that could be influenced by the recent hurricane. It’s not clear how the hurricane and its aftermath will change the state of the race. It’s distinctly possible that the hurricane can hurt Obama’s popular vote total in places like Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania where power has not been fully restored and people are more worried about rebuilding their lives. Clearly you can’t blame them if the election becomes a secondary thought. Nonetheless, Obama should win those states without much problem. It would just affect the national popular vote total.

I will have a full state-by-state prediction on Tuesday for both the presidential election and Senate races. Stay tuned!

NaNoWriMo: And So It Begins…

Posted on: November 2nd, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

For the second year in a row I’ve decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month. Basically it is an intense month-long writing marathon that challenges authors to compose a 50,000 word novel in just thirty days throughout the month of November. I fell short of finishing in the month last year with Operation Bald Eagle. It ultimately took two months (which I thought was still respectable). This year I’m determined to actually get it done in one.

The book is tentatively titled Dusk Before Dawn and is a direct sequel to Operation Bald Eagle. “What’s it about?” you ask. Good question!

A presidential election is underway to replace a corrupt government overrun by lobbyists and super PACs. The CIA already brought down a sitting president and members of Congress who colluded with a crazed business mogul intent on starting a war with China during Operation Bald Eagle, yet monied interests continue to have a stranglehold on American democracy. Meanwhile, international events in Europe promise to upend the election in a big way. Agent Ethan Clark and the CIA must confront global conflict while closely monitoring the integrity of the American elections.

It’s definitely a timely topic with just a week to go before the election. If you’re worried that it is loaded with partisan ramblings, though, then you have nothing to fear. This book is meant to draw attention to the rampant corruption of our current political system with its limitless flood of cash from millionaires and billionaires at the expense of average voters. It does not attempt to blame one party or the other. Since it is a work of fiction it uses obvious hyperbole, but it still acts as a warning for the future of our democracy.

You can read Dusk Before Dawn as it is being written by visiting my NaNoWriMo page at Smashwords (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/250909). Check back throughout November for updates on the writing process!

Tentative book cover

Campaigns Should Donate Money to Hurricane Victims

Posted on: October 31st, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

Here’s a novel idea: instead of running attack ads that tear the country apart, how about the candidates for president donate the remaining money allotted for attack ads to the relief efforts on the East Coast? Both President Obama and Mitt Romney have raised hundreds of millions that could go a long way towards ensuring that the needs are met for Red Cross and other organizations providing direct relief to storm victims. Not only would it bring the country together at this important time, the campaigns could also do actual good for people that desperately need it.

Obama, Romney and Super PACs Raise Over $2 Billion

Posted on: October 26th, 2012 by Kyle. | No Comments

Campaign 2012 now has the dubious distinction of being the most expensive one in American history. President Obama and Mitt Romney have raised a combined $1.7 billion dollars so far. Add in the Super PACs and you reach $2 billion in total fundraising. This is a huge amount of cash that could have been used in a more productive manner than attack ads but apparently America’s richest do not feel that way.

Even more depressing is the barrage of over a billion dollars worth of mostly negative television and radio ads. Clearly they have a dwindling affect as the campaign drags on, but the campaigns continue to use them. In economics, they call it the law of diminishing returns, but who ever said politicians were good at economics?

People drown out an ad that they see a hundred times in a week and will tend to ignore that candidate. You would think that Mitt Romney’s supposed business expertise would inform him of this. A good ad needs to connect emotionally with the viewer, not annoy them. Political ads come across as over-the-top exaggerations or outright lies. Good advertising is much more subtle in its approach than “Candidate X hates babies and Candidate Y loves America.”