. . . because much of the content relates both to Washington, D.C., and "outside the beltway" -- the heartland, specifically Iowa -- and because after going from Iowa to Washington via Texas and California I subsequently returned, From DC 2 Iowa.
"Most of the state’s largest cities, including Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, have a SSMID. It can help a business district go as far as reinventing itself in the face of changing economic forces or simply making a few targeted improvements." -- Editorial, The Gazette, November 1, 2011
What on earth is an "SSMID"?
It's a cash fund to benefit downtown businesses that I enthusiastically support.
"Whaaa?!" as Jon Stewart might exclaim.
It's no secret that I suffer a severe case of skepticism when it comes to federal, state, or local proposals that involve transferring taxpayers' money to the bottom line of private, for-profit businesses. See, e.g., "The True Price of TIFs," October 1, 2011, and associated links.
So what is it about SSMIDs? Do I now, at long last, "owe my soul to the company store," have I surrendered to the increasingly-powerful forces of that blend of capitalism and government called corporatism, or fascism? (Even Sarah Palin has attacked what she called "the corporatist agenda"; see "Palin Attacks 'The Corporatist Agenda,'" February 9, 2011.)
The "owe my soul" line is from the song "16 Tons," here sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford:
So why do I like SSMIDs?
First off, I find them kind of amusing. This is an age of "rugged individualism," anti-taxes, anti-government, anti-social programs. As Herman Cain has put it succinctly, "If you're not rich, it's your own fault."
So the prospect of the business community voting to increase its taxes is kind of delicious.
It is business persons recognition that there is a point to our doing things together that we cannot do alone; that there is a point of imposing on ourselves the obligation to pay for those things. It is their recognition that "the marketplace," run by disconnected individuals trying to maximize their own profit, is not enough -- even to increase individual businesses' profits, let alone to serve the best interests of all the people.
Substantively, I do like SSMIDs for the same reasons I don't like TIFs.
(1) TIFs involve government officials using money that isn't theirs; it's the taxpayers' money, other communities' and public entities' money. It's very difficult to predict new jobs, or other public benefits from a TIF; the only thing a TIF guarantees is that one lucky business person will be personally enriched with public funds.
SSMIDs, by contrast, involve businesses' money, their money put to purposes designed to improve everyone's business. SSMIDs cost the taxpayers' nothing. In fact, to the extent the SSMID board invests wisely, thereby increasing businesses' profits and property values, SSMIDs may actually reduce taxpayers' obligations.
(2) TIFs require that public officials make decisions about private businesses in which they have personally invested nothing, and about which they may know even less. They did not qualify for public office, and get elected, because of their prior knowledge, experience, and record of business success.
The record of public officials' dispensing of subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks, and other financial incentives to private business is for the most part unknown. There often is no record, no accountability, no transparency, no follow-up to see what was or was not accomplished with the taxpayers' largess, which of the predictions of benefits proved out and which did not. See, e.g., Chris Earl, "The Push for Tax Dollar Transparency; Will People Care?"The Gazette, November 1, 2011 (as Iowa state Senator Joe Bolkcom puts it, "If we’re going to write a check to somebody for $10 million, geez, don’t you think people should know?”).
But to the extent there are records, there are plenty of examples of what, by any measure, would have to be chalked up as, at best, failure.
The decisions of SSMIDs are made by business people. My impression is that everyone is better off when that's the case -- owners, shareholders, bankers, taxpayers, and government officials. That's not to say we -- and business -- don't need or benefit from some regulation of business, to keep competition fair and vigorous, and protect consumers from the worst abuses. It's only to say that when the question is, "What's the most efficient and effective way to promote a community's downtown businesses?", the best answers are far more likely to come from business persons than from government officials.
Not incidentally, this approach also leaves the losses where they ought to fall -- on business, not taxpayers. If government officials guess wrong with a TIF, all the losses fall on taxpayers. If an SSMID board guesses wrong with, say, a promotional idea, the losses fall on business, where they ought to.
So that's a few of the reasons why I applaud Iowa City's business community for its support of a local SSMID, while remaining skeptical regarding TIFs.
As it happens, apparently not every downtown business person shares my enthusiasm. Notwithstanding the popularity of SSMIDs throughout the country, including Iowa (as the opening quote on this blog entry illustrates), they (and some of those commenting on the newspapers' stories) attack SSMID's as if this was some radical new idea that all right-thinking business people should obviously oppose.
For some, a tax is a tax is a tax. But for what is currently a large enough plurality of them to bring this SSMID into existence, they see the benefit of people working together for common ends that they cannot accomplish, individually, on their own, and the benefit of paying for the effort with a form of taxation.
Hopefully, the lesson we may all learn from this effort is that government is another example of our coming together to accomplish those things we cannot achieve on our own, and that taxes are a useful way to pay for those benefits.
Taxes are, after all -- like cash, bank loans, credit cards, and barter -- just another way of buying the stuff we need. See, e.g., "It's Not About Taxes," October 24, 2006 ("We buy from government our roads and bridges, public schools, libraries and parks, fire and police protection, judicial system and jails, and the safety of our food and drugs. To speak of 'cutting (or increasing) taxes' makes no more sense than cutting or increasing 'cash,' 'checking accounts,' or 'credit cards.' Taxes are just another form of currency we use to buy stuff.").
# # #
Here is the entirety of the editorial with which this blog entry began, along with brief excerpts and links to some of the recent news stories about this particular SSMID.
Tonight, the Iowa City Council can take the first step toward approving a tax that many downtown business owners are asking for. Asking to be taxed more may sound unusual, but there’s solid thinking behind the proposal.
The council is considering a self-supported municipal improvement district — SSMID for short. An additional $2 per $1,000 of taxable value in property taxes, starting a year from now, would give the downtown business district substantial funds for marketing, beautification and other improvements — well beyond what other business groups currently provide.
We think the proposal ties in with city leaders’ stepped-up emphasis on revitalizing downtown with a mix of more retailers, owner-occupied housing and office space. The SSMID wouldn’t raise taxes on residents or businesses not in the district. And it gives downtown owners a say in how the money should be used, via their own board.
Most of the state’s largest cities, including Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport, Cedar Falls and Waterloo, have a SSMID. It can help a business district go as far as reinventing itself in the face of changing economic forces or simply making a few targeted improvements.
Iowa City’s downtown faces tough competition from the Coralridge Mall and other nearby retailers. But it also offers distinctive flavor because of its popular Ped Mall area and the proximity of the University of Iowa. Since voters OK’d the 21-only bar rule and it took effect in June 2011, both city and UI leaders have a big stake in pushing downtown’s evolution from a predominantly alcohol-fueled entertainment district to a thriving city center with more variety.
The SSMID can be a valuable tool in the evolution. And heading into tonight’s city council public hearing and discussion, support from business owners is substantial. State law requires at least 25 percent of the property owners and 25 percent of the assessed property value in the district to sign a petition to consider a SSMID. Iowa City’s numbers are 39 percent and 49 percent respectively.
The process comes with transparency and safeguards. Three of the seven city council members will not vote because they are downtown business owners. Approval requires at least three “yes” votes on each of three readings. A protest petition can stop the plan if signed by 40 percent of owners with 40 percent of the property value.
The UI has said it will contribute another $100,000 annually, reflecting the downtown’s importance to the institution, boosting total SSMID funding to about $380,000.
The proposal comes with no guarantees of success, of course. But who better to take this calculated risk than the business owners? They understand that being proactive improves the odds for a prosperous future.
The Iowa City Council has approved the first reading of an ordinance to add a self-imposed tax to many downtown businesses to raise funds aimed to benefit the central business and near northside districts.
The Self Supporting Municipal Improvement District ordinance would be a self-imposed additional taxing district that would levy a tax on the properties within the district to be used toward marketing, business retention and expansion, information management and physical improvements.
Karen Kubby, chairwoman of the Downtown Association said the district had gained enough support from the community to move forward with a recommendation and handed in an additional signature during the Tuesday council meeting that she said brought the approval rate up to 40 percent.
The SSMID, proposed by the Downtown Association and recommended by the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission, would impose a levy of $2 for every $1,000 of taxable income for the district’s companies — which would be coupled with an annual $100,000 contribution from the tax-exempt University of Iowa for the school’s investment in a “vital downtown,” according to a memorandum sent to City Manager Tom Markus. . . .
"Fear of the government, fear of kidnapping, fear of harassment and abuse. These fears had kept the [Egyptian] regime in power for three decades. . . . This all changed on January 18th, 2011 when Asmaa Mahfouz decided to face her fears and ask others to join her in protest. She posted a video of herself online . . . calling on others to join her at a protest in Tahrir Square on January 25." Moral Heroes. [more]
The rest, as they say, is history.
Amy Goodman's powerful and moving juxtaposition of that famous January 18 video with her own interview of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz at the site of Occupy Wall Street, provided more than just a gentle reminder of this remarkable young woman's role in the news at the beginning of this year. It caused me to see her, what she did (and continues to do), what she stands for and represents, in a very much brighter, multi-faceted and awesome light.
Do watch this excerpt from Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now," of October 25, 2011. It runs from 12:00 minutes in, to 25:46:
(Actually, the cut begins 15 seconds before 12:00, with news from Occupy Oakland. And I apologize for not providing an embed here but, unlike YouTube (where the New York interview is not yet posted) it was not immediately clear how to embed the segment from Democracy Now into Blogger, other than the link it does provide for Blogger, above.)
The two videos that Amy Goodman has combined spark so many thoughts:
- This powerful, additional illustration of the insight I came to at least 35 years ago that I call "the natural superiority of women" (something Mahfouz demonstrates as well as espouses).
- I consider myself a feminist, in the dictionary sense of someone who is "advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men." As such, I think that men and women alike need to watch this video and reflect on what it represents.
- This young woman succeeded in shaming Egyptian men into joining in public protest: "If you think yourself a man, come with me on January 25th. Whoever says women shouldn't go to protests because they will get beaten, let him have some honor and manhood and come with me on January 25th. If you have honor and dignity as a man, come and protect me, and the other girls in the protest."
- I am just so proud of this young woman, whose eyes now look down upon me from my law school office wall, next to those of Dr. King, as inspiration and reminder of how little I have accomplished, how little I have sacrificed, in a life I profess to have committed to "the public interest," compared with what they have each done in far fewer years. Aside from an occasional assassination threat (usually drunken), all I ever did was to willingly "speak truth to power," and espouse positions, that I knew would prevent my ever being offered the most lucrative jobs in Washington -- because I felt that's what "public service" requires of one. But no one ever actually took a shot at me; I didn't have a lot of desire for what those jobs require you to do anyway; and I'd even written a book about the virtues of knowing the difference between "enough" and "more" (Test Pattern for Living).
- Both King and Mahfouz knowingly confronted death (and one was killed) for the causes in which they believed. Aside from our brave military men and women in combat, and the journalists who bring us their stories (such as Christiane Amanpour), most displays of what passes for male macho shrivels by comparison.
- Her historic launching of the 2011 "Arab Spring."
- How an idea like non-violent protest, and the the power of ordinary people in a democracy, can spread -- from Gandhi, to Dr. King, to Asmaa Mahfouz, who then brings it back again to America, to inspire and encourage us at Occupy Wall Street and throughout our country.
- There were (and are) many uses of cyberspace, the Internet, and social media in this year's global popular protests; but none with the drama and impact of Mahfouz' video on her Facebook page, copied to YouTube, inspiring millions of Egyptians to action, and now seen by probably hundreds of millions more.
- For those who mourn for our species' future, and especially those (such as parents and teachers) who work with, and hope for, the coming generation, Mahfouz is a beacon of possibility, a reminder that -- while there may be none exactly like her -- there are others coming along who have at least some of her smarts, her courage, her natural leadership qualities, her moral values, and her ability to articulate (in at least two languages) all of the above.
- The spark of hope that may be found in "the American fall" that has followed "the Arab spring;" our own, very much smaller and milder, "Occupy" movement. A spark that she reached out and helped to fan with her presence at Occupy Wall Street.
- And to think she doesn't even have a law degree! Just a B.A. in business from Cairo University. Amazing. :>)
The ICCSD School Board and Superintendent have indicated in a variety of ways their inclination to demolish Iowa City's 80-year-old landmark, Roosevelt Elementary School, and sell off the land to the highest bidder, regardless of the winner's proposed use, adverse impact on the neighborhood, and loss of the benefits from this irreplaceable asset for the residents of Iowa City.
It's pretty much a done deal. But it's still worth getting your oar in this polluted water, so I'm going to ask you a favor. A meeting of the Iowa City Community School Board Facility Committee is being held this afternoon in the Central Administration Office, 509 South Dubuque Street (just south of the Post Office), at 4:00 p.m. If you're free, please attend. I'm teaching a class this afternoon until after 5:00, so I can't go. (Unfortunately, meetings on some of the most important Board matters tend to be held when most citizens can't attend.)
The point I'd like to register is that those making these decisions have a responsibility that goes beyond a "marketplace profit maximization" approach. Even if they personally owned this land, one would hope when disposing of it they'd give some weight to the Iowa City community's interests.
But they don't own it. The people do; this is public land. Taxpayers paid for it; stakeholders benefit from it. The Board members have no more moral right to exercise their whim in this matter than would a similar number of developers.
And what it looks like we're going to end up with is a cabal of both.
There are few remaining plots of land of this size and beauty, both west of the river and close to town. This is truly irreplaceable public land. And it should remain as such.
It need not remain a school. It need not be "owned" by the school district. There are many possible options for its maximum contribution to the community. A few of them have been spelled out in this morning's Press-Citizen by Lori Enloe, whose column is reproduced below.
If the Board wants to profit-maximize, it might want to consider a hog confinement, a smokestack industry, or using the beautiful nature trail through the ravine as a nuclear waste dump -- any one of which would benefit from easy access to the railroad, and would undoubtedly bring top dollar.
No; profit maximization, which sometimes works well in the for-profit, commercial sector of society, is inappropriate in this instance. This is not the Board members' land. It is the people's land. It has been for over 80 years. The Board has no need to curry favor with local developers. And this particular piece of property is not a "must have" for developers anyway. They're doing fine.
Now read Ms. Enloe's op ed column, and join with me in this eleventh hour effort to bring common sense and human decency to the Board's management of our land.
Imagine a place close to downtown Iowa City where the community can:
Gather for meetings and performances in a renovated historic building.
Participate in a community garden.
Play soccer and cricket.
Produce art and take classes for all ages.
The closing of Roosevelt Elementary has created this possibility.
In June 2009, the Iowa City Community School Board voted to close Roosevelt and repurpose the building. A repurposing committee (as a district administrative committee) met from October 2010 to February with the charge of making recommendations for viable solutions for repurposing Roosevelt.
Their ideas were placed in four categories:
Repurpose the property.
Sell to another public entity or nonprofit organization.
Sell to a private entity with stipulations.
Sell to a private entity with no stipulations.
After some consideration of the committee’s recommendations, Superintendent Steve Murley met with the Miller-Orchard neighborhood to discuss his findings and the neighborhood’s concerns Sept. 20. He suggested that he will recommend that the School Board sell the Roosevelt school property.
I encourage the School Board either to repurpose Roosevelt or to sell it to someone who will repurpose the building and property for the local neighborhood and community.
The School Board has a great opportunity to be visionary when it makes a decision about the Roosevelt property when the elementary closes next year. Roosevelt sits very close to the new Iowa City Riverfront Crossing Development and is close to the University of Iowa — making it a great location for creating space that would fit the diverse needs of all of Iowa City and the immediate neighborhood.
The board should consider the gathering spaces that individuals and groups have created in Iowa City and Johnson County — such as Uptown Bills Coffee Shop, Backyard Abundance, Taproot Nature Experience, New Pioneer Co-op Earth Source gardens, Summer of the Arts, community pianos and many other examples — that are important for the sustainability and livability of our community.
Let’s find a way to revitalize and to repurpose the Roosevelt property for our community. It could be a place for a magnet school, early childhood education or a combination of educational programs. Although not revenue neutral, these options could make use of innovative public/private collaboration to offset the cost of the project.
Alternatively, the district could carefully select a buyer who will create a multiuse nonprofit or for-profit community space that could include edible community gardens, a gym, art studios, performance studio and evening classes.
The possibilities are great if the school board invites proposals and provides a long enough time frame for an individual or group to create a proposal for this space and raise the money to purchase it.
Come and listen to the School Board and superintendent as they talk about Roosevelt at their Work Session and Facility Committee meeting at 4 p.m. today in the Central Administration Office, 509 S. Dubuque St. _______________ Lori Enloe is past president of Roosevelt Parent Teacher Organization and parent of two children in the Iowa City Community School District.
__________
To remove any possible suspicion, or curiosity, as to my direct, personal interest in this issue, (a) I did not attend Roosevelt Elementary (I went through the University's experimental schools, the University Elementary and High School ("U-Hi")), and (b) I neither live, nor own property, in the immediate neighborhood of Roosevelt; it is across the tracks and at the opposite end of Greenwood from me.
Pete Seeger started singing Les Rice's "The Banks Are Made of Marble" in 1950. It's a song that might have been written 50 years earlier, or 100 -- or today.
Now back to the centuries-old history of these bank protests, and excerpts from Steve Fraser's article:
The only thing really surprising about the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it didn't happen sooner. The United States has a long history of friction over policies that enable an elite to thrive at the expense of ordinary people.
The earliest tensions emerged soon after the Revolutionary War, when Jeffersonian democrats raised alarms about the "moneycrats" and their counter-revolutionary intrigues. . . .
In the first half of the 19th century, followers of Andrew Jackson inveighed against the Second Bank of the United States [and] feared the bank was part of a systematic monopolizing of financial resources by a politically privileged elite.
That tradition was embraced again just after the Civil War, when the Farmer-Labor and Greenback political parties were formed out of a determination to break the stranglehold on credit exercised by the big banks back East.
Later in the 19th century, Populists decried the overweening power of the Wall Street "devil fish." The tentacles of finance, they insisted, not only reached into every part of the economy but also corrupted churches, the press and institutions of higher learning, destroying the family and suborning public officials from the president on down. . . .
William Jennings Bryan . . . during his campaign for the presidency in 1896 . . . was taking aim at Wall Street, and everyone knew it.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the antitrust movement . . . worried most about . . . "the money trust" . . . skewered in court and in print by future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, subjected to withering congressional investigations, excoriated in the exposes of "muckraking" journalists and depicted by cartoonists as a cabal of prehensile Visigoths in death-heads.
[T]he new century . . . included reformers in statehouses and city halls, socialists in industrial cities, strikebound workers from coast to coast, working-class feminists and antiwar activists. Financial interests were blamed for . . . pillage and labor exploitation while practicing imperial adventuring abroad. As the movements made clear, everyone but Wall Street was suffering the consequences of a system of proliferating abuses perpetrated by "the Street."
[D]uring the [1930s] Depression . . . as now, there was no question in the minds of the "99%" that Wall Street was principally to blame for the country's crisis.
In addition to rallies and marches of the unemployed, there were hundreds of sit-down strikes . . ., foreclosures forestalled by infuriated neighbors and occupations — even seizures — of private property. There was a pervasive sense that the old order needed to be buried. . . . President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his determination to unseat "economic royalists" who were growing rich off "other people's money" while the country suffered its worst trauma since the Civil War.
1. Unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression.
2. At the same time, corporate profits are at an all-time high, both in absolute dollars and as a share of the economy.
3. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low. In other words, corporate profits are at an all-time high, in part, because corporations are paying less of their revenue to employees than they ever have.
4. Income and wealth inequality in the US economy is near an all-time high: The owners of the country's assets (capital) are winning, everyone else (labor) is losing. Three charts illustrate this:
(1) The top earners are capturing a higher share of the national income than they have anytime since the 1920s. Top decile income share in France and the United States [20th Century; roughly equal until 1980; in 2003 about 43% in U.S., 32% France]
(2) CEO pay and dcorporate profits have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, "production worker" pay has risen 4%
(3) After adjusting for inflation, average earnings haven't increased in 50 years; Average Hourly Earnings, 1964-2008 (in 2008 dollars) [e.g., 1979: $18.76/hour; 2008: $18.52/hour]
By now, "Occupy Wall Street" has not only spread across America, it has gone global. As the New York Times reports, "Buoyed by the longevity of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Manhattan, a wave of protests swept across Asia, the Americas and Europe over the weekend, with hundreds and in some cases thousands of people expressing discontent with the economic tides in marches, rallies and occasional clashes with the police." Clara Buckley and Rachel Donadio, "Buoyed by Wall St. Protests, Rallies Sweep the Globe,"New York Times, October 16, 2011, p. A4.
And yet the bankers -- along with most elected officials and candidates -- still refuse to take it seriously, or understand what it's all about.
Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.
But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.
"Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll," said one top hedge fund manager.
Iowa's own Senator Charles Grassley's reaction is illustrative and consistent with the Times' report: "I assume that it’s a lot of unemployed young people looking for some dates.” Quoted from KCCI-TV in Graham Gillette, "One Helping of Irony s Now Being Served,"Des Moines Register, October 16, 2011, p. OP 3.
As he so often does, "Tom Tomorrow" captures the Establishment's response to the Business Insider's statistics, above:
It will not stop until there is an end to the corporate abuse of the poor, the working class, the elderly, the sick, children, those being slaughtered in our imperial wars and tortured in our black sites. It will not stop until foreclosures and bank repossessions stop. It will not stop until students no longer have to go into debt to be educated, and families no longer have to plunge into bankruptcy to pay medical bills. It will not stop until the corporate destruction of the ecosystem stops, and our relationships with each other and the planet are radically reconfigured. And that is why the elites, and the rotted and degenerate system of corporate power they sustain, are in trouble. That is why they keep asking what the demands are. They don’t understand what is happening. They are deaf, dumb and blind.
Freedom, justice, dignity and equity have seldom, if ever, been beneficently granted. They have almost always required a struggle, and too often required bloodshed. And they take time. It took us awhile, and the Civil War, to begin the process of releasing African-Americans from the bonds of slavery -- longer still to grant women the right to vote, and provide African-Americans the benefits of the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Public Accommodations Acts. There are gains, and there are setbacks. There are swells of popular participation, and retreats into apathy, resignation, despair and depression.
No one can know, can predict, where Occupy will go and when. It could fizzle. It could grow into marching millions. It could become a third party.
And, of course, there is always the possibility that not every participant will always react to police and national guard tanks, excessive brutality, pepper spray, tasers -- or Kent-State-style shootings and deaths -- with the near-universal non-violence we have seen from Occupy participants so far.
[John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a 14-year-old runaway, kneeling in anguish over the body of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was shot by the Ohio National Guard; from Wikipedia "Kent State Shootings" link, above.]
How likely is violence?
As Chris Hedges has written elsewhere,
The death of liberal institutions that once made incremental and piecemeal reform possible, which once could respond to the suffering of the poor, the unemployed and working men and women, which once sought to protect the Earth on which we depend for life, means the last thin hope for reform is embodied in acts of civil disobedience. There are no established institutions that will help us. The press ignores the cries of the underclass and the poor. The labor movement is atrophied and dying. Public education is degraded and being rapidly dismantled. Our religious institutions no longer engage in the core issues of justice. And the Democratic Party is on its knees before Wall Street. The most basic government services designed to ameliorate the pain, including Head Start and Social Security, are targeted by our corporate overlords for destruction. The Kyoto Protocol, which was not nearly ambitious enough to prevent environmental collapse, has been gutted so companies like Exxon Mobil can continue to amass the largest profits in history. . . .
Those of us who demand a return to the rule of law and remain steadfast to nonviolence will find ourselves cast aside—the useful idiots Lenin so despised. I watched this happen in the social and political implosions in El Salvador, Guatemala, the Palestinian territories, Algeria, Bosnia and Kosovo. I watched the same cocktail of despair, economic collapse and callousness from a corrupt power elite mix itself into potent brews of civil strife. I watched the same untiring efforts by those who detested the violence and cruelty of the state, and the nascent violence and intolerance of the radical opposition. I covered as a reporter the disintegration that tore these societies apart. Those who held fast to moral imperatives, including Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and Ibrahim Rugova in Kosovo, were thrust aside and replaced with killers on both sides of the divide who embraced violence.
Let us, please, do more than just hope and pray this will not become America's path. Let us act to assure it. For although Occupy's ranks may decline and grow again, perhaps even with a different name and generation of participants, it will not stop. Ultimately, the legitimate grievances born of greed will be addressed, whether with brutality and bullets, or compassion and creativity.
Each of us can choose our favored option; ultimately, each of us will have to. The question we must answer, as the old labor song put it is, "Which side are you on?"
Recovery Requires Consumers, and Consumers Require Jobs
Yesterday [Oct. 12, 2011] the Senate refused to even debate, let alone pass, President Obama's jobs bill. As the New York Times editorialized:
[Photo credit: Pete Souza, White House.]
It was all predicted, but the unanimous decision by Senate Republicans on Tuesday to filibuster and thus kill President Obama’s jobs bill was still a breathtaking act of economic vandalism. There are 14 million people out of work, wages are falling, poverty is rising, and a second recession may be blowing in, but not a single Republican would even allow debate on a sound plan to cut middle-class taxes and increase public-works spending.
For at least the past three years I have been repeatedly blogging here on a similar theme, for example:
You can't improve business (profits, returns to shareholders, executive compensation) without improving retail sales; you can't improve retail sales without putting money in the hands, and confidence in the heads, of potential consumers; and unemployed consumers don't have money unless they are provided either unemployment compensation or wages from a public sector job (in an economy with a shrinking private sector).
Given our rotting, unattended, infrastructure (roads, bridges, pipelines, schools) resulting from the last 30 years of "tax cuts" it seems to me, given the same amount of money, that using it to create "jobs" makes more sense than providing it for "unemployment compensation."
But either makes more sense than trying to turn an economy around with "trickle down" -- whether tax cuts for the rich, or bailouts for the rich.
I may be naive, and I claim no credentials as an economist, but to me the solution to our economic doldrums has always seemed quite simple and obvious.
My son, Gregory, when providing computer consulting service, likes to respond to customers' frustration and confusion with, "There are three steps," which he then proceeds to set forth.
I'm not sure I can keep this to a three-step analytical progression, but it's not much more complex than that.
1. We have an economy that is driven -- for good or for ill, in boom times and bad -- overwhelmingly (say, 70% or more) by consumer spending.
2. We now have 25% or more of the workforce that is unemployed, significantly underemployed, or has given up trying to find work (for African-American, male, high school dropouts, between 18 and 25, it's well over 50%). Those who are in the workforce are, understandably, concerned that they might become unemployed. At best they are, again understandably, confused and worried about the future of our global economy, and America's role in it.
3. As a result, and as a variation on "the tragedy of the commons," while we would all be better off as members of an inter-dependent community if we would all spend more, the most rational thing for every individual to do, as an individual, is to save more and spend less.
4. Similarly, providing cash, tax breaks, and other incentives to business to increase hiring, and banks to increase lending, has not worked and will never work. Why? Because a corporate CEO would be nuts, and deserve being fired, if he or she were to borrow more money, to hire more workers, to increase production, at a time when their company is unable to sell what it already has in warehouses, on the shelves, or in showrooms. As evidence, we are told that business is now sitting on something like $2 trillion in cash. Clearly, it is a lack of demand, not a lack of capital, that is the problem. The private sector has repeatedly, and again recently, made clear that it is incapable of turning around a plummeting economy all by itself.
5. So what do I think is so "simple and obvious"?
We have a short term, immediate problem, and a longer range problem.
Longer range, to become globally competitive during the 21st Century we need to provide more education and training to more people, and provide incentives for entrepreneurial activity. (As someone has said, "There has never been a more difficult time to find a job; and never been an easier time to create a job.")
But short term, the way to bring ourselves out of the economic doldrums, to give a boost to our economy, to increase consumer spending, is to create more consumers, with greater confidence in their future prospects for employment. That means a full-employment economy; jobs for all; provided by the private sector when it's rational for business to do so, and provided by the federal government when it is not.
Don't start by talking about private sector jobs, or even "infrastructure." Start by talking about full employment -- or as near "full" as practicable.
In January of 2009, had we taken all the money we lavished on the banks, auto and insurance industries, and other large corporations, and used it for wages for all, our economy would have turned around by the fall of 2009 at the latest, and be humming along right now.
With the increase in consumer spending would have come the confidence of business. Once there is the prospect of continuing, dependable demand, smart business people are perfectly capable of providing the supply. And as the economy continued to spiral up, the federal payrolls would have contracted as better paying jobs would be created -- rationally created -- in the private sector marketplace.
Our unwillingness to take that path has hurt us all -- up to and including that "1%."
Can I put this in three steps?
1. If you have a downward spiraling economy, 70% of which represents consumer spending, you need to increase consumer spending.
2. If you have excessive unemployment and underemployment, you increase consumer spending by creating more consumers, with more money to spend.
3. If the private sector cannot create the jobs that create additional consumers, you must either (a) have the federal government become the "employer of last resort," or (b) resign yourself to the unnecessary prolonging of a grossly under-performing economy -- which has been our choice.
And that's what, to me, seems "simple and obvious."
There was a lot of newspaper commentary about the "Occupy" movement once the local media finally recognized that the story could no longer be ignored. (The New York City version of "Occupy Wall Street" quickly morphed into "Occupy" places all across the country, including Iowa and Iowa City -- plus Des Moines, Mason City, and Fairfield, among other cities in Iowa.)
Many of those reader comments were critical of Occupy, from wild rants and charges of "Communist!" to critiques regarding the lack of specific demands and leadership. (This from critics who failed to recognize that the existence of movement "leaders" and "specific demands" in a movement's beginning often contribute to its downfall.)
Senator Grassley elaborated on Donald Trump's line, saying these protesters are "just a bunch of unemployed college students looking for dates" -- a disparagement he may come to regret. [Arrests at Occupy Des Moines; thanks to BlogForIowa.com.]
A common question, seemingly reflecting genuine bewilderment on the part of the relatively well off, was a variant of "What do these people want?"
My response, in newspaper comments, was a variation on "if you have to ask you haven't been paying attention":
More and more Americans over the past 30 years have come to the realization that, as the "silent majority" bumper sticker had it, "The Majority is not Silent, the Government is Deaf." They come from all regions of the country, slices of the political spectrum, religions (and no religions), ages, and occupations.
There is a perception that when corporations and the ultra rich are not getting away with violating the law it is because they have written the law, that the ever-escalating gap in income between the 1% and the 99% is at least in part the result of money in politics (not just differences in enterprise, intellectual and entrepreneurial ability), and that ours has become a "government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" -- a government that has for the most part rebuffed and ignored our polite requests.
Historically, when those perceptions begin to register with the people, they take to the streets. That's how our nation began -- as the Declaration of Independence put it, "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations . . .." It's how women got the right to vote, and African-Americans got civil rights. It's what it took to get the right to unionize, and bring the Viet Nam war to an end.
"This is what democracy looks like." Get used to it. Support it. Nothing could be more "American."
So I was especially pleased to see the New York Times' editorial yesterday striking a similar theme. [I am taking the unusual step of reproducing here the entire editorial. I encourage you to subscribe to the Times, as I do: http://www.nytimes.com; they offer a special deal on a combination Sunday edition in Iowa City plus unlimited online access. But if they would like me to remove the editorial from this blog entry, along with my personal endorsement, I am quite willing to do so.]
As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread from Lower Manhattan to Washington and other cities, the chattering classes keep complaining that the marchers lack a clear message and specific policy prescriptions. The message — and the solutions — should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening.
At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity.
The jobless rate for college graduates under age 25 has averaged 9.6 percent over the past year; for young high school graduates, the average is 21.6 percent. Those figures do not reflect graduates who are working but in low-paying jobs that do not even require diplomas. Such poor prospects in the early years of a career portend a lifetime of diminished prospects and lower earnings — the very definition of downward mobility.
The protests, though, are more than a youth uprising. The protesters’ own problems are only one illustration of the ways in which the economy is not working for most Americans. They are exactly right when they say that the financial sector, with regulators and elected officials in collusion, inflated and profited from a credit bubble that burst, costing millions of Americans their jobs, incomes, savings and home equity. As the bad times have endured, Americans have also lost their belief in redress and recovery.
The initial outrage has been compounded by bailouts and by elected officials’ hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street, a toxic combination that has reaffirmed the economic and political power of banks and bankers, while ordinary Americans suffer.
Extreme inequality is the hallmark of a dysfunctional economy, dominated by a financial sector that is driven as much by speculation, gouging and government backing as by productive investment.
When the protesters say they represent 99 percent of Americans, they are referring to the concentration of income in today’s deeply unequal society. Before the recession, the share of income held by those in the top 1 percent of households was 23.5 percent, the highest since 1928 and more than double the 10 percent level of the late 1970s.
That share declined slightly as financial markets tanked in 2008, and updated data is not yet available, but inequality has almost certainly resurged. In the last few years, for instance, corporate profits (which flow largely to the wealthy) have reached their highest level as a share of the economy since 1950, while worker pay as a share of the economy is at its lowest point since the mid-1950s.
Income gains at the top would not be as worrisome as they are if the middle class and the poor were also gaining. But working-age households saw their real income decline in the first decade of this century. The recession and its aftermath have only accelerated the decline.
Research shows that such extreme inequality correlates to a host of ills, including lower levels of educational attainment, poorer health and less public investment. It also skews political power, because policy almost invariably reflects the views of upper-income Americans versus those of lower-income Americans.
No wonder then that Occupy Wall Street has become a magnet for discontent. There are plenty of policy goals to address the grievances of the protesters — including lasting foreclosure relief, a financial transactions tax, greater legal protection for workers’ rights, and more progressive taxation. The country needs a shift in the emphasis of public policy from protecting the banks to fostering full employment, including public spending for job creation and development of a strong, long-term strategy to increase domestic manufacturing.
It is not the job of the protesters to draft legislation. That’s the job of the nation’s leaders, and if they had been doing it all along there might not be a need for these marches and rallies. Because they have not, the public airing of grievances is a legitimate and important end in itself. It is also the first line of defense against a return to the Wall Street ways that plunged the nation into an economic crisis from which it has yet to emerge.
There are 13 categories of reasons why TIFs are usually, if not always, a bad idea that do significant harm to business, government, elected public officials -- and, of course, taxpayers. [Photo credit: Benjamin Roberts/Iowa City Press-Citizen]
One of those categories is the subject of this two-story presentation: how TIFs can tie the hands of the governmental unit that creates them (and otherwise exact high "opportunity costs"), lower its credit rating for government bonds, deprive neighboring governmental units of needed tax revenues, and related consequences.
Here is a summary presentation of another 12 categories of reasons why they should be avoided:
TIFs are not necessary for Iowa City and surrounding communities. We're not exactly going through a depression, with store fronts boarded up, unemployment around 40%, or other justifications for early New Deal-type programs.
Their "opportunity costs" are enormous for local property taxpayers and local governments. County Supervisor Rod Sullivan estimates they are currently taking some $700 million worth of business property off the tax rolls. That means both more taxes for the rest of us and cuts in needed programs.
TIFs tilt the playing field, are unfair to business, and cause imbalance in the free market. Why the business community doesn't rise up in righteous wrath over TIFs has always amazed me. It's tough enough out there in that free market jungle, what with competition from the likes of Wal-Mart and comparably advantaged businesses, government regulations that sometimes seem a wee bit irrational, and the unforeseeable challenges. It just seems so fundamentally unfair that, on top of all that, a business person should have to compete with someone who is handed the kind of competitive advantage represented by a TIF or other government subsidy. Talk about a "level playing field"! TIFs really upset a smoothly working free market -- and to no one's real advantage except for the lucky recipient of the taxpayers' largess.
There's no evidence that Iowa City's economy and development won't continue to expand at a satisfactory rate driven by nothing more than the forces of the marketplace -- entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, banks and other loaning institutions.
TIFs (and other shifts of taxpayers' money to for-profit enterprises) don't work. Governor Vilsack offered Maytag $100 million in taxpayers' money not to leave Newton. It went to Michigan anyway. Should he have offered $200 million? I don't think so.
Business comes to an area for other reasons than TIFs: available skilled workforce, transportation, communications, and other infrastructure elements -- plus "quality of life" assets such as schools, parks, libraries, theaters, trails, entertainment venues, restaurants, and natural settings such as mountains, beaches, woods, rivers and lakes. (A business that came to an Iowa Mississippi River town recently explained that it didn't choose the location because of state subsidies, it chose the location because it needed access to barge transportation on the river.)
Transferring taxpayers' money to for-profit ventures in the name of "free private enterprise" carries so much hypocrisy that City Councilors who talk that way ought to hide in the shadows with their shame. Where's the ideological purity of these "greed is good," privatization, "let the marketplace do it all" pro-business advocates when they're holding out (or filling) a tin cup? Business proposals that make sense have no trouble getting funding; owners, investors, venture capitalists, and creditors are looking for places to put their money and will respond to well-crafted business plans. Free private enterprise ventures can make sense for a community. So can socialist ventures such as roads, schools, libraries and parks. However, the more they are kept distinct the better it is for both.
If free private enterprise can't fund a project with private sector money, that just might be a sign that it's not a very good place to be putting the public's money either.
How can one possibly judge with accuracy whether, if the TIF were not available, the project would not go ahead? When free public money is available to a for-profit venture the temptation to become a tough negotiator, and to just slightly misrepresent the facts, is overwhelming. And there's virtually no way to test the blackmail.
The TIF-granters' record ain't great. For the most part, the public officials handing out our tax dollars to the wealthy are more professionally skilled at keeping constituents (and campaign contributors) happy, getting re-elected, and moving up to higher office, than they are at evaluating business proposals. There is a long list of TIFed (or otherwise publicly subsidized) private projects that have gone belly up, or failed to meet their promised construction schedules, or goals for new employees at designated pay levels.
Will we lose some businesses if we don't offer TIFs? Maybe. Let other towns give away their taxpayers' money. We don't need to play their game. As one of the top-rated towns in the nation by any one of a number of measures we'll get our share of new businesses without offering TIFs. Have a little self-confidence. Vilsack's $100 million couldn't keep Maytag here. A firm that likes San Diego's climate, or port access to the Pacific Ocean, probably isn't going to come to Iowa City for a TIF. A firm that believes it needs a location giving it rapid access to the O'Hare airport in Chicago (whether for moving persons or cargo) probably can't be talked into using the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids "Eastern Iowa Airport" no matter how big the TIF.
Step up to the plate councilors and business community. If City Council members, or members of the business community, think we need more economic growth and development than the marketplace can provide on its own there's nothing to stop them taking up a collection or offering personal economic incentives to new businesses. Iowa City's banks could offer new businesses, or proposals for business expansion, reduced-rate loans. The business community could create its own venture capital fund to invest in, or loan to, business developments they thought worthy. And I'm sure they'd be more than happy to accept every dollar from a City councilor who would like to help out.
Reconsidering the Proposition That "All TIFs Are Evil"
Is it possible that describing all TIFs as "evil" is a bit of a stretch -- depending on your sense of evil? Would "all TIFs are outrageous" be a little more restrained?
Is it even possible, like being "just a little bit pregnant," that there are some very modest, or at least very precise, uses of TIFs that make sense for everyone?
Never before has that possibility come from my lips. But recent conversations with experienced and knowledgeable, independent individuals whose wisdom and judgment I value -- and who are opposed to TIFs in general -- have caused me to rethink it. I'm not convinced, mind you; I don't yet have enough information to even reject the idea, let alone accept it; all I'm saying is that my mind is open to considering the possibility.
So far, the conversations have been relatively superficial (only because we haven't had the time to pursue the issue in greater depth).
The general idea, if I understand it, is that TIFs can sometimes produce a public benefit in a for-profit venture that, but for the TIF, would not exist. I haven't yet been given specific examples, but my guess would be this might include such things as a greater set-back creating more open, green space, or intermixed low income housing, or more parking spaces.
The theory might be that this is but piggybacking a public goal on top of a private undertaking -- a public goal that would otherwise require the governmental unit to undertake the entire cost of the project. This would thus be somewhat akin to the government contracting with a private trash pickup service, or a private road builder to fill potholes -- public money may be going to help enrich a for-profit business, but that money is purchasing a public benefit that would otherwise have cost more.
(Note the emphasis on public benefit. Public schools, libraries, parks, and trails may help attract business to a community; after the business arrives, its employees will benefit. The point is, so will everyone else in the community. On the other hand, providing TIFs and subsidies, water and sewer lines to a new manufacturing plant -- or roads traveled almost exclusively only by the plant's employees -- do not have as direct a benefit to every taxpayer and citizen in the community.)
My first reaction to this argument is one of the 12 categories above: "How can one possibly judge with accuracy whether, if the TIF were not available, the project would not go ahead?" It may be no government intervention of any kind is required to get the benefit.
Second, if there were a way of definitively proving that is not the case, state, county and municipal governments have rather substantial regulatory power in the form of statutes, ordinances, agency regulations, fire and building codes, and zoning. So far as I know, it is not common for governments to subsidize, or provide tax breaks, to gain the public good of building materials and electric wiring less likely to burst into flame, restaurants' kitchens less likely to house rats and cockroaches, or rental housing fit for healthy living.
At a minimum, when governments are in pursuit of the public good in for-profit enterprise, I would like to see them totally exhaust all other possibilities for bringing about the end they desire before paying for it with taxpayers' money in the form of TIFs, other tax forgiveness, subsidies, and cash payments.
One of my trusted advisers tells me that, while my rule would certainly be preferable, it is often impossible to get the votes of legislators or city council members for that approach. I am quite willing to have conversations about political reality and corruption, but it does not seem to me that such considerations bear upon the inherent virtues and vices of TIFs as such. And I'd like to get the theoretical understanding of TIFs straight first, before getting into debate about necessary political compromises.
Third, so if (a) a desirable public benefit can be identified that is viewed by the public as a top priority, and (b) it can somehow be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the marketplace won't create it without taxpayer money, and (c) the governmental unit has no legislative or regulatory way to insist on the benefit without paying for it, and (d) it doesn't make sense for the governmental unit to undertake the entire benefit-producing project on its own (government planned, constructed, managed and operated), then (d) before pledging any public money to the project (TIF or other tax forgiveness, subsidy or cash) what I am looking for is some predictable, analytical,check list of questions, benefit-cost, structured way to evaluate which projects clearly do, and do not, qualify for public financing, and why.
A somewhat analogous approach, in an entirely different context, is what's called "the Powell doctrine," the questions one needs to address before concluding that involving the military in a matter of our foreign relations will be more constructive than destructive of our national interests. See, e.g., "War in Libya, the Unanswered Questions," March 23, 2011.
So that's it for now. I've yet to see a TIF I thought made sense, a TIF for which none of the 13 categories of objections was applicable. I am impressed with the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens (who have expressed views in comments on the Press-Citizen stories and other TIF projects earlier) who seem to share not only my general conclusions, but the precise arguments (categories) I have put forth. My mind is open to considering data and arguments regarding a small category of exceptions. But I have yet to see the standards that would be used to qualify those applications.
When it comes to unequal class sizes, as this story illustrates, the District’s central administration, principals and teachers have been extraordinarily creative and constructive given the hand they’ve been dealt by the Board.
There are simple solutions that could create almost precisely equal class sizes throughout the District.
Large classes involve two separate issues.
One is the District’s “average” class size – a number that’s determined by the simple math of dividing the total number of elementary school students in the District by the total number of elementary school teachers. The only way to reduce that average number is to hire more teachers.
The other involves the disparity in class sizes between classrooms in different schools (or within a school) illustrated in this article.
One solution to that problem is cluster schools. That’s an approach that can only be undertaken by the School Board, with its new membership.
Cluster schools have a number of additional advantages in addition to equalizing class sizes across the District. As I have summarized elsewhere, they could:
• Be politically feasible, minimize family disruption, and maximize developers' and realtors' advance notice, by implementing them gradually over, say, three to six years.
• Reduce busing costs.
• Cut administrative costs by two-thirds.
• Equalize grades' class size.
• Reduce overcrowding and equalize percentage occupancy of schools.
• Provide central administration flexibility in assigning students to schools.
• Maintain present schools while minimizing taxpayers' burden for costly new ones.
• More nearly equalize each school's percentage of free-and-reduced-lunch students.
As the heading on that last blog entry indicates, the idea was not even given enough consideration to be rejected by the last Board. And I won't be stunned if it's ignored by the "new Board" as well.
But the point is not so much the value of the precise details of this particular cluster schools approach. It is that, with 15,000 school districts throughout America out there, there are few problems that the ICCSD confronts that have not been experienced, addressed, resolved and reported on by at least one other Board, somewhere, at some time.
It's the Board members' job to make a regular investment of time -- as individuals and as a Board -- researching, reading, reporting, discussing, and trying out as pilot projects the innovative ideas and programs that other Districts are adding to the growing list of "what works."
Troy Davis has been executed, notwithstanding the protests of thousands of citizens around the world, with and without name recognition or celebrity status. [Photo credit: Erik S. Lesser/AFP/Getty Images/Time.]
Kim Severson, "Davis is Executed in Georgia,"New York Times, September 22, 2011, p. A1 ("Proclaiming his innocence, Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday night, his life — and the hopes of supporters worldwide — prolonged by several hours while the Supreme Court reviewed but then declined to act on a petition from his lawyers to stay the execution.").
Although I claim no expertise with respect to criminal law, or criminal procedure, it is a case worth reflection by all of us. Especially is this so as we mourn the loss of my colleague, personal friend, and internationally recognized true death penalty expert, David Baldus, and prepare for a conference and memorial service this next month to honor his lifetime achievements.
Some object to the death penalty as a punishment in any criminal case. Others were objecting to its use in this case, either because they were convinced he was the wrong defendant, that he had done no wrong, or because they believed there was sufficient doubt about his guilt to be troublesome.
Actually, I think my wife, Mary Vasey -- who is vigorously opposed to the death penalty in any case -- has this one right: if you, too, are troubled by the prospect of future Troy Davis cases, and the possibility of additional state-sanctioned killings of innocent men and women, what needs to change are not so much reviews of individual death penalty cases prior to executions, but repeal of the laws permitting the death penalty in the first place.
I have no firsthand knowledge of the events, did not serve on the jury, was not present at the trial, and have not read the transcript, judicial opinions, and other documents related to the case. Whatever I may suspect the facts might have been, I do not -- indeed I could not possibly -- "know."
So what was "the truth" in the Troy Davis case?
There are many definitions of “truth.” A scientific discovery -- such as this week's revelation that scientists at CERN may have propelled a particle at speeds in excess of the speed of light -- only becomes a scientific truth once carefully recorded experimental data has been peer reviewed and found to be capable of duplication. On the other hand, a religious truth may be whatever a religious leader proclaims it to be. An athletic truth is measured in strokes of a golf club, or the minutes and seconds -- even one-hundredths of seconds -- it takes the winner to run around a track, or ski down a hill.
On the other hand, the legal truth is whatever a jury's verdict proclaims it to be, whatever the jury says it is.
What is the truth regarding the allegations that O.J. Simpson murdered his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman? Whatever the real-world space-time-events, or "facts" in that sense, may have been, the legal truth, according to the jury verdict in his 1995 criminal trial, was that he was "not guilty." (Of course, that's not the same as saying "he didn't do it;" it's just saying that during this criminal trial the prosecutor failed to meet his or her "burden of proof" that he did it. Indeed, subsequently in the 1997 civil trial for "wrongful death," the plaintiffs' burden of proof was less, was met, and the "legal truth" for purposes of that trial was that "he did do it.")
Once the jury has rendered its verdict, and no executive (the president, or a governor) has intervened, the decision to execute a defendant rests with the appellate courts. And thus to criticize the execution of Troy Davis is to appear to criticize the appellate courts’ (including the Supreme Court’s) handling of the case.
However, if you want to avoid –- to use the popular characterization -– “judges legislating from the bench,” it’s hard to criticize them for following the law.
What can appellate courts do in death penalty cases? New trials can be ordered if the defendant did not have competent representation by counsel, if evidence was admitted that was prejudicial and should have been excluded, if defense counsel was prevented from striking a prejudiced juror when the jury was selected, if the judge’s instructions to the jury were not proper, among other examples. But if everything proceeded as the law provides, the appellate courts are largely bound by the findings of the jury and the sentencing by the trial judge.
Indeed, that’s precisely what those who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights sought to accomplish. If the appellate courts can overturn a jury’s “guilty” verdict merely because, had they been jurors, they wouldn't have voted that way, they can also overturn a jury’s “not guilty” verdict, and impose the death penalty, as "super jurors." However inadequate a jury system may be, the drafters felt that for all its faults they would rather trust their fate to “a jury of their peers” than a potentially arbitrary, tyrannical, unelected judge.
Thus, much of what we do and don’t like about the judicial system can be, and should be (up to when Constitutional provisions intervene), resolved by legislative bodies (Congress for the federal courts, and state legislatures for state courts).
The death penalty is something many countries have long since abolished, consider barbaric, criticize America for, find a violation of basic human rights, and as the Innocence Project has repeatedly documented, is often wrongly applied (and may well have been in the case of Troy Davis).
If you believe Troy Davis was not guilty of the crime for which he was executed, and you live in a state that still has the death penalty, do something about it. Write your elected officials and tell them to abolish it. Join with others and the organizations that are working to bring our country into compliance with the standards of civilized nations.
On the other hand, if you think the death penalty is an appropriate punishment -– at least in some circumstances -– just hope and pray that you, your family members and friends never find yourselves wrongly accused.
Although if you do, probably you can at least count on the anti-death-penalty folks to petition on behalf of saving your life as well.
“You have a lot of kids graduating college can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.”
Bloomberg In 2011 our media have enabled us to focus upon, and cheer on, the rising tsunami of mass protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere. We have seen that, while messy and usually disorganized, the ability of such movements to bring about change.
"The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي; also known as the Arabic Rebellions or the Arab Revolutions) is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world. Since 18 December 2010 there have been revolutions in Tunisia[2] and Egypt;[3] a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its regime;[4] civil uprisings in Bahrain,[5] Syria,[6] and Yemen;[7] major protests in Israel,[8] Algeria,[9] Iraq,[10] Jordan,[11] Morocco,[12] and Oman,[13] and minor protests in Kuwait,[14] Lebanon,[15] Mauritania,[16] Saudi Arabia,[17] Sudan,[18] and Western Sahara.[19] Clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 have also been inspired by the regional Arab Spring.[20] The protests have shared techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches and rallies, as well as the use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and internet censorship.[21]" "Arab Spring," Wikipedia.org.
Although Michael Bloomberg did not expand on his comment, he provided a pin prick of a reminder that such things could happen here -- although he limited the protesters to unemployed college graduates, and one senses he clearly views it as an option to be avoided. Not incidentally, if the Mayor hasn't noticed, "Occupy Wall Street" is already active. It's not one of "those kinds of riots" -- yet -- but it is getting close, very unambiguous in word and deed, and being subjected to a similar form of oppression, in this instance by New York City police:
And meanwhile, . . .
[Photo credit: Indigene editions La Voix de l'Enfant and NPR.] . . . WWII hero Stephane Hessel has titled his book Time for Outrage. See Eleanor Beardsley, "WWII Survivor Stirs Literary World With 'Outrage,'" NPR, September 22, 2011 (now two million copies in 30 languages) ("'If you want to be a real human being — a real woman, a real man — you cannot tolerate things which put you to indignation, to outrage. You must stand up. I always say to people, 'Look around; look at what makes you unhappy, what makes you furious, and then engage yourself in some action.''").
Poor People's Movements Had Bloomberg continued to speak on the subject it would have been necessary for him to acknowledge that such mass protest movements not only could happen here, they have happened here. And when they have happened here they have often proven to be very similar in effect to those we have cheered in the Arab spring -- a messy, disorganized way to produce change.
But they have been not just a way to produce change, for the working class and poor, many observers have concluded they are the only way to create progress.
Among such observers are Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, authors of Poor People's Movements (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1977, paperback 1979). Tim Haight and I used it as one of the readings in a course we co-taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the spring of 1980. Piven and Cloward challenge many of the assumptions of America's Left as a result of their study of what is embodied in chapters titled, "The Unemployed Workers' Movement," "The Industrial Workers' Movement," "The Civil Rights movement," and "The Welfare Rights Movement."
They argue, for example, that efforts to "organize" the working poor actually tend to be self-defeating, for a variety of reasons, and what they say is "the obvious fact that whatever the people won was a response to their turbulence and not to their organized members." Introduction, first edition, p. xxiii. In the introduction to the paperback edition they take on their critics:
Some critics were dissatisfied, for example, with the various expressions of the post-World War II black movement: with the civil rights struggle in the South, or the riots in the North, or the surging demand for public welfare benefits that produced a welfare explosion in the 1960s. . . . But popular insurgency does not proceed by someone else's rules or hopes: it has its own logic and direction. It flows from historically specific circumstances: it is a reaction against those circumstances, and it is also limited by them.
Introduction, paperback, p. xi.
(Not incidentally, since welfare is mentioned, the authors observe, "Nor did the participants in the relief movement of the 1960s prefer welfare; together with Harrington, they plainly preferred decent jobs at decent wages. But they understood the political facts of their lives rather more clearly than Harrington: the unemployed poor in this period lacked the power to force programs of full employment." pp. xiii-xiv.)
Please understand, if it is not obvious, that I am not advocating "those kinds of riots here." What I am advocating is that those in a position to respond to legitimate demands from the unemployed and working poor not leave them with no option but the only one they have found to work in the past.
Let me make clear, I am not taking sides in this fight. There are reasons why the Iowa Democratic Party would want to distance itself from any group's behavior that was characterized as something other than "Iowa nice" -- however valid, or invalid, you might think its reasons. But in the context of this blog entry, the point is that there are also reasons why citizens who have been consistently ignored or rebuffed in their efforts to politely exercise their First Amendment right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances" might ultimately choose other tactics rather than give up entirely on what they consider legitimate, reasonable demands.
Here is an excerpt from the opinion piece:
Recent strong criticisms of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement by Sue Dvorsky (the chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party) and John Deeth (a local Democrat and blogger) warrant a reply.
Both Dvorsky and Deeth take ICCI members to task for their confrontational conduct at a recent town hall meeting with Sen. Chuck Grassley in Carroll -- an event where neither Dvorsky or Deeth was present. Although a video record of the event is on the Internet, both seem to base their version of events on reportage from Douglas Burns of the Daily Times Herald, who claims CCI members "hurled insults" during the forum, then became "a mob" blocking Grassley from a subsequent media interview, and finally, used "physicality" to prevent the senator's clear passage to his car.
Watch the video and judge for yourself if any of this took place.
Deeth finds all of this "shameful, hateful and dangerous" -- especially considering Grassley is such a "venerable public servant and exceedingly decent man," as Burns put it. As a partisan Democrat, Deeth says that the only real way to change Grassley's vote is by beating him in an election and then chastises CCI members for not working for Democrat Roxanne Conlin.
There's only one problem with this. CCI is not a partisan political party. It is an issue-oriented, grassroots community organization working for change. Our members are Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and independents. We don't have any political litmus test for participation in CCI.
A lot of the frustration people are feeling in this country is with a two-party "system" that seems to constantly shape-shift to serve the interests of corporations rather than people. People elect candidates who promise "change" then get no change at all.
Former Gov. Chet Culver [a Democrat] promised local control of hog lots and promptly changed his tune after the election. He promised his strong supporters in the union movement improvements to Iowa's collective bargaining process and then vetoed the bill. Is it any wonder that people get angry and discouraged?
Deeth and Dvorsky are unhappy with the way thousands of CCI members express this anger. They ridicule our "trite chants" and "demands" and ask that we abide by their version of civility. But history teaches us something different.
Women did not receive equal rights or suffrage by being nice. The civil rights struggle was not won by sitting quietly in the back of the bus. And the many victories of the labor movement were not won without noisy and sometimes bloody -- picket lines and strike actions.
As you see, ICCI is learning from, and applying, the lessons Piven and Cloward passed along in Poor People's Movements -- albeit with tactics (and dare I say, results) far less than those the authors examine.
Golden Rules and Revolutions Two and one-half years ago I wrote an eight-part blog entry series here on this theme, "Golden Rules and Revolutions." (That link goes to Part VIII, which opens with links to the prior seven in the series.)
The reference to "Golden Rules," of course, is to both the Biblical reference and the take-off, "S/he who has the gold makes the rules."
A European lecturer at the law school the other day took questions following a talk on controlling health care costs. In the course of the talk he blithely mentioned that, of course, all the EU countries have universal, single-payer health care systems. I asked,"How do you explain that European countries accept as a matter of course that citizens should be taxed to provide health care for all, while we're not even debating the issue any longer in the U.S.?" He replied, "I guess we just have more of a sense of solidarity."
He's right. The problem, of course, is that as the gap between our rich and poor continues to widen, as increasing hostility is driven by lack of jobs and social services, so long as we refuse to institute federal-government-as-employer-of-last-resort jobs programs and as a result our consumer-driven economy fails to recover, we are increasing the risk of "those kinds of riots here."
Here is an excerpt from the opening blog essay in that eight-part series, "Income Disparity & Revolution":
Increasing income disparity, despair. . . I am not a conspiratorial theorist, nor am I charging that anyone truly desires to turn the United States into a third world country, in which the top 1% of super rich rule over a 90% in abject poverty. All I would observe is that what is happening -- as a result of what will be spelled out in this series -- is not that different from what would be happening if that were the goal of government officials and the ruling elite.
[F]rom the late 1980s to the mid-2000s . . . inequality increased across the country. . . . No state has seen a significant decline in inequality during this period. . . .
On average, incomes have declined by 2.5 percent among the bottom fifth of families since the late 1990s, while increasing by 9.1 percent among the top fifth.
And see, for Iowa data, David DeWitte, "Report finds income gap growing in Iowa,"GazetteOnline, April 9, 2008, 11:40 a.m. ("The income gap between rich and poor is growing faster in Iowa than in most other states, according to a new report, which found a 49.3 percent average income growth in the wealthiest Iowa households over the past two decades. . . .")
. . . and Revolution. I recall reading many years ago -- where it was I would have no way of recalling now -- that there is a rough mathematical formula for predicting the point at which a growing income disparity will ultimately produce a revolution.
No, I don't think we're yet there in the United States.
But I am one of those who thinks Senator Obama was right when he said, "Lately, there has been a little, typical sort of political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my home town in Illinois who are bitter. . . . They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through." Perry Bacon Jr. and Shailagh Murray,"'Bitter' Is a Hard Pill For Obama to Swallow; He Stands by Sentiment as Clinton Pounces,"Washington Post, April 13, 2008, p. A6. . . .
It's reminiscent of Ben Stein's story about his visit with Warren Buffett.
It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. . . . “How can this be fair?” he asked . . ..
Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Those who refuse to acknowledge what's happening in America can charge those who do with being "elitist," or fomenting "class warfare." But that does little to assuage the anger of those on the losing side of this warfare.
And when that anger is permitted to seethe long enough the news from elsewhere can serve as a reminder of the limits that ultimately come to constrain the greed of oppressive governments and the super rich elite.
Barbara J. Fraser, "As Economy Grows, Income Disparity in Latin America Widens,"Catholic News Service, August 3, 2007 ("a two-day general strike in the region was called to protest government economic policies. . . . The incident was one of many around Peru in mid-July, as teachers, farmers and others took their discontent to the streets . . .. ")
No, I don't think we need fear imminent revolution in America.
And no, I don't think the declining dollar, the $40 trillion in unfunded federal debt we're leaving to our great-grandchildren, our multi-billion-dollar negative trade balance, and recession mean we're on the precipice of third-world status.
But I do think we need to take the impact of our economy and governmental policies on ordinary Americans much more seriously than I sense our leaders and media are willing to do. Why? For starters, because I think it is the decent, just and humane thing to do.
But also for all the reasons I have laid out here and will in the rest of the series to come.
Robert Reich and "The Truth About the Economy" In a recent blog entry, in another context, I had occasion to share Robert Reich's two-minute explanation of the problem, "The Truth About the Economy." "Why Iowa? Chase Garrett and Robert Reich," September 8, 2011. It is even more relevant here:
We usually find ourselves in agreement, and certainly did on that one.
See also "Robert Reich Debunks 6 Big GOP Lies about the Economy" video, for related material:
Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" Finally, I conclude (did you think I never would?), with this morning's Doonesbury, from Garry Trudeau:
[With credit, and daily thanks and applause, to Garry B. Trudeau, Doonesbury.]
When you find Michael Bloomberg, Stephane Hessel, Frances Fox Piven & Richard A. Cloward, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Robert Reich, and Garry Trudeau in agreement, it might just be a good time to rethink where we are going with America and why.
