OurFuture.org Blogs: Bill Scher

Can You Forget What Homes You Own And Still Manage The Economy?

Bill Scher — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:16:07 -0400

The big political news today (so far) is that Sen. John McCain couldn't remember the number of homes he owns.. (Getting a little less attention, his staff then told the Politico that the answer is four, when in fact, it is at least seven and as many as ten.)

Democrats quickly took McCain's confusion as an opportunity to charge McCain with being out-of-touch with the economic realities of most Americans.

Now, a politician's financial standing does not automatically tell us anything about how in-touch his or her economic policies are. FDR came from money and Ronald Reagan did not, but who had policies that did more for most Americans?

But conservatives have dug a very big hole for themselves.

The conservative economic strategy of reckless tax cuts for the wealthiest, slippery rules written by and for corporations, but no investment in America's foundation has all led to flat wages, rising costs, a housing/credit crisis and an overall weakened global economic standing.

Yet iinstead of accepting responsibility for their failed old ideas and recognizing a need for new ideas, conservatives resort to yelling at people that the economy is doing better than you think it is. Phil Gramm, who called America a "nation of whiners" remains the true face of conservatism.

And because conservative leaders refuse to accept the economic reality for most, McCain has been in a pickle trying to appeal to conservatives and swing voters: sometimes saying America is better off than seven years, sometimes saying it isn't.

If conservatives had regrouped, rejected what has failed and re-emerged with new ideas, McCain's gaffe would be more likely to be shrugged off as a silly mistake and quickly forgotten.

Instead, it is more likely to symbolize how far out-of-touch conservative economic policies have become.

Conservatives Don't Believe In Energy Independence. Just Ask 'Em.

Bill Scher — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:14:44 -0400

In recent posts, I've shown that conservative talk of an "All of the Above" energy policy flies in the face of repeated conservative actions to defeat anything that significantly invests in clean energy and forces Big Oil to compete -- not to mention the declaration at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference by featured speaker and oil lobby representative John Felmy that "Energy Independence Is Not a Possible Option."

Today, conservative media hero John Stossel further conveys the true core conservative belief, in a column titled: "The Idiocy of Energy Independence."

The column is an excellent case of conservative illogic at its finest.

Here's Stossel's main argument:

To be for "energy independence" is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer's floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. Achieving "energy independence" would expose us to unnecessary risks -- such as storms that knock out oil refineries or droughts that create corn -- and ethanol -- shortages.

For Stossel, it's risky to be overly dependent on one's own country. But it's not risky to be overly dependent on one source of energy.

Since the global supply of oil is tight and diminishing, the disruption of supply that Stossel worries about is already happening. Natural disasters, military attacks and geopolitical conflicts (Russia, Nigeria, Iraq, etc.) all have all impacted the supply and price of oil, leaving us unsafe.

Sure, it doesn't make sense to have all your eggs in one basket. The clean energy economy would be based on a diverse energy portfolio that includes wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and small hydro. And fossil fuels won't be eliminated from our energy mix in this generation, just reduced.

Stossel also tries to criticize the notion of public investment in clean American energy:

McCain and Obama talk constantly about how much they will "invest" -- with money taken from the taxpayers, of course -- to achieve energy independence. "[W]e can provide loan guarantees and venture capital to those with the best plans to develop and sell biofuels on a commercial market," Obama said.

What makes Obama think he's qualified to pick the "best plans"? It's the robust competition of the free market that reveals what's best. Obama's program would preempt the only good method we have for learning which form of energy is best.

Stossel acts like oil thrives in some sort of global free market. There is no such thing.

Many of these countries we "trade" with run nationalized oil companies. Our current government energy policy props up Big Oil with tax breaks and cheap land giveaways. And Big Oil funds politicians to prevent clean energy from getting a foothold in the market and offering us consumers a real energy choice.

We're subsidizing the disease and starving the cure, thanks to conservative policies.

Conservatives like John Stossel are fighting like hell to preserve and extend the status quo that keeps us dependent on increasingly expensive oil. Not surprising, considering Stossel thinks "these oil companies are heroes."

Weak arguments by conservatives are merely showing their fealty to Big Oil, at the expense of our pocketbooks and our planet.

The Missed "Clinton Moment" and "Deval Moment"

Bill Scher — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:18:26 -0400

Robert Borosage has asked us on this site—bloggers and commenters alike—to explore "How Do We Seize The Obama Moment?" and substantively advance a bold progressive agenda, after laying out an "inside-outside" activist strategy with Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation.

Why must we answer that question now? Because we've seen what happens when we don't. Moments are missed.

We missed the "Clinton Moment." Bill Clinton was swept into office, but without a strong progressive mandate to work with on Day 1 (though there were populist elements in his signature campaign proposals of welfare reform and middle-class tax cuts). And while individual organizations fought hard for their issues, there was not a cohesive progressive movement organizing around a set of issues based on common principles.

So in Clinton's first term, when he tried to achieve health care for all or a "BTU tax" that would discourage fossil fuel use and bolster renewable energy, grassroots activists were outgunned by corporate lobbyists, and Democratic congresspeople had no political incentive to stand with the president. When he tried to follow through on his campaign pledge to allow gays in the military, he was spooked by the conservative backlash and embraced the ugly "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise.

But when Clinton pushed for a corporate-friendly NAFTA deal, or was faced with a conservative welfare reform bill that completely removed the safety net, those bills became law over progressive objections.

Here in my state of Massachusetts, we are witnessing another missed moment, the "Deval Moment."

Deval Patrick won a massive 21-point victory for governor, after thumbing his nose at the Democratic party machine in Boston, and basing his campaign on organizing grassroots progressives. He faced typical right-wing attacks on crime and taxes and he faced them down with progressive arguments, ending 16 years of Republican governors in Massachusetts.

Patrick quickly worked to protect the state Supreme Court ruling upholding equal marriage rights for gays. But after that, his next battle was to legalize casinos, something his grassroots base was vehemently against.

Patrick's rationale was he needed more revenue to close a large budget gap that jeopardized critical government services. But as blogger Frederick Clarkson observed during the casino debate, that argument ran counter to his progressive mandate: "Patrick got it right when he argued during the campaign that rather than debating whether we should raise or lower taxes, we should first consider what we want to do and then discuss how to pay for it. In that spirit those of us who were with him from the beginning are saying that it is time to talk."

The result? Patrick lost both the casino battle and the enthusiasm of his base.

But the fault does not solely lie with Patrick. It also lies with the state's progressive movement.

Beyond protecting gay marriage, the progressive activists of Massachusetts also failed to hit the ground running with a clear issues agenda to prod the governor and state legislature into action. As the Boston Phoenix noted:

...Massachusetts officeholders don’t fear paying a price at the polls for standing against the liberal base of the Democratic Party, a perception that State House staffers confirm.

Patrick’s casino initiative is a case in point. Despite mounting opposition, voiced mostly in left-wing blogs, Patrick chose to champion multiple casinos licensed by the state.

The apparent popularity of the casino plan, and of Patrick, wrote the left-wing blogger The Outraged Liberal, “suggests no one is listening to us.”

One reason these progressives are feeling marginalized might lie in their lack of unanimity on the issues. It was easy to feel united and effective on an issue like gay marriage, says [Boston progressive politician Matt] O’Malley, because all the progressive groups were working together on it. It’s been hard to find other issues that bring the left together in the same way.

That leaves progressives often splintered, working at cross purposes, or fighting losing causes.

For us in the progressive movement to realize the potential of the "Obama Moment," we cannot be splintered. We need to have priorities and focus, while maintaining the progressive community's strong breadth and diversity. How do we learn a lesson from these moments missed?

We must realize that even with an expected "spasm of furious activity," as Borosage and vanden Heuvel envision, not every single issue can be addressed in the first 100 days. And we need to establish a level of coordination even though we are primarily a bottom-up community, not a top-down hierarchy with a single leader barking marching orders.

Putting a rigid game plan down on paper is no help. Chris Bowers at Open Left understandably chafed at a Netroots Platform, which invariably includes some things not everyone supports:

Platforms are where democratic movements and changes in the national social fabric go to die. Once a political movement is delineated into a specific set of planks, then factionalism, totalitarianism and stereotyping set in, while creativity, innovation and pluralism are tossed aside. Once a movement can be clearly defined by a specifically delineated set of characteristics and beliefs, any ability for that movement to grow, change or develop is lost.

Bowers is right. To thrive we must operate in fluid fashion, But to win, we also need clear direction.

I fully expect the first days of a potential Obama administration to be a crush of pent-up progressive frustration, with Washington politicians scrambling to take control of the legislative agenda—a mix of bottom-up pushing from activists and top-down agenda setting in Washington. And certain issues will break out the pack.

Instead of remaining in separate corners, the broader progressive movement will have to run with, and get ahead of, the pack.

The corporate-backed conservative movement will be itching to land a couple high-profile blows to the progressive community and make sure the "Obama Moment" only lasts for a moment. And they will have cards to play—we have already seen how a coordinated propaganda push from Big Oil and Newt Gingrich around coastal drilling shifted the political landscape, and how timely neocon posturing shaped media coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict in a matter of hours.

We will need to marshal our forces to properly frame the debate, get ahead of the curve and win those early battles.

But since we don't know what issues will break out of the pack, we need to sharpen our messages across the issue spectrum now. And once it's crunch time, we will need to accept an eventual prioritization of issues, and eagerly coordinate in kind.

Conservative Clarifies: "All Of The Above" Means "All The Drilling We Want"

Bill Scher — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:10:44 -0400

In the latest edition of "The Week in Blog" over at bloggingheads.tv, the Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll and I talked about the conservative blog reaction to the "Gang of 10" compromise, which would allow some drilling off the southeast coast in exchange for the end of subsidies to Big Oil and renewed investment in clean energy.

While conservatives have been shrouding their support for coastal drilling in the cloaked sound bite, "All of the Above," I had noted last week that for conservatives, "that 'All of the Above' list seems to sputter out for conservatives when it gets to renewable energy."

But Conn clarified to me that for conservatives, "All of the Above," just means "all" of the drilling they want. He said "any bill" that does not open up every inch of American coastline and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is not "all." Watch the segment below.

Of course, this only furthers the point. For conservatives, "all of the above" is not about having a comprehensive energy policy that achieves energy independence and creates affordable energy options to oil. It's about getting Big Oil "all" that they want.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now embracing the outlines of the Senate "Gang of 10" proposal, saying the House would consider a bill that would allow "opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling, with appropriate safeguards, and without taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil."

And yet, in response to the compromise, the House Minority Leader John Boehner (who was golfing while his conservative colleagues railed against Pelosi for keeping to the House recess schedule) lambasted it.

So agree or disagree with the substance of the compromise.

But if congressional conservatives continue their temper tantrum in the face of it, calling the conservative bluff is less likely to actually lead to drilling than it is to expose how deep conservatives are in Big Oil's pocket.

This Week In "Insurance Company Rules:" Joys of the Market Edition

Bill Scher — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:32:42 -0400

This week, the health insurance lobby continues it's "listening tour" by hosting a staged event in an undisclosed location where it could hear nothing it didn't want to hear, and didn't want you to hear. On the flip side, Health Care For America Now sought to amplify people's voices with the "Which Side Are You On?" call-in campaign, making it easy for people to contact their congressperson and find out if their representatives support the insurance companies, or us?

While the insurance companies seek to keep "Insurance Company Rules" in place, so they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, a glimpse of the conservative fantasy -- in which "Insurance Company Rules" would be in even greater force -- was revealed.

This Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported on the dangers individuals and small business owners are having trying to save money by purchasing insurance in the private market through group associations.

In short: with little watchdogging by our government, insurance companies are flat-out scamming consumers. WSJ reports:

The premiums can be cheaper and the benefits better than if you purchased coverage on your own because the associations' greater market clout may give them better negotiating power with insurers. But the cost and quality of coverage and the recourses available to consumers who feel they have been wronged can vary substantially, as insurance sold in this way tends to be more loosely regulated than individual health insurance or coverage offered by large employers.

Phony insurance is sometimes sold through real or bogus associations. From 2000 to 2002, 144 such scams left more than 200,000 policyholders with more than $252 million in medical bills, according to a 2004 report by congressional investigators. Illegal health plans flourish during periods of high premium increases. On Thursday the National Association of Insurance Commissioners issued an alert to consumers warning them about fraud.

Though one company actually was busted recently:

Last month HealthMarkets Inc.'s insurance subsidiaries -- MEGA Life and Health Insurance Co., Mid-West National Life Insurance Co. of Tennessee and Chesapeake Life Insurance Co. -- agreed to pay $20 million to settle violations found by regulators in 29 states relating to health coverage the companies sold to the self-employed through the National Association for the Self-Employed, Americans for Financial Security and the Alliance for Affordable Services. The companies' insurance agents didn't adequately explain what the policies covered, investigators found.

"Consumers thought they were buying major medical policies when in fact they were getting mini-meds," said Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, an initiator of the three-year, multistate probe. (A so-called mini-med offers more limited coverage than a traditional plan.) "When they became hospitalized they discovered the plan covered virtually nothing," Mr. Kreidler said.

Of course, widely sharing risk helps lower costs and maximize bargaining power, which is why Health Care for America Now advocates the progressive vision of a public plan option -- helping save money for millions of Americans and for the overall health care system. At the same time, strong standards for private insurers would be put into place, along with an active government watchdog, or else insurance companies will continue game the system and drive up costs for everyone.

The conservative fantasy, now enshrined in Sen. John McCain's health care plan, is to end employer-based insurance and throw us all into an unregulated market, where "Insurance Company Rules" are the only rules.

Are these the rules you want controlling your health care?

For Conservatives, "All of the Above" Means "No Clean Energy"

Bill Scher — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:58:10 -0400

Conservatives know that after eight years of keeping America dependent on oil, they can't easily promote another Big Oil giveaway. So the message mantra around coastal drilling is "All of the Above."

"All of the Above" is supposed to mean that we need to do "everything" in response to the gas price shock, and more drilling is just one thing among many, including support for coal, nuclear and renewable energy.

Funny thing is: that "All of the Above" list seems to sputter out for conservatives when it gets to renewable energy.

Today's Tom Friedman column in the NY Times makes the point that long-term extensions of renewable energy tax credits would, "unlike offshore drilling," have "immediate impact on America’s energy profile," because many renewable energy projects cannot get private financing with the current short-term credits about to expire.

The conservative response from my bloggingheads.tv partner and Heritage Foundation blogger Conn Carroll? A "fact checking" claim that Friedman is wrong because, "According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) wind and solar contribute a combined less than 1% to our nation’s energy needs. Whether or not Friedman’s favored alternative tax credits get passed will not change that fact in any significant way."

Why wouldn't the tax credits change that fact? Heritage does not say.

There's a reason why renewable energy is stuck at 1% of our energy mix: no long-term energy policy in support of renewable energy. The Union of Concerned Scientists explains:

Unfortunately, the "on-again/off-again" status that has historically been associated with the PTC [renewable energy production tax credit] contributes to a boom-bust cycle of development that plagues the wind industry. The cycle begins with the wind industry experiencing strong growth in development around the country during the years leading up to the PTC’s expiration. Lapses in the PTC then cause a dramatic slow down in the implementation of planned wind projects. When the PTC is restored, the wind power industry takes time to regain its footing, and then experiences strong growth until the tax credits expire. And so on.

And as a report commissioned by the wind and solar energy industries shows: "over 116,000 U.S. jobs and nearly $19 billion in U.S. investment could be lost in just one year if renewable energy tax credits are not renewed by Congress."

If Heritage is concerned that tax credits by themselves are not enough to lift the renewable energy industry off the ground (I know how much they hate cutting taxes on businesses), they could get behind the full Apollo Alliance plan of $30 billion of investment a year to create 3 million jobs generating clean energy and energy-efficiency.

But that would mean actually including clean energy in"all of the above."

Even more telling, than this one "fact check" misfire, is the apoplectic conservative reaction to the "Gang of 10" coastal drilling compromise.

I was concerned that congressional Democrats were caving by flirting with such a compromise (I have long chronicled the "Failures of Compromise," the futile attempts by congressional leaders to appease conservative obstructionists that have marked this Congress.

However, by luck or design, the Gang of 10 compromise -- which will also likely fail to become law -- is serving to expose how disingenuous conservatives are when they say "all of the above," and how deep they are in the pocket of Big Oil.

The compromise proposal would lift the ban on coastal drilling for Florida; allow Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia to do the same; while keeping the ban in place for the Pacific Coast and the northeast). But, the oil could only be sold in the U.S., not on the global market. Further, the plan would end tax giveaways to oil companies to invest $84 billion over 10 years towards clean energy and fuel-efficiency.

Sounds very "all of the above," doesn't it?

But the record profit-taking oil companies don't want to pay their fair share in taxes. So conservatives are conveniently ignoring their own compromise-y "all of the above" rhetoric, to throw a fresh temper tantrum.

They're lambasting the Gang of 10 as "selling out conservative, Republican ideals in the name of singing kumbaya with liberal Democrats," "intend[ing] to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn't have penned it better." and "it might be worthwhile recalling the murderous Gang of Four, the Chinese communist leaders who directed the Cultural Revolution."

While they have convinced themselves that "drill, drill, drill" is a political winner, the reality is that support for clean energy is stronger than support for coastal drilling. A new Gallup poll further confirms what I argued two weeks ago.

By snubbing a compromise that does both, because it doesn't completely give away the store to Big Oil, is only showing voters how deep conservatives are in the Big Oil tank.

The fact is conservatives do not believe in "all of the above." They believe in oil dependence.

In fact, it was at last year's big conservative convention CPAC where I heard a featured speaker declare: "Energy Independence Is Not A Possible Option." This is a dangerous pessimistic attitude that will harm both our planet and our pocketbooks.

Progressives may not want more coastal drilling (which would do nothing to lower prices), and progressives certainly want to greatly reduce our fossil fuel use and carbon emissions in the long-run.

But we are the ones who believe in "all of the above." We just understand that oil, coal and nuclear are already represented in our energy mix. It's clean energy that's been missing.

That's the choice that's been denied us, to protect Big Oil from real competition.

And that's where our policy needs to invest in if we are to have affordable energy options that won't destroy our Earth.

More on conservative hypocrisy from David Roberts at Grist.

Trashing Our Government On Their Way Out

Bill Scher — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:36:45 -0400

Yesterday, the Bush Justice Department announced there would be no prosecutions for the illegal political hiring that went on the Justice Department (link via Knitting Liberally). And, the Bush Interior Department announced new proposed rules that would eliminate independent scientific reviews of projects that could harm endangered species.

The two developments both speak to a disturbing but wholly predictable development. Conservatives want to finish the job of crippling the civil service and trashing our government on their way out the door.

The Bushies were busted in their politicization of the Justice Department, but Attorney General Michael Mukasey has now made it clear that accountability will be quite limited. Further, as noted here before, the politicization of the civil service is far from limited to the Justice Department.

The conservative project to cripple the entire civil service -- taking away the linchpin of fact-based law-abiding democratic governance in favor ideological hackery, blind partisan loyalty and contempt for law -- was laid out by the Heritage Foundation upon Bush's entry into the Oval Office and has been executed widely ever since. The conservative approach to hack government is the underlying cause of nearly every Bush scandal -- from manipulating Iraq intelligence to muzzling climate scientists to churning out anti-Social Security propaganda.

To ensure the civil service stays crippled, conservatives want to "burrow" into the civil service, to hobble future White House administrations that may want to restore good governance. Hence the desire to place conservatives into "career" civil service positions. As Dan Froomkin observed at the Nieman Watchdog:

...it’s traditional for presidents to work until the last minute to hire and promote amenable civil servants, establish rules, and issue orders intended to outlive them. There are some persuasive reasons to suspect Bush will set a new record.

Which brings us to the Endangered Species Act.

The Interior Department's proposed rule sounds on the surface to be a simple procedural change. The Washington Post headline sounds downright innocuous: "Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say."

But The New York Times editorial board (making up for their disingenuous energy editorial earlier in the week) spots the insidious motivation:

Under current rules, federal agencies are required to submit their plans to either the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service.

This in effect gives scientists at those agencies the right to say no to any project or, as is most often the case, to require modifications if the project threatens an endangered species. [Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne would now effectively remove these agencies, whose job is to oversee the act, from the process.

The dangers of such “self-consultation” should be obvious.

The Bureau of Reclamation likes to build dams; the Department of Transportation likes to build highways. Protecting endangered species is not their priority. Other agencies, like the Office of Surface Mining or the Bureau of Land Management, have shown themselves far too vulnerable to pressure from the very industries, like mining, they are meant to regulate.

And those agencies will be even more vulnerable to corporate pressure if they are stocked up with conservative hacks who put the special interest ahead of the facts and the law. After the Justice Department hiring scandal, there should be no question that is the Bush administration's intention.

Froomkin warns of "midnight rulemaking, last-minute hires and executive fiats" to "make it harder for [Bush administration] successors to change course."

But it's not really about Bush's successors and their individual powers.

It's about our government. It is ours, all of ours.

We cannot allow our precious democracy to be trashed to serve a conservative agenda that runs afoul of the law and was never embraced by the public.

It will require sharp eyes and maximum vigilance.

2 Out Of 3 W. Post Stories Say Obama Has No White Working Class Problem

Bill Scher — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:52:21 -0400

The Washington Post has a white working class problem. It doesn't know how to analyze its own poll data about them.

The Washington Post, July 16, 2008:

Among white voters, McCain has an advantage [over Obama] of 50 percent to 42 percent ... The candidates are tied among whites who earn less than $50,000 a year, while McCain leads by 10 percentage points among those earning more than that.

The Washington Post, August 4, 2008

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama holds a 2 to 1 edge over Republican Sen. John McCain among the nation's low-wage workers [defined as "workers 18 to 64 years old who put in at least 30 hours a week but earned $27,000 or less last year"]...

Obama's advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers ... Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.

The Washington Post, August 12, 2008

With polls showing Obama dominating among those under 40 and running even among middle-aged voters, Republican John McCain's lead among those 65 and older is the main reason he remains close overall. His margin is largest among older white voters without a college education, accounting for much of Obama's problem with the white working class.

(emphasis added in all the above)

So after running two stories debunking the perception that Obama has a white working class problem, The Washington Post lazily repeats the myth without any basis.

Now, The Post is right in my opinion to observe and explore Obama's apparent weakness among voters over 65 (though that may turn around if there is a renewed focus on McCain's Social Security views) because there is actual polling data finding a generation gap.

But I still wait to see similar stories from The Post and other traditional media outlets about McCain's "problem" with white working-class voters, younger voters, black voters, Latino voters, women voters, and even white male voters.

And when these types of stories get written, maybe, just maybe, a reporter might find these polling differences have less to do with personality traits than with actual policy positions.

Giant Hole In "2nd Highest Corporate Tax Rate" Myth

Bill Scher — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:25:22 -0400

Even though I helped debunk this myth two months ago, Conservatives are still pushing the canard that America's economic problems stem from having the world's second highest corporate tax rate, and therefore, corporations should get a big fat tax cut.

As I reported in June, while it's technically accurate that America has the second highest corporate tax rate of the 30 mostly wealthy countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, in practice it has the fourth lowest corporate tax revenues among those nations, because of all the special tax favors we currently dole out to corporations and because many corporations shirk their patriotic tax responsibilities and park profits overseas.

Today even more evidence comes out to debunk the conservative corporate tax myth. The Associated Press reports (link via ThinkProgress) that a new U.S. General Accountability Office study finds 68 percent of U.S. corporations do not pay any taxes at all.

Conservatives concocted the corporate tax myth to conjure up an excuse for more corporate tax cuts.

But after taking the facts into account, perhaps our economic woes have more to do with an unfair tax structure, where the wealthy and powerful do not contribute their fair share to America's success, and weaken our collective ability to invest in our foundation.

Country Legend Tom Russell Predicts The Future

Bill Scher — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:13:56 -0400

Country legend Tom Russell, known for being one of the pioneers of Americana music, last year responded to the anti-immigrant frenzy with a brilliant song, "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

I've got 800 miles of open border - right outside my door.
There's Minutemen in little pickup trucks who've declared their own damn war.

Now the government wants to build a barrier like old Berlin, 8 feet tall.
But if Uncle Sam sends the illegals home, who's gonna build the wall?

Tom, how right you were.

Blue Texan's latest Firedoglake post sums it up: "BushCo’s Border Fence To Keep Out Illegals Being Built By Illegals."

The Austin American-Statesman reports on a planned 70-mile wall in the Rio Grande Valley:

Asked whether a border wall could be built on deadline without illegal workers, [Perry] Vaughan, with the general contractors group, told the Brownsville Herald in June: "It's probably borderline impossible to be honest with you."

The remarks were widely circulated on the Internet and picked up by other news organizations. Some in cyberspace said they don't care who builds a border wall.

"I just want the damn fence built. ... I'll let the Libs and the Intellectuals sit around and worry about irony," one poster wrote on a conservative Web site.

"I was simply acknowledging that in the construction industry, a pretty significant percentage of workers are obviously undocumented," Vaughan told the American-Statesman.

Although federal law prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal workers, an estimated 9 percent of Texas' workforce is unauthorized; 5 percent is nationally. Many employers and business and trade groups emphasize that they don't condone immigration-related fraud but that they can't vouch for the documents their workers present.

This is merely more evidence of a complete breakdown in our economic, trade and immigration system.

Unfair trade ship American jobs abroad to chase cheap labor. Reckless industrialization disrupts local agricultural economies south of our border. Those who don't get factory work leave home, cross the border illegally so they can be exploited farther away from their home. Workers everyone lose.

Instead of helping workers, conservative politicians posture about cracking down on immigrants and building border walls, while looking the other way when it comes to employer behavior. (The Bush Administration penalized a mere 17 employers for illegally hiring unauthorized workers.)

And that means you can't build a border wall to keep out illegal immigrants, without illegal immigrants.