The New York Times: Paul Krugman: Inequality, Dignity & Freedom

Source:The New Democrat 

Just to respond to a couple of things that Paul Krugman said with regard to nothing having been done more to ensure freedom for Americans than Social Security and Medicare. Well, actually there is, and it is called a good education, and for Americans who have that, in many cases they do not need either Social Security or Medicare even when they are eligible for it because they have their own retirement account or have managed to stay healthy long enough to be able to work as long as they want to and put money away for their children and grandchildren.

Just to make one more point about Paul Krugman's column.  If you look at the educational levels of the wealthy, super wealthy, or just the upper middle class and then compare their education with that of people struggling in the middle class perhaps working a blue collar job or even a couple jobs just to pay their bills or you look at low-income workers, there is not contest in their education levels. If you want to do well in America, you need to have marketable skills or talents because otherwise you will need Social Security and Medicare to help pay your bills when you are older, assuming you are not living in poverty.

The dignity of work is a good job that more than pays your bills and allows you to put money away so you can make your own health care and health insurance as well as retirement decisions, not having government make these decisions for you because you do not have the money or knowledge to be able to make these decisions for yourself. True economic freedom is not worrying about paying your bills because you can afford to enjoy life and  put money away as well. 

ESPN: Straight Outta LA: The Story of the Los Angeles Raiders

Source:The New Democrat

The truth is that had Al Davis and his team marketed his Raiders franchise in Los Angeles as the Dodgers and Lakers are marketed in Los Angeles, the Raiders would probably still be in LA today. Instead Mr. Davis believed that people would automatically just show up to see a good football team every week. The fan interest would have been there and the crowds would have been there and there would have been enough interest for Los Angeles to give the Raiders franchise what it needed to be successful in Los Angeles, whether that was new renovations to the LA Memorial Coliseum or a new stadium altogether.

When I think of the Los Angeles Raiders who were in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 before moving back to Oakland, I think of both good and bad and probably more bad then good actually, as my first paragraph, I believe, points out, but to be positive and factual, the LA Raiders were very good in the 1980s. They won two Super Bowls in 1980 and 1983 and probably should have won a couple more in 1982 and 1984, but the 1983 Raiders were one of the best and most dominant Super Bowl champions of all time.

But the story doesn't end there, because again, they were there from 1982 to 1994 and are not still there today. Also there's a lot of what could have been, had Al Davis basically not ruined running back Marcus Allen's career and not cost him at least 4 to 6 years.  Marcus was the best all-around running back of his era, at least post Walter Payton, and the mistake of Al Davis telling his coaching staff not to play Marcus because he believed Marcus became bigger than the Raiders franchise itself.

But instead they traded for running back Bo Jackson because of baseball. He was never more than a part-time player for the Raiders and only played four seasons because of the hip injury. Instead of trading for Bo, they should have invested the money into getting a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback to take over for Jim Plunkett or again trade for Bo but not reduce the role of Marcus in the backfield. They should have gone to a two-back full-time set and become a run-oriented football team with Marcus and Bo and 2,000 yard rushers year after year on the same team. How much better would their vertical spread passing game had been with that running game.

To sum up, the Los Angeles Raiders were a team of underachievers, not just some of the players but the franchise as a whole, and again we are talking about a two-time Super Bowl champion franchise, but they could have done so much more and should have been the team of the NFL of the 1980s to take over for the Pittsburgh Steelers from the 1970s because of the talent they had, the market they played in, and the man at the top in Al Davis.

Thom Hartmann: Richard Wolff: What to do When Capitalism Fails

Source:The New Democrat

Didn't catch the part about what Professor Richard Wolff would do when capitalism failed. He just said how he believed it would fail and why it would fail but not what would happen next. I could give you what he's said in the past about what should replace capitalism, at least in its current form in America.

And he's argued in the past for simply replacing capitalism with a Marxist economic system of state ownership across the board, and a few months ago I read a column of his arguing for economic cooperatives, which is a more Socialist form of capitalism, where the employees themselves would each own a share of the business at which they work, not government, which is different. I believe this is an excellent alternative to the corporate centralized model as long as it is not mandated by government but where management or individuals make the decision to cooperate themselves, for lack of a better word, but I didn't hear him call for these things in this video

The Modern Socialist: Brandon Payton-Carrillo: The Purpose of Government

Source:The New Democrat

This is the perfect question to be asking and debating, because it goes to the heart of a big debate America has been debating as a country for at least forty-five years. With the creation of the Great Society, to President Richard Nixon’s Federalist approach to domestic issues. To get government power out of Washington and back to the states. To President Jimmy Carter’s New Democratic approach to get more power back to the people. And of course the debate just getting bigger with President Reagan, President Clinton and of course today with President Obama. That is why do we have a government and different levels of government and what is it exactly do we need, not want government to do for us in a civilized society.

Why do we have a government and what we need it to do. Depends on who you ask anywhere from Socialists on the Far-Left let’s say who have the biggest role for government and tend to have programs and taxes that are designed to solve all of our problems for us. To Libertarians who aren’t quite Far-Right, but have the smallest role for government for us. To Liberals and Conservatives who are somewhere in the middle. But with different roles for government in our lives and what we need to pay in taxes.

My role for government as a Liberal I believe is pretty simple. To do for us what we can’t as people do for ourselves, or do as well for ourselves. The obvious things being law enforcement, national security, foreign policy, smart regulation of the economy. But not running the economy which is different. A public education system, but not an education monopoly for the broader public. These are a few examples but my role for government doesn’t get much bigger than this.

My basic idea for government is to protect and expand freedom that individuals have to run their, or govern even their own lives, not to take someone else’s freedom from them. But to be able to manage their own economic and personal affairs. So for people who do not have freedom, but need it and deserve it, help them help themselves so they have the freedom to take care of themselves. And to protect freedom for those who already have it and still deserve that freedom.

I’m not anti-government even at the federal level and not pro-government at any level. But the role of government is to protect and expand freedom. That also includes protecting workers and consumers from predators with smart regulations. But again not designed to run companies, but to protect people from those in companies who would hurt us. Only having the government that we need and not the government that we want. Which are different things.

Sam Seder: ObamaCare Equals Freedom?

Source:The Majority Report With Sam Seder- Rally for ObamaCare.

Source:The New Democrat 

Freedom if that is really what this is about is the ability for people to run their own lives and be able to make the decisions about their own lives. And I’m talking about both from an economic and personal vantage point. And to get that freedom people have to have the skills they need to be able to make the income to live in that freedom. Which is why education is so important for current students especially of they come from low-income families. But also for low-skilled adults work low-income jobs currently.

As far as the Congressional Budget Office report. I saw the House Budget Committee hearing with Doug Elmendorf today whose the Director of the CBO today. And House Democrats on that committee asked Director Elmendorf about that CBO report on the Affordable Care Act. And he said that what they are saying is what Sam Seder said in the video. That millions of Americans who are currently working in order to get health insurance will leave the workforce voluntary. Because now they’ll be able to get health insurance without the job they may not want.

This idea that Congressional Republicans are throwing out there that ObamaCare will destroy two-million jobs, is just more Republican propaganda or garbage about the Affordable Care Act. That they hate and are so frustrated about not being able to repeal. And will say practically anything at this point to make ObamaCare look bad. The next attack about ObamaCare might be that the ACA causes climate change. Something a lot of them do not even believe in and see as a government hoax.
Source:Sam Seder

Thom Hartmann: Taxation is Not The Solution To The Sugar Problem!

Source:The New Democrat

I agree that we should as a society be able to hold people accountable for their own bad decisions. Whether it comes to diet or anything else instead of allowing those people to pass those costs onto society as a whole. Because it us unfair for people who make good decisions in life eat and drink well, properly exercise on a regular basis, to then get stuck with the bad decisions of people who do not make good lifestyle decisions.

Where I differ with Thom Hartmann comes to why I would tax these unhealthy products. We know prohibition doesn’t work and trying to outlaw junk food and soft drinks salt and sugar would be just as costly as trying to outlaw marijuana and other illegal narcotics. So we don’t want to go down that road of arresting and locking people up for making unhealthy decisions with their own lives. Which means personal freedom and responsibility are the alternatives. You want to live unhealthy fine, but you and you alone will pay the costs of those bad decisions and no one else.

Well actually the companies who make these products would pay those costs as well. And then what you do with the money is to give it to people who live healthy. By making healthy behavior cheaper so everyone could afford to eat and drink healthy. Workout and so-forth and you reimburse hospitals who have high bills because of all the uncompensated health care. They have to give because of people using their emergency rooms.

The New York Times: David Brooks: The Opportunity Coalition

Source:The New Democrat

I like where David Brooks went with his column today and what I like most about being a blogger, the ability to read so much in one day and then be able to blog what I think of what I read. What David Brooks called the Whig Tradition of using government to empower the less-fortunate to be able to move up the economic scale, is the New Democratic Tradition which in large part is what this blog is about. That just doesn’t go back to Bill Clinton, but take it back to Jimmy Carter or even go back to Jack Kennedy, or even if you want to go back to Wendell Willkie even though he was a Republican. But politically in this New Democratic liberal tradition of using government to expand economic freedom.

And where I also agree with Mr. Brooks is that this is the real economic agenda that President Obama should be pushing. And push it as hard as he can knowing that he probably won’t get much legislation out of this current divided Congress, or even the next Congress. No matter whose in charge of the House and Senate. But to push it to get as much as he can accomplished, but also to help mobilize the country behind the next agenda for the next president especially if we have another Democrat. And issues that President Obama could push as ex-President Obama in his foundation or whatever type of organization he’ll have post-Obama presidency.

Now to talk about the Opportunity Society. Forget about the New Deal or Great Society, City on a Shining Hill, Contract With America or Compassionate Conservatism. What the Opportunity Society acknowledges is that as great of a country that America is with all the freedom and so-forth, not enough Americans have access to that freedom the ability for one to be able to take care of themselves and their families and put money away for themselves and their kids. That for too many Americans especially on the bottom steps of the economic ladder, they live in a stagnant society without hope and the tools to move up the economic ladder.

What the Opportunity Society says is that government isn’t too big or too small. Doesn’t even really take a position on that when it comes to the economy and economic freedom. But that the resources that is had are not used in the right way and not used effectively enough so as many Americans as possible can take advantage of those tools to get themselves the skills that they need to live in economic freedom with the ability to live their own lives. From what you get from economic Conservatives is that government is too big and taxes too much. And rarely if ever gives out specifics. And what you get from let’s say Progressives is that government is too small and taxes too little. With a lot of specifics and things that Americans tend not to want to pay for.

With the Opportunity Society it is not much resources that is the issue. But how that money is spent. And sure I would like to spend more on job training for low-skilled adults. And more funding from the federal level for low-income communities when it comes to public education. And I would like more money spent on infrastructure so more communities have the tools that they need to be successful. But these things mean nothing if that money is not spent well. And what I really want to do is use these resources so the people who need it get the resources they need to get themselves a good education. So they can get themselves a good job and live in economic freedom.