The Importance of Voting Tomorrow

Tomorrow is election day in Virginia and the results of tomorrow's election will have a profound impact on Virginia's future.  If one lives in one of the contested Senate districts in particular, it is crucial that you get out and vote.  The following is a reprint of my October, 2015, VEER Magazine column that makes the case why one needs to vote and preferably vote Democrat.  Here's the full column:

By many accounts, the race for the Virginia Senate is just weeks away and it’s still a complete toss.  Republicans hold a two-seat (21-19) lead in the Virginia Senate, but since Lt. Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, presides over the Senate and can break the tie on most issues, Democrats only need a net gain of one seat in the general election to take control of the state Senate.  And, if the Democrats retake control of the Virginia Senate, they can control the Senate committee appointments and chairmanships and kill divisive legislation that gives the Commonwealth a bad name.  Similarly, they can provide a bulwark against some of the most extreme measures that may secure passage of in the Republican controlled House of Delegates. 

Sadly, in half of the 40 Senate districts up for election in 2015, are uncontested. And in the other races, many are not seriously contested.  As a result, a few key races may determine Virginia’s future. Out of the handful of races that will determine who controls the Virginia Senate, three critical Senate districts are located right here in Hampton Roads.  These districts and their respective candidates are as follows:

• District 1: In this district, incumbent John Miller (D) will face attorney Mark Matney (R).

• District 6: Incumbent Lynwood Lewis (D) will face challenger Richard Ottinger (R) in the general election. Lewis won this seat last January in a special election by only 11 votes.

• District 7: Incumbent Frank Wagner (R) and Gary McCollum (D) will face off in the general election.

John Miller and Lynnwood Lewis are personal friends and even though my husband and I do not live in their districts we have supported them financially because we fear the reactionary agenda of their opponents and/or the Republican Party of Virginia.  My concern is that a vote for either of the Republican challengers - not withstanding Richard Ottinger disavowal of being motivated by so-called social issues - would be a vote to drag Virginia backwards in time.  Like it or not, both Ottinger and Matney, if elected, would be under great pressure to vote in accordance with the religious extremist, anti-gay, anti-tax (no matter the consequences to the Commonwealth's infrastructure), and anti-Medicaid expansion agenda of the Republican Party of Virginia.  Indeed, Matney’s campaign website discloses that he has embraced the Virginia GOP’s reactionary social issues agenda.

The District 7 race is the more difficult for me personally since Frank Wagner has been a friend for over 20 years and is one of the few Republicans in the General Assembly who is not rabidly anti-gay.  That said, he has until recently historically voted with the anti-gay, anti-women, and anti-minority members of the Republican caucus in the General Assembly.  To my surprise, he has voted to enact employment non-discrimination protections for state employees (the measures were killed in the GOP controlled House of Delegates) and in 2014 he was a patron of resolution commending Equality Virginia, the 25-year-old nonprofit that advocates for equal treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Virginians.  The issue is, therefore, whether or not Frank has truly seen the light and will now work for equality for all Virginians.  Between now and election day, Frank Wagner would need to go to great lengths to disavow more of the extreme positions of the Virginia GOP to ensure my vote if I lived in his district.  

Turning to the situation in the House of Delegates, the Republicans hold a strong majority.  This is unlikely to change after the November 3, 2015, Virginia elections.  Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that in 71 of the 100 House of Delegates districts up for election in 2015, there is no contested election.  Only 29 of the 100 district seats up for election will have a contested race.  Why is this the case?  Largely due to gerrymandering which the Virginia GOP has admitted - in court pleadings in pending cases challenging the constitutionality of Virginia's voting districts - was done to protect Republican incumbents and aid in holding a Republican majority.  The dictates of the Virginia Constitution that voting districts must be compact and contiguous meant little compared to the quest for partisan advantage.

But back to why is this November's election so important.  Because these elections, especially in the Virginia Senate, will determine whether or not Virginia moves forward into the future or tries, as it has so often in the past, to retreat backwards in time.  A number of critical issues will face the General Assembly in the 2016 session. Two of the most important are as follows:

Medicaid Expansion: As I shared in a column earlier this year, my husband I have experienced firsthand the nightmare that is Virginia's Medicaid program in connection with securing placement for my adopted brother-in-law who suffers from intellectual disabilities.  To listen to Republicans - including statements on Richard Ottinger's campaign website and Mark Matney’s campaign site- Medicaid is some out of control program where free loaders predominate and money is squandered.  The reality, of course, is something far different than what Republicans would have one believe, especially when it comes to disability services.   The Commonwealth of Virginia ranks either 5th or 7th in the nation in per capita income depending on the income ranking utilized. But despite it "wealthy state" status, in terms of its spending on the needs of those suffering from intellectual and developmental disabilities, Virginia ranks 49th in the county.  Only Mississippi spends less on those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Virginia’s Medicaid system needs a huge infusion of money.

Making matters even worse, as the Virginian Pilot recently emphasized, Republican obstructionism to Medicaid expansion hurts the Commonwealth's economic viability but it also seriously threatens the viability of many Virginia hospitals. Here is a brief quote:

REPUBLICAN state lawmakers' refusal to accept billions in Virginians' federal taxes to subsidize insurance for some 400,000 uninsured people has repeatedly been exposed as the partisan political ploy that it is.

The expansion of Virginia's managed-care Medicaid program, the most efficient of two divisions of Medicaid in Virginia, is a prime objective of Democratic President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans have chosen to bleed hospitals in their own districts of necessary revenue, diminishing access to quality health care while undermining local and statewide economic development efforts. All so they can politically oppose a lame duck president over a law twice declared constitutional and which the GOP doesn't have the votes in Washington to overturn.

The analysis is harsh, but sadly accurate from all of the data that I have reviewed to date.  Republican candidates who merely mouth the anti-Medicaid talking points of the Virginia GOP prove that, in reality, they are clueless on the issues on which they are campaigning.

Job Creation and Economic Growth.  All of the candidates regardless of political party talk about wanting to create jobs and build Virginia’s economy.  Most of the Republican proposals boil down to cutting taxes, repealing safety regulations, and pushing the same strategies that have fails to yield results over the years.  Electing representatives that understand that the state and global economies have changed is critical to Hampton Roads.  As recently reported, the Hampton Roads economic has remained static and in the doldrums even as other parts of the country have seen their economies grow.  This needs to change.  Private sector job growth is also critical because Virginia is the No. 1 recipient of Department of Defense spending and has seen a $9.8 billion decrease in defense spending from 2010 through 2012.  One way to counter balance this economic threat is to boost private industry growth to generate new jobs to replace those lost to decreases in federal government spending in the coming years, especially if a new round of sequestration cuts take effect.

As I and others have argued before, to attract new businesses, Virginia needs to ensure that it is welcoming to all would be private business and their employees whether these employees are black, white, Hispanic, Hindu, Christian, foreign born, gay or straight.  Equality is a powerful key to recruiting top employees and retaining others.  Yet, in contrast to this vision of a Virginia where all are welcome, the Republican controlled House of Delegates has consistently blocked every effort to enact employment non-discrimination protections for LGBT employees, pushed through voter ID laws to disenfranchise minorities under the ruse of protecting against nonexistent “voter fraud,” and made all kinds of anti-immigrant statements that impact not just Hispanics but also Asian-Americans.  Just as frightening is the fact that  Virginia Republicans have pledged to make the 2016 General Assembly session all about protecting "religious liberty" through what I call “license to discriminate laws” that enable anti-gay and other religious based discrimination.   If enacted, such laws will make it painfully obvious to potentially relocating businesses that not everyone is welcome in Virginia.

How do we protect Virginia's future and move its economy forward?  Get out and vote come the November elections.  We have elected officials who are working to generate new private industry jobs, seeking to make Virginia a welcoming state for businesses and their employees, and pushing to expand Virginia's health care system (and in the process recapture Virginians' own money sent to Washington).   But these elected officials from the Governor on down need your help: get out vote, especially if you live in the 1^st, 6^th or 7^th Senate districts, and vote for Democrat candidates who want to end Republicans’ failed, irresponsible policies that threaten Virginia's economy and future.

Rubio Grilled By College Republican On Climate And Energy Policy

Like most of the GOP presidential contender field, Marco Rubio has shown no reluctance to embrace ignorance, prostitute himself to Christofascists, and reverse prior sane positions in order to win the votes of the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  The problem is that younger Republicans - like more and more Americans - are rejecting the governmental policies of advocated by the Koch brothers that allow the pillaging of the earth and treatment of workers as disposable garbage.   And they also are less slavish in the devotion to far right religious dogma.  Marco Rubio got a taste of this at an Iowa town hall last week.  Think Progress has these details:

When Dan Herrera asked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) about the environment at a town hall meeting in Iowa last week, it almost seemed like a set-up. 

After all, environmental groups have been known to plant their advocates among the crowds of Republican candidates’ events across the country, attempting to pressure them on issues like clean air and climate change. And Herrera’s question was framed the way any good environmentalist would ask it — first, an appeal to Rubio’s Catholic faith, and then, a direct question about specific policy.

“Pope Francis in the past couple days said a lot about the environment,” the 20-year-old Herrera said, smiling into the brightly lit stage where Rubio stood. “What environmental policies, if any, will you implement if you’re president?”

As it turned out, Herrera was not a member of 350.org or NextGen Climate Action, but a member of the Augustana College Republicans. Located at Augustana College just across the Missisippi River, the group was is dedicated “to promoting the ideals and candidates of their party.”
The Republican party — at least in Washington, D.C. — has been roundly accused of being anti-environment.

But among young Republicans like Herrera, the climate tide seems to be changing.

“Look, we all live here,” Herrera told ThinkProgress after the town hall.  . . . I think that in the current pathway we’re at, that’s not going to be a possibility.”

Young Republicans like Herrera are far more likely to support government action on climate and the environment than their older counterparts. 

Before the first Republican debate, the groups Young Conservatives for Energy Reform and the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum gathered to promote their version of conservative environmentalism — “ending government subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, boosting energy efficiency, advancing renewable sources like wind and solar power and moving away from the idea that ‘drill baby, drill’ is a solution.”

Herrera’s views largely aligned with that version. “Why are we still subsidizing oil? That shouldn’t be subsidized anymore. We should be supporting air and ethanol and solar,” he said. 

“The amount of permanent jobs we can come up with in the clean energy industry is phenomenal,” he continued. “When I go to a wind farm, I see actual people working on [turbines] and talk to the designers — I see actual jobs out there. And I think that’s where the Republican solution comes in. It is very possible to stimulate the economy while continuing to produce jobs.”

Herrera criticized Rubio for not publicly accepting the science of climate change, which states that the phenomenon is caused by carbon emissions and will be catastrophic if those emissions are not reduced. Rubio has recently said he doesn’t think climate change is a problem.

Herrera thinks that presidential candidates will continue to face those kinds of questions from GOP Iowans.

“[Iowans] are so very intimately tied with the land, they’re recognizing that the climate is changing and that as a human race … we’ve been awful stewards of the land,” he said. “That should have changed years ago, but it didn’t. And we can’t change the past, so we need to act right now.”

The GOP’s ‘Jobs’ Hypocrisy

One of the main goals of this blog is to expose hypocrisy, particularly in the political realm and in the realm of religion.  Both areas provide plenty of topics for review.  And in the political realm, the Republican Party provides an endless stream of rank hypocrisy, including its claimed honoring of Christian values even as it pursues policies diametrically the opposite of the Gospel message.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the GOP's hypocrisy on job creation.  Here are some highlights:

I bring good news this new year! Conservatives have a jobs agenda, one that isn’t built around merely cutting taxes and regulations and getting the government out of the way so the free market can strut its stuff.

No—this includes… are you ready?… infrastructure investment, and a monetary policy less obsessed with keeping inflation under 2 percent. It’s new, it’s exhilarating, it’s brilliant! And it’s the same stuff that Barack Obama and most liberal Democrats have favored for years.

When David Frum, whom I respect a great deal, tweets that a new article should be thought of as “a ‘95 theses’ moment for the reformist right,” he gets my attention. So I clicked immediately and read through “A Jobs Agenda for the Right,” by Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, from the new issue of National Affairs. 

[R]reading it was far more infuriating than reading something by a conservative and disagreeing with every syllable, because articles like Strain’s refuse to acknowledge, let alone try to grapple with, the central and indisputable fact that the contemporary Republican Party—his presumed vehicle for all this pro-jobs reform—has opposed many of these initiatives tooth and nail.

The first big measure Strain touts in his essay is infrastructure. . . . There are people who’ve been trying to do just that. . . . . Their attempts to fund a modest infrastructure bank were supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But it could never get anywhere because of rock-solid GOP opposition. Does Strain not even know this? Or is he pretending it never existed so he doesn’t have to deal with the political reality of Republican obduracy?

From there, Strain turns to monetary policy, and this is even more comic. The Federal Reserve, he writes, should relax the 2 percent inflation target to get the unemployment numbers down. Uh, yes. It should. But it’s not as if Strain just originally thought of this. Liberals have been saying this ever since 2009, or 2008 even. And in response, conservatives have been saying that doing so will produce galloping inflation and destroy our economy. You’ve seen Ben Bernanke get badgered about inflation by Republicans from Paul Ryan on down for years.

As I said, I agree with Strain. I agree when he writes: “In short, conservatives should see that there is a role for macroeconomic stimulus in getting the labor market back on its feet” and that “monetary policy with its eye on enabling growth can make a big difference.” Yes, they should. Well… how are they going to see that? Does Strain have some special pixie dust?

It’s astonishing that he can write this way, but it’s what they all do on the right. They maintain the fiction that their party is a party of rational people who will listen to rational argument and isn’t simply dug into a state of psychotic opposition to anything Barack Obama wants to do. Everyone watching our politics for the last five years knows that if Obama is for it, the Republicans will oppose it.

[W]ith regard to jobs and wage stagnation and poverty and so on, the problem is that conservatives deny empirical reality. This gives us people like Paul Ryan, for example, who genuinely seems to believe, in the face of the mountains of evidence about how the social safety net and federal entitlements have saved millions from lives of far worse destitution, that all government can do is make slaves of people. That’s bad enough.

But now, we have conservatives who accept enough empirical reality to agree that public investment is not a crime against nature, but who deny the political reality that the Republican Party stands in the way of progress.

If conservative intellectuals keep pretending this isn’t a problem, there is no hope that it will change.

The Republican Myth on Job Creation

If one looks at the employment numbers, one of the reasons that the unemployment level remains high is that hundreds of thousands of government employees have lost their jobs since the U.S. economy tanked in 2008 largely as a result of Republican policies.  And who has led the push to fire government employees at the state and local levels?  Republican governors, of course.  While Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan chant over and over again - with no data to back up their claim -  that government doesn't create jobs, government can and does create unemployment.  So the truth is that government may not create private sector jobs, it does create the public sector jobs that go towards providing the infrastructure that is conducive to private sector job growth.   Public sector jobs likewise generate incomes that help support consumer oriented private business in sectors as diverse as home building to grocery stores, to automobile sales.  The New York Times looks at the myth being recited by Romney/Ryan as if it were some truth filled mantra.  It's not.  Here are highlights:

Government does not create jobs. Except that it does, millions of them — including teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats, governors (Mr. Romney’s old job) and congressmen (like Paul Ryan). 

First, the basics. At last count, government at all levels — federal, state and local — employed 22 million Americans, with the largest segment working in public education. Is that too many? No. Since the late 1980s, the number of public-sector workers has averaged about 7.3 for every 100 people. With the loss of 569,000 government jobs since June 2009, that ratio now stands at about 7 per 100. 

Public-sector job loss means trouble for everyone. Government jobs are crucial to education, public health and safety, environmental protection, defense, homeland security and myriad other functions that the private sector cannot fulfill. They are also critical for private-sector job growth in two fundamental ways. First, the government gets its supplies from private-sector companies, which is why Republican senators like John McCain have been frantically warning about the dire effects on job creation if Congress moves ahead with planned military spending cuts. (Republicans insisted upon the cuts as part of their ill-advised showdown over the debt ceiling.) Second, government spending on supplies and salaries reverberates strongly through the economy, increasing demand and with it, employment. 

That means the economy suffers when government cuts back. A report by the Economic Policy Institute examined the effect of recent cutbacks at the state and local level — including direct loss of government jobs and indirect loss of suppliers’ jobs; the jobs that should have been added to keep up with population growth; and the reduction in purchasing power from other cutbacks. If not for state and local budget austerity, the report found, the economy would have 2.3 million more jobs today, half of which would be in the private sector. 

The government does not create jobs? It most certainly does. And at this time of state budgetary hardship, a dose of federal fiscal aid to states and localities could create more jobs, in both the public and private sectors. 

The truth doesn't fit with the alternate universe that has become the almost permanent abode of the GOP and its Christofascist/Tea Party base.  That, however, doesn't make this reality on job creation any less true.  Simply saying something is so, doesn't make it so, yet Mitt Romney is hoping that Americans are too stupid to think through the process on their own.