Party Plasticity

Steele Continues to get Pounded, Obama Meets with "New Democrats," Senate Dems Waver in Support of EFCA, and Arlen Specter Might Become a Democrat!

Well, it's for sure been an exciting week for politics. The GOP is not alone in its quest to redefine itself as President Obama finally identifies himself as a New Democrat. This paves the way for unifying a party that has such broad boundary lines, that lying somewhere in the middle will help bring together a party that's definition at this point in time is not the Republicans.

So what else is going on while Obama tries to win over centrist Dems in the House? Centrist Dems in the Senate, not actually paying attention to the legislation that they are debating (like Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, and Mark Udall) are stalling on legislation like EFCA. EFCA, is good legislation that, while painful for Republicans and union-busting businesses, is good for the working class (see my previous posting on benefits of EFCA). It's a little frustrating when your party has started to ignore its loyalists in pursuit of the middle. It would help if we got that third party now!

But the greatest news of the day comes from a wrap-up put together by DailyKos suggesting that Arlen Specter may switch parties for EFCA. Now, clearly there are places where Democrats and Specter have disagreed in the past, but all-in-all, during the last half of his 28 years in the Senate, Specter has made some bold moves against his own party's stances and if you look at his key issues, he's more liberal than many of our sitting Democrats.

So, on behalf of the Democrats, I welcome you Senator. Please come join us in 2010 and we promise we'll keep you in your seat! You should see what happens when you have Union money behind your campaign! Especially in PA!

Meanwhile, GOP Chairman Michael Steele is getting slammed again. This time for wavering on Abortion (see: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And of course this posting that covers how the Republicans would oust him, and there are many more. Steele...I think it may be the end of the line for you.

I will be out of town for the next couple of days to return on Tuesday

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Today's Political Thought
Even if Specter moves to the left on EFCA, it will take 60 votes to end a Republican Filibuster...
You do the math on EFCA, here's 2007's votes
Even if we get Franken in MN, look at the 2 Colorado Senators, Conrad and Nelson above. EFCA isn't looking healthy!

Banking a U-turn

Banks say, "Thanks, but no thanks" on that bailout to nowhere...

Today, New York Times Journalist Steven Labaton published a story about the major banks that are having a hard time swallowing the new rules that come along with taking federal money in the bailout. This article has raised a number of responses on the topic and I want to cover some of these positions and what this could mean for the financial bailout.

First, each of these banks has accepted bailout funds to help keep their institutions afloat. They have accepted cash, from the federal government because they were in financial trouble. This is what we were told when the bailout began and why the people have asked for accountability regarding the spending of these funds. Let's talk about the banks that are taking the bailout money and talking about giving (or have already given) the money back:

1. Goldman Sachs - $10,000,000,000
2. Wells Fargo - $25,000,000,000
3. TCF Bank - $361,172,000
4. Signature Bank - $120,000,000
5. Johnson Bank - $100,000,000
6. MidSouth Bank - $20,000,000
7. Bank of America - $15,000,000,000
8. IberiaBank - $90,000,000
   

However, over the past few weeks, beginning with IberiaBank on February 27th, many of these banks have stated that they are considering returning the money to the government early due to new restrictions / rules that have been attached to the TARP funds including holding off on evictions and modifying mortgages citing that the new restrictions are more than they bargained for. IberiaBank plans on repurchasing their stock (which was sold to the federal government under TARP) on March 31st, instigating a cascade of similar responses from banks that also want to Bail Out of the Bailout!

Of course the immediate question on many people's minds, including Dana Houle posting on DailyKos is: If you didn't need it, why did you take it?

It seems to me that with many of these smaller banks, as John Marshall posting on TPM explains, not truly hurting like the major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, is that they kind of jumped on a bandwagon, right? As though, hearing that Sachs is getting TARP funding, these banks said, "Hey. Maybe we can help subsidize our losses too and since clearly no one is asking for any kind of accountability, we can just grab a little piece of the pie and probably no one will notice." Except that people have noticed and, even more importantly, are asking what is going on with that money?

A great example of this is pointed out by Charles Karel Bouley posting on Huffington Post, citing Bank of American's unwillingness to publicly account for bonuses paid to its officers using bail out money. I believe this is a great time for Seth Myers of SNL to do a "Really?!?!" segment on the bailout. If you have never seen one, I would suggest this one on Governor Blagojevich.

So if you did not accept this money because you were truly in dire straits, as I thought was sort of suggested in accepting bailout funds in the first place, then why did you take it? C.R. Cloutier of MidSouth Bank explains;

I hope they can finally tell me just what they want community bankers to do. It was sold to us by the feds as a partnership, but its turning out to be something very different. Its looking more and more like the federal government wants to treat this like it was a needs-based issue, and we didn't need the money.

Fair enough. You were under the impression that this was an opportunity for you to help out your local community and were just accepting the funds to enable your bank to loan money and help out. Alright. Sorry to drag you into this. IberiaBank supposedly took the money to free up credit markets in Louisiana and to consider purchasing failed banks in the region.

Wait! Are you telling me that we are putting money into super-sized banks and bailing them out because they are lumbering, unregulated giants, and then asking smaller banks to build up to become larger banks? And there's more! Apparently IberiaBank is returning the money because they've recently made a ton of capital through a matching program from investors.

Let me get this right -

• The government gives you money to invest in the local community
  
• Meanwhile, you make money on the government giving you money through investors
• Then you give the money back saying, "Thanks, but no thanks" when asked to provide more information about your bank to the government regarding salary and bonus information
• In the meantime, making, what essentially amounts to interest on that money, and then walking away with the free money. And you're not the only bank that is doing it?

We've been duped again!

Look, I understand that many of you are not failing and you have been given money under different auspices than the failing institutions. But, your issue with the bailout money is that you have to disclose information regarding your chief officers? C'mon. Don't act like you're trying to help the country, if you're not really trying to help the country.

So the Opinion,
1. We've lost the battle on getting this whole thing under control. We have to ask the tough questions, we cannot take no for an answer, and we have to do it now. It's time for congress to get on this oversight thing. Maybe by either beefing up the Congressional oversight or appointing an independent board
2. Any bank that has made any kind of dividend from the TARP or Capital Purchase Program should be heavily taxed for it if they want to return the money, or it should be seized by the federal government, or they should pay more for those stocks than they sold them for (kind of like an early repayment fee)
3. We should break apart the over-sized companies, or fully federalize them as they can't seem to be accountable to the people
4. We should not trust banks. They are inherently not capable of making nonprofit decisions. They are for-profit institutions. Why we ever expected them to do anything for the greater good is a failure of logic. Stop giving banks money!

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Today's Quote
"There's an old saying in Tennessee. I know it's in Texas, it's probably in Tennessee that says 'Fool me once, ...Shame on ...Shame on you ...You fool me, can't get fooled again"
President George W. Bush

Employee Free / Forced Choice Act

Labor and Business go at it over NLRA Revisions

EFCA is proposed legislation that is now up for review in the Senate regarding revisions to the original National Labor Relations Act of 1935. There are already strong arguments that have been made from the left and the right regarding this act's potential impact on business and labor. Here is what some are saying.

Proponents (Labor: AFL-CIO, SEIU)

1. Will protect the middle class
2. Will stop corporate intimidation in organizing a union

Opponents (Conservative Think Tanks, Union-Busters: Heritage Foundation, Labor Relation Institute)

1. Will allow very small units in large organizations to run a "card check" certification, effectively unionizing a small subsection of a business without an election
2. Ends Union elections, and silences employees by banning elections
3. Will require an election to disband a Union
4. Will create more union employees that pay union dues, which will end up back in Democrats hands and make labor standards even more strict on companies, starting a cycle of more Democrats in Congress, less speech for companies and eventually, a Socialist State
   

And some other resources
Ed and Labor Committee Fact Sheet
Language of EFCA

The Issues at Hand
Card Check vs. Secret Ballot - The most hotly debated of all of the issues with the employee free choice act is that the NLRB would now be directed that,

"...whenever a petition shall have been filed by an employee or group of employees or any individual or labor organization acting in their behalf alleging that a majority of employees in a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining wish to be represented by an individual or labor organization for such purposes, the Board shall investigate the petition. If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection."

Campaigning when starting a Union - Unions are often not allowed to campaign on the companies' premises while the company can force anti-union meetings
Collective Bargaining - After an election is held and a Union established, companies can drag on bargaining indefinitely

So what does EFCA actually do?
It would revoke part of Taft - Hartley Act by freeing up the NLRB to recognize a collective bargaining unit with a majority instead of giving a company the ability to require an election after a majority has already been heard.
It would impose harsher penalties on companies that impose unfair labor practices such as intimidation and firing
It would end first-contract bargaining more quickly by requiring arbitration by an outside source when demands cannot be met on both sides within 120 days and lock that contract in effect for 2 years.
It would allow an organizing force to effectively organize a company's employees even before a company has an opportunity to add its opinion to those being weighed by the employees.
It will kill a lot of Union-busting companies by shortening their window of opportunity prior to an election.

At first, I was very skeptical about this bill and thought that I might end up being pulled to the right by it. I had read that it would only take 30% of employees signing a card to form a recognized union. I had read that employees would not be allowed an election and would be forced to use the card-check system. However, these things are not true and if you look at the actual bill's language, there is nothing even close to that in the bill. It will however, probably make it easier for employees to organize, and that will be a dangerous thing for companies and Republicans (as listed as #4 under Opponents, above) and luckily there is a very simple solution for that.

So the Opinion:
1. EFCA, as it stands, is a good bill. It's clean and will make it easier for employees to organize which is a good thing for those employees.
2. EFCA will not end Union elections, nor force public card-checks, but will allow for those who have already done a card-check with 50% or more (the same majority needed during the election) to be recognized. There is no reason to hold an election once 50% of workers have already voted in favor of something.
3. Campaign Finance needs to be changed before this bill is passed or soon thereafter. If there is anything that is wrong with EFCA, it is that the balance of political power in state capitols and D.C. will change and we will see an increase in Labor's power. It will swing the country as more employees are organized. Then paying dues, that money will go to more Pro-Labor Electeds and eventually to a Labor-controlled state. Maybe it's time, those of you on the right who have been anti-campaign finance reform, to reconsider as this is about to tip the balance pretty quickly and leave you out in the cold.

**UPDATE: From the Wall Street Journal, "The bill doesn't remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act." Granted this article is really negative towards unions, but at least they figured out that it's not un-american...

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Today's List
2007 Votes for Cloture in the Senate

Going Galt

Atlases of our Society are pissed and are considering societal fissure

I have to start this by saying that I was really hoping to cover the EFCA. I was also urged to cover the budget today, all of which I will dedicate great care in dealing with this week...but I have to take some time to really flesh out this phenomenon - and this is my format for that.

To begin, an operational definition (note: this definition has been derived from readings that are generally from the persuasion of the oppressed and therefore intimate a personal tie to the phrase) is provided:

Going Galt: (verb)
1. to lead the oppressed creative and successful individuals of a society to begin a new society that is not socialist in nature.
2. to remove oneself from an oppressive state that has actively taxed (literally or metaphorically) you as a producer of wealth within that society

I want to start by talking about the issue that is at hand that leads those who are considering going Galt to do so. This seems to have something to do with the income tax increase of 3% on any income over $250,000 that has been proposed by the oppressive, and now apparently Socialist, Democrats. For those of you out there who do not understand the tax tables that you have your CPA handle each year, that means that you get taxed one rate for your income of $250,000 and then a 3% higher rate for your income that is over $250,000. So if you make $255,000, you will get taxed 3% more on $5,000, not on $255,000. So stop trying to figure out how to make less than $250,001 a year.

Now that we've covered that and already 20% of you have stopped going galt, let's talk about another side of this very complicated polyhedron - I want to talk about patriotism. The reason I want to talk about patriotism is because apparently those of you going galt have very loose definitions of patriotism, namely that if we're following you, you are patriotic, and if we disagree with you, then you're going to shove off and start a new country. That's not patriotism, and I'm pretty sure that Democrats stuck around for a couple of years while your boy Bush played War with our Tonka toys in the Middle Eastern sandbox.

I'll tell you something else, how much of that 3% that you are going to get taxed do you think is going to go to socialized medicine and other social programs instead of trying to pay down a very expensive war that we've carried on now for a seven years?

Here's the deal. You are not going to leave the country because;
1. You still hold out hope that your bitching and moaning is somehow going to turn back time on this issue and we'll forget that we need the money in the first place
2. Your special ass isn't going to make any money in a new country since you'll have no industry and no real capital as you're not really going to get a really good trade value with U.S. Currency then.
3. Your CPA will find some more loopholes for you and you'll end up not really paying much more anyway.

Finally, I would like to say something to Representative John Campbell (R-California) who posted a delightful little plea on The Hill Blog and Townhall.com begging that Obama reconsider the 3% increase in income tax:

I'm not going to worry about the potential collapse of the world because of a slight increase on income taxes. Your friends are not going to disappear off of the face of the planet, we're not going to see a mass exodus of people making over $250,000 and they are not nearly ready to commit to leaving this country, nor are they going to fold their businesses in revolt. They are going to continue to make money and building industry and providing jobs because they can't really do it anywhere else (and certainly not as well as here). Let's cut the end-of-the-world, fear-mongering rhetoric and let's start talking about solutions.

Tomorrow, EFCA and what it's potential pros and cons may be...

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Today's Suggested Reading
"Don't Think of an Elephant"
George Lakoff
Summary Blurb: "...much of the success of the Republican Party can be attributed to a persistent ability to control the language of key issues and thus position themselves in favorable terms to voters. While Democrats may have valid arguments, Lakoff points out they are destined to lose when they and the news media accept such nomenclature as "pro-life," "tax relief," and "family values," since to argue against such inherently positive terminology necessarily casts the arguer in a negative light."
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236646413&sr=8-1