The Speech
Not gonna say much, because this SOTU will be very, very quickly forgotten.
I will be more amply pontificating on the Bush speech on the radio Wednesday as a guest commentator from 10-11 a.m. PST on KPCC (89.3) in So Cal. You can listen live or to the archived show that will be posted.
But the only logical explanation I can come up with tonight for the directon of this speech is that Bush's much-touted-but-now-forgotten expedition to Mars seems to have already succeeded and that the Prez was addressing us live and direct from the Red Planet.
After telling us for the 3 1/2 years that Iraq was the existential struggle for this and the next generation, he feebly attempted to change the conversation to ethanol, woodchips and a preposterous health-tax program.
It took him 40 minutes and 3200 words before he dared mention the war in Iraq. And when he did, we were right back to him brazenly linking it to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Pathetic.
By the way, I found the chattering and nattering Democrats who preceeded and proceeded him on the air to be just as vexing. A synthetically smiling Hillary spoke of being "heartsick" and "regretful" over the war in Iraq but couldn't wrap her lips around the word "withdrawal." The much-anticipated rebuttal from Senator Jim Webb left me unmoved and vaguely disappointed. Maybe reading the text would be more edifying but listening to Webb he sounded like he had OD'd on Lithium.
What either party says about the war, frankly, matters next to nothing at this point. Only tangible results will get any real notice at this point.
Next?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 pm
“It took him 40 minutes and 3200 words before he dared mention the war in Iraq. And when he did, we were right back to him brazenly linking it to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Pathetic.”
Let me say this about that: his crew sure know how to parse polls, even when they seem to signal imminent political death. When Americans are asked if Al Qaeda is trying to take over the Middle East, trying to destroy America, or both, 45% go for “destroy America” and 15% say “both”. Think about that for a minute: a majority of Americans see Al Qaeda’s *main* ambition as *destroying* America, not merely defeating it in its foreign policy in the Middle East.
Now, it should be obvious that even an Al Qaeda that took over the Middle East would have a pretty hard time destroying America, and that to even attempt to do so from a position of Middle East control would be economic suicide for the oil-rich realm they won at such cost. But what’s amazing to me is that so many Americans perceive Al Qaeda as out to destroy America even if it means *not* getting control of the Middle East. Al Qaeda has hardly been coy about its goals: state capture of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and an eventual Caliphate Restoration.
Which is to say, the Bush crowd are actually pretty smart to continue playing into extant phobias. It’s about the only pillar of popular support still standing in the ruins of the neo-con adventure. If the American people don’t want to think rationally about Al Qaeda as a group that actually has some reserves of rational strategic thinking, if most Americans want to believe that they are above being politically manipulated by religious zealots who wear turbans and robes, if Americans don’t want to step back from “They attacked us! Why do they hate us?” and start thinking “So what were they trying to provoke us to do, and what’s the more level-headed response?” that’s fine with BushCo. Bush and his crowd know better: they deal on a level with cold, ruthless calculators wearing turbans and robes, running a state permeated with hard-core religious zealotry, all the time: the Saudi royal family.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 pm
No time for in depth comments now, but I thought Jim Webb was pretty good. Getting your message out in 10 minutes in a dimly-lit and empty room after the pres spends an hour enjoying all the pomp and circumstance the office affords is a tall order. I’m sure reading the text will bring more to light, but my initial response was favorable. Of course talk is cheap, especially with the Democrats.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,023 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the death of the following American yesterday:
FREEMAN, Brian S., 31, Capt., Army; Temecula, Calif.; 412th Civil Affairs Battalion.
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
“Of course talk is cheap, especially with the Democrats.”
The Jan 27 demo in DC will be critical, IMHO, in charting where we go from here. A lackluster turnout, and too many boring speeches, and we will be in Iraq for another two years. But a huge, impressive turnout might just give the Democrats the courage they need to act. So it is not just the Democrats whose seriousness is on the line, but antiwar Americans who have been telling us all these years how outraged they are at Bush’s policies. You don’t just make sacrifices for a war, you make sacrifices for the antiwar movement too–or you don’t have one.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:10 am
The Democrats, and their new leader Maddam Speaker, were a class act tonight. It’s this kind of behavior that really scares the Republicans.
I thought the President, under the….ummm circumstances, and Senator Webb both did a good job. Good speeches, well delivered.
I am proud of my country and its highly developed democracy.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:47 am
btw, check out the opening statement from Libby’s attorney declaring that White House officials were using him as a scapegoat to protect Rove. I guess the days of falling on one’s sword are over. Should be enlightening.
If the Democrats impressed Jim R, they probably also impressed a lot of other people, so I take back my suggestions that they boo the president. No harm done, they didn’t take my advice anyway.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:40 am
I didn’t catch the speech thankfully, and I didn’t see Webb’s response live, but the text of his remarks seemed to be pretty strong to me. His remarks about economic injustice and his parting shot about Democrats showing Bush the way out of Iraq if he doesn’t do it himself were more than what most Democrats offer, which is heartening. And Balter is totally right - everyone who has the time and means to get to DC this weekend for the anti-war demo needs to be there. The Democrats (and wavering Repubs) need to be shown that there is a large and loud constituency for ending the war ASAP out there. I have a feeling that turnout for the march is going to be quite high. I know tons of people here in Philadelphia who are going, and from what I know there are at least five, probably more like 7-8 busloads of folks from just across the river in South Jersey who are going as well; if anyone here knows the area, you’ll understand just how big of a turnout that is. I’m starting to get really excited about this.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Highly developed democacy? I actually decided to watch this shit, and I was disgusted from the getgo at the ritual. Just to rub it in, one of GWB’s first handshakes was to a widely grinning Kucinich. The Democrats - from the Black caucus and others - seemed to appear all too deferential and friendly to Bush, and Bush introduced Pelosi to loud cheers. This bipartisanship is dangerous, because it truly helps Bush, not politics. The entire ritual seemed moderately fascistic wih all the applause and standing ovations at buzzwords.
The big laugh for us was Cheney, who appeared ot take some kind of pill and get it caught in his throat during Bush’s speech.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Incidently, since I was watching it on CBS, I heard Katie Couric say to Bob Shaeffer beforehand “Didn’t Jefferson refuse to give speeches, finding it like a Monarch?” Shaeffar answered in hte affirmative, and said that it wasn’t until (the original fundamentalist) Wood Wilson that they did it, not in writing as was tradition from Roosevelt, but as a very royalist ritual. It isn’t American or patriotic, its from that Anglophile Fundamentalist Wood Wilson. See, I ain’t American so I didn’t know that. But I’m sure many of you didn’t either.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Roosevelt in above post - replace with Jefferson
January 24th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I see Mr. Balter is still morosely tolling the knell of the American Iraqi war dead for us. Good to see the occasional officer in his list. This is good for morale, shows the officer corps is taking risks beside the soldiers. Soldiers appreciate this. If I were a parent and he posted my son’s death, I would make every possible effort to meet him in person so I could thank him for his compassionate service to America.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Bush’s domestic agenda is just liberalism lite. Big Gummint, Big Business, Big Education, and Big Law Enforcement. Everyone at the trough.
An interventionist who wants to do Big Gummint better. Wendell Willkie lives. The handbasket for Hell leaves at 1800 hours.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:45 am
“This bipartisanship is dangerous….”
The SOTU ‘is’ a ritual. It is one time of the three equal branches of our government come together in the House of Representatives to listen to an address by the Executive. It is a political celebration of our form of democracy, and the American people expect, and deserve, each branch to respect for the other….represented by its currently elected occupants.
After all, it leaves 364 days to argue, bicker and fight partisanly……which the voters that really count don’t like.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:48 am
The handbasket for Hell leaves at 1800 hours.
I believe it left in March 2003.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Bush from last nite: The economy is on the move–and our job is to keep it that way….First, we must balance the federal budget (applause). We can do so without raising taxes.” (applause, cheering.)
Webbs Democratic response, (in an empty room, no less!): “we should measure the health of our society…Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street.”
January 24th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Btw JC. ‘Politics’ is how decisions get made in a democracy. You cannot have your own way. You must negotiate and compromise to get ANYTHING done. You must not only win power, you must win enough friends and collegues to have ‘influence’.
You would be a bull in the china closet of democracy I think….breaking everything, fixing nothing, for the one term the voters allowed you to stay.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:03 am
“First, we must balance the federal budget (applause). We can do so without raising taxes.†(applause, cheering.)”
If you watched carefully Joec, you would have saw applause by all for the ‘we must balance the budget’, but few Democrates applauded the ‘and we can do it without raising taxes’…which I agree we cannot.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Hmmmm. …
A “democracy” in which a fascist ritual not dissimilar to Arab governments and Soviet pleniums - like Saddam Hussein’s congress of clappers….Doesn’t deserve the title. China shops need bulls some of the time. Roosevelt faced heavy opposition - and even coup attempts - during the New Deal. LBJ - who I hate for the most part - provoked tons of opposition for his civil right legislation. There are certain issues in which there is “right” and “wrong.” The Democrats have the potential to be “right” - certainly Webb’s speech was good on the economy - yet they are too deferential and open to being suckered by Bush.
The concept of “influence” reminds me of The Sturges film The Great McGinty.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:15 am
All I saw last night was a giant room of monsters who have little at stake in their political card game. I’m always amazed that people who by and large have no children in the military, have free health coverage and a defined benefit pension outside of SS and almost exclusively belong to the top 5% of income earners in this country try to pass themselves off as people in touch with “Main Street.”
I call bullshit.
January 24th, 2007 at 9:29 am
At times like this Marc, i find it a little too convenient for you to pick on both sides.
How about telling us what YOU would have done or said differently, that would have been meaningful in the current context of Iraq?
January 24th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Vivien,
I guess you didn’t see Jim Webb’s response, did you?
January 24th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Webb was blunt and brilliant. His straight-forward, street-level offering rendered utterly foolish and self-indulgent all the predictable carping here about Democrats and integrity.
Harold Myerson at TAP: That Jim Webb is an eloquent writer and plain speaker, an economic populist and a hard-headed opponent of the war in Iraq hardly qualifies as a revelation. Nonetheless, his discussion of the two Americas, and more particularly his blunt and straightforward evocation of what the economy has become for ordinary Americans, professionals as well as manufacturing and service workers, was stunning. Webb spoke of, for, and to an America whose existence Republicans hardly recognize. For that matter, you could go through the collected utterances of the vast majority of Democratic pols — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama among them — without finding so unflinching a description of the effects of the globalized economy on the American people.
Part of Webb’s genius — and for eight minutes on Tuesday night, Webb was a genius — was his ability to situate his message in the mainstream of American history. Concern for the average man? Check out Andy Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt. Extricating ourselves from a military quagmire? Follow the lead of Dwight Eisenhower.
What was particularly exhilarating was Webb’s conceptual economy. No laundry lists… There were two main issues separating Democrats and Republicans — economic fairness and sanity in Iraq — and Webb had the good sense to spend his eight minutes focused on those. (end clip)
January 24th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Yeah, America’s genocidaire, Andrew Jackson is someone ot emulate. I thought Webb was good too…but the Jackson reference was offensive.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:57 am
That’s rich coming from Mr. Pure - who’s political pantheon contains the prick responsible for slaughtering the Kronstadt sailors, among others.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:17 am
First of all George Washington spoke to the Congress, didn’t like the response and never went back.
Jcummings, I’m not fond of Jackson either but the point Webb was making was a populist one and Jackson was the “father” of American Populism as his open White House and Innagural (and as all good “West Wing” viewers remember) his “cheese” demonstrate. So the SOTU is a facist ritual! Pretty good from a guy in Canada where the annual spech from the throne opens Parlement!
I agree with Reg and others that Jim Webb’s speech was impressive. Harold Meyerson, as usual, got it exactly right and the fact that our host found it unimpressive merely serves to show how good it was. If Jesus gave the response last night Marc would have found fault with it since it was a Democrat doing it!
As to Bush? Well Marc are you sure it wasn’t Jupiter? Mars seems too close to us for anyone to have given that set of nostrums.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Andrew Jackson, a slave-trader and brutal in his treatement of native Americans, was, indeed, an “offensive” character. But he was also responsible for extending the franchise beyond propertied classes to all white males. In the context of his time this was a very significant step toward broader democracy. That’s the context of Webb’s reference. While we’re dragging out skeletons, it’s useful in considering Jim Webb’s rise as the new populist “star” to remember that this is a man who still believes the U.S. could have prevailed in Vietnam, who had a terrible record while serving Reagan as Navy Secretary regarding women in the military (check out his response to the “Tailhook scandal”, and who supported George Allen in the 2000 senatorial race.
For myself, I welcome this man into his current role of helping lead a new economic populist and anti-war coalition. Without the Jim Webbs of this world moving into alliance with more traditional liberals on some central issues, we’re screwed. As we have been. I’ll take Jim Webb’s “complex but deep” integrity for what it’s worth, which is a hell of a lot, over all of the leftist cavils and/or self-stroking rhetoric about how one “feels” regarding profoundly imperfect political coalitions.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Reg, you’ll pardon me if your “Yes but” response re Jackson sounds like “Hitler killed the Jews….but he put in place a welfare state and built the Autobahn”….
January 24th, 2007 at 11:21 am
I am an anti-royalist. Much of the Canadian Left have always wanted to sever ties with the Empire. Given his progressive character, I’d rather have Prince Charles as head of state then many of today’s leaders though.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Kronstandt is fundamentally different from genocid against native Americans.
If I’m so pure, how come I have kind things to say about Webb?
January 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I appreciate you comments about Webb - as I do probably more of your comments than you realize - but Krondstadt was as fundamental an expression of the character of the Bolshevik regime as the native American genocide was of our “Manifest Destiny”. The Krondstadt sailors, who’s manifesto was as pure an example of left-wing idealism and revolutionary democracy as one could find, were considered enemies of that regime to be shot down like dogs and things only got worse over the next decades. Ironically, the Bolsheviks commemorated the Paris Commune within days of destroying Kronstadt.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am
There is a school of history that says that the kronstandt sailors were - unbeknownst to them - funded by the Whites.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Even if you accept that Kronsdadt was in the nature of the regime, it was far more contextualizable than Jackson’s horror show.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am
As for the “yes but”, the issue isn’t weighing evil deeds against some “good” deeds like building roads, but that Jackson pushed for important structural changes to the nascent democracy that moved it fundamentally in a better, more broadly inclusive direction. Jackson is given proper credit for that by historians and that’s what Webb was referenciing. I wouldn’t call his reference common knowledge in our American Idol culture, but it was a form of political shorthand giving the nod in the direction of reviving Democratic populism that Webb was invoking. While we’re on this, let’s not forget that populism in America has historically been horribly racist. Also a major expression of Christian fundamentalism.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I beiieve there’s concrete evidence of communications between some involved in Kronstadt and some opposition “Centre” - can’t remember the details. I don’t really care.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:57 am
The much-anticipated rebuttal from Senator Jim Webb left me unmoved and vaguely disappointed.
I really can’t believe you saw the same response I saw.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
There’s also a “school of history” - in fact, I don’t think there’s much disagreement - which has Lenin assisted in returning to Russia by the Kaiser and the Bolsheviks being given funds by Germany.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Only on Marc’s web would we go from the SOTU to Jackson’s place in American history to the Kronstadt Soviet! What next comrades?
Very good pieces on Jim Webb’s speech today by Matt Stoller at MYDD and Dighby at HULLABALLOO. I’ll say this. He boiled down the differences in the two parties to two themes - Economic Justice and a Sane Foreign Policy. Great themes and easy to exploit. No laundry lists. And his ending statement where he says they will lead if Bush won’t and show him the way - Priceless!
January 24th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Populism has a two-edged sword indeed. From Huey Long to Hugo Chavez.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Reg & Randy Paul …
Yes, Jack Webb served and served honorably. As does his son. But is he the exception or the rule? Ummm … just some cursory checking shows he’s the exception by-and-large.
I didn’t see his rebuttal. I did read the full-text though … And honestly, I’m extremely underwhelmed.
Let’s examine some of his points:
The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow.
Only 12.7 percent of the benefits from a federal minimum-wage increase would go to poor families, while 63 percent would go to families earning more than twice the poverty line and 42 percent to those three times above the poverty line. http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061217-102008-9325r.htm … Helping the poor in a way that only a rich bourgeois could ïŠ
President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy ¬ that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street.
I guess Hillary missed that memo:
**Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005
**Clinton, Hillary NO VOTE
Yet, funny enough … this is the Dem candidate we’ll most likely get.
Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.
I could give a flying bag of feces for Iraq, the Iraqis, and frankly, the whole ME. Bring my brother home now … Or are we doomed by the cowardice of election-oriented realpolitik to sit and beat ourselves up for another generation of soldiers lost for a war that had no meaning. All the time we spent trying to ‘fix’ Vietnam resulted in – survey says – utter defeat. That old chestnut of not learning history, making the same mistakes comes to mind.
Are we doomed to listen to apologia for diet progressivism? Seem to be if this speech was anything to go by.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Viven - I doubt that there’s anyone in DC - or anywhere else - who shares your sense of urgency any more than Jim Webb. Remember he was the guy who, when Bush asked about his son in Iraq, said simply “Bring him home” and rebuffed any further lame attempts at Beltway small talk.
Also check this out:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246
Nothing will convince you or Marc of much beyond your particular certititudes, but unmitigated outrage is even less likely to get you where you want to go than unbridled “expediency”. You can trust me on that. Try to strike a balance or you’ll not only continue to be self-righteously disappointed - which is something I can guarantee for both of us - but you’re also likely to miss it should a bit of light ever crack through any of those closed doors.
January 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Vivien,
You’re quoting an op-ed in the Moonie Times by AEI fellows about the minimum wage and you find it credible?
January 24th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Randy,
The idea that raises in the minimum wage have little affect on the poor in this country is unfortunately, terribly true and generally known.
If you’re serious about helping the poor and unskilled, then you really are talking about the following options:
1. Continued expansion of the EITC or
2. The immediate sealing of the borders to eliminate downward wage pressure through price-advantaged competition (which I find morally reprehensible) or
3. A fundamental attitude shift on the part of the poor and unskilled towards unpleasant jobs (e.g. I worked in a slaughterhouse before college. Let me tell you there were not many of my proletariat friends there that weren’t from Mexico)
Raising the minimum wage just tends to put more money in the hands of Biff, the white high school kid, down the street.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Biff deserves that money.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Nonsense. You’re making a lot of unsupported generalizations.
January 24th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Ummm … yeah … Randy … I guess these dudes are wrong too:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/lwlm99/turner.htm
This information has been well-known by economists and policymakers for some time now.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
V ivien,
Perhaps you should actually read some of this before you link:
But wait, there’s more:
All this really shows is that there is no empirical evidence to back up your claims.
Thanks!
January 24th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Also go here and click on “Table 1″ link
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage
January 24th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
“Raising the minimum wage just tends to put more money in the hands of Biff…”
Attention must be paid to such a man. And Willy too.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Randy … you’re incredibly fib-alicious … What’s at the top of the article ..
Key Findings
* A disproportionate share of minimum wage workers are teenagers and most do not live in poor families.
* A sizable portion of minimum wage workers are poor parents.
* Negative employment effects, if any, appear to be slight and are difficult to detect.
* Minimum wages curb employer-provided training opportunities for low-wage workers and may reduce educational attainment for some at-risk groups.
* Moderate minimum wage increases will not reduce poverty rates.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
You offer an interesting link but it does not fully support your point. EG the overview to the study –
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/lwlm99/overview.htm
says:
Even so, of the six million adults working at the minimum wage, 1.4 million live below 150 percent of poverty and nearly one million are single parents. Increasing the minimum wage could improve their financial well-being despite its inadequate targeting of the working poor generally.
The Biff effect above is a failure in “targeting”. If you back out the numbers in the overview, it seems that the Biff effect per se (”teenager in school from family well above poverty line”) is actually rather small. I know we all want to stick it to Biff…
The overview offers a mixed assessment of the EITC, eg
The EITC is intended to increase labor force participation by encouraging people to work who otherwise would not be drawn into the labor force at the prevailing wage. Barnow finds that the majority of evidence suggests the EITC is an effective means of increasing labor force participation among single mothers and in raising the family incomes of poor children. Barnow notes, however, that the increased income associated with the EITC can provide a disincentive to work for some, particularly women in two-earner households. Furthermore, since the EITC does not directly create new jobs, it will benefit fewer workers in the overall labor market.
It certainly does not say, as you do above, that a good conclusion is to leave the minimum wage alone and increase the EITC, right? Why not do both?
January 24th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Meanwhile…
Hagel:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002402.php
January 24th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Vivien,
So if you take the dilettantish view as you did, you see a couple of buzzwords that enable you to put two and two together and get five.
You said
While the key findings you cite quote this statement:
The fact that you cannot square the above statement exemplifies your facileness.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Marc, Jim Webb wasn’t giving a speech to a crowd like Bush, he was talking to a camera in his office. A much cooler medium.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Randy –> if that isn’t a case of the kettle calling the pot facile …
If an action that you take has a less than 1 in 5 chance of affecting positively the demographic group that you’re trying to help (poor parents) but a 1 in almost 3 chance of just putting money in Biff’s pocket … let’s see does what I say jive? … guess so.
I’d also point out that 75% of the minimum wage workers are part-time … and 71.3% are above the 150% poverty level.
So again, who are we helping? Seems the idea of raising the minimum wage misses almost completely the people who need the help.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
>Raising the minimum wage just tends to put >more money in the hands of Biff, the white >high school kid, down the street.
I’m not sure we want to assume that Biff doesn’t deserve help. I bet I’m typical on this list for being a former Biff, white child of a middle income family who worked at jobs a little above minimum wage (nonunion construction laborer, tobacconist’s cashier)while in college. I’m also father of a Biffette who is able to scrape up perhaps 5% of the $45,000 annual cost of her education by working at low-wage jobs.
Biff is being underpaid for his labor and deserves a raise that, in the absence of a real labor movement, he is not going to get without government action. Biffs of the world unite!
January 24th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Vivien,
Maybe you should ask the poor parents.
You’re also using data that is now 8 years old. As for the rest, I believe that Michael Turmon refuted it well.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Michael T,
Here’s my thinking:
1. The minimum wage increases have an almost neutral effect on the number of jobs
2. EITC targets the most at-risk demographic group –> people with children
3. Slightly negative effects on the labor force participation of women in two-income earner families is not negative when you think that we inherit the effects of the lack of parental care later in the lifecycle of the children in that family
4. Neither solution “creates” jobs …
This is why I’d choose expansion of the EITC over the minimum wage increase. Because it is targeted, provides people who need to provide supervision for their children with the opportunity to do so, and has no real negative effects.
Why not do both? I have no issue with that. My earlier point was the sheer tokenism of the gesture on the part of the Democratic party.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Randy –> EITC expansion would help the poor parents considerably more than effectively … not to mention the kids who get one of their parents back in their daily lives if the EITC is enough to allow withdrawal from the labor force.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Wow … EITC expansion would help the poor parents considerably more than incrementally wage increases … trying to type while on a conference call. Mea culpa on the typos.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I liked the fact that Jim Webb was unequivocally for withdrawal in Iraq.
As Marc and others point out, Webb is, apparently, not the Great Liberal Messaiah, but I’ll take anti-war Democrats wherever I find them and so, I predict, will voters.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I’d like to try and examine a few of Vivian’s assertions:
1. As the table Reg cited shows, the vast majority of workers who benefit from a min wage hike are not teenagers. That point seems settled.
2. Vivian points out that 71.3% of workers who benefit from a min wage increase live over 150% of the poverty line. For starters, why shouldn’t those people make a little more? According to HHS that means earning $30,000 a year for a family of four. I think giving those people a raise isn’t a morally questionable act. The question arises is there any practical downside? Economists argue whether or not modest minimum wage increases hurt the economy with many economists, especially those I’m inclined to believe, saying it doesn’t.
3. Vivian prefers the EITC because it’s more targeted, but does a modest increase in the EITC comparably increase wages? The pretax increase from a $5.25 per hour job to a $7.25 per hour job, assuming a worker is employed 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, is $4,380. After taxes, I’m sure that shrinks a few hundred. Assuming that you increase the first tier of EITC (after all, you’re trying to target the poorest of the poor) from 40% to 60%, workers will go from keeping $4,300 of their first $10,750 to $6,450 of that same sum, an increase of $2,150 (this sum is after taxes). The proposed increase in minimum wage helps a comparable number Americans and gives put significantly more money in their pockets. And it’s worth noting that an EITC increase comes out of government coffers, further exacerbating our budget problems. I’m a bit out of my bailiwick here so if anyone’s got better numbers, counter-analysis, or a Max Sawicky post, I’d be glad to see it. But even if my numbers are wrong and the EITC benefits poor Americans more than a minimum wage increase, the increase is a very worthy policy goal and one that progressives should gladly support – no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the very good.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
This discussion on the minimum wage is interesting if futile since true believers like Vivien will never be swayed in their theological belief that the minimum wage stifles enterprise. Funny, but those states - like California - that have a higher minimum wage don’t seem to suffer in this regard. In fact their economies tend to be more robust but I won’t claim a correlation. Just noting.
Increase the EITC? Great idea. Bill Clinton asked Congress to do it in his last four SOTUs but they didn’t want to. In fact, in 1995 Newt and the “Conractors” tried to CUT IT. And I’d note the GOP had SIX Years in complete control and never introduced a bill to do that.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Wow … I’m glad I triggered such a discussion, but let me correct some misperceptions …
Mavis: http://www.cepr.net/publications/labor_market_2005_12.pdf … the average benefit would be $1,520/yearly. 49% of the people earning this in 2004 are still >20 years. 71% have less than a college degree. Again, I’ll state it unequivocally, 1/2 the people being helped are not the people who need it. And for those who do need help, the EITC will provide twice as much money (your numbers, Mavis). Jack up the EITC and make sure that everyone eligible receives it (25% eligible didn’t claim) and that’s a real effort fighting poverty. A minimum wage is for the most part a red herring. It doesn’t cost jobs, but it doesn’t do a lot of good. Also, the amount of lost revenue for a significant increase in the EITC allocations is minimal.
Richard -> you’re truly, truly silly. At no point did I say a damned thing about the minimum wage stifling enterprise or costing jobs. Why you’re inventing this bs is beyond my ken.
But Mavis, Richard, Randy … just because I look at the minimum wage increase in tokenism by no means makes me indifferent to the plight of the poor. It is an issue near and dear to me –> especially after growing up in a household that thought it was a good year to break the poverty line. The point I’m making is that the bourgeois congressional Dems are once again FAILING the poor … they are willing to accept no onus for increasing expenditures to expand EITC even though they are willing to go billions more to stay in Iraq. F*cked up value in my opinion.
We should expect and demand more … period.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I see elsewhere that John Kerry has decided not to run for President. While I think his decision is correct I’m troubled by some of the reasoning behind it. Kerry apparently told supporters that he realized that he’d have a tough time after telling that “Joke” that sorta fizzled.
What does it say about the intellectual life of this country when a potential candidate for President drops out because he botched a joke? What were electing a stand-up comic? Call AMERICAN IDOL! What he meant, of course, was the relentless badgering he’d get in the media would doom the chances of his message getting out. Just as Gary Hart found in 1988. Just as, I believe, Al Gore feels now. I’d bet he is not running because he dosn’t want a repeat of the crap he endured in 2000 from the great and the good in punditland.
A true story. Back in 1996 Felix Rohytan of Lazard Freres was being considered for a vice chairmanship of the Fed. He decided to turn it down. When he did, he told Charlie Rose, all kinds of assiciates asked him why he would ever want to subject himself to the crap a nominee had to thru from the press. And that was a non-elective post.
Ever wonder why so many don’t run?
You need a cast iron stomach to eat this crap.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Fair enough different set of numbers. The EPI has an alternate take (that I won’t post, but is much closer to my math). I will, in a moment, post their FAQ response regarding the value of EITC vs. raised minimum wage.
Also worth noting that Vivian’s link disputes her assertion regarding the number of 20 year olds earning minimum wage. Page 3 of her CEPR link says, “In the early 2000’s, for example, fewer than one-in-five minimum-wage workers was under the age of 20…” It is possible she flipped some numbers because the authors do note that 45.9% of minimum wage earners fell between the ages of 25 and 64.
I don’t think anyone is accusing you, Vivian, of insensitivity to our nation’s poor. Instead, we’re suggesting that you’re criticizing a measure that helps the badly off because it doesn’t only help the very worst off. To me, and some of the other commenters here, that doesn’t make much sense. See the EPI response below:
Is the EITC a more effective anti-poverty tool than the minimum wage?
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) combined with the minimum wage helps to reduce poverty, but the EITC is not a replacement for a minimum wage increase. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a popular federal anti-poverty program and an important piece of the ongoing strategy to make work pay. One reason for the EITC’s popularity is that it is based on family income and is therefore well-targeted to poor families. In addition, it encourages work because the wage subsidy increases with earnings until it reaches the maximum credit level. The EITC and minimum wage work in tandem to raise a family’s income. The effectiveness of the EITC in raising the incomes of the working poor above the poverty line therefore depends, in part, on regular increases in the minimum wage. This is because the EITC and the poverty threshold both rise each year to reflect increases in the cost of living, but the federal minimum wage does not. The EITC alone is not enough to keep a family above the poverty line, and a minimum wage worker gets further away from the poverty line each year the minimum wage is not increased.
If the minimum wage is raised to $7.25 by 2008, these two policies would work in tandem to raise the income of a family with one full-time minimum wage worker to $18,326, 14% above the poverty line of $15,735 for a family of three. A proposal that sets annual increases to the federal minimum wage to adjust for changes in the cost of living would ensure that the combination of full-time work and the EITC would always keep this family above the poverty line.
January 24th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
i interrupt this latest unmedicated wankfest to note a very good book i ran into in college in 1990 , when it was only 3 years old and powerfully representative of glasnost :
Mikhail Kuraev’s
Kapitan Dikshtein
http://www.sovlit.com/minis/
It is an adroitly ” fictional” account of the Kronstadt mutiny, plus an arc or Soviet-era life until the Khruschov era, which is itself allegorical of Gorbachevs’s time.
In the 1980s and 1990 — when i was in my 20s and some of my 30s– when i wasn’t protesting, organizing , or fomenting revolution while not selling out to corporations that allow me to post 27 times on Marc’s site each morning, i read a bit.
I don’t think those were wasted years, since typing still doesn’t do squat.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Vivien,
I never brought up nor did I make an issue of the EITC.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:43 am
“I see Mr. Balter is still morosely tolling the knell of the American Iraqi war dead for us. Good to see the occasional officer in his list. This is good for morale, shows the officer corps is taking risks beside the soldiers. Soldiers appreciate this. If I were a parent and he posted my son’s death, I would make every possible effort to meet him in person so I could thank him for his compassionate service to America.”
For some reason I was unable to post yesterday, so I was not able to respond to this comment higher up in this thread from Fred Beloit. It seems that the list of the names of the dead function as a sort of mirror. What a person sees in it tells us a lot about who they are.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:05 am
So I spent a lot of time watching the pundits hash over the State of the Union speech. and on CNN I came across the psy-ops moment of the night. There was this middle aged, fairly fit latte drinking kind of guy( much like the couple in the Republican paid ad against Dean in the primary elections ). So this guy’s talking about how he used to “protest for peace” back in the sixties and seventies, but he knows better now, and now what he wants is to “give victory a chance”. Then true CNN to form, they interviewed the strangest people with nothing to say, to represent the other side. After that came the wrap up with our give victory a chance flanked by a twenty something couple. The marketing campaign for the surge is on.
here’s a link to my 2007,State of the Union cartoon;
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
January 25th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I just thought I’d add this little nugget to the “Hagel for President” crowd. Yesterday he was the only Republican to vote, in committee, for the Senate Resolution denouncing the “Surge”. But what he said was more interesting. He denied that there was a war on terror since “Terror” was a tactic and not a goal or strategy. And he said that it was nonsense that the terrorists hated freedom by pointing to the Palestinian
People “suffering under the yoke” for a generation!
Well I guess that takes him out. An American Pol taking the Palestinian side? I guess if he runs this will be used against him and I can already see the ads from Alan Dershowitz and others condemning him as another Jimmy Carter!
January 25th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
If Webb didn’t want his son serving wherever the Commander-in-Chief decided to send forces, then he should have counseled his son to stay out of the military period. Soldiers get to pick whether to serve or not to serve and they get to pick their branch, but they do not get to pick to choose which conflicts they will fight or sit out.
Webb was rude and showed no class or respect for the office of the President. But, predictably, the liberals fawned all over him for such disresepct, as most of them have no class themselves.
Maybe, Kerry could tell Webb’s son how to get three quick purple hearts and come home–unless Kerry thinks he’s stupid, too.
On the other hand, maybe Webb’s son is there because he wants to serve his country as called upon and is proud to serve–something that most of you cannot stomach to think about.
January 25th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
“to serve his country as called upon and is proud to serve–something that most of you cannot stomach to think about”
I know rlc, for one, has served. Have you? Since you’re gettin’ all ad hominish n’ all, inquiring minds want to know.
January 25th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Go fuck yourself, Woody. Your not fit to shine Jim Webb’s shoes.
January 25th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
American Troops Explain “The Rodney King Treatment”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuMAooG6SM
June 3rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
all inclusive cheap…
Cheap holidays and last minute bargain holiday packages departing…
June 26th, 2007 at 3:54 am
cartoon net work com…
Find out more about Comics and Cartoons…
September 9th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
[...] dignified site now run over this theory http://marccooper.com/the-speech and give comments [...]
May 10th, 2008 at 9:56 am
276a6990c5dc…
276a6990c5dcdf9c8436…