THE COURT
Sunday was
Justice John Paul Stevens’ 88th birthday. He is a magnificent, progressive voice on the
Court.
Do you know what
I want for his birthday? I want him to
have the right to retire, if he so chooses, without fear of the Court’s
lurching ever further rightward.
Which
is the lurch it will take if John McCain, bless his conservative soul, is
elected. To
wit:
"I've said a
thousand times on this campaign trail, I've said as often as I can, that I want to find clones of Alito
and Roberts. I worked as hard as anybody to get them
confirmed. I look you in the eye and tell you I've said a thousand times that I
wanted Alito and Roberts. I have told anybody who will listen. I
flat-out tell you I will have people as close to Roberts and Alito [as possible], and I am proud of my record of working
to get them confirmed, and people who worked to get them confirmed will tell
you how hard I worked."
And so I suggest
as I did last Friday: volunteer. Especially
for the “door-to-door” piece. And
if you can, please:
give $25 or $50 – or $500 – in honor of Mr. Justice Stevens’ birthday so we
have the resources to win . . . to stanch
the rightwing slide of the Judiciary
. . . and to give Justice Stevens the option to retire, if he
ever wants to.
OUR DEBT
Lisa Strong: “The
National Debt is not a Republican issue, not a Democratic issue. It is an issue of America’s survival. We can stand and argue like Abbot and
Costello about who’s fault it is that the ship is
sinking, or we can break out the life boat and row. Start rowing. All nations rise and fall. I fear that we will collapse under the burden
of our debt. Politicians buy votes
with my money. It’s effective because
both the politicians and the voters are greedy.
Piling on debt for programs that would be ‘nice.’ We
need to prioritize our list from needs down to wants, including paying off the
debt. Match that with the money we have,
and cut off the list where we run out of money. However, everyone seems to have their own
untouchable pet program. Match the list
of priorities to our income and stop there.
That’s it. End of story.”
F We largely agree. Places we don’t:
1. There's
absolutely no need to pay OFF the debt, just to have it growing, most of the
time, slower than the economy as a whole (so that it shrinks, relatively
speaking). That way, in years of
recession or special catastrophe, there will be room for it comfortably to grow
faster than the economy (and thus,
temporarily, grow as a proportion of
the GDP).
When Reagan took
over, the debt was about 30% of GDP. A good, conservative level.
When Bush leaves it will be about 70%, a precarious level – and for
what? Our bridges are in need of
widespread repair, our ports need dredging (yes! yes!), half our kids are not
graduating from high school, our returning veterans are not getting the health
care and education benefits they need – and on and on.
2. All debt is not created equal. Debt incurred as an investment in the future
can be urgently worth incurring. Debt
incurred to lower taxes on the wealthy – or to blow things up – not so much. (It may sometimes be necessary to blow things
up, as at Tora Bora in Afghanistan; but wars are generally
financed by raising taxes on those best off, not lowering them.)
3. It does
matter that so much of the debt (85%) has been racked up under Republican administrations,
because Republicans routinely win elections by telling people THEY are the ones
to be trusted with money. Not true.