Tag Archives: Mother Jones

Fear the Bern

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Bernie Sanders is fond of saying, “People want real change”, just as in pretty much every election one candidate or another hypes his or her power to bring just that. Big time, transformational change. The problem is the data on that “real change” thing is pretty spotty-to-discouraging. In reality, mostly voters are afraid of “real change”. Mainly they want things to stay kind of the same, just with a different face at the helm of the ship.

Last night in South Carolina, Bernie took more than his usual share of hits. This wasn’t surprising given his solid-looking front runner-status. The Democratic establishment and a remarkable slice of the punditocracy have mobilized to prevent his nomination.

The primary argument being that once we leave the bubble of the primary season and Bernie is exposed to the full brunt of the hysteria and nefariousness of Donald Trump and Team Trump media, Bernie will play like a 78-ton millstone around the neck of every Democrat in every district and race where large numbers of voters — independents and moderate Republicans — mainly want things to stop being stupid and embarrassing and just go back to the way they were four years ago, no revolution required.

Sanders points to polling showing him regularly beating Trump. Skeptics point to other data showing how viscerally/emotionally voters respond to just the label of “socialist.” Hell, “atheist” polls better. And “gay” is no real issue at all. But “socialist”, even soft-core “Democratic socialist”, remains an American boogey man with very deep roots. It may be meaningless to people of the post-Soviet era, but it remains as toxic to (many) Boomers and ultra geezers as “pedophile.”

(From the article linked above: “Most Americans don’t like the idea of moving toward socialism, regardless of how you qualify it. In a Suffolk poll taken last spring, a slight plurality of Democrats said they’d be “satisfied with a presidential candidate who thinks the United States should be more socialist.” But steep majorities of independents (72 percent to 18 percent) and voters in the aggregate (67 percent to 22 percent) said they wouldn’t. Most Republicans wouldn’t vote for the Democratic nominee regardless. But these grim numbers go much further.”)

It’s of course another low-information problem. Beyond the primary season bubble of “activists” and “zealots” and “revolutionaries” — amounting to a fraction of a faction of the total electorate — are far more people, (likely voters), who have never processed how much “socialism” is already baked in to American life. Nor have sussed out how what Bernie is constantly yelling about would really work. Wish all you want that that wasn’t the case, but it’s a harsh reality.

And it’s hard to see how this improves in a long head-to-head with the disinformation/distortion Trump machine.

Through the primaries thus far Bernie has managed to play coy with his math on Medicare for All and with his health records. But there’s a gruesome gauntlet awaiting him on those two matters alone, post nomination. And then we’ll start adding on every “socialist”-sounding thing he’s said for 40 years on Vermont Public Access TV.

My feelings about Bernie remain pretty much what they’ve been for the last five years. Were it to happen, his vision for the mechanisms of the world would be better than what we have in almost every way … but I can not for the life of me imagine how he, or anyone, can possibly deliver them. His “revolution” of “real change” requires leading a wave election so large and definitive that it not only sweeps Mitch McConnell and a dozen or more Republican senators out of DC, but is also so sweeping and commanding it intimidates the truly titanic forces of American finance. To the point they concede resistance is futile and melt away from the fight … for their very existence.

The numbers aren’t there. (Here’s Kevin Drum at Mother Jones breaking down how much better Bernie will have to do with young voters than any Democrat has ever done.)

My pet response to anyone giddy over the thought of Medicare for All and a four-year timeline to put the private health insurance industry out of business is, “Ok, great. They’re carnivorous bastards. But just walk me through exactly how you unwind UnitedHealth, for one example. Never mind the employees out of work. Where does the shareholder value — held by pension funds for teachers unions and others besides the usual plutocrats — go? Are we just wiping it out? If so, I see some resistance there.”

As my blogging colleague Joe has said several times, the poison pill factor in Bernie’s support is the obsessive and (justifiably) angry faction that will not accept anyone but him. Should he lose they’ll likely repeat what they’ve done in recent memory and shift to some/any third party candidate making the same “principled” noises, ignoring what Ralph Nader did to Al Gore, or Jill Stein to Hillary Clinton. (Somewhere within Bernie’s support remains the “blow it all up” crowd who were down to a coin flip between him and Donald Trump in 2016.)

In both “Platoon” and “Saving Private Ryan” a character on the battlefield appeals to his commanding officer, “I got a bad feeling about this one.” That’s me today with Bernie.

Of course in “Saving Private Ryan” Tom Hanks responds by asking, “When was the last time you felt good about anything?”

About That “Soaking” Of Minnesota’s Rich

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For a long time, we’ve been hearing about how Governor Mark Dayton and DFL legislators “soaked the rich” back in 2013. That’s become the conventional wisdom at both the state and national levels, from both liberals and conservatives.

For example, at the national level, Patrick Caldwell from liberal Mother Jones magazine reported that Dayton ran on a “soak-the-rich platform of massively hiking income taxes on the wealthiest people in the state.”

Locally, conservative columnists Joe Soucheray and Katherine Kersten have long been beating the “soak the rich” rhetoricial drum, as has the conservative Pioneer Press editorial board:

“What’s the plan? Tax the rich, then tax the rich again, then tax the rich again?”

Finally, the Chair of the Minnesota House Tax Committee, Greg Davids, is among many conservative state legislators who have used “soak-the-rich” rhetoric to full effect.

Is the “Soak” Rhetoric True?

But did Governor Dayton’s 2013 tax increase on individuals earning over $150,000 and couples earning over $250,000 actually “soak” them in any meaningful way. This chart, derived from the Minnesota Department of Revenue’s 2015 Tax Incidence Study, calls that conventional wisdom into question:

MN_Soak_the_Rich_chart

This chart shows that the highest earning Minnesotans will only be paying a slightly higher proportion of their income in state and local taxes in 2017 than they did in 2012, under the rates in place before the 2013 tax increase. In 2012, the highest income Minnesotans were paying 10.5 percent of their income in state and local taxes. By 2017, the projection is that the highest income Minnesotans will see their state and local tax burden inch up to 10.7 percent.  This 0.2 percent increase hardly represents punitive “soaking.”

On a somewhat related issue, the chart also shows that the 10 percent of Minnesotans with the highest incomes look to be paying a much smaller share of their income in state and local taxes (10.7 percent) than the decile with the lowest incomes  (26.4 percent). However, on this point, the report contains an important caveat about the first decile data (page 17):

“…effective tax rates in the first decile are overstated by an unknown but possibly significant amount.”

But back to my original and primary point, which is not impacted by this caveat:  Despite all of the wailing and gnashing about the alleged mistreatment of the highest income Minnesotans, the impact of the Dayton-era tax increase on top earners’ overall state and local tax will be negligible.  Higher taxes on top earners didn’t cause the massive job losses that conservatives promised — Minnesota currently has the fifth lowest unemployment in the nation — and they didn’t soak anyone.

Don’t Forget About Local Taxes

How is it that Minnesota’s top earners are paying higher taxes, yet still are paying a lower share of state and local taxes than any other income grouping? Part of the reason is that the top 10 percent will only be paying only 2.2 percent of their income in local taxes in 2017, which is much less than the 3.1 percent share of local taxes that will be paid by the average Minnesotans, and less still than the share of local taxes paid by the lowest-income Minnesotans.

Impact_of_local_taxes_on_tax_burden_by_decileThis is a point that is frequently missed, or intentionally ignored, by people who focus solely on state tax burdens, without also taking local tax burdens into consideration.

So, did Mark Dayton really “soak-the-rich” when he increased taxes by $2.1 billion in 2013?   Inflated rhetoric aside, it turns out that the Dayton tax increase was more akin to a light misting than the predicted soaking.

Note:  This post was also published in MinnPost.

Dear DFLers: This is Minnesota, Not MinneSweden

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These are very heady times for Minnesota DFLers. Governor Mark Dayton and DFL legislators had the courage to raise taxes, increase long-term investments, and raise the minimum wage.  In the process, Minnesota Republicans were proven wrong, because the economic sky did not fall as they predicted it would.   In fact, liberally governed Minnesota, with an unemployment rate of just 3.7 percent, has one of the stronger economies in the nation.

And the subsequent coverage from the liberal echo chamber has been positively intoxicating for DFLers:

“This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage — Now, His State’s Economy Is One of the Best in the Country” (Huffington Post)

“The Unnatural: How Mark Dayton Bested Scott Walker—and Became the Most Successful Governor in the Country”  (Mother Jones)

“What happens when you tax the rich and raise the minimum wage? Meet one of USA’s best economies” (Daily Kos)

Comparative_Economic_Systems__SwedenHigh as a kite from these clippings and the vindication they represent, DFLers run the risk of over-stepping, of pushing Minnesotans further than it they are comfortable going. As much as DFL politicians fantasize about bringing the social welfare model of a Scandinavian nation to a state populated with so many Scandinavian immigrants, a recent survey in the Star Tribune provides a harsh reminder that Minnesota, politically speaking, is not MinneSweden.

In the wake of a $2 billion budget surplus, only one out of five (19 percent) Minnesotans wants to “spend most to improve services.” Among the Independent voters that DFLers need to persuade in order to win elections and legislative power, only one out of four (24 percent) supports spending the entire surplus.

At the same time, two times as many Minnesotans support the predictable Republican proposal to “refund most to taxpayers” (38 percent support). Their refund proposal is also the most popular option among the Independent voters that Republicans need to win over in order to have electoral success in 2016.

The Star Tribune also reported that their survey found that Minnesotans are not too wild about the gas tax increase the DFLers propose.  A slim majority (52 percent) oppose “Governor Dayton’s proposal to raise the wholesale tax on gasoline to increase spending on road and bridge projects?”  A healthier majority (62 percent) of Minnesota’s’s Independents oppose the gas tax increase.

I happen to agree with the DFL on the merits.  Minnesota has a lot of hard work to do in order to remain competitive into the future, so I personally support investing almost all of the budget surplus, with a healthy amount for the rainy day fund, and a gas tax increase. However at the same time, I’m enough of a realist to recognize that sustainable progressive change won’t happen if Daily Kos-drunk DFLers overstep and lose the confidence of swing voters in the process.

DFLers who want to win back the trust of a majority of the Minnesota electorate would be wise to enact a mix of sensibly targeted investments, a resilient rainy day fund and targeted tax relief.  That kind of pragmatic, balanced approach won’t turn into St. Paul into Stockholm, but it might just put more DFLers in power, so that the DFL can ensure Republicans don’t turn Minnesota into South Dakota or Wisconsin.

This Just In: Bill O’Reilly Full of [bleep]

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Lambert_to_the_SlaughterMaybe the strangest thing about the still unfolding “Bill O’Reilly is a bullshitter!” story is that anyone with their wits still about them ever thought he wasn’t.

It is ridiculously entertaining to read David Corn’s Mother Jones piece, and now yesterday’s howler about Bill knocking on the door of a key JFK assassination figure at the very moment the guy inside blows his head off with a shotgun. Gripping stuff if not for the recordings of O’Reilly on the phone … from 1200 miles away. I mean, there’s a hilarious Ron Burgundy aspect to O’Reilly’s uber-manly tale of dragging an injured colleague to safety amid a murderous police rampage in Buenos Aires when in fact the “riot” was barely more than a routine demonstration, no one was killed and no CBS employee reported so much as a twisted ankle or required any level of medical attention.

I’d add that this is the stuff of full-on parody if it weren’t for the fact that Stephen Colbert built a career doing exactly that. (Can you imagine the delirium Colbert’s writers would be in with this run of red meat?)

Comparisons to Brian Williams’ self-immolation miss the central difference here pretty badly. Williams was employed with the explicit understanding that he was credible, trading only in the facts as best as NBC could report them. Bill O’Reilly is the key mouthpiece in Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes’ enormously profitable political campaign masquerading as a news organization. Williams’ viewers were justifiably disappointed to learn of his bizarre embellishments. O’Reilly’s viewers, I strongly suspect, do not care in the least what he has embellished or flat-out invented, as long as he continues to attack Murdoch and Ailes’ and their designated enemies.

With that in mind it’ll be easier to understand why FoxNews not only isn’t going to “investigate” O’Reilly’s superhero imaginings, and is instead gleeful at a fresh opportunity to attack the “guttersnipe liberal media” and threaten straight news pinheads with bodily harm. It plays directly into the fascinating psychology wherein ardent zealots confronted with information that unambiguously contradicts their beliefs double down on their erroneous thinking rather than concede and align themselves with reality.

Prediction: O’Reilly’s ratings will spike over the next month.

This incident brings two things back to mind.

1: Liberals take FoxNews far too seriously, and I fully admit my complicity on that point. For years I’ve fulminated myself into apoplexy at Fox’s shameless absurdity and cynicism, convinced that the network was an aggressive form of cancer soon to terminate all higher brain function among the credulous masses. But somewhere after the 2012 elections, when all of Fox-think was revealed to be astonishingly incompetent at both campaigning and campaign analysis, I settled down. Their bona fides, such as they are, are all but completely limited to an old, embittered demographic of rapidly diminishing electoral significance.

Here’s Frank Rich not long ago on the topic.

I suspect the irrelevance of FoxNews to the 300 million Americans who are not lapping it up 24/7 has something to do with Jon Stewart bailing on “The Daily Show”. FoxNews as a punchline is a settled, cliched commodity.

2:  Blogging colleague Joe Loveland passed this on yesterday. It’s the annual Pew survey on America’s most and least-trusted broadcast news operations. In the realm of what we’ve come to expect the survey’s authors write:

“Fox News is both the most trusted and least trusted name in news. 35% of Americans say they trust Fox News more than any other TV news outlet, followed by 14% for PBS, 11% for ABC, 10% for CNN, 9% for CBS, 6% each for Comedy Central and MSNBC, and 3% for NBC. It leads the way because of its continuing near total support among Republicans as the place to go for news- 69% of Republicans say it’s their most trusted source with nothing else polling above 7%.”

Think of that. 69%. Pretty well proving Murdoch and Ailes’ show biz genius at giving their people the campaign message they want.

But in the context of Bill O’Reilly’s naked bogus-ness, it also explains why he’ll suffer no reputational damage. Fox’s world is designed as an “us v. them” battlefield. O’Reilly is the high profile field marshall under constant attack from common enemies. To support Bill without equivocation is to be a loyal soldier.

Contrast that, as Joe pointed out, with the dismal all-in loyalty liberals have to their alleged message-bearer, MSNBC.

“It’s interesting that while Fox News and MSNBC are often thought of as equivalent, Fox News is by far and away the most trusted source of GOP voters while MSNBC is only tied for 4th among Democrats.”

The underlying point here is that liberals and conservatives affiliate with and consume partisan messaging in vastly different ways. Other psychological studies note conservatives’ far higher levels of trust in authority, e.g. Bill O’Reilly, and liberals’ elevated levels of skepticism toward leadership/herd thinking. One group embraces the minister-to-parish relationship. The other tolerates it in small doses.

Second prediction:  Bill O’Reilly will soon reveal that it was he who shot Osama bin Laden and to thunderous applause will vilify any left-wing guttersnipe who says otherwise.