Politics Plus

Last year I broke from my tradition of covering “I have a Dream” on this day and covered “Beyond Vietnam”, the other Dr. King speech I personally attended, instead.  This year, I return to tradition.  Although Glen Beck’s exploitation of this event dominates the news cycle, I will not cover that in this article, because of who Dr. King was, and who Beck will never be.

When I was a ten year old boy, I was diving for mussels in the bay.  I came up under a boat, hit my head, and knocked myself silly.  When I came to, a black boy about my age was holding onto me with one arm and the boat with the other.  We talked for a couple hours, and I came to realize that all the hateful things my father had taught me about negroes (that was the polite term in 1958; African-American had not yet been invented.) didn’t fit this boy at all.  In youthful innocence, I took him home to meet my family.  When we walked into the living room, my father turned beet red and screamed “Get that little n*gg*r out of my house!”  After I exposed him to that, the boy was no longer interested in being my friend, but I became the only ten year old civil rights activist in the neighborhood.

Five years later, at fifteen, I had already been to the south to protest for civil rights, and on August 28, 1963, I was in the crowd on the mall.  I did not meet Dr. King until an organizational meeting for Vietnam Summer, shortly before his “Beyond Vietnam” speech kicked it off, but his message that day was so clear, I felt I did.

Without further ado, here is “I Have a Dream” in its entirety.

The message and the dream still live.

If you prefer text, click here.

Geithner, Bernanke and Summers keep telling us that we are in a recovery.  Are they lying? Yes and no.  Easy street never had a recession, as they are the beneficiaries of the Republicans’ No Millionaire Left Behind policy. Wall street is recovering, thanks to Bernanke’s protect the uber-rich.  Main Street has to sit in the back of the bus.  And Tin Pan Alley is reeling, as collapsing state budgets weaken the safety net.  Paul Krugman, makes some excellent points, but ignores the keys to solving the crisis.

What will Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, say in his big speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyo.? Will he hint at new steps to boost the economy? Stay tuned.

But we can safely predict what he and other officials will say about where we are right now: that the economy is continuing to recover, albeit more slowly than they would like. Unfortunately, that’s not true: this isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.

The small sliver of truth in claims of continuing recovery is the fact that G.D.P. is still rising: we’re not in a classic recession, in which everything goes down. But so what?

The important question is whether growth is fast enough to bring down sky-high unemployment. We need about 2.5 percent growth just to keep unemployment from rising, and much faster growth to bring it significantly down. Yet growth is currently running somewhere between 1 and 2 percent, with a good chance that it will slow even further in the months ahead. Will the economy actually enter a double dip, with G.D.P. shrinking? Who cares? If unemployment rises for the rest of this year, which seems likely, it won’t matter whether the G.D.P. numbers are slightly positive or slightly negative.

All of this is obvious. Yet policy makers are in denial.

After its last monetary policy meeting, the Fed released a statement declaring that it “anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization” — Fedspeak for falling unemployment. Nothing in the data supports that kind of optimism. Meanwhile, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, says that “we’re on the road to recovery.” No, we aren’t.

Why are people who know better sugar-coating economic reality? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is that it’s all about evading responsibility.

In the case of the Fed, admitting that the economy isn’t recovering would put the institution under pressure to do more. And so far, at least, the Fed seems more afraid of the possible loss of face if it tries to help the economy and fails than it is of the costs to the American people if it does nothing, and settles for a recovery that isn’t.

In the case of the Obama administration, officials seem loath to admit that the original stimulus was too small. True, it was enough to limit the depth of the slump — a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment would probably be well into double digits now without the stimulus — but it wasn’t big enough to bring unemployment down significantly.

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

So what should officials be doing, aside from telling the truth about the economy?

The Fed has a number of options. It can buy more long-term and private debt; it can push down long-term interest rates by announcing its intention to keep short-term rates low; it can raise its medium-term target for inflation, making it less attractive for businesses to simply sit on their cash. Nobody can be sure how well these measures would work, but it’s better to try something that might not work than to make excuses while workers suffer.

The administration has less freedom of action, since it can’t get legislation past the Republican blockade. But it still has options. It can revamp its deeply unsuccessful attempt to aid troubled homeowners. It can use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders, to engineer mortgage refinancing that puts money in the hands of American families — yes, Republicans will howl, but they’re doing that anyway. It can finally get serious about confronting China over its currency manipulation: how many times do the Chinese have to promise to change their policies, then renege, before the administration decides that it’s time to act?… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Krugman’s ideas should be implemented, because everything he said is true.  However, what he left unsaid is more important.

For starters, Obama should fire Geithner, Bernanke, and Summers.  No, I’m not going Boehner bonkers.  I have been calling for their termination since the day after their appointments, because I knew what they would do.  They should  replaced with progressives. That would turn Boehner a brighter shade of orange.

The Senate Dems should finally grow a pair and change the rules on the first day of the next session in January.  On that day, it requires a simple majority.  They should end the filibuster and one person holds.

Congress must reinstate Glass-Steagall to reinstate the separation between commercial and investment banks.  What incentive do commercial banks have to lend when speculating yields faster profit?

Easy Street has had it far too easy far too long.  The Republicans’ No Millionaire Left Behind plan has skewed the distribution of wealth to such an extreme that the bottom 40% of Americans own only 0.2% (that’s 1/5 of 1%) of the wealth.  Let Republicans scream about redistribution of wealth.  It’s a lie.  Republicans were redistributing wealth the entire time what was supposed to trickle down gushed up.  Democrats must recover part of that wealth for Main Street and Tin Pan Alley with a major tax increase on the top 1%, close the hedge fund managers’ loophole, and end corporate welfare.  In the 1950s and 1960s the top marginal tax rate was over 90%.  The economy thrives and the rich had plenty left for ostentatious living.

Solve the Social Security issue by removing the income cap.

Stop no-bid government contracts and cost overruns that invite waste, fraud and abuse.

And I could add more.

What would you add?

Most important, we need to keep the party that caused this mess, the party that openly promises to return to the same policies that caused it, out of power.

Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!