On Holding Down The Conversational Fort, Or, Jobs, Republicans, And Hooey

As the next Congressional fight over payroll tax extensions and unemployment benefits and pipelines gets set up in the next few weeks for either its final chapter or to be kicked down the road a bit farther, one or the other, you’re going to hear a lot from our Republican friends about how much they value work and workers; most especially, they’ll tell you, they value American jobs for American workers.

After all, they’ll say, creating American jobs is the most important thing of all.

But if we were to look back over just the last few months, some would tell us, we could quickly find examples of how Republicans promote ideas that don’t seem to value work or workers at all, much less American jobs.

Well as it turns out, “some” seem to be right; to illustrate one of those examples we’ll look back a month or two or three to a time some Republicans might wish was long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

A successful comedian usually becomes more megalomaniacal as the success barometer rises. Initial success might be achieved from stand-up but then the comedian envisions a sitcom, then Broadway, albums, extended tours, Europe, and then his or her own production company. These things are all fine. Don’t do dinner theater. Don’t open stuff, like shopping centers or bowling alleys. Don’t do fairs, especially if you follow the pig contest.

--From the book “How To Be A Stand-Up Comic”, by Richard Belzer

So…the House Republicans went and promoted and passed out their payroll tax cut plan, and within that plan was a demand that the Junkie XL Pipeline – sorry, that should be Keystone XL Pipeline – get special “expedited” approvals, despite the objections of those who are worried about their water supply, and we have to do this, right now, those same House Republicans tell us, in order to put more or less 6500 folks to work getting the thing built.

And as we mentioned above, this is because the House Republicans care about American jobs and American workers.

So…it may strike you as a bit odd that the exact same House Republicans sent to the Senate in September the “Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act” (HR 2587), which has only one purpose: it tells the National Labor Relations Board (the “NLRB”) that if workers at a company decide to form a union, or the company even thinks a union might be coming, and the company, in retaliation, decides to move work from that plant – or, for that matter, decides to move the entire plant – then neither the NLRB nor the United States Courts shall have the authority to do anything about it.

All of this stems from an effort by Boeing to move work from Washington State to South Carolina in retaliation for union activity by the Puget Sound workforce; the NLRB has ruled that Boeing cannot move the work, and the Company and its friends in Congress have joined forces with other anti-Union Members of Congress to move this legislation.

Need a third-party expert opinion to help make sense of the NLRB’s involvement and remedies? Consider this comment from University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Ellen Dannin, via Dennis Kucinich:

The NLRB has decades of experience with cases of this sort, and the National Labor Relations Act is clear that employer actions like Boeing’s violate the law. If this were a murder case, it would be a case in which the police found a person saying : “I did it,” while standing over a fresh corpse with smoking gun in hand.

Decades of experience, did she say? Yes she did – and she was right. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that the NLRB had the power to order remedies that include making companies “bring work back”, the relevant case being Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. Labor Board, 379 U.S. 203.

The 250 law professors who wrote a letter explaining why HR 2587 is such a bad idea point out that it’s not just about Boeing: companies will no longer have any reason to even bargain with unionized workers (or those who wish they were) before closing plants and moving work overseas, as they have to do now under the law; again, that’s because no one will have the power of enforcement in these cases anymore.

As you might imagine, that’s going to accelerate the departure of jobs overseas, and it won’t take very long to get to 6500, which makes all that Republican fussin’ and fightin’ and sanctimoneoussin’ about Keystone look a bit hollow, eh?

Let’s jump to the side track, as it were, and take a moment to talk about why the question of which Party controls Congress matters: HR 2587 was introduced into the House, and if the Democrats controlled the Chamber it would have died in Committee, and that would have been that…but they don’t, and it didn’t, so the bill made it to the House floor, where it passed with no Democratic “aye” votes and six Republicans voting “nay”.

Then it went to the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Sometimes Frustrating) has a bit more power than a Speaker of the House to kill any bill before his Chamber, if he’s so inclined; in this case the bill sits on the Senate Legislative Calendar, and unless he says otherwise, that’s where it’ll stay. Of course if Mitch McConnell (R-Hates Obama With The Fire Of A Thousand Suns) were Majority Leader, he would have that bill on the Senate Floor in a heartbeat – and it would pass with a Republican majority, unless Democrats were willing to stand firm and filibuster the thing or the President was willing to use the veto pen, neither of which seems particularly certain.

A companion bill, S 1523, was introduced by Lindsey Graham; it was referred to Committee, possibly to never be seen again – which is also thanks to Harry Reid, with an assist from Tom Harkin, who is the relevant Chair.

At this point I was going to move on to the “what have we learned today” part of the deal, but before I do, I want to take a moment to show you just what kind of legislation our GOP friends will bring to the table, given the chance:

S 1720, the “Put All Your Crazy Eggs In One Basket Act” (not the real bill title, but close enough), was introduced by John McCain just before Halloween (it’s now on the Legislative Calendar, not doing much), and it’s a classic.

This one single bill calls for a Balanced Budget Amendment vote, a semi-flat income tax, repeals “ObamaCare”, repeals Dodd-Frank (Wall Street reform), says you basically can’t sue for medical malpractice anymore, says that if Congress fails to approve any Federal Agency regulation in 90 days, it’s invalid, and then says no Agency can pass any regulation, of any kind, until unemployment hits 7.7%...and there’s a lot more besides, including, I kid you not, forbidding the EPA from regulating the discharge of pesticides into water.

So now let’s get to “what have we learned?”

How about this:

We are going to hear a lot over the next 60 days about how the GOP loves you, the American worker, but at the exact same time they are looking to…well…put all the crazy eggs in one basket, if they can get away with it, and at the same time they’re looking to make it easier and easier to send more jobs to more countries than ever before, even to the point of trying to tell courts and regulators that they can no longer enforce laws Republicans can’t get repealed.

As our GOP friends stand before you, these next couple months, professing their undying love, remind them of this conversation today, and HR 2587, and S 1720, McCain’s “Crazy Egg Basket” bill, and then ask them if they think the GOP really cares about American jobs, or if they’re just getting hustled by slightly-slicker versions of used-car dealership credit managers?

Then you lean in close, look ‘em in the eye, smile just a bit, and you say to ‘em: “And hey, while you’re here…what do I gotta do to get you into a slightly used 1993 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon…today?”

Then you can both have a little laugh – while you take their money and run.

On The Emergence Of China, Or, Zhou Knew This Was Coming

After doing a bit of mountain hiking a few days back, I had a chance to get involved in a great afternoon conversation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Mike Wessel, who also serves as a Commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; the conversation was about how we’re doing when it comes to our relationship with China.

As it turns out, the two events went well together, because what I’m hearing from these guys is that we have a great big ol’ mountain to climb if we hope to get back to a level playing field in our interactions with this most important country.

There’s news to report across a variety of issues; that’s why today we’ll be talking about trade, human rights, cybersecurity, poverty and development, and the methods by which you can apply “soft power” to achieve hard results.

The entirely unanticipated result: all of this will reveal the naïveté of Ron Paul when it comes to foreign policy; we’ll discuss that at the end.

The King of China's daughter
So beautiful to see
With a face like yellow water
Left her nutmeg tree

--From the song “The King of China’s Daughter”, by Natalie Merchant

So let’s start with the background stuff: the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission exists today because of the legislative wars surrounding China being granted Most Favored Nation status back in the day.

At the time, there were concerns about the way China does business on the international stage, and the Commission provides a follow-on monitoring program to examine questions regarding the Chinese human rights record, issues related to economics, cybersecurity issues, the intentions of the Chinese military, and lots more.

The Commission issues annual reports to Congress, and this year’s report has just been released.

Now normally I would present a point of view, followed by a counterpoint; today, we’ll do the opposite: there are folks I listen to out there, including Thomas P. M. Barnett, who would tell you that you are not going to be able to keep spending $900 billion a year on the defense budget if you can’t find an opponent worth $900 billion a year, and China looks like that kind of opponent, in a number of ways that Al Qaeda never could…even if, in Barnett’s opinion, China is a great big paper tiger.

Al Qaeda will never build aircraft carriers, or intercontinental ballistic missiles; they’ll never put to sea in submarines or build a stealth fighter, and they darn sure aren’t going to be mounting military operations in space or engaging in cyberwarfare.

And yet, if you’re a defense contractor, a General, or an Admiral, that’s where all the money is; naturally, if the money goes away, some of those Generals and Admirals are not going to have the chance to “graduate” from the military and become defense contractor representatives themselves.

Put it all together, and some would tell you that the biggest battle facing the Military/Industrial Complex today…is making sure we’re always nervously looking under our beds at night, just to be safe.

You should also know that our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, convinced his brand-spanking-new country to put in place a series of protective tariffs. The intent was to foster manufacturing in the then-agrarian United States; this was intended to create a climate favorable for non-farm businesses and to allow a far more disparate group of immigrants to come to the new Nation than what would have occurred if the only major business activities around the country were farming-related.

So with all that in mind, let’s talk China.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (the USCC) wants you to know that China is very much on a knifedge: the country is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (the PLA).

The USCC would tell you that the primary goal of the CCP and PLA leadership is to “protect their phony-baloney jobs” and the corruption that goes with ‘em (thanks for the line, Mel Brooks), and that they have to do a few things to keep those jobs safe: they have to find a way to make 900 million near-peasants into a middle class, quickly, because the peasants have seen how the other 300 million live, to secure markets and resources China has to begin to project power around the world, by military or other means, and they have to make extra sure that nobody in China, except the CCP, gets the opportunity to take over the political conversation – in other words, ensure that the “Arab Spring” doesn’t become the “Jasmine Spring”.

There’s more: in a country without something like Social Security, China’s population will age faster than any in history, and many of the 900 million seem to want to move from the country to the city in numbers so large that they literally can’t build cities fast enough.

So how does the Chinese Government deal with all this?

What China has been doing is seeking internal “quietude” by growing the economy through manufacturing, and they have decided to choose certain industries as the linchpin of “valuing up” that growth, so that China’s low-tech manufacturing becomes more high-tech. (Think computers and telecommunications, space, alternative fuel vehicles, aviation, green energy technologies, that sort of thing.)

China has decided that virtually the only way a foreign company can do business in any of the “chosen” areas is to mandate technology transfers that allow Chinese companies to obtain the methods and tools needed to compete with the foreign supplier down the road. (This is officially against WTO rules; China disputes that assertion. The USCC says they now make these demands in subtle ways that are less “enforceable”.) Chinese buyers are told to give preference to “state-innovated” technologies.

China also uses their currency as a way of “preferencing” the local economy. The Renminbi (RMB) is, according to most observers, deliberately undervalued in order to make Chinese goods cheap overseas and imported goods expensive at home. Mike Wessel would tell you it’s about 40% undervalued, and that that “trade tax” (my term, not his) costs the US budget about $500 billion a year, with a similar impact on State budgets. Despite much USA pressure and some recent upward valuation (roughly 6% last year), it looks like China is not going to move much on the RMB anytime soon.

Wessel anticipates China will spend about $1.5 trillion on anti-poverty subsidies to quell unrest over the next 5 years; that would become a lot more difficult if a revaluation were to occur.

During the 1990s China began to move to a free-market model that emphasized the growth of privately-owned businesses; Wessel says today China is going back to promoting the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to the detriment of a free market.

This has been bad for our own industrial strategy, such as it is, which assumed we would be selling China lots of high-tech goods, even as they sold us cheap goods. That has not worked out; in fact, China is now the largest market for cars and cell phones, among other products…and those products are not being manufactured in the USA.

It’s reported that the theft of intellectual property is the normal way business is done in China; as an example Wessel notes that something like 80% of the software on Chinese corporate computers is stolen.

We are told that the PLA is looking to create an “area of influence” that extends from the South China Sea to space; to this end the first Chinese aircraft carrier is being readied for service, a stealth fighter is in development, antiship missile systems are being upgraded, and a “counterspace” capability has been demonstrated. (The idea is that Chinese satellites explode near other satellites, thus disabling them. The USA and Russia seem to have similar capabilities.)

Chinese military doctrine, Wessel tells us, advocates shutting down the “network-centric” model of US military operations; it is believed that a significant campaign of computer-based intrusions and attacks on the USA have already taken place, including two events that took place at Department of Defense-operated satellite-control facilities that seem to have been external attacks.

Wessel anticipates that a war with China would begin with China attempting to disable various USA computer networks and infrastructure; the resulting confusion would be used to China’s advantage.

Beyond that, Wessel worries that we’re buying so much of our telecommunications and computing infrastructure from China that we may be vulnerable to being spied upon by our own laptops; he cited two examples of this problem: a computer sale to the State Department that involved Lenovo laptops and classified data, and a sale of network equipment by Huawei to Sprint that might have allowed classified computer traffic to be compromised.

Chinese spying, Wessel would tell you, is widespread and not limited to government: trade secrets are up for grabs in a big way, and even the US Patent and Trademark Office had to upgrade its security after it discovered patent applications were being snatched out of the system and appearing as Chinese products, with Chinese patents, before the applications could even be acted upon in the USA.

Wessel also wants you to understand that China uses “soft power” to advance its interests: there are lots of “hosted” opportunities to study in China, former military officers of various nations, including the USA, are recruited as “representatives”, and there are lots of “get to know us” opportunities that have been created around the world; all of this is intended to “sell” China in ways we do not.

And with all that said, let’s talk about Ron Paul.

Paul’s attitude toward China seems to be that we should allow free, unimpeded trade, and that the currency manipulations about which many complain would not exist if we went back to a gold standard. Paul stated in 2001 that:

Concern about our negative trade balance with the Chinese is irrelevant. Balance of payments are always in balance. For every dollar we spend in China those dollars must come back to America. Maybe not buying American goods, as some would like, but they do come back and they serve to finance our current account deficit.

Free trade, it should be argued, is beneficial even when done unilaterally, providing a benefit to our consumers.

If I’ve been paying attention during the recent Republican debates, this is still what Paul believes about China, and here are a couple of thoughts about how he’s got it entirely wrong:

Paul may not like it, but Hamilton succeeded when he used tariffs to jump-start a manufacturing economy in this country, and not having free trade is working pretty well for China as well. Unfortunately, it’s working very badly for us.

On the one hand, Wal-Mart and all the others who import less-expensive products from China have done a great job of masking the fact that incomes have been either stagnant or declining for about 99% of us, but Wessel would say that’s been at the cost of sending millions upon millions of jobs to a country that is working hard on every level to ensure we can never again compete as a manufacturing nation – and while we thought we would make up that difference with our high-tech advantages, theft and spying and a devalued currency and “partnerships with benefits” and protectionist “state-innovation” rules have made sure we don’t.

A gold standard won’t fix this, and simply advocating that we allow China unfettered access to USA markets while they rob us blind seems a bit like suggesting everyone leave their houses unlocked so that the market can more efficiently decide which ones are the best for burglars.

So we’ve covered a lot of ground today, and let’s wrap this thing up with a summary of where Commissioner Wessel says we’ve been:

We have a competitor in China who will do more or less anything to keep its current political leadership in power, even as that leadership is forever worried that 900 million of its citizens will discover that you can overthrow a government.

The PLA is busy as well, with the South China Sea and everything above being the “area of influence”; computer warfare seems to be the next phase.

“Soft power” is also being applied; we have former military officers and Chinese language students and lots of other folks either hearing or telling China’s story all over the world and we don’t do a good job of answering back.

All the while, the CCP is working hard to create a higher-tech Chinese economy, by hook or by crook, and that’s putting the future of our own economy at risk, not to mention the operations of our government.

We, as a people, seem to be unaware of all of this, and that plays out in the form of ignorance in our politicians, with Ron Paul being a recent prominent example.

So now it’s up to you to figure out what all this means: is this really a substantial threat that we have to defend against (and there’s lots of evidence to suggest it is), or is this an effort to find a way to keep spending that $900 billion every year?

My take: Wessel’s not a defense lobbyist, even as he is trying to promote manufacturing in the USA, and there is a lot of evidence to support his thinking; with all that in mind I’m more inclined to believe he’s sending a warning we better pay attention to than he is seeing Commies under the bed.

Nonetheless, there are lots of folks who would like to keep stackin’ that big cheddar, at your expense, and even as we think very hard about China, we better also keep in mind that Northup Grumman could be just as dangerous.

On Doing Better Than 50%, Part Two, Or, Is “Made in USA” A Jobs Program?

When last we met, it was to discuss a Big Idea that the Obama Administration might apply to get some job creation going, despite a difficult Congress; the Big Idea was to look at the “Buy American” provisions that exist in our laws, regulations, and Executive Orders and see if we could practice a bit of “jobs arbitrage” by not just meeting the “Made in USA” requirements when governments across this country make purchases, but exceeding them.

(As it stands today, pretty much any “good or service” with more than 50% Made in USA content qualifies as a Made in USA purchase, even if 49% of the “good or service” comes from somewhere else).

At the time, I told you that if all went well we could look forward to comments from both Labor and the Administration as to the practicality of the Big Idea, and as it turns out I have comments for you that hit close to that mark – and a bit more besides:

On Saturday I just happened to bump into Congressman Adam Smith (WA-09); in the course of that conversation I told him what we’re doing here, and he wanted to offer a few thoughts of his own…and when you put all that together, I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about.

“Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them; Britain has trembled like an auge at the report of a French fleet of flat bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was preformed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc.

--From “The Crisis”, by Thomas Paine; essay of December 23, 1776

So the two-second recap of the Big Idea is that if government, at all levels, were Buying More American we could create More American Jobs, and as we mentioned above, the way the rules stand today, 51% Made in USA is good enough – and that seems to leave a lot of room to do better.

Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems, and despite what Tom Lehrer might say, it’s not all skittles and beer for this proposal either.

I have a source in the Administration who would not go on the record for this story; nonetheless I was sent a detailed email response “on background”, which I’ll paraphrase for our use today:

We are looking to expand US trade abroad, and we have made deals for access. We agree not to restrict, for the most part, where purchases can be made, and we expect reciprocity from the rest of the world when their governments do their purchasing - or at least from those governments with whom we have a WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) or a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). (Want even more details? Check out either the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 or this Congressional Research Service report).

The Administration would tell you that 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the USA, making trade reciprocity particularly valuable for the US.

They would also tell you that if we decide on our own to “change the deal”, then we should expect retaliation from other governments.

Beyond that, they would suggest that there are US companies that source many of their products or product components globally, and those companies would actually be hurt by stricter Made in USA requirements.

Finally, the Administration points out that there is a dollar cost for more Made in USA, as opposed to using what can often be cheaper foreign sourcing.

In the introduction I suggested that I had a comment from Labor, and that’s somewhat correct. I contacted the Washington Sate Labor Council (WSLC) for a comment, and they sent me material that came from the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), at the same time telling me that the AAM’s position on Buy American is the same as their own.

It is inaccurate to refer to the AAM as a Labor organization, however, as they are a partnership of Unions, manufacturers, and other interested parties. Among those partners are the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers (USW); the USW was one of the founders of the group.

They take issue with a great deal of what the Administration has to say, and I’ll start with a quote from an email sent to me Friday by the AAM’s Steven Capozzola:

The threat of retaliation for buy America is ridiculous. The law [the Buy American Act, 41 USC 10a-d] is specifically written so as to be applied when permissible under our existing trade obligations.

Here’s a quote from AAM material that was referred to me by the WSLC:

…the U.S. is, by far, the world’s largest importer, soaking up a net $819 billion in goods in 2007…The U.S. imports far more than it exports, a balance of sales that our trading partners are anxious to preserve. This is not about restricting imports. It is about using taxpayer dollars, when allowed by our international obligations, to purchase U.S.-produced goods. As the global downturn has progressed, many industrialized countries such as France and China have already taken similar action to support their domestic manufacturing base.

…These trade agreements do however allow for domestic preference under a number of circumstances…These preferences were negotiated for a reason. It would be irresponsible not to utilize them to the fullest extent possible.

…By contrast, other countries have held themselves out of the reform movement and have instead opted to promote their own manufacturing base through closed self-procurement programs. A good example is China, which, in addition to a recent $586 billion stimulus program, continues to subsidize its own producers via deliberate (and illegal) currency undervaluation. Until countries like China make the same commitments, and sign-on to internationally accepted procurement agreements, the U.S. will accomplish nothing by making yet more unilateral concessions.

In addition, as noted above, these contentions rely on the baseless assumption that the U.S. currently has any significant access to foreign procurement markets that would be at risk if other countries “retaliated.” The majority of the foreign stimulus in PPI’s tally is made up of $614 billion being spent by countries that have no procurement obligations towards the United States and that already apply domestic procurement preferences (principally China, but also India and Brazil).

-- Alliance for American Manufacturing, “The Facts on ‘Buy America’ and Domestic Sourcing”, February 2009

The AAM would also want you to know that in addition to China numerous other countries, specifically Canada, certain European nations, Japan, and Brazil all use other forms of “discrimination” to “preference” their goods over ours when it comes to government procurement: impossible-to-meet technical standards, “murky” purchase procedures, and bid rigging are all tools used around the world to make sure local suppliers are just a bit more, shall we say…reciprocal…than a US supplier might be.

Look, I hate to do this to everyone, but we’re once again running longer than we should, and we still have a lot more to talk about, so at this point I’m going to call “cliffhanger!” and set us up for a Part Three.

Here’s the “agenda”:

We’ll be talking about how the devil’s in the details: specifically, we’ll be looking at what “Buy American” is already excluded from these various trade agreements– and there’s a lot more than you might think, even as some of it is targeted in amazingly specific ways (to do that we’ll be paying particular attention to the annexes to the WTO agreement); we’ll also get Congressman Smith’s reaction to all of this…and once again, we’ll see if we can’t get it all done in 1500 words or less.

And on a lovely summer’s day, what could possibly be better beach reading…what with the redolence of the lazy sea breezes and the surf washing gently up on the shore and all…than 1500 more words on the annexes to the WTO agreement and how it all relates to sneaking a jobs program past recalcitrant Republicans?

I can’t think of anything else either, and I can’t wait to see you there.

On Doing Better Than 50%, Or, Could More “Made In USA” Mean More Jobs?

We gotta grow some jobs, and that’s a fact, and we probably aren’t going to be able to do it with big ol’ jobs programs funded by the Federal Government, what with today’s politics and all, and that means if this Administration wants to stay in the jobs game they’re going to have to find some smaller and more creative ways to do it.

They are also going to have to come up with ideas that are pretty much “bulletproof”, meaning that they are so hard to object to that even Allen West and Louie Gohmert will not want to be on record saying “no no no!”; alternatively, solutions that work around the legislative process entirely could represent the other form of “bulletproof-ery”.

Well, I have one of those “maybe bulletproof” ideas for you today, and it has to do with how “Made in USA” the things are that our Government buys.

The archer sees the mark along the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.

--From “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran

For the rest of the story to make sense, we’ll have to define a term; specifically, “Made in USA”.

Most manufacturers in the US have to meet a very stringent standard before they can refer to a product as “Made in USA”; here’s how the standard is described by the Federal Trade Commission:

Traditionally, the Commission has required that a product advertised as Made in USA be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.

There are special rules, most notably for automobiles (also textiles, wool, and fur), but for the most part everyone else goes by the “all or virtually all” standard when they claim something is “Made in USA”.

With one giant exception.

When the Federal Government “Buys American”, anything with over 50% US content is considered “Made in USA”; this according to the provisions of, naturally enough, the Buy American Act, 41 USC 10a – c. (Beyond the law, there are also certain Federal Regulations and Executive Orders involved; for now we’ll just call it all “the law” and let it go at that.)

Now there doesn’t seem to be anything immediately evident in the law that would prevent the Federal Government from purchasing more than 50% US content if we wanted to, and the Big Idea here today is that if government at all levels began to purchase more than 50% US content, we could create more US jobs, now and in the future, and we could do it with a minimum of muss and fuss.

Obviously, there are practical limits as to how far you could take such an approach (for example, good luck buying a Made in USA laptop), and the current law has exceptions that reflect that reality.

But consider this: there are about 450.000 vehicles in the Federal inventory (that does not include military combat vehicles), with roughly half of those belonging to the Postal Service; the General Services Administration buys about 65.000 vehicles a year (they run the Federal motor pool, and that’s the other half of the inventory).

Beyond that, think of all the billions upon billions of dollars of more mundane things the government buys every year: janitorial supplies, paper and toner, desks and chairs…well, you get the idea; now imagine if more of all of that was made right here.

One example of how we can do better can be found in Celina, Tennessee, where a garment factory that was doing work for the Air Force found itself unable to compete for a subcontract on $100 million worth of uniforms being made for the TSA; that’s because the uniforms were being made in Mexico instead.

If the work was being done here, it could mean about 300 jobs in a town that could really use ‘em. (By law, military uniforms are supposed to be made in USA; that’s an imperfect process.)

Some things already are restricted: if we don’t have a reciprocal trade agreement with a country, they generally can’t sell to the US government; China and Taiwan fall into that group.

I’m often guilty of running stories too long, so we’re going to cut this short today with a summary…followed by a cliffhanger that should keep you looking forward to Part Two:

Government buys a whole lot of stuff, and we could be buying more of it in the USA, and if we did, it could translate into jobs in places like Celina, Tennessee.

But it’s not as simple a picture as you might think, and when we get together next time, we’ll talk about the impact of free trade agreements on “Made in USA” purchasing, we’ll get the AFL-CIO’s reaction to all of this, and, if all goes well, we’ll see if we can provide official reaction from the Obama Administration.

And even though you’ll be sitting in your seat…you’re only gonna need the edge…

On Anticipation, Or, I’m In Seattle, So It’s A Dennis Kucinich Story

It was a beautiful day in Seattle last Saturday, and at the unholy hour of 7:30 AM I was steering my car into the parking lot of Qwest Field, preparing to take advantage of the spectacular weather by descending into the showroom of The Comedy Underground – in order to spend the day surrounded by politics and politicians.

The only thing that could have made the irony more prefect…is if all the espresso shops had been closed.

Thank your favorite deity (or, perhaps, the power of serendipity) that they weren’t, or we might not been able to cover the events at NWroots 2011 at all.

We’ll have a lot to talk about over the next few days, and to lead things off I’ll tell you about the series of events that might – or might not – have to do with why I happened to bump into Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich as he came down from the sunlight into the same dark room as the rest of us.

Your emperor may be a great prince: I do not doubt it, seeing as he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as my brother. As for the pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him.

--Atahualpa, the last Sapa Inca of Tahuantinsuyu, quoted in the book “The Native Americans: An Illustrated History”

So here are today’s “need to knows”: the Constitution mandates that the Census be used to determine how many Representatives each State sends to Congress; based on the last Census, Ohio’s losing two seats in the House, Washington’s gaining one.

In Ohio, the most significant population declines occurred in urban areas, particularly Dennis Kucinich’s 10th District (Cleveland’s western suburbs; Cleveland’s population today is more than 15% smaller than it was a decade ago.)

Combine that with the fact that the proudly liberal Kucinich has been a thorn in the side of Ohio Republicans, who, cycle after cycle, just can’t seem to knock him off when it comes time to count the votes, and you have a lot of rumors that all come to the same conclusion: if you can’t beat Kucinich in an election…why not just make his District disappear?

In the meantime, Washington is looking to have at least two open seats in the politically “purple” western half of the State: Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee is running for Governor, freeing up the 1st; there’s also going to be this new 10th District, the boundaries of which are as yet uncertain.

The odds are pretty good that the Redistricting Commission (two Republicans, two Democrats, and a fifth member appointed by the other four), will assemble a District from an “area of overpopulation” that would probably include parts of Thurston, Pierce, and King Counties:

--Thurston Country includes liberal, liberal, Olympia, the State Capitol, as well as suburbs for residents who work as far away as Seattle – but it also includes areas that are quite rural. Around the county there’s a wide range of incomes, but there’s also rising unemployment.

--Pierce Country (Tacoma is the big city in the County) has a healthy suburban and rural crime problem that has evolved over time as the methamphetamine business changed from a “local manufacturing” model to one based on imported Mexican drugs (there are fewer meth labs today, but meth possession and the associated auto thefts, burglaries, and family problems are still going strong…), and the street violence in Tacoma itself has been moderated. That said, the underlying economic causes of these problems are still there, which probably sounds familiar to a lot of readers around the country.

Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base are now “Joint Base Lewis McChord” and that large military presence is amplified throughout the region by the presence of dependants, retirees, and civilian workers. Because there’s a war on unemployment in the County is relatively low.

--King County is the place everyone thinks of when they think of Washington: Seattle’s here, and it appears, if the legends are to be believed, like a woodsy Upper West Side with high-tech campuses dotting the landscape and producing billionaires by the bucketful – and all that thanks to the gentle mists of espresso falling from the sky.

The reality’s a bit different: King County is surprisingly purple at election time, and about 2/3 of the population is located outside the city limits of reliably liberal Seattle. The 8th District, out in the eastern suburbs, has elected two Republicans to the House for almost 20 years in a row: the annoyingly effective Jennifer Dunn and the amazingly ineffectual Dave Reichert.

--Much of Inslee’s 1st District is located west of Seattle, and much of it is rural – but also included in his District are Seattle’s northern suburbs, including Everett, home to a giant Boeing assembly facility. The District is also one of the most military in the Nation; within the District or immediately next door are elements of Naval Base Kitsap (which is actually several facilities combined under one name) and Naval Station Everett (which homeports a Carrier Battle Group).

So with all that in mind, here’s the first couple of minutes of Kucinich’s speech, where he describes his connection with Seattle and his rejection of war as a concept:



Bonus Video: check out this little “Hey, how’s it goin’?” moment between Kucinich and the aforementioned Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott, who spoke just after Kucinich:



So the question now becomes: if Kucinich were to run for Congress in Washington…where and how?

To help answer that question, I’m going to fall back on the electoral results of 2009’s Referendum 71, which represents the most recent example of Washington voters making the “liberal” choice in a Statewide election (R-71 was enacted to protect certain rights of qualified domestic partners).

WA-01, Inslee’s current District, includes portions of Snohomish and Kitsap Counties; in 2009 R-71 passed in Snohomish County 53-47% with about 100,000 votes cast. More significantly, most cities with more than 2000 votes cast voted for the measure.

Kitsap County voted heavily in favor of the measure; the entire County voted 65-35% and cast about 24,000 votes.

What about a potential WA-10?

Let’s start up north and go south: for the most part, southern King County voted against R-71, for the most part, it was somewhere around 52-48%; if you were to cut off all of King County south of Seattle and plunk it in WA-10, there would be about 75,000 votes in play.

Pierce County voted exactly 50-50% on R-71, with 110,000 votes cast – but Tacoma accounted for 40,000 of those votes, and they went 58-42% in favor of the more liberal position.

Thurston County went very heavily for R-71 (63-37%; 33,000 votes), but 15,000 of those votes were cast in Olympia (73-27%); if Olympia’s not in the 10th the rest of the County looks more like 53-47% in favor of the liberal choice.

More Bonus Video: here’s Kucinich talking about Social Security:



So if those are the apparent numbers…who might show up to help a Kucinich campaign?

Let’s start with Labor: I had the impression that Jeff Johnson, who is President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), might like to work with a (well-known Friend Of Labor) Kucinich – but I have been warned, more than once, that the WSLC can’t endorse anyone until the Union’s State Convention debates and votes on the matter. (This year’s Convention is in the first week of August; that could be an issue if Kucinich were to announce his intentions this Fall or Winter).

Seattle’s "Portlandia", for want of a better word, will come out to help Kucinich in a big way; that would probably be true whether he ran in the 1st or the 10th.

In Washington elections, “boots on the ground” become doorbellers and phone bankers - but 100% vote-by-mail means no driving voters to the polls, and that means ensuring turnout becomes more of a messaging issue. We can probably assume that the number of volunteers Inslee was able to pull last time is gonna be about what is required if a Kucinich WA-01 run were to occur.

Beyond that, there's a lot of out-of-state help available as well: for example, if Kucinich were to get public about repeal of the Washington State Defense of Marriage Act, it seems likely that LBGT money and help would come in from around the country.

There are groups like IAVA, the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans' group, that might step up (and they do recognize Kucinich as an ally), which would be helpful (lots of active duty and their families, civilian contractors, vets, and retirees in both WA-01 and a likely WA-10). You could expect to see Progressive PAC money and virtual “phone bank” help from folks like MoveOn as well, just as there will likely be a ton of "Crossroads GPS"-like cash and Conservative volunteering coming to any opponent.

What about timing? The Ohio Redistricting Commission (three Republicans, two Democrats) will have the first say in what happens; that process has just begun with the first meeting of the Ohio Legislative Task Force on Redistricting, Reapportionment, and Demographic Research on June 16th.

(Wanna make some money? Draw The Line Ohio is sponsoring a competition to draw the best Districts, which they intend to present to the Commission, and they’re willing to pay cash prizes for the best work: check it out at the Draw The Line Midwest website.)

I told Kucinich that I’d love to see him come out and run in the 8th, against the ineffectual Dave Reichert; his response: “I’m not here as a candidate”.

I winked, he did not nudge.

Should Kucinich run, I would expect attacks to cover ground such as: “He’s a carpetbagger!” or “He’s too liberal for the (insert name here) District” or what might become my favorite: a variation of “Vote against Nancy Pelosi: Vote against Dennis Kucinich”.

So that’s what I know: Kucinich was in town to stir up the troops, and if things don’t go well in Ohio there are several scenarios that could place him here in Washington – and there are at least two Districts where he could have a shot at winning.

And with all that seen and said, I climbed the stairs from the darkened underground political comedy lair and returned to the world of light, where people do things like knit tree cozies – you know, the normal world.

Do Washington State Democrats Have A Labor Problem? Let’s Ask Jay Inslee

OK: so I’ve been working what is, on one level, a Jay Inslee story (Inslee is the Congressman from Washington’s 1st District, now running for Governor in ’12), and, on another level, a story of why Democrats are having all kinds of problems with what should be “natural” constituencies – and why those problems might not be going away anytime soon.

I thought the two elements of this narrative would come together last Monday, when I attended the “announcement event” that marked the beginning of the Inslee Gubernatorial Campaign, and in fact they did…but it wasn’t in a way I would have expected, and that’s why we have something to talk about today.

I reached out to some helpful outside voices, including Inslee himself; all of that will be brought to the discussion – and as another news organization famously offers to do, I’ll report, and leave you to decide.

Krusty the Klown: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good evening. Tonight my guest is AFL/CIO chairman George Meany, who will be discussing collective bargaining agreements

George Meaney: It's a pleasure to be here, Krusty

Krusty the Klown: Let me be blunt: is there a Labor crisis in America today?

George Meaney: Well that depends what you mean by crisis...

--From “The Simpsons” episode S06E01, “Bart of Darkness”

So here’s what I know: Jay Inslee brings to the contest for Governor a Congressional voting record that could be great news for Washington State’s Progressive community: he’s generally supportive of LBGT and other civil rights issues, he seems to support the sort of elections I like (clean ones), he’s very much interested in a “next generation” energy and environmental policy, and he voted against the TARP Program (that’s the bank bailout that was passed in the last months of the Bush Administration) and the extension of the Patriot Act.

All good stuff.

But I also know this: if you are a State worker in Washington State, you are under attack, and you have been for some time now – and among the attackers are members of the Democratic Party – and the reason I’m so personally familiar with this fact is because The Girlfriend is one of those workers (she’s a nurse working within the Division of Developmental Disabilities, and she has been for more than 15 years), and I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.

And I know that for these workers, each year the question becomes: “This year’s wage cuts: in cash, by jacking the cost of health care, or through furlough days?”

This sort of problem extends to workers all across the State, as business interests target the State’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Industrial Insurance programs for attack, to give just two examples of recent legislative battles.

And the State’s Unions are reacting: I had a back and forth with Kathy Cummings (she’s the Communications Director for WSLC, the Washington State Labor Council), who confirmed what I thought I’d been seeing: that since 2009 there has been an effort by the WSLC to bring the fight to Washington State Democrats, including a successful effort to unseat State Senator Jean Berkey, who was targeted, according to Cummings, because of her votes on UI, public education and health care, pollution laws, and tax policy, which the WSLC viewed as favoring corporate interests.

2009, by the way, was a watershed year for this State’s Labor unions, as that was the year Washington Democratic leaders actually called in the State Patrol to investigate whether internal discussions about whether to withhold future campaign contributions if those Democrats didn’t get more cooperative was some sort of criminal act.

As a result, the WSLC formed the DIME PAC (DIME, of course, is an acronym; Don’t Invest in More Excuses, to be specific); this and other Labor-associated PACs are apparently acting as any PAC can, much to the chagrin of Democrats and business interests alike, including what appears to have been a controversial decision to promote a Republican in Berkey’s primary in order to knock her out of the contest early. (Washington uses a “top-two” primary system to determine who gets to the general election, and Berkey came in number three.)

And sure enough, Democrats do appear to be less than supportive: Unions held two rallies this spring at the State Capitol in Olympia, both of which I attended – and I couldn’t help but notice that Washington State Democrats weren’t up on the dais talking about how much they supported those workers gathered just outside.

In fact, the only elected Democrat I saw on either stage, in March or April, speaking to the crowds was State Senator Spencer Coggs…who is a Wisconsin State Senator. (Kathy Cummings helpfully points out that, despite what I thought, about 20 Democrats were introduced by name and were somewhere around the stage at various times during the April event to show support – and you’ll want to keep that in mind as we go along.)

So here’s what I’m thinking as I’m on my way to attend Jay Inslee’s announcement and presser last Monday: Inslee is presumably aware of this history, and if he were to become Washington State’s top elected Democrat he would presumably want to act in a manner that heals that rift…which would be a pretty good story to report to a Progressive audience.

That is not how it turned out.

ME: "I attended two Labor rallies in Olympia over the past couple of months; the only Democratic elected official who seemed to be able to get out and speak to the crowd was from Wisconsin, Spencer Copps, State Senator [which was an error; I should have said Spencer Coggs]. I wondered what you think about that and what are you going to do to try to change it?"

INSLEE: "Well, I'm not sure what you're referring to..."

ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions..."

INSLEE: "I'm sorry..."

ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions, these folks were out trying to promote union rights, but Democrats don't seem to want to get out and support union rights in person. Do you see that as a problem; how would you like to change it?"

INSLEE: "I don't see this as a problem, because I believe as I said I fundamentally believe in work, I fundamentally believe in workers, and I fundamentally believe that people have collective bargaining rights as an organized group, and I think what has gone on in Wisconsin is a travesty, and the reason it's a travesty is that, uh, Governor Walker, if he wanted to be angry at someone, he shouldn't have been angry at the first grade teachers, he should have been angry at the Wall Street investment bankers whose greed was responsible for the economic collapse, and yet I saw the Governor turn his sights on the middle class, and I don't believe an assault on the middle class, which is what happened in Wisconsin, is productive for economic growth, of anyone in our State, or our country. Now I've been pretty forthright in that regard, and, uh, I'll maintain that position."

Here’s the video:



Now let me be the first to say that I did not ask the best possible question. What I should have done was be more specific about how much of a rift there is between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, and then specifically asked what steps Inslee would take, to, as I said earlier, heal the rift.

So normally what you do in a case like that is you go back to the campaign staff and send a follow-up question, and some helpful person who is doing the Candidate’s communications work will get you an official response.

But that’s where it gets weird.

If you try to go to the campaign website to locate the contract information, it is literally nothing, except for three links: give me money, get on the mailing list, or click through to facebook.

I posted a note “on the wall” at facebook, asking who the contact person was for the campaign for media inquiries, and not only did that get no response, the request was removed from the wall within minutes.

I sent follow-up questions to the originating address of the email that invited me to the Inslee event in the first place and to his Congressional office; those also went unacknowledged.

And that, right there, is pretty much the entire story as I know it: there is a significant and growing rift between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, I tried to bring Inslee out on the issue (albeit clumsily), which he did not seem to want to address – and, oddly enough, there appears to be no desire on the part of the campaign to take the opportunity to follow up and affirm that an Inslee Administration would be a friend of Labor when it comes to things like protecting UI, and not balancing the budget while exempting corporate interests from taxation, and protecting workers from environmental hazards on the job.

Except there is one more thing.

I asked the WSLC’s Cummings this question…

Since the 2010 election cycle, have Democrats become more reliable partners, in the estimation of the WSLC?

…and she gave me a bit of a “tease”: the WSLC will release their 2011 Legislative Report, which will address that very question, just in time for their Annual Convention, which begins on August 4th – and we are told to stay tuned.

On Petals And Metal, Or, Today And Tomorrow, Street Actions Are Afoot

For the past couple months I have been talking a lot about “taking it back”, and I have two great chances for you to do just that over the next two days.

One of them involves actions that are taking place all over the USA—but the other is a very special and particular event which will be taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia on Wednesday.

This’ll be a short story…but by the time we’re done, you’ll have stuff to do this week.

A young lady visitor on the set of “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break” asked W.C.Fields if he liked flowers. Fields replied he was very fond of Four Roses.

--Ronald J. Fields, from the book “W.C.Fields By Himself”

So here’s what’s up:

Tomorrow, MoveOn.org and a ton of others are planning “Defend the American Dream” rallies around the country…in fact, as of the time this was written there are 277 events planned, all on the same day.

A few weeks ago Social Security workers held “informational picketing” events at Social Security offices around the country to make Americans aware that proposed Republican budget cuts would create huge “bumps in the road” for those who want their Social Security checks to go out on time, or who might like to speak to an employee on the same day they call the office.

That’s part of tomorrow’s program as well, with Washington DC’s office a sort of starting point from which our anger with what’s been going on can spread.

So if you’re in DC tomorrow, right after office hours, the event will take place at 5:30 PM at the Social Security office at 2100 M Street NW, and there is a handy “meetup page” to give you more information if you need it.

But maybe you’re not going to be in DC.

We still got you covered: this page right here will let you enter a zip code and find an event near you.

For example, there’s a Rally at the San Diego County Administration Center—which, as y’all know, is maybe eight blocks from the end of the runway at Lindbergh Field—and Jim Brown and Virginia Huschke, who are putting on the event, report that they had 1000 people show up last week at the same place for the same thing…so you gotta be there.

Maybe you’re in Michigan…and if you can get to the Veterans’ Memorial in Niles after work tomorrow, United Steel Workers Local 13729 and MoveOn Michiana want you. The Memorial, for those unaware, is located at Waterfront Park, right by the Main Street Bridge and across the street from Massimo’s Pizza—which means afterwards you can pick up a meatball sub or somethin’ and not even have to cook dinner. (Maybe it’s just me, but I am not down for the ranch pizza.)

If you’re in Mobile, Alabama, swing by the cannon at Mobile Memorial Park (on Government Street), where hundreds of protesters intend to use the cannon to take the city hostag—no, wait, I made that part up.

They are intending to have a lovely demonstration, however…and if you think Alabama is an unlikely place for this kind of rally, think again: folks who might have been big on the Tea Party a few months ago are starting to think again, and this is a great chance to help those with seeds of doubt do a bit of “germinating”, as it were.

So that’s tomorrow’s set of events…but what about that Vancouver thing we were talking about?

Well this is good.

“The Yes Men” are well-known pranksters, and some of their past efforts to “correct corporate identities” have been downright diabolical, including the time they pretended they were the Dow Chemical Corporation, and they held a press conference to announce that Dow was assuming all liability related to the industrial accident at Bhopal, India, which killed at least 3400 people…which, naturally, forced Dow to go on TV and immediately announce that the people of Bhopal could basically go suck an egg, because Dow wasn’t actually planning on forkin’ over a dime on their behalf.

Now on Wednesday, at noon, in beautiful downtown Vancouver BC, a prank is going down…and The Yes Men want you to help make it work…and they want you in costume.

Can you make yourself look like a reporter? They’re particularly looking for you to bring a camera—and if it’s on a tripod, that’s even better.

If you resemble a “businessperson at lunch”, they want you too.

Even random “crowd folks” are wanted in a “come as you are” kind of a look.

Now the only hitch we have on this is the meetup information, which they were supposed to send on Monday. For the moment, with no better information available, why not plan to hang out at the Downtown Vancouver Library around 11AM, and I will either update this story to add new information, or I’ll keep sending them messages to arrange for someone to come by the Library and find the group of “reporters” and “businesspeople at lunch” and “random crowd members”.

I told you this would be a short one, so that’s the deal: after work today, there are “Defend the American Dream” rallies all over the country for you to attend, which can be found right here, and on Wednesday, The Yes Men will be putting on one of their very special pranks in Downtown Vancouver—and they want you to come on down and join in the fun.

“Taking It Back” is important, but there’s no reason we can’t have a good time while we’re doing it, and that’s what these events are all about…so go have a good day at work—but on the way home, take some time to stand up for your country.

And if you can work it out, bring the kids.
After all, a really good education starts at home…and this, this thing we’re doing right here…this is education.

On Taking It Back, Or, Wisconsin Recalls, Explained

News is suddenly moving so fast that it’s becoming hard for me to keep up; that’s why we’re not finishing the story today that we just began Tuesday. You know, the one about Titan Cement suing two North Carolina residents who appear to be doing nothing more than speaking the truth.

Unfortunately, other important news has forced itself to the front of the line, and it’s going to demand that we break schedule, whether we like it or not.

That’s why today we’re going to be talking about Wisconsin, and how workers there are fighting back against the State’s Republican legislators and Governor, who seem to have gone out of their way this past three weeks to govern without the consent of the governed.

It’s kind of chilly today in Wisconsin…but I can assure you, things are heating up fast—and it ain’t because of spring.

"I will tell you this: Any business where two partners don't trust each other, any business where one party says, 'You need to do X, Y and Z because I told you,' is a business that is not only not run well, it is a business that can never be as successful as it can be,"

--Former National Football League Players’ Association executive director DeMaurice Smith

As so often happens, we need a bit of background:

In Wisconsin, a recall involves first, the collection of signatures, then, if you get enough, a recall election.

Once the proper papers have been filed, those who want to recall an elected official have 60 days to gather signatures for a recall petition that equals 25% of the number of votes cast in the prior gubernatorial election in that “political subdivision”.

What that means in English is that if you’re looking to recall a State Senator and the last time a Governor ran, 50,000 votes were cast in that Senator’s District, you need to gather 12,500 signatures in 60 days to force a recall election in that District.

The election is not to ask the question: “Should this officeholder be recalled?”

Instead, the incumbent will run against other candidates, and whoever has the most votes either keeps or takes over the office.

It is possible that multiple candidates will emerge from within the same Party; if that happens a “recall primary” election is held.

A primary would take place four weeks after the signatures are turned in, the recall election itself would be six weeks after that, and both elections would be held on a Tuesday; all of this according to Article XIII, Section 12 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

You can’t recall someone until after they’ve been in office for a year, so the Governor can’t be recalled…today…but because the Senate elects half of its Members every two years there are a group of State Senators who can be recalled; they were elected in 2008.

If three Republicans were to be recalled and replaced by Democrats, the State Senate would change from majority Republican to majority Democratic.

If you’ve ever been to Embarrass, Wisconsin (home of The Chair That Grew), you’ve visited Robert Cowles’ 2nd District. (For the record, it’s more or less 100 miles due north of Milwaukee, and there’s some football team that plays in Green Bay that’s also in his District.) He’s been a Senator since 1987, and in ’08 he ran unopposed. His District voted 52-46 for Obama over McCain in ‘08, and chose Bush over Kerry by almost exactly the same margin in ‘04.

I do not have a feel for who might run against him, but I have some calls out to try to get an answer; if I learn more, we’ll add it to the story.

One Senator who might be in trouble is Alberta Darling (so far as I know, she’s unrelated to cricket great Joe Darling), who represents District 8, which is basically Milwaukee’s northern suburbs.

In ‘08 she only won by 1007 votes (of about 100,000 cast).

It’s worth noting, however, that her District cast the most votes for Governor in 2010; as a result her opponents will be required to gather more valid signatures than in any other District (20,343, by one reckoning).

Her opponent last time was Sheldon Wasserman; he’s a former State Representative, an OB/GYN from Milwaukee, and a member of the State’s Medical Examining Board.

(On a side note, it looks as though the Governor might be messing with the Board as well; he refused to allow two recent physician nominees selected by the Board to be seated, and he’s apparently looking to nominate his own people.)

Just as in District 2, this District voted for Obama in ’08, and Bush in ’04.

Sheila Harsdorf, who currently chairs the Senate Committee on State and Federal Relations and Information Technology, was sent to Madison to look after the interests of the State’s westernmost District, “The Fightin’ 10th”, as Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, would say.

Even though she thinks State workers are taking too much from the public Treasury…her relationships with the Federal Government are so good that she had no problem taking in $195,000 in Federal farm subsidies over a ten-year period for Beldenville’s Trim-Bel Valley Farms, of which she just happened to be a 50% owner as recently as 2008 (for all I know, she may still be an owner, more current information was unavailable).

This is another one of those Districts that went for Obama in ’08 by just about the same margin as it went for Bush in ’04.

Luther Olsen of the 14th (located about 40 miles or so due north of Madison) is another farm owner; he owns 20% of Waushara’s Riverview Farm; they also happily accepted at least $58,502 of your money and mine, because Olsen, like Sheila Harsdorf, apparently believes that’s a better use of our money than, you know, paying a public school teacher or something.

(Fun Fact: did you know Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, used to be a Milwaukee public school teacher?)

Olsen did not face an opponent in ’08…and once again, this District went Obama in ’08, Bush in ’04—although it went about 4 points farther for Bush than for Obama.

And that brings us to Randy Hopper.

This District (the 18th, which most notably includes Oshkosh and Fond Du Lac) is another one of those Republican seats that are considered among the most “gettable”; that’s because just 163 votes separated Hopper and his ’08 opponent, Jessica King.

There’s also this:

“I have a lot of correctional facilities, a couple universities, and a couple of tech schools [in my district]. I have the second largest population of state employees in the state.”

Hopper also chairs the Senate Education Committee…and there’s also a story going around that his wife is telling people that he’s been providing some “private lessons” to his 25-year-old mistress down in Madison; this according to the “MAL Contends…” blog—and that’s not going to help a family-values candidate.

He owns two radio stations, one an AM-talk Ag Report and Hannity broadcaster, the other an FM station that caters to the “music at work” market; this may allow him to mitigate some of the potentially-about-to-occur bad publicity, and certainly can’t hurt at election time.

Perhaps the most unrepentant Republican during this process has been Glen Grothman of the 20th (which actually, literally, includes Fredonia, and that has to have some deeper meaning…), and he can afford to take a strong stand.

This guy might well be a mortal lock in this District: the Sheboygan area is one of the most reliably Republican-voting regions of the State over the past 30 years, and of all the Senate candidates who faced opposition in ’08, he won with a larger margin of victory than any of ‘em. (He didn’t get 61% of the vote in ‘08…he won by 61% of the vote.)

(Fun Fact #2: Our friends at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel created these two most excellent voting trend maps for your dining and dancing pleasure; they illustrates how Wisconsin can swing wildly back and forth between Republican and Democratic “electoral domination”.)

Moving on: Mary Lazich, of the 28th, occupies another seat that is going to be tough to get—her District encompasses Milwaukee’s western suburbs (a reliably Republican voting region; in both ’04 and ’08 Republican Presidential candidates won with over 60% of the vote), she did not face an opponent in ’08, and this is another District that will require more than 20,000 signatures to force an election.

“…Fate has been hounding me like a Mormon missionary with an Amway franchise…”

--A. Whitney Brown, appearing on the television show “Almost Live!”

We’re going to complete today’s “Recall Roundup” with one of the most vulnerable of all the Senators: Dan Kapanke, the Senate Majority Caucus Chair (and a pretty good ”get” if you’re running a recall campaign). He’s from the 32nd, which is all the way across the State from Milwaukee, on the Minnesota border, pretty much in Wisconsin’s southwest corner.

He won by less than 3 points in ’08, his District voted 61%-38% for Obama over McCain…and 53%-46% for Kerry over Bush in ’04, which is the largest margin of any of the 8 Republican Senators currently under recall threat. (Go back and have another look at those voting trend maps, and look at what’s happened to this corner of the State.)

He’s hard right on social issues, but the Farm Bureau loves him.

He is quoted as saying that he expects the signature gathering effort in his District to be successful (only about 15,400 signatures are needed) …and he’s also quoted as having the belief that there is such a thing as a Wisconsin State Senate arrest, despite the presence of an “immunity from arrest” clause in the Wisconsin Constitution.

As of March 8th, 57% of voters in the 32nd would rather have “generic” than Kapanke in a recall election, and they had to close the road outside his house on Friday to keep the hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered there safe.

Now before we close today…we need to offer “big ups” to DavidNYC, who posted a fantastic interactive results spreadsheet at the Swing State Project site; we’ve been referring to it a bunch in this story and you should have a look at it yourself.

And with all that said, that’s today’s “scorecard”, folks, and you can keep track of all the races—or volunteer to help—from one handy location: WisconsinRecall.net…so bookmark the spot, help out any way you can, and let’s start with Wisconsin…and then move on to Ohio and Indiana and Michigan next.

On “La Dolce Vita”, Or, The Real Life Of A State Worker

What with all the attacks on Labor in states like Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, there has been just so much misunderstanding out there these past couple weeks about what things are actually like for State workers.

Are the conditions decent?
Is there excessive pay?
Is there even a need for State workers?

Well, I can’t answer every question, but I can sure tell you what it’s like in our house…and the reason my words carry the “voice of authority” is because The Girlfriend has been working for the State of Washington for the past 15 years.

Bona fides established, let’s get to telling the story:

Good morrow to the day so fair;
Good morning, Sir, to you:
Good morrow to mine own torn hair
Bedabbled with the dew

--From “The Mad Maid’s Song”, a selection from “The Hesperides & Noble Numbers”, by Robert Herrick

So as to make this story more fully informative, I went to work with The Girlfriend the other night, and what you’ll be reading today is basically my eyewitness report of what conditions are like at her workplace.

To be completely fair, she tells me that conditions at her facility are not as nice as the other comparable locations the State operates, so we'll have to establish right up front that this might not be a complete picture of how things are everywhere.

She is a nurse, The Girlfriend is, and she’s been working for the past 16 years with clients who live in what’s called a Residential Habilitation Center, and, to quote the State, her job is to “is to provide specialized care and support to people with developmental disabilities who have challenging needs”.

At the moment, the State operates five of these facilities, although that number is expected to be lower after this year; this because the number of clients being served has declined over time.

So the first thing we better talk about is the pay.

Ever since the labor unions took over State Government in Washington, wages for State workers have somewhat improved. The Girlfriend is earning in the middle of her pay range, which means she’s making about $870,000 a year, even though other nurses at her location jack in a million two or more.

(Washington State’s AFSCME is proud that they finally got our last State worker above $100,000; this was accomplished by changing Legislative Intern positions to Legislative Intern Level 7 positions and making step-pay increases part of that change.)

Of course, that’s not the whole package.

We woke up last night to the ringing of the call. On the line was the Facility Concierge, Lester, cheerfully waking us up.

We’re dressed, and heading out the door, and of course now the question is whether it’s a good idea to take the Bentley to work, what with the wintry weather and all, or to go with our SUV. You see, thanks to her State salary, we were able to purchase one of the two 2009 Lamborghini lm 800 SUV prototypes that were produced before the idea were abandoned…and even though—well, let’s just say there’s a “deal”.

See, the thing is, the valets at her facility are a bit sketchy, ever since the State outsourced the work (hey, the unions can’t win ‘em all)…and the Bentley can be replaced…and losing the Lamborghini would be a really big “deal”, because one of the other nurses owns one of those crazy Russian SUVs (she bought the Dartz Monaco Red Diamond Edition, even after they decided not to go with the whale penis leather seats), and there’s a lot of “keeping up with the Joneses” at her place…but we went with the Lambo anyway.

Lucky for us, two of our favorite valets (Tendei Furlough and Jenna Talia) were working, and we know the Lambo would be in safe hands with them.

I was starving, and she was, too; luckily for us the omelette and crêpe bar was still open at the cafeteria, which provides meals for State workers at no charge.

The cooks, as usual, had an excellent selection of Washington State food and beverage products available. I had crêpes with Yakima pheasant, Walla Walla sweet onions, and local champignon morel, all bound up in a lovely sauce Béchamel with just that little hint of clove that really makes it work for me.

She went for the Puget Sound King Crab omelette with freshly-gathered oyster mushrooms and Cougar Gold Dill Garlic cheese straight from the Washington State University creamery—which, I must say, was also an excellent choice.

The cooks apologized for the absence of fresh spot prawns, venison, and line-caught salmon tonight, but what with the State having to economize these days…what can you do?

At the table, our sommelier had something very special: some of the last of the 1996 Leonetti Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon out there anywhere—and I have to tell you, many people would not have chosen it with pheasant, but it was so nice that in this case I did not mind breaking convention. For a white, we had the 2008 Cadaretta "SBS" Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc-Sémillon; I gave it a taste, and I had to agree that it was indeed a 91-point wine.

Dessert was a lovely apple tart with fresh local cream and a glass of local Port, and then it was off to fitness and uniform services.

To help prevent on-the-job injuries, workers attend a paid two-hour workout session before each workday begins, and our guest fitness instructors this week had been brought in from markanthony’s of London, who are working out a deal with the State to bring “fitness podcast” to all workers at home.

After a shower, it’s back to the cafeteria for a break: scones, blueberry preserves, and mint tea for her (gathered from the on-campus garden), and a lovely slice of Remlinger Farm marionberry pie and an espresso doppio for me from one of the three baristas that are on duty at all times to meet the coffee needs of the 200 or so workers at the facility.

Tonight there’s an important union meeting and updates from State officials on new initiatives to come, so the next two hours is spent at The Conference Center, a building located next to the Japanese Garden and Koi pond and decorated in an Asian motif, with silk-covered chairs and teak and ebony furniture and many ornamental “panel” units scattered about the rooms.

A simple lunch was prepared and served tableside at The Conference Center by the Center’s catering staff: in honor of Hispanic Heritage Week and the former Caesar’s Restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, we had the salad that bears the name, along with freshly made cranberry and walnut rolls and local creamery butter.

After our hour lunch break, which we spent shopping at the artisan mall that operates on the facility grounds (she’s having a hat made, I hit the tailor shop and ordered a dozen black turtleneck shirts, half in black, half in darker black, in case any “adventures” come up), we hit the “five hour on the clock mark”…and in Washington State, all State workers work five hours and get paid for eight.

So we caught the Campus Shuttle (there are electric vehicles available, on call, that carry workers from building to building) back to the valet station, collected the Lambo, and called it a day.

So that’s a great story, ain’t it?

Well, the reality is that Tendei Furlough is a name I invented because State workers are, this year, getting an unpaid ten day furlough, which means you just lost two weeks’ of pay this year.

Nurses? The reality is that most everyone she works with, nurses and nursing assistants alike, have been injured at one time or another because the staff is short and the clients might assault you or you might have to bear their weight unexpectedly.

The money is now better in the private sector, and benefits are catching up fast. (The “defined benefit” retirement system went away long ago, and today’s State workers, including The Girlfriend, with more than 15 years on the job, are in a “defined contribution” plan.)

There really haven’t been any raises, as any money they get on one end goes right back out the other in things like higher co-pays and—oh, yeah, that two weeks of pay they just sort of…lost.

There are fewer workers than before, but the workload is much higher than it was 15 years ago, which means even getting a break is now a “maybe, sometimes” kind of a deal.

Cafeteria? Valet? Please.

There is free parking, which is better than a lot of people have, but as far as amenities go, that’s about it.

Now the conversation is about how much more everyone’s pay can be cut…and I’m gonna tell ya, when you are on the way to becoming the lowest-paying job in town there is a point where things like providing client care and a decent education for your kids and keeping the prisoners inside the walls are going to be seriously impacted.

We just had a corrections worker killed on the job, and recent staff cutbacks might have been part of the reason why—and if you add declining pay to understaffing you end up with something like dollar store jail guards, which, as I mentioned above, is not gonna be good value for the taxpayer dollar.

By the way: does any of this sound like Governors are the stooges of labor leaders?

I hate to say it folks, and there are few politicians who will, but you cannot just cut taxes to zero and expect it to all work out.

Government costs money, people have to do the jobs, and hiring good people, just like in any other business, is a smart idea…and you don’t get good people if you just make the environment worse and worse and worse.

Governments have to decide how to spend money, and they have to spend wisely and well, and we all know that…but continually cutting, no matter what the cost, often leads to decisions that are neither wise nor well.

Often, over the negotiating table, government is forced to make better decisions about things like class sizes and buying bullet-resistant vests for cops, even if the elected leaders would rather do nothing but cut taxes, no matter what the cost, and when you strip away the voice of workers, you pretty much guarantee that the workplace won’t be a better place, either for the workers, or for the customers.

Those customers, of course, are you and me, and if you want the business of government that you’re paying those taxes to run to run well…then it’s time to support your State’s workers—and to get loud about it.

If we do we can make it plenty painful for the elected officials who, right now, are so busy trying to advance their careers by screwing over State workers that they might as well change all their last names to either Phillips, Slotted, or PoziDriv #4…and, as Martha Stewart would say, “that’s a good thing”.

Social Security: If You Can’t Kill The Program, Screw The People

There’s a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don’t like, and by extension, the clients of that program…and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.

They’re going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to “lower the deficit”, or words similar…but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well—because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of “treat ‘em like their cars were impounded” to every interaction customers have with the system.

And what better way to make sure that happens…then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol’ Social Security office?

The foot less prompt to seek the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again.

--From “Thyrsis”, by Matthew Arnold

So here’s the deal, short and sweet: Social Security is amazingly efficient at running an annuity and income support program, both at the same time; in fact, in 2009 the Social Security Administration Old-Age and Survivors’ Benefit Program took in not quite $700 billion and disbursed $564 billion, writing checks to and serving millions of customers at the same time…and they did this with administrative expenses of about $3.4 billion—and that’s just about .6% of the distributions, all of this according to the Report of the Social Security Trustees for 2009.

In the private sector, companies who provide annuities have administrative costs that range from 50% to 500% higher. (Of course, Social Security doesn’t have to pay sales commissions.)

The Social Security folks are similarly frugal with the Disability Insurance Program (expenses run 2.3% of distributions), and if you combine the two the total is .9%.

Nonetheless, the plan from the House Republicans, who want to return to balanced budgets right now, if they are to be believed, is to cut $1.7 billion of those administrative costs from a budget of just under $12 billion in the remaining 7 months of the fiscal year, and, according to the involved union, that means in those next 7 months workers will have to take three weeks worth of furlough days to make that work.

If my quick math is correct it means they hope to close the office about 10% of the time while expecting the same amount of work to be done, which is probably not going to happen.

The likely end result will be callers who can’t get through without more of a struggle, checks that may or may not get out on time, an angry workforce, and a general result that equals more and more people saying “Social Security sucks”—and if you ask me, that’s the real goal of this effort: to make Social Security unpopular, thus setting the stage for more cuts to come later.

And just to put all this in perspective, we today give subsidies totaling about $4 billion a year to oil companies, apparently because gold-plated caviar is really, really, expensive, and the same budget-conscious House Republicans…every single one of ‘em…voted to protect that subsidy just a couple of days ago.

Social Security workers were out yesterday handing out leaflets to describe what’s going on, although as far as I know the leaflets didn’t say that this is just one more part of a giant plan that’s already raising its ugly head in places like Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio and New Jersey: start a war against one group of American workers by claiming they’re not “real” workers or that they’re “special, extra-privileged” workers…and try to drag down all workers in the process.

A cut like this is a shot at these workers, and, by extension, all workers who might, you know, like a raise some day—and it’s also a shot at you, or your parents, or your grandparents, who will eventually have to deal with the results of all the cutting.

But in the end, it’s important to look at the bright side: the gold-plated caviar market will still be protected, thanks to that $4 billion a year in cash we’re donating to oil companies—and if I had to guess, BP’s senior management will not be looking at longer wait times the next time they call Louie Gohmert or Joe Barton or any one of a few dozen other Members who evidently represent Big Oil first…and Americans last.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was written with the support of the CAF State Blogger's Network Project.