Red States Sure Have a Lot of "Takers"

This, my friends, is called cognitive dissonance.

Ah, makers vs. takers.  Since we apparently didn't get enough of this during the election, conservative arguments about the government dividing us into a nation of job-creating, awe-inspiring "makers" and lazy, dependent "takers" persist.  It's at the core of their push to slash social safety net programs - just ask Paul Ryan, still writin' them budgets.  It's also the source of one of the biggest logical missteps in their increasingly broken ideology - they either don't care or don't understand that some of the biggest "takers" come from their base and represent the parts of the country that are supposedly full of hard-workin', free-enterprisin', do-good Americans.  Ah, but when they reap the benefits of government largesse, it doesn't count.  They deserve it, you see.

First, an anecdote before we get to the hard numbers.  I know someone who's a pretty hardcore conservative.  He's always filling up his Facebook feed with stupid memes and Fox News talking points.  He loves to complain about the ills of government social programs and how the government punishes hard workers to reward the lazy.  But here's the thing.  He's ex-military.  Because of his service, he went to school for free on the Post-9/11 GI Bill.  He gets free health care for life.  He gets a housing stipend.  By his definition, he lives in his own socialist country (a rather nice one at that).  Now, I'm not saying he and other military members don't deserve these benefits.  But not everyone can be in the military.  They'd laugh me out of the recruiting office.  And it's really easy to complain about "takers" when you'll never have to worry about the cost of health care or make a student loan payment.  He advises that the way out of poverty is not through social programs but through prayer.  Did he pray his way through college?  I'm sorry, but I will take actual, directed programs with the goals of not only helping individuals in need but advancing society as a whole.  The original GI Bill was a massive government investment in human capital that helped fuel the post-WWII economic boom.  Everyone benefited.  Sometimes, though, those not in the military are deserving of some assistance.

So where do all those sweet government Benjamins go?  First, let's remind ourselves of the 2012 electoral map, which has only changed slightly in the years since 2000.

 

This should be pretty familiar; by now we all know where the red and blue regions of the country are.  Now I want to show you three maps that show, in different ways, which parts of the country receive the most money and benefits from the federal government.  As I do this, keep in mind that the core tenet of Republican governing philosophy is that government is too big, spends too much money, and wastes it on excessive social programs that prop up people without initiative.  For many Republicans, this includes (in their current forms) Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and disability benefits.

This map shows how much money each state gets in federal benefits for each dollar that it pays in federal taxes.  In essence, it divides states into makers (states under $1.00 - net payers of taxes) and takers (states over $1.00 - net receivers of taxes).  Notice where the largest concentration of taker states is?  Yup, the South.  Core red country.  Texas pays in due to oil taxes.  To be sure, there are some blue taker states as well.  New Mexico is a big receiver due to large Native populations here.  But any argument about a correlation between government handouts and a dominance of liberal government is clearly false.  Look at all those Republican Senators across the South, advocating for more money for their states.  In fact, it's the other way around - states like Illinois, Ohio, and New York are subsidizing others.  If the Neo-Confederates followed through on their silly ideas to secede, they'd have to hope Texas were around to bail them out.

This map answers the question "Who is Romney's 47%?" in a way that might make conservatives queasy.  It ranks in order, from most to least, the percentage of each state's population that has no federal tax liability (i.e., the infamous 47%).  The only blue states in the top ten are New Mexico and Florida (which barely counts).  By comparison, seven of the bottom 10 are blue.  So when Romney said there were 47% of the people whom he couldn't win the votes of, he was largely talking about his southern conservative base.  Funny, they voted for him anyway.

In a way this last map is a subset of the first one, but conservatives have been complaining a lot about disability benefits lately so it's worthy of inclusion.  Not surprisingly, the highest concentration of those receiving these benefits is, again, in the South.  It's true that you can't prove, based on this map, that people receiving the benefits are voting Republican.  However, as I've noted, everyone benefits from these programs.  People receive income they otherwise wouldn't and pump that money into the economy.  Meanwhile, someone should really tell Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to do something about all the freeloaders in his state.

My point with these maps isn't to belittle the South, but merely to point out that conservatives love to complain about the mythical moocher, when he actually lives in their backyard.  When Republicans support slashing social insurance programs, they are hurting themselves too.  But they manage to convince millions of poor and middle class voters to vote in politicians that will slash programs that the poor and middle class benefit the most from.  And when they reap the rewards of tax cuts for the wealthy (capital gains, inheritance) or corporate welfare programs in amounts that would feed a poor family for years, that's ok.  They deserve it because they're job creators.  Who cares if nobody else has any money to buy their products?  What could possibly go wrong?

The Potential Attempt to Rig the Electoral College

After their losses in the 2012 election, some conservative Republicans are refusing to admit that their ideas might need to change to be more in line with mainstream America's beliefs and demographic trends.  No, instead they've come up with a brilliant idea to change the rules of the electoral college in key states that would make it near impossible, in a deeply divided country, for a Democrat to be elected President in 2016.  Gore losing to Bush in 2000 would barely register in comparison to this scheme.

How would it work?  Republicans currently control the state governments in some key states that Obama won in 2012, such as Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan.  It is within their power to pass a law stating that their state's electoral votes would not be winner-take-all, but rather would be distributed according to which candidate wins each congressional district in that state.  The remaining two electoral votes (each state has EVs equal to its number of House seats plus 2 Senate seats) would go to the overall winner of votes.  Two states already do this - Maine and Nebraska.  However, these are small states - one solid red, the other solid blue - and no one cares much about them.  Obama actually won the EV from Omaha's congressional district in 2008, but didn't in 2012.

This may sound reasonable.  In fact, it would be pretty fair if the political leanings of a state's congressional districts were roughly in line with how the state voted in presidential elections - it would give a voice to minority voters in solid red or blue states.  However, the problem is that congressional districts are redrawn by state legislatures every 10 years, after each census.  The Tea Party wave in 2010 enabled Republicans in many states to gerrymander districts in their states to favor Republican candidates.  Now, both parties have used their legislative power to gerrymander districts in the past, but the effects of 2010 have put the Republicans at a large advantage in this arena.  The most common and effective way for Republicans to gerrymander a district is to clump all the Democratic voters together in one or two districts.  You thus cede those districts to Democrats, but it leaves Republicans alone to dominate the rest of the state.  You might end up with a Democratic candidate winning 75% of the vote in his district, and a Republican candidate winning 53% in his, but in the eyes of Congress, it's all the same.

The 2012 elections bore witness to the success of Republicans' 2010 gerrymandering.  The Republicans managed to hold onto their House of Representatives majority, despite the fact that more people voted for House Democratic candidates than Republican candidates,  In other words, just like Bush in 2000, the House GOP lost the popular vote, and still won.  It is this strategy that Republicans in key states are trying to cement into the electoral college.

 

These maps illustrate exactly how this plan could be put into action to almost guarantee a Republican president in 2016.  Notice that Obama won each state, some by healthy margins.  But notice how few of the House seats are Democratic; this is due to gerrymandering.  To be specific, let's look at Pennsylvania.  The vote count here was Obama 2,907,448; Romney 2,619,583.  A margin of victory for Obama of almost 300,000 votes, or 5.2%, owing to strong support in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Erie.  So under the rules of the 200-plus-year-old system, Obama won all 20 of the state's EVs.  Under the Republican plan, however, Romney would've won probably 13 EVs (assuming he won every R House district) and Obama 7.  An even nastier plan that's out there would give the 2 at-large EVs to whoever won the most House districts, yielding a score of Romney 15, Obama 5.  How is that possibly fair?  Oh, that's right, it's not.  Add that up in enough states (see above), and it would have been possible for us to inaugurate President Romney this week despite him losing the national popular vote by 3.5 million votes.

There is absolutely no honest defense for this plan.  It is subverting democracy, plan and simple, and making it more possible for an increasingly unpopular minority to upset the majority will of the people.  Republicans are trying to spin it as saying it's about taking away the dominance of urban voters at the expense of rural voters.  That is, to quote our VP, malarkey.   Every person's vote is equal (in swing states anyway - I'll get to that in a minute).  If Obama gets 85% of the vote in Philly, tough.  That's how it works.  This attempt to change to system simply makes urban votes worth less than rural ones, instead of them being equal.  And, of course, it's only underway in states where it would benefit Republicans.  You don't hear about them trying to make the system "fairer" in, say, Georgia - which probably would've given 5 EVs to Obama in a solid Romney state.

To their credit, some Republicans seem to realize this is a bad idea.  The Florida Speaker of the House compared it to ending a football game after the 3rd quarter just because you're ahead.  (My sports analogy would be it's like saying only shots that Democrats make from the paint in a basketball game count).  Smart Republicans know that this plan might win them an election or two, but in the long run it'll come back to, pardon, bite them in the ass.  Not only will they be seen as undermining majority will if the popular vote winner handily loses an election or two, but you better believe Democrats will take advantage of the new rules at their first opportunity.  Again, demographic trends being what they are, that's likely to happen soon - perhaps after the 2020 census.  It would set us down a path that would render the electoral college a true sham of democracy.

Of course, some would argue it already is.  So let's fix it.  There's a much fairer way to proportionally award a state's electoral votes - just do it by vote count.  This is done in many other countries.  For example, when a German votes for the Bundestag (Parliament), she votes for both a candidate in her district and a party she favors.  Parties then get awarded seats according to the proportion of the party votes they received.  Under this scenario, the EV split in Pennsylvania would've been something like Obama 12, Romney 8.  Extrapolate that to the whole country, and Obama still would have won, but the EV count would've been a lot closer than 332 to 206.  It would've reflected the national popular vote.  It makes votes across the country - not just in swing states - mean something, and it's not subject to political shenanigans every 10 years.  Of course, for this to happen both parties need to be convinced that it's in their best interests.  Perhaps this attempt by some Republicans to thwart democracy will be a wake-up call sufficient for Americans to demand a fairer electoral system.

Hitler, Hyperbole, and Hypocrisy

Actually Hitler was a community organizer of sorts.
So there's that I guess.

This is not a post about gun laws.  I think I've just about said my piece on that issue.  Rather, this is a post about the paranoia generated by conservative media that is rendering any sort of meaningful discussion on gun violence practically impossible.  To be frank, I've had it with the Hitler shit.  Moreover, on the opposite side, this week they dragged MLK into it, making the ludicrous claim that a nonviolent follower of Gandhi and gunshot assassination victim would be the NRA"s best buddy today.  To paraphrase a guest on the Daily Show, MLK is dead.  He doesn't get to be your black yes-man.  Likewise, Hitler's dead too.  He doesn't get to be the straw-man boogeyman you compare anything in America you don't like to.

First, let's set the record straight about Hitler.  There is no proof he ever said "To conquer a nation you must first disarm its citizens."  He did nothing about gun control until 1938 - well after the Nazis had established total control of the country - when he actually increased gun ownership rights for non-Jewish Germans, which had been severely restricted in the Treaty of Versailles after WWI.  Any support Hitler had for disarming people naturally referred to races he was bent on conquering and subjugating - namely the Jews.  This notion has led to what I believe are projection fantasies among some of the Right - if only they had been a Jew in the ghetto with a gun, by God, they'd have made the Nazis pay.  Well, guess what?  You weren't there, you have no idea what it was like, and you're not accounting for the cultural, political, and knowledge differences between Jews under the Reich and gung-ho Americans.  It's easy to say you'd fight when you know that the other option is a trip to a gas chamber; Jews had been through ghettos and pogroms before and many thought it would be OK if they could ride it out.  How were they to know otherwise?  It's not like they had a live Twitter feed from Dachau.  Moreover, it took the combined might of the free world five years to bring down the Nazis.  Any Jewish resistance would be - and was - met with brutal repression.

This same idea has been extended to slavery in America - if only blacks had guns, there would have been no slavery.  Yeah, ok.  Reminder: slaves were not people.  They had no money.  Gun access was generally impossible.  That's how the system worked.  What slave rebellions did occur were - surprise - brutally repressed.  State militias in the South were organized for that very purpose (some have argued this is the actual reason for the Second Amendment - I'm not going to go there).  To paraphrase the same Daily Show guest, if there had been a chapter in US history about mass slave uprisings, the next chapter would be called "All the Black People are Dead.  Now What?"

Nonetheless these factual inaccuracies haven't slowed down conservative media's Obama is Hitler Parade.  I suppose because he is a dictator that everyone knows and associates with pure evil, it's an easy and lazy comparison to make that gins up a lot of unwarranted emotions.  To be fair, I remember some liberals comparing W to Hitler.  That was stupid too.  But now we're talking about planting paranoia in a certain subset of gun owners who believe it's their duty to arm themselves against the tyrannical government and the coming gunpocalypse.  And that's dangerous.  Here are a few examples, all taken from that "fair and balanced" Fox News:

"The dictators and monsters of the 20th century -- from Stalin to Hitler, from Castro to Pol Pot, from Mao to Assad -- have disarmed their people, and only because some of those people resisted the disarming were all eventually enabled to fight the dictators for freedom." - Andrew Napolitano, January 10

"Under Feinstein's bill, which has been introduced, if the president does it that way, everybody in America who owns one of the guns on the list will be required to go in and give fingerprints, mug shot, be entered into a database. It will be "your papers, please" like Nazi Germany. We're going to register everybody." - Lars Larson, January 9

DOOCY: I think you, like a lot of people, Joshua, are worried that the federal government is going to come after our guns.

BOSTON: It's something we've seen happen time and time again in history, with Stalin. It happened in Cambodia, and then of course the Third Reich. No one saw that coming until it was too late. - Steve Doocy (a KU grad, sigh) and former Marine Joshua Boston, January 7

This is just the tip of the iceberg; examples from other outlets here.  It's this line of thinking that leads directly to the horrible conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged by the government as the beginnings of the Great Gun Grab.  The foundations of that lunacy are shaky even by conspiracy theory standards; I'm not a 9/11 Truther, but I'll give that gang an A for effort at least.

What really set me off is that, surprise, Fox has now reversed itself.   On January 16 Bob Schieffer on CBS said this about obstacles to passing new gun laws: “Surely passing civil rights legislation, as Lyndon Johnson was able to do, and before that, surely defeating the Nazis was a much more formidable task than taking on the gun lobby.”  Which seems like a bit of a mild and indirect analogy compared to what I listed above, but he did use the N-word so it qualifies.  And the talking heads on Fox exploded.  Host and former Bush press secretary Dana Perino actually said, "“Think of if conservatives had used that language to describe liberals.  There would be collective outrage on the front page of the papers and demands for people to resign and apologize.”  Actually, it's pretty easy to imagine that scenario, Dana, because your network does it almost every day.  And while there has certainly been some outrage on lefty websites, no one else seems to care that much.  You all still have your jobs, right?

Unfortunately the gun-grabber tyranny hyperbole has now extended beyond right-wing media and into our elected officials.  On January 20 the campaign of Kentucky Senator and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - the 2nd or 3rd most powerful Republican in DC (depending on what House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is up to that day) sent out an email to supporters full of blatant misinformation about Obama's plans to confiscate your guns.  The full text is here; this is how is opens:

Dear Patriot, 

You and I are literally surrounded.

The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights.

On your freedom.

Just the other night, President Obama urged them to act. And then he went one step further, spelling out the 23 different Executive Orders he will take to get your guns.

My friend, our freedom is under direct assault.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.  I detest this use of the word "patriot" that implies only gun lovers are true patriots.  To their credit, there's no mention of Hitler.  But the idea that Obama and his allies are going to confiscate legally-owned weapons is a baseless claim straight out of Alex Jones-Conspiracy Land.  Especially the bit with the Executive Orders.  They have been bitching about these before and since they were issued and I have yet to see any criticism that suggests they have actually read them.  So please do so and try to figure out which of them means that the man in the White House is coming for your guns.  They are a bunch of requests for studies and for agencies to better share information with each other.  One of them says the ATF should make its interim head permanent.  A government bureaucracy has to fill out an HR form!  Scary!  McConnell is up for reelection in 2014 so has to rile up his base, but this fear-mongering is irresponsible, especially coming from a high-ranking Senator.

I'll close with a word of advice for conservatives, to make the next four years a bit easier on all of us.  Please look up the definitions of the following words: socialism, communism, Marxism, fascism, and tyranny.  They do not mean what you think they mean.  Then open up a history book.  Any one will do, because you seem to get just about all of it wrong.

2013: Watch Conservative Governance Harm Kansas in Real Time

Worth fighting for.

Although the 2012 elections were a victory for progressives in many ways, many state governors and legislatures are still in the grasp of the Tea Party, which has carried forward from its 2010 wave.  This is no more true than in my home state of Kansas, where, despite its red reputation, conservative Republicans will solidly control the Senate, House, and Governorship for the first time ever in 2013.

Republicans have long been dominant in the state, to be sure, but for decades moderate business-minded Republicans held control of the party.  The Republican governors of my youth - Mike Hayden and Bill Graves - were of this ilk.  There have been prominent Democratic politicians in Kansas history, too - most notably Kathleen Sebelius, a popular two-term governor whom Time ranked as one of the best in the country, before she left to be Obama's HHS secretary (we want you back, Kathleen).  The rise of movement conservatism since the early 90s, however, has bestowed Kansas with effectively three political parties.  The Democrats are relegated to permanent minority status and the real elections occur in the August primaries between moderate and conservative Republicans.  Former Governor Graves supported numerous moderates against conservative candidates in the 2012 primaries to no avail.  The conservatives won easily and now dominate the Legislature, with Tea Party favorite Governor Sam Brownback as their captain.  This political landscape is infinitely compounded by the fact that Koch Industries, the hundred-billion-dollar corporation hugely responsible for masquerading corporate lobbying as a grassroots political movement (i.e. the Tea Party) is headquartered in Wichita.

The Koch brothers scored a major victory in 2012 when Brownback and his legislative followers pushed through a massive tax cut deal that lowered income taxes and largely eliminated them for many businesses and farms (details here).  That may sound good on paper, but to partly offset the cost of the cuts, many tax credits utilized by the poor and middle classes were eliminated.  These include expenses for child care and food sales tax rebates - Kansas now joins Alabama and Mississippi as the only states with no food sales tax exemptions whatsoever.  Kansas' own Department of Revenue, not some liberal think tank, found that under the plan half a million filers who earn less than $25,000 would see an average tax increase of $156, while 21,000 filers making more than $250,000 would see an average cut of $5,200.  Those in between would receive a modest cut ($282).  It is Robin Hood in reverse, taking more money from the vast poor to reward the few rich.  And it is now the law of the land.

This is libertarian/conservative economic policy in practice in its rawest form.  The spin is that lowering the tax burden on "job creators" will usher in such a flurry of new economic activity that the lost tax revenues will be made up through a broader tax base.  It is the myth of supply-side, trickle-down economics.  In reality there has never been any conclusive proof that this works, and studies show that tax cuts that benefit middle and lower classes are actually better economic generators.  As I've said before, you have to stimulate demand by putting money in the pockets of people who are actually going to spend it. 

To the surprise of no one outside the conservative thought bubble, it doesn't appear to be set to work for Kansas either.  As state legislators prepare to craft the fiscal year 2014 budget, which takes effect July 1, last year's tax cuts have left a projected $700 million hole to be filled.  This was, of course, predicted by everyone who said the tax cuts were a bad idea.  But Kansas must pass a balanced budget, so those bucks have gotta come from somewhere.  (To provide a counterexample, here in New Mexico the state government is contemplating how to best spend a bit of new money for the first time in years.)

"Cut spending, cut spending!" cry the conservatives.  This is, shall we say, problematic.  Huge entitlement programs are largely federally funded, and reducing state funding for some programs can actually reduce the amount of federal dollars received - counterproductive to say the least.  State government operations could perhaps be trimmed a little, but they've already taken a hit and their budgets are small compared to other spending areas.  That leaves school funding and other aid to local governments, a huge portion of the budget.  It's really unlikely that Kansas schools will come out of this morass unscathed, and that is sad.  Worst of all, Brownback obviously saw it coming.  In one of the most blatant political shams I've seen recently, last year he appointed a task force to examine how Kansas schools can operate more efficiently, i.e. with less money.  There was not a single educator on it.

The cuts are coming, have no doubt.  Quality of education will suffer.  Teachers and other school personnel could be laid off.  And how is that supposed to help the economy?  Moreover, last week a district court ruled that the Legislature has been breaking its constitutional obligations since 2008 by underfunding schools.  While that case winds its way to the Kansas Supreme Court, any hope of rectifying the situation is slim at best in the face of the Koch juggernaut.

It's obvious that Republicans will support hardly anything on the revenue side of things (and what Democrats support doesn't matter in the Kansas of 2013).  The one tax option they have said they will consider is making a temporary increase to the state sales tax permanent.  Because everyone pays the exact same sales tax rate, this tax takes a higher percentage of income from those who earn less.  In other words, they picked the most regressive tax out there, the one that proportionally hurts poor people the most, and said "yeah, we can live with that.  And yes, you still have to pay it on food."  Can there be any doubt about who the Kansas ruling conservatives are really looking out for?  For those who think progressives like me just love taxes, let me state this clearly: Sales taxes are bad.  They should be as low as possible.  And yet Bobby Jindal in Louisiana has proposed eliminating his state's income tax and replacing it with a sales tax increase, thereby balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.  I think that's wrong.  If that makes me a tax-and-spend liberal, so be it.

Fellow Kansans, please pay attention to what's going on in Topeka.  Ask yourself if the political leaders there are using flowery language and freedom-loving rhetoric to persuade you to vote against your own economic interests.  Thanks to Brownback and his allies, half a million Kansans are now paying higher taxes and will be hurt the most by the inevitable forthcoming cuts to government services.  Those in the middle who received a small cut have to consider whether it was worth Kansas schools continuing to be underfunded.  Brownback et al. are up for election in 2014.  The votes of 21,000 rich people won't win elections.  But the noise generated by millions of Koch dollars could.  It's up to you to be well-informed and weigh your options carefully.  As a proud Kansan, the Prairie Progressive will be here to offer explanations as best I can.  Kansas is a great state; let's take it back from the narrow interests who have seized it for themselves. 

The Debt Ceiling and the Trillion Dollar Coin

As the GOP-led House of Representatives lurches from one manufactured crisis to the next, I thought it was important to put on my economics teacher hat for a bit.  We've staved off the fiscal cliff for a while at least, but now we might be forced to revisit the debt ceiling fiasco in February, so I thought I'd delve a little into the details of that mess.  Don't worry, I promise it won't be too painful.

First, though, everybody's paychecks went down a bit this month.  That sucks.  But I've heard of some misinformation on Facebook, so let me explain why.  In 2011 and 2012 the social security tax taken out of your paycheck was lowered from 6.2% to 4.2%, which was known as the payroll tax holiday.  It was one of the provisions of a tax cut deal enacted in 2010 and extended by one year.  During the fiscal cliff negotiations in December, almost all of the attention was focused on under what income level the Bush tax cuts would be extended.  Hardly any politician from either party was pushing for a further extension of the payroll tax holiday, and so it expired on December 31.  But that extra couple thousand bucks in your family's pockets the past couple years?  Brought to you by a Democratic President and Congress.  You're welcome.  Unless you make more than $450K a year, your taxes are now basically the same as they were under the President That Republicans Forgot.

On a side note, it's worth mentioning that the Social Security tax is fairly regressive, in that it only affects income up to about $110,000.  So, proportionally, it hits people making less than that (almost all of us) harder.  Personally I would've liked to have seen a permanent lowering of the rate, replacing the lost revenue by letting the Bush cuts expire for incomes over $250K instead of $450K.  I don't have the numbers to know exactly how that might work, but I think it's an idea worth exploring.

But that's a done deal for now.  On to the debt ceiling.   First we need to understand how the federal budget process works, at least ideally.  The President, as the head of the executive branch, submits a request to Congress for all the funds necessary to keep the government running for another year, always including some funding requests for new or expanded programs that are his priorities.  Congress takes that request and makes a truckload of changes to it on both the expenditure and revenue sides, inserting their own priorities as worked out (hopefully) through compromises.  The finished budget is submitted to the President to sign into law, which he is required to do.  Unlike many governors, he does not possess the line-item veto power, which would enable him to specifically trim parts of the budget.  It's all or nothing.  A vast chunk of the federal budget is composed of payments that the government is legally required to make - Social Security, Medicare, other entitlement programs, and debt interest payments - unless the law is changed as part of the budget.  The budgets of government agencies - with the huge exception of Defense - are miniscule by comparison.

Also unlike many states, the federal government is not required to pass a balanced budget, which today could not be achieved without massive cuts to the aforementioned programs.  (States generally don't have this problem because their biggest entitlement programs are funded by this federal money.)  As the branch responsible for implementing the budget, the executive, specifically the Treasury Department, must then borrow money to pay its debts.  However, in one of the weirdest checks the legislative branch has over the executive, Congress places a limit on how much Treasury can borrow to pay for the spending that Congress itself authorized - the debt ceiling.

If the government hits the debt ceiling, one of two things would happen.  One, enough cuts would have to immediately occur to balance the "expenditures = revenues" accounting formula, which would suck for millions of families across the country that receive government assistance.  Two, and probably more likely, the government would default on its debt payments for the first time ever.  The government's investors would suffer, our credit rating would tank, and the markets might crash.  The American and global economy would be severely damaged.  To quote Doc Brown, both scenarios would be some serious shit.

Let's be clear.  Raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with authorizing future spending.  It has everything to do with paying the government's legally required and already incurred debts that were previously approved by Congress.  It is not like raising your credit card limit.  It is paying your credit card bill.  There is a time and place for a debate on government spending cuts.  But holding the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for equal amounts of cuts, as some Congressional Republicans are threatening to do, is ludicrous.  They are not even the same issue.  It's a foolhardy move that could drive the country into depression.  The debt ceiling must be raised.

So what's this trillion dollar coin about?  It's a possible workaround to the debt ceiling debacle that's been proposed in some liberal circles.  A law was passed in the 90s that enables the Treasury Department to mint platinum coins in any denomination.  It was intended to allow Treasury to make a little money in the commemorative coin business (why let the Franklin Mint have all that sweet cash?).  However, legally the President could order Treasury to mint a coin worth a trillion dollars (or some other unfathomably large amount) and deposit it.  Treasury would immediately have enough funds to pay its debts until Congress returned to sanity and raised the debt ceiling, at which point the coin could be melted and we could put this sad episode behind us.  Paul Krugman assures us this would have little negative macroeconomic effects, at least compared to a default, and I tend to take the Nobel-prize winning economist at his word.

Is it a bit silly?  Of course.  But it's a silly solution to a stupid problem that shouldn't exist.  Everyone interested acknowledges it's a last-resort option.  The White House has said little in support, though it hasn't explicitly ruled the coin out.  Fortunately, it's looking more and more likely that it won't be necessary, as many Republican leaders are signalling they know it's a fight they will lose and don't want to take the chance of being blamed for ruining the economy.  It's only the Tea Party ideologues that seem hell-bent on running the country off the rails to score a political point, and that's the surest sign yet this faction needs to be stopped.

Diversions: Lords of Vegas (board game review)

 

In the world of hobby board games there are two major schools.  On the one hand there are Euro-style games that emphasize clever mechanics often at the expense of a deeply thematic experience.  The theme is pasted-on in such a way that you could imagine playing the game's rules in any setting.  Complex Euro games generally involve little luck and almost perfect information.  Conversely you have Ameritrash games, which tend to be very thematic and are often full of dice rolling.  Some gamers much prefer one style over the other; I own more Euros than American games, but I generally abstain from very heavy Euros and can enjoy a good dicefest.

 Lords of Vegas, released in 2010 and designed by James Earnest and Mike Selinker, represents perhaps the best marriage of these two schools I have ever played.  It blends Euro-style mechanics with a great incorporation of the Vegas theme.  It's very accessible and playable in under 90 minutes.  Ir reminds me of a good summer blockbuster movie; it may not win any Oscars, but you're guaranteed a good time.  When we played this at a cafe yesterday, we actually got shushed by some customers trying to have a meeting of some sort - something unheard of in a Euro game (why they were trying to have a quiet meeting in a public restaurant is beyond me).

In Lords of Vegas players are competing to develop the Strip by building their own casinos.  The board is composed of a large grid of empty lots, each of which has a cost and die face printed on it.  On their turn a player pulls a card from a deck which awards them an empty lot and determines which color of casino pays out both money and points this turn.  Then the player is free to conduct a variety of actions.  They may develop one of their empty lots into a casino by paying the cost, choosing a casino tile color, and placing one of their player dice on it, with the face on the board space showing.  They can sprawl by growing a casino into an adjacent tile, which is risky because if that tile's card is drawn on a following turn, whatever player drew it immediately gets that tile instead.  Casinos can also be remodeled by changing tile colors.  Trading of money, lots, casino dice, and actions is also allowed, which leads to some cutthroat but engaging and fun negotiations.

A player can be the "boss" of a casino by having a die with the biggest number face up in a set of like-colored tiles.  Players can attempt a hostile takeover of a casino by paying money to reroll all the dice in a casino; the highest die becomes the new boss, with ties immediately rerolled.  These are the the most exciting moments of the game and evoke a true feeling of gambling.  There is also a bit of actual gambling - players can attempt to get a capital injection by making a simple craps bet at another player's casino.

The end goal is to be the boss of casinos that score points according to their tile size when that casino's color is drawn.  The scoring track is interesting in that it has "breaks" which require scoring larger chunks of points at the same time to move along it, which requires players to fight for control of larger and larger casinos.

This may sound a bit complicated, but it's really not once the game starts moving; I would say it's only slightly more complex than the standard "gateway" game like Settlers of Catan.  There's a lot of luck in the game, so hardcore Euro gamers may be turned off by it.  But there is certainly strategy present, and the luck is actually the game's biggest strength.  It is crucial to the thematic integration, as you really feel like you're gambling.  And just like in Vegas, you can know all the probabilities involved in what you're doing.  Whether to take the chance is up to you, and taking risks is the most fun part of the game - no real money is at stake, and playing too conservatively probably won't work and might be a bit boring.   In our last game I started out slowly but had a chance to win by the end, only to have that robbed when I had control of a casino taken from me, when it was 4 of my dice vs. 1 one of my opponent's.  Losing to odds like that would tick some people off; I won't say I wasn't irked, but it was just so fun that I could laugh it off.

Lords of Vegas is available on Amazon for about $36 with free shipping, less than the cost of an average family to go to the movies.  It's definitely replayable, accessible to many different players, and just a sure-fire good time.  Highly recommended.

The Myth of Christian Persecution

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." - from the Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the Senate and signed by John Adams in 1797

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the Common Law." - Thomas Jefferson

The U.S. is not a Christian nation.  It is a nation with a boatload of Christians.  A 2011 poll found that 78% of all Americans self-identify as some denomination of Christian, which is 95% of all Americans who profess some form of religious faith.  That is an overwhelming majority, indicating that Christianity in America isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  And that's fine.  And yet there is a subset of vocal and influential conservative Christians who will feel threatened as long as those numbers are anywhere below 99.9%.  They spread fear and hate and advocate that the US should be governed by their narrow view of Christianity in such ways that would have the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.  Because their views no longer dominate America as they once did, they imagine that Christians face persecution in the guise of godless liberal politicians.  They believe the day is soon approaching when they will not be able to practice their religion as they choose, because some people think it might be OK for two dudes or ladies to get married.  They think the government is waging a war on Christmas.  They use wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage to get people for vote for conservatives whose actual top priorities are tax cuts for millionaires and slashing programs that help poor people.  I believe that the 2012 elections thankfully proved that their influence is waning, but they're certainly not going to go down without a fight, and an email sent out this week by the American Family Association is all too revealing of that.  I'll get to that in a bit.

First, though, let's get the basics straight.  The religious Right likes to inject a good dose of evangelicalism into the Founding Fathers, who supposedly loaded down the Constitution with a generous helping of "Judeo-Christian" values (this is a relatively new term, to which "Judeo" was added to make its users sound less anti-Semitic - although it still implies that other religions don't have such values as, um, love and compassion).   There were certainly practicing Christians among the Founders, but most of the big names - Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Paine, even Washington - could hardly be called that.  They were students of the European Enlightenment, a reaction against the previous domination of the Church and dogma in every aspect of life, which had led to brutal religious wars and the persecution of great thinkers such as Galileo.  Most Enlightenment philosophers believed in God but also believed in the power of human reason to figure things out.  They valued free thought and logic above strict adherence to religious dogma, especially that which relied on faith in supernatural concepts.  Consequently, many Founders were Deists - they believed in a Creator-god that set the world in motion but did not interfere with the daily affairs of humans.  They may have admired Jesus' moral teachings but they generally denied his divinity.  Thomas Jefferson published his own version of the Bible that removed any supernatural allusions.

So when the Declaration of Independence states that all men are "endowed by their Creator to certain unalienable rights," it is this uber-non-denominational Creator-god to which the writers, mainly Jefferson, are referring.  It's rather benign.  Moreover, the Declaration has zero actual power over how the country is governed.  So let's look at the Constitution.  There is no reference to God, the Creator, Jesus, or Christianity anywhere in the document.  It is about as religious as a legal contract (not surprising, given that's what it is).  The only references to religion are exclusionary.  In Article VI we find that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."  Then, of course, we have the First Amendment.  The very first freedom in the Bill of Rights states that

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Strict readers of the Constitution should rejoice, for this couldn't be any clearer.  First, there can be no state religion, or any laws that suggest such.  Thus any laws that express preference for one religion over another are unconstitutional.  This is the foundation for separation of church and state and was a radical departure from the practice of European countries, many of which have an official state church to this day (Queen Elizabeth is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, meaning that the British monarch must be a Protestant).  Second, the free exercise of any religion must not be prohibited.  The only restrictions come when interfering with the rights of others (thus human sacrifice is not a protected right).  The message from the Founders is simple.  They were students of history, and Europe's religious wars were as recent to them as the Civil War is to us (a bit more so).  They wanted to prevent such conflicts from happening here, and forbidding government preference for one religion over another was a key component of their strategy.  They were also free thinkers, and abhorred the idea of preventing people from practicing whatever religion they wanted (again, common in Europe), even if they didn't share those beliefs.  They wanted us to celebrate our diversity, not legislate against it.

Religion and politics didn't mix for much of American history for the simple reason that Christianity's dominance rendered such issues moot.  Religious beliefs stayed mostly out of the official government; "In God We Trust" was added to money during the Civil War and "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1957 during the fight against "godless" Communism (ironically right before the word "indivisible," even though "under God" systematically divides the country into believers and non-believers).  The most glaring exception, of course, is the use of the Bible by some southern Christians to support slavery and later segregation (abolitionists often cited scripture as well).  Other than that, religious conflict in the US has followed the predictable pattern of the dominant majority resisting inroads by newcomers.  First there was hostility by Protestants against Catholic immigrants.  Then many Catholics joined the Protestants in the fight against other faiths and those who insist on the separation of church and state in public affairs.

And that brings us back to the AFA email.  The American Family Association is a prominent conservative Christian organization that has enough influence for Republican presidential candidates to openly court its support.  It's one of the outfits that blamed the Sandy Hook massacre on the lack of prayer in schools.  It spews enough anti-gay and anti-Muslim rhetoric for some to label it a hate group (they support the idea of kidnapping children of same-sex couples).  So that gives you an idea of the tolerant and not-at-all boogeyman God they ascribe to (/snark).  And to start the new year off right, they sent out an email to their members with dire warnings about what religion (read: Christianity) will look like in the America of 2060.  Much like Katie Kieffer's absurd resolutions, it does a nice job of making my point and providing me with an efficient means to counter their actual words.  So let's take a look at the email step-by-step (excerpts in italics.)

What will religion look like in the year 2060? 

Does anyone doubt what they really mean is "What will Christianity look like in the year 2060?"

Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Are you kidding me?  Way to lead off with the crazy hyperbole.  At least they limit it to "conservative" Christians.  I want a self-proclaimed conservative Christian to tell me the next time they are prohibited from going to church.  The next time they cannot vote due to their religion.  The next time they can't get a job because of their religion.  The next time they're pulled over for being Christian in an atheist neighborhood.  The next time they are prohibited from expressing their beliefs (and no, criticism of said beliefs does not equate with prohibition).  The next time they have to drink from a separate water fountain or ride in the back of the bus.  Until such time, grow up.  You are not being persecuted.  You have no idea what persecution is about.  To make such comparisons demeans the centuries-long suffering of an entire race of people.

Family as we know it will be drastically changed with the state taking charge of the children beginning at birth.

And what does this mean, exactly?  Communal child-rearing centers with limited or no parental involvement?  Yeah, right.  Believe it or not, non-Christians have families too.  And they think family is pretty important.  I almost wonder if this statement is dog-whistle language for "mandated abortions" and I'm just not in on the code.

Marriage will include two, three, four or any number of participants. Marriage will not be important, with individuals moving in and out of a “family” group at will.

Ah yes, the slippery slope fallacy that gay marriage will lead to a complete breakdown of "traditional" marriage.  An institution that for most of human history was a kind of business transaction with the woman being sold off as another mouth to feed.  Sorry, not buying it.

Churchbuildings will be little used, with many sold to secular buyers and the money received going to the government.

Uh huh.  Over 200 million Christians will be driven from their places of worship by a tiny, radical group in government.  Sure.  

Churches will not be allowed to discuss any political issues, even if it affects the church directly.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." - Also from the First Amendment.  Limitations on freedom of speech are, again, centered on interfering with the rights of others.  The separation of church and state is not so absolute that the government will send the Speech Police into churches to monitor what it said there.  To think otherwise borders on delusional paranoia.  No wait, it is delusional paranoia.

Tax credit given to churches and non-profit organizations will cease.

Highly unlikely, given that such a law would have to be passed by a Congress where the vast majority of members are religious and represent religious constituencies.  Neither Christianity nor religion in America will be destroyed in the next 50 years. 


Christian broadcasting will be declared illegal based on the separation of church and state. The airwaves belong to the government, therefore they cannot be used for any religious purpose.

See above about freedom of speech.  Also, the First Amendment says that 1) the government cannot prevent the free exercise of religion and 2) it can't play favorites among religions or establish an official religion.  It does not say that it must prevent religion from existing.

We will have, or have had, a Muslim president. 

One word: So?

This, for me, is the most offensive part of the email.  The presumption that for the US to be lead by a member of any other faith - Islam in particular - would be devastating to this country is ludicrous.  Apparently we haven't progressed at all from when people were afraid to vote for JFK the Papist.  How bigoted.  That is not the America I know.  We're better than that.  Moreover, according to their own email, why should the religion of the President even matter, when the separation of church and state prevents him/her from doing anything remotely religious?  Not to mention that some people think we already have a Muslim President...

Cities with a name from the Bible such as St. Petersburg, Bethlehem, etc. will be forced to change their name due to separation of church and state. 

Paranoid, much?  Do they even know St. Petersburg, Florida, is named after the city in Russia?  Do I need to mention the 78% statistic again?  But do you think any non-Christian who lives in St. Pete is that offended by the name of their city?  Get over it, it's not going to happen.  I'm almost surprised they stopped short of saying "Hispanic children named Jesus will have to change their name."

Groups connected to any religious affiliation will be forced out of health care. Health centers get tax money from the state, making it a violation of church and state.

Of course they had to close with a dig at Obamacare and, likely, mandated contraception coverage (more dog whistling).  I don't know all the legalities behind this one, but I'm glad they apparently do.  Again, it's a reading of church vs. state that's more extreme than 99% of separationists would ever go.

Get involved! Sign THE STATEMENT.

No thanks.


Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon

Not sure if I doubt your sincerity, Mr. Wildmon, just your thought processes.

This is how an organization that claims to represent true Christians in America chooses to behave.  Divisive fear, paranoia, and hyperbole.  I'd like to take this chance to remind my dear readers of one of Katie Kieffer's resolutions for liberals:

Resolve to stop watching Rachel Maddow. Her negative attitude is ruining your day and you do not even realize it. At a minimum, admit that her show is rooted in hyperbole and not real news.

Funny.  I have a resolution for Christian conservatives:  Resolve to stop paying attention to the AFA.  Their negative attitude is ruining your day and you do not even realize it. At a minimum, admit that their statements are rooted in hyperbole and not real news.

Sadly, the AFA email is not even the most strident example of fear-mongering from the Christian Right.  In 2008 Focus on the Family, an organization similar to the AFA, sent out a letter with dire predictions of what could happen if Barack Obama became President.  Needless to say, none of them (with the exception of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell) came true.  Here is a good article about it, with a link to the full text.  Ponder the "accuracy" of these predictions and decide if these groups have a place in proper political discourse.

My point is this:  Religious diversity is great.  People of all faiths have something to contribute to America.  But Christian conservatives have to realize they are not alone in this country, and that other people have a right to beliefs that do not match their own.  The inability to foist your beliefs and agenda on all Americans does not equate with being persecuted.  Our government respects all religions and will continue to do so.  Meanwhile, much as I want responsible gun owners to examine the NRA and its role in America today, I want good Christians to take a look at groups like the AFA and consider whether they are really supportive of the "more perfect Union" our founders envisioned.  And above all, be excellent to each other.