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Politics Blog

Bikes are not cars

Zelda Bronstein
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39
Bikes are not cars

Okay, first of all, this is ridiculous. California cities are supposed to be encouraging people to ride bikes instead of cars. And bikes aren’t 3,000-pound metal devices propelled forward with internal combustion engines; yes, a bike can hit a pedestrian, but the likelihood of fatal injuries isn’t that high. Certainly not compared to cars.


Besides, and here’s the thing that really gets me: This kid gets a ticket for running a stop sign on his bicycle and “now he has to go to traffic school to keep a moving violation off his driver’s license.”


How is that possible? You don’t need a license to ride a bike. A bike isn’t a car; the skills are entirely different. The risks are entirely different. You can ride a bike before you turn 16. You can ride without proof of citizenship. You don’t have to give up a fingerprint or fill out forms or take a test to ride a bike.


So why should you face a violation on your license to drive a car when you’re not driving a car? Should I get a point on my driver’s license if I sit on the sidewalk, or walk against the light, or block traffic in a political protest? Those things aren’t remotely related to driving a motor vehicle.


I got stopped once by a cop for (allegedly) running a stop sign, and he asked to see my driver’s license, and I (politely) said: Why? I’m not driving a car. I’m happy to provide ID, but I don’t need to present a document from the California Department of MOTOR vehicles when I’m not operating a MOTOR vehicle. Especially when I’m making the world a cleaner, better place with my transportation choice.


Oddly enough, he agreed. We had a pleasant talk about bicycle safety and he let me go. You’d think the UC cops would have better things to do.

SFBG Radio: What will Jerry do?

Zelda Bronstein
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0
SFBG Radio: What will Jerry do?

When Jerry Brown goes to UCLA to talk about education, what’s he going to say? How’s he going to promote the UC system when he’s facing a $25 billion budget crisis? Johnny and Tim talk abou that (and the Obama health care law and a few other things) after the jump.

sfbgradio12132010 by endorsements2010

SFBG Radio: In praise of Pelosi

Zelda Bronstein
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5
SFBG Radio: In praise of Pelosi

Not words you hear around here too often, but today we say: Pelosi’s doing exactly the right thing holding the line on tax cuts for the rich. So what happens next? We’ll fill you in after the break.

sfbgradio12/10/2010 by endorsements2010

The mayoral roulette

Zelda Bronstein
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23
The mayoral roulette

At the San Francisco Tomorrow holiday party Dec. 8th, David Chiu, Dennis Herrera, John Rizzo, Jake McGoldrick and a host of others who I’ve seen at these events for at least the past few years were doing their usual schmoozing — when Ross Mirkarimi, a former SFT board member, showed up with …. Art Agnos. I haven’t seen the former mayor at an SFT event since … I don’t know. Since a long long time ago.


Agnos made a short speech and talked about all of the rising stars in the San Francisco progressive movement — Mirkarimi, Chiu, Rizzo, David Campos, Eric Mar, John Avalos … and it was all very nice and low key. But there was a message in his appearance, in his connection with Mirkarimi, and even in the overall tone of his remarks, which amounts to this:


If the supervisors have trouble finding a progressive who can get six votes — and if they want an old hand, someone who has been through a brutal recession as mayor of San Francisco and dealt with awful budgets and nasty politics, someone who will serve for a year and then walk away — Agnos is open to being asked.


Well, maybe a little more than open to being asked. I wouldn’t say he’s actively, publicly campaiging for the job, but he has met with most of the supervisors, and dropped them all a 13-page memo listing all of his accomplishments, and his supporters (maybe his emissaries) are making the rounds and making the case for Agnos. Which amounts to this:


None of the progressives now more-or-less openly in the mix (Campos, Chiu, Mirkarimi, even Aaron Peskin) can realistically take on all the sacred cows (esp. police and fire), make a bunch of other cuts, and push for all sorts of revenue increases — and at the same time try to run for re-election in November (when the tax hikes would be on the ballot). The only way to do “what needs to be done” is to put in a progressive caretaker who can then take the political heat for the tough decisions — and help set up a campaign for another progressive in November.


I’m not sure I entirely agree — the right person, with the right leadership and agenda, could set up a five-year plan for fiscal stability, launch year one immediately and tell the public that he/she needs a full term to finish the job. But it’s true that it will be tough — and it’s also true that none of the obvious alternatives have ever run citywide.


If Tom Ammiano were interested, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Tom has run citywide numerous times (for School Board, pre-district elections supervisor and mayor), has been elected by half the city (to the Assembly), and has the credibility to deal with the budget crisis and still win in November. But he’s not, and we have to respect that.


Right now, the progressives can’t seem to unite on a candidate. None of the current board members has six votes today. And Campos, Chiu, Mirkarimi and everyone else in the game knows full well how hard it will be to win in November, particularly against State Sen. Leland Yee, who will be a formidable candidate, and possibly City Attorney Dennis Herrera (who has won citywide), State Sen. Mark Leno (who is popular all over town) and others.


So if a couple rounds pass and there’s no winner, the “progressive caretaker” concept will be in play. It’s possible Mirkarimi would give up his seat two years early and take that job; it’s likely Peskin would agree to serve one year and then step down. But it’s also possible that neither scenario works out — at which point Sheriff Mike Hennessey and Agnos will be in play.


(I hear through the grapevine that Willie Brown is nosing around, too — and let’s remember that he became Assembly speaker by cutting a deal with the Republicans.)


Hennessey’s got a strong progressive record, but has never had to deal with anything remotely as awful as what the next mayor will face. So Agnos backers will make the case that their guy has the experience and gravitas to pull it off.


Given all of that, let me say a couple of things about Agnos, since I was around and watching City Hall when he was mayor (and some of the people who will be voting on this weren’t.)


Art’s a mixture. He was a great progressive member of the state Assembly. When he ran for mayor, we backed him strongly; he seemed to be the great progressive hope. Then his long list of wonderful promises ran into the buzz saw of a deep recession — and made things much worse with his arrogant, imperious style. His first major act in office was to sign a set of contracts that gave away the store to PG&E. He never lifted a finger for public power. And it quickly became clear that he wasn’t a fan of open government or public process. We were all supposed to “Trust in Art” and shut up if we didn’t like it.


That’s why — despite what was at the time and is in retrospect a pretty darn progressive record, a lot of solid accomplishments and absolutly no hint of corruption or scandal — the progressives just weren’t all that excited about his re-election. So he lost to Frank Jordan, who was way worse.


The thing is, Agnos these days is a lot more mellow. He’s 72, knows he’s not going anywhere else in politics, and has essentially admitted to me that he made a lot of mistakes, and his arrogance and closed-door attitude were top on the list. A reformed Agnos — willing to serve with a degree of humility and an acceptance that progressive politics in this town demands inclusiveness, and that even though he’s a former mayor, he’s not by definition the most important person in any room he walks into — would present an interesting option.


Of course, we still don’t know exactly where he would be on the issues, since, like Chiu, he hasn’t even publicly called himself a candidate for the job. I still think anyone who is a serious contender ought to be willing to appear before the supervisors and answer questions.


We all know where to start: What’s your plan for raising a quarter billion dollars in new revenue in 2011?    

SFBG Radio: The death drug, Obama’s failure and more

Zelda Bronstein
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0
SFBG Radio: The death drug, Obama’s failure and more

In today’s episode, we talk about California’s strange adventures with the death drug — and why the Obama presidency is at stake in the tax debate. Check it out after the jump.

sfbgradio12920109 by endorsements2010

Progressives oppose Obama’s deal with Republicans

Sasha Cuttler
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10
Progressives oppose Obama’s deal with Republicans

With San Francisco’s own Rep. Nancy Pelosi leading the way, House Democrats have voted to oppose the tax cut deal that President Barack Obama cut with the Republicans – a deal most Americans oppose because of its expensive extension of tax cuts for the wealthy – demonstrating that progressives and even mainstream liberals are increasingly willing to push back against a president that has take their support for granted.

During his press conference this week, Obama adopted a belittling attitude toward his progressive critics who have pointed that Obama ran for office overtly opposing President George W. Bush’s policy of slashing taxes on the super-rich, which ballooned the federal deficit. And now, in interests of “getting things done,” Obama is standing with Republicans to promote that very policy.

Obama even boasted “the polls are on our side on this,” a statement polls taken since then have shown is simply untrue, as he ridiculed his progressive critics as willing to let unemployment payments expire and middle class tax cuts expire, as Republicans have threatened if Democratic are unwilling to extend tax cuts for the wealthy.

Speaking on PBS’s NewsHour the other night, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said he was appalled that Obama would echo this right-wing way of looking at the world, saying, “The president going after his progressive critics is enormously self-indulgent.”

Indeed it was, and those progressive critics now seem to have the upper hand, leaving Obama in the position of either working with Republicans to “ram this down the throats of the American people” (to borrow the GOP description of his health care reform measure) or to finally start working cooperatively with progressives to oppose the Republicans’ transparently hypocritical and unsustainable fiscal policy.

This is a big test for the Democratic Party and it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming days.

Elizabeth Edwards, breast cancer and the battle for a cure

Mary Magee
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2
Elizabeth Edwards, breast cancer and the battle for a cure

When the news hit that Elizabeth Edwards had died at 61, I was sitting in the press box at San Francisco City Hall listening to the supervisors debate the merits of local hire legislation. In fact, I only became aware that Edwards had passed away, because Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, who was sitting in front of me, was surfing the Internet on her laptop and I happened to see the headline.

The news immediately reminded me, all too powerfully, of the brave fight that my sister-in-law Leila, 47, lost last year after a six-year battle with the disease. She left behind a husband and two young sons, and I always feel a mix of pride at how hard she fought and desperation at how she still wasn’t able to win, whenever I remember her long slide towards death last fall.

“I have so much to live for,” Leila often told me, reflecting on how much she loved her husband and sons, how she wanted to finish her novel (which she managed to wrap up in the last months of her life) and how she still wanted to visit so many places and people in the world.

An avid advocate for peace, especially in the Middle East, where her father’s family came from, Leila was not one to give up on a cause, once she had it in her crosshairs. She attacked breast cancer with that same dogged determination. She read everything she could on the topic, changing her diet, modifying her lifestyle, going through chemo and the inevitable loss of her beautiful hair, and, at the end, taking a chance with experimental drugs.

I will never forget her telling me, one gut-wrenching afternoon last September, that the doctors had told her there was nothing more they could do. The disease had gone to her liver, and that she was beginning to feel panic and fear. It wasn’t easy to hear that admission, it must have been even harder for her to share it, and it left me hoping that one day, no other woman would ever have to go through this painful battle again.

I wanted Leila to live to see her sons grow up, to enjoy the company of her husband, to write, travel and work for her goal of world peace. But eventually, it became clear that she was not going to make it. When her death finally came, last October, I felt relief that she was no longer suffering, even as I shed tears for her, her family, and all the folks in the world who are going through similar battles.

So, when I got home last night, I immediately went online and wallowed in the huge wave of grief that Edwards’ death evoked as a symbol of the millions of women who live with and die from cancer worldwide.

Some noted that Edwards had not been conducting regular check ups when she found a lump in her breast (an uncomfortable reminder to all of us who haven’t got a check up recently). Others observed that her diagnosis likely fueled her passion for universal health care and helped the passage of Obamacare (a more welcome reminder that despite all the criticisms of Obama, he has pushed through monumental reforms that many will benefit from).

Some wrote about the ever-present fear for survivors that the cancer could come back, and how this awareness had  served to make them more fully appreciate every moment that they do have. Others pointed to the grim reality that even with access to great doctors, advanced treatment options and money, Edwards still could not prevail, because a cure has still not been found.

I’ll end this tribute to Edwards, my sister-in-law, and all the women who have struggled with this terrible disease with a message that landed in my inbox Dec. 7 from California’s First Lady Maria Shriver:

“I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my dear friend, Elizabeth Edwards,” Shriver wrote. “My heart goes out to her loving family. Elizabeth was a mighty warrior, and I’ve long admired her courage, her compassion and her personal quest for truth. She was a public servant, a dedicated mother, a tireless advocate and a loyal friend. She showed up to speak at The Women’s Conference every time I asked, and our audience was always moved by the open and honest way she would share the struggles she faced along her journey. I hope her children know their mother was an inspiration to women everywhere — a truly great woman.”

And I’ll add my hope that this nation will intensify its search for a cure for a disease that is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women today (after lung cancer) and the most common cancer among women, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers. According to the American Cancer Society, 1.3 million women will be diagnosed with breast cancer annually worldwide, 465,000 will die from the disease, and about 1 in 35 women die from breast cancer in the U.S. Scary? Yes. Curable? Hell, yeah (I hope and pray). Let’s just make sure it remains a national priority.

An astonishing tax ripoff

Zelda Bronstein
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0

Calitics alterted me to this amazing blog post by David Cay Johnston, one of the foremost tax experts in the country and one of the few reporters who understands and writes honestly about tax law. Turns out that the California Public Utilities Commission wants to allow regulated utilities to collect money from ratepayers for taxes that the utilities never have to pay.


That’s right — the utilities (in this case a gas pipeline company, but the policy could apply just as well to PG&E at some point) charge you for the money they are supposed to pay in corporate income taxes — except that they’re exempt from those taxes. So they just keep your money. Wow.

John Lennon, whirled peas, and the British art of tea making

Mary Magee
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2
John Lennon, whirled peas, and the British art of tea making

Yoko Ono’s op-ed tribute to John Lennon in the New York Times today got me tearing up, as I remembered that horrible day, thirty years ago, when I heard that Lennon had been assassinated. I was in my early twenties and still living in England at the time, working in an inner-city school in Birmingham, and I remember feeling that his murder marked the death of my own generation’s innocence.

But as Ono points out in her sweet and funny tribute, Lennon’s untimely demise did not result in him being erased from the collective consciousness.
“People are not questioning if he is here or not,” Ono writes. “They just love him and are keeping him alive with love.”

Ono begins her tribute by revealing that Lennon was the tea maker in their relationship, a role he apparently assumed by dint of his being British.
“Yoko, Yoko, you’re supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water,” Lennon advised Ono, only to admit later that he had been doing it all wrong.
“I was talking to Aunt Mimi this afternoon and she says you are supposed to put the hot water in first. Then the tea bag,” Lennon said, a revelation that made them both crack up.

Ono’s account reminded me of my father, who was the official tea maker in my family and died overnight of a brain hemorrhage, 33 Christmases ago. A veteran of World War 11 who sailed on a miner sweeper with the Royal Navy, Daddy polished his shoes and made the tea each morning, before walking to the station at a brisk clip to catch the train to London, where he worked as an advertising executive, one of Britain’s original “mad men.”

I remember his morning tea-making ritual, because I was required to skip and do press-ups before breakfast, as part of Daddy’s training of his daughters as up and coming young tennis players. (My older sister was the real athlete, a tom boy who grew up playing rugby, I was the overweight book worm, and we both got forced to play tennis, a sport we became proficient in, but ditched at the end of high school, sick of the endless competition and parental pressure.)

I knew each morning that it was time to grab my skipping rope, when I’d hear the tea kettle whistling. According to Daddy, the proper way to make tea began with heating the water to an extended boil, then pouring it into empty tea cups and tea pot so as to warm them. Next, Daddy would place the water back on the burner to boil again, and spoon tea leaves (one spoon per person, plus one for the pot) into the warmed, but now emptied of water, pot.

Next, Daddy would pour boiling water over the tea leaves, cover the pot with a tea cozy (a little woollen hat with holes for the pot’s spout and handle) and let it stand for three minutes for a weak cuppa, longer for a stronger brew. Then he’d empty water from the warming tea cups, pour in the tea, and add milk and sugar. His method made a great cup of cha—and Daddy would often torment us by standing there and drinking it, in gutsy lip-smacking sips, in between telling us that we needed to skip faster and do an extra twenty push-ups, and perhaps some sit-ups, if he thought we were slacking.

I didn’t always appreciate my father while he was alive, but I loved him. And I still miss him to this day and I’m thankful for the things he taught me, including tea making. The same goes for Lennon. I didn’t always like everything he did, but I loved his music and what he stood for and I still miss him to this day, and I’m thankful for the message he brought to the world. Even though, according to Ono, he didn’t really know how to make tea.

Class conflict in DC and SF

Sasha Cuttler
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12
Class conflict in DC and SF

There’s an unmistakable whiff of class warfare in the air this holiday season, most obviously on the national level where President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are helping the ultra-rich steal hundreds of billions of dollars from future generations and the country’s current needs. But we’re also seeing it right here in San Francisco, subtly playing out around who will be our next mayor.

During yesterday’s scheduled discussion at the Board of Supervisors on choosing a new mayor, members of the public – from African-American mothers of slain youth to representatives of immigrant communities to those representing labor and progressive groups – urged the board to choose a mayor who would finally represent all of San Francisco, not just the wealthy and the business community.

Then the progressive supervisors who represent the city’s working class districts talked about getting the process underway and voiced some of the things they’d like to see in a new mayor, such as compassion and a willingness to work with the board and community groups. It seemed like a good faith effort at having an open public discussion about the city’s needs.

But on the other side of the aisle, the supervisors who represent the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods voted to delay the discussion without offering a reason why. Sup. Chris Daly made good points about how incoming mayors usually have time to prepare for assuming this powerful office at a time of pressing city needs and tricky political dynamics, arguing for making this decision sooner than later.

And from the Establishment representatives: nothing. Not a word. Instead, we have Mayor Gavin Newsom threatening to delay his swearing in as lieutenant governor to thwart the current board from picking a successor, and being overtly urged to do so in a San Francisco Chronicle editorial and in disingenous, sanctimonious ruses from SF Chamber of Commerce officials.

Why? Well, here’s the closest thing the editorial offered to a reason: “It makes all the sense in the world to have the supervisors who will be working with the interim mayor make the selection. They are the ones who will have to find common ground and develop a working relationship with Newsom’s successor.”

But does it really make any sense to have an inexperienced group of new supervisors (as our current cover stories shows, none of the four new supervisors have held municipal office and two are new to politics) pick a mayor on their first day on the job, and then have that person immediately take on the complicated job of running the city with no staff in place? And to do that by flouting the the California Constitution and the City Charter?

That sounds like a recipe for disaster – and an opportunity for downtown power brokers to make mischief and ensure their interests aren’t threatened as part of whatever backroom deal gets cut to choose a new mayor, district attorney, and board president. Why else would they so vehemently oppose a deliberative public process that would lead to a decision by those who know the workings of City Hall better than anyone?

As we saw in the last election, wealthy San Franciscans are scared to death of progressive malcontents like Chris Daly, and they’re doing whatever they can to prevent him from being involved in this decision. They see, probably correctly, that the current political dynamics of the city could lead to perhaps the most progressive mayor since George Moscone, or maybe ever, and they’ll do whatever they can to prevent that from happening.

The rich of this city and this country have overplayed their hands, crippled the public sector, and, as Sen. Bernie Sanders so eloquently said recently on the floor of the US Senate, shown a selfish disregard for the needs and interests of the vast majority of citizens. The only question now is this: are we ready to finally stand up, fight back, and really give them something to fear? Or are we going to take our cues from Obama and treat anti-government conservatives as good faith actors when they have shown only contempt for our most cherished democratic processes and values?

I suppose next week, when this board reconvenes to try to choose a successor mayor, we’ll find out.

Newsom’s homeless policy failure

Zelda Bronstein
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11
Newsom’s homeless policy failure

I have no reson to dispute the figures in the Chron this morning showing that Mayor Newsom has moved 12,210 people off the streets of San Francisco, 6,692 of them placed into supportive housing and 5,518 shipped out of town with a free bus ticket. Randy Shaw, who has a city contract to run some of the hotels that Newsom is using for formerly homeless people, says Newsom has the “best record [on the issue] of any mayor in the United States”


And still the Chron laments, there are still homeless people on the streets:


Yet many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods remain plagued with panhandlers, and residents and tourists alike complain of feeling scared or just plain disgusted.


Let me suggest one possible reason that there’s so much panhandling still going on: Even the formerly homeless who now have residential hotel rooms don’t have enough money to eat. That’s because Newsom’s signature “Care Not Cash” measure took money away from welfare payments and shifted it into housing. These days, general assistance pays just $59 a month. Try living on that. Even with food stamps (which don’t buy you meals if you don’t have a kitchen to cook in) the money the city pays out is too little. So people beg for more.


Yes, there are people who panhandle to buy money for drink and drugs. Reality check here: People — homeless or otherwise — are going to drink and do drugs in this city. Give them enough money in a monthly welfare check and they’ll use that instead of bothering the tourists. Panhandling isn’t easy or pleasant; people don’t do it because they want to. They do it because there’s no other way to get money.


(And please, my trolls: Don’t tell me that these folks should “get a job.” There are currently five unemployed people for every job opening in America, and it’s worse in San Francisco.)


Of course, now that Newsom has decided to evict the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council recycling center — a place where homeless people can legally make a little money without panhandling — the problem’s going to get worse.  

Dufty was Avalos’ eighth vote on local hire

Mary Magee
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3

History was made at City Hall on December 7, when the Board voted 8-3 to approve local hire legislation for city-funded construction projects.
“This is the strongest local hiring measure in the nation, “ said Sup. John Avalos, the legislation’s chief sponsor. “It doesn’t just have a mandated 50 percent goal. It has a ‘by trade’ mandate. It requires 50 percent of apprentices to be residents. More than anything we are moving away from a good faith policy. That’s a sea change in our local hiring discussion.”
Sup. Sophie Maxwell thanked Avalos “for taking up the mantle” and pushing construction industry legislation that will provide opportunities for ”growing the middle class instead of importing it.”
“This industry closes the economic gap,” Maxwell said,
Board President David Chiu, Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell and Ross Mirkarimi voted for the legislation. But Dufty was the eighth vote that gave the measure a veto-proof majority. His vote came after he met ABU (Aboriginal Blacks United) leader James Richards and other advocates of unemployed residents. They see the legislation as a way to invest local tax dollars in local communities, reduce crime and poverty, and lessen pollution by reducing workers’ commutes.


“It’s been too long that we have been protesting and fighting this good faith effort,” Richards said.” We need a mandatory policy.”
ABU member Troy, 47, who was born and raised in the Bayview, and has two sons, said he had been unemployed for six months.
“If we don’t work, nobody works, that’s ABU’s motto,” Troy said. ‘We can’t have nobody come from Marin, taking our jobs and pushing us back onto the streets, selling drugs. We gotta put the merry back into Christmas.”



“A lot of moving parts had to come together for this legislation to be successful,” Dufty told the Board, a couple of hours after he met ABU’s Richards. “This is very reminiscent of Healthy San Francisco, which was one of the most monumental changes in the city.”
Dufty said he believes that, much like Healthy San Francisco, local hire legislation is bigger than just San Francisco. “At a certain point, I looked at labor and said, yes, I’m going for this legislation, but not just for San Francisco,” Dufty said. “You want to take this concept to other cities.”


Dufty  was hopeful that Mayor Gavin Newsom will get behind the legislation, before its Dec.14 second reading.
“But I respect that there may be a little bit of coming together between now and the second reading,” he said.
Newsom spokesperson Tony Winniker told reporters that the mayor plans to review the amended legislation and consult with impacted contractors and unions before deciding whether to veto the legislation.
A December 1 report from city economist Ted Egan estimated that the local hire legislation will create 350 jobs and cost the city $9 million annually, or 1 percent of whatever it spends on public works. (San Francisco is set to spend an estimated $27 billion on capital projects over the next decade.)
Vincent Pan of Chinese Affirmative Action, which supports Avalos’ local hiring policy, suggested that the mayor “check the temperature.”
“It would be leadership on the part of the mayor not to veto legislation that’s about San Francisco,” Pan said.

Supervisors punt mayoral decision back a week

Sasha Cuttler
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11
Supervisors punt mayoral decision back a week

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted to delay until Dec. 14 the process of choosing a mayor to succeed departing Mayor Gavin Newsom after taking about 40 minutes worth of public testimony, most of it calling on supervisors to act quickly to choose a public-spirited mayor to deal with a variety of neglected issues.
After Assembly member Tom Ammiano announced earlier today that he would not accept the board’s nomination to become mayor, it seemed unlikely that anyone could get the required six votes. But Sup. Chris Daly, who led the campaign to recruite Ammiano, argued for beginning the process today as agendized.
“While the Board of Supervisors is not prepared today to appoint someone as successor mayor of San Francisco, we shouldn’t truncate the conversation,” Daly argued, reiterating his call last week for a mayor who is experienced, compassionate, and willing to work cooperatively with the board.
But Sup. Sophie Maxwell didn’t want to have that conversation, making the motion to continue the item for one week, a motion seconded by Sup. Bevan Dufty. Neither offered reasons or arguments for the action.
Yet Daly noted that the board has an approved process for selecting a new mayor and “it might be a good idea to try it out and see how it works,” even if six votes aren’t there yet to approve a nominee. “I’m prepared to make a nomination.”
He addressed calls for delaying the mayoral succession decision by noting that Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan and Governor-elect Jerry Brown have both put together transition teams to prepare for taking power at the same time that Newsom will resign as mayor to become lieutenant governor.
“Typically, a mayor would have had about a month to put together a transition team,” Daly said, also noting, “We are now borrowing time against the next administration of San Francisco.”
Sups. David Campos and Eric Mar also spoke in support of this board making the mayoral succession decision “sooner rather than later,” as Campos put it. “We do have a very tough budget year we will be facing and many challenges in front of us,” he said. Campos said he was open to the delay, but he said “it would be a mistake” not to begin dealing with the decision in earnest next week.
Mar said he was open to the delay because he was interested to read the “Values-based Platform for the next Mayor” that a coalition of labor and progressive groups called San Francisco for All distributed at the meeting. The four-page document called for a mayor to value accessibility, consensus-building, making appointments who are accountable to the community, more equitable budget priorities, and transparency.
The motion to delay was approved on a 9-2 vote, with Daly in Sup. John Avalos in dissent.

Secrets of the state’s death-drug deal

Zelda Bronstein
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0
Secrets of the state’s death-drug deal

After weeks of grilling the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on the source of their newly acquired sodium thiopental, we are finally getting some answers.

Deputy Press Secretary of the CDCR Terry Thornton verified to the Associated Press yesterday that the state has acquired 521 grams of the lethal injection component from a British manufacturer, Archimedes Phrama.


Thornton said that the state paid $36,415 for the drug, “its chemicals, all legal and processing fees, and shipping and handling.”


So CDCR has finally given the public some information to work with — although many of the details are still sketchy. We filed a formal public records request in October asking for information on the procurement, and the agency still hasn’t turned over the documents.


But at least we know that California has obtained its death drug from overseas. And apparently, British officials aren’t thrilled about it. No European nation has the death penalty, and officials across the pond are dubious about helping other nations kill their own citizens.


Earlier this week, Britain’s secretary of state for business, Vince Cable, issued an order adding sodium thiopental to the list of items that must be licensed for export — effectively banning its sale to institutions that will use it for executions. Although Cable issued the order after Arizona inmate Jeffrey Landrigan’s execution on October 26, the British media commended him for putting an end to the export of the death drug.


According to the UK Guardian, Cable realized that the sodium thiopental “was not being sent there to help save lives, only to take them.”


The London paper also noted that since California uses just 3 grams of the drug to execute each individual— and keeps an additional 3 grams as backup — the state has acquired enough of the stuff to kill 86 people.


California’s executions have been on hold until the state could acquire more of the drug — and the legality of using thiopental in the first place is still a matter of debate. And given the fact that this new batch will expire in 2014, why does the state need so much of the drug for just three years? Does CDCR really expect to kill almost 30 people a year, one every 10 days or so — between now and 2014?


Actually, that’s not even remotely possible — executions involve long legal proceedings, and there are no more than a handful of cases that could possible reach that state in the next 36 months. So will California be reselling this stuff to other states? Will we become the default death-drug dealer for America? Who in Sacramento approved that policy? We couldn’t get an answer from Thornton on that.


Thornton told AP that the state’s fresh shipment is currently on the East Coast waiting to be approved by the FDA, and is already authorized by the DEA to be sent to the prisons.Facing lawsuits from the ACLU, the CDCR must soon release its documents, which include most of the details of the drug’s acquisition.


 “We’ve been as transparent as we can be,” Thornton said.


Well, not exactly.


 

Mayor? Ammiano says no thanks

Zelda Bronstein
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4
Mayor? Ammiano says no thanks

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano made it official today, Dec. 7th — despite the efforts of Sup. Chris Daly and others to get him to serve as the city’s interim mayor, he’s declining. I just got the official statement:


I sincerely appreciate and understand the recent public efforts asking that I seek the nomination for interim mayor when Mayor Newsom steps down in January to become Lt. Governor but I must respectfully decline any nomination from the Board of Supervisors.


I was sworn in yesterday for my second term in the California State Assembly and I believe that the same strong progressive values that have inspired my twenty years as an elected official are needed now more than ever in the State Capitol.  One of the weaknesses of our current state government is a lack of true investment in the various elected offices due to the revolving door syndrome caused by term limits but I am committed to finishing the work that I have begun in Sacramento, including reforming our antiquated marijuana laws, closing the corporate loopholes in Proposition 13, ensuring adequate funding for the on-going battle against AIDS and continuing the struggle for equal rights for our LGBT community.


Since the board meets this afternoon to start the process of choosing a new mayor, Ammiano clearly wants to be sure that his name isn’t placed into nomination — a move that would force his many allies and supporters on the board either to vote against him (a potential show of disrespect for a man who many see as the father of the modern progressive movement in San Francisco) for vote for him (and push him toward a job he doesn’t want).


I don’t know if Daly will still nominate Ammiano; he was quoted today in the Bay Citizen saying that Ammiano “knows the gravity of the situation … I think if he has to opportunity to let that sink in a bit he might change his mind.” But I do know that Ammiano isn’t happy about being pushed by Daly, and would like to get his name out of the mix and move on.


So with all due respect to the many folks I know who want to encourage Tom (and I personally think he’d be a great mayor), he’s made his decision, and we have to respect that.

Chronicle employees told to accept “substandard” contract

Sasha Cuttler
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1
Chronicle employees told to accept “substandard” contract

After some tough talk about resisting a “substandard offer” from San Francisco Chronicle management, the California Media Workers Guild has decided to urge Chronicle workers to approve a new contract offer that is “essentially the same company proposal” that workers resoundingly rejected just last month. The vote is set for Dec. 13.

Guild representative and longtime Chronicle writer Carl Hall told the Guardian last week that “they basically stiff-armed us” and “refused to negotiate any compromise since October” in contract talks. “We see it as insulting, irresponsible corporate behavior given everything staff has done,” Hall told the Guardian last week.

He told us workers planned to rally against the Chronicle and enlist the help of the community, readers, and local labor leaders. “The company is just not listening, so we’re going to have to get a louder voice to achieve that.” The Guild’s campaign included online testimonials from various Chronicle employees, including conservative columnist Debra Saunders, who began her missive by writing, “I am probably the last person Chronicle readers would expect to see standing up for a union.”

But since then, the Guild has essentially capitulated to management’s demand for a status quo contract, arguing that it’s the best they can get for now despite the 106-29 vote against that contract. “Since then, however, the economy has deteriorated even further, and other media companies in the Bay Area have announced fresh concession demands. At the Chronicle, many Guild members said they were ready to fight, but most recognized it would take some months to build up a potent campaign and public support,” the Guild wrote in a statement on its website. “Given those circumstances, the commitee decided it would be better to accept the current proposed changes — and continue mobilizing in advance of the next round of talks.”

Guardian calls to the Chronicle’s Publisher’s Office were not returned.

Legal fight brewing over HANC Recycling Center eviction

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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4

The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center, located at the Kezar Triangle in Golden Gate Park, received a 90-day eviction notice following a Dec. 2 Recreation and Park Commission meeting approving plans for a community garden in its current location. However, tenant lawyer Robert De Vries, who is representing HANC, submitted in a Dec. 2 letter to Rec & Park Commissioners that HANC could not legally be made to vacate until the end of June.

The eviction has prompted an outcry from progressive groups, environmental organizations, and other HANC supporters, who turned out en masse at the Dec. 2 meeting and voiced strong disapproval over the proposal. It now appears that the issue may wind up in court.

“HANC has no intention of vacating the premises any earlier than legally required,” De Vries wrote to Rec & Park Commissioners. “HANC is also not willing to allow disruptive construction work or other activities to go forward on the leased property while it is in possession.”

In an earlier memo to Rec & Park Commissioners, city staff proposed issuing HANC a 30-day eviction notice, which would have ousted the recycling center by the end of December. That timing was significant, because it would have occurred under the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom, a proponent of the eviction, who will vacate office Jan. 8 to be sworn in as Lieutenant Governor. Citing advice from the San Francisco City Attorney, the memo noted that Rec & Park could proceed with a 30-day eviction without commission approval.

But that initial advice was erroneous, City Attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey told the Guardian, because it did not take into account HANC’s quarterly rental payments. Since the organization pays rent once every 90 days, instead of once a month, it cannot be evicted with just 30 days notice, according to state law. Once it was informed of HANC’s quarterly payments (by city staff, not De Vries’ letter, Dorsey said), the City Attorney advised Rec & Park that it should extend the eviction notice to 90 days.

The extra 60 days doesn’t just buy HANC time, it gives them hope. Newsom will be in Sacramento by then, and it’s possible that he could be replaced with an interim mayor who’s sympathetic to their cause.

De Vries, however, contends that 90 days is still too soon, and that HANC can’t legally be evicted until June 30, 2011. HANC’s original five-year, fixed-term lease ended on June 30, 2001. Since then, it’s been paying rent to the city every 90 days. De Vries wrote that under state law, this arrangement means that “the lease is automatically renewed” for one year, and that it’s renewed annually since 2001. California courts have found that “a tenancy from year to year is created where a tenant holds over after the expiration of a former lease for one or more years and pays rent,” De Vries wrote in his letter. His analysis is based on his reading of California Civil Code Section 1945.

“I don’t really see any other interpretation, frankly,” De Vries told the Guardian. In his view, by issuing a 90-day notice, “they’re putting something into the statute that isn’t there.”

The City Attorney’s office rejects De Vries’ analysis, and insists that the eviction notice is legal. “The lease does not expire on June 30,” Dorsey said, “and Rec & Park delivered a proper notice of termination.”

If this dispute winds up in court, it’s possible that the question won’t be settled until June of 2011 anyhow.

The end of Obama’s presidency?

Zelda Bronstein
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6
The end of Obama’s presidency?

The tax-cut deal with the Republicans is almost unfathomable. It’s the most dramatic sign of President Obama’s failure as a leader, his refusal to stand up for the platform he ran on — and it could mark the end of his presidency. I mean, he’ll still be in office for two more years — but now that he’s rolled over and given the Republicans everything they want, he has no moral or political authority left, no national constituency to back him up and he might as well be a lame duck. He’s certainly finished as far as most of the progressive movement is concerned. Kos:


This shouldn’t be worrisome to the White House because these people won’t vote for him in 2012. They probably will. But will they give money and knock on doors and make phone calls and drag their social circle to the polls? Nope. They didn’t in 2010. And at this rate, they sure as hell won’t in 2012.


Already, some Obama supporters are starting to ask whether we all should have backed Hillary Clinton.


So far, Nancy Pelosi is standing up to the “compromise,” which essentially gives the Republicans everything they want. And the House can still call the GOP bluff: Refuse to reauthorize tax cuts for the rich — and force the Republicans to vote to raise taxes on the middle class and deny unemployment benefits to a few million Americans. That’s the only way to salvage the situation.


The Dec. 7 press conference was terribly disappointing. Obama said, in effect, that he — the president of the United States — is powerless against a Republican minority in the Senate. “I have been unable to budge them,” he announced. He’s decided to negotiate with terrorists, to let a few right-wingers hold him and the millions of unemployed Americans hostage. The polls are on his side, the public sentiment is on his side — and he’s acting as if he’s being forced to negotiate from weakness.


The real-time Washington Post poll shows that 66 percent think Obama made a bad deal. 


The big problem here is that Obama looks shaken, doesn’t look tough, is on the defensive. A very sad moment.  


 


 


 


 

Would ICE deport Superman?

Mary Magee
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3
Would ICE deport Superman?

Would ICE deport Superman?

That’s a question Erick Huerta, a journalism student in Los Angeles, poses in a timely DREAM Act-related first-person piece about the double life of an undocumented student.

“Once, when I was seven, I fell asleep in Michoacán and woke in Boyle Heights. No joke. Now I am a bewildered 26-year-old undocumented college student, whose life may become a slightly less surreal dream if the DREAM Act ever passes, but only slightly less so,” Huerta writes.

Huerta describes the depression he underwent when he graduated high school in 2002.

“I was horribly depressed because all I had to look forward to in life was selling hot dogs, fruit and shaved ice in a cart my dad owned. Not to mention that a decade of internalized oppression and instilled fear of La Migra traumatized me,” Huerta recalls.

His situation improved somewhat with the passage of state Assembly Bill 540, which allows folks in his situation to pay in-state tuition at college if they are California high school graduates. And inspired by a young woman named Tam Tram, the first undocumented student he ever saw speaking out openly and unafraid, Huerta stopped feeling bad for himself and started to try and make the best of his situation.

This mental shift included finding undocumented students organizing for the DREAM Act.
“I share my story regularly with high school kids because I know my words will resonate with others who are undocumented and afraid,” Huerta concludes. “I let them know they’re not alone and that things will get better if they continue their education. Despite lack of legal status, no one can take away our education.”

Huerta’s words probably won’t stop the haters from leaving offensive comments on the blogs. But as more undocumented youth step forward, tell their stories and put faces on their otherwise shadowy figurres, it’s going to get harder to scapegoat them.

A recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting suggests the Obama administration has been trying to look tough on immigration enforcement in the past two years, in an effort to appease Republican factions that have been hell-bent on blocking immigration reform. It’s unclear whether personal stories by undocumented students  will be able to transcend partisan politics and give undocumented youth a pathway to citizenship. But if they did, it would be the best gift the nation could give itself this holiday season.

SFBG Radio: After the Prop. 8 hearing

Zelda Bronstein
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1
SFBG Radio: After the Prop. 8 hearing

Today our crack team of legal analysts (that is, Tim and Johnny) discuss the meaning of the Prop. 8 hearing, what comes next and why there’s really only one outcome for this debate. Listen up after the jump.

sfbgradio12/6/2010 by endorsements2010

The prop. 8 hearing

Zelda Bronstein
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2
The prop. 8 hearing

Watching the hearing was a couple of hours well spent; it’s not often that you get to see an actual live oral argument before a federal appeals court. And it’s not often that you get to see three judges, not all of them liberals by any stretch, take apart the fundamental claims of the anti-gay-marriage folks.


There’s a nice live-blog and analysis here.


One of the most interesting elements in this case is the possibility that the legality of same-sex marriage in California may hinge on whether a deputy clerk in Imperial County has the right to represent the people of California in a legal appeal. See, the governor and the attorney general usually defend state laws when they’re challenged in court, but in this case, both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown declined. In essence, they both said they thought Judge Vaugh Walker’s decision overturning Prop. 8 was just fine.


So the supporters of Prop. 8 have to make the case they have legal “standing” to appeal — and the judges seemed more than a little dubious about that. The political group that backed Prop. 8 was in trouble from the start, and couldn’t really demonstrate what legal authority it had to handle the appeal. The deputy clerk from Imperial County, which has a population of 166,000, argued through her lawyer that she would have to sign marriage certificates, and that Prop. 8 directly affects her job. That didn’t get very far, either. And if the appeals court tosses the case on the standing issue, nothing else matters. Walker’s ruling is affirmed and same-sex marriage is legal in California.


Then to the meat of the case. Judge Hawkins instantly asked Charles Cooper, attorney for the Prop. 8 proponents, if the voters of the state of California could legally amend the state Constitution to re-segregate the public schools. Cooper: No. The point was pretty clear: The voters have the right to amend the Constitution, but not in a way that violates fundamental rights.


Cooper went on with what rapidly devolved into lunacy, eg: “When a relationship between a man and a woman becomes sexual, society has a profound interest.” In other words, a man and a woman have sex; they might conceive a child, who might be born “out of wedlock” and raised by a single parent, which would be a bad thing. Judge Reinhardt: That’s a good argument for prohibiting divorce — but isn’t really on point here.


Theodore Olson, representing the plaintiffs, pretty much knocked it out of the park in his first few minutes, noting that California has effectively engineered discrimination into the Constitution by eliminating a right that the U.S. Supreme Court has said repeatedly (14 times, according to Olson) is fundamental. He pointed out that in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws, the U.S. Supremes determined that sexual conduct between consenting adults of any gender is protected. So how, he asked, can you take away marriage rights because of a Constitutionally protected activity?


Since the Prop. 8-ers have argued that same-sex marriage would force children to have “a premature interest in sexual activity,” Olson suggested that the court would have to “ban comic books, video games and conversations with other children.”


The judges, as is typical, interrupted all the lawyers to ask questions — until Theresa Stewart stood up, representing the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. She was sharp, quick on her feet, perfectly prepared — and for most of her short presentation, the judges simply listened. Her point: When it comes to children, family law in California treats same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples precisely and exactly the same; why should marriage be any different?


In the end, what I saw was three judges struggling not with the outcome of the case — Walker’s decision seems likely to be upheld — but with how broad they want the final decision to be. Based on the questioning at the end, it seemed as if they’d rather uphold Walker’s ruling without making a sweeping statement that gay marriage is Constitutionally protected and must be the law of the land everywhere in the United States.


But unless they try to duck the real issues and rule only on standing, that’s going to be a stretch. Any honest, logical ruling can only come to one conclusion — that treating lesbians and gay men differently than straight people violates the Equal Protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. And if the Supreme Court agrees, it will be the end of gay marriage bans, the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the beginning of a new era in America.


UPDATE (thanks to Nichole Dial for research);


Lots of news media coverage on the some good, some lame. The Prop. 8 Trial Tracker website had some of the best breaking stuff. The Mercury News did a live blog by Howard Mintz that was full of details. SF Weekly covered the more amusing accounts such as the crowd outside the court room.  The Bay Citizen also had a live blog and analysis.


Brian at Calitics had one of the best quick analyses and the Chron’s Bob Egelko came out with a really fast story that touches on the major themes of the case.



The AP postings on the Huffington Post covered the highlights as well as an overview of the background of prop 8. The New York Times used the same article, then later added a short, fairly superficial piece by Jesse McKinley  (what, the Times had no live blogger on this?)


 


 

Thrown under the bus, Arc sues Redevelopment

Mary Magee
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5
Thrown under the bus, Arc sues Redevelopment

Arc Ecology filed suit today in federal court against the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, citing First Amendment issues and the Commission’s alleged retaliation for Arc’s criticism of the Agency’s Candlestick Point/ Hunters Point Shipyard project

Represented by attorneys from the First Amendment Project, Arc said the purpose of the suit is to hold the Redevelopment Commission accountable on two counts. First, for attaching an unconstitutional condition to the contract that requires silence from its contractors on matters of public concern outside the scope of the contract and second, for taking reprisal actions against Arc Ecology for its award-winning critique of the Candlestick Point Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Plan.

 Redevelopment commissioners threw Arc under the bus this September, when they rejected the recommendation of Agency staff, an independent interagency selection panel, the Hunters Point Citizens Advisory Committee and dozens of Bayview Hunters Point and San Francisco residents to rehire Arc to provide environmental technical and educational services for the cleanup of the shipyard.

At that same meeting, the Commissioners voted to award the contract to Circle Point, a San Francisco-based consulting company that Commissioner Francee Covington worked for, in support of a bridge project near Sacramento, several years earlier.

During the Commission’s Sept. 21 meeting, Commissioners Leroy King, Francee Covington and Darshan Singh joined Commission President Rick Swig in calling for Arc’s ouster, variously accusing Arc’s executive director Saul Bloom of disloyalty and dishonesty, but failing to support their claims with evidence related to the contract in question.

“I’m opposed to giving the contract to Arc,” Commissioner King said, accusing Bloom of talking, “against Lennar.” But Lennar is the developer for the city’s massive Candlestick Point/Shipyard project, and as such it is not in charge of the Navy’s clean-up of the shipyard.

Commissioner Covington pulled out the city’s response to comments on its EIR (environmental impact report) for Lennar’s redevelopment plans, as alleged evidence of Arc’s malfaisance, even though the non-profit’s  Redevelopment contract involved assessing environmental issues related to the Navy’s shipyard clean-up, and not assessing rLennar’s redevelopment proposal.Covington then pointed to, but did not identify, letters she claimed were from individuals who alleged their names were falsely included in a letter supporting Arc’s EIR comments.

(The Guardian subsequently discovered that these missives were form letters. Both were written in identical language. Naim Harrison, who works for Positive Directions, which sent the city one of the form letters, told the Guardian that he signed Arc’s EIR letter, which asked for more time to review the city’s draft EIR. “It seemed a reasonable request,” Harrison said. But Positive Directions director Cedric Akbar, who sent the form complaint letters and was running as a candidate in the hotly contested D10 race, did not return the Guardian’s repeated calls.)

Commission President Swig, a hotel and tourism industry consultant, sought to frame Arc, which was hired as an independent non-profit, as an ungrateful consultant. “As a consultant myself, I don’t agree with all my customers, but I don’t bite the hand that feeds me,” Swig said.
Then the Commission voted 4-0 to reject Arc and award the contract to Circle Point, instead.

“The Redevelopment Commission’s punishment of Arc Ecology sends a message to all contractors that they must now lie for the Commission.” Bloom stated in a Dec. 6 press release. “Just listen to the Agency’s own web-audio of the Commission’s September 21st meeting. This unelected, unaccountable legislative body, one of only a handful of such Commissions in California, is attempting to put responsible criticism in the deep freeze.”

“No matter that the subject of our commentary was outside the scope of our contract, no matter that purpose of the contract was to provide the community with an independent view of the decision-making regarding the Shipyard’s cleanup, and no matter that its own staff found our analysis helpful, the Commission’s action states clearly they prefer public relations to transparency,” Bloom continued. “This is a governmental body with a duty to uphold speech not their private business. The Commission has given notice that to contract with the Agency be prepared to kiss the First Amendment goodbye.”

Arc and the First Amendment Project say their lawsuit will also demonstrate that the Office of Economic and Workforce Development “clearly biased the applicant evaluation score against Arc Ecology but failed in its attempt to rig the recommendation of the Selection Panel” and that the Redevelopment Commissioners “falsely stated the Commission’s policy as always awarding contracts to the highest scoring applicant – even if the difference is only two tenths of one percent out of a possible score of 100.”

First Amendment Project staff attorney Geoffrey King told the Guardian that Arc’s suit focuses on two distinct areas of concern.

“First, there was the attachment of an unconstitutional condition to Arc’s contract, and then there was the taking of retalitory action,” King said. “We allege that statements that Arc made were wholly outside the scope of its contract. But even if its statements were inside the scope of its contract, Arc was hired to be a watch dog and not a lap dog. Arc’s role within that process was to be an independent voice. You can’t condition funding on someone’s silence over something they were not contracting for.”

You could impose conditions like that, King says, if the government hired a public relations firm to disseminate an approved message.

‘That’s where you can control the content,” King said. “But if the government is hiring you to be independent, it can’t get mad at you for providing answers it doesn’t like.”

“And nobody accused Arc of a breach of the duty of loyalty,” King continued, noting that Bloom asked Redevelpment Agency staffers if he was in a breach, and was told that he was not.

“It’s pretty stark when you look at the transcripts of that Redvelopment Commission meeting what the real issue was,” King said.

Can the U.S. be great again?

Zelda Bronstein
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13
Can the U.S. be great again?

I know I’m getting a little obsessed with the NY Times and it’s sometimes amazing, sometimes utterly clueless analysis of what’s happening with tax policy and the American economy. But I had to comment on Matt Bai’s piece in the Sunday Times about the debt-reduction commission, also known as the cat-food commission. Bai’s thesis is that American’s don’t want to hear that they are going to have to sacrifice something because it runs against our national grain, our desire to be ever bigger and stronger and number one in the world:

What makes this case for sacrifice so much harder to embrace, perhaps, is that it goes to our national psyche, threatening our self-image as a land with limitless potential. While past generations have readily sacrificed for national greatness, debt reduction — at least in the gloomy way its advocates argue for it — feels like a call to sacrifice in the name of our national decline.

And, of course, like every writer who takes on this topic, he harkens back to the Good Old Days when America seemed to be on top of the world:

For much of the Industrial Age, and especially between World War II and the oil crises of the 1970s, this was, in fact, reality. Wages and profits rose, the social safety net and the nation’s military reach both expanded, and government lived largely within its means. College education, suburban lawns, good pensions and blissful security all became part of the pact with the middle class, as much a part of the constellation of entitlements as Medicare and Medicaid.

He says, of course, in the end, that by tighening its fiscal belt, America can pave the way for more greatness:

In fact, policy experts argue that steps along the lines of the commission’s recommendations could actually modernize outdated systems — making the country more competitive as a result — without profoundly affecting the American experience. A simpler, updated tax code for businesses might help spur entrepreneurship, while a hard line on inefficient spending (farm subsidies come to mind) might free up government to invest more in new technologies and infrastructure. A streamlined military of the kind championed by Robert Gates, the defense secretary, would probably be better prepared for the challenges ahead than a military burdened by the costs of obsolete weapons systems and bases left over from the cold war.

But he totally misses a key point: Between World War II and the 1970s (actually, until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980) the American economy was driven in part by a stable middle class, created in part by trade unions but also — to a great degree — by a tax system built on socioeconomic equality. Rich people paid taxes in the good old days — in fact, the highest income earners paid around 60 percent or more of their income in taxes. and that money allowed the nation to build highways and watger systems and offer public education to all and to create the entitlements that kept old people out of dire poverty.

And because the public sector — the government — was largely able to live within its means, and offered quality public services, people were willing to pay taxes and not blame public employees for everything and demand that Santa Claus bring them goodies for free.

Yes, this country can be great again. It’s richer than ever. But as long as that wealth is so tightly controlled by such a small elite, we’re going to continue to slide down until we become another banana republic. There’s really no way around it.

 

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