Posted inPolitics: National

National suicide…really?

[UPDATE] The answer is yes. Join the open thread on the comments to discuss the election results.

Are you really going to do it, America? Give control of the Senate to The Party That Wrecked America?

If the polls are to be believed, the answer is "yes." It is true that polling undercounts Democratic votes. But the indications are not good. Consider that in Colorado, incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper is trailing a full bore Krackpot who claims the IUD is an abortion device.

Andrew Sullivan wrote an interesting post on the midterms. Among his comments:

Republican candidates have made this election about (President Obama), while most Democrats (as is their wont) are running fast away; the GOP itself remains, however, also deeply unpopular; wrong-direction numbers are at a high. No great policy debate has defined these races, and when such issues have risen – such as illegal immigration or the ACA – they tend to be virulent reactions to existing law or proposed changes, rather than a constructive, positive agenda. I see no triumph for conservative or liberal ideas here, no positive coalition forming, no set of policies that will be vindicated by this election.

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Posted inPhoenix

Arizona, unstimulated

The political faith of the Kookocracy is not just that government "is the problem," but that government is outright evil. Without the socialist Jan Brewer restraining them, they dream of a state with a government out of the Coolidge years (without that pesky Herbert Hoover as Commerce Secretary). I'll never forget giving a speech to some Phoenix Young Republicans. A woman in her twenties said all aid to the less fortunate should be terminated. If they protest? "Shoot them in the streets," she said, chillingly serious.

Of course, in the reality based world Arizona is a government creation, and takes more in government services than it pays in taxes. It is a welfare queen. Despite all the cries of "SOCIALISM," it has taken federal stimulus money. Nevertheless, the faith persists. Low taxes, little regulation and a continuing battle to stifle any "activism" (such as funding Science Foundation Arizona or that Don Budinger and his efforts to improve impoverished schools) will produce the best "business climate" in the country. Anybody in need, well, deserves their lot. Best-practices used around the world for economic development are SOCIALISM!!

So how's that working out for you?

Arizona gets an F grade in the new Assets and Opportunities Scorecard from the non-partisan (and backed by big business) CFed. Arizona is one of only five states to get the lowest grade in this report that tracks 92 measures of well-being. Its peers are all in the South. You don't need a report to know the depression that is ravaging Phoenix. One out of four residents is uninsured.

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Posted inUncategorized

Obama gets aboard high-speed rail

President Obama has pledged $13 billion to begin high-speed rail in America. I don't want to be a cynic and ask, does anyone believe we'll see this in our lifetimes (or at all, as American continues its whacko-driven, debt-laden decline)? I'll say the action is a good start. And the sensibility — actually acknowledging the importance of rail to the 21st century — is first rate.

It's important to note a few essentials to understanding the situation. 1) Rail is essential to a sustainable future, using less fuel and having a smaller negative environmental impact that airlines or freeways. 2) It's essential to improving productivity and competitiveness, as workers and semis are stuck in gridlock, and face steadily rising fuel costs anyway. 3) Modern rail systems are thriving around the world, and China sees this as essential to its leapfrog to world supremacy — note to Americans who don't get out much: We're the country that's behind, far behind. 4) The nation's only passenger rail system, Amtrak, has been starved of funding for years, so it has much catching up to do, just on refitting equipment, etc.

With Obama's plan, the devil will be in the details, of course. Yet we're still not thinking holistically about the issue — and we'd better get our act together toot sweet.

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Posted inUncategorized

The real risks of the stimulus

Renegade — the president's secret service code name — is pushing hard for "his" stimulus bill as it reaches the House floor today. What's in is? That's difficult to tell as the horse-trading continues, and as Obama tries to rope in at least some Republican support. FDR and the Democratic Congress in 1933 simply steamrolled the Republicans who demanded balanced budgets and reactionary policies — but never mind. In the end, this will be a package crafted not only by 535 lawmakers, but countless lobbyists and staff. My biggest fear is that it will not be a renegade stimulus — transformative and focused on the future.

Let me count the ways:

1. Tax cuts in the current environment won't provide help. U.S. tax rates and dodges are already generally at lows not seen since the Coolidge years. Obama promised a working-class tax cut. Fine. He's bowed to Grassley to provide more alternative-minimum tax relief. OK. But these should be different bills. They're not stimulative. Individuals will squirrel away their checks or use them to pay down credit-card debt. Corporations are already paying nothing in many cases. As for "investors and risk-takers" — the Bush years demonstrated that tax cuts on investments merely fuel speculation while encouraging job-killing mergers and offshoring. Not for nothing did wages stagnate during those halcyon years. Perhaps worst of all, it continues the destructive "tax cut" entitlement mindset that Americans can get something for nothing.

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Posted inUncategorized

Across America

The past two weeks were a bad time for a financial columnist to be gone — or maybe they were a fine time. I've been warning about this collapse for years, not as a wish but as a concern. That our practices of deregulation, consolidation, hollowing out of the economy and building a vast Ponzi-scheme economy in its place would inevitably come crashing down.

Gone was a train trip from Seattle to Baltimore, where the Bouchercon mystery writers' convention was honoring my editor, Barbara Peters, and publisher, Robert Rosenwald. Susan and I wanted to take Amtrak across this big land before Republican John Sidney McCain III was elected and followed through on his longtime obsession to shut down the national passenger rail system. In fact, Amtrak does a fine job, especially considering the years of underfunding it must fight against, and the fact that it is a mere tenant on the railroads it travels (outside of the Northeast Corridor). It's interesting, and heartbreaking, to consider what we might have if we had been investing in high-speed train networks instead of financial swindles over the past 20 years. Even now, the trains are packed and popular.

The train forces one out of the crazy rhythms of flying and driving. You see how vast and varied this nation remains, especially in the places left behind by the Interstate highway system. Barely a golden arch profanes the route of the Empire Builder across the northern tier. There are the rotting, bell-towered schoolhouses sitting forlornly on the depopulated Great Plains, the little farm towns, down on their luck for decades but hanging on, the mountaintops our forebears conquered with blood and tears to lay steel rails from coast-to-coast. Anxieties about stolen elections and falling Dow give way to the gentle swaying of the train.

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Posted inUncategorized

Looking on while the world takes the lead

The Olympics have provided a showcase for China’s real leap forward, from the edgy Bird’s Nest stadium to the huge new terminal at the Beijing airport, which is twice the size of the Pentagon and claims to be the largest building in the world. But you don’t have to look to a giant nation that has scarily fused capitalism and authoritarianism to see nations moving ahead. Dubai is building a  subway and Vancouver is working on an ambitious expansion of its SkyTrain.

And where is America? Our airlines are collapsing — have you read about the CEOs cutting back on fuel to save money, raising safety concerns, or United pilots worrying about maintenance standards? Amtrak is seeing a record demand due to higher gasoline prices and the sheer awfulness of flying — but years of underfunding are causing it to struggle. Cities face huge roadblocks and long timelines to build transit systems they should have had years ago. America, which once led the world in accomplishments, seems tired, decadent, gridlocked — especially in the face of new global realities.

This was especially brought home when I saw an article in Trains magazine about the two-year-old Central Station in Berlin. It’s an architectural landmark of the kind of modernism I find tedious, but never mind that. Built under difficult conditions, with budget fights and NIMBYs, it was nevertheless built. It serves 300,000 passengers and 1,100 trains a day. It also has 80 stores, travelers lounges and office towers. On display is a 21st century transportation network that can handle global warming and Peak Oil.

Meanwhile, we talk — talk — about repairing "our roads and bridges" in our 1965 transportation system. Our elected leaders include Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who said Democrats "want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want
Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take
light rail to their government jobs. That’s their vision for America."

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Posted inPolitics: National

How passenger rail was wounded, and how to fix it

The New York Times is a fine newspaper, but it has its blind spots. Its reporting on energy is often incomplete or downright wrong. The latter sin was not in evidence when it finally reported on the popularity of Amtrak. What’s frustrating is what the article left out or left unsaid, which makes it harder to achieve some results beyond our transportation system frozen in 1965 (and we had more trains then).

From the article:

Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it
carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May
is not usually a strong travel month.

But the railroad, and its
suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial
constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet
the demand.

And:

The problem is that rail has shriveled. The number of “passenger miles”
traveled on intercity rail has dropped by about two-thirds since 1960,
and the companies that build rail cars and locomotives have also
shrunk, making it hard to expand.

Only late in the story is a glancing reference made to Amtrak’s fate being tied to the whims of the federal government, and late late in the story the Times admits their boy crush President-elect McCain "was a staunch opponent of subsidies to Amtrak when he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee." Indeed he wants to abolish it.

Let’s fill in some of the blanks so Americans might have some options beyond expensive and congested driving, and airlines that treat passengers like cattle.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Lies, damned lies, and withdrawal from Iraq

It’s easy to beat up John McCain for wanting to stay the bloody course in Iraq, indeed that America might have troops there for next 100 years. McCain’s strategy won’t be merely more of the same. It will be a push way down the slippery slope. But there’s much wishful thinking and dissembling on the part of the Democrats, too.

If Iraq really were another Vietnam, withdrawal would be without serious geopolitical consequences. Yet we shouldn’t forget the moral consequences of our withdrawal, with millions of South Vietnamese facing a brutal takeover and thousands who worked for us facing far worse. Hmong tribesmen who supported the CIA’s secret war in Laos are still on the run, abandoned by the superpower that so cavalierly used them. We should have gotten out. We shouldn’t forget that the cost was high.

But Iraq is not Vietnam, a fact that should be remembered every time a Democrat drives home from an anti-war rally in his SUV.

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Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

Who is this ‘maverick’ I keep hearing about?

Every time I hear the media say Sen. John McCain "of Arizona" it makes me crazy. McCain has done as little for Arizona as possible and it shows. The state is Mississippi in the Southwest, an Appalachia with golf courses, the epicenter of a brewing socio-environmental calamity. It is a place frighteningly behind in the competitive world of the 21st century, however much it provides a haven for a certain kind of rich person and, until recently, for real-estate players. Arizona was never anything but a national political platform for McCain.

If McCain had been governor, his apathy would be an especially tempting target. Even so, as a senator he has done as little as possible in education, research, transportation, health care, the environment…the list goes on and on. Most days one wondered if Arizona even had senators representing it, rather than trying to be national political figures.

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