Tuesday Bloody Tuesday

It’s yet another primary day!

I know you’re just as excited as I am. Here’s a brief rundown of the four marquee races:

• Pennsylvania Senate: Nowhere can the right-left divide be seen more vividly than in the Keystone State. On the right, former Congressman and Club for Growth president Pat Toomey has the Republican nomination locked up. “Club for Growth” is, naturally, the euphemistic name for a group of anti-tax zealots. What’s more, Toomey managed to achieve a remarkable 97% rating from the American Conservative Union during his congressional career. He is very conservative. On the left, however, liberal Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak has a slight edge over five-term Senator Arlen Specter, the political chameleon who only switched to the Democratic Party last year when it became apparent Toomey would likely defeat him in a Republican primary matchup. Talk about lose-lose. In general election polling, Toomey has a 6-point lead over Sestak and 9 points over Specter. It’s not an insurmountable lead, but Republicans are viewing this as a prime pick-up opportunity.
• Arkansas Senate: Again, the GOP nomination is almost certainly decided, with Congressman John Boozman holding a commanding lead over all others. Both Arkansas Senate primaries force a runoff if no candidate wins a majority of the votes, but Boozman’s 46% in the polls seems soft in such a large field. On the Democratic side, the drama of a runoff could well unfold. Popular liberal Lt. Governor Bill Halter entered the race during the health care debate, as Senator Blanche Lincoln’s support cratered, and while she’s maintained a nearly 10-point lead, it remains to be seen if she can top 50%. It’s all a bit of theater, however, as structural and demographic conditions strongly suggest conservative Arkansas will elect (can you believe this?) only its second GOP Senator since Reconstruction come November.
• Kentucky Senate: The power of the Tea Party will be on full display in the race for retiring Senator Jim Bunning’s seat. Rand Paul, son of Dr. Congressman Ron, will likely breeze to victory over establishment Republican pick Trey Grayson, the Secretary of State. Paul will probably then go on to defeat whichever Democrat wins the dead-heat primary race, Attorney General Jack Conway or Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo, although general election polling shows either race closer than he’d probably like. This should be an interesting contest, as it turns out Kentucky voters are actually insane.
• PA-12 Special Election: The race to replace the late Congressman Jack Murtha is going down to the wire, with former Murtha aide Mark Critz and Republican Tim Burns in a statistical tie. Structural factors are against any Democrat, and President Obama’s favorables are under 50% in the district, so Burns has a good chance to win. But Murtha was outrageously popular in the district, so it’s possible Critz could win by virtue of their long-time association.

All in all, today should be a good day for Republicans, and especially for the Tea Party, as Rand Paul would be its first actual member to win a high-profile race. (Scott Brown had the support of the Tea Party, although he has never been a member.) Of course, a terrible economy, several divisive policy debates and a general anti-incumbent political atmosphere ought to give the GOP a natural advantage against Democrats in power this year. But it doesn’t help progressive hopes when laughably amateurish mistakes turn what ought to be a cakewalk (Linda McMahon!) into a real race.

Stay tuned. This should be interesting.

About That Oil Spill

For us visual thinkers, a great graphical representation:

Update: And another!

(via Andrew Sullivan)

In Which I Almost Feel Bad For Ken Blackwell

Just kidding!

Since many readers of this blog (3 out of all 7 of you?) are likely in Ohio, I thought you might enjoy former Secretary of State and erstwhile Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell’s embarrassing appearance on The Daily Show last night. Blackwell is one of my guilty pleasures, because he’s such a blatantly shameless buffoon, and last night was no exception. Woof.

Harry Potter and the Welfare State

In the feverish run-up to the May general elections in the United Kingdom, J.K. Rowling, billionaire author of the Harry Potter series, has published a truly wonderful op-ed in the Times of London about her experience as a struggling single mother and the support she received from the state. The sentiment is particularly relevant in the US today, on Tax Day, when everyone seems to think they pay the government too much.

Rowling, with her massive fortune, pays far more in taxes living in the UK than she would if she decamped to, say, Monaco. But she didn’t, and won’t. To wit:

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.

Food for thought for all those hard-working rich people thinking of “going Galt.”

“47 Percent”

David Leonhardt, with characteristic clarity, gives much-needed context to the misleading statement that 47 percent of American households don’t pay any taxes:

The 47 percent number is not wrong. The stimulus programs of the last two years — the first one signed by President George W. Bush, the second and larger one by President Obama — have increased the number of households that receive enough of a tax credit to wipe out their federal income tax liability.

But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and capital gains taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

All good stuff, but what I find more interesting is this: let’s say it was true that nearly half of American households don’t pay any income taxes, as many on the right would have you believe. It’s a proveable fact that our system of taxation is not actually all that progressive (although those same right-wingers would never admit this either). Given that, shouldn’t the really troubling aspect of the 47 percent figure be the sky-high-and-rising level of income inequality necessary for such a case even to be possible?

(Faux) Summer Reading

It is way too gorgeous outside in Manhattan (high of 86!) to do any deep political thinking, or work, so I’d suggest you print out the following articles, find a nice bench or spot on the grass, and enjoy some light reading.

• Rachel Slajda at Talking Points Memo has an entertaining post on right-wing paranoia about the census.
• Since the disfunctions of the US Senate have been such a hot topic in these parts, I can’t recommend Jennifer Senior’s New York Magazine piece on the subject enough.
• Is there anything more entertaining than speculating about Supreme Court vacancies? Nope!
• Even though it’s a few week’s old, I’m still recommending Jane Meyer’s remarkably frank takedown of Marc Thiessen’s execrable book to everyone I know.
• Apparently I’ve been mispronouncing Jonathan Lethem’s last name for years.

Catholic Guilt, Or Lack Thereof

I’m certainly no expert on Roman Catholicism (do you seem my name up there?), and I generally find Matt Taibbi’s rants to be grating, but his True/Slant piece on the recent revelations about the Catholic Church protecting (even more) child abusers is just devastating:

We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.

“Faith-based initiative” takes on a whole new meaning. As is often the case on matters of religion, I’m with Hitch on this one: the Pope is not above the law.

The Great Secret Student Loan Reform

One of the bizarrely under-hyped benefits of the passage of health care reform (the reconciliation bill, to be exact) was the much-needed student loan reform package attached to it.

Basically, since the 1960s the federal government has been subsidizing and guaranteeing student loans made by private insurers like Sallie Mae. (The government also makes its own loans to students.) The risk on these private loans was borne entirely by the government; private insurers reaped all the profits. This is exactly as wasteful as it sounds, and reform will save us $61 billion over the next 10 years. Everyone wins.

Of course, the ideological champions of private industry (i.e. the affected banks and their stooges in Congress) are now crowing that these reforms will destroy higher education. Surprise surprise – they’re completely wrong.

Department of Untruths: “By definition, this is not middle of the road.”

You’re going to hear a lot of this in the next few weeks. Among the many, many disingenuous Republican talking points about the health care bill, perhaps the most facially absurd is that it’s some extreme leftist fantasy version of reform. The arguments in favor of this view — that a majority of Americans and zero Republican legislators support the bill – are misleading and tautological. Chait provides the ultimate debunking. His bottom line:

Obama is signing what was, until recently, a moderate Republican health care plan by every substantive comparison or definition. The unanimity of Republican opposition says more about Republicans than it does about the plan itself.

OH NO: Socialism Has Come To America

Or rather: Yay, it happened!

I’m not going to wade into the actual politics that led to health care reform’s passage — Yglesias and Chait do a fine job of that, and Bart Stupak is just so tiresome to think about, and really, Peggy Noonan, is “demon pass” the best you could come up with?

The noise is just noise, especially when there are practical consequences to think about. Soon everyone will have health insurance! And yes, while it is true that the whole nightmare debate isn’t quite over — the reconciliation bill, which, don’t let’s forget, improves the package, still has to tumble through the Senate — it is also true that the bill passed by the Senate in December will, with the President’s signature this week, become law. A huge part of American life will be improved by the stroke of a pen.

What I think is interesting is what can happen next. Can, not will. There are so many predictions and opinions, and all the pundits are so convinced of their right(eous)ness:

It’ll kill the Democrats in November! Think again! Major reforms always become popular over time! It’s poisoned our politics! We’ll repeal it! Good luck with that! Baby killer!

Shut up, all of you. (Especially the last.)

If there’s any advice I would give to a casual observer of this mess, it would be to turn off the TV, click “close tab” on everything except cat videos and your Netflix Instant Player, and reflect on the fact that half a century of work by progressives has finally paid off. That’s a long time, and anyone who thinks they can untangle the meaning of it in less than 24 hours is fooling themselves. 99% of what the pundits are saying today will be meaningless by tomorrow. They have no idea what they’re talking about! Remember when everyone was saying reform was dead after a moderate Republican beat a terrible Democratic party hack in a special election by a few hundred thousand people in a state that already had universal health insurance? Yeah, exactly.

So let’s all do ourselves a favor, take a step back, and if like me you think health care reform was a moral and historical imperative, gloat softly, to ourselves. Of course it’s difficult not to enjoy the hilarity of the Right’s meltdown. Feel free to do that too. (I mean, come on. You can’t make this stuff up.) But there’s still plenty of work to be done — on jobs, on the environment, on gay rights, on any number of problems America faces today. But we can cross this one off the list, for now, and that’s something.

One last point: if for some weird reason you’re interested in what the reform package actually does (and when), check out here, here and here. You’ll be surprised how banal socialism is when you get down to the details.