Category: Daily Escape

Saturday Soother – April 3, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Spring snow in Grand Canyon NP – March 2021 photo by indieaz

Here’s some good news amidst all of the negative DC political punditry. US manufacturing activity hit its highest level in 37 years last month. Manufacturing’s biggest problem right now is the same one that Wrongo’s new treadmill company had: making products fast enough to satisfy all of their current demand.

A little more detail: The overall ISM manufacturing index rose from 60.8 to 64.7, the highest reading since 1984. The new orders sub-index, an important leading indicator, also rose from 64.8 to 68.0, the highest reading since 2004.

The Economist says that CEO worries about weak demand for products has been replaced by fear of supply bottlenecks, from worldwide chip shortages to the freak traffic jam in the Suez Canal. They quote Chad Moutray, chief economist of the National Association of Manufacturers:

“…90% of members surveyed recently by the trade association were bullish about their businesses’ outlook for the next 12 months, the highest in two years. Two-thirds foresee revenues returning to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, as new orders, production and employment all pick up.”

The optimism is being backed by investment. Intel announced that it would spend $20 billion on two factories in Arizona. More from The Economist:

“Scott Davis of Melius, a research firm, reckons that capital expenditure at several dozen leading American industrial companies he follows, including icons such as Caterpillar and Stanley Black & Decker, are set to rise by 20% on average this year.”

Goldman Sachs forecasts that capital spending at S&P 500 firms will reach $740 billion this year, slightly above the $731 billion in 2019. For the first time in a while, Goldman Sachs says big American firms will spend more on capital goods, research and development than on dividends and share buy-backs.

Three factors are driving this positive news. First, America will be largely vaccinated by the summer, so the level of those unemployed should continue to drop, like it did last month, when 916,000 new jobs were added. This means that Americans will have more money to spend on cars, electronics and other goods. It’s not all roses, manufacturing jobs increased by 53,000. But, since February 2020, manufacturing is still down 515,000 jobs, or 4% of the total. As of now, over 60% of the total manufacturing jobs loss of 10.6% has been regained.

Second, much of the Biden infrastructure plan’s spending will wind up in the hands of private companies who will be performing all of that new infrastructure building. That’s the kind of trickle-down that causes economic growth.

Third, companies went to school on the impacts of tight, non-resilient supply chains. Some were surprised that bad Texas weather could slow production. Or, that Covid could stop their orders for PPE, and strain port capacity in Los Angeles. Stranded container ships in the Middle East and geopolitical tensions with China are making CEOs think more seriously about building networks that can withstand such shocks.

In the short term, this involves stockpiling components. In the longer run they are looking to bring production closer to home, which would also bolster American suppliers. More from the Economist:

“General Motors is hoping to build…a second battery factory in America. Intel’s planned Arizona [factories]…are a way both to guarantee deliveries of chips to customers in Detroit and beyond, and to “near-shore” the semiconductor giant’s own production.”

If people can just hang in there a little bit longer, we might just be able to avoid a whole lot more Covid deaths, and then have a very good year. Fingers crossed.

Time to put down your phones and settle in for a Saturday Soother, where we spend a few minutes escaping from the perils of the world. Here at the Mansion of Wrong, we had snow flurries on Friday, and the temperature barely got into the high 30s. That means a break from more spring yard work for a few days.

Let’s start by brewing up a yuuge cup of Dirty South – (As Dark As We Will Go) coffee ($14.99/12 oz.) from Atlanta’s Peach Coffee Roasters. Given the voting repression in Georgia, it seems certain that the outlook in the state for free and fair elections is substantially darker than this coffee.

Baseball’s opening day was Thursday. Some games were cancelled, while some played in snowstorms. When baseball has both indoor stadiums along with many in the warmer south and west, why are teams playing outdoors in 40°weather?

And, in honor of opening day, take a seat by a window and listen to “Field of Dreams” from the movie, performed live at the Tenerife International Film Music Festival. The music is composed by James Horner. The orchestra is conducted by Diego Navarro, artistic director of the festival. It is performed by the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. This is a very nice way to remember an iconic film:

Remember the line: “Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa.”

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Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

The Daily Escape:

Crepuscular rays at White Sands NM, NM – photo by dantreks

Biden announced his big infrastructure plan on Wednesday. The American Jobs Plan is a $2+ trillion proposal that is an expansive interpretation of the word “infrastructure.”

Naturally, Republicans are against it. South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) disparaged it on Fox:

“I was shocked by how much doesn’t go into infrastructure…It goes into research and development. It goes into housing and pipes and different initiatives, green energy.”

So, Republicans aren’t sure what “infrastructure” is? Or maybe, they want Biden restricted to being President Pothole? They must know that “pipe” and “green energy” are well within the definition of “infrastructure.”

But they would be against it, no matter how little it contained. Today’s Republican Congress is even worse than it was in 2009. Back then, Obama’s stimulus bill to combat the Great Recession, (like Biden’s stimulus bill after COVID-19), received zero GOP votes in the House. In the Senate, Obama got three more Republican votes than Biden. And in the 2010 midterms, the GOP regained control of both chambers, setting its template for 2022.

Now In 2021, Republicans no longer run on policy. They’re running against a mythic Democratic party bent on imposing socialism, demeaning Christianity, defunding the police, coddling menacing migrants, and supporting angry American minorities.

If you’re a Republican politician, you’re not offering any actual policy. They’re offering to fight Democrats, and that seems to be enough to get reelected. This means that Republicans will filibuster any bill the Democrats can’t pass through reconciliation.

Biden knows that. So, his legislative strategy prioritizes rebuilding American infrastructure, something that has a broad consensus within the electorate. His plan includes a commitment to confronting climate change (and creating jobs) by modernizing the electrical grid, encouraging the development of alternative energy sources, and building charging stations across America.

He plans to combat poverty and buttress the middle class through funding childcare, universal pre-K, and free community college, while extending the child tax credits authorized by his stimulus plan.

Taken together, his American Jobs Plan represents Biden’s belief that the pandemic has changed what is politically possible. He proposed to open the way to expanding government’s role in addressing our economic and societal weaknesses, on a scale of spending we wouldn’t have dreamed possible.

He’s taken the ideas originally outlined in the Green New Deal in 2019 and repackaged them under the more politically popular umbrella of infrastructure, including some of the same goals. Biden’s plan isn’t the Green New Deal in sheep’s clothing, regardless of what Republicans say.

To help cover the costs of his plan, Biden proposes raising taxes on corporations, the affluent, estates, and capital gains, starting with corporate taxes. He’s proposing an accompanying tax plan, the Made in America Tax Plan. If it passes, it will pay for the American Jobs Plan in 15 years, and reduce deficits from then on.

Biden proposes to set the corporate tax rate at 28%, from its current rate of 21%, nowhere near the 35% tax rate before the 2017 tax cuts. He also plans to discourage offshoring of corporations and to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels. Here’s a chart that gives some historical perspective about Biden’s corporate tax proposal:

It’s clear that despite Republican wailing that the infrastructure plan is a “trojan horse” for raising taxes, the reality is that corporate taxes will still be lower than at any point since the 1940’s.

Even this may be a bridge too far, since the Senate’s most conspicuous swing vote, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVA), says that while he favors tax hikes, he insists that infrastructure legislation should be passed with bipartisan support.

This suggests a longish legislative process. As a realist, Biden will be happy to again pass landmark legislation with no Republican support. But first he must get Manchin to labor through the thankless work of establishing that the GOP is unwilling to work toward a meaningful compromise.

OTOH, a new Morning Consult/Politico poll says that by a two-to-one margin voters prefer an infrastructure bill that includes tax hikes to one that does not have those tax hikes. That means the GOP may be in trouble if it castigates Biden and Democrats if they pass his plan.

Despite Wrongo’s early misgivings, Biden is the reset button that America desperately needed. He was outwardly moderate but has moved to embrace more progressive positions.

But we shouldn’t underestimate the damage Republicans can do with their singular focus on power and winning the 2022 mid-terms.

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The Vaccine Passport Debate

The Daily Escape:

Paint Mines, Calhan, CO photo by Matt Colver

Republicans have invented yet another culture war to fight so they don’t have to talk about the popularity of President Biden’s rescue plan: This time they are outraged over vaccine “passports,” the plan by some states and some private businesses to require people to verify that they’ve been vaccinated by showing some form of digital certificate or scannable document.

The passports or certificates could be a way to ensure that people could return to normal activities without risking further spread of the virus. By people putting their health data on a device like a smartphone or in a printed-out QR code, they will be able to confirm their vaccination status and  possibly resume activities such as going to concerts or even traveling to other countries.

Wait until Republicans hear about driver’s licenses, photo IDs to vote, Social Security cards, TSA screening, employer drug tests, birth certificates, proofs of residence and citizenship, real passports, and the certificates of vaccination we ALREADY require. Most of which Republicans are all for under normal circumstances, but these aren’t normal times.

Take Florida for example: Governor Ron DeSantis declared:

“It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society.”

But, here’s a list of the required vaccinations children in Florida must have to attend school:

And despite what DeSantis says, Florida requires this:

The Form DH 680, Florida Certification of Immunization, must be used to document receipt of immunizations required for entry and attendance in Florida schools, childcare facilities, and family daycare homes.

Isn’t that a vaccine verification form? What’s the outrage about? Proof that you’ve been vaccinated against certain contagious diseases has long been common in order to travel to many countries. The feds have said they don’t intend to require a national system, preferring instead to set privacy and security standards for states and companies to follow, or not.

Other Republicans have jumped on board, with some conservative activists comparing it with Nazi policies to identify Jews. It’s easy to pick on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who the WaPo reported, called the passport idea “Biden’s Mark of the Beast”.

Unlike recent attacks by Republicans that centered on Dr. Seuss, this one focuses directly on the Biden administration. It taps into a long-standing right-wing trope: that the federal government led by Democrats want to eliminate our personal freedoms.

If you are unaware of the vaccine passport idea, Recode has an explainer on Vox that you can read here. They say that the Biden administration is leaving the decision to require digital vaccination records up to states and the private sector.

Private businesses are interested, particularly companies where large numbers of people gather, such as malls, sporting events, or concerts. They’re considering requiring vaccination proof to protect their workers and customers, including Walmart, and the airport security company, Clear.

New York state has already rolled out its health certificate, called the Excelsior Pass. The European Commission is proposing a Digital Green Certificate that would track whether people have been vaccinated, recently tested for Covid-19 (with a negative result), or are fully recovered from a previous infection in order to travel within the European Union.

In March, the WHO released interim guidance for how digital vaccine certificates should work globally, opening the door for even more countries to create their own passports. The WHO’s working group includes 25 governments, and representatives of the CDC and the HHS.

It’s unclear where Republicans will take a stand on battles over vaccination requirements. But it is clear that many schools and employers will probably require some form of proof of vaccination.

Wrongo and Ms. Right had our second shots (Pfizer) in mid-February. We plan to take the CDC shot records with us if and when we travel this year.

Finally, is there anything Republicans won’t try to screw up? They don’t want rules. Back in the day, many of them were against car seat belts, or motorcycle helmets. They’re against background checks for gun purchases. They really don’t like limits on the magazine capacity for their semi-automatic weapons.

And they’re definitely against wearing surgical masks to help slow the Covid pandemic.

They have no desire to help solve problems.  They just work hard to make everything worse.

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The Democrats’ Dilemma

The Daily Escape:

Bristlecone pine, Cedar Breaks National Monument – photo by Jessica Fridrich

Here’s the Democrats’ dilemma: They must pass legislation that protects voting rights and ballot access. Otherwise, they will allow the GOP to cheat its way to victory in 2022 and beyond, by subverting democracy to empower a minority, as they are doing in Georgia.

One aspect of Georgia’s new election law that nobody’s talking about is that the law replaces the elected secretary of state (currently Republican Brad Raffensperger) as the chair of the state election board with a new official appointed by the gerrymandered Georgia legislature.

It also allows Georgia’s election board to remove and replace any county election official it deems to be under-performing. That provision could be used to target Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold covering most of Atlanta, which came under fire after long lines plagued primary elections over the summer.

David Atkins says:

“The direct implications of the new law are alarming enough: conservatives with an interest in voter suppression could use their authority to disrupt election administration in majority-minority counties. The possibilities for mischief by a partisan legislature fearful of high turnout by opposed constituencies are endless.”

The Republicans sitting on bipartisan election boards were the reason that Biden is president. Next time, they will find reasons not to certify a close election. And as Jonathan Chait says: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“ [Republican] states that are rolling back democratic protections are not responding to demographic change nor to any change internal to their state. They are following the agenda of the national Republican Party. That agenda is spreading throughout the states, which are imposing voter restrictions almost everywhere their party has the power to do so. Restricting the franchise has become perhaps the party’s core policy objective.”

And the problem must be addressed immediately, since it will impact the 2022 and 2024 elections. Georgia’s Sen. Warnock must run again in 2022. His losing would put the remainder of Biden’s term in jeopardy.

That means that the Senate must pass some version of HR-1. Currently, the Democrats are taking an “all or nothing” approach to HR-1. That may be their opening shot, but some parts should be non-negotiable. Vox lists some important provisions: it establishes automatic voter registration for anyone interacting with designated government agencies; broadens access to mail-in voting for every eligible voter; and mandates that states accept ballots at drop boxes or polling places, and requires counting all ballots postmarked by Election Day.

Further, it establishes same-day online registration and nationwide early voting. It requires a paper trail for every vote cast. Critically, it ends partisan gerrymandering by directing states to use independent commissions in drawing Congressional maps. It also makes Election Day a national holiday.

Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Indivisible, says:

“The choice is the republic or the filibuster — there is no third option….We are at an inflection point in American history. Down one path is a Trump-inspired white plutocracy, and down the other is a representative democracy.”

But many believe some sections of the nearly 800-page bill may be unconstitutional. Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog, writes:

“Some parts of it could well be found unconstitutional if it passed, such as a provision requiring states to re-enfranchise all people convicted of felonies who are not currently serving time in a correctional institution.”

The bill also contains controversial rules on campaign financing, including the creation of a public financing program for congressional candidates, new ethics rules for the Supreme Court, and a requirement that most candidates for president and vice president publicly disclose their tax returns.

None of those are key to the problem facing Democrats in states where Republicans control the legislatures. As written, HR-1 is unlikely to make it out of the Senate, so there are good reasons to tailor it both to survive judicial scrutiny, while also properly targeting the problems with voter registration, voting, and ballot counting.

That means whatever bill passes must have all 50 Democrats supporting it, and then, they must agree to end the filibuster to enact it. Therefore, the HR-1 wish list must be simplified and shortened. Democrats who object to ending the filibuster need to ask themselves if they genuinely want to facilitate Republicans in reclaiming Congress and the White House, in the name of preserving an arbitrary rule. The filibuster rule has been amended often in recent times: In 1974, 1975, 2013 and 2017. Time to do it again.

We can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Today, it seems more likely that HR-1 won’t become law before the 2022 mid-terms than that it will, absent ending the filibuster.

Democrats can’t be left looking back at yet another missed opportunity to protect voting.

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Saturday Soother – March 27, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Stinson Beach, Marin County, CA – photo by Merrill Dodd

A single-point-of-failure in the global economy failed last week when the Ever Given, one of the world’s largest container ships, ran aground in the Suez Canal shutting down traffic in both directions. It’s now stuck sideways in the Canal.

And the Suez Canal isn’t just any waterway; it links the factories of Asia to the customers of Europe. It’s also a major conduit for crude oil. The WaPo reports that 12% of the world’s cargo travels through the Suez Canal. That this vast flow of cargo could come to a halt because a gust of wind blew a ship off course makes the brittleness of our global system of trade apparent.

That one mishap could spread chaos from Los Angeles to Rotterdam to Shanghai underscores the extent to which commerce today is tightly intertwined with the global supply chain. From the WaPo:

“By Friday, more than 160 ships were anchored in the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Egyptian officials appeared confident the canal could reopen within days, while salvage engineers cautioned that freeing the stuck ship might take weeks.”

A delay of two weeks could strand at sea one-fourth of the supply of containers that would normally be in European ports.

The NYT reports that a surge of Covid-related goods orders for items like exercise equipment has exhausted the supply of available containers at ports in China. The cost of shipping a container from Asia to North America has more than doubled since November. And on the US west coast, container unloading has been slowed as dockworkers and truck drivers were infected with Covid-19 or forced to stay home to attend to children who are out of school.

For decades, economists have lectured us about the virtues of “economic efficiency”. But, as the initially poor response of the global supply chain to the Covid-19 showed, economic resilience is also particularly important. We couldn’t get PPE for essential workers because we followed just-in-time inventory management and relied on China as our primary supplier. We’ve also seen shortages of computer chips for cars.

From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo)

“It [just-in-time] has also yielded a bonanza for corporate executives and other shareholders: Money not spent filling warehouses with unneeded auto parts is, at least in part, money that can be given to shareholders in the form of dividends.”

Once again, we’re learning that the neo-liberal economic solution fails the people. So the economists and the CEOs have gotten it wrong. And the canal blockage, like the PPE shortages, show that they can be spectacularly wrong sometimes. More from the WaPo:

“And the grounding of the Ever Given has exposed how complex ownership structures in global shipping make it difficult to hold anyone accountable: The Ever Given is operated by Taiwan-based shipping company Evergreen Maritime. Evergreen charters the ship from a Japanese firm; a Dubai-based company acts as the agent for the ship in ports; and the ship flies the flag of Panama.”

So, accidents will happen, and they’re nobody’s fault.

The challenges presented by the Suez blockage come directly from the ‘just-in-time’ mantra. While a crisis cannot be predicted, it can be prepared for. Corporations and nations need to stop sticking their head in the sand about long-term planning, and get back to doing what the MBA’s call “resilience planning.”

Resilience planning’s been devalued by our push for short-term profits and stock market gains. If you doubt that, read about the massive cyberhack of US government agencies and major corporations, perhaps the biggest in history, that was discovered in early December by the security firm FireEye. Much of that was preventable by better management and planning.

Globalization isn’t our only problem. Add to it our short-term mindset which, when combined with greed, has endangered America.

It is unclear how long it will take for the Ever Given to be refloated and the flow of the canal traffic can resume. CNN reports that it may be freed over the weekend. But to do that, more than this level of effort will be required:

Credit: Reuters

As the clock ticks, Egypt isn’t collecting tolls for ships’ passage. And many ships, including some operated by Evergreen, have begun to re-route around the Cape of Good Hope. Multiple shipping firms have contacted the US Navy for protection against pirates on their rerouted trip, according to the Financial Times (paywalled).

Enough of the world’s problems for now. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we take a break and either watch the Sweet Sixteen if so inclined, or do more spring yardwork, since today is supposed to be the better of the weekend days.

Before pulling on the gloves, let’s take a few moments and listen to “Cloudburst” by George Winston, from his album, “Plains”. The video is of springtime in the northern Idaho plains. It’s a meditation on a few of our feathered friends in spring:

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The Filibuster Must Go

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Owens Valley, CA – 2021 photo by tokalita

It has become obvious that the Senate Republicans plan to use the filibuster to block everything President Biden and the Democrats will try to do to make this country better. It means we’re looking at government gridlock for the next two years. Without some reform or elimination of the filibuster, we can only hope that Democrats can build a larger majority in the Senate. That’s unrealistic, given the political landscape.

As Wrongo has said:

“…the next 20 months will be a battle royal for control of the last two years of Biden’s term…”

For Democrats to do well in the 2022 mid-terms, it requires dealing with the Senate filibuster this year. Unless the Dems deal with it, a single Republican can continue to keep a bill blocked by doing nothing more than sending a memo.

The Republicans threaten that if the Dems eliminate the filibuster, the GOP will repeal or privatize Social Security and Medicare once they return to power.

At this point, Democrats should call the GOP’s bluff. If the GOP tries carrying through on their threats, they would be signing their political death warrants. And Democrats would simply promise to reenact those programs in full (possibly retroactively) once they returned to power.

While the above situation is sub-optimal, once the Dems are willing to call the bluff, the question is: What should they do about the filibuster? There are three choices: Eliminate it altogether, eliminate it just for another special case, as McConnell did with judges, or modify it by returning to a “talking filibuster”.

Eliminating it altogether seems unlikely with at least two Democratic Senators (Manchin and Sinema) saying they are against doing that. OTOH, maintaining it, while requiring an old-fashioned talking filibuster seems doable, since it’s supported by Biden, along with Sens. Manchin and Sinema.

A talking filibuster means that if the GOP ever achieves control of all three branches of government, while Democrats couldn’t prevent the enactment of the GOP agenda, they could make it front page news for several weeks while holding the Senate hostage in protest. In some cases, the minority might prevail, as Wrongo said here:

“When Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was minority leader, he used the filibuster in 2019 to block funding for construction of Trump’s border wall. Dems used it twice to impede passage of the Cares Act, forcing Republicans to agree to changes including a $600 weekly federal unemployment supplement. They used it to block legislation to force “sanctuary cities” to cooperate with federal officials, and to stop a prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion.”

Wrongo also supports a limited removal of the filibuster for specific forms of legislation, like the new Voting Rights Act. As Sen. Ralph Warnock’s (D-GA) said in his maiden speech:

“…access to the ballot ought to be nonpartisan. I submit that there should be 100 votes in this chamber for policies that will make it easier for Americans to make their voices heard in our democracy. Surely, there ought to be at least 60 people in this chamber who believe, as I do, that the four most powerful words uttered in a democracy are, ‘the people have spoken,’ therefore we must ensure that all the people can speak.”

Passage of the Senate’s Bill S-1 (with changes) ought to be Biden’s highest priority. It is a key to preventing the efforts by Republicans to suppress the vote in the coming mid-terms. Meanwhile Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has already threatened to filibuster S-1. That shows us all we need to know about the bill’s chances if the filibuster stays in place.

So, eliminate it for Voting Rights, or institute the talking filibuster. Going to a talking filibuster really doesn’t require anything inventive. It’s as simple as the Presiding Officer (VP Harris) announcing, after the failure of a cloture vote, “Debate will now resume on Senate Bill X,” rather than moving on to a separate Senate bill or adjourning.

Keep doing that for a week or two, and ultimately, a substantive vote on a possibly amended bill can be had.

Right now, the Senate’s rules are exactly what the GOP want: they were able to fill all the judicial vacancies left unfilled in the Obama years; plus, they filled all the new ones with right wing ideologues, all via simple majority.

Simply put, the Dems should enact laws that enable the kind of society we all want to live in. The Republicans have no vision for America. Their plan is to keep allowing corporations to skim what they can, while letting our infrastructure wear out.

They purposefully avoid legislation that could lead to an abundant future for America. And now, we’re worn out, hollow, and unable to pass laws to change our destiny.

The filibuster must go.

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Monday Wake Up Call – IRS Funding Edition, March 22, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Slot Canyon, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, UT – photo by chipotle42

Today we turn our attention to the IRS. David Sirota wrote in the Daily Poster that new IRS figures compiled by Syracuse University show that in the past eight years, there was a 72% drop in the number of IRS audits of people making more than $1 million.

Last year, 98% of individuals making more than $1 million didn’t face an audit. At a time when Americans face growing economic inequality, the IRS is letting billions of dollars in tax revenue slip through its fingers because budget and staffing cuts have left the agency incapable of effectively auditing the 637,212 millionaires now living in the US. It’s worth noting that the number of American millionaires has increased by 88% since 2012.

What’s more, the IRS audit focus has shifted from the wealthy to the poor. A large group of progressive organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration saying: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Since 2011, audit rates for millionaires, who are disproportionately white, have dropped more than twice as much as for taxpayers claiming the (Earned Income Tax Credit), who are disproportionately people of color. Audit coverage is now the heaviest in many low-income majority-Black counties.”

A recent Treasury Department report concluded that at the IRS:

“…high-income taxpayers are generally not a collection priority, nor is there a strategy in place to address nonpayment by high-income taxpayers.”

As evidence, the report showed that the agency failed to recover more than 60% of the $4 billion in back taxes owed by those making more than $1.5 million.

At the same time, overall enforcement has been hobbled by draconian budget reductions that have resulted in 43% fewer IRS revenue agents and 26% percent fewer IRS criminal investigators in the last decade:

There’s also been a 51% drop in the number of audits of America’s largest corporations. Sirota says that in 2012, almost all of our corporate behemoths were audited. However, in 2020, only about 38% were audited.

There are two separate problems here. First, the IRS budget has been cut dramatically by Republicans. Between 2010 and 2018, the IRS’s budget was slashed by more than 20%, and its enforcement budget has been cut by 24%, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, leading to the substantial reduction in IRS agents shown above.

A July 2020 report from the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing funding for IRS enforcement by $40 billion would boost revenues by more than $100 billion over the next decade. From Sirota:

“To that end, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) — both Congressional Progressive Caucus members — have recently introduced separate bills that would boost the IRS’s enforcement budget and audit rates.”

Khanna’s legislation would increase IRS enforcement funding by $70 billion and require the agency to audit 95% of large corporations, 50% of individuals reporting more than $10 million of annual income, and 20% of individuals reporting more than $1 million of income. Sounds about right.

IRS referrals for criminal prosecution and Justice Department tax convictions have both hit an all-time low. The US is estimated to be losing roughly $600 billion/year in revenue from unpaid taxes, while wealthy taxpayers are evading or avoiding paying their fair share. Better enforcement will produce revenue and bring renewed respect for our legal system.

We must have more tax revenue, and while Rep. Khanna’s bill would go a long way toward making things right, we also must raise our corporate tax rates, and the IRS must reassess its audit priorities.

We can’t be auditing more poor people than millionaires.

Wake up America! It’s time to stop our largest corporations and our wealthiest individuals from skating out on their tax responsibilities. To help you wake up, listen to the Tedeschi Trucks Band performing  “The Sky is Crying” at the Royal Albert Hall. Performing at the Royal Albert seems to bring the best out of American groups. Here’s another great example:

Some prefer the Stevie Ray Vaughn version, but this is at least as good.

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Are We Having a Border Crisis?

The Daily Escape:

Dead Horse State Park, Moab, UT – 2020 photo by Schmats1

From Pew Research:

“The US Border Patrol apprehended nearly 100,000 migrants at the US-Mexico border in February, the tenth consecutive month of increased apprehensions and a return to levels last seen in mid-2019.”

Is this a self-inflicted wound by Biden, another Republican effort to drive a wedge into Biden’s political support, or both? Since the next 20 months will be a battle royal for control of the last two years of Biden’s term, how Biden handles the immigration issue has huge political consequences.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) flipped his seat in November 2020, but he must face voters again in 2022. Immigration could easily be a powerful wedge issue against him, threatening the Democrats’ control of the Senate.

Texas elects a governor in 2022, and while Texas isn’t really in play, last November we saw Latino voters in Texas edging away from the Democrats, toward the Republicans. Residents of these border states experience unauthorized immigration directly; and it’s clear that many Texas Latinos embrace enforcement-minded views on immigration, even while empathizing with the reasons migrants want to come to America.

Republicans assume that they’ve hit on a strategy to beat Democrats in 2022 by saying that the President’s immigration policies have led to a surge of migrants crossing our southern border. But here’s a chart from the Pew Research article showing that’s not the whole story:

Apprehensions peaked in May 2019, then dropped precipitously through April 2020, and have risen ever since, including under Trump in 2020. Today they are at about 73% of the high point that occurred under Trump, but way above that of prior years.

It’s important to remember that migration is seasonal. Border apprehensions have typically peaked in the spring, before declining during the hot summer months that make migration more dangerous. That pattern started to change in 2013, when the mix of new arrivals shifted from being predominantly from Mexico to being from the countries of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador). The migrants also changed to predominantly families and unaccompanied children.

But now, according to Pew Research, those patterns are starting to reverse:

  • Around 42% of those apprehended at the southwestern border in February were of Mexican origin, up from 13% in May 2019, the most recent peak month for monthly apprehensions.
  • People from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras accounted for 46% of apprehensions in February, down from 78% in May 2019.
  • The number and share of single adults being apprehended at the border has also increased dramatically.

It isn’t clear whether these trends will continue, but it’s possible that February’s spike in apprehensions could also be a return to the seasonal nature of migration.

Republicans are saying that the current spike in border apprehensions is entirely a result of policy changes by the Biden administration. Here’s what Biden has changed according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas:

  • The majority of those apprehended at the southwest border (71%) are single adults who are being expelled under the CDC’s authority to manage the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Families apprehended at the southwest border make up 20%. They are also currently being expelled.
  • Unaccompanied children make up 10% of the current spike. They are not expelled but are brought to a Border Patrol facility and processed for transfer to HHS while they await placement with a sponsor. These children go through immigration proceedings if they are able to present a claim for relief under the law.

What this says is that when Republicans and some in the media throw around scary numbers about a surge of more than  100,000 “illegal crossings” in February, what they’re not telling you is that approximately 90,000 of those migrants (single adults and families) were apprehended and expelled.

Still, 10,000 kids are a giant task to house, feed, and process. That’s why as a group, they are overwhelming current shelter capacity. On Wednesday, Ambassador Roberta Jacobson, the White House coordinator for the southern border, said in Spanish: “The border is not open.”

The Biden administration has struggled to find the right message but hasn’t abandoned enforcement. It removed almost 1,000 Haitian nationals in February.

Politicians criticizing what’s happening with Biden’s policy need to show us what specific change Biden implemented that they think is causing the current spike. They need to explain what should be done instead.

But, of course, they won’t do that. It is much easier to simply claim that Biden is implementing an “open border” policy, something that is complete nonsense.

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Getting Younger is Key to Democrats’ Future

The Daily Escape:

Canyonlands NP, UT – photo by Xymic

Like Biden, Wrongo is a member of the Silent Generation, but he always confuses the names and age groupings of the generational cohorts. Here’s the breakdown by cohort, age and number of each:

  • Silent Generation: Born between 1928 and 1945. There are about 23.6 million in the US
  • Baby Boomers:  Born between 1946 and 1964. There are about 68.7 million in the US
  • Gen X: Born between 1965 and 1979/1980. There are 65.1 million of them
  • Gen Y, or Millennials: Born between 1981 and 1994-1996. There are 82.2 million of them
  • Gen Z:  Born between 1997 and 2012-2015. There are 86.4 million of them in the US

Gen Z is now the largest demographic cohort, with Millennials just behind them. Boomers now represent 21% of America’s population, and Silents are 7%.

But Boomers and Silents still control our political lives. While true for both Parties, leadership in the Democratic Party skews really old: Biden is 78, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is 87, and House Speaker Pelosi is 80. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is 81, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is 80, while Senate Majority Leader  Chuck Schumer is a relatively young 70.

NY Mag’s Eve Peyser:

“If you’re starting to get the feeling that the country is governed as a gerontocracy, you are correct. People over 50 make up 34% of the US population, but 52% of the electorate, according to Pew. And it’s not only political power that baby-boomers and the Silent Generation have a tight grip on: Americans over 55 own two-thirds of the wealth in this country.”

Here is a chart from Pew that shows the distribution of the new Congress by age:

There are 31 Millennials in the House, and only one in the Senate. According to another Pew survey, in 2018, the most common age for all Americans was 27, while the most common age for White Americans was 58! The over-representation of Boomers and Silents in Congress means that White interests are similarly over-represented in US politics.

This isn’t happening everywhere; it’s a distinctly American problem. More from Peyser:

“If you look at other countries, they’re not similarly controlled by older politicians. I think that the explanation here is the two-party system….[A multiparty system gets] young people involved in politics, voting, organizing, running things, organizational politics, [which] means that they are able to start accumulating institutional power.”

Democrats must let younger politicians have a crack at leadership. That was the point of Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) successful push in January for a change in the Senate’s rules to allow more junior Senators to chair better and more influential subcommittees.

It was also tried in the House. Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) pushed Pelosi and House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) to be more confrontational in some committee hearings. But Porter lost the argument and is no longer a member of that Committee. However, she remains on the House Oversight Committee, and like Murphy, she has a bright future.

The Democrats have a few other young stars that can become future national leaders. In 2016, Frank Bruni showcased a few in the NYT. Among others, he mentioned Stacy Abrams, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, Hakeem Jefferies, and Gina Raimondo. Two (Buttigieg and Raimondo) are now in Biden’s cabinet, while Abrams and Jefferies are already powerful Party leaders.

Several House members, including Jamie Raskin, David Cicilline and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are emerging leaders who help skew the Party younger, but change will be slow. From Peyser:

“We have not yet reached the peak of Boomer culture. We’re going to see the highest number of people turning 65 in US history in 2023,”

By 2028, Millennials and Generation Z will make up almost exactly half of eligible voters. In other words, things will change, but only as the Boomer generation retires from politics, and when we actively help convert eligible voters into registered voters.

Increasing their number could pivot on the fate of HR-1 in the Senate. It would ease the way for more young people to participate in politics, since it requires every state to create systems for automatic, same-day and online voter registration. That could significantly reduce the biggest barrier to more young people voting in American elections: our complex registration system. So far, fewer younger voters have been willing, or able to navigate it.

Strategically, the Republicans will continue trying to suppress voting, while also trying to woo more Boomers to their side. Democrats will work to expand the voter rolls and also get them to turn out, particularly in swing states.

Younger voters are likely to be more progressive than the older Democrats. But even the oldsters in the Party will follow them, as Biden is doing today.

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Monday Wake Up Call – Infrastructure Edition, March 15, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Ruby Beach Overlook, Olympic NP, WA – 2021 photo by Erwin Buske

Back in pre-history or as Wrongo likes to call it, 2004, John Edwards said that there were two Americas. He was talking about social stratification and its pernicious impact on social cohesion in America.

Biden and Congress have just passed the American Recovery Plan into law. It provides a temporary assistance to many Americans, particularly for those in the two Americas who are struggling in our economy. As Wrongo said yesterday, although total wages are now at the level they were before the Covid recession, almost 10 million fewer Americans are working! If we are to be a healthy society, these people need jobs.

Listening to Republicans, there’s no money left in the piggy bank to fund the rest of what America needs to do. They say our debt is too high, and that it would be a terrible mistake to raise taxes on corporations or the wealthy to fund our needs.

Yet, something must be done about the disaster that is America’s infrastructure. Biden has said that improving and modernizing our infrastructure is a high priority for his administration. He campaigned on a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to create a:

“modern, sustainable infrastructure and an equitable clean energy future.”

But there is a huge chasm between where we are and where we need to go. From the WaPo: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“America can put a rover on Mars, but it can’t keep the lights on and water running in the city that birthed the modern space program (Houston). It can develop vaccines….to combat a world-altering illness but suffers one of the developed world’s highest death rates due to lack of prevention and care.”

America’s recent historic breakthroughs in science, medicine and technology coexist alongside monumental failures of infrastructure, public health, and education. More from the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The disparities reflect a multitude of factors…but primarily stem from a few big ones: Compared with other well-to-do nations, the US has tended to prioritize private wealth over public resources, individualism over equity and the shiny new thing over the dull but necessary task of maintaining its infrastructure, much of which is fast becoming a 20th century relic.”

One of our two Americas pays a heavier price for our politicians’ unwillingness to build new infrastructure. Yet politicians kick the can down the road, since higher taxes to fix things is rarely a winning political strategy.

From highways to airports, from internet access to schools, to the electric grid, our infrastructure isn’t distributed equally. Even in richer zip codes, infrastructure quality is uneven. The myth that America treats everyone equally regardless of race, color, or creed is as decrepit as our bridges and highways.

Americans used to be proud of their infrastructure. But since Reagan, Republicans have believed that government spending is a problem. Loving new roads, bridges and tunnels changed to outright suspicion when austerity became the Republican religion.

They are always willing to cut taxes by $trillions to further enrich wealthy people. But they scoff at building a high-speed rail network, a high-speed internet network, or an integrated electric grid. If you’ve ever traveled through a Chinese airport, or traveled by rail in Europe, you have experienced awesome infrastructure projects, things that are normal in most developed nations.

Yet in America, we’re far behind, mostly because Republicans put growing personal wealth ahead of supporting the public good. Much of this hurts the bottom half of the US population more than the top half. It hurts rural America more than urban and suburban America. Most suburbs are as modern and safe as any major city in Europe or Asia. Their public schools are modern and largely well-equipped.

None of these are true in rural or inner-city America.

The time has come to address infrastructure. At least some of it must be paid for by new taxes, even if that means zero Republican political support.

Time to wake up America! We can do better for both Americas by investing in education, infrastructure, and people. And we can give some of those 10 million long-term unemployed workers a new opportunity to succeed in a growing US economy.

To help you wake up, let’s go back to the 1980s, and listen to the Eurythmics do a live version of “Would I Lie to You”. High energy and lots of fun:

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