A few weeks ago, just after the end of the shutdown, Senator Mike Lee gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation. The tone made me wonder, “Who are you and where is Mike Lee?” The partisan firebrand was nowhere to be seen, and in its place was this reasonable sounding man who claimed the GOP’s message wasn’t relevant to most of the country, that they’d lost their rich intellectual tradition from the Reagan era, and – finally! -  said conservatives needed to come up with an alternative to health care reform rather than just throw rocks at Obamacare.

Now, we in Utah believe in repentance. If a kinder, gentler Mike Lee has arrived, it would be a great thing for our state. He does seem like a genuinely nice guy, if somewhat misguided, so I would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt – even if the probable incentive for this possible change of heart is his cratering approval numbers.

But in the spirit of “bringing forth fruits meet for repentance”, I’d like to concentrate on one important aspect of his speech. Senator Lee admitted we need to do something about the broken ladder of upward mobility in America. The gap between rich and poor is greater than any time since the Great Depression, and studies show economic mobility in our nation is lower than any other developed country. If a child is born to a poor family, the barriers to her rising out of poverty in America are nearly insurmountable. Surely this must be considered one of the most pressing issues we face.

I’m wondering if Sen. Lee is ready to acknowledge that some dearly held Republican policies have contributed to this serious problem.

Take supply side economics. The admitted goal of these policies was to transfer more of the nation’s ongoing wealth to the “job creators”. Hence the huge cuts to upper income tax rates and investment and inheritance taxes, coupled with payroll tax increases and elimination of middle income tax exemptions and cuts to social programs for the poor. We now know from hindsight these policies also resulted in an explosion of “rent-seeking capitalists”, who make their fortunes not from creating new wealth but by transferring existing wealth into their own pockets. (Dylan Rattigan coined the colorful term “greedy b**tards” for this type of capitalist.)

The claim was that the benefits from these policies were supposed to “trickle down”. The evidence is indisputable: Instead, there was (using a term coined by Utah business tycoon and mid-20^th century Federal Reserve chair Marriner Eccles) a “giant suction pump” pulling all the nation’s wealth into the hands of a few at the top.

Which of these policies is Senator Lee now willing to admit helped create today’s huge gap between rich and poor, and what changes would he support to reverse the trend?

Here’s another thought: Conservatives hold up the 1950’s as a time when everything was right in America, but one characteristic of that period was that almost 40% of American workers belonged to a union. It is no coincidence that the stagnation in middle class wages correlates to a huge drop in union membership.

Conservatives like to point to anecdotes that demonstrate union corruption (some of which are a half-century old), but occasional bad apples are found in every human endeavor. I didn’t see any Republicans calling for the end of corporations after Enron and Tyco. The fact is that large corporations will always have a power advantage over workers, and collective bargaining is one way to mitigate that imbalance. Large retailers like Costco and Starbucks have proven you can pay your employees a livable wage with benefits and remain profitable. As they have in the past, unions could help make these fair practices more universal.

Is Senator Lee willing to take the lead in ending the long-standing Republican animosity to organized labor?

Yes, there are non-political factors that have contributed to the wealth gap like the rise in technology and globalization, but the fact remains that other developed nations have done far better than we to ensure the fruits of economic growth are shared by everyone. Senator Lee is correct. America’s huge gap between rich and poor is a serious problem. I hope he will follow the example of Bill Clinton in the 1990’s in admitting the policy failures of his own party and take the lead in charting a new course.

 

Several changes in voting laws are dramatically impacting women in Texas. Women that have been voting for years are now being asked for additional documentation to cast a ballot. Just imagine going to your local voting precinct, the same one visited for the last 40 years, and having the authenticity of your vote questioned? Now imagine that you are an elected judge and because of name discrepancy an affidavit is required to sign.

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We congratulate the team of Democrat Leaders negotiating the successful end to the government shutdown. We supported their efforts and have a special passion for Senator Reid's masterful legislative skill as Majority Leader. Throughout the ordeal Reid refused to give in to any of the changing demands from Republicans. He also won support from several Republicans in the Senate and eventually prevailed with a bill that was ratified by the House.

Throughout the standoff Republicans continued talking about "negotiation" and "compromise" but their actions reminded voters that a significant portion of their party does not believe in either. Many Republicans took an extreme stance regarding government's role, pushing the mantra "government is the problem" to new heights. Some, like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, even celebrated the shutdown. Harry Reid recognized their gleeful posturing and understood the improbability of governing those who maintained ideological divides around the role of government.

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Confession: I am not a professional computer programmer. However, in my job as a reliability engineer and someone who works with data, writing computer code is an interesting and challenging part of the job.

A recent project makes me somewhat sympathetic to the folks getting lambasted over the problems with the healthcare.gov website. I was tasked with creating a global website for my company where test data from prototype airbag inflators would be stored. This required code where several programs communicated with each other to create graphs and other output, where multiple inflator plants worldwide needed to be able to enter data, and where even more facilities needed to be able to access it in a straightforward, user-friendly manner.

You fellow programmers out there will be nodding in understanding at the following: I tested the beegeebers out of the thing before I rolled it out to others in the global organization for “beta testing”; a term for getting people working with it before implementation to help find and fix the bugs. Sure enough, flaws started to be discovered by real people using it that I hadn’t caught, and these problems continued to trickle in for about six weeks. Finally, at that point, we released the thing for general use.

I think everyone understands the concept that computers are stupid machines. They simply do exactly what you tell them to and have no skill at all in reading human minds. Computer code is extremely complex except for the simplest functions, and it’s understood that testing and de-bug can be challenging and take some time.

With this introduction, I have to shake my head in amusement over Republicans using the healthcare.gov problems as another excuse to tell us America is doomed to extinction because of Obamacare. I can’t believe those folks haven’t caught the hint that we are all sick and tired of this modern version of “Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer On The Wall”.

When I say “amused”, I’m referring to the fact that there are multiple sweet ironies in this story.

I’m amused when they use healtcare.gov to claim “the government can’t do anything right”, when it has been private contractors constructing the site from day one. There’s also the insinuation that these problems don’t happen in the business world. My response to that: Can you say “Microsoft Vista”?

I have to laugh also that one of their ideological cast-in-concrete axioms is absolutely true in this case: Individual states could do these websites much better than the federal government. And not because computer programmers automatically undergo a lobotomy when they take a check from the Treasury Department. A piece of software that has to accommodate the rules and regulations of 30 states and which insurance companies are offering what in which state will be orders of magnitude more complex. The authors of the Affordable Care Act assumed most states would manage their own insurance exchanges. This assumption didn’t factor in the intransigence of Republican governors who would do anything to hinder its success. From all accounts, state-run insurance exchanges seem to be working much better.

Which leads to the greatest irony of all. It appears the place where the Affordable Care Act exchange is working best of all is in deep-red Kentucky, home state of two of Obamacare’s fiercest critics, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell. And unlike certain other red-state Democrats (who we know and love), Democratic Governor Steve Beshear has been an unabashed cheerleader for Obamacare. His administration created their own state exchange and has labored tirelessly to make it work – and unsurprisingly, it is working. Thousands of Kentuckians who have never been able to afford health insurance are signing up every day.

No doubt the rollout of healthcare.gov didn’t work as advertised, and could have been done better. One especially worrisome thing (for you fellow geeks out there who understand object-oriented programming) is the word that there are a lot more lines of code than required, meaning there’s been unnecessary duplication. That will complicate finding and fixing the bugs.

But at the end of the day, buggy computer software gets de-bugged every day of the week in our modern world. Of course they’ll fix it. And Republican governors who should have followed the example of Governor Beshear are as much to blame as anyone for the problems. Don’t complain when something doesn’t work when you’ve worked tirelessly to sabotage it.

When all is said and done, you will be able to add this to the “death panels” list as one of the hundreds of false “the sky is falling” claims made by Republicans about Obamacare.

In a 2012 General Conference address, Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, expressed concern about "the ever-growing gap between the rich and poor." Elder Ballard's concern about gross wealth inequality has been shared by many of his predecessors. Elder Orson Pratt once observed that "an inequality of property is the root and foundation of innumerable evils; it tends to derision, and to keep asunder the social feelings that should exist among the people of God.... It is a principle originated in hell; it is the root of all evils.... It is inequality in riches that is a great curse."

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Help us reach 3,000 members! 

At the beginning of this year, LDS Dems set a goal of reaching 3,000 members in 2013 and we are almost there! 

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The other night while surfing various political sites and social media groups I came across a troubling Facebook page; “Democrats Done with Jim Matheson”. For those of you unfamiliar with Representative Matheson, he is a Democrat Congressman from the reddest of states, Utah. Matheson has been a political chameleon as of late, voting with the Republicans on several issues including the shutdown and the countless repeals of the Affordable Care Act. He represents Utah’s 4^th district which overwhelmingly voted for Governor Romney over President Obama in 2012 by double digit margins. He also won a razor close election edging out his Republican rival Mia Love by .3%.  Ms. Love has already announced she will run again, and this time Matheson does not have the help of a presidential election.

This Facebook group’s premise explains the reason for rejection, “This page is for Utah Democrats that are sick and tired of Jim Matheson. We see him for the real man he is. A DC politician only worried about reelection.” I completely agree -- Matheson is worried about re-election, and as a vocal Democrat, I am too. However, I am more worried about losing the seat than any floor vote Matheson casts. In fact I ENCOURAGE Matheson to vote with the Republicans every single vote where a majority is established (and with the Hastert Rule, that is every vote). For those of you balking at such a position let me explain further.

Irrelevance is being a minority party in the House of Representatives.  A minority party cannot decide the floor agenda, appoint committee chairs, direct debates, or initiate votes. In setting up our government, the Framers designed the representative body of the House to work in a democratic setting. Unfortunately, what they did not take into consideration is the rampant gerrymandering that has undermined the intent and balance of the Constitution. In 2012 there were 1.5 million more votes for House Democrats yet today there are 33 more Republican Representatives. In order to return appropriate balance Democrats will need to flip those seats, many of which are anchored in steadfast red districts, to return the balance of power back to the majority.

Any primary challenger that successfully defeats Matheson will cost Democrats a congressional seat. Even an unsuccessful primary challenger will force Matheson to the left, which will be leveraged against him in the general election. Even more problematic than losing Matheson’s solitary (and inconsistent) vote is the daunting challenge for Democrats to flip one more seat and regain control of the House. If by small chance Democrats do achieve majority, and Matheson continues to vote with the Republicans, Democrats would still be in a much better place.

For all my Democrat friends in red districts the same strategy applies. Vote with the furthest right leaning candidate in primaries or the candidate that polls strongest against a Republican challenger. No one candidate is above control of the House, which should be the only priority for Democrats in 2014.

Post by Rob Taber

Reading the tea Postum leaves, it looks we will have a deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling by later today, though it may take a few days to wind a perilous path through the Hill.

Even if Congress passes the Reid-McConnell compromise, however, our problems aren't over.

A short-term continuing resolution and a four-month increase in the debt ceiling staves off default and gets some people back to work, but it doesn't solve the deeper problems we're facing that are hindering American innovation and the investments in human capital that we need for the coming century.

The Farm Bill, passed by the Senate, still languishes in the House, which is more focused on cutting SNAP and on continuing farm subsidies (but under a new program!) than on supporting beginning farmers and funding scientific research to make our farms more sustainable and productive in the long-run.

Immigration reform, passed by the Senate, has also faltered in the House. LDS Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho), received favorable press from across the aisle earlier this year as "the new LDS face of immigration policy." However, he abandoned bipartisan talks in early June, citing the health care law. Although he promised that he would help the House pass piece-meal legislation that could then lead to a full bill, this hasn't happened, in part because of the shutdown pushed by Senators Cruz and Lee. The recent rule-change in the House making it so only Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) or his designee can bring legislation for a vote makes it much less likely immigration reform happens before the 2014 midterms. (And lest one be tempted to see immigration reform as a "Democrats-only" initiative, remember that the Senate bill won the support for LDS Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), no Democrats in any sense.)

The Farm Bill and immigration reform are just two items needed (in addition to raising the debt ceiling and funding basic government functions) to keep our country creaking along. To create solid middle-class jobs and support the next generation of innovators, our nation needs to be doing and building things. This includes restoring funding to scientific research hit hard by the sequester and shuttered during the current shutdown (we're losing important medical data from research mice as long as the government stays shut down). It also includes rolling back the cuts to HeadStart  and better supporting early childhood education. And it includes continuing the nation's long investment in supporting entrepreneurs and businesses, which involves programs like the Small Business Administration's loan program.

When the government is shut down, we can't even fix what's obviously wrong, like the government's procurement procedures for information technology.

We need our nation open for research, for education, for business, so we can discover, learn, and innovate. When we focus on taking our country "back" we lose sight of what makes it great, of people working together, sharing ideas, and figuring out how to make it so the members of the next generation--all of them--can have equal opportunity to learn, to be healthy, to pursue happiness. Shutdown governing is a no-good way to run a country.

I am not a big fan of using scriptures in these kinds of discussions (it reminds me too much of the Bible-bashing green missionaries sometimes do), but considering this comes from a "declaration considering governments and laws in general," I found this apt:

"We believe that every [person] should be honored in [their] station, rulers and magistrates as such, being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty; and that to the laws all [persons] owe respect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between [one] and [another]; and divine laws given of heaven, prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship, both to be answered by [us] to [our] Maker."

We mortals are fallible and imperfect, so the laws we make will be fallible and imperfect. But we have a duty to study laws and their impact, to improve them so they better serve our sisters and brothers, our fellow citizens and residents, to "[regulate] our [respective] interests." Such is the stuff of life in a democratic republic. Re-opening offices and paying our bills, while crucial for staving off further economic turmoil, is the bare minimum of our duty, and the beginning of the work ahead of us.

(Image courtesy of Joe Heller at the Denver Post.)

The current shutdown of the federal government and upcoming showdown over the debt ceiling has caused many people to ask who is to blame for this gridlock. The media, in its effort to try to report both sides of the story, often end up giving balanced treatment to an unbalanced phenomenon. What we have is an extremist element within the minority political party that refuses to accept the results of the previous elections. Leading up to the shutdown, House Republicans demanded defunding of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) in exchange for passing a continuing resolution budget that would fund the rest of the federal government for a brief period. Republicans also threatened to prevent the debt ceiling from being raised that could result in a catastrophic default on our national debt if their demands are not met. In making these demands, Republicans are attempting to thwart the Constitutional order of our government while threatening financial and economic chaos.

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Obamacare pales in comparison to the importance of freeing the Slaves. And shutting down the government is nothing at all like Civil War. But the principles are exactly the same.

President Obama came in inexperienced and made mistakes - so did President Lincoln. But they both promoted the overriding principle of Constitutional government of, by, and for the People - all of us People - not any particular faction, party, or philosophy, except for this: The Constitution is not some stale, old parchment perpetually framed in the National Archives and in the context of the 1700s. No, there is relevance today for the principles that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." All our individual ideals and aspirations have value as we learn to work together within the framework for government that our Founders were inspired to construct. And those principles should last for the eternities.

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