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election 2014
Hillary Is Already Triangulating Against Liberals
Her new attack on Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care plan shows her indifference to progressive voters.
Nov 19, 2015
The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has begun using an odd new line of attack against upstart Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders: He's too liberal on taxes and universal health insurance. Why is she doing this? After returning to the position in which she entered the race--as the near-certain nominee--she seems to be setting herself up for the general election. But it's strange to see her now, after the previously shaky ship has been steadied, attacking a candidate whose supporters she'll need in any general election campaign over an issue that his supporters care about very deeply.
Triangulating against Sanders (and, by proxy, the left wing of the Democratic Party) with conservative attacks does make some sense. For one, she is a Clinton, and this is what they do.
At issue is Sanders' support for a single-payer universal health care system, which he and others brand as "Medicare for all." A single-payer bill he introduced in 2013 would have levied a 2.2 percent tax on individuals making up to $200,000 or couples making up to $250,000, and progressively increased that rate to 5.2 percent for income beyond $600,000. It also would have tacked an extra 6.7 percent payroll tax on the employer side, at least some of which employers would likely pass on to workers.
The Clinton campaign is suddenly quite upset about that proposal and wants everyone to know. She has committed to the same (policy-constricting) pledge that President Obama took in 2008 and 2012, ruling out tax increases on individuals making less than $200,000 per year or joint filers making less than $250,000. This neatly positions her camp to say, by contrast, that the bug-eyed socialist Bernie Sanders wants to take all of your money.
"Bernie Sanders has called for a roughly 9-percent tax hike on middle-class families just to cover his health-care plan," a Clinton spokesman said Tuesday, via Politico. "Simple math dictates he'll need to tax workers even more to pay for the rest of his at least $18-20 trillion agenda. If you are truly concerned about raising incomes for middle-class families, the last thing you should do is cut their take-home pay right off the bat by raising their taxes."
This is a truly messed-up thing for the leading Democratic presidential candidate, who claims to be a progressive stalwart, to be broadcasting.
A standard Democratic presidential nominee representing the center-left of the party might call a single-payer system politically impractical in order to argue against it. "If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system," Sen. Barack Obama said during his 2008 presidential campaign, for example. He then explained why he wouldn't pursue such a model: "People don't have time to wait. They need relief now. So my attitude is let's build up the system we got. Let's make it more efficient. We may be over time--as we make the system more efficient and everybody's covered--decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively." In the end that approach resulted in the Affordable Care Act, compromise legislation that greatly expanded coverage without really overhauling the country's private health insurance model. But Obama didn't really disown the idea of single-payer, which many progressives still prefer to the current system.
Clinton, however, is going much further by appropriating one of the right's central talking points against government-funded universal health insurance: Think of the taxes! She's not just saying that a single-payer system is a political nonstarter with conservatives. She's reciting the actual conservative talking point that would make a single-payer system a political nonstarter.
There are fairly obvious policy counterpoints to that argument. She is well-aware of them and chooses to ignore them, because they would either blunt or negate her convenient political attack. Sure, under Sanders' plan, the combination of the income and payroll taxes would add up to 8.9 percent (assuming employers pass on the full 6.7 percent payroll tax) on most earners. But people would not be paying for health insurance anymore, and a universal, public system would save money by eliminating all of the actuarial costs and profit expectations associated with the private insurance system.
If Clinton wanted to say that she wouldn't push for a single-payer system because it's a political dead-ender right now, or because she's spotted another legitimate policy flaw with the idea, that would be more acceptable. What she's doing, instead, is essentially red-baiting about Bernie Sanders' Wacky Taxes in her dismissal of a policy that, on paper, draws plenty of support among Democratic voters. That's not good for the single-payer health care movement, which is hoping that some blue states will be able to use ACA waivers to experiment with single-payer in their states but so far are running into trouble thanks to the exact talking point Clinton's deploying. And it's not good for American liberalism in general, which is supposed to defend the belief that government funded by taxes can solve problems and improve people's livelihoods.
Perhaps the Clinton campaign has some horrific polling data that's leading them to launch this direct assault on Sanders, or it's just trying to distract everyone from Clinton's bizarre explanation at Saturday's debate for her voluminous contributions from Wall Street over the years. But it also seems like Clinton feels like she has the nomination secure and is triangulating ahead of the general election, mortgaging progressive policy in the process. Does that sound familiar?
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Tuesday: Alaska Marijuana Legalization Law Takes Effect
In First ‘Red’ State to Legalize Marijuana, Possession and Cultivation Become Legal; Commercial Retail Sales to Begin in 2016
Feb 23, 2015
Tomorrow will mark a major step forward in the implementation of Alaska's marijuana legalization law, as personal cultivation, possession, and consumption become legal. Last November, Alaskans voted 53-47% in favor of marijuana legalization, making it the first "red" state to pass such a law.
"First Colorado and Washington, now Alaska and Oregon - and all with levels of support higher than the winning candidates for governor and U.S. Senate achieved in those states," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Legalizing marijuana just makes sense now to voters across the political spectrum and - as we'll likely see in 2016 - across the country."
Starting tomorrow, it will be legal for someone 21 years of age or over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, grow up to six marijuana plants in their homes (provided that only three of them are mature at any time), and to share up to 1 ounce of marijuana with someone 21 or over and give them up to six immature marijuana plants. Private consumption will be completely legal for those 21 and over, though public consumption remains illegal.
Commercial marijuana businesses that grow, process, bake, or sell marijuana products won't be able to legally operate until spring or summer of 2016. In January, the Alaska legislature began working to bring existing criminal statutes into line with the voter initiative. Tuesday marks the beginning of a nine-month rulemaking process during which the regulations for marijuana businesses will be developed and refined. Under the provisions of the voter initiative, the state is expected to begin accepting applications for operating permits by February 2016, a full year from now. This timeline was clearly defined in the voter initiative and, so far, the process is on schedule.
Alaska's new law is expected to increase law enforcement resources available to focus on dangerous and violent crime. Once retail sales begin next year, the law is also expected to bolster the state's economy by creating jobs and generating new revenue, as marijuana sales will be conducted by legitimate, tax-paying businesses that test their products and require proof of age.
November's election solidified drug policy reform's place as a mainstream political issue, as voters across the country accelerated the unprecedented momentum to legalize marijuana and end the wider drug war. Marijuana legalization measures passed in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington, D.C., while groundbreaking criminal justice reforms passed in California and New Jersey. These successes are boosting efforts already underway in California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, Nevada, Arizona and elsewhere to end marijuana prohibition.
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Study Shows Big Donors Dominated Competitive 2014 Congressional Races
In 25 competitive House races, 86 percent of individual contributions to candidates came from large donors
Jan 14, 2015
U.S. PIRG today released a new study, "The Money Chase: Moving from Big Money Dominance in the 2014 Midterms to a Small Donor Democracy," at a joint research summit with seven other major money in politics organizations. The study, which was written by U.S. PIRG and Demos, found that the top two vote-getters in the 25 most competitive districts in 2014 got 86 percent of their campaign cash from individuals giving $200 or more. Only two of the 50 candidates surveyed raised less than 70 percent of their individual contributions from big donors, and seven relied on big donors for more than 95 percent of their individual contributions.
"All too often, a handful of deep-pocketed donors gets to determine who runs for office, what issues make it onto the agenda, and too frequently, who wins," said Dan Smith, Democracy Campaign Director with U.S. PIRG. "Since most of us can't afford to cut a thousand dollar check to candidates for elected office, we need to counter the outsized influence of mega-donors by amplifying the voices of small donors."
"In 2014 big money called the tune in a system where the size of your wallet determines the strength of your voice and candidates without large donor networks find it impossible to keep up," said Demos Policy Analyst and report co-author Karen Shanton. "But it doesn't have to be this way. Matching small contributions with limited public funds can raise all of our voices and help candidates win by reaching out to average voters, not just big donors."
The report analyzed the U.S. House races in the 25 most competitive districts according to Cook Political Report PVI ratings. The data reveals that the 50 candidates in these races overwhelmingly relied on large contributions to bankroll their campaigns.
Other key findings include that candidates for the House must raise approximately $1,800 a day for two years prior to Election Day in order to match the fundraising of the median House winner in the 2014 elections. Candidates for the U.S. Senate must raise $3,300 every day for the length of a six-year Senate term to match the 2014 median winner.
The study also explains how this big money system filters out qualified, credible candidates from both parties who lack access to a network of large donors. Four candidates, who relied more on small donors but were significantly out-fundraised, are profiled in the report.
As Amanda Renteria - one of the candidates profiled, who lost in California's 21st district - explains, "given my network, where I come from, where I'm running, I expected that I wasn't going to have huge donors. You have to ask folks for help that have been in your network and that understand where you're running and why it's important. That for me ended up being a small donor base."
The report advocates for a federal program laid out in the Government by the People Act that would match small contributions with limited public funds, allowing grassroots candidates relying on small donors to compete with big money candidates. This type of program has already proven effective in New York City's 2013 City Council race. Once matching funds are factored in, candidates participating in the program raised more than 60 percent of their funds from small donors.
If a small donor matching program were in place for the candidates profiled in the report, one of them would have significantly out-raised her opponent, and the others would have narrowed the fundraising gap by an average of nearly 40 percentage points.
"When campaigns are paid for by big donors, those are the voices candidates hear the loudest. In a democracy based on the principle of one person, one vote, small donors should be at the center of campaign finance - not an afterthought," concluded Smith.
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