The Democratic Voter

For Regi ster ed Democr ats

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire
their discipline and their organization." Howard Dean.
Editor: Dan Isaacson, Committeeman,
Palm Beach County Democratic Party Executive Committee
September 2011 TheDemocraticVoter@gmail.com Number 3
Many, Many Choices
For Next Years Ballots!
The election year of 2012 will be an unusually crucial one.
The Florida Republican-dominated legislature is dragging
out the process of redistricting so that we may not know
who is running in each district until next July, August, or
September. Their current redistricting schedule makes it
impossible for our Superintendent of Elections to get
absentee ballots out to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
before election day.
Why vote for candidates who appear toward the
bottom of the ballot? Many voters will vote for a
presidential candidate and possibly for a United States
Senator and Representative. Often, voters feel that
candidates further down the ballot are not important to
vote for.
But consider this: professional baseball is divided into
two groups: the major leagues (the "majors") and the minor
leagues (the "minors"). The baseball clubs in the majors
need a place where young players can develop their skills
and older players can work on shoring up their weaknesses.
A young player will usually spend some time in the minors
before being recruited by a major league team. Without the
minor leagues, major league baseball scouts would not
know which players should be considered as candidates to
be brought up to the majors.
The same is true in politics. Local politicians (county
commissioners, mayors, school board members) develop
their skills and abilities in the offices they have been elected
to. Their communities can assess their skills and abilities
(in the minor leagues) and scout them for higher office. If
you, the voter, dont scout your minor league players, you
are very apt to end up with political players, going to the
majors, whose ideas are totally contrary to yours.
Sometimes players go up to the majors without
playing in the minors. However, they are not unproven.
They have performed in other venues of the game, such as
high school or college. Can you think of any major league
team which selects a completely unknown? In the 2010
elections many unproven players with no political history
were selected by voters, not by their proven record, but
purely by the emotion provided in false advertising of the
moment. If someone who has performed as a school board
member wishes to run for the Florida legislature, their
actions as a school board member will tell you if they
support your philosophy.
Remember, when you vote in local elections, you are
scouting players who may eventually run for the majors.
Know your candidates histories...and vote for them! d.i.
The labour slogan, "Unions: the folks
who brought you the weekend,
is a true but vastly understated historical reality in
America.--Mark Weisbrot
In 1935, when Congress passed the National Labor
Relations Act (also known as the NLRA, or the Wagner
Act), it recognized the direct relationship between the
inequality of bargaining power of workers and
corporations and the recurrent business depressions.
That is, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing
power of wage earners, the economy fell into depression.
The law therefore recognized as policy of the United
States the encouragement of collective bargaining.
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Elections 2012
Mark Your 2012 Calendar!
General Election
General Election Day: Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Primary Election
Primary Election Day: Tuesday, August 14, 2012
See page 2 for choices you will
make on 2012 election days.
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What Does a Real Jobs Bill Look Like?
During the 2010 campaign, Republicans constantly talked
about jobs, jobs, jobs Mr. President, where are the
jobs. Once they got elected, however, they acted on
everything but jobs: abortion, stripping of union
bargaining rights even a law making it illegal for
students to wear their pants too low! Not a single bill to
increase jobs (see picture below).
Rep. Jan Schakowsky has presented a simple idea: If we
want to create jobs, then create jobs. Im not talking about
incentivizing companies in the hopes theyll hire
someone, or cutting taxes for the so-called job creators
who have done nothing of the sort. My plan creates actual
new jobs, said Rep. Schakowsky. The worst deficit this
country faces, isnt the budget deficit. Its the jobs deficit.
We need to get our people and our economy moving
again.
Bill Summary
Creates over 2 million jobs within two years to address
the real crisis facing America: the jobs crisis.
Emergency jobs will meet critical needs to make
American communities stronger.
Costs $227 billion ($113.5 billion for each of fiscal
years 2012 and 2013).
Fully paid for through separate legislation that creates
higher tax brackets for millionaires and
billionaires, eliminates subsidies for Big Oil, and
loopholes for corporations that ship American jobs
overseas.
The Corps: 2.2 Million Jobs
1. School Improvement Corps - Creates 400,000
construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs to fix
American schools.
2. Park Improvement Corps - 100,000 jobs for youth
between the ages of 16 and 25, to improve our nation's
parks.
3. Student Job Corps - 250,000 part-time, work study
jobs for eligible college students.
4. Neighborhood Heroes Corps - 300,000 teachers,
40,000 police officers, 12,000 firefighters.
5. Health Corps - 40,000 health care providers,
including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician
assistants, and health care workers.
Offices To Be Filled in 2012
Federal Offices
President/Vice President
United States Senator
Florida Representative in Congress (all congressional
districts)
Multicounty and District Offices
All 40 state Senators (Depending upon re-districting.)
All 120 State Representatives
State Attorney (Circuits 1-19)
Public Defender (Circuits 1-19)
Judicial Retention (Nonpartisan)
Justice of the Supreme Court (only those whose terms
expire January 2013)
Judge, District Court of Appeal (only those whose
terms expire January 2013)
Circuit and County Court Judges (Nonpartisan)
Only those whose terms expire January 2013)
County Offices
Board of County Commissioners
School Board
Other offices depending on county. Information for a
particular county can be obtained from your county
supervisor of elections
Ballot Measures
Constitutional Amendments
County Charter Amendments
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6. Community Corps - 750,000 jobs to do needed work
in our communities, including energy audits and
conservation upgrades, urban land reclamation and
addressing blight, public property maintenance and
beautification, housing rehabilitation, and new
construction.
7. Child Care Corps - 100,000 jobs in early childhood
care and education.
Thats what a jobs bill looks like!
Why Vote By Mail?
The Primary and General election ballots in 2012 are
going to be huge. Expect lines to be very long. Expect
waits in the sun (or rain) to be very long. The Legislature
has cut Early Voting from two weeks to one. There will
be no early voting on the Sunday before the election.
Voting by Mail (absentee ballot) gives you 30 days to
consider all your choices and to research your options.
To save you postage, volunteers will be available to
pick up your Vote by Mail ballot and deliver it to the
Supervisor of Elections office. Contact your local
Democratic Club for pick up of your ballot.
[To find your local Democratic Club email and phone go
to: http://www.fladems.com/pages/county-organizations ]
Government Has a Moral
Mission: Necessities vs. Services
George Lakoff, (abridged)
Author, The Political Mind, Dont Think of an Elephant
December 10, 2010
Necessities--The moral missions of government impose
a distinction between necessities and services.
Government has a moral mission to provide necessities:
adequate food, water, housing, transportation, education,
infrastructure (roads and bridges, sewers, public
buildings), medical care, care for elders, the disabled
environmental protection, food safety, clean air, and so on.
Necessities should never be subordinated to private profit.
The public should never be put at the mercy of private
profit. Public funds for necessities should never be
diverted to private profit.
ServicesServices are very different; they start where
necessities end. Private service industries exist to provide
services car rentals, parking lots, hair salons, gardening,
painting, plumbing, fast food, auto repair, clothes cleaning,
and so on.
The Market is InefficientThe market is most often
inefficient at providing necessities, because every dollar
that goes to profit is a dollar that does not go to
necessities. Healthcare is a perfect example.
Untellable Truths. The conservative message machine
has so dominated political discourse that they have
changed the meaning of words and made some truths
untellable by political leaders in present discourse. It
takes a major communication effort to change that.
Here are just a few examples of presently untellable truths:
There is a Principle of Conservation of Govern-
ment: If conservatives succeed in cutting government by
the people for the public good, our lives will still be
governed, but now by corporations. We will have
government by corporations for corporate profit. It will not
be a kind government. It will be a cruel government, a
government of foreclosures, outsourcing, union busting,
outrageous payments for every little thing, and pension
eliminations. (Witness the government actions in
Wisconsin this year as a strong example.)
The moral missions of government include the
protection and empowerment of citizens. Protection
includes health care, social security, safe food, consumer
protection, environmental protection, job protection, etc.
Empowerment is what makes a decent life possible - roads
and infrastructure, communication and energy systems,
education, etc. No business can function without them.
This has not been discussed adequately. Government
serving those moral missions is what makes freedom,
fairness, and prosperity possible. Conservatives do not
believe in those moral missions of government, and when
in power, they subvert the ability of government to carry
out those moral missions.
Try to imagine how public understanding would have to be
enhanced for expressions like the following to come into
normal public discourse:
greed crisis in place of economic crisis
blessed immigrants in place of illegal immigrants
government for profit in place of privatization
public theft in place of tax breaks
failing citizens in place of failing schools
corporate cruelty in place of profit maximization
deadly coal in place of clean coal
[To save Social Security, Medicare, Union rights, Education,
Our Jobs, Our Planet--Republicans must be voted out in the next
election. d.i.]
Keep your eye out for the Florida Democratic Partys first-
ever, soon-to-be-released, Party Platform telling you what
Florida Democrats stand for!
For more questions about absentee ballots, contact your
County Supervisor of Elections on line at
www.pbcelections.org or call 561-656-6200.
The Democratic Voter
TheDemocraticVoter@gmail.com
PBC Democratic Party
6634 West Atlantic Avenue
Delray Beach, Florida 33446
561-470-7258
www.pbcdemocraticparty.org
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Such an intemperate tirade disqualifies Representative West
to be a Presidential, Vice-Presidential, or Senatorial
candidate. It shows that he doesnt have the temperament,
discipline, or self control to hold any such responsible
position.
T h e D e m o c r a t i c V o t e r
P a l m B e a c h C o u n t y D e m o c r a t i c P a r t y
6 6 3 4 W e s t A t l a n t i c A v e n u e
D e l r a y B e a c h , F l o r i d a 3 3 4 4 6
T h e D e m o c r a t i c V o t e r @ g m a i l . c o m
P a i d f o r b y T h e D e m o c r a t i c V o t e r , a n d n o t a u t h o r i z e d
b y a n y c a n d i d a t e o r c a n d i d a t e s c o m m i t t e e .
Policy vs. Personal Attack
Democrat takes policy position: Florida Democratic
Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on the
House floor that it was unbelievable from a Member from
South Florida" to support a plan that slashes Medicaid and
Medicare in favor of protecting tax breaks for Big Oil,
millionaires, and companies who ship American jobs
overseas." She did not identify Representative Allen West
by name.
Republican responds, not with a criticism of the
policy position, but with personal attack: Allen West
wrote, Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a
personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile,
unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House
of Representatives. If you have something to say to me,
stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut
the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district!
Understand that I shall defend myself forthright against
your heinous characterless behavior, West continued,
You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady,
therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!
Let me urge you to listen carefully to the way Republicans
debate policy. You will probably find there is little policy
discussed, but lots of personal invective. d.i.
Who Are the Welfare Kings?
Remember when President Ronald Reagan complained
about the so-called Welfare Queens? He claimed that the
welfare system of the 1960s and 1970s had enabled a few
men and women to cheat the welfare system for a couple
of extra bucks and live the lavish, indolent lifestyle of a
queen?
Today, we take a look at the new welfare royalty: the
Welfare Kings of the financial system. Wall Street
executives have become so insulated from the
consequences of the risk that they take with the money and
companies for which they are responsibleknown as
moral hazard in financial circlesthat they actually take
home windfall profits even when their companies fail or
the government and the U.S. taxpayer is forced to step in
and bail them out.
Under this conservative administration and its financial
regulators, a moral hazard has developed on Wall Street.
A significant accountability gap has developed between the
personal financial successes of Wall Street executives and
how successful they are in delivering for their companies
and clients. How can we trust the Welfare Kings of the
financial system with our Social Security money and
retirement futures when the risk they take with our money
doesnt affect them?
Below, we take a look at a few these Welfare Kings and
their shocking lack of accountability.
Alan Schwartz. Former CEO of Bear
Stearns Cos., (August 2007-March
2008) earned cash compensation of
$35,734,422, which included a
$16,237,150 bonus in 2007. At the time
of bankruptcy, Schwartz owned less
than 1 percent of the company. On
March 14, 2008, the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York provided a 28-day emergency loan to
Bear Stearns in order to prevent the potential market crash
that would result from Bear Stearns becoming insolvent.
The firm was then sold to JP Morgan Chase for as low as
$10 per share, a price far below the 52-week high of
$133.20. Bear Stern employees lost more than $5.2 billion
after the sale to JP Morgan Chase.
Henry Paulson, Patron Saint of the
Welfare Kings, reportedly made $38
million in 2005 and $16.4 million in
2006 before he left Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. to become Treasury
Secretary. His net worth has been
estimated at over $700 million. While
at Goldman Sachs, Paulson was a "significant player" in
issuing mortgage bonds. Now he is asking Congress to
give him the authority to buy up bad investments he and
others made while heading up the big Wall Street
investment firms. Despite the conceivable conflict of
interests of the former CEO serving as Secretary of the
U.S. Treasury (along with other former Goldman Sachs
employees who Paulson tapped for staff), Bloomberg
reports that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan
Stanley may be among the biggest beneficiaries of
Paulsons bailout plan.
Stanley O'Neal. Former CEO of
Merrill Lynch, Stanley O' Neal
announced his retirement in October
2007 and walked away with a
compensation package valued at $161.5
million just as the company announced
losses of $8 billion due to the subprime
lending crisis. On September 14, 2008,
Merrill Lynch succumbed to losses
resulting from the housing crisis and the accumulation of
bad debt. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for
$29 per share, down 61 percent from September 2007, just
before O'Neal retired.
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