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Open Letter from a Political Scientist not a Political Operative (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Dear Mr. President: It was truly a pleasure listening to your economic speech this past Wednesday in Osawatomie, Kans. You were clear, strong, and on point. The values of hard work do pay off; responsibility should be rewarded; and American workers have and still can produce the best products on Earth. “Made in America” should still mean something. You are correct in pointing out that “there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia.” Last year, the day after the Senate passed sweeping reforms to regulate the financial industry, Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) called for a moratorium on new federal regulations. "I think having a moratorium on new Federal regulations is a great idea," Boehner said. By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III Boehner, Cantor, McConnell and other conservatives also claim to be speaking on behalf of “the American people” in their opposition to increased regulation, choosing to ignore polls such as NBC/WSJ's poll showing “65% said they wanted more regulation for the oil industry (versus 16% who want less); 57% want more regulation for Wall Street firms (compared with 15% who want less); 53% want more regulation for big corporations (versus 21% who want less); and 52% want more regulation for the health-care industry (compared with 27% who want less).” Your analysis of free-market economics was right on point. The historical references you used to support your arguments were incredibly compelling. “But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you want from whoever you can. It only works when there are rules of the road to ensure that competition is fair, open, and honest.” Had you chosen to, you could have also referenced the fact that even “Economic Sage” Alan Greenspan had to finally admit that he was wrong and had put too much faith in the power of self-correcting free markets. During a Congressional hearing in 2008 Greenspan said, “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief…” Mr. President, you correctly highlighted the ridiculous, time-tested, and failed conservative argument that, '"The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes - especially for the wealthy - our economy will grow stronger.” You should have pointed out the fact that this has also been part of the conservative “starve the beast” fiscal political strategy since 1980. By creating or increasing existing budget deficits via tax cuts they create a narrative supporting future reductions in the size of government. Economist Paul Krugman summarized the strategy in February 2010: "Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit. They break unions and balance the budget by cutting or eliminating social programs that benefit the poor, working and middle-class’ in America.” Mr. President, you asked the Senate to allow former Attorney General of Ohio Richard Cordray to protect “…everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders, payday lenders or debt collectors.” The day after your speech, Republicans in the Senate blocked the vote on your nominee Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They did not block Cordray’s appointment because they didn’t think that he was qualified. They blocked him because they are against the CFPB further regulating business, even if it is to the benefit of the consumer. Mr. President, during your joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, you clearly stated that any Republican effort to try to force approval of the Keystone pipeline project by attaching a rider for a payroll cut extension bill would fail. You said, “…any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject…So it shouldn’t be held hostage for any other issues that they may be concerned about.” As has been typical since they took over the House, Republicans rebuked you by linking a payroll-tax cut to approval of the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Mr. President, your predecessor President Clinton once said, "When people are insecure, they'd rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who's weak and right," Now is the time for you to continue being strong and right. As you stated, the payroll tax cut “shouldn’t be held hostage.” Continue to call out Boehner, Kyle, Cantor, McConnell and the rest as the political terrorists that they are. Take this speech right into their districts and talk directly with their constituents. In October the unemployment rate in Kentucky was 9.6 percent, Alabama was 9.3 percent, Ohio was 9 percent, and South Carolina was 10.5 percent. Ask the residents in those states how they feel about the payroll tax cut and an extension to unemployment benefits. Ask them if they’ve benefitted from “Obama Care” and how they feel about cuts to Medicare. As USA Today reports, “More than 2.65 million Medicare recipients have saved more than $1.5 billion on their prescriptions this year and more than 24 million people, or about half of those with traditional Medicare, have gone in for a free annual physical or other screening exam since the rules changed this year.” Will you win South Carolina, Alabama, and Kentucky? Probably not, but taking these issues right into their districts would resonate and reverberate across this country. If you held town hall meetings with them and said, “I know you don’t like me and that’s fine. You don’t have to, but you deserve to have the facts. An informed democracy is a powerful democracy. As your President, I represent you and here’s the reality that you must come to grips with. I’m here to talk and to listen. Conservative opposition to me is hurting you and here’s why.” If American’s saw you standing up to those people and holding your ground, that would truly be a game changer. Mr. President, it was a great idea to follow in the footsteps of President Teddy Roosevelt this past week in Kansas but don’t lose sight of his cousin President Franklin Roosevelt who said in 1936, “We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred... The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country.” Mr. President, that’s strong and right!
Compromise at Who's Expense? By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - During this debt and deficit debate President Obama has been very clear in stating, "Not only is it not fair if all this is done on the backs of middle-class families," Obama said, "it doesn't make sense. ... That's why people from both parties have said the best way to take on our deficit is with a balanced approach ... one where wealthy Americans and corporations pay their share, too." It appeared as though closing tax loopholes and increased revenues coming from the “…oil company or a corporate jet owner that’s doing so well …” was not a point of compromise. As the hour of judgment draws near, Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) has proposed a compromise. In short, Reid’s plan implements cuts to discretionary spending and includes roughly $1 trillion in savings that will come from savings as troops are drawn down from Iraq and Afghanistan without measures to increase revenue. As every one in the middle and working classes will be dramatically impacted if this issue is not resolved in a balanced fashion, African Americans will be disproportionally impacted. According to the most recent Pew Research Center report, based on 2009 data, "The typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth … in 2009 and the typical white household had $113,149… Moreover, about a third of black (35%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households." With Republicans being insistent on attacking entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicade, compromises that do not share the sacrifice by closing tax loopholes and increased revenues from the wealthy in America should be suspect. All too often, America has compromised at the expense of and upon the backs of African Americans. This can not happen again. Since its founding, America has suffered from a Political Multiple Personality Disorder (PMPD). The great experiment of democracy, America, has struggled to reconcile its stated goals with its reality. Too many times through out its history America has compromised its stated values of liberty, equality, and respect for human rights, for profit and property. Slavery, racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of dispirit treatment of many of its citizen’s conflict with the ideals upon which the country was founded and are clear examples of America’s PMPD. For example, in order to get the Southern slave states to sign onto the Constitution and strike a balance between the slave-holding states and free-states a number of compromises were reached, all at the expense of the Africans in America. They were not African American’s since the 14th Amendment providing a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling of 1857 was not ratified until 1868. For the sake of taxation and representation, the Three Fifths Compromise was struck (Article I, Section 2). In Article I, Section 9, the importation of slaves was allowed to continue until 1808, not because of the founders desired to end “The Peculiar Institution” but it was determined that after twenty additional years of importing slaves and procreation, America would be able to “breed” their own through childbirth within America. Finally, the Fugitive Slave Provision (Article IV, Section 2) was incorporated into the Constitution. Since there were free-states and slave holding states operating under the same Constitution, any person held to Service or Labor in a slave state who escaped to a free-state was to be returned to their slave-state upon demand. These compromises of values and lapses in judgment are not only found in the Constitutional foundations of America but the courts and legislature have been used to support, codify, and institutionalize the ideology of white supremacy in America. It was Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote in 1857 in the Dread Scott ruling: They (African’s in America) had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. In 1877 Democrat Samuel J. Tilden conceded the presidential election to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes on the understanding that Hayes would remove the federal troops that were propping up Republican state governments in the Southern states, effectively bringing an end to Reconstruction. This has come to be known as the Tilden – Hayes Compromise or the “Corrupt Bargain”. In Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in public accommodations under the doctrine of “separate but equal.” Justice Henry B. Brown declared, "We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Plessy remained the standard doctrine in U.S. law until Justice Harlan’s insight and wisdom became the majority sentiment on the court in the1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which was in itself, another compromise. Instead of requiring all states to immediately integrate their schools or setting a reasonable deadline, the Court allowed the states to integrate, “…with all deliberate speed.” This compromise resulted in the need for the Brown II case in 1955. Compromise can be tricky. At almost every turn too many of America’s great compromises have been at the expense of the either Africans in America or African Americans. Keep a close eye on Senator Reid and the Obama Administration. We can ill afford another “Great Compromise”.

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