Rich School, Poor School and Distributive Justice in New Jersey

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Governor Chris Christie can sound persuasive when he wants to lower taxes for the rich. He calls his latest effort the "Fairness Formula" for public school funding. In defense of this initiative he wrote a commentary in the Star Ledger newspaper on July 3, 2016. In it he said the 31 economically disadvantaged Abbot districts (plaintiffs in a prior class action suit) get "grossly disproportionate" amounts of state school aid, and that urban districts spend disproportionately "more on education that most other districts". His answer is to give every student in New Jersey an equal share of state aid no matter whether their parents are rich or poor. It seems obvious that the Fair Funding proposal is an attempt to give more tax breaks to his wealthy constituents. The fairness of  "Abbott" school funding has already been litigated and decided by the NJ Supreme court. But what about the claim that urban districts pay disproportionately more to educate children?

Trying to compare property taxes in New Jersey is a daunting task. The General Tax Rate used to actually calculate your tax bill is relative to the percentage of assessed valuation in every town. In some towns home values reflect current market rates and property taxes are assessed at 100% of full value.  In other towns property re-evaluations aren't current and property tax rates are based on less than 100% full the full market values.The General Tax Rates goes up as assessed home values dip below current market values, according to somewhat arbitrary municipal decisions.

The Effective Tax Rate, on the other hand, is a statistical calculations of what the rate would be if every home was assessed at 100% of market value. It allows a more direct comparison of tax rates from one town to the next. This is the property tax rate I will use, along with current home market values and current median family income, to show that New Jersey's current state aid formulas do an adequate job of at least balancing the tax burden between our biggest urban centers and our wealthier school districts.

A further complication to remember here is that school budgets get folded into the municipal budgets for property tax collection purposes. On average, about 52% of the municipal budget is spend on public education. In urban districts, and especially poor districts, the cost of municipal services is higher than in suburban. The greater needs and higher costs in urban municipal services eat into the revenue available for public education. In Newark, for example, the schools portion of the budget makes up 29% of the budget while in Hillsborough the school portion is 67% of the budget. 

.As discussed in prior posts, residential property values are a poor indicator of family wealth. Wealthy families may own multiple homes and other lucrative investments while poor families may have very little equity in their home. The current market value of the home is also not a good reflection of the residents disposable income. Poor folks or retirees may live in a home they have owned for many years before local real estate values, and property taxes, skyrocketed. A families median household income is a much better indicator of their ability to pay property taxes then is the assessed value of their home.

Keeping all this in mind, the following table compares the ten largest urban areas to 10 wealthy school districts in New Jersey.  Keep in mind that the quality of educational outcomes between urban districts are wealthy districts is vastly different. Wealthy districts have considerable advantages. Urban districts have to deal with the impact of poverty and inadequate nutrition on their students. They have many more foreign born students who don't speak English. They have more dysfunctional families, homelessness, poorer quality medical care and more special needs student. Their students are far more diverse in every way. While we must concede that the average cost of educating a child in the suburbs is less than in urban or wealthy districts, the cost of education children in urban districts is justifiably greater.  But that cost is not greater than the cost of all the educational benefits students receive in our wealthy districts. 

The current state aid formula helps urban school districts overcome the disadvantages induced by poverty and social inequality. As a result, the per-pupil costs in the 10 largest urban areas in New Jersey are virtually the same as the per-pupil costs in 10 of the highest income districts in New Jersey. The wealthy districts on average have only a $602 higher per-pupil cost than urban schools. This doesn't mean educational opportunities are the same. Extra funding in urban areas is spent on remedial needs for socially disadvantaged children while additional funding in wealthy districts is spent on exceptional education opportunities such as AP courses or the IB (International Baccalaureate) programs. 

Median household income in the largest urban districts is less than a third of the median household income in high income districts. Nevertheless, the average Effective Tax Rate in urban districts is a third higher than in ten of the highest income districts while urban home values are nearly 5 times less then in the high income districts.

If you multiply the effective tax rate (assumes 100% of evaluation) by the current average home value, you end up with what a comparative average property tax bill. The comparative property tax cost for the 10 largest cities is about $7,000 while the 10 wealthy districts pay almost $20,000 on average. That might seem unfair, but if you look at the last column in the table above you find that property taxes, as a percentage of household income, is higher in the urban districts than in the wealthy districts.

The municipal tax burden in urban districts is not disproportionate to the tax burden in wealthy districts relative to household incomes, and the per pupil cost of public education in both is almost identical. Governor Christie's Fairness Formula would upset this balance. It would take money away from urban districts needed to fund remedial needs of their disadvantaged students and give wealthy districts more cash to spend on giving their children even greater educational advantages.

Below are links to the resources used in this analysis
___________________________________________________________________

Edu data links

http://www.nj.com/education/2015/04/nj_schools_how_much_is_your_district_spending_per.html

http://www.geonames.org/US/NJ/largest-cities-in-new-jersey.html

http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/grate/2015/

http://www.nj.com/education/2014/05/average_nj_per_pupil_spending_almost_19k_new_report_finds.html

http://www.joeshimkus.com/NJ-Tax-Rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_locations_by_per_capita_income

http://www.nj.gov/governor/taxrelief/pages/formula.shtml

Fairness and the Funding of Public Education in New Jersey

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Fairness Formula? Governor Chris Christie is proposing a plan to give an equal amount of State Aid funding to every student in every school districts in New Jersey. Specifically, his proposal would take the higher amounts of State Aid we currently give to very poor districts and distribute it equally across the state to reduce property taxes in the wealthier suburbs. This, he says, is fair.

For those who are not familiar with New Jersey, most school funding is raised through a local wealth tax based on the assessed value of residential and private property. This is a highly regressive way to raise revenue, as you will see below.  

We are big on home rule in New Jersey, so each town has its own independent school board. Each towns Board of Education proposes an annual school budget which is voted on in a public referendum.  If passed, the costs are incorporated into the municipal budget and property tax rates are raised if more revenue is needed.  If the school budget fails, town and school officials have to either cut the school budget or make other adjustments to municipal services so property taxes don't rise.

Here is truism:  Wealthy municipalities tend to grow more affluent over time while poor districts tend to decline even further.  

Wealthy towns have better school systems in New Jersey. That is also a fact. So parents who can afford to upgrade their home often move into towns with better schools. Property values rise with the demand for homes in districts with better schools.  Property values decline in districts that have underfunded or troubled schools, so property tax rates must increase in poor districts just to break even on current school spending.  As property values increase in wealthy districts, more property tax revenue is generated.  Some of this additional revenue goes into further improving the schools without the need to increase taxes.  In some cases tax rates may even decline in affluent municipalities as home values rise. The result is that wealthy districts have much better public schools and lower tax rates while poor districts cannot afford to keep up the disadvantaged schools they have.  

State Municipal and School Aid was designed to help level municipal tax burdens in New Jersey. State Aid is allocated to local municipalities and school districts to fill in the gaps that exist between wealthy and poor municipalities. This funding solution grew out of a state Supreme Court ruling, Abbott vs. Burke, that found New Jersey school funding did not result in equal education opportunity, as mandated by the State Constitution.

This vicious cycle of migration between rich and poor districts is a big reason for the educational funding disparity. It is the one usually mentioned by NJ state legislators and the press. But this cycle only exacerbates an underlying funding flaw. A wealth tax based on residential property values is incredibly regressive. 

I wrote another article about the regressive education taxes in New Jersey last year. The Governor's new School Aid plan only compounds the problem.

To show just how unfair residential wealth taxes are for funding public schools, consider that people who own million dollar homes almost always have significant other wealth investments and ownership interests that aren't being taxed to funding public schools.  The rich have far more wealth and investment income. On the other hand, people who own homes in economically depressed areas, people whose homes are well below the state average in value, have few investments or ownership stakes. Many of them have a negative net worth, almost no savings and many of them struggle to pay their monthly bills.

Most economists agree that a flat tax is a regressive tax. It favors the rich, but it is still far less regressive than the property tax scheme in New Jersey.  To illustrate, the table below looks at information from three actual New Jersey municipalities: a poor district, an modestly affluent district and a wealthy district. The number of students in these districts tell you that these aren't all K-12 districts, but the tax lesson here is still valid whether a district is a sending district or not.

Table 1

Hammonton and Margate are municipalities in Atlantic County and Stone Harbor is in Cape May County.  In all three districts the average tax bill is below the state average. Hammonton does a pretty good job of keeping per pupil costs down so it's residents can afford their property taxes.  It is a town where the average home value of $205k is significantly below the state average of nearly $400k. It is not an affluent community like Margate, or a wealth district like Stone Harbor where the average home sells for over a million dollars.

The average tax bill in Hammonton is just under $5,000 per year, almost half the state average. The $14,384 annual per/pupil cost of education is also below the $19,211 state average.  The low tax bill per resident is due, in part, to the fact that Hammonton receives $20 million dollars in State Aid. 

Despite all of their frugal budgeting to keep tuition costs down, and despite a good amount of state assistance, look at Hammonton's general property tax rate.  It is double the tax rate in Margate and more than five time higher than the tax rate in Stone Harbor. Hammonton's property tax rate is still well above the state average.

The residents of Margate and Stone Harbor pay a few thousand dollars more per year in property taxes, but they can well afford it. They pay less than the state average in property taxes yet spend far more than average in student tuition.  Even so, Margate currently receives $2.5 million in State Aid while the very wealthy Stone Harbor receives nearly a half-million dollars in State Aid.  Ironically, Under Governor Christie's plan, each of these three districts would receive substantially more State Aid, but this would come at the expense of the very poor urban districts, the so call "Abbott"  districts, where poverty levels are very high and property values are very low.

If instead of a flat State Aid rate for every student, Governor Christie proposed a flat property tax rate, and used additional revenue from wealth districts to fill funding gaps in poorer districts, how would that effect property taxes in these three communities?

Keeping in mind that a flat tax is still regressive, and that home values are not a good indicator of wealth ownership (it under represents the wealth of the wealthy) the table below shows what property taxes would look like if a flat property tax was implemented based on New Jersey's average property tax rate.  

Table 2

This exercise illustrates just how incredibly regressive the current property tax scheme is.  More affluent towns are paying a lower property tax rate and middle class communities are paying a higher rate. Even a flat property tax rate would double Margate's tax bill and more than quadruple Stone Harbors tax bill. A flat property tax rate would probably generate enough additional revenue to adequately fund and rehabilitate Abbott district schools and disadvantaged schools throughout the state.  A progressive property tax formula would go even further to fully fund New Jersey's public schools and give every child their constitutionally protected right to an equally good public education.  Giving the same amount of state aid to both the rich and poor isn't fair at all. A progressive wealth tax based on residential property values would be.

Below are the URL internet addresses for all of the data presented above.

_____________________________________________________________

http://www.nj.com/education/2015/04/nj_schools_how_much_is_your_district_spending_per.html

http://www.nj.gov/education/data/fact.htm

http://www.state.nj.us/education/data/enr/enr14/stat_doc.htm

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/lpt/taxrate.shtml

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/lpt/class2/avgsale15.pdf

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/lpt/class2avgsales.shtml

http://www.joeshimkus.com/NJ-Tax-Rates.aspx

http://www.state.nj.us/dca/divisions/dlgs/resources/stateaidinfo.shtml

Making Corrupt Politics Illegal

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

For most American’s, democracy is already dead. This isn't hyperbole, but a verifiable truth.

A Princeton study found that if over 90% of us really hate a bill or policy idea in Congress, it has about a 30% chance of passing. BUT, if over 90% of us really support a bill or policy idea in Congress… it has about a 30% chance of passing. Why? The system is corrupt. Our democracy is broken.

So here is a novel idea.Make corrupt political practices illegal. On the federal level alone the top 200 most politically active companies spend over $5.8 billion a year funding politicians (buying our democracy), often promising politicians high wage jobs after they leave office.  All of this allows the lobbyists to write the laws that congress actually passes, sometime without even reading the bills first. In exchange for all this political cash, these 200 politically active corporations receive over $4.4 trillion in favorable tax supports. That is equal to a 75,900% return on their political investments. It's a racket and it's all perfectly legal.

As the video below explains so well, that mean that 90% of everyone in the lower economic groups in America has "a minuscule, near zero, statistically insignificant." influence over what laws our representatives pass in the Federal Congress.

Watch this video that explains the finding of a scholarly study out of Princeton. [Note: prior link was incorrect. This is the corrected link]

Copy and paste link to your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig&spfreload=1

The creator of the above video have a possible solution which they explain in their second video, How to Fix Corruption in America. The fix is to make political corruption illegal though passage of a simple law. But getting anything passed in the Federal Congress to fix the way they do business now is impossible. So the strategy is to start by passing the law locally and then statewide so that federal representatives elected from these states aren't already tainted by corrupt politics. Once enough states pass the anti-corruption law, there will be enough congress people from those states to pass a federal anti-corruption law.  Here below is the video:

Copy and paste link to your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A

And so, like all politics, the solution to make our voice count once again is in our hands if we act locally while thinking globally. All politics is local. Let's make local politics the place where we restore democracy in America.

If you are disturbed by these facts, please do your part in getting this information out to your friends across the internet. and get active locally to start turning things around. The level of political corruption is inversely proportional to the level of citizen involvement.

Mine Hill, Headwaters of the Lamington River

by Brian T. Lynch

Mine Hill is a geographically and environmentally important area in New Jersey because it is home to the headwaters of the North Branch of the great Raritan River, which flows into Raritan Bay at Perth Amboy.

The Raritan River Basin is 1,100 square miles of some of the most beautiful land in Northern New Jersey. It is the largest river basin contained entirely within New Jersey. It provides drinking water to millions of residents, including those who rely on the Round Valley and Spruce Run Reservoirs. The Raritan basin is divided into three watershed management areas. To the South and East is the Raritan Watershed Area containing the Raritan River itself, and both Green Brook and Lawrence Brook. Due South is the Millstone Watershed Area where waters run North from the confluence of the Stony Brook and Millstone Rivers. But the bulk of the waters are from the Northwest, which is divided into two main flows, the North Branch and the South Branch. The South Branch starts in Budd Lake and flows south towards High Bridge. It then makes a big loop to the East and back North where it joins up with the North Branch just South of Somerville. 

It is the North Branch of the Raritan River Basin that interests me, because it starts just West of Canfield Avenue. It floods some of the lush woodlands in the Green Acres area known as the Dickerson Tract and the Rutgers track that forms the headwaters of the Lamington River.

The Lamington may not be a household word for most of us. It is only a little noticed brook that runs out from the woods to cross Frank Street near George and First Streets. It then wanders behind some houses until it crosses Dickerson Mine Road to make a short passage into Mine Hill Lake.

If  you are standing on the Mine Hill Beach and look to the right you will see a point of land jutting out into the water. You are looking to the North end of the lake.  The Lamington River discharges into the lake a short ways up from that point.

Across the lake and due South is where water from the lake spills into Randolph Park. There is only a spit of land separating the two, as most old-timers know. But the Lamington River rejoins its bank earlier, just West of that spillway into Randolph Park. The Lamington flows parallel  to the far shoreline of the Southern tip of the lake.

South satellite view of Mine Hill Lake where a spillway carries water into Randolph Park pond. Lamington Riverbed reforms to the left of the Mine Hill Lake shoreline on the bottom left of the lake.  (Google Maps)

From there, the waters of the Lamington form wetlands that are home to a number of small lakes and ponds, Silver Lake, Horseshoe Lake, Black River Pond and others. As the Lamington River passes by Horseshoe Lake, several branches combine to flow South towards Chester. At this point the Lamington is known as the Black River. The Lamington does not regain its name again until it leaves Chester and enters (or leaves) Hackelbarney State Park. From there it continues South towards Lamington and beyond, where it finally joins up with the upper Raritan River  near the vicinity of White House, New Jersey.

Along the way, the Lamington (or Black River it is more commonly known in Morris County) passes through some of the most beautiful parts of the region and is home to wildlife refuge areas, lakes, ponds, state, county and municipal parks and beautiful walking trails. It is a favorite destination for game fishermen, kayakers and nature enthusiast. 

For more pictures of the Lamington River, check out the Black River Wildlife Management website at: http://chestertownship.org/about-chester-nj/photo-gallery/

 

Why Bernie Sanders Must Fight for a Contested Convention

An Open Letter to Rachel Maddow in Response to Her May 2nd Segment on Why Bernie Should Bow Out of the Race.

    Pictures of self-organized "movement" events supporting anti-establishment Bernie Sanders,

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Dear Dr. Maddow,

I'm a fan of yours, but I join those writing in opposition to your arguments against Bernie's ideas of a contested Democratic convention. The rules are set up to allow for this type of contested convention. Whether or not a trailing candidate for the Democratic nomination chooses to bring their fight to the floor has always been predicated on exigent circumstances of the times, not just institutional courteous or party loyalty.

In prior presidential party contests opposing, or insurgent candidates have fought for the support of their party with the goal of everyone unifying behind the candidate generating the most excitement with the best chance of winning against the other party candidate. In my 60 years these have always been intra-party contests, but these are different times. Party reformation has never played as large a roll as it does now.

This years election is a referendum on establishment politics itself. The pundits in both parties still fail to grasp this obvious fact.

The Republican Party is starting to wake up. Their primary season has been an expensive disaster. Their tuberous outcropping of so many weak presidential candidates, all casting about for a winning message, was an obvious sign that the GOP itself is in critical condition. The establishment elites of that party have abused their privileged status for years. They have made too many cynical promises to voters, promises they never intended to keep, They applied deceptive marketing to arouse their base and garner favor with an electorate that they secretly despise. Once in office, they cynically sold themselves to big business and big money interests while tossing crumbs to the people who elected them.

Donald Trump is the toxic chemotherapy that party needs to kill the cancerous grip big organized money has on the Republican establishment. The message couldn't be any clearer. The Republican establishment has to go. The Trump candidacy, whether Trump wins or loses, will sweep many other establishment candidates out of office.

The Democratic Party suffers from the same disease as the Republican Party, but at an earlier stage. Party elites are caught in the death grip of powerful private interests. The will of their constituents have become secondary. Dwindling turnout over the past decade has been ignored as long as slick marketing techniques were still winning election.  

But elections are not all about winning, they are ultimately about governing.

Money in the Democratic Party isn't just a necessary evil anymore. It is now a growing tumor. The people who really hear what Bernie Sanders is saying recognize that he is proposing a cure that might prevent this cancer from metastasizing. Meanwhile the establishment media still thinks this election is only about a fight for progressive ideas.

Given the state of the two parties, a Sanders win would be a foregone conclusion. All the polls say as much, yet this is message isn't seeping into the consciousness of the establishment.  The Democratic Party is eager to put Hillary's negatives up against Trump's negatives any day, in yet another hold-your-nose-and-vote election. 

And, they would be right if this election was only based on ideology. But it isn't. It is a referendum on our political establishment. Not only will Hillary Clinton have  disadvantages related to her high unfavorability, she will not win the support of youthful "movement" Democrats or disgruntled independents. 

If the race is between Clinton and Trump it will be a race between an establishment and a non-establishment candidate. Given the anger and level of dissatisfaction around the country, all bets should be off as to how that contest might turn out.

End Third Way Democrats or Start A Third Party

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

In a recent OpEdNews article, Doug Walsh expressed his frustration with both political parties, which has driven him from identifying with either. The Bernie Sanders campaign inspired him to join the Democratic party in the hope that democracy and his faith in our elected officials can be restored. The Sanders campaign initiated a vision of hope that will not be extinguished if Sander loses, but for Mr. Walsh, a Sanders loss would not mean a vote for his rival. For him, and for millions like him, Hillary represents all that is broken in politics. The issue goes beyond progressive verse conservative politics. It goes to the structure of politics itself, and of the powerful self-interests that have warped our republic.

I have to agree, in part, with Mr. Walsh here. I have been voting a straight Democratic  ticket for a decade hoping the tactic might steer us away from the vortex of corporate power and from the crazy white nationalists, Christian theocrats and anti-federal secessionists on the GOP fringe. 

I thought I was sending a message to push the GOP back towards America's middle. It isn't working. Instead, the Democratic party moved further to the right and into the grip of corporate power. The GOP has responded to the Democrat's "third way" successes by becoming ever more blatantly pro-corporate, and by further radicalizing the fringe of their base to boost turnout. To hold their grip on power in the face of unfavorable demographics  the GOP also engages in voter suppression through voter ID laws and outrageously  negative ad campaigns designed to dispirit the more sensible electorate who might oppose their radical base .

President Obama seemed to be the bright exception. I was hoping for a structural change in our politics, not just a progressive agenda. I'm grateful for what he has accomplished, but disappointed in his failure to restore our democracy or reform the Democratic party.

It is clear from this election cycle. thanks in no small part to Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, that both political parties are out of touch with the people.  The prospect of contested primary conventions has revealed the true nature of both  parties. They are rival  private clubs pushing their own brands of voter loyalty rewards to stay in power and to compete for wealthy donor contributions. Both parties are filled with minions who willingly or unknowingly serve wealthy corporate interests. This is how our politics appears to me.

Donald Trump is a clueless disaster. Period.

 Bernie Sanders is a thoughtful, experienced, independent politician capable of igniting and leading a grass roots reform movement  to fundamentally change our politics and the Democratic party. He is an unlikely champion tilting at the windmills of institutional resistance.  It is us, the citizens, and not just Sanders, the candidate, that must win this fight. But if we cannot succeed now within the Democratic party structure, an independent third party is the next step.

Here is where I disagree with Mr. Walsh. If we cannot win the nomination for Bernie Sanders, and we cannot persuade him to run as in independent now, I will vote for Hillary to buy the time it will take to organize a popular, independent political party.

A Silent Rage Approaching

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

The rich are not like you and me. I can safely say that knowing they'll never read this.

The massive leak of documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca shows the extent to which the global elite shield their wealth from us. They have no interest in sharing the cost of governing.  We pay for the military, the courts, the police, the roads, the schools and all of our social and physical infrastructure. The wealthy mooch off of us by not paying their taxes.  The system is rigged to benefit those who least need the benefits. Some of the tax dodges are written into the law by politicians deep within the pockets of the rich. But as the Panama Papers reveal, most of the unreported wealth is hidden illegal. All of it is underhanded and immoral.

The sheer number of documents leaked is enormous. It covers 40 years of financial transactions and 2.6 terabytes of data. If media coverage of this scandal were proportional to the size of the document cashe, there would be no other news on television for weeks. Here below is a graphic depiction of the scale of the leak compared with other huge scandalous leaks.

Source: http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/04/heres-how-over-400-journalists-at-dozens-of-news-orgs-reported-out-the-massive-panama-papers-story/

As it stands, the owners and share holders of our corporate media are likely involved somewhere in this scandal. If not them directly, then surely their customers who buy advertizing are caught in this vast net of stinking fish. The hard working, front line journalists responsible for turning this data mountain into intelligible information have little control over how their work will be broadcast. For now, at least in the United States, coverage of the scandal is trumped by presidential politics.

If our society were healthy, if so many of us had not already given up on government's lack of responsiveness to public demands, this would be a watershed moment. It would be a tipping point for righteous indignation and hot pursuit of substantial reforms.  

The wealthy will tell you their fair share is in the paltry proportion they do pay in taxes, but the proof of the lie is the growing number of children living in poverty whose benefits are cut by the budget knife. The proof of the lie is in our crumbling bridges and crowed roads that we can't fix without killing off other essential services. No matter how big some people say government is, it's too small and corrupted to make these powerful people pay all their taxes.

It is all too depressing. All the more so if you believe, as I do, that a failure to mobilize for real change now puts the world on the path to real revolution, bloodshed and destruction. It is a well documented historical pattern, just as inevitable yet avoidable as global warming. It has happened countless times before, except this is different. This time tearing down our institutions in a murderous fit of rage would likely condemn the Earth to mass extinctions.

As much as we rail against the "system" we need it for the higher level of coordination and cooperation it will take to solve the global catastrophe we face. We can't solve these challenges without reforming our current power structures and eliminating the barriers created by greedy capitalists. Only the collective power of our vast social institutions can bring about the kind of changes we must make to survive. Radical reform is our best option for survival.  How do we get a critical mass of people to understand this before it is too late?

The Panama Papers Scandal Parses the Difference Between Bernie and Hillary

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

This is yet another example where a clear eyed, independent Bernie Sanders warned against passing legislation that he knew would be disastrous while Hillary Clinton pressed for its passage. Sanders said exactly what would happen if the Panama free trade agreement passed. He said it would make it easier for, " ... the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in this country to avoid paying their fair share in taxes by setting-up offshore tax havens in Panama.

Today we read headline stories like this:

"Years before more than a hundred media outlets around the world released stories Sunday (April 3, 2016) exposing a massive network of global tax evasion detailed in the so-called Panama Papers, U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed for a Bush administration-negotiated free trade agreement that watchdogs warned would only make the situation worse." 

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/panama-papers-obama-clinton-pushed-trade-deal-amid-warnings-it-would-make-money-2348076

After the free trade agreements passed in Congress, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the following statement:

"The Free Trade Agreements passed by Congress tonight will make it easier for American companies to sell their products to South Korea, Colombia and Panama, which will create jobs here at home. The Obama Administration is constantly working to deepen our economic engagement throughout the world and these agreements are an example of that commitment.

Source: https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2011/10/13/passage-colombia-panama-and-south-korea-trade-agreements

In opposition to the Panama free trade agreement bill being debated in the Senate, Bernie Sanders said this on October 12, 2011 (Panama comments printed here in full) :

 Finally, Mr. President, let's talk about the Panama Free Trade Agreement.
          Panama's entire annual economic output is only $26.7 billion a year, or about two-tenths of one percent of the U.S. economy.  No-one can legitimately make the claim that approving this free trade agreement will significantly increase American jobs.
          Then, why would we be considering a stand-alone free trade agreement with this country?
          Well, it turns out that Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in off-shore tax havens.  And, the Panama Free Trade Agreement would make this bad situation much worse.
          Each and every year, the wealthy and large corporations evade $100 billion in U.S. taxes through abusive and illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and other countries.
          According to Citizens for Tax Justice, "A tax haven . . . has one of three characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of non-cooperation with other countries on exchanging information about tax matters.  Panama has all three of those. ... They're probably the worst."
          Mr. President, the trade agreement with Panama would effectively bar the U.S. from cracking down on illegal and abusive offshore tax havens in Panama.  In fact, combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of this free trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities.
          In 2008, the Government Accountability Office said that 17 of the 100 largest American companies were operating a total of 42 subsidiaries in Panama.  This free trade agreement would make it easier for the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes and it must be defeated.  At a time when we have a record-breaking $14.7 trillion national debt and an unsustainable federal deficit, the last thing that we should be doing is making it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in this country to avoid paying their fair share in taxes by setting-up offshore tax havens in Panama.
          Adding insult to injury, Mr. President, the Panama FTA would require the United States to waive Buy America requirements for procurement bids from thousands of foreign firms, including many Chinese firms, incorporated in this major tax haven.  That may make sense to China, it does not make sense to me.
          Finally, Panama is also listed by the State Department as a major venue for Mexican and Colombian drug cartel money laundering.  Should we be rewarding this country with a free trade agreement?  I think the answer should be a resounding no.

Source: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senate-speech-by-sen-bernie-sanders-on-unfettered-free-trade

It is very difficult for average citizens like me to see clearly what our politicians are really up to. This is true in part because we no longer have an independent press challenging our politicians pro-business policies. If "free trade" is good for businesses and the wealthy (the donor class), it's good for corporate media profits and for campaign funding PAC's.

 It is this nexus between business, politics and the media that form the self-interested "establishment" in America. It is a ruling elite that competes with itself along party lines without  faithfully serving the interests of ordinary citizens. Both the extraordinary outsider presidential campaigns of  Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are driven by this single aspect of our national polity, the  establishment elite.

Donald Trump representing opposition to the Republican flavor of the establishment elite. He thrashes about like a wild man trying  to cobble together a rage tag constituency of the disillusioned on the right.

Senator Sanders, on the other hand, has always seen through the self-serving positions of the New Democrats (or Third Way Democrats). The centrist moves of the modern Democratic party has always been a slide towards corporate power. It helps Democrats win elections because centrist positions are more lucrative for Democratic campaigns.  By not accepting PAC money or wealthy donations, Bernie Sanders has demonstrated just how clearly good politicians can see the true impact of proposed legislation.  

In this and many other examples, Bernie Sanders is like a prophet.  Not the religious kind, but in the secular sense. He sees where we are headed more clearly than most and then uses that information to try and get us to change course. That is what prophets, and parents and true statesmen do. 

New Views on Moral Relativity

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Objectively speaking, human morality does appear to be relative and not an absolute fixture of human behavior. Despite what we are taught in Sunday school, there is no single set of rules or commandments, in the Bible or anywhere else, that universally applies to every situation in life. Laws, whether religious or civil, are not infallible absolutes. Laws are language based translations of more durable, underlying principles of good behavior. They are more like guide posts expressing a clear moral intent with respect to right and wrong behavior. They are important reference points by which we may judge and enforce the outward behavior of others to reward good deeds and punish bad behaviors. If the relativity of morality weren't true there would never be any need for the faithful to prey for guidance, no need for legal consultations or clerical counseling or even religious training. If morality was absolute there would be no need to pursue justice or show mercy. 

What does comes close to being universally accepted is our personal obligation to do what is right when we have the training, experience, wisdom, insight or grace to see the right choice. But here again, our motives are not always pure. We often choose behavior we know to be wrong for the sake of personal gain or some act of vengeance. It still proves we do know right from wrong, but we can always chose misbehavior. We are fallible and finite beings at best.

In the field of Sociology, morality is considered a social construct subject to cultural developments. And clearly there are strong cultural and religious components to morality. But the emerging fields of evolutionary biology and sociobiology have begun to glimpse complex social behaviors differently. Recent scientific research in these fields suggests that our sense of right and wrong social behaviors seem to have a genetic component. We see evidence of moral social behavior in other advanced primates as well, which suggests a genetic component. Like people who misbehave, we can also observe individual primates engage in socially unacceptable behavior only to endure socual punishments from the group when caught. We are finding cross-cultural similarities in how we solve moral questions in certain controlled experimental studies where subjects are asked to solve moral conundrums. Some neuro-scientists have now identified areas in the human brain that become active when subjects as asked to solve moral conflicts. Some scientists, such as psychologist Matt J. Rossano, speculate that an innate sense of social morality in humans might be foundational to world religions. This could explain why most religions have many commonalities in their sense of what is right or wrong behavior.

Research suggests that natural morality, or the sense of right and wrong behavior baked into our DNA, But if morality is innate and present in each of us, how can moral behavior also be relative, rather than fixed and certain? 

The answer may be that morality is relative according to our emotional affinity or physical proximity to others. In fact, it is extremely sensitive to affinity and proximity. Our moral actions are strongest when it involves people we love, people we identify with in our social circle or people who occupy our physical space . As social intimacy or physical proximity shrinks, so does our sense of moral obligation. Our moral relativity therefore stems from the fact that our moral obligations to “them” is always weaker than our moral obligation to “us” no matter how we define those terms.

This way of understanding moral relativity has far reaching implications. For example, it suggest that one of the roles of all religions is to broaden how we define as “us” and "them," and how to translate our moral sense so that we can apply it to larger social groups. Translating our internal sense of right and wrong behavior is always necessary in large groups because our social genetics certainly evolved well before we gathered in such large numbers.

Once we understand this dimension of moral relativity, much of how the world behaves falls into place. We can begin to understand those famous Stanley Milgram's experimental findings, for instance. It becomes clear why an authority figure in a lab coat standing next to the subjects can command them to apply painful shocks to a stranger in another room from behind a two-way mirror. We can understand why there is still so much conflict between religions, or even sub-sects of the same religion. Sunni and Shia come to mind here. We can see that differences in how conservatives and progressives define who is in or out of their group shapes their political priorities. It explains why military training involves dehumanizing "the enemy" in order to train solders for combat. It explains why members of cliques in school can be so mean sometimes.

More generally, the "proximal relativity" of our moral instincts explains how we use language, with its shades of meaning, to alter social dynamics. In other words, by how we communicate (our body language, word choices, contextual framing , display of passion, etc.) we either shift or reinforce our allegiances and alliances with others.

To give a very simple example, let's suppose you are visiting with a friend who happens to bring up in the conversation another family for whom you harbor some negative feelings. It could be about anything. You might respond by saying something like, "Oh, them." The word "them" can be a strong distancing word, especially depending on how you emphasize it or add accompanying body language. In this case your friend is physically with you, so calling the other family "them" draws this friend closer to you while driving that "other" family further away. This use of language by you is an attempt to shift allegiances and weaken their sense of moral obligation towards that other family. It may not work, and It could backfire, depending on the circumstances, but the calculus was there behind your choice of words. We use language in this way all the time, to the point we may not notice we are doing it, and may not notice it in others.

There is much more to be said on this topic, but I leave it here with this final thought. A presidential debate is an excellent opportunity to somewhat objectively analyze how language is being used to shift or strengthen alliances and allegiances. Public policy and moral behavior are often closely related as policy choice often have disproportional impact on different voting segments. A policy can often be expressed in terms socially good or bad. This makes the debates a particularly good opportunity to contrast how language is being used to promote policy choices and the differential impacts policies may have. Keep a pad and pencil handy at the next debate. Write down the word choices candidates use to discuss various constituent groups. Note especially word choices that either distance people from a group or draw others in towards the candidates supporters. You may be surprised at what you discover.

On the Passing of Justice Scalia

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

This is my sense of what just happened and my prediction of how history will view this moment. (It is also my shortest blog post ever.)

My deepest sympathies for the Scalia family, his friends and closest colleagues.

Bernie vs. Hillary - The Clearest Distinction in a Generations

Part I, The Progressive Era

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

The distinction between Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton couldn't be sharper. If this doesn't seem obvious, it is because Beltway media coverage of the candidates obscures more than reveals. Financial considerations of the for-profit news media creates short time horizons and shallow perspectives. The historical context of current events is often lost. To clearly see how different our choices are between these two Democratic Party candidates we need a little more information.

The two biggest areas of contrast between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are centered around two words that are very much in the public debate. These words are, "progressive" and "electability." This essay is broken into two parts, each dedicated to these significant differences.

The Progressive Era

The term "progressive" as it relates to politics is not as vague a term as current usage suggests. The "Progressive Movement" was a historical development leading to a particular political philosophy. Born out of the Gilded Age, it held that the irresponsible actions of the rich were a corrupting influence on public and private life in America. It's most influential period was between 1900 and 1920, although its influence continued throughout the 20th century. Progressivism was both a political and social movement. It held that advances in science, technology, economics, and social organization could improve the conditions in which most citizens live, and that government had a role to play in promoting these advances.

Progressivism was a rejection of Social Darwinism (arguably a forerunner of Aya Rand's Objectivism). It was a reform movement with goals considered radical in their time. Progressives sought to curb the power of big business and US corporations. It brought about laws to regulate fair commerce and break up monopolies. It fought to eliminate bribery and corruption in politics and to bring about political reforms. It fought against the extreme social injustice and inequality of that time, including opposition to child labor, widespread illiteracy, and horrible working and living conditions. It sought to improve lifestyles and living condition of all Americans and to establish health and safety standards both in the workplace and the communities where people lived. The progressive movement was also for the conservation and protection of our natural resources.

Among the activists in the movement were people such as Thomas Nast, Upton Sinclair, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Eugene Debs, Jane Addams, who founded Hull House and pioneered the field of social work, Booker T Washington, W. E. B. DuBose and many more. They and the muckrakers of the day found a sympathetic ear in Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican President. This is an important point as Progressivism was a sweeping and transformational movement supported by candidates in both political parties. The Progressive Movement ushered in the modern, middle-class oriented society we enjoy today.

Rise of the Conservative Movement

Fast-forwarding for the sake of brevity skips a lot of important history, but it is fair to say that a strain of Progressive Movement philosophy has been baked into our political DNA. It remains most prominent in the Democratic party while largely disappearing from the establishment wing of the GOP. Its disappearance is roughly correlated with the rise of our current income inequality and the growing power of the super-rich. But a progressive element within the GOP is still not entirely absent even in conservative voters as evidenced by the continuing popularity of Medicare and Social Security among Tea Party Republicans.

On the Democratic side, the progressive vein of the party suffered through a crushing political loss with the landslide victory of Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972, followed a decade later by the rise of the conservative movement capped by the landslide election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

President Reagan's election marked the beginning of a successful and synergistic partnership between the Republican Party and private corporate wealth. This partnership began a decade earlier with the conscious decision to create ideologically conservative public media platforms and apply modern business marketing techniques to promote conservative causes, including a successful anti-union marketing campaign that turned workers against unions. The power of organized labor was also challenged by newly organized industry advocacy groups. These industry trade groups gave rise to the powerful corporate lobbies we have today. Among the early successes of industry trade groups was a law that created political action committees, or PAC's where corporations were able to provide substantial campaign contributions to political candidates of their choosing, and their candidates were all conservative and mostly Republican. The influx of money, the marketing prowess and the organizing clout of this marriage between the GOP and big business overwhelmed the Democratic Party. The effectiveness of massively coordinated conservative messaging cannot be overstated. It began the shift of America's political center to the right. The power of this massively coordinated messaging, rather than the strength of conservative ideas, continue to power this rightward movement of our electoral center today. 

DLC Transforms The Democratic Party

To many Democrats it was clear that the Party had to change strategy. Progressive causes were no longer winning elections. The diagnosis, unfortunately, was that the progressive agenda was the problem rather than copious amounts of corporate money, more effective marketing techniques, and the rise of conservative funded media outlets with their focus group tested propaganda.

A Democratic political operative name Al From believed that economic populism was no longer politically viable. He founded an organization named the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) to move the Democratic Party away from progressive and socialist influences. The DLC sought more conservative alternatives that could appeal to the rightward shifting center of the American electorate. This required a willingness to compromise progressive values and embrace some conservative ideas. It was a strategy that triangulated politicians and the political party base on both the right and the left to win broad appeal for more "centrist" proposals. It also meant shifting Democratic Party allegiance towards big business interests and away from the poor and working classes. (The impact that this shifting focus had on the Democratic electorate will be explored more in Part 2).

More and more Democrats joined the DLS and adopted its ideas, which became known as the Third Way. It's adherents became known as New Democrats. Their willingness to compromise and pass corporate friendly legislation, in combination with corporate lobbying, brought in the donation needed to fund successful campaigns. The crowning success  of the New Democrats was the popular election of their candidate, President Bill Clinton. From then till now Democratic Party has hitched a ride on the shifting center of the American electorate. The DLC's New Democrats became the establishment wing of the party.

Under Bill Clinton, the New Democrats schemed and compromised their way with Republicans to pass a mixed bag of legislation, some of which had little connection to progressive ideals. Clinton got passed a the Family and Medical Leave Act, welfare reform legislation with service limitation caps, and stringent work/training requirements, legislation to deregulate banks and insurance companies so they could engage in the same risky investment strategies as investment banks, to list a few accomplishments.

All during this time the DLC's had to push ever further to the right to follow the rightward shift of voters responding to rightwing talk radio and alternate media campaigns.  To better compete with GOP success, the Democratic party began adopting Republican-style marketing strategies in designing campaigns and its funding strategies relied more and more on big corporate donors. The electorate slide to the right continued as the Democratic Party was locked into a strategy that kept candidates competitive in increasingly conservative districts but left no room to challenge the conservative movement or the corporate media monopoly. There was a looming danger that directly confronting left-leaning corporate elites would dry up the corporate donation that Democratic came to rely on.

When the DLC's philosophic takeover of the Democratic Party was complete the DLC dissolved itself in early 2011. On July 5 of that year, DLC founder Al From announced on the organization's website its historical records had been purchased by the Clinton Foundation. The DLC became the Democratic Party establishment.

Democratic Establishment Today

Today, New Democrats are simply called Democrats. They still claim the title of progressives, but it is just a vestige of what Democrats were.  Those most closely associated with the former DLC still hold important policy positions that are considerably more conservative than before the DLC was even founded. For example, former DLC activists still oppose single-payer universal healthcare. They are more hawkish in their foreign policy outlook. Most supported the Iraq War and are in favor of stronger military interventions in other areas of active conflict. They promote charter schools and "No Child Left Behind". They are more aligned with Wall Street and market-based solutions to economic problems, such as a carbon tax in response to global warming. They support free-trade agreements including NAFTA, and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). They continue to fear that economic populism is not politically viable. They are latecomers to the debate surrounding income and wealth inequality. For years they have hardly referenced the poor or working-class which was once the party's base.

This is the current state of the Democratic Party establishment, of which Hillary Clinton is the heir apparent. If she doesn't see that she is an establishment Democrat, it is because a true progressive alternative has not presented itself in a long time. Today's Democratic Party is progressive in name only. Hillary Clinton revealed more than she realized when she recently said some call her a centrist and she is proud to wear that label. Capturing the electoral center remains at the heart of her campaign strategy.

What she and other establishment Democrats haven't realized is that they are chasing an electoral center that is shifting farther to the right of the political sensibilities of most citizens.  For decades Democratic and independent voters have given up on the electoral process. They are not among the likely voters the Party targets to win elections. And the Party has stopped listening to the families they represent. They haven't noticed just how rigged the economy has become. They compete with Republicans on issues of the GOP's own choosing. The Republicans successfully frame every debate. Establishment Democrats have not noticed how painful the nearly 40-year decline in wages has been for most Americans.

The Contrast

Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, has never stopped listening to the people or noticing what is happening to the poor, the working-class, and middle-class Americans. He retained his progressive values as an independent representative from Vermont. His record on this is clear. He continues to promote progressive values and even retains the "socialist" tag that became associated with progressive philosophy in the 1960s. When Hillary Clinton challenged him in the recent debate by asking what made him the gatekeeper of who is a progressive, Bernie couldn't reduce his answer to a pithy sound byte. The question is breathtaking for those familiar with the transformation of the Democratic Party over the decades. There are very few champions of true progressives left in politics today. How could anyone answer her in question in a short few words? It requires too much context because so much of the history of the Party has been lost. But once the context is understood, the stark contrast between Clinton and Sanders is between:

1. A candidate who will continue to ride the electoral center wave to the right in exchange for small but more certain gains that improve our lives, or

2. A candidate who awakens the vast number of disaffected voters to challenge right-wing ideology directly, sweep conservatives from office and make way for bold ideas that will greatly benefit most people.

PART II - THE BATTLE CONTINUES 

THREE YEAR LATER

ELIZABETH WARREN VS. BERNIE SANDERS

https://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2019/08/differences-between-warren-and-sanders.html

Diplomats are Our Solders for Peace

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Diplomats are our solders for peace. They should be treated like the great patriots and heroes that they are. For too long they have been put on the shelf or forgotten. President Obama set them to work again for America, for all of us.

Today Iran released the American journalists and others that it held hostage in Iran for months. And now the NY Times says Iran has dismantled major parts of its nuclear program, paving the way for sanctions to be lifted. The UN Nuclear Agency is reporting that Iran has met all of its commitments in the Landmark nuclear deal with six world powers. This appears to be a major triumph of American diplomacy and for world deplomacy. Let's celebrate and see who cares to joins in the celebration!!!

Sowell on What Makes Poor Folks Poor - Liberal Racism and Inferior Culture

Thirdly, when distinguishing this amalgam of race based culture from "racism" he by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Thomas Sowell is a conservative "scholar" at the Hoover Institute and author of a new book, Intellectuals and Race. I haven't read his book yet, but I did watch Sowell's interview with Peter Robinson of the Wall Street Journal. I found Thomas Sowell's interview disturbing in that it seems to boil down to an old conservative argument that the poor have no one to blame but themselves and the liberals who made them helpless. You can watch his WSJ interview on You Tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ImP-gJvas

Several points stand out in Sowell's arguments on the negative impact that " liberal/progressive" intellectuals have had on our attitudes towards race vs. racism. First, he conflates liberalism with progressivism. These are two separate dynamics in their scholarly meaning. The opposite of progressive is conservative, but the opposite of liberal, in its classical meaning, is totalitarian. Within the actual social context of these two dynamics it is entirely possible to hold both liberal and conservative policy positions or progressive and totalitarian positions. For example, it would not have seemed inconsistent during the Progressive Era, in the early twentieth-century, to be for union rights but opposed to woman's suffrage, Progressives then were not as liberal as most progressives are today. By treating these terms interchangeably, in their current colloquial sense, he maligns the liberal movement that seeks to empower today's poor or marginalized people and make America more inclusive. 

Secondly, he seems to conflate race with culture. These are also separate elements of sociology. The former is a largely subjective classification system based on superficial physical attributes associated with continent of origin. The latter is a complex set of rituals, customs, values, norms and shared history by loosely associated clans or social groups. There are as many different cultures within each race as there are among the races, even just within North America. Generalizations based on race as a culture are inherently flawed.

Thirdly, when distinguishing this amalgam of race based culture from "racism" he incorrectly identifies racism as primarily perceptual in nature. His concept of racism doesn't incorporate the many physical racist acts that socially marginalized people endure every day. These foundational fallacies allow Sowell to make his larger points, the same ones often raised by other conservative thinkers. The first is that there are, and have always been, better and more adaptable cultures in the world. This is an accurate statement but he leaves it there, as if it were an immutable law. He offers no hint as to why this is so. He fails to mention our human capacity to alter social institutions in ways that improve the outcomes of individuals from variant cultures.

These foundational fallacies allow Sowell to make his larger points, the same ones often raised by other conservative thinkers. The first is that there are, and have always been, better and more adaptable cultures in the world. This is an accurate statement but he leaves it there, as if it were an immutable law. He offers no hint as to why this is so. He fails to mention our human capacity to alter social institutions in ways that improve the outcomes of individuals from variant cultures.

The other major point he raises is that marginalized people allow themselves to be defined by the racist perceptions against them by others. The "others", he argues in his example, are liberal intellectuals, especially during the "progressive era", who blamed the economic plight of African-Americans (among other groups) on broad social factors and government policies, rather than on the their mal-adaptive culture. This shift in the causal roots of their less successful living standards, according to Sowell, absolves the marginalized from responsibility for their own self-improvement and causes them to see themselves as helpless victims of a society organized against them.

The explicit argument here is that every person has within themselves the power to rise above all obstacles and prejudices set against them. It is the familiar argument of taking personal responsibility as the only condition for economic or personal success. The proof offered (as is so often the case) is the personal experiences of the writer and anecdotal examples of other success stories. The obvious logical fallacy is that these exceptions prove that everyone else can do what these few have done. Unfavorable social conditions are only controlling factors if individuals allow it to be so. The failing is theirs. It is their own fault. It is a weakness in their character or collective culture.

The empirical truth is that for the vast majority of those who are subjected to social or institutional discrimination, their chances for success in life are seriously harmed. All the physical racist acts they suffer cause immeasurable personal damage and have an accumulating effect on them as individuals. That there are rare exceptions who become successful doesn't prove that the majority of marginalized people are flawed individuals. In fact, it proves the opposite, that the infrequency of exceptions is a measure of the extent of the damage discrimination causes.

If equal opportunity can't produce equal personal outcomes under the best of circumstances, as most would agree, then why would unequal opportunity offer the same chances of success? And if policy can benefit one group of individuals (as is certainly true), why is it an individual's personal failing when policy choices disadvanges then. It makes no sense.

Poisoning the Postal Service

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Article 1, Sec.8, Clause 7: [The federal government] is to provide for naturalization, standards of weights and measures, post offices and roads, and patents.

Citizen access to personal or business communications, and an adequate means to distribute goods and communications from anyone to everyone were central concerns of the founding fathers. They understood that healthy commerce and a free and healthy democracy require every citizen to have access to these vital services. It was an article of faith that the states would mostly provide these services for their own citizens, but it may have been less clear whether competition between states would restrict communications or transportation between states. This outcome would weaken us as a nation, and threaten democracy in our Republic. So the founders made it explicit in our Constitution that the federal government would provide for post offices and roads.

If you need a reminder of just how the US Postal Service makes America great, read the great Op Ed piece in today's New York Times written by a Turkish immigrant. Zeynep Tufekci wrote:

"I WAS transported recently to a place that is as enchanting to me as any winter wonderland: my local post office.

In line, I thought fondly of the year I came to this country from Turkey as an adult and discovered the magic of reliable mail service. Dependable infrastructure is magical not simply because it works, but also because it allows innovation to thrive, including much of the Internet-based economy that has grown in the past decade. "

Today, the great national infrastructure we call the US Postal Service, which delivers mail to every citizen, without regard to what it cost to deliver mail to citizens living in remote regions, is under attack by commercial interest lobbyists. Capitalists don't want the US Postal Service competing with UPS or FedEx or Amazon's delivery services. Government competition, they argue, reduces potential corporate profits.

Wealthy corporate owners are intent on killing off the US Postal Service. Their methods are to funnel campaign cash to federal elected officials and encourage them to pass laws and regulations designed to impede the Postal Service operations. The US Postal service costs taxpayers zero dollars in taxes, yet the once financially viable Postal Service is made to pre-fund their retirement system. This is unprecedented in business. It causes the post office to operate in the red so politicians can point to it as a model of government inefficiency.

Politicians also appoint cronies into upper management positions to advocate draconian cuts and adopt policies that undermine employee morale and weaken customer services. In many parts of the country you can no longer call your local post office and speak directly with the post master if you have a question. When I call my local post office phone number the call is redirected to a national call center that tends to screw up the processing of even simple complaints. Still the postal system survives and most of us don't want to see it go away.

What would mail delivery look like if the Postal Service closed? We don't have to guess because we have many examples to learn from. The principle obligation of private corporations is to their shareholders. More specifically, it is to maximize profits. Whatever business model or corporate mission statement, shareholder profits come first in law and practice.

The impact of competition between corporations to maximize profits naturally causes them to focus more on profitable segments of their business and spend less time and resources on unprofitable segments of their business. In the package delivery business, as is true with Amtrak in the transportation business, there is a competitive advantage to reconfigure routes in ways the optimize profits. Some routes in less profitable areas become under-served while others are more than amply served. Eventually corporate executives come to see beyond competing interests to areas where mutual interests would be better served if service to certain segments could be dropped altogether, The government would then steps in to insist that service must be maintained for people living in unprofitable segments of the "market." Private corporations then complain that government is on their backs and insist that if the government wants those citizens to have the service, government must subsidize their corporation to make up for the unprofitable routes they are forced to maintain.

So in effect, if applied to the US Postal Service, we would go from a nationwide, person to person delivery system that costs the US taxpayers nothing, to a private corporation system that would require taxpayer assistance in order to maintain the most unprofitable routes. And once the corporations start engaging in high level collusion, the cost of postal services would creep up and up.

Capitalism does best when distributing benefits based on merit, provided the rules of the market are structured to encourage honest competition. This capitalist model does not work well when distribution of benefits is based vital human needs or open, universal access. This seems to be a natural law. We need to resist the capitalists call for privatization of essential government services and recognize the US Postal Service in particular as the national treasure it really is.