The Loser Generation: Part Eight

One of the recent most important Supreme Court decisions was Citizens United v. FEC. The country's youth, the Loser Generation, are disproportionately being affected by this recession. If they want to understand why they'll have less power and control of their lives than their predecessors they must understand the ramifications of Citizens United on future elections. First things first, some background is needed. The following is from a February 3^rd article on ‘The Moderate Voice’:

“The original Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971 along with its subsequent amendments produced guidelines with the objective of legally limiting campaign contributions. As ways to evade these regulations were found, a further attempt to control runaway contributions, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) was enacted. This was subsequently emasculated by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision two years ago.

“The impotence of the F.E.C. and indeed any government agency to limit campaign contributions has become more evident (and tragic) since the Citizens United ruling. Special interest money has been surging into so-called Super-PACs and independent organizations, some of them masquerading as social welfare advocates, to run attack ads against political opponents. The Supreme Court held that unlimited contributions by corporations and unions, as well as wealthy individuals, to these so-called “independent” organizations are permissible, based on the concept that political spending was a form of free speech. The use of 501(c)(4) non-profit affiliates by these organizations allows some donors to remain anonymous while they covertly influence elections with vast amounts of money. In those SuperPACs where donors are revealed periodically, it is often after the election has taken place, so that voters are not aware of where the money in support of a candidate came from.”

A decade ago, long before Citizen’s United had even been imagined, First Amendment scholar Martin Redish suggested in Money Talks that “Because money talks, there are many who wish to silence it.” Furthermore “To restrict the expressive use of money, or the use of expression for the purpose of making money, dramatically reduces the flow of information and opinions that form the lifeblood of democracy. Hence, such restriction contravenes core values served by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression.”[1] Let’s examine this argument, a sort of backbone for those who would ensure money stays fixed in politics.

Let no one ever try and deceive you by citing the Constitution without quoting its actual language. The First Amendment simply states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So we have to initially distinguish between Redish’s claim of ‘free expression’ and the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech. ‘Expression’ is a particularly vague term, as we all know. I can express myself through my speech or my actions, through modern dance or whispering to a friend. The First Amendment does not grant freedom of expression. The word ‘expression’ isn’t used in any context in the Amendment regarding speech, religion, assembly, press or petition. I can certainly express myself to a corrupt cop by slipping him a $20, but that’s not protected by the constitution. The notion that election money is somehow special or different from using money in other forms of influence is completely bogus, and most certainly was not sanctioned in writing by the founding fathers. Money doesn’t talk, any more than a corporation can talk. Both are powerful tools in the hands of individuals or groups of individuals, and therefore, as tools, can be used only to express what those manipulating want them to express.

In practice ‘expression’ has overrun the original statement. The Supreme Court in the 1990s cited that burning the American flag is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. Yet other attempts to invoke free speech have been struck down, such as incitement to imminent lawless action, or child pornography. What, exactly, is meant by ‘free speech’ or ‘freedom of expression’ these days are an intertwining, and somewhat complex definitions, fraught with exceptions and non-speech action. This capriciousness is the grounds upon which scholars such as Redish rest their arguments that spending money, in any quantity, as a form of expression is therefore acceptable practice. While it was almost certainly not the intention of the 1787 Constitutional Convention to create such a right is immaterial. The Constitution is a living document, as shown by the changing definition of the First Amendment, Prohibition, and fifteen other Amendments added since its signing. If we do not want free speech to include spending we are responsible for creating the pressure that forces government action. There have been many challenges to the definition so far, and many to come, and as such we must continue to redefine what free speech means to each passing generation.

Let’s delve into even deeper history, long before the founding fathers.

My initial response and reason for writing this was frustration and anger caused by the gobs of money choking our political process. This spark soon gave out to research, and nearly every book I read had a chapter titled or directly referencing plutocracy. ‘Plutocracy’ is a word I’d used often but hadn’t, in my own mind, distinguished from ‘aristocracy’. The former is government by the wealthy, and the latter government by the top tier of society. In the days of titles of nobility such was a crucial distinction, but no longer. A Policy Review article cited in Jonathan Chait’s The Big Con gives a great historical eye-opener:

“‘For example, at the death of Augustus (14 A.D.), the top 1/10,000 of the Roman Empire’s households received 1 percent of all income. In Mughal India around 1600 A.D., the top 1/10,000 received 5 percent of all income.’…But the numbers are less astonishing when you compare them to those in the contemporary United States…As of 2004 the top 1/10,000 Americans earned nearly 3 percent of the national income…”[2]

In 2012 U.S. household assets total $59 trillion – the top 400 Americans, according to Forbes, (less than even 1/10,000 which would be 30,000 people) are responsible for $1.36 trillion or about 4.3% of that. The top 30,000 simply must now be worth more than 5%. Our income disparity is greater than the Roman Empire or the ornate decadence built upon India’s caste system in the 16 and 1700s.

Compared to contemporaries or income disparity is greater than all but one country in Europe (including Russia), greater than Australia, and even greater than most of the Asian continent. Not to mention the other assorted countries such as Ethiopia and Nicaragua we discredit as being ‘developing’. With such an income disparity, the ability to pay unlimited quantities puts all the power in the hands of the rich. We can’t compete, in a recession, with $5, $50, and $100 donations if the Koch brothers, two individuals, can give hundreds of millions to their preferred candidates. If the Citizen’s United decision stands then a formalized plutocracy is inevitable.

These past three posts have painted a grim picture. Campaign finance is what determines winners and losers in elections, corporate lobbyists use their purchasing power to control the dialogue and legislation, and the wealthiest few can now subvert the democratic process to meet their wants. But I would not have written these as only a public exercise in indignation. In the next two, and final, installments we’ll look at how all Americans, and the Loser Generation in particular, can fix the American system.

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[1] Redish, Martin H., Money Talks, New York, New York University Press, 2001.

[2] Chait, Jonathan, The Big Con, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007

The Loser Generation: Part Seven

A fundamental disconnect of the Congress with its constituents is that it is currently not reflective of America’s population, with fewer women and minorities than proportional to the real population, and little reflection of differing socio-economic backgrounds. Professionally it’s also not diverse: 1/3 of Congress is currently comprised of individuals with a legal background. Working-class Americans in office may have a very different perspective on how to get things done from the 47% – just under half of the Congress – that are millionaires (as of 2011). It is no surprise that, in an income bracket defined as the 1% of America, they represent moneyed interests with few pangs of conscience.

If we want to take back the Legislative branch we have to get ourselves into office and change the rules to end the plutocracy which has been on the rise for nearly forty years, and has in recent years swollen disproportionately in the favor of the wealthy. To do this will require tackling the lobbyists and corporation control of Washington.

For a good example of how Congressional representatives no longer are beholden to their constituents, and are instead beholden to lobbyists, look at the case of Bob Dole. “Senator Robert Dole (R-Kan.) worked hard for a billion-dollar tobacco subsidy, and received generous contributions from the tobacco industry. But tobacco is virtually an unknown crop in Kansas, the state that elected him, so whom was he representing?”[1]

Our view of lobbyists is generally people skulking around the halls of Capitol Hill, but this need not be the case. “Americans for Tax Reform, a non-partisan sounding, tax-exempt nonprofit organization, received a total of $4.6 million from the Republican National Committee, which it used to send out 19 million pieces of mail and make four million phone calls urging voters to support the GOP’s campaign against Medicare”[2] in the 1990s. These grassroots lobbyists, non-profits that are just tools of the existing parties, can then be seen to hold tremendous sway as well. Rather than traditional Washington lobbyists who get the ear of the Representative or Senator directly, grassroots goes to one of the critical sources of their power, their constituents, and tricks them into supporting bills and signing petitions they don’t really understand. A recent example was the SOPA/PIPA debacle, in which petitioners asked for help to “keep the Internet free” by the grassroots lobbyists who actually supported the new restrictions.

Here’s another nice example, from the January 2011 issue of the New Internationalist: “In the United States – where statistically one in three people are obese – the US Food and Drug Administration announced in 2009 that it would be issuing new front-of-pack labeling guidance. But industry appears to have stepped in first, with the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Food Marketing Institute launching a voluntary front-of-pack labeling scheme in October 2010 to ‘fight against obesity’. Just how manufacturers like Cadbury, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo (all members of the GMA) plan to fight obesity without ditching the products on which their brands were built is unclear.” The GMA is officially a trade association, run out of Washington, and in 2006, for example, spent $1.4 million on lobbying – half to lobbying firms and half to in-house lobbying.

Americans are losing confidence in democracy.[3]

Lobbyists have been steadily on the rise in D.C. since the 1970s, then spiking in 1997 and climbing from about 11,000 to 33,000 in under a decade.[4] An example of this era’s explosion can be seen in Wal-Mart. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, explains the case:

“Wal-Mart had no full-time representative in Washington before 1999, and only a tiny political action committee, which contributed just $148,250 in 1998…Then came Wal-Mart’s equivalent of Microsoft’s anti-trust shock. Wal-Mart had long wanted to get into the banking business, figuring its millions of consumers would welcome the convenience of banking at Wal-Mart, and the company could make lots of money from banking fees. Wal-Mart hoped to use a loophole in a federal law that generally barred commercial companies from owning banks but exempted stand-alone savings and loans. In 1999 Wal-Mart found a savings and loan in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, that seemed the perfect vehicle. But the banking industry had been following Wal-Mart’s moves carefully. When Wal-Mart sought to buy the bank, the industry unleashed a team of lobbyists on Congress, and Congress abruptly pulled the loophole closed.”[5]

Reich tells of how Wal-Mart responded. $2.2 million was contributed in 2004, and it became one of the largest PACs in the nation. Another such massive lobbying campaign battle took place in 2006, this time with a Wal-Mart that knew how to play the game.[6]

Individual lobbying battles can cost vast amounts. In 2006 one such between the phone companies and internet firms, over net neutrality, cost $50 million in lobbying and advertising.[7] Pet issues can be deeply invested in. “In 1998 Exxon embarked on a campaign to give ‘logistical and moral support’ to any dissenter from scientific findings documenting global climate change, ‘thereby raising questions and undercutting the “prevailing scientific wisdom”’” and four years later they gave $225 million to Stanford so as to create the illusion of debate.[8] Exxon, while more of a friend to the Bush administration, has still spent over $50 million during the Obama administration so far.  To put that in perspective, $50,000,000 is equal to the salary of the entire Senate, The President and Vice-President, the nine Supreme Court Justices, and all of California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, Wisconsin and Florida’s Representatives in Congress, with money to spare.

Paul Ryan (R) and Ron Kind (D) are both from Wisconsin and both sit on the House Ways and Means committee, which has control over corporate tax loopholes. Is it any surprise that, according to the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group in March of this year, they’ve each “received more than a 100 thousand dollars in campaign contributions over the past two election cycles from corporations that are using such loopholes”?

This is how campaign finance reform and lobbying are interconnected. The lobbyists aren’t just trying to get favorable bills passed through fancy dinners and campaigns for lucrative government contracts. They make sure key Representatives get hefty campaign contributions. For the Representative struggling to make $10,000 a week such contributions help ensure you get reelected, and are a very persuasive way to ensure favorable legislation for your patron. Unless you are independently wealthy (such as the late Ted Kennedy, who gave his Congressional salary to charity each year), you will probably have to find a corporate patron to support your political career. Combined with grass-roots lobbying as a de facto arm of party and corporate interests we have in place a  ridiculous feedback loop: corporations give money to parties and Representatives, who give contributions to grass-roots action committees and lobbyist organizations, who tell voters what to vote for, who, being misled, vote for corporate interests, sometimes over their own welfare. The Representative is then reelected, or the bill is passed, and the corporations and lobbyist firms begin a new parasitic cycle.

Contributions from lobbyists to campaigns are now virtually unlimited. Individuals can spend up to $2,500 – but corporations can basically spend whatever they want. In other words, through lobbying and campaign contributions, corporations are edging Americans out of the decision-making process. The ramifications and reasons will be seen in the next section, focusing on the scandalous Citizen’s United decision.

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[1] Parenti, Michael, Democracy for the Few, Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2002

[2] Ibid. (Parneti)

[3] Reich, Robert B., Supercapitalism, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

[4] Ibid. (Reich)

[5] Ibid. (Reich)

[6] Ibid. (Reich)

[7] Ibid. (Reich)

[8] Ibid. (Reich)

The Loser Generation: Part Six

Let’s start with looking at campaign finance reform and the money it takes to get things done.

The problem for many of us is scale. Two teachers making $45 thousand per year won’t earn six figures even with their dual income. For this couple, $200,000 is a lot of money. When governments deal in millions, billions, and trillions, it can seem incomprehensible to process. Running the government of the third largest country on earth costs vast amounts of money. For example, the U.S. spends about $700 billion on its military – the most of any country. China, which has five times our population, spends $120 billion, making it the second in the world. The U.S. spends $830 billion on Medicare and Medicaid. That number, in turn, is about half of California’s GDP; if California were a country would be the world’s ninth largest economy. The national debt, meanwhile, is a rising $15 trillion. Given these enormous amounts of money, should we, then, be concerned with a (comparatively) “measly” $5.3 billion dollar election?

A startling statistic: over 90% of recent House and Senate elections since the 1990s have gone to the candidate who spent the most money. Regardless of the relative amounts being spent on these elections, money in these elections is clearly playing the most important role in determining who wins elections. If you think a free market approach is an acceptable way of running Congress you still have to consider the consequences of constantly fundraising. Individuals can give up to $2,500 to a candidate. If our Representative requires $10,000 a week to get reelected, which is the national average today, then he needs at least four major personal contributions secured every week. A Congressman’s job is basically paid on commission. Instead of doing his job on the House or Senate floor he’s constantly trying to raise money. The consequence of the current system basically is designed to keep the Representatives from doing their job – legislating and debating the important and difficult questions facing the country.

Turning on the news, news commentary, and comedy news shows on the TV brings a familiar refrain: the government is too bloated, it isn’t nimble enough to effectively handle problems, and the bureaucracy is out of control. While this may be the case in other branches, or overall, it isn’t true of the House: constitutionally the proportion originally was one Representative for every 30,000 people. If this proportion held true today there would be 10,387 Representatives. An act in 1929 capped the size of the House at 435, with a little over 200,000 people per Representative at the time.  Now each Rep stands for an average of 700,000 people. Our legislative body comes down to 535 people in the Congress: .0001% of our population. Those who have the money to give to these very few hold tremendous sway and influence over an individual who constantly needs to raise money. Congress isn’t a bureaucracy so much as it is a bottleneck.

Nor does it reflect American opinions. The majority of Americans, across 19 polls, consistently prefer taxing the rich. A majority of Americans polled support gay marriage. Exactly half of the country supports legalizing marijuana, an all-time high. A majority of Americans favor government support for Planned Parenthood. If Congress were really reflective of America then Washington would reflect American attitudes and opinions – yet they don’t reflect this at all, and certainly aren’t passing legislation echoing our sentiments. In keeping with this trend it’s not surprising that a majority of citizens, regardless of affiliation, support campaign finance reform.

One of the most promising bills, the Fair Elections Now Act, was proposed in 2011 by a bipartisan group of Representatives. Limiting contributions to $100, the candidate would first have to get 1,500 contributions from their state to show support. After they’d proven their supported base they’d be given a fixed sum of about one million dollars, 40% to spend on the primaries and 60% on the main election. It would cost about $850 million to implement nationally – a far cry from the billions we currently waste on our elections.

Congressional money, of course, can come in forms more opaque. Consider in 2003 when Republicans attempted to bribe party members for their votes on a Medicare bill on November 23. So, too, are to be considered the periodic ethics scandals regarding finances on both sides.

So too have earmarks increased in recent years. In the mid-1990s an already troubling $10 billion was set aside for some 1,430 projects. Within a decade the number of such project passed by Congress had increased to 10,656, totaling $22.9 billion[1]. The figures are still in the $20 billion a year ballpark in recent years. By means of comparison $20 billion dollars is the total amount BP spent to clean up the Gulf Coast Spill, one of the worst and costliest environmental disasters in history. Or four times the entire United Nation’s annual budget.

The 2004 election is a good example of how wealthy candidates can rely on their existing assets to squeeze out any competition. Rodney A. Smith explains the situation in Money, Power & Politics:

“In December 2003, during the early stages of the 2004 presidential primary campaign, Senator John Kerry was mired in a crowded field with the support of only 9% of Democrats nationally. He was running a distant third in Iowa and was over 30 percentage points behind in New Hampshire, his cash reserves were running low, and his campaign was $3.8 million in debt…

“Caught in this do-or-die situation, Kerry quietly set up a $6.4 million dollar personal line of credit for his campaign, using his home in Boston as collateral. Immediately thereafter the campaign borrowed $2.8 million dollars in December 2003 and $3.5 million in January 2004, for a total of $6.3 million just prior to the Iowa caucuses. This quick injection of cash gave Kerry the financial resources he needed to win a come-from-behind victory…

“While neither Senator Kerry nor campaign did anything illegal or unethical in setting up a bank loan, this large infusion of cash at just the right moment vividly demonstrates the importance of money in politics, particularly to a campaign that’s struggling.” [2]

Smith, who served as the National Finance Director of the Republican National Committee, concludes that it would have taken a competitor, making phone calls under the best possible circumstances, working ten hour days, until mid-May to have raised the same amount[3].

The inability to defeat incumbents is also getting worse. Smith cites that the average length of a Congressional term, historically, has been 4 years, but as of 2000 it had swelled in the House to 14, and the Senate 18 years of service. Since the Campaign Finance Reform bill in 1974, the number of no-contest House elections has increased 15%, just as the number of semi- and not-competitive races have also each increased by 5%. These numbers are identical for the Senate.[4]

Arguably, then, campaign finance reform is the single most important problem to fix in the United States. Until the legislative branch reflects the people’s will we cannot claim to have a real democracy. I cannot over-emphasize the most important statistic in this whole problem: whoever has the most money almost certainly wins the election. Whoever the deep pockets want to win, therefore, will win. But the problem does not exist in a vacuum – it is intimately connected to the role of lobbyists. This, almost certainly most powerful role in Washington will be examined in the next section.

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[1] Mann and Ornstein, The Broken Branch, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

[2] Smith, Rodney A., Money, Power and Politics, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.

[3] Ibid. (Smith)

[4] Ibid. (Smith)

The Loser Generation: Part Five

As detailed in the last post, government is, or can be, the most important force in creating change in the United States today. Most members of the Loser Generation, regardless of other passions, are deeply concerned about the economy. The economy is only one of the grave problems we face as a nation. The mechanism by which these problems may be addressed and solved is supposed to be Congress. But right now, Congress is not addressing these concerns because its Members are seemingly incapable of competent action. At least 80% of our population disapproves of Congress’ lack of action and dysfunctional politics. Both sides of the national aisle can agree that it’s not doing its job at a critical time. One of the reasons for this failure is money in politics.

$4,200,000,000 was spent on the 2010 mid-term elections. The 2008 Presidential elections cost $5.3 billion. That’s more than three times the 2011 Education Department’s Race to the Top budget and the National Cancer Institute’s 2010 allocation to fight cancer, respectively. The lobbyist industry in Washington spent a cool $14 billion over the past four years that could have been better spent elsewhere. Compare the lobbyists’ spending to the salaries paid to the world’s top 50 athletes. Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady and the rest combined made $1.408 billion in 2011. If these salaries were to stay the same for four years, these athletes would be paid $5.6 billion. Even these extremely inflated salaries are still just a third of what lobbyists spent in the same period of time. Politics and money are now paired in a way unseen before, excluding backroom corruption. The need for money to finance campaigns leads to continuous fundraising by American politicians, so they can survive to run again. A Representative needs to raise an average of $10,000 a week for two years for a reelection bid. If you’re not used to raising that much money every week of your life to keep your job, then in the present system, you’re not cut out for politics.

Campaign finance reform is opposed primarily by those who have the money, and by extension the ear, of certain Representatives. The wealthy continue to fight hard to make sure their candidate wins the election. Because he is theirs – bought and paid for. While some earnest Representatives are fighting this corruption, they are outnumbered and outspent. The only hope they can have is that the American people will stand up and fight back. But right now, the well-meaning Representatives are being pummeled, and the American people are doing nothing.

Besides campaign finance reform and lobbyists there are other difficulties that Congress must address in order to get the money out of politics and become more effective. Critically, the recent Supreme Court decision, Citizen’s United vs. Federal Election Committee (2010), has led to overwhelming negative public reaction. How is it that 80% of Americans polled can disagree with a governmental action – 80% of Congress’ constituents – yet the unpopular and, as many scholars and politicians have said, dangerous, law can stand?  What’s more, this dangerous decision may well ensure that the 2012 election is the most costly on record.  As dissenting Supreme Court Justice Stevens put it:

“All that the parties dispute is whether Citizen’s United had a right to use the funds in its general treasury to pay for broadcasts during the 30-day period. The notion that the First Amendment dictates an affirmative answer to that question is, in my judgment, profoundly misguided. Even more misguided is the notion that the Court must rewrite the law relating to campaign expenditures for for-profit corporations and unions to decide this case.” (Emphasis in the original.)

The lawyer who fought to get Citizens United passed, James Bopp, has endorsed Mitt Romney. Santorum stated that opposition to the decision is “horrible.” Obama, in a reversal of an earlier decision, has created a super PAC (political action committee), a new type of fundraising machine created in 2010 that allows unlimited financing. The possible consequences for our Representatives who already are gathering $10,000 a week is mind-boggling.

This is where the Loser Generation comes in. One doesn’t have to be under 30 to want to change Congress; but since we’re both un- and underemployed and, hopefully, motivated to make the U.S. a better place, we can lead the movement to fix Congress. Until the corrupting influence of money in politics is removed, and Congress is made more efficient, it will be unable to tackle the serious problems. Many Americans consider now to be a time of great crisis and upheaval. The crises that we’ll be facing in the years to come will undoubtedly be great, as is the case for any world power. If Congress is unable to work efficiently to solve these problems, then we will begin a twilight decline that future historians will trace back to the broken system in Washington. The next three installments will underline the critical importance of campaign finance reform, getting rid of lobbyists, and the need to reverse the Citizens United decision. Until we address these problems America cannot get back on track, and our generation is going suffer the more for it. Yet if we – the voters, and the Loser Generation especially – choose to change the system, then the decline need not happen. We have to start a movement not designed to battle for dominance of the beltway, but to fight for a fully functioning government.

The Loser Generation: Part Four

What matters to you?

Do you care about the shrinking middle class? The environment? Immigration? Gay marriage? Prison overcrowding and marijuana legalization? Farmer’s rights? Internet piracy, freedom and copyright laws? Traditional schooling? Religion’s role in society?

It doesn’t matter.

Why that is is complex, but comes down to how our country works these days. Whatever you are interested in, there are three basic ways you could invest your time and resources. The first is through non-profits, local organizations, and grassroots movements. The second is through corporations and the market. The third is through government.

The first two means of advocating, supporting, or getting involved are subject to the third. Non-profits and local organizations are subject to local and federal laws, as are corporations. If Congress or the Supreme Court is able to regulate, change, outlaw, or give tax credits to your nonprofit or corporation they clearly hold the greatest sway of the three.

Let’s say your pet interest is in rebuilding Detroit and New Orleans after the past decade treated them so poorly. You could join a local group, such as Rebuilding Together or Habitat for Humanity. Or you could use your wallet and buy items from madeindetroit.com or take a vacation this year to New Orleans to finally go and see Mardi Gras. These sorts of activities seem to have little connection to any government interference.

A closer look will reveal a greater role of the government policy. The top ten employers in Detroit are:

Ford

GM

Chrysler

Detroit Public Schools

U Michigan

U Michigan Health System

USPS

US Government

Henry Ford Health System

St. John Health System

They comprised 240,000 local jobs in 2007. Anyone who has followed the recent discussions about whether the government should bail out the American car industry, or the role of government in providing health care, can’t help but notice the biggest factor for recovery in Detroit is going to be Washington.

This may seem cherry-picked. Detroit and New Orleans are both cities, and that’s different from other causes as it’s perhaps more directly tied to government. Since that’s fair we’ll look at each of those other causes mentioned above in turn.

The shrinking middle class.

What are some of the main reasons for this? The middle class is 70% of the economy, but they can no longer borrow in the ways they could before the Great Recession. Had Washington’s bailout been structured differently, this current state of the middle class would be different as well. Robert Reich gives a quick summary:

“Starting around 1980, globalization and automation began exerting downward pressure on median wages. Employers broke unions in order to make more profits. And increasingly deregulated financial markets began taking over the real economy.

“The result was painfully slow wage growth for most households. Women surged into paid work in order to prop up family incomes. When that stopped working, families went deep into debt, using the rising values of their homes as collateral. Then the housing bubble popped.”

While government can’t control some forces (globalization and automation) they most certainly can support and play a vital role for others (maintaining strong unions, regulating financial markets).

The environment.

A recent example of the role of active government regards the Keystone XL pipeline. The National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network and others joined together to pressure Congress into not putting through the work. Millions of signatures were collected. Non-profits and individuals here teamed up to get something accomplished. A number of Representatives signed a statement against the pipeline project, based on the pressures of their constituents.

On the flip side recall the BP spill of 2010. The decisions of who, and how we get our energy in this country comes directly from Washington. They have the final say in who gets to drill, what percentage of our energy will be from coal, what tax breaks certain energy sources are granted. They own the land, and ultimately if the administration insists on regulating safety measures the companies have no choice but to comply. These basic facts – the land belongs to the government and they can regulate business practices – makes Washington the critical player in most environmental concerns, from habitat loss to ozone depletion.

Immigration.

Last week the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s state law which allowed police to ask for documentation papers of suspected illegal immigrants. Obama’s administration has changed course and now pledges to no longer prosecute young illegal immigrants. State and local interests, such as the Arizona law and other border state concerns, are eventually privy to federal government’s rulings and choices. Immigration is entirely decided by government.

Gay Marriage.

You can join a group that supports it. You can get a bumper sticker that advocates for traditional families being defined in the constitution. Regardless, the decision will be made on the state and someday possibly federal level as to what is legal. Currently state government has ruled in six states (Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa) and D.C. with two pending (Washington and Maryland) that it is legal, while half the states have a state constitutional ban. The armed services have just repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, and Section Three of the Defense of Marriage Act is currently being disputed, having been found to be unconstitutional at least for California. To say that marriage is not an issue for government is false.

Prisons, Drugs.

Last year the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that stated California’s prisons were overcrowded, and needed to be reduced. We have incarcerated 3% of our population – a global record, not statistically but certainly in raw numbers: 2,353,727 adults and juvenile offenders. According to the Bureau of Justice: “In 2004, 17% of state prisoners and 18% of federal inmates said they committed their current offense to obtain money for drugs.” That’s a specific drug-related reason, though. If you broaden it to all drug-related crimes you get the following:

108,000 federal prisoners (of 211,455 as of April 2010)

280,000 state prisoners (of 1,395,916 as of 2007)

These are older statistics from the more current numbers above, but they still provide a good glimpse that half of federal inmates, and one in five state-held inmates are drug-related offenders. With a black American population of 39 million (13% of the total), for whom there’s a 1 in 3 likelihood of going to prison, issues of incarceration are important – not for personal concerns but the effect of this skewed system on the community and the continual stereotypes and harmful perceptions in American society. For all Americans the issue of prison reform, in the hands of the federal government, is a concern. Likewise more Americans support the legalization of soft drugs than ever before in our history, and the interplay between federally illegal drugs and state legality is certainly going to play out in the upcoming years.

Farmer’s rights.

This ties in again with the environment and land. Monsanto is responsible for most of our food – and fifty superfund sites. As a corporate entity they make sure to get what they want, contributing over $300,000 in 2010 to specific candidates, and $8.8 million in lobbying. Government can regulate them, fine them, give them tax breaks, appoint their board members to the cabinet, or throw their CEOs in jail. With a handful of other companies to consider the near entirety of our food comes from few sources. How it reaches us, if it’s healthy, if it’s affordable, and its effect on the land are all determined by Washington.

As for farmer’s rights, these are increasingly threatened in the heartland, with these large, loosely regulated companies taking away rights and securities, forcing certain practices regardless of the farmer’s ethics or concerns for health and safety. Without oversight Monsanto and others can do what they like to the farmers and dare them to survive on their own. Not surprisingly this has led to numerous lawsuits against these giants from farmers to other companies across the globe, worth many hundreds of millions.

Incidentally Monsanto first rose to prominence, with Dow, creating Agent Orange – used in Vietnam. Not surprisingly Monsanto has been sued not just by farmers but by veterans as well.

Internet piracy, freedom and copyright laws.

SOPA and PIPA. The internet was enflamed by these federal measures to play a greater role in the internet’s governance. Ever since the Bush years email has not really been any more private than wiretapped telephones. Copyright laws were first written up in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, established: “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

This is controlled by our government. We’ve long since done away with the “limited Times” bowing down to corporate demands to keep their property and ideas out of the public domain and in private hands for personal profit. We could reverse this, but instead have created many laws to help it along. In 2008 The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act was passed, and others are being debated and begun, such as the ‘Six Strikes Plan’ to encroach further still. Trade agreements with other countries also reinforce copyright and patent strictness, such as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA, which requires criminal prosecution. Since 95% of all music downloaded online, at least as of 2008, is done so illegally these laws are noteworthy.

Software lawsuits, claims, and opportunistic litigation has led the loss of half a trillion dollars. Whatever fascinates, inspires, or drives you – think of what your pet interest could have done with $500,000,000,000 to spend. This actually segues nicely into the next section.

Traditional schooling.

Federal funding for higher education in the country has been increasing since No Child Left Behind was passed. Most funding, of course, comes from local government, with specific tax laws differing state to state. Yet in 2012 the estimated federal spending on education is $77.3 billion, a not inconsiderable amount.

As we attempt to improve student performance NCLB laws are changing to better suit needs, with the current administration’s initial Race to the Top initiative and now the voucher system to bypass the least effective parts of No Child Left Behind, which, from an educator’s point of view, has been a statistical failure.

Important Washington legislation in particular for the Loser Generation’s point of view has shifted college loan debt – for those who graduated after 2008. Nationally this will have a huge effect.

Religion’s role in society.

In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled in McCreary vs. ACLU that a portrayal of the Ten Commandments outside a federal courthouse was unconstitutional, due to separation of church and state.

In April of this year a man was arrested for bombing an abortion clinic in Wisconsin. A similar attack happened in January of this year in Florida. Both men were convicted.

State to state Intelligent Design is being taught or barred from schools. As of 2005 the highest ruling on the subject comes from Pennsylvania, and states that Intelligent Design “is not science, and moreover that I.D. cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious antecedents.”

One in six Americans thinks, incorrectly, that Obama is a Muslim, as of May of this year. As of last fall 47% of Americans feel as though Muslims’ values are at odds with American values.

As you can see the topic of religion in American society is still a hotbed, and still intertwined with government.

This, then, is why I said it didn’t matter what matters to you. In the end no matter what you care about, what makes you joyful or steam at the ears, it all comes back to the critical role government plays in our lives. If government is so important, then it is critical that it works at peak efficiency. The next step in this investigation of how to fix the Loser Generation will require a study of how this much needed efficiency has been lost.

The Loser Generation: Part Three

Dispatches from the Loser Generation

I’ve been travelling around the country for some time. But it was in East Haven, Massachusetts on a porch in the heat that a bartender dubbed me a ‘traveler’. Now that it was out there people since from all over have called me that. The best thing about it has been collecting stories from new friends and old all across the country. They’re great people, but that doesn’t keep them from being members of the Loser Generation.

First Dispatch: Megan in Portland

“I met Megan abroad. I was teaching in Singapore, seeing what made their students do well on those tests. (Hint: they don’t have the same rules about plagiarism that we do.) She and I met online, as is my typical form of meet-up these days. We hit it off, not romantically but as good friends. After a couple months she went back to the States.

“When my contract was up I headed back and got in touch. She was in Portland, and I’d never been. So, having little to occupy me…

“One of the first things I noted was that the polite cartoon characters on the bus urging me to move to the back and not yak on the phone were wearing beanies and fleece while sporting soul patches. Also: poverty. Lots of poverty on the public transport system.

“It’s an unusual town where the young suits downtown have gauged ears and conspicuous tats creeping out of their collars and winding down their wrists. It being January it wasn’t easy to get a good look at the native fauna though, with the unforgiving winds ushering locals indoors. I went to the sights: the parks, Powell’s Bookstore, and the food carts. But more on Megan.

“M’s a couple years older than me, 27, and is taking the long road to her diploma. She was in SG [Singapore] to study. She’s an awesome cook, and is known character at Whole Foods. She’s renting a house near campus with three other girls and a cat. She’s studying neuroscience, and probably getting published soon.

“Her roommates and boyfriend are pretty cool. They’re good to hang around and have a drink with or talk about the state of politics today. Some are still in school, some have graduated. Everyone’s working barista, waitress, and bookstore-style jobs.

“She’s not entirely sure what comes next. She’s used to working to get by, in stints when she wasn’t in college. With her degree she’ll likely need to round up funding for the rest of her career. Apparently there may be something available at a lab locally, which would be great. If not, well, we didn’t talk much about that.”

Second Dispatch: Joseph in Ithaca

“S: Hey dude – I’m in Ithaca!

“J: cool

     what are you doin’ there?

“S: Visiting Joseph. And Em. He’s up at Cornell for grad school.

“J: what does he study?

“S: Some sort of bio. Environmental stuff with earthworms.

“J: well at least the weather’s decided to be summer.

“S: I know! It was 60 degrees the other eveing.

      *evening

“J: ithaca is a depressing town. make sure your friend doesn’t hang himself.

“S: It’s a depressed town, certainly. Like Louis C.K.’s bit on whole towns that are shit.

“J: isn’t it the suicide capital of the u.s.?

“S: Probably. Joe’s doin’ alright here, though. It’s better than the jobs he had after [university].

“J: what was he doing before?

“S: Chasing geese off of New York reservoirs with a flare gun.

“J: that sounds awesome.

“S: Awesomely cold and low-paying, yes. Basically he’s pledged to stay here as long as he can so he doesn’t have to enter the workforce.”

Third Dispatch: Haley in New York

“C: Hey!

“T: Hey! Are you in NY?

“C: I am. :)

“T: Say hi to Haley for me!

“C: Will do. I’m staying at her place.

“T: I know. I saw your profile. ;)

“C: How’s life?

“T: It’s okay. Things are a little stressful right now. Eric’s deploying soon.

“C: That’s rough.

“T: mmhm.

“C: When does he get back?

“T: Early June. He leaves on Thursday.

“C: Well send him my and Haley’s best luck and wishes.

“T: How’s Haley doing? I’ve not spoken to her in, like, a month and a half.

“C: She’s doing okay. She’s dating Rick now, if you ever knew him from school.

“T: I don’t think so…

“C: He and I were in the same department. He’s a cool guy. She’s trying to get by, and is working a sort of 9-5 secretarial job, temping. She’s working on her own projects when she can.

“T: Did she ever send off her applications to go back to school?

“C: Nope. Didn’t want the debt.

“T: Makes sense…

Fourth Dispatch: Sam in Cleveland and Lynne in L.A.

“Howdy. Quick message while I’ve got a minute.

“I’m back in Cleveland at Sam’s. He just lost his job shortly after I planned my trip. Cleveland is…Cleveland. I think I saw everything I ever wanted to see last time I was out here. We’re chilling out. Not eating out as much as last time, not surprisingly.

“His girlfriend’s moved down to L.A. so he wants to follow her out there fairly soon. He’s got a cool kickstarter project he hopes will raise some funds. His girlfriend, Nat, is at the B.U. campus in LA (which makes little sense to me, but whatever). She’s pretty cool, and hopes to break into the entertainment business out there. I’m going to put her in touch with Lynne.

“Speaking of which, I got a call from her on Monday. She’s having trouble getting a job, but things are going well with David. Best of luck to them... She’s doing some freelance work, but since everyone in Hollywood got fired jobs that anyone used to be able to just walk in off the street and take now have ridiculous pre-reqs. A job that is basically coffee gopher is now asking five years’ experience – and people can provide it, because they used to be it ten years ago. It used to mean if you had that on your resume you sucked too badly to even advance.

“So she’s still at home, and is making enough to basically cover her monthly loan payments, even though she knows people and has contacts. David’s doing a bit better, and they want a place of their own, but until she can find something solid that just isn’t going to happen.”

These writings are all based on real people I’ve spent time with on my travels, and all composed of real details, changing names. There've been many others. A few, in brief:

B – Who after graduation shared an apartment with her college roommate in Seattle, working retail to pay the bills, working in theaters at night for no pay. She decided to go back to school.

O – Who after graduation worked as a waitress in South Carolina, living with her parents, then a summer job working with children. She then took on an internship, and eventually landed a year-long job in Connecticut.

E – Who dropped out for a while, unable to pay tuition fees. He’s now at another school, far behind when he might’ve graduated. Works at a Panera, and doesn’t know what he’ll do once he graduates. Lives with his parents.

D – Who works at Gamestop and has gone from liberal arts college to community college, and back to another liberal arts college. Lives with his parents as well. Drives a bus as another source of income.

A –Who graduated late, moved to Maine to be with his girlfriend after a stint with parents. Works for a nonprofit; future uncertain after the November election.

K – Who moved out to Boston and works three different shifts, always bringing her work home to finish, to pay the bills. Graduated in 2011, and unlike many I’ve mentioned, works in the field she studied.

N – Who graduated in 2007 and worked in a bookstore from then until last year, when she quit. She’s now bagging wholesale coffee, sharing an apartment with four other individuals.

S – Who got his diploma and promptly worked three jobs: as a waiter, a piano teacher, and a lackey for a video company in Oakland so he can share his apartment with a friend.

W – Who got a certificate to be a masseuse after college, and has yet to find a position in her state, living with friends and without a car in a depressed town.

R – Who has worked as a waitress in Madison, WI since she graduated five years ago, pursuing her passions in her free time and at night for almost no pay in the field she studied.

V – Who tried to be a teacher in NYC and ended up working for a private company in Jersey City after three years of subbing.

H – Who documented Occupy and told me they were making plans in Denver if I was interested.

  

I said in the last post we were going to be the solution to our own problem, how a bunch of middle class families ended up getting wiped out, and how those of us graduating post 2007 have been hit so hard. Now that I’ve given some detail about the problem, statistically and anecdotally, I can begin to talk about the solution.

The Loser Generation: Part Two

How exactly did we become losers? By many measures, we aren’t succeeding in the ways our predecessors did. If you’re a college graduate, you likely have a lot of debt and a degree that’s not helping you get a job.  You’re under-utilized in the economy, and there’s a good chance you have already lived, or still are living, at home. Instead of starting families, we’re in limbo, working the sort of crummy, low-paying jobs that we worked in high school and to pay for college, but that we didn’t expect to have to work once we had a degree. We’re in economic straits; unhappy, and often cynical.

The obvious answer is the Great Recession, since December of 2007. To trace the causes of this economic collapse would take a volume. Certain laws, such as Glass-Steagall separating banks from securities,  were repealed along with other regulations put in place after the Great Depression of the 30s. When these were removed, in a process from Regan to Clinton to Bush, the same risky patterns that had led to the Great Depression began again. The critical components of the fallout were that pensions disappeared and houses were being foreclosed on – both of which struck the middle class. This, in turn, was compounded by the fact that middle class families are historically highly likely to send their children to college. Since the 1980s,  tuition has far outpaced the middle class wage (which has diminished relative to purchasing power over the same period). So our generation took out loans to pay for it, which previously wasn’t too bad an option, if you could get a well-paying job after college and pay them off in maybe ten years.

Since 2007 things have gotten better. Still the United States has roughly 9% unemployment and 15% of its population is living under the poverty line. The Occupy movement was to be expected, since a consistent factor in determining a country’s overall happiness is its income discrepancy. The less of a discrepancy, the happier the population. When a large portion of the people being hurt by the recession are youth, of course they’re going to be fed up with the status quo. Approximately 17% of the unemployed are under the age of 30. That’s roughly 3,400,000 people, or the population of Wyoming, Montana, Vermont and New Hampshire combined. These numbers do not include the under-employed who’ve settled for part-time work, or have simply given up hope looking; for youth currently listed as 32% - one in three. The actual un- and underemployed numbers are estimated to be higher than the reported.

Who is going to fix this mess? Historically, based on the Great Depression, it’s best to employ Keynesian economics in the form of government intervention. Reputable economists, such as the Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, are very consistent in saying the initial government bailout was the right idea, but simply not big enough. When free market forces go awry and the bust gets too big to comfortably handle (like 3.4 million unemployed youth) the government steps in and regulates to ensure safety for its citizens. This has been true for boom-bust cycles going back to the 1600s. So we need to turn to government, right?

In John W. Dean’s Broken Government he addresses the discouraging trend of voter apathy and reminds us “Over the years –actually, over the decades– the figures have not changed significantly, so the data from 2004 are as good as any and probably not far from what they have been since the embarrassing records were first kept in the 1930s.” This apathy and ignorance of voters is disheartening, certainly. About 60% of Americans in the Bush years thought there was a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, to take a recent depressing example. As of 2010 one in five said Obama was a secret Muslim. Dean cites where Americans stood in the 2004 election for voter turnout:

“How many Americans do vote? The answer is surprisingly few. Among the 172 nations of the world for which records are maintained, the 2004 nationwide voter turnout of 48.3 percent of eligible voters…ranks the United States 139 among the world’s democracies, slightly ahead of Botswana (46.5 percent) and Zambia (40.5 percent). Most developed democracies have far greater turnout, like Germany (80.6 percent), Sweden (83.6 percent), France (84 percent) and Italy (92.5 percent).”

The 2008 election had the largest turnout since the 1960s, with between 62-3% of eligible voters going to the polls for the Presidential election. That’s still less than the most recent elections in the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan or even Togo. The point being – we are in part losers of our own making. Luckily, we can be the solution to our own problem.