Redistributing the wealth

The self-described conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans here at Marshall-Wythe (and there are many) keep rekindling the phrase "redistributing the wealth," in relation to President-elect Barack Obama's middle class tax cut. One classmate of mine even managed to mention it during Evidence class this morning, in response to the professor's question about self-incrimination. I missed how those two concepts, wealth redistribution and self-incrimination, had anything to do with each other. Perhaps someone should ask Joe the Plumber.

Recall that it was Obama's conversation with Joe the Plumber in which Obama used the phrase, "spread the wealth around." Not long after that, conservatives (led by Matt Drudge) dug up this 2001 interview that Obama gave to WBEZ radio in Chicago, in which he talked about the Warren Court of the 1960s, which by Obama's account, did not engage in much "redistribution of wealth." For a much more academic discussion of this than I'm capable of, read this fascinating account of Obama's 2001 remarks. Obama's conclusion, as documented in the 2001 interview, is that redistributive change is not possible (or necessarily desirable) through the courts. One cannot know for sure if that is Obama's driving factor in leaving the Ivory Tower of academia for the political arena, at least not without asking him, but I tend to doubt it.

So what would Obama do with our wealth (now that we've lost $1 trillion of it)? For starters, Obama's middle class tax cut (which, by the way, he's been pitching since the Pre-Caucus Era) can be found here. Obama's plan, if enacted by Congress, would cut taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year (e.g., Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, my parents). For the wealthiest 2% of Americans, those making more than $250,000 a year (see the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, McCains, et al.), taxes will increase to the same levels they were in the 1990s. This will have the effect of increasing, not redistributing wealth, to the vast majority of us. We'll be able to save it, or at least pay off some debt, while richer Americans will go back to paying a larger share. According to a few of these overwhelmingly rich Americans, that's quite alright.

Instead of all this talk about "redistributing the wealth" and socialism, then, perhaps we should spend a little more time debating the merits of a middle class tax cut, because that's what Obama wants to do while in office. It might not get as many laughs in Evidence class, but it's a more fruitful discussion.

Our New President

This week's big event, the election of President Barack Obama, have meant so much to so many for reasons too numerous to count. One New York Times story on Wednesday aptly described it as a moment of "national catharsis."

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

To help do our part, as law students, my friend Aaron recruited a group of us to serve as the Obama campaign's official poll watchers on Tuesday. Virginia law allows for one observer from each campaign on Election Day, both inside and outside the polling place. So 50 of us law students and professors awoke early, some as early as 3:30 a.m., and traveled to precincts throughout Hampton Roads, from Virginia Beach to Newport News to Williamsburg and James City County. We witnessed history first-hand, as thousands of first-time voters, many of them black, helped turn Virginia blue for the first time since 1964.

When I arrived at 5:30 a.m., in the darkness and the rain, a line of more than 200 people had formed inside the hallways of Christian Life Church. Polls opened at 6 a.m., and it took an hour and a half before everyone in the original line had cast a ballot. By day's end, nearly 80 percent of the precinct's registered voters had cast a vote for Obama or Senator John McCain.

The crowning moment of my day came in the early afternoon, when an Obama volunteer, a middle-aged woman ripe with enthusiasm, accompanied an elderly black woman to the church. As the elderly voter showed her ID to poll workers, the volunteer told me that the woman was thrilled to have her chance to vote in this election — it was the first time she'd ever voted. After the elderly woman slid her ballot into the optical scanner, she stepped to the middle of the room and stopped. There, she threw both her hands in the air and exclaimed, "I have never felt so good in all my life! This is the first time I've ever voted!" Everyone in the room, perhaps 15 or 20 people, burst immediately into raucous applause. Tears streamed down the face of the Obama volunteer, as the elderly woman came to embrace her. The first-time voter proceeded to hug every person in sight as she made her way out of the church.

Stories like this one have come from all parts of the country, stories that serve to heal us and give us hope that this week, we live in a new kind of America — the kind of country that embraces all people equally. There are also stories that just feel good, like this one, from a friend of a friend who was at Grant Park in Chicago, where Obama made his acceptance speech:

It was totally amazing, but here's the moment of the night:

CNN was playing on the huge screens in the park. We watched as Wolf Blitzer called the states and the huge panel of pundits pronounced on whatever struck their fancy. Some time after Ohio was called, they turned the volume of the TVs down and shrunk the image of CNN to show pictures of the crowd that was present at Grant park. There was a whisper behind us that several networks had called the election for Obama. I was with a group of political scientists and since all of our phones were down and we could not confirm via the blogs and election maps that we've all become addicted to, we doubted. The crowd murmured and shifted.

Then, an unassuming skinny young white guy in a black hoodie came out onto the stage and said into the microphone, "Mic check 1, 2, 3. Mic check 1, 2. Mic check for the President Elect of the United States of America."

The crowd exploded.

The moment in Grant Park must have been the pinnacle of public euphoria, but since then, I know personally of many people who have had their own private moments of pure emotion. My own came on Wednesday afternoon. Still exhausted from a 14-hour day at the church (alright, and a full night of celebrating), I turned on the TV and caught a piece showing reactions to the election around the world. And there, just two days after Barack Obama's white grandmother had passed away in Hawaii, was Barack Obama's black grandmother, in Kenya. Sarah Obama's entire village was celebrating, as were young people in Greece, Israel, France, and even the children at Obama's childhood school in Indonesia. My girlfriend's friends from Canada and Australia called her this week to say that if they could have voted for Obama, they would have.

As I watched these scenes from around the world, the joy and relief overtook me, as it has so many people this week. Jesse Jackson Sr., whose tears were caught on camera at Grant Park Tuesday night, said that he cried for the happiness that Obama's accomplishment brought him, but also for the sad fact that Civil Rights-era people like Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr.—the ones who made Barack Obama possible—weren't still alive to see this day.

Thank goodness for them, and all those who helped make Tuesday possible. Now there is much work to be done, and it will take many hands to rebuild this country. As our new president said himself: "to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too."

We have our country back, all of us. The change is palpable—it fills the spirit and brings a smile to faces all over the world. I like to think we owe it to people like the elderly black woman in James City County, Va., who on Tuesday mustered the courage to cast a vote for president for the first time in her life. We may live in the same country that we lived in on Monday, but because of people like her, today we live in a nation that is forever changed.

My Vote, Counted

I voted yesterday. I walked into the James City County government complex with my Virginia voter registration card in my wallet, filled out an absentee ballot application in about three minutes, and a government worker handed me a ballot. After I made my choices with a felt tip marker and slid my ballot into the optical scanner (I was already voter #737, exactly three weeks before the election), I walked out to a sunshiny day, grinning from ear to ear. Democracy has never felt so good as a vote for Barack Obama.

Civic-minded connections

The human mind, itself a series of connections, tries with all its might to make connections among the many bits of information it examines in the world. The part of our brain that deals with sight is known to fill in the blanks, because our eyes are pixelated; when we look, they do not see every square inch. Similarly, when we read, our minds quickly find the intended meaning of misspelled words or accidentally transposed text. And of course, the configuration of the neurons themselves (from my basic understanding) is a series of electrical flow charts, with new concepts constantly being added in relation to old ones. We know car, then silver car, then Grandma and Grandpa's silver car, then Buick Century, then boat.

In the last few days and weeks I have encountered a terrific series of stories about our country and this election, about how youth are becoming more involved and about how rural people are being ignored. On NPR yesterday I listened to a fantastic discussion of what a next-generation government (namely, an Obama one) might look like, led by the author of a book called Wikinomics. This "Government 2.0" sounded a lot like democracy, and it made me smile.

I am synthesizing all these ideas, looking for the connections. They exist, I am sure of that.

First, there is no question that Barack Obama has tapped into the power of youth unlike any presidential candidate in recent history. I experienced that first-hand on Iowa Caucus night back in January. The young people in the Guttenberg Municipal Building that night were decidedly Obama supporters and not only that, they were leaders. Three young precinct captains, all of them female college students, wore Obama t-shirts. They were the ones rallying the troops, standing on chairs to count voters, heading to other circles to find potential defectors for the Obama delegation. This was not their first night working on the campaign and it would not be the last; one of them, Liz Smith, has landed a job with the Obama campaign for the general election. I hear she starts in July. This scene, of young people working for Obama, has continued to play out across the country:

According to CNN exit polls in the primary states, practically every state - even those the senator fails to win - reflect this trend: In Georgia, for instance, 81 percent of voters age 18-24 cast ballots for Obama. In Wisconsin, it was 79 percent; Utah, 70 percent; Missouri, 69 percent; Alabama, 66 percent; Illinois, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, 65 percent; Louisiana, 66 percent; Tennessee, 56 percent; and New York, 55 percent.

Young people, of course, have different ideas about how government should work than the older people who have traditionally held power. The Government 2.0 discussion highlighted many of these points: that today's young people are more willing to tolerate radical ideas, if only as a starting point for a continuing discussion; that young people tend to see good government as grass roots, with plenty of collaboration, rather than a top-down hierarchy; and, ideologically, young people care far more about healing the environment, finding jobs, making college affordable and ending the Iraq war than they do about fixing Social Security, outlawing abortion and passing constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage.

So what does all this have to do with rural America? In this terrific story by Dee Davis, who once drove John Edwards around rural Kentucky, one can see that the concerns of rural voters are similar to the concerns of youth: the economy, the war and education. Davis correctly and gently criticizes Obama for not actively campaigning in Kentucky (he went only to Louisville and Lexington, the only two counties he won in that state last night). If Obama is to win rural America in November, as some suggest he can, he will have to reach out directly to the 60 million Americans who live outside the city. As Davis notes, and as Thomas Frank pointed out before her, rural voters admire politicians like John Edwards as much or more as they admire Pat Buchanan or George W. Bush. If Obama asks them for their vote, and offers solutions to that great American conundrum, rural poverty, the voters of Appalachia and other rural areas could send that blue state-red state map packing.

Having lived in rural America for the vast majority of my 27 years, I can say that rural Americans, virtually all of them, would appreciate Government 2.0 a lot more than what they've gotten so far. I saw a young man from Kentucky on the news yesterday, sitting with his family on a porch and speaking in a deep drawl. He said that all three candidates are the same, that government won't change until a poor person gets elected. Yet, I also read this terrific story about John Kennedy campaigning for the presidency in West Virginia in 1960:

Kennedy was shaking hands with coal miners in the state one day, when one grizzled old miner held onto his hand and wouldn't let go. "Is it true you're a millionaire's son who never worked a day in your life?" the miner asked.

Kennedy gulped and said, "Yeah, I guess so."

The miner slapped him on the back and said, "Lemme tell you, son, you ain't missed a thing."

Rural Americans, like all of us — especially this generation of young people — want more than anything to be involved, to be part of the solution. Whatever the movement is, if there's a good person in charge, we want to know that he or she knows us and cares about us and will offer a helping hand. In return, we'll do our part. Call it Government 2.0, call it democracy, or call it connecting with the American people. That's what the next president will have to do. It's a connection worth making in every part of this wonderful country.

Health Care

The culture, it is a-changin':

WASHINGTON -- Some people marry for love, some for companionship, and others for status or money. Now comes another reason to get hitched: health insurance.

In a poll released today, 7% of Americans said they or someone in their household decided to marry in the last year so they could get healthcare benefits via their spouse.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Getting married for health insurance, L.A. TIMES, April 29, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-health29apr29,1,1912378.story

The idea may strike some older Americans as odd, or even sacrilege — but not my generation. I know at least two couples for whom health insurance has dictated the timing, though probably not the ultimate decision, to get married.

Of course, these types of decisions are mere symptoms of the health care crisis in this country, a frequently debated topic in this year's presidential election. In fact, it's one of the most important issues that will continue to draw attention in the six months between now and Tuesday, November 4. Still, as important as this debate will be, much confusion and misinformation abound. Part of this is the media's fault, because they think we're more interested in bowling scores and shots of whiskey, as Elizabeth Edwards pointed out so brilliantly in this op-ed last month. (It's poignantly titled, "Bowling 1, Health Care 0.") But mostly, if we don't know what the debate is about, it's because we haven't taken the time to educate ourselves. The info's all there; we just need to know where to look.

First, some facts. Some of these may be well known, but they bear repeating. (Primary source: the non-partisan National Coalition on Health Care, co-chaired by former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray.)

• Of the nearly 300 million people in the U.S., 47 million do not have health insurance — about 16 percent of the population.
• Of those 47 million uninsured, 80 percent are native or naturalized citizens. (We're not just talking about illegal immigrants here.)
• Since 2000, the number of uninsured has increased by nearly 9 million.
• While our system is primarily employer-based, about 15 percent of workers did not have health insurance available to them through work in 2005.
• In 2006, there were 8.7 million American children without health insurance.
• Nearly 40 percent of the 47 million uninsured Americans have household incomes of $50,000 or more.
  
• Employee spending on health insurance premiums has increased 143% since 2000.
• Only 7% of unemployed Americans can afford COBRA, the continuation health insurance offered by employers when people lose their jobs.
• The U.S. government pays nearly $100 billion to provide uninsured residents with health care each year.
  
• American hospitals provide $34 billion in uncompensated health care annually.
• Of those Americans who do have health insurance, 29% are under-insured, meaning that they delay medical treatment due to high co-pays or co-insurance. (Here's an eye-opening article about rising health care costs.)
  
• Other countries have cheaper, more efficient systems of providing health care than we do, and they don't necessarily sacrifice quality to do it. See, e.g., Japan and France. Canada and the U.K. have single-payer (government-run) systems, while France is employer-based, like the U.S.
  

For a look at the myriad problems with the health care system, see this list of under-treated conditions, duplications and wildly disparate care depending on the illness. Two examples: nearly 10,000 deaths from pneumonia could be prevented each year through vaccination, and nearly 70,000 more people die from poor control of high blood pressure, another preventable condition.

So, what to do about this mess? Well, if it's up to our presidential candidates, there are three different options. None of them is advocating a single-payer system, like Canada or the U.K. (or Dennis Kucinich). John McCain has attacked the Democrats' plans as an attempt to socialize the American health care system, a suggestion the New York Times debunks quite resoundingly here.

Both Democrats are pushing for versions of universal health insurance. Both plans would expand the employer-based system, giving more tax incentives to small businesses that offer insurance. Both plans allow all Americans the option to keep their current insurance, if they like it, but also create an option to buy insurance from the government, the way House and Senate members do. Both plans focus on reducing premiums and reducing health care costs. Barack Obama's plan mandates health insurance for all children, but does not penalize those who can't afford to buy insurance. Hillary Clinton's plan would mandate insurance for all. Essentially, both Democrats believe that the health insurance market is broken, that government must intervene or the system will continue to spiral out of control. Both Obama's and Clinton's plans are amazingly detailed. Check out the links — whatever your question (e.g., how will they pay for all this?), the websites have the answer.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation has a tremendous side-by-side analysis of all three candidates' plans.

The differences between Clinton's plan and Obama's plan are minimal, especially when contrasted with John McCain's plan. Strangely, it is McCain — not the Democrats — who would eviscerate the employer-based system. McCain would cancel the tax incentive for employers to provide health insurance, then provide tax credits of $2,500 to individuals and $5,000 to families to essentially find their own health insurance, because employers likely won't be doing it anymore. Moreover, McCain would make it more difficult for states to get Medicaid reimbursements. In other words, McCain places his faith in the market to fix the health care crisis. Poor people, in particular, would be on their own.

On this issue, I can't put it much better than Elizabeth Edwards, who has had her fair share of experience with the health care system: "Basically John McCain's health care program works very well if you happen to be rich and healthy and not very well if those are not descriptions of you."