February 21, 2007

The Budget as a Moral Crisis

The Federal Budget, like snow and cold rain, comes in bleak midwinter, and this year’s deepens the glumness of the season. How else to react to a budget that, when read as a moral document, reeks of immorality?

It is a budget that would allocate half of all discretionary spending to “defense,” much of that to an unworthy and now futile war, while asking no one save our volunteer soldiers and their families to sacrifice. For the first time in American history we find ourselves fighting a war – one its perpetrators call “civilizational” – while the lavish tax cuts this budget would make permanent are showered on the richest one percent of Americans, tax cuts that deepen an out-of-control deficit.

Other Americans – the middle class and working poor – are nickled-and-dimed to pay for such largesse. Offset “savings” – nowhere near what’s needed to achieve real balance – are carved out of college tuition assistance, food assistance, farm subsidies, Medicare, and, most galling of all in the context of this war, veterans’ assistance. And, when one protests such blatant class warfare, one finds oneself accused of class warfare. Do they have no shame?

Class warfare? Take the imminent tidal wave called the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that is about to engulf a largely unsuspecting middle class. Originally intended to capture trillions sheltered by the rich in dubious tax shelters but left un-indexed for inflation, it will, next year, wipe out many middle class tax payers unless there is some relief. This budget promises relief – a one year cut in the AMT – conveniently for election year 2008. But no permanent cut here. In 2009, AMT comes back with a vengeance. The answer, of course, is not a one-time candy-coated sedative for voters, but rather real reform involving, at very least, indexing to spare the middle class on a long-term basis.

If, however, the AMT is scaled back to its original modest intentions, the shortfalls in tax revenues beyond 2008 would be astronomical. In the face of such revenue losses, there would be no way to justify other permanent tax cuts that would balloon an already dangerously outrageous deficit. That deficit is being kicked down the road to our children and grandchildren. This is not just fiscally irresponsible, it is morally indefensible.

In sum this is a budget that widens the gap between rich and poor, threatens the middle class, and promises increased generational inequity. Any way you parse it, it is wrong.

Posted by Vicki at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2007

And Now Iran

Word in Washington has long had it that the perception within the White House is that the way out of the deepening quagmire in Iraq is a broadened war against Iran. Losing in Iraq? Redefine the problem away. Iraq, the West Wing neo-cons will tell you, is “small ball.” Inside that bubble, the conventional “wisdom” seems to be that the public will soon forget and forgive the “losing game” in Iraq in the “shock and awe” of a “major league” attack on Iran.

Fantasy? How I wish it were so. Unfortunately, the preparations are already well in train. A second aircraft carrier has already been sent to the Persian Gulf, and a third will soon be on its way. In Washington and Baghdad, the ubiquitous “anonymous sources” are already peddling the “evidence” of Iranian involvement in Iraq to many of the same credulous “journalists” who sold us on WMDs…“incontrovertible,” Michael Gordon assures us once again on the front page of the New York Times. And the provocations have begun – Iranian consular offices raided, Iranian officials detained, orders issued to U.S. troops to shoot to kill Iranians engaged in smuggling. We will, we’re told, protect our troops. Need a causus belli? Be patient. We’re constructing one as fast as we can.

Of course Iran has been aiding the Shiite militias – for years, with the collaboration of the current Iraqi government and the Achmed Chalabis of the world – just as the Saudis have been aiding the Sunni militias and we aided the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan, arming them, among other things, with shoulder-fired Stinger missiles that downed over 300 Soviet helicopters. Fact is, Iran, Saudi Arabia…and Syria – Iraq’s next door neighbors have a stake – one just as legitimate as ours – in what happens in Iraq.

Of course the nuclear issue hovers in the background. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful in nature. We and objective observers in the UN and European Union can be excused for having legitimate doubts. But, even if such doubts are warranted, do they justify an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Consider the following: The international scientific consensus is that Iran is at least 3-4 years from having the capability of building a nuclear bomb, much less weaponizing it on the tip of some missile. A far cry from North Korea which has tested a bomb and is reputed to have a stockpile of several weapons. Any way you cut it, Iran’s nuclear program does not constitute an imminent threat.

Continue reading "And Now Iran"

Posted by Vicki at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

February 05, 2007

Some Questions on Wal-Mart in Vallejo

Vallejoans for Responsible Growth would like to raise some urgent questions about Wal-Mart’s plans for a “supercenter” at Sonoma Boulevard and Redwood Street in Vallejo and its current stewardship of the site which is just one of several it seeks to cluster along the I-80 corridor – just 1.5 miles from Vallejo’s downtown, 3.5 miles from the one now going up in American Canyon, and right on the edge of the White Slough Lagoon, an environmentally sensitive arm of the Napa River.

In the wake of some bad visuals on TV last Friday night – five parked trailers, two RVs, and shoreline grasses strewn with old tires and other trash – Wal-Mart descended on the site Saturday morning…to start a long-overdue clean up and to put up an ugly chicken-wire fence to restrict public access and prying eyes, including TV cameras.

Our immediate questions are several. Why did it take public pressure and bad publicity to get Wal-Mart to do what it should have done months ago? Does Wal-Mart have a permit to put up such a fence? Is it legal, particularly in terms of restricting access to the shoreline? How can we and city code enforcement officials ensure that Wal-Mart has adequately cleaned up the shoreline they’ve allowed to be trashed? What did the down-at-the-heels state of this property that we called attention to say about Wal-Mart’s attitude toward our city and its citizens?

Continue reading "Some Questions on Wal-Mart in Vallejo"

Posted by Vicki at 06:20 PM | Comments (1)

THIS ONE’S FOR MOLLY

Molly Ivins died night before last. A writer friend Back East e-mailed me the news. I wrote back the following: "My first reaction - Cancer sucks! And, yes, it does. But she vowed to keep writing till this war was ended. So dry the tears and let's get on with it...writing all those unfinished columns."

And tonight I went back to her last column of January 14. Need some inspiration? Consider the last words of that last column:

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war.

Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and are trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge.

If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"

Keep banging those pots and pans!

Peace.

Posted by Vicki at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)