Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Letter to President Trump Regarding the Swamp

The Wisconsin State Journal asked me to write a letter to the President.  Here it is, with a few modifications:

 

Dear President Trump,

When you drain the swamp, rid our nation of a monstrous falsehood that undermines our success and stops us at every level of government from building a great economy.

The lie is prevalent in the states of Wisconsin and Kansas, in the counties of Florida and Wyoming and in our nation’s capital.    

Cutting income taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals does not lead to private investment and the creation of jobs. Cutting those taxes makes the one percent wealthier and screws the rest of us.

Quality jobs with a living wage are created by public investment in bridges and roads, high-speed internet and public education, for only then does the private sector invest in new businesses. The history of this great nation since the civil war has been periods of construction of dams, railroads, highways, airports, communication systems, education for veterans and more.  Each of these periods of public spending was followed by significant entrepreneurship and a more robust economy.      

The past four decades Washington D.C. has been infested with lobbyists and politicians who took care of themselves, and left the nation to rot. You have a spectacular opportunity to rid the swamp of polluters, leeches, and snakes that poisoned the water, the air, and the earth.

Now is your opportunity to create a new climate, a climate of investment and compassion that looks over all of the earth and its creatures, nurtures and grows the economy taking care of future generations.

Paul R. Soglin

Mayor                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Our Public Market and Economic Opportunity: Capitalism in Madison

This weekend Ann Althouse mocked -she is good at that- the Madison Public Market:

Either they got more and more interested or they became conscious of the need to look interested. I would expect people, here in Madison, Wisconsin, to be aware of the importance of not looking bored or uncaring when someone comes at you with talk of "inclusiveness" and the "com[ing] together" of "cultures and ethnicities.

There is good reason why the analysis of the Public Market includes a focus on diversity, inclusiveness, and equity.

Here are some of the inputs in the analysis:

• As is usually the case following difficult economic periods, the recovery after the Great Recession was pretty good for middle and upper income households including most professionals. It was bad, and is still challenging, for low income families and individuals.
• The kind of entry-level jobs that used to provide parents opportunities to raise middle class bound children are quickly disappearing:
  
  • Full-time retail positions with advancement and career opportunities are replaced with part-time jobs with no benefits.
  • Entry-level positions in state government and at the University of Wisconsin are disappearing.
•  Wisconsin is dead last in entrepreneurship among the fifty states.                        
•  Madison is the major exception in the Badger State in creating new small businesses.
•  Entrepreneurship as an essential element of our economy is new to Madison because of our historic reliance on the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin State government as a job creator.
•  For low-income people of all colors and races, entrepreneurship is one of the few opportunities for accumulating wealth without a college degree.
• The food industry is a robust sector for new businesses; over one-third of all new businesses in the US are founded by immigrants.

There are dozens pf public markets in the United States and they are as varied as their cities. The French Market in Chicago is expensive. It serves mostly highly processed foods to tourists and business people out for lunch.

Pike's Place Market in Seattle still provides a variety of fresh seafood to the locals, but it is expensive and losing its charm as it is now a major tourist destination. One only hopes it does not go the way of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

The Reading Market in Philadelphia is in a class of its own. Its variety of foods, fresh and processed, and its history are unique, as is its relationship to the rail terminal.  When Madison was to have a rail connection to Milwaukee in the pre-Walker era, locating Madison's Public Market in direct proximity to the Madison terminal made sense.

In Minneapolis and York, Pennsylvania, are three different markets for Madison to emulate. The Mercado is Mexican and the Global Market is what its name implies. In York, the market vendors are almost all white, reflecting the population of the community. All three markets, particularity the Mercado and York, are in unassuming buildings, their focus is serving real people, not elites and cosmopolitans.

If Althouse can look beyond her own exclusive world, one reeking in privilege, perhaps she will escape the shackles of her rigid assumption that everything in Madison is crafted by liberals, reeking in socialism. At times these plans are crafted by liberals reeking in capitalism.

       

Today's Reading to Madison's Public Market

Last week on my Facebook account, I posted links to five books I am reading. I finished the first, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.  Author Katherine J Cramer, a UW-Madison professor, provided an insightful post election interview to the Washington Post explaining the Trump victory. A New Theory for Why Trump voters are so angry - that actually makes sense.

I am not so sure it is a new theory for those of us in the Badger State, but it does make sense:

That feeling is primarily composed of three things. First, people felt that they were not getting their fair share of decision-making power... Second, people would complain that they weren’t getting their fair share of stuff, that they weren’t getting their fair share of public resources. That often came up in perceptions of taxation...And third, people felt that they weren’t getting respect.

The book I am reading now is Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

Also the work of a sociologist who left a progressive university city (Berkeley CA, not Madison in this case), Arlie Hochschild went to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Read her book and learn why people toiling in the worst poisonous petro-contaminated conditions disdain the EPA.

The next book sitting on the nightstand is:

The Unwinding of America: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer. When you get through the cartoons, always make it a point to look for any article Packer provides to the New Yorker.  Two weeks before the presidential election he wrote Hillary Clinton and the Populist Revolt: The Democrats lost the white working class. The Republicans exploited it. Can Clinton Win it Back?    I went back and reread the piece the morning after the election, It was as though Packer had written it AFTER the fact and had the insight of the results.

...the political scientist Samuel Huntington published his final book, “Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity.” He used the term “cosmopolitan élites” to describe Americans who are at home in the fluid world of transnational corporations, dual citizenship, blended identities, and multicultural education. Such people dominate our universities, tech companies, publishers, nonprofits, entertainment studios, and news media. They congregate in cities and on the coasts. Lately, they have become particularly obsessed with the food they eat. The locavore movement, whatever its benefits to health and agriculture, is an inward-looking form of activism. When you visit a farm-to-table restaurant and order the wild-nettle sformato for thirty dollars, the line between social consciousness and self-gratification disappears. Buying synthetic-nitrate-free lunch meat at Whole Foods is also a way to isolate yourself from contamination by the packaged food sold at Kmart and from the overweight, downwardly mobile people who shop there. The people who buy food at Kmart know it.

Snarky footnote from me:

That's why I threw out the 2009 plan for a Madison public market that focused on expensive prepared foods for tourists, and insisted on one that sold vegetables with dirt on them, like carrots, beets, and tomatoes. Yes, there will be prepared foods, quality, prepared and wholesome foods, but the merchants and the shoppers served will be less than cosmopolitan elites.

In a month or two I will post the other two books.

 

 

Wisconsin Roads in Reverse; Milk to Market Threatened

With the forced resignation of Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation Mark Gottlieb, any scant hope for state roads and highways was washed away yesterday. When Gottlieb spoke honestly and frankly about the need to repair and improve the state network of roads and highways, calling for an honest commitment to safety, many of us were surprised. Such candor and honesty coming from a member of Governor Walker's cabinet was not expected. As reported earlier this month in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

There are 12,000 miles of Interstate, state and U.S. highways in Wisconsin and by 2027 42% of them will be in poor condition if the state doesn't find new revenue or other solutions, state Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb testified Tuesday.

In the coming years, the state is expected to end up using up to a quarter of every dollar in its road fund for debt payments under Gov. Scott Walker's two-year plan to borrow a half billion dollars for highway and bridge projects, Gottlieb said in more than three hours of painstaking testimony.

Whether it is getting milk to market or serving  commuters, the state is in jeopardy. The economy of Wisconsin is headed in reverse.

It was shocking when Gottlieb spoke up. That he is gone shocks no one.

Wisconsin State Journal: "Have you no sense of decency...Sean Duffy?"

This morning the Wisconsin State Journal (WSJ) weighed in, asking, with hyperbole, "Have you no sense of decency, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy?"

The newspaper opined: No Red Scare in Madison, Rep. Sean Duffy

...but the mayor also made some good points while delivering a clever zinger most of his constituents will love. The only thing communist about Madison, Soglin told the Associated Press, is that revenue generated here is redistributed to help economically struggling communities in Duffy’s 7th Congressional District in northern Wisconsin.

The editors went on:

Wisconsin has long struggled with an urban-rural divide...We all should be on the same side in Wisconsin when it comes to helping each other succeed across regions of the state. When southern Wisconsin does well, that’s good for northern Wisconsin, and vice versa...

And that is where the conversation goes from here. We need a deliberate discussion to make sure the closing of Wisconsin public schools come to an end, which will only happen when the failed economic policies of Duffy, Governor Scott Walker, and the Republican State Senate come to an end. From WISC-TV, Channel 3:

River Valley School District to close Lone Rock, Arena elementary schools

"I fear for the future of our local communities as they look toward the loss of local schools, creating falling property values, creating terrible busing situations for our youngest students, and having families with young students deciding not to move into our area,” a speaker at the meeting said Thursday night.

District officials said the closures will make up for about $950,000 worth of the $1.5 million deficit projected through the next two school years.

 

Communists, Morons, Liars and Charlatans: No Apology Necessary

Seventh District Congressman Sean Duffy (Rep-WI) took the boredom out of the last twenty-four hours.

It started with his telling Fox News that Madison was a "progressive, liberal, communist" city.

I brilliantly responded by calling him a moron.

Meantime, our 2nd District Representative, Marc Pocan (D) demanded an apology from Duffy.

Duffy, in turn, refused to apologize to Pocan and the city of Madison. Reporters noted:

Mayor Soglin was less interested in an apology. “I couldn’t care less,” he said. “It’s just a sad state of affairs that such ignorance is sitting in Washington, representing a fine part of the state of Wisconsin."

Meantime, while no one asked me for an apology, I did note that 'charlatan' and 'liar' were more appropriate, and that:

The only thing communist about Madison is that revenue generated there is redistributed to help economically struggling communities in Duffy’s district, Soglin said.  (Communist Madison: City Bristles at Congressman's Remarks)

Donald Trump: What Ought To Be The Truth (I Am A Liar) part 1

I thank Todd Gitlin in The Media Rapture of Donald Trump for bringing to the surface the most profound understanding of our President-elect.

BUT LET ME STAY for a moment with the uncanny depth of what journalism failed to grasp about Donald Trump, for it also goes to a systemic incapacity. Tony Schwartz, Trump’s onetime ghostwriter, told Jane Mayer: “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true. (my extra emphasis added)

Fact checkers be damned. They are irrelevant, of no consequence, and downright irritating at times.

Not only is  our next president unfazed when the New York Times asks, "Why Does Donald Trump Lie About Voter Fraud,"  but the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, can respond to 60 Minutes, "It doesn't matter to me..."

Remember those 1100 Carrier jobs that Trump saved? It seems the numbers are not quite accurate, as the union president responded: Trump Lied His Ass Off:

Trump last week claimed he talked Carrier into keeping 1,100 jobs in Indianapolis, but that number turned out to actually be 800 because Trump and Carrier counted 300 jobs not initially at risk of being shipped overseas.

Trump offered the furnace and air conditioning manufacturer financial incentives to save from jobs being shipped to Mexico, a move that would have saved Carrier about $65 million a year.

The Truth is Dead, long live the Truth.

Note: This post is Part 1, since we know there will be repeated obituaries for the Truth.

Donald Trump: The Scary Version. You Do the Math

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From the Bourne Supremacy:

Nicky: It's not a mistake. They don't make mistakes. They don't do random. There's always an objective. Always a target.

Pamela Landy: The objectives and targets always came from us. Who's giving them to him now?

Nicky: Scary version? He is.

 

From the Washington Post:

Trump promised $1 trillion for roads and bridges. The trick now is finding the cash.

Trump has proposed reducing the rate companies would pay to bring the money home from 35 to 10 percent. Those companies then could invest slightly more money in infrastructure projects, gain the 82 percent tax credit and effectively erase that 10 percent tax.

“We believe that this tax credit-assisted program could help finance up to a trillion dollars’ worth of projects over a ten-year period,” the Trump campaign said in an Oct. 27 white paper. The Trump transition team did not respond this week when asked whether his thinking had evolved since Election Day.

None of the longtime transportation analysts interviewed for this report shared Trump’s confidence that tax credits to private business would generate $1 trillion for infrastructure projects.

 

From the London Review of Books:

Is this how democracy ends?

His immediate agenda is to get a massive infrastructure bill through Congress, along with big tax cuts. There are few barriers in his way. He can rely on Republicans to deliver the tax cuts and Democrats to support the infrastructure projects. The short-term boost this stimulus gives the economy can then be used to buy him time while he fails to get to grips with his other campaign pledges, on immigration, on manufacturing jobs, on taking the fight to the terrorists, and on sharing the love at home. He may even be able to claim for a while that by offering something to each side of the partisan divide he is starting to bridge it. But all he will be doing is papering over the gaping cracks. Tax cuts coupled with unfunded government spending will fuel inflation and create the conditions for a future crash. It will also lead to a head-on collision with the Federal Reserve and Trump won’t find it so easy to get his way there. If he tries to replace Janet Yellen or stuff the board with his own nominees, partisanship will reassert itself with a vengeance. Reality will bite back at Trump eventually. When it does, he will be inclined to lash out. But by then it may be too late.

 

Fortune Magazine tells us Sarah Palin weighs in:

Sarah Palin Warns That Donald Trump's Carrier Deal Cloud Lead to 'Crony Capitalism' (or what some us identify as National Socialism)

“When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent,” she asserted.

And in an apparent jab at Trump, whom she famously endorsed in a rambling speech earlier this year, she asked: “Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail."

 

 

Trump Joke of the Week: President-elect is Toothless Cat

Everyone from Bernie Sanders to Politico is on to the Trump tax cut gambit.

Candidate Trump threatened Carrier with tariffs if it moved jobs out of the United States.  Now Carrier will keep most of the jobs in Indiana after President-elect Trump, declawed and de-fanged, wheeled and dealed with Carrier and gave them major tax breaks to stay put.

Tax cuts to companies, income and property (this does not include TIF, secured by job guarantees and/or building improvements), are not justified: Kauffman Foundation, Three Tax Topics.

The scary part of all of this is the direction towards corporate socialism in the name of building the economy.

U.S. Workers. Donald Trump and Harvard Get It; Not the Democrats

The Harvard Business Review finds someone who understands working America, but the Democratic Party does not.

 

...WWC women voted for Trump over Clinton by a whopping 28-point margin — 62% to 34%. If they’d split 50-50, she would have won.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics. Policy makers of both parties — but particularly Democrats if they are to regain their majorities — need to remember five major points...

...If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous (emphasis mine).

In 2010, while on a book tour for Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, I gave a talk about all of this at the Harvard Kennedy School. The woman who ran the speaker series, a major Democratic operative, liked my talk. “You are saying exactly what the Democrats need to hear,” she mused, “and they’ll never listen.” I hope now they will.

 

Read the rest of Joan C. Williams and learn why class also trumps race.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics. Policy makers of both parties — but particularly Democrats if they are to regain their majorities — need to remember five major points.