By Aron Hsiao, October 7th, 2012 
Mitt Romney’s “Big Bird moment” in the first presidential debate of the 2012 election season is no small thing. Analysts have not yet, in my judgment, understood its full importance. Governor Romney both disrespected a great American symbol, Big Bird, and attacked a broadly respected and supported public institution, PBS. The China connection was especially provocative. Mitt’s argument against Big Bird and PBS, which leveraged popular anti-China sentiments, came off as elitist, cynical and opportunistic.
In 1983, well in advance of the warming of the Cold War, Sesame Street’s Big Bird introduced a generation of Americans to the culture of a rising China. Big Bird did this in a way that was intellectually generous, humanitarian, and even graceful at the same time. Though there are those that might regard Big Bird in China as simple children’s fare, few in America could have done the job that Big Bird did without having egregiously politicized it, even if unintentionally. In contemporary discussions of U.S. – China foreign policy, it is often forgotten that many in the current generation of American consumers, producers, business leaders, and politicians first encountered the then waking dragon of Chinese society through Sesame Street’s Big Bird.
Big Bird belongs to that rarefied sphere of public figures that are beyond criticism, politics, or reproach, as a normative matter, to be embraced and admired. In Big Bird’s case, this is not only because his cognitive development is that of a young child, and our culture constructs childhood to be a time of innate innocence, but also because he is something of a foundational cultural universal. Since the ’70s, several generations of American children have learned important life lessons from Big Bird—lessons about social norms, tolerance and diversity, culture and difference, everyday pragmatics, life events such as birth and death, and the gestalt core of human experience.
The Governor, elaborating on budget cuts that might be necessary at the federal level under his economic plan, offered Big Bird and PBS as examples of federal allocations that might have to end. “I’m sorry, Jim,” said Romney. “I’m going to . . .
Read more: Romney’s Big Bird Moment
By Gary Alan Fine, July 25th, 2011 
I’m puzzled. For as long as I can recall I have been assured that the Grand Old Party will do just about anything to advantage their wealthy friends and benefactors. Of course, no party desires no taxes – not even Republicans — and none – not even Democrats – want full confiscation. So the issue always comes down to the question of how one will square the circle. Should the top marginal rate be 35% or 40%? Aside from the flat tax advocates and a few outré progressives, few are now arguing for 25% or 50%.
Statecraft inevitably involves a distribution of responsibilities and benefits. And, as I have noted, it is traditionally the case that Democrats ask for more sacrifice from the wealthy and Republicans advocate for fewer benefits for the needy.
This being part of our political logic, how then do we explain a central feature of the Republican plans for Medicare and for Social Security, and how do we explain the hesitancy of most elected Democrats to embrace this plan?
One area in which there appears to be some measure of agreement between President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner is that means testing Medicare and perhaps even Social Security should be “on the table” – a Thanksgiving turkey, as it were. The argument is that the wealthy might receive fewer benefits or should have to ante up more in the way of co-payments. What’s up with that? In important ways, one should appreciate why Democrats would like that idea and why the Republicans should resist, but things have not quite transpired in that logical way.
Despite the element of soaking (or at least dampening) the rich, some Democrats have pushed back on the idea of means testing Social Security and Medicare. One could readily make the argument that it is unjust or undesirable for the federal government to send out checks to those same rich folks on whom Democrats wish to raise the marginal tax rates. Couldn’t receiving fewer benefits be a form of shared sacrifice so integral to Democratic talking points?
. . .
Read more: Means Testing: The GOP’s Surprising Class Warfare
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 14th, 2011 
Barack Obama is a centrist, trying to move the center left, defending it against the right. Health care reform has been his great legislative “left moving” achievement. Though far from perfect, he established the principle of universal coverage.
In the past months, he has been primarily on defense, fighting back against the Republican attack on government. Obama is not a left-winger, to the dismay of many on the blogosphere. He is now defending a new center, which he helped establish, against right-wing attack.
The opening shot of the attack was the Tea Party protest against the bank bailout, the stimulus package, and “Obamacare.” In the recent elections, Obama and the Democrats suffered a defeat, a “shellacking” as he put it. But now as we are approaching the main event, the Republican attack has taken the form of Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.
William Milberg asserted here that with this proposal the President is just about assured re-election. I have talked to a number of friends and colleagues about this. Their response, put bluntly: “from his mouth, to God’s ears.” But just perhaps, God won’t have anything to do with it. Perhaps, it will be a matter of leadership and political direction, along with the political economic fundamentals Milberg highlighted. The quality of the leadership was revealed in Obama’s speech on the deficit yesterday.
In his speech, the President was forthright in his rhetoric and policy recommendations. He addressed the problems of the deficit, emphasizing that deficit reduction will require taxing as well as cuts in spending. He drew a sharp distinction between his and the Republican plans. The contrast was stark. The political thrust of the speech was clear.
Obama and the Democrats promise to defend Medicare and Medicaid, while the Republicans will dismantle them. The Ryan budget provides many tax advantages for the rich, while what they present means that “50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit.”
As the President declared:
“And worst of all, this is a vision that says even though . . .
Read more: President Obama on Taxing and Spending, and the American Center
By William Milberg, April 12th, 2011 
The headlines this week were devoted to the high-stakes drama in D.C. that led to (literally) an 11th hour deal to avert a federal government shutdown and an $38 billion spending cut for 2011-2012. But the real news was that the 2012 Presidential election was effectively thrown to the Democratic incumbent (who also announced the launch of his campaign this week) when the leading fiscal policy visionary on the Republican side issued his long-term plan for the role of government over the next ten years. Congressman Ryan’s plan is so extreme in its proposed cutbacks on health insurance coverage and so regressive in its proposed reform of income and corporate taxes that it leaves most of the American political spectrum open to President Obama for the taking. He will no doubt begin the journey to this vast expanse of political turf with his speech on Wednesday.
Ryan’s plan has been much discussed in the press. It calls for a privatization of Medicare, with drastic reductions in funding. The key will be in how this funding reduction is distributed, and there is no indication that it would be done in a progressive way. This the major fault line of the plan, that it would put an even greater burden on the poor and middle class in accessing health care than is the case today. The plan calls for reducing the income tax on the richest individuals and corporations to the extremely low level of 25%. Finally, the projected effect of the plan on budget deficits hinges on wildly unrealistic assumptions that have already been questioned by the Congressional Budget Office.
We are in such a moment of political frenzy over the fiscal deficits that we often forget two basic economic fundamentals about deficits. The first is that deficits are not a function simply of spending levels but mainly of economic growth rates, since it is these that largely determine revenues. The second is that shrinking deficits generally reduce the economic growth rate and slow the creation of jobs.
. . .
Read more: Obama Wins!!
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, March 16th, 2011 
Yesterday, I opened my report on budget problems at my local community center. I showed that our local concerns were very much connected to global problems. Now I turn to how people took responsibility for the problems, or more accurately did not directly confront them, revealing a seamy side of politics as usual in America. The key figure is Town Supervisor Paul Feiner.
The supervisor was passionate about only one issue: the fact that there were inaccuracies on the unsigned flier announcing the meeting about proposed budget cuts of the Theodore D. Young Community Center. In Feiner’s response to the A&P closings in the primarily African American surrounding community and when it came to the budget of the center, he was the cool bureaucrat. He denounced the anonymous author of the flier, revealing real anger. On the defensive, he declared that the rumor that the center would close was absolutely not true. I was relieved. But when it came to details about the center’s budget, he was evasive, without passion, using clichés to deflect responsibility, stoking the anger of the community.
Feiner and the Town Board’s basic position: because of revenue short falls, the town was faced with a choice, there had to be either significant tax increases or program cuts to balance the budget. In order to rationally meet the challenge, the board was asking all the relevant commissioners to outline possible ways to cut programs. I am sure there was a target provided, but from the public discussion I didn’t catch it. The impact of proposed cuts would be weighed against their impact on programs by the board in the fall. Feiner emphasized that no program was being targeted and that the goal was to deliver lean and efficient good governance. Strikingly, he used procedure to evade answering any question about specific programs.
The seniors were particularly concerned about their group trips. The swim teams emphasized how important swimming was to them. A former director of . . .
Read more: Institutionalized Racism?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, March 15th, 2011 
Recently, I went to a meeting concerning the budget of the Theodore D. Young Community Center. It revealed the tragedy of the cult of fiscal austerity during a prolonged economic downturn and high unemployment.
The Center is a special place for me. I swim there three or four times a week. I chat with my friends, most of whom I came to know during Barack Obama’s campaign to be President. The staff of the center and the community they serve are primarily African American, although there is a diverse cliental. I was the white guy who first canvassed the place for Obama, when most people at the center were still skeptical. For me, it’s a happy place, where I satisfy my exercise addiction, and where I can see the America that I imagine is emergent, multi-racial, multi-cultural, where people of different classes pursue happiness together, from the kids who go to after school programs and summer day camp to the senior citizens playing bingo, to teens roller skating and playing basketball, to the members of the Asian culture club, to the swimmers such as myself. It’s my American dream come true. Of course, as with all dreams, American and otherwise, there are disrupting realities that often force us to wake up. Such was the case with the budget meeting. I present my reflections on the meeting in two posts. First, this afternoon, I reflect on the context as I approached the meeting and as it opened. Tomorrow, I will report on the discussion about the community center, and its implications. I went to the meeting concerned. I left dismayed.
I read a flier announcing the event urging attendance. It warned of program cuts, highlighting many of the most popular, including the pool. Rumors were flying that the center was slated to be closed, which weren’t true. But in the age of government deficits and fiscal austerity, cuts sadly and irrationally seem inevitable.
I say irrationally because I know that this is not the time for spending cuts, despite the cutting frenzy in Washington D.C. and across the nation. It . . .
Read more: Community Center Cuts and the Closing of an A&P
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