That’s right, you read the title correctly – America’s budget deficit is shrinking rapidly, some worry too rapidly. Just 3 months ago, in February, with the income tax rate increase for the wealthiest Americans and the Sequestration budget cuts both in effect, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated this fiscal year’s deficit would be $845 Billion, 5.3% of GDP. That was a big improvement over the $1.4 Trillion deficit in Fiscal Year 2009, the first full fiscal year after the Great Recession hit in the fall of 2008, and the deficit has exceeded $1 Trillion every since. But just last week the CBO revised that estimate, lowering the projected deficit by almost 20%, with a deficit of only $642 Billion, 4% of GDP. And they estimate the deficit will continue to shrink, falling to only 2.1% of GDP in 2015. That’s better than the average of 3.1% of GDP we’ve averaged over the last 40 years with deficits, which include 20 years of Presidents Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. And it’s better than the original Simpson-Bowles Plan which called for reducing the deficit to 2.3% by 2015, achieved through drastic cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs.

How are we achieving the rapid improvement in government finances? Not from the $85 Billion in Sequestration budget cuts, most economists believe that is just putting a damper on economic growth. Nope, the deficit reduction is being achieved almost entirely from the Republican derided Democratic goal of higher revenues – higher than expected tax payments from individuals and businesses, as well as an increase in payments from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance companies the government took over in the Great Recession. In revising its estimates for the current year, the budget office also cut its projections of the 10-year cumulative deficit by $618 billion. Those longer-term adjustments are mostly a result of smaller projected outlays for the entitlement programs of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, as well as smaller interest payments on the debt.

But is their a darker side to the brighter outlook for the deficit? The International Monetary Fund has called the country’s pace of deficit reduction “overly strong,” arguing that Washington should delay some of its budget cuts while adopting a longer-term strategy to hold down future deficits. The economy continues to perform well below its potential and that unemployment has so far failed to fall below 7.5 percent, many economists are cautioning that the deficit is coming down too fast, too soon.

“It’s good news for the budget deficit and bad news for the jobs deficit,” said Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-of-center research group in Washington. “I’m more worried about the latter.”

You can bet those 7.5% of our workforce who are looking for a job are more concerned about job creation than our deficit. I’m with them, but I think we can do both – continue to reduce our deficit by getting those people back to work, paying income taxes instead of receiving government support. Spending money, driving up economic growth, and paying sales taxes. And here’s how we can do it: 1) Get U.S. corporations to bring home the estimated $1.7 Trillion they have sitting in oversea banks, and 2) Invest in our infrastructure.

U.S. Corporations have an estimated $1.7 Trillion dollars sitting in banks overseas primarily for one reason: overseas profits earned by U.S. corporations is not subject to U.S. Income taxes until they bring it back to the U.S., and they think the current 35% tax rate is way too high. They want a “tax holiday”, drastically lower tax rates, to bring that money home . Apple Corp. alone has an estimated $100 Billion sitting overseas, and CEO Tom Cook will be making the rounds in Washington this week to push for a tax holiday to motivate companies to bring home those overseas profits. He already gave an interview to the Washington Post advocating that a 35% tax rate is too “burdensome” for American companies. But that’s the other reason American companies have so much money sitting overseas – every so often they manage to con Washington politicians into giving them a “tax holiday” so they can repatriate those overseas profits at low tax rates. The last time was in 2004 when President GW Bush and the Republican controlled Congress allowed a set of major corporations to bring back overseas profits at a tax rate of only 5.25%, promising this injection of money would be a major boost our economy. It wasn’t, it actually hurt the economy. In the words of Treasury official Michael Mundaca:

“There is no evidence that it increased US investment or jobs, and it cost taxpayers billions … the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reports that most of the largest beneficiaries of the holiday actually cut jobs in 2005-06 – despite overall economy-wide job growth in those years – and many used the repatriated funds simply to repurchase stock or pay dividends.”

So, we’ve tried a tax holiday before an all it accomplished was lining corporate coffers and enriching shareholders, while it hurt the economy with job losses. I say let’s offer them a 10% tax rate – but only for the amount of money they document will be used exclusively to invest in U.S. operations, hiring more people and expanding production lines and other facilities. Specify a specific amount of time they have to accomplish this investment and submit a report to the IRS detailing how and where the money was invested. Any shortfall in the amount they planned to invest earns a 25% penalty, taking the tax rate back up to 35%. And offer them a time limited 20% tax rate for other funds they repatriate to US banks – even if they use it for share buybacks, dividends to shareholders or to pay down debt the 20% tax would still be a nice infusion into the Treasury, and the infusion of money into the economy would help keep interest rates low.

And Democratic Congressman John Delaney* Of Maryland has even a better idea. The ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure gives our current infrastructure a grade of “D+”, and estimates an investment of $3.6 Trillion is needed by 2020. This is America’s aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, ports, public parks and recreation, rail, roads, schools, solid waste, transit, and wastewater. Can you imagine a $3.6 Trillion spending bill making it through Congress? Rep. Delaney’s proposal is the The Partnership to Build America Act, which would finance the rebuilding of our country’s infrastructure through the creation of an infrastructure fund using repatriated corporate earnings as well as through utilizing public-private partnerships. The legislation would create the American Infrastructure Fund (AIF) which would provide loans or guarantees to state or local governments to finance qualified infrastructure projects. The states or local governments would be required to pay back the loan at a market rate to ensure they have “skin in the game.” In addition, the AIF would invest in equity securities for projects in partnership with states or local governments. The AIF will be funded by the sale of $50 billion worth of Infrastructure Bonds which would have a 50 year term, pay a fixed interest rate of 1 percent, and would not be guaranteed by the U.S. government. The AIF would leverage the $50 billion of Infrastructure Bonds at a 15:1 ratio to provide up to $750 billion in loans or guarantees. U.S. corporations would be incentivized to purchase these new Infrastructure Bonds by allowing them to repatriate a certain amount of their overseas earnings tax free for every $1.00 they invest in the bonds. This multiplier will be set by a “reverse Dutch auction” allowing the market to set the rate. Assuming a 1:4 ratio, meaning a company repatriates $4.00 tax-free for every $1.00 in Infrastructure Bonds purchased, a company’s effective tax rate to repatriate these earnings would be approximately 8% and the $4.00 could then be spent by the companies however they chose.

This is win-win for American corporations with huge piles of profits sitting overseas they want to bring home with low taxes, while we get the needed investment to bring our infrastructure up to par with the rest of the developed world. This is a win-win for job creation and U.S. competitiveness. No, not all of our 7.5% unemployed will be building roads, bridges, or schools, or stringing up high speed internet lines. But those who will be doing that will have good jobs and income to spend in stores, hotels, restaurants, and buying cars, creating demand for more jobs in those areas. This is a win-win as it’s not more “big government” at the federal level – state, county and city local governments will be making project decisions, as they know best what they need. It’s a win-win for privately owned businesses, as at least 25% of the projects financed with this AIF must be Public-Private Partnerships for which at least 20 percent of a project’s financing comes from private capital. I urge our Congressmen Ron Barber and Raul Grijalva to join Mr. Delaney in supporting the Partnership to Build America Act.

Our Incredible Shrinking Deficit: let’s shrink it further by putting people back to work while investing in our infrastructure and competitiveness. America’s finest days lay still yet ahead, we need to invest and prepare for our future. What we don’t need is more Republican Austerity.

* Congressman John Delaney:

John K. Delaney (MD-6) is a Democratic Freshman Class President, a Democratic Sr. Whip, and the only former CEO of a publicly-traded company currently serving in Congress.

A business builder, Delaney founded two New York Stock Exchange listed companies before the age of 40, and is a past winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Delaney’s companies were both founded in Maryland, CapitalSource, which Delaney launched in 2000 and became a public company in 2003, lent money to thousands of small businesses around the country and has been recognized by the Treasury Department for lending to disadvantaged communities while also receiving numerous awards as one of the best places to work in the Washington D.C. region. John is Chairman Emeritus of CapitalSource. Prior to CapitalSource, he founded HealthCare Financial Partners, a successful company that was started in 1993 and became a public company in 1996.

Profile Credit: The Huffington Post

Nothing like a little blood in the water to get the political sharks circling, hoping for more blood. My esteemed fellow TC.com blogger Bob Quasius of the Arizona Lincoln Republicans blog is already suggesting the “I-word” (Impeachment) and drawing comparisons of recent events to the biggest crook ever to occupy the White House, Richard Nixon. Never mind the irony of comparing President Obama to the most dishonest person to ever occupy the White House, who happened to be a Republican President. And never mind the irony that it was Richard Nixon who impugned the legacy of Abraham Lincoln in the Republican Party by pursuing the “Southern Strategy” of courting conservative, largely bigoted Southern whites still angry at Democrats passing the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act to join the Republican Party. Let’s take a look at recent events that Republicans are decrying as “abuses of power” and “failures of leadership”, as they are really all much ado about nothing.

Justice Department Seizures of Ap Reporters’ Phone Records:

This all started when the AP ran this story on May 7 2012: CIA ‘foiled al-Qaida bomb plot’ around anniversary of Bin Laden death:

The CIA has thwarted a plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press. US officials say the plot involved an “upgrade” of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

The AP notes in the article that they learned about the thwarted plot the week before but “agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.” The AP apparently had the story immediately after it happened, while US Intelligence operations were still underway. The AP clearly had some inside information on this, and as it highly unlikely Al Qaeda Arab Peninsula fed them the info, it likely came from someone inside the US Intelligence community. Yesterday U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the national security information leak that prompted the Department of Justice to seize Associated Press phone records was among the most serious breaches he has ever seen. And Republicans agreed with him. Back in May-June 2012, when the story broke and politicians were gearing up for the November election, there was a chorus line of Republican criticism over the leak of intelligence information.

“Our intelligence people say this is the worst breach they’ve ever see. It’s very clear that this information had to come from this administration. It couldn’t have come from anywhere else.”

- Our very own Senator John McCain on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, Sunday, June 10, 2012. McCain encouraged a thorough investigation. And the Department of Justice (DOJ) did just that, conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents, before seeking the phone records at issue. And the DOJ wasn’t investigating the AP because it was being critical of the President, like Nixon did, or like GW Bush did when he ordered the IRS investigation of church critical of the invading Iraq. No, the DOJ was only investigating because apparently someone high up in the Intelligence service was leaking classified information that compromises our efforts to combat terrorism. No phone records were recorded, they only obtained phone number records to try to determine who the individual was that was calling the AP, or the AP calling him, with this information. Freedom of the Press is one of our most cherished and important civil liberties. Just as is Freedom of Speech. But, just like Freedom of Speech doesn’t give you the right ot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, Freedom of the Press does not give you the right to publish information that compromises ongoing military or intelligence operations. Especially when advised that doing so would indeed compromise those operations.

IRS scrutiny of Conservative/Tea Party tax exempt applications:

The IRS controversy arose last week when Lois Lerner, the official in charge of overseeing tax-exempt groups, said the agency was wrong to pay special attention to organizations that used key words such as “tea party” or “patriot” or had policy positions on smaller government, and apologized for it. Somehow this has morphed into wild accusations that the Obama Administration has used the IRS to target and suppress political opposition. First of all, there is zero evidence that President Obama or his high ranking officials were even aware that this was happening, let alone instructing the IRS to do so. Indeed, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General released a report that lays the blame on the IRS for developing “inappropriate criteria” in focusing on conservative groups:

Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status to review for indications of significant political campaign intervention. Although the IRS has taken some action, it will need to do more so that the public has reasonable assurance that applications are processed without unreasonable delay in a fair and impartial manner in the future.The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued.

Well, there’s a reason why nobody likes the IRS – they can screw up things that should be so simple. But the specific tax exempt status these groups were applying for is 401(c), which is very specifically setup for charities doing primarily community improvement activities. It’s the IRS’s job to ensure that organizations applying for this special tax exempt status meet all the requirements. But one office, located in Cincinnati, took it upon themselves to setup screenings that targeted “Tea Party” and “Patriot” in the application to investigate if these organizations were instead primarily political organizations instead of community improvement organizations. That’s just plain wrong, you can’t use political leaning has a screen, the IRS has to be impartial. And while it appears this one office allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed, it was not system wide within the IRS. Other offices selected Democratic and/or liberal groups for additional scrutiny. But they didn’t use political terms like “progressive” or “liberal” to screen, they selected them using the objective criteria that should’ve been applied to all groups.

An article yesterday on Bloomberg.com details that other IRS offices sent the same letters requesting additional information to Democratic leaning organizations that they did to Tea Party groups. And while no Tea Party ground was ever denied their application, some Democratic ones were:

The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure after admitting it targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups for scrutiny in recent years, also had its eye on at least three Democratic-leaning organizations seeking nonprofit status. One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

In a statement late yesterday, the tax agency said it had pooled together the politically active nonpartisan applicants — including a “minority” that were identified because of their names. “It is also important to understand that the group of centralized cases included organizations of all political views,” the IRS said in its statement.

There has been an explosion of applications for 401(c) tax exempt applications since the Citizens United case – Outside groups — including nonprofit social-welfare groups that don’t disclose their donors — spent $1 billion in the 2012 elections, three times as much as they did four years earlier. The IRS was obviously unprepared to deal with this influx of applications and fell way short in their efforts to ensure that those applying for tax exempt status actually do qualify, and do that in an impartial manner. Nothing more, nothing less.

Benghazi:

Why do Republicans keep talking about Benghazi? One word: 2016. While it’s still (thankfully) 3 1/2 years until the 2016 Presidential election, polls show that should Hillary Clinton decide to run she would be an overwhelming favorite. Polls show her running even with Rand Paul in his home state of Kentucky. Polls show her easily defeating either Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush in their home state of Florida. Republican politicians are rightfully concerned about their prospects in 2016, and are grasping at anything that might possibly tarnish her reputation and/or President Obama’s. There is no “cover-up” and nothing more to be told. A group of anti-American Islamic extremists attacked our diplomatic mission there and 4 Americans, including Ambassador Stevens died in the attack. We rushed a diplomatic mission into Libya quickly after the fall of Qaddafi  hoping to influence the fledgling new government and didn’t have adequate security in place to repel a full scale attack. Ambassador Stevens had a very good rapport with the Libyan people and government and relied on Libyan security forces to supplement our limited security. They didn’t, Libyan security forces protecting our diplomatic mission in Benghazi melted away when extremist attacked with mortars, grenades and automatic weapons. Defense Department officials nixed the idea of sending our limited additional security personnel in from Tripoli because there was doubt if they could arrive in time, and because we didn’t know then what we were up against. How many extremists were involved, and what kind of weapons did they have? A lot of sophisticated and powerful weapons disappeared during the Libyan civil war, including surface-to-air missiles. Sending in a rescue mission could have easily resulted in many more casualties.

Conclusion:

Much ado about nothing. Yes, we need to protect the Freedom of the Press, but it’s not under attack, and certainly not by the Obama Administration. Yes, the IRS needs to conduct it’s business with political impartiality. But thankfully, Barack Obama is no Dick Nixon. We need to learn from Benghazi and ensure we have adequate American security personnel to protect our diplomats. But the death of Americans at the hands of terrorists should unite our resolve to fight terrorism, not be used as a tool for political bickering.

I would ask Republicans this question asked in Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing”: “Why, what is the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?” But, I know the answer already: They hate to loose elections, and when they can’t win fair and square they just try to go around the voters. When they won control of Congress in 1994 they spent the next four years investigating Bill Clinton over Whitewater and found absolutely nothing. And then they thought they found gold in Monica Lewinsky and tried to Impeach Clinton under Constitutional provision for removing government officials for “High Crime, Treason, or Bribery” for his not telling the truth about breaking his marriage vows with another consenting adult. Now some Republicans are uttering the I-word, rubbing their hands in glee at the chance of trying to undo the decision of nearly 66 million American voters just 7 months ago. Some things – and politicians – never change.

Just over four months into his term as our newest U.S. Senator, our very own Jeff Flake has distinguished himself quite a bit – as being the most unpopular Senator in the country. A recent poll of Arizona voters conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows only 32% of Arizonans have a favorable view of Senator Flake while 51% have an unfavorable view (17% are neutral). Republicans largely still stand by their man with a 57% favorability vs. 29% unfavorable. And not surprisingly Democrats overwhelmingly dislike Flake with only 10% having a favorable view of Flake and 71% disapprove of him. But, most importantly in Arizona where Independents swing most political races, Independent voters disapprove of Flake by a 58-25% margin.

Senator Flake initially discounted the PPP poll, calling the firm “leftist leaning”. PPP does conduct polling for many Democratic candidates and organizations, including the progressive web site DailyKos. But it was also one of the most accurate pollsters of the 2012 election. In their final poll of Arizona in 2012 PPP predicted Mitt Romney would carry the state by 7 points; he actually carried it by 10 points, and other pollsters had Romney ahead by as much as 15 points. And in the U.S. Senate race PPP predicted Flake would defeat Richard Carmona by 5 points; Flake actually won by 4.6%. By the next day Flake was back peddling, agreeing the PPP poll was accurate. He wrote on his Facebook page:

“Nothing like waking up to a poll saying you’re the nation’s least popular senator. Given the public’s dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum. Now, notwithstanding the polling firm’s leftist bent, I would assume that my poll numbers have indeed taken a southerly turn since my vote against the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal. It was a popular amendment, and I voted against it.”

Somewhere below pond scum? For once I can agree with Jeff Flake.  And yes, the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal is popular, even in the land of the Gunfight at the OK Coral and the town too tough to die. 70% of all Arizonans support expanded background checks, and only 26% oppose it. Democrats support it overwhelmingly, by a 92-6% margin. Even Republicans support it by a 50-44% margin. And Independents support it strongly by a 71-24% margin. So yes, Senator Flake, not only did you vote against something which has strong support in your state, it’s the way you went about it. In the days following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, Flake vowed not to be swayed by the National Rifle Association. And then when the NRA announced its opposition to the Manchin-Toomey Background Check Bill and said it would “score” Senators on their vote on the measure Flake crumpled and voted against it. And just weeks before the vote Senator Flake responded to a letter from the mother of a man killed in the Aurora theater mass shooting. In his own handwriting he told her “While we may not agree on every solution, strengthening background checks is something we can agree on.” And then he turned around and voted against it. Senator, have you no shame?

Jeff Flake may have no sense of shame, be he thinks he does have a sense of politics – he thinks Arizona voters are stupid and that we’ll forget his shameful double cross on his vote for expanded background checks. In an interview with the LA Times Flake said he was “not concerned about gun-control groups who are vowing political consequences.  That’s the beauty of a six-year term“. The beauty of a six-year term, eh? You say one thing and then vote the other way because you won’t have to face the voters for another 5 1/2 years? Have it your way, Senator. But, Mark Kelly won’t forget.

Mark Kelly, husband of former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, says the gun-control organization the couple has founded will work to defeat Sen. Jeff Flake (R) in the next election if the Arizona senator votes against expanding background checks to include more gun buyers. Mr. Kelly said Senator Flake is “a good friend” of Ms. Giffords. But he gave this warning Tuesday at a Monitor-hosted breakfast with reporters: “You know friendship is one thing … saving people’s lives, especially first-graders’, is another.”

And don’t count on us Arizona voters forgetting either, Senator.

UPDATE:

The group Mayors Against Illegal Guns released a report today stating that the 45 senators who voted to block expanded background checks have received a combined total of $8,165,490 in lifetime contributions and independent expenditures from the NRA. They list the individual NRA contributions for 14 Senators, including Jeff Flake. Senator Flake received a total of $362,616 in contributions from the NRA.

Credit: Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Mr. Flake did pretty well for himself, which may well explain his flip-flop on claiming to support “strengthening background checks” but then voting against it when his NRA patron opposed it and said they would “score” his vote on the bill. By comparison, the only Democrat on the list, Max Baucus of Montana received only $28,780 in NRA contributions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky received $162,545 in contributions. Ted Cruz of Texas, also just elected last year with Flake, received  $79,329 in contributions. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio seems to have undying loyalty to the gun manufacturing lobby, receiving over $1,314,279 in contributions.

The best Senators money can buy.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news this week – or even worse had to fly – you know that the forced “sequestration” budget cuts forced the FAA to furlough around 11% of it’s flight controllers on a rotating non-paid forced day off. That has resulted in hundreds of flight delays with aircraft sitting on runways burning fuel waiting their turn to takeoff. Then, once finally in the air, some planes had to divert their landing to another airport as they didn’t have enough fuel to stay in the air long enough for their slot to land at their planned destination. The result has been chaos for the airlines and huge inconveniences to the flying public. And the inevitable finger pointing in Washington. Republicans accuse the FAA and Obama Administration of “playing games” to cause the disruptions in air travel to increase opposition to the sequestration budget cuts. The Obama Administration responded with a “Nope, read the bill you passed” – The Budget Control Act of 2011 requires all federal departments and agencies to cut $92 billion from their budgets this year, equally, across all levels of operations. Even if an agency has excess funds in other areas it cannot use those funds to prevent cuts in other areas. The intent of the law was to tie the hands of the Obama Administration so it could not “pick and chose” it’s priorities. All federal agencies are required to apply the cuts equally, across all levels of operations.  That’s why the law is so stupid. But the Republicans required those budget cuts, to cut federal spending dollar for dollar for the amount of the increase in the federal debt limit in the budget fight in the summer of 2011 that brought us to the brink of default. Many of the same Republicans who voted to increase the debt limit with no strings attached, no questions asked, under Republican President George W. Bush, to cover his unpaid for tax cuts and two wars.

Well, the U.S. Senate came to to the rescue last night, just before they were to scheduled to head to the airports themselves for a 10 day recess. The bill passed by unanimous consent without even a roll call to authorize the FAA  to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to prevent reduced operations and staffing through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country, including four here in Arizona. The House is expected to take up the bill this morning and pass it under expedited procedures.

Great! I’m all for ending this totally unnecessary disruption of air travel and inconvenience to traveling politicians, business people, and other air travelers. But what about the others who are being more than “inconvenienced” by this stupid sequestration budget cuts that threatens to stall our economic recovery? How about the 70,000 children will be kicked out of Head Start under sequestration cuts? How about the Four million fewer Meals on Wheels for seniors? How about the delays in processing retirement for disability claims, Social Security retirement claims, and VA benefits caused by furloughs required to meet the sequestration cuts?  How about the emergency unemployment insurance cut for two million out-of-work Americans? Does their “inconvenience” mean nothing to Congress?

So, enjoy your week off Congress men and women, and Senators. But meet and talk with your constituents, learn and understand what is important to them, not what is important to your lobbyists. I think you’ll find your constituents want a bi-partisan approach to fine tuning spending and taxation to resolve the long term solvency and health of our federal budget and debt. We want a bi-partisan revamp of our tax code to lower tax rates while raising adequate revenue to address deficits and debt in the long term by removing loopholes and unnecessary tax subsidies. And we can tweak Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to ensure the long viability of those programs. As someone who will start drawing on his Social Security benefits later this year I’m not wild about President Obama’s proposal for to tie SS payments to a “chained CPI”, which will lower monthly payment increases due to inflation. Seniors and Social Security didn’t double the Federal Debt under Presidents Bush and Obama – unpaid for wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, and the greed of Wall Street in reeking havoc on our economy did. But I’m willing to consider the sacrifice of chained CPI as long as others – especially those much better positioned financially – make some serious sacrifices as well.

So, come on Congress – if you pass something so quickly and with bi-partisan support to ensure your flights back to Washington next week aren’t inconvenienced with delays, you can git ‘r done with tax reform and sensible, responsible spending reform.

Part 2: Around the world in two an a half years, and my Dad says goodbye:

After my mother’s funeral I returned to San Diego. The next year, 1983, was an eventful year for me. I went through my second divorce, no children either marriage. And my partners and I decided to accept a purchase offer of our bar and restaurant. Suddenly free from and entanglements or obligations and flush with a bit of cash, I thought about what I wanted to do. I had dreamed about traveling around the world when I was a young boy, and that’s what I decided to do – take one year off and travel around the world. I ended up taking 2 1/2 years, and it was the most amazing adventure of my life. I wasn’t that wealthy from the restaurant sale proceeds, and traveling by cruise liner and staying at Hiltons wasn’t my style anyway. I traveled with a backpack and stayed at hostels. I flew to London in the fall and worked my way through Europe down to Greece by train and bus, then by ship to Israel. Across the Sinai to Egypt, and then an 3 month journey from Cairo to Cape Town through the heart of Africa.  I rode on the roof top of train across the deserts of Sudan – it was winter by then and not so hot, and actually more comfortable then in the incredibly overcrowded passenger cars. Here’s a picture I took to give you an idea of what it was like:

And here’s an out of focus picture of me a local guide took with my camera. I’m on the right, the other guy is someone I met at a hostel and we decided to hike up together. That sign is marking the Source of the Nile river. There is also a plaque marking the discovery by John Hanning Speke in 1858.

And below is one of my favorites, a young chimp hitching a ride on the back of his mama. That’s not a zoo or game reserve, it’s out in the wild – I just happened upon them hiking out in the jungle one day.

I would meet up with other travelers in  hostels, in Nairobi I teamed up with an young German couple and an Austrian guy and we rented a car and toured the national parks and games reserves, and hiked Mt. Kenya. I traveled by ship down Lake Tanganyika to Zambia, Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe, and then all around South Africa. By air to Bombay, across India to Burma, Thailand, and Sumatra Island, Indonesia. In Singapore I decided on my route home. I originally had planned to travel through Australia and New Zealand and then fly back to the U.S.. But I had been traveling for over 2 years and Australia would take several months to tour and see it all, so I decided I would fly to Hong Kong, travel through China and then take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow and then to East Berlin and then fly home from Europe, figuring that would be the better adventure.

I called home from the Newark airport. The last my family had heard from me was months ago when I wrote them from Hong Kong detailing my plans. My dad had remarried, to a widower both he and my mom had known when they were younger. My younger sister still lived at home. My dad was the proverbial worry wart, and had worried and fretted about my safety constantly over the last two years. My sister answered the phone and when I told her I would be arriving at the Columbus airport later that evening she quickly devised a plan to surprise my dad. She picked me up at the airport and said she was going to tell our dad that she had a friend who needed a place to stay for the night. She went inside and I heard her and dad argue, and then she opened the door. “Hi, Pops!” I greeted my stunned father. I don’t think he’s ever hugged me so tightly.

I worked in restaurant management in the Columbus area the next few years. I never really cared for life in Ohio and still didn’t, and the jobs I had were not fulfilling. I managed a restaurant in a hotel and decided what I really wanted to do was work in hotel management – more challenging work, and I wanted to specialize in resort management, which entails getting to live in some really nice places. So I decided I would go to college and earn a degree in Hotel Management. And I set my sights high, I wanted that degree from arguably the best School of Hotel Management in the country, Cornell University. I hadn’t been exactly a stellar student in high school, so I decided to first go for a year at a community college in Columbus, to improve my academic qualifications.  I earned straight A’s, while working weekday lunches waiting tables at a busy downtown restaurant, working weekend nights as a night auditor at a hotel. And then I applied to Cornell, and drove up for an in person admissions interview. I was now in my mid thirties, and  with my background I figured I had to make a strong good first impression to have any chance at all. I do remember the admission official seemed to be amazed and impressed when I told him about riding on top of that train through the Sudan.

My father was one of 7 brothers and sisters orphaned in the midst of the Great Depression, his parents died of disease within weeks of each other. So he never got to pursue his dream of going to college, but did very well for himself. And one thing he was always adamant about was the all three of his children would have a college degree. My brother and sister went to college right after high school and earned their degrees. But I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living when I graduated from high school, and had places to go and adventures to experience. It was a big disappointment to my father. My dad brought in the mail one day and handed me the big envelop from Cornell University and sat down. I opened the letter with urgency, and then re-read it several times. I looked up at my dad who was waiting for me. “I’ve been accepted!” I told him with a big grin on my face. He smiled broadly. “Can you afford it?‘ he asked. “I’ve been accepted with a full scholarship” I told him. He looked at me in amazement, and I nodded my head. He thought for a moment, and then asked “So you’re going?“. “I’m going” I assured him. “Good” he said, “now all three of my children will have a college degree“.

My father did not enjoy good health the last few years of his life. He was diagnosed with throat cancer and had a laryngectomy and underwent chemotherapy. He always was slender but became very skinny and weak. After a few years the cancer returned and spread to his lungs, which was declared inoperable. A few weeks after my admission letter from Cornell Betty, the wonderful woman my dad married after my mother’s death, and dad had gone to bed. I was watching TV, while I had an apartment in Columbus it was night off and I had come visit. Betty came out very distraught. “Fred is struggling to breath, and I think he may be dying“. I went in to see him immediately. He lay on the bed, struggling and heaving to breath, but his breaths were very shallow. I sat on the bed next to him and held his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at me, and smiled. I asked him if he wanted me to call an ambulance and get him to a hospital. He shook his head no. He closed his eyes again and rested. I spoke to him softly, reassuring him. “This will pass, this will pass. Everything will be OK” I told him. His shall breaths became irregular, he didn’t breathe for what seemed an eternity, and then he would struggle to take a breath. Suddenly his eyes opened wide. He managed to pull himself up a bit, and turned to look at the corner of the room. I turned to see what he was looking at, and I saw the image of my Uncle Bob, reaching out to my dad. He was saying something to my dad, but I couldn’t hear his voice. Behind him stood my mom, just smiling, beaming actually, as she looked at my dad. My dad was always extremely close to his brother Bob. When he learned Bob had dropped dead of a massive heart attack about 15 years before he collapsed to the floor it hit him so hard. In my mind, I understood exactly what was happening. “Yes” I said to my dad, “It’s Bob, and mom. They’re here to help you“.  He turned to look at me, he seemed very much at peace. He turned to look at the corner of the room once more, and then laid back down. He sighed, and then he was gone.

Betty and I became very good friends, and shared many a good laugh for almost 20 years after the passing of my father. I visited her every Thanksgiving, as her birthday was around then. She had moved to south of Tallahassee, Florida, to be near the family of her son from a previous marriage. Except her last Thanksgiving and birthday. I bought my property here in Cochise County in September 2005. It was a foreclosure and I worked hard for 2 months cleaning up all the trash and making minor repairs so that I could move in in December. I told Betty I would visit her in the Spring. In January she fell and broke her hip, she was in her late 80s by then, and she never walked again. Her health continually worsened and she was placed in an assisted living facility. Connie, her daughter-in-law called me and told me her health was failing quickly, so I flew to Tallahassee the next day and went to see Betty that evening. She had been in and out of a semi conscious state for a couple days, and lay apparently sleeping in bed. I sat down next to her, held and hand, and began speak to her. She recognized my voice and awoke, gripping my hand tightly and pulling me closer, but she couldn’t open her eyes. “I’m so happy you’re here” she told me, “I’m so afraid, so afraid“.  “There’s nothing to be afraid of” I assured her. “Your mom and Fred are waiting for you on the other side“. She had been very close to the mother, and again, Fred was my dad. “They’re waiting for you on the other side, to help you. When it’s time for you to go they’ll come for you. You’ll see and hear them calling out for you, and when you see them know that everything will be OK“. I spent a couple hours with her, talking about the times we shared, reassuring her. And then I returned to my hotel. She passed away that night. I’m confident her mother and my dad came to visit her.

In comments from Part 1 of my story some folks have commented about my “seeing ghosts”, and how that doesn’t prove anything. Others have commented that in times of stress and/or trauma your mind can play tricks on you. Well, first of all it isn’t about my “seeing ghosts”. My mother had been in a comma like state for several days, and then right before she passed on she suddenly awakened, and from her reaction and expression on her face she clearly heard and saw something that greatly surprised her, but also greatly comforted her. My dad told me he saw the image of her father and mother, and I believe him. My father was too weak to even breath and then suddenly sat up and heard and saw something that greatly surprised him, but also greatly comforted him. And yes, what we saw and heard doesn’t prove anything. That there is a spirit that exists beyond our mortal death cannot be proven, we get to know for certain about that only at the moment of our death. I’ve just been writing about my experiences to explain how it changed my views and belief system, and in hopes that my experiences can open a few minds to reconsider that just perhaps, perhaps, life and death may not be so scientifically black and white. Finally, while I was at the side of my mother and father when they passed on, it wasn’t stressful or traumatic at all. As odd as it may sound, the peaceful deaths they experienced were magical in a way. Perhaps Steve Jobs said it best. I read an account of his family and friends who were at his side when he passed on. They report that just before he died Steve opened his eyes wide in apparent amazement and said “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!“, and then closed his eyes and passed on. That’s how I recall the passing or my mother and father, it was an “Oh wow!, Oh wow!” moment. And I fully expect my death, hopefully many years from now, to be an “Oh wow!” moment. And I expect to see my mom and dad calling out to me. And hopefully a good friend or two or three, from this life or past, as I want my passing on to be a celebration. A celebration of this life I’ve lived, and the journey and adventure to come afterward.

I remember well the advice my father gave me as a child: “if you want to get along with people never discuss politics or religion”. Very good advice. But, I’ve already crossed that line with politics in this blog, so I might as drop the other shoe and venture into religion. Well, in a way; I prefer the word Spirituality over religion. I want to write about my journey from deciding I was an atheist at a rather young age to my decision to believe in a better story. Through that journey I encountered 3 experiences with the “other world”, or Spirit World if you will, that made me realize life is not just some chemical reaction like a fire, that the flame is not extinguish when we draw our last breath – that moment is actually the beginning of another great adventure. I will break the story into three parts.

But first let me explain the meaning of “A Better Story” – it’s borrowed from the book & film “The Life Of Pi”. If you haven’t read the book or seen the film, I highly recommend either and both. I saw the film in theater in early December, in 3D, my first and still my only 3D movie experience as I read that the 3D effects really added to the viewing experience. It did, I was mesmerized by the film. I recently read the book,  and it is every bit as mesmerizing and entertaining. It’s a story about a writer with writer’s block, in search of a story. He meets an old man in India who tells him that there with an Indian man in Canada with an amazing story to tell him, and a story that will make him believe in God. The writer finds the man in Canada and the man, Pi, agrees to tell him his story. He grew up in India and his father owned a zoo. One day the father tells the family he has decided they shall move to Canada, and they pack all the animals and family on a Japanese steamer. The ship sinks in a horrific storm in the Pacific, and Pi is the only human survivor in a life boat, with a zebra, orangutan, hyena, and a Bengal tiger. The other animals are soon killed and there is only Pi and the tiger. They manage to survive for months at sea and finally wash up on the Mexican coast. The tiger disappears into the jungle and people rescue Pi and take him to a hospital. Japanese insurance adjusters come to interview him, to find out what happened to the ship, and Pi tells them his story.

SPOILER Alert!

Now here comes the part that is a spoiler, if you haven’t read the book or seen the film you may want to skip this part: The insurance men don’t believe Pi, they can’t believe he could survive so long at sea with a tiger. So Pi tells them a different story, that there were several other people who survived with him, but they quarreled and one by one killed each other off until there was only Pi. The insurance men thank him and leave, satisfied with the second story. Pi turns to the writer and asks him which story he prefers. The writer says “The story with the tiger, it’s the better story“. Pi smiles and says “Thank you. And so it is with God“.

I think I have a story that will make you believe. Regardless, I assure you every word is true.

My Journey from Atheist to a Better Story – Part I: My mother says goodbye

I grew up in suburban Columbus Ohio, to a moderately religious family. We were Methodists, and walked to Sunday School and Church every Sunday. I decided at an early age, around 10 or 11, that it was all a bunch of crap. My best friend was Jack, who lived on a farm, and I rode my bike out to the farm regularly. One day were frog gigging (if you don’t know, don’t ask) around the pond when we heard dogs yelping. We turned and one dog was humping away on the female dog beneath him. “Oh shit!” Jack exclaimed, “they’re screwing! Now Jackie’s gonna have more pups we’ll have to find homes for! Mom’s not going to be happy“. I nodded, I had hamsters and had seen the babies that quickly followed this mating thing. But suddenly a light bulb clicked on, and I blurted out “Is that how people have babies too?“, “Of course, stupid” Jack replied. “Where did you think they come from, a stork?” he snickered. I blushed; that’s what my parents had always told me.

Later that night I lay in bed thinking about the day’s discovery. So people are just like other animals, they mate and have babies, that stork bringing babies was just another story they made up. Just like the made up stories about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. I wonder what else they lied about, I thought.  And then it struck me: What if God and Jesus and all that stuff in the Bible is just another made up story?

I thought about a lot over the next several months. In school I was at the stage where they started teaching you science, which I especially enjoyed. They taught us about the dinosaurs and woolly mammoths, and other prehistoric creatures. I wondered why they were never mentioned in the Bible. I learned about the solar system and the universe, and wondered how with all those millions of stars and billions of planets God chose only Earth to have life. And in Sunday School they continued to teach me those silly stories of the Bible. I questioned them intensely.  “Oh c’mon, how could Noah have possibly have fit 2 of every animal on the planet on a boat? And how did he manage to go to African and get lions and zebras and hippos, and then down to Australia to get kangaroos and kola bears and then up to the arctic to get polar bears? And wouldn’t the lions, tiger and panthers tend to eat the deer, antelope and the sheep?“. That evening my father called me into the living for a “talk”, he had a stern look on his face. “Mr. Marley (my Sunday School teacher) tells me you have a bad attitude and are disrupting the class. What do you have to say for yourself?“. “I think it’s all a bunch of bullshit!” I blurted out. My father looked at me with a surprised look on his face. “What is bullshit?” he asked. “That stuff in the Bible!” I told him. “It’s all a bunch of made up stuff and I don’t believe any of it! I don’t want to go anymore!”  We argued back and forth for awhile, and then finally my father told me that if I didn’t want to go to Sunday School and Church anymore he wouldn’t make me. But he told me he thought I was making a big mistake I would one day regret.

I always had the spirit of adventure and the wanderlust, and as soon as I graduated from high school I told my parents I wanted to move out to Colorado and find work, to which they agreed, but reluctantly. I found my way to western Colorado where I took a job as a ranch hand, and then worked on oil drilling rigs. I worked various jobs over the years, always working my way up, and by the early 1980s, in my early 30s, I was living in San Diego, one third owner and co-manager of a bar and restaurant. My mother had developed bone cancer, and I had flown home to visit her in the hospital. She got well enough to go home eventually. But then in the fall of 1982 she took a turn for the worse and returned to the hospital. My dad called me on day and said she was back home, the hospital had said there was nothing more they could do for her, and my mother was adamant that she would not die in a hospital. I told him I would try to visit “soon”. A few days later my Aunt Margaret, who was visiting, called me. She said if I wanted to see my mother one last time I should come very soon, it was a matter of days. I said would do my best. As I recall it was a Monday, and thought I would try to get home by the end of the week. It was really busy at work.

The next morning I was in the bathroom getting ready to shower when suddenly I felt there was someone else in the room. I nervously looked around, and thought Is the front door locked? Yes. And then I felt it as plain as day. Mom was there, in the room with me. “Mom?” I asked. And I heard her, I heard her voice clearly in my mind. “When are you coming home?” she asked. “Soon“, I assured her. “Well, you’d better hurry up!” she said with urgency in her voice.  “I will“, I promised.

I finished my shower, with occasional thoughts of How much did I have to drink last night?, and Am I loosing my mind? By the time I’d finished my shower and dressed my mind was made up. I picked up the phone and called my travel agent. (Remember, this was the early 80s and I, like most people, had no idea what a computer was)”I have to get on the next flight to Columbus” I told him. “Whaaat?” he asked, “You mean today?” This morning!” I assured him. He said he’d call me right back. Then I called my partner, Howard, and told him about my experience with my mom and that I was leaving for Ohio today. Howard is such a good man. “Godspeed” was all he said. My travel agent called me back. “There’s a flight leaving in 90 minutes, connecting through Chicago. Can you make it?” he asked. “I’m on my way” I assured him. My flight was late getting into Chicago and I missed my connecting flight to Columbus. I walked up to the gate agent and looked her squarely in the eye and told her “My mother is dying, I HAVE to get to Columbus tonight. Will you please help me?“. She punched her keyboard with a flurry of key stokes, and then looked up at me. “There’s a flight on XXX airlines at Gate XX leaving in 20 minutes. If  you run really fast you can make it, I have seat reserved for you“.

I made it, and arrived home late that night. My parents were now retired and had bought a farm  about 40 minutes east of Columbus.  My Dad hugged me, and led me into her room. She’d been in a coma like state for several days, her breathing was shallow. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, talking to her in a low voice. I felt sure she knew I was there.

One thing I do really well is sleep. When I’m tired I go to bed, and within a minute or so I’m sound asleep. I wake up around 8 hours later from a deep sleep, the kind of deep sleep that when you first wake up you go through a check list: where am I? What day is it? And I rarely remember having dreamt. But I remember the dream I had that night clearly, over thirty years later. I dreamed my mom was backing out of the driveway in our old house where I grew up, in that big old powder blue Dodge Monaco she loved, our first car with power steering and power brakes. For some reason I didn’t want her to go, and called out to her, pleading with her to not go. She said that she was sorry but she had to go, and backed out of the driveway and then started driving down the street, turned the corner, and disappeared from view. I awoke with a start. The sky outside the window was pale blue with the dawn’s first light. I remembered where I was and why I was there, and walked quickly into my mom’s room. My dad was sitting next to her, with the saddest look I’ve ever seen on his face. He looked up at me and said “She just left us“. I looked at my mom, she seemed like she was in a peaceful sleep but she was not breathing, her mouth was closed with a faint smile. “I came in to check in on her a few minutes ago” my dad told me.” I was sitting next to her, and suddenly she shook her head, like she had heard something. And then she opened her eyes in looked at the corner of the room. Her eyes grew wide, so I turned to see what she was looking at. I could have sworn I saw Aunt Mae and Pops Brooke, looking down at Linda, saying something to her. I looked back at Linda and she was smiling. Then she sighed and closed her eyes, and stopped breathing“.

Aunt Mae was my mother’s mother; my mom was an only child and they were very close. Pops Brooke was my mom’s father, my Grandfather that I never knew, he passed away before I was born. My eyes still moist over when I think of that moment. But not tears of sadness, with tears of fond remembrance. I thought back on the dream I’d just had about my mom leaving, and remembered her telling me in San Diego that I’d better hurry up and make it home. And I who had doubted and questioned so much in my life suddenly had no doubt my Grandfather and Grandma were there to assure my mom everything would be OK,  they were there to help guide her on her journey after death.

This week the United States Supreme Court will hear two landmark cases that will will dive into the biggest civil rights issue it has faced in a generation — whether same-sex couples have the right to marry. On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments in a challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8. On Wednesday the court will hear arguments challenging The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal law passed by a Republican Congress in 1996 and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton. DOMA denies any federal recognition of same-sex marriage and denies them the many federal benefits and rights accorded to married couples.  The attorneys making the argument for same-sex marriage are an odd couple: Ted Olson,who represented George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, and David Boies, who represented Al Gore. While they argued before the Supreme Court against one another back then, in these two cases they are on the same team, and are passionate supporters of the right of anyone to marry the person they love.

While David Boies has long been a champion of liberal causes, he hasn’t been a lifelong liberal. He was president of the Young Republicans club while in college in the 1960s, but says he realized he “was on the wrong side” of the battle for civil rights, in which he soon became deeply involved. He left the party soon after graduation, became a Democrat, and honed his skills on civil-rights litigation and defending civil-rights workers who had been arrested, in Jacksonville, Miss. Boies sees his current advocacy for gay marriage as a natural extension of the civil rights movement of the 60s. “I think this is the most important civil-rights issue in the country now,” says Boies. “There has been enormous progress in women’s rights, and for ethnic minorities, the major group now singled out for discrimination are gays and lesbians.” Mr. Boies argues that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause  requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. Boise argues:

“The whole purpose of the 14th Amendment was to take away from individual states and their voters the right to discriminate … You can’t just say we’re going to allow every state to wait as long as it wants to recognize basic constitutional rights.”

It’s a powerful argument.  This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision which stated that any racial segregation in education is unconstitutional. And it was the basis for Reed v. Reed (1971), where the Supreme Court ruled that laws arbitrarily allowing sex discrimination was unconstitutional.

Ted Olson always was and still is a conservative, and supports same sex marriage from a conservative point of view:

“We’re talking about an effect upon millions of people and the way they live their everyday life and the way they’re treated in their neighborhood, in their schools, in their jobs,” Olson said. “If you are a conservative, how could you be against a relationship in which people who love one another want to publicly state their vows … and engage in a household in which they are committed to one another and become part of the community and accepted like other people?”

Homosexuality, Olson argues, is much like race. It is not a matter of choice. “We are what we are“, he says. He likens the Proposition 8 case to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a law that made interracial marriage a crime. If a man and woman of different races attempted to marry in the state of Virginia prior to that Supreme Court decision they would have been committing a felony. Today, almost 50 years later after that decision, the child of a mixed race marriage has been elected President of the United States. Twice.

Most legal scholars believe the challenge to DOMA is the most clear cut case and it will me stuck down, by as much as a 6-3 decision, with only Scalia, Alito and Thomas supporting it. Normally it is the job of the Executive Branch and the Solicitor General to defend federal laws. But the Obama Administration (and former President Clinton who signed it into law) oppose the law, saying it is unconstitutional. The lawyer who will argue in support of DOMA is a guy hired by House Republicans and Speaker Boehner. And the Supreme Court has previously ruled that individual lawmakers can’t challenge laws they don’t like.  And his argument will be that marriage isn’t a fundamental right, but rather an institution the government created to serve the goal of promoting procreation. Excuse me? I know personally that is completely false. Governments in two different states granted me the legal status of marriage, and I didn’t procreate either time. Both times we decided we would wait to have any children until we were more economically and solidly prepared as a couple for the responsibility of bringing a child into the world, and we chose wisely.  And there’s no law against infertile couples from marrying, just like their isn’t any law prohibiting post-menopausal women from marrying.  The case challenging DOMA was brought by Edie Windsor, an 83-year-old woman from New York who married Thea Clara Spyer in 2007 after some 40 years together as a couple. When Spyer died in 2009, like most married couples she left her lawful spouse her entire estate. As required by DOMA, the IRS said their 40 year relationship and their status of a legally married couple didn’t exist, and we’re going to tax your inheritance like you just won the Powerball lottery. They sent Ms. Windsor a $363,000 tax bill. Edie Windsor said No, I’m going to stand up for my rights and the rights of millions of others.

The challenge to California’s Proposition 8 outlawing same-sex marriage is more complicated, and their are a couple different possible outcomes. The first is the most simple, that the court upholds Prop 8, saying the Constitution does not trump the ability of California voters to make this decision themselves. While that voters should be able to make their own decisions regarding laws in their own states sounds nice and democratic and all, voters come and go and younger generation voters may have a different opinion than the older generation that passed on. Opinion on whether same-sex marriage is a right vary widely by generations – those under 30 support same sex marriage by a large majority, while a majority of those over 50 oppose it.  Already, only four years after Prop 8 passed, polls show a majority would now vote to overturn it. And frankly, voters don’t always get it right. When the Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting mixed race marriage a majority of voters opposed mixed race marriage. And if the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, had been put to a vote I’m pretty sure a majority of voters in at least 11 states would have voted to overturn it. The second possible outcome, however the court decides, is that the decision applies only to California. That the basis of the Federal Appeals Court which voted to overturn Prop 8. That decision said that the situation was unique to California because gay marriage was already legal in California when Prop 8 was passed. The existing rights people already had were taken away, and the state had no compelling reason to take away those rights.  The third possible outcome is that the Supreme Court goes for it all and declares that the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment ensures the right for all couples to marry, in every state, and no state can interfere with that right. And like it did in the Loving v. Virginia which struck down any state laws prohibiting interracial marriage, declares that any state law prohibiting same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

I’m betting on the latter, because I always bet on America recognizing and reinforcing it’s role as the freest, most equal society the world has ever known. America, land of free, home of the brave, where everyone is equal and enjoys the same rights and privileges. America, land of the excellent adventure.

A recent report from the Center for Investigative Reporting is getting a lot of well deserved attention. The report reveals that the backlog of veterans waiting for the Department of Veteran Affairs to act on their claim for benefits will top one million by the end of this month.The average backlog of a response from the VA is 320 days – over 10 months, but can be over one year in large population centers – 642 days in New York, 619 days in Los Angeles and 542 days in Chicago. That is a national disgrace. These courageous men and women raised their hands high when asked who will answer the call of duty, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and compassion. There are many reasons for the increasing backlog of processing claims for veteran benefits – the return of all combat troops from Iraq and draw down of forces in Afghanistan is a large reason. Another large reason is that Congress, the courts, and the executive branch continue to increase conditions that are covered by the VA. For example, in 2010 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that three diseases — ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and b-cell leukemia — would be considered the result of Agent Orange exposure for veterans who served in Vietnam. More than 240,000 claims for those diseases have been filed since that announcement. Well, Vietnam vets more than deserve treatment and benefits for their exposure to Agent Orange. But if you’re going to expand VA coverage shouldn’t you plan for it? Well, they tried – the VA spent 4 years and $537 million on a new computer to streamline the claims process. It was less than a resounding success; 97% of veteran’s claims are still filed on paper, and that’s the single biggest reason that stands out for the backlog – they VA is literally being buried in a mountain of paperwork.

That’s the mountain of paperwork at the Winston-Salem NC VA office, the weight of all that paperwork compromised the structural integrity of the building – they were worried the floor would collapse. Filing a claim for veteran benefits can be complicated, and can require a lot of documentation. Department of Veterans Affairs employees are urged to be advocates for veterans. Yet those same workers are also required to be stewards of the taxpayer money, required to distinguish the truly needy from the less needy from the fraudulent.  Is that traumatic brain injury from high school football or a roadside bomb in Iraq? Is that back injury a 10 percent disability or 30 percent? Is that post-traumatic stress disorder real? Medical questions without simple answers must be settled by overworked bureaucrats and doctors attempting to apply black-and-white rules to very gray ailments. Their decisions mean the difference between monthly checks of a few hundred dollars versus a few thousand. When veterans are not happy with the results, as is often the case, they can appeal, or reapply, submitting new documents and diagnoses to bolster their claims — and adding years to the process. But does documentation support a claim need to be submitted on piles of paper? Of course not, this is not rocket science. Here in Arizona we have an excellent AHCCCS medicaid system, and once covered you need to need to re-qualify every six months. You need to submit proof of income (or lack of), bank statements, proof of residency in Arizona, an accounting of your living expenses and proof of that. So, do you send them a 9×12 envelop 2″ thick with documents twice a year? No, you go to  HealthEarizona.org, fill out your application/re-qualification online and upload your documentation which is attached to you application, so when the state employee reviews your application/re-qualification they have everything they need right there to make a decision in minutes.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Sinseki says they have “a fix”. That fix is the department’s “transformation plan,” which calls for a new training regimen that Mr. Shinseki says will improve speed and accuracy in processing claims; creation of special teams to handle complex claims; and new digital technology that will replace the current paper-choked system. When all those pieces are in place by 2015, Mr. Shinseki says that every claim will be processed in fewer than 125 days, with almost no errors — a pledge that veterans’ advocates view skeptically. I’m skeptical as well, and even if “the fix” is successful. I think 4 months is still too long. Because this backlog has a very tragic human toll.

All gave some, and some gave all

The Center for Investigative Reporting report details the story of Lincoln Capstick, an unemployed Iraq War veteran in Indiana, where the average wait for new claims is well over one year – 612 days. Capstick said his electricity was cut off three times while he waited for the VA to grant a disability claim for traumatic brain injury, headaches and a variety of leg and knee injuries sustained when a military contractor’s SUV ran him over in the desert near the Iraq-Kuwait border. Capstick said there were periods where he thought of killing himself because he felt so hopeless.  According to the VA, 22 veterans commit suicide every day.

Credit: IAVA.org

A group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans met with senior White House officials yesterday to express the urgent need for the Obama Administration to fix the current backlog in Veterans Affairs disability benefits claims. Members of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) presented a petition to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, calling for President Obama to “keep the promise we made to the millions of veterans who have served and sacrificed to defend our nation” by ending the benefit backlog. Over 36,000 American citizens have signed that petition, including 23 members of Congress, including Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, and the Republican Chairman of the House Veteran Affairs Committee and the ranking Democrat member of the house committee.  But NOT a single Congressman or Senator from Arizona. I urge every single member of Congress from Arizona to sign this petition and support the IAVA’s call for action. But I especially urge our two Congressmen from southern Arizona to do so, Congressmen Ron Barber and  Raul Grijalva.

Former Illinois legislator Robin Kelly, who campaigned trumpeting her “F” rating from the NRA and her support for an assault weapons ban, won 52% of the vote in a crowded 16 candidate race for the Democratic nomination in the special election to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in Illinois CD02.  Her closest competitor, former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, won only 25% of the vote. Havorson touted her “A” rating from the NRA and her opposition to nearly all forms of gun control. While Ms. Kelly is black and Halvorson is white, race was not considered a factor as Kelly won 56% of the vote in the part of the district predominately black within the city of Chicago and she won 58% of the vote in racially mixed portion of the district in suburban Cook County.

The issue of improved gun control and the NRA clearly was a factor. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg targeted the race, with his Super Pac Independence USA pouring more than $2 million into the race by airing anti-gun ads in her favor and against Halvorson. After casting her ballot in the snowy weather that pelted the area Tuesday, Halvorson warned that if the ads were successful Bloomberg would try to “buy seats” across the country. Well, (former) political mastermind Karl Rove poured over $300 million into the November election and he wasn’t able to “buy” many seats. But if Mr. Bloomberg and others want to put money into races to highlight the candidate’s position on improved gun control and let voters decide, I say please do!

The NRA is very fond of saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Perhaps, and people can kill other people with other things. Like a knife. But a knife has many other uses – it’s very useful in food preparation and eating food. And people can kill people with axes or hatchets, but those are also very useful in cutting trees and branches. And people can kill people with a hammer, but a hammer is also very useful in pounding nails – just watch the thumbs! But a semi-automatic assault rifle with 30 round ammo clip? Not a single other use, except inflicting maximum casualties on a field of battle – which is exactly what they were designed for. And our current level of background checks are very useful in preventing convicted felons and others prohibited from owning a firearm from purchasing a gun. Except all they have to do is go to a gun “show” and buy them from an unlicensed gun dealer with no background check, no questions asked.

Universal background checks and assault weapon ban are important and reasonable steps to take to curb our increasingly horrific gun violence. If that can’t pass our current Congress, we need to -and will – elect more Robin Kellys.

“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned” – author William Congreve  in The Mourning Bride,1697

John McCain led the Republican Inquisition against Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel yesterday, demanding his former best friend give him a Yes or No answer if the “Surge” in Iraq was successful or not. Former Senator Hagel said  he deferred to history to be the judge of that.  Our Senior Senator was not amused.

What happened to the friendship between John McCain and Chuck Hagel? Here they are in happier times:

That was John MCain campaigning for his friend in Chuck Hagel’s first run for the Senate in Nebraska in 1996.

And here is Chuck Hagel returning the favor, when he was Co-chair of McCain’s 2000 Presidential Campaign:

Chuck Hagel was intimately involved in McCain’s 2000 presidential bid, and was in New Hampshire the night the Arizona Senator won the New Hampshire presidential primary. But by the time McCain ran for president again in 2008 Hagel was much less enthusiastic. Not only did he not endorse McCain, Hagel also didn’t entirely dismiss the idea of serving as then Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential nominee. And Hagel’s wife endorsed Obama in the 2008 race. Then, in 2012, Hagel endorsed the candidacy of former Nebraska Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey in the Cornhusker State’s open seat Senate race, a move that badly rankled McCain – he had endorsed Kerrey’s opponent — Republican Deb Fischer — and campaigned with her the day after Hagel made his endorsement of Kerrey public.

What happened to their friendship? Chuck Hagel never forgot the lessons he learned as a “grunt”, an enlisted man, on the ground in Vietnam as he earned his two purple hearts. Chuck Hagel knows first hand the terrible consequences of war to those who actually have to do the fighting. John McCain, the son and grandson of Naval Officers who entered military service as a commission Ensign and pilot, never learned those lessons.  He assured us we would be greeted as liberators by cheering adoring Iraqis, eternally grateful for us devastating their country with “Shock and Awe” 24/7 bombing. When it turned out that even if people don’t like their dictator ruler very much they like a foreign country invading and devastating their country even less, John McCain was the Bush Administration’s chief cheerleader for the “Surge” in more troops. And that’s where John McCain and Chuck Hagel parted company. Chuck Hagel, who had initially voted with McCain, most Republicans, and (too) many Democrats in authorizing the use of force in Iraq, now called the Iraq war a “quagmire” and the war the “most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam”. And a John McCain never forgets when someone – anyone – crosses him.

That’s the video of McCain’s questioning Mr. Hagel yesterday in the Senate confirmation hearing. And here’s the exchange:

McCAIN: Let me begin with your opposition to the surge in Iraq. 2006, we lost — Republicans lost the election, and we began to surge. And you wrote a piece in the Washington Post called, “Leaving Iraq Honorably.” 2007, you committed — you said it’s not in the national interest to deepen its military involvement. In January 2007, in a rather bizarre exchange with Secretary Rice in the Foreign Relations Committee after some nonsense about Syria and crossing the border into Iran and Syria, because of the surge, then — and a reference to Cambodia in 1970, you said, quote, “When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous,” quote, “Matter of fact, I have to say, Madam Secretary, I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam. If it is carried out, I will resist it.”

And then, of course, you continued on and on for months and months talking about what a disaster the surge would be even to the point where it was clear the surge was succeeding. In march 2008, you said, quote, “Here the term quagmires could apply. Some reject that term, but if that is not a quagmire, then what is?” Even as late as August 29, 2011, in an interview with the Financial Times you said, “I disagree with the President Obama, his decision to surge in Iraq as I did with President Bush on the surge in Iraq.” Do you — do you stand by that — those — those comments, Senator Hagel?

HAGEL: Well Senator, I stand by them because I made them. And…

MCCAIN: Were you right? Were you correct in your assessment?

HAGEL: I would defer to the judgment of history to sort that out. But I’ll…

MCCAIN: The committee deserves your judgment as to whether you were right or wrong about the surge.

HAGEL: I will explain why I made those comments, and…

MCCAIN: I want to know if you are right or wrong. That’s a direct question. I expect a direct answer.

HAGEL: The surge assisted in the objective. But — but, if we review the record a little bit…

MCCAIN: Will you please answer the question — were you correct or incorrect when he said the surge would be the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam? Were you correct or incorrect? Yes or no?

HAGEL: My reference to the surge being…

MCCAIN: Are you going to answer the question, Senator Hagel? The question is, were you right or wrong? That’s a straightforward question. I would like to answer whether you are right or wrong and then you are free to elaborate.

HAGEL: Well I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer.

MCCAIN: Well let the record show he refuses to answer the question. Now please go ahead.

HAGEL: Well If you would like me to explain…

MCCAIN: No, I actually would like an answer, yes or no.

HAGEL: Well I’m not going to give you a yes or no. I think it’s far more complicated than that. As I’ve already said, my answer is, I’ll defer that judgment to history. As to the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam, that was about not just the surge, but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision that was made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam. Aside from the cost that occurred in this country to blood and treasure, aside what that did to take our focus off of Afghanistan, which in fact was — was the original and real focus of the national threat to this country, Iraq was not, I always tried to frame all of the different issues before I made a decision on anything. Now, just as you said Senator, we can have differences of opinion. But that’s — that’s essentially why I took the position.

MCCAIN: A fundamental difference of opinion, Senator Hagel. And Senator Graham and I, and Senator Lieberman, when there were 59 votes in the United States Senate, spent our time trying to prevent that 60th. Thank God for Senator Lieberman. I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, sir, and you’re on the wrong side of it. And your refusal to answer whether you were right or wrong about it is going to have an impact on my judgment as to whether to vote for your confirmation or not. I hope you will reconsider the fact that you refused to answer a fundamental question about an issue that took the lives of thousands of young Americans.

That’s it??? Was I right and weren’t you wrong? (about the Surge in Iraq). That is what will determine if John McCain will vote to confirm his former good friend as President Obama’s Defense Secretary? No questions about how Mr. Hagel will ensure our military readiness in face of the largest cuts to the defense budget since the end of WWII? No questions about how a Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel would try to contain the eminent collapse of Syrian President Assad from spreading turmoil throughout the Middle East? No questions of how we would deal with the very real possibility of Islamic fundamentalists taking control of Syria and Assad’s chemical and biological weapons? No questions about how we ensure Iran never possesses nuclear weapons? No questions about Mr. Hagel’s commitment to ensuring the end of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and recent opening of combat roles to women results in full equality throughout all branches of our military? No, the most important thing to John McCain is for Chuck Hagel agree that John McCain was right.

I’ll agree with Chuck Hagel and let history judge if the Surge was successful in turning the tide in the Iraq War. But John McCain demanding a ‘Yes, you were right’ is like a heavy smoker demanding a pat on the back for his decision to undergo quadruple bypass heart surgery to unblock his coronary arteries – Intelligent decisions to begin with would have eliminated the need for drastic action to avoid a bad ending. Like not smoking 2 packs a day for 40 years, or not going to war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to us or Israel. And as a recipient of two Purple Hearts, Mr. Hagel deserved far more respect than was given to him in the confirmation hearings yesterday by John McCain and many of his fellow Republicans. Mr. Hagel would be the first enlisted man to ever serve as Secretary of Defense, and I think that says alot. He knows first hand the consequences of going to war, and believes that going to war should always be the very last resort. John McCain has never met a war he didn’t like. He complained loudly when President Obama wisely didn’t send in ground troops to help overthrow Ghaddafi, but relied on NATO airstrikes to support the Libyan people in overthrowing Ghaddafi themselves. McCain has complaining long and loudly that we aren’t in the middle of Syria’s civil war. And, God forbid, had McCain been elected President in 2008, I have no doubt we would be in the midst of a  terribly costly and long war with Iran.

Chuck Hagel will make a very good Secretary of Defense. John McCain, loser of two Presidential campaigns, who lost 3 airplanes as a naval pilot, and who dumped his first wife – a former model – when a car accident left her disfigured and confined her to a wheelchair, has never been very good at anything. Except maybe at holding a grudge.