First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mahatma Gandhi

Job creation and economic development in Tucson (and many other cities) has historically revolved around a few well-worn strategies:

• offer tax breaks, free or cheap land, low taxes, and/or other economic incentives to lure businesses to our area;
• offer tax breaks, free or cheap land, low taxes, and/or other economic incentives to developers to build stuff;
• offer a new stadium with free or cheap rent and/or other economic incentives to lure spring training or other sports teams to our area;
• show pictures of cowboys and pretty sunsets and hope tourists will come;
• build a fancy convention hotel– on the taxpayers’ dime– to lure conventions to our area.

Luckily, the citizens stopped the fancy convention hotel plan last summer, but Tucson and Pima County have jumped on board and spent millions of dollars on these other strategies. And what have we got to show for it? A 23.4% poverty rate, high unemployment, a shrinking workforce, a rising home vacancy rate, home foreclosures in the thousands, and falling home values. Need I go on?

We need some new strategies. To this end Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) Tucson Chapter sponsored a panel discussion on job creation recently. Job Creation in Tucson: Building a Sustainable Future featured talks by Lisette DeMars of Local First Arizona, Melissa Black of the Green Chamber of Commerce, Joe Higgins of Arizona Small Business, and Jim Mize of Pima County employer outreach, plus local business owner Tim Carmichael of La Posada Solar Cogeneration Project.* Rep. Raul Grijalva was on hand to offer his perspective, and The Tucson Progressive gave an economic overview (above).

The focus of the evening was on growing and investing in local business– instead of throwing money and tax breaks to lure businesses here or offering Band-Aid solutions like cutting fees (which often lead to reduced governmental revenue and cuts in jobs and services).

Although the right-wing blog Tucson Choices dissed PDA’s local business focus and dismissed the group as a bunch of intellectuals– the Thinkers of Tucson (hey, thanks)– the evening was filled with creative ideas. Tucson Choices says that local politicians don’t have the time to come up with new ideas, so they listen to Tucson’s Thinkers. I hope they’re right.

To climb out of our current economic slump, Tucson needs to foster out-of-the-box ideas and invest in local innovation– rather than focus on being the low-wage call center capital of the country.

We have businesses that are born and raised in Tucson. They’re not going anywhere. Rather than chasing after the next IBM with tax breaks, the smart investment is to help local businesses grow by offering innovation grants. Instead of offering millions of dollars to lure a large company here, let’s take even 10% of that economic development money and fund local innovation. I’m not suggesting that we give Joe’s Machine Shop $5000 to move into a new building; I’m suggesting we give Joe $5000 – $50,000 to develop the next generation of electric motors. Now that’s business friendly.

In addition, Tucson economic development should play to our strengths. We have a research university and one of the country’s top hospitals– right here in the middle of town. The city should work with the UA and enable increased technology transfer. Research has shown that growing “eds and meds” does foster economic development, provides good-paying jobs, and is a better investment than convention hotels or sports teams.

The entire PDA event can be found on my You Tube channel.

* By the way, PDA invited TREO to join in the panel discussion, but they declined.

Informational tents erected by Connect the Dots, Progressive Democrats of America, Jobs with Justice, and political campaigns drew in many interested people.

Labor Day 2011 in Tucson was a blend of old fashioned games and old fashioned politics.

As a volunteer with the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) booth, my job was to work the crowd and attach as many “Healthcare not Warfare” stickers to as many people as possible. This task afforded me the opportunity to engage in multiple conversations about universal healthcare, ending US military adventurism, and other political issues with dozens of people during the course of the day.

Two of the more extended and spirited discussions I had on Labor Day were with  Republican City Council candidate Jennifer Rawson and Republican Mayoral candidate Rick Grinnell. (I’m not sure if they were tag-teaming at the Labor Day event, but they passed by the PDA and Connect the Dots booths one right after another. Little did they know what they were stepping into.)

Rawson wandered by first, then Grinnell. They both accepted my “Healthcare not Warfare” stickers, and began to tell me who they were; but, of course, I already knew. I started my conversations with both of them with the same question:

If you are elected as a City Council person [or Mayor], how would you reduce the poverty rate in Tucson?

“Create jobs!” Rawson responded enthusiastically.

“How?” I asked.

At this juncture, Rawson shifted the topic from jobs and poverty to a story about a small business owner who received a bill for $5000 from the city for a light pole erected on her property. Boo hoo for the business owner was Rawson’s message. Of course, she didn’t offer anybackground information on this story– such as whether or not the small business owner has asked the city to erect the light pole on her property. Details, details. Instead she went off on the city and the fees…yada, yada, yada.

“Fix city government. It’s full of corruption. We really need to clean house!” was Grinnel’s answer to the poverty problem. (Well that didn’t answer my question at all. Ironically, when I checked Grinnell’s website today, I realized that he is on the Rio Nuevo Board… hmmm… city corruption… pot calling the kettle black?)

“So, do you want to know my ideas for creating jobs in Pima County?” I asked them both. Not allowing either of them to answer my rhetorical question, I launched into my ideas. I told them both that the Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (better known as TREO) and the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau (MTCVB) were a waste of money because they have been ineffective in their strategies to boost the Tucson economy or create jobs. Here is what I told them…

TREO’s tactic– also employed by economic development groups in dozens of cities– is to chase large corporations and sports teams with tax breaks, free land, and taxpayer-funded facilities (ie, ball parks, industrial parks, convention centers, etc.) This strategy benefits businesses, for sure, but it is was not producing long-term, good jobs in Tucson (remember IBM? remember Wiser Lock? remember spring training?)– or anywhere else– because these companies and sports teams are not loyal to the location. They are just looking for the best deal, and the cities and politicians are so desperate to look successful at job creation that they break the bank with the deals they offer. (I didn’t realize when I was dissing chasing sports teams that Grinnell used to do just that!)

The way to grow jobs– and help small businesses– in Tucson isn’t to give tax breaks to relocating corporations or to excuse fees levied on existing business; it’s to invest in businesses that are “born and raised” in Tucson — like Gadabout, Bohemia, Patio Pools, Technicians for Sustainability, Nimbus Brewery, Thunder Canyon Brewery, eegees, etc. Instead of spending $1 million to bring in another call center or baseball team, why not offer 50 – 100 individual $10-20,000 low-cost loans or grants to different local businesses with innovative ideas or well-crafted business expansion plans? (I’m talking real plans– not just “Hey, if we give you a $5000 tax credit, could you maybe hire someone someday?”)

With a $20,000 investment, would Gadabout start a skin care line? Would Nimbus or Thunder Canyon improve expand distribution to other states or start a spin-off business? Would Technicians for Sustainability start manufacturing their own line of solar shingles? Would Bohemia start marketing local art on the Internet or open another store or reduce their consignment fee (thus helping local artists make more money)? Who knows? At any rate, investment– not giveaways– will grow businesses (and jobs) because it fosters innovation and expansion– not just increased profits for the business owner.

After promoting Local First and trashing TREO’s ineffective strategies, I moved on to MTCVB. Tucson has a vibrant arts and music scene. Our musicians and artists are every bit as talented as Austin’s or New Orleans’. Tucson also has great musical events– the blues festival, the folk festival, Club Crawl, HoCo Fest, just to name a few– and local music in clubs nightly, but you won’t learn about any of these attractions on the MTCVB website. It’s all mariachis, golf, swanky resorts, rodeo, baseball(?), the Gem Show, cacti, and sunsets. On the MTCVB website, the only art represented is David Dominguez Gallery, Tohono Chul Park, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the Open Studio Tour. Huh? No mention of Dinnerware, Raices, the warehouse district galleries, or the Central Tucson Gallery Association. MCTVB is promoting business– not Tucson and Tucson’s cultural, artistic, and musical assets.

TREO and MTCVB should be de-funded, and their missions and tactics re-tooled. Their strategies are not working; it’s time to think forward.

What is our shared vision for Tucson and how do we realize it? Grinnell and Rawson offered me canned Republican answers to my sincere question about jobs and poverty. Is continued Democratic Party rule the answer? I’m not so sure about that; the Democrats have perpetuated the inept policies of TREO/MTCVB. Stay tuned for more…

Teams representing different labor unions prepare to push a giant ball back and forth across the field. Is this game an analogy for the political struggle between local Democrats and Republicans?

Approximately 25 stalwarts representing National Nurses United, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and MoveOn.org braved 108 degree temperatures to protest outside of US Senator Jon Kyl’s suburban Tucson office on September 1, 2011.

The lcoal demonstration was part of a national movement to encourage Congress to think about Main Street– rather than Wall Street– when making spending (and cutting) decisions in the near future. Kyl’s office was chosen as the site for the local demonstration because he has been appointed to the Super Congress, which will make tough spending and cutting decisions this fall.

Kyl’s staff locked themselves in a conference room as peaceful protesters knocked on the office door and chanted outside.

Since Kyl’s staff refused to open the doors and listen to local constituents, activists left dozens of Post-It Note messages on his door encouraging him to save social safety net programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment), tax the rich and corporations to raise revenue, and put Americans back to work.

To watch other videos from around the country, click here.

It’s highly ironic that the current social and political battle over our nation’s debt and deficit is occurring this week with the 46th anniversary of the signing of Social Security Act of 1965 on Saturday, July 30.

After a long political battle dating from Harry Truman’s presidency to Lyndon Johnson’s, Johnson signed this legislation creating universal, single payer healthcare insurance for the nation’s elderly (Medicare) and indigent (Medicaid).

From The Nation…

With reporters and photographers surrounding them, Johnson took a place beside former President Harry Truman, who the sitting president thanked for “planting the seeds of compassion and duty which have today flowered into care for the sick and serenity for the fearful.” [Emphasis added.]

These healthcare reforms were part of Johnson’s Great Society, which had two primary goals: to eliminate poverty and to eliminate racial injustice. After his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, Johnson and his progressive Democratic Congress enacted forward-thinking reforms that were reminiscent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and began the full-on War on Poverty, which reduced the poverty rate significantly over the subsequent 10 years. Many important Great Society programs– aimed at improving labor, healthcare, and education for poor and working class Americans– are still in existence: Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, student loans for college, work study, and Head Start. These programs were strengthened under Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

It is so sad how far we have fallen from this level of compassion. The programs of Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society– programs that have provided a social safety net for millions of Americans and wiped out many inequities of the past– are now facing a full-frontal attack by conservatives, bankrolled by big business.

Republican Congressmen would have you believe that the nation’s financial problems can be fixed by just cutting spending– specifically dramatically changing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (long-term spending) and dramatically cutting other discretionary (non-military) spending (ie, food stamps, children’s healthcare, food safety, pollution abatement, etc) which actually makes up less than 20 percent of the budget. Oh, yeah, and they want to protect oil subsidies, corporate tax loopholes (which allow multinational corporations like Bank of America to pay no taxes; tax loopholes for the rich; continue the Bush era tax cuts that they fought so hard for in December 2010; dismantle Social Security (so retirement funds for those under 50 can be gambled on the stock market); and offer more tax cuts (more trickle down economics).

At a time of high unemployment, high gasoline costs, high food prices, escalating college education tuition, skyrocketing healthcare expenses, a disintigrating social safety net, and soaring corporate profits– Republicans want workers, the elderly, and the indigent to “tighten their belts” to protect the profits and tax breaks of corporate jet owners, big oil, big pharma, big insurance, and Wall Street gamblers and corporate execs everywhere.

From the Associated Press (via the Arizona Daily Star)…

Two years after economists say the Great Recession ended, the recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s.

After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit. This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.

Workers’ wages and benefits make up 57.5 percent of the economy, an all-time low. Until the mid-2000s, that figure had been remarkably stable – about 64 percent through boom and bust alike.

Executive pay is included in this figure, but rank-and-file workers are far more dependent on regular wages and benefits. A big chunk of the economy’s gains has gone to investors in the form of higher corporate profits.

“The spoils have really gone to capital, to the shareholders,” says David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff + Associates in Toronto.

Corporate profits are up by almost half since the recession ended in June 2009. In the first two years after the recessions of 1991 and 2001, profits rose 11 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

And an Associated Press analysis found that the typical CEO of a major company earned $9 million last year, up a fourth from 2009.

Driven by higher profits, the Dow Jones industrial average has staged a breathtaking 90 percent rally since bottoming at 6,547 on March 9, 2009. Those stock market gains go disproportionately to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who own more than 80 percent of outstanding stock, according to an analysis by Edward Wolff, an economist at Bard College.

But if the Great Recession is long gone from Wall Street and corporate boardrooms, it lingers on Main Street:

• Unemployment has never been so high – 9.1 percent – this long after any recession since World War II. At the same point after the previous three recessions, unemployment averaged just 6.8 percent.

• The average worker’s hourly wages, after accounting for inflation, were 1.6 percent lower in May than a year earlier. Rising gasoline and food prices have devoured any pay raises for most Americans.

• The jobs that are being created pay less than the ones that vanished in the recession. Higher-paying jobs in the private sector, the ones that pay roughly $19 to $31 an hour, made up 40 percent of the jobs lost from January 2008 to February 2010 but only 27 percent of the jobs created since then.

Hard times have made Americans more dependent than ever on social programs, which accounted for a record 18 percent of personal income in the last three months of 2010 before coming down a bit this year. Almost 45 million Americans are on food stamps, another record…

Federal Reserve numbers crunched by Haver Analytics suggest that Americans have a long way to go before their finances will be strong enough to support robust spending: Despite cutting what they owe the past three years, the average household’s debts equal 119 percent of annual after-tax income. At the same point after the 1981-82 recession, debts were at 66 percent; after the 1990-91 recession, 85 percent; and after the 2001 recession, 114 percent. [Emphasis added.]

At a time when Americans can least afford it and the income gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of us is larger than the Grand Canyon, Republicans are asking for even further financial sacrifices from Main Street Americans AND they are willing to throw the world into financial crisis as they cling to their trickle down ideology of protecting the rich while casting the rest of us aside. If they want to “fix” Social Security, they should put Americans back to work at good-paying jobs. According to 2009 figures from the US Census, 14.3 percent of Americans (and 20.7 percent of American children) are living in poverty; 43 million Americans– the largest number ever.

What can you do about it?

Call your Congressional Representatives today and tell them to vote to:

• raise the debt ceiling (and stop the grandstanding),
• raise revenues (by cutting military spending, eliminating corporate loopholes that allow them to avoid paying taxes, eliminate Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, etc.),
• protect the programs that benefit millions of Americans: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment, college tuition grants, etc.
• solve the deficit problem by putting Americans back to work.

Here are the numbers:
CD8 Gabrielle Giffords: 520-881-3588 (local) or 202-225-2542 (DC)
CD7 Raul Grijalva: 520-622-6788 (local) or 202-225-2435 (DC)

CD6 Jeff Flake from Mesa (We need to lean on this guy who wants to be our next Senator.):
480-833-0092 (in Mesa) or 202-225-2635 (DC)

Senator Jon Kyl 520-575-8633 (local) or 202-224-4521 (DC)
Senator John McCain 520-670-6334 (local) or 202-224-2245 (DC)

What else can you do?

Progressive Democrats of America’s Tucson Chapter is holding a demonstration to show support for protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid on Saturday, July 30 from 10 a.m. – noon at the corner of Speedway and Campbell.

Here is an awesome commentary on the national debt debate from The Nation…

In the ever-so-smug company of the rich and powerful it is a given that there is never to be any expression of remorse or other acknowledgment of the pain they have inflicted on the lesser mortals they so cavalierly plunder. It’s convenient for them that the media and the politicians, which they happen to own, rarely connect the dots between the scams that made the rich so rich and the alarming rise in the federal debt that is crushing this nation.

The result of this purchased public myopia is that we are left with an absurd debate over how deeply to cut teachers’ pensions and seniors’ medical benefits while preserving tax breaks for the superrich and their large corporations. At a time when 10 million American families will have lost their homes by year’s end, when $5.6 trillion in home equity has been wiped out, when most Americans face steep unemployment rates and stagnant wages, a Democratic president is likely to compromise with Republican ideologues who insist that further cuts in taxes for the rich is the way to bring back jobs.

Let’s deal right off with that canard. There is currently no shortage of corporate profits or excessive executive compensation to explain away the failure of the private sector to create jobs. On the contrary, as the New York Times reports, “In the fourth quarter, profits at American businesses were up an astounding 29.2 percent, the fastest growth in more than 60 years. Collectively, American corporations logged profits at an annual rate of $1.678 trillion.” And to add insult to injury, the top executives, who seem unable or unwilling to create jobs or adequately reward their workers, have increased their own compensation by a whopping 12 percent over the previous year, setting the median pay at $9.6 million per year for those in control of the leading 200 companies. The Times adds that “CEO pay is also on the rise again at companies like Capital One and Goldman Sachs, which survived the economic storm with the help of all of those taxpayer-financed bailouts.”

Lost in this faux debate is the reality that our debt now looms so large because the government had to bail out many of those same corporations, quite a few of which, like General Electric and AIG, pay no taxes and have no problem paying truly obscene amounts to their top executives. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whom President Barack Obama named chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, is making as much as he did before the recession hit, a recession that his GE Capital division did much to cause with its reckless loans. AIG, saved with a government infusion of $170 billion, has just lavishly rewarded its top executives but has providing no relief for the homeowners ripped off by its phony credit default swaps.

The AIG deal was engineered by then-President of the New York Fed Timothy Geithner, who was rewarded for his efforts to save the bankers by being named Obama’s treasury secretary. Geithner, an energetic member of the team of Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers that ran Treasury when the Bill Clinton administration cooperated with Congressional Republicans in gutting regulation of the financial community, is proud of saving the banks from the wreckage that they and the Clinton policies caused. Last October he proclaimed the TARP banker bailout program “the most effective government program in recent memory.”

What he is referring to is that in order to escape the federal restrictions on executive compensation, the banks have been eager to pay back the TARP funds. What he and other apologists for the Obama and George W. Bush administrations’ Bankers First program choose to ignore—as Paul Atkins and two other members of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program revealed in a damning Wall Street Journal column titled “TARP Was No Win for the Taxpayers”—is that the banks are not paying back the trillions of dollars in non-TARP governmental assistance that saved them from bankruptcy. “It hides the full story of the government’s financial crisis effort, of which TARP is but a minor part,” the op-ed column said of the maneuvering. The major part is the $1.1 trillion in toxic-mortgage-based securities that the Fed purchased, relieving the banks of their obligations, and the $380 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, organizations that backed those securities, along with “other Fed and FDIC programs [that] added another $2 trillion of taxpayer money at risk to the 19 stress-tested banks alone.”

What Geithner celebrates is a shell game of his own construction in which far more costly federal programs, with no serious restrictions on banker greed, were used by the banks to “repay” the TARP funds. Nothing was obtained in return from those banks in the way of mortgage cramdowns to keep people in their homes or any restrictions on the interest rates that banks charge on credit cards: Clearly usurious rates of more than 25 percent are now the norm for those struggling to keep their families above water. No wonder consumer confidence is down, the housing market is expected to decline an additional 10 percent over the next year, and the job market is predicted by most of the experts to stagnate for years to come. Continued tax breaks for the 1 percent of the population that controls 40 percent of the nation’s wealth will do nothing to restore the confidence of the other 99 percent of consumers who are suffering so.

This at least Obama seems to understand, but count on him to betray his own better instincts by once again following the advice of his treasury secretary and the Wall Street crowd that contributed so lavishly to his first presidential campaign and whose support he seeks once again. [Emphasis added.]

All of the players are counting on the continued myopia of the American public. If we were really paying attention, we wouldn’t stand for this.

The People’s Budget– proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus earlier this week– will be heard on the floor of the US House of Representatives on Friday, April 15.

Republican budget proposals balance the budget on the backs of the working people, children, and the poor by destroying Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. The People’s Budget creates jobs, bolsters our infrastructure, supports a public option and price negotiations to control healthcare costs, and cuts military spending.

In the above video at about 12 minutes, Congressman Raul Grijalva contrasts the People’s Budget, with Obama’s Plan, and Rep. Paul Ryan’s Plan, which dismantles Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, while cutting taxes for the rich and preserving the military budget. Democracy Now commentator Amy Goodman hits the nail on the head regarding mainstream media coverage of the various budget plans. In my article earlier this week, I chided the Arizona Daily Star for not even mentioning that the People’s Budget– which is being supported by our Congressman!– exists, while running multiple lengthy articles on Ryan’s budget and the nuances of the 2011 budget negotiations.

For more information, check out this story from the Progressive Democrats of American Tucson Chapter blog: US House to Vote on People’s Budget: CALL Your Representative Now!

Arizona’s Teapublican Legislature has been in session for nearly three full months and has done practically nothing about balancing the state’s budget, which has been illegally unbalanced for years now.

In recent days, the Arizona House started thinking about revenue generation; unfortunately, their latest proposal will increase taxes on the middle class and the poor. The House (which is generally a bit less wacky than the Senate, led by the infamous Russell Pearce) recently voted 40-18 to eliminate personal exemptions and standard deductions from the state income tax system. (Income tax deductions [ie, home mortgage interest, charitable contributions, college tuition, etc.] are used by most Americans to reduce their tax burden.) In addition, the measure would eliminate the state’s graduated income tax– which ranges from 2.59 to 4.54 percent– will be replaced by a flat tax of 2.08 percent.

I agree that Arizona’s tax system needs reform, but the Teapublicans– led by Rep. Steve Court (R-Mesa)– are going in the wrong direction.

If you’re bad at math, you may think that going from a range of 2.59 to 4.54 percent to a flat 2.08 percent is a good deal. After all, 2.08 percent is less than 2.59 percent. But, trust me, flat taxes are only a good deal for the wealthy. Graduated taxes are fairer because the percentage increases with the income. If anything, Arizona’s graduated income tax should have a few more upper income brackets, and instead of lowering corporate taxes (as the Legislature did a month ago) the corporate tax also should be graduated.

As Court points out in a Capitol Media Service article, this allows people living in poverty to pay no taxes. (Oh, the horror!) And Court thinks the poor should pay their fair share. Quoting the Arizona Daily Star, “Court said having everyone pay taxes also is good from a public-policy standpoint.”

Since Arizona’s recent corporate welfare legislation was a Republican rubber stamp, I’m sure Court voted with the right-wing majority to cut corporate taxes. Corporations use more services and resources than a family of four scraping by on $15,000 per year! Why do the Republicans pontificate about workers and the poor “paying their fair share” while letting corporations pay no taxes?

For more details on the flat tax, check out the Capitol Media story in the Arizona Daily Star.

Court’s proposal eliminates the personal exemptions and standard deductions, which together have, until now, resulted in some people owing no state taxes at all. Generally speaking, a couple with at least one dependent with a federal adjusted gross income of about $15,000 a year have been able to reduce their state tax liability to zero.

No more. And Court said that is by design, even though the federal poverty level for a family of three is $18,310 a year.

“They’re using state services,” he said. “And it’s a nominal amount.”

At $15,000, that 2.08 percent tax rate would compute to about $312 a year.

Court said having everyone pay taxes also is good from a public-policy standpoint.

“They would have greater interest in votes in the future that somebody’s proposing to raise taxes and now they’ll be affected,” he said.

Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, said there is evidence that people across the income scale will be hit.

He cited a report prepared by Walter Dudley, a certified public accountant, who took the taxes of six different families and compared what they pay now versus what they would pay in the future. The incomes ranged from $17,784 to $248,456.

“What he discovered was every single one of those households saw their taxes increase under these rules,” Farley said, ranging from $370 more a year for the family at the lowest end to $5,274 in extra taxes for the family at the top.

“So if you’re voting for this bill, you’re voting for a massive tax increase on every household in the state of Arizona according to calculations,” Farley told other legislators.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said he dismissed Dudley’s conclusion as something that would be expected from accountants who figure to lose business with the change.

Ultimately, Court said, it comes down to a question of philosophy. He said there is no reason for those who are doing better to pay a higher percentage of their income to support government.

“With a flat tax, if you make 10 times more than I do, you’ll pay 10 times as much tax,” he said. “I’m just trying to get everybody back down to a level playing field.”

The measure now goes to the Senate.

Estimates vary, but between 80,000-100,000 demonstrators protested against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting “Budget Repair Bill” on Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin. According to radio talk show host Ed Schultz, another 70 protests were held around Wisconsin over the weekend– despite freezing rain on Sunday. (Burrr… )

The “Mubarak of the Middle West” (AKA Walker) appeared on CNN over the weekend, but he refuses to compromise or negotiate with the unions and refuses to address the crowd regarding the “budget crisis” that he personally created by giving corporate tax breaks that the state could not afford. (Sound familiar?)

Unlike Arizona, Wisconsin has one of the best public education systems in the country. Walker’s union-busting activities are not about pensions. They’re about radical anti-union, anti-public-education, pro-corporate-welfare ideology. (This, too, should sound familiar.)

From The Nation…

What has become clear to the protesters over the past week is that, beyond an assault on unions, Walker’s bill is part of a wider attack on working families and public education.

“The second reason that this fight matters is the future of public education,” The Nation’s Chris Hayes said. “What’s driving it is the ultimate aim of permanently scrapping the model of public education that has sustained this country for years. Teachers unions are the stewards of preserving public education, which is the core element of our civil life.”

Walker’s track record illustrates his lack of support for public education. Before he was governor, he was the executive of Milwaukee County, where the nation’s first mass-scale private school voucher experiment was implemented. He then campaigned for governor on expanding these vouchers, Hayes said.

Under the widely disputed bill, local police, firefighters and state troopers would retain their collective bargaining rights—their unions generally supported Walker during his campaign. Teachers unions, who sided with Democrats in last fall’s election, and other public workers would lose that process.

The proposed bill, according to Walker, is intended to balance the state’s budget and avoid layoffs. But despite an offer by public workers to give financial concessions instead of relinquishing collective bargaining, the governor refuses to drop the plan.

In a statement issued this weekend, Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach said that the offer made by public workers was “a legitimate and serious offer on the table from local, state and school public employees that balances Governor Walker’s budget.”

The denial of this offer shows that “Governor Walker’s only target is the destruction of collective bargaining rights and not solving the state’s budget,” Erpenbach said.

Teaching assistants have planned a “teach-out” for Tuesday to permit their students to join them at the capitol to protest the Assembly’s meeting. They also helped organize “teach-ins” over the weekend at the campus’s main library to further explain to students how this bill will affect them.

Graduate student assistants teach 85 percent of discussion sections and nearly 20 percent of the lectures on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. The proposed bill targets both their benefits and their ability to bargain over tuition remission. This is no small matter: a statement released by the TAA Saturday said that tuition remission is the university’s strongest recruitment tool for graduate students and ending collective bargaining in this area would impact the quality of the teaching and research brought into the university.

Over the last week, groups of students migrated from other state campuses to participate in the protests in Madison. Rachel Matteson, a member of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, came down Sunday to rally at the capitol.

“Attacking teachers assistants and teachers directly affects the quality of our education. Students realize this. Many of us will be graduating soon and entering the public sector, so this is also an attack on our own rights,” Matteson told The Nation.

Some 260 faculty members at UW-Madison signed a letter opposing the bill. “We recognize that the state faces a severe budget shortfall. We have already taken wage and benefit cuts to help address that problem and expect to make more sacrifices in the future. But eliminating collective bargaining will not address this shortfall. We urge you not to allow this crisis to undermine our state’s strong traditions of democracy and human rights.”

Public school teachers from around the state have been protesting at the capitol for the past week. On Sunday, after a four-hour debate on how to balance maintaining their opposition to the bill with their responsibilities to teach, Madison public school teachers decided to return to work on Tuesday.

Not only are public school teacher’s collective bargaining rights threatened, but public education is also expected to be reduced by nearly $500 annually per student.

Simultaneously, and also causing a stir, is a proposal expected to be included in Walkers budget that involves splitting the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the rest of the state’s university system. Some officials worry this could cause tuition to skyrocket.

For more on union-busting and Wisconsin, check out these stories.

Video of Ed Schultz broadcasting from Madison from MSNBC

Wixconsin Power Play from the New York Times

Wisconsin’s Protests in Pictures from The Nation

‘This Is What Democracy Looks Like’ in Wisconsin, as Largest Crowd Yet—80,000—Opposes Union Busting from The Nation

The Future of Public Education, as Much as Unions, Is at Stake in Wisconsin from The Nation

Why cover what’s happening in Wisconsin? Because Arizona Republican Governor Jan Brewer and other radical corporate puppet governors around the country are taking pages from the same playbook as “The Mubarak of the Middle West”. Stay tuned. There are a lot of rumblings about marching on Phoenix.

Is the US on the verge of class warfare? Or in the thick of it? Check out this excerpt from an excellent Blog for Arizona article by the AZ Blue Meanie.

Mr. President, America does not negotiate with hostage takers and extortionists

I have come to the conclusion that all the news reporting and commentary on the Obama-McConnell tax compromise is ignoring the (GOP) elephant in the room. It is all sound and fury to obscure the central issue of our time with which this country has yet to come to grips: a major political party is waging an insurgency war against America. As I have said before:

Republicans are engaged in a class war against the rest of America. This is an insurrection by the wealthy elites against 98% of their fellow American citizens… Republican insurrectionists are holding our government hostage in bad faith for purposes of extortion.

President Obama acknowledged the criminality of Republicans during his press conference on Tuesday:

“I’ve said before that I felt that the middle class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high end tax cuts. I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed. Then, people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.”

It is not enough for you to recognize the criminality, Mr. President. You must confront it. America does not pay ransom to hostage takers and extortionists. To do so only encourages more hostage taking and more extortionary ransom demands to be paid. Americans will not support any president who accedes to the demands of hostage takers and extortionists. Just ask Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contra “arms for hostages” co-conspirators.

This is why so many Americans across the ideological spectrum from the liberal left to the far-right Tea Party were so furious over the bailout of the banksters of Wall Street. These gangsters who turned Wall Street into a criminal syndicate of casino capitalism threatened to destroy the world’s financial system and economy if they were not rescued by the U.S. government. The government paid the ransom and thus rewarded their criminally irresponsible behavior in the interest of preventing collateral damage to the gangsters’ “hostages,” the American taxpayer, who ultimately are paying their own ransom.

These banksters of Wall Street took their taxpayer funded government ransom money and paid themselves excessive bonuses for a “job well done,” while millions of American taxpayers suffered the consequences of the banksters’ criminally irresponsible behavior by losing their jobs and their homes, and then getting stuck with the bill.

These gangsters were not satisfied with this ransom. Oh no, they wanted more. They next took our political process hostage with the help of a conservative activist U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC. Millionaires and billionaires, who will never have to disclose their identity, bought themselves a Congress for Christmas to ensure they will have a compliant Congress that will keep paying their extortionary ransom demands. America’s media conglomerates profited handsomely from all the political advertising. I am sure that the millionaire news anchors of America’s cable and network television stations will all receive a healthy end-of-year bonus as well.

And now it has come to this. The hostage takers are back again making yet another extortionary demand for ransom: tax cuts for the “two percenters” and a sweetheart deal on the estate tax for the über-rich. “Give us what we demand or we will kill any tax benefits for America’s middle class, and we will kill our hostages, America’s unemployed.” President Obama is acceding to the extortionary demands of these hostage takers to save the lives of their hostages. While his humanity and compassion are laudable, it is also misplaced.

By acceding to the hostage takers’ extortionary demands now, it will only encourage more hostage taking and more extortionary ransom demands in the future. These gangsters will take America’s most vulnerable and elderly populations hostage next, and demand that the president and the Congress turn over to them the social security and Medicare trust funds. Like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas took the very last crumb, these gangsters want to steal the very last dime of economic security from America’s middle class. They want it all.

Mr. President, you have a constitutional duty to defend this country against all enemies both foreign and domestic. This insurrection, essentially a civil war grounded upon a class war by the wealthy elite against 98% of their fellow American citizens, invokes that constitutional duty to defend the Constitution and to preserve our long-cherished American principles and values.

President Abraham Lincoln was similarly confronted with a civil war over two competing economic theories, one economic theory grounded upon liberal capitalism, and the other economic theory grounded upon the brutality of slavery. By the time Lincoln took office, 11 insurrectionist Southern states had seceded from the Union and threatened war against the United States if Lincoln did not accede to their extortionary demands.

Lincoln most certainly did not want to see the insurrectionists’ “hostages,” the American people, harmed.

If you want to read the rest, click here.

For all the yammering about fiscal responsibility (particularly from Republicans) during the recent election, I was shocked to open the newspaper this morning and see this headline: Obama, GOP agree: Keep tax cuts for all. (Note the group that is absent from that headline– Democrats.)

So, the party that shouted about how much money was spent on the stimulus package and how irresponsible it was (given the size of the national debt) is working overtime to extend all tax cuts– at a price tag that is higher than the cost of the stimulus package.

Basically, the Republicans are using the unemployed as a bargaining chip. They know the Democrats want to extend unemployment benefits and Republicans want to extend welfare benefits to their schils at FOX News and their corporate masters, so they cold-heartedly held the unemployed hostage to strong-arm Obama into agree with their plan– to the chagrin of his party.

Here is an excerpt from the Star story.

President Obama reached agreement Monday with congressional Republicans to extend and deepen tax cuts temporarily – and extend unemployment insurance – in hopes of stirring the economy and creating jobs.

Obama pointedly refused to drag out the debate any longer over his quest to let taxes increase for wealthier Americans, bowing to the political reality that he couldn’t get the Republicans to agree to extend middle-class tax cuts or jobless benefits unless he also agreed to extend tax breaks for everyone.

In the bargain, he risked rebellion from his own party. Congressional Democrats refused to jump on board immediately, continuing to question tax cuts for the wealthy. They planned to discuss the tax deal at closed-door meetings today, and they still could kill the plan.

Obama acknowledged that many in his own party wanted him to fight rather than compromise.

President Obama, haven’t you been reading my stories on this topic? It’s fiscally irresponsible to extend all of the tax cuts. And extending all of them until 2012 is just silly. No one in the federal government wanted to make any serious decisions during the 2010 election year (It’s amazing healthcare reform and financial reform were passed!) What makes you think they will be braver in 2012?

How much you wanna bet that the standard bearers for extension of all Bush Era tax cuts– Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Boehner (R-OH)– plus the newly minted Tea-publican members of Congress will be preaching fiscal restraint in the spring when the Congress has to vote on lifting the debt ceiling or allowing the government to default? Consider this from There Will Be Blood by the NY Times’ Paul Krugman. [Emphasis added.]

Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction. [AKA Cat Food Commission]

So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. … When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.

Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize.

Some explanation: There’s a legal limit to federal debt, which must be raised periodically if the government keeps running deficits; the limit will be reached again this spring. And since nobody, not even the hawkiest of deficit hawks, thinks the budget can be balanced immediately, the debt limit must be raised to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans will probably try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in effect, holding the government hostage; they’ve done it before.

Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America’s role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But no, Mr. Simpson “can’t wait.” And he’s what passes, these days, for a reasonable Republican…

Thus on the same day that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass unemployment. He asked for “a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits.”

Mr. President, don’t roll that snowball down the hill toward the Republicans because you won’t be able to stop it later. Don’t compromise.

All I can say is that when it happens, the revolution will not be televised.

UPDATE, December 7, noon: Tax Deal Opponents Shut Down White House Phones

Liberal activists angry about President Barack Obama’s concession on tax cuts for upper-income Americans crashed two phone lines at the White House and are gearing up for another onslaught of calls to Senate Democratic leaders in an eleventh-hour push to kill the deal.

Supporters of the New York-based Agenda Project shut down two phone lines for most the day Monday in White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett’s office, according to the group’s founder, Erica Payne. And even though Obama ultimately announced a bipartisan deal that extends tax cuts for the wealthy, Payne said her group, which boasts 10,000 supporters, has plans to push back every step of the way.