We rethink the week with Val Endress, professor of political communications, Rhode Island College; Rick Newman, lobbyist and former NH state representative; and Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University, who blogs at nhpoliticalcapital.com.
We discuss the death of Steve Merrill, who defeated Arnie in the NH gubernatorial election of 1992. Those were different days: a Republican and a Democrat could debate the issues vigorously yet still treat each other with respect, without denigrating each other or acting like enemies. We mourned the loss of humane politics as well as of Gov. Merrill.
At the same time, we noted the hypocrisy of politics, in 1992 just like today. Merrill criticized Arnie for believing an income tax was more fair than the regressive system of property taxes with which NH has been financing its public services. Yet Merrill adopted the Business Enterprise Tax, which was a tax on the incomes of small businesspeople.
Merrill’s public relations team also invented the so-called “New Hampshire Advantage,” which in reality allowed the state budget to be balanced by relying on federal funding known as “Mediscam.” Once NH (and other states) were caught taking federal money to which they didn’t have a legal right, the state’s budget became a lot more difficult to balance.
We talked about partisan gerrymandering and the way it undermines the democratic process. Our country must eliminate such abuses, as well as finding a way to get big money out of politics. One person, one vote. Millionaires should not have a million more influence than the rest of us voters.
It is Labor Day, and American workers are having a very difficult time making ends meet. This was an issue even before COVID-19. As Dean Baker wrote in the NY Times, if the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity growth since 1968 – as it did from 1938 to 1968 – the minimum wage would be $24/hour today.
Of course, the pandemic has both highlighted and exacerbated the problem. As workers lost their jobs due to COVID, they also lost their health insurance (which we used to think was a job benefit that we could rely on). Parents who might return to work must find child care for their kids in an era of closed schools and distance learning.
We discuss whether Pres. Obama made a costly error in trying so hard to get bipartisan support for his health plan. He compromised away a federal guarantee of health coverage for every American (through some kind of public option – which might or might not mean Medicare for All). What did Obama gain for his efforts at bipartisanship? Obamacare got zero (0) Republican votes. Would the people who lost their jobs due to COVID have been better off today if our country had adopted some form of universal health care? Looking to the future, is Joe Biden still planning to veto such a plan if Congress were to approve it?
We end with Pres. Trump’s latest outrage: saying that soldiers who go to war and get captured or die are “losers” and “suckers.” Trump denied it, even though he is on videotape saying virtually the same things. His denials are reminiscent of the child who denies taking cookies out of the jar, while the cookie crumbs are still on his face.
