Inc. Magazine: Entrepreneurs want government-financed or -regulated health care

The growing political chasm between Corporate America (represented by most Chambers of Commerce organizations) and entrepreneurial small businesses that actually create jobs is growing.

Health care is the latest example.

According to Jane Berentson, Editor of Inc. Magazine, most entrepreneurs favor Democratic candidates over Republicans, and one of the main reasons is that "57 percent [of 1000 leaders of small-businesses] said that a regulated system would be good for growing businesses." This is a group that self-identifies as 37% Republican, 27% Democratic and 24% independent.

The Republican Party's stubborn refusal to break free of the insurance companies' parasitic role in delivering health care -- and many Democratic leaders willingness to shrink or abolish their role -- is shifting small business to the blue column.

Why, then, are the business lobbies so in thrall to the insurance agenda? Why are they so ideological?

When will have an entrepreneurial business lobby that can advocate for cheaper, more reliable energy (and thus against the old school utilities and oil companies), advocate for cheaper and more reliable health care (and thus against the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies), advocate for taxes on wealth and high income to pay for better education and infrastructure (and thus against the Wall Street Journal wing of the GOP)?

As soon as entrepreneurs decide to fund one that advocates for their interests, not Corporate America. I hope that day comes soon.

Zorn and others upset with the Governor should curb the amendatory veto power

Governor Blagojevich threw a dramatic bottom-of-the-ninth curveball this week: he would agree to sign the sales tax increase for transit (and public safety in the suburbs) to avoid the severe service cuts and fare hikes if and only if transit fares are completely eliminated for all seniors. This rather progressive idea of eliminating fares emerged for the first time at the last minute, leaving legislators and advocates with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. Initial reports are that the same majority of legislators who supported the bill will support the Governor's proposal to avoid the ridership losses.

Eric Zorn is fighting mad.

He sees the Governor's go-it-alone decree as dictator-esque and he calls on the General Assembly to reject the Governor's proposal as an affront to the legislative process:

3. It has not been vetted by the democratic process. We have this legislative system, see, in which ideas like this get a full airing by lawmakers who try to get a handle on such things as costs and unintended consequences before passing them along to the governor for his signature. But here, Blagojevich, again doing his best imitation of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez (hence my earlier headline on this item nicknaming him "Gov. Hugojevich"), decided to skirt the system. He thought of his idea back before Thanksgiving, as he said in this comically discursive statement to a reporter yesterday, yet didn't consult with transit officials or try to include what he called a 'lemonade' sweetener in the bail-out legislation.

Our story says that "RTA Chairman Jim Reilly hailed the governor's move as an act of 'political courage and statesmanship,'" when in fact it was an act of political cowardice and grandstanding.

The General Assembly should stand up to him and say no, if you want free rides for seniors, get someone to introduce a separate bill to that effect and we'll consider it. But we're not going to allow you to blackmail us with your inevitable chirping about how anyone opposed to your unilateral notions doesn't care about the group you're trying to help -- senior citizens, poor women with breast cancer and so on.

But they won't stand up to him. They'd rather allow another doomsday for democracy than see a doomsday for mass transit. So there will be shame enough to go around next week when they give this plan the OK.

Tough words!

But not fair, particularly to the legislators who are willing to support a civic-supported tax hike (never an easy thing) for a transit investment.

There's nothing wrong in principle with the Governor using all the tools at his disposal. The problem here is that we have invested the Office of the Governor with a tool that is far too strong for a healthy legislative process.

That power is called the amendatory veto.

It essentially allows the Illinois Governor to rewrite a bill that has passed the General Assembly.

Here's the language from the Illinois Constitution.

"The Governor may return a bill together with specific recommendations for change to the house in which it originated. The bill shall be considered in the same manner as a vetoed bill but the specific recommendations may be accepted by a record vote of a majority of the members elected to each house. Such bill shall be presented again to the Governor and if he certifies that such acceptance conforms to his specific recommendations, the bill shall become law. If he does not so certify, he shall return it as a vetoed bill to the house in which it originated."
-Illinois Constitution, Article IV, Section 9, paragraph (e)

Very few other states give their governors that much power over the legislative process. I suspect that our Constitution invests more power in the Office of the Governor than any other state (though I'm not sure if that's true).

That's a problem we ought to solve, whether Rod Blagojevich happens to sit in the Governor's Chair or not. A Governor should have the same legislative powers as the President -- either sign or veto a bill as it stands. No line-item veto, no amendatory veto, no write-up-your-own-bill veto. Just accept it or reject it. And if a Governor doesn't like the way a bill is shaping up, then get involved with the legislative process.

Perhaps if the Office of the Governor didn't have such strong powers over the legislative process, our current Governor wouldn't feel quite so empowered to go it alone. It would be a healthy incentive to push governors (particularly the current one) to engage with legislators earlier to make policy.

The best opportunity to do that comes in nine months or so when every voter has the chance to vote to convene a Constitutional Convention. One of the prime topics of a Constitutional Convention would certainly be a structure that forces the Governor and the General Assembly to work more closely together. So.... vote yes!

Debate shows Obama the organizer and legislator versus Edwards the attorney and litigator

I'm a fan of John Edwards. I like this platform and the populist language of his campaign. I'm voting for Barack Obama. And John Edwards' latest email blast helped explain why Obama's approach is superior than Edwards'.

Barack Obama is all about us. He wants to bet on the American people engaging in self-government to push power into the pragmatic, progressive policies that will make life better for all of us (cutting out corporate middlemen like health insurance companies, eliminating the huge tax breaks for the biggest corporations and using the money to fund investment in all of us, etc.). He talks about 'we' and 'us.'

John Edwards is all about 'me'. "I" will fight for you. This fight is personal to "me." Let "me" be your fighter in the White House so "I" can take on the special interests and the entrenched money interests.

John Edwards is right to point out that there are entrenched money interests that profit handsomely by impoverishing all of us (no money left for financial aid, because the oil companies don't pay any taxes on their billions of profit as an example).

But Barack Obama is more right (if you will) to point out that the way to beat back those money interests is with an engaged electorate, not with a fighter as the President. That's why, as he said in Iowa "I know you didn't do this [vote for Obama] for me" because one President, no matter how aggressive or intelligent, can beat back the parasitic interests. It's only when the nation demands a smarter, saner policy that we can implement the vision.

I think Senator Obama's insight (and John Edwards' lack of insight on this point) is based largely on their backgrounds.

Obama was a community organizer. That means his job was to bring people together around a common vision and wield power together. It was not his job to represent the community in battle and bring back the prize to them. Instead it was to mobilize, inspire and engage previously apathetic people to demand more from their government. And he did it well.

From that position, he became a legislator (first in the Illinois Senate, then in the U.S. Senate). His work in the Illinois Senate is more instructive, because he passed so many bills in Springfield than in Washington. In Springfield, legislative success comes from building consensus. It takes 30 people to vote yes in the Senate to pass a bill, not 1. Any successful legislator learns to engage and inspire others to work collectively in order to accomplish advances in the progressive agenda. Senator Obama learned that lesson well, initiating several progressive bills into law (including ethics reform, tax cuts for low-income workers, an expansion of government-financed health insurance for children and criminal justice reform to videotape all police interrogations). He was successful because he engaged with others to build consensus, not because he fought.

Trial lawyers like John Edwards are also agents of justice. They uniquely hold powerful institutions accountable. But they go it alone. They fight long, difficult and lonely battles against overwhelming odds. When they work, they work on behalf of, not with, the people. They don't need people to join with them in their fight. All they need is permission to fight on their behalf.

I can see that mindset in John Edwards campaign now: I will fight for you in a way that Barack Obama doesn't understand, because I have successfully fought the bad guys and I know they never negotiate.

Barack Obama's tactic is both more appealing (I want to be a part of something, not just a client of John Edwards) and also more powerful (organized money always loses against organized people).

Great moment in Democratic presidential debate between Clinton, Gibson, Edwards and Obama

The subject came to tax policy during the Democratic presidential debate on ABC in New Hampshire. Charlie Gibson took a very anti-tax position and suggested that as we slip into a recession, we should not "take money out of the economy" by raising taxes on high incomes. (Of course, the government spends all the money it takes, and money spent in our country goes back "into the economy" so that's a good thing).

Senator Clinton immediately jumped to say that higher taxes at the Bill Clinton level would be only "on the wealthy" and not on middle-class Americans.

Charlie Gibson sort of tut-tutted and then showed the value of candor and numbers in tax debates.

He said that two professors working at the college are in the $200,000 bracket, as if to say all this talk about taxing the wealthy isn't really fair because regular people would pay more if we repealed the Bush tax cuts.

And everyone in the audience laughed at him.

$100,000 salaries! Come on!

Senator Clinton said "maybe at NYU!"

And everyone laughed at Charlie Gibson for suggesting the regular people make $200,000 a year.

It was the clearest moment of candor in any tax debate I'd ever seen.

We win when we say that people who make more than $200,000 a year should pay the same tax rate they did under Bill Clinton.

John Edwards fumbled a bit, I thought, as he had a chance to lay out the distinction between the two Americas where "the wealthiest Americans get wealthier and wealthier" and the middle-class are struggling, because he didn't use numbers. He said the vague and muddying phrase "the wealthiest Americans."

Barack Obama did the same by using the phrase "the wealthiest Americans" would pay more so that tax relief can go to the middle class.

Hillary Clinton almost did better, when said she would "set her cap at $250,000" for tax increases, but it wasn't clear.

Our problem is that people think they make more money than they do, because everyone aspires to be wealthy. We need to confront our audience with the actual tax brackets at every opportunity -- particularly when we are trying to raise tax rates on high income -- to show that they are unaffected.

Tonight nailed it. We connect with voters when we talk about actual salaries and thus actual tax brackets. "The wealthiest Americans" or "the top 1%" are phrases that are too vague to connect. Numbers do. Euphemisms do not.

Reaction from Barack Obama's Iowa caucus victory

I had suspected – or perhaps hoped – that the nation's Democratic primary voters would take to Senator Barack Obama the way that Illinois' primary voters had four years ago in his first statewide race. Tonight in Davenport, I found it to be true.

The Iowa caucus is a rather unique expression of self-government. This is how we begin to select the leader of the free world: in the cafeteria of a local high school, 200 people show up and without anyone from the government in charge (no police, no government-printed ballots or government-authorized election official), they try to be fair and give everyone a chance to publicly say who they believe should run the country. In 1750 or so different public locations around the state, all following the rules and regulations issued by a non-government organization (the Iowa Democratic Party), anyone who wants to show up can come and caucus.

(Consider how Pakistan, a nation in a lot of trouble right now, just picked the leader of the perhaps the largest political party. Shortly after Ms. Bhutton was assisinated, her husband and son were selected by a very small group of party leaders to run the party – and thus the government if their party is victorious in the next elections (if any are held). Quite a contrast to the hyper-democratic caucus in Iowa).

Barack Obama won the caucuses because a lot more people showed up. Usually about 150,000 or so people caucus. This year there were almost 240,000 people. And most of the first-time people were there for Barack Obama.

To caucus, one has to show up by 7:00 pm. This caucus meeting is the local Democratic Party. Funds are raised, absentee ballot applications are circulated, petitions for primary campaigns are circulated, resolutions are debated and most importantly, delegates pledges to particular presidential candidates are selected. This last bit is what the presidential campaigns have been about: earning delegates. Remember, the nominee of the Democratic Party is selected by a majority of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer. There are lots of ways that the 4000 or so delegates are picked, and the first very public way of getting picked as a deleage is the 1750 Iowa precinct caucuses.

In Davenport's 33^rd precinct where I was assigned, the line for people who needed to register to vote was almost as long as the line for people who were just checking in and already registered. The people in the first-timers line were predominantly young, multi-racial and wearing an Obama 08 sticker. The Edwards and Clinton supporters were there early as they had all seemingly caucused before.

No one seemed to be in charge, because no one really was. There was a temporary Chair and a temporary Secretary with the authority to run the meeting at first, but one of the first orders of business was to select a permanent Chair and Secretary. Our particular leaders were not blessed with an air of authority about them, and so while they and the 8 or 10 other people who were checking in caucus participants or registering new voters were figuring out the party paperwork, the people separated into different groups based on their candidate support. It quickly became apparent that the Obama group was at least twice as large as either the Clinton or Edwards' groups. A few lonely Richardson and Biden supporters looked for allies. Meanwhile, a bit of a controversy emerged as it became apparent that some people were in the wrong precinct. At least half a dozen people came to caucus in an adjacent precinct – and it wasn't clear whether the temporary Chair was simply going to strip them of their vote or try to send them to their correct precinct. But would the temporary Chair in the correct precinct accept them as a voting member? The 7:00 pm deadline to arrive had come and gone. What would happen to these would-be voters?

No state law controlled the question. It was up to the volunteer leaders of the private organization – the Democratic Party – to make a decisoin. This was at once ridiculous and uplifting. How can we select the leader of the free world by the capricious whim of a neighborhood guy? But then again, if we can't count on average Americans coming together for the good of the Republic, then what can we count on? Corporate America? Utlimatley, all we've got is each other and it's inspiring to see that yes, we can citizens can figure this out with good will and patience. In a sense, the successful caucus of simultaneous gatherings of volunteers to fairly and inclusively collect the preferences of regular people to change the government is at the heart of the appeal of the Obama campaign: we can do this together. As he said in his victory speech: “ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

The precinct captains and volunteers in charge took their time to come to an agreement while the 190 or so others patiently waited for their decisions. They finally concluded that the 5 or 6 people who weren't technically in the precinct could still participate and vote, since they lived on the border and it just wouldn't be right to exclude them for an honest mistake. No one seemed upset.

During the quiet discussions among the leaders on the residency problem, one caucus participant introduced by reading out loud a pro-immigrant (or anti-anti-immigrant, if you will) resolution pursuant to the rules and asked for the body's approval. An older woman stood up and pointed out all the jobs that the immigrants were taking from the rest of us. A middle-aged woman made a plea to consider her family – her mother served in the U.S. military for 10 years and raised a hard-working family, even though she was undocumented. Her plea carried the day as almost everyone raised their hand to support the resolution (only two older women voted against it).

It wasn't nearly as structured or regulated as government-run primary elections, but the caucus brought the neighborhood together to openly discuss how to improve the government. That's a valuable culture to cultivate.

When it came to voting, it was done largely by a head count. Almost everyone had a campaign sticker on and were sitting with their respective supporters. Each precinct captain (essentially the volunteer leader from each campaign) simply counted the number of supporters and reported it to the secretary. When the numbers added up to the number of registered caucus-goers, the vote was accepted. Since there were 5 delegates from the precinct to allocate, any 20% of the vote got a delegate. There were more than 100 Obama supporters and about 30 supporters each of Clinton and Edwards, so Obama got 3 delegates while Edwards and Clinton each got 1.

The entire caucus lasted two hours and potentially changed the course of history.

Here's how Barack Obama explained it in his victory speech:

In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents to stand up and say “We are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.”

Part of Obama's own analysis for the huge victory in Iowa is that Democrats, Republicans and independents came together to call for change. It isn't obvious what Republicans might be doing in a Democratic Party Caucus. But there was something to it. The four men and women whom I drove home after the caucus are a nice symbol of the Obama coalition. A sixty-year old white physician who is a little disappointed in Obama for not fully supporting single-payer health care. An eighty-something retired black woman who hasn't been back to her high school since 1946. A twenty-something black man who just moved to Iowa and first heard about the caucus three days ago. And a forty-something white man who had served on the Republican Central Committee for at least a decade and switched over to the Democrats because he likes Barack's optimism.

The Obama people were ultimately the idealists. They were younger, they called themselves organizers with pride and they believed in a better world to come because of their work. They were elected officials – the mayor-elect of Davenport, an under-35 state rep from outside Davenport and an under-35 state senateor from Champaign, Illinois -- who were in the business because they believed in a better world to come because of their work. They were a multi-racial crowd, and that in itself helped inspire belief in a better world. It has much less of an institutional feel than many other campaigns. The Davenport headquarters felt more like a warm community center than the sales conference room lots of campaigns can feel like. No one was there because they had to. And the place exploded in joy during Barack's victory speech. I'll close with some excerpts.

We are sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it. I know this because while I may be standing here tonight, my journey began on the streets of Chicago organizing and working and fighting to make peoples' lives just a little bit better. I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep and little pay, organizing and working on campaigns. There are days of disappointments.

Sometimes there are nights like this. A night that years from now when we've made the changes we believe in: when more families can afford to see a doctor when our children – when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a world that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was inevitable. This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long. When we rallied people of all parties and all ages to a common cause. When we finally gave Americans who had never participated in politics a reason to stand up and do so. This was the moment when we finally beat back the politics of fear and doubt and cynicisim. This was the moment.

In this moment, and in this election, we are ready to believe again.

Al Gore calls for a global tax on carbon to fund a progressive income tax cut for people

This is cool.

As part of his Nobel acceptance speech, Al Gore said:

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

That's absolutely right. We should tax what we don't like -- carbon emissions -- and use the money to fund what we do like -- purchasing power for individuals.

And we should embrace a global government for the purpose of levying, collecting, enforcing and distributing this tax. Without one, it's hard to see how we effectively reduce global pollution that causes climate change.

Obama concert Friday at the Riv with Macy Gray, Jeff Tweedy, Stephan Jenkins, Jill Sobule, Cool Kids, The Changes, Canasta

This is a cool thing: there's a big concert tomorrow night at the Riviera for the Obama for President campaign. The headlines are in the headline (Macy Gray, Jeff Tweedy and lots of others).

Tickets aren't cheap ($50 to $500), but it's a fundraiser for the campaign that is successfully taking on the most entrenched Democratic political machine in the nation on a platform of progressive reform.

A million people donating $100 and 100 hours a year creates the world's most powerful force for justice.

The Obama campaign is getting closer every day.

Join the campaign.

If you want to buy tickets to the concert, you must do so here.

And while you're at it, tell one person you know (anyone will do) that you are going to vote for Barack Obama and ask them to consider doing so as well. Word-of-mouth is the most powerful political weapon on earth. Use it.

Establishment loves insurance companies -- ask the New York Times (and vote for Obama to stop it)

The problem with too many elected Democrats is that they start acting as if they are part of the establishment instead of shaking it up to make life better for most people.

This New York Times editorial titled "The High Cost of Health Care" is a great example of establishment thinking that infects way too many D.C. Dems.

The topic is timely: why do we spend so much money on health care industries and end up with a poor infant mortality rates, 50 million of us without any insurance coverage and more medical bankruptcies than any other form of financially destroying Americans?

The obvious answer is because of the parasitic insurance industry. They add no value. They just make health care more expensive by profiting from taking our premiums and rationing out care. They also drive doctors, hospitals and other providers crazy by drowning them in ridiculous paperwork and inflate the cost of care by paying for all those commercials and downtown skyscrapers.

But that's too irresponsible for the establishment. The establishment likes insurance companies. You're either a pitchfork-wielding populist of a dreamy out-of-touch liberal in their eyes for pointing out the cost-driving waste of the insurance industry.

Here's how the Times puts it:

Single Payer. Deep in their hearts, many liberals yearn for a single-payer
system, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, that would have the federal
government pay for all care and dictate prices. Such a system would let the
government offset the price-setting strength of the medical and pharmaceutical
industries, eliminate much of the waste due to a multiplicity of private
insurance plans, and greatly cut administrative costs.
But a single-payer system is no panacea for the cost problem — witness
Medicare’s own cost troubles — and the approach has limited political support.
Private insurers could presumably eliminate some of the waste through uniform
billing and payment procedures.

So rich! Only those romantic liberals with their yearning hearts want to cut out the middlemen entirely. Nothing pragmatic or responsible about that -- instead, with limited political support, it's a rather silly idea that remains buried deep inside, like world peace.

The easier way to read the paragraph is simply to say: we love insurance companies. We want to keep them in the center of how we finance health care because.....well, we won't address that point directly, since there isn't any compelling reason to structure the financing of health care around for-profit middleman industries.

One of the reasons why I support Senator Barack Obama is because he is not swayed by that establishment thinking. I think he is a very shrewd operator and believes that it's in our national interest to minimize the role of insurance companies in the financing of health care. The national Republican Party has fully embraced the insurance industry as part of their corporate-evangelical coalition, and always looks to expand the profits and reach of the industry (which comes directly at the expense of all of us). The trouble is when Democrats try to look responsible or centrist and accept the Republican strategy of embracing the establishment as part of the solution to our problems. That's the problem with Senator Hillary Clinton (at least, that has been her problem -- way too corporate).

Beware the establishment Democratic elected official. They are too quick to sell us out.

What if we had the 1979 distribution of income today?

Today's Wall Street Journal has a great line from former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. I'll quote the Journal's Capital column on page A2.

If the distribution of income in the U.S. today were the same as it was in 1979, and the U.S. had enjoyed the same growth, the bottom 80 percent would have about $670 billion more, or about $8000 per family a year. The top 1 percent would have about $670 billion less, or about $500,000 a family.

Wow.

The obvious remedy to this problem of a poor distribution of wealth is to increase taxes on the top 1 percent of families by about $500,000 (don't worry, they won't miss it and they can afford it) and cut taxes on the bottom 8 percent by $8,000 per year.

State and local appetitite for tax increases due to an outdated taxes

Why is it that the State, the transit agencies, the City of Chicago and the County of Cook are all looking for tax increases?

According to the Tribune story Behind the Great Tax Push, it's because they can get away with it. Typical anti-government line: they must not represent the people (who only want lower taxes) because they just got elected, so therefore, 'they' will try to shove an unwarranted tax increase down 'our' throats because they can't manage a government.

The real reason why our state and local governments are broke is because we're taxing the wrong things. We have a great tax for the 1950s economy, but in 2007, our taxes need to be modernized.

We use the sales tax to fund a big chunk of state and local government. In Illinois, we only tax goods, not services. That means if you buy a bowling ball you pay a sales tax but if you go bowling you don't. More and more of our economy is about selling services instead of goods, so the relatively few people still selling or buying goods end up with the bill while the increasing group of people selling or buying services gets a free ride.

The sales tax rate on goods has to keep rising to try to generate the same amount of money, since less and less economic activity flows through the sale of goods and we don't tax services.

There are 168 possible services that states tax. We tax 17 of them. Iowa taxes 94. The Federation of Tax Administrators in DC put out that data recently, and you can check it out yourself here.

You'd think the Trib would have included some of our local experts, like the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (that put out a great report on Cook County's structural deficit, due partially to a sales tax that only covers goods), but I guess there wasn't room with the anti-government quotes like:

"There seems to be a general attitude to tax everything that you can," said Msall of the Civic Federation, a non-partisan government watchdog. "That's what these government officials think their role is, to oversee the expansion of government rather than the management of government."

Well, gee! I guess our 1950s tax system doesn't have anything to do with revenues shrinking every year. It's all about those Big Government Democrats instead who don't believe in management!

I hope the Trib and the rest of the media tell a more accurate story about our governments and our 1950s-era tax systems in the coming weeks to explain why more of our governments are not balancing their budgets.

And more importantly, I hope we can modernize our tax system with a sales tax on services as well as goods and a progressive income tax instead of a flat tax.