Coffee time — but please make it strong

I just finished a column on a group that has dubbed itself the Coffee Party Movement, a nominally liberal answer to the Tea Partiers. My argument is that the group is useful, but lacks depth.

It reclaims government as a potentially positive influence on society and restates what should be obvious, that government “is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans.”

The problem is its apparently content-free agenda and the bloodless commitment to cooperation and efficiency that has stalled the Obama agenda and left progressives standing on the sidelines.

Its founder, Annabel Park, told The New York Times that the group would offer “a different model of civic participation” and hoped to “send a message to people in Washington that you have to learn how to work together, you have to learn how to talk about these issues without acting like you’re in an ultimate fighting session.”

It blames Washington gridlock on “the proliferation of partisanship,” an argument that ignores much of what actually happens in the nation’s capital and underplays the need for elected officials to take principled stands on issue.

What good is it, after all, if the U.S. Senate works together when the result is hundreds of thousands of American troops on foreign soil fighting in unnecessary and counterproductive wars? What good is it if elected officials work together, if it results in the dismantling of welfare, or the expansion of the national security state?

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

More Senate disfunction

Unemployment is at a decades-long high and yet federal benefits are scheduled to run out this weekend, unless a single U.S. senator lifts his objection.

Forget Sen. Jim Bunning’s hypocrisy — demanding benefits be paid for even after voting for massive tax cuts that were not offset with any spending cuts — the Senate hold he is using is just one more example of how the upper house has fallen into disrepair.

One senator can hold up legislation for any reasons at anytime. A minority of senators can stymie bills — a minority representing no more than one ninth of the national population — and even if we can get through a filibuster, we face the prospect that half the Senate — representing about 20 percent or 25 percent of the population — could kill a bill.

The compromise that created the Senate was a logical outgrowth of the times. The individual states in the late 18th century functioned as independent nations on some level and the compromise was needed to get the smaller states on board. Today, such a compromise looks quite quaint.

Amending the U.S. Constitution to reconstitute the Senate would likely be impossible, however, because the compromise enshrined small-state power in the amendment process. But the Senate cannot continue to (mal)function the way it has.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Christie’s pension gambit:Making it worse to make it better?

No one should be surprised by the report released today on the state pension funds. Observers have been saying for years that the people who handle the state’s money have bailed on their fiduciary responsibility, preferring instead to push problems off into the future.

We could recount the devises used to avoid paying into the pension fund since Christie Whitman took office in 1994, but that would be foolish.

And we could blame Jon Corzine — not because he created the mess, but because it is convenient to go after an unpopular governor. Of course, he avoided fixing the problem, as well.

This brings me to our current governor, who with much fanfare is withholding the small payment the state was slated to make on the grounds that nothing should go into the pension fund until reforms are passed. This is the height of foolishness. The money we are talking about is money promised to former workers, money they are due and that we have a moral obligation to pay.

I don’t disagree that there are problems with the pension system as it now stands and that changes need to be made. Waiting to make changes in future pensions to pay into today’s fund will only result in a larger unfunded liability as we go forward. Foolish, foolish, foolish.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

A plug from our sponsor (Me)

My book, Certainties and Uncertainties, is going to be published by Finishing Line Press in the near future. FLP has asked that I provide them with a pre-sale mailing list — people who might be interested in purchasing the book in advance. I need a minimum number of presales to get the process rolling.

If you’re interested in being on the list, e-mail me at otherhalf@comcast.net with your mailing address. And thanks in advance.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.