Hypocrisy express

I think Josh Marshall properly frames the question of John McCain’s dubious tax-return release, asking how Hillary Clinton would be received had she of done what McCain has done.

First, an overview of the basics, from The New York Times’ political blog, The Caucus:

Senator John McCain released his income tax returns for the past two years showing that he received over $740,000 during 2006 and 2007 from his Senate salary, book royalty payments, his military pension and Social Security.

But yesterday’s release did not shed new light on the extent of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate’s wealth which comes from his wife, Cindy McCain.

Mrs. McCain holds a significant stake in a Phoenix-based beer distributorship, Hensley & Co. that her late father helped found. To date, she has not disclosed the size of her stake in the privately-held concern. But published estimates have speculated that it could be worth up to $100 million or more.

Hensley or entities controlled by it also have sizable real estate holdings, primarily in Arizona, public filings show.

In a statement accompanying the release of Senator McCain’s taxes, his campaign stated that it was not releasing Mrs. McCain’s personal taxes “in the interest of protecting the privacy of her children.”

So much for straight talk. McCain doesn’t just live off his own salary. He lives as a couple with his wife, relying on her connections and cash to make his career. As Marshall points out, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be getting a pass on this.

What if Hillary Clinton released her income tax records showing relatively unremarkable (by senate standards, where almost everyone is fairly wealthy) income and said that Bill files separately and he’s a private person so he wouldn’t be releasing his?

I do not think she’d get a very easy ride from the press since Bill now makes all the money and it’s against his sources of income that any potential conflicts of interest or sources of embarrassment would likely arise.

The returns came out today, so it’s still possible that the media will do its job on this. But given the media’s track record on McCain, I’m not holding my breath.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Economic woes

No one should be surprised that we have entered recession. The U.S. economy has never been as healthy as some of the more mainstream economists have been claiming, buoyed only by a tenuous mix of questionable credit and longer working hours.

The housing bubble, for instance, created an unexpected explosion in equity — which, in turn, resulted in a record number of equity loans being taken out. In the past, these loans tended to be used for improvements to housing (boosting home value), but in recent years the money has been used for an array of consumer spending — vacations, electronics, etc.

This boosted the economy, but left many homeowners in perilous circumstances.

The recent flood of borrowing against home equity has driven consumption since the 2001 recession. This borrowing drove the savings rate into negative territory for the first time since the depression. Through the sixties, seventies, and eighties, the savings rate had averaged close to 10 percent. If the savings rate were to move back just half way to its historic level, this would imply a loss of $600 billion in annual consumption. In fact, since virtually all of the baby boom generation is in its peak saving years, the savings rate should be higher than normal.

And now that a the bubble has burst, the shrinking equity is making it even harder to turn the housing market around, with fewer and fewer homeowners having enough equity left in their houses to muster a downpayment for a new house.

Add to this the reality that workers have not been earning more but working more to make ends meet — a trend that is slowing, according to The New York Times. Workers were making ends meet by increasing their hours, but the average work week for employees is on the decline:

From March 2007 to March of this year, the average workweek reported in the private sector slipped slightly to 33.8 hours, from 33.9 hours, while overtime for manufacturing workers fell by a larger margin.

At the end of last month, more than 4.9 million people were working part time either because they could not find full-time jobs or because their companies had cut hours in the face of slack business, according to a Labor Department survey. That represented an increase of 400,000 since November.

And on Wednesday, the government reported that average earnings slipped in March after accounting for the rising costs of food and fuel — the sixth consecutive month that pay failed to keep pace with inflation.

That’s a difficult pill to swallow and one that is creating havoc in the economy.

The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.

While official unemployment has risen only modestly, to 5.1 percent, the reduction of wages and working hours for those still employed has become a primary cause of distress, pushing many more Americans into a downward spiral, economists say.

It is part of a larger transformation of the economy, one that is creating anger — should I say “bitterness”? — and fear among workers, weakening consumer confidence in a way that will only continue the spiral. If workers cannot afford to buy new consumer goods, then manufacturers will have to cut back, pinching payrolls leading to a further erosion of confidence.

What’s the answer? Conservatives say the cycle will right itself, which is true. But the question is how long will it take and how much pain the downward spiral will cause before this happens.

The federal government can step in — as it did during the 1930s — priming the pump by rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, its decaying bridges and levees, improving mass transit opportunities and investing on a transformation of the energy sector from fossil fuels to renewable sources. And it can do more than offer a small tax rebate.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Quotes of the day: From the readings

I’m reading a fine book by David Halberstam called “The Children” about the civil rights movement and have allowed myself to get behind on my magazine reading. Nonetheless, I’ve been able to read a few pieces here and there. Today’s quotations come from recent readings.

1. Howard Zinn, writing in the March issue of The Progressive (a piece that, as you’ll see, ties in nicely to the Halberstam book):

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

2. From “Winter Soldiers Speak,” by Laila Al-Arian, in the April 7 edition of The Nation:

“It’s criminal to put such patriotic Americans…in a situation where their morals are at odds with their survival instincts,” said Adam Kokesh, who served as a Marine sergeant in the raid on Fallujah in 2004.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.