• Word on the street is that Howard Dean was being considered for Secretary of the Interior. Obviously only so considered as the job went to Ken Salazar (shudder), but members of the environmental community in Vermont were reportedly contacted by Obama team representatives checking him out not long before the decision was made. Interesting. Might've been a good fit.

• Raise your hand if you saw something like this coming after yesterday: The day after President-Elect Obama kicked progressives in the groin (and the resultant explosive response which is looking likely to lead to some sort of coordinated act of defiance at the inauguration), he announces his first unambiguously progressive cabinet pick: Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Secretary of Labor. I just hope to god she isn't the one who will get sent out for coffee at every Cabinet meeting.
• Progressives for Wright…? In the “holy crap” department…: According to Shay Totten, not only is longtime Progressive City Councilor Jane Knodell not supporting Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss for re-election (she says she's not endorsing anybody), she showed up at Republican Kurt Wright's announcement and praised him to the media. Excuse me while I pick up my jaw from the floor. How the Progs deal with this could say quite a bit about whether they are maturing as an institution. Will she get run out of the Party on a rail? Stay tuned. In the meantime Jane, if you need some commiseration on the ups and downs of running against the desires and demands of your Party hierarchy, feel free to ring up a GMD front pager.
• The mother of all retractions. Speaking of Shay, there are retractions, and there are retractions, but the one issued by Shay Totten regarding his characterization of embattled on-again/off-again Burlington City Parks and Recreation Waterfront Manager Adam Cate borders on self-flagellation. Ouch. It stung just reading it. Makes me wonder if there weren't lawyers and rumors of lawyers involved behind the scene. We feel your pain Shay.
• …Meanwhile, Jim Douglas and Neale Lunderville (pictured right) continue demanding the systematic deconstruction of the social safety net when Vermonters need it most. But that's hardly news. Just wanted an excuse to post the picture.

• And it's not political news, but this is the internet. Majel Barrett-Roddenberry lost her battle with leukemia and passed away today at the age of 76. Bummer.

Do you ever have times when you read something, then have to re-read it because you can’t believe you read it right?

That’s my reaction to the news that Goldman Sachs (Treasury Secretary Paulson’s former stomping grounds) is having a fine holiday season while Vermonters and other Americans face destitution and service cuts. Why fund fire trucks, child care or health care when ponzi-schemers could be partying instead?

Here’s the deal: Goldman played their accounting cards so well this year, that they “owe” only 1% tax. So on the multi-billions of dollars they earned last year, plus the $10 billion taxpayer dollars they took in the bailout, they only have to pay a pittance to support the infrastructure of the country that made their obscene profits possible.

More below the fold…

So what? Companies are always finding ways to pay less tax. Aren’t fewer taxes better?

That last question is a conditioned response now in America. We’ve been told over and over for decades that companies hire more people if they have to pay fewer taxes. This is based on something called the Laffer curve (named after a person, not after what the greedsters do everytime they con us into believing in it). The Laffer curve is supposed to be this magical statistical map of taxes vs jobs. Presumably, the higher the taxes, the fewer the jobs.

But what most proponents of this theory misunderstand is that the guy who came up with the theory didn’t map a linear relationship between jobs and taxes, he mapped a curve. On one side would be increasing taxes creating jobs by creating a better educated workforce, better roads, better security, etc. – all those things taxes pay for that make it easier to do business successfully.

The peak of the curve is the hypothetical number where you’ve got the ultimate in support for successful business combined with the ultimate profits for that business.

The other side of the curve, where it goes back downhill, is where taxes become so onerous, the business can’t profit.

What we’ve been told for the last few decades is that any and all taxes are automatically on the downhill side – any tax automatically drags down profits to the point at which no business can survive. So we’ve been cutting, and cutting, and cutting, and all of a sudden, we have crappy roads, schools are hemorrhaging, and fire departments go begging. And businesses are failing. Rapidly.

Which brings us back to Goldman. They paid 1% in 2007, but paid 34% in 2006. That’s a 97% tax cut. Which side of the Laffer curve would that put them on?

From Bloomberg News:

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent [last year]…The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year …[and] lowered its rate with more tax credits as a percentage of earnings and because of “changes in geographic earnings mix,” the company said.

So they won’t be contributing to rebuild our failing roads, our kids’ health care, or our police, fire, military, or really any budget items this year.

Instead, they’re going to make much better use of the money they’ve “saved” (you know, like that $10 billion debt guarantee they got from the U.S. tax payer in October): Christmas bonuses!

That’s right. It’s not what they’re calling it, they’re calling it “employee compensation.” Some refer to it as a “retention bonus,” because with the economy cranking out so many new high-paid jobs for bankers, they’re worried their employees will head for greener pastures.  (For the reading comprehension impaired, the previous sentence was absolutely dripping with sarcasm.)

Would you like to let Goldman Sachs know what you think of their decision to shift money around to the places that would tax them the least, so they could avoid paying taxes back home? Would you like to help them understand just how much you appreciate their shafting of the US taxpayer, by taking our money, using it for bonuses, and then choosing not to pay their fair share in taxes?

Here’s a good place to start:

GOLDMAN SACHS CONTACT INFO

Main number in NYC: 212-902-1000

Investor relations: 212-902-0300 (gs-investor-relations@gs.com)

Bug their press department: 212-902-5400

And if you want to talk to someone in the US Senate who has almost single-handedly ensured that the rip-off artists wizards of the financial industry would be comfortably free of regulations and accountability, how about dropping a line to Chuck Schumer’s office?

CHUCK SCHUMER CONTACT INFO

Washington, D.C. office: 202-224-6542

New York City office: 212-486-4430

Democratic Senatorial Camapaign Committee: 202-224-2447

Why Schumer? The NY Times gives some background:

Mr. Schumer appeared at a breakfast fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan for Senate Democrats. Addressing Henry R. Kravis, the buyout billionaire, and about 20 other finance industry executives, he warned that a bailout would be a hard sell on Capitol Hill. Then he offered some reassurance: The businessmen could count on the Democrats to help steer the nation through the financial turmoil.

“We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals,” one executive said, summarizing Mr. Schumer’s remarks. “We are going to be effective, moderate advocates for sound economic policies, good responsible stewards you can trust.”

The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations.

…[Schumer] repeatedly took other steps to protect industry players from government oversight and tougher rules, a review of his record shows. Over the years, he has also helped save financial institutions billions of dollars in higher taxes or fees.

He needs to know we’re watching and that we won’t put up with this game any more. Let him know that it’s time to end trickle-on economics.

Warm up that dialing finger and get on the horn to these people. Let them know you will not tolerate any more of these shenanigans.  

Let me be clear: if any part of the $60 million of taxpayer money dubbed Vermont’s “rainy day fund” survives this economic downturn, it will be a moral travesty, plain and simple. A moral tragedy laid squarely on the shoulders of all those elected to care for the business of the state and the well-being of its citizens.

Against the cascade of economic disasters, $60 million dollars will not be a cure – only a bandage. But it’s a significant bandage. You can apply a bandage too early – that’s obvious. But a bandage does absolutely no good if its applied after all your blood has run out. By that time, the body is shutting down. The bandage needs to be applied before the last moment, worse-case scenario. That’s equally obvious.

And that’s because letting someone’s blood empty out entirely on the floor has a cascading effect to all the organs of the body. They shut down. Staunching that bleeding when it’s still possible to staunch some of it won’t solve the problem, but it may minimize the cascading damage and keep the patient alive long enough so that other measures can come into play, or until the body starts healing itself.

Any legislator – left, right, center, whatever – who can’t recognize that this is the reality faced by the simplistic, even heartless slashing of critical services that will themselves create an accelerated breakdown of the economy and hurt more people… well, that legislator may not be intellectually up to the task of governing, and is almost certainly not up to the moral responsibility.

As near as I can tell, the Rainy Day Fund serves one purpose and one purpose alone in the State of Vermont. It is a $60 million pot of taxpayer money that lets elected officials feel fiscally responsible. That salves their anxieties about press perception. I’ve seen no coordinated economic ethic in play in these budget-slashing discussions, but it’s clear that nobody wants to be the first to suggest even looking at the rainy day fund, ‘cuz then somebody will call them fiscally irresponsible. This despite the fact that every economist that isn’t still myopically worshipful of the joys of total deregulation and the Laffer Curve will tell you that cutting these services during a sharp downturn is dumb.

I’d like to hear at least as much talk from lawmakers about moral responsibility as we do about fiscal responsibility, although as wrong-headed as they continue to be about the former, maybe I don’t want to know what many would do with the latter.

On Douglas and Lunderville’s end, there’s a clear worldview in play. The Grover Norquist goal of getting Government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” (presumably preserving just enough to continue playing taxpayer-funded sugar daddy to political croneys). On the opposition side, however, there seems to be a complete vacuum of such an ideological framework. And nature abhors a vacuum.

I’m with nature on this one.

Just a quick note this morning. The Illinois Supreme Court has rejected Attorney General Lisa Madigan's complaint to have Rod Blagojevich declared incapacitated and removed from office.

Without comment, the court denied an emergency request from Lisa Madigan, the state’s attorney general, to consider removing Mr. Blagojevich from office as well as a motion for a temporary restraining order that would have immediately stripped Mr. Blagojevich of many of his powers, including the authority to appoint someone to fill the United States Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. 

Apparently there is no written decision, but if I get one I'll put it up.

My latest piece at the Guardian didn’t come out well being crunched down from 1000 words to 600. Ah well.

This new “angry centre” has found institutional voice in the ideology-versus-pragmatism discussion playing out in the media. Obama, to the fired-up centrists, is the champion of adulthood following eight years of screaming children, and it’s time for the children to pipe down and mind their manners, lest they find themselves expelled from the dinner table. This new centre is distinct from the old, even though it is populated by many of the same faces. The old centrism was quick to compromise and was largely defined by what it wasn’t (left or right).

This emerging, muscular centrism wants to be a force in its own right, defining itself, rather than being defined by the political poles. It’s basic tenets remain unchanged from the days of the Third Way, (with a more Keynesian bent, granted), but it stands eager to challenge anyone suggesting that taking a principled, centrist stand is oxymoronic.

In other words, the American centre has itself become ideological – and it’s pissed off.

The premise is apparently unintelligible. Basically, I believe there’s a pattern in play in the recent back and forth over whether or not voicing concerns over Obama’s center-right cabinet picks is appropriate:

1. Progressives criticize Obama, are accused unfairly of being “angry” in their criticism.

2.Many Obama defenders push back against the criticism, and do so angrily (even irrationally) themselves

3. Some Progressives counter that this angry pushback is based on kneejerk reactions from an Obama cult of personality that abides no criticism of the President Elect.

4. My thesis, then, is that much of this pushback comes – not from a cult of Obama personality – but from a new “Angry Center” that is a growing political force independent of Obama himself.

Now, in the hours since this posted, this leftist has become more than a little angry after all, but the basic thesis still stands.

From TPM:

The  news today that bigoted pastor Rick Warren is going to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration is sparking an uproar on the left, with the latest being that the venerable liberal group People For The American Way is sharply condemning the decision.

…the decision really gives Warren an extraordinary platform — not to mention yet another data point supporting the bogus notion that the radical Warren is some kind of “moderate.” If the first black president doesn’t mind him giving the invocation at his historic inaugural, how bad and bigoted can he really be?

It looks like Obama did, in fact, learn something from the Donnie McClurkin fiasco during the election.

He learned that despite many recent gains, you still risk absolutely nothing politically by rolling right over the LGBT community.

In this era of unprecedented consciousness and action on LGBT issues, this is a statement (even if its “just” an unintentional one). A statement that bigotry against gays and lesbians doesn’t matter. In this way, Obama is making his already positive historic inauguration historic in an additional, ugly way, through its symbolic embrace of that bigotry.

This is worthy of demonstrating against. I hope human rights activists decide to make their voices heard at the swearing in.

Now if anybody wants to jump in and flame me in the comments for being too mean to poor, misunderstood Barack, flame away. I’ll consider each one a badge of honor.

Story in today’s Times Argus entitled “Foodbank: Shelves Are Empty” closes with the following paragraph:

Gov. James Douglas announced Tuesday that he would volunteer at the Foodbank Wednesday afternoon in an effort to call attention to the importance of donating. The event, which will include a statement to the press, is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.

I must admit, my first uncharitable thought had something to do with shoes, comma, heaving of, in the general direction of the powerful. But hey, it’s the holiday season. So let us banish ill will from our minds and hearts, and applaud our Governor for this noble photo op — er, selfless act of voluntarism.

Let us also applaud the grapefruit-sized balls of a leader who would stage a publicity stu — er, perform his civic duty on behalf of those less fortunate, in the same week that he unveiled a festive round of budget cuts.