Oklahoma will require teachers from NY, CA to prove they back 'America First'

I just read where Oklahoma wants teachers from California and New York, as well as other “blue” states wishing to teach in Oklahoma to take a test proving they support America First. It should be noted that Oklahoma currently has a teacher shortage. It should also be noted that there are 30,000 certified teachers in Oklahoma who have chosen not to teach.

In the first place, why do they need a test? Couldn’t a prospective teacher simply wear a flag pin the way Republicans do in Congress to prove their patriotism or crucifixes around their necks the way they do to prove they value Christianity?

More importantly, shouldn’t prospective teachers, not to mention Oklahoma (rated fourth in literacy in U.S.), be aware of the bad reputation that the concept of “America First” has in this country. America First in the 1930s meant should we just let the Nazis destroy democracy and learn to live with them after they take control of Europe. Basically, saying that the threat to democracy was not our problem.

America First did not sit well in the 1930s and has not aged well in the 2000s. It is still nothing more than arrogant pride based on foolish fallacies.

America was not first when we drove the Indians from their homeland. We were merely common aggressors with better weapons.

America was not first when half the nation built its economy on the backs of millions of slaves. We were just a nation too lazy to do the work ourselves.

In the annals of history, the Jim Crow Era was just one more example of the powerful abusing the weak, the inhumane treating humanity badly to serve their own prejudices.

This isn’t to say we haven’t had our moments.

Our Declaration of Independence was a wake-up call to the world that kings could be defeated and that free men could and should decide their own destiny.

Our Constitution has for two hundred years been the envy of people everywhere.

Our laws have protected workers by giving them better wages, better working conditions, and a means of enjoying the fruits of their labor once they retired. Our laws allowed children to go to school instead of working in mills.

As alluded to earlier, helping to save Europe from the threat of Nazi totalitarianism in World War II is something we can be rightfully proud of.

Unfortunately, the things we have been first in are not always the things that “America First” prides itself on. Or shouldn’t pride themselves on if they were paying attention.

America has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world with 120.5 guns per one hundred people, more guns than people. Just as we have a bigger military than the next ten countries combined, our lead in gun ownership is not even threatened by the second-place nation, Yemen, with sixty guns per one hundred people. And Yemen is at war with its neighbors and has been for years.

Much of the world has less than one gun per hundred people, so yes, America, we’re first by a long shot.

While not on top, we are close to leading the world in infant mortality rates. Only four OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations have higher infant mortality rates than America. So, we are close to America First in this category. If it is any consolation, Mississippi, with a rate twice the OECD average is ranked with those four countries ahead of us. Mississippi First!

America has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world followed by nations like Russia, Rwanda and Cuba—generally thought to be nations where simply speaking out against the government will get one thrown in jail. To our credit, with only 4.4% of the world’s population, we do have over 20% of the world’s prison population. America First.

One has to wonder why Republicans keep reviving the America First concept, when as Woody Guthrie sand, “When they say America first, they mean America last.”

Economics Ain’t Electricity

 

I was having a difficult time in a college physics course when we got to the ins and outs of how electricity works. Until then, all I understood about electricity was that if I wanted something to work, all I had to do was plug the cord in.

My roommate introduced me to the water analogy where I learned that water and electricity behaved pretty much the same way so long as I didn’t drop the radio into the bathtub. I won’t go into detail, but you can look it up.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration tried to sell their tax cut bill by applying the same water analogy to economics when they introduced their “trickle-down theory.” They would enable the rich to get richer by giving them tax cuts, eliminating burdensome regulations that stifled business, and enacting legislation that would promote business and increase profits. In time, they said, this new wealth would—and here’s where the water analogy comes into play—trickle down to those at the bottom of the money chain.

There are several reasons why this analogy fails.

That small trickle begins as a tiny drop (consumer dollar) and combines with other tiny drops to become an exceptionally large body of water (Gross National Product). This remarkably large body of water then shrinks to but a trickle when water (money) is removed in abundance.

So, who takes it out?

This is where the second problem with the water analogy arises.

Imagine it is an extremely hot day, stifling hot if you are a poor worker in a construction crew or a migrant worker in a shade less strawberry field. Not so hot if you are a rich CEO in an air-conditioned office.

There is a glass of water and there are two people who want this glass of cool, cool water.

One is rich and powerful, and the other is not. I know what you’re thinking. Why would these two individuals even be in the same time zone much less close enough to be wanting the same contested glass of water? In the real world, they wouldn’t be, but fantasy is alive and well in the world of economics.

The rich and powerful individual doesn’t really need water but having it would be nice.

The not so rich and not so powerful individual really could use the glass of water because it’s hot out there.

Anyway, if the not so rich and virtually powerless individual were to receive the glass of precious water there is a good chance that he would share it because, in general, his group is more accustomed to sharing. They mostly have no choice and usually just want enough.

On the other hand, the rich and powerful usually want it all. An example of this is when in the 1980s the Hunt brothers, at the time three of the riches people in the world, tried to corner the silver market because, as any rich man will tell you, you can never have enough. Coincidently, you can never have enough is what the not so rich who just want enough will also tell you.

So, I think people can agree that the rich want it all. How else would millionaires become multi-millionaires and then billionaires and then multi-billionaires? For the last forty years, because the rich and powerful have friends in high places—put there with their money, these glasses of water have been going to the rich and powerful.

Let’s look at what happens to the water in that glass as it navigates its way down the money chain. Remember that in our analogy, water represents money. Where does that water go so that it might someday trickle into that stream where the not so rich and powerful individual might scoop out a measly handful to quench his thirst?

The rich man drinks the water and after his body has taken out all the good stuff, he pisses the bad water into his fancy toilet. He then flushes the toilet, sending that bad water into the sewage system where it meets up with other bad water and who knows what else. This now horrible water is treated at a water treatment plant and released back into the environment where it enters into the natural water cycle. It will eventually become part of the water supply that is purified and sent to a water tower and eventually delivered to our taps and into a glass where anyone might drink from it—assuming a rich and powerful person is not there to claim it first.

This process could take weeks, or it could take eons. The poor and powerless are used to waiting. What we know is that the trickle-down theory doesn’t hold water, at least not for those who aren’t rich and powerful.

But this is all theory. How has it worked out in the real world?

In 1950, after the Depression and World War, our economy was booming, and it was booming for everyone, workers and investors. The rich saw their tax rate decreased to 70% from a wartime high of 90%. They probably wanted more, but the middle class that this boom economy produced insured there would always be buyers for the goods they were producing.

There were roughly 17,000 millionaires in 1950 and two billionaires. By 1960, there were around 80,000 millionaires and the same two billionaires. The economy was working for everyone, but the rich thought they were getting the short end of the stick. They were still paying that 70% tax rate.

By 1980, the number of millionaires had grown to 500,000 and billionaires to thirteen. The middle class had also grown since the 1950s. But something happened when Reagan came into office. Air traffic controllers went on strike, and he used the opportunity to give the wealthy class what they thought was a well-deserved break. He fired the controllers and began working on legislation that would reroute money to the wealthy first, from where it would then trickle down to the working class.

In the next forty years, the number of millionaires would shoot up from 500,000 to 24 million, and the number of billionaires would go from 13 to over 900. The rich were getting richer rapidly while the poor and middle class became stagnant.

Of course, a million isn’t what it used to be.

What still is what it used to be is the minimum wage. In 1968 it was $1.60, or $14.42 in today’s economy, when taking inflation into account.

Today, it is $7.25, which obviously is $7.25 in today’s economy. So, worker’s wages have literally been cut in half while the number of billionaires has grown from 13 to 900.

I think it is safe to say that trickling down doesn’t work, neither theoretically nor realistically. The middle class that grew out of a government caring about workers is dying as government bends over backwards to give the rich even more money, because unfortunately, the water is drying up before the folks at the bottom ever get a drink. 

 

 

 

 

                               

Why do they need more money?

 

 GOP-led House approves Trump's big bill with trillions in tax breaks and Medicare cuts

 

Finally!

And I don't mean they passed the bill.

Those were my thoughts today when I pulled this month’s issue of New Republic from the mailbox and looked at the cover. Who needs that much money?

My question, which I had been trying for weeks to get into some paper’s OP-ED page, “Why do the rich need more money?” was slightly different from theirs. It was, however, a question that I thought needed to be asked, and answered, since all the cuts in the proposed budget bill would enable Congress to give the rich the tax cuts they desired.

Maybe it was a mistake opening with a Professor Corey skit from years ago, but I thought interjecting a little humor into an otherwise boring economic piece would be welcomed. Anyway, this is the question I've been asking and am still looking for an answer to.

 

* * *

Yes, but Why

 

Professor Corey, the world’s foremost authority on everything, had a skit where people asked him, “Why do you wear sneakers?”

“This is a two-part question,” he’d say, and go on to describe all the philosophical implications of the word Why. Then he’d answer the second part, “Do I wear sneakers?”

“Yes, I do.”

Congress is currently negotiating a trillion-dollar budget bill that if passed will cut numerous social programs designed to help the needy and less fortunate. The resulting savings I keep hearing will pay for tax cuts for the rich.

My question is, “Why do the rich need more money?”

Professor Corey wasn’t a member of Congress. If he were, and was working on a bill like this one, and was asked this question, he’d go into his convoluted explanation on the word why and then answer the second part, “Yes, they do.”

Will Rogers also wasn’t a member of Congress, and he didn’t think much of politicians. “With Congress,” he said, “every time they make a joke it’s a law, and every time they make a law it’s a joke.

But government isn’t a joke, or at least it shouldn’t be, although sometimes those in government seem to work damn hard at being a joke. While this bill if it passes might be considered a joke by many, its consequences are no laughing matter.

Serious questions are being posed about this bill and serious people are stepping up to answer them. Authorities from every field are explaining in detail why disadvantaged children need school lunches, why low-income folks need Medicaid to help with rising health costs, why scientists need grants to produce new vaccines and discover new cures for diseases, why the broken immigration system needs more judges, why we need less lead in our pipes and more and better water treatment plants, why social security needs to be stabilized not defunded, why college students do need assistance, why veterans have earned and do need better care, why people hit by natural disasters need all the help they can get, why agriculture and food-processing plants need more and better inspectors, why airports need more controllers and airplanes need to be made safer,  why foreign nations do need our assistance because when they do well we do well, why the arts are as necessary as arms, and why a whole host of other programs that are being threatened need to be funded because real people depend on them in so many ways. Most of all, our government needs people because problems don’t solve problems, people solve problems.

What I don’t hear is anyone explaining why the wealthy need more money.

They have found ways to legally reduce their tax bill. They have found ways to legally get around paying their taxes, often zero taxes on mindboggling wealth. When push came to shove, many resort to illegal means to get more money, and have enough wealth to avoid the consequences.

A key to their plan has been to use their money to acquire a louder voice in government. When the Supreme Court declared that their money was a legitimate voice, the game was over. The wealthy now do have the loudest voice in government and the representatives they have put in want to kill or weaken as many programs designed to help the needy as they can to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

So, my question to anyone in Congress, the president, or to any of the millionaires and billionaires whose money put these politicians in office is, “Why do the rich need more money?”

And the answer better not be a long dissertation on the word Why followed by a quick throwaway response, “Yes, they do.”

* * *

So, this is my answer to New Republic’s question: Who needs that much money? 

No one.

And the answer to my question: Why do the rich need more money?  

They Don’t.

I hope every voter in America is asking and answering these two questions and remember them when they vote in the 2026 and 2028 elections.

 

 

 

Tocqueville would be wary of Trump's overhaul of government

When a government, or for that matter, a corner grocery store, fires one employee for incompetence that is good management. When that government fires 5000 employees, without cause or the flimsiest of cause, that is targeted domestic terrorism. When it does so to many departments and agencies, that is bad government. It might possibly be a sign of worser things waiting down the road.

America has had its share of bad government. We've seen incompetence, corruption at times, and sometimes, leaders who just weren't up to the job. We've gone through periods when, because of the times we lived in, we as a nation behaved badly, and that was regrettable but was at least excusable.

So, the question becomes, as is always the case when dealing with bad: How bad can it get?

Alexis de Tocqueville answered the question in 1789 while observing the early days of the French Revolution. The monarchy of Louis XVI was clearly bad, and the citizens were obviously mad, but the eventual outcome could not have been sadder. The beheading of the king was not the reform France needed. Changing the calendar by making 1792, Year One also was not helpful, although most people seemed pleased in the short term.

The new governments, there were several, were created by well-intentioned revolutionists aware of what had taken place just a few years earlier in America. But there were more. There were radicals, activists, intellectuals, as well as common criminals, the usual power brokers, and always a mob lurking in the background.

Clearly, the government replacing the bad government(s) was itself a bad government.

Alexis de Tocqueville answered the question; how bad can it get? this way. "…the most dangerous moments for a bad government…is when they set about reform."

Trying to do too much, trying to change things too fast is difficult in any situation, but for a bad government, the results can be disastrous.

In just his first weeks, and in some cases first days, Trump has set out to reform what has taken us over two hundred years to accomplish.

Was it perfect? No.

Was it working? Yes.

Trump has set out to reform: the military—by deciding who can and cannot serve and who should lead those who serve; the Justice Department—by pardoning convicted criminals who attempted a coup and who threaten to do so again, while at the same time attacking prosecutors who prosecuted him for the crimes he committed; the Treasury—by firing IRS workers because he doesn't like to pay taxes; the Commerce Department—by enacting senseless tariffs because it makes him look tough; the Department of Health and Human Services—by replacing scientists and health specialists with non-medical partisan idealogues; by cutting off aid to needy countries; cozying up to foreign dictators while attacking our allies; by running roughshod over the media and attacking the freedom of the press; plus a lot of just plain stupid stuff like changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and suggesting we make Canada our 51^st state.

More is going on behind the scenes.

These are clearly the workings of a bad government trying to enact reform badly. Even worse, much of it seems to be done for publicity purposes to his base. Maybe de Tocqueville was right and the worst thing a bad government can be doing is making so many reforms so quickly.

After blaming Ukraine for Russia's invasion and calling Ukraine President Zelinski a dictator just a week ago, President Trump and Vice-president Vance behaved shamefully today in the Oval Office in a meeting that ended without the traditional joint press conference.

This wasn't US delegate Adlai Stevenson dressing down Russia at the U.N. during the Cuban Missile crisis. This wasn't President Reagan in Berlin saying, "Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

This was just a bad president and vice-president throwing an ally under the bus to please a Russian dictator thousands of miles away.

I don't know if this is what his supporters were looking for when they voted for him. Sadly, I think many of them are getting what they wanted.

I don't think America looked great today in the Oval Office. I think we are in for many more dangerous moments like what we witnessed today. This is what happens when we elect bad people who go on to form bad governments and expect them to do good things.

Alexis de Tocqueville warned us, but that was 200 years ago. Who pays attention to history?

 

This article appeared in the Baltimore Sun earlier this year. The problem has only gotten worse.