Marjorie Margolies

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies was the key vote in the 1993 vote for the Clinton economic plan, that created millions of jobs, balanced the federal budget, gave our country a government surplus and began shrinking the national debt.

Margolies’ vote made all the difference by casting the decisive vote, 218, that decided whether our new president and Congress could prove to the Federal Reserve board and the country’s money managers that the government could be trusted to get the country’s fiscal house in order and keep it that way. 

With Republicans chanting, “Good-bye, Marjorie,” she put her House I.D. card into the slot and cast her vote “aye.” Marjorie Margolies has said: “I was pressed by all sides, by my constituents, my president needing a victory and Republicans promising my demise.  I was a Democrat in the country’s most Republican district.  I voted my conscience, and it cost me.” 

She was defeated in the next election by a candidate whose most discernible quality was that he was not Margolies. In one of the wealthiest counties in the country, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, it was not difficult to defeat a member of Congress that had voted for a budget that while holding the line on spending, also included tax hikes. 

Amazingly, the courageous vote that Margolies cast on that day 17 years ago made it possible to balance the budget and resulted in a surplus. The economy of the 1990s became robust and the wealthy folks in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania became even richer. Not long ago, she insisted: “I’d do it again, I’d do it again.”

However, the thing that she couldn’t even have imagined at the time was that her son, Marc, will marry Chelsea Clinton tomorrow. 

Congresswoman Margolies cast a very difficult vote that she’ll be proud of for the rest of her life.

A Cynical Calculation

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner insists: “What the president and I believe this is the right thing for the country, the fair thing, the responsible thing for the country now, is to make sure we leave in place and preserve tax cuts that go to more than 95 percent of working Americans. I think it is fair and good policy to allow those tax cuts that only go to two percent of the highest earners in the country to expire as scheduled. The country can withstand that. The economy can withstand that. And I think it’s good policy.”  


Congressional Republicans are saying that, this is all about a tax increase. That isn’t true. It’s the law, that they put into effect.  It’s the law that they pushed under Bush and those tax cuts had an expiration date. 

People in the top 2 percent of the income bracket are going from 35 % to 39 %.  Ninety-eight percent of Americans aren’t going to be affected. Obama has promised not to raise taxes on individuals making up to $200,000 a year and families making up to $250,000. 

Apparently, Republicans have calculated that people above the national economic average want to keep their tax cuts and will therefore be voting Republican. They’re fully aware, that a lot of people are hurting, but they’re counting on compassionate conservatives not being compassionate this year. They anticipate, that this election will be every man for himself, because voters will want to keep their tax cuts.

They’re promoting the misconception, that all people who are unemployed are slackers or shirkers. They’re arguing, that giving people unemployment benefits takes away their incentive to want to go out and look for a job. 

In fact, millions of unemployed Americans are trying to get to work. Any time an entry-level job, at a hotel or a business in any big city, the lines go around the block. Therefore, saying that people don’t want to work is less than honest. Poor people across this country are getting up early, catching public transportation, if they can find it, and going to find jobs.

Avoiding an Answer

President Obama pointed out: “For a long time, there’s been a tradition under both Democratic and Republican presidents to offer relief to the unemployed. That was certainly the case under my predecessor, when Republican senators voted several times to extend emergency unemployment benefits. 
And I have to say, after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, the same people who didn’t have any problems spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to middle class Americans...

“Over the past few weeks, a majority of senators have tried not once, not twice, but three times to extend emergency relief on a temporary basis. Each time, a partisan minority in the Senate has used parliamentary maneuvers to block a vote, denying millions of people who are out of work much needed relief. These leaders in the Senate who are advancing a misguided notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for a job should talk to these folks!

“It’s time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to Washington politics.  It’s time to do what’s right not for the next election but for the middle class.  We’ve got to stop blocking emergency relief for Americans who are out of work.  We’ve got to extend unemployment insurance.  We need to pass those tax cuts for small businesses and lending for small businesses. Times are hard right now. We are moving in the right direction.  I know it’s getting close to an election, but there are times when you put elections aside. This is one of those times.”

Republicans claim, that they want the deficit reduced, before extending unemployment insurance, but when Senator John Cornyn of Texas was asked on national TV to name one program that he would cut, he repeatedly avoided giving an answer.
Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas was also asked repeatedly, to name a single program that he would cut, but, he wouldn’t give an answer. Republicans love the idea of cutting government spending, but they won’t name a single program they personally would cut.

Ordinary Working Folks

The Republican Party is taking the position that they want to protect Wall Street but not the unemployed? Consequently, Democrats might do much better in the fall than expected, because of three big Republican mistakes.

Many Republicans spoke out against Obama’s agreement with BP, which looked like they were protecting big oil.

Congressional Republicans voted almost unanimously against financial reform, which looked like they were protecting big Wall Street companies.

They came out almost uniformly against extending unemployment benefits, which looked like they were insensitive to ordinary working people.

Congressional Democrats and Obama have to get an effective jobs bill in front of the Senate and the House. If congressional Republicans refuse to vote for the jobs bill, they’ll be facing many angry voters in November. Recent polls indicate that by 70% to 28% margin, Americans care more about jobs in the economy than they care of the deficit.

Because of the recession, a lot of people have been driven into Medicaid programs. This year in Pennsylvania, they’ll be adding 61,000 people to Medicare.  In recognition of the rise in Medicare patients, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus plan) adjusted the formula to give states additional Medicaid money. However, that will end later this year.

Governors have asked Obama and members of Congress to extend the adjusted Medicare formula for another six months to give the states some breathing space, because taxes in states are down due to the recession, that was brought on by Wall Street. Pennsylvania, should get an additional $850 million for Medicare, but if they have to make $850 million in cuts, on top of $3 billion worth of cuts that they’ve already made, it could result in laying off between 10,000 and 20,000 people. That would be a disaster, especially since Pennsylvania has created over 60,000 private sector jobs in the last four months.

Will Republican members of the House continue to vote against ordinary working folks?

The Volker Rule

A proposal by American economist and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker restricted banks from making certain kinds of speculative investments. Volcker argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crises of 2007 -2010.
Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley and Carl Levin introduced a major piece of legislation the at included the Volcker Rule, which placed limitations on proprietary trading. However, despite having wide support in the Senate, the amendment was never given a vote.

The House-Senate conference committee passed a strengthened Volcker rule by including the language prepared by Senators Merkley and Levin. The advantage of that language was that it covered more types of proprietary trading than the original rule proposed by Obama administration. It also bans conflict of interest trading, because a Goldman Sachs investigation showed, business as usual on Wall Street has for too long allowing banks to create instruments which were based on junky assets, then sell them to clients, and bet against their own clients by betting on their failure. The measure approved by the conferees ended that type of conflict which Wall Street has engaged in.

Unfortunately, conferees changed the proprietary trading ban to allow banks to invest in hedge funds and private equity funds at the request of Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Senator Brown’s vote was needed in the Senate to pass the bill into law. Consequently, proprietary trading in Treasury bonds issued by government-backed entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as municipal bonds are presently exempted.


Landmark Legislation

President Obama has signed landmark Wall Street reform, that will protect taxpayers and ensure that Main Street will never again have to bail out Wall Street.  When Wall Street melted down more than two years ago, our economy was devastated.  And when the big banks failed, they brought down the rest of our economy and left millions jobless and our economy in a prolonged recession.  

Frequently, Congress has a tough time realizing that in many cases the best thing they can do is get out of the way. However, the legislation Obama signed into law contains a provision that reduces red tape and allow small businesses to flourish by taking advantage of competition and market forces.

When, we put our money into checking accounts we receive interest on our deposits, but the same can’t be said for small businesses.  In fact, the Banking Act of 1933 prohibits banks from paying interest on business checking accounts.  While large corporations are able to use high balance sweep accounts to earn interest on their cash, these accounts do not work for small businesses due to the high balance requirements.

Congressman Scott Murphy represents those of us in New York’s 20th District. He introduced the Business Checking Fairness Act, which was included in the Wall Street Reform Bill. It repeals a law dating back to the Great Depression preventing small businesses from earning interest on their business accounts.  This was one of those outdated laws that had no business being on the books.  

This is a big win for small business, who for years couldn’t receive interest on their checking accounts. Unfortunately, the provision won’t require banks to offer interest bearing checking accounts, but it will give banks the option.  This should increase competition among banks and lift an unfair burden from our small businesses during these tough economic times.
 
According to Rep. Murphy this legislation will allow our small businesses to grow, protect consumers and crack down on Wall Street. Ultimately, the Wall Street reform legislation should strengthen the economy and strengthen our banking system.
 

Protecting the People

In the on line version of the Oneonta Star, Robb wrote: “Who protects us from the Government? Oh yea, that is why we have the 2nd Amendment.” This appears to be a subtle suggestion of violence.

Alabama militiaman and teabagger blogger Mike Vanderboegh called for his followers to smash Democratic offices. He was a featured speaker at a “Restore the Constitution Open-Carry Rally,” on April 19th at Fort Hunter National Park in Virginia. According to rally organizers, that park is the closest location to Washington, D.C.  in which they can legally, and openly carry their firearms.

The date of the “show your guns” rally was on April 19th, is symbolic in its timing. April 19th, was the first day of the American Revolution, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, as well as, the day, home grown terrorist Timothy McVeigh chose for his bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. That blast claimed the lives of 168 victims and injured more than 680 innocent people.

The primary goal of those Tea Party Patriots was to intimidate the political process in this country, because they can’t get people to do what they want through the voting process, they’re using guns as a means of intimidating our national politics. The gun theme is becoming a consistent threat. 

Tea party protest sign, at different events announced, that: “We came unarmed this time.” People showed up at political events last summer with guns strapped to their side. A man in New Hampshire showed up at an Obama event brandishing a .9 millimeter pistol and carrying a sign saying: “Replenishing the Tree of Liberty with blood.”

George Washington wrote: “The warmest friends and best supporters the Constitution has, do not contend that it is free from imperfections; but they found them unavoidable and are sensible, if evil is likely to arise there from, the remedy must come hereafter; for in the present moment, it is not to be obtained; as there is a Constitutional door open for it, I think the People (for it is with them to Judge) can as they will have the advantage of experience on their Side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendments which are necessary as ourselves. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue, than those who will come after us.”

Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution provides and extensive list of the powers of Congress. The list concludes with: “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Robb should try writing a thoughtful, persuasive letter to the editor instead suggesting violence, since the ballot has proven to be much more successful than the bullet.