Your responses to our Post-election Update

It's the Economy Stupid

"Once the average person could no longer ignore the fact that their personal economic standing was being affected by Bush's policies, they protested with their vote. I have been saying for six years, that it would take a pinch in the pocketbook to wake up America. With personal debt at a record high, with healthcare costs impacting more and more budgets, and with stagnant wages a fact of life, Americans are finally looking past the Bush rhetoric and demanding change. They are weary of fat-cat CEOs with bloated incomes and no concern for employees. They are weary of corrupt politicians serving the corporate elite, special interests, and their own campaign coffers. The exit polls are reflecting what the media pundits are not: 'It's the economy, Stupid!' Certainly, the war in Iraq has become unpopular due to the terrible cost in lives; but the cost to the taxpayer is as destructive. Bush and the Republicans were offering no end in sight. That option has been soundly rejected."
-Patricia C.

"I agree with your assessment of the voter revolt against right-wing and republican tyranny. Huff[ington] Post has the Iraq war as the #1 reason, but I believe your reasons, and in the order listed, were the real reason. It is time for American government to protect our jobs, our safety from corporate abuse and the strong-arm tactics of these neo-cons, as well as end the death and destruction that is being waged against a nation in our name and at our grandchildren's expense."
-Arlene G.

"The growing inequality between those at the bottom and those at the top of the wealth and income scale - both families with significant stock and other financial asset holdings and today's executives with hundreds of millions in pay (often in large part through stock options) - has to be addressed. The fiscal burden on future generations that the last six years of tax legislation has created is unacceptable and must be addressed sooner rather than later. The new Congress should therefore rethink the various revenue reductions enacted over the last six years and re-focus tax provisions to provide reasonable tax rates for ordinary Americans and a fairer share of the tax burden for those in the top 5%.

Here are a few ways to do that. First, the billionaires' estate tax reduction should be taken off the wish list - estate tax repeal or reduction makes no sense whatsoever, since the estate tax is both (i) the one chance to tax much of the stock wealth of these wealthy families and (ii) not a problem for ordinary Americans in the lower four quintiles of the income distribution whose estates are exempt under any reasonable exemption of $1 to $2 million. Keep the estate tax, with perhaps a $2 or $3 million exemption and a 50% rate on the excess over the exemption amount. Second, adjust the capital gains preference. The substantially reduced rates enacted under Bush are a giveaway to the wealthiest Americans who own the vast majority of financial (and other) assets, and merely permit them to pass on huge estates (largely untaxed) to their heirs. The preference does little or nothing to encourage American savings and investment. Taxes saved by the wealthy because of the preference are just as likely (if not more likely) to end up invested in foreign countries, not the United States. Third, combine the capital gains preference adjustment with a provision to protect ordinary Americans from the AMT. How? Congress could enact a reasonable, high AMT income threshold (around $100,000) for the alternative minimum tax and pay for that simplification measure protecting most ordinary Americans from the AMT by adding a capital gains preference provision to the AMT for the wealthy who should be subject to higher taxes. Fourth, Congress should pass legislation requiring information reporting on capital gains transactions to put a stop, once and for all, to the ability of the wealthy to manipulate their taxable gains with artificially inflated basis numbers. Finally, solve the Social Security shortfall in the obvious way--by making the payroll tax a flat tax on all income rather than a regressive tax on ordinary Americans' wage incomes. The best thing to do is to remove the salary cap and apply the payroll tax to capital gains as well as wages. (This will be relatively easy to do, once withholding on capital gains is instituted, as recommended above.)"
-Linda Beale, Wayne State University Law School

Make the Votes Count!

"Paper ballots paper ballots. We can't be the laughing stock of the world over our corrupt voting regulations. Think what this world would have been like if Gore had become president. Global warming would be on the wane, maybe universal health care would be in the works if not a reality, our environment would be intact, we'd have thousands more hybrid vehicles on the road and the rest would be high mileage vehicles. I could go on and on."
-Genna A.

"I think the 100 hours agenda is good, but three critical issues are missing:

1. Protecting our Vote with verifiable paper trails. If cash registers can print receipts, why can't voting machines?
2. Election Reform via public funding of elections. Limit campaign spending in order to level the playing field; mandatory free air-time on PUBLIC AIR WAVES during agreed upon times, on a weekly basis, provided for debates between candidates for 6 weeks prior to elections. NO ads for candidates - say it at the debate! If the network owners are opposed to loosing the revenue, they should turn the organizations over to CEO's who will keep the public interests as the #1 priority where the public air waves are involved.
3. Single-item legislation; bills cover one item per vote. If this increases time spent in session, so be it. It's about time the legislators started earning that very sweet package that benefits them for LIFE."

"Thanks for the update. Two items become immediately important for the Congress to do:

1. Get our kids out of Iraq. Clean up this mess by using all international support to create a stable Iraq and move toward peace in the region. The kids did their job, so bring them home.
2. Campaign finance/Lobbying reform. The corporate interests in this country that put their profits ahead of the common good. Two examples: the obscene oil profits over the last years while our young people are being sacrificed in an oil rich nation to secure those resources for our 'national interest.' Where is the money to really get after alternative energy? Where is the Kennedy-like speech from our leadership to challenge the country? JFK challenged us to go to the moon in ten years. Where is the speech to challenge the nation to become energy independent in 15 years? It won't happen as long as the oil interests are controlling our foreign policy. Second, health care. Single payer, Medicare style insurance for everybody. Look at the warped, twisted and bastardized health care plan that was last passed by our government. Why on God's green earth was Medicare ability to negotiate prescription drug prices not included in the legislation? Again, corporate interests trumping the common good.

Environmentalism Back from the Dead

"I hope that the new congress will look hard and long at funding for clean energy R&D, and making the country self-sufficient where energy is concerned. The Department of Energy studies indicate that buildings consume 40% of all energy. There's a history of military installations getting energy retrofits, and they got off to a good start last year with bills to require all new construction and renovation of federal buildings and schools LEED-rated, but now we need to look at all the federally subsidized affordable housing - both the existing stock and new construction.

It's also time for some serious efforts to be put into fast-tracking development of hydrogen fuel cells for co-generation and for vehicular power. My two cents."
-Martha P.

"The issues you note are small potatoes in comparison to the impact of climate change. If the developed world cannot provide leadership in this issue, climatic change will become ever bigger and more quickly irreversible."
-Deborah W.

"To me global warming is the biggest issue the planet faces.

Contrary to what you are saying, I heard on NPR in the last few days that the war in Iraq is the 1st thing on the minds of voters, ahead of the economy. I also heard on NPR that high in the list of voters' post-election priorities is that the two parties work together, rather than spending fleeting time and energy slinging 'stuff' at each other. I am over it! If Al Gore was right a year ago, we now have only nine years left to turn our impending ecological disaster around, and we can't wait until the 9th year to focus. There is no time waste on more useless ego battles between the left and the right. The 'stuff' both parties generate against each other diverts and saps the nation's energy. Let's figure out how the hell to work together for a change, so we can actually make progress - if it's not too late.

I see the war in Iraq also as being an ecological problem. Unfortunately it can't be dropped like the hot potato it is - yet our misdirected intrusion into that landscape also has caused a hemorrhage of time, energy and resources which should have been focused on Afghanistan in the first damned place. Having said that, we must stop considering our ongoing efforts against global terrorism to constitute war. This not an engagement whereby one side will win and the other lose after a few years or even a decade. Rather it is an ongoing deadly concern that will have to be managed for an unknown period of time - probably for at least two or three generations. Of course, if we continue to think of it as a war which will end someday, global warming will solve it equitably for all sooner rather than later."
-Shirley B., Maryville, TN

Focus on the Process

"All of the issues listed on the 100 day agenda are valid and important. They would improve the lot of all Americans and reorient the legislature to good effect. However, it seems to me that the most important of all has been omitted; that being the restoration of the balance of power within our government. Of all the damage the Bush administration has done, that carries the most long term danger to the nation. Unless that is accomplished, each subsequent administration desirous of garnering more power to itself will find it easy to do so. Restoring our Constitutional checks and balances should be job one."
-Bob R., Battlefield, MO

"I do not think either party should have stones for throwing at the ready. I am a life-long democrat who has been disappointed in the party over the last ten years and who deeply hopes that the party makes substantial and relevant changes forward for the country. I absolutely oppose any impeachment process of the sitting president, any "investigation" tactics into Iraq that distract the Democrats from addressing domestic issues, and I hope that the Democrats stay out of scandals themselves and make policy changes that demonstrate a clear message and progress for the upcoming elections in 2008."
-Bonnie B., NH

"I enjoyed your Post-election Update and for sure there are a number of things in need of fixing; however, before people start fixing too many things based on old assumptions, it seems to me that there needs to be some serious effort made to dialogue across the divides.

Forcing one set of notions on people who already feel marginalized, misunderstood and any number of other characteristics will not really lead to the healing that is needed. Even if it may not be possible in many cases to find a collaborative solutions that work for a majority of people, a serious effort needs to be made to do so.

Not doing so will only continue to trap us in the cycles of us verses them, right verses wrong, my needs are more important than your needs that has dominated the process for too long."
-Ernest

"I am concerned that the Republicans lost this election more than the Democrats won it. Many of the Democrats elected are conservatives, almost right. That's ok, a centrist government is probably the best. However, keeping that in mind, we must tread carefully - not to encourage 'slippage' into a religion based governance; to keep the middle class uppermost in the minds of the legislators; to protect our borders and our jobs AND our votes! Many of us are still voting in a dreadful process of unreliable machines."
-Penny, FL

"Not directly mentioned in your letter but of major concern to me and many of my friends is our country's moral position in the world in regard to torture and the use of rendition to evade even the finely honed and extremely watered down definitions favored by W.

I think it is vital for the citizens of our country to fully expose the practices that have been employed by this administration and to clearly define and codify those that are acceptable and those that are unacceptable.

If the investigation into these practices leads to impeachment then sobeit. For my money any level of torture fits the category of 'high crimes and other misdemeanors.'"
-Carl

"It is important, at this point, to (1) keep your eye on the goal and (2) not to become the very thing you are trying to replace. Many want the new Congress to spend its time looking under every rock for someone to punish and to roll back every law and decision that the other side made when they were in power. You could put those same words into the mouths of the Republicans as they swept into office in ever since Bill Clinton was President. You also won't get anything done that way because you don't have enough of a lead to overcome a veto. So Congress is going to have to decide where the big payoffs are:

• Keep them simple with great titles that no politician can afford to be against;
• Stop the hemorrhaging, even if you can't move forward, and;
• Where wrong doing is exposed, let it be exposed in a such way so that the people clamor justice and 'force' you to continue."

"Here are some important directions for policy:

• Resist the power of big money over government and media.
• Election Reform: campaign finance reform; publicly-financed elections; instant-runoff voting; eliminate or fix electronic voting machines - paper trails, open-source programming, bullet-proof security.
• Heal the Congress: lobbying reform; reform earmarks; restore mature collegiality, instead of toxic, hyper-tribal partisanship; restore oversight functions.
• Media Reform: support greater diversity of media ownership; encourage corporate media to report the important stories, to tell the public what's really happening.
• Environmental Stewardship: halt and reverse climate change; promote clean energy; halt and reverse destruction of habitat and fisheries.
• Citizenship: promote public awareness of issues and consequences; foster citizen dialogue and deliberation."