December 31, 2014

Comments offered by Lonnie Shalton, Kansas City attorney and longtime friend of many of us, as well as all democratic, progressive thinkers.

“Many of my partisan friends of the Democratic persuasion are pretty down on Obama. I have my own gripes with his style and some substance, but the cartoon in this morning’s paper was a good simple reminder of progress that has been made in spite of the worst Congress possible.

And Congress is not likely to change for many, many years. Two former Congressmen, Republican Tom Davis and Democrat Martin Frost (also my law partner in our DC office) have written a book that reflects the difficulty in changing the makeup of Congress.  You start with the natural sorting of the population, enhanced by clever gerrymandering, and throw in the current rules on campaign funding – there are few opportunities for an upgrade. The rise of non-disclosure PAC money has also had the effect of reducing the power of the political parties and makes every member of Congress a potential lone wolf – not a good recipe for party discipline and compromise legislation. The statistics are quite compelling.

The book is The Partisan Divide: Congress in Crisis, http://www.amazon.com/PARTISAN-DIVIDE-Congress-Crisis/dp/1619331284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420044027&sr=1-1&keywords=the+partisan+divide.

I know my political pals will have some easy comebacks on my Obama “defense,” but hey, it’s hard out there being a President.

And without Obama, what would have been the progress on immigration changes, Cuba, military gay rights, saving the auto industry, climate progress/China, the new Federal judges….

Obama was a little slow on gay marriage, but he got there.  Thank you Helen Windsor: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-perfect-wife.

Not so long ago, naysayers were pointing to Putin as the great leader compared to Obama – how’s that lookin’?

Obama did fail to work well with Congressional Republicans who would have cooperated with him.  Not.

Obama is often compared unfavorably to Bill Clinton who many hail as the great compromiser with Republicans – he did experience cooperative success in getting rid of Glass Steagall (that had kept banks out of some risky businesses), passing welfare reform to keep the poor from cheating and protecting the US from gays with the Defense of Marriage Act. Hillary’s health care plan was a no-show.  He didn’t start any wars, but also did not inherit any.  The budget side was good, helped along by the tech industry profits (somewhat offset by the bubble). And that darn government shutdown that prompted using interns.  Were we better off with Clinton than Bush-41 or Dole?  You betcha (think no further than two Supreme Court appointments).

The Clinton years also started good times for some taxpayers – A married couple earning combined salaries of $150,000 in the poppy Bush years paid $35,650 in taxes;  rich folks taking in $150,000 via passive investments paid $34,158. Through a series of changes that started with Clinton, and embellished by W and, yes, Obama , the number for that couple has been reduced to $24,138 and for the passive investor to $8,385. This tax inequality will of course not change as long as Wall Street has strong influence on Presidents and Congress.  Not holding my breath.

I took the tax numbers from a good post yesterday by Ted Folkert, an old friend from our Young Democrats days:  http://www.commongoodblog.com/uncategorized/abusive-taxation/.  One of my favorite quotes in Ted’s post comes from Gilded Age bank baron Andrew Mellon who questioned the distinction between the income from wages earned by those whose only capital is their “mental and physical energy,” which is “limited in duration and diminished by old age”, and those whose income continues regardless of health or age and then descends to their heirs.

On top of all that, we now have to suffer politics without The Colbert Report to aid in our nightly relief.  Jon Stewart will need to work overtime.

All of that being said, life is good.  Happy New Year

Your humble apologist,

Lonnie”