Ralph Nader

In The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor, the political party of Mayor Frank Skeffington has a ringer who runs against the mayor in every election and helps the mayor get elected by drawing votes away from the mayor’s chief opponents. It is an old technique and has influenced the outcome of many elections. I have always thought that Ralph Nader was actually a ringer for the Republican Party. How else could one explain his attempt to defeat Democratic candidates for the presidency and thereby destroy everything he has ever claimed to stand for?

Look what he did in 2000. Nader ran on the ticket of the “Green” party, a party that claims to fight for the environment. But the Democratic candidate that year was the most active and ardent environmentalist of our time, Al Gore. The race came down to Florida. In the end, five hundred votes separated Al Gore from George W. Bush. Nader drew 97,421 votes in Florida. Exit polls showed that if Nader had not run, 25 % or 24,355 of his voters would have voted for Bush and 38 % or 37,019 would have voted for Gore. The rest would not have voted at all. Gore would have received 12,664 more votes than Bush and would have won the presidency. By running against Gore, Nader defeated our best hope for environmental action during the years 2000-2008. We are now faced with catastrophic global warming thanks to Ralph Nader.
What does this say about the Green Party? In Europe, this is a legitimate party determined to protect the environment. In America, it is a group that thinks the best way to help the environment is to nominate a jackass who will only siphon votes from the party that will do the most for the environment.

In 2000 I thought that Ralph Nader was an egomaniac. I still think so, but I also realize that he is much more than just an egomaniac. He is an obsessive-compulsive-paranoid narcissist. His primary compulsion is to exalt himself. His greatest fear is that he will sink into obscurity. He is the kind of mentally unbalanced fanatic who would be very dangerous if by some miracle he ever got elected president.

Nader projects himself as the quintessential liberal. He claims to support the working man but has a history of paying salaries to his employees well below the minimum wage. He has fought against unionization of his employees. He says he supports civil rights and feminism. But this year he wants to prevent the election of the first serious African American or the first serious female candidate ever nominated for president by a major party. Thanks Ralph!

Even if one were to take Nader at his word and not presume he is lying for his Republican backers, he is a dangerous man. He obviously hates America. He hates all corporations without distinction. He hates our political establishment and he hates the voters of America. He talks about giving power to the people, but he does not accept the verdict of the people who gave him a tiny fraction of the vote in the past two presidential elections.

I think I understand the Nader type. He exemplifies a long line of obsessed leaders from Savonarola to Hitler. He is too compulsive to live an ordinary life. He never got married because his “cause” was too important allow him to be distracted by something as petty as a family. He lives austerely in a small Washington D.C. apartment with very few amenities. He eats at a modest restaurant where customers get a free meal after dining there five times. He is habitually obsessive about cleanliness. He doesn't own a car and keeps nearly a dozen manual typewriters stashed away so he'll never be forced to use a computer. He is worth over $4 million, but he is miserly in the extreme. His wardrobe looks like it was last updated in the 1960s.

In 2000, Nader received 2,883,105 votes, or 2.74 % of the vote. In 2004 he ran as an independent and received 463,653 votes, or 0.38 % of the vote. Judging by the results of his last run for the presidency, it is unlikely that Nader will ever be able to substantially affect the outcome of another election. Democratic voters now realize that he is a spoiler and not a serious candidate. He has single-handedly made the Green Party look like a bunch of morons. Now, in his 2008 race for the White House, the best that can be said about Ralph Nader is that he is a sick joke.

Predatory Payday Loans

We tend to think of the parasites in our society as skinny little weasels with hollow cheeks and pencil moustaches. But greed is not solely the domain of con artists, drug dealers, pickpockets, and other felons. The worst parasites probably look more like corporate executives in expensive suits. Whether they are offering payday loans at usurious interest or enticing us into sub-prime mortgages, they take the mantel of solid citizens.

Payday loan outlets have sprung-up exponentially. I have counted at least 11 in Xenia alone. In Ohio, the number of lender locations jumped from 107 in 1996 to 1,562 ten years later. Payday loans are small short-term loans offered in storefront shops to people who need cash in a hurry. The loans are easy to get regardless of credit history. All the borrower needs to show is a bank account, proof of a steady income, a simple form of identification, and references. It takes about 20 minutes to secure a loan. They do not check credit, except to make sure borrowers haven't defaulted on previous payday loans.

The customers are required to pay the principal, interest, and fees in full when the loan is due, generally in two weeks. The fees and interest on these loans are huge, and can amount to a staggering annual percentage rate of 391 percent. If it sounds like loan-sharking, it's not. "Loan sharks are actually cheaper," said Bill Faith, a leader of the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending.

The biggest problem is that many people cannot repay the loans on their due dates and have to roll them over at additional interest and fees. People often take out loans for a large part of their weekly pay. If they repay the loans when they get their salaries, they will not have enough money to live on until the next paycheck. The average payday loan is rolled over at least thirteen times a year. Borrowers go from owing small amounts into overwhelming debt. One military borrower reported that he took out a $300 loan from a payday lender near his base. On paydays he would go from store to store borrowing money from one lender to pay off another. He ended up having to pay back $15,000.

When I first noticed the proliferation of payday loan outlets in Greene County, I wondered where all this money was coming from. The dirty little secret is that many of the outlets are supported by major banks. Big banks are restricted by law on how much interest they can charge on regular personal and commercial loans, but in most states there is no limit on the interest that they can charge in the payday loan business. Because of the unsavory nature of the payday loan business, the big banks fund the payday loan outlets under other names.
For some time now there has been a movement to restrict the amount of interest and fees that can be charged on payday loans. Under Governor Taft, nothing was done. Now, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has come out in strong opposition to such loans and has held a series of hearings to expose the scam. A number of consumer’s groups have supported legislation to limit the amount of interest and fees that can be charged by the loan shops.

Three bills have been introduced in the Ohio General Assembly to reform the payday loan industry. HB 333, introduced by Republican Bill Batchelder and Democrat Bobby Hagan, would cap payday loan interest rates at 36 percent APR and limit the number of loans borrowed per year. HB 358, introduced by Rep. Tyrone K. Yates, D-Cincinnati, sets an interest rate cap of 25 percent APR and requires all loans to be made in accordance with criminal usury laws. Then there is HB 337 backed by the payday loan industry. It focuses on borrower education and extended loan plans, but does not cap interest rates. Rep. Ross McGregor, a Springfield Republican, and Rep. Matt Lundy, an Elyria Democrat, are sponsoring the HB 337. Thirteen members of the House Financial Institutions Committee are co-sponsoring the McGregor-Lundy bill. One has to wonder why anybody would support HB 337. Is there something improper going on?

The payday industry claims that if interest on the loans is capped at 36 percent or 25 percent, instead of the current 391 percent, they will go out of business. Good! If they can’t do business without gouging their customers, they should go out of business. What appears to be a convenience for working people is actually a deadly trap that makes the credit card industry look positively benign.

McCain and the Other Guy

Emerging from that demolition derby called the Republican primaries are one and one-half survivors, John McCain and a huckleberry named Mike.

Republican voters seem to admire McCain’s apparent candor and integrity as well as his positions on the Iraqi war and national security. Liberals and independents seem to like McCain because of his reputation as a maverick and his support for some liberal causes such as campaign finance reform.

For those who think of John McCain as a liberal, however, forget it. He has gone out of his way lately to proclaim that he is and has always been a true conservative. Unlike the vulpine Mitt Romney, McCain has been steadfast in his political positions. Liberals might be inclined to vote for him thinking that he is more liberal than most Republicans. Well, despite the foaming-mouth fulminations of radical right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, liberals should look more closely before signing on to McCain’s campaign.

To start with, he supports Bush on the most contentious issue today, the war in Iraq. McCain is, if anything, more hawkish on the war than Bush. He says that a timetable for withdrawal would be a “white flag of surrender.” He sees no end to American military presence in Iraq and has said that it would be okay if our troops remain there for “another 100 years.” He thinks that the Iraqi war was justified even in hindsight. He strongly supports the “surge” but would have preferred to send more troops. He wants “victory” in Iraq and projects a long American military presence there. If McCain were to get elected, that war would drag-on for many more years.

Perhaps more ominous, McCain has made clear that strategic bombing of Iran would be acceptable if there is an “imminent threat.” It is not clear what he considers an imminent threat, but I assume he means an Iran supplied with nuclear weapons. We should be deeply wary of putting this bellicose scion of a military family in the White House.

McCain has an 83 percent positive lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and an 83% rating from the Christian Coalition. He opposes a woman’s right to choose abortion and would repeal the decision in Roe v. Wade. He opposes gun control. He would allow prayer in the schools and supports a constitutional amendment banning flag-burning.

McCain has a reputation for having a violent temper. He has been voted by congressional staffers as having one of the worst tempers in Congress. McCain's run-ins with other Republican senators are legendary. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn't speak to him for two years. He once said “f… you” in a committee meeting to Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi. He is known by other senators as “Senator Hothead.” He has been described by Washington officials as being “vindictive,” “impetuous,” and “quirky.” I wonder whether it would be good for the nation to have such a highly volatile president with a hair-trigger-finger on the Armageddon button.

It must be admitted that John McCain was a hero as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Prior to that ordeal he did not have an illustrious career in the Navy. He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class in Annapolis and was known primarily as a ladies man and hot-dog pilot. He did suffer torture after he was captured by the North Vietnamese, and his heroism and dedication to honor must be respected. But heroism should not be equated with the leadership of a nation.

Mike Huckabee is a Baptist minister and evangelical Christian who looks like Jim Nabors. He says that ending school prayer in the public schools was one step in society's moral decay. He supports displaying the Ten Commandments in public schools. He opposes a woman’s right to abortion. He opposes stem-cell research. He does not believe in evolution. He says that gay tolerance reflects a lack of fixed societal standards and would forbid gay adoptions. He signed legislation outlawing same-sex marriage in Arkansas and opposes same-sex civil unions. He opposes hate-crimes legislation. He believes that the Kyoto Accord was a mistake. He says that George W. Bush has done a magnificent job. God help us!

Jack LeMoult is a writer and retired lawyer. He resides in Xenia.

Bush's Heartless Budget

What has happened to America? Are we proud that we have elected and re-elected this intellectually challenged politician who is nothing more than a lackey for the oil industry and other big-business conglomerates? As we examine the President’s $3 trillion budget, perhaps we should also examine our consciences and consider the proud principles for which this country is supposed to stand.

In his State-of-the-Union address Bush said that we should stand-up for American soldiers and veterans. But in his budget, Bush sought to impose on veterans new fees ranging up to $750 for care at veterans’ health-care facilities. This would cost them more than $2.6 billion over five years. It would double veterans’ co-payments for prescription drugs. In addition, the Bush budget would significantly reduce federal support for state-operated veterans’ homes and impose new limitations on who can be admitted. State officials have warned that the White House spending plan could force out roughly half of the 600 residents at Washington D.C.’s three veterans homes, possibly resulting in the closure of one of them.

Bush’s address, dripping with “compassion” for unfortunate Americans, would cut more than $600 billion over ten years from Medicare and Medicaid. It would also eliminate the $243 million Low-income Weatherization Assistance Program and cut $570 million from the Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program at a time of record-high fuel prices. The budget would also drastically cut nutrition and housing programs for the poor.

Needless to say, Bush’s budget takes care of his beloved billionaires. The budget would preserve hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the richest 0.01 percent of the population while slashing programs for the poor and the middle class.

Bush wants to increase the defense budget by 7.5 percent to $515.4 billion — which does not include either war spending, estimated to be more than $170 billion next year, or the cost of nuclear weapons. Defense spending would be up by more than 30 percent since Mr. Bush took office and would be the highest level of military spending since World War II. The result would be mammoth budget deficits unlike anything we have ever known.

Among other cuts proposed in this “compassionate’ budget are the complete elimination of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, a vital nutrition program for low-income seniors and children; a 29 percent cut in funding for nurses’ training at a time of severe nursing shortage; a $484 million cut to job training and employment programs while the unemployment rate is going up; an 86 percent cut in Rural Health Programs; a $900 million cut to Community Development Block Grants for job creation, economic development, and home ownership in cities; a $195 million cut in elderly housing; and a $500 million cut to Social Services Block Grants which provide funding to protect children from abuse and neglect as well as providing care for homeless seniors and services to children and adults with disabilities.

Bush calls the fabulously wealthy plutocrats in America his “base.” The gap between the richest Americans and the middle class is growing wider every day. In 2005 the top 1 percent earned more income than the bottom 50 percent of Americans -- with the top 300,000 earners making more money than the bottom 150 million. While the top-earning 0.01 percent received an average income increase of $4.4 million in 2005, the bottom 90 percent saw their average income decline by about $172.

Today, despite all the rhetoric about "family values," the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country in the world. Since George Bush has been president, nearly 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty, 8.6 million have lost their health insurance, 3 million have lost their pensions, and median family income has declined by about $2,500.

A two-income family has less disposable income today than a one-income family had 30 years ago. Home foreclosures are now the highest on record. More and more workers are now spending more than half of their limited incomes for housing, leaving less for other basic needs.

I hope that the Congress rejects this foul budget. Congress needs to remind the President that he is the President of all of the United States and not just that small neighborhood called Easy Street.

Stopping the Recession

Here in America, the land of the free and the home of opulence, many thousands of citizens are wondering if they will have a home next month. Many thousands of others are struggling to put dinner on the table. And millions of people cannot pay their mortgages or their heating, electric, gas, and credit card bills. What does it mean to these people that the Federal Reserve is cutting the prime rate by three-quarters of a percent? Not much.

It does not matter whether they call this calamity a recession, a downturn, a correction, or Swiss cheese. What matters is the suffering experienced every day by ordinary Americans.

In my opinion Ronald Reagan was a lousy president. On his watch the neo-conservatives implemented the theory of “Supply-Side” or “Trickle-Down” economics. Under that theory, the government cut taxes and initiated programs to benefit the prosperous elite, thereby supposedly improving the economy and benefiting everybody. Needless to say, the rich got richer. The poor, however, stayed poor. Bush W and his crew are devout worshippers at the church of Supply Side.

Republican politicians, who have thrived on fat lies about “tax-and-spend Democrats,” gave a huge tax cut to the wealthiest Americans at the start of the George W. Bush Administration. Middle-class people got pennies, and the poor got nothing. The unregulated banking industry began preying on lower-income people, luring them into deadly adjustable-rate mortgages. Wall Street moguls bought-up billions of dollars worth of these so-called “sub-prime” investments. On the strength of this, the construction industry began a building boom on the backs of illegal aliens. Now that the whole thing has exploded, Bush and his gang want to bail-out the banks, brokers, and builders. But the people who need help are the people who are losing their homes, their jobs, and their lives.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is a professor of Economics at Columbia University. He won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2001. In a recent essay he said that tax cuts are not a solution to the problem. He pointed out that “middle- and lower-income Americans have been suffering for the last seven years — median family income is lower today than it was in 2000.” He suggested that direct payments from the government to the people in the form of tax rebates would stimulate the economy while helping people.

Stiglitz also recommended strengthening the unemployment system. In other words, the government should increase unemployment benefits and extend the period that people could collect benefits. Stiglitz noted that money received by the unemployed would be spent immediately, thereby stimulating the economy. He also recommended other actions which would improve the economy, including money for rebuilding infrastructure, support for education, and legislation allowing people facing foreclosure to stay in their homes.

Two other steps strike me as necessary. The first is to stop the war. Just stop it. Bring our troops home. They are heroes who have fought valiantly in a dirty, hot, arid, ugly land. Bring them home and stop this senseless sacrifice of our youth and our treasure. Second, repeal the cynical tax cuts for the wealthy which have upset our economy and which, along with the war, have created the largest deficits in American history. Everybody knows that gigantic deficits distort the economy and reduce the money supply. Because of our deficits we are debtors going hat-in-hand to Arab sheiks and Asian countries. It is pathetic.

I do not comprehend how anybody but the very rich could vote for Bush and the Republicans. In a tentative deal, Bush has succeeded in getting Democrats to drop their demands for food stamps and for improving unemployment insurance. For some time now there has been a callous indifference in the Bush Administration to the needs of the poor and lower-income Americans. This has included vetoes of bills expanding health insurance for less fortunate children. It has included refusal even to consider governmental health insurance for the 47 million uninsured. However, Bush does weep for the billionaire bankers, hedge-fund managers, and big investors. God forbid that they should have to cut down on their daily rations of caviar, filet mignon, and Dom Perignon.

Independents and The Undecided

I have never quite understood undecided voters. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have always assumed that such people are simply inattentive or uninformed. I care too much about political subjects to be undecided. We live in a world where there are sharp differences on political and social issues. To me, such issues require some kind of decision. I do not know how one can be blasé about the Iraqi war, abortion, stem-cell research, global warming, health insurance, gun control, same-sex marriage, oil prices, and other such matters. The two major political parties take opposite sides on most of these issues. Candidates usually express themselves on these issues well before the election, yet many people say they cannot decide who to vote for until they go into the voting booth.

Now along comes Michael Bloomberg, the zillionaire Mayor, meeting with others to discuss whether to form an independent party; independent of what? Will an independent party take no position on the issues mentioned above? What will an Independent Party stand for; politeness, apathy, nothing? Bloomberg and his group claim that the two main parties are far too polarized. I suppose that if the Democrats and Republicans were neutral on the above issues, they would not be so polarized. I do not understand, however, how people can fail to take sides on such vital issues. It is easier for me to understand people taking conservative positions on these issues than it is to understand the neutrality of independents.

I may not know who to vote for in local elections or primaries, but I have never had any doubts about candidates for president. I am a news junkie. I read three newspapers a day, including The New York Times. I read two news magazines a week and watch the major news programs on television every night. I read several online news sources. Perhaps I am addicted to news and need to go into news rehab.

One group of citizens I don’t understand or at least do not esteem very highly is those who say: “I don’t like any of the candidates. I’m not going to vote at all.” These ostrich-headed civilians fail to understand that life is not always ideal and that sometimes it is necessary to choose the best, or perhaps the least offensive, from a slate of less-than-perfect aspirants to office. One of the reasons we have political parties is that candidates for office represent not only themselves; they also represent political principles. Parties define themselves according to where they stand on the liberal-conservative spectrum. If you don’t like a candidate, vote for his or her party.

I am baffled by the consistently low ratings given in the polls to the Congress. The ratings were low before the Democrats took over majority control in 2006 and continued to be low thereafter. Who is it that people dislike? There are two major parties in Congress. Do people dislike both parties? I don’t think that people know why they dislike Congress. They are just frustrated that Congress is not doing what they want. My question is: what do they want? Different people want different things. The problem is that neither party has been able to get a veto-proof and filibuster-proof majority. Thus, either party can stymie the legislation proposed by the other. If voters are frustrated by the inability of Democrats to pass legislation halting the Iraqi War, they should realize that President Bush has vetoed every bill setting a time limit on American participation in the war, and Republicans have upheld every veto. The only solution to this problem is to elect more Democratic congressmen and senators.

There is a type of citizen that I particularly despise. He can usually be found at the corner stool in a bar. He says: “They all stink. They should throw-out all the bums and put in a whole new government.” You can be assured that this savant is not endowed with a PhD in government. He is not offering the legitimate complaint that special interests have too much influence. He is not disturbed by the campaign-finance abuses. He is not speaking about the lofty promises broken by elected officials. His problem is that the world is not perfect and the cost of beer is too high. He doesn’t really know much about government and who the players are, so he just sits and drinks and kvetches.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

I have never fully understood the animus held by many conservative Republicans toward Hillary Clinton. It seems to be much stronger than their dislike of other Democrats. From what I have read about her, she is a much nicer person than most people realize. One conservative writer wrote a book about her and concluded that she is a good person who is loved by her staff. Her main problem is that in public she projects a persona that seems cold and snobbish. Somehow, she has trouble flashing a genuine smile. I do not, however, understand why our presidents have to be warm and fuzzy. We need leaders, and right now we need a leader desperately. Hillary could be a fine leader.

I suspect that part of the problem people have with Senator Clinton is the uniquely American hang-up about powerful women. Many other countries in the world have had female leaders, but Hillary is the first American woman to mount a serious campaign for the presidency. When Bill Clinton said that if he was elected America would get “two for the price of one,” many people were outraged. They were used to first ladies being shadowy background figures who gave tours of the White House and spoke-out on innocuous issues like literacy and children’s nutrition. They were not used to having first ladies who were actually involved in governmental policy.

Hillary is on good grounds when she attacks Barack Obama for lack of experience. Some may ask, “what experience did Hillary get being the wife of the president?” The answer is-- plenty. Several books about the Clinton presidency make clear that Hillary was intimately involved in presidential decision-making. Unlike most first ladies who had their offices in the East Wing of the White House, Hillary had an office in the West Wing near that of the president. She frequently took part in major meetings. She guided many of the important decisions made by her husband. She tried to maintain a low profile, and her significant role in the Administration was never acknowledged. But she has had more experience than any candidate, Democrat or Republican, now running for office.

Barack Obama has many virtues. He is the darling of young people who usually do not like traditional candidates. Young people have no faith in the establishment. They want dramatic change. Obama has great charisma, charm, brains, and eloquence. However, compared with Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic candidates, he has not done much. He has spent two years in the Senate, yet I know of no great pieces of legislation attached to his name. Somebody has pointed-out, however, that the same thing could be said of Abraham Lincoln.

The biggest question about Obama is whether he would be the strongest candidate the Democrats could field. Many people would vote against him because of his inexperience, and, sad to say, others would vote against him because of his race. Conservative writers seem to like him because they hate Hillary. Some Republicans have crossed-over in the primaries to vote for Obama in order to stop Hillary. They probably wouldn’t vote for Obama if he was nominated. They voted for him because they think he is unelectable. I believe that he could win if he is nominated and I would like to see him become President of the United States. I would, however, like to see him get some seasoning and come back to run at a later date. We need his powerful appeal to all that is good in America.

This is an important election. Republicans have made such a mess of our country that Democrats now have a golden opportunity to seize the White House and elect a strong Democratic Congress. We need someone who will bring the bloody carnage of young Americans in Iraq to an end. We need someone who will bring health insurance to all Americans, who will repeal the odious Medicare Part D drug law and bring free medication to all senior Americans, who will sign-on to treaties and accords necessary to halt global warming, who will authorize funds for stem-cell research, and who will stop the appointment of ultra-conservative, anti-abortion Supreme Court Justices. We need a president who will cancel the huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans and stand-up to the powerful oil, tobacco, pharmaceutical, automobile, and insurance industries. We should not let this opportunity slip by.