Making Politically Effective Use of This Blog (and Others)

 Dear Readers,

I am very pleased that you enjoy my blog posts enough to continue to read them, and I am glad to see that my readership has grown over the last few months. Now, it is time for us to take the next step by using this blog to advance the cause of justice in our society.  In order to make our ideas effective, we have to spread them as widely as possible, and we have to make use of as many channels of communication and as many personal networks as possible. So, let's do that.

Here are a few things that we can do to increase the effectiveness abd reach of our ideas.

First, we can use the posts in this blog and others as bases for on-line discussions. If we comment on the posts, we will end up having discussions. We will not always agree with one another, and that is fine. In fact, it is the whole point. Lively discussions will help to spread our ideas and strengthen our cause not only because the discussions will be interesting but because when you comment on a post, your comment will be seen by your FB friends, and that will broaden the reach of our ideas.  If you are feeling energetic today, you can even go back and comment on previous posts.

Second, we can share the posts. Sharing is one of the keys to making effective use of social media. Sharing increases the number of people who see a post, and that allows us to spread our ideas. I post links to my posts on Facebook, and you can share those. You can also post your own links to blog posts that you particularly like. You don't have to agree with a post to share it. You can say that you think the post is terrible, is wrong, or fails to understand reality. You can even go back and share previous posts.

Third, we can use the blog posts as starting points for letters to the editor. If one of my posts gives you an idea that you would like to write about, please do so, and include a reference to the blog in the letter. If you would like editorial help with a letter, please send it to me at foxcitiesprogressive@gmail.com, and I will be glad to help with editing.

Finally, I invite you to write posts as guests of my blog. You can send them to me at foxcitiesprogressive@gmail.com. I may edit them, but I will not publish the edited versions without your permission. You can choose whether you want to be identified as the author of a post or not. If you don't want to be identified, I will say only that the post was contributed by "A Reader of the Blog."

These actions will help to spread our ideas and to make them politically effective. Local political candidates will pick up our ideas and use them in their campaigns. The ideas will become part of the broader political dialog in our state and our country, and that may lead to real, social change. That is really the point of doing this, isn’t it.

A Great American Invention is Endangered and We Must Protect It

 A Great Invention

The United States is the home of one of history’s greatest political inventions. We invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment. Anyone who comes to this country and accepts the responsibilities of citizenship can be a citizen, and we have no other legal or traditional definition of what it means to be American. This idea contrasts with the ideas of most other countries. Most countries have an ethnic or racial requirement for "real" membership. For example, I could move to the U.K. and become a British subject, but that would not make me an Englishman. The same would be true in Thailand or Mexico. I could become a Thai or a Mexican citizen, but I could not become a Thai or a Mexican. In the United States, a person who becomes a citizen does become an American.

The Invention Was Mostly Aspirational at First

At first, the invention was an aspiration more than a reality, even though it was clearly stated in George Washington's famous letter to the Jews of Newport Rhode Island:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

In spite of this clear statement, large groups were excluded. Native Americans were not accepted as citizens, and slaves were excluded. The Dred Scott decision said in 1857 that even free Black people could never be citizens. But the idea persisted, and it is fully expressed in the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution. Even after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 said that the amendment did not apply to Chinese immigrants. The Act was not repealed until 1943.

Today, however, anyone can become an American citizen either by birth or through naturalization. No races or religions are excluded. Today, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are members of Congress. Today, James Baldwin and Maya Angelou are recognized as great American writers. When Fiona Hill said at a congressional hearing that she was an American by choice, we all understood what she meant, and we agreed that her statement made sense. Unfortunately, we still have people who oppose the idea that anyone who accepts the responsibilities of citizenship is an American. Those people want to say that only White Christians can really be Americans, but they are a minority, and their ideas have no legal standing. Nevertheless, they endanger one of our most important inventions.

The Invention is Basic to Our Identity

Our definition of what it means to be American is basic, and it applies to every American regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnic origin. That does not mean that we do not have racial, religious or gender-based oppression, prejudice or discrimination. We have all of those things, but most of us never say that Black Americans, Native Americans or women are not Americans. We know that they are.

The Invention is a Basis for Struggles for Equality

Our universal concept of American-ness has provided a basis for the struggles of oppressed groups for equal treatment in our society. Black people say, “We are Americans, and it is wrong for us to be oppressed in our own country.” Our society has tried not to hear their cry, but in the end, we have had no answer to it. They are right. They are entitled to the “equal protection” of our laws, and we should not oppress them. Women have made the same claim, and again, we have had no answer. They, too, are right.

The Invention Has Made Us Strong

We have become a powerful nation in part because we have welcomed people from all over the world. Their labor has built our economy. At various times, German immigrants, Irish immigrants, Jewish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Mexican immigrants, Chinese immigrants and Japanese immigrants have built our economy and defended us against foreign and domestic enemies. (In the Civil War, regiments from Wisconsin had to have German-speaking officers because so many of the men spoke no English. In the Second World War, Nisei units fought heroically to defend our country. ) Agricultural products harvested by Mexican immigrants are a very large part of the exports that keep our economy strong. Native Americans have made a major contribution in high steel construction. Gangs of Mohawk workers built the skyscrapers of New York. Navaho code talkers played a key role in winning WW II in the Pacific.

Black immigrants and their descendents have contributed far more than any other immigrant group. They are a special case because they were forced to come here and enslaved when they arrived, but their enormous contribution to the growth of the United States cannot be denied, and their struggle for equal treatment and economic opportunity has been and continues to be a basic element of our history. They are undeniably Americans, and slowly, they are coming to be treated as such.

The Invention Makes Our Culture Diverse and Powerful

Our idea of citizenship is independent of cultural identities. Mexicans who come here do not have to give up their cultural Mexican-ness when they become citizens, as we can see from the continued vitality of the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe in this country. We do not even require prospective citizens to learn our language. We do not need such a requirement because every immigrant can see easily that a person who wants to get ahead here must learn English. Most immigrants work hard to learn our language, and they try not to pass their native languages on to their children. As a result, the grandchildren of immigrants to the United States are rarely able to speak the native languages of their grandparents.

Our willingness to separate citizenship from cultural identity has made our culture powerful because it has been able to absorb the cultural contributions of our immigrants. Our literature, our music and our food – which are imitated all over the world - are full of the influences of immigrant groups.  We listen to the blues, and we eat kung pao chicken; we love TV shows like Seinfeld that are saturated with Jewish humor, and we say "Adios" when we leave town. We know that all of these things are American.

The Invention is Threatened

Our definition of what it means to be American is threatened by White Christian Nationalists. They want to say that only White Christians are real Americans, and that other people can never be real Americans. One of the expressions of this idea is the so-called "replacement theory" expressed by Vivek Ramaswamy. The idea that only White Christians can be real Americans would destroy what has made our country great. It is un-American in the most basic sense.  It denies the genius of our ancestors who invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment, and it denies the most basic facts of our history. We must oppose White Christian Nationalism with all our strength if we wish to preserve the country that we love.

An Opportunity for Democrats: Promoting fair Treatment of Wisconsin’s Workers

Democrats Must Again Be the Party of American Workers 

The Democratic Party has lost its position as the party of American workers. The reasons for the loss are complex, but there is no doubt that a large part of the American working class now votes Republican. This is a tragedy for American workers because the Republican Party's claim to represent their interests is entirely fraudulent. The party represents the interests of rich people and big business just as it always has.

The workers' shift to the Republican Party is also a tragedy for the cause of social justice in our country. In a time of increasing inequality and increasing concentration of wealth, the party of the rich will never promote the cause of social justice. That party promotes only ever lower taxes and ever decreasing regulation of business. We can see an example of that attitude in Wisconsin's failure to protect workers from exploitation by the misclassification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

Misclassification is Illegal Exploitation of Workers and Taxpayers

Many employers in Wisconsin are inflating their profits and defrauding Wisconsin’s taxpayers by misclassifying their workers as independent contractors rather than as employees. This allows the employers to avoid paying their fair share of the cost of workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, and Wisconsin’s workers and taxpayers suffer as a result. This situation presents Democrats with an opportunity to ally our party with the needs of Wisconsin’s workers. The widespread practice of misclassifying workers provides our party with an opportunity to work as allies in workers’ struggles for fair treatment.

Misclassification is a Serious Problem

Misclassification of workers as independent contractors is a serious problem in Wisconsin. According to Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development (DWD), workers who are misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees are denied benefits like workmen’s compensation and unemployment benefits. Misclassification also causes workers to lose wages and benefits. A worker classified as an independent contractor may be paid less than the minimum wage and will of course not be paid for overtime at overtime rates. The lower pay caused by misclassification undermines the whole economy by reducing workers’ purchasing power. 

In addition, contractors and other employers who misclassify workers avoid having to pay their share of the costs of programs like workers' compensation and social security and are therefore able to offer lower bids on contracts. They “out-compete” their competitors by breaking the law and exploiting their workers. Finally, the practice of misclassifying workers costs our state government millions of dollars in lost tax revenue because of underreporting of wages. That cost is passed on to all of Wisconsin’s taxpayers either in the form of higher taxes or in the form of lost services that cannot be provided because of lost revenues. In effect, contractors and other employers are increasing their profits by breaking the law, by exploiting their workers and by short-changing the majority of our state’s taxpayers. 

Contract workers are often paid in cash "under the table," and that allows some unscrupulous workers to cheat on their taxes and on their responsibilities to their children. A union official told me that when a contract worker at a large construction site in the Fox Cities was asked why he didn't work as an employee of the construction company, he answered, "Why should I work for the company? If I worked for the company, I would have to pay child support?" Thus, he gains a personal advantage by exploiting the taxpayers and the pain of other workers. 

How widespread is the problem of misclassification? A 2022 report by DWD’s Task Force on Payroll Fraud and Worker Misclassification, the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Division of DWD conducted 1,709 audits and identified 3,365 misclassified workers in 2021. Those findings generated $780,000 in UI taxes and interest. In addition, there is a cost to the Uninsured Employers Fund ((UEF). The fund pays worker's compensation benefits on claims filed by employees injured while working for illegally uninsured employers. Payments vary substantially from year to year depending on the severity of claims accepted. The annual average for the last 10 years is $2.5 million.

Support Our Workers' Fight Against Illegal Exploitation

These numbers show that there are many employers in Wisconsin who are willing to increase their profits by exploiting Wisconsin’s workers and defrauding our state’s taxpayers. We should not allow that. Our state should step up its enforcement efforts as Gov. Evers has recommended.

If we Democrats want to recapture our position as advocates for working Americans, we can begin here at home. We can take advantage of this opportunity to provide real support for working-class people of all races and genders. The difference between the real support that we offer and the fake support that Republicans offer will be obvious to everyone.

Let’s get to work! Contact your state legislators and tell them that you want to see our state increase the amount of money devoted to the proper enforcement of the laws against the illegal misclassification of workers. 

A Challenge and an Opportunity for Democrats

 The Challenge

The Republicans recently won all of the statewide electoral offices in Louisiana, and Charleston recently elected its first Republican mayor since the 19th century.  These victories show the consequences for Democrats of having become the party of the patrimonial middle class, and if we Democrats do not pay attention, we will lose in other places. 

To win back our place as the party of working Americans, we must regain our focus on inequities of class as well as those of race or gender. We must become again the party that created Social Security, Medicare and many other programs that redistribute wealth from the very wealthy to ordinary Americans of all races and genders.

The Opportunity

We can begin by becoming an ally in working-class struggles. Pres. Biden understands this as he showed recently in his support of the United Auto Workers' strike against the big three auto companies. Now, the UAW has begun a broader campaign to organize workers in non-union automobile plants, and that gives Democrats an opportunity to speak out publicly in support of the campaign. We should take advantage of that opportunity if we want to rebuild working-class support for Democrats. We should also use this as an opportunity to campaign against so-called "right-to-work" laws at the state level.

We Must Remember that the Status Anxiety of American Workers is Legitimate

American workers suffer legitimately from status anxiety due to their increasingly precarious financial situation.  Wealth and income are being concentrated more and more in the hands of a tiny minority, while ordinary, working people are finding themselves more and more insecure financially. Naturally, this leaves them feeling anxious. 

It has been claimed that workers are anxious not because they are financially insecure but because they feel threatened by the rise of Black people. That may be true for some, but far more suffer from status anxiety legitimately because their social position is endangered by their financial insecurity.  They are anxious because their incomes have stagnated in a time of rising prices of the things that they must buy: food, housing, clothing, transportation, health care.

We Have an Opportunity Now

In our increasingly unequal economy, people of all races are suffering. White people in the steel towns of Ohio or coal towns of West Virginia are suffering, and Black people in rust-belt cities like Detroit or Milwaukee are suffering, too. Working class women are suffering even more than the men. This has given us an opportunity to build a class-based coalition across the lines of race and gender, and now is the time to seize it.  We can begin by supporting the UAW's organizing drive.

We Can Offer Real Support Instead of the Republicans' Fake Support

The Republicans like to claim to be the party of working-class Americans, and our focus on the problems of middle-class women and minorities has made the claim seem credible. The Republican claim is of course completely fraudulent. The Republican Party’s policy positions continue to favor the interests of wealthy people and corporations, but at least the Republicans say that they care about working-class Americans, while we do not even appear to do that. Now, we can change that. We can follow Pres. Biden by offering public support to the UAW.

We Can Promote Redistributive Policies That Really Help Working Americans

We are surviving as a major party for the moment because the leader of the Republican Party is completely disgusting, because the Republican Party is in disarray and because millions of women have become activists to preserve the right of a pregnant woman to choose an abortion, but this situation will not last forever. The right of a woman to choose will gradually be preserved by action in most states, and Mr. Trump will be gone from the stage eventually. If we want to be a strong party in the future, we will have to regain our focus on redistributive policies that really help working-class Americans of all races and genders. We will have to be passionate about things like the wealth tax proposed by Elizabeth Warren; we will have to work for things like affordable child-care or Medicare for All; we will have to support a way of paying for higher education that does not leave young people with crushing debts; and we will have to support our labor unions. 

We will not be starting from scratch. As I said in an earlier post, "Our party does not lack for redistributive ideas. Democratic leaders like Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie Sanders have made a number of redistributive proposals, but they have not generated the kind of grass-roots enthusiasm that would be needed to turn them into major planks in the Democratic platform."

We need to pick up our party's redistributive proposals and run with them. We need to return to our roots.

A Little Sanity, Please

 A little sanity in the discussion of the war in Gaza would be useful. Shouting slogans with ambiguous meanings only muddies the water. We must strive for peace, and to do so, we must think and talk clearly and sensibly. So, here are a few ideas for talking about the war sensibly.

First, we can condemn the bombing of Gaza without denying Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no contradiction between saying that Israel has a right to defend itself and saying that Israel’s actions in the current invasion of Gaza are excessive, wrong-headed and inhumane. We can say that killing thousands of civilians by bombing is not a proper way for Israel to defend itself. In fact, it may in the long run be counterproductive.

Second, we can condemn Hamas’s raid of October 7 and also say that Israel should not be killing so many innocent civilians. We can say that Hamas’s raid that killed more than a thousand people was wrong and also that Israel’s response, which is killing thousands of people, is wrong. In addition, we can say that Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank have contributed to the violence without absolving Hamas of responsibility for the attack of October 7, which they planned and carried out. There is plenty of blame to go around. All parties must share the responsibility for what has occurred.

Third, we can understand that Israel’s excessive response it is exactly what Hamas's raid on October 7 was intended to produce. Hamas predicted Israel’s reaction correctly and brought suffering on the residents of Gaza in order to win a big propaganda victory. Israel fell into the trap that Hamas had laid. Again, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Fourth, we can avoid extremist slogans. The suffering of the people of Gaza is awful and completely unacceptable, but the bombing is not equivalent to genocide, and opposition to Israel’s bombing campaign is not the equivalent of antisemitism.

Fifth, looking beyond the current violence, we must recognize that politically, there is no single Israeli position and no single Palestinian position. There are extremists in Israel who believe that Israel should include all of the land that was supposedly included in the biblical kingdom of David and Solomon. People who hold this belief are a minority in Israel. There are also many Israelis who favor peace through the two-state solution or the one-state solution. Some are now proposing an extraordinarily creative third possibility.

There is also an extremist position among the Palestinians which says that Israel is nothing but a vestige of colonialism and that it has no right to exist at all. That is the official position of Hamas. On the other hand, many Palestinians favor a position that says only that Palestinians have a right to a national state of their own. They would accept a two-state solution, and some would accept a one-state solution. Some are now proposing the creative third possibility mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The two-state solution is the position of the PLO, which governs in the West Bank.

Finally, we must recognize that neither extreme position can ever lead to peace. The extreme positions can only lead to a fight to the death. Only a solution that gives political autonomy to the Palestinians while assuring the continued existence and security of the State of Israel can be a basis for peace. So, we should be careful what we wish for, and we should be careful about the slogans that we use. Let's try to contribute to peace and not to endless conflict.

In the Image of God: thoughts on the Death of Rosalynn Carter

What is the Image of God?

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, we read “God created Man in His image.” What can this verse possibly mean to us? Hardly anyone today believes that God has a physical body that looks like our bodies. Even people who profess to take the Bible literally balk at that. Most religious people today do not take any of the biblical creation story literally, much less this apparently absurd claim that we and our neighbors resemble God physically. So, what can this verse mean to us?

We can start to answer this question by asking another one. What do we mean when we speak of “the image of God?” The only image of God that we can know is the image that we have in our minds. We have an “image” of God in our minds although it is not a corporeal image. Our image of God is made up of the qualities that we attribute to him/her. What do we say of God? We say that he/she is just. We say that he/she is merciful. We say that he/she loves us and cares what happens to us. We say that God is a “person” who hears our prayers.

We Can Try to Be as We Imagine God to Be

If our image of God is composed of qualities like justice, mercy, love, caring and listening, then our statement that we are created in his/her image can only mean that we also are just and merciful, that we also care and listen. Unfortunately, we know that often, we lack these qualities. We are frequently unjust and unmerciful. We often do not care about our fellows, and rarely do we really listen to what they say. Nevertheless, we aspire to act according to principles like justice and mercy, and we aspire to care about each other and to listen to each other.

In that aspiration, we can find the meaning of the biblical verse for us. We can take it to mean that we have the potential to live up to our image of God. We can work to realize our potential. We can move ourselves closer to resembling the image that we have of him/her. Our aspiration can be both personal and social. As an individual, I can try to act justly and mercifully as much as I can. I can think about the sufferings of others and do what I can to alleviate them. I can focus on listening to what they say and even to what they do not say openly. We can also work together to make our society as just and merciful as we can. We can make our institutions responsive to people’s needs. We can build institutions that hear the cries of our people. We can make a society that resembles our image of God.

Believers and Non-Believers Alike

From this point of view, the biblical verse can mean the same thing to those who do not believe in a personal God as it does to those who do believe. Believers and non-believers alike can strive to live up to an ideal of humane conduct. We can all strive to be the people that we aspire to be and to build the society that we aspire to live in. This is not a task that we can complete. We can never be perfect people or create a perfect society, but we can aspire to go forward in that direction.

Rosalynn Carter Worked to Realize the Image of God in Her Life

Rosalynn Carter built her life around that aspiration. She and her husband worked to bring themselves and our society as close as possible to the image of God, and they achieved more than most of us. Let remember her for her heroic struggle, and may we, too, strive to realize the image of God in our lives.

How Can We Provide More Affordable, Workforce Housing in the Fox Valley?

 Housing Crisis in the Fox Valley

We have a terrible housing crisis all over our country. Affordable, workforce housing is scarce and expensive. Many hardworking people are burdened by the excessive cost of housing when they can afford it at all. Affordable, workforce housing is also scarce where I live in Wisconsin’s Fox Valley, even though housing in Wisconsin is less expensive than in some other states. 

Federal guidelines recommend that households spend no more than 30% of their incomes on housing. Those that have to spend more than that are considered “cost burdened” because housing takes up such a large part of their income that they struggle to pay for other things like food or clothing, and they struggle to save anything.  According to a study published in 2019, nearly 20% of Appleton households and 23% of Green Bay households were considered cost burdened, and the situation has only gotten worse since then. 

An article in the Post-Crescent discussed the reasons why affordable housing is scarce in our community.

Paulsen [a professor of urban planning in Madison] said a good rule of thumb to determine how much a household should spend on a conventional mortgage is to multiply its income by three. So, to afford one of McHugh's cheapest and smallest homes, at $264,900, a household would need to earn around $88,000 a year. [McHugh is a builder in the Fox Valley.] 

The "sweet spot" for workforce housing in the Appleton area would be homes between $180,000 and $225,000, Paulsen said. All you have to do is look at the listings to realize there is virtually nothing in that price range," Paulsen said. "And if it is available, it goes really quickly....

It's also nearly impossible to build a new home within that price range….

This is Wrong and It Hurts Us All

This is wrong. It is unjust. Hardworking people who live in our community should not be struggling just to afford places to live. Buying a house is part of the American Dream. Buying a house is a step in a family's struggle to build wealth. A lack of decent affordable places to live gives the lie to the American Dream and feeds the feeling that many people have that our system is rigged against them. 

That is not all. The suffering that is being inflicted on our working people is also hurting the Fox Valley as a whole because the lack of affordable, workforce housing makes our communities less attractive as places to work and to establish businesses.

We Don’t Want to Lose Our Economic Advantage

We in the Fox Valley should think about ways to solve our housing problem because our low cost of living has in recent years been one of our main strengths in the competition to attract jobs and workers. If we want our communities to grow and prosper, we should look for ways to keep our cost of living low. One of the things we can do is to make sure that we have plenty of affordable, workforce housing, and in order to do that effectively, we should first understand the reasons why affordable housing has become so scarce and so expensive. Affordable housing has become scarce and expensive because we face a reduced supply of housing and an increased demand for it at the same time.

Why the Supply of Housing is Low

The reasons for the high cost of housing fall into two groups: market-based causes and non-market-based causes.

Market-Based Causes

The low supply originated in the crash of 2008. Because of the crash, the average number of houses built per year dropped drastically and has not yet fully recovered. The pandemic exacerbated the problem because the combination of low interest rates and quarantine requirements led lots of people to buy new homes, thus taking them off the market.

The inflation of recent years exacerbated the problem still further by raising the cost of building materials. In addition, many baby boomers have decided to continue to live in their homes rather than selling them to downsize into apartments or moving into assisted living.

Finally, many houses have been bought by investment groups. They often can pay cash and can afford to pay slightly higher prices than individuals. So, the investment groups have an advantage in the market, and their investment programs have limited the supply of housing available to individuals.

Non-Market-Based Causes

The housing market is not an entirely free market. It is heavily affected by government actions including zoning laws, building regulations and the rules governing government programs like veterans’ programs or the FHA that provide inexpensive mortgages. The housing market is also affected by rules and covenants designed by developers for the subdivisions they develop. Developers may specify that houses must have a minimum size in square feet or that certain kinds of building materials must be used. Such restrictions raise the cost of building houses. In addition, developers may specify a certain minimum lot size that limits the number of houses that can be built in a subdivision.

The Rental Market

Finally, we should note that the high cost and low supply of housing for sale has put pressure on the rental market, too. People who cannot buy places to live must rent them, and so, the scarcity of affordable housing for sale has driven up rents all over the United States. Moreover, all the things that have limited the supply of housing for sale have also limited the supply of rental housing.

Why the Demand for Housing is High

All of the limitations on the supply of housing have crashed into the demand created by the millennial generation’s reaching their prime home-buying years. The millennial generation is the largest since the baby-boom, and their desire to buy houses has created a tremendous demand just when the supply has been limited by the factors mentioned above.

Approaches to Solutions

In order to make available more of the housing that we need, the actions of governments must increase the supply of affordable, workforce housing on the market. The most direct approach would be to build public housing, but that would be expensive, and it would take a long time. Fortunately, there are other approaches that rely on creating incentives for private builders and on reducing or modifying existing regulations.

 State and local governments are well positioned to take action to increase the supply of housing. Some of the actions suggested below would be actions of local governments, and some would be actions of our state government. In addition, the state may act to facilitate local solutions. The list of solutions suggested here is not intended to be exhaustive. I hope that the ideas presented will stimulate our leaders to think creatively about solutions.

Incentivize construction of affordable new homes

Various levels of government can provide incentives for the construction of affordable housing by ingenious use of the tax system. A city or a school district could for example offer property tax rebates for to developers or builders of houses that are built on small lots or are built as manufactured houses. In addition, loans could be made available at attractive interest rates to builders of workforce housing or to buyers of such houses. In setting up such programs, we should be careful to avoid the errors that were made by the FHA that made such inexpensive financing unavailable to black people and contributed to the gap in rates of home ownership between black people and white people today.

A city could also invest in “housing parks” just as it now invests in industrial parks, and it could invite builders to build affordable, workforce housing in the parks. A housing park would be a subdivision that is deliberately planned to provide affordable, workforce housing. A city would in effect become the developer of the housing park subdivision and would invite builders to purchase lots and build houses just as would be done in a privately developed subdivision. The city could issue bonds to finance the purchase of the land, and the bonds would be paid off from the sale of the lots and from the property taxes that the new houses would generate.

Lift condo lending restrictions

Condos are less expensive than free-standing houses, but the rules governing the financing of condos are particularly cumbersome. The rules could be simplified, and that would create a bigger supply of condos. A city could also encourage the building of condos in our housing parks by setting aside land for them. Moreover, if the city were the "sponsor," (developer), the financing would be easier.

Focus on manufactured housing

Manufactured housing is much cheaper than housing constructed by traditional methods. The production of manufactured housing has fallen considerably since the nineteen-nineties, and if it were revived, houses could be produced much more cheaply.

Improve financing for existing homes

Today, a bank will generally lend money for the purchase of an existing house only on the basis of its current value, but a person may wish to buy a house and rehabilitate it. If a loan could be arranged to cover the cost of the rehabilitation as well as the existing value, that would make it easier for people who want to put in “sweat equity” to buy houses and fix them up. The effect would be to increase the supply of affordable housing in our community.

Lift or Modify Zoning Restrictions and Development Covenants

Zoning restrictions effectively prevent affordable housing from being built in many neighborhoods, and changing the restrictions is difficult because of NIMBYism. Nevertheless, we should explore loosening our zoning restrictions on a case-by-case basis in order to increase the supply of affordable housing.

In the development of new subdivisions, we should discourage building covenants that make the construction of affordable housing difficult or impossible.

To Fight for Social Justice, We Must Stay Together

 Remember What Our Goal Is

We Democrats should remind ourselves what our most important goal is: it is to make our society here in the United States more just and equitable. We promote policies that redistribute income from the upper class to the rest of the people, as we have done in the past. We created Social Security, Medicare and the G.I. Bill. We created Head Start and Food Stamps. In the future, if we hold together, we will be able to create a decent health care system; we will be able to have affordable childcare and affordable housing; and we will be able to have a system of post-secondary education that does not leave people with crushing debts.

In order to achieve these and other elements of a just society, we have to stay together. We have to overcome our tendency to split over issues that are not at the core of our mission. The current conflict in the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza is an example. Members of the Democratic Party trade accusations of racism. Some say that that Israel’s policies are colonialist and racist, while others say that critics of Israel are antisemites. Each side effectively says that the other side is racist.

We Will Always Have Differences of Opinion

This is understandable to a degree. Palestinians like Rashida Tlaib naturally feel sympathy for Palestinians in Palestine, and in addition, she has many Palestinians in her district. Similarly, Jews in the United States naturally feel sympathy for Jews in Israel, and politicians from districts with large, Jewish populations will reflect that sympathy. The Democratic Party has always been diverse, and its members will never agree on all issues. We certainly disagree deeply over issues connected with the conflict between Israel and Hamas and with American policy toward Israel.  

If We Want Social Justice, We Must Stay Together

In dealing with our disagreements, we should remember that those issues are not part of our core mission. Our struggle is for a more just and equitable society here at home, and we should not risk losing that fight over an issue that has little relevance to it. Unfortunately, it appears that elections may be decided over attitudes toward the war, and as a result, we may lose a chance to promote social justice in our country. We will lose the chance because voters will desert the Democratic Party.

Some voters will desert the Democratic Party because of what they see as a racist and neocolonialist policy toward Israel. Other voters will desert the party because of what they see as the antisemitism of the left. Both groups will weaken Pres. Biden’s chance of being re-elected as well as the chance of creating a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. Moreover, the latest polls tell us that if we want to reelect our president or secure a Democratic majority in Congress next year, we need more than ever to stay together. Since social justice can be advanced only by Democratic majorities, the dispute over the war in Gaza will reduce the chances of making our society more equitable.

If We Want to Save Our Democracy, We Must Stay Together

That is not all. The Republican Party is currently dominated by people who have only contempt for our democracy. They tried to overthrow our last presidential election. They are trying to fasten on us the views of a fanatical, religious minority. They have used gerrymandering to maintain control of state governments, and they have elected an extreme white Christian nationalist as speaker of the house. We cannot allow them to regain the White House.

If we want to be effective in politics, we must choose our fights. We must prioritize our goals. We will never have a political party in which we all agree on all issues, but if we want to be able to make our country more just, we have to keep our party together.  So, we have to remember what we really care about. We are the party of social justice, and driving Jews out of the Democratic Party will hurt the chances for social justice in our country. So will driving away Palestinians and our party’s left wing.

If We Want Peace, We Must Stay Together

We need to think about how we talk about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. 

Those who support Israel can do so without accusing anyone who criticizes Israel of being antisemitic or of glorifying terrorism. Israel's supporters can avoid comparing Hamas's raid to the Holocaust.  They must accept that many people all over the world - including many Jews and many Israelis - agree that Israel and its policies bear some responsibility for the recurring violence of which the current war is only the latest example. Israel's supporters can mourn for the dead on both sides. They can condemn Hamas's terrorism while also condemning Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. In both cases, innocent people have been killed. Israel's friends can - as many Israelis do - support the Palestinians' demand for national autonomy while resisting any demand for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Those who support the Palestinian cause can do so without claiming that Israel's very existence is nothing more than an expression of white racism or European colonialism. They can avoid the hyperbole of genocide. They can condemn Israel's bombing of Gaza without glorifying Hamas's attack. They can mourn for the dead on both sides. They can support the Palestinian demand for national autonomy without insisting on the destruction of the State of Israel. Either the two-state solution or the one-state solution offers a framework for supporting the Palestinian cause. So, if we want to move toward peace and keep our party together, we must talk about real solutions of these kinds and not waste time vilifying each other. Playing the blame game is not a road to peace.

Remember what we care about! Keep our party together to win in 2024, to promote social justice in our country and to further the cause of peace in the Middle East!

Making Our Social Security System Sustainable

Our Social Security System is Unsustainable As It Is Now Structured

Our Social Security system is financially unsustainable because it is paying out more than it is taking in. Somewhere around 2033, beneficiaries will have their benefits cut unless we reform the system. Social Security is a PAYGO system in which the Social Security taxes paid by current workers fund the payments to current retirees. That works well as long as the number of workers is large compared to the number of retired people, but the number of retired people is growing much faster than the number of workers as our population ages, and that is why our system has become unsustainable.

When Social Security was founded in 1935, the number of workers was much larger than the number of retired people, and so, it made sense to base the system on the wages of current workers alone, but now the system is unsustainable. 

Why Do We Have a Social Security System?

To see how we ought to deal with this situation, we should go back to first principles and work from there. Why do we have a Social Security System? We have a Social Security System for the same reason that we engage in any economic activity. Why do we work to produce goods and services, and why does our government promote economic growth? We do these things to provide for our needs. We work to produce food so that we can eat; we work to build houses so that we can have places to live; we work to care for sick people so that they don’t die. We know that each of us will someday be too old to work, and so, we put aside a certain part of our income to provide for us when we reach that point. We do that as individuals and as a society.

How Can We Make Our Social Security System Sustainable?

Many Republicans want to tell us that we can no longer afford our Social Security System, mediocre as it is. They tell us that we must reduce the benefits provided to retirees because we cannot afford them. Their argument is that the Social Security Tax as it is now structured cannot provide the benefits that have been promised. They are right about that, but they ignore the fact that the Social Security tax that we pay does not define our commitment to provide for our old age. The tax is only the mechanism that we use to put aside money to meet that commitment. If the mechanism we are now using is inadequate, we should not go back on our commitment to provide a decent retirement for all. We should find a better mechanism for providing it. 

The system that we have now draws its income from taxes on wages and salaries but not on other forms of income. In the nineteen thirties it made sense to design the system that way, but it no longer makes sense today.  We can achieve a part of our goal of making the system solvent by taxing all wages and salaries instead of only those below a certain level, but that will not do the whole job. The number of workers needed to produce the goods and services that we buy is far smaller than it was in 1935. Moreover, We live in a time when a larger and larger share of our national income goes into returns on capital and a snaller share goes to wages. If our goal is to use a portion of our national income to provide for our retirement, we should ask ourselves whether income from capital should also pay Social Security tax.

We have determined that as a society, we wish to put aside a portion of our national income for supporting retired members of our society. If our mechanism for doing so is based on wages and salaries alone and the share of national income going to wages and salaries keeps declining while the number of retired people keeps growing, the result must be that the mechanism will fail eventually.

Investment Income Must Pay Social Security Tax

Fortunately, while the share of our income going to wages and salaries has declined, the total national income has not.  Our national income per capita is much bigger today than it was in 1935 , but the share of that income going to returns on capital has increased. We have plenty of income to support us in retirement, but we cannot do so by taxing wages and salaries alone. We must also tax the income from capital investment.

Our country today is much richer than it was in 1935 because the workers of today produce much more than the workers of the nineteen forties did, but the percentage of the national income that goes to workers has declined while the percentage going to capital has increased. That trend will continue as long as the return to capital investment is greater than the growth rate of the economy as a whole – a condition that has held consistently since the nineteen eighties. If we wish to have a sustainable retirement system, income from capital investment must pay Social Security Tax.

Emily Tseffos Understands the Need for Childcare

We Need Affordable Childcare

Emily Tseffos , who is running to become the state representative from Wisconsin District 56, understands that we desperately need affordable child care in Wisconsin, and that is why she supports Gov. Evers proposal to use state funds to extend Childcare Counts in 2024.  Unless the federal program is extended, it will disappear next year, and that would be a tragedy because, as a recent Post-Crescent article says,

Childcare is already unaffordable for most Wisconsin families. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers child care affordable if it takes 7% or less of a household's income, all children included. Brooke Skidmore, owner and director of New Glarus' The Growing Tree Child Care Center and WECAN co-founder, said that many families devote 20% to 40% of their household income for one child alone.

Extending Childcare Counts a beginning, but by itself, it is not nearly enough to meet our state’s need for affordable childcare. If she is elected, Emily Tseffos will make expanding the availability of affordable childcare an important priority.

Why is it so important to invest our state’s money in affordable childcare?

Childcare is Infrastructure

Emily says that the easiest way to think about this issue is to think of child care as a kind of infrastructure.  We build roads and airports, and we support public schools and universities as infrastructure investments. We do that because we know that the free market would not provide these things even though our economy needs them.  Our economy also needs workers, and studies have shown that many women would take jobs if they could find affordable childcare.

Unfortunately, the market cannot provide childcare at a price that is affordable, that allows childcare workers to be paid a decent wage and that allows childcare companies to make a profit. So, we should think of childcare as a kind of infrastructure, and we should provide it just as we provide roads or public schools in order to help our economy to grow. Many of our businesses would like to expand, but they cannot do so because they cannot hire the workers they need. By expanding the pool of available workers, an investment in affordable childcare would help our economy to grow and thus would benefit our entire community.

Take Action Now

If you agree with Emily Tseffos that providing affordable childcare is important, there are two things that you should do:

• Right now, you should call your state legislators in Madison and tell them that you support the effort to extend Childcare Counts in 2024.
• Next year, if you live in District 56, you should vote for Emily Tseffos to represent District 56 in Madison.

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Socialism vs. Redistributive Policies

 One of my readers asked what the difference was between socialism and what I have called "redistributive policies," and perhaps others are not clear about the distinction. So, here goes.

What is Socialism?

"Socialism" has been given many meanings, but as I see it, the core idea is that economic production must be organized around the public welfare rather than around the profitability of companies. In its most extreme form, socialism involves the central planning of most production. In less extreme forms, it involves the public ownership of major parts of the economy that are deemed to be important to the public welfare. The problem with socialism is that it has never worked very well on a large scale, and in its extreme forms, it has been extremely oppressive. 

In a capitalist system, companies plan their work to maximize their profits, and, while that is not morally attractive, it actually promotes the public welfare pretty well most of the time. But not all the time and not in every way. The purpose of redistributive policies is to counteract the bad effects of capitalism while allowing it to continue to do what it does best, which is to promote economic efficiency. 

Redistributive Policies

There are two types of redistributive policies. One type is to subsidize needed services so that people can obtain them at an affordable cost. A subsidy for childcare would be an example. Everyone agrees that there is no way for the market to provide childcare at a price that is affordable, that allows childcare workers to be paid a reasonable wage and that allows childcare companies to make a profit. A redistributive policy might provide subsidies either to the childcare companies or to the consumers of childcare. Our government had such a policy for a while. It was intended to allow the childcare companies to avoid failing during the pandemic. 

Healthcare provides another example. Many people believe that no one ought to be denied adequate healthcare, but no country has ever found a way to provide healthcare to everyone without government support in some form. In healthcare as in childcare, the government uses part of its revenue to pay part of the cost of these services in order to make them affordable for everyone.

The other type of redistributive policy is more general. Its goal is to limit the increasing concentration of wealth that is inevitable when the rate of return on capital investment is greater than the growth rate of the economy. To limit the concentration of wealth, we need things like progressive income taxes, wealth taxes or inheritance taxes.  Again, the point of the tax would be to allow the economy to be run according to capitalist principles while avoiding the extreme concentration of wealth. The point of redistributive policies is to preserve capitalism while making it consistent with representative democracy. The point of socialism is to supersede capitalism.

Why We Cannot Ditch Capitalism

I have said that market capitalism and representative democracy have a fragile relationship. Without redistributive policies, forces within capitalism lead to ever increasing concentration of income and wealth in a small upper class and fail to produce an acceptable level of living for the bulk of the population. People lose faith in the political system and turn to demagogues like Donald Trump who put democracy in danger. 

If this is true, why shouldn't we get rid of market capitalism? If capitalism poses a danger to democracy, why not simply ditch the capitalism? Why go to a lot of trouble to make it less dangerous? The answer is that no one has really proposed an alternative to capitalism, although some people talk as if they had. 

"Socialist" Proposals are Really Proposals for Redistributive Policies Within Capitalism

Some politicians who call themselves “democratic socialists” have proposed that we create what they call a socialist society. However, when we examine their proposals, we find that they do not really propose eliminating capitalism at all. For example, Bernie Sanders ran for president on what he claimed was a democratic socialist platform, but his actual proposals were for things that I would call redistributive policies. He called for Medicare for All, free post-secondary education and the Green New Deal, but he left the fundamental capitalist structure of our economic system intact. There was nothing truly revolutionary in his proposals or in those of other democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Nordic countries of Europe have been touted as "socialist," but when we look closely at them, we see that they are really capitalist countries with high tax rates and strong, redistributive policies.

Most Communist Countries Have Become Capitalist

In the early twentieth century, communism seemed to be a serious alternative to capitalism. Communist revolutions occurred in several countries, but those revolutions did not lead to democratic societies and did not produce levels of living for their peoples that were better than the levels of living enjoyed by the people of capitalist countries. In addition, several countries gained their independence under the banner of communism, but almost all of them have turned to capitalism to provide better lives for their peoples. The only exceptions are countries like North Korea that are notoriously poor and repressive.

We Are Stuck with Capitalism

We are stuck with capitalism because there is no alternative to it. The problem for us is not to replace capitalism but to make our capitalist society more humane. I say "more humane" rather than simply "humane" deliberately. We should not aim for a perfect society. Instead, we should look for ways to make our society better than it is now. For example, we will probably never produce a perfect health care system, but it wouldn't be hard to find ways to improve the one we have. We will never find a perfect solution to our housing problem, but we can probably find ways to make housing more affordable than it is now. We should take small steps because we will undoubtedly make mistakes, and we will need to be able to correct them.

Let's get busy! We can make a better world.

Support Extending Childcare Counts in 2024 Because We Need Affordable Childcare

 We desperately need affordable child care in Wisconsin. During the pandemic federal and state funds made childcare a little more affordable, but the federal program will disappear next year if Gov. Evers’s initiative to extend Childcare Counts is not passed. According to a recent Post-Crescent article, “

Child care is already unaffordable for most Wisconsin families. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers child care affordable if it takes 7% or less of a household's income, all children included. Brooke Skidmore, owner and director of New Glarus' The Growing Tree Child Care Center and WECAN co-founder, said that many families devote 20% to 40% of their household income for one child alone.

Childcare Counts has allowed many centers to remain open and even to pay their workers a little more. The program began as a program to help childcare centers to remain open during the pandemic. The program was extended in Wisconsin during 2023, and it is scheduled to end at the end of this year unless its funding is extended. Gov. Evers has called a special session of the legislature to consider extending the funding. He has proposed $340 million as a step toward making Childcare Counts permanent in Wisconsin. Democratic legislators in Madison are doing their best to make sure that Gov. Evers's proposal is passed, but they need your help. So, call your legislators in Madison and tell them that you support the effort to extend Childcare Counts in 2024.

In a previous post, I said that we Democrats needed to recover our focus on redistributive policies, and childcare is a good place to start.  Childcare is unaffordable everywhere in the United States including in Wisconsin. Moreover, licensed childcare centers are closing because they cannot charge enough to make a profit on their business, and childcare workers are underpaid because the centers cannot afford to pay them more. Our employers need workers, but people cannot afford to take jobs if they cannot provide for the care of their children. Moreover, good childcare programs can provide the early childhood education that is crucial to a child’s educational development. If we want to make our system work for all of our people, we have to provide subsidized childcare.

• The cost of childcare keeps many of Wisconsin's women in poverty. If you are a feminist, you must support the extension of Childcare Counts.

• The cost of childcare keeps many non-white families in poverty. If you are against racism, you must support the extension of Childcare Counts.

• If you want to see many of Wisconsin's families of all races pull themselves up from poverty, you must support the extension of Childcare Counts.

Now is the time to call your state legislators in Madison and tell them that you support the effort to extend Childcare Counts in 2024.