After the final episode of The West Wing aired, my brother in Texas called me asking, “Are you crying?” “Yes.” “Me, too,” he added. We had both enjoyed the TV show about an imaginary President of the United States of America fighting for righteous causes. It says a lot about our nation that the next TV series about a President — Scandal — showcased an administration characterized by deceit and trickery. My heroes have always been the men and women who shaped our nation from its birth. They are the courageous individuals, who, despite the odds, helped turn the nation’s arc in the right direction. John Lewis, Lincoln, Dr. King, and the Suffragettes are just a few. Heroes are leaders in my book – recognizing what needs to be done and stepping into the fray to get it done. Some lead from behind,…
Pandemic Connections
Connections have been vital this year. Outside in-person, on Facetime, Zoom, or other platforms, or through Facebook and LinkedIn – any opportunity to connect mattered as the pandemic limited everything else. But here is a conundrum about connections. Facebook suggested I “invite as a friend” a woman who shares almost one hundred Facebook friends with me, and I did not recognize her face or name. Other suggestions do not surprise me, such as the four connections I have with the brother of my nephew’s wife. Twenty-two connections with a Madison woman who belongs to a woman’s networking group of which I was a part. That makes sense. Three with the wife of a close college friend who lives on another coast and five with a young woman whose last name is the same as my ex-husband’s cousins. Twenty-five with my mortgage broker for a…
Build ??? Back Better
With a COVID vaccine in sight, economic recovery in 2021 is a reasonable expectation. But is there a way to build a better economy, not merely a larger one? It is a promise of the incoming Biden administration. Some elements economists would include in creating a better economy are listed below. Raise the standard of living for non-college-educated workers. It’s fallen by a lot. The result is worsening health statistics and growing family food insecurity, issues that existed even before the pandemic. Raising the minimum wage, rural development strategies and investments, and more affordable healthcare and housing are critical strategies for accomplishing this objective. Democrats propose changes to the tax system as the best way to achieve this aim. CEOs like Mark Benioff of Salesforce, on the other hand, argue that business and job creation is a better strategy, and there is truth…
Grading The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project (TLP) is a tribe of GOP political consultants created in advance of the November 2020 election. Its immediate objective was to convince right-leaning-independent and GOP voters in the swing states to vote for Biden and Democratic Senate candidates. Its broader aim, one that continues after this election, is to protect American democracy. Democracy for TLP is one that contains strong democratic institutions (e.g., voting by all, a Justice Department independent of politics) and fulfills the promise of our nation. Steve Bannon (Trump’s 2016 election advisor) said that if TLP could turn 4% of GOP voters to Biden, Trump would lose in 2020. So, 4% became TLP’s key performance indicator. I would suggest a higher benchmark as 4% of GOP voters voted for Hillary in 2016, according to Pew Center research. Did TLP get more than 4% of the GOP…
The economic issues facing our nation require political cooperation, not divisivenesss.
Biden is our President-elect and one thing is certain: Whatever the ultimate balance of power in the US Senate, we do not need four more years of a stalemate. The major economic issues facing our country require a US Congress that can listen, learn, debate, and collaborate with the President to find solutions that advance the well-being of our nation. What are our major economic issues? The pandemic. The exponential growth rate in COVID virus cases (and with it, ICU bed usage and deaths) is slowing down our economic growth while at the same time increasing the deficit, food shortages, evictions, anxiety, and business bankruptcies, small and large. Our excess death date and virus incidence proved we are not managing the pandemic effectively. We need the President and Congress to act on Federal powers to drive manufacturing to support Covid-fighting efforts so that…