Jim Hightower Urges Progressives To Defeat Trump

Progressive leader and Bernie Sanders supporter Jim Hightower (in picture at left from Other Words) is asking progressives to put there effort into defeating Donald Trump. He writes:

The Bernie for President campaign is over, but the political revolution that he launched against corporate rule is just beginning.

We can’t let up. Here are three things we must do to make sure the revolution to continues in full force:

• Defeat Donald Trump. If Donald Trump is elected, he'll destroy our progress—and this country—faster than a hog eats supper!
• Take back the U.S. Senate (and maybe even the House!). With Trump dragging Republicans down in the polls, there's a huge opportunity to elect progressive champions—like Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and Tammy Duckworth in Illinois—to the Senate, and to make Bernie and Elizabeth Warren chairs of powerful committees.¹ But key Senate races—in New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—are neck and neck.² Which means we need to organize.
• Push from the left. During and after the election, we've got to push Democrats to be bold progressives.

Bernie's revolution lifted us progressives from the political scrap heap up to the top of our national conversation—fighting to pass a $15 minimum wage, remove crushing education debt from the backs of students, address head-on the imminent crisis of climate change, defeat TPP, and repeal the Supreme Court’s democracy-destroying Citizens United edict.

But now the biggest obstacle standing in the way of our progress is an unreal reality show—starring The Donald.

Don't think Trump can win? Shoot, I'm from Texas, the state that brought you King George the W. and Rick Perry (a guy who put the "goober” in gubernatorial). They seemed improbable, too, and look at what a mess they made when they got elected. And even if Trump does lose, we still need to take back Congress.

As Bernie’s message spread through mass rallies and social media last fall and winter, I traveled the country and saw a revolution deeply motivated by hope—a belief in and a yearning for a more egalitarian America, a society dedicated to democracy’s fundamental principle: We’re all in this together.

That’s why I know that, if we put our collective shoulder to the wheel, we can defeat Trump in November and keep building the insurgency Bernie sparked to democratize our country’s wealth and power to benefit all and serve the common good.

Let’s do something, together. 

In solidarity,

–Jim Hightower

Income Inequality - Why Won't The Media Report On It ?

(Photo of Texas progressive, Jim Hightower, is from hightower.com.)

Income inequality is one of, if not the most important issues in this country. It has caused the widest gap between the rich and the rest of America since before the Great Depression -- the kind of gap that caused the Great Depression and the recent Great Recession. And since that gap, thanks to the continuing inequality, is still growing, it could easily tank the U.S. economy again. This brings up the question -- why isn't the major media reporting on this very serious issue?

Jim Hightower, on his own blog, gives us the answer:

The debilitating spread of inequality between the superrich 1-percenters and America's downwardly mobile majority is of huge economic, political, and cultural significance to our country. So why is it largely ignored by the television media? 

Meet David Zaslav, CEO of the Discovery Channel's cable-TV empire. His salary last year was $3 million – but it was padded with an extra $6 million bonus, nearly $2 million in perks, and a neat $145 million in special stock gimmes, a total paycheck of $156 million. For one guy in one year. Zaslav is not just a 1-percenter, but a top 1-thousandth-of-the-1-percenters.

Les Moonves at CBS is up there, too, wallowing in the $54 million he was paid in 2014. In fact, of the 10 most lavishly-paid corporate chieftains last year, six are television barons, with Comcast, Disney, Time Warner, and Verizon joining the elite class. Someone should cast the whole bunch of them in a reality-TV show called, "The Wealth Gap Are Us!"

What genius do they have that warrants such extravagant pay? None. It's simply that they are lucky hirelings of an exclusive club of wealth that owns and controls most television conglomerates. The billionaire media tycoon Sumner Redstone, for example, owns nearly 80 percent of the voting stock of both CBS and Viacom, so $50 million for Moonves is not a stretch for him, nor can other stockholders stop his excess. Likewise, only three billionaires control Discovery, and $156 million for Zaslav is nothing to them. Then there's Comcast, which owns NBC and Universal Studios. It's CEO, Brian Roberts, controls a third of the conglomerate's stock – so he's essentially able to set his own pay.

When so few people with such massive wealth control the media, the media is not likely to turn its public spotlight on the malefactions of great wealth.

GOP Candidates Serious About Reducing The Wealth Gap ?

(The cartoon above is by John Darkow in the Columbia Daily Tribune.)

It looks like some of the GOP hopefuls for their 2016 nomination are beginning to realize that the public is upset about the vast wealth/income gap in this country -- and they are beginning to talk about it. The problem is that the only "solution" they have to offer is more of the "trickle-down" policy that caused the huge gap. Here is how Texas progressive Jim Hightower puts it:

At last, America's political leaders indicate that they now feel the pain of the poor and of the millions of working families slipping out of the middle class. 

Congress had previously paid no attention to the ever-widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us, but it has recently emerged as a central issue for such Republican presidential contenders as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. They are publicly lamenting the wealth gap and – by gollies – proposing solutions. Alas, though, the "solution" proposed by each of them is not to provide help for those who've been knocked down, but to offer aid to the same corporate elites who've been knocking down the middle class and holding down the poor. 

Specifically, their solution is to cut taxes on corporations and the rich, do away with environmental and labor protections, and cut or privatize government programs – from Head Start to Social Security – that ordinary people count on. For example, Sen. Rubio proposes to kill the food stamp program (even though the need for it is greater than ever) and redirect that money into what he calls a subsidy for low-wage workers. Does he think we have sucker-wrappers around our heads? That's not a subsidy for workers, but for low-wage employers. Why should taxpayers subsidize the poverty pay of profitable giants like McDonald's, rather than making them pay living wages and cover their own labor costs? 

I guess we should count it as progress that candidates are at least having to admit that inequality is a problem, but come on – offering the same old failed, anti-government snake oil is an insult to the American people. Jeb Bush shows how vacuous their flim-flammery is by saying that, to address the ever-widening wealth and income gap, he'll "celebrate success and… cherish free enterprise." Gosh, what a comfort that'll be to America's hard-hit majority.

The Stealth Oligarchy

On his own blog, Texas progressive Jim Hightower has written one of the best commentaries on the 2014 election that I have read. I bring you his commentary because I think it should be read by as many people as possible (so we can hopefully make the changes necessary to save our representative democracy). He says:

A stunning surprise coming out of this year’s elections is that the most dominant contenders were not glad-handing braggarts, but the least likely of participants: Shy people. 

That’s strange, since running for office these days is assumed to be an ego game, attracting the loudest of self-promoters. But the big winners on Tuesday were a group that actually campaigned anonymously, not even whispering their names to the voters.

Indeed, these were not the candidates listed on your ballot, but shadow candidates that are not even people. They are corporations that have been empowered by the Frankenstein-majority on our Supreme Court to exercise the political rights of us real human-type persons. Only they’ve been endowed with far more political power than you and me, for the Court decreed that these corporate “persons” can spend unlimited amounts of their shareholders’ money on TV ads and other campaign tools to elect or defeat whomever they choose – without disclosing their names to voters.

What we have here is the rise of a stealth oligarchy in America. These politically shy corporations are pumping untold millions of dollars out of their practically bottomless corporate treasuries to elect Congress-critters, governors, and ultimately presidents who will serve their narrow special interests at the expense of the public interest. You would know these cagey corporate campaigners, for they are major brand names from Big Oil, Big Food, Big Pharma, etc. Normally, they’re not at all timid about promoting themselves, but – shhhh – they don’t want us to have any inkling that they’re running surreptitious, multimillion-dollar campaigns that have become a deciding factor in who holds public office in America.

One reason they hide their names is that they run overwhelmingly negative campaigns, degrading our so-called political discourse with the most disgusting, mendacious, and vitriolic smears against the opponents of the corporate-friendly candidates they hope to elect. They would never want such slime attached to their corporate brands, for it would anger and repel their customers, employees, and shareholders. That's why their lawyers pushed the Supreme Court so hard to let them do their repugnant politicking, yet not have to be accountable for it.

Another reason that corporations want to "vote" in our elections without showing their identities is that honest disclosure would tarnish their favored candidates as shameless corporate toadies. If ExxonMobil had to reveal that it put up $50,000 or $100,000 or more to elect Bob Bogus from Bogullusa to Congress, voters would surely suspect that Bob was going to back Exxon's plan to frack their community. With the legalization of secrete campaigns, however, Exxon can hitch Bob to its wagon without voters even knowing.

We're about to see this formula of secret money = election = bad policy in action. Just in terms of campaign donations it disclosed, Wall Street put more money than ever into this year's elections, and a bigger portion of that than ever went to Republicans. We don't know how much dark money the banksters donated to the GOP because, obviously, the donors can keep that their little secret. But we do know that the new Republican Congress has gleefully declared Wall Street deform one of its top priorities.

Following the greed-fueled financial meltdown of 2008, reformers passed the Dodd-Frank bill, imposing modest restrictions on Wall Street's reckless speculation and setting up a new consumer watchdog to protect people from predatory financial greed. Even though both reforms have proven beneficial, and even no GOP candidate dared to promise voters that "I'll kill those protections and unleash the arrogant greedmeisters on your again" – that's exactly what the Republican majority will now vote to do.

The message of this election is that money matters – it matters more than what We The People want lawmakers to do, or not do. At the very least, shouldn't we be told the truth about who's buying what with their massive, self-serving political spending?

How ironic that cynical lawmakers demand that us commoners show our picture on an official "voter ID" card in order to be allowed to cast a ballot, yet they allow enormously rich corporations to buy our elections (and, therefore, our public policies) without showing a "Donor ID" card. If you're wondering who's in charge, there it is.

To battle oligarchic rule-by-money, connect with Public Citizen: www.citizen.org.

Political Ads Are Getting Nastier (Thanks To Dark Money)

Do you think it's just your imagination that campaigns seem to be getting nastier these days? Well, you would be wrong. Although their have always been a certain amount of negative political ads in American elections, there are more of them now than in the past.

That's what the Wesleyan Media Project found when they did a survey of political ads. They surveyed all the political ads (for governor, U.S. House, and U.S. Senate) in the same time frame in 2010, 2012, and 2014. They found a significantly higher number of negative ads in 2014 for all three kinds of races, and in the senate races the negative ads actually made up a majority of all the political ads.

Why are their more negative ads this year? A major reason is the influx of "dark money" into our campaigns. Ever since the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision, corporations and rich donors have been donating to super-PACS. These super-PACs don't have to report who their donors are and there's no limit to the amount of money they can spend (as long as they don't openly coordinate their ad spending with a candidate's campaign). Since this is "dark money" (secret donations) that doesn't have to be reported to the FEC, these organizations can get as nasty with their ads as they want -- and there will be no repercussions, since the public cannot know who is paying for the nasty ads.

This is having some bad effects on American campaigns. It is allowing corporations and the rich to secretly buy the candidates of their choice, and it is lowering the tone of our campaigns -- and it is turning our representative democracy into a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy class).

Here is how Texas progressive Jim Hightower describes it on his own blog:

When five Supreme Court justices decreed that corporations are entitled to full free speech rights in our elections and that corporate money is a form of speech that cannot be restricted, they produced a nightmare tsunami of corporate cash that is now drowning our People's democratic rights. After all, if money is speech, then speech is no longer free – it's for sale.

This year, we're seeing what the Court's absurd edict is costing us. First, the corporate purchase of political speech has in fact reached tsunamic force in the current Congressional races. Spending on TV ads will likely top $2 billion, 70 percent higher than four years ago, when the Court issued its Citizens United money ruling.

Second, the bulk of this speech is not being bought by candidates or parties, but by secretive outside front groups that hide the corporate interests funding the ads. In Senate races alone, these shadow groups have already run some 150,000 TV spots. The Koch brothers' main front group, Americans for Prosperity, is by far the biggest buyer of speech, having laid out $44 million on Congressional races in just the first six months of this election year. 

Third, and most pernicious, the court-created "right" of moneyed front groups to flood the airwaves has handed them the power to dictate any campaign's message. The ads of those secret fronts now define the issues and even the candidates themselves before the race really gets going. Worse, because the outside groups are anonymous, their "speech" consists almost entirely of the nastiest, most vituperative attacks on candidates they oppose, turning our election-year discourse into toxic slimefests that turn off voters and shrivel turnout.

To help stop the corporate purchase of the People's political speech rights, connect with www.MoveToAmend.org.

It's Time To Offer A Free College Education To Qualified Students In The United States

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am in favor of the government providing free college tuition to students who qualify for college admission. Other countries do it because they know it benefits them -- providing a more educated workforce, giving people a way to better themselves, and providing more revenues for government (through the higher taxes educated people pay on their higher incomes). In other words, it is good for everyone -- students, society, and government.

Germany has just realized this, and recently passed a law providing free tuition for college students. But here in the United States, we do just the opposite. College costs go up every year, making college unaffordable for many poor and working class students (and even some from the lower middle class), and students who try to overcome this by borrowing to pay for their education find themselves deeply in debt upon graduation -- forcing them to spend years paying off that debt, instead of actually bettering themselves (getting married, buying homes, investing, establishing retirement accounts, etc.). Currently, Americans owe more than $1.2 trillion in student loan debt.

It is time the United States realized that providing free tuition for college students would be cost-effective for government (since we would easily recoup the cost their the higher taxes graduates would pay), and would help to reduce the growing economic inequality in this country (by providing an easy way for students to climb the economic ladder).

The Republicans tell us we can't afford to provide free tuition for college students. That is just not true. We would get far more back in increased tax revenues than we would spend providing the free tuition. And if money was needed to start the program, that could be provided by using part of a "Robin Hood" tax (a small tax on Wall Street stock market trades). We can afford it, and it would put this country back on a competitive footing with countries that already do it.

And one of Texas' leading progressives agrees with me. Here's what Jim Hightower has to say about this issue on his excellent blog:

Question: Is making higher education available to every American more important to our national interest than letting Wall Street profiteers make a few more billions-of-dollars each year?

Answer: Of course. Yet, our political leaders – pushed by Wall Street lobbyists – have been making the opposite choice for years. As a result, banksters have loaded students down with a mountain of high-interest loans, rising from just over $2 billion a decade ago to nearly a trillion last year. Worse, the financiers – either banks or government lenders – have become the gatekeepers of advanced education, shutting out thousands of young people wanting to get ahead, but not able to hurdle the formidable financial barrier.

This is enormously costly to America – and completely unnecessary. The smart choice – as we learned from the GI Bill after World War II – would be to make college and professional training free. Universal access to higher education – ie, free access – produces a very high return on the public's investment, while also producing widely-shared prosperity and a broadly educated citizenry.

Of course, an up-front investment in a smarter, more productive, more democratic civilization is pricey. So where do we get the money to do what America needs? Get it from where it went. Wall Street's superrich speculators are now making millions of super-fast, robotic financial transactions per second, generating trillions of dollars a year for them – but producing nothing of real value for us, while distorting and endangering markets.

Put a tiny tax on each of those automated gambles by speculators, and more than enough money will come into the public coffers to free-up higher-ed for all. For information, check out United States Students Association: www.usstudents.org.

Don't Let Congress Kill The U.S. Postal System

The Republicans want you to think the United States Postal Service (USPS) is a failure, and needs to be abandoned in favor of private carriers. That is a lie. The USPS has always performed effectively, and continues to do so. The only reason it is in any kind of trouble is the onerous requirements that have been placed on it by Congress (especially the Republicans, who don't want their corporate buddies to have to compete with the USPS).

Here is how Texas populist Jim Hightower puts it on his blog:

One public service that people really like and count on is the post office – which literally delivers for us.

Antigovernment ideologues and privatization dogmatists, however, hate the very word "public," and they've long sought to demonize the US Postal Service, undercut its popular support, and finally dismantle it. Their main line of attack has been to depict it as a bloated, inefficient, outmoded agency that's a hopeless money loser, sucking billions from taxpayers. Never mind that USPS doesn't take a dime of tax money to fund its operation – it's actually a congressionally-chartered, for-profit corporation that earns its revenue by selling stamps and services to customers. And here's something that will come as a surprise to most people: The post office makes a profit – expected to be more than a billion dollars this year.

Yet, the media keep reporting that the USPS is losing billions of dollars each year. What they fail to mention, however, is that those are phony paper losses manufactured by Congress at the behest of corporate privatizers.

Late in 2006, the lame duck Republican Congress rammed into law a cockamamie requirement that the Postal Service must pre-fund the retiree health benefits of everyone it employs or expects to employ for the next 75 years. Hello, that includes workers who're not even born yet! No other business in America is required to pre-fund such benefits for even one year. To add to Congress' cockamamie-ness, the service is being forced to put up all of that money within just 10 years – which has been costing USPS more than $5 billion a year. That artificial burden accounts for 100 percent of the so-called "losses" the media keep reporting.

It's like tying an anvil around someone's neck, throwing the person out of a boat, and saying, "Swim to shore, sucker."

Jim Hightower Blasts Businesses Paying A "Poverty Wage"

(This photo of Jim Hightower is from the Texas Tribune.)

I have made it clear many times on this blog that I believe the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a poverty wage -- and nothing more than wage theft. But Jim Hightower, one of the leading progressives in the Lone Star State, has a way with words (that I only wish I had) -- so I bring you his latest remarks on the minimum wage from his own excellent website:

The good news is that it's not all bad news these days.

Take the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – please! That's a poverty wage, a shameful stain on our extremely rich nation. But don't count on Washington to lift our wage floor – indeed, pigheaded Republican congress critters refuse to consider it, even declaring there should be no wage floor to sustain America's middle-class framework.

So where's the good news? Probably right where you live. Millions of low-wage workers themselves – from fast food workers to adjunct college professors – have been organizing and mobilizing, pushing local leaders to take action against the immoral inequality that's ripping our society apart and sinking our economy. Sure enough, local officials are responding – Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Austin, Providence, San Francisco, and even Oklahoma City, as well as other locales, either have raised their wage floors or are battling the corporate lobbyists to get the job done.

And here's a pleasant surprise: Breaking away from the McDonald's-Domino-Taco Bell herd of low-wage exploiters, several smaller fast food chains are acting on their own, raising their starting pay levels as high as $15 an hour, plus benefits. The Boloco burrito chain in New England, for example, has raised its minimum to $9 an hour, plus subsidizing its employees' commuting costs and contributing to their 401(k) fund. A Boloco co-founder says, "If we're talking about building a business that's successful, but our employees can't go home and pay their bills, to me that success is a farce."

Exactly! If you can't pay your workers a decent wage, then you don't have a legitimate business. The multimillion-dollar executives at poverty-pay outfits like McDonald's aren't running a business, they're running a labor extortion racket.

Perry Plays Politics With The Lives Of Refugee Children

In the last few months, a few thousand children from Central America have turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents on our southern border. These refugee children, trying to escape the violence and poverty in their own countries, pose no danger to Texas or the nation, and don't represent a significant influx of immigrants without documentation.

But that doesn't matter to Rick Perry. Perry has presidential ambitions, and he knows he can't get the GOP nomination unless he pleases the anti-immigrant racist teabaggers in his party's base. So, instead of taking a rational and humanitarian approach to these young refugees, he has decided to play politics -- and show the teabaggers that he can be as hard-hearted and ridiculous as they are.

As a Texan, I'm disgusted with Perry's recent actions -- and so is one of Texas' leading progressives, Jim Hightower (pictured here in a photo from tankriot.com). Here is what Hightower wrote on his own website:

Great news for you lovers of Wild West, shoot-'em-up, pulp-fiction tales: Rick "Rootie-Toot-Toot" Perry is making a one-man stand on the Texas-Mexico border!

A political stand, that is. He's been tongue-lashing Obama for not doing enough to seal the border by dispatching a human line of armed National Guard troops to protect America from… well, from what? Children, that's what. Nearly 60,000 terrorized, impoverished, and traumatized little ones have fled their hellish existences in Central America – where rape, murder, conscription into drug cartels, and hopeless poverty is their future –trekking all the way to the USA for a chance at something better.

No way, shouts Sheriff Perry. This guy routinely flaunts his Christianity for political purposes, but he seems to have forgotten that Jesus said: "Let the little children, come to me, and do not hinder them." Instead, the presidential wannabe bellows for their immediate deportation, claiming they'll commit crimes, bring diseases, and burden taxpayers with welfare costs.

Burden taxpayers? Perry's "Grand Stand on the Border" will cost taxpayers about $20 million a month to cover the state police and 1,000 National Guard troops he has deployed to the border. It's a political stunt cynically exploiting children trying to escape unspeakable violence and poverty. But it's not his money, so what the hell?

It is, however, his morality. He's so morally stunted that he's willing to militarize a humanitarian crisis and summarily send children back to their death. But it's not their future that concerns Perry. Rather, this whole show is about his own political future, for he's playing to the fear and loathing of tea party extremists who'll dominate the upcoming Republican presidential primaries.

Perry is not just callously ambitious, he's disgusting.

Hightower Calls For Businesses To Pay A "Decent Wage"

(This photo of Jim Hightower is by Larry D. Moore at the 2008 Texas Book Festival and is used via CC BY-SA 3.0.)

Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower has long been one of the best (and most popular) progressive voices in Texas -- and he has always fought for what was best for the people of Texas and the nation. Yesterday on his own website, Mr. Hightower called for raising the minimum wage -- and said the news on that front was not all bad. Here is what he had to say:

The good news is that it's not all bad news these days.

Take the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – please! That's a poverty wage, a shameful stain on our extremely rich nation. But don't count on Washington to lift our wage floor – indeed, pigheaded Republican congress critters refuse to consider it, even declaring there should be no wage floor to sustain America's middle-class framework.

So where's the good news? Probably right where you live. Millions of low-wage workers themselves – from fast food workers to adjunct college professors – have been organizing and mobilizing, pushing local leaders to take action against the immoral inequality that's ripping our society apart and sinking our economy. Sure enough, local officials are responding – Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Austin, Providence, San Francisco, and even Oklahoma City, as well as other locales, either have raised their wage floors or are battling the corporate lobbyists to get the job done.

And here's a pleasant surprise: Breaking away from the McDonald's-Domino-Taco Bell herd of low-wage exploiters, several smaller fast food chains are acting on their own, raising their starting pay levels as high as $15 an hour, plus benefits. The Boloco burrito chain in New England, for example, has raised its minimum to $9 an hour, plus subsidizing its employees' commuting costs and contributing to their 401(k) fund. A Boloco co-founder says, "If we're talking about building a business that's successful, but our employees can't go home and pay their bills, to me that success is a farce."

Exactly! If you can't pay your workers a decent wage, then you don't have a legitimate business. The multimillion-dollar executives at poverty-pay outfits like McDonald's aren't running a business, they're running a labor extortion racket.

We Need A "Robin Hood" Tax On Wall Street

[The image above is from robinhoodtax.org. The photo at left of Jim Hightower is by photographer Larry D. Moore (CC BY-SA 3.0).]

The congressional Republicans are still whining loudly that the federal government cannot pay its debts, and therefore the programs to help hurting Americans must be cut. What they will not tell you is that it is their own policy that has caused the huge budget deficit -- a policy of waging unfunded wars while cutting taxes for the rich and giving unneeded subsidies to large corporations, and perhaps most egregious of all, giving Wall Street a "free ride" when it comes to taxation.

The truth is that the United States is still the richest country in the world, and there is plenty of money in this country to fund programs to help ordinary Americans that are hurting. I have spoken many times on this blog about my belief that the rich should pay a little more (by taxing their capital gains income as earned income), and the corporations should pay their fair share (by removing the billions in unneeded subsidies and loopholes).

But there is another thing that can, and should, be done -- and that is to institute a "Robin Hood" tax on Wall Street transactions. This would be a tiny tax on all stocks bought through the stock market. The tax would be small enough to not inhibit any stock trading, but because of the huge volume of trades, would be enough to add hundreds of billions of dollars in federal government revenue.

One of the best explanations of why this tax would be a good thing for this country is put forward by Jim Hightower (a leading Texas progressive). Here is some of what he has to say on the subject at his website, the Hightower Lowdown:

When I buy a $3 pack of toilet paper here in Austin, Texas, I pay an extra 8.25 percent in sales tax. If I buy a cuppa jo, book, bicycle, or blue jeans--same thing.

But if a high-roller in the HFT game buys $10 million worth of corporate stock, $10 million worth of oil futures, and $10 million worth of a Goldman Sachs package of derivatives--he or she pays zero tax on the sales.

First, it's a rank injustice that even the poorest among us are taxed on their purchases while millionaire Wall Streeters who make high-speed computerized purchases skate through this gaping loophole. Second, the profiteering churners and reckless speculators wrecked the country's economy, and they've never paid for the mess they made for so many millions of families that consequently lost jobs, homes, income, and hope.Third, this is a BIG idea that will let our society do big things again. Plugging this loophole with even a small sales tax on purchases by high frequency traders will generate the money America needs to do what needs to be done.

A Financial Transaction Tax. An FTT is not an idea whose time has come, but simply returned. From 1914 to 1966, our country taxed all sales and transfers of stock. The tax was doubled in the last year of Herbert Hoover's presidency to help us recover from the Great Depression. Today, 40 countries have FTTs, including the seven with the fastest-growing stock exchanges in the world. Seven members of the European Union (including Germany and France) voted for a financial transaction tax to help blunt rising poverty, restore services, and put people back to work.

This is no soak-the-rich-idea. Rather than asking the Wall Street crowd to join us in paying a six to 12 percent sales tax, the major FTT proposal gaining support in the US calls for a 0.5 percent assessment on stock transactions. That's 50 cents on a $100 stock buy, versus the $8.25 I would pay for a hundred-dollar bicycle.

Even at this miniscule rate, the huge volume of high speed trades means an FTT would net about $300-350 billion a year for our public treasury. Plus, it's a very progressive tax. Half of our country's stock is owned by the 1 percenters, and only a small number of them are in the HFT game. Ordinary folks who have small stakes in the markets, including those in mutual and pension funds, are called "buy-and-hold" investors--they only do trades every few months or years, not daily or hourly or even by the second, and they'll not be harmed. Rather it's the computerized churners of frothy speculation who will pony up the bulk of revenue from such a transaction tax.

An FTT is a straightforward, uncomplicated way for us to get a substantial chunk of our money back from high finance thieves, and we should make a concerted effort to put the idea on the front burner in 2014 and turn up the heat. Not only do its benefits merit the fight, but the fight itself would be politically popular. One clue to its political potential is that the mere mention of FTT to a Wall Street banker will evoke a shriek so shrill that the Mars rover hears it. That's because they know that this proposal would make them defend the indefensible: Themselves.

First, the sheer scope of Wall Street's self-serving casino business model would be exposed for all to see. Second, they would have to admit that they're increasingly dependent on (and, therefore, making our economy dependent on) the stark-raving insanity of robotic high frequency speculation. Third, it'll be completely ridiculous for them to argue that protecting the multi-trillion-dollar bets of rich market gamblers from this tax is more important than meeting our people's growing backlog of real needs.

Unsurprisingly, then, Koch-funded operatives and other defenders of privilege are rushing out articles that amount to Wall Street blah-blah-blah: "FTT would hurt poor pensioners, farmers, long-term investors, job creation, liquidity... and blah, blah, blah." Note that there's nary a mention of who'll really be pinged: Wall Street's gamblers and thieves. After all, to concede that they'll be hurt, even a little, would elicit a coast-to-coast shout of, "Yes!"

The Financial Transaction Tax idea is blessed with broad support, ranging from Bill Gates to Occupy Wall Street to the Vatican, and it's been embraced by dozens of major economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. But this fight will be won at the ground level of good politics, and that's well underway. Many grassroots groups and several progressives in Congress have already forged solid coalitions and are going to the country-side with a growing campaign to make Wall Street pay.

A major push is being made under the banner of the "Robin Hood Tax," led by National Nurses United, National People's Action, Health GAP, andProgressive Democrats of America. They and some 150 other organizations are backing the IPA. (This IPA is not a beer, though I suggest the organizers brew one to help popularize, cheer, and lubricate the cause.) It's theInclusive Prosperity Act, a proposal by Rep. Keith Ellison and others for an FTT. Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Peter DeFazio have another version with a more modest tax rate.

This campaign offers a remarkable democratic opening. It widens America's public policy debate from the plutocrats' tired, narrow-minded mantra of defeat: "We're broke. Big undertakings are beyond us. Shrink all expectations for yourselves, your children, and your country's future." Instead, a new conversation can begin, saying: "Look under that rock. There's the money we need to invest in people. Let's get America moving again!"

A sales tax on speculators can deliver tangibles that people need but Wall Street says we can't afford--infrastructure, Social Security, education, good jobs, etc. Just as important, it can deliver intangibles that our nation needs but Wall Street tries to ignore--fairness, social cohesion, equal opportunity, etc. It's a holiday gift card for America's future--a gift that literally would keep on giving.

Kinky For Governor !

The good news came today! Kinky Friedman is not officially in the governor's race yet, but it looks like he will be. He is forming an exploratory committee to raise funds to enter the Democratic primary. Even better, one of my favorite Texas populist politicians is already on board. Former Agriculture Commissioner and radio personality Jim Hightower will be helping out with Kinky's campaign. And rumor has it that some other good progressives in the Democratic party may soon declare their support!

Now if you're happy with the ruling corporatocracy in Texas, you won't be happy with Kinky. You would probably want to support Tom Schieffer (who supported George Bush in 2000 and 2004). But frankly he smells like the same old Republican corporate lackeys that have been running Texas for far too long.

I'm ready for some change in Texas. I'm ready for state government to be shook up. I'm ready for a governor that will think of ordinary citizens first -- not the corporate fatcats. That's why I am supporting Kinky Friedman for governor in next year's Democratic primary. In fact, my first campaign donation was mailed this morning. If you want to shake up Texas politics, I urge you to do the same. Contributions can be sent to:

Texans for Kinky
PO Box 92153
Austin, Texas 78709
or click on http://www.texansforkinky.com/

Here is the message Kinky sent out yesterday:

Dear Fellow Texans:

Here's the way I see it: Democrats + Independents = Victory

I was serious when I ran for governor in 2006 and I'm serious now. I'm a humorist, but I know these are not humorous times for a lot of us. Part of the reason is the pathetic lack of leadership at the state level. The last governor, I believe, who was truly on the side of the people of Texas, was Ann Richards. She was a very funny lady - she was also a great governor. I'll take my cues from Ann Richards.

I also draw inspiration from Ann Richards' mentor, Barbara Jordan. Barbara believed that if one is attacked personally, one should never counterattack personally. During the 2006 campaign, I was attacked personally. However, like Barbara Jordan, I have no desire to attack anyone personally. Instead, like Barbara, I will merely relegate them to my "forgive and remember list."

But I do not wish to fight yesterday's campaign again. Today, I have taken the first step toward running for Governor in 2010 by forming "Texans for Kinky," a committee to help with research and raising the funds neccessary to launch a successful campaign. Now is the time to win. I'm running in the Democratic Primary because my heroes have always been Democrats: Sam Houston, Sam Rayburn, Henry B. Gonzales, Ralph Yarborough, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Liz Carpenter, Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins. Their spirit is part of the reason the Democratic Party is transforming itself into a more progressive, populist mode - like the Democratic Party that dominated the past century. It is a party that, at its best, always stood up for the people against the special interests and big corporations. The men and women I have mentioned as my heroes have done just that. And we can do it, too.

It's time to end corporate handouts, get rid of the death penalty, get rid of the TAKS test, and get rid of the Republican stranglehold on this state. Jim Hightower told me he believes the main reason we've lost every statewide race since Ann Richards is the inability of our candidates to excite the grassroots. Jim is talking about rural folks, working people, independents, libertarians, and even disgruntled Republicans (many of whom used to be Democrats and should be on our side).

I intend to run a serious campaign, one that grows the party. I intend to visit and listen to the voices of neglected communities, small towns, suburbs, and rural areas, often where Democrats have lately feared to tread. This, I feel, is the very definition of being a Democrat. I intend to play by the rules. I will endorse and campaign for whomever wins the Democratic Primary.

Will the independents support me and vote as Democrats? I think they will. I think many Texans appreciate and respect anyone who gets knocked down and gets back up to fight again. Will Democrats take me seriously? I think they will. When Barbara Jordan, who may well be Texas' only modern-day statesman, was a young girl, she was never very serious in school. The teachers reported to her father (Ben Jordan, a very strict part-time preacher) that though she was the smartest kid in the class, she was a perpetual cut-up, a troublemaker and a class clown. When Ben had finally had enough of Barbara's antics, instead of reprimanding her with his customary fire and brimstone iron-hand style, he tried a different approach. "Barbara," he said, "I'll stick with you just as far as you want to go." That turned her around, and the rest is truly history.

So I say to Democrats who may not yet take me seriously, I'll stick with you just as far as you want to go. If we stick together, we'll go very far indeed. All the way to the Governor's Mansion!

God Bless Texas,

Kinky Friedman

PS: Please show me you're serious about Texas' future too by making a campaign contribution to Texans for Kinky.