ARTS & FARCES internet

US Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is hands down one of my five favorite politicians. Always has been, although I’m puzzled about why he remains a Democrat. His home state of Ohio is losing two seats in the US House of Representatives and his district will likely be eliminated in the state’s redistricting.

After seven terms, Kucinich would almost certainly be out of a job.

Not to be deterred, Kucinich is considering running for the US Congress from Washington State next year. Washington is gaining a seat in the US House of Representatives and Dennis the Menace’s two presidential campaigns have done exceedingly well in Washington.

This kind of district hopping is somewhat common—on a local level—with the redistricting that comes after each census. But it’s rare for politicians to make this kind of a relocation to remain in office. Carl Hulse, writing for the New York Times, reports that more than 40 years ago Texas Republican Ed Foreman lost re-election and then won a single term in New Mexico.

While the Washington electorate seems to be welcoming Kucinich, the party regulars are not impressed. “Washingtonians are not going to be receptive to a sitting congressman from Ohio filing for office in our state,” Democratic party chair Dwight Pelz tells Hulse.

Should political candidates be homegrown? Seattle is much, much different than Cleveland with just as different political needs. Can a rust-belt politico adequately represent suburban ecotopia? Who knows. It’s going to be interesting to see how Kucinich’s fundraising changes should he make the move to Washington. His top five contributors since 1996 have been the Machinists/Aerospace Workers union, United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, United Food & Commercial Workers Union, and the Teamsters Union. Hulse reports that when a woman asked Kucinich just that during his Washington exploration, he replied, “Where people live is always interesting. Where they stand is quite instructive.”

MinnPost.com has published an interactive Minnesota deficit calculator. While it would be much better (and more realistic) if there were sliders instead of radio buttons for the options, I was still able to run up a US$770,700,000 surplus without even touching the “cut spending” section or anything below it.

Here’s how I did it:

1. Extend sales tax to clothing (US$600 million)
2. Extend sales tax to services such as car repair, hair styling, accounting, and legal work (US$868 million)
3. Increase taxes on alcoholic beverages (US$278 million)
4. Increase tobacco tax (US$252 million)
5. Return income tax rates to 1998 levels (US$1.8 billion)
6. Adopt a corporate “throwback” rule (US$39.7 million)
7. Allow a racino or some other state-sponsored gambling (US$140 million) but don’t allow revenue to be diverted for new stadium
8. Create a new 10.95 percent tax bracket for taxable income above US$150,000 a year for married couples (US$1.9 billion)
9. Eliminate home-mortgage interest deduction (US$1.1 billion)

It really wasn’t very hard at all, taking less than 10 minutes to complete.

Here are my personal household notes:

We buy clothes from time to time (I bought a US$300 winter coat last fall) but probably not as many or as expensive as you.

Sales tax on services would extend to our business.

We drink, occasionally and sometimes even immoderately.

Neither of us smoke.

Our 1998 income taxes—like yours—were higher than they are now. Deal with it.

Corporate throwback taxes are only fair; if a business earned a profit on it—regardless of where the profit took place—it’s taxable income in the home state.

I’d reluctantly support a racino or state gambling but only if the revenue was no diverted for a new professional sports stadium. My reluctance isn’t to the gambling bit; it’s related to competing with the Indian casinos—we’ve screwed them enough for several dozen white generations.

A 10.95 percent tax bracket for married couples making more than US$150,000 is a no-brainer. Remember that only the amount over US$150,000 is subject to the new tax. There have been years that we’d be subject to this higher bracket.

For the last several years—because my health insurance was paid for by an employer and because our mortgage is relatively small—we haven’t been able to take the home-mortgage interest deduction anyway. Neither have 71 percent of you. That’ll likely change again now that I’m wholly self-employed.

The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota is one of those low-flying, tub-thumping right-wing think tanks that has heretofore mostly concentrated on disputing what it calls the “junk science” behind climate change. It’s recently joined forces with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), another neo-con group founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

ACTA flys higher, known mostly for the first report after the September 11, 2001 tragedy advocating the neo-con attack on critical thinking, specifically critical thinking about the Middle East. The title of the post-9/11 report: “Defending civilization: how our universities are failing America and what can be done about it.” It’s key finding: Campus criticism of the Bush administration’s wars was proof of failing to defend civilization and that the universities were failing America. The problem, simply put, was that the nation’s universities weren’t properly teaching western culture and American history. This was one of the first—if not the very first—assertions that dissent equates to treason.

Roberto Gonzalez, then an assistant professor at San Jose State University, wrote in the San Jose Mercury News (no link; archive is behind paywall) that ACTA was quickly assembling a blacklist under the guise of protecting academic freedom. “In a chilling use of doublespeak it affirms the right of professors to speak out, yet condemns those who have attempted to give context to Sept. 11, encourage critical thinking, or share knowledge about other cultures. Faculty are accused of being ‘short on patriotism’ for attempting to give students the analytical tools they need to become informed citizens,” Gonzalez wrote in his 31 December 2001 piece.

Just so we know who we’re playing with.

During the last presidential campaign, the unions had to bust their collective asses to get their membership to support Barack Obama. They did it by comparing John McCain’s position with regard to taxing health insurance benefits with that of Barack Obama. McCain promised to tax health insurance benefits; Obama promised not to. Fish. Barrel. Or so it would seem.

A year into his presidency and Barack Obama has flip-flopped on the issue, endorsing a tax on high-end employer-provided health insurance. As currently written in the US Senate healthcare reform bill, individual insurance policies with annual total premiums higher than US$8,500 and family policies higher than US$23,000 would be taxed at a flat 40% rate. This is far from Obama’s original flip-flop plan of taxing insurance companies in order to ding high-flying Wall street executives.

At first glance it appears that only corporate executives with really top-of-the-line health insurance policies would be affected, but Steven Greenhouse, writing for the New York Times, reports that many union members will also be subject to the tax. “... [W]hich by one union survey would affect one in four union members.”

Make no mistake. I’m a union supporter through and through. Always will be. Since 2006, I’ve been quite fortunate to have 90% of my family’s health insurance paid by my employer, the University of Minnesota. I have what I find to be pretty close to top-of-the-line health insurance and the total 2010 cost for my wife and me is US$14,089.40. My co-pays are all under US$150, averaging US$10 for drugs and US$30 per month for dialysis. Either the unions are getting ripped-off on their insurance or they’re overpaying by almost double.