Last time I blogged, it was only the madmen who were talking about modifying the 14th Amendment. Now, Sen. Lindsey Graham has said he'd like to visit it. Sen. Graham is one of the most moderate and reasonable Republicans left in Congress.
In this case, those who would like to repeal or change jus soli have no leverage. A Constitutional amendment would have to be passed by a two thirds (I think) vote in both the House and the Senate and then be ratified by three quarters of all the states. This is an impossibly high bar to clear. We can assume that the U.S. Constitution will not change barring social collapse.
In any case, I would be willing to revisit the jus soli doctrine somewhat. Not long ago, the Washington Post reported on the practice of birth tourism, where foreign couples come here to have their babies born and automatically acquire citizenship. Many of them will go back to their countries of origin - China was the featured country in the article. However, their children will be able to have the privileges of citizenship, such as subsidized college tuition, without having contributed to the country.
That doesn't seem right. A foreign couple comes here to give birth and their child is a citizen. The child returns 18 years later for school and is eligible for in-state tuition and federal support, but their parents haven't resided here and paid taxes. In contrast, a child who is undocumented and whose parents have lived here and paid their taxes (which is a more common scenario than many think) would not be eligible for such consideration. It would be more fair if we had a guest worker program that would enable the second family to earn their citizenship if they'd resided here for long enough, but we put the first family at the back of the line. Almost all the other OECD countries have revised their citizenship laws.
As I posted earlier, for progressives to even consider changing the 14th Amendment, we would need a guarantee that non-citizens who are able and willing to live and work here had a fair process by which they could become permanent residents and then citizens. We would need for children to be unconditionally eligible for public supports.
If conservatives were willing to trade modifications to the 14th for immigration reform otherwise, I think many progressives would listen. I'd encourage interested and reasonable conservatives to come forward.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Monday, May 03, 2010
NY Times: Attacks on Asians Highlight New Racial Tensions
An article by Gerry Shih discusses racial tensions between African Americans and Asian Americans in San Francisco. Prejudices on both sides must be combated:
Emenike and Blunt are both to be commended for their candor. At the same time, it is counterproductive for both sides to downplay the role that historical racial tensions have played. In any case, Emenike's essay can be found here.
George Gascón, the San Francisco police chief, announced last week the emergency deployment of 32 additional beat officers to the Bayview-Visitación Valley neighborhood. Although “crime numbers have not gone up,” Chief Gascón said in an interview, he wanted to address the “tremendous amount of fear and apprehension” among Asians.
It is these historically black neighborhoods in southeast San Francisco that have undergone the sharpest demographic changes in the city in the past 20 years. Decades after Koreans transformed the Fillmore district from what it once was — the “Harlem of the West,” its blocks lined by the swaggering, smoky haunts of jazz lore — Chinese started moving to the Bayview in large numbers.
Community leaders predict that the 2010 census will show the Asian population, almost all Chinese, now making up 40 percent of the Bayview’s residents and as many as 60 percent of Visitación Valley’s.
“At one point, one group may emerge because they’ve got greater population and another group feels pushed out — feels like they don’t have any voice anymore,” said the Rev. A. Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church. “It involves a kind of power shift. That, of course, creates some of the tension.”
The rapidly deteriorating climate has alarmed local leaders. The president of the Board of Supervisors, David Chiu, noted that on Wednesday, hundreds of Chinese lined up at a board meeting to tell stories of assaults and intimidation, sometimes without clear motivation, by young African-Americans.
Two days later, a young black man, Amanze Emenike, 21, said he was 12 when he heard older boys talking about why they singled out Asian and Latino immigrants: they would not report the crime and had no gangs to back them up. On Friday morning, on a Hunters Point hilltop with a breathtaking view of the Bay, Mr. Emenike and his sister, Sherry Blunt, 22, recounted their “spree” of crime against Asian and Latino immigrants several years ago.
By the time he was 15, Mr. Emenike said, he and his brother, Armani Bolmer, would get up at 5 a.m. to rob Mexican day laborers who got off the 23 Monterey bus from the Mission district.
They began to single out Chinese, he said, because they had more money. In 2006, they stalked a Chinese man at the last Muni stop, robbed him, and were arrested hours later.
...
But at these Chinese rallies and vigils, beneath the megaphone-amplified din of positive rhetoric, there are worrying murmurs about revenge, said Henry Der, who was the executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, an influential Chinatown organization, for more than two decades.
“I’m getting e-mails saying, ‘We need to retaliate, it’s time we pick up arms,’ ”Mr. Der said. “And these are from grown, supposedly responsible adults.”
At such a fraught time, leaders like Ms. Tan say they must tread a narrow path between irresponsibly amplifying racial tensions and dishonestly ignoring them.
Part of the frustration, some say, is fueled precisely by the reluctance — both among Chinese and among San Franciscans generally — to discuss such issues.
“Because San Francisco sees itself as very progressive, people just don’t want to talk about these issues,” Mr. Der said. “But that’s how people feel about it. You can’t argue it away.”
...
Mr. Emenike and his sister, Ms. Blunt, said the teenagers involved in the recent attacks were following in his footsteps, as he had followed older boys.
“It’s not ‘this is an Asian person let’s get him,’ ” Mr. Emenike said. “It’s we thinking, ‘this Asian person is probably carrying a large amount of money. And this is our neighborhood, this is our home, why not?’ ”
But if the motivations were largely strategic, and not out of unadulterated racial hatred, they were also influenced by complex emotions and a wariness of change.
“I wake up and I’m hungry, my stomach growling,” Ms. Blunt said. “Why am I just getting by when there’s this Asian walking out of the house with a laptop going to the cafe?”
There is also the frustration at perceived prejudice by Asians. Ms. Blunt still recalls a Chinese classmate in junior high ignoring her requests to borrow a pencil.
“You approach them, and they just keep giving you the cold shoulder,” Ms. Blunt said.
Emenike and Blunt are both to be commended for their candor. At the same time, it is counterproductive for both sides to downplay the role that historical racial tensions have played. In any case, Emenike's essay can be found here.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Social insurance is not outdated
I was told by a friend that Rep. Paul Ryan, a rising star in the Republican party and a fiscal hardliner, remarked that social insurance systems, such as Medicare and Social Security, were outdated. Indeed, Mr. Ryan has offered privatized alternatives: replacing Medicare with a voucher system and allowing Social Security beneficiaries to invest up to 1/3 of their account values in IRA-like investment accounts with a government guarantee of minimum value.
The CBO responded that Mr. Ryan's Medicare vouchers would not keep up with the costs of medical price inflation. After several decades, the vouchers would cover only a fraction of the cost of insurance. As to his Social Security reform, the CBO said it would actually be more expensive than the present arrangement.
Social insurance is not outdated. The alternative, private savings, has already been tried and it failed. Before the New Deal, many elders were in poverty. Before Medicare, access to health insurance ceased for most retirees. Social Security and Medicare substantially eased those problems. Both programs could stand to be improved. Medical costs need to be controlled. Social Security's funding shortfall is a secondary but fixable problem. Taxes will have to be raised and benefits might be cut modestly. Additionally, given the expected decline in the number of workers relative to retirees, it is worth considering investing some of the trust funds in a pension fund arrangement, much as the Canada Pension Plan now does.
Medical and long-term care costs vary a great deal from person to person. If we relied on savings, many people would be bankrupted and a minority would over-save. In addition, socioeconomic disparities in impoverishment and access to care would be reminiscent of countries in the Global South. If we relied solely on savings for retirement security, the same thing would happen - instead, Social Security makes benefits for lower-income people more generous per dollar of tax they pay than for higher-income beneficiaries (i.e. richer folks cross-subsidize poorer folks). In addition, Social Security allows us to pool mortality risk over the entire country, meaning that we can guarantee everybody a stream of income that lasts until they die, plus survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children, plus disability insurance.
Ryan's reliance on a savings system would do none of that. It is his proposal that is foolish and obsolete, not social insurance.
The CBO responded that Mr. Ryan's Medicare vouchers would not keep up with the costs of medical price inflation. After several decades, the vouchers would cover only a fraction of the cost of insurance. As to his Social Security reform, the CBO said it would actually be more expensive than the present arrangement.
Social insurance is not outdated. The alternative, private savings, has already been tried and it failed. Before the New Deal, many elders were in poverty. Before Medicare, access to health insurance ceased for most retirees. Social Security and Medicare substantially eased those problems. Both programs could stand to be improved. Medical costs need to be controlled. Social Security's funding shortfall is a secondary but fixable problem. Taxes will have to be raised and benefits might be cut modestly. Additionally, given the expected decline in the number of workers relative to retirees, it is worth considering investing some of the trust funds in a pension fund arrangement, much as the Canada Pension Plan now does.
Medical and long-term care costs vary a great deal from person to person. If we relied on savings, many people would be bankrupted and a minority would over-save. In addition, socioeconomic disparities in impoverishment and access to care would be reminiscent of countries in the Global South. If we relied solely on savings for retirement security, the same thing would happen - instead, Social Security makes benefits for lower-income people more generous per dollar of tax they pay than for higher-income beneficiaries (i.e. richer folks cross-subsidize poorer folks). In addition, Social Security allows us to pool mortality risk over the entire country, meaning that we can guarantee everybody a stream of income that lasts until they die, plus survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children, plus disability insurance.
Ryan's reliance on a savings system would do none of that. It is his proposal that is foolish and obsolete, not social insurance.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Slate: Martha Nussbaum's From Disgust to Humanity
Dahlia Lithwick writes on Slate about an intriguing argument made by Martha Nussbaum, a prominent law and philosophy professor at the University of Chicago:
I'd highly recommend reading the entire article.
[She] explains that much of the political rhetoric around denying equal rights to gay Americans is rooted in the language of disgust. Their activities are depicted as "vile and revolting," threatening to "contaminate and defile" the rest of us. Looked at starkly, she argues, much of the anti-gay argument is bound up in feces and saliva, germs, contagion and blood.
The philosophical question for Nussbaum is whether disgust of this sort is a "reliable guide to lawmaking." She cites Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics in the George W. Bush administration, who has argued that it is; that visceral public disgust contains a "wisdom" that lies beneath rational argument. Then she proceeds to annihilate that argument by offering example after example of discarded disgust-based policies, from India's denigration of its "untouchables" to the Nazi view of Jews, to a legally sanctioned regime of separate swimming pools and water fountains in the Jim Crow South. Time and again, Nussbaum argues, societies have been able to move beyond their own politics of disgust to what she calls "the politics of humanity," once they have finally managed to see others as fully human, with human aspirations and desires.
...
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Nussbaum's work, however, is her prescription for moving past the politics of disgust to the politics of humanity. This will be a familiar call to anyone who listened to President Obama last spring, as he described the qualities he seeks in a jurist. Nussbaum calls for "imagination" and "empathy," for respect and the willingness to listen to new narratives. In effect, this is a moral call to walk in the other guy's moccasins before we call him revolting. She observes that this "capacity for generous and flexible engagement with the sufferings and hopes of other people" was described by Adam Smith (of all people) back in the 18th century, even though it is derided as unmoored, mushy-headed, and even dangerous today. In Nussbaum's formulation, imagination and empathy are essential to overcoming the childish biases that allow us to use our legal machinery to turn others into subhumans.
I'd highly recommend reading the entire article.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
10% of U.S. Households owe no net Federal taxes - NOT 47%
Conservatives have been going crazy over the fact that 47% of U.S. households owe no net Federal income tax. That statistic is correct. However, it is more like only 10% of U.S. households who owe no net Federal income and payroll taxes. The payroll taxes are flat taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security; in that sense, they are regressive in isolation (although as a whole the tax system is progressive, and could stand to be more progressive).
David Leonhardt debunks the 47% myth here in an editorial in the New York Times. This reckoning is before most state and local taxes. Conservatives think, and I agree, that everyone should pay taxes, even if it is just a nominal amount. It's a practice of citizenship, just like voting. However, The fact is that the vast majority of people do, in fact, owe net taxes. The U.S. has chosen to administer some tax credits through the tax system, like the Earned Income Tax Credit and, in the last year, the Making Work Pay tax credit as an economic stimulus measure.
Leonhardt's article is highly recommended, but I won't post it. I'll say instead that my wife and I had an adjusted gross income of $23,851 this year - only about 160% of the poverty level. We paid a total of $199 in Federal income taxes, net of the MWP credit. We aren't eligible for the EITC because we don't have children - the EITC limits are much lower than our income. We also paid a total of (I believe) $2,640 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. That figure works out to a tax rate of 12%. We are struggling to get by, but we are contributing towards our communities, and we expect our contribution to rise with our income in the years ahead. I have no beef if people making less than we do owe no net Federal taxes - most of them have children to feed. We ought not to tax people in poverty.
David Leonhardt debunks the 47% myth here in an editorial in the New York Times. This reckoning is before most state and local taxes. Conservatives think, and I agree, that everyone should pay taxes, even if it is just a nominal amount. It's a practice of citizenship, just like voting. However, The fact is that the vast majority of people do, in fact, owe net taxes. The U.S. has chosen to administer some tax credits through the tax system, like the Earned Income Tax Credit and, in the last year, the Making Work Pay tax credit as an economic stimulus measure.
Leonhardt's article is highly recommended, but I won't post it. I'll say instead that my wife and I had an adjusted gross income of $23,851 this year - only about 160% of the poverty level. We paid a total of $199 in Federal income taxes, net of the MWP credit. We aren't eligible for the EITC because we don't have children - the EITC limits are much lower than our income. We also paid a total of (I believe) $2,640 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. That figure works out to a tax rate of 12%. We are struggling to get by, but we are contributing towards our communities, and we expect our contribution to rise with our income in the years ahead. I have no beef if people making less than we do owe no net Federal taxes - most of them have children to feed. We ought not to tax people in poverty.
Newsweek: Ricky Martin, Coming Out and the Health of Nations
Julia Baird, writing for Newsweek, uses the World Values Survey to argue that richer nations which have moved towards "self-expressive" or "emancipative" values tend to be both happier and more accepting of homosexuality than nations which are still oriented towards "survival" values. Of course, it isn't only wealth that produces self-expressive or emancipative values. And there are certainly a lot of folks in the OECD countries who are oriented towards survival values who would not value Martin's ability to come out.
WSJ: An article on a community loan activist and the Community Reinvestment Act
A Wall Street Journal article details the struggles of Matthew Lee, who is still fighting for the Community Reinvestment Act and to make banks stop predatory lending. Despite what some conservatives say, loans made under the CRA did not default at higher rates than normal. However, predatory, high-interest loans made outside the CRA in low-income or under-banked communities did.
One of the last times I saw Matthew Lee was in April 2004. Mr. Lee had taken his fight to bring credit to the underserved to a special meeting of the Federal Reserve that was considering J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of Bank One Corp.
A modest and somewhat rumpled attorney, Mr. Lee chastised the $60 billion deal, arguing that J.P. Morgan had failed to provide enough credit to urban areas. He argued that the bank and its mega bank rivals financed predatory check-cashing stores across the country.
Mr. Lee won, sort of. J.P. Morgan pledged $800 billion in new credit over 10 years and promised to review its support of predatory lenders. The merger was approved.
After the meeting, Rev. Jesse Jackson called Mr. Lee, 44 years old, a prime mover in the modern civil-rights movement: the fight for access to capital. "He's an enemy of predatory exploitation," Rev. Jackson said.
It's six years later, and to say a lot has changed is like saying the housing market has hit a hiccup. The Community Reinvestment Act, the banking law Mr. Lee sought to enforce and build on, has come under fire for allegedly fueling the financial crisis through a wave of defaults. The act requires banks to offer loans to underserved areas, mainly urban, poorer neighborhoods.
But if you think the backlash against community lending and the banking law has changed Mr. Lee's perspective you'd be wrong. Through his Bronx-based organization Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch, Mr. Lee continues to challenge the banking industry for ignoring poorer neighborhoods and its support of predatory lending practices.
"Persistence is the key," said Mr. Lee. "There are still groups interested in the intersection on consumer protection and Wall Street sleaze."
If anything, the attacks have made Mr. Lee more resilient in challenging banks to end its support—directly and indirectly—of predatory lending, an effort that includes subprime loans.
The Impact of CRA Loans
Critics argue that Community Reinvestment Act loans fueled the mortgage bubble by offering credit to those who would have otherwise been turned down. A 2008 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute concluded that banks that conform to the act are more likely to be less sound and that CRA loans create higher costs for borrowers.
But the evidence is scant that the legislation played a role in the recent crisis. More than 80% of subprime loans were made by institutions or big bank subsidiaries that weren't subject to CRA, according to 2008 testimony by Michael Barr, a professor at the University of Michigan. And a 2008 study by Federal Reserve found no correlation between the financial crisis and CRA lending.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007 that CRA loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default."
"I understand that your average 'blame the liberals' may not understand that," Mr. Lee said. "But when you actually look into it, you find the real sleazeballs were companies like Ameriquest, Countrywide and New Century and they didn't make a single loan for CRA because they weren't covered by CRA."
The Big Bank Connection
That doesn't mean banks bound by CRA didn't participate in risky lending.
Big banks, such as Citigroup Inc., are just holding companies. Their subsidiaries had different missions. Citibank generally made prime loans and was covered by the law. CitiFinancial didn't have a CRA requirement, but it underwrote more subprime loans. And Citigroup's investment bank, packaged and sold risky loans from many sources to investors.
"There's a good argument that if CRA would have been enforced, people would not have been fleeced on their loans," Mr. Lee said. "And regulators, had they not enforced CRA so narrowly, that when you look at Citigroup underwriting Ameriquest loans, they [the regulators] would have said 'are you kidding?'"
Citigroup declined to comment.
Part of the dispute may have to do with what the banking law actually does. The act does not require banks to make loans to people without credit or considered risky. It only requires that it provide credit in areas where there's a lack of bank finance. CRA loans generally don't carry higher-than-market interest rates.
Such misunderstanding is why Mr. Lee continues to push banks in a climate where inner city lending—fairly or not—is under attack. Because the banking law challenges can only be made when a bank merger is announced and few mergers are being made, Mr. Lee is stockpiling information.
He's poring through annual mortgage data supplied by banks to see what markets they've abandoned. He's gathering information about J.P. Morgan's and Bank of America Corp.'s ties to World Acceptance, a small-loan, consumer finance company that makes subprime and controversial loans called 78s.
A J.P Morgan spokesperson declined to comment.
Fair Finance Watch also is targeting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for its in-store "money centers" that charge for check cashing and same-day bill payment.
So, the fight goes on. But there is one part of Mr. Lee's job that has changed. He said he's now fielding calls from distressed homeowners—not necessarily CRA beneficiaries—who are wrestling banks looking to foreclose.
Said Mr. Lee, "I've actually had to learn more about workouts than I ever really wanted to know."
One of the last times I saw Matthew Lee was in April 2004. Mr. Lee had taken his fight to bring credit to the underserved to a special meeting of the Federal Reserve that was considering J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of Bank One Corp.
A modest and somewhat rumpled attorney, Mr. Lee chastised the $60 billion deal, arguing that J.P. Morgan had failed to provide enough credit to urban areas. He argued that the bank and its mega bank rivals financed predatory check-cashing stores across the country.
Mr. Lee won, sort of. J.P. Morgan pledged $800 billion in new credit over 10 years and promised to review its support of predatory lenders. The merger was approved.
After the meeting, Rev. Jesse Jackson called Mr. Lee, 44 years old, a prime mover in the modern civil-rights movement: the fight for access to capital. "He's an enemy of predatory exploitation," Rev. Jackson said.
It's six years later, and to say a lot has changed is like saying the housing market has hit a hiccup. The Community Reinvestment Act, the banking law Mr. Lee sought to enforce and build on, has come under fire for allegedly fueling the financial crisis through a wave of defaults. The act requires banks to offer loans to underserved areas, mainly urban, poorer neighborhoods.
But if you think the backlash against community lending and the banking law has changed Mr. Lee's perspective you'd be wrong. Through his Bronx-based organization Inner City Press/Fair Finance Watch, Mr. Lee continues to challenge the banking industry for ignoring poorer neighborhoods and its support of predatory lending practices.
"Persistence is the key," said Mr. Lee. "There are still groups interested in the intersection on consumer protection and Wall Street sleaze."
If anything, the attacks have made Mr. Lee more resilient in challenging banks to end its support—directly and indirectly—of predatory lending, an effort that includes subprime loans.
The Impact of CRA Loans
Critics argue that Community Reinvestment Act loans fueled the mortgage bubble by offering credit to those who would have otherwise been turned down. A 2008 report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute concluded that banks that conform to the act are more likely to be less sound and that CRA loans create higher costs for borrowers.
But the evidence is scant that the legislation played a role in the recent crisis. More than 80% of subprime loans were made by institutions or big bank subsidiaries that weren't subject to CRA, according to 2008 testimony by Michael Barr, a professor at the University of Michigan. And a 2008 study by Federal Reserve found no correlation between the financial crisis and CRA lending.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007 that CRA loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default."
"I understand that your average 'blame the liberals' may not understand that," Mr. Lee said. "But when you actually look into it, you find the real sleazeballs were companies like Ameriquest, Countrywide and New Century and they didn't make a single loan for CRA because they weren't covered by CRA."
The Big Bank Connection
That doesn't mean banks bound by CRA didn't participate in risky lending.
Big banks, such as Citigroup Inc., are just holding companies. Their subsidiaries had different missions. Citibank generally made prime loans and was covered by the law. CitiFinancial didn't have a CRA requirement, but it underwrote more subprime loans. And Citigroup's investment bank, packaged and sold risky loans from many sources to investors.
"There's a good argument that if CRA would have been enforced, people would not have been fleeced on their loans," Mr. Lee said. "And regulators, had they not enforced CRA so narrowly, that when you look at Citigroup underwriting Ameriquest loans, they [the regulators] would have said 'are you kidding?'"
Citigroup declined to comment.
Part of the dispute may have to do with what the banking law actually does. The act does not require banks to make loans to people without credit or considered risky. It only requires that it provide credit in areas where there's a lack of bank finance. CRA loans generally don't carry higher-than-market interest rates.
Such misunderstanding is why Mr. Lee continues to push banks in a climate where inner city lending—fairly or not—is under attack. Because the banking law challenges can only be made when a bank merger is announced and few mergers are being made, Mr. Lee is stockpiling information.
He's poring through annual mortgage data supplied by banks to see what markets they've abandoned. He's gathering information about J.P. Morgan's and Bank of America Corp.'s ties to World Acceptance, a small-loan, consumer finance company that makes subprime and controversial loans called 78s.
A J.P Morgan spokesperson declined to comment.
Fair Finance Watch also is targeting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for its in-store "money centers" that charge for check cashing and same-day bill payment.
So, the fight goes on. But there is one part of Mr. Lee's job that has changed. He said he's now fielding calls from distressed homeowners—not necessarily CRA beneficiaries—who are wrestling banks looking to foreclose.
Said Mr. Lee, "I've actually had to learn more about workouts than I ever really wanted to know."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
