2014 Political thoughts

Christmas is over and gone, most of us are looking at making resolutions and a new year. As we look forward to a new year, 2014 has many issues on the horizon. As we mentioned before, Congress last year was one of the least effective in decades, it has many policy questions lying in front of it. Additionally we have midterm elections.
So here are some of the thing to look at come next year:

1. Austerity, deficit spending and the debt ceiling. We saw a government shutdown last year what will happen when the debt ceiling needs to be raised again come mid February. Our debt has already passed 17 trillion dollars, what is the plan moving forward?

2. Midterm elections, many think it's a given that the house will remain in Republican hands, but how many seats will change hands? The Senate is more of a toss-up and recent polling shows Democrats and republicans in a dead heat in polling.

3. Will immigration reform or gun control be addressed? These two hot button issues affect a large population of the United States, and most people think some form of reform is needed. What will happen though, especially as both sides remain sharply divided.

4. Will the economy have a better recovery next year and will it be substantial? Unemployment continues to lag, what will be done to turn things around? What will our leaders do to improve things?

5. The vast majority of Americans support minimum wage increases, but with the current gridlock in Washington, what will become of it? Should it be raised and what will the effect be? Will states and cities pass their own increases?

6. Foreign policy in Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba what will happen here? Will Iran and North Korea be forced to abandon their Nuclear policies, will Cuba and the U.S. warm in relations?

One thing is for sure, next year won't be a boring one in the political field. Be sure to follow these issues and more next year.

Have a Happy New Year!

The Jobless Recovery: What the Media Isn't Telling You

As I said before, often the mainstream media doesn't report the whole truth of what is going on in our country. While they may be aware that we are still coming out of a recession, the media reports that unemployment is around 7 percent nationwide. The truth is that our unemployment is closer to 23 percent according to government shadow statistics.

The 7 percent number makes things not sound as bad right? Well that's because it doesn't include people who have been out of work for more than a year, those in part-time positions who’d prefer full-time jobs and people who are so discouraged that they’ve stopped looking for work. This is the lie that the media is telling you.

What you haven’t heard is jobless claims unexpectedly went up 40,000 more than expected last week. Initial claims were at a seasonally adjusted 379,000 according to the Labor Department. That is the highest level since march and it was the second straight week that claims have risen.

Additionally, More than 4.4 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ended Nov. 30, the latest data available. That was 600,000 more than the previous week. The majority of recent college graduates cannot find work in their field, and many who are often are underemployed.

For those who are job hunting, many are ending up at temp agencies, hoping somehow to get enough money to pay next month's rent. But that'll be one more job added to payrolls next month, when that college grad starts temping for 9 dollars an hour.

To top it off, congress was the least productive it has been in decades, and is considered to be the worst ever according to a recent CNN poll. Between government shutdowns and debt ceiling debates it's clear that our leaders aren't focused on helping us.

So what has the media been focused on? Well let's see, Mega Millions, Duck Dynasty, Miley Cyrus, not to mention the whole Black/White  Santa scandal, all of which the CNN, MSNBC and FOX News have spent countless hours debating, discussing and picking apart every detail.

We need to wake up to what is going on in America, unemployment and underemployment are much higher than we are being told, and there must be further discussion on what can be done to solve these problems by the media and our leaders.

FEC Vastly Underfunded, Allowing Corporate Interests to Rule

It is no surprise to anyone that money is flooding into federal elections in the post-Citizens United era.  The surprise is how little of it is being regulated. The agency tasked with monitoring and regulating all elections is severely limited due to staff cuts and partisan bickering.

The commission over the past year has reached an all-time low in its ability to reach consensus, stalling action on dozens of rulemaking decisions, as well as audit and enforcement matters, some of which are years old.

Additionally, partisan bickering among the appointed commissioners has led to a drop in agency fines for political committees that break election rules. In 2006 the FEC assessed a total of more than $6.7 million in fines. By 2012, however due to the inefficiency of the agency, it collected less than $1 million in fines.

Despite dramatic increases in election spending sped up by key Supreme Court decisions, the agency’s funding has remained flat for five years and staffing levels have fallen to a 15-year low overall.

Analysts who are charged with scouring disclosure reports to ensure candidates and political action committees are complying with laws have a nearly quarter-million-page backlog. One of the aims of the agency was to have all non-presidential committee audits finished 10 months after the election. At 10 months only 27% had been completed.

The agency is also seriously out of date when it comes to online donations, where few regulations have been put into place. The FEC does not require donations under $200 to be reported.

This means that $1.8 million of the donations received by Obama in September of 2012 required no associated names or addresses because they were under the $200 limit. This lack of regulation could easily allow corporations and foreign donors to make donations illegally, threatening the credibility of our election system.

In election after election, record amounts of money continue to be spent on campaigns. Last year topped 6 billion dollars, more than half of which was spent on the presidential campaign.

With more money flowing into politics, issues such as partisan divides and low staffing affecting the FEC one thing is for sure: this is a recipe for disaster.

So why does this matter so much? In 2010 only 9 House challengers who spent under $1 million won their seats. Similarly, in most presidential elections the winner is the one who raises the most.

This type of system, an increasingly plutocratic one, leads to corruption, where our leaders do the bidding of those who fund their campaigns. While our nation was designed to be secured with a system of checks and balances, we are now being ruled by whoever writes the biggest check and has the biggest balance, and that is not what our founding fathers wanted. 

As we continue to allow special interests to rule through powerful lobbying our nation's foundation crumbles beneath our feet. We need to wake up and get involved in our government especially in our communities.