At least through the 2012 election, the political calendar will feature efforts to push and block solutions to a fragile recovery with stubborn underemployment; budget deficits at all government levels; lingering bank credit damage.
The federal deficit alone compels a fierce contention over dwindling funds. Low, middle and high income families will be in opposition to each other as well as against employers and other owners of big capital for favored treatment.
While most politicians will use support for the middle class as the rhetorical battering ram to force their policy choices, there are under-reported implications that separate the ultimate economic winners and losers. Unreported or unintended consequences are not always unpredictable or inexplicable.
Reporting the important implications of the conflict and the political alternatives, especially for government favors, runs the risk of running aground on partisanship, ideology, class warfare or race. Another danger is losing some of the audience by pursuing too many details of legislative and political history – the “wonk” trap.
Transparency can be brought to these issues instead of playing a “hot button” card: a deliberately non-ideological treatment of politically “hot” topics.
If it’s a tax issue, who would your investment advisor say benefits from a new tax ruling? If it’s government funding back to states and local agencies that we are looking at, what would my city’s budget officer think about who’s getting the deal and who's getting something else?
We see at least three important roles for the type of coverage we’re proposing:
Exposing Zombie Lies - Debunked disinformation that somehow becomes part of the background general “knowledge”:
ACORN helps cause the sub prime crisis and “threatened our democracy” through voter fraud
“Climategate” scandal – hacked e-mail messages from British climate researchers supposedly uncovered a conspiracy to manufacture data advancing the proposition that humans are driving climate change
Disclosing the news that is not new:
Events or phenomena that are reported as either scandalous, rare or novel that are, in truth, ordinary, legal and common –
Big Oil takes advantage of provisions in the U.S. tax code
Goldman Sachs created and sold an investment vehicle and then bet that the price of the collateral would fall
Exploring the real class war that shadows the media debate - Taking the next few steps beyond the opening salvo in a media debate:
How “earmarks” keep projects “shovel ready” and in line for job creation funds
Lobbyist-driven tax expenditures: Who really benefits from tax breaks and what types actually can be expected to lead to job creation?
Illegal immigration: who really pays the cost and who benefits?
The distribution of Globalization benefits:
NAFTA subsidizing farms/corn
Outsourcing manufacturing and IT
Is full employment as a policy goal taken seriously?
An example where connecting a few well publicized dots gives new dimensions to appreciating what is really going on:
Corn subsidies and the soda tax
Generous subsidies to corn growers drive down the price of corn products such as high fructose corn syrup and ethanol for transportation fuel. Cheap corn distributed to food processors in the U.S. and exported to Mexico undercut local farmers, driving them out of business and generating job seekers in the U.S. This increased supply of low skill labor suppresses wages of native U.S. workers. Low income families are drawn to low cost high fat meals accompanied by soda sweetened with corn based syrup. Obesity grows as a health problem, particularly among low income families. A tax on soda is suggested as a possible remedy by pricing soda out of the hands of low income families.
The debate points include:
- corn subsidies
- fuel from food
- crop subsidies and NAFTA
- illegal immigration effects on wages
- obesity and the soda tax
Postings will vary in length, probably widely, since the topics will range in complexity and some resist coverage in the typical short form of political coverage.
In addition to comments on postings, we also invite suggestions for improvement- Please write to fairfederalfunding@gmail.com
