Over the weekend, Mickey Kaus took to the The Huffington Post to offer up a rationale for his Senate campaign:
I have no special beef with the incumbent, Senator Boxer. She is a state-of-the-art Democrat. But to be “state-of-the-art” in our party is not such a good thing anymore.
“State of the art” means the incumbent has learned to please the party’s interest groups, often at the expense of the needs of average individuals and the party’s own ideals.
It means the incumbent supports a “card check” bill that would effectively take away the secret ballot from workers in order to give more power to the big unions– including public employee unions–whose influence over our great industries and our government has led to disaster.
“State of the art” means the incumbent endorses a misguided immigrant legalization scheme that would create a huge incentive for more illegal immigration–before we’re sure our broken border has been fixed to withstand it. We tried the legalization approach in 1986. A wave of illegal immigration followed. Another new wave would again bid down the wages of unskilled American (and legal immigrant) workers–the people who’ve been hurt the most in the economy of the past three decades.
It shouldn’t be the policy of the Democratic party to make it worse for them.
These aren’t minor questions. One affects the organization of the entire economy. The other could irreversibly alter the quality of American life.
I am a lifelong Democrat. But on those issues, and others, what has become the party’s dogma–what you have to say and think if you want to run for office as an anointed Democrat–no longer passes the test of common sense.
I have no illusions about the viability of Kaus’ run at the Senate — even he says it’s an issue raising candidacy. But I suspect a lot of California Democrats will find the the issues he raises above compelling.
Barron’s cover story this week is on how the financial shortfall for public sector unions pension plans is going to reshape America’s fiscal landscape:
LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street.
Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored at their own peril a far bigger pocket of privilege — the lush pensions that the 23 million active and retired state and local public employees, from cops and garbage collectors to city managers and teachers, have wangled from taxpayers.
Some 80% of these public employees are beneficiaries of defined-benefit plans under which monthly pension payments are guaranteed, no matter how stocks and other volatile assets backing the retirement plans perform. In contrast, most of the taxpayers footing the bill for these public-employee benefits (participants’ contributions to these plans are typically modest) have been pushed by their employers into far less munificent defined-contribution plans and suffered the additional indignity of seeing their 401(k) accounts shrivel in the recent bear market in stocks.
And defined-contribution plans, unlike public pensions, have no protection against inflation. It’s just too bad: Maybe some seniors will have to switch from filet mignon to dog food.
Read the whole thing. And Barron’s is exactly right that the public sector unions issue is being ignored in favor of other populist targets such as Wall Street which better fit a liberal narrative.
