Recently in Politics Category
While many Americans scramble to get their income tax returns ready to send into Uncle Sam tomorrow, I'm thinking about why this has to be such an unpleasant experience.
I filed my taxes back at the beginning of February the day I got my W2. I have one job. I don't itemize. I don't own a home. And I'm not alone.
Tens of millions of Americans files their taxes without adding any information that the government doesn't already have from their employers.
Yale Law Professor Ian Ayres wants you to think about it like your relationship with the credit card company. Visa or Mastercard don't expect you to keep your receipts and send in a check hoping that you get it right. Instead, Visa sends you a bill telling what you owe or if you have a credit. Why can't income tax be this simple?
It can. In California they piloted a program called Ready Return in 2004 and '05. The program sent out pre-filled tax forms to ten thousand taxpayers who merely needed to sign their name or make small adjustments.
Sadly, they didn't run the program this year because of heavy lobbying by Intuit but feedback from participants was so good that it will make an expanded comeback in 2007.
Last Saturday, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards proposed a similar program at the federal level. His "Form 1" would be sent to Americans like me who just fill out the basics and send it back. Instead I would get form that already has all the information filled out correctly. This is particularly important for the one out of four eligible families who miss out on the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Moreover, it would save average Americans the cost of seeing a tax preparer and would open up opportunities for simple online filing directly with the IRS.
And this is where I get really interested. This kind of solution is the perfect application of design thinking to a seemingly intractable problem.
I am a professional designer who has a political ideology that hold that the government should provide helpful services to people, it should be in the business of making our lives easier.
Taxation is an example of an interaction between us and the state that almost ends badly. I think this has a great deal to do with the low opinion people hold of our government.
In the United Kingdom, the UK Design Council has worked with the National Health Service to solve exactly this problem: how do you take unwieldy bureaucracies and make them pleasant to deal with? Better yet, how do you make them genuinely helpful?
You do it by thinking like a designer. It might seem pie in the sky but why can't going to the DMV be as streamlined and simple as going to Starbucks?
But let's stick to the issue at hand: taxes. What California and John Edwards have struck on is what we designers call low-hanging fruit.
- The information required to send out a RedyReturn or a Form1 already exists at the IRS. Even better, the IRS has enough information to send a pre-filled state form as well.
- The IRS already prints and mails out forms so you merely need to tweak that workflow to adapt to the new form.
- This is an opportunity to bring online filing back in house at the IRS. The outsourced FreeFile program doesn't make anything easier than a web-based Form1 would. Moreover, FreeFile opens up citizens to being duped by scammers claiming to participate in the federal program.
Implementing this project at the IRS would be a quick win both with huge returns for the people who would benefit directly and a more subtle benefit in an improved reputation for the IRS.
As you take your form to the post office tomorrow think about why the system is set up the way it is and how it could be made better without too much work. As designers, this is what we can give back to society.
Whilst chatting with Jeremy this evening the subject of Gerald Ford's funeral came up.
In case you haven't the news in the last few days he died. And had a funeral. And NPR played the music from his funeral a thousand times today while reminding us that he died, had a funeral, and powerful people attended and said big things about him. Really big things. Disproportionate things. Disrespectfully disproportionate things.
What I mean by this is that when someone does some great things but otherwise not much that's OK to admit when he or she dies. Good guy, smart, decent but not amazing. That's not an insult. It's called being honest.
The thing Jeremy pointed out that I remembered thinking about when Reagan died was that not that many people have lain in state in the U.S. Capitol. In fact, only thirty-two people have ever had the honor granted to them, a list that includes Warren Harding and J. Edgar Hoover for what it's worth.
Only eleven have been Presidents. Jeremy noted that every President who died after the Kennedy assignation has been granted the honor save for Truman and Nixon. Before that neither Roosevelt received this honor, nor did Wilson. So what does this say about how these decisions are made and what they mean?
Roosevelt was a truly great President but I don't know if you can say this about Ford. This is not to disrespect him, it is simply to put his legacy in context. Here's an example: Harding was a terrrible President, George W. Bush is a terrible President, Ford was an average President.
But why Ford and not Truman?
One similarity between Truman and Ford is that they both made a difficult decision that they believed to be for the good of the nation; Truman ordered that the atomic bomb be used against civilians and Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. In a way I have more trouble with Truman's decision but that is another matter.
The best thing about Ford, as Daniel Schorr pointed out in a rare show of perspective amid today's pomp, was his executive order banning political assassinations. That he had the character to end the disgusting tradition, under both Republican and Democratic Presidents, of trying to murder the leaders of other (smaller and weaker) countries is a rare high point of the Cold War. The era of secret killings, of spying on American dissenters, and of deceiving the American people was a great tragedy that he helped to stunt temporarily.
This is his legacy, not the puffed up words of Dick Cheney, the shallow jokes of George H. W. Bush, or the pomp and circumstance of today's event.
Truman also had his moments of greatness and easily makes the list of the ten greatest Presidents. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine that set the stage for containment, his support for democracy and civil society, the Berlin Airlift, and desegregating the military stand out.
I'm not sure why Truman wasn't given a state funeral and I'm not sure why Ford was honored this way.
Just because a state funeral looks good on TV doesn't mean that every President should be granted the honor or that choosing to do so is necessarily respectful to the memory of the deceased. Ford should be honored, remembered for what he did as President and that should be the end of it.
Get out and vote today. While you're at you polling place take some pictures to document history. Go to MoveOn.org and call voters in other states.
Then try to focus on your job for the rest of the day before you go home to watch the news. Let's all hope that this thing stays clean and that the Democrats can take at least one chamber of Congress!
Oh George...
I wake up early, hoping to have a nice relaxing bowl of granola while I listen to NPR. To my chagrin I learn that el jefe was having a press conference to explain the latest goings on in Iraq; read: the highest causalities in over a year and a schism betwixt the Prime Minister and American forces.
If you missed it, here are the highlights.
Bush was hardly in top form. His primary argument seems to be that all previous wars were a piece of cake. In World War II, you see, we could attack their armies and boats. This time they don't have armies and boats so it's completely different.
He then got into with a reporter who was brave enough to call him out for his abuse of semantics. The President was left to prattle on about how we are talking about benchmarks not timetables even though we called 'em timetables and we have to work together with the Iraqis even though our Ambassador and military commander announced independent benchmarks 'cause it's all about benchmarks not timetables... etc.
It was embarrassing. Fortunately for the election but sadly for our troops on the ground, this ship is clearly rudderless. What the President essentially admitted to is that he is staying the course on goals by refusing to consider leaving until Iraq is essentially Sweden but it cutting and running on the tactics by undermining the exact plan announced yesterday by his own men on the ground.
What a mess!
UPDATE To get an idea of just how big this mess see the report out this week from the U.S. Institute of Peace titled The Long Slog to Overcome Ethnic and Sectarian Politics. They project three basic scenarios:
- "The Long Shot to Overcome Ethnic and Sectarian Politics": "This is an Iraq that slowly, in fits and starts, trudges down the difficult road of creating a functioning state."
- "Lebanonization": "Unable to maintain control, the United States is itself a target when it becomes involved. ... U.S. troops largely retreat behind fortifications, distant from population centers, and head north to Kurdistan."
- "Descent Into Hell": Most of Iraq\x82\xC4\xF4s neighbors are drawn into open regional warfare, and it ends with Iran conducting strikes against Saudi Arabia\x82\xC4\xF4s oil industry.
The report concludes that "avoidance of disaster and maintenance of some modicum of political stability in Iraq are more realistic goals" than Bush's stated goal of "an Iraq that is peaceful, united, stable, democratic, and secure."
Joe Lieberman, please don't run as an independent. You lost today's primary fair and square. Sure, you can point to the fact that your web site was down today to twist today's results into a claim that the true will of the voters was routed. But we all know the real reason you will run as an independent: You are an egomaniac.
Please Joe, please don't do it.
If you live in Connecticut I strongly encourage you to vote for Ned Lamont this fall. If you know someone in Connecticut, give them a call and encourage them to get out and vote for Lamont and the Democratic take-over in the Senate this fall.
Joe Lieberman represents everything that is wrong and out-of-date about the Democratic Party. Ned Lamont represents the present and the future. He is an entrepreneur, a liberal, and stands with most Americans in his opposition to President Bush's failed Republican policies at home and abroad.
And if you don't live in Connecticut, send money to that important race but also get out and help your state party win like it never has before. Howard Dean's brilliant fifty state strategy depends on each of us to do our part. Look how far the passionate people of Connecticut took the Lamont campaign and imagine how far it still has yet to go. Now think of the races in your state that were long ago written off as impossible. You can make a difference there.
May no Republican or Democrat-in-name-only run unopposed ever again!
For the first time in years I get to vote in an election where the victor might actually eventually get to decide real policy. This is a refreshing change from voting in DC where my whole crew got worked up about who gets to shuffle around the scraps tossed to the city by the federal government. Ah DC politics...
But election day here comes with its own quirks. Today is the primary election for the upcoming elections in November so turnout will be very low. Californians are suffering from what pollsters and pundits are calling election fatigue. This caused in large part by the fact that there have been statewide elections at least once a year for the previous five years.
The last election we had here took place just as I was moving so I didn't have time to go vote. Fortunately, the state voted the way I would have wanted them to: No on all referenda. This state seems to lead the nation in goofy direct-to-voter initiatives. Because I'm from Illinois I have no trouble abdicating governing authority to a largely corrupt but effective group of professional politicians and bureaucrats. Here in California the residents seem to think they can do a better job than the representatives they vote for, often on the same piece of paper.
Today is no exception. In the Democratic primary for gubernatorial candidate, real estate developer cum State Treasurer Phil Angelides and eBay executive cum State Controller Steve Westley have spent the last month throwing mud at each-other. When you cut through the negative politicking these are essentially two true-blue liberals who differ only on what approach to take to solving the state's budget crisis (oh, that...).
Westley proposes cutting waste by increasing efficiency and stopping corruption and Angelides wants to increase taxes on Californians pulling in the big bucks and mega-corporations. I'm down with both of these ideas and think we should probably be doing both of these things to solve the state's problems. However, the ballot today also includes some pesky initiatives.
There is a proposal to fund libraries by issuing bonds because the state has dropped the ball on keeping them going with regular old tax revenue and there is a proposal to fund universal pre-school by taxing Californians making more than $400,000. Libraries are good for everybody and preschool is good for kids but how will Westley or Angelides (or Schwarzenegger for that matter) be able to get the state out of this mess if the voters are supporting them while mandating spending in this way? Aren't these the same rich people that Angelides wants to tax? Are we creating new programs that Westley will need to clean up? Are these more opportunities for Schwarzenegger to screw things up in Sacramento?
It seems counter-intuitive to have representative government and direct democracy in the same system. But I live here now so I have to suck it up and when I go to the polls after work decide if I trust the state to fund libraries without borrowing money or whether I can count on my governor to provide universal preschool without forcing his hand. Ah, California. Having my vote actually count for something is a heavy responsibility and a welcome one!
I've had credit card debt for a long long time. It started with a credit card offer from Discover with an obscene credit limit when I was in high school. This was a card, offered to an underage teenager, without a requirement for a parental cosigner. I'm pretty sure that is illegal but if it isn't it should be.
Oh wait, what was that about the bankruptcy bill and why we should all oppose Joe Biden's bid for the White House?
But I digress. In college my debt increased and ever since I have been working hard to completely eliminate it. As Julie and I both approach this important finish line, now set for later this year, we are starting to plan for a life completely free of debt.
I can't say that without pausing to think about how wonderful that will be... (sigh)
We are now at a point where we have been living within our means for so long that this new era will be one of intelligent financial decisions. We are already aggressively saving for retirement.
This process has taught me some hard but important lessons about the minefield that is credit card debt. Because so many people I know also suffer in the same position and the numbers for America at large are even worse, I will attempt to offer some tips that make the most sense to me:
- Stop spending. This is the most important and the hardest lesson to learn. You just don't need it. I don't care what it is but you can live without it. Make a budget for rent (that you can afford). Set aside enough money to buy food that is up to the quality you require. If you must drive, reserve money for gas. AND DON'T SPEND ANYTHING ELSE! You don't deserve to spend your paycheck if you don't have your debt under control. The money isn't yours, you already spent it. Remember that pair of pants, skirt, expensive dinner, trip, etc. that wasn't worth this agony in retrospect?
- Don't just pay the minimums. The minimum payment is set by your lender. Do you think that they set this amount in a) your interest or b) their interest? If you guessed a you are simply naive. Whether you owe money to a credit card company or for a mortgage, the lender is in it to make money. For fun, if you're a masochist, calculate how long it will take you to pay off your balance paying only the minimum payment at your current interest rate (which will likely increase over time). Does it take longer than your life expectancy?
- Pay the worst debt off first. It might be fun to play the balance transfer game for a little while but sooner or later you are going to have to face up to what you owe. Once this moment comes you should start with your highest interest debt first. This might not be your highest balance but it is most likely the one that is costing you the most in the long run. Be careful when calculating this. If, for example, you accidentally overdrew your checking account and your bank "generously" pulled a preset amount from your credit card to cover the check you now owe that money at the highest available rate for "cash advances" on your credit card. When you write your check to your bank for your credit card bill they will apply your payment to the lowest interest debt first. So if you owe a really high interest rate on that $100 dollar advance for the overdraft it will sit there at that interest rate until you pay everything else off first. This is not a corner you want to get backed into.
- Live within your budget. I find the best way to do this is to set aside the money for debt and savings first thing. Having lived this way for so long my mind has adapted to only thinking that I have what I allow myself to have. As I transition from paying down debt to saving and investing I won't miss this money every month.
- Reward yourself with numbers. If you're like me, you want to know where you are at all times so you can feel good about the progress you are making and you can remind yourself about why you didn't buy that thing back in tip 1. I find that when I'm not constantly paying attention to my numbers I lose track of my progress and slip a little. Keep up with your situation and you will be out of debt faster than you imagine.
- Create a Roth IRA and save for retirement. If your employer offers a matching contribution to a 401(k) or a 403(b), take them up on it. This is free money for your retirement. If your boss isn't this generous don't bother with any other kind of investing until you have maxed out a Roth IRA. This after tax contribution will make money until you retire and, when you redeem your forty years of earnings, you will owe no taxes, not a dime. There is nothing better than a Roth IRA for saving your money. Like any retirement account, the longer the principle sits there the more money you make, so get started on this right away. A fair question to ask is whether you should do this before eliminating your debt. Look at your interest rates. Once you've paid off everything over 8% start to look at this option, until then go back to step 3.
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of luck, pure and simple. If this or that one circumstance the whole house of cards could have come tumbling down. Because we live in a corrupted version of America with no safety net left to protect against bad luck I shudder to imagine what position I could be in right now.
It is repugnant that Congress, with the active participation of many Democrats, made it harder for most Americans to free themselves of the chains of personal debt. Being in debt is not only painful on your pocketbook, it eats at your very being. Our society revels in the consumerism that causes debt but doesn't want to look at what this c
ulture does to those people who can't afford to keep up. Credit card companies may be fueling the spending that keeps our economy from recession but the long view will show them to be leeches on our society. They offer nothing of value and exact an enormous toll. To be in debt is to feel that you are somehow failing to live up to the ideals of our society. And yet you look around and are at the same time told to buy, buy, buy. It is the obligation, the duty, of the state to protect the weakest among us.
Luck and charity are hardly the foundations of a strong and stable society. As for my life, I seem to have been dealt a good hand in recent years and was able to emerge relatively unscathed from this blight.
An Inconvenient Truth, the new documentary about Al Gore's tireless advocacy for environmental issues in recent years, opened Wednesday in Los Angeles and New York. Julie and I snapped up tickets to an evening showing at the Arclight that had the added benefit of a Q&A with the film's director.
An Inconvenient Truth is a truly important film. The film centers around a presentation that Al Gore has perfected in recent years about the science behind the developing global crisis. With an abundance of charts and citations, Gore lays out an iron-clad case for the simplest fact of global warming: human behavior is changing the way the world naturally functions. We follow Gore as he delivers his presentation to audiences around the world with an occasional detour to see the work of climate scientists in their element.
But why now? After analyzing dramatic changes in global weather patterns in recent years, Gore asks whether we should be preparing for threats to our society in addition to terrorism. This question is the defining one of our era. Gore's presentation is in the face of a constant barrage of disinformation from the right. The current issue of the National Review features an articles titled Snow Job: The truth about the great overhyped glacier melt. As the Center for American Progress points out, this story is not based on scienctific investigation and when it does mention scientific study is twists the conclusions to fit the narrative of the article.
On Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume earlier this week, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes falsely claimed that "It's not known for certain or anywhere near certain whether the small increase in temperature over the last hundred years is caused by man or not." This is a lie.
In the film, Gore points to an article in the jounral Science from December 2004. The authors analyzed 928 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals from 1993 to 2004 and found that not a single one disagreed with the fundamental truth that human civilization is changing the natural balance of the earth's climate. The next time you hear some say that climate change is uncertain, point them to this article. There is no more dispute in the scientific community about climate change than there is about gravity or evolution.
As long as the media allows this lie to spread, that there is dispute in the scientific community about climate change, Gore's presentation and, by extension, this film are important. Americans are capable of rising to great challenges. We are capable of changing some of our habits and embracing new technology that offer a way of this morass.
Please go see An Inconvenient Truth and get involved in your community to make sure that our children will look back our generation and be proud of how we turned this crisis around.
In nearly every American city immigrants from the far reaches of the globe are joining in solidarity to demand their rights. They demand only what they have justly earned by the hardships endured on extended sea voyages in shipping crates from Hong Kong, deadly desert crossings from Mexico, and the many other myriad ways that immigrants make there way to our border.
These immigrants have earned the respect and dignity they demand through years of toil. Whether picking crops that supply our overstocked grocery stores or locked in a WALMART through the night expected to clean for little pay they have suffered as our government turns an official blind eye.
They have had enough. Their safety is being threatened by jingoistic Republicans desperate to garner votes in the fall elections by inflaming the latent racism and desperation of the white working class. These machinations will fail and through solidarity and public protest the deep believers in the promise of America who take to the street today will have their voices heard.
Immigrant communities, it is reported by the press, are divided over whether a strike is the best course of action. One need only look at the direct cause and effect of a few short weeks ago. The House of Representatives had passed reprehensible legislation that would have made the millions of undocumented workers who clean our offices and stores, pick our vegetables, and construct the edifices of our opulence into felons. In Los Angeles and elsewhere, students and workers took to the streets demanding justice.
Congress responded. The protests worked. The Senate reached a better compromise. The new position is not good enough, but those who took to the streets learned that they could stay the hand of intolerance through mass action.
Today is another opportunity and as I drove to work this morning I was excited to see the shops in the immigrant neighborhoods closed. I was glad to see traffic a little lighter than usual and imagined that all of those people would be joining the marches.
I'm at work today and not at the mid-day march. I will join the afternoon march for those who did not take off work. I am the descendant of immigrants, we all are. We all must turn out and show solidarity.
Like most Americans I have been thinking about the deal to allow Dubai Ports World to purchase a number of east coast ports. It is patently shameful and inexcusable that the Democrats have pounced on this in the way that they have. Charles Schumer and those senators who followed him in opposition to this deal are acting out pure anti-Muslim sentiment.
The reason this is so despicable is that security at our nation's ports is an actual crisis. Focusing on this deal obfuscates the larger issues: President Bush is a homeland security disaster. Just this morning, NPR reported that a large number of port workers and truck drivers have criminal backgrounds and background checks are not completed properly. We have all heard about the low number of cargo containers that are actually inspected and we know that the President's budget does not focus on solving these problems.
If the Democrats want to gain traction on national security issues they should do so by focussing on substance instead of jumping on the anti-Muslim bandwagon. Shame on you congressional Democrats, shame on you!
Who is this guy?
