Guess Who Represents the State That Receives the Most Federal Tax Dollars?

As you know Republicans Boehner and Cantor represent the Commonwealth of Virginia in Congress and both are staunch deficit reduction advocates.  Or at least that’s what we’ve come to understand from their past actions and speeches on the topic.  And already Boehner has stated that if the automatic budget reductions go into effect now that the Super “Dud” Committee has come up with zip, he will not countenance any reductions in Defense Department funding.  According to both Cantor and Boehner the continued strength of American armed forces is just too important.

Well let’s take a closer look at their rhetoric.  Virginia is basically divided into two political camps – Northern Virginia (the Washington Suburbs) is very liberal while the rest of the state is fundamentally arch-conservative.  (To get a feel for the schizophrenic state of Virginia affairs, never forget that Jerry Falwell and his media empire is headquartered in Lynchburg, VA - NOT a DC suburb.)  It’s a bit like New York State – liberal democrats downstate while upstate is very conservative.  Of course NY doesn’t have the ever-present legacy of the Civil War like Virginia which only means that feelings downstate in VA a bit more entrenched than in upstate NY.

While both Boehner and Cantor unveil their patriotic stripes when bellowing against cuts to Defense spending, the real motivator, in this instance, is much closer to what you might expect from these two Tea Party stars.  It’s money.  Federal Money as it turns out.  Prosaic, perhaps, but the truth. Both Cantor and Boehner go on and one about the state’s low unemployment rate (6.5% currently) and the number of jobs they’ve created and the vibrant economic health of Virginia.   What they forget to mention is that Federal Government largesse is the reason for Virginia’s healthy economy. Federal Government expenditures (your tax dollars) in Virginia total 38% of the state’s Gross Domestic Product, more than any other state in the union.  Plus, Federal Procurement Expenditures (direct purchases for goods and services by the Federal Government) in the state are 20% of ALL federal government expenditures. Average for the rest of the states?  3.8%  Plus, one county, Fairfax (DC suburb) receives about $25 billion annually in Federal procurement expenditures. It’s safe to say that Virginia’s economy is dependent on our tax dollars for its health. No other state in the union receives as much in Federal funds. 

So, for two arch-conservative, small government, no tax Republicans, doesn’t it seem a bit odd to you that Boehner and Cantor would be leading the charge for cutting government spending since without it Virginia’s economy would suffer drastically if such cuts actually took place?  Well, fool me once or twice, but what both are advocating are cuts in SOCIAL SPENDING, you know, food stamps, unemployment compensation, education grants, etc.  I mean we all know this, but when you factor in the amount of our tax dollars that flow to Virginia, wouldn’t you think that Boehner and Cantor would be just a bit more circumspect in their criticism of “out of control” Federal spending? 

And just in case you didn’t know it, the great Commonwealth of Virginia is at the bottom of the list of states when it comes to Federal grant funds for education, law enforcement and health care.  (I thought Mississippi or Alabama took this honor, but I was wrong.)

So it is ideologically OK (pure) to take our tax dollars when it’s is siphoned through Lockheed Martin ($16.7 billion in Federal contracts in 2010), Northrop Grumman ($11 billion), Boeing ($10 billion) and Raytheon ($6.7 billion) but when it comes to help for the poor, medically indigent, the unemployed and those other lazy, good for nothing human beings that live in Virginia, Federal tax dollars are a perversion of free market economics? 

Yeah.  Kind of blows your mind doesn’t it?  

The Penn State Mess: Not The First Time

“Penn State Assistant Coach Sandusky Forces Anal Intercourse On 10 Year Old Boy”

This is what the headlines should have said last week when the latest Penn State abuse scandal broke.  Why?  Because this is what happened.  If you read the Pennsylvania State Grand Jury report, this is what you will read.  Disgusting isn’t it?  The Grand Jury report details the allegation of 8 young men abused by Sandusky.  Find the report here: www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4181508116.PDF  Be forewarned: It’s not light reading. 

But this is not the first controversy to hit Penn State’s athletic programs.  Ironically I happened to come across a documentary entitled “Training Rules” (www.trainingrules.com), by Dee Mosbacher and Fawn Yacker, a couple of weeks ago about Penn State women’s sports coach Rene Portland who resigned in 2007 after 25 years of successive championship seasons in Penn State’s women’s basketball program.  Ms. Portland was a goddess among collegiate women’s sports and racked up impressive victories for her women’s basketball team over the years.   

The problem?  Well wouldn’t you know it but this controversy involved sex also.  Not quite in the same way, however, as assistant coach Sandusky but remarkable as well.  Rene’s “problem” was that she wouldn’t truck even a whiff of lesbianism among her girls.  She even told prospective recruits and their families that there would be no homosexual activity in her program.  Over her 25+ years as head coach a score of female sportswomen were kicked off her team because they were outed as lesbians.  No hearings.  No judicial review.  No administrative reviews.  Just kicked off.

Like Penn State’s men’s program, the women’s program was sacrosanct since it brought enormous prestige and money to the university.  Even though the dozen women highlighted in the documentary were kicked off the team, lost their scholarships, were kicked out of school and had their careers sidetracked or destroyed, Ms. Rene’s autocratic and discriminatory ways prevailed despite repeated complaints to the university administration.  In fact, Ms. Portland did not resign from the program until one young woman, Jennifer Harris, filed a federal lawsuit against her and the university in 2006 based on gender discrimination and won.

What was the university’s response when they were sued? They rescinded the non-discrimination policy against LGBT men and women that nearly all universities adopted following Congressional passage of Title IX legislation deeming illegal discrimination based on sexual orientation by any college who received federal funds.  It didn’t work though.  Ms. Harris prevailed, received a settlement and Rene Portland was forced to retire in 2007.

I ask you – what’s up with Penn State’s sports programs?  Or is this the situation with all college sports programs.  Sadly, I suspect, that it’s the latter. 

NB:  “Training Rules” is well worth a look.  I ran across it accidentally and wasn’t all that interested at first.  But it is a fascinating account of the abuse and hardships caused by Coach Portland in her 25 years at Penn State.  

Just When You Thought The Republican Race Couldn’t Get Any Loopier

I’ll bet that Herman Cain is very pissed that his sexual harassment scandal has been overshadowed by the Penn State sex abuse scandal.  Is that too harsh?  Maybe.  But it seems to me that Republican presidential hopeful – and frontrunner – Cain was having a really marvelous time denying the harassment allegations, demeaning the accusing women as morally deficient gold diggers, and castigating the media and his fellow combatants for trying to destroy his campaign.  I mean the whole Republican presidential campaign was getting sort of stale anyway especially if you’ve seen any of the “debates.”  And tell me, how many photo ops can you take of Mitt Romney smiling wistfully in some small town greasy diner dive with a burger in his hand before you have a spastic need to upchuck?

The unfolding stories of Cain’s harassment – we’re up to four now (or is it 5?) - feel like a kind of perverse torture – like hot wax being dripped on your chest.  But I have to say that I’m enjoying the hell out of it!    Certainly has brought a new level of entertainment value to the Republican race.  Rick Perry  – ‘never met a campaign contributor I couldn’t flip for as long as it’s big enough’ - is sooooo last week now. 

Of course to those of us who were glued to the Clarence Thomas Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearings back in the mid-80’s Cain’s imbroglio has an eerily familiar ring to it.  Thomas, that Supreme Court Justice Extraordinaire, overcame the Anita Hill allegations and sits in stony silence on the high court bench exchanging knowing glances with his fellow arch-conservative Antonin Scalia.  (Do they have a “thing” going on the side? Do they have the same mother?) I mean the man is just so fucking predictable, toeing the party line in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer.  As he should, of course, since he owes big time.  

Taking a cue from the Thomas/Hill debacle, Cain has described the press coverage of his misadventures as a “techno-lynching” (race card anyone?) despite the fact that Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for 25 years.  Is he aware that Thomas prevailed and Anita Hill was trashed like a whore caught in the headlights of a pimpmobile?  Yes, of course he does.  He’s using the same sleazy misogynist strategy that Thomas and his handlers used against Anita Hill.   Will he prevail?  It’s telling that “gold digger” Sharon Bialek hasn’t been able to convince the other women to come forward.  Let’s hope that times have changed.  But I’m not banking on it.

Cain’s former Restaurant Association associates don’t seem to be all that reticent about describing his penchant for "women-other-than- his-wife" during his tenure there.  Nor his prolifigate use of Association funds for good times.  By the way, Cain’s tenure as head of the Restaurant Association here in DC sparked years of street protests by restaurant employees since he recommended that restaurant workers be exempt from minimum wage requirements and a host of other unfriendly “labor destroying” policies.  Family values any one?  

But you have to give the Tea Party folks credit – they just keep on giving and giving and giving.  Reminds me of the late Madeline Khan’s famous line in the movie “High Anxiety” about the men in her life.   ("They just keep coming, and coming, and coming!") Their economic policies are for shit, their racism is an embarrassment and their standard bearers are like something out of a bad horror movie satire.  But they are a hoot.   Is there anyone out there – including Karl Rove – who actually thinks that Herman Cain could beat Barak Obama next year?  Hell no!  But tell me, what male television producer wouldn’t give both testicles for creating a reality show like this one?   I mean the ratings bonanza!!!!!  It truly boggles the mind!

On the other hand (why is there always an “other hand"?) it sure scares the hell out of me that this is the field of Republican Presidential candidates – with Cain as the current frontrunner no less – that the Tea Party has brought to us, the American public.  It truly boggles the mind. 

WTF? One Red Pepper Costs $4.00?

All right, that’s an exaggeration.  A perfectly ordinary capsicum red pepper at my local Harris Teeter – yes, it was an organic pepper - was pegged at $3.99.  Each. FOR EACH ONE!!  I mean, really, what is going on here?  You know as well as I do that the cost of groceries has been steadily rising for the past couple of years.  And what about gasoline?  We’re in a deep recession.  The summer driving season is over.  We import less than 1% of our oil from Libya.  There’s no Arab embargo as there was in the 1970’s.  So tell me, why is that the gasoline I have to use is STILL more than $4.00 a gallon?  (As far as I can tell the $3.99 – I rounded it up to $4.00 and I apologize for that “journalistic license” -  for a red pepper and the $4.00 a gallon for gas is merely coincidental.  I guess. Who the hell knows these days?)

So look, in this perfect world of free market economics that’s going to lead us to Nirvana thanks to the late Milton Friedman, et. al., the prices we pay for goods are perfectly attuned to supply and demand.  Short supplies = higher prices.  Plentiful supplies = lower prices.    I mean this is the premier, basic, fundamental, rock-solid tenet of free market economics isn’t it?  At least it’s what I learned in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.

And yet, as far as I know, there hasn’t been a drought in Chile or El Salvador where most of our peppers come from and there is no shortage in the supply of oil.  So, just why the hell have prices risen so much over the past few years especially when we are in the midst of a deep recession? (When, I might add, prices – according to free market economic principles – fall due to reduced demand.  Folks have less money to spend.  It’s as simple as that.)

Well about three, four months after the Wall Street/Banking collapse in 2008, I happened to read an article about how our Wall Street “friends” were hunting around for other “exotic” financial instruments that could replace the sub-prime mortgage default swaps that had simply imploded.  I’ve forgotten who wrote the article, it was an economist - maybe Paul Krugman or Robert Samuelson – who predicted that the next big wave of ginned up investment opportunities for the rich would be trading in commodity futures.  Well in today’s Wash Post an article by Steve Pearlstein lays out just what’s happened in the speculative commodity futures market. 

Don’t get me wrong, speculating in commodity futures – the price of corn, or hogs, or wheat, or oil three weeks, six months or a year out - is nothing new. After all, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has been in business since 1898.  So you might ask “What’s different now?” The difference, in 2011, is that the price of corn, hogs, wheat and oil is no longer linked to droughts, workers’ strikes, pests, embargoes, shortages of raw materials, etc. all the real world conditions that should have an effect on what we pay for the things we buy.  

Why?  Well thanks to our Wall Street buddies, it is simply the trading in the financial instruments that represent futures that determines the price of a red pepper or a gallon of gasoline.  Totally divorced from the real world (have we been down this path before?) the trading of commodity futures is now a closed system dependent only on the “hotness” of a given commodity’s financial instruments.  That is, prices are determined by the demand for the financial instrument that represents the commodity itself, rather than demand for the actual commodity.  Another paper (OK, electronic) financial instrument divorced from real world economics?  More derivatives?  More “swaps?”  I mean, come on, when will this kind of bullshit, “made on Wall Street,” “we will stay rich and privileged no matter now bad it is for the country”, ridiculousness stop?  I’m sorry if I offend anyone, but this shit is just plain fucking crazy. 

See: Wall Street's Bubble Machine