Associated Press: President Obama: Arizona Immigration Law Miss-Guided

Source:Free State MD

So what would I do?  I've said before it's easier to complain about something than to fix it.  I would have a comprehensive approach to fixing the illegal Immigration problem like the Affordable Care Act's reform of our health care system.

Boarder Security- 
Increase the number of Boarder Patrol agents on the Southern border, so we have enough resources to protect that border adequately.  Collect dedicated revenue for Customs and the Border Patrol through a fee charged for  border crossings into America from Mexico, Canada, and other countries. 

Employer Fines- 
Place steep fines on employers who hire illegal immigrants and pay them below minimum wage.  Adjust the amount of the fine for the severity of the violation and the wealth of the company. 

Employment Visa- 
Since America is a country where people are expected to work and produce as part of living here and we don't have the resources to subsidize anybody who's not capable of supporting themselves, I would only admit immigrants who are capable of working and qualified to do a job needed here.   I would withhold their eligibility for unemployment insurance or welfare until they're citizens of the United States. 

Probational Residency- 
Since America is a nation of laws, I'm not for giving the 15M or so illegal immigrants who are in America amnesty for entering our country illegally. That contradicts the Rule of Law but I'm also not for attempting to kick out all of these people because it's simply impractical and inhumane.  I would bring these people out of the dark into the light of America and give them a chance at a normal life under the following conditions:  

They pay a fine based on the length of time they've been in the country illegally.  If they can't pay it at once, installment plans would be available. 

They pay all back taxes to Federal, State and local governments that they might have avoided as illegal immigrants, plus penalties and interest.

They become proficient in the English language so they can better assimilate and improve their employment chances. 

In addition, illegal immigrants should be required to get a Probational Residency ID Card that would have to  be carried on their person like a driver's license and renewed every year.   Renewal of the card would be based on their ability to meet the conditions of Probational Residency. If they meet the conditions, they can stay for at least another year.  If not, they would be subject to immediate deportation.

These conditions would include a requirement to hold a job or have a private sector sponsor who can support then.  After 10 years, if they've met all of the conditions of Probational Residency, they would be granted legal immigrant status and allowed to move towards citizenship.  If they've met all conditions except for reparation of back taxes, interest, penalties, and fines, they could remain in the country while their paying off their financial obligations as long as they're not felons and employed.  They would be subject to annual review until they reach legal immigrant status. 

I think this Comprehensive Approach to solving our illegal immigration problem is more practical and humane than attempting airtight closure of the borders and deportation of15M illegal immigrants. 

Reason Magazine: Ted Balaker Interviewing Neill Franklin: Five Ways The Drug War Hurts Kids

Source:Free State MD

If there is one war in that America needs to end it's the "War on Drugs". The War on Drugs is almost completely fought from the law enforcement side.  Dealers and users are  both basically seen as criminals who deserve to be locked up.  Narcotics dealers and importers are clearly criminals who deserve to be locked up in maximum security prisons serving long sentences because they make their money selling dope to addicts who use it and, in a lot cases, destroy they're lives or die as a result.  But, a lot of times, their "customers" are not criminals and shouldn't be treated as such.  Narcotics customers are addicts and should be treated as patients.

While I'm for putting narcotics dealers away in prison, I am for sending narcotics users to drug treatment centers.  They could be released when their doctors and judges determine that they're rehabilitated and don't need or want narcotics anymore. They would get treatment, counseling and work while they're at these centers.  They wouldn't be free people who could leave at anytime.  Narcotics addicts sentenced to the treatment centers could be required to pay for their time there.  There could be vouchers or some other arrangement for those who could not afford the treatment. 

Now, under the War on Drugs, when drug users are caught and convicted of possession of drugs with intent to use, they are sent to prison.  They serve their sentences and get out still addicted to narcotics.  They may even have used narcotics in prison and picked up a few  more criminal skills.  They go back to the street as narcotics users.  If, instead, we collapsed the narcotics market by getting the customers off of them, dealers would have fewer customers and make less money. After release from the drug treatment center rehabilitated users could be required to provide up to a year of community service. They could be spokesmen for the rehab program telling their community about the dangers of narcotics use and their experiences with it. 

This makes financial sense.  One reason the U.S. prison system is over crowded is because a lot of its Inmates  are users who are there for narcotics related crimes.   This program could save a lot of valuable prison space for violent felons who deserve to be there.

The White House: President Obama Signs Health Care Reform Law

Source:Free State MD

What do I think of the Affordable Health Care Act?  Well to be brief, and I guess this is simplistic, I would say that it is the best health care reform bill that could've been passed in this Congress. As a liberal, I believe in private enterprise and capitalism and open competition, as well as freedom of choice.  Thats what the public option would've brought, another option not a mandate like a single payer system.  Americans could choose  where to get they're health insurance among providers who would compete fairly in the private market. 

It's not a Medicare system for all, which would force everyone in the country to purchase Medicare whether they wanted it or not.  It offers a tax credit for employers and people who aren't eligible for Medicare and Medicaid that goes a long way toward seeing that these people are able to afford health insurance.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the Health Care Act will provide health insurance to an additional 30M Americans who currently don't have it.

Other than the tax credit to purchase health insurance, the best part of the Health Care Act, along with the fact that its totally paid for according to CBO and won't add a penny to our national debt, is that it has a Patients Bill of Rights.  This was debated in Congress ten years ago.  New federal regulations  prevent health insurers from abusing their customers and sitting on their profits instead of providing health insurance, which is their primary purpose.

No longer will health insurers be able to dump patients who have pre-existing conditions or just because they are sick and need their health insurance. No more caps on the amount of health insurance claims over a lifetime. Health insurers are required to spend a certain percentage of their profits on patient care.  They'll actually have to provide health insurance for  patients instead of sitting on their profits. 

I'm a Liberal and I believe in freedom.   Part of freedom is economic freedom, the ability of people to set their own course in life.  People need to be able to make money to do that.  Economic freedom provides freedom of choice so that people can decide for themselves where to get the services they need in their lives.  A big part of that, of course. is health insurance, the ability to pay for your own health care.

The Health Care Act supports this by stripping away the most common abuses committed by the private health insurers.   It improves the private health insurance market so that people of modest means, but who aren't poor, will now have the resources to decide for themselves where to get their health insurance, just like upper middle class and upper class people can.

The White House: 2010 State of the Union Address

Source:Free State MD

I realize that we're past the 365-day mark of the Barack Obama presidency and we're probably around the 400-day mark but I want to lay out in this blog how I believe the first year of the Obama Presidency has gone so far.

As we all know, when Barack Obama became President in January 2009, he inherited several awful problems that he had to deal with right away. On the domestic side, he inherited a deep recession of  -7% economic growth, where we were losing 700,000 jobs per month, roughly the population of Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest cities in America, which now has a 10% unemployment rate. He inherited a budget deficit of over $1 trillion and a national debt of over $10 trillion.  So that's what was on the plate for Barack Obama and his Administration when he became President, facing two strikes with not a lot of room to make mistakes.  To grow on the job he had to make a lot of quick decisions with Congress right off the bat without much room for error. 

It's easy to blame the other guy when you are President and in a tough situation, but that's not leadership.  Part of leadership is facing the problem and solving it the best way possible.  Putting the country back on a path of prosperity for better or worse is now the Barack Obama Administration's problem.  His foreign, domestic, and fiscal problems come with being a leader responsible for his actions.

They did pass the 2009 Recovery Act and it was written quickly and could have been designed a lot better.  I would have put in around $400 billion for infrastructure spending, especially since the Corps of Engineers says we need about $500 billion of repairs across the country.  We also need small-business tax relief and capital gains tax relief.  If we are going to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars from China and other nations, we might as well put that money to the best use possible and plan a payroll tax holiday to encourage hiring and double the Make Work Pay Tax Credit to $1,000 per individual and $2,000 for couples to encourage consumer spending. 

On foreign policy, as I said before, I think the Obama national security team screwed up the GITMO situation by announcing they would close that military prison without finding an alternative location for these terrorist inmates.  But I think President Obama has done a good job with Afghanistan, conducting a review of the Afghan War instead of just announcing his own policy from day one without having all the facts. And once he had all the facts, he announced an Afghan surge and sent in an additional 30,000 troops. Also, President Obama has made it clear to the world that although America is back as a partner, this doesn't mean that America will be dictated to on foreign policy or anything else.  It does mean we are attempting to garner cooperation where we can. 

So overall I would give President Obama an A- for his handling of foreign policy, with the minus applied to GITMO. Overall I would give the President a B because he could have done better on economic and fiscal policy.  But it's his first year and he's learning.  He's off to a good start with a lot of potential to improve.

C-SPAN: President Obama's Address to Congress on Health Care Reform

Source:Free State MD

When the health care reform debate started earlier this year, President Obama made the political calculation that he would delegate the health care reform issue to the unpopular Democratic Congress and let the congressional Democratic Leadership figure out and take the heat for whatever problems and issues could arise, such as the Congressional Budget Office scoring the Senate health care bill at over $1 trillion of borrowed money, not a single dime of it paid for, or the fact that the House Democratic Caucus would be divided.

The House Democratic health care bill was scored by CBO at $900 billion, with a $500 billion tax increase in a struggling economy that's just starting to come out of the Great Recession.  The fiscally conservative House Blue Dog Caucus doesn't like tax increases in a struggling economy and they represent 52 members, or one-fifth of the House Democratic Caucus, enough by themselves to kill any health care bill or any other bill on their own along with the 176-member House Republican Caucus.

One problem with delegating the health care reform issue to the Democratic Leadership is that they delegated the issue to the House Progressive/Democratic Socialist Caucus (as I call them), which represents another 50 members of the House Democratic Caucus, which wrote a socialist style health care reform bill that included the $500 billion tax hike as well as another big tax hike on employers who don't provide health insurance to their employees.

Another problem with the Democratic Socialists' bill is that only a small minority on this far-left fringe of the American political spectrum supports their bill and a large portion of the American public is terrified of the Democratic Socialists' bill, which has scared a lot of Americans away from health care reform.  If health care reform goes down in 2009, it will be because of this one fatal mistake that President Obama made in early 2009. 

So going into tonight's speech to Congress and the American people, President Obama had five tasks, as I see it: 

(1) Lay down his vision to Congress and Americans of health care reform in a clear and concise way. 

(2) Bring back those independent voters who voted for him in 2008 who have been scared away from health care reform because of the House Democratic Socialists' bill as well as the Republican opposition and congressional minority and their allies.

(3) Reach out to the House Blue Dog Caucus as well as the Senate centrist Democrats by explaining he wouldn't sign a Health Care reform bill that isn't paid for and explaining his vision of what a public health insurance option looks like, and that it wouldn't have any unfair advantages over private health insurers. 

(4) Reach out to Democratic Socialists in the House by making it clear he supports a public option. 

(5) Reach out to senior voters by making clear to them that he wouldn't sign any health care reform bill that hurts Medicare. 

I believe President Obama accomplished all five of these tasks tonight.  I thought it was a great speech and hopefully it will move the ball forward towards real Health Care reform in 2009.  Now it's time to get it done.

VOA News: President Obama Nominates Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court

Source:Free State MD

Justice David Souter was considered by then President George H.W. Bush to be the next conservative Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Ha!  He was the best mistake that President Bush could have made, in my opinion as a liberal, because he was the opposite of what President Bush had in mind when he appointed him to the bench.  President Bush still gets flack from right-wingers today about the Souter nomination, about everything from civil rights, labor rights, environmental protection, to choice, civil liberties, keeping our streets safe, to protecting speech, to keeping America a republic rather then a theocracy, or to defending the U.S. Constitution.  Justice Souter was there defending the values that some Americans take for granted.

So how should President Obama fill the seat that Justice Souter will leave behind. For one, he should find someone who has values similar to those of Justice Souter, believing in the U.S. Constitution and America and defending it every day and every minute he/she is on the Supreme Court. I realize that African-Americans have had two appointments, Jewish-Americans have had two appointments, Italian-Americans have had two appointments, women have had two appointments, and now that Latino Americans represent 12.5% of the American population, you can make the case that their time has come as well. But it would be an insult to Latino Americans as well as America as a whole to nominate someone to the Supreme Court who is not qualified regardless of their racial or ethnic background. The idea is to nominate the best person for the job and someone who represents your values the best.  Then, if that person is Latino, great, but that should not be the primary standard for nomination. 

So what am I getting at? Well, a couple of things. I'm not a lawyer (in case you missed the memo), but the job of any Justice is to interpret laws, not write them, and not to legislate from the bench.  Legislating is the job of elected legislators (or lobbyists).  Justices are supposed to judge the constitutionality of laws and what they mean, not how they should have been written.  Democrats control the White House and Senate, so they get to decide who is appointed to the bench and who gets confirmed. Liberals believe, and I'm one of them, that it's time for an appointment that we like, not a centrist, especially since President W. Bush got exactly who he wanted on the Supreme Court in John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But I want a real liberal, not a social democrat but someone who understands the real world and the U.S. Constitution and doesn't try to make it up as he goes along. 

I'm not a huge fan of Judge Sonia Sotomayor and probably would not have appointed her, but judging from her professional background, she appears to have liberal tendencies, which is what you want if you are a Democrat appointing someone to the Supreme Court, but she also has a reputation as a tough prosecutor, which tells me she's not too far to the left.  Her ruling in the Connecticut firefighters case, and especially her short ruling to explain her decision, is troubling to me as a liberal who believes in equal rights for all, not just for some. But I'm not going to use one case to bring her down, especially when her legal record looks very good on the whole, which is why I believe she should and will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

NBC News: President Barack Obama's First 100 Days

Source:Free State MD

It's been just 100 days of the Barack Obama Administration (note the title of this blog), but already there seems to be a pattern to how President Obama will govern. The first few weeks seemed shaky, with some executive appointments that had to be pulled back, such as former Senate Leader Tom Daschle to be Secretary of HHS.  Daschle didn't report a car service that he used while in the Senate on his taxes, which was required. The President appointed New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner to be Secretary of Treasury, but he failed to report some of his income to the IRS when he worked at the World Bank. If you, I, Joe and Jane Jones, etc. don't pay their taxes, we go to jail or pay a steep fine or both, but Tim Geithner, because of who he is, gets away with it.  Sounds like a double standard to me. I don't think the White House has a strong enough vetting process.

I do think that once Barack Obama and Joe Biden were sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States, they got to work right away and showed us they understood the issues they faced, whether it was Afghanistan and Iraq by appointing General David Petraeus to be Central Commander and acknowledging that they didn't have enough troops there, or veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke to be an envoy to Central Asia.

They understood the economy and got to work quickly with Congress to write a badly needed Recovery Act for the sluggish economy.  However, I disagree with much of what was in the Recovery Act, since I think it spends too much on things that have as little to do with stimulating the economy as classical music has to do with heavy metal; for example, health IT as well as additional money for the NEA didn't do enough to stimulate the economy.  Actions that would actually stimulate the economy are infrastructure projects, small business tax relief, and capital gains tax relief so people could start rebuilding their retirement accounts. What was in the Recovery Act was either wasteful, like the NEA spending, or not enough, like the Make Work Pay Tax Credit, $500 for an individual that should've been twice as much. 

Then Senator Obama, when he was running for President in 2008, ran on the theme "change that we can believe in." Part of that idea was changing how the Federal Government operated. We were going to stop borrowing and spending and mortgaging our children's future, to get lobbyists out of government, and to end congressional earmarks as we knew them.  Even though Barack Obama has been President for only 100 days, he's managed to break all three of those promises. The gigantic Omnibus Spending Bill of some $400 billion back in February had over 1,000 earmarks in it, and the Wall Street, Detroit, and homeowners' bailouts borrowed over $1 trillion.  In President Obama's first 100 days, he signed an executive order banning lobbyists from serving in the Federal Government. Within a couple of days of signing that order, he had already made a couple of exceptions. 

As I said, President Obama has a strong grasp of the issues and knows what his administration is facing and has the potential to be a great president. But for "change that we can believe in" to be anything more then a cute campaign slogan, he's going to have to start making positive changes or that campaign slogan will be nothing more than that. Right now I would give President Obama a B-, with a lot of potential to improve.