Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday that the net neutrality bill was dead.  Rep. Joe “You Lie!” Barton (R-Tex) was the final nail in the coffin.  Net neutrality has stirred much debate recently with one side concerned about excessive government regulations hampering the communications companies from managing their business, while the other side is worried about preserving unfettered access to all Internet content by anyone, regardless of what service they use to connect.

Critics have tried to position net neutrality regulations as an attempt by the government to censor the Internet.  In reality, it is exactly the opposite of that.  Net neutrality regulations mean that your ISP cannot favor any one sort of traffic on the network over another.  That means an Internet provider can’t purposely slow down streaming video from Hulu unless the consumer also subscribe to their premium cable TV package.  It means the ISP can’t sign a deal with Google to reroute search traffic from Bing to their site.  It means, all Internet content is treated equally.  That providers must provide content agnostic access and not play favorites based on the type of content or the source of it.

The critical failure here is one of not embracing the Internet as a fundamental part of the national infrastructure.  In our world, it is every bit as vital as telephone service, water, and electric.  It’s worth noting that telephone service already has regulations similar to net neutrality on its networks.  Back in the early days of telephony, some telephone companies refused to allow calls to be made to certain areas or numbers because it wasn’t profitable enough for them to do so. The government stepped in and said enough of that. If you are a telephone company then you will allow your customers to call anywhere and everyone.

Allowing ISPs to control content access is not necessary to support the ISP business model. It is not good for American business or innovation. It is not good for consumers. It is certainly not consistent with free markets and freedom from tyranny. It is only good for lining the pockets of the big ISPs.

It’s high time America owned up to the Internet being a public utility and started treating it like one.

Churches throughout the land are encouraging voters to get out to the polls and vote for people who share their biblical values.  The Assembly of God has a website devoted to this cause.  To avoid putting their tax-exempt status at risk, they are careful to avoid specific instructions to vote for a particular issue or candidate, but the message is still clear.  Vote for people who support bible-based policy.

The difficulty being that the bible doesn’t provide a great deal of guidance on economic policy, military strategy, infrastructure investment, or immigration.  This leaves people vulnerable to be swayed by a candidate’s stance on issues the bible (or at least the Evangelical community) is clearer about such as abortion, prayer in schools, and keeping Israel safe.

However, these and most other biblical issues are political non-starters.  Our foreign policy would never turn its back on Israel.  At best we’re quibbling about the fervor of our support.  The abortion question should ultimately be settled by a new law, not the courts.  But no Congress is going to tackle that issue in the foreseeable future.  Getting prayer into schools would require a fundamental re-interpretation of the Constitution, or an amendment to it.  Neither of which is remotely likely.  Yes, it is possible to vote for Presidents and Senators who will appoint and approve judges who will interpret the Constitution to your liking, but that is a very long term and indirect means to achieve an objective.

The result may be that voting for someone based on their bible values alone may well mean voting on issues outside the control of the offices to which you are electing them.  Meanwhile, there are emergent problems facing the country that elected officials can and should be acting on.  Where do your candidates stand on those issues?

Religious values matter in elections because too many people vote based on these politically impotent wedge issues without regard to the actual practicable agenda of those candidates.  Remember, it’s all too easy to stand firmly for things you’ll never be called to act on, to promise what you’ll never be asked to deliver.  Vote on the issues your candidates will actually face.

Photo by Lauren Nelson on Flickr

There is pretty widespread agreement on the need for reforming our healthcare system.  There is much less agreement on how to achieve the desired results of universally accessible coverage and affordable costs.  Much of the angst exhibited during the debate over the new healthcare reform law as well as the repeal and reform again position of the GOP’s new Pledge to America is rooted in everyone’s fear that reform will break what already works.

However, the notion that what we have already works is somewhat of a facade.  Granted, there are ample horror stories of people who lack coverage, whose policies have been canceled, or who are dying because they can’t afford the treatment they need.  While that’s a tragedy in its own right, the horror doesn’t impact a significant enough portion of the voting population to drive change.  The reality is that people are generally happy with the care they receive, and while they’d like lower costs, cost is not a major pain point in their financial lives.  Perhaps that is the key point to address in order to get action and cooperation towards real and substantive reform.

Post WWII labor and tax laws created the uniquely American system of getting healthcare primarily through employers.  The result has been that the majority of the cost of healthcare insurance is completely hidden from us as employees.  Let’s change that.

While it may be tough to get this program to roll out correctly, in principle we need to legislate that every employee have his wages increased by the amount that the company is contributing to the employee’s health insurance.  It would also be necessary to provide a payroll tax credit for the employers for that same amount so that companies’ would find this change tax neutral.  Also needed is a tax code change for individuals such that health insurance premiums are deductible on your income tax. This should also be tax neutral as you are not currently charged tax on employer or employee contributions to healthcare.  At this point, everything should be financially equal to the system as it exists today.

Now, as an individual, you get to go shop for healthcare insurance much as you would for car insurance.  Buy whatever policy suits your family’s needs.  Keep in mind that the average cost of a family policy today is about $14,000/year.  Even allowing for new competition driving rates down, your family can still expect to write a check for about $1000 every month to pay your healthcare insurance premium.

Even given that your wages are now higher, it would be a reasonable bet that the visible and widespread financial pain of families now paying what amounts to a second mortgage payment for healthcare would inspire a call for government intervention that would make either party’s current plan look like an exercise in rearranging deck chairs.

We don’t need better ideas for reform as much as we need better light on the current situation.

Photo by Geoffrey Chandler on Flickr

The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was shot down in the Senate yesterday.  Republicans stood unanimously, with the aid of two Democrats, against allowing the defense authorization bill to come to a vote on the floor while it contained the proposed repeal of the military policy.

The repeal of DADT was part of Obama’s 2008 campaign platform, and is supported by both Robert M. Gates, the Defense secretary, and Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as 60% of the American people.  The policy was initially created to preserve morale among troops who wouldn’t be comfortable with gays in their ranks.  Yet is this really still an issue, and does it even matter to the Senate if it is?

On the one hand, the pentagon has yet to complete its study on the impact of lifting DADT.  They are currently scheduled to release that study before the end of the year.  In the mean time, it seems the real issue here may simply be age.

A Pew Research Study shows a strong correlation between age and views of DADT.  The 2006 study showed 72% of 18-29 year olds supported gays serving openly in the military.  Meanwhile, only 47% of those over 65 did.  It’s instructive to note the majority of those in military service fall into the younger group, while the majority of those in the Senate fall into the older group.

Further, conservatives are an older demographic than liberals.  This means that for conservative Senators, their votes are largely dependent on those least likely to want DADT repealed, and most likely to not be currently serving in the military.

It seems that DADT has much more to do with preserving the morale of the conservative voting base than it does with preserving the morale of the troops.

created by Tim Nichols

The Republicans brought their monster to life, and now it’s rampaging through the village as they watch helplessly.  Bringing the religious right into their tent seemed like a good idea at the time.  But outside forces morphed that animal into the Tea Party, and the GOP is now suffering the reality that it is they who are at the mercy of their creation.

Ronald Reagan aligned his party with the Moral Majority to bolster the GOP voting base.  It was a brilliant political plan that resulted in millions of southern Democrats and born-again Christians siding on the political right.  Republicans didn’t have a lot of passion around issues like Creationism, abortion, birth control, or sex education.  However, by adopting them as part of their platform, they brought in support from a large and passionate group of voters who really didn’t care much about the Republican pro-business agenda.  It was a win-win, and it redefined the party.  The new Republican fan base was a passionate and morally righteous group.  They had fire in their belly, but only for a fairly limited set of issues.

9/11 changed everything.  The attack brought an uprising of patriotic fervor that was stoked by the GOP into a national frenzy of desire for vengeance and justice as we marched into war.  Terrorism was positioned as a threat to all things American.  But that frenzy was not contained to the Republican core.  It spread widely and was fueled with abandon during the 2008 election season where fear, whispers of conspiracy, and racism flourished.  What started as primarily a religious movement had grown into a working class grassroots organization.  Yet it retained that passionate ideological fire and a renewed fear that the American way of life was at stake.

The Tea Party was born.  At first it was seen by the Republicans as an army they could use to rail against the evils of liberalism.  But as is so often the case, the slaves turned on their master.  After all, once all the soldiers start thinking everybody is out to get them, there’s little reason for them to worry about the guys across the battlefield until they’ve taken control of their own army.

Welcome to 2010, where the Republican officers are desperately trying to prove their allegiance to the Tea Party for fear of being fragged.  From Frankenstein to Battlestar Gallactica, any sci-fi fan worth their salt would have seen this coming from a parsec away.

In an amazing bit of hypocritical blather, hopeful future Speaker of the House John Boehner says it would be reasonable for President Obama to start agreeing with GOP policies and platforms if Republicans win Congressional majorities in November.

Politco reported this gem in the context of an article where Boehner is saying it isn’t the goal of his party to shutdown the federal government.  Rather, Boehner pushes the blame to Obama claiming that if a shutdown happens it will be because Obama didn’t respect a mandate from the voters.  Said Boehner:

“If we take the majority, that should be a good indication to the president that the American people have not agreed with his policy and his platform. And that they agree with ours. And I think that would give him some reasonability,” he said. “And it wouldn’t come to a confrontational situation. I hope it would never get to that point.”

Is Boehner somehow forgetting that Democrats have enjoyed a similar voter mandate for the last two years by holding majorities in both chambers of Congress as well as the Presidency, and the GOP has not only disagreed with them, but ultimately fought them tooth and nail on virtually every position and policy put forth?

It’s going to be an ugly 2011.