DEMOCRATS ARE IGNORING 2018 ELDERLY VOTERS, BUT WHY? (TAX CREDIT HOUSING)

DEMOCRATS ARE IGNORING 2018 ELDERLY VOTERS, BUT WHY?

SENIOR CITIZEN VOTERS REMAIN LOYAL VOTERS.

ISSUES WHICH CONCERN SENIOR CITIZENS INCLUDING MEDICARE AND QUALITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING, ARE BEING OVERLOOKED.

TOO MANY SENIORS RESIDE IN RAGGEDY, OVER PRICED TAX CREDIT APARTMENTS MANAGED BY SLUMLORDS (MARYLAND).

IF SENIORS COMPLAIN THEY ARE THREATENED WITH BEING PLACED IN A NURSING HOME UNTIL THEY DIE.

WHERE ARE THE POLITICIANS WHO STILL CARE ABOUT SENIORS?


Post Sources: New York Magazine, The Atlantic, WTVR, Youtube


******* Elderly White Voters Are Starting to Turn on the GOP


One of the many odd features of American politics, circa 2018, is that the primary beneficiaries of our nation’s social safety net are also the core supporters of the party that wants to slash it. No age group derives a bigger benefit from our welfare state than America’s elderly; but no cohort is as susceptible to the cultural paranoia and racial resentment that sustain the modern right, either. Thus, conservatives can’t shrink “big government” without retaining the allegiance of the voters who stand to lose most from the erosion of social insurance.

The tensions inherent to this arrangement grew conspicuous during last year’s fight over Obamacare repeal — when congressional Republicans tried to pass a health-care bill that would have drastically increased the cost of health insurance for older, working-class voters in rural America (a core GOP constituency) while dramatically lowering premiums for 20-something city-dwellers (an overwhelmingly Democratic demographic). Many purple-district Republicans voted for the bill, anyway, effectively betting that it was more politically hazardous to thwart the ideological goals of their big-dollar donors, than to betray the material interests of their gray-haired voters.

This may have been costly mistake.

According to polling from Reuters/Ipsos, the percentage of college-educated white voters who say “health care” is their top issue rose from 8 percent in 2016 to 21 percent today; over that same period, the demographic went from favoring a Republican Congress by ten points, to backing a Democratic one by two.

Of course, this shift isn’t solely the product of health-care politics. While older whites with college diplomas have swung left by 12 points since 2016, those without bachelor’s degrees have remained solidly in the GOP’s camp.

If material self-interest were the only force pushing older whites out of the Republican tent, one might expect “working class” elderly whites to be leading the exodus. Nevertheless, the Ryan agenda does seem to have played a role in alienating college-educated white Republicans, whose educational backgrounds already rendered them a less-than-ideal audience for Trump’s anti-intellectual shtick. As Reuters reports:

John Camm has been a Republican since the Nixon Administration, but the 63-year-old Tucson accountant says he will likely support a Democrat for Congress in November. He is splitting with his party over access to health insurance as well as its recent overhaul of the nation’s income tax system. He also supports gun control measures that the party has rejected.

“I’m a moderate Republican, and yet my party has run away from that,” Camm said. “So give me a moderate Democrat.”

… Voters between the ages of 60 and 65 are particularly worried about healthcare, said Brigid Harrison, a political scientist at Montclair State University in New Jersey, because they are paying ever higher private health insurance premiums and are not yet eligible for Medicare.

Polling on this fall’s elections have consistently demonstrated that the Democratic base is more energized than the Republican one. In the face of this grim data, Republicans have sought consolation in the fact that core Democratic constituencies (like nonwhite and younger voters) have historically failed to turn out for midterms in high numbers.

But the Democrats’ turnout advantage in the past year’s special elections put a dent in that hope — and the leftward lurch of elderly whites all but eviscerates it. Older, college-educated whites are among the most reliable voters in the nation. And in many of this fall’s most competitive districts, such voters account for nearly 10 percent of the population, according to Reuters’ analysis. Republicans were already at risk of losing the House due to shifts in turnout patterns, alone — but if those shifts are accompanied by significant defections among reliable GOP constituencies, the party could suffer historic losses up and down the ballot.

“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white, and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,” political scientist Larry Sabato told Reuters. “If that continues to November, they’re toast.”

Remarkably, even as Republicans have lost ground with this key demographic — and Democratic candidates have won improbable special election victories while painting their Republican opponents as enemies of Medicare and Social Security — Paul Ryan has persisted in calling for sweeping cuts to entitlement spending. Meanwhile, House Republicans are preparing a symbolic vote on a “balanced budget” amendment — a gesture meant to appease die-hard fiscal conservatives, but that seems just as likely to help Democrats put a spotlight on the potential costs of the Trump tax cuts to ordinary Americans, not least those who are relying on Uncle Sam’s largesse to get them through their golden years.

Unemployment Rate (10.2%) Has Congressional Members Concerned For Their Political Careers

Congressional Members fear their jobs are next


Of all the numbers swirling around this week Capitol Hill this week – health care whip counts, CBO estimates, winning and losing margins in Virginia, New York and New Jersey – one stands out from the rest: 10.2 percent.

That’s the national unemployment rate. And lawmakers from both parties know that, if it doesn’t go down dramatically before next November, they could be adding to it themselves.

“I think anytime unemployment is high and people are concerned about their jobs, the economy, incumbents on both sides of the aisle need to be concerned,” Republican Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said Friday. “What people care most about is food, clothing and shelter. Period. .... When food, clothing and shelter are sort of impacted, their base lives are impacted, it definitely sours the public as it should. Usually the party in power takes the brunt of that, but it affects all incumbents."

With control of the White House and Congress, Democrats have the most to lose if jobless numbers remain high. But like Corker, Democrats insist that incumbents in both parties will feel the pain.

“I think it’s bad for incumbents in general. You’d have to be a fool not to realize that,” said Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, whose home state of Nevada has a jobless rate in excess of 14 percent. “The way our fellow citizens register their concern is at the ballot box … if the unemployment numbers don’t go down, if there’s no relief, they will express their frustration in November 2010.”

Between Friday’s numbers and the election results earlier in the week, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said it’s “pretty evident” now that there’s “an anti-incumbent mood out there.”

“We all need to know that, and just work hard to try the best that we can here in Washington,” he said.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat from the hard-hit state from Michigan, said Friday she's "certainly open" to a second economic stimulus package to reverse the staggering unemployment rate.

"I think we all have to very much pay attention to what's happening to real families," Stabenow said when asked about the political impact of the unemployment numbers. "Everything we're doing is aimed at middle class families, helping families, turning around main street."

But Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan, who faces reelection in the red state of North Dakota, said Friday that a second economic stimulus package isn't the way to go, criticizing the first package for placing a "small" emphasis on transportation and infrastructure projects that could have created more jobs.

"I think health care is important, climate change is important, I think by far the most important issue for this country is lifting the economy and putting people to work," Dorgan said. "This is not about a stimulus, it's about the right kind of policies to incentivize small and medium sized businesses to create jobs."

Republicans argue that an unemployment rate higher than it has been in more than a quarter of a century is evidence that the Democratic agenda isn’t putting Americans back to work. They say the situation will be made worse if Congress and President Obama enact a health care overhaul that will require $1 trillion in tax hikes and entitlement cuts to expand insurance coverage.

“Ten-point-two now makes it hard for the majority to sell their agenda,” said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

“All I know is that Speaker Pelosi is trying to force her members to vote for a bill that the American people have soundly rejected,” added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats counter that their agenda has kick-started a recovery n Wall Street, even if it hasn’t trickled down to the job market yet, and that Republicans are putting what they’ve begun at risk.

Still, they’re anxious to show they are working on new solutions to help Americans who are out of work.

“With the unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, the highest since the early 1980s, Congress should consider a range of job-creation policies including a jobs tax credit bill I plan to introduce,” Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said. “While a jobs tax credit wouldn’t fix all the challenges businesses face, it would be an effective tool in helping some firms hire more workers. Job creation must be a top priority for Congress and I will continue to look for ways to help get Americans back to work.”

For Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.), who has a safe seat, the answer is to get more stimulus dollars flowing.

“We’ve got to push getting those stimulus dollars out that are clogged in the system,” she said.

Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) said a new highway bill would help immediately with job creation.

Democrats will focus even more on job creation once Congress finishes the debate on health care, said Sen. Mark Begich, a freshman Democrat elected from deeply Republican Alaska in 2008.

If at this time next year the public doesn’t think Congress is doing enough on the economy and jobs, he said, Democrats will be in trouble.

"If we are working hard, showing we're trying to move the economy in the right direction, working on creating long-term jobs and rebuilding this economy, I think the American people will recognize that," Begich said. "If we are not doing anything or we're limiting what we're doing and the rate is maybe inching a little bit, that becomes problematic."






Democrats see lessons in defeat of Creigh Deeds


Faced with the choice of running as an unapologetic Democrat in a state trending toward his party or keeping his distance from Washington in the fashion of a generation of Southern Democrats, Creigh Deeds tried to do both.

The result: the worst drubbing a Virginia gubernatorial candidate has received since 1961.

As Democrats try to glean lessons from Tuesday’s election losses, Deeds’s case offers a vivid example of the difficulties that their candidates from Republican-leaning or swing states will face heading into the midterm elections.

The quandary is how to motivate the so-called surge voters who flocked to the polls, often for the first time, to elect President Barack Obama while also not angering the independent voters who are increasingly wary of the policies coming out of the capital and, according to exit polls, moved sharply to the GOP in both the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests.

It was a challenge — energizing the base without losing swing voters — that paralyzed Deeds, sparked internal debates within his campaign and ultimately haunted his candidacy.

Running in a rapidly changing state that has seen a Democratic ascendancy capped by Obama’s victory there last year, Deeds was urged, immediately after he won the nomination in June, by Democratic National Committee Chairman and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to link himself to the president, according to a senior Democratic official.

“I always thought the path to victory was to embrace the president and thereby energize the tremendous amount of supporters of the president in Virginia, particularly because it was going to be a low-turnout race,” Kaine said in an interview.

“The campaign strategy was to embrace the president as much as realistically possible,” insisted a top campaign official.

Campaign manager Joe Abbey noted that soon after the primary, the campaign had Obama send an e-mail to his Virginia supporters, welcomed Vice President Joe Biden to the state for a fundraiser and touted their support from the president in radio ads.

But as the summer went on, and support for health care reform foundered in the face of the raucous August town halls, Deeds’s advisers saw a changing political climate. “Independents slid away nationwide,” said Mike Gehrke, the campaign’s communications director.

Inside Deeds’s headquarters, some of his advisers grew nervous.

“As Obama took a summer nose dive in polls, the campaign misread that and freaked out,” said a senior Virginia Democrat close to the campaign. “They decided that on these key issues that were killing us with independents, we had to do everything to distance ourselves.”

Some of his aides argued for a more unapologetic approach, noting that, as Kaine declared after Obama’s win in the state, “Ole Virginny” was no more. With Democrats on the march in Virginia, there was no need to cower in fear of being pegged as a liberal.

On issues such as health care and energy where his Republican opponent Bob McDonnell tied him to Washington, Deeds could have responded by going on the offensive and accusing his rival of wanting to do nothing to expand coverage or find pro-growth solutions to climate change, said strategists in this camp.

“There was a way to keep the base engaged without pissing off independents,” said an adviser.

Kaine was also an advocate for not watering down the message. “I don’t think there’s a problem with just [saying], ‘Hey, gosh I’m a Democrat, and I’m proud of it, and let me tell you why,’” he said. “I don’t think you need to back away from it at all.”

But, seeing swing voters flee the Democratic Party, that’s not what Deeds did.

For years, Virginia Democrats ran in a way that emphasized the “Virginia” over the “Democrat,” always careful to not be identified with the more liberal national party. Hailing from rural Bath County, along the West Virginia border, this was the background from which Deeds came up in local and then state politics.

“For a lot of these guys like him, it’s just in their political DNA [to avoid being depicted as national Democrats],” lamented a senior Deeds official.

So when he was asked at a September debate if Obama was his kind of Democrat, Deeds struggled.

“I’m a Creigh Deeds Democrat,” he replied, even while acknowledging his support for the president on many issues.

At a debate the following month — frustrated by the unrelenting attacks by McDonnell and outside groups that portrayed him as supporting cap and trade — Deeds grew angry, shot back that he did not support the legislation before Congress and accused McDonnell of lying — a violation of Virginia’s decorous campaign rules.

And in the final debate, he hurt himself again by suggesting that he may support Virginia’s opting out of any public health care plan, a statement that drew howls from liberals.

In an interview with POLITICO and ABC 7/WJLA-TV in early October, Deeds voiced the challenge himself: “Frankly, a lot of what’s going on in Washington has made it very tough.”

A Deeds adviser said the notion that the campaign ran from Obama “is just not true.”

But he said the campaign had to carve out some separation from the national party on issues that were showing up in their polling as political losers — like cap and trade.

In August, the campaign conducted a poll of the Obama “surge” voters. They were found to be young, mostly well-educated, largely located in Tidewater and suburban Washington, the two population centers in the state — and disconnected from state issues. They also lacked land lines and watched little local news.

“They don’t acquire political information in ways that average voters do,” said a senior Deeds official. “So we had a content problem and delivery-of-message problem.”

But they were found to be in favor of abortion rights and culturally liberal. So in an effort to appeal to both swing voters and the Obama set, the campaign launched an offensive that focused on a graduate school thesis that McDonnell wrote that was derisive of working women and gays.

“We tested it,” said Abbey, the manager. “And it seemed to be a way to kill two birds with one stone.”

Along with focusing on McDonnell’s opposition to abortion, the idea was to shock both middle-aged, centrist suburbanites and disengaged young liberals out of their political slumber and give them a reason to tune in. They won some support from the effort but were unable to pivot to a broader message. “There just wasn’t a second act,” said an aide.

Part of the problem was that cultural issues were simply not on the minds of an electorate consumed with economic issues and local matters such as roads and schools. And those were precisely the topics McDonnell focused on. “McDonnell ran as the moderate Democrat,” quipped a White House official.

Further, and beyond his own hedging on health care and energy, Deeds did little to inspire the Obama loyalists. “It’s fair to say we didn’t put out enough of a positive message to capture their imagination,” said Kevin Mack, a top Deeds adviser.

Ultimately, Deeds hugged the president, airing a last-gasp ad that featured Obama singing his praises and appearing with him in Norfolk a week before the election. But by then, the race was out of hand.

Virginia is a unique state — Gehrke quipped that it was like “Connecticut and Alabama smashed together” — but the president’s approval ratings there are similar to what they are nationwide.

Other states present similar political terrain — a mix of conservatives and liberals with a majority of moderates. And now other Democrats will grapple with the same challenge of appealing to independents souring on the party and Obama loyalists.

“Deeds handled both poorly,” said a Virginia Democrat close to the campaign.

Asked what advice could be offered to Democrats running in circumstances like that of Deeds, this Democrat said to run to Obama, not from him: “You’re going to own him anyway.”



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Sources: Politico, Google Maps

Senate Approves $33B In Business Tax Credits To Spark Hiring...Corporate Welfare Or No?

Dems poised to move $33B in business tax credits from stimulus


Democrats anxious about high unemployment have shifted gears and are poised to expand a stimulus provision that would quickly put $33 billion in the pockets of businesses.

The Senate on Wednesday approved a tax break that allows firms to carry back losses to get refunds on taxes paid over the past five years, and the House is expected to follow. The tax provision is packaged with a bill extending unemployment benefits.

Business groups had pushed for the five-year carry-back provision during the debate over the 2008 stimulus bill signed by President George W. Bush, but were blocked by House Democrats who argued it would have helped businesses more than individuals.

Now, with unemployment expected to hit 10 percent this fall and possibly as early as Friday’s jobs report, Democrats have embraced the provision as a way to spark employment ahead of next year’s elections.

A five-year carry-back “is one of the very few ways in the tax system you can actually put cash into the hands of business very quickly,” said Clint Stretch, director of tax policy at Deloitte & Touche.

In an interview, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, cast the provision as an economic tool that should be used immediately.

He acknowledged that a number of businesses, including real estate agencies, bankers and retailers, will benefit from the tax break, but he said that it would also help individuals because it would prevent layoffs.

“It might not be a job creator, but it will save an awful lot of jobs,” Neal said.

House Democratic leaders plan to take up the package including the carryover provision the Senate passed Wednesday, Neal said.

Businesses may already carry back losses for two years. The $787 billion economic stimulus bill approved earlier this year expanded that provision to allow small businesses with less than $15 million in gross receipts to get refunds on profits from the past five years.

Under the measure written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), all businesses would get carry-back for five years.

The Joint Committee on Taxation said that the broader carry-back provision would save businesses $33 billion in 2010 and would cost the government $10.4 billion over the next decade.

The carry-back expansion along with a tax credit for homebuyers will be paid for by delaying by seven years another tax break for U.S.-based international corporations that was scheduled to start in 2010.

Neal noted that White House economists Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman offered support for the plan this week when he spoke with them. The Obama administration included an expanded carryover provision in its budget proposal.

Still, some liberal lawmakers remain uneasy over broadening the tax provision. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said that it’s not as critical as extending unemployment benefits that directly help out-of-work Americans.

“Things like the operating loss provision actually are slightly different,” Blumenauer said. “That just shifts revenue.”

The carryover won’t serve as stimulus and will only give more money to businesses, said liberal economist Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“It will have almost no impact on investment or employment,” Baker said. “It would be hard to think of expenditures that will have less impact on the economy.”

Business groups ramped up their campaign for a broader tax break after this year’s stimulus only provided the benefit to smaller businesses.

Homebuilders had been among the first to push for the tax provision, but a broader range of manufacturers, Realtors, restaurants, newspapers and other business interests took up the campaign in the late winter and spring. Lobbyists sent a letter to congressional lawmakers in April that was signed by more than 80 CEOs, and they held more than 100 fly-ins with tax executives and CEOs.

That helped lobbyists round up congressional supporters for the broader provision.

Support has been building steadily.

When a standalone carry-back bill was introduced in the House in May, it had five co-sponsors. The measure now has more than 180 co-sponsors. A companion bill started in the Senate with seven co-sponsors; it now has wide bipartisan backing from more than 44 senators.

House Republicans called for a five-year carry-back provision, among other stimulus measures, in a letter to President Barack Obama last month. Soon after, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the carry-back idea “has some currency.”

Sources: The Hill

U.S. Senate Votes To Expand Housing Credit & Unemployment Benefits...What About Jobs??

Study: Half of all U.S. children will need Food Stamps. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis say nearly half of all American children and 90 percent of African-American children will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

U.S. Senate Acts to Expand Housing Credit

The Senate has voted to give the jobless up to 20 weeks of additional unemployment benefits and significantly expand a tax credit program aimed at getting buyers back into the dormant housing market.

The strong Senate vote for the legislation is a recognition that the government still needs to do more to keep the economic recovery from faltering. If enacted, workers in some of the harder-hit states would be eligible for nearly two years of benefits, a record.

The bill also provides tax relief for businesses that have been losing money. It now goes back to the House, which is expected to quickly approve it and send it to President Barack Obama for his signature.



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Sources: NY Times, MSNBC, Google Maps