Year: 2018

Can the Next Congress Chase Down America’s Runaway Wealth?

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The last Congress ensured that America’s wealth will concentrate ever more rapidly at the very top — unless the next one does something about it.

[Distributed via OtherWords]

The next Congress faces a stunning array of challenges — on health care, gun policy, climate change, you name it. One crucial challenge starved of attention, however, is what I call runaway inter-generational wealth.

That’s where the wealth of a country’s richest families snowballs from one generation to the next, unconstrained by living expenses or taxes, causing an ever-increasing share of national wealth to concentrate at the top. America has experienced this problem for decades now, and last year’s tax act is certain to make it worse.

For the first time since the estate tax was enacted a century ago, rich American couples can pass $22 million to their children entirely free of federal taxes. Currently, over 150,000 American households hold that much or more wealth.

That will lock in runaway inter-generational wealth.

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Kyrsten Sinema

Arizona Women Win 42 Legislative, State & Congressional Races

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Kyrsten Sinema
Arizona Senator-elect Kyrsten Sinema

Arizona has a history of electing women to public office. In 1932, Arizona elected Isabella Greenway to the US House of Representatives. In 1972, State Senator Sandra Day O’Connor was the first female president of the Arizona Senate. In 1998, Arizona voters elected five women to run the state government— Jane Hull (Governor), Betsy Bayless (Secretary of State), Janet Napolitano (Attorney General), Carol Springer (Treasurer), and Lisa Graham-Keegan (Superintendent of Public Instruction). To this date, Arizona’s Fab Five remain the most number of women elected to state government at the same time. In 2017, the Arizona Legislature had the highest percentage of women (40 percent) of any state Legislature in the Country.

In 2018, Arizona elected its first female US senator and 41 other women to political office. Out of 108 races, women won 39 percent of them this year. After inauguration in January 2019, half of Arizona’s statewide offices (4/8), 27 percent of our Congressional delegation (3/11), and 39 percent of the Arizona Legislature (35/90) will be women.

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One More Senate Race: Mississippi Goddam (Updated)

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There is one senate race yet to be decided this Tuesday, in a run-off election in Mississippi.

As singer Nina Simone sang, Mississippi Goddam.

Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant in March to fill retiring GOP Sen. Thad Cochran’s seat, is a virtual cartoon character villain of the “Old South” rather than the New South image that Old Dixie would like to portray to the rest of the world.

On Nov. 11, a video appeared on social media showing Hyde-Smith saying that if she were invited by one of her supporters to a “public hanging,” she would be in “the front row” (just like the girl above).

Perhaps Senator Hyde-Smith should visit the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama to get a better moral sense of the racial terrorism of hangings and lynchings of 4400 African-American men, women, and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950.

On Nov. 15, another video emerged of Hyde-Smith telling a group of people that “there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So, I think that’s a great idea.”

What she means, of course, is African-Americans who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — when they are allowed to vote and their vote is not suppressed by white politicians like Senator Hyde-Smith.

On November 20, a Facebook post surfaced in which Hyde-Smith is seen posing for a photo wearing a Confederate soldier’s hat and holding a rifle.  She wrote in her Facebook post, “I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi. This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!”

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Political Calendar: Week of November 25, 2018

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The Political Calendar is posted on Sundays. Please send us notice of your political events prior to the Sunday before your event (7 days would be most helpful). See the calendar icon in the right-hand column of the blog page for easy access to the calendar.

Send notices of your events to blogforarizona@gmail.com.

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Note: The political calendar is frequently subject to change in December because of holiday parties replacing regular meetings. If your organization wants its holiday party listed on the calendar, please send us the information well in advance.

Progressive_values

Political Calendar for the Week of November 25, 2018:

Sunday, November 25, 5:30 p.m.: (Special Date) Maricopa County Democratic Party Executive Committee Meeting at HQ, 2914 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix. Meet and greet (and dinner) begins at 5:30. Meeting begins promptly at 6:00 p.m.

Monday, November 26, Noon: Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon, Dragon’s View Restaurant (400 N. Bonita, South of St. Mary’s Road between the Freeway and Grande Avenue, turn South at Furr’s Cafeteria). New price: buffet lunch is $10.00 cash, $12 credit; just a drink is $3.50. Vince Rabago – Recap of the 2018 Election. Next Week: (new) Rachel Wilson, refugee & migration attorney.

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