Bob Lord

Bob has mostly wound down his 39-year career as a tax and business lawyer (with a 1-year interruption to run for Congress in 2008 (CD3), when he tried to unseat John Shadegg. Bob now serves as the senior advisor on tax policy for the Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who believe the light taxation of America's rich is destabilizing our democracy, and as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob has been writing for Blog For Arizona since late 2011, concentrating mostly on federal issues, with an occasional foray into Arizona state politics.

Our Missing Left Wing

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Posted by Bob Lord We tend to confuse the political spectrum and the ideological spectrum. The ideological spectrum includes the entire range of ideologies. The political spectrum is narrower. It includes only those ideologies that are included in the political discussion. The political spectrum slides back and forth along the ideological spectrum. Currently, it is jammed … Read more

Class War Coming?

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Posted by Bob Lord

I like reading as much as I like writing and, trouble is, I'm painfully slow at both. This week the writing has taken a back seat to the reading (and work). Best read though was right out of the chute Monday morning. If you follow me, you know I'm a huge Chris Hedges fan and that I place the reversal of inequality at the highest priority. So a Hedges post entitled Let's Get This Class War Started was a must must must read.

And it did not disappoint.

First point: The depravity of rich people. Hedges:

America’s Deadly Inequality

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Posted by Bob Lord Remember when John Edwards spoke about two Americas?   In McDowell County, USA Has Close to Haiti's Life Expectancy: Welcome to Third World America, Alex Henderson of Alternet shines a light on those two Americas, and the contrast between them. The bottom line: Inequality in America isn't just immoral, it's deadly. … Read more

When Politics Trumps Policy, Bad Things Happen

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Posted by Bob Lord

An interesting juxtaposition of articles from the Washington Post. 

On Tuesday, in Study: Poor Children Are Now The Majority In American Public Schools In South, West, the Post reported on a study showing that poor children were in the majority in public schools in the South and West, and that overall barely fewer than half our public students come from poor households. The Post:

But by 2011, almost half of the nation’s 50 million public-school students — 48 percent — qualified for free or reduced-price meals. In some states, such as Mississippi, that proportion rose as high as 71 percent.

In a large swath of the country, classrooms are filling with children who begin kindergarten already behind their more privileged peers, who lack the support at home to succeed and who are more than likely to drop out of school or never attend college.

“This is incredible,” said Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Columbia University, who was struck by the rapid spike in poverty. He said the change helps explain why the United States is lagging in comparison with other countries in international tests.

Those are abysmal statistics. Want to know why they will get worse?

Then turn to Ezra Klein's Wonkblog post, Higher Taxes Shouldn't Be The Democratic Party's Top Priority, which appeared online in Wednesday's Post. 

Senate Democrats: Better Than Tea Partiers, But Just Barely

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Posted by Bob Lord The vlie nature of the Tea Party is common knowledge. We all agree they have no redeeming qualities. Unless you're a Democratic leader, especially in the Senate. Because if we didn't have the Tea Party, folks might focus more on what a pathetic cast of characters we have representing us from the … Read more