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.

The “Poor Aren’t Really Poor” Canard

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Posted by Bob Lord

My friends Thucky and Dang offer insight into the way conservatives view the world. Although I believe the "pundits" who develop many of the conservative talking points don't really believe the crap they spew, I suspect the conservative masses do. So it's an interesting exercise (sometimes) to explore their thoughts. 

My last post, Inequality: Reversing The Trend, prompted ole Thuck to trot out what I'll refer to as the "Poor Aren't Really Poor" canard. Here it is, courtesy of Thuck, in all its splendor:

The typical poor person in America has a flat screen tv, cable, air conditioning, a cell phone and an automobile. Immoral? You can live well if you are poor and if you are rich but it is cheaper if you are poor and you have a luxury the rich do not have: time. 

It's hard to know where to start with this one and there's a lot to dissect, but let's go about it in the same order Thucky chose. Who exactly is the "typical poor person?" Does he live in a tenement in the South Bronx, a hovel in Appalachia, a trailer in rural Nevada, a shack in Mississippi, or somewhere on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation? Or is he homeless on the streets of L.A. or Miami?

Perhaps the better question would be who exactly is the "typical poor person" the conservatives have in mind when they trot this out?

Inequality: Reversing The Trend

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Posted by Bob Lord

Okay, I've been all over inequality for months now. But sooner or later, we'll reach the point where even conservatives will have to acknowledge the immorality of today's American economy. We're not there yet, but we'll get there. So, what then? Can we just turn back the clock? Almost certainly not. Is there another alternative? Quite possibly, yes. A few recent articles I've read suggest how the trend towards greater and greater inequality could be reversed. 

Our Shredded Values — Hunger and Malnutrition In America

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Posted by Bob Lord

I generally watch very few documentaries, but saw two this weekend: Dirty Wars, by Jeremy Scahill, and A Place At The Table. More on Dirty Wars in another post. It’s a powerful movie, one every American should see.

A Place At The Table may be as powerful as Dirty Wars, but in a different way. Dirty Wars exposes the work of an imperialistic American regime, waging aggressive war all over the planet, while the majority of its own citizenry remains clueless. A Place At The Table smacks us in the face with what we already know — that about one in every six Americans — and one in every four children — lives in poverty, not fully knowing where the next meal is coming from, or if it’s coming at all. And it tells us how badly our society’s moral compass is broken. 

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Grayson Openly Critical of DCCC Strategy

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Posted by Bob Lord If you want a refreshing change from the typical mumbo jumbo from elected pols, check out this video from Alan Grayson.  It's a little remarkable that even Alan Grayson would speak so frankly about the subject of Democrats not being Democrats, but he does in this video. He pretty much says … Read more

Supreme Court Majority: Tilting the Playing Field To Their Own Side

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Posted by Bob Lord

E.J. Dionne’s piece at Truthdig today, The Third Political Branch, captures the reality of this week’s Supreme Court rulings and the true agenda of the Supreme Court’s majority. Yes, the decisions in today’s cases striking down DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 were victories. They were victories over all the neanderthals who seek to deny fundamental rights to gay and lesbian couples. But make no mistake, they were not victories over the Court majority’s political and economic agenda. Dionne explains:

Liberals will still win occasional and sometimes partial victories, as they did Wednesday on same-sex marriage. But on issues directly related to political and economic influence, the court’s conservative majority is operating as a political faction, determined to shape a future in which progressives will find themselves at a disadvantage.

Can you think of a Supreme Court decision during Roberts’ term in which the majority has acted in the interests of economic justice? Has opposed corporate power? Remember, corporate America doesn’t have a dog in the fight over same sex marriage.

Dionne:

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