Stidmatt

I am supposed to believe someone who was handpicked by a man who was just under investigation for two years that there was indeed interference in our election by a foreign enemy power (Russia), but that after repeated attempts to reach out to the Trump campaign, the Trump campaign said no and the Russians continued to interfere.

That’s a load of horse crap. No one works that way in reality.

Also, if it is true that the Russians interfering in our election was not colluding with the Trump campaign, I am sure it is simply a coincidence that multiple high ranking members of the campaign are sitting in federal prison right now.

This is proving to be one of the most crowded presidential primaries in a very long time. Only paying attention to governors and Senators (because those are the ones with an actual possibility of winning) we have:

• Cory Booker
• Kirsten Gillibrand
• Kamala Harris
• Amy Klobuchar
• Bernie Sanders
• Elizabeth Warren

6% of  the Senate, and 12.8% of Democratic caucusing candidates are in the race already. Let’s look at historical perspective of likely winners in previous elections:

• 2020: 6 candidates with a possibility (6 senators)
• 2016: 5 candidates with a possibility
• 2008: 7 candidates with a possibility (6 senators, 1 governor)
• 2004: 5 candidates (4 senators, 1 governor)
• 2000: 2 candidates (2 senators)
• 1992: 6 candidates (4 senators, 2 governors)
• 1988: 6 candidates (4 senators, 2 governors)
• 1984: 7 candidates (5 senators, 1 governor, 1 vice president)
• 1980: 4 candidates (1 senator, 2 governor, 1 president)
• 1976: 10 candidates (6 senators, 4 governors)

The 1972 primary only included 31 states, making it a fundamentally different system from what we have today.

In terms of the timing, this is about the same time that candidates announced in 2008, the last comparable year for the Democratic Party,so this is a pretty normal round.

Now for candidate policies:
Health care:

• In favor of health care for all:
• Kamala Harris
• Elizabeth Warren
• Bernie Sanders
• Kirsten Gillibrand 
• Oppose or on the fence:
• Amy Klobuchar

Debt Free College:

• Support
• Kamala Harris
• Elizabeth Warren 
• Only free tuition:
• Bernie Sanders
• Make first two years of college free:
• Kirsten Gillibrand 
• Oppose:
• Amy Klobuchar

Wall Street Bailouts:

• Oppose
• Elizabeth Warren
• Kamala Harris
• Amy Klobuchar
• Bernie Sanders
•   Support
• Kirsten Gillibrand 

Rent Control

• Oppose, support other solutions
•  Elizabeth Warren
• Support
• Kamala Harris
• Bernie Sanders
• Kirsten Gillibrand

Cut American emission in half

Overview: EIA
Overview of sources: EIA

Where we need to do the most work:

50% of Northeast Ohio’s emissions come from electricity production. Geothermal plants could reduce this significantly.
gcbl

Wyoming has the most emissions per capita. 57% of their energy is for housing. Geothermal heating could significantly reduce emissions in Wyoming. 22% of their energy is used for transportation. 91% of electricity in Wyoming is from coal. Wyoming needs immediate investment in geothermal power plants, geothermal heating, and solar power.
Institute for Energy ResearchList of US states by carbon dioxide emissions
 
The best way to reduce North Dakota’s carbon footprint is by reducing America’s demand for oil. North Dakota has the second largest footprint on a per capita basis. Coal is the largest source of electricity. 28.7 MMT from coal, 16.1 MMT from industry.

West Virginia is the 4th worst state per capita. West Virginia needs to move its workers from coal to renewable power as soon as possible. Almost 100% of their electricity is from coal. 68.7 MMT from electricity, 10 MMT from Industry.

Alaska is the 5th worst state per capita. Natural gas is the number one source of carbon emissions. (EIA) Heavy subsidies for geothermal heating will significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Natural gas and oil account for 100% of Alaska’s net carbon emissions. Moving off of oil for transportation and geothermal heating for houses will be enough. Alaska can easily do this by a carbon tax and using that money for no-interest loans for geothermal heating and power, and other renewable energy sources. This will cut over 20 MMT Co2 annually. GHG Inventory Report 2015 for Alaska
 
Louisiana is the 6th worst state per capita (44.5 metric tons) or 207 million metric tons in total. Most of their electricity is from natural gas. Industry produces over half their carbon emissions (40 million metric tons), from oil and natural gas production. Louisiana needs an immediate increase in solar power statewide to reduce their carbon footprint.

Texas is the number one state for carbon emissions, at 709 million metric tons or 26 metric tons per capita. Natural gas is it number one source of fuel and the number one source for electricity. We can cut this by implementing more efficient air to with 35% of the total or 226 MMT CO2. Texas needs immediate large scale investment in solar and geothermal.

Florida is the 6th worst state in total carbon emissions. 50% of their emissions are from electricity production. Natural gas is the leader in carbon emissions, followed by coal. Eliminating these would cut 104 MMT of CO2

Easiest projects to complete:

1. Make Alaska Carbon Neutral. 20 MMT
2. Eliminate 100% of Washington State’s electricity emissions. They are from the Trans-Alta Plant in Centralia. 11.7 MMT

Long-scale urgent projects

1. Boost renewable electricity production in Texas to replace current fossil fuel technologies. 226
2. Boost renewable electricity production in Louisiana and reduce production of oil and natural gas. 40 from electricity, 105 from industry.
3. End coal production in West Virginia. 70
4. End coal power plants in North Dakota. 28.7
5. End coal power plants in Pennsylvania. 105.9
6. End coal power plants in Ohio. 101.9
7. End coal and natural gas in Florida. 104 MMT
8. End coal power plants in Indiana. 98 MMT
9. Implement a nationwide electric car network and replace all internal combustion engines with renewable energy. Ban the sale of fossil fuels by 2030. 1740 MMT from Transportation can be reduced this way. I recommend transitioning to this using a carbon tax as soon as possible.

We can do all of this in the next 15 years.
This will reduce 2619.5 MMT of Carbon dioxide or over 50% of America’s total carbon emissions.
We need to do this

Help reduce emissions in other countries.

There are a few policies the United States can do to pressure other countries to reduce global warming, such as:

1. Ban the export of all coal and oil products from the United States.
2. Export renewable energy technologies with no tariffs.
3. Significantly invest in renewable energy research

1. A carbon tax with no exemptions which starts at $25 per ton and increases at 3.5% + inflation annually with no cap or expiration date.
2. Implement high speed rail on the 100 most high demand routes, from the most to least important.
3. No income tax below $100,000 annual income for a single person.
4. Allow Americans to privatize their Social Security taxes in IRA accounts. Eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes. This will effectively fight income inequality.
5. A $5000 annual Universal Basic Income. Minors will have half their Universal Basic Income in a trust for when they are 18, and half goes to their parents. that money they receive when they are 18 will be enough to cover room and board in college, and the money is theirs, so their parents will have no power over them. The $5000 in the beginning of the year will help people get out of debt or invest in their future. Once out of debt, it is enough to fully fund someone’s retirement account for retirement.
6. Three options for health care, all options allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
1. A public option and increase Medicaid eligibility to $60,000 per person annual income for a single individual.
2. Everyone is eligible for Medicaid.
7. Free college tuition at public universities.
8. Tax capital gains as regular income.
9. Either my full tax plan, or have a new bracket at 50% for all income above $1 million per year.

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple years about carbon taxation due to the work that I did along with friends of mine at Carbon Washington for Initiative 732, the first and most progressive carbon tax proposal in American history. We based it off of the highly successful carbon tax which British Columbia passed in 2008, and refunded the money back to tax payers because we have the most regressive tax code in the United States. The number of exemptions in our bill were limited.

Then there was the Governor’s bill in the legislature in 2017. I lobbied for it, even though it had several big problems. The carbon tax amount was significantly smaller than 732, it increased linearly, not exponentially, and gave many exemptions to big oil and coal which 732 didn’t. I lobbied for it regardless of these serious flaws because it was better than nothing and would have funded our schools which are significantly, which desperately needs to happen.

The third proposal so far was I-1631 which was extremely similar to Inslee’s bill. It was a modest tax, with a 1 year delay before implementation, would have increased linearly, had a long list of exemptions for oil companies, and even worse was fairly vague about where the money would be spent compared to the other two bills, leaving over a billion dollars for the governor to make the final decision on, through a board the governor would have appointed.

732 (2011-2016)

All three have failed. When it comes to the major players in the state, there are four which are relevant.

The first is Carbon Washington. We started the discussion in the first place, and designed everything to benefit working class families, who are disproportionately people of color. The Audubon Society joined us in fighting for the initiative, along with many local Democratic Parties, multiple environmental groups, and a wide swath of scientists and business leaders.

Despite all of this, the number one complaint I heard the most often was not having to do with the context of our bill itself but was regarding a group known as the Alliance. They were formed in opposition to us, claiming that we needed to take people of color into account, despite how we won that demographic come election day, and they would benefit more than anyone else from the working families tax credit and sales tax reduction, among several other unrealistic criticisms. They were claiming to be building a new, better initiative which would take people of color into account and would release the initiative “soon”. I will get back to that bucket of corruption.

The other main players were the governor, who opposed us probably to pursue his own political agenda and propose a bill of his own come election day, and the Democratic Party outright opposed us.

The Alliance, Governor Inslee, and the Democratic Party allied themselves with big coal in 2016. There is no other honest way to put it.

Our failure at the ballot box, aided by Governor Inslee, the Alliance, and the Democratic Party (all of whom should have helped us) has made it significantly harder to get anything done since then because we have to fight the argument that the people already voted no once, and why try again? They hurt themselves in the process, as I will outline further down.

The arguments of the Alliance are preserved at Ballotpedia.

Sidenote: All of the claims from OneAmerica and the Democratic Party that the tax is not in fact “revenue neutral” is based off the estimates published by the Office of Financial Management. They estimated a shortfall of $797 million over a 6 year time period, which would be an average of $132 million per year. However, they didn’t include their standard deviation in the document they sent to every voter in the state, and their standard deviation was larger than their mean, meaning that it was as close to revenue neutral as anyone could predict with the best models (which they were using). Printing a future projection without a standard deviation is unprofessional, and misled every voter. For reference, the 2018 proposed budget had a total amount spend of $44,669 million for one year of spending. If, let’s say, the OFM was correct and there would have been a shortfall (more on that in the next paragraph) the total impact would have been 0.3% of the budget. About 1/3 of the total amount spent on Natural Resources & Recreation, the smallest section of the budget. To claim (as they did) that it would create austerity is ludicrous, and if there was a slight shortfall, wouldn’t have made the sky fall.

The opposition to 732 ran with this misprint the OFM printed, falsely claiming that 732 would threaten our schools, which was completely false.

The Legislature (2017)

After the failure of 732, the battle moved to the legislature. This bill, as I describe above was significantly weaker. It gave large exemptions to big oil, and probably would not have reduced emissions at all. The only reason to lobby for it, in retrospect, is that we might have been able to do more in the following election year and the money would have funded our schools. It wasn’t a great bill.

Unfortunately, even with a Democratic Majority this bill which started with an injured leg from its big oil exemptions failed in the legislature, losing Governor Inslee major political brownie points, and making it harder to pass future bills.

The Alliance finally decided to announce their proposal after Governor Inslee fell flat on his face, once they were essentially the only player left in town.

Initiative 1631 (2018)

The Alliance finally released their initiative, and it had many of the same flaws of Governor Inslee’s proposal. Particularly the major exemptions to big oil which I detest. It was better than the legislation in that it was a larger tax (though still significantly smaller than 732) but it wasn’t as clear as the bill on how the money would be spent.

Both of those features made this bill significantly harder to defend for me. I am not surprised it failed because of those major problems with the bill.

The truth is, it was poorly written, gave exemptions to the wrong groups, and didn’t outline clearly how the money would be spent. This made it really hard to  defend because if someone brought any of them up, the only response I could honestly say (because I try very hard to be honest) that yes, it gave exemptions to the wrong groups and you probably would not see any benefit to this legislation.

On top of this, I don’t even know if it would have increased carbon emissions at all given its complexity.

I voted for it, but I didn’t lobby for it because I knew it would probably fail.

Remember the arguments from the fight against 732? How we would have bankrupted the state (we wouldn’t have) and how we didn’t listen to minorities (we did, there is a lot of history on this issue on how they walked out)? Well, if by bankrupt the state they meant  that the investments would NOT go to our schools (one of their arguments) and would NEVER be seen by working class families, instead being distributed by an unelected board with no oversight from the legislature, with fairly vague goals, which probably would not have helped working class people or global warming. The only winners from 1631 would have been oil companies with their massive exemptions.

It would not have funded our schools, rebuilt our infrastructure,

The Future

I still hold out naive hope that Washington might still be able to pass significant climate legislation. Many strong climate leaders were elected last week, and we might be able to get something done now.

Nothing is going to happen at the ballot box anymore. The Alliance basically made sure of that in 2016, and I do not see a future for that organization with their track record at this point.

Getting something through the legislature of any scale is going to be extremely difficult. Telling legislators to vote for something similar to two failed initiatives is not a good place to stand, even if people vote against similar legislation once it makes it very difficult to get something through. I don’t want carbon taxes to be DOA, but the reality is they probably will be. I hope I am wrong on this.

The only groups which truly deserve credit in my opinion for making any progress at this point are Carbon Washington, Audubon and Citizens Climate Lobby.

Today’s ban on transgender folk serving in the military is disheartening, and is going to make a lot of people upset. On top of that I witnessed a Lummi woman being poorly represented by her public defender in court today, and wish I had known where to refer her to get proper legal assistance. I should have given her my business card. This is disheartening, and then as I was thinking whether we can make a difference I remembered than in the last 3 years we have had more election reform to true proportional representation in the United States than Germany has had in the previous 150 years. That gives me hope. When we organize, when we mobilize, when we campaign for good people and get good people into office, push for big important initiatives, and vote we can literally replace unfair and corrupt election systems with true proportional representation. That gives me hope. We can change this situation. We can make it better. We did make it better, and there is still a long ways to go. There will always be problems, nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we have to remember where we have come from to give us hope. It is up to us, the voting public to make the future better.

Since the current German system was formed the following has happened in the United States:

1. In 1912 we got the right to directly vote for our Senators for the first time in history.
2. In 2016 Maine became the first state in the United States to implement ranked voting in American history.

Score: America 2, Germany 0.
www.fairvote.org

I have written a lot on this blog over the last 9 years, and I have written about a lot of different topics. Here is a summary of my political values in a bullet format.

Local elections (Bellingham and Whatcom County)

• Investigate the ability to have fare-free buses
• Have a local carbon tax, like in Portland
• Use ranked voting for all elections.
• Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.
• Internet access is a natural monopoly and as such should be a public service. Same with electricity. Private companies provide good service in a competitive market, but these are not competitive.

Washington State

Easy

• Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies 
• Comprehensive sexual education (like Our Whole Lives) in every school. Mandatory for every student.
• Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.

Medium Difficulty

• Increase Cascades service, study expanding a train working with AMTRAK which would serve Spokane and Tri-Cities.
• Make it easier for people who are laid off to claim unemployment. 
• Eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual assault

Hard

• Implement a Carbon tax with few exemptions.
• Make our tax code more progressive.
• Fund the Working Families Tax Credit
• Increase State employee’s wages to market rate for their position, in order to attract and retain talent, and it is the right thing to do.
• Tuition free college

Practically impossible

• Replace our sales tax with a progressive income tax. Individuals with incomes below $100,000 don’t have to pay an income tax.

Federal Level

Easy

• Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies
• Oppose wars which are not authorized through the United Nations General Assembly
• Roe v. Wade is settled law, and it is the best case scenario for the issue of abortion. This is the most controversial plank of this platform.
• FEMA must be used appropriately to fight natural disasters.

Medium

• Increase AMTRAK service to currently under served high demand routes, and give AMTRAK the ability to increase service where there is demand. 
• Support inner-city public transit expansion to the areas which are under served.
• Bring back the WPA. This will function as a jobs guarantee, so people who are unemployed can go to the WPA to find work.
• Make DARPA ARPA again, significantly increasing basic science research, supporting excellent good pay jobs.
• Increase the number of SBA loans available, and increase the amount.
• Public option for health insurance or Medicare for All.
• Negotiate for lower drug prices with Medicare.
• No bailouts for any company, no matter what their size.
• Tuition free college at any public university.
• Significantly increase federal grants for local schools.
• Public schools which teach creationism lose federal funding.
• Tuition and fees for Private schools which teach creationism are not tax-deductible.
• Everyone has the right to move their retirement account to a different provider of their choice once per year for no fee, maintaining the normal restrictions the tax advantage comes with. Everyone has the right to change how their retirement account is allocated at any right for no penalty.
• New gun laws:
• Anyone of age who can pass a background check with a clean criminal record may own a gun. However, in accordance to “a well regulated militia” anyone under the age of 65 who owns a gun must be a member of the National Guard Reserves and may be called into service at anytime.
• People under 21 may not purchase or possess a firearm unless they are enlisted as active duty in a branch of the armed services.
• Mandatory background checks, insurance, and licensing for gun purchases.
• Owners of guns are required to keep their guns secured when not on their body. 
• The police may demand a firearm license for possession of a firearm outside of the home or a designated firearm range. Not carrying your license on you with possession of a firearm is a felony. Possession of a firearm which does not belong to you will come with the presumption of theft, and you will be charged for unlicensed carrying of a firearm. 
• Allowing someone who is not licensed to get access to your guns will be a felony with a 5 year prison sentence.
• The legal guardians of minors who get access to guns will be charged with negligence, with a minimum sentence of 5 years, and life in prison without parole if their child kills someone, as well as the owner of the firearm.
• Possession of an unregistered firearm will be a felony punishable with a 5 year prison sentence.
• Felons may not own or possess guns.
• Open carry will be a felony.
• Penalties will be increased for the second and third offenses.
• In short, if you are of good character, and want to own a firearm, you will be allowed. But, you must keep the firearm secured, and you will be called for paid military service.
• We need to combat human trafficking by punishing the traffickers and offering amnesty to those who were traffic.
• Treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a military problem. End the war on drugs. Rehabilitation needs to be available and free. The only sentence anyone should have for possession and usage of drugs should be high quality rehabilitation. Usage of drugs should never send someone to prison.
• De-escalation training for all military and police.
• Aggressively go after and prosecute predatory lenders who mislead their clients with false promises. Pay out the damages to their victims.

Hard

• Nationalize the railways
• Tax capital gains as regular income
• Implement a national carbon tax which increases exponentially over time with no exemptions for special interests.
• Replace Social Security Old Age Insurance with a Basic Income over a 40 year transition plan. Do not cut benefits from any people currently receiving benefits. I have written why Old Age Insurance is highly flawed here. The posts on Social Security from before 2014 were before I studied economics when I was in community college, and I didn’t understand it, which is why I want to reform it significantly. At a bare minimum, allow individuals to opt to put their Social Security contributions into an IRA, which will benefit American families.
• Have a negative income tax for low income households. Details
• Comprehensive sexual education in every school.
• Amend the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a direct vote for the President.
• Have all House of Representatives Districts be elected using Single Transferable Vote with multiple members per district.
• Negotiate an open border agreement with Canada following a full comprehensive study on the costs and benefits to having a closed border which will likely prove that the costs exceed the benefits.
• Increase the number of nationalities who can visit the United States visa-free based on more reasonable criteria. Nationalities which are part of the ESTA will be able to visit the United States without a visa.

Values

• Torture is immoral and violates the 8th amendment under all circumstances.
• The death penalty is inherently flawed and needs to be abolished as a violation of the 8th amendment.
• Every vote must be counted accurately. Every adult American citizen needs to be able to vote. Voting should be easy to do for all adult American citizens.
• Everybody is important. Everybody matters. Everybody deserves a chance.
• We need to provide support to people who have been left behind by inequality, and provide financial remediation for people who have suffered from racism. People who are discriminated by the police deserve financial remediation.
• LGBT rights are human rights.
• People deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. We need to pursue effective policies to end the gender pay gap.

Key economic realities which inform this platform

• Competition when possible is the best way to democratize the economy, and give everyone the opportunity to succeed in industries where there can be many competing firms. Monopolization must be countered with strong anti-trust laws.
• Natural monopolies (electricity, internet, water, sewage) need to be public services provided by governments.
• The single best investment we can make in our future is in the education of people, it gives dividends into the future perpetually through people having better paying jobs via more specialization, better health outcomes, and more. This needs the funding to match its return, which means tuition free public college.
• Improving internet access is one way to significantly level the playing field.