“Each time history repeats itself, the price goes up.” – Anonymous

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From Murray Waas at the Boston Globe:

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for “father” would be relabeled “father or second parent,’’ reflecting the new law.

But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.

He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father’’ on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,’’ in ink.

Divisions between the governor’s office and state bureaucrats over the language on the forms and details about the extraordinary effort by the Republican governor to prevent routine recording of births to gay parents are contained in state records obtained by the Globe this month.

Deliberations about the policies, including dozens of exchanges about the marriages and births of individual families, are recounted in e-mails and legal memos sent between the governor’s office and lawyers at the Department of Public Health, which oversees the Registry of Vital Records.

Romney’s insistence on scrutiny harmed the ‘integrity of the vital record-keeping system,’ one official said.

The practice of requiring high-level legal review continued for the rest of Romney’s term, despite a warning from a Department of Public Health lawyer who said such a system placed the children of same-sex parents at an unfair disadvantage.

Crossouts and handwritten alterations constituted “violations of existing statutes’’ and harmed “the integrity of the vital record-keeping system,’’ the deputy general counsel of the department, Peggy Wiesenberg, warned in a confidential Dec. 13, 2004, memo to Mark Nielsen, Romney’s general counsel.

The changes also would impair law enforcement and security efforts in a post-9/11 world, she said, and children with altered certificates would be likely to “encounter [difficulties] later in life . . . as they try to register for school, or apply for a passport or a driver’s license, or enlist in the military, or register to vote.”

…“The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother,’’ Romney said in his prepared remarks. “What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not ‘parent A’ and ‘parent B,’ but a mother and a father.’’

Romney also warned about the societal impact of gay parents raising children. “Scientific studies of children raised by same-sex couples are almost nonexistent,’’ he said. “It may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.’’

Romney expressed similar beliefs during a speech in 2005 to socially conservative voters in South Carolina, as he was beginning to be viewed as a serious candidate for president.

“Some gays are actually having children born to them,’’ he declared. “It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.’’

And from a follow-up at HuffPo:

Romney hadn’t even previously fathomed that gay people had children. Boston Spirit magazine reported last month that when gay activists met with him in his office in 2004, as Romney was backing a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the landmark case that won marriage rights for gays and lesbians before the Supreme Judicial Court, asked what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter about why the governor would block the marriage of her parents. According to Goodridge, Romney responded,”I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.”

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From the NYT blogs (emphases added):

Some Are More Unequal Than Others
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

This election has rightly been characterized as one that will deeply affect the future direction of the country: Americans are being given a choice with potentially large consequences. One arena in which there are profound differences that has not been adequately debated is the future course of inequality.”

Mitt Romney has been explicit: inequality should be talked about only in quiet voices behind closed doors. But with the normally conservative magazine The Economist publishing a special series showing the extremes to which American inequality has grown — joining a growing chorus (of which my book “The Price of Inequality” is an example) arguing that the extremes of American inequality, its nature and origins, are adversely affecting our economy — it is an issue that not even the Republicans can ignore. It is no longer just a moral issue, a question of social justice.

This perhaps provides part of the explanation for why inequality and poverty should suddenly appear as part of the Romney-Ryan makeover, as they attempt to portray themselves (to use a phrase of some 12 years ago) as compassionate conservatives. In Cleveland on Wednesday, Paul Ryan gave a speech that might lead one to conclude that the two Republican candidates were really concerned about poverty. But more revealing than oratory are budget numbers — like those actually contained in the Ryan budget. His budget proposal guts programs that serve those at the bottom, and little could have done more to enrich those at the top than his original tax proposals (like the elimination of capital gains taxes, a position from which he understandably has tried to distance himself). Every other advanced country has recognized the right of everyone to access to health care, and extending access was central to President Obama’s health care reform. Romney and Ryan have criticized that reform, but have said nothing about how or whether they would ensure universal access. Most important, the macroeconomic consequences of the Romney-Ryan economic program would be devastating: growth would slow, unemployment would increase, and just as Americans would need the social protection of government more, the safety net would be weakened.

We’d all do well to pay a bit closer attention. That American inequality is at historic highs is undisputed. It’s not just that the top 1 percent takes in about a fifth of the income, and controls more than a third of the wealth. America also has become the country (among the advanced industrial countries) with the least equality of opportunity. Meanwhile, those in the middle are faring badly, in every dimension, in security, in income, and in wealth — the wealth of the typical household is back to where it was in the 1990s. While the recession has made all of this worse, even before the recession they weren’t faring well: in 2007, the income of the typical family was lower than it was at the end of the last century. While Obama may not have done as much as he should to counteract the steep downturn he inherited from George W. Bush upon taking office — and he underestimated the depth of the problems that had been passed along to him — he did far more than his predecessor. And he could have done far more, as the dimensions of the problem became clearer to everyone, had he not faced such strong opposition in Congress.

There are many forces giving rise to this high and rising inequality. But the fact that America’s inequality is greater than other advanced countries’ says that it’s not just market forces. After all, other advanced countries are subjected to market forces much like those confronting us. Markets don’t exist in a vacuum. Government policies — or their lack — have played a critical role in creating and maintaining these inequities.

Inequality in “market incomes” — what individuals receive apart from any transfers from the government — has increased as a result of ineffective enforcement of competition laws, inadequate financial regulation, deficiency in corporate governance laws, and “corporate welfare” — huge open and hidden subsidies to our corporations that reached new heights in the Bush administration. When, for instance, competition laws are not enforced, monopolies grow, and with them the income of monopolists. Competition, by contrast, drives profits down. What is disturbing about Romney and Ryan is that they have done so little to distance themselves from the economic policies of the Bush administration, which not only led to poor economic performance, but also to so much inequality. Understandably, perhaps, Romney has not explained why those, like him, in the hedge fund and equity fund business should be able to use a loophole in the tax law to pay 15 percent taxes on their earnings, when ordinary workers pay a far higher rate.

Our government does less to correct these inequalities than we did in the past, or than other countries do, and as disparities in “market” incomes have increased, its efforts have diminished. It’s not just a matter of redistribution, as some suggest. It’s in part a matter of ensuring that those at the top pay a fair share of their taxes. And it’s in part a matter of ensuring that those at the bottom and in the middle get a fair start in life, through access to education, adequate nutrition and health, and not being exposed to the environmental hazards that have come to plague many of our poor neighborhoods.

But Romney’s campaign likes to play tricks with numbers. When he unleashed a tirade against the bottom 47 percent of supposedly freeloading Americans (for which he has since apologized), he failed to note what should have been obvious and has been pointed out repeatedly since he made that remark: those Americans do pay large amounts in taxes. These include (and I’m hardly the first to point this out) payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, and even part of the corporate income taxes that our major corporations manage to pass on to their customers. He failed to note, too, the many older Americans barely above poverty who receive social security payments, for which they contributed through a lifetime of work. Yes, the rich may pay a high and increasing share of the country’s total tax revenue, but that’s only because they have a high and increasing share of our national income— not because their rates have gone up.

Many of the very rich, like Romney, are avoiding taxes because of numerous loopholes that favor the rich, and capital gains taxes that are taxed at less than half the rate of other income. The 14 percent rate Romney reportedly paid on his income last year is well below that of Americans of comparable income who worked for their money doing things like creating a real business. Tax havens like the Cayman Islands (condemned by the Group20 and all economic experts) facilitate another level of tax avoidance. That the practice is legal is not an economic justification — the loopholes that allow it were put in place by the rich and the bankers, lawyers and lobbyists who serve them so well. We can be sure that the money is not in the Cayman Islands just because it grows faster in the bright sunshine there.

Putting all this together isn’t the politics of envy, as Romney’s camp likes to complain, or even about shaking a finger at the country’s real freeloaders. It’s about cold, hard economics. Tax avoidance and low rates on capital gains — and the inequality they amplify — are weakening our economy. Were the rich paying their fair share, our deficit would be smaller, and we would be able to invest more in infrastructure, technology and education — investments that would create jobs now and enhance growth in the future. While education is central to restoring America as a land of opportunity, all three of these are crucial for future growth and increases in living standards. Tax havens discourage investment in the United States. Taxing speculators at a lower rate encourages speculation and instability — and draws our most talented young people out of more productive endeavors. The result is a distorted, inefficient economy that grows more slowly than it should.  [click to continue…]

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How do you do it so well on the fly???

Hello, nerds!

Rebecca and I are ready and set to get up in this debate shit, on the real. Tonight is the most important night of Barack Obama’s life, in that he should just straight slam Five Hour Energy and then leap around onstage like he will seriously Seal Team Six the fuck out of Romney’s shit.

I am liveblogging from Gooeyz on the Ohio State University campus, courtesy of the Franklin County Young Democrats. Rebecca is blogging from a velvet couch while smoking a cigarette out of a long black holder.

8:38 PM: I have not seen a group of people this white sit in a space this small since that group of college kids piled in that Land Rover at Hilton Head.

8:56 PM: Candy Crowley came out and the lady is BEAMING. I think one of the Romney sons just proposed to her, probably.

9:00 PM: The Coors Light I’m drinking is kicking in and I think I hate unions now, guys.

9:02 PM: The audience has agreed to be polite. Suckers.

9:04 PM: Did Mitt Romney go Oompa Loompa?

9:06 PM: Hope that kid got Mitt’s business card, for that job he promised him.

9:09 PM: Mitt Romney says that Barack Obama bankrupted Detroit, because Jesus how tan is he?

9:12 PM: Professor Frink out with an energy question!

9:13 PM: Obama cold talks how many millions of energy jobs he will created and undecided voters on CNN are eating it up like their cheesy fries.

9:16 PM: We worry for Mitt’s arms with all the desperate people grabbing his arms and telling him things.

9:19 PM: Mitt going into attack pattern zeta now, just stepping up into Obama’s shit.

9:23 PM: Mitt is kind of a disrespectful sack of finely processed shit right now to everyone.

9:26 PM: Romney announces a brand new tax plan RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

9:32 PM: Romney has entered Anger Mode. Flail Pattern failed, so now he’s going after…well, the fact that Obama exists or something? It would be great if Romney would show us his tax returns so we could get a sense of how any of this will affect him maybe?

9:33 PM: Oh shit, Obama mentioned Big Bird. I think he just lost all debates.

9:34 PM: Did you know Michael Jordan had a degree in math? Because Obama is going straight Jordan Undergrad Degree on Romney right now.

9:36 PM: “Of COURSE they add up,” says the man who refuses to show anyone how they add up.

9:38 PM: There is a question about women in a presidential debate that’s not about what men want for dinner? Huh?

9:40 PM: Mitt gives an incredibly human answer about how women existed around him and he really does recognize that. [click to continue…]

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I usually don’t watch the Sunday morning roundtables (the Bobblespeak Translations are sufficient), but was compelled by several post-mortems to call up this week’s This Week. Utterly painful. Noonan’s (aristocratic) obliviousness. Matalin’s rabid attacks on Krugman. Jonathan Karl’s “objective journalist” follow-up comment about how “Obama lied, too”…I need coffee.

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Seriously, you’re all crazy.

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Marshall relays a comment on his TPM blog:

TPM Reader HM is way off on the President. Yes, I admit to bias, but this is pretty typical cries of failure from our side whenever President Obama does not, as Chris Matthews would have him do, kick the other side in the balls. And therefore they come up with the idea that “he’s failed.” But it could not be further from the truth.

I think it is absurdly wrong to think that the President cannot handle confrontation (and the implicit suggestion that he is not strong). This is the person who everyone in the establishment decried when he said that, if he had a shot, he would take out bin Laden. And then, when he had the shot, and a bunch of his national security team were against it (or squishy), he took it anyway. And it’s not just that. His team wanted him to give up comprehensive health care reform in favor of smaller, achievable reforms. He did not let up. People don’t remember it, but the politics of the auto industry bailout ranged from bad to toxic at the time (Mitt Romney was very comfortable with hoping to win Michigan while saying that we should “let Detroit go bankrupt”). He still bailed out Detroit. He could have backed down from Dodd-Frank when the Republicans were filibustering (and gained plenty of campaign cash from Wall Street). He could have thrown Geithner over the rails (some think he should have, but the point is he stood by what he believed in). He did not have to push DADT repeal, much less take a stand in favor of marriage equality a few months before the election. Politically, it might have been advantageous if the President had kicked Romney in the balls, and certainly cathartic for a lot of people. But he the reason he did not do it was not because of any lack of intestinal fortitude, it was clearly a political judgment. We will see where it goes from here—maybe it’s a disaster-but it should be argued based on its merit as political calculation, not Democrats typical cries that he needs to be tougher. Because he is already as tough as it gets.

I like to point people to Frontline’s Obamacare special from just after the vote.

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And at Jim Henson’s Memorial

And at the hospital

And with Michelle

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