Category: Uncategorized

And the man whose academic stature fueled the crisis

About a month ago I read a Spokesman article that stuck with me. As I remember it, a woman driver in a hurry somewhere in north Spokane cut off a male driver, a chase ensued, middle fingers were raised, the two got out of their cars and, in less than a minute, two lives were ruined. The woman was dead of a gunshot wound and the man was likely destined for prison on a charge of murder. His excuse for shooting her? “I thought she was reaching for a gun.” (It was her cell phone. She was unarmed, but in our society with the ubiquity of guns, who could be sure?) Take his gun out of the equation along with his concern that she might be armed and they both might have gone on their own way after shouting match.

Why did this hothead have a pistol in his car, a weapon that, in an instant, would change his and this woman’s life forever (to say nothing of the lives of the passengers, bystanders, and relatives of the two)? When I follow the threads back they lead to a conservative academic, John Lott, who, based on his sociological claimed a counter-intuitive fact that he in 1998 immortalized in the title of his book, “More Guns, Less Crime”. The book is still available today (in its third print edition) as well as on Kindle and Audible—a remarkable run for a book by a writer with academic credentials discussing supposedly original research. 

The title “More Guns, Less Crime” vividly expresses the intended takeaway of Lott’s book. It is a polemic seeking to justify broad ownership of guns. Like Jude Wanniski of “The Two Santas Theory”, Fred Singer of climate denial, and, locally, Chris Cargill of the Washington Policy Center, John Lott found an audience with an existing bias ready to hear and spread his convictions. (See P.S. below). One should know from the title of the book that this is not an academic paper. It isn’t titled “Statistical evidence that guns reduce crime”. The title is meant to catch the eye, sell books, and plant an idea. John Lott has made a career out of promoting his faith in the value of guns, possessing them and brandishing them—and firing them—when you deem it necessary. 

If you have any doubt of Lott’s success in promoting his faith in gun ownership and carriage, I invite you to click and learn from a remarkable animated map that illustrates the progressive stripping away, U.S. state by U.S. state, of legal restrictions on the carriage of a concealed weapons. Between 1986 and 2022 the overwhelming majority of states have gone from concealed carry permit “No issue” or “May issue” laws (“may issue” depending on various attributes of the applicant and the issuing agency) to “Unrestricted”—no regulation at all—or “Shall issue”—which, depending on the state, might still restrict certain people, e.g. former felons, from carrying a concealed pistol. It is a fair bet that most Americans are unaware of this creeping legal cancer—unless they are current or former denizens of gun culture. (See P.P.S.)

John Lott’s “More Guns, Less Crime” thesis rests on a critical piece of data: a telephone survey conducted over a three month period in 1997 allegedly demonstrating that a significant number of crimes are averted each year by a potential victim brandishing a gun to a potential assailant. To fearful Americans mentally beaten up every day with sensational crimes headlining the news, that is an appealing data. This is the “data” upon which a lot testimony and a lot of legislation has partly or wholly depended for the last twenty years. The trouble is that John Lott cannot now demonstrate that the survey was actually performed—a survey on the veracity and details of which so much opinion and legislation depends. Even if the survey had been performed, knowing what we know of the vagaries of human memory in recalling distant events and the human tendency to embellish stories, one has to wonder at the accuracy of the accounts—and meaning—of the numbers presented. 

It is one thing to have a strong opinion. It is quite another, especially for an alleged academic, to conjure up data in support of your opinion, especially data you will use to influence the course of history. 

I invite you to read reporter at large Mike Spies’ article in the New Yorker from November 3, 2022, entitled “The Shoddy Conclusions of the Man Shaping the Gun-Rights Debate” for details. The full wikipedia article on John Lott is another eye-opener. It paints a portrait of a man with strong right wing opinions, supported by a number of right wing institutions including the American Enterprise Institute and the John M. Olin Foundation (Mr. Olin made his money in munitions), a man diligently in search of data not to test a hypothesis but to justify his foregone conclusions. (Be sure to read the section titled “Disputed survey”.) 

“More Guns, Less Crime” sparked a lot of academic debate—but, for a certain audience, there was no need to pay attention to such nuance. The conclusion was right there in the title… I will never read another commentator or researcher without paying attention to their background. I am thoroughly embarrassed that I was taken in by the man’s claims, if only for a time.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. Full disclosure: I bought the book—and I bought the argument. After all, as a physician and a scientist, I’m supposed to believe in reasoned arguments based on solid data. I failed to account for my own biases: I grew up in gun culture in Wisconsin. As a youth I raptly watched all the sanitized violence of American “Westerns” on TV. By the 1990s I had been involved in shooting sports off and on for much of my life. In the late 1990s I was a credible competitor in the regional scene of action pistol shooting (IPSC). I bought and read Lott’s book. It satisfied my bias in favor of responsible gun ownership and carriage. I could not—and did not want to—see beyond my bias. In the 1990s I had neither time nor interest in digging deeply into the research and academic controversy that around Lott’s book. 

P.P.S. Be aware that “our” U.S. Congresswoman for eastern Washington, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, as she offers “thoughts and prayers” after each mass shooting, quietly supports federal legislation that would force states that still have (mildly) restrictive concealed carry laws to accept concealed weapons carriage within their territory by a resident of another state with less or no restrictions. Proponents of concealed carry and gun proliferation find her support for this bill really exciting. Meanwhile, she is careful not to advertise her support for this bill to the majority of voters, people lulled into thinking their smiling Representative touting “Christian values” couldn’t possibly support the dismantling one of the few gun regulations this country still possesses.

Spread of the “right-to-carry”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_concealed_carry_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Right_to_Carry,_timeline.gif

John Lott, the “elite intellectual” gun dissident. Also writes articles on excess votes for Biden in 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott

https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-shoddy-conclusions-of-the-man-shaping-the-gun-rights-debate

New Study by John Lott Jr. Reveals Biden Received More than 225,000 Excess Votes in 2020 Election

Gary Kleck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kleck

The reason Republican whining about debt is political bullshit

There is a glaring problem with House Republicans shrieking that they will not pass a “clean” rise in the debt ceiling arguing that cuts in Social Security and Medicare must be negotiated because these programs will bankrupt the economy. These are many of the same Republicans who endlessly proclaimed to all who would listen that the deceptively named Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would put “money in your pocket” (by, among other things, cutting the top corporate tax rate from 39 to 21 percent)—while refusing to acknowledge to the average voter that, in terms of debt, cutting taxes is monetarily equivalent to spending. People like “our” U.S. Representative to Congress, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, undoubtedly console themselves with the self-deception that this cutting rich people’s taxes would create jobs (aka the flimsy theory of “supply side economics”) 

Now, for me, every time the “debt ceiling crisis” is mentioned it reminds me that Republicans are only concerned with the debt when there is a Democrat in the White House. The wholly Republican-owned game of taking the economy hostage over the debt ceiling has appeared during every Democratic administration since the 1990s. It is part of a larger Republican political scam hatched and popularized by a man you’ve never heard of, Jude Wanniski, a heretical, self-taught political economist who promoted the Two Santa Claus Theory to the Republican Party in the 1970s. (Check out Wanniski’s obit in the conservative “newspaper”, The New York Sun.)

The article from Thom Hartmann copied and pasted below is a fascinating read. Wanniski’s tireless promotion of the Two Santa Claus Theory is a reminder of how one man’s efforts working in the background can influence the course of history. It is a backstory well worth absorbing and sharing.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Are We Seeing the Last Gasp of the GOP’s Two Santa Claus Scam?

Has the American public finally wised up to Wanniski’s and Reagan’s Two Santas scam, even if they don’t know the details or the backstory?

Thom Hartmann, January 20th

The media refers to it as a debate around the debt ceiling, but it’s actually far simpler than that. And entirely political.

Back in November, a few weeks after House Republicans won the election and seized control of that body, I wrote to you warning that the House Republicans would try the same scam that Ronald Reagan first rolled out in the 1980s. I wrapped the article up with the “hope that Democratic politicians and our media will, finally, call the GOP out on Wanniski’s and Reagan’s Two Santa Clauses scam.”

So far, no soap. I haven’t heard a single mention of Two Santas in the mainstream media, and I’ll bet you haven’t, either. That’s the bad news.

The good news — perhaps — is that the scam has lost its sting after working so well for them for 42 years. President Biden and House Democrats are standing firm, saying they have no intention of negotiating around the debt ceiling with terrorists threatening to destroy our economy.

But even if it’s the last gasp of this scam, it appears House Republicans plan to go out with a bang. So let’s quickly review how Two Santas works.

Back in 1976 the Republican Party was a smoking ruin. Nixon had resigned after being busted for lying about his “secret plan to end the Vietnam War,” his involvement in the Watergate burglary, and his taking bribes from Jimmy Hoffa and the Milk Lobby. He only avoided prosecution because Gerald Ford pardoned him.

His first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had also resigned to avoid prosecution for taking bribes.

Newspaper and television editorialists were openly speculating the GOP might implode. The Party hadn’t held the House of Representatives for more than two consecutive years since 1930 (and wouldn’t until 1994), Jerry Ford had ended the War the year before in a national humiliation, the unemployment rate was over 7 percent, as was inflation after hovering around 11 percent the year before.

The Republican Party had little to offer the American people beyond anti-communism, their mainstay since the 1950s.

Americans knew it was Democrats who’d brought them Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, subsidized college, the right to unionize, antipoverty programs, and sent men to the moon. And they knew Republicans had opposed the “big government spending” associated with every single one of them.

But one man — a Republican strategist and editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal named Jude Wanniski — thought he saw a way out. It was, he argued, a strategy that could eventually bring about a permanent Republican governing majority.

In a WSJ op-ed that year, Wanniski pointed out that Americans thought of Democrats as the “Party of Santa” and Republicans as, essentially, Scrooge. Republicans, he noted, hadn’t even proposed a tax cut in 22 years!

The solution, Wanniski argued, was for Republicans to start pushing tax cuts whenever the GOP held the White House. This would establish their Santa bona fides, particularly if Democrats objected. It would flip the script so Democrats would fill the role of Scrooge.

To make it even easier for Republicans to cut taxes, Wanniski invented and publicized a new economic theory called Supply-Side Economics. When taxes went down, he said, government revenue would magically go up!

Four years later, when Reagan came into the White House with the election of 1980, he picked up Wanniski’s strategy and doubled down on it. (In the primary of 1980, he’d even run on it: his primary opponent, George Herbert Walker Bush, derided it as “Voodoo Economics.”)

Reagan not only cut taxes on the rich: he also radically increased government spending, goosing the economy into a sugar high while throwing the nation deeply into debt.

Citing Supply-Side Economics, in eight short years Reagan ran up greater deficits than every president from George Washington to Jerry Ford combined, taking our national debt from around $800 billion all the way up to around $2.6 trillion when he left office.

By 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency, Reagan and Bush’s debt had climbed to over $4.2 trillion, giving Republicans a chance to double down on Two Santas. Bill Clinton would be their test case.

House Republicans loudly demanded that Clinton “do something!” about the national debt, waving the debt ceiling like a cudgel. Over the next eight years they repeatedly wielded the debt ceiling, shutting down the government twice. The battles lifted Newt Gingrich to the speakership.

Clinton caved, making massive cuts to the social safety net to get a balanced budget in a gut-shot to the Democratic Santa programs.

By the end of the Clinton presidency the formula was set. When Republicans held the White House, they’d spend like drunken Santas and cut taxes to the bone to drive up the national debt.

When Democrats come into the presidency, Republicans would use the debt ceiling to force them to cut their own social programs and shoot the Democratic Santa.

As I noted last November, when Clinton shot Santa Claus the result was an explosion of Republican wins across the country as GOP politicians campaigned on a “Republican Santa” platform of supply-side tax cuts and pork-rich spending increases.

Democrats had controlled the House of Representatives in almost every single year since the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s, but with Newt Gingrich rigorously enforcing Wanniski’s Two Santa Claus strategy, they used the debt ceiling as a weapon.

State after state turned red and the Republican Party rose to take over, in less than a decade, every single lever of power in the federal government from the Supreme Court to the White House.

Looking at the wreckage of the Democratic Party all around Clinton in 1999, Wanniski wrote a gloating memo that said, in part:

“We of course should be indebted to Art Laffer for all time for his Curve… But as the primary political theoretician of the supply-side camp, I began arguing for the ‘Two Santa Claus Theory’ in 1974. If the Democrats are going to play Santa Claus by promoting more spending, the Republicans can never beat them by promoting less spending. They have to promise tax cuts…”

Ed Crane, then-president of the Koch-funded Libertarian CATO Institute, noted in a memo that year:

“When Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Vin Weber, Connie Mack and the rest discovered Jude Wanniski and Art Laffer, they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. In supply-side economics they found a philosophy that gave them a free pass out of the debate over the proper role of government. … That’s why you rarely, if ever, heard Kemp or Gingrich call for spending cuts, much less the elimination of programs and departments.”

Two Santa Clauses had fully seized the GOP mainstream.

Never again would Republicans worry about the debt or deficit when they were in office, and they knew well how to scream hysterically about it and hook in the economically naïve media as soon as Democrats again took power.

When Jude Wanniski died, George Gilder celebrated the Reagan/Bush adoption of his Two Santas “Voodoo Economics” scheme — then still considered irrational by mainstream economists — in a Wall Street Journal eulogy:

“Unbound by zero-sum economics, Jude forged the golden gift of a profound and passionate argument that the establishments of the mold must finally give way to the powers of the mind. … He audaciously defied all the Buffetteers of the trade gap, the moldy figs of the Phillips Curve, the chic traders in money and principle, even the stultifying pillows of the Nobel Prize.”

After Clinton, George W. Bush was handed the presidency by his father’s friends on the Supreme Court in 2000.

Bush put into place another massive $2.5 trillion GOP Santa tax-cut gift for the rich while committing the US to new spending of over $8 trillion (and 7,054 American lives) on two illegal and unnecessary wars.

Not a single Republican of any consequence publicly objected. None have to this day. The debt ceiling was never mentioned, other than to quietly raise it year after year.

Barack Obama was elected in a 2008 landslide and within a year Republicans were screaming that he “do something!” about Reagan’s and Bush’s national debt that was then climbing toward the $19 trillion he’d face in his last year in office.

Republicans wouldn’t tolerate increasing taxes in any meaningful way and continued to use the debt ceiling as a weapon, so Obama, weakened and waffling, nearly agreed to cut Social Security (the proposed “chained CPI”) before his own party restrained him.

The result was the GOP pushing our nation to a near-default in 2011 that badly damaged our economy for the following two years, cost us hundreds of billions, and hurt Democrats in the 2012 election.

Trump came into office in 2016 after losing the election by almost 3 million votes (but winning the Electoral College with help from Putin) and instantly reverted to Reagan’s Two Santas strategy, again spending like a drunken Santa while cutting taxes.

The total cost of his 4 years of combined new tax cuts and new spending was $13.9 trillion. While a few Republicans — apparently not clued in on the Two Santas scam — finally objected, they were quickly overruled by Party leadership.

As former Florida Republican Congressman David Jolly tweeted this week, “[R]oughly 25% of our total national debt incurred over the last 230 years actually occurred during the 4 years of the Trump administration.” Snopes then rated the claim as “true.”

David Jolly @DavidJollyFL

For context, roughly 25% of our total national debt incurred over the last 230 years actually occurred during the 4 years of the Trump administration. That’s right. 25% of our entire national debt, all during the Trump years.

Kevin McCarthy @SpeakerMcCarthy

House Republicans are on a mission to end wasteful Washington spending. From now on, if a federal bureaucrat wants to spend it, they have to come before us to defend it.3:20 AM ∙ Jan 18, 202364,636Likes32,780Retweets

Now that a Democrat is back in the White House the GOP is again demanding cuts in the Democratic Santa programs, threatening again to repeat the debt ceiling government shutdowns they forced on both Clinton and Obama.

Will McCarthy’s House Republicans again get away with their Lucy-with-the-football routine? Will they succeed at crashing our nation’s economy and blaming it on Biden to hurt Democrats in the 2024 election?

While many in the mainstream media (and Joe Manchin) are already leaning hard on the President to “negotiate” cuts to Democratic Santa programs, the administration insists it’ll stand firm. After all, Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and knows this story well: he’s lived every minute of it.   

And, increasingly, it appears the American public has finally wised up to the GOP’s Two Santas scam, even if they don’t know the details or the backstory.

Nonetheless, Republicans are still claiming they’re ready to force a default on our debt if Democrats won’t gut Social Security and Medicare. Now may be a good time to prepare as best you can for the chance Republicans will actually throw us into a major, worldwide economic disaster…

Synthetics vs. Plant-Based

Last week my partner and I were made aware of the death of a third young person in our mutual acquaintance, another young, vibrant life snuffed out quietly in an apparent accident—no suicide note, no evidence of actual suicidal intent—and—importantly—the result of simply swallowing a pill. 

That last detail is, at least for me, the major eyeopener—the thing that brings the much talked about fentanyl crisis home to roost. Most of us are accustomed to imagining that drug induced deaths are mostly the result of intravenous drug use—a death one could therefore avoid simply by avoiding recreational drug use administered with a needle. Given the squeamishness most of us have around needles, especially poking ourselves, it seemed a good dividing line. No longer. 

It is tempting slip by endless media clips on the topic of drugs, fentanyl in particular, but when the bodies start to pile up around you and you realize this epidemic will eventually touch someone you know, someone dear to you, someone you didn’t even know was using, it takes on new significance. I recently came upon two articles in the Washington Post that I found enlightening:

One, entitled “Cause of death: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America”, is a long narrative woven around Ed Byrne, a man who has been on the scene in the aftermath of nearly 500 fentanyl deaths since 2018. It is a gripping story. I highly recommend it. 

The other, entitled “Why is fentanyl so dangerous?” I recommend for its plain English explanations. Hats off to these investigative reporters. If you don’t have a subscription to the Washington Post, these two articles are each worth expending some of your monthly free reading allotment. 

Even as a retired physician reading these two articles (and some of the links contained in them)—and talking with a few people who have recovered from narcotics addiction—re-oriented my thinking. What follows, in no special order, are just a few of my takeaways. I urge to to read, study, and follow the links in these articles I just mentioned. Your takeaways may be different than mine. 

• Fentanyl and all opiates, when they kill by overdose, do so by suppressing or stopping breathing. Within five minutes of cessation of breathing the brain begins to die and eventually the heart stops. It follows that if, in time, breathing is supported (mouth to mouth, Ambu Bag, artificial respiration) and/or if the drug effect is pharmacologically reversed (naloxone, brand name Narcan) the overdosed patient can totally recover. Apart from the very nasty consequences of physical and psychological addiction, opiates generally don’t otherwise ruin the body the way cocaine and methamphetamine often do. 
• Fentanyl is synthetic opioid. The opiate class of drugs (see below) historically derived from plants, but thanks to “the wonders of modern chemistry” fentanyl decouples production from the need to engage in agriculture. Instead of the legal exposure of growing acres of plants, fentanyl is produced in what might be a make-shift laboratory using chemicals that have other, mundane uses. (Note that there aren’t any farmers whose livelihood is dependent on producing growing the raw material—a fact that reduces risk and probably further increases the profit margin.)
• Fentanyl (and its hundreds of variants) may be lethal in unbelievably small doses, around 2 milligrams, 2 thousandths of a gram. For reference, that’s about the weight of a small mosquito or about 20 grains of fine table salt. (In contrast, a lethal dose of heroin [a plant-based but chemically manipulated opiate] is 50 times that.) 
• a typical intravenous dose of fentanyl for relief of discomfort in the context of surgery is a mere 50 micrograms, that is, effects are felt from the drug in weights (and volumes) that even tinier (1/40 of that small mosquito).

Several things follow from this level of potency: 

• Even tiny, very hard to detect amounts of fentanyl produced and smuggled across the border can be massively attractive and profitable for the folks engaged in this trade. The high value of even small amounts of pure fentanyl smuggled into the country—once it is peddled in tiny doses to those who those who want it (the “demand” side of the equation), is a powerful incentive. The opportunity for profit is just too tantalizing—especially when those orchestrating manufacture and distribution are relatively insulated from arrest and prosecution.
• The difference between a pleasant dose and a lethal dose of fentanyl is dependent on demanding, highly accurate measurement of tiny quantities of the drug prior to the sale to the consumer. People die from unintentional overdose of fentanyl probably because of failure in measurement and quality control somewhere along the illicit drug pipeline. This is likely not intentional. Killing one’s customers is maladaptive and unprofitable.
• Chemical variants of the basic molecule of fentanyl vary in potency, making dose adjustment even more dicey.
• The supply side of this scourge of death due to fentanyl, a problem that is in the public mind intertwined with the “Border Wall” and immigration, won’t be usefully tackled by Congress until either 1. Republicans become convinced that shouting about walls and talking about Replacement Theory won’t buy them votes—or 2. There is a large Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.
• Money spent on interdiction of fentanyl as it crosses our borders (in the form of technology and hiring more border agents—and even some improvement in border walls) will never totally solve the problem—but it can help. 

What can we do then?

• Elect Democrats who understand the issue to Congress
• Educate, educate, and do so realistically. Make clear the danger of addiction. Understand the physiology that can lead to death. Understand that the risks are not limited to intravenous use. A counterfeit pill purchased on the street inevitably carries a risk of death. We need to understand and admit past glaring lies, for example, the “this is your brain on drugs” ad suggesting that marijuana was inherently addictive and destructive—an ad that nearly everyone since my generation knew was a sad, blatant lie. There is an analogy here to the honest, medically accurate sex education that equips young people to understand the problems and pitfalls, rather than relying on ignorance and scare tactics.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

A few more notes:

• The name for this whole class of drugs is “opiates”, a word that comes from a There are two plants with which humans have had complicated relationships for thousands of years and from which most of the drugs we broadly call “narcotics” have been derived. The opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), a native of the Old World, is the source of the raw material for opium, morphine, codeine, and the inspiration for semisynthetic (e.g. heroin) and full synthetic (e.g. fentanyl) opiates. Cocaine comes from an entirely different plant, Erythroxylum coca, native to South America. Cocaine is not an opiate. Indeed, in many ways it is the opposite of an opiate. Cocaine is fundamentally a stimulant. When cocaine is overdosed it typically kills by stopping the heart. Opiates, in contrast, kill by depressing breathing. Both classes are lumped together as “narcotics” (derived from a Greek verb that means “to make numb”)
• Methamphetamine is (broadly speaking) a potent stimulant with some similarities to cocaine—except that, like fentanyl, methamphetamine production is entirely synthetic. No plants, no agriculture needed. “Meth” is often and rather inaccurately and confusingly lumped under the term “narcotic” along with cocaine and most of the opiates, especially the illegal ones. 
• All of these drugs classified and regulated under the Schedules established by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (aka the Controlled Substances Act [CSA]) and signed into law by President Richard Nixon at the beginning of the “War on Drugs”. The history of attempts at legal control in the United States is fascinating—and far beyond the scope of this blog.

Fiscal Responsibility in Spokane Municipal Government

On December 20, 2022, the Spokesman published an article entitled, “Spokane City Council passes $1.2 billion budget with eye to sustainability” written by Emry Dinman. In the print version the article appeared in the lower right hand corner of the first page of the Northwest Section. In the paper (but not in the online version) a subtitle was offered: “Council Members approve their own plan for 2023, bypassing mayor’s proposal that dipped into reserves”. 

The article is a blizzard of numbers only an accountant could love. Even so, the featured numbers only represent a few highlights of all the money our city gathers and spends in order to provide all the functions of a modern municipality. 

We elect the people who are ultimately responsible for managing (and balancing) a 1.2 billion dollar budget: a mayor, a city council president, and six members of the city council—and then we (mostly) pay little attention to how those individuals we’ve elected actually participate in the process of running a complex enterprise. 

For decades, the Republican Party has tried to paint itself as the party of fiscal responsibility. One might imagine that a “fiscally responsible” Republican would propose a sober, balanced, sustainable budget. Our Mayor Woodward’s proposed City of Spokane budget for 2023 is neither balanced nor sustainable. (Technically she was elected as a “nonpartisan”, but anyone who believes that fiction is not paying attention.) In the City of Spokane’s budget process the mayor and the mayor’s staff construct a budget for the following year that they propose to the City Council for approval in the last quarter of the preceding year. 

As presented the Woodward 2023 proposed budget supports itself by drawing down $2.6 million from savings. Worse (see Dinman’s Spokesman article), City Council Budget Manager Matt Boston highlights issues in the Woodward budget that result in “more like a $15 million hole”. 

Non-federal governments have to live within their monetary means, that is, they need to balance their spending against their income. If income falls short there are three options: adjust one or more rates of taxation, borrow, or withdraw from savings. Just like with a family that wants to remain financially solvent, withdrawing from savings poses a risk of financial trouble in coming years. Borrowing is usually in the form of city-issued bond debt, debt that, by the nature of borrowing, imposes the burden of interest payments on subsequent budgets (think credit cards). Moreover, the City of Spokane City Charter generally requires the voters to authorize borrowing. For Washington cities, taxation options (primarily consisting of adjustments in sales or property taxes) are limited by laws of which most of us are unaware. (To be complete, federal [think the American Rescue Plan Act, aka ARPA] and state funds are also sometimes available for use within the municipal budget.)

The calculated “$15 million hole in the budget” (or even the acknowledged 2.6 million dollar hole as a withdrawal from savings in Woodward’s budget) is a glaring example of fiscal irresponsibility. 

With her unbalanced 2023 budget proposal in the works, Mayor Woodward chose a political grandstand over the harder task of explaining the budget to the voters. In November she “vetoed” the City Council’s ordinance approving the 2023 property tax levy. “Vetoed” is in quotes because she knew full well that her veto would be overridden. The ordinance had passed 5-2 in the City Council, a veto-proof majority—with, no surprise here, Republican Council Members Bingle and Cathcart casting the dissenting votes. Her politically expedient grandstand was quoted in the inevitable Spokesman article:

“I decided to not include the tax increase to give families a break during an economic climate that has seen prices rise dramatically due to inflation and brought on fears of a recession going into the next year,” she wrote. “As our citizens tighten their budget, now is not the time to ask more of them.”

The property tax increase contained in the ordinance Woodward “vetoed” amounted to a few dollars (single digits) increase in tax bill paid on the average residential property. Woodward and her Republican allies on the Council counted on the voters to misunderstand what the Spokesman headlined in loaded English as a “one percent property tax ‘hike’”. 

Woodward’s proposed budget also contained an arguably illegal transfer of funds dedicated to affordable housing to support her Trent warehouse—another problem that the City Council fixed before approving the final budget. 

In the end, thanks to the diligent efforts of the City Council members, the re-worked 2023 budget adds $200,000 to the city’s reserves rather than withdrawing $2,600,000. Even with a total budget for 2023 of $1,200,000,000, drawing on savings is neither sustainable, nor fiscally responsible. 

We the voters need to get over the idea that a “Republican” label should imply fiscal responsibility. That is certainly not the case when it comes to our Mayor Woodward. We should remember that when elections come around this fall.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

And Al French Doesn’t Like It

Spokane County Commissioner Al French fought tooth and nail against the 2018 state law (SUBSTITUTE HOUSE BILL 2887) requiring that Washington State non-charter counties with a population over 400,000 shift from a three member to a five member Board of County Commissioners. Mr. French took his challenge to the law all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court, which declared, in a 9-0 decision, that the law is, in fact, constitutional.

Mr. French has been the most powerful (and one of the best paid at 120K/yr) elected official with legislative duties in Spokane County for more than a decade. (Unlike City of Spokane elected officials with legislative duties, County Commissioners are not term limited.) When Mr. French previously served on the City of Spokane City Council he was just one of six City Council Members. In contrast, for the last twelve years as County Commissioner he was one of three County Commissioners. For those twelve years all he needed was to convince one other like mind on the Board to pass his ideas for county legislation. Considering that Washington State’s open meeting law prevents two commissioners of a three member commission (two is quorum) from discussing county business outside of meetings, it seemed remarkable how often Josh Kerns, in particular, found himself in agreement with Mr. French, often making the preferences of the third commissioner, Mary Kuney, irrelevant. 

Now Mr. French is one voice on the new five member Spokane County Board of County Commissioners that includes his frequent Republican ally, Josh Kerns; fellow Republican Mary Kuney; and newly elected Commissioners Amber Waldref and Chris Jordan, both Democrats. 

The power shift on the Board was on display in the first half hour of the first full Regular Session Meeting of the new Board on January 10 (confusingly labelled “Consent Agenda”). 

I encourage you to watch that first half hour on YouTube. (The drama of the election of the chair begins at about 5:40.) Seeing the Commissioners interact in person within the constrained framework of Roberts Rules of Order as they nominate and elect their chairperson for 2023 is an education in parliamentary procedure—and offers a personal perspective that a print medium cannot. 

Here’s the Detail Revealed in the Video:

Commissioner Kuney was the chairperson of the three member Board of County Commissioners during 2022, a position that, we must assume, demonstrates her qualifications for the job. She presides over this first meeting of the new five member Board. Ms. Kuney presides by remote link. As soon as the floor is open Amber Waldref leads off with a motion nominating Ms. Kuney to serve as 2023 chair of the new Board. Even before there is a second to Ms. Waldref’s motion (which Chris Jordan was willing to offer) Mr. French leaps in to offer an amendment to Ms. Waldref’s motion . Mr. French’s would change Ms. Waldref’s nomination motion to nominate Mr. Kerns instead. Mr. Kerns seconds French’s offered amendment. Mr. Kerns then offers an amendment to the amendment, an amendment that would make the nominee Mr. French—and French seconds the amendment to the amendment. Confused yet? The procedure sets up three successive votes for chairperson in this order: French, Kerns, then Kuney. 

In defense of his being voted chair Mr. French states that the position “really has no authority over the Board”. (Speaking as a former chairman, that is not accurate. The chairperson sets the agenda, a critical function.) The vote is taken. The motion to amend the amendment and elect French chairman fails with French and Kerns voting Yay and Waldref, Jordan, and Kuney voting Nay. Next up is the amendment to change the original nomination motion so as to nominate Kerns to serve as chair instead of Kuney. French speaks at length in favor of Kerns while suggesting that Kuney would be ineffective because of absences due to her duties with the Washington State Association of Counties (verbally abbreviated “Wa SAC”). This is bizarre, since Ms. Kuney is, right at that moment, doing a perfectly good job while chairing the meeting remotely. Ms. Kuney takes some umbrage at French’s characterization. The amended nomination that would have made Kerns chairman fails on the same votes as the amendment to the amendment. Predictably, the original motion, the one to make Ms. Kuney chairperson, passes on the same voting pattern. The tension is palpable.

For years Commissioner French has been quietly and effectively running the Board of County Commissioners of Spokane County as his personal fiefdom. With only two other commissioners, both Republicans, he hasn’t had to listen to, much less make accommodations for, the full range of opinion on major issues. 

Colin Tiernan’s Spokesman article, “Republican Mary Kuney is the new chair of the Spokane County Commission … and other Republicans aren’t happy about it”, quotes Mr. French expressing his umbrage that he might actually have to listen to voices on the Board that represent roughly forty-five percent of those voting in Spokane County:

“She sided with the Democrats[!],” Republican Spokane County Commissioner Al French said of new Spokane County Commission Chair Mary Kuney, another Republican.

Sided with Democrats!! It’s as if, for Al French, considering the opinions of the new members of the board were like drinking bleach.

In a news release, the two commissioners [French and Kerns] said that, by voting for herself as chair, Kuney is “effectively ushering in a Democrat majority.”

French and Kerns are clearly math challenged. Having a Republican chair of the Board who might at least consider the opinions expressed by 2/5 of the Board is “ushering in a Democrat majority”? French and Kerns, it would seem, are not interested in entertaining the perspective of very nearly half of county voters. 

On top of denouncing her attendance, French and Kerns said they don’t think Kuney is a true conservative.

“On the tough votes, she basically hasn’t been there,” French said in an interview.

The evidence they offer? Ms. Kuney wasn’t present to offer her third vote in support of a piece of legislation passed four years ago (legislation that was struck down in a unanimous ruling by the State Supreme Court just last month). They failed to draw attention to a 2-0 vote Kerns and French held last month to put a referendum on the ballot next November for a sales tax to build a new jail. 

It is worth your time to click and read Mr. Tiernan’s Spokesman piece in full. 

Mr. French is revealing himself as a divisive Republican extremist in the same mold as Republicans in our adjacent Kootenai County, Idaho, Republicans who denigrate as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) any Republican who “reaches across the aisle” to consider input from other voices in the small-d democratic process on which this country was founded. Mr. French, feeling his stranglehold on power slipping slightly, sounds desperate to declare a Republican slightly less extreme than himself as an apostate to modern-day Republican orthodoxy. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

But are beginning to ignore…

The victory of our Spokane County Auditor, Vicky Dalton, over the vocal election denier and conspiracy theorist Bob McCaslin in last November’s general election was cause for celebration. However, we would do well to note that what should have been a landslide victory was very narrow, only a 1183 vote difference among 218,552 total votes cast. What does it mean that very nearly half of our fellow Spokane County voters cast ballots for a man not only unqualified for the job, but a man who actively challenged the legitimacy and integrity of the 2020 election, a man who actively promoted the Big Lie of election fraud?

It should also escape no one’s notice that many of the Republican U.S. House majority featured in the Kevin McCarthy spectacle last week, including “our” Representative, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, also actively participated in Trump’s scheme to subvert democracy and continue to nurture the Big Lie—regardless of the lack of evidence. 

Many who read these emails also read “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyderwhen it came out 2017 in the early days of the Trump presidency. Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University, an historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. His Yale lecture series “The Making of Modern Ukraine” (available for free on YouTube) is a masterpiece. It is a considerable time investment (twenty-three lectures) that vividly reminded me how little history (beyond the classic stories of “American” history) that I (and, by extension, most Americans) receive in the context of our formal public education. 

Especially in the last forty years I have often lamented (mostly to myself) that we of the American public are frequently exposed to braying asses on talk TV and radio posing as “experts”—while many people with broad expertise in complex subjects are rarely seen or heard outside of university settings. Often they are not interviewed because these people don’t speak in the soundbites of buzzword-tested political culture—real life generally isn’t that simple. Furthermore, their messages and knowledge have been broadly denigrated by demagogues on the right as the “liberal elite.” 

I live in some hope that the chaos of the Trump presidency, the Trump insurrection, and the ongoing threat American democracy that Trump and his dogged followers represent is beginning to awaken Americans to the need to better understand history. As the narrowness of Vicky Dalton’s win over Bob McCaslin should remind us, we need to listen and learn. When the history we think we understand encompasses only our own republic’s meager 250 years, the 250 years customarily taught in our high schools (often as a series of names and dates) we run a grave risk of imagining that republics and democracies are always destined to triumph over autocracy and totalitarianism. That is a dangerous fallacy when viewed in the context of broader history. 

A friend just introduced me to Timothy Snyder as a Substack writer—and a podcaster—in a forum entitled “Thinking about…”. It is Snyder’s very first podcast effort that sparked my writing today. It is a 13 minute talk entitled “America is on the ballot” recorded just before the November election. One statement stands out: “If you vote for someone who denies the 2020 electoral results you are voting for someone who is taking part in a plan to overturn the 2024 or perhaps the 2028 electoral results. You will have responsibility for that, and for everything that follows.” That rings painfully true as we face off with a Republican Party that continues to traffic in lies and conspiracy theories that threaten the continuation of our democracy. I urge you to click, watch, and listen to “America is on the ballot”.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

Before we leave the U.S. House

For some of us it was hard to avoid watching parts of Kevin McCarthy’s self-debasement in his protracted effort to become the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty initial Republican holdouts, under the apparent leadership of two right wing Republican House members, Matt Gaetz, (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), forced McCarthy to beg for votes in order to end his agony on the fifteenth ballot. A haggard-looking McMorris Rodgers (R-CD5, eastern WA) was seen in her signature black and white checked blazer shaking her head at the spectacle. Like a majority of the Republican caucus McMorris Rodgers voted fifteen times for Kevin McCarthy, no doubt hoping Republicans could avoid the political spotlight focused on their dysfunction. 

Consider this: There was only the slimmest of chances that House Republicans could elect anyone other than McCarthy (unless, of course, some of them committed political suicide by appealing to and bargaining with Democrats for votes). McCarthy served in Republican House leadership from 2009 onward, just two years after he was first elected to the House in 2006 (just two years after McMorris Rodgers herself was elected). As a practical matter, no other Republican ever garnered more than 20 votes in any ballot during the entire spectacle—a spectacle most Republicans in the House had wished to avoid. (Even Jim Jordan, the nasty former Ohio wrestling coach and one of the two twenty-vote recipients, actually voted fifteen times for Kevin McCarthy.)

Dueling Speeches

In the wee hours of the morning last Saturday, after Kevin McCarthy had finally won his coveted prize of the Speakership, two remarkable acceptance speeches were given, speeches all Americans should watch in full and compare: Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) rose to speak as the new Minority Leader of the House Democrats and Kevin McCarthy spoke as the new Speaker of the House. 

As an American I found Jeffries’ speech compelling. Watch House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ historic first speech (You could start at the 4:15 mark where he quotes from Galatians—if you’re given to impatience.) Jeffries speech should go down in history as an inspiration—but don’t take my word for it—click, listen, and share widely. 

In stark contrast is McCarthy’s rambling 27 minutes of “remarks”. (In this video McMorris Rodgers stands out in her checked jacket.) I will refrain from dissecting McCarthy’s words, except to note that (at 6:02) he declares (the italics are mine), “I know the night is late, but when we come back our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents.” The entire Republican side, including McMorris Rodgers, stands and applauds. Oh, my God. If that is the loftiest thing McCarthy can think of to bring first to the House floor then the national Republican Party (and “our” Representative) are a sad lot indeed. First, his numbers are based on a flat out lie. Defunding the IRS is a dog whistle to wealthy tax cheats and those skating (with the aid of their hired lawyers) at the edge of legal tax avoidance, a dog whistle telling these uneasy folk that House Republicans will protect them from the inconvenience (and possible criminal liability) of an audit. (Of course, the Republican base has been drummed with the idea that they would be the victims of persecution by a better-funded IRS.) I invite you to listen to McCarthy drone on about “woke” politics and endless investigations…

Jeffries’ speech is one for the history books. McCarthy’s, one hopes and prays, is destined for the dustbin.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. I cannot resist one more quote from McCarthy: “This chamber is now fully open for all Americans to visit.” (9:25) With those words McCarthy implies (to the gullible) that the House chamber has not been open. His words are another dog whistle, this time to the concealed carry crowd. Since the January 6th insurrection two years ago all House members were required to pass through magnetometers (metal detectors) to come onto the House floor—an inconvenience against which House Republicans have railed for two years. On January 3, 2023, with the incoming Republican majority, the magnetometers were removed. Now, apparently, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, both strong proponents of carrying arms (as well as insolent and confrontational participants in the events of January 6th)—and anyone else of the same ilk—might enter the House Chamber with a weapon. THAT is the dog whistle the Republicans, including McMorris Rodgers, applauded for a full 20 seconds—accompanied by a chant of “U.S.A., U.S.A.” the same chant that echoes in the halls of the Capitol the day of the insurrection. Apparently, this is their vision of a better America…