Category Archives: Badger

Flint still doesn’t have safe drinking water.

by Danae37X675619 Posted on November 17, 2016

Many have agreed that President-elect Donald Trump has some questionable ideas when it comes to climate policy. Today, we get to add anthropomorphized gym sock O’Reilly and known cup goblin Starbucks to that list!

On Wednesday’s episode of The O’Reilly Factor, he advised Trump on a number of items to consider as he prepares to take office. On this list:

“Finally, President-Elect Trump should accept the Paris treaty on climate to buy some goodwill overseas. It doesn’t really amount to much anyway, let it go.”

Well, the thing is, it does actually amount to a lot.

Here’s a confusing screenshot, because this action item appears under the heading “What President Obama Failed to Do,” when President Obama did, in fact, succeed in accepting the Paris Agreement.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of 365 major companies and investors submitted a plea to Trump to please, come on, just support the goddamn Paris Agreement, because to do otherwise would be a disastrous blow to the United States’ economic competitiveness. The list includes Starbucks (the nerve!!!!), eBay, Kellogg, and Virgin.

Anyway, Trump’s whole “refusing to acknowledge climate change” thing seems like a bad look.

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Flint still doesn’t have safe drinking water.

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An Accidental Nuclear Detonation "Will Happen"

by Danilo1981 Posted on September 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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It would be impossible to fully replicate the depth of dread and disbelief that Command and Control—Eric Schlosser’s 2013 book chronicling the Air Force’s history of nuclear weapons mishaps—bestows on its readers. This is not to say that the haunting new documentary of the same name, co-written by Schlosser and director Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.), doesn’t pack a punch. While the film’s producers were forced to simplify and trim from the book’s deeper content, any viewer who has not read the original or who, like most Americans, pays little heed to our modern nuclear arsenal, is due for a fine scare.

The contextual backdrop of Schosser’s book incudes plenty of the kind of Cold War insanity that many Americans have relegated to the attics of our memories: the rush-rush nuclear buildup stewarded by the hawkish Strategic Air Command boss Gen. Curtis LeMay, the existential nuclear standoffs between JFK and the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev, the WarGames-esque computer glitches that falsely signaled Soviet nukes flying our way, and the shock of General William E. Odom, a national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, upon receiving a briefing on the SIOP, the nation’s top-secret plan in case of a nuclear conflict: “It was just a huge mechanical war plan aimed at creating maximum damage without regard to the political context,” Odom said. “The president would be left with two or three meaningless choices that he might have to make within 10 minutes after he was awakened after a deep sleep some night.”

But Schlosser’s coup de grâce was a list he obtained (via freedom of information requests) detailing a litany of nuclear fuckups by the Air Force. Although the brass typically blamed human error, the record in its totality suggested that America’s systems for safeguarding its nuclear weapons were profoundly broken, were they ever working in the first place. Some incidents were fairly minor and others reflected organizational ineptitude—an accidental shipment of missile nose-cone fuses to Taiwan, nukes sitting around in barely guarded storage igloos on foreign tarmacs, things like that. But the scariest part by far was the tale after tale of actual near-misses: nuke-laden B-52s fragmenting in midair, crashing and scattering radiation; immensely powerful warheads exposed to fire and intense heat and hurled or dropped into American fields and swamps. Yet somehow, by the grace of God, there was never an accidental nuclear detonation on American soil.

The film—which opens on a scene in September 1980, as young maintenance guys suit up to work on a Titan 2 missile in Damascus, Arkansas—features great archival footage and reenactments shot in a decommissioned silo complex. Command and Control dutifully follows the book’s basic outline. The central narrative thread involves a technician’s mistake at a Titan 2 silo that ended with the explosion of a missile whose warhead was more powerful than all the bombs America dropped in WWII combined, the nukes included. (The warhead didn’t detonate, obviously, but at the time nobody knew that it wouldn’t.)

Air Force maintenance men in a reenactment of the Damascus Incident. American Experience Films/PBS

This part of the story is related onscreen by the same former airmen, commanders, journalists, and politicos who appear in the book—largely men who were there or otherwise involved. Among them is then-Senior Airman David Powell, who was a teenager on an Air Force maintenance team when he dropped a nine-pound socket head down the silo shaft, puncturing the missile’s fuel tank. (To get a taste, read the scene as it appears in Schlosser’s book.) What comes after serves as a potent illustration of the breakdown of the military’s command-and-control structure, designed to prevent such accidents and deal with them effectively should they happen. Spoiler alert: Bad decisions are made by know-nothings up the chain of command, and bad things result.

A film, of course, delivers something a book cannot. We get to see real footage from nuclear detonations, from the actual Damascus Incident, and from some of the past nuclear mishaps, the worst one involved the accidental release of two H-bombs over Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1961—such an insanely close call that I still shudder to contemplate it. Better yet, we get to meet and hear directly from the Damascus men, including former Senior Airman Powell, an otherwise cheerful guy who tears up as he recounts how, after more than three decades, not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about that socket slipping from his hand—and the chain of events it set off.

As in the book, the tense Damascus narrative plays out against the backdrop of a nation bumbling its way along the nuclear learning curve. As Schlosser notes in the film, we’ve built some 70,000 nuclear weapons over the years, and the fact that none has detonated by accident is a testament to the smarts of the weapons designers at the Sandia Lab—guys like Bob Peurifoy, a regular presence in the film, who worked their asses off convincing the brass to install failsafe devices on the bombs. But there’s yet another key factor at play, Schlosser says: “pure luck.” And that, my friends, is unbelievably scary. Because, to quote Schlosser, nuclear weapons are simply machines, albeit “the most dangerous machines ever invented. And like every machine, sometimes they go wrong.”

Watching the quaint archival footage, a viewer would be tempted to view this problem as history, but to do so would be to bury one’s head in the sand. We still have plenty of nukes sitting around, and portions of our aging arsenal are essentially babysat, as our reporter Josh Harkinson discovered, by a bunch of disgruntled kids. The military screws things up routinely, of course, even if the public seldom hears about it. “Nuclear accidents continue to the present day,” Harold Brown, who was defense secretary under Jimmy Carter at the time of the Damascus Incident, says in the film. “The degree of oversight and attention has if anything gotten worse, because people don’t worry about nuclear war as much.”

It’s not just the US arsenal we need to worry about, however. North Korea just tested its most powerful nuke to date. And bitter enemies India and Pakistan are still young nuclear powers. Suppose a Pakistani nuke were to detonate accidentally. The first face-saving instinct might be to blame India. Not good. Peurifoy spent his entire career designing nuclear safety devices, and he believes an accidental detonation is inevitable, sometime, somewhere. “It will happen,” he says in the film. “It may be tomorrow or it may be a million years from now, but it will happen.”

Command and Control rolls out in selected theaters starting on September 14 in New York City. Click here for dates, cities, and venues.

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An Accidental Nuclear Detonation "Will Happen"

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This Is The Best "Letter To The Editor" You’ll Read All Summer

by AkilahCollits8 Posted on July 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh, Britain!

With their accents,

Harry Potters,

and balls (both “foot” and “net“).

Oh, Britain!

With their insane political choices,

badger culls,

and questionable condiments.

Oh, Britain!

Is from where

this funny thing comes.

Have a nice day.

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This Is The Best "Letter To The Editor" You’ll Read All Summer

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Report: Most Sunscreens Are Bad, But These 7 Brands Are the Worst

by AhmadCurtin Posted on May 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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Memorial Day is the unofficial kick off to summer, when our calendars fill up with beach days and we begin the obligatory slopping on of sunscreen.

Whether you’re putting it on yourself or someone else, the importance of sunscreen has been drilled into most of us from an early age. But choosing a bottle to throw in your beach bag can be pretty overwhelming. We have more products to choose from, each with different claims such as “broad spectrum”or “UVB protection.” For ten years, the Environmental Working Group has published a list of the best and worst products for shielding against the sun’s harsh rays. Here are some key takeaways, followed by the 2016 list.

Many products offer poor protection. This year, the group looked at more than 750 products and concluded that nearly 75 percent of them offered poor protection or had ingredients the group found “worrisome.” For example, oxybenzone is a sunscreen additive that the working group says is a hormone disrupter and allergen.

Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst for the Environmental Working Group, says it’s a good thing that the number of mineral-only products has doubled since 2007, rising from 17 percent of products to 34 percent in 2016. These sunscreens, which offer protection against both UVA and UVB, generally don’t contain harmful additives.

We are still waiting for those SPF 50+ rules. While we no longer see claims like “sweat proof” and “water proof” on sunscreen (the FDA said they were too far-reaching), the agency’s proposed regulation that would cap SPF numbers at 50+ hasn’t kicked in yet. In 2011, the FDA stated that anything higher than that number is “inherently misleading.” In this year’s report, the Environmental Working Group found that 61 sunscreen products had an SPF higher than 50, as opposed to just 10 products in 2007. (We’ve reported about sunscreen companies’ misleading claims in the past, and my colleague Kiera Butler wrote about some ingredients that may actually speed up the development of skin cancer.)

Spray-on sunscreen may offer less protection. Because spray-on sunscreens evaporate quickly, Lunder said, it’s hard to tell if you’ve covered your whole body.

“We think, ‘I can get it on my kids faster,'” she said. “But that really doesn’t hold up in the real world, there’s evidence that they aren’t using as much and aren’t getting that thickness on their skin.”

The important thing to remember, the group says, is that sunscreen alone won’t do the job, and that we tend to give it more importance than we should. Hats, sunglasses, time in the shade and other essentials are also key for protecting against sun damage.

Here’s is the group’s list of the best and worst sunscreens of 2016:

(In no particular order)

The Best for Adults*

The organization rated sunscreens from 1 to 10 (products with 1’s were excellent and ones with 10’s were the worst). Just over 60 brands received a score of 1 or 2. These were designated “low hazard” for their ingredient list and because they had a good balance of SPF and UVA protection. Find the full list here.

All Good Sunscreen and Sunstick, SPF 30 and 50
All Terrain Aqua and TerraSport Sunscreens, SPF 30
Babo Botanicals Clear Zinc Sunscreen, SPF 30
Badger Sunscreen Cream and Lotion, SPF 25, 30, and 35
Bare Belly Organics, SPF 34
Beauty Without Cruelty, SPF 30
Kiss My Face Organics Mineral Sunscreen, SPF 30
Nature’s Gate Face Sunscreen, SPF 25
Tropical Sands Sunscreen and Facestick, SPF 30
Releve Organic Skincare, SPF 20
Star Naturals Sunscreen Stick, SPF 25

(*The group did not release a list of the worst sunscreens for adults.)

The Best for Kids

Adorable Baby Sunscreen lotion, SPF 30
All Good Kid’s Sunscreen, SPF 33
All Terrain KidSport Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 30
ATTITUDE Little Ones 100% Mineral Sunscreen, SPF 30
BabyHampton Beach Bum Sunscreen, SPF 30
COOLA Suncare Baby Mineral Sunscreen, unscented moisturizer, SPF 50.
Belly Button & Babies Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 30.
Blue Lizard Austrailian Sunscreen, SPF 35.
BurnOut Kids Physical Sunscreen, SPF 35
California Baby Super Sensitive Sunscreen, SPF 30
Goddess Garden Kids Sport Natural Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 30
Jersey Kids Mineral Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 30
Kiss My Face Organics Kids Mineral Sunscreen, SPF 30
Nurture My Body Baby Organic Sunscreen, SPF 32
Substance Baby Natural Sun Care Creme, SPF 30
Sunology Natural Sunscreen, Kids, SPF 50
Sunumbra Sunkids Natural Sunscreen, SPF 40
Thinksport for Kids Sunscreen, SPF 50
TruKid Sunny Days Sport Sunscreen, SPF 30

The Worst for Kids

On the 1 to 10 scale, the below products scored a 7 or higher (with 10 being the worst) because they made high SPF claims or had higher amounts of the additives oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate.

Banana Boat Kids Max Protect & Play Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 100**
Coppertone Water Babies Sunscreen Stick, Wacky Foam, and Sunscreen lotion, SPF 55
CVS Baby Sunstick Sunscreen and Spray, SPF 55
Equate Kids Sunscreen Stick, SPF 55
Hampton Sun Continuous Mist Sunscreen For Kids, SPF 70
Neutrogena Wet Skin Kids Sunscreen Spray and Stick products, SPF 70
Up & Up Kids Sunscreen Stick, SPF 55

**This was the only product that got a 10.

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Report: Most Sunscreens Are Bad, But These 7 Brands Are the Worst

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As Wisconsin Goes to the Polls, Sanders and Cruz Have Energy on Their Side

by AlisonNXGA Posted on April 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Monday, a political circus arrived in Milwaukee. Over the course of several hours, Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and the actual Shrine Circus all held events separated by just a few blocks in the city’s downtown. A street vendor hawked glow sticks to circus-going kids next to Trump fans selling Make America Great Again knockoff hats.

The Trump and Sanders rallies shared a parking lot and start time, but all the energy was on Sanders’ side of the street. It was indicative of the mood of the Wisconsin electorate. Ahead of Tuesday’s primaries, the senator from Vermont has aroused a level of excitement—as well as poll numbers—that Hillary Clinton and her husband can’t match. On the Republican side, Trump has found a less receptive audience for his typical bombast, failing to pack venues or to maintain his lead in a state that now looks likely to hand him a stinging defeat.

Sanders sounded a jubilant note at a ballroom in the Wisconsin Center, where just two nights prior he’d spoken before a crowd of Democratic bigwigs more favorably inclined toward Hillary Clinton. “This is like a Greek chorus,” Sanders joked at one point after the crowd booed his mention of Scott Walker, the state’s unpopular Republican governor. “I say a name, and you respond.”

Sanders, who’s used Walker as a punching bag at campaign stops in Wisconsin throughout the past week, sounded confident that he’d add Wisconsin to his list of recent wins. “Let me talk about the momentum that you are feeling and I am feeling in this campaign,” he said. “We have won six out of the last seven caucuses and primaries. Not only have we won them, we’ve won every one by landslide victories. And tomorrow, if there is a good turnout here in Wisconsin, if there is a record-breaking turnout here in Wisconsin, we are going to win here as well.” After his speech, the Sanders campaign blasted out a press release bragging that 38,000 fans had flocked to his events in the Badger State over the past week.

Down the block a few hours earlier, Bill Clinton spoke to a much smaller mid-afternoon crowd at the Turner Ballroom. The contrast in style with Sanders couldn’t have been clearer. Where the Sanders campaign warmed up the audience with the largely forgotten, late-aughts synth band 3OH!3, Clinton was preceded by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Throughout his speech, Clinton kept returning to a refrain intended to boost his wife’s credentials and rebuke Sanders. He would mention one of Hillary Clinton’s career accomplishments and punctuate it by saying, “That’s leadership, not establishment politics.”

Still, the scene belied that assertion, with the state’s establishment lined up in Clinton’s corner. If the voting bears out recent polls, it looks like the allegiances of the state’s political leaders haven’t done much to sway Democratic voters who live there.

The same dynamic is producing the opposite result on the Republican side. Ted Cruz, the state’s likely Republican winner, spent the day campaigning triumphantly around the state with Walker, who endorsed Cruz last week. The pair hit up the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha for some lighthearted fun, with Cruz ducking away from a fan who tried to plop a cheesehead atop his noggin and joking, “When they promise a cheese castle, you sort of expect to be able to eat the castle.”

Things weren’t as cheery for Trump. The candidate who’s filled stadiums in other states barely managed 50 percent occupancy at a 4,000-seat theater next to the circus. Wisconsinites didn’t even bother to show up and protest outside, with Trump becoming an afterthought in the state ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Unlike on most primary days, when candidates visit their local offices to motivate volunteers and then schedule an evening rally to get prime-time TV coverage, almost everyone is fleeing the state ahead of the vote. Hillary Clinton was already campaigning Monday in New York, which goes to the polls on April 19. Trump has a blank schedule. Sanders is slated to speak with fans in Wyoming, which holds its Democratic caucus this weekend.

Only Cruz is sticking around Tuesday evening, and for good reason. While a Sanders win would help him build momentum, the Democrats’ proportional allocation of delegates means he won’t gain that much on Clinton and will remain a long shot to win at this summer’s party convention. Cruz, meanwhile, is banking on a contested convention—a scenario he discussed with reporters on Monday morning—which could enable him to secure the nomination on the second ballot or later. At this point, he needs to celebrate every minor victory he can eke out, hoping that it will be enough to deny Trump a first-ballot win.

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As Wisconsin Goes to the Polls, Sanders and Cruz Have Energy on Their Side

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Quote of the Day: Marco Rubio Tells Us What Halftime Was Like at the Debate

by AntonettaScherf Posted on February 26, 2016

Mother Jones

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If the future of my country weren’t at stake, I’d say that things are getting genuinely entertaining in the Republican primary race. Here is Marco Rubio this morning dishing on Donald Trump:

Let me tell you something, last night in the debate, during one of the breaks — two of the breaks — he went backstage, he was having a meltdown. First he had this little makeup thing applying, like, makeup around his mustache because he had one of those sweat mustaches. Then, then he asked for a full-length mirror. I don’t know why, because the podium goes up to here. But he wanted a full-length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet — I don’t know.”

Fabulous! I can’t wait for Ted Cruz to join in too.

But if these guys really want to hit Trump where it hurts, there are two things they need to do. First, they have to get under Trump’s skin. Trump favors torturing the families of terrorists, so maybe going after his family will work. Or pointing out repeatedly how badly he got played in his various deals. Or mocking his vanity. Anything that makes him look ridiculous and provokes an atomic reaction. Second, they need to say things that might actually sway Trump’s supporters. This shouldn’t be hard, since both Rubio and Cruz were born and bred in the tea party movement and supposedly know what makes its supporters tick. There’s no point in saying that Trump lies. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying he’s a racist. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying he’s not ideologically pure. They don’t care. There’s no point in saying that he’s an embarrassment. They don’t care.

So what do they care about? That he’s tough. That he’s not PC. That he takes on the politicians and the media. So that’s where to hit him. Show that he’s all hat and no cattle. Show that he’s afraid to really tell the truth. Badger him on his tax returns. Tell stories about how he kowtows to reporters. And above all: whatever you say, say things outrageous enough to force the media to pay attention to you.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s no need to be obsessively truthful in all this. Take Rubio’s little story above. I imagine it’s true. But if it’s exaggerated a wee bit—well, tell it anyway. And lots more like it. That’s what Trump does. If you can make Trump spend all his time denying that he’s a weenie by picking apart tiny details in your stories, you’re on the road to the White House.

POSTSCRIPT: This is just an aside, but am I the only one who finds it a little creepy that apparently Rubio can change his personality on a dime? I mean, he seems to have decided a couple of days ago to become a young Donald Trump, and he’s already doing a bang-up job. I think that even most professional actors would have trouble learning a new part that quickly.

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Quote of the Day: Marco Rubio Tells Us What Halftime Was Like at the Debate

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New York Company Claims Trademark Rights to "Yosemite National Park"

by yX8kD0qE3l Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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A company in New York claims that it owns the trademark rights to “Yosemite National Park” and wants $50 million to give it up. This is not a joke. It’s actually happening. The Park Service isn’t yet giving in on this, but it is caving on a bunch of other names, including the Ahwahnee Hotel:

On March 1, the famed Ahwahnee — a name affixed to countless trail guides and family memories — will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. And Curry Village, a collection of cabins near the center of the park that has carried the same name since the 1800s, will become Half Dome Village, park spokesman Scott Gediman said Thursday.

….Also affected will be: Yosemite Lodge at the Falls, becoming Yosemite Valley Lodge. Wawona Hotel, becoming Big Trees Lodge. Badger Pass Ski Area, becoming Yosemite Ski & Snowboard Area.

Coming soon: Yellowstone National Park will be renamed Majestic Geysers Park. Redwood National Park will become Incredible Trees Park. And Everglades National Park will become Big Swampy Park.

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New York Company Claims Trademark Rights to "Yosemite National Park"

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Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Will…Um…Oh, Who Cares, Really?

by LawrencP32 Posted on December 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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In 2012 the Tax Policy Center scored most of the Republican tax plans, but this year they’ve sat on the sidelines. I suppose this is partly because the plans generally don’t have enough detail to be seriously evaluated, and partly because they got tired of wasting time on tax plans that are meant more as affinity statements than as actual financial documents. I mean, what’s the point of a bunch of guys with PhDs playing the role of pro wrestling referee in a tired game of “can you top this?”

For some reason, though, they’ve gone ahead and evaluated Jeb Bush’s tax plan. Their results are the usual ones from the party of fiscal prudence: Bush’s plan would increase the national debt from 78 percent of GDP to 106 percent within ten years; it would increase the federal deficit by about a trillion dollars; and it would benefit the rich far more than the poor. In other words, it’s the same as every other Republican tax plan. A few of the details change a bit from candidate to candidate, as do the specific numbers, but that’s about all

So does this matter? I go back and forth on this. Dylan Matthews says it does because the other campaigns haven’t provided enough detail for TPC to complete an analysis of their plans:

In the worst case, in which TPC never gets the details it needs for Rubio and Trump’s plans (or Ted Cruz’s very different plan), the Bush analysis becomes hugely valuable. It gives us a glimpse of what Rubio and Trump’s TPC scores would look like. It indicates that the plans are likely to be very, very expensive, with benefits concentrated at the top.

I don’t buy this. Everyone who’s not a paid shill for the Republican Party already knows it. The only difference is that reporters now have a well-respected analysis they can use to badger the Bush campaign, but they don’t have one for the others. So Bush will get more heat and the others will benefit from being smart enough not to cooperate with TPC.

Beyond that, does anyone care about these plans anymore? They’ve gotten so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe that even the candidates still take them seriously, let alone anyone else. They’re basically just a highly ritualized way of indicating that candidates subscribe to the approved catechism. The message is “I hate taxes, especially on the wealthy,” and the details are unimportant. As long as your tax cut is sufficiently large, you’re in.

TPC says they’d like to evaluate other tax plans, but I’d suggest they not bother. It’s a kabuki show long past its prime, and they must have better things to spend their time on.

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Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Will…Um…Oh, Who Cares, Really?

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Ben Carson Apparently Doesn’t Know What the Debt Limit Is

by Elsa93Bfwninszx Posted on October 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Ben Carson:

Ryssdal: As you know, Treasury Secretary Lew has come out in the last couple of days and said, “We’re gonna run out of money, we’re gonna run out of borrowing authority, on the fifth of November.” Should the Congress then and the president not raise the debt limit? Should we default on our debt?

Carson: Let me put it this way: if I were the president, I would not sign an increased budget. Absolutely would not do it. They would have to find a place to cut.

Ryssdal: To be clear, it’s increasing the debt limit, not the budget, but I want to make sure I understand you. You’d let the United States default rather than raise the debt limit.

Carson: No, I would provide the kind of leadership that says, “Get on the stick guys, and stop messing around, and cut where you need to cut, because we’re not raising any spending limits, period.”

Ryssdal: I’m gonna try one more time, sir. This is debt that’s already obligated. Would you not favor increasing the debt limit to pay the debts already incurred?

Carson: What I’m saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt. I mean if we continue along this, where does it stop? It never stops. You’re always gonna ask the same question every year. And we’re just gonna keep going down that pathway. That’s one of the things I think that the people are tired of.

Ryssdal: I’m really trying not to be circular here, Dr. Carson, but if you’re not gonna raise the debt limit and you’re not gonna give specifics on what you’re gonna cut, then how are we going to know what you are going to do as president of the United States?

It sure sounds as if Carson doesn’t know what the debt limit is, doesn’t it? Kai Ryssdal tries manfully to get a straight answer out of him, and after the fourth try Carson rambles into a long disquisition on the infinite-time-horizon fiscal gap, at which point Ryssdal finally gives up. I guess I don’t blame him.

On the other hand, I’ll give Carson credit for something Ryssdal doesn’t: telling him what he’d cut in order to balance the budget. Carson is pretty clear about this: he would cut the government across the board by 3-4 percent via the simple expedient of keeping spending flat for everything. In real terms, this gets you to Carson’s 3-4 percent decrease. He says he’d do this for three or four years, and boom! Balanced budget.

Ryssdal badgers Carson about this, but doesn’t ask the obvious follow-ups: You’d cut Social Security 3-4 percent each year? Medicare? Defense? Veterans? If the answer is no—as it probably would be—then you ask Carson how he’s going to balance the budget with just the stuff that’s left over.

In any case, it’s pretty scary that a guy this ignorant of the basics of governance is doing so well in the Republican primary. Not surprising, maybe, but still scary.

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Ben Carson Apparently Doesn’t Know What the Debt Limit Is

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Here’s the Price Tag for CAP’s New Child Care Program: About $100 Billion

by DonnaSidhu928 Posted on September 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Center for American Progress—aka “Hillary’s Think Tank”—has released “A New Vision for Child Care in the United States.” But it’s not really very new. It’s just a tax credit that varies with income. If you’re at the poverty level, you’d get a tax credit of about $13,000 paid directly to the child care facility of your choice. If you make more, the tax credit would be less. The maximum out-of-pocket expense for families would range from 2 percent at the low end to 12 percent at the high end.

Does this sound familiar? It should: it bears a strong family resemblance to Obamacare.

But it might be a good idea regardless of how new it really is. I’m certainly a fan of both preschool and subsidized child care. The big question is going to be how much it costs, and that’s something the authors don’t address. There’s probably a reason for that. My very rough horseback calculation suggests it could run up a tab of $100 billion per year. Maybe more.1See update below.

That’s a lot of money. How’s it going to be paid for? Danielle Paquet asked CAP about this, and was told vaguely that “restructuring the tax system” and “closing wasteful loopholes” might do the trick. I dunno. That’s a lot of wasteful loopholes.

Needless to say, this is one of the downsides of taking public policy seriously. If you’re Donald Trump, you just tell everyone not to worry. “I’m going to be great for the kids,” and he’ll take care of it from there. But if you’re a Democrat, you normally feel obliged to present an actual plan that can actually work in the real world—and that means people can attach a price to it. And that, in turn, means you can be badgered about how you’re going to pay for it.

Politically speaking, this is something that Democrats will need to be careful about. There’s a temptation among liberals to be the anti-Trump, tossing out dozens of detailed white papers to solve all the world’s problems. But this gives conservatives an opening to add up the cost of all those white papers and start bellowing about how their very own proposals prove that Democrats want to bankrupt the country and tax millionaires into insolvency. It’s best to tread carefully here.

On the other hand, maybe Hillary could benefit from a small dose of Trumpism. Maybe she should adopt CAP’s proposal and just declare that she’s going to soak the rich to pay for it. Why pussyfoot around it? After all, polls show that taxing the rich at higher rates is a pretty popular idea. Maybe it’s time to go bullroar populist and just beat the tar out of the malefactors of great wealth.

Then again, maybe not. That doesn’t really sound much like Hillary, does it?

1The program is for kids aged 0-4. My estimate is based on about 20 million kids qualifying, with an average tax credit in the neighborhood of $8,000 each. That’s $160 billion. If two-thirds of all families take advantage of this tax credit, that comes to about $100 billion. Needless to say, more detailed cost estimates are welcome.

UPDATE: I am mistaken. CAP estimates a cost of $40 billion for their proposal, which they believe would not just help working families, but also stimulate the economy:

The economy as a whole benefits from policies that help working families. As an example, the Canadian province of Quebec developed a nearly universal child care assistance program, and economists at the University of Quebec and the University of Sherbrooke estimate that the program boosted women’s labor force participation by nearly 4 percentage points, which in turn boosted GDP by 1.7 percentage points.

I’m habitually skeptical of claims that social programs will recoup all or part of their costs by boosting the economy, but it’s probably true in this case. The effect of increased employment on GDP is pretty straightforward. The policy question, of course, is how much this will offset the program costs. But then, that’s always the policy question, isn’t it?

In any case, I’m not sure how CAP gets to $40 billion, and it strikes me as a little low. But it might be right. It would be interesting to see an estimate from a reliable third-party source.

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Here’s the Price Tag for CAP’s New Child Care Program: About $100 Billion

Posted in Badger, Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s the Price Tag for CAP’s New Child Care Program: About $100 Billion