Brad Schneider won the endorsement of the Vernon Township Democrats yesterday afternoon.
Vernon's endorsement session rules were very different from those at Northfield. Candidates were seated in alphabetical order on the stage at the Vernon Township headquarters. They made their opening statements in that order. Then, they fielded audience questions, submitted only in writing by index card, in the same order, except after a couple of questions, organization leaders realized that wasn't turning out fair, so they switched things around. An unusual feature of Vernon's rules was to allow member voting by email. Members did not have to attend the event to vote. It is my opinion that the absentee email voting rule won the day for Brad Schneider as, well, let's just put it this way, it wasn't his day. As I've mentioned before, I support John Tree for Congress.
Sheyman cast himself as the "true progressive", but one who will cross the aisle in the limited situations when it is appropriate. He recited all the talking points of DFA, PDA, MoveOn (pre-abandonment as MoveOn tends to abandon the issue when it gets tough), . Vivek Bavda was the practical, policy-innovating progressive. Schneider, the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and no, I'm not really a Republican, open door candidate. John Tree showed that he is a progressive who will take the race to Bob Dold, and do it with facts, strength and humor.
A lot of the candidates' most basic positions and proposals are similar. They are all Democrats, and basically progressive, despite Sheyman's whispering campaign against Schneider and the others by name omission. John Tree even joked after the first question was answered by those in earlier alphabetical standing that "all the good answers were taken."
Social Security and Medicare
On the Social Security and Medicare question, the candidates positions (except perhaps Bavda) were basically similar with some candidates highlighting different aspects. All were in favor of removing the FICA cap as the best way to strengthen Social Security. Schneider's further advocated for keeping Social Security self-contained and growing the working population to increase payments into FICA. Everything works together, jobs, education and Social Security. He had an idea of allowing wealthy seniors to defer their Social Security as an deduction against an estate tax. On Medicare, Schneider worried me because he's bought into the Republican arguments that payment limits and caps will be required.
Sheyman hit all the basic progressive issue organization talking points, but pretty much just agreed with Schneider that the FICA cap has to go. He then focused on bulk purchasing under Medicare and observed that private insurance costs are rising at a rate greater than the increases under Medicare. Ironically, Sheyman advocated that ever illusive "public option" he abandoned as a leader of MoveOn.
Tree, last in alphabetical order, made his quip, and then focused on the Republican view of these programs, entitlements they can rob to pay current bills. He reminded us of the Tea Party's support for the Grover Norquist "sacred pledge" that they will never raise taxes, so all they can do is cut. Tree said that the Tea Party Republicans believe that it's every man for himself, but Tree believes that "we are all in this together." So, he proposes that in addition to eliminating the FICA cap, we need to protect Social Security from those who would rob from the fund. He agreed with Ilya on Medicare and on wholesale prices on prescription drugs.
Bavda agreed with removing the FICA cap, and then advocated for chained CPI (a plan with which I [and most progressive economists] disagree) and touted the benefits of increased immigration to increase payments in to FICA, much like Schneider's increase the workforce plan, but with immigrants. Bavda's health care approach is the reverse Dutch auction which I will explain some other time.
Transportation or the old Fake Moderate Voting Trick?
Ilya Sheyman commended Bob Dold on his support for the more mass transit friendly features of the transportation bill. Schneider and Tree were more skeptical. Schneider plainly said we cannot trust Dold. Tree explained the voting technique that Dold is using. I'll add that Dold learned it from Mark Kirk. It's the old vote with your party when it matters, vote against when it doesn't and take credit for being "moderate". Bavda's remarks centered on his small projects approach to the economy. Bavda feels that large jobs plans will not pass both houses of Congress intact, so it would be better to promote small projects such the road widening projects in the bill in question.
My Question, Not Asked, Not Answered
As I mentioned above, the audience was allowed to ask questions by submitting them beforehand on index cards. My question on the contraception controversy was not asked or answered. My reasoning for asking about it was not that I think any of the candidates are against contraception, but that I wanted to see who would recognize that none of this would be in issue if we had a single payer health care access program in place.
Underwater FHA, Freddie and Fannie Mortgages
John went first on this question, but first went for the laugh (and got it), kiddingly complaining that as the first candidate to answer he had no time to think of his answer. First, he observed the greed of the lenders and the GSEs in making bad loans while betting against the homeowners through derivatives. Then, after all that, the American people were told we had to bail out the banks or Main Street will be hurt. John observed that despite the bailout, "Main Street is hurting everywhere I go across the Tenth District, I see people who are hurting right now, financially. Worried about unemployment. Worried about their homes." He mentioned the state AG settlement fund for homeowner relief and went on to point out that these banks did "insidious things" and then bet against you.
Ilya complained that the settlement is not enough (and I can agree with that) went with Dick Durbin's cramdown approach, forgetting or perhaps forgetting to mention that the homeowner actually has to go bankrupt to get the benefit. He then advocated forcing the banks to renegotiate principle, a position with which I can also agree.
Brad recognized this as one of the greatest problems in the District. I thought he was agreeing with Ilya on reduction of principle because he talked a lot about the decrease in fair market value, but he said he'd really just want to help homeowners buy time. Then, he went back to say some people don't have the time and it sounded like he was back to Ilya's positon, but then he said he'd remove underwater homeowners to smaller homes or apartments and help them with "direct incentives direct investment and tax incentives" which sounds like short sales to me, but even though this is an area of my expertise, I'm not really sure what Brad is talking about here.
Vivek, again the policy strategist, wants to take mortgages to 120% of Fair Market Value per a plan suggested by Martin Feldstein. It's similar to what Ilya was talking about regarding reducing principle.I think Feldstein says 110%. He observed that the real estate market has not settled down and is stuck and sticking the entire economy in the mud. We need reforms beyond this, per Vivek, and he expressed support for consumer and derivative reforms.
Then, it got interesting. Brad was asked the Mark Kirk contribution question. More later
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