A complex policy issue like higher education admissions cannot be reduced to a simplistic metaphor like prices for baked goods, or other forms of crude satire, and doing so trivializes the experiences of students from all backgrounds. SB 185 would allow students from a variety of backgrounds to succeed on UC and CSU campuses without creating an unfair advantage for underrepresented students.

We believe race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background are all relevant factors that should be considered in college admissions. Since Proposition 209 was passed in 1996 banning affirmative action in California’s public universities, UC Berkeley and its student body has suffered from decreased representation of students of color. To mitigate these effects, SB 185 would allow admissions officers at UCs and CSUs to create campuses that acknowledge difference and diversity and to foster a more complete learning environment. Therefore, we firmly endorse SB 185 and urge Governor Brown to sign it immediately.

The Cal Berkeley Democrats and Berkeley College Republicans have striven to maintain a sense of mutual respect and civil opposition. Moving forward, we ask that the larger campus community agree to promote a more respectful exchange of ideas. Although the bake sale itself has passed, many students remain hurt and distressed by the tactics employed during this event. It is imperative to close the historical wounds that have been reopened by this incident and to recreate the civil atmosphere of dialogue that all students cherish and uphold.

November 2010 was a tough month to be a Democrat. Just two short years ago, Democrats were rejoicing the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States and gaining substantial majorities in both chambers of Congress. On November 2, 2010, there was a different tune in Washington and across the country. In the midterm elections, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives by the largest margin in history, as well as multiple statehouses across the country. While this was an obvious devastating blow to Obama and his base, it remained to be seen how well both parties reached across the isle to work together. Unfortunately, one side simply refused and still refuses to recognize that their actions have sweeping affects on the nation and the everyday people whom they claimed to represent. That party is the Republican Party. While claiming to represent a populism and “Joe the plumber,” the GOP continued to represent the interests of the richest Americans. In the recent negotiations to raise our nation’s debt ceiling, something that has been done every year since the mid-2000s, the Republicans held the reputation of the United States abroad and the job prospects of middle class Americans hostage in the name of preventing tax increases on the rich. Despite the parties being able to reach a deal, the compromised reached is a terrible deal for the American people, which seeks to cut billions from Medicare, military spending, education, and transportation.

In some sense, the American people deserve their fate. By voting for Tea-Party Republicans and kicking Democrats out of office, they seemed to want a change, and that is what they got. But that still does not change the fact that this was a bad deal for America. John Boehner claims to have got 98 percent of what his party wanted. If holding America’s economy hostage for more cuts to social programs is what he wanted, then he succeeded. If reducing America’s credit rating is what he wanted, then he succeeded. And if withholding pay from the bravest Americans fighting overseas in our seemingly endless wars, then he succeeded. Yesterday, in the GOP Presidential Debate in Iowa, Mitt Romney said quite emphatically, “Corporations are people, friends.” In 2012, if the American people vote Obama out of office, then they will not have learned their lesson. They will simply get a government who protects the interests of the corporations who helped create this financial disaster and the richest Americans who do not pay their share of taxes to the government. The most important thing to remember as 2012 approaches is that elections have consequences.

California's new congressional map. Image courtesy of Daily Kos.

On July 28, the California Citizens Redistricting Commission issued its final draft maps of California’s congressional and state legislature districts. A result of 2008′s Proposition 11 and 2010′s Proposition 20, the maps undid the 2001 bipartisan gerrymander and created districts respecting communities of interest and county lines (at least more than the previous version). The commission, consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four decline-to-states, also drew more competitive districts. Short of a final commission vote on August 15 failing, a referendum against them passing, or a court order striking them down, these maps will define California politics for the next ten years.

For some background, in 2001, the California State Legislature decided to make all congressional and state legislature districts safe for their incumbents. This resulted in strangely-looking districts, a prominent example being the 23rd congressional district, a thin strip stretching from the Monterey-San Luis Obispo county line to Oxnard. While the maps were designed to stymie party turnover, California’s political changes did not stop as more areas turned to Democrats for representation and leadership. With time the map turned into a pro-Republican gerrymander as more and more Republicans clung to their seats in the low-to-mid 50s while most Democrats won with over 60% of the vote.

The remapping pulled the proverbial rug from under the Republicans’ feet, and many of their districts have now become more competitive or turned into Democratic strongholds. California will see more of its share of competitive races, mostly at the GOP’s expense. In this post, I will concentrate on Northern California, roughly defined as everything north of Los Angeles County.

• CD-03: This Davis- and Fairfield-centered district stretches from right outside Vallejo north to Yuba City, halfway between Sacramento and Chico. The district is split between super-Republican territory in the north and Democratic strongholds in the south, with the Democrats having the advantage. Incumbent Democrat John Garamendi is favored here, but anything goes in a hostile election cycle.
• CD-07: Formerly the 3rd district, this district takes in eastern Sacramento County and is home of incumbent Republican Dan Lungren. However, the district has begun to leave him behind, with Lungren barely surviving in 2008 and clinging to a seven-point margin in 2010. The commission severed off Republican strongholds and left behind bluing turf, making him even more vulnerable. Democrat Ami Bera, Lungren’s opponent in 2010, has announced his candidacy, while Democratic assemblywoman Alyson Huber, who won in a Republican district by 700 votes in 2008, is contemplating a run.
• CD-09: This district takes in a swath of the Delta region from Antioch to Stockton and leans Democratic. Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney, whose Republican-leaning district was dismantled, plans to run here. He is favored but is by no means safe for reelection.
• CD-10: This Modesto-centered district leans Republican, but is bluing ever so slowly with the rest of the Central Valley and may become competitive in a few years. Incumbent Republican Jeff Denham, who doesn’t even live in the district, will run here, but may be treading on increasingly tenuous ground.
• CD-21: Formerly the 20th district, the district takes in the southwest Central Valley from the Fresno outskirts to Bakersfield. While heavily Democratic and Hispanic, the district is swingy due to abysmally low turnout, and incumbent Democrat Jim Costa nearly lost here in 2010, and severing off Fresno (his home and base) only made the situation worse. Republican assemblyman David Valadao is planning a run here.
• CD-25: The aforementioned 23rd district’s new iteration is this Democratic-leaning district, heavily dependent on student turnout in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. This district is also similar to the 1990s version, when UC Santa Barbara professor Walter Capps swung the district  from Republican to Democratic in 1996. After dying of a heart attack in Dulles Airport (resulting in many public places having defibrillators), his widow Lois Capps won a special election and still represents the area. She is heavily favored here but is vulnerable in a wave year.
• CD-26: The formerly-Republican counterpart to CD-25 is this Democratic-tilting district centered on Oxnard and Thousand Oaks. Incumbent Republican Elton Gallegly will be living on borrowed time here, but can console himself somewhat with the weak Democratic bench here.
• SD-05: The Stockton-centered state senate district contains all of San Joaquin County and a part of Modesto. This swing district is home to incumbent Republican Tom Berryhill, who has been working overtime to moderate his image. However, with the district trending blue, a Democrat with money and support can show Berryhill the door.
• SD-12: This district remains an enigma for Democrats. On paper, it is extremely blue, more so than the Sacramento-area districts that have fallen into Democratic hands in recent years. Yet this district keeps electing Republicans, most recently in 2010 when Anthony Cannella won by three points. The new district is similar to the old one and awaits an ambitious Democrat with the right qualifications and platform to finally turn this district blue.
• SD-17: Democrats were disappointed when John Laird was defeated by Republican assemblyman Sam Blakeslee in this district’s predecessor in 2010. The previous district, though slightly Democratic, was designed to protect its then-incumbent, moderate Republican Bruce McPherson. The commission took out conservative Santa Maria in the south and added Santa Cruz and parts of San Jose, pushing the district even more leftward. Democratic assemblyman Bill Monning of Carmel is contemplating a run there.
• AD-08: In 2001, Sacramento County was gerrymandered from one Democratic and two Republican state assembly districts to one Democratic and four Republican districts to protect the Republicans from the rising blue tide. This cartographic levee failed and all but one district went blue by 2010. This time around, Sacramento County has two Democratic districts, one Republican district, and one swingy district. This is the swingy district. Containing the eastern Sacramento suburbs, it tilts Democratic but will take quite a bit of work to make it stick.
• AD-21: This district is one of the last bastions of conservative-to-moderate Democrats in California. Currently represented by termed-out Democrat Cathleen Galgiani, this district may be one of the hardest-fought in all of California as Democrats seek to ward off Republican assemblymember Bill Berryhill (brother of Tom Berryhill), who was drawn into this district and may run here.
• AD-32: Its previous incarnation, the 30th district, is an anomaly: it was the only district in California to switch from Democrat to Republican. This heavily-Hispanic district is the home of two warring Democratic families, the Parras and the Florezes. Their most prominent members, former state assemblywoman Nicole Parra and former state senator Dean Florez, have even enlisted their parents in the fight, handing the district to Republicans as the Parras, who lost two of these battles, endorsed the Republicans rather than side with their sworn enemies. As the district’s incumbent Republican David Valadao plans to run for Congress, this seat might see another epic battle this coming cycle.
• AD-44: Another Ventura County district shifts into the theoretically-Democratic column, this time in the assembly. Its previous incarnation, the 37th district, contained the more conservative and Republican parts of the county, including Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, and Moorpark. The commission lopped off Simi Valley and attached heavily Democratic Oxnard, shifting the district dramatically leftward. Its incumbent, Republican Jeff Gorell, is currently in Afghanistan serving as a Navy reservist, which helps him in reelection, but a well-financed Democrat can still conceivably knock him off.

As Cal Dems, we will be in a good position to focus on these areas and work for Democrats aspiring to win in these districts by virtue of proximity. Sitting idly by constitutes more than political malpractice: it is tantamount to neglecting our state and our state’s future.

Note: The maps are from Redistricting Partners, a Democratic consulting group focused on redistricting issues around the state. Districts are notated as a two-letter shorthand for congressional (CD), state senate (SD), or state assembly (AD) districts followed by a number.

On June 27, one day before California’s Democratic legislators and Governor Jerry Brown announced they had reached a deal on the state budget, Grover Norquist, the President of Americans for Tax Reform, appeared on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Norquist’s group is best known for their “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” in which candidates for public office promise to oppose any and all efforts to raise taxes. Norquist himself demonstrated his commitment to this cause during an exchange at the end of his interview:

Colbert: “Terrorists have kidnapped all of our grandmothers. They’ve got them in a subterranean burrow, which you know they have. And all of our grandmothers have been slathered with honey. And they’re going to release fire ants into this burrow who will bite our grandmothers to death. Their only demand is that we increase the marginal tax rate on the top 2% of Americans and we will release them. Do we increase the tax rate or do we let our grandmothers die by ant bite?”

Norquist: “I think we console ourselves with the fact that we have pictures, and memories.”

I’d like to believe he was joking. Unfortunately, Norquist’s philosophy, which has become the norm for today’s Republicans, is no joke, and may go part of the way towards explaining why California’s budget for the upcoming year, the unfittingly labeled “Democratic budget,” is so odious to so many Californians.By state constitutional law, California is required to create a balanced budget each year. When Governor Brown took office in January, he faced a $25 billion deficit for the upcoming budget year. Not wishing to produce a “gimmicky” budget in the mold of his Republican predecessor, Brown proposed a budget solution that eliminated the deficit; roughly half of his solution was cuts in spending and the other half was extensions of taxes that were set to expire in July. Because he promised during his campaign to not raise taxes without voter approval, Brown asked that the legislature put the tax extensions up for a vote by the people in June. However, as all tax increases in California require two-thirds approval from both the Assembly and Senate, at least two Republicans in each of the Democratically-controlled chambers would have to consent to the placing these extensions on the ballot.

In March, the Governor signed over $12 billion of cuts in state services into law. Republicans refused to put tax extensions on the ballot. In May, Brown announced that revenue projections for the upcoming year were better than expected, and that the remaining deficit would only be $9.6 billion. Republicans refused to put tax extensions on the ballot. As the budget deadline approached in June, Brown kept negotiating with Republicans to give the people the opportunity to vote on tax extensions, and repeatedly they refused. In the end, Brown and the Democratic legislators were forced to create a budget with further painful cuts, a number of “gimmicks,” and no tax extensions.

This is not a Democratic budget. It was written and passed by Democrats, but it does not reflect Democratic values, and there is not much in it that appeals to Democrats. What it does contain is $150 million in cuts to each the UC and CSU systems, a $150 million cut to state courts, $1.7 billion in cuts to redevelopment agencies that revitalize distressed neighborhoods, and $448 million in cuts to Medi-Cal and Healthy Families (health insurance for low-income families, the disabled, and the elderly). It also optimistically assumes $4 billion in new revenue in the upcoming year, with up to $2.5 billion more in cuts that will be triggered if that money does not materialize, or if not enough of it does. In the worst-case scenario, $1.7 billion would be cut from K-12 education, which would shorten the school year by seven days, and there would also be cuts to school bus transportation and community colleges. Clearly, this budget is hardly the kind of thing that gets liberals out in the street cheering “Yes We Can.” At least it was on time.

So don’t call it the Democratic budget. Through their inaction and inflexibility, Republican legislators forced these unprecedented cuts and gimmicks onto the rest of the state (though, by avoiding their legislative responsibilities, they can freely vote against the budget and then try to blame Democrats for being cold-hearted). On July 1^st, temporary sales taxes and vehicle license fee increases will end, but that doesn’t mean California won’t be paying for this budget. Expect another massive hike of at least 30% to UC tuition and fewer benefits for the state’s neediest residents. If there’s any hope for restoring state funding, it lies in the prospect of a voter-backed initiative in 2012 to raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians. However, the huge thundercloud obscuring this silver lining is that this sensible solution necessitates a few more years of declining accessibility to public education and key social services.

In announcing the “Democratic” budget, Governor Brown lamented the “almost religious reluctance” of his Republican colleagues to even consider dealing with the state budget by raising new revenues. Yet Brown himself can be faulted for his almost religious reluctance to accept that he would not be able to forge a reasonable compromise with Republican legislators. In the future, I doubt that the Governor, as well as the people of California, will have much faith at all in a party that refuses to be practical and sensible in the face of such great challenges for the state.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mia Hodge

(415) 302-6073

communications@caldems.com

KEEPING CAL AND CALIFORNIA BLUE: Cal Berkeley Democrats Win California College Democrats Chapter of the Year Award

After two previous nominations, 4500 telephone calls, and 6000 home visits, the Cal Berkeley Democrats have earned the recognition of the California Young Democrats 2011 College Chapter of the Year Award. Chosen from among over 25 other California College Democrats Chapters, the Cal Berkeley Democrats received this honor on April 30th at the California Democratic Party Convention in Sacramento.

Some of the campaign accomplishments noted in the presentation of the award were: registering 5100 voters on the UC Berkeley campus; participating in the invasion of Congressional District 11 and knocking on 2500 doors to help gain a Democratic seat in the US House of Representatives for Congressman Jerry McNerney; participating in the invasion of Assembly District 15 and knocking on 300 doors to help win Assemblymember Joan Buchanan’s seat in the California State Assembly; and distributing over 5500 pieces of literature about the progressive Democratic slate in preparation for the November 2010 election. Furthermore, CYD acknowledged Cal Berkeley Democrats’ extensive efforts in hosting Campus Camp Wellstone, a progressive activist training for Bay Area college students which was held on the UC Berkeley campus in March.

California Young Democrats honored Cal Berkeley Democrats Field Director Jeremy Pilaar for spearheading many of these efforts with the California College Democrats Man of the Year Award. They also honored Paula Villescaz as California Young Democrats Woman of the Year for her long-standing commitment to the organization. The Cal Berkeley Democrats will continue their campaign efforts in the lead-up to the November 2012 election, and continue to advocate progressive values at UC Berkeley.

Contact Cal Berkeley Democrats Communications Director Mia Hodge for more information or photographs from the event.

On the show, the anchor asked two guests if “it is sexist … to automatically do a comparison to Michele Bachmann” when talking about Sarah Palin’s run for President. Both guests (including one woman) said no, but it didn’t stop there. One of the guests noted that since the two women are similar in appeal, they can get “only one foot into the glass slipper” and that it wasn’t sexist to compare the two candidates. They said very little about the women’s agendas, their ideas, their policy proposals, their credentials or their records. Rather than attack the women on their flawed agendas, they spent their time comparing the two candidates to each other, like there was no way that either of them deserved to be compared to any other GOP Presidential candidates.

This concerns me. When every single story about the women (including this one) fails to consider the two candidates outside the scope of their female candidacy, this is sending a dangerous message to women across the nation with political aspirations. When young girls watch the news at night with their parents, what do they see? What is the media saying about the capability of any woman to reach the White House? While I hope that none of those girls aspire to be Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann, the media is sending a dangerous message to the next generation of women political leaders from both parties, and it needs to stop for our country to move forward.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Csbi41QZBw

For the past couple of weeks several events in my daily life have reaffirmed my strong beliefs in fairness and justice towards women, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. It first started with a visit from a human rights activist to my Political Science seminar on the same topic. Her first question to our small group was, “why are you interested in human rights?” My first instinct was to answer, because I am a Political Science major and I’m focusing on international relations. I gave her that as my answer and so did half of the room. However, as the conversation progressed I knew that wasn’t the only reason why I was interested in human rights. She struck a chord when she mentioned the work she had done in creating shelters for immigrant women in San Francisco who suffered through domestic violence and feared deportation. These women, she said, are often the spouses of U.S. citizens, residents or government officials and are brought here under the belief that they will have a better life. Instead, they are confronted with violence and are threatened with deportation. Her words swept me off my feet and made me realize that I cared about human rights because I cared about those women, and because my mother had been one of them.

In the assigned readings of that week, my professor gave us a selection that focused on using a human rights framework to rephrase domestic struggles. In one of those articles was the story of Jessica Gonzalez, a mother of three beautiful girls who suffered through a horrible ordeal and was the victim of governmental inaction. On June 22, 1990, Simon Gonzalez abducted his three children from their home, a direct violation of a court-issued restraining order. Jessica had filed for divorce earlier that year and now frantically found herself requesting the help of the police department in Castle Rock, Colorado to enforce that restraining order against her husband. After calling law enforcement four times and physically visiting the station, her pleas were ignored. At 3:20 a.m. of the next day, Simon Gonzalez arrived at the police station and initiated a shooting, culminating with his death. Afterwards, police discovered the bodies of his three children in his truck, killed that same evening.

Jessica sued and her case was heard in district court and the court of appeals, ultimately culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court. In Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, with a 7-2 majority the Court found that “enforcement of the restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law” and that there was no “individual right for enforcement” as this enforcement of a restraining order was a “process” and not the interest, and there is no due process protection for a “process.” Needless to say, this case almost brought tears to my eyes. My mother was Jessica and I was one of those children who—had it not been for the enforcement of our right to freedom from fear—could have suffered a similar fate.

On Thursday night, I had the distinct honor to hear former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet speak about her work as the head of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. In her speech she mentioned three areas in which women are still being marginalized around the world: economic power, political power, and through violence. While she gave a fair assessment of the horrors some women face around the world, I was slightly disappointed with her omission of the struggles women face in the United States. She briefly mentioned domestic issues such as migrant and domestic workers, but her evaluation was focused outward. I believe this feeds a misconception that the United States does not need to use a human rights framework because we are a nation that already provides those standards. Earlier that day, I participated in a heated discussion in my human rights seminar about the framing of domestic violence as “torture.” Some of my classmates disagreed with this notion. While they considered domestic violence a “horrific” and “unimaginable” circumstance, they feared that by using the word “torture” the significance of the word would be watered-down. The value of “torture” would be diminished if it was used as a way to frame a “slap in the face”, as one of my classmates described it.

This made me wonder, are our own views as to how we categorize the world inherently biased toward a male-based structure? Why is it that only situations in which men are faced with extreme physical and emotional pain—such as waterboarding and military isolation—considered torture, but not the extreme physical and emotional abuse suffered by women? Of course, there should be standards in which a slap in the face is not considered torture for either a man or a woman, but by using the framework of human rights we give women, or any other disadvantaged group for that matter, the tools for justice when domestic mechanisms have failed them.

In March 2007, Jessica told her story to the Inter-American Commission, a formal body of the Organization of American States. It was the first time she had been allowed to testify in any official proceeding. By allowing her to share her story, the violation of her human rights and her suffering was finally recognized. Similarly, by using a human rights framework in issues such as domestic violence we not only create awareness by encouraging debate, but we can also provide the tools for activism and change when our own domestic political mechanisms have failed. Based on these observations I can acknowledge that we do not live in a fair world, because in a fair world women would not earn 75% of a man’s wages. In a fair world, women would not comprise less than 20% of the U.S. Congress and less than 30% in state legislatures. In a fair world a mother would not be forced to part from her three little angels because of the failure of a biased criminal system. This is why I am a feminist, because I have the courage to recognize that the world is not a fair place.

On Monday, I stood in the rain on the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento with thousands of students and workers to protest further deep cuts to California’s beleaguered public infrastructure. Last Saturday, over 85,000 people marched in Madison, Wisconsin in support of the basic rights of workers to collectively bargain. What these actions have in common, aside from being largely ignored by corporate media outlets, is a renewed commitment to resisting the relentless assault on the American middle class exemplified by Governor Scott Walker’s phantom anti-worker agenda in Wisconsin and the persistent lack of democracy in California.

In last fall’s elections, Scott Walker did not campaign on stripping the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Yet that has become the non-negotiable central goal of his brief tenure in office. Similarly, the progressives who swept every statewide office in California while continuing to hold commanding majorities in both chambers of the legislature did not campaign on a platform of cutting further billions from California’s education and health care systems. But such cuts are the most conspicuous feature of Jerry Brown’s proposed budget.

Electoral democracy has effectively ceased to function across vast swaths of the federal, state and local governments of the United States of America. This did not happen by accident, but rather is part of a plan orchestrated and carried out by a relatively small group of wealthy plutocrats and radical right-wing ideologues with converging interests. They accept frequent assistance from heedlessly self-interested corporations particularly those in the financial industry along with various fundamentalist Christian organizations. All of this may sound like a conspiracy theory, but I would hardly call it that. Much of this plan has been carried out in the open and there is extensive literature documenting it all the way back to the late 1970s. A recent example of this documentation would be Jane Meyers’ extensive investigative report for the New Yorker on the hugely influential political activities of the Koch brothers, who are well known industrial billionaires that believe in radically remaking the U.S. to have an authoritarian government exclusively of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.

For these reasons, elections can no longer be the principal means that the American people use to express their political will because the results of elections have become increasingly detached from actual government policymaking. One can look at the unanticipated but vicious attacks on workers rights across the Midwest, or California’s non-democratic legislature, or the absurdly dysfunctional institution that is the United States Senate, to know with certainty that this assertion is true. Voting is still important and seems to occasionally yield results, but the machinery of governance has become too disconnected from the voting booth for it to be reliable as the primary democratic action. I am advocating that given the deteriorating position of the middle class and the perilous state of global climate systems, U.S. citizenship demands more from those who benefit from its rights and privileges.

But what else can we do? If the electoral process is too corrupt to be effective and a self-selected billionaire elite is systematically dismantling democratic self-government, it would seem that despair is our only option. Except to believe that would only be buying into the modern mythology about ultra wealthy people. We are meant to believe they are wealthy because they are brilliant, or talented, or because they add untold value to our economy, or even due to a preternatural luck that the rest of us cannot access. But in reality, they are only rich because of us. The Koch brothers are nothing more than a pair of clever thugs who have helped push the government to systematically redistribute the wealth of the nation upwards for the last thirty years, some of it into their own pockets. We make them wealthy and we can stop anytime we want.

When I was in Sacramento, there were huge numbers of students from community colleges and CSUs, but very few from the University of California. I think that is because UC students do not understand that we don’t need the boss. Rather, the boss needs us. Put simply: the University of California, the state of California, the United States of America and most especially the moneyed elites that have driven our country into a ditch, can only function if students keep going to school, workers keep going to work, and the police keep securing the institutions of public and private governance against the collective will of the governed. What would happen if we just stopped playing their game?

Crossposted at A Gilded Planet.

The breathtakingly ugly dude in this video either has no understanding of how finance works, or he is being deliberately obtuse in order to keep his viewers from understanding the financial condition of the U.S. The most obvious way to look at whether the US government is broke is to look at interest rates on federal government bonds. This is the same as looking at how much the government has to pay to borrow money. If we were broke, this interest rate would be astronomical because people would risk lending to us only in exchange for very high returns. As it stands today, the interest rate on government bonds is at record lows. That means it’s cheaper for the US government to borrow right now than at any time in recent history. Needless to say, this would not happen if the country was bankrupt unless markets are completely irrational. If Republicans think the U.S. is broke and can’t afford to borrow any more money, then what logically follows

Another way of looking at this question (Is America Broke?) is to look at our debt-to-GDP ratio. This ratio compares public debt to the total wealth of our economy, and its useful for making historical and international comparisons. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is currently high, but much much lower than it was right after World War II. Despite this much bigger public debt after World War II, there was a massive postwar economic boom. In other words, America was either broke during the postwar economic boom that created the modern American middle class or it’s not broke right now. You pick.

Finally, this pitifully hideous dude from the video completely ignores Michael Moore’s point in favor of making glib remarks about Charlie Sheen. Moore is not denying that federal, state and local governments face significant budget deficits, he is saying that the reason they face deficits is due to a series of government policies in recent decades that culminated in the Bush years. These policies were, in effect, massive wealth transfer policies that redistributed money and economic power from the middle class to the super rich. And while you can quibble about the nature of those policies, what there is no question about is the wealth of this nation. America is still the richest country in the world. We are not, by any means or honest measurement, broke.