Back So Soon?

After a long holiday break, where thankfully not much happened, we're back and ready to begin the long run towards the fall election, cooler autumn temps, and this year's "lame duck" session of Congress - which looks to be more like an ugly duck session.

What we're not ready for is something we began seeing while we were on vacation last week - even before the Independence Day holiday in the U.S.

That something we saw is Back-to-School sales. In late June and July.

With the exception of those places where year-around K-12 sessions are already in place, most of the United States still begins the school year for primary and secondary students in August. On the retail calendar, that means "Back-to-school" season usually falls after the "Fourth of July" sales theme, but before the "We have to start selling Halloween stuff while the temps are still in the 90s, because we'll be selling Christmas junk by October 1st" theme.

This year, U.S. retailers seem more desperate than they're willing to let on - and the insanely early "Back-to-school" sales are simply another symptom of the continuing slow economy.

As the BLS - the Bureau of Labor Statistics - does on the first Friday of each month, they released the June jobs numbers last Friday. For the third consecutive month, there were still a few positive signs - including continued positive job growth in the U.S. private sector.

Sadly, the public sector problem also remains the same. Republicans and their austerity policies at the state and local levels continue to cost the economy jobs. Thanks to the GOP's short-sighted positions, at least 627,000 government jobs have been lost since June 2009.

This idiotic fight between forward-looking Keynesian policies like those President Obama and progressive Democrats have supported, and the regressive European-style austerity views of Republicans continues to keep the U.S. economy from going anywhere. As Ezra Klein noted last week, economically things are basically unchanged over the last three months.

In other words, the U.S. economy isn't losing jobs - but we're not gaining them fast enough to fix the problem. Continued meager demand and slow labor recovery, coupled with more rumblings about the further gambling problems of the Wall Street "wonders", mean that most consumer-dependent U.S. businesses are now more worried than ever about the future.

For you and for us, in the stores we go to, this means retailers are already beginning to beat you over the head with "Back-to-school" sales. As the Wall Street Journal noted last week, "Back-to-school" is one of the top periods for consumers to shop in the U.S. - right behind the annual pre-December holiday shopping season. Retailers also know many Americans may be unwilling to spend money on themselves. On their kids, however? No problem.

Sadly, while American consumers and businesses are still being dragged down by the obstructionist policies of the GOP, what Republicans in Congress are trying to sell you isn't a new Trapper Keeper or a fancy new school outfit.

They're still attempting to sell the same lie they've been pushing since they took over the House of Representatives in 2010 and basically did next to nothing since. Congressional Republicans are still desperately claiming that President Obama hasn't done anything about jobs. Meanwhile, the American Jobs Act - the plan President Obama presented LAST YEAR, the plan that even independent estimates say would create 1.9 million new jobs in America - still sits on the side table of the Congress, as Congressional Republicans do exactly what they're accusing Congressional Democrats of, ignoring their respobsibilities.

If it seems like we're already back to beating you over the head with some of the same facts we did before our break...?

Let's just say we picked up some inspiration while shopping during our vacation.

Friday Funday: One America

It is Friday, so we’re going to be positive today - especially in light of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, on Thursday.

Whether the ACA - still called ObamaCare by some - will lead to truly universal health care, or just mostly universal healthcare is a question far beyond our ability to forsee. As we noted on Thursday it will be quite some time before the effects of the Court’s decision are fully understood. Or as Paul Krugman said, "This ain't over by a long shot."

The most important and positive thing we can immediately pull from Thursday’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act is this. For the first time in our lives, no American has to be worried that they’ll lose their insurance coverage - or won’t be able to get health insurance - because of a pre-existing condition.

So if you haven't been to the doctor recently, for a check-up? Schedule it now.

Affordable health care is now no longer a luxury in America, or something only for the wealthy. That seems to be the idea so many on the right used millions and millions of dollars to try and sell to everyone. They failed.

Not surprisingly, the most extreme Republicans have already insisted they’re going to repeal the ACA. Of course, the likelihood of them being successful is probably about the same as one of our staff members growing wings overnight and flying away. Even Republican power brokers like David Frum has said repeal is a fantasy, and Republicans need to grow up. That said, we’re certainly willing to see them try.

As any student of history knows, now that the Affordable Care Act has been found constitutional, and even more of its component parts are put into effect over the next two years, it’ll be like Social Security, Medicare, or any of a host of other programs Americans have enacted over the last two hundred plus years. Once citizens get used to having affordable health care (like every other first world nation) the extremist fools screaming "socialism" will suddenly shut up. The idea of repealing “ObamaCare” will become utterly unimaginable to everyone but the lunatic fringe.

When all the dust has settled about this argument, it will be clear that the core of the inspiring speech Barack Obama gave nearly four years ago, at the Democratic National Convention, remains true today. "We ARE connected as one people.... If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother.”

“...Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.”

Regardless of what side you were on in the health care debate, when we celebrate our Independence Day next week, we won’t be celebrating being independent from one another.

We’ll be celebrating that we’re all together in this crazy experiment in self-governance called The United States of America.

One nation. With liberty and justice for all.
And now, thankfully, basic affordable health care too.

**We’ll be off next week, as large sections of the American population are also taking the week off. Paul will have a special cartoon next week, then we’ll return to our regular publishing schedule July 9.

The Decision

We're publishing today's edition early, just ahead of the Supreme Court's announcement of its monumental decision on the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

Like the individual decisions of the Justices themselves, some of our comments on this decision were written well in advance of today's publication. Like the other serious and weighty decisions the Court has made this week, today's announcement will not solve the health care insurance issue in this country. The Court's earlier decisions on labor union participation, or immigration or campaign finance issues did not solve those problems either.

Making effective, solid law has never been the proper role of the Supreme Court.

The job of making solid, well-thought, well-researched, effective, efficient law is the job of our legislative bodies - from village boards and city councils, all the way up to Congress. If we allow the wealthiest people and corporations to blanket our TVs, radios, newspapers and computers with sensationalism and half truths to convince us that sending our village idiots to DC to represent them (not us!) is a good idea, we have only ourselves to blame.

Making good law that works for all of us - not just the wealthiest or most extreme among us - is our collective responsibility.

Similarly, guiding our country is also not the role of the Court. It is the role of the President, who - among many, many responsibilities - carries the role of political leader. The role of the Executive Branch is also enforcement, as well as implementation.

It's easy for the millions of armchair dictators and media blowhards to scream and holler that the President should simply do whatever they say, as though the President were a king or a queen - or a dictator, as President Bush once lamented publicly.

Our President is not a dictator. He or she cannot simply send thousands of border agents to Mexico and Canada, and - POOF! All our immigration problems will be gone. The President can't simply send the Fifth Infantry to Wall Street, to forcibly penalize all those responsible for the economic disaster - or force insurance companies to put patient outcomes and efficient health care before the interests of their stockholders and profit motives.

The President may be the head of the Executive Branch - but fixing these iconic issues is not the sole responsibility of the current occupant of the White House.

No, the biggest decision and the most responsibility will still fall in the same place it has for over a century - squarely on the shoulders of the American people.

We're like a relay team at the Olympics that's still arguing about minor issues like who bought the shoelaces for today's race. Problem is, we're still in the starting blocks, where we've been for over a century, while every other first world nation has figured out how to provide basic, high-quality health care, as good or better than comparable care here in the U.S. And, for the most part, it's available to ALL of THEIR  citizens.

We still haven't even gotten out of the starting gates.

The most important decision that will face Americans this day - or this year - on how Americans will pay for decent basic health care, won't be coming from the Supreme Court.

We're not saying the decision the Supreme Court makes today is insignificant. Admittedly, it will definitely take far more than just a day or two to fully "unpack" the effects of their ruling, whatever it is. No matter what they decide, their ruling will not solve our health care insurance problems - even if their opinion is simply to allow the Affordable Care Act to stand as it is.

To make laws and implement solutions that will solve massive systemic problems like the cost of health care is our collective national responsibility. Our decision - the only decision that matters on health care insurance - is to act on the ruling the Court gives us today, so that we can fix this problem together.

It is long past time we, as a nation, decide to finish the task of taking care of the basic health needs of all Americans. That is the only decision that matters on this issue.

To make laws and implement solutions that will solve massive systemic problems like the cost of health care is our collective national responsibility. Our decision - the only decision that matters on health care insurance - is to act on the ruling the Court gives us today, so that we can fix this problem together.

It is long past time we, as a nation, decide to finish the task of taking care of the basic health needs of all Americans. That is the only decision that matters on this issue.