Delray Democrat

December 2010

Message from the President

In the midst of this holiday season, many Democrats remain in recovery HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE
from the sweeping losses our side suffered in the 2010 elections. Great
friends of the club, outstanding public servants like Ron Klein and Kelly Wednesday,
Skidmore, were among those caught in the divisive, destructive crossfire
of our current political climate. December 22nd
Yet we also had significant victories. Our terrific congressional repre- 7:00 - 9:00 pm
sentatives, Ted Deutch and Alcee Hastings, were both easily reelected, at the
and three fine new PBC Democratic State Representatives were elected:
Lori Berman, Steve Perman and Jeff Clemens. Our club congratulates Veteran's Park
and looks forward to working with all of them.
Recreation Center
Perhaps the most hard-fought and important victory of all came with
passage of both “Fair Districts” constitutional amendments. Taken to-
802 NE 1st Street
gether, they have the potential to be game-changing reforms of the long- (near the Intracoastal)
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
time “gerrymandering” of FL electoral districts. This means there’s real
hope that in 2012 we can elect more Democrats at every level of office, Help Salute Longtime
statewide.
Friends & Outstanding
But that hope will only be fulfilled if large numbers of us get fired up Public Servants
enough to act as watchdogs and warriors. Conservative extremists in
the FL GOP are hard at work figuring out how to derail the new redis-
tricting rules and force through other reactionary legislation. And they
Ron Klein &
Dave Aronberg
have a huge legislative majority, plus the new right-wing Republican
governor, Rick Scott.
Yet there is reason for hope. We FL Democrats still outnumber Repub- And meet new Dist. 78
State Rep.
licans by a healthy margin. The challenge we face is to rally all our
troops to counterbalance the dangerous powers that be in Tallahassee.

Steve Perman
While we have reason to have been discouraged by the 2010 election,
we now have urgent need to move past that, to fight harder than ever
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
for social and economic justice at a time when both are under siege by
the Republican Party, in Florida, and nationwide. So please, enjoy the Plus special snacks &
holidays, and then come back ready for action in 2011!
treats! Music, videos &
merrymaking!
Daniel Tilson
1
 President.............. Daniel Tilson Speaking Up & Out
danielptilson@gmail.com Florida numbers
President Emeritus Sam Lender 243-8098
Find your local legislators:
State Committeeman/VP….. John Ramos
850-488-1827
Board of Directors....Mary Irving, Janice
Botsko, Arlene Siegelwaks Senate President Mike Haridopolos:
Recording Secy ....Carol Gevirts 850-487-5229
Corres. Secy ..…. Mariane Kulick
House Speaker Dean Cannon:
Treasurer ………. Norman Siegelwaks
850-488-1450
Editor ……….......Phyllis Gordon
(demclub@live.com) Governor Rick Scott: 850-488-7146
Editorial Board.............Sylvia Gruber,
Mariane Kulick, Tom Lazenby. Dorothy Federal numbers
Siegal, Bernard Silverman, Carol Gevirts White House 202-456-1111 or 1414
Production Mgr…Sharon Heller
Congress 202-225-3121

Sen. Bill Nelson 202-224-5247

Letter from the Editor
Sen. Marco Rubio (Coming Soon!)
I was moderator of a current events discussion group
recently, where participants strayed from the usual news
and politics focus of our sessions to express frustra- Pop quiz:
tion that Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol seemed to be
unfairly advancing in the network television competi- Which of the following will contribute most to the
tion, “Dancing With The Stars”. Even though the judges DEFICIT in the next decade?
kept giving her poor marks, decisions on who’s elimi-
nated each week are based on a combination of both A) Social Security
the judges’ scores and phone-in votes from TV view- B) Medicare
ers. It seemed clear that the fierce loyalty of Sarah’s C) The National Park Service
fans helped Bristol become one of the finalists on the D) PBS
popular program – although she ultimately lost. E) George Bush’s tax cuts

- answer bottom of column 1, p. 5

But maybe there was more at work here than just loy-
alty. Someone in our discussion group asked, by a
show of hands, who had phoned in votes to “Dancing
With The Stars”. No one raised a hand. Aha! Another Ode to Warren Buffet
reminder that just like in our recent midterm elections,
whoever can get larger numbers of their fans excited Everything’s topsy turvy,
enough to vote, that’s who’s likely to win the contest, it’s really strange to see,
however trivial, or important. Democrats, take note. poor people vote for billionaires
and a billionaire votes for me.

The opinions expressed herein We reserve the right to edit material

are not necessarily those of the submitted to the Delray Democrat
Democractic Club of Delray Beach
2
 L
For Every Action, Reaction ate Night Political
Daniel Tilson

L aughs

“Sarah Palin has another new book. As

T
he first official day of action for Florida’s new GOP-dominated
legislature was November 16th. Senate President Mike long as somebody else is writing them
Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon put their new two- for you, you can turn them out just like
thirds “veto-proof” majorities right to work in a “special” session, held on that.”
what was supposed to simply be swearing-in day for 2010’s election- David Letterman
winners.
Cannon set the tone with a fire and brimstone speech attacking President “Former President George W. Bush
Obama, Democrats in Congress, the federal government, and worst of was asked if he used a ghost writer on
all, attacking and trying to intimidate the Florida State Supreme Court. his memoir, “Decision Points”. Bush
The goal there is to scare judges into staying out of GOP legislators’ way said, ‘Nah, I stopped believing in
instead of doing their job and overturning illegitimate legislative initiatives, those after I turned 12.”
as was repeatedly necessary in 2010.
"At the airport now, if you refuse to be
When the Cannon-shells stopped firing, this new government he proudly patted down, they arrest you. And
calls “hard right-wing conservative” threw its new weight around, over- what’s the first thing they do when they
riding 8 of Gov. Crist’s 2010 legislative vetoes. No legislature had over- arrest you? They pat you down."
ridden even 1 veto since 1997. One of the bills pushed through via veto Jay Leno
override gives real estate development interests a bigger tax break, put-
ting more tax burden on the rest of us. Another would block the ability of
. FL Dept. of Environmental Protection to protect our air, land and
the
drinking water from industrial polluters. In all honesty, too many of what- “The turkey that President Obama
ever Democrats are left in the legislature went along with those wrong- pardoned this year for Thanksgiving
minded votes. Tells you something about the corrupting influence of Spe- came from California. A spokesman
cial Interest money. for the turkey said it doesn’t need a
pardon, it needs a job.”
The good news is that there still do remain some tough, ethical Demo- Conan O'Brien
cratic legislators who will fight to put the Public Interest above Special
Interests in Tallahassee. The bad news is they’re terribly outnumbered.
And so we must not, we dare not let them fight alone. We will do our part
by trying in these pages, at meetings, in email alerts and on our new “A group of economists unveiled a
Facebook page and website, to keep you informed of each major new new plan to reduce the deficit by $6
legislative move being made against the best interests of our state, our trillion in the next 10 years. The first
civil liberties, and the Common Good. step of the plan is to look at all our
spending over the past five years,
You can then do your part by spreading the word to friends and neigh- determine what’s unnecessary…and
bors, writing letters to newspapers, and by calling the phone numbers then ask China for $6 trillion.”
listed in the “Speaking Up and Out” box that appears in every issue of this Jimmy Fallon
newsletter. For every action of legislative overreach, there must be a re-
action of public outcry.
3
A Call For Democratic Unity
Bill Weg
I’m Bill Weg, a relatively new member of the club. In the
coming months, I hope to start a new column called “Dem
Folks”, offering my own common sense, moderate per-
spective on the people and issues that populate Palm Beach
County politics.
But first, I want to write about something of immediate
importance to me, and I hope to all Delray and PBC Demo-
crats: healing the wounds and divisions caused by the 2010
U.S. Senate race.
In order to move forward and face the enormous chal-
lenges ahead, we’re going to need to pull, and push, to-
gether. That means we have to stop the negativity and fin-
ger pointing at Palm Beach County Democratic officials
who, because they believed Congressman Meek could not
win the Senate race, endorsed Governor Crist instead.
Burt Aaronson, Maria Sachs and Shelly Vana; these are
the three longtime Palm Beach County Democratic offi-
cials who acted not out of disloyalty to the party or disre-
spect to Kendrick Meek, but out of a firm belief that Crist
had a better chance of keeping Marco Rubio and the Re-
publican Party from winning a precious Senate seat.
Now that the County Party has voted to send a letter of
reprimand to these three officials, a move I personally dis-
agreed with, I urge all those who may still harbor bitter-
ness over this issue to let it go, to agree to disagree, and
leave it at that. There’s way too much work we all need to
do, together, to allow ourselves to be divided any longer.
Now is the time for us to draw and build strength, from
and with one another.
The US Chamber of Commerce and
Health Care Legislation
Sylvia Gruber
When the health care battle was on in Congress, the health
care industry gave $86.2 million to its own lobby to give to
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In other words, the health
care industry paid for the Chamber’s efforts to defeat the
proposed health care legislation. This allowed the Cham-
ber to look like the bad guys and enabled the health care
industry to maintain its image of being concerned for the
well being of its patients. Hypocritical, yes?
continued next column
4
In the 2010 elections, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
shelled out another $33 million for ads to elect Republicans
who had vowed to repeal the health care law. We will never
know where all that money came from. We can only have
suspicions, thanks to our unbiased Supreme Court and its
nonpartisan decision about political contributions. Under-
handed, yes?
The Roving Reporter
Phyllis Gordon
Question: What do you think of the
November elections?
Phillip, 80 years old – I think that the public was disap-
pointed in the performance of the Democratic Party and
the legislature because of its poor record on the economy
and on the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even
though they know the Republicans got us into this mess,
they hope the Republicans can do more to boost the
economy.
Evelyn, 42 years old – To tell you the truth, I didn’t vote.
I didn’t have time. It didn’t bother me that the Republicans
got in.
Rose, 49 years old – I expected more people to get out
and vote. I don’t know why. The result was not quite good
for recognizing what we need. There weren’t enough people
to vote for what we want to do.
Todd, 40 years old – I think they were great. It’s good to
have a balance between the House and Senate. We need
new blood. Get rid of career politicians. But, I think it’s a
shame if you can buy your election.
John, 85 years old – I think it stunk because the politicians
just accused each other of wrongdoing instead of stating
their positions. The whole thing was a farce.
Diane, 60 years old – I think that it was a big mistake, and
that people voted against instead of for candidates. And
people have short attention spans and don’t give enough
time for the economy to turn around.
Hidden History:
The real winner on November 2nd
Professor Robert Watson
(The following is from an article comparing 2010 midterm election
impact on Pres. Obama to 1946 midterm impact on Truman, and in
this excerpt, to 1994 midterm impact on Bill Clinton.)
Even though the economy was growing, the country was
convinced by Republicans that Bill Clinton was the cause of
all their problems. In that midterm election the GOP cam-
paigned on fear and division – and was benefited by anger
over Clinton’s proposed healthcare reforms and Democratic
scandals in Congress – and picked up 45 seats in the House
and 9 seats in the Senate, enough to regain control of Con-
gress.
And what happened after the election? With Republicans
running Congress, numerous beneficial programs such as
public television, the Endangered Species Act, and family
planning were attacked. Republicans focused instead on
bashing gays, trying to privatize national parks, and pro-
moting narrow religious views. They also shut down gov-
ernment in 1995.
This allowed Clinton to run against “do-nothing” extremists
in Congress and win reelection in 1996. Clinton went on to
preside over the largest peacetime economic expansion in
history and four consecutive budget surpluses. With Repub-
lican support he also began paying down the debt.
Fast forward to 2010 and history seems to be repeating
itself. A relentless Republican campaign of fear and division
has been effective in convincing Americans that Barack
Obama is to blame for all the country’s problems. Never
mind that Obama inherited the largest debt and deficits in
the world along with countless other crises from Bush. While
Obama worked to stabilize a collapsing economy by rescu-
ing the banking and auto industries and investing in infra-
structure and education, Republican leaders in Congress
defeated energy reform, immigration reform, and incentives
for small businesses.
Just like Truman and Clinton, Obama may end up getting
history’s last laugh. With an extremist Republican Congress,
he will look like the only adult in the room, which might
position him to win reelection in 2012.
Give up? The answer is E — George Bush’s tax cuts.
5
About This Election
Mariane Kulick
The majority of eligible voters, somewhere around 60%,
did not vote at all. Those who voted indicated that they
were fed up with the terrible economy, the lack of jobs,
foreclosures, and were furious about bailouts of banks and
corporations. They wanted to blame, but unfortunately they
didn’t have the slightest idea of who was actually at fault.
It was the big private corporations that did away with their
jobs by funneling them overseas to cheaper labor. All past
governments allowed them to do so but it was not govern-
ment that cut their jobs. Citizens ended up voting for the
corporate structure that put loads of money into advertis-
ing for those candidates who would continue the plague.
As to the bailout of the banks, that was done during the
Bush Administration but agreed to by the Democrats for
fear that a collapse of the whole banking economy would
send us into a depression. The government can be faulted
for not putting really strong regulation of banks into effect
but this Administration did not cause it. As for the bailout
of the auto industry, that ended up not only saving jobs, but
money came back from the now-resurrected industry.
President Obama started the Stimulus Package (too small
a one because of Republican opposition). It worked to the
extent a small one would. It did not increase the number of
jobs but it did save a lot of people from being laid off,
people like teachers, firemen, policeman, etc
What does all this tell us? It tells us that we’re overwhelmed
by big money, lousy at communication and dispirited be-
cause our fellow citizens seem not to understand. Well,
then it’s our job to bring some understanding. We have to
do a better job of showing what the Democrats have tried
to do and how the Republicans held us back by voting ‘no’
on every proposal that would have helped.
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The Party of No, and Arms Control Let’s Call it What it is
Sylvia Gruber Mariane Kulick
Sen. Jon Kyl, (R- AZ)
had almost 40 meetings
over many months to
work out details of
America’s new START
arms control treaty with
Russia. Presumably, this
process included nego-
tiations to resolve any dis-
agreements between him
and his Democratic and
Republican colleagues in Congress. These were apparently
dealt with to his satisfaction or as the Democrats put it, “He
got everything he asked for.” Yet when the treaty was ready
for a full Senate hearing, the once satisfied Sen. Kyl sud-
denly announced himself dissatisfied. The reasons he first
gave for his dissatisfaction wer

1. He wasn’t sure Pres. Obama would use all the money
authorized for the purpose of modernizing the nuclear arse-
nal. (What if Pres. Obama takes a blood oath? Will that
satisfy?)
2. Russia can’t be trusted, even if they enter into a treaty
that includes mutual inspections.
(If there is no treaty and there are no inspections, are we
better off?)
3. The current Senate doesn’t have time left for deep ana-
lytical discussions about the treaty.
(What were the prior months of discussions about?
Chopped liver maybe?)
A
ccording to Senator Bernie Sanders, “The top 1
percent now controls more wealth than the bottom
90 percent combined.”
Despite all the talk about the need for deficit reduction, the
Republicans want to extend the tax cuts to that top one per-
cent. Would the tax cuts to the wealthy produce jobs? Ab-
solutely not. If the middle class gets tax cuts, they go out and
buy that washing machine or clothes for the kids, putting
some money into the economy. Unfortunately, the manufac-
turing is done somewhere else but at least the stores get
some business. Maybe they use some of the money for edu-
cation for their kids. What do the very wealthy do? They
buy companies already in existence. No new jobs come
from that.

Sen. Kyl’s initial reasons for his change of heart lacked cred-
ibility and seemed hastily created in consultation with con-
servative Republican counterparts. Now he and they have
raised new objections that are just as questionable. The
only objection to the treaty that they will not raise, it seems,
is their real objection:
With the 2012 presidential election fast approaching, pas-
sage of this arms reduction treaty would be a major achieve-
ment for President Obama. And for the current Republican
Party, preventing any perception of success by our presi-
dent is a higher priority than making the world a safer place.
6
The Republicans also want to reduce the estate tax, which
would add about $1 trillion over ten years to our national
debt. Who would it benefit? All benefits would go to the top
0.3 percent. Bernie Sanders said, “more than 99.7 percent
of families would not gain a nickel. But Walmart’s Walton
family would receive an estimated tax break of more than
$30 billion if the estate tax were repealed.”
The Republicans don’t really care about the deficit – they
only care about completing the transfer of wealth to the al-
ready wealthy and leaving the poor and the middle class
poorer than ever. Is this class warfare? It sure is.
Entitlements
Tom Lazenby
“The very rich ...are different from you and me. They possess and
enjoy early, and it does something to them.” F. Scott Fitzgerald might
have continued by writing that they have entitlements, but they don’t
want to call them that or tell you about them. Most of the wealthy
(75%) attained their money the old fashioned way - they inherited it.
And they want to keep it secure and growing. With that wealth, they
buy stock and real estate from which they get income to support
their standard of living. They then get the entitlement of getting taxed
at lower rates on that investment income than what working people
get taxed on the salaries they earn with their labor. So the rich are
entitled to keep more of their new money because they didn’t actu-
ally earn it, didn’t answer to a boss for forty or more hours that
week.
We are so used to living with this illogical discrepancy that it has
somehow come to seem fair to many of us. Furthermore, the rich
who do work invariably are earning higher salaries, yet they stop
paying the 6.2% social security tax after their first $106,800 of in-
come. This means that in effect they get a 6.2% “raise” on everything
above that amount, while lower paid workers end up being taxed on
their entire salaries. What you might call that 6.2% entitlement ad-
vantage continues with no limit, right into the millions, however high
the salary goes.
Imagine how significant an amount of money that would be, those
additional payroll taxes paid by the rich, in helping to bolster the
social security system. When it comes to talk of entitlements, it’s
worth making note: Many politicians (mostly but not only Republi-
cans) never fail to label social safety net programs like Medicare and
Social Security, which save the lives of millions of vulnerable people,
as “entitlements”; while they never dare to use the same word for the
tax rates, breaks and loopholes that they so carefully concoct and
protect, excluvely for the benefit of the rich.
7
Bits and Pieces
“
We all know that the budget deficit is a
huge long-term problem for the country and
the sooner we deal with it, the better. But
this idea that we are going to cut Social
Security and Medicare while extending tax
cuts to people making $1 million a year is a
different kind of deficit. It’s a deficit of
political will and it’s morally bankrupt.
We can’t afford these tax cuts and
multimillionaires don’t need them to survive
— but America’s seniors do need Social
”
Security and Medicare to survive.
- Howard Dean
A Success Story
“An apology is due Barack Obama,” wrote
The Economist, which originally opposed
the 2009 rescue of the U.S. auto industry.
As for the new “General-Government
Motors”, after emerging from bankruptcy it
will soon go public with a new stock
offering. With its 60-percent share of the
company, the federal government (and by
proxy, American taxpayers) should get a
very good return on that investment.
Meanwhile, one of our country’s few
remaining core manufacturing industries was
saved, along with thousands of jobs. So let’s
call this what it was, and is - not a “bailout”,
but rather, a signature economic success for
President Obama, and for America.
 PRESORT STANDARD
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