THE GEORGE FLOYD VERDICT: THREE VIEWS AMDIST SETTLING DUST

 

Anyone regularly perusing this space knows we comment on current events, usually as

quickly as possible. We’re not a news service, however, so sometimes we think it best we let time pass between a significant happening and having our say. That’s the case with the guilty verdicts in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.  On April 20 a jury pronounced Chauvin guilty on all three charges against him. We decided we should let the dust settle, so we proceeded with our April 22 post on Major League Baseball’s decision to pull its All-Star game from Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s restrictive voting law.

Now, the time has come for our thoughts on the verdict. The inherently personal character of our reactions merits speaking independently:

Henry: Sighs of Relief/Hope/Grief

This experience felt like batting practice for a baseball game in which the ball has been put on a

tee or watching a mystery with what seems an obvious ending. No doubt about the plot existed. A video showed who did it and how. Everything was teed up for an inevitable conclusion. Still, though the images had circulated around the globe for a year, doubt about our criminal justice system and white resistance to letting go of systemic and individual racism made me wonder if the result still might mimic so many before – “not guilty” said the jury.

When I heard the verdict on the first charge I breathed a sigh of relief. Wow, we have a conviction! Upon hearing the second, I felt a spark of hope. Maybe, just maybe, we now live in a different world.  After the third, however, grief for the Floyd family and those who came before overtook me. Neither George nor the others were coming back.

Then my mind turned to the pragmatic.  Will law enforcement organizations, particularly police unions, double down and fight police reform efforts?  Or will the good officers become the engine for change the nation needs? That’s in the hat, I decided. Though I have hope, I’m not optimistic. I still hear the wails of the many who couldn’t breathe, but perhaps now we can hear their voices.

Woodson: The Wind Is at Our Backs

Black Lives Matter members, supporters, and sympathizers believe Chauvin’s conviction

represents hope that at last African Americans will be policed as Caucasians are. They believe cries for equality in policing are gaining traction and the wind is at the movement’s back. They believe, as echoed by the biblical prophet Isaiah, “Justice will one day roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream”. They are inspired to make “good trouble”.

Others believe the verdict was unjust; that it resulted from jurors’ fears of rioting. They fear that people of color will continue demanding to be policed as their white counterparts, which in their opinion is unreasonable, given their view of the criminality of black and brown people. For them Chauvin’s conviction is a threat to White Supremacy, and something should be done to squelch the fervency of demands for changes.

Like South Carolina’s Democratic Senator Benjamin “Pitchfork” Tillman, who in 1901

objected to President Roosevelt inviting the first African American, Booker T. Washington, to dine at the White House, they fear the conviction will unleash a torrent of demands for rights that are for whites only. Tillman said that the expectations growing out of a single African American having dinner at the White House meant that “we shall have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back in their places”. Today, the Tillmans of the country may be outnumbered.  The January 6^th insurrection, the rash of anti-voting rights laws, and continuing police killings of African Americans, suggest a number of Tillmans remain. 

I join the former group. Our numbers are growing as young Caucasians become aware of racial discrimination in policing. With the shifting demographics in the country, the fight continues with the wind at our backs!

Rob: The Playbook Fails

I watched the judge read the verdicts and

experienced some of the same thoughts and emotions  as my brother bloggers. I took in the cable news commentary (well, at least MSNBC and CNN). MSNBC’s Joy Reid expressed an observation about what happened in the courtroom that rang truest. I wish I could claim it as original with me, but it’s not, so I’ll give her credit. It best represents my thoughts about the impact of the verdicts.

Having practiced law for 34 years, mostly doing

litigation, and having tried dozens of cases myself, I never fault a lawyer for doing the best he or she can for their client. Every defendant enjoys the right to a vigorous defense by competent counsel.

Chauvin’s lawyer did what he could with what he had. He trotted out the defense police officers accused of killing black people usually offer – put the victim on trial, try showing the officer’s fear of the black suspect, blame the death or injury on a confluence of circumstances that exonerate the officer. The defense claimed George Floyd’s drug use and medical condition killed him, not Chauvin. Floyd, in the defense’s telling, could have risen from the pavement and overwhelmed the officers, the reason they kept holding him down. The nearby, supposedly menacing, crowd posed a threat that made aiding Mr. Floyd imprudent, even after he couldn’t breathe.

Supposedly menacing crowd witnessing death of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin

Beginning with the Rodney King case in 1992, we’ve often seen these tactics employed in trials of police officers accused of killing unarmed black people. Many times they worked, resulting in

acquittals by jurors reluctant to find against police officers.  The playbook failed this time, perhaps demonstrating it’s not infallible. Maybe it’s out of date. I think that’s potentially the verdict’s long-term significance.       

MOVING BASEBALL’S ALL-STAR GAME: THE DILEMMA OVER BOYCOTTS

When Major League Baseball pulled this year’s

All-Star game from Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s restrictive new voting law and moved it to Denver, the decision provoked a debate that divides both

defenders and opponents of the law. That debate pits those who see MLB’s decision, and potential boycotts by other corporate entities in Georgia, as a powerful tool in the fight for voting rights against those who lament the loss of income by black and

brown businesses and employees from events like the All-Star game.  MLB’s summer classic annually produces $84 million in economic activity. Cobb County, Georgia had expected $100 million in tourism revenue from the game.

 

The Rationale

Certainly, some saw MLB’s decision as an easy call. Those in that camp argue boycotts bring pressure on legislators who pass laws like the one in Georgia to undo the damage by repealing or modifying the measure. They point out the goal is getting decision makers to enact policies in the best

interest of the boycotters (or, in this case, black and brown citizens potentially disenfranchised by the election law). Sometimes, boycotts mostly serve the purpose of discouraging others from the behavior being protested. MLB’s move of the game, and potential action by other corporations, could dissuade other states from going down the same road (over 40 states have similar bills pending in their legislatures).

Advocates of actions like MLB’s argue boycotts represent a form of political warfare. Wars produce

casualties. Boycotters, as other warriors, do a cost benefit analysis about the value of what they might win in the war when compared with the likely losses. As Woodson reminds us, destroying public transportation wasn’t the goal of

the 1955 Montgomery bus boycotters; they just wanted better transportation services for African Americans in that city. Labor unions that utilize boycotts of a business in their organizing activities aren’t out to destroy the business, they just want better wages and/or working conditions for their members.   

 

The Other Side

Despite the force of these arguments, this debate has two sides. In the Georgia situation, opponents of moving the All-Star game note that small businesses and employees like stadium vendors and parking lot attendants will lose financial opportunities as a result of the game leaving Atlanta. Many, no doubt, are the very people who need the Georgia voting law repealed or modified, as it will impact their communities most.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a strong advocate

of the law, pushed this argument. Kemp said black and brown vendors who lose money this summer can blame Democrats, like President Joe Biden and his likely opponent in his race for re-election next year, former state Representative

Stacy Abrams. Kemp has hardly been a friend of black voters in Georgia, so his “support” of black businesses probably requires a sizeable grain of salt.

Abrams, however, is another matter. Despite expressing her “respect” for boycotts, Newsweek reported she tried to stop MLB from pulling the All-Star game from Atlanta. The magazine said she talked with a high MLB official and urged that the game remain there. She later issued a statement that said she didn’t want to see “Georgia families hurt by lost events and jobs.” Whatever political motivation Abrams might have had for coming down on the issue as she did, her action represented the thinking of some progressives as well as of conservatives.   

Corporate Dilemmas

The pressure on corporations to take a stand on issues like the Georgia voting rights law puts them

in several binds. First, they must consider the possibility of boycotts by progressives who oppose legislation like the Georgia bill. Coca-Cola, for example, certainly wouldn’t

enjoy a boycott of its products by blacks and browns who want the law repealed or changed. On the other hand, siding with opponents of the law risks alienating conservative supporters of such measures. Already Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has worn out the airwaves complaining about “woke corporations” that express support for progressive legislative actions.  

To some extent, corporations and their supporters in legislative and judicial halls, created this dilemma. They’ve argued, as the Supreme Court in effect said in the Citizens United case, that corporations are people too. If that’s the case, they’re subject to the same pressures as every other actor on the political stage, meaning they’re accountable for the disproportionate power they have in our society due to their wealth and political influence.  Boycotts may just become part of the cost of doing business.

 

A National Solution

Congress has under consideration the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a comprehensive bill  that

would fix many of the problems the Georgia law created and head off at the pass many measures now under consideration elsewhere.  Corporations could support a national voting rights standard, arguing that’s better for the country than the hodgepodge of laws we have now.

Abrams isn’t alone in opposing bills like the one in Georgia, while seeing the potential detriment to black and brown citizens who suffer economic harm as a result of well-meaning civic actions. The Georgia debate simply kicked off the fight over this issue. It’s thorny and implicates differing interests. It’s the kind of thing some see as easy. Others believe reasonable minds could reach different conclusions.  What’s your thought? 

                

                                                             

PAYING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE: THE COMING TAX FIGHT – WHO PAYS?

President Biden’s infrastructure plan comes with a hefty price tag -- about $2 trillion over

eight years. Biden calls it a “once in a lifetime investment in America.” The plan requires new tax revenue. When he rolled it out, the 27-page fact sheet the White House presented listed not just rebuilding roads, bridges, schools, upgrading housing, installing electric charging stations, developing mass transit, and providing redress for usually non-white neighborhoods divided by highways, it also included detailed tax proposals. Biden suggests paying primarily with higher corporate taxes.  

Battle lines formed quickly. Most Congressional Republicans voiced opposition, offering the usual argument that increasing taxes kills jobs. Some Democrats, like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, support smaller tax increases than Biden

wants. So, where does that put the president?

Bumping Up Corporate Taxes

So far, Biden has proposed only corporate tax changes, something to which most Americans

don’t object. Many didn’t get much benefit from the 2017 Trump tax cuts which favored corporations and the wealthy. Rolling them back seems popular. One survey showed support for the infrastructure plan increased when pollsters told respondents increasing corporate taxes was part of the plan.  

Trump’s cuts reduced the corporate tax rate from

35% to 21%. Few corporations, especially those with international operations, pay 21%.  Loopholes and incentive provisions allow many companies to whittle

what they actually pay to about eight

per cent. According to the White House, a “recent independent study found that 91 Fortune 500 companies paid $0 in federal corporate taxes in 2018.”  Biden would change that by, among other things:

*Setting the corporate rate at 28%;

*strengthening the Global Minimum Tax for U.S. Multinational Corporations, stopping American companies from claiming tax haven countries as their residence, though they have management and operations in the U.S., a process called “inversion;”

*eliminating intellectual property loopholes that

encourage U.S. companies to locate jobs abroad, a problem the Trump tax bill made worse by giving tax breaks for shifting assets offshore; and

*enacting a minimum tax on “book income,” profits large companies report to shareholders, while avoiding reporting those profits for tax purposes.

The Poor and the Middle Class

Biden apparently does not plan on taxing middle class and poor taxpayers. The poor

have been saddled with a federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour since 2009, a major factor in America’s income inequality. Since the 1980s the gap between the rich and everyone else has expanded significantly. As Thomas Piketty reported in Capital and

Ideology, between 1960 and 1980, the bottom 50% of earners claimed 20% of national income. Between 1980 and 2015, however, the bottom 50% dropped from 20% to 12%.  Meantime, the top 10% went from a little more than 10% of income earned to more than 20%. The public intuitively understands this, so Biden’s choice not to tax lower income groups to pay for infrastructure should remain popular.    

Public opinion, however, hasn’t translated into GOP support in Congress. Biden keeps talking with Republicans in the hope of peeling off a few of their votes. He still thinks the country needs a bipartisan approach to problems like infrastructure and the funding needed for paying for it. He says he would welcome input from Republicans on specific proposals. If one of them has a better idea, he’d like to hear it.

The GOP response has included tepid support

for a much smaller program. Republicans object to making climate change measures and such things as home care part of the package, saying that’s not really infrastructure. They’d focus only on roads, bridges, and other “traditional” infrastructure items. They contend paring the proposal down, maybe to $600-900 billion, would reduce or eliminate the need for most, if not all, the tax increases. That’s a dubious proposition but, so far, it’s all they’re suggesting.

Republicans likely will accuse Biden of fighting 

a class war on tax issues. We think he should argue it’s past time someone fought for poor and middle class taxpayers (those in the lower 50%) and that corporate America should pay its fair share. Many Americans believe they elected a president who would champion the poor and the middle class. The infrastructure plan offers Biden a good opportunity for proving he’s that president. 

2009 All Over?

To date, Biden’s team has resisted the Republican track, apparently having learned a lesson from the Obama-Biden experience in

2009. That new administration kept making concessions on the size of the recession rescue package, hoping that would garner Republican support.  Cut this or don’t do that, they said, and we might support you. ‘Might’ was the key word. No concessions satisfied Republicans and the plan passed with only Democratic votes.  Some warned the package was too small and

wouldn’t extricate the economy from the ditch it found itself in. Many economists blame the slow growth that followed on the failure of the administration to “Go Big.”  Biden’s people say they won’t make that mistake this time.

Americans, of course, generally don’t like tax increases. Will the current polling showing support for the infrastructure plan and the tax increases hold, especially after the fear campaign the GOP will likely run  when the

real debate begins? Who knows?  We hope Biden, while continuing his dedication to bipartisanship as a governing principle, will remember the lessons of 2009.  This country faces important issues at a perilous moment. Timidity does not seem in order.  

 

THE BIDEN INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN: LET THE BATTLE BEGIN

 

Elected officials have talked about it for years, but the Democratic-controlled Congress appears on the verge of tackling the country’s infrastructure problems.  President Biden unveiled a plan for

putting over $2 trillion into upgrading the nation’s crumbling bridges, roads, seaports, airports, transportation facilities, housing, broadband, power grid deficiencies, and school construction. Biden wants a good part of the money

allocated to clean energy projects, like  support for electrical vehicles, wind generated power, and solar energy.  He called his plan a “once-in-a-generation investment” in the United States.

 

A Festering Problem

Only the most uninformed would suggest the nation doesn’t have an infrastructure problem. The

problem developed over a long period, as the federal, state, and local governments neglected maintenance and replacement of facilities, especially transportation-related, built years ago. Donald Trump claimed he’d do something about the problem and promised numerous “infrastructure weeks” during his time in the White House. It never happened because (1)Trump cared

much more about tax cuts for the wealthy and (2) his only ideas about infrastructure involved tax credit schemes that would benefit his wealthy donors. He did not propose injecting significant government resources into real projects. Biden has a different idea.

Objective observers of the American socio-economic and political scene have been warning about dangers inherent in the failure to address this

problem for years. Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, in their acclaimed 2011 book, That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, wrote that living off our reputation produced a “dangerous complacency” that led to “the potholes, loose door handles, and protracted escalator outages of twenty-first century America.”

The issue goes beyond repairs. Infrastructure

spending, as economist Joseph Stiglitz points out, can stave off “recession in the short run while spurring growth in the long run.”  In other words, a plan like Biden’s could spur long term economic growth as well as repair crumbling infrastructure. Biden, in fact, calls his proposal The American Jobs Plan. 

The Plan

Biden’s proposal allocates almost $600 billion for transportation related projects, including $115 billion for road and bridge work, $80 billion for railways, and $85 billion on public transit.  The

plan proposes investing $174 billion in projects related to electric vehicle development. This means building charging stations, creation of better batteries, retooling factories, and providing incentives that encourage automakers to shift production from fossil fuel vehicles.

The plan also emphasizes people-related investment, like workforce innovation, pandemic preparedness, and domestic manufacturing assistance.  It proposes, for example, allocating $400 billion for community-based care for the elderly and people with disabilities. It would inject $180 billion into research and development, an area in which the United States once excelled but has fallen behind other nations, especially China.

 

The Politics

Without congressional approval the plan goes nowhere. Battle lines formed quickly after the

president unveiled his proposal. Republicans immediately voiced opposition.  They claimed the plan is too big, spends too much money, and most of all, they object to rolling back the Trump tax cuts, an essential element of how Biden would finance  the plan.

Trump’s tax cuts reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Biden proposes increasing the rate to 28%, which supposedly would raise $2

trillion dollars over ten years. Democrats were not all on board, at least not initially.  The price tag exceeded the preferences of a few and others didn’t think there was enough emphasis on certain things. Some, like

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, arguedthe plan isn’t big enough. She says the country needs a $10 trillion program over ten years.  Still, house Democrats said they hope they can pass the program during the summer. Things are dicey in the senate, where likely unified Republican opposition (already forecast by Mitch McConnell) could topple the plan when added to reluctance from a few conservative Democrats.

 

The Ideology

The fight is also ideological. On the one side are those who feel that government has a significant role to play in improving the quality of life for

Americans.  On the other side are those who want limited government and fear that if government is successful in a matter as important as infrastructure, there might be a “…kind of halo effect that links all forms of government activism…that we need public policies to reduce inequality…expand access to health care.”  See Paul Krugman’s 2021 book, Arguing With Zombies Economics, Politics, And The Fight For A Better Future.

Benefit/Detriment

The expected fight over the president’s plan sets up a classic benefit/detriment battle in which the combatants argue over what Americans want and need.   Advocates of the White House proposal will argue the United States simply can’t put off any longer doing something about the infrastructure problem. Things are going to hell in a handbasket (or already have). The needs are simply too great. In Houston, where one of us (Rob) lives, for example, five bridges along freeways are among the 250 most heavily-traveled, yet structurally deficient, bridges in the nation. Meantime, the

climate crisis continues as this winter’s storms demonstrated. Biden’s plan addresses that problem with an aggressive effort at promoting clean energy.

But, the opponents will argue government spending, and the tax increases needed to fund it, are not the way we should attack this.  While admitting the problem, they at least say they want a private, industry focused effort, perhaps with

limited public participation. Texas Congressman Kevin Brady, who was chairman of  the House Ways and Means Committee until Democrats took back the majority in 2018, argued that “Imposing $2 trillion taxes on U.S. job creators during recovery is a net loser for America.”

That’s the debate we’re certain to have. Hopefully

we can have it on the merits.