Reflections on Democratic county executive nominee Marc Elrich and likely successor to Isiah Leggett

   Update July 14, 2018 to include histories of Virginia car tax as a proxy for a local income tax.  More material also added about political populism (good government process) distracting from economic populist fiscal and budget policy of how income and property taxation are spent.


   Well, voters for Marc Elrich ‘won the most numbers’ (of votes) in the Montgomery County, MD Democratic primary for county executive. His voter base carried Marc Elrich to victory in the Democratic primary based on wanting to make the county executive, council and planning board more responsive to citizens not new home builders demonized as ‘developers.'  No, candidates like Marc Elrich are actually more accountable to citizens/civic associations.    


   Individual members of citizens/civic associations constantly deflect their own progressive exceptionalism (lack of economic populism) of maximizing personal aging in place/active adult home sale resale (or rental while waiting for a higher offer) profit, passed down to survivors after dying in place, by projecting their greed onto new housing builders ('developers') with the political populism of campaign finance reform.  Those citizens/civic associations (with a civic federation umbrella group) are 100% homeowner in membership earning high enough incomes to have much discretionary ‘time on their hands’ to build relationships with council and planning board members and staff as well as show up at hearings.  

   No, voters didn’t elect ‘more responsive’ government officials.  All voters did was make #MoCo less welcoming to anybody who earns less than the projected median income of about $145,000 per year by 2030 which would be the end of a hypothetical third term for Marc Elrich and any other council members elected in 2018.

   Note those 2017 signs residents put up when they were resisting ‘President’ Don Trump’s 2017 and 2018 increased deportations and Muslim (entry) travel bans in multiple languages that said

“No matter where you’re from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor,” well, those signs are half right.  “We don’t care where you’re from, we don’t care what you look like, all we care about is what your financial assets and income look like on a mortgage or rental application,” is what the signs should say.


   Again, addressing voters for any candidate other than George Leventhal or Rose Krasnow in the 2018 #MoCo Democratic primary, anyone who doesn’t expect to be earning $145,000 per year by 2028 or 2030 start house hunting or apartment hunting in other counties than MoCo if you want to stay in MD.  Or DC or right-to-work-for-less VA.  That hostile worker climate to create a ‘good business climate’ is why the wages are lower that correspondingly lowers the housing costs.  That local income tax voters pay in MD is replaced in VA by the same bill on the first $20,000 of car value as personal property tax.  So the tax costs of Md and Va. are kind of a ‘wash’ if one does move to VA.  The rate varies by county, like Maryland local income and property taxes, with a state offset that varies too that avoids recurring 'structural' state (commonwealth) of Virginia budget deficits.

       Political populism by rich 1%-er upwardly mobile professional/creative class (actually or aspirationally, by professional clothing, vocabulary and lifestyle choices) destroys economic populism that helps 99% (in actual wealth or lack thereof AKA working class and working poor) retain decent pay and living standard (including affordable, to even earners of 30% of area median incomes, housing distributed to all master plan areas) with an equitable share of productivity gains
 
paid, as net gains, to labor more than capital.


   Trust in executive and legislative branch fiscal policy decisions, on school and other public services, in Prince George’s county by supporters of 1978 TRIM (Tax Reform Initiative by Marylanders)


   10.    Under a new computation model that assesses value at 100 percent rather than at 40 percent, the tax cap became 96 cents per $100 of assessed value in 2001. It has stood, unchanged, ever since.
      
The current debate over TRIM mirrors those of the past. It’s a conversation about government spending, mistrust and keeping up with the neighbors, such as Montgomery and Fairfax counties. In an interview, former delegate [David] Bird, who now lives in Howard County, said he was chagrined to see Prince George’s cap in danger again: “It remains one of the few checks the public has on government. It would be a shame if you don’t let voters decide.” But to [Parris] Glendening and other elected officials [successor executives Jack Johnson and Rushern Baker] trying to balance Prince George’s annual budget, TRIM is one of many reasons the county struggled to make progress improving schools and attracting sought-after businesses.

and 1996 Truth In Taxation

Del. Joanne C. Benson (D-Dist. 24) of Landover was there in 1978 when a group of residents banded together at a meeting to pass TRIM.
"Research showed us that if we put this initiative in place, in 25 years we were going to see a devastating impact on public education and public safety, and that is exactly what has happened," Benson said.
She said those issues were set aside by longtime residents looking to curb funding for an influx of African-American students enrolling in county schools.
"That initiative was designed to slow down the amount of money allocated to educating children in a certain population," she said. "I was adamantly opposed."
The referendum passed, but came under attack in 1996 in a drive led by then-County Executive Wayne K. Curry (D). On Election Day, 80 percent of voters decided to leave TRIM in place.
Looking back, school board Vice Chairman Howard W. Stone Jr., who worked on the 1996 referendum for Curry, said it came down to trust.
"People have a problem with just giving government a blank check," Stone said.
With such a resounding majority unwilling to repeal the tax cap, some are considering modifying the law instead of repealing it by referendum.
"[TRIM] needs to be repealed," Stone said. "But modifying the tax cap might get more citizen support. I think people would be willing to support modifying TRIM if we earmarked the money specifically for education and public safety."
Prince George's County is not the only jurisdiction with property tax caps. California instituted caps around the same time as Prince George's, said Marie Howland, a professor of urban planning at University of Maryland, College Park, who has studied taxes for decades.
"California has had the same problems with their schools since they passed a real strict tax cap in the '70s," Howland said. "The problem with things like TRIM is that the quality of schools go down, which means the quality of the work force goes down, and the region becomes less competitive. ... It seems like a good idea in the short term, but in the long range, communities suffer.
"It's one of the reasons Prince George's is not as competitive as Howard County and Montgomery County," she said.



and Prince George's County Republican Party Central Committee litigants in 2017


Fred Price Jr. and James K. Wass believe the 4 cent increase in the county’s real estate tax rate approved in 2015 violated the county charter’s Tax Reform Initiative by Marylanders, or TRIM, because it happened without voter approval. Price had filed the lawsuit against Prince George’s County with fellow Republican Party Central Committee member Wass.

The lawsuit appeals to have the 2015 tax increase placed on the 2018 ballot as a referendum.

“And, hopefully, reversed,” Price said. “It ought to be rolled back and properly put before the voters.”
Although the suit was initially filed in September 2016, it was amended earlier this year and rulings on various motions have occurred in recent weeks.


“Because the court has rejected all of the motions to dismiss filed by the county, that tells me that we have a legitimate case on hand,” said Tamara Davis Brown of Prince George’s Tax Watch.


are the Prince George’s county local manifestation of Montgomery County’s Republican Robin Ficker-inspired CPI cap on property tax increases with regressively harder votes (7 of 9 until 2008 unanimous 9 member council vote) met in 2016 responded to with term limits to enforce an effective property tax rate and revenue cap.  The all-district council Montgomery County, Md ballot initiative Question C of 2004 served as another 'moderate' Republican (or 'politically independent' 'bipartisan' 'compromise') disruption of economic populism with political populism. 


   Thanks again Montgomery County, MD Democratic primary voters for making the county welcoming in all ways but economic class. Well not entirely.  We’ll have our ‘token’ low income population - whoever can wait 5-10 years for whatever HUD and HOC rent vouchers we’re willing to fund (and apartment landlords are willing to accept) to spend property and income taxes on as long as people can wait 5-10 years on the waiting list continuing to pay ‘free market’ housing costs. The housing ‘free market’ is rigged by variations on the same ‘as few new residents as possible while plausibly denying the nimby position’ expressed in terms like this


"other county needs, including the adequacy of schools, roads, transportation and green space, as well as environmental stewardship, safety, and care for our seniors,"

 theme at every Planning Board and County Council master, sector, project plan and subdivision staging (formerly known as growth) policy hearing since, and probably before, 2002.

Copiosis or No Physical Object Money/Net Benefitism same failed Reagan and Kemp Republican trickle-down/voodoo economics

  Copiosis may not be a scam, as its founder Perry Gruber denied here.

    Copiosis is, however, a rebranding of nopom.info or nopomstuff.info.  The latter 2 web sites promote the same new economic system based on the book by Larry K. Mason called "Invisible Hand."  


  In 2009 Democratic celebrations of the inauguration of President Barack Obama were interrupted by the 700,000 job losses per month result of the Sept 15, 2008 'wall street' secondary mortgage market and later sovereign wealth fund crashes requiring $800 billion in federal stimulus (American Renewal and Recovery Act ARRA recovery.gov) spending.  Austerity budgets to pay back private lenders to the EU central bank were most acute in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. USA-based Republican politicians returned to their role in the legislative minority (continuing to seek 'a way forward' in the next election cycle) as annual deficit and multiyear debt hawks supported by 'taxed enough already' TEA party rallies (later rebranded House Freedom caucus after the 2010 elections and 2011 state reapportionments following the decennial census).  Some of those reapportionments have been changed by court findings of illegal partisan gerrymandering.  Perry Gruber and Larry K Mason posted letters here promoting what seemed like a nonpartisan, centrist, alternative economic system.  


  As far back as 2006 Larry Mason's book "Invisible Hand" had been promoted here.  The second review, posted in 2006,


 By Lydia Glider-Shelley Dec 1, 2006
"Powerfully compelling. A must-read!" Last week I had the wistful experience of finishing one of the most thought-provoking pieces of literature I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Wistful because like any good book, you get to know the characters and are loath to bid them adieu. One can only hope this phenomenal writer will see fit to pen a sequel or perhaps some related short stories. On a par with Ayn Rand's monumental "Atlas Shrugged" without the long repetitive central speech that Ms. Rand felt it necessary to include in her work, "Invisible Hand" by Larry Mason suggests a viable solution to the problems plaguing America. Poverty, crime, drug addiction, health care, housing, nutrition... all of these are dealt with in a new type of society: one in which we are paid according to the net benefit of our actions. Basic food, clothing, shelter, medical care and certain other necessities such as education (at all levels) are "free" or no charge to people in this scenario... although there are still luxuries and private ownership available to those willing to work and earn them. Private ownership is changed, however as there is no longer joint ownership of anything. This and many more intriguing concepts are explored in this brilliant masterpiece, which I highly recommend. While you're at it, buy a few extra copies for your friends and family. Enjoy!

 compared "Invisible Hand" to Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand "without the long repetitive central speech[.]"



  A reviewer with a similar name posted the first of 2 reviews of "Invisible Hand" on Amazon in 2014. 


  Copiosis and nopomstuff.info (formerly nopom.info) are simply far- right economic views that overvalue individual freedom to make choices and delegitimize the role of a regulatory and administrative state to protect individuals from exactly the type of financial services industry fraud that only the state has the capacity to fix and prevent a recurrence.  The descriptions of copiosis and nopom.info (now nopomstuff.info) are simply earlier versions of gas-lighting and black knighting that only polarize political discourse further driving some people to avoid civic and political activism (including voting) entirely.  Some people alienated from electoral politics pursue other alternative systems and vote for third party candidates in both primary and general election cycles resulting in more far-right Republicans getting elected and reelected from 2010-2016.  The descriptions of @copiosis (twitter.com page) and nopomstuff.info in the comments comments here sound appealing by denying partisan motives and descriptions.  


   Demands for faster paces of change, to do more good for more people more quickly, to pass the laws and implement the regulations usually highlight the division such as whether to have free college or free public college tuition or whether to allow all individuals the choice to buy health insurance from Medicare or require all individuals to buy health insurance from Medicare with taxes replacing health insurance premiums.  Even the 2010 Dodd-Frank act that created the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) that has been gutted since the November 2017 change in director to Mick Mulvaney, in particular, was the subject of 'pace of change' arguments about how strongly to re-regulate banks.  Disputes of whether the Glass-Steagall act, repealed in 1999, should have been included continue to divide Democrats and suppress their base voter turnout.  Any new proposal that is marketed as 'nonpartisan' or 'neither left nor right' becomes attractive as people seek a 'new normal' amidst chaos on many issues while trying to 'keep a roof over individual heads' by 'paying bills' from 'any job' one can 'get hired for' and keep including multiple jobbettes or the 'sharing economy.'   


   Exaggerated individual freedom, disputed here, while limiting the role of government in the economy demonstrate another book based on "Atlas Shrugged" is more accurate based on the results of how most people experience, despite personal denials of harm and claims of personal resiliency in crises, the effects of the political and economic systems on their daily lives. 

Bipartisan proposal to improve public sector help with inclusion and social acceptance in nondisabled (temporarily able-bodied) society

  Republicans presume high self-motivation in all people with disabilities.  If a person with a disability is not self-motivated it’s an individual problem that Republican politicians don’t want to help pay to fix.  Republican-passed state, local and federal budgets don’t appropriate and authorize enough money to fund (examples from last 25 years)
  block grants,
vouchers,
 premium support (2018 outgoing Budget Committee chairman and House Speaker Paul Ryan medicare privatization attempt of 2011-2013),

‘money follows person’ meme to spend medicaid LTSS money in HCBS settings to end the ‘institutional bias’ to funding nursing homes (RTC)

and

'Ticket to Work' individual funding to 'Employment Networks' as job development funding for people with disabilities.

   The inadequate appropriated and authorized funding levels, in omnibus year-end funding bills to avoid government shutdowns (except Oct 2013 and Jan 2018) only give ongoing funding inadequately adjusted for inflation because of how inflation rates are calculated. 

  Democratic elected officials (demonized and delegitimized as ‘politicians’) are more willing to help pay to fix Independent Living problems people with disabilities live with and attempt to solve at savagely unequal rates of good life outcomes.  The ‘big data’ sampling and ‘number crunching’ to attack the basis for my conclusion of inequality starting when people are left ’on their own’ without government assistance is a change of subject.  Stick to the ‘big picture’ I am ‘using my words’ to ‘draw.’ 


  But Democratic budget appropriations and authorizations have regulations that, when enforced, can tend to be judgmental or paternalistic and don’t respect high self-motivation if the person with a disability has it.  Lack of respect for individual self-motivation results from a bureaucratic imperative to prevent ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ that fills IE group and campaign committee negative 'election season' ads, to replace the executive and legislative branch elected officials who appoint and confirm the supervisors of the civil servants, each election cycle.  Those confirmed supervisors hire the 'nonpolitical' civil service/public/government employees.  


  The ads can be posted online and shared between social media accounts to shift distribution costs from tv and radio purchases to paying 'digital' or 'social' media staff to purchase displays of ads from social media platform owners.  The social media platform owners and the campaign committee staff then identify real peoples’ social media accounts and target them with the algorithm-based ad purchases on social media web sites the targeted individuals receive free hosting from.  Individuals use social media to share parts of their lives more easily than remembering to email ‘everyone they know’ about ‘how they are doing’ at one ‘point in time’ usually the year-end holiday season.

  Republican politicians try to use low self-motivation as a reason to spend less tax dollars to help and blame individuals for their own problems if low self-motivation is an issue ‘holding someone back.” Combine Democratic Party adequate funding levels with Republican Party higher regard for individual initiative. 

ABLE Act of 2014 a bad precedent to follow as Social Security trust funds spend down

  Both parts of section 4 of the ABLE Act of 2014 are classist by favoring people who have more economic wealth at the time an ABLE Account is started and funded as well as ongoing continued private deposits made by relatives and friends of the beneficiary with a disability.


  Section 4 part a of both S. 313 and HR 647,

 SEC. 4. TREATMENT OF ABLE ACCOUNTS UNDER CERTAIN FEDERAL PROGRAMS.

    (a) Account Funds Disregarded for Purposes of Certain Other Means-
Tested Federal Programs.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
Federal law that requires consideration of 1 or more financial
circumstances of an individual, for the purpose of determining
eligibility to receive, or the amount of, any assistance or benefit
authorized by such provision to be provided to or for the benefit of
such individual, any amount (including earnings thereon) in any ABLE
account (as defined in section 529(f) of the Internal Revenue Code of
1986) of such individual, and any distribution for qualified disability
expenses (as defined in paragraph (3) of such section) shall be
disregarded for such purpose with respect to any period during which
such individual maintains, makes contributions to, or receives
distributions from such ABLE account, except that, in the case of the
supplemental security income program under title XVI of the Social
Security Act, a distribution for housing expenses (as defined in
subparagraph (B)(ii) of such paragraph) shall not be so disregarded,
and in the case of such program, only the 1st $100,000 of the amount
(including such earnings) in such ABLE account shall be so disregarded.

 regarding the $100,000 exclusion for housing expenses is unrealistically low regarding cost of buying housing for person with a disability but realistic as an annual distribution to a checking account for monthly rent payments, for living alone without roommates, in a community setting in most cities and suburbs with adequate service provider communities (or enough other people with disabilities to operate consumer-survivor/peer support/self-advocacy organizations.  With varying degrees of effectiveness, peer support/consumer-survivor/self-advocacy organizations ’fill in gaps' in public/private (bid-down-payroll ‘bdp’) services.  Privatization of public services is mostly about using the competitive bidding process to lower payroll to people actually doing the work in benefit costs and/or pay for their time in salary or wages.  That is why I refer to privately delivered, publicly contracted public services as ‘bid down payroll’ or ‘bdp.’ 


  Section 4 part b


SEC. 4. TREATMENT OF ABLE ACCOUNTS UNDER CERTAIN FEDERAL PROGRAMS.

(b) Suspension of SSI Benefits During Periods of Excessive Account
Funds.--
            (1) In general.--The benefits of an individual under the
        supplemental security income program under title XVI of the
        Social Security Act shall not be terminated, but shall be
        suspended, by reason of excess resources of the individual
        attributable to an amount in the ABLE account (as defined in
        section 529(f) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) of the
        individual not disregarded under subsection (a) of this
        section.
            (2) No impact on medicaid eligibility.--An individual who
        would be receiving payment of such supplemental security income
        benefits but for the application of the previous sentence shall
        be treated for purposes of title XIX of the Social Security Act
        as if the individual continued to be receiving payment of such
        benefits.












of both S.313 and HR 647, regarding suspending SSI payments, if ABLE Accounts have an excess over SSI asset limits is, in practical effect, a privatization of SSI to those individuals with a disability who are from upper income class top 1% income levels. At the very least ABLE Act is a privatization (or wealth-enabled opt-out) of SSI to individuals with a disability for people who identify economically as above working class such as upper middle class or middle class.   Money deposited into accounts is discretionary income for sole purposes of income support for relatives who are a person with a disability.  People funding the ABLE Accounts earning minimum wage or 200% of minimum wage (higher if Cost of Living in primary residence area is higher than national average COL) will not be ABLE to afford as much in contributions. 


  Because not all families and friends of every SSI beneficiary are equally able to contribute to accounts that provide a more decent living standard the ABLE Act represents neoliberal, incremental social security system privatization in the same way 75 year advance pension funding in USPS Postal Reform act of 2006 was used to incrementally delegitimize defined benefit pensions in favor of defined contribution retirement accounts.  The ABLE Act as a new way to help people ‘graded’ as the most vulnerable, as a manifestation of an ‘oppression Olympics/severity contest’ to justify inadequate levels of spending in the appropriation and authorization budget process, people with intellectual disabilities.  People with behavioral (mental illness) or developmental disabilities without intellectual disability are left out in the population served by the ABLE Act unless they can qualify for SSI.    Gradually lower incomes over time resulting from the share of income to the richest rising (productivity gains less equally shared between workers and owners) lowers the amount of total income at an individual level and corresponding ability to contribute to ABLE Account.  The social problem of income support is treated as an individual problem to reduce at least short term social costs as stated in the interview granted by Helaine Olen to promote her book Pound Foolish.  


   A better public policy choice is to ‘#scrapthecap' as Social Security Works is part of a coalition demanding to strengthen social security, medicare and medicaid.  As a real compromise between progressives and neoliberals and neoconfederate ‘taxed enough already’/‘freedom caucus’ Republicans incrementally raise the cap on income subject to FICA taxes by the 2011 term 'grand bargain,' or chained CPI, instead of raising the monthly benefit amount by a lower amount annually.  Use the 'chained CPI' inflation rate to restrain the FICA income tax cap rate of increase on taxpayers not to restrain the growth of spending on Social Security Act beneficiaries who need the income they cannot earn by other means, demonstrated by SSI means testing and SSDI disability qualifications as well as people being entitled to receive benefits after paying into system while working, to an adequate extent to pay their bills. 

Democratic Party winning candidates serve the disabled and disability communities better than Republican incumbents

    Primary elections try to push candidates to be better supporters of policies that help segments of the electoral base of a political party.  Candidates adjust their positions slightly if they think that will win more votes from the affected segment, and allies of the affected segment, of the electoral base.  

  General elections should be about electing the primary election winners who would do the least harm, if not the most good, for the issue (or identity) politics communities.  

  From a long term perspective of multiple primary and general election cycles, Democratic Party general election candidates fight for and have created better policies, implementing laws, for the community of people with disabilities and their temporarily-able-bodied friends and families.  

Here's how.  



  Republicans help #PwDs with one hand and slit the throats of people with disabilities (#PwDs) with the other. Republican Pres. Richard Nixon helped by watering down calls for a universal basic income by creating SSI (Supplemental Security Income) with means tests that force beneficiaries into deeper poverty.  Later Republicans created private (ABLE Act of 2014) accounts that suspend, rather than terminate, SSI benefits until account assets are ‘spent down.’  It is a legislative precedent that should not be repeated as Social Security and Medicare trust funds are ‘spent down.’  Democrats went along with the ABLE act because they were in the minority and individual elected officials (politicians) represented states or districts of states that were relatively less progressive economically if not socially.  Raising the FICA cap by greater amounts each year, with a goal of scrapping the cap entirely, is a better long term policy outcome.  

 Republican Pres. George H.W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, after winning a 1988 election campaign that featured a racist ad, about a failure of prison furlough judgment by the MA prison system, when Bush’s opponent was governor of MA. The producer of the ad, Citizens United, was the same organization that ended limits on spending by IE groups by 2010.

  More mass incarceration and punishment, rather than correction of criminal behavior that is implied in the name of most jails and prisons (Correctional Institution/Institute/Facility) and their supervising state and local departments (of Correctional Services), resulted.  Republican lawyers for thug corporations sued to raise and shift costs of individual enforcement to the harmed individuals.
The ADA amendments act of 2008 corrected for some of the bad court decisions.  


  HR 620 in the 2017-18 Congress is reversing both the ADA and the 2008 amendments act. 

People with the disability of autism (who call themselves autistics in a rejection of person-first language because of a belief autism cannot be separated from the person as an additional resistance to medical models of disability) have started identifying as LGBTQ first and autistic second, and conflate neurodiversity with diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and public expression of gender identity,  to achieve faster individual inclusion at less monetary and time cost to the individual, in the absence of a regulatory and administrative state, to do more good for more people more quickly.  The pace of positive social change still remains less equal for autistics who can’t ‘pick a state or local, in the absence of federal protected class recognition, civil rights law-defined protected class’ because they don’t identify with as many marginalized ‘identity politics’ communities that are simply crowd-sourced civil rights law protected classes.

Marc Elrich carries 2005 paper ideas into 2018 campaign remember in November (June)

Update June 17, 2018 link to full paper by Neighbors for a 'better' (rising median income) Montgomery Jim Humphrey. Humphrey co-opts rhetoric as a 'steady state' and 'optimum scale' 'environmentalist' to serve the purposes of housing resale market supremacy with profits for current homeowners only not new home builders ('developers') with higher percentages of MPDUs to house everyone on wait list without displacement to other counties.

 This tweet crossed my 'mobile device' (cell phone) screen.


I replied one time here


and here.


The third reply I posted showed that Marc Elrich had built enough of a relationship with "Where are the Brakes?" paper author Jim Humphrey that he appeared on the same stage for a photo opp(ortunity) to present an award to their mutual friend Wayne Goldstein who died in 2009.  

Not only was the civic activism relationship close but the 2018 statement "I prefer to put jobs in Frederick" reveals agreement with the "steady state" or "optimum scale" population growth control paradigm Jim Humphrey expressed in 2005.  That view has led to displacement of people to Frederick in the first place mostly by wealth and income class because people cannot afford the same living standard in Montgomery County.  

Only turnover in voting population between 2005 and 2018, as well as short memories among voters who turn out to vote, prevent the class segregation and displacement from costing Marc Elrich votes in the June 26, 2018 primary with early voting June 14-21, 2018.    


 

 
https://twitter.com/Nyr194/status/1002135109313679361
https://twitter.com/alpert/status/1001905170966614016