Blogs: Eric Lotke

Gallup gets it wrong

Eric Lotke — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:45:29 -0400

A brand new Gallup poll reports:

“Americans prioritize protecting the environment over economic growth by 49% to 42% -- but this seven-point margin is near the low of the past couple of decades.”

This simple, perhaps disappointing poll, hides as much as it reveals.

First, the good news. Even in this time of economic stress, people are willing to swap economic growth for environmental protection. They are worried about the environment and they would sacrifice to protect it.

Second and even more important is the false choice hidden in Gallup’s poll. The question asked whether “protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth (or) economic growth should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.” [Order rotated].

Gallup is asking a wrong question, falling into the conservative ideological trap that we must choose one or the other. We do not need to sacrifice economic growth to protect the environment. They go hand in hand. The Apollo Alliance, for example, maps out a strategy to create next-generation jobs in a green economy. Apollo advises $30 billion a year in targeted public investment to create 3 million green-collar jobs, paid for by repealing oil company subsidies.

The people already know this. A survey of voters by Democracy Corps revealed that nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) want to “act immediately” on global warming. Nearly three out of four voters (74%) want to “move from oil to alternative fuels for our vehicles because it will cause less pollution, stop global warming and make us more energy independent.”

Given a choice, people even reject Gallup’s false choice. By an overwhelming margin (79% to 17%) voters surveyed by Democracy Corps believe that “shifting to new, alternative energy production will help America’s economy and create jobs, not cost Americans jobs.”

Van Jones said it clearly in our Take Back America conference last week. The path to energy security and a cleaner environment goes through wind farms and solar cells. These need to be built. “Thousands of contracts, millions of jobs.”

That’s where people want to go. Maybe our leaders will finally take us there. And next time, maybe Gallup will ask a better question.

Conservatism Is Dying

Eric Lotke — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:48:11 -0400

Modern conservatism is dying. There’s still an election to be held, but conservatism as we’ve known it since Ronald Reagan is failing—ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans—“small government, low taxes, high security”—the American people are living the consequences.

We’ve seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say “shrink government.” We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say “deregulate,” and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say “low taxes,” but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

What follows is a history of these problems, and the direction people want to go instead.

Appealing slogans, disastrous results

The conservative shibboleth—“small government, low taxes, high security”—has timeless appeal, founded on genuine moral and constitutional values. But the application of those values by today's conservatives is frightening.

Shrinking Government

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
—Ronald Reagan, First inaugural address, January 1981.
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
—Grover Norquist, Executive Director, Americans for Tax Reform.

The modern conservative movement is united less by belief in small government—a traditional constitutional value—than by disdain for government. They don’t just want to shrink it. They want to drown it in a bathtub. Such disdain courts exactly the kind of disasters we got.

Hurricane Katrina. A shrunken government failed in fundamental responsibilities when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Crucial levees had been left to rot and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been “systematically downgraded and all but dismantled.” Reconstruction remains a forgotten promise.

Decaying Infrastructure. While government shrinks, America falls apart. A highway bridge collapses in Minneapolis and a steam pipe bursts in Manhattan. One out of four bridges is “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Commuters waste hours in gridlock. School roofs leak and children share textbooks. State colleges raise tuition at three times the rate of inflation as states cut back public support. “Starve the beast,” conservatives say. But what they really starve are the triumphs of previous generations and investments vital to our future.

Free Market Faith

"The best minds are not in government; if they were, business would steal them away."
—Ronald Reagan
“The average Halliburton hand knows more about the world than the average member of Congress.”
—Vice President Dick Cheney

Conservatives disdain government but they revere the private sector. They think that government involvement in private enterprise is bad, and that everything done for profit will be done well. Conservatives seem to forget that the purpose of profit is profit. Business interests might well line up with the interests of government and taxpayers, but they might not. At those moments, government is supposed to be on the side of the people. That push and pull makes the system work; a one-sided system works for no one.

Enron and Friends. Deregulation of electricity led to the Enron fiasco. Without government supervision, Enron artificially limited the power supply in California and drove up prices. The ompact of the ensuing inflation of Enron stock value with no real economic basis is best understood by Enron employees who lost their pensions when the company went bankrupt. But Enron was not alone. Worldcom, Adelphia and hosts of other business debacles prove that markets need grown-up supervision.

The Housing Bubble. Failed regulation of the financial sector brought us the housing bubble. It became rare for banks and other mortgage issuers to hold mortgages, so they no longer cared whether the borrower could pay the mortgage. Instead, these companies made their money from the fees they charged the borrowers and quickly sold the mortages into the secondary market. They loans were then packaged into mortgage-backed securities, which were in turn packaged into "collaterized debt obligations" and other complex assets that were sold around the world to investors, many of whom had no idea what they were buying. This new finance structure, in which those who put up the money had no knowledge of the value of the underlying asset, pushed up home values beyond the reach of ordinary buyers. In response, homebuyers turned increasingly to risky instruments that created artificial money to buy houses at artificially high prices—until the bubble finally burst.

Consumer Safety. Deregulation of consumer products led to e-coli in our spinach, salmonella in our peanut butter and lead in our Barbie dolls. Agricultural inspectors sat on the sidelines while forklifts carried “downer cows”—who cannot walk and are presumptively unsafe for human consumption—for slaughter and sale as food.

Halliburton. The vice president's firm receives billions in no-bid contracts, despite marginal and often inadequate performance Most recently, a unit spun off from Halliburton provided water to military bases in Iraq that sickens troops.

Lower Taxes.

"Low taxes" as practiced under conservative rule is less about minimizing the tax burden on working people than about budget gimmickry that rewards friends and conceals deficits.

The biggest break for the richest people. Millionaires got an average $118,000 annual break from the Bush tax cuts, while average middle-income households got only $740. Billionaire money manager Warren Buffett points out that he pays taxes at a lower rate than his receptionist (and he would willingly change).

Subsidizing record profits. Oil companies pocket billions in subsidies and tax breaks while racking up the largest profits in corporate history. Corporations get tax breaks for moving jobs abroad.

Moral Values

The moral values crusade has turned morality into a burlesque. Conservative leaders are obsessed with abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research—issues that divide and confuse. They don’t care enough about the morals we learned in kindergarten. Share. Wait your turn. Treat others as you want to be treated yourself.

And conservatism entirely misses the big picture. It doesn't see the greed and materialism tearing us apart. It doesn't see poverty and economic injustice, or refugees fleeing genocide. It doesn't care for the green Earth that earlier generations protected in national parks.

Terri Schiavo. Conservatives put her family through hell before honoring her husband’s request to remove life support. Blinded by faith, conservatives cast aside honored principles of small government and states’ rights.

Choice. Conservatives seek to deny women the right to decide whether to have a child on her own. They don’t seem to care about the women’s own decision, the risk to her health or the child’s well-being after birth. And they insist on teaching only abstinence during sex education in schools, though a mixed curriculum shows better results. Abortion-obsessed conservatives even force their morals onto foreign policy by denying U.S. government aid to organizations in countries that allow abortion in addition to contraception, family planning or other health programs.

High Security

Cowboy-booted conservatives constantly tell us how much danger we’re in and how much we need them to keep us safe. From crime to drugs to terrorism, conservatives wear the security mantle. Meanwhile, they ignore real risks, dismiss success stories and stir up hornets nests all over the world.

Iraq. Conservatives chose to invade Iraq on trumped-up charges of weapons of mass destruction. Now oil prices have skyrocketed, Baghdad has become a recruiting ground for jihadists, we’re bankrupting ourselves, and American standing has never been lower in the world.

**Slogans Have Consequences**

They Say …	We get…

Shrink Government --	The drowning of New Orleans
	Collapsing bridges
	Higher state college tuition
	Stuck in traffic …

Deregulation --	Housing bubbles
	E-coli spinach
	Toxic toys
	Enron economics …

Low taxes --	Higher tax rates than billionaires
	Oil company subsidies for record profits…

Moral values --	Terry Schiavo, yes
	Stem cell research, no…

High security --	Iraq…

Conservative Policies: Not what people want

Behind the high-level principles lay specific policies. Here again, conservative choices diverge from policies people want. Here are some polls about some signature policies.

Health Care

Health care reform is a top priority for America’s voters. A Gallup survey in November 2007 revealed 81 percent of Americans are “dissatisfied” with health care in this country, with 56 percent saying the health care system “has major problems.” Health care routinely appears at the top of voter concerns, mixed in with Iraq and the economy, depending on the exact question.

When asked how to deal with health care problems, people do not respond from a conservative position. They don’t talk about getting government out of the way or promoting individual responsibility. Quite the contrary, Gallup’s survey showed an overwhelming belief that it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage (64 percent to 33 percent). A Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters in October 2007 showed that voters care more about covering the uninsured than keeping costs down (53 percent to 41 percent), even though most voters (94 percent) are insured. People want our government to be involved, not to shrink.

A survey by CBS News and the New York Times went one step further, asking people not only if they want the federal government to guarantee health insurance for all Americans (64 percent yes vs. 27 percent no), but whether they would be willing to pay extra for it. Even with money on the line, people wanted expanded health care. Four times as many people thought the government should “guarantee health insurance” even if “the cost of your own health insurance would go up” (48 percent vs. 11 percent). Similarly, four times as many people said it was more important to expand access to health care than maintain the Bush tax cuts (76 percent vs. 18 percent).

Energy

Americans are tired of rising fuel prices, but they want more than just cheaper gas. They are deeply dissatisfied with the status quo, and they want an entirely new energy policy. Democracy Corps’ survey of voters in April 2007 found 65 percent say our energy policy is “seriously off on the wrong track,” compared to just 27 percent who say it’s “headed in the right direction.” A survey by CBS News and the New York Times in April 2007 revealed 63 percent disapproval of George Bush’s “handling of the energy situation,” and only 27 percent approval.

In addition to disapproving of current policy choices, Americans are pointing where they want to go. Surveys by Gallup and CBS News indicate a higher priority on conservation than production (Gallup, 64 percent to 26 percent; CBS, 68 percent to 21 percent). The Democracy Corps survey of voters shows they want to “act immediately” on global warming (64 percent). Nearly three out of four voters (74 percent) want to “move from oil to alternative fuels for our vehicles because it will cause less pollution, stop global warming and make us more energy independent.”

Most tellingly, Americans do not view alternative energy as a threat. By an overwhelming margin (79 percent to 17 percent) voters surveyed by Democracy Corps believe that “shifting to new, alternative energy production will help America’s economy and create jobs, not cost Americans jobs.” Even if there were costs, people are willing to pay them. The CBS News/New York Times survey showed that 64 percent of Americans are “willing to pay higher taxes on gasoline and other fuels if the money was used for research into renewable sources like solar and wind energy.” Fully three out of every four (75 percent) Americans would be “willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like solar or wind energy” in order to reduce global warming.

Taxes

Nobody likes to pay taxes, but the conservatives have manipulated that sentiment for political gain despite real world consequences, and people are starting to catch on. A January 2008 Wall Street Journal survey of adults shows more saying the Bush tax cuts were “not worth it” than “worth it” (45 percent to 42 percent). Democracy Corp’s poll of likely voters in December 2007 reveals more frustration that taxes are “unfair” (56 percent) than that they are “too high” (39 percent). Tax cuts provide less a sense of relief than an indication of which side the government is on—and people don’t like what they see. The biggest tax problems were loopholes and inequality. These troubled likely voters twice as much as high payments, even in Republican districts (51 percent vs. 24 percent).

The Bottom Line: A Dying Ideology

These surveys show that conservative policies diverge considerably from public opinion. Although it’s possible to win elections under such circumstances, it does not bode well for the health of a mass political movement.

Indeed, John McCain’s presidential campaign indicates the weakness of the conservative estate. Sometimes McCain brands himself as a "true conservative," but he's famous for being a maverick, an independent who bucks the conservative party line—and thus many "movement conservatives" have not rallied to his candidacy. Other candidates who proudly declared themselves conservative in recent months have not survived primaries or special elections. The March special election victory of progressive Democrat Bill Foster in the Illinois district that had been held by the fiercely conservative former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is a particularly dramatic example. That doesn’t mean Democrats will win in November—personalities, trust, personal attacks and get-out-the-vote efforts certainly matter—but conservatism is far from alive and well.

Moderation Takes on Radical Conservatism (and Loses)

Eric Lotke — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:58:27 -0500

Today's New York Times worries "That the Good Times Were Mostly a Mirage."

The chair of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, gave our (former) prosperity and stability a name. He called it “the great moderation.”

But radical conservatives mounted a multi-decade campaign against that moderation. They removed regulations, shrunk the divide between government and business, and denied that markets need grown-up supervision. Electricy deregulation brought us the Enron scam. Oil subsidies disadvantage competition for alternative energy. Banking deregulation brought us the subprime crisis.

Now Bernanke has intervened in his own way in the markets and the President is finally talking about stimulus. The challenge ahead is to turn the corner for real, and to admit that government actually has a positive role to play in the economy.

The Cost of College: A Win for the Good Guys

Eric Lotke — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:17:05 -0400

What a difference a year makes. The Republican-controlled 109th Congress doubled student interest rates and cut $12 billion out of student aid.

The new Democratic 110th Congress has cut the student interest rates and put $20 billion into aid programs. The money comes directly out of the banks' pockets and into the pockets of students and working families.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats get credit, to be sure. College affordability was one of the "Six in '06" campaign promises, and Pelosi hit it out of the ballpark. Representative George Miller, D-Calif., was a hero, and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy worked hard in the other chamber.

But real credit goes to the progressive community. The Campaign for College Affordability banded together to drive for reform. Members such as U.S. PIRG, the United States Student Association, Campus Progress and the Campaign for America's Future provided tactical intelligence and public support. They gave the members the cover they needed to overcome veto threats without watering down the legislation.

My past blog post discussed the payola for the banks, and our report and web page show how college is soaring out of reach (from 2000 to 2006, household incomes went down 2 percent while tuition went up 37 percent). Here I want to summarize the new legislation.

• Pell Grant Increase: Increases the Pell Grant over the next five years from $4,050 to $5,400; with an initial increase of $490 for this upcoming school year.

• Lender Subsidies: Takes over $20 billion dollars away from private lender subsidies and reasserts that money into increased student aid programs.

• Subsidized Stafford Loans: Reduces the interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans by half, starting on July 1, (from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent) over four years; these loans to go students who demonstrate financial need.

• Loan Repayment and Forgiveness:
Starting July 1, 2009, borrowers would not have to devote more than 15 percent of their discretionary income to repaying Stafford student loans. After 25 years, all borrowers who are in this income-based repayment program will have any remaining balances forgiven.

• Teacher Tuition Assistance:
Undergraduate and graduate students who commit to teaching certain subjects, such as science and math, in low-income public schools for at least four years can receive up to $4,000 per year - for a total of $16,000 - in tuition assistance.

• Loan Forgiveness:
Borrowers who work in other public-sector jobs such as the military, law enforcement, firefighting, nursing, public defenders, librarians and early childhood teachers can have any balance on their student loans forgiven after 10 years of service and loan repayment.

This bill shows what can happen when progressives stand together and refuse to back down. May this strength be a harbinger of things to come.

The Cost of College: Relief is in Sight

Eric Lotke — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:38:06 -0400

At last we get a little good news. The new Congress is presenting to the President a package of legislation designed to help working families afford the skyrocketing cost of college. He’s threatened to veto it but we’ll get to that later. Start with the good news.

Help is needed

• Last week’s Census data showed that median household incomes fell 2 percent between 2000 and 2006.

• The National Center on Education Statistics shows that public college tuition rose 37 percent over the same period. (The details are in our latest college affordability report.)

The stats show why families are scrambling so hard for college. Use our spreadsheet to push the numbers around to your heart’s content. My favorite finding: The cost of private college is 57 percent of a median household income. That means that if a family with two children wants to send both kids to private college, it costs 114 percent of the household income – leaving less than nothing food, clothes, medicine or the roof that makes it a "household."

The last Congress hit students hard

The 109th Congress hit students hard. They raised interest rates on student loans and cut funding for grant programs. As we have documented in prior reports, they seemed to prefer banks to students.

• The behemoth Sallie Mae Corporation, manager of $123 billion in student loans, contributed $2.8 million to political campaigns between 1994 and 2006, two-thirds to Republicans.

• Sallie Mae’s profits nearly tripled from 2000 to 2006, from $500 million to $1.4 billion.

• A digression: The whole notion of Sallie Mae is obsolete. It was created in the 1970s by a government concerned to help children finance their educations. At that time, students looked like poor financial risks. Young in age, with little credit history and few personal assets, they were not attractive candidates for private-sector lending – certainly not for the large sums needed to finance a college education.

The federal government helped solve the problem by creating incentives for banks to lend. The Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) guaranteed lenders a higher interest rate than the base market rate, ensuring a healthy profit on monies loaned. On top of that, the government guaranteed payment of principle and interest in case of default. For the banks, it was a win-win proposition: higher interest rates with no real risk. The Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) was created to manage the money.

Now the market is mature. Well-educated, high-earning college graduates have proven to be excellent credit risks, and student lending has grown into a highly profitable industry that starts $85 billion in new loans every year. Sallie Mae spun off from the government and privatized. Formally registered as SLM Corp., Sallie Mae has one of the highest returns on revenue in the Fortune 500.

But the government still subsidizes the interest rate and guarantees against default. No wonder Sallie is so happy.

The new Congress asserts itself

The 110th Congress is about to send some changes to the President. The higher education package centered around HR 2669 and S.1642 makes these changes over the next five years (starting this October 1):

• Cuts interest rates on subsidized student loans in half, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent.

• Increases the maximum Pell grant by $1,090

• Forgives debts for students who work in the public sector for ten years

• Caps payments at 15 percent of discretionary income

• Reduces the “special allowance payment” – the obsolete and unnecessary (forgive me) incentive the federal government pays banks to lend to students.

The bill has many provisions that students have been asking for and banks have been fighting against. Many Republicans who voted to cut grants and increase interest rates in the 109th Congress have changed their positions and voted with the new majority.

The President has promised to veto this bill … though it passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities, and tampering in conference committee might give him room to agree.

This is one of the first, direct challenges of the new Congress to the president. If he vetoes it, he’s really on his own. If he signs it, it might give the new majority the gumption to challenge him on other issues.

Working through the Obstruction on Labor Day

Eric Lotke — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:05:09 -0400

It’s Labor Day and Congress is coming back into session. Time to step back to see where things stand, and what Congress can do about it.

Start with the state of working America. It’s Labor Day after all, a holiday earned by organized labor and dedicated to working people. The Census Bureau just published new figures for 2006 that explain why working people feel so stressed. Productivity continues to rise and corporate profits along with it. But working people aren’t sharing the gains.

• Poverty ticked down a hair last year. That’s good news but it’s the first decline on President Bush’s watch. Poverty rates are higher than when he took office(12.3% in 2006, up from 11.3% in 2000).

• The number of people without health insurance continues to rise, up to 15.8% last year. 47 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2006, an increase of 8 million since Bush took office.

• Median annual earnings for full-time, year-round workers fell last year, the third year in a row. The White House prefers to point to the rosier “household income” figure, which did creep up 0.7% ($360) last year. But don’t fall for it. Household income is down $956 since 2000. It rose that hair last year because more household members are working, and for longer hours. But they are getting paid less for their work. There’s no getting around the math.

• The trend to re-classify full-time workers as “independent contractors” continues to rise. Although the same work is done by the same people, contracting it out allows employers to dodge the minimum wage increase and terminate benefits that accrue only to “employees.” Reclassification also lets them avoid payroll taxes, a dodge that creates an invisible subsidy to corporate America in the range of $3 billion.

• The only good news is at the top of the economy. Between 2000 and 2006, the average income of the lowest fifth dropped 4.5% and the middle fifth dropped 2.5%. But the income of the top fifth increased by 1%. Not only is that good news at the top, but averaging them into the nation as a whole increases the national average, and helps to create the illusion of good news. After all, Bill Gates and I have an “average” income in the billions.

So the wages and earnings are basically flat, with a slightly downward tilt. It hurts because ordinary household expenses continue to rise. Working Americans feel the statistics when they pay the bills.

• Since 2000, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance for families have skyrocketed. The average monthly worker contribution for family coverage in 2000 was $135. In 2000, it increased to $248 (up 84%)

• Tuition and fees at public colleges went up 37% between 2000 and 2006.

• Gas prices have doubled since 2000. The price of home heating oil increased by 50%.

Fortunately, the political situation seems to be improving. Conservative obstructionism is reaching its limits. The Employee Free Choice Act received a majority vote in both houses of Congress. But for the filibuster threat that requires 60 votes to get out of the Senate, it would have been presented to the President.

• The Employee Free Choice Act simplifies the procedures by which members of a workplace can organize for collective bargaining. It is designed to reduce harassment, intimidation and procedural obstacles used by employers when members of their work force seek to unionize. The combination of veto threat and filibuster defeated it in the 110th Congress, but supporters plan to return.

Unionization and collective bargaining are clearly associated with higher wages and better benefits. Without organized labor, we might not have Monday off. And politicians who are friendly to organized labor tend also to support progressive causes ranging from choice to the environment.

• The College Cost Reduction Act passed both chambers of the new Democratic controlled Congress. It cuts the interest rates on subsidized student loans in half, and increases funding such as Pell grants. It reverses the damage done by the previous Congress and will soon be presented to the President … though he has promised to veto it.

Stay tuned. September will be interesting.

Arbitrary Justice, Hidden Truth

Eric Lotke — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:23:02 -0400

Purely by chance, I was in the middle of reading Katharine Graham’s autobiography when President Bush commuted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s sentence.

I had just reached the part where Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post during the Watergate era, was despairing as the trail grew cold. The Post had published a connection between the Watergate burglary and the Nixon re-election campaign, but crucial connections continued to elude them. Graham worried whether her paper could conclusively prove all of the claims.

The conviction of the Watergate burglars changed everything. James McCord had been sentenced to prison, but before the gates clanged shut he offered to trade information for leniency. The case broke open. “What a relief,” Graham wrote 20 years later.

Today the American people may be denied that relief. Scooter Libby will never face hard time. He will never experience the incentive that broke the Watergate crew. President Bush commuted the prison portion of Libby’s sentence, leaving only a fine easily within reach of his politically organized legal defense fund. We may never learn the connection between Libby, his White House bosses, and the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Many people suspect the White House manipulated intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war. The suspicions just got harder to prove.

President Bush may have commuted more than Libby’s sentence for obstruction of justice. Bush may have obstructed justice on his own.

The thinness of President Bush’s reason for the commutation makes it look even murkier. The sentence was “excessive,” he said when he issued his commutation, and the stigma is profound; his “wife and young children have also suffered immensely,” he said.

As a former defense attorney, such reasoning is music to my ears. U.S. prison terms are often “excessive,” especially for nonviolent crimes. Many a girlfriend has been prosecuted for refusing to testify about her boyfriend’s alleged drug dealing.

But please. If fairness, proportionality and family responsibility are suddenly relevant in sentencing, let it happen for everyone. Not just those whose song might expose the very people who offered commutation.

Libby’s sentence was not only legally appropriate, it was legally required. It followed the same mandatory federal sentencing guidelines applied to the 190,000 people in federal prisons. And it reached the same result.

Victor Rita’s case highlights the injustice. Rita entered the Federal Bureau of Prisons on nearly the same date that Libby’s prison term disappeared. Except for the result, the two cases are eerily parallel.

Similar crimes. Both Libby and Rita were convicted of obstruction of justice and lying under oath.

Similar punishments. Both were sentenced under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Libby received 30 months in prison. Rita received 33.

Similar history. Both Libby and Rita had served their country. Rita served 24 years in the Marine Corps, including tours of duty in Vietnam and the first Gulf war, where he earned over 35 medals and awards.

Similar present. Both Libby and Rita are getting up in years, with devoted families and supportive networks who begged for mercy. Rita’s personal health is failing.

All of Rita’s requests for relief were denied. Libby received relief before his case even finished in the courts.

Wednesday the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, no longer under Republican control, held a hearing on these matters. Little new information came out, but then Scooter Libby wasn’t on the stand. Neither was Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. The only person to serve time on this matter was Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who refused to reveal her sources.

The committee hearing was one small step towards holding the administration accountable for its misbehavior. One small step towards the American people regaining control of our government. Let’s hope it’s not the last.