A swing voter explains his switch to Romney -- Oct. 25, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

If Mitt Romney wins the White House, he can thank voters like Dayle Mauck of Fredericksburg, Va.

Mauck, 57, is a swing voter in a key battleground state. He voted for Barack Obama four years ago, but he’s backing Romney Nov. 6.

“My theory is Obama is a good man and he means well, but he and Congress just butt heads,” Mauck told me. “Romney has been in business. He knows what it’s like. I’m looking for who can get the economy rolling again.”

Political commentators toss around the slogan “it’s the economy.” Voters like Mauck live with it every day, and it’s not pretty. He’s a home builder -- or was -- until the recession hit.  Today he’s a home improvement contractor, waiting and hoping for a turnaround. 

“Four years ago, I had 40 employees; now I have one. Four years ago, I had an office; now it’s in my home. I love to build houses,” he said as he took a break from updating my bath. “I don’t mind home improvement, but I love to build houses.”

Mauck prospered during the housing boom – building 15 or 20 houses a year and doing framing contract work for larger builders. He was able to pay his two sons’ way through college. But he also knew the crazy-good times couldn’t last. He recalls a day when 17 clients sat in a sales office in Fredericksburg, all ready to buy townhouses.

When the bottom dropped out of the housing market, he had to tell his sons, “You’re on your own. Get a loan.” 

 “I’m a construction worker. I’m not a tech person,” he said. “And there are a lot of guys like me out here. A ton of them are out of business and the rest are just hanging on and hoping the economy comes back.”

After 40 years in construction, Mauck is no stranger to economic downturns. When recession hit in the 1980s, he grabbed his tools and headed to Alaska for a few months. After that, he figured the Washington area was recession-proof but, he says, he was wrong. 

White men without college degrees like Mauck back Romney over Obama  65 percent to 32 percent, according to the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll. Pollsters say this group more than any other has propelled Romney into a tight race with Obama on handling the economy.

 “Those billions and billions in stimulus – they didn’t do anything as far as I can tell,” said Mauck, who thinks a billion or two should have gone to buy down mortgages so people could have stayed in their homes.  

No fan of either political party, Mauck is an independent.  Almost four in 10 voters now say they’re independents, up from 32 percent in 2008 and 30 percent in 2004. Self-described Democrats are 32 percent of the electorate, and self-described Republicans are 24 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

But many who call say they’re independents vote the same party nearly every election. Mauck isn’t like that.

He gave his first presidential vote to Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976, voted twice for Republican Ronald Reagan and then for George H. W. Bush.  In 1992, Mauck thought Bill Clinton “the best and the brightest” and voted Democratic. In 1996, he went with Republican Bob Dole. In 2000, he voted for Democrat Al Gore and in 2004 for Republican George W. Bush.  

Four years ago, Mauck and his wife Tana, an elementary school teacher, helped Barack Obama win Virginia and the White House. This time they’ll cancel out each other’s votes. Tana Mauck is sticking with Obama.

His friends at the Moose Lodge give him a hard time about voting for Obama, so “I just don’t mix politics and beer,” Dayle Mauck said.

He wishes he could still have good-natured political arguments, but when he and his buddies pile into his truck to go hunting, he has one rule -- “no politics and no religion.”

And what does he make of the charge that Romney is so rich he can’t possibly understand the problems of people like Dayle Mauck?  

“I never knew a poor guy to give a man a job,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Poverty: costly, forgotten and worse than ever -- Oct. 18, 2012

By MARSHA MERCER

In July 2007, candidate Barack Obama stood in a poor Washington neighborhood and quoted Bobby Kennedy on poverty in America.

“How can a country like this allow it?” Kennedy asked in the Mississippi Delta that day in 1967. Obama echoed the question in Anacostia four decades later.

“We can’t afford to lose a generation of tomorrow’s doctors and scientists and teachers to poverty,” Obama said. “We can make excuses for it or we can fight about it or we can ignore poverty altogether, but as long as it’s here it will always be a betrayal of the ideals we hold as Americans. It’s not who we are.”

Some War on Poverty programs were ineffective, Obama conceded, but it was wrong to conclude there was no role for the federal government in fighting poverty. The government can make a difference with programs like school lunch and prenatal care, he said.

And there was stick with the carrot.

“It makes a difference when a father realizes that responsibility does not end at conception; when he understands that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one,” Obama said. “It makes a difference when a parent turns off the TV once in awhile, puts away the video games and starts reading to their child, and getting involved in their education.”

People love mild scolding, especially if it’s directed at someone else. Last time around, people loved the candidate Obama who they thought would bridge the gaps between Democrats and Republicans.

Five-plus years after Obama’s Anacostia speech, both President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have largely ignored poverty in their presidential campaigns. We hear a lot about the 1 percent, the 47 percent and even, lately, the 100 percent. But the 15 percent who live in poverty? Almost never.

Romney mentioned the rise in poverty under Obama’s watch in the last debate but offered no specific plan for tackling poverty. Obama was silent on the subject.

Even if people were begging the White House and Congress to do more for the poor – they are not -- Washington knows only how to turn the spigot on and off. But spending alone, like words, won’t end poverty.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could come up with a few rules young people could follow to nearly guarantee a life free of poverty?

Trick question. Yes, it would be great, and, yes, the rules do exist.

Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution studied poverty and Census data and came up with three rules to avoid poverty. Here they are:

One, finish high school.

Two, work full time.

Three, wait until age 21 and get married -- before having a baby.

That’s it. People who follow all three rules had only a 2 percent chance of being poor, Haskins told the Senate Finance Committee in June. But those who violate all three rules have a 77 percent chance of being poor.

People often think getting a job is the key to success, but in America, it’s very possible to work full time and still be poor. A single mother of two on her own who works full-time all year at the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, takes no vacations and no time off for sick days or to take care of sick kids, would earn $15,080 – about $2,500 below the poverty level for a mom with two kids, Haskins told the committee.

Our leaders need to do more to make it cool to stay in school, to work full-time and to wait to start families. It won’t be easy, but it would pay huge dividends.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Behind those jobless numbers -- Oct. 11, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Back in 2003, an up-and-coming economics professor cried foul when the government reported a surprisingly low annual unemployment rate. It was 6 percent.

“The unemployment rate has been low only because government programs, especially Social Security disability, have effectively been buying people off the unemployment rolls and reclassifying them as ‘not in the labor force,’” Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business wrote in The New York Times.

“The government has cooked the books,” he declared.

Nine years later, Jack Welch and other critics of President Barack Obama jumped on Goolsbee’s “cooked the books” comment to bolster their attack on what the former CEO of General Electric called “unbelievable” September jobless numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate declined three-tenths of a point to 7.8 percent and non-farm employment increased by 114,000.

Goolsbee, who chaired Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2010 and 2011, denies he was being partisan in 2003. His words were taken out of context, he says. He’s right.

His op-ed said government policy loosening eligibility for disability payments had created “invisible unemployment” that benefits both parties. He did not accuse the Bush administration of phonying the numbers the way Obama’s foes have accused him.

“The point is not whether every person on disability deserves payments,” Goolsbee wrote then. “The point is that in previous recessions these people would have been called unemployed. They would have filed for unemployment insurance. They would have shown up in the statistics. They would have helped create a more accurate picture of national unemployment, a crucial barometer we use to measure the performance of the economy, the likelihood of inflation and the state of the job market.”

Goolsbee’s point is even more relevant today than it was nine years ago. The Social Security disability program has grown by leaps and bounds and now consumes nearly 20 percent of the Social Security budget. It’s on track to become the first safety net program to exhaust its trust fund – in 2016.

Getting stuck on one month’s unemployment numbers is pure political theater. BLS stresses that one month can be a fluke and revises numbers all the time.

Does anyone think a 7.8 percent unemployment rate is something to cheer about? Not when 12.1 million people are officially unemployed and unemployment would be so much worse without the disability safety net.

The disability rolls have doubled over the last decade. There were 10.6 million disability beneficiaries at the end of last year, 8.6 million of whom were disabled workers. The rest were dependents. The average monthly disability payment was $960, and disability recipients qualify for Medicare after two years. The average age of a disability recipient is 53.

As the economy soured and workers lost jobs and couldn’t find new ones, applications for disability soared. Over the years, eligibility for disability has been expanded to include mental conditions and back pain.

Congress started the disability program in 1956 to provide payments to disabled workers – that is, those unable to engage in “a substantial gainful activity in the U.S. economy.”

At that time, employment and disability were seen as mutually exclusive states, David H. Autor and Mark G. Duggan wrote in a 2010 paper on disability reform for The Center for American Progress and The Hamilton Project. The definition still stands, even though the nature of work has changed dramatically.

The disability program provides “strong incentives to applicants and beneficiaries to remain permanently out of the labor force, and it provides no incentive to employers to implement cost-effective accommodations that enable employees with work limitations to remain on the job,” Autor and Duggan wrote.

To fix disability’s financial crisis, Congress is considering a range of unpalatable options: raise the payroll tax, tighten eligibility and lower benefits.

Many who receive disability payments would rather be earning a paycheck and feeling like productive members of society. With some help from employers, many could work.

Instead of arguing about the unemployment rate, our leaders need to find ways to encourage work in the 21st century for all Americans, including those with disabilities.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Debating an 'October surprise' -- Oct. 4, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

We have an “October surprise,” and it’s Mitt Romney. He lives.

An October surprise is an unexpected event that could change the outcome of a presidential race. It’s premature to say Romney’s strong showing against President Barack Obama in the first presidential debate will alter the course of this election.

But Romney is not the dead man walking he seemed just a week ago.

Republicans are thrilled and Democrats chilled by the Denver debate. If Romney was the winner, who was the biggest loser?

Not Obama, who earned his party’s scorn for his lackluster performance, or even Big Bird, endangered as he’d be in a Romney administration. Romney said he’d cut PBS funding, even though he loves the Sesame Street character.

The biggest losers were TV viewers hungry for clarity on issues facing the country. They went to bed without supper.

Presidential debates are aimed at winning undecided or swing voters. About 6 percent of voters supposedly are still up for grabs. Their presidential decision got harder, not easier, after a debate that raised more questions than it answered. Romney and Obama batted erroneous facts and figures at each other like tennis balls.

Commentators across the political spectrum agreed that Romney shone and Obama stumbled Wednesday night. Point by point, Romney shed his image as Prince of the Remote Rich, coming across as smart, deft and worried about the middle class. Who knew?

Supposed front-runner Obama looked uncomfortable. It obviously has been a while since anyone questioned or challenged him up close. The next day, though, he was on the campaign trail, pounding Romney.

Analysts chewed endlessly on the night’s great bafflement: How could Obama go 90 minutes without once mentioning the magic words “47 percent,” the group of Americans Romney recently said feel they are victims, entitled to government handouts and will vote for Obama.

As surprising as it was to see an aggressive Romney take it to a defensive Obama, though, political theater won’t help anyone pay college tuition, find a job or cope with real life problems.

After the debate, fact checkers gloried in the wealth of inaccurate and untrue statements from both Obama and Romney.

“We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast,” reported nonpartisan FactCheck.org.

“The debate was wonky without being especially honest,” the Washington Post editorialized.

Obama and Romney “spun one-sided stories in their first presidential debate, not necessarily bogus, but not the whole truth,” said the Associated Press.

Obama claimed that Romney has a plan to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans by $5 trillion. Not so, Romney declared, insisting that he will curb tax breaks to make up the costs. He hasn’t said which ones.

Romney claimed Obama doubled the deficit. Fact checkers say he didn’t.

Obama claimed health care premiums have gone up more slowly than any time in the last 50 years. Nope, say fact checkers.

Viewers knew early that the ever-smiling Romney was on his game when he likened the president to a prevaricating lad.

“Look, I’ve got five boys. I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it. But that is not the case, all right?” Romney said.

About Romney’s tax plan, Obama said, “For 18 months he’s been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he’s saying that his big, bold idea is `Never mind.’”

Romney, honed by a countless debates during the GOP primaries and extensively prepped, trotted out three- and four-point plans galore. Obama showed the rust of not debating in four years.

David Axelrod, a top Obama aide, said on MSNBC that Obama was trying to have a conversation with the American people and he was “treating the American people as adults.” Really?

Adults deserve – and should demand -- substance from their politicians. This election isn’t over. There’s time for policy details. The vice presidential debate is Thursday in Kentucky and the two remaining presidential debates are Oct. 16 and 22 in New York and Florida.

Stay tuned. October could bring more surprises.

© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

Food fight! Nanny state vs. national security -- Sept. 27, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The nanny state was undiscovered territory when Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act in June 1946.

The law was good for children and farmers, the president said. The military wanted it because it was good for national security.

During World War II, more than 40 percent of rejected military recruits were sent home because they were malnourished.

Today, our platter-sized plates and our gargantuan soda cups runneth over. Rather than being too malnourished, our young Americans are too overweight to enlist. One in four can’t qualify for service.

Obesity, not malnourishment, is our national security issue. More than 300 retired generals and admirals joined a group called Mission: Readiness to goad Congress into taking steps to try to stem the childhood obesity epidemic by improving nutrition in schools.

The group’s 2010 report, “Too Fat to Fight,” pressed Congress for healthier school lunches. For once, Congress listened. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, supported by first lady Michelle Obama, reforms the school lunch program for the first time in 30 years.

New rules requiring more fruits and vegetables, lower-fat milk and less bread and condiments went into effect this fall in schools around the country. It’s America so naturally there have been protests. Students and teachers at a school in Kansas produced a video that has gone viral. Critics are eager to map -- and disarm -- the nanny state.

''This is the nanny state personified,'' declared Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said constituents tell him their kids are starving in school and are being rationed on calories. King wants to repeal the law.

Really? Under the new rules, a high school lunch must not exceed 850 calories, compared with 825 calories under the old guidelines. Elementary pupils, in kindergarten through fifth grade, now get up to 650 calories at lunch.

Mission: Readiness wants Congress to take more action to curb obesity. This week the group released a follow-up report, “Still Too Fat to Fight,” asking that the government expel junk food from school. Schools sell more than 400 billion empty calories a year, outside the lunch program, in school stores, snack lines and vending machines, the report said.

Again, the brass says, it’s a national security issue.

The military leaders recognize that parents are their children’s first teachers and role models, but parents can’t control junk food at school. America’s children consume up to half their daily calories at school, so stopping the flow of junk food there could be significant.

For the military, overweight isn’t just a recruitment problem. The United States has the highest rate overweight and obese men among major countries -- three in four men are overweight or obese. The Defense Department spends $1.1 billion a year treating diabetes, heart disease and other medical problems related to obesity for service members, their families and veterans.

And problems with staffing the volunteer military go beyond weight, says Richard B. Myers, a retired Air Force general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“When weight problems are combined with other disqualifying factors, like failing to finish high school or being convicted of a serious crime, an estimated 75 percent of Americans age 17 to 24 are not able to join the military,” Myers wrote in an op-ed in Politico.

Three in four young Americans can’t qualify to serve? That’s appalling. We must do more to help kids stay in school and qualify for the military training and personal confidence that service can provide.

We can start with soda.

Three studies in the latest New England Journal of Medicine link obesity to sugary sodas. The American Beverage Association insists that the industry already has reduced sales in schools and no single food or drink is responsible for the obesity epidemic.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York has riled many with his quest to ban gigantic sodas. Starting in March, unless a judge intervenes, New Yorkers will not be able to buy supersized sodas at restaurants, on the street or in movie theaters.

To hear some conservatives, you’d think our God-given rights include the freedom to scarf and guzzle vast quantities of anything and everything without any government interference whatsoever.

Seriously, does that make sense -- with health care costs skyrocketing, with three of four American men overweight or obese?

Does anyone really need more than 16 ounces of a soft drink at a time? The original Coca-Cola bottle held about 6 ounces. If you’re still thirsty, drink water.

In this great country, there will always be another soda. But we don’t have to drink it right now.

©2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

What Maryland voter fraud case proves -- and doesn't

By MARSHA MERCER

John, a reader in Manassas, Va., writes that he thought of sending me a link to allegations of voter fraud involving a Democratic congressional candidate in Maryland.

“But I decided that you’re so far in the tank for the Democrats’ position on voter fraud, namely that there isn’t any, that…it wasn’t worth the effort. But you could look it up if you really do have an open mind on the matter.”

OK, John and other critics who think my mind is closed, this one’s for you.

And, hello, readers who think my mind is open, I hope you’ll read on too. Wherever you land, let me know what you think about the case.

First, let’s agree on one thing: Every single person who is eligible – and only everyone who’s eligible -- should be able to vote.

Wendy Rosen, a Democratic candidate for Congress, withdrew abruptly from Maryland’s 1st congressional district race this month after it was alleged that she voted in the 2006 general election and the 2008 presidential primaries in both Maryland and Florida.

After Maryland Democratic party officials learned of the dual-voting allegations from someone inside the party, they moved quickly. They confronted Rosen, urged her to quit the race and notified prosecutors in Florida and Maryland, who are investigating.

The good news is the system works. That’s exactly what should happen.

But what on earth was Rosen thinking? I contacted her and asked for an interview, but Rosen emailed that because the issues have been referred to prosecutors, this is “not a good time for a comment.”

Earlier she told Baltimore Sun reporter Matthew Hay Brown that she was able to register to vote in Florida because she owns property there. She wanted to help a close friend who was running for City Council in St. Petersburg.

Asked if she voted in both states in the same elections, she said she didn’t remember. Asked if she voted twice in the 2008 primaries, she said she couldn’t comment because of “possible litigation,” the Sun reported.

Her quick exit and bad memory don’t look good for Rosen, 57, an accomplished businesswoman. But let’s see what the investigations turn up, whether she faces and whether she’s convicted of any charges.

In the meantime, here’s something about that rock on which voting is built: residency. It’s slippery.

Only residents of a state can vote in an election, right? Not always. Around the country, non-resident property owners have been fighting for and getting a voice in local elections. The owners want more of a say in property taxes and other issues, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports.

Some states allow municipalities to make the call about who’s eligible to vote on local issues. The idea is to keep separate voter rolls from state elections.

No Maryland law prohibits state voters from registering to vote and casting ballots in local elections in other states, a Maryland election official told the Sun. Some jurisdictions in Maryland allow vacation-home owners in Maryland who live elsewhere to register and vote on local issues and offices. But only on local issues.

It’s illegal to vote more than once in a state or federal election.

The timing of the Rosen scandal hurt Maryland Democrats because Rosen quit after the deadline to put another Democrat’s name on the ballot. Democrats are planning a write-in campaign against incumbent Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican. He’s favored to win in a district that has been redrawn to help Republicans.

Republicans persist in believing that voter fraud is rampant, despite the fact that no studies back them up. A scandal of one – if the one is a Democratic candidate for Congress – is a gift to the GOP. In Annapolis, state Del. Mike McDermott dashed off a press release crowing that Rosen is “the perfect poster child” for voter fraud. The Florida Republican Party chairman called for Rosen’s prosecution under “the full force of our justice system.”

Whatever the investigations find, one thing the Rosen case does not prove is the need for the strict new photo ID laws that have been passed by many Republican state legislatures. Nothing indicates she was impersonating another voter, which is the only kind of fraud voter ID laws can catch.

Rosen apparently registered and voted as herself. The question is how often.

©2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30

It's the season of book fairs -- and guilt -- Sept. 13, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In the 21st Century spirit of blabbing personal secrets, I’m going to tell you something.

That book I happily bought last September at the National Book Festival on the National Mall, the one I had to have after listening to the author talk about his years of hard work, the book I stood in line in the sweltering sun for him to sign?

That book I then put on the table next to my reading chair by the window?

It’s still there. Unopened and, yes, unread.

It’s not about him or his 700 well wrought pages. It’s about me. I just wasn’t that into it. I put it on the table with every good intention but after a while had to stack books on top to muffle its reproachful cries whenever I walked past.

Months passed, I read other books, magazines and newspapers but never tackled the one book I’d imagined as my erudite companion through the long, snowy winter. But last winter was mild. Could global warming have stolen my book enthusiasm?

That’s silly. Besides, as an anxiety producer, books-I -haven’t-gotten-to-yet is a large category. But it’s hardly the only one that makes me break out in hives of literary remorse. Earnest interviews with authors on C-SPAN’s Book-TV, books I start and put down, even lists of books everyone ought to read exacerbate my unread-book guilt.

This year, it got so bad that when the Library of Congress in June issued its list of Books That Shaped America, I refused to look, fearing I’d feel worse.

I was wrong.

The library chose 88 books that chronicle a wide range of American history, literature and popular culture. The earliest volume is Benjamin Franklin’s “Experiments and Observations on Electricity” in 1751. The latest: “The Words of Cesar Chavez,” 2002.

Note that the list is not titled THE Books that Shaped America. The library intentionally omitted the article “the” to indicate that the list is a starting point, says Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

“It is not a register of the ‘best’ American books – although many of them fit that description. Rather, the list is intended to spark a national conversation on books written by Americans that have influenced our lives, whether they appear on this list or not,” Billington said.

Not a list from On High but a list designed to spark a national conversation? That’s refreshing.

The eclectic selection includes the obligatory “Moby-Dick” but also such how-to titles as “The Joy of Cooking” and “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine and “History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark,” by Meriwether Lewis made the list, but so did “Gone With the Wind,” “Goodnight Moon” and “Tarzan of the Apes.”

Why 88 titles? The library thought choosing 10 or 25 or 100 would have indicated finality. The list is a work in progress. Plus, 88 books fit in the exhibit space.

The exhibit at the Library of Congress closes Sept. 29, but you don’t need to come to Washington to see Books That Shaped America. It’s online at http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/books-that-shaped-america/

Be sure to take the quick survey and give the library your own suggestions for future lists. Send me your thoughts too. I’d love to hear them.

I have my candidates that didn’t make the list, and many that did I’v e not yet read. It’s nice to know others suffer unread-book anxiety.

A cartoon in the Sept. 3 New Yorker showed two guys at the beach. One, reading a big book, is only a little way into it. The other guy says, “I got tired of ‘Moby-Dick’ taunting me from my bookshelf, so I put it on my Kindle and haven’t thought of it since.”

Aha! Expiation by gadget – perfect.

But wait a minute. There’s no “read-by” expiration date on books. And unlike with e-readers, there are no dying batteries in me-readers. I can take a non-judgmental path, be glad I have the book I haven’t yet read, knowing that when the time is right, I’ll pick it up. I can move on -- to the next National Book Festival.

Yes, more than 100 authors will be at the celebration of reading and books Sept. 22 and 23. About 200,000 people showed up last year, and I plan to be among the crowd on the National Mall this year.

Among the hundred-plus authors slated to speak and sign books are Mario Vargas Llosa, T.C. Boyle, Geraldine Brooks, Robert Caro, Patricia Cornwell and Jeffrey Eugenides.
I’ll be there, guilt-free.

One more thing. The Library of Congress plans next year to issue a list of Books That Shaped the World.

Get ready.

©2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

30