I just finished doing my taxes. And my mother’s taxes. And the tax returns for a small philanthropic organization whose Treasurer I am.
If I had not waited so long, I would not have squeezed hours of filling out forms into just these last few days. But that concentrated my mind on our tax system: how much time it takes, how complex the paperwork can be, how much money is at stake.
It’s hard to find out how many people do their own taxes with pencil and paper and calculator, as I do, but I found a couple of online “polls”, one of which proclaimed “This is not a scientific poll.” They both showed that only 4% of filers do it that way. Most people use some tax software and file electronically.
I don’t mind paying my taxes, exactly the amount that comes out at the end of lots of calculations. I don’t want to pay more than I have to. I don’t begrudge what I do pay to fund our public goods.
I think the forms are a nightmare of poorly explained instructions. The difficulties mostly lie in the forms that allow you to take advantage of the loopholes written into our tax code. The biggest loopholes for most Americans are listed on Schedule A, Itemized Deductions. With that form, the taxpayer can deduct from taxable income many kinds of expenses: interest paid on a mortgage, state income taxes, charitable contributions, money spent on the job. Some income is not taxable at all. For a widow living only on Social Security, the first $50,000 in benefits is not taxable. All Medicare benefits are excluded from taxation.
The fancy phrase for these loopholes is tax expenditures. This is what the Joint Committee on Taxation of the US Congress, with 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, said in a 2011 report about these “special tax benefits to particular taxpayers”: “Tax expenditures are similar to those direct spending programs that are available as entitlements to those who meet the statutory criteria.” They are just like unemployment benefits or free school lunches, except they tend to go to different people. We all benefit from some form of government-created welfare. That’s a bipartisan judgment.
There are hundreds of different tax expenditures that are designed to benefit certain people. The Joint Committee on Taxation takes 7 pages just to list the tax expenditures enacted into law since 1986. A recent one from 2007 is the “exclusion from gross income of benefits provided to volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders”. An older loophole which comes at a much bigger cost is the medical savings account, allowing people to shelter money used to pay medical expenses. That concept was a major plank of the Republican Party's health care agenda in the 1990s.
The same report explains which of the many tax expenditures are the largest. For middle-class taxpayers, the second most important exclusion from income is the home mortgage interest deduction. But saving us even more money is the exclusion of employer contributions to health care insurance and health care. We don’t even have to declare that income on the 1040 form. Each year that provision costs the federal government over $100 billion in lost tax revenues.
Millions of American families benefit from these two loopholes. The third largest loophole is much more narrowly focused: the much lower tax rate on capital gains. Anyone with money in stocks could benefit from this loophole, but how much income does the average taxpayer gain from the stock market? It mainly affects the very wealthy, people for whom a large portion of their income can be considered capital gains. Like Mitt Romney, nearly all of whose 2010 income of $21 million was taxed at the special low rate for capital gains.
Republicans like Romney are proposing a major overhaul of our tax system. They want to lower tax rates by doing away with many of the big deductions, although they refuse to specify which ones. They are sure about one thing, though – they want to keep the tax expenditure on capital gains. In fact, the Congressional Republican tax plan put forward by Paul Ryan, and supported by Romney, would eliminate all taxes on capital gains. That would make it the biggest tax expenditure ever.
Eliminating the deductions I use would make it much easier to file my taxes. I would no longer get a special break as a homeowner, which might seem fair to those who rent their dwellings. The special breaks would all go to the wealthiest Americans. I would pay taxes on every penny I earn. But the millionaire next door might not pay anything. Good for him. But is that fair to the rest of us?
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Today it is Passover
Passover and the two fall celebrations of Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah are the holiest days in the Jewish year, the high holidays. Many religions welcome the spring with rituals that reach into much earlier times. Jews celebrate for eight days the story of their liberation from slavery by God, who passed over Jewish homes when he killed the first-born children of the Egyptians. Religious observance takes place at home, and is focused on one highly ritualized meal, the Seder dinner, usually on the first night of Passover.
For several hours, a prescribed text is read by everyone around the table. At specified moments, unleavened bread, horseradish, a green vegetable dipped in salt water, and a lamb shank are eaten, and wine is drunk four times, accompanied by praise for God, Adonai.
Seder is always about family and friends. For thousands of years, Jewish families have lit candles, eaten the bitter herb, drunk the wine, said the prayers, and told a story about their spiritual ancestors being enslaved in Egypt, until Moses led them to freedom through the Red Sea, miraculously parted by God.
The Passover story is framed as a lesson from parents to children. The youngest at the table asks what is special about Passover, and is told about the bitterness of slavery and the joy of liberation. The text is about ancient Jews and Egyptians, but the lessons are universal. Jewish parents tell their children to hate oppression, to understand the vacillating but ultimately evil ways of dictators, and to believe that freedom will eventually come.
The historical Passover story symbolizes every oppression and promises liberation to those who are persecuted. Every subjugated people has its own Moses, who told Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”
For many hundreds of years, when they ate the bitter herbs Jews thought of the persecution they suffered as a religious minority by the Christian majority across Europe and America. After the Holocaust, the widespread oppression of Jews has disappeared, just in my lifetime. Jewish families in most places in the world no longer yearn to be liberated.
As Jews in the US have shifted our liberationist gaze from ourselves outward to others, demand has grown for new versions of the Passover text, the Haggadah. The civil rights movements which took off in the 1960s, supported then by most Jewish Americans, influenced what Jews recited and thought about at Passover dinner. Modern texts eliminate the sexist language of the traditional Haggadah and honor female biblical figures, such as Miriam, sister of Moses.
The tragedy of Nazi genocide, which touched nearly every Jewish family, the welcoming of immigrants into the US, and the promise of freedom for all that America embodies have all influenced the political beliefs of American Jews. A poll taken last month by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that one of the most important political values among Jews is “welcoming the stranger”, which 72% think is important. Even more important, for 84%, is “pursuing justice”. That means caring for the poor and ending discrimination. When asked what is most important to their Jewish identity, twice as many American Jews select a commitment to social equality as select support for Israel. Two-thirds say that the American government should do more to reduce the gap between rich and poor. About three-quarters believe that the American economic system favors the wealthy. 81% favor the “Buffett rule”, increasing the tax rates for those who make over $1 million per year. About 70% favor the DREAM Act, allowing children of illegal immigrants to gain legal resident status if they enter the military or go to college. Over 80% favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally.
This year, as usual, the Exodus story made all of us around the Seder table think of those people whose oppression we hope one day will end. The religious centrality of the Passover story of liberation might partly explain the liberal political attitudes of American Jews. The Haggadah explains that it not enough to remember that we were oppressed long ago. We must relive that slavery and realize that the struggle for freedom never ends. Because we were enslaved, we must help others become free.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 10, 2012
For several hours, a prescribed text is read by everyone around the table. At specified moments, unleavened bread, horseradish, a green vegetable dipped in salt water, and a lamb shank are eaten, and wine is drunk four times, accompanied by praise for God, Adonai.
Seder is always about family and friends. For thousands of years, Jewish families have lit candles, eaten the bitter herb, drunk the wine, said the prayers, and told a story about their spiritual ancestors being enslaved in Egypt, until Moses led them to freedom through the Red Sea, miraculously parted by God.
The Passover story is framed as a lesson from parents to children. The youngest at the table asks what is special about Passover, and is told about the bitterness of slavery and the joy of liberation. The text is about ancient Jews and Egyptians, but the lessons are universal. Jewish parents tell their children to hate oppression, to understand the vacillating but ultimately evil ways of dictators, and to believe that freedom will eventually come.
The historical Passover story symbolizes every oppression and promises liberation to those who are persecuted. Every subjugated people has its own Moses, who told Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”
For many hundreds of years, when they ate the bitter herbs Jews thought of the persecution they suffered as a religious minority by the Christian majority across Europe and America. After the Holocaust, the widespread oppression of Jews has disappeared, just in my lifetime. Jewish families in most places in the world no longer yearn to be liberated.
As Jews in the US have shifted our liberationist gaze from ourselves outward to others, demand has grown for new versions of the Passover text, the Haggadah. The civil rights movements which took off in the 1960s, supported then by most Jewish Americans, influenced what Jews recited and thought about at Passover dinner. Modern texts eliminate the sexist language of the traditional Haggadah and honor female biblical figures, such as Miriam, sister of Moses.
The tragedy of Nazi genocide, which touched nearly every Jewish family, the welcoming of immigrants into the US, and the promise of freedom for all that America embodies have all influenced the political beliefs of American Jews. A poll taken last month by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that one of the most important political values among Jews is “welcoming the stranger”, which 72% think is important. Even more important, for 84%, is “pursuing justice”. That means caring for the poor and ending discrimination. When asked what is most important to their Jewish identity, twice as many American Jews select a commitment to social equality as select support for Israel. Two-thirds say that the American government should do more to reduce the gap between rich and poor. About three-quarters believe that the American economic system favors the wealthy. 81% favor the “Buffett rule”, increasing the tax rates for those who make over $1 million per year. About 70% favor the DREAM Act, allowing children of illegal immigrants to gain legal resident status if they enter the military or go to college. Over 80% favor allowing same-sex couples to marry legally.
This year, as usual, the Exodus story made all of us around the Seder table think of those people whose oppression we hope one day will end. The religious centrality of the Passover story of liberation might partly explain the liberal political attitudes of American Jews. The Haggadah explains that it not enough to remember that we were oppressed long ago. We must relive that slavery and realize that the struggle for freedom never ends. Because we were enslaved, we must help others become free.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
The Republicans Have No Foreign Policy
It would be difficult to find a time in our recent history, when the foreign policy of a Presidential administration was as unsuccessful as under George W. Bush. Not just one, but two wars started and carried out for years without any success, bin Laden still hiding after years of fruitless search, a worsening situation in the Middle East, and anti-American feeling growing all over the world.
Not one mission was accomplished.
So it’s not surprising that Republicans since 2008 have been scrambling to figure out what they should advocate. The ideas that the Republican Presidential candidates have proposed over the past year demonstrate the bankruptcy of their foreign policy thinking. These problems are exemplified by expressions of the candidates’ policy towards Israel.
Obama called on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and to use the1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations with the Palestinians. This is the position taken by every President since Nixon.
The Republican candidates, for all of their criticism of each other, have spoken with one voice about their Middle East policy. Michele Bachmann said last November, “President Obama hasn’t been willing to stand with Israel. Israel looks at President Obama, and they do not see a friend.” In February, she called Obama “the most dangerous president” when it comes to the Middle East.
Rick Perry said in September that “the Obama policy in the Middle East” is “naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous.”
Mitt Romney, the front-runner, said last May, “President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus. He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace.” Romney liked that image, and has repeated it over and over. In June, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Romney said, “Obama threw Israel under the bus. You stand by your allies, you don't dictate to them.” In an interview in October: “My view is that he threw Israel under the bus by laying out his view of the policies he thought Israel should adopt in the peace process. I believe that the role of an ally is to stand behind your friends and let them speak for themselves, rather than be spoken for by the United States of America.” And again in January.
Herman Cain could do no better than copy Romney’s words. When he was briefly the front-runner in October, Cain said that the President “threw Israel under the bus.” And Rick Santorum last week also played copy-cat: “We're throwing Israel under the bus, because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC. Folks, the president of the United States is selling the economic security of the United States down the river right now. This is a president who is not standing by our allies.” He is “trying to find a way to allow Iran to get this nuclear weapon.”
Jews have always been concerned with the word, spoken and written. Jews are also very attuned to metaphorical language about killing. Buses, by the way, are a much more common method of transportation in Israel. That is why there have been so many suicide bombing attacks on buses. So using the metaphor of murder, throwing someone under a bus, means a lot to Jews, here and in Israel. It means that Romney and his fellow Republican leaders think that President Obama is a deadly enemy of Israel and thus of Jews.
I don’t remember any time in my life when all the official representatives of one party have called a President an enemy of Israel. US policy towards Israel has shifted often, from one critical moment to the next. But it has always been bi-partisan and supported across the political spectrum.
Now the Republican Party says something different. Obama is your enemy. Oppose him with everything you’ve got. Make no deals with him, because he will betray you. Wait for us, until November, or if we lose, which is quite possible, wait another 4 years before trusting the American government.
I’m sorry. I have been saying I was writing about foreign policy, but I wasn’t. There is no foreign policy here, except “whatever Obama has done is wrong.” Every foreign policy act in Obama’s three years, a time of continual and unpredictable Middle East crisis, has received the same Republican treatment, from Obama’s comments about Israeli settlements, to his decisions about what to do in Libya, to his gradual withdrawal from the wars which were Republican policy the last time one was President.
Here is what a conservative Israeli leader thinks. After President Obama sided with Israel in opposing the Palestinian Authority’s attempt to get a seat at the UN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I want to thank you, Mr. President, for standing with Israel and supporting peace through direct negotiations.”
These would-be Commanders-in Chief act like they don’t know how much America is weakened by their political posturing. They don’t seem to care that if they win, they will be trusted less to know what they’re talking about.
But these guys are not talking to Jews. They are talking about Israel to their base, where Jews are few and far between. Israel for them is just another weapon in their war against Obama. And everyone in Jerusalem knows it.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 3, 2012
Not one mission was accomplished.
So it’s not surprising that Republicans since 2008 have been scrambling to figure out what they should advocate. The ideas that the Republican Presidential candidates have proposed over the past year demonstrate the bankruptcy of their foreign policy thinking. These problems are exemplified by expressions of the candidates’ policy towards Israel.
Obama called on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and to use the1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations with the Palestinians. This is the position taken by every President since Nixon.
The Republican candidates, for all of their criticism of each other, have spoken with one voice about their Middle East policy. Michele Bachmann said last November, “President Obama hasn’t been willing to stand with Israel. Israel looks at President Obama, and they do not see a friend.” In February, she called Obama “the most dangerous president” when it comes to the Middle East.
Rick Perry said in September that “the Obama policy in the Middle East” is “naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous.”
Mitt Romney, the front-runner, said last May, “President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus. He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace.” Romney liked that image, and has repeated it over and over. In June, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Romney said, “Obama threw Israel under the bus. You stand by your allies, you don't dictate to them.” In an interview in October: “My view is that he threw Israel under the bus by laying out his view of the policies he thought Israel should adopt in the peace process. I believe that the role of an ally is to stand behind your friends and let them speak for themselves, rather than be spoken for by the United States of America.” And again in January.
Herman Cain could do no better than copy Romney’s words. When he was briefly the front-runner in October, Cain said that the President “threw Israel under the bus.” And Rick Santorum last week also played copy-cat: “We're throwing Israel under the bus, because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC. Folks, the president of the United States is selling the economic security of the United States down the river right now. This is a president who is not standing by our allies.” He is “trying to find a way to allow Iran to get this nuclear weapon.”
Jews have always been concerned with the word, spoken and written. Jews are also very attuned to metaphorical language about killing. Buses, by the way, are a much more common method of transportation in Israel. That is why there have been so many suicide bombing attacks on buses. So using the metaphor of murder, throwing someone under a bus, means a lot to Jews, here and in Israel. It means that Romney and his fellow Republican leaders think that President Obama is a deadly enemy of Israel and thus of Jews.
I don’t remember any time in my life when all the official representatives of one party have called a President an enemy of Israel. US policy towards Israel has shifted often, from one critical moment to the next. But it has always been bi-partisan and supported across the political spectrum.
Now the Republican Party says something different. Obama is your enemy. Oppose him with everything you’ve got. Make no deals with him, because he will betray you. Wait for us, until November, or if we lose, which is quite possible, wait another 4 years before trusting the American government.
I’m sorry. I have been saying I was writing about foreign policy, but I wasn’t. There is no foreign policy here, except “whatever Obama has done is wrong.” Every foreign policy act in Obama’s three years, a time of continual and unpredictable Middle East crisis, has received the same Republican treatment, from Obama’s comments about Israeli settlements, to his decisions about what to do in Libya, to his gradual withdrawal from the wars which were Republican policy the last time one was President.
Here is what a conservative Israeli leader thinks. After President Obama sided with Israel in opposing the Palestinian Authority’s attempt to get a seat at the UN, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I want to thank you, Mr. President, for standing with Israel and supporting peace through direct negotiations.”
These would-be Commanders-in Chief act like they don’t know how much America is weakened by their political posturing. They don’t seem to care that if they win, they will be trusted less to know what they’re talking about.
But these guys are not talking to Jews. They are talking about Israel to their base, where Jews are few and far between. Israel for them is just another weapon in their war against Obama. And everyone in Jerusalem knows it.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 3, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Santorum and Satan: Three Speeches
Rick Santorum probably won’t win the Republican nomination for President. But he certainly has won many Republican primary votes across America during this long campaign. What distinguishes Santorum’s campaign is his emphasis on religion, and the way he wants to place his religion into our government. Three speeches tell us about what kind of President Santorum wishes to be.
In August 2008, Santorum spoke at Ave Maria University in Florida about the McCain-Obama Presidential contest and about America. “This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on . . . the United States of America. . . . He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. . . . And so academia, a long time ago, fell. . . . the next was the church. . . . we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. . . . the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too.”
“The colleges” have fallen, most or all of them, except perhaps Ave Maria. That may be why Santorum argued last month that President Obama wanted to brainwash our youth: “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely . . . The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”
Then the churches fell. According to Santorum, mainline Protestant churches are no longer Christian. This is surprising, since according to a Pew survey of registered voters in 2011, 51% of mainline Protestants support Republicans, while only 39% support Democrats. But Santorum’s voters come especially from evangelical Protestants, among whom 70% lean Republican and 24% lean Democratic.
I wonder whether he thinks the Devil has completely triumphed in black Protestant churches, where 88% are Democrats. He certainly believes that President Obama has “fallen”. He said last month about Obama’s agenda, “It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”
A second speech that reveals much about Santorum the politician was given just last week in Louisiana by Pastor Dennis Terry of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, introducing Santorum to his parishioners: “This nation was founded as a Christian nation … there’s only one God and his name is Jesus. If you don‘t love America and you don’t like the way we do things, I’ve got one thing to say — Get out! We don’t worship Buddha. I said we don’t worship Buddha. We don’t worship Mohammed. We don’t worship Allah. We worship God. We worship God’s son Jesus Christ.”
Well, some do, some don’t. About 75 million Americans do not worship Jesus Christ. The audacity of our founders, who all had their roots in countries where Christianity was the government-sponsored religion, was to create a nation with no official church. Santorum applauded while Pastor Terry shouted that non-Christians should “get out” of America.
Finally the relationship of religion and politics can be seen in Santorum’s reaction to a third speech by another Catholic candidate for President, John F. Kennedy. JFK addressed that relationship directly and courageously in front of a group of Protestant ministers in Texas in September 1960. About that speech, Santorum said in October, “Early in my political career, I had an opportunity to read the speech and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.” Santorum liked that image so much, he said again last month that the speech “makes me throw up.”
What makes Santorum sick? Here is some of what JFK said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute . . . I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish, where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials . . . Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equal, where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice . . . and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood. . . . I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”
I believe in Kennedy’s America. Not in Rick Santorum’s, where those who do not agree with him have been captured by the Devil, where a man who tells non-Christians to “get out” is applauded, where religious intolerance is used as a campaign strategy.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 27, 2012
In August 2008, Santorum spoke at Ave Maria University in Florida about the McCain-Obama Presidential contest and about America. “This is not a political war at all. This is not a cultural war. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on . . . the United States of America. . . . He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions. The place where he was, in my mind, the most successful and first successful was in academia. . . . And so academia, a long time ago, fell. . . . the next was the church. . . . we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. . . . the body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades, but it is falling too.”
“The colleges” have fallen, most or all of them, except perhaps Ave Maria. That may be why Santorum argued last month that President Obama wanted to brainwash our youth: “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely . . . The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.”
Then the churches fell. According to Santorum, mainline Protestant churches are no longer Christian. This is surprising, since according to a Pew survey of registered voters in 2011, 51% of mainline Protestants support Republicans, while only 39% support Democrats. But Santorum’s voters come especially from evangelical Protestants, among whom 70% lean Republican and 24% lean Democratic.
I wonder whether he thinks the Devil has completely triumphed in black Protestant churches, where 88% are Democrats. He certainly believes that President Obama has “fallen”. He said last month about Obama’s agenda, “It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology.”
A second speech that reveals much about Santorum the politician was given just last week in Louisiana by Pastor Dennis Terry of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, introducing Santorum to his parishioners: “This nation was founded as a Christian nation … there’s only one God and his name is Jesus. If you don‘t love America and you don’t like the way we do things, I’ve got one thing to say — Get out! We don’t worship Buddha. I said we don’t worship Buddha. We don’t worship Mohammed. We don’t worship Allah. We worship God. We worship God’s son Jesus Christ.”
Well, some do, some don’t. About 75 million Americans do not worship Jesus Christ. The audacity of our founders, who all had their roots in countries where Christianity was the government-sponsored religion, was to create a nation with no official church. Santorum applauded while Pastor Terry shouted that non-Christians should “get out” of America.
Finally the relationship of religion and politics can be seen in Santorum’s reaction to a third speech by another Catholic candidate for President, John F. Kennedy. JFK addressed that relationship directly and courageously in front of a group of Protestant ministers in Texas in September 1960. About that speech, Santorum said in October, “Early in my political career, I had an opportunity to read the speech and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.” Santorum liked that image so much, he said again last month that the speech “makes me throw up.”
What makes Santorum sick? Here is some of what JFK said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute . . . I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish, where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials . . . Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end, where all men and all churches are treated as equal, where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice . . . and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood. . . . I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”
I believe in Kennedy’s America. Not in Rick Santorum’s, where those who do not agree with him have been captured by the Devil, where a man who tells non-Christians to “get out” is applauded, where religious intolerance is used as a campaign strategy.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 27, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
What We Can Learn from Surveys
If you haven’t been called to participate in a survey this week, you’ll probably be asked next week. Voters are increasingly accosted by exit pollers wanting to know who they are and how they voted. Fake commercial surveys to get you to buy products and fake political surveys which insist that you share their opinion compete with real surveys, all trying to find out what we collectively do and think.
For all of my professional life, I have worked with population censuses, the most democratic survey of all. Well-done surveys hold up a mirror to our American society. Over decades surveys show us changing, slowly but hopefully.
Marriage is the most important choice we make, the most celebrated and the most personal. Surveys show us how American marriage is changing. Before 1950, marriage between whites and blacks was illegal in most states, and this reflected popular sentiment among whites: a 1958 Gallup poll showed that 96% of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. During the 1950s, these laws were repealed in state after state, except in the South. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Virginia’s laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional, only 17 Southern states still enforced such laws.
Since then, American marriage has become more colorful. In 1980, 7% of all new marriages were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity. That number increased to 15% by 2010. More than one-third of Americans (35%) say that a close relative is married to someone of a different race. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) say it “would be fine” if a member of their family married outside their own racial or ethnic group.
Americans have been asked about their attitudes toward gay marriage over the past 15 years. The percentage who favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry has risen steadily from 27% in 1996 to 46% last year. In 2011 for the first time, more Americans approved of gay marriage than opposed it. That shift has been driven by younger Americans: 61% of those born after 1980 approve, 48% of those born between 1965 and 1980, but only 32% of those born before 1945. Those results leave little doubt that the overall proportion of Americans approving of gay marriage will continue to grow for decades.
As in the case of interracial marriage, discriminatory claims have clashed with people’s experience. We have heard the arguments of the homophobic right for decades, but our experiences with gay people, as with people of other ethnic backgrounds, have demonstrated that those arguments are both wrong and mean-spirited. Once the enforced segregation of black and gay Americans into closets and ghettos was broken, discriminatory ideas have lost their persuasive power.
These surveys don’t tell us what is right or moral or constitutional. They do show Americans changing ideas and practices, heading toward equality and away from discrimination.
A second subject of survey data has been making recent headlines. About 6 in 10 Americans have heard about the controversy over a federal rule that all employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, must provide coverage for birth control in their health care insurance plans. Among those aware of the issue, 48% believe the federal rule should give an exemption to religious institutions who object to providing contraceptive coverage, and 44% oppose such an exemption.
As arguments continue to be made, and this issue plays a role in the Presidential election, these percentages may shift, but one thing is already clear. For one side to call the other side immoral or un-American means excluding half of all Americans. The survey does not tell us which policy is right or better. But it does tell us that each side has enough right on its side to persuade half of everyone we know not to agree with us.
Surveys do not provide political solutions to controversial issues, but they help us make better political decisions. When we see a growing majority of Americans welcoming racial and sexual diversity in our families, we know that laws should follow. When we see Americans evenly divided on a major issue, we know that our proper policy probably lies somewhere in the middle, with a compromise that sufficiently respects religious beliefs, without injuring women’s health or violating the separation of church and state.
We see that extremists’ doomsday predictions and intolerant attitudes are the desperate tactics of a shrinking minority.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 20, 2012
For all of my professional life, I have worked with population censuses, the most democratic survey of all. Well-done surveys hold up a mirror to our American society. Over decades surveys show us changing, slowly but hopefully.
Marriage is the most important choice we make, the most celebrated and the most personal. Surveys show us how American marriage is changing. Before 1950, marriage between whites and blacks was illegal in most states, and this reflected popular sentiment among whites: a 1958 Gallup poll showed that 96% of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. During the 1950s, these laws were repealed in state after state, except in the South. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Virginia’s laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional, only 17 Southern states still enforced such laws.
Since then, American marriage has become more colorful. In 1980, 7% of all new marriages were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity. That number increased to 15% by 2010. More than one-third of Americans (35%) say that a close relative is married to someone of a different race. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) say it “would be fine” if a member of their family married outside their own racial or ethnic group.
Americans have been asked about their attitudes toward gay marriage over the past 15 years. The percentage who favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry has risen steadily from 27% in 1996 to 46% last year. In 2011 for the first time, more Americans approved of gay marriage than opposed it. That shift has been driven by younger Americans: 61% of those born after 1980 approve, 48% of those born between 1965 and 1980, but only 32% of those born before 1945. Those results leave little doubt that the overall proportion of Americans approving of gay marriage will continue to grow for decades.
As in the case of interracial marriage, discriminatory claims have clashed with people’s experience. We have heard the arguments of the homophobic right for decades, but our experiences with gay people, as with people of other ethnic backgrounds, have demonstrated that those arguments are both wrong and mean-spirited. Once the enforced segregation of black and gay Americans into closets and ghettos was broken, discriminatory ideas have lost their persuasive power.
These surveys don’t tell us what is right or moral or constitutional. They do show Americans changing ideas and practices, heading toward equality and away from discrimination.
A second subject of survey data has been making recent headlines. About 6 in 10 Americans have heard about the controversy over a federal rule that all employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, must provide coverage for birth control in their health care insurance plans. Among those aware of the issue, 48% believe the federal rule should give an exemption to religious institutions who object to providing contraceptive coverage, and 44% oppose such an exemption.
As arguments continue to be made, and this issue plays a role in the Presidential election, these percentages may shift, but one thing is already clear. For one side to call the other side immoral or un-American means excluding half of all Americans. The survey does not tell us which policy is right or better. But it does tell us that each side has enough right on its side to persuade half of everyone we know not to agree with us.
Surveys do not provide political solutions to controversial issues, but they help us make better political decisions. When we see a growing majority of Americans welcoming racial and sexual diversity in our families, we know that laws should follow. When we see Americans evenly divided on a major issue, we know that our proper policy probably lies somewhere in the middle, with a compromise that sufficiently respects religious beliefs, without injuring women’s health or violating the separation of church and state.
We see that extremists’ doomsday predictions and intolerant attitudes are the desperate tactics of a shrinking minority.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Anatomy of an Apology
Rush Limbaugh ignited another attention-getting furor by calling a college student who testified before Congress a prostitute. This incident reveals nothing new about Limbaugh, who makes millions by being nasty to anyone who does not share his extreme politics. But we can learn about the state of political discourse in today’s America.
Here’s how it all began. Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked that Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke testify at a February 16 hearing on the controversial new government rules requiring employers to cover contraception in their insurance policies. Fluke is a law student and former president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. The chair of the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican from California, refused to let Fluke or any other witness requested by the Democrats testify. The only testifiers were leaders of religious institutions who opposed the contraception coverage requirement and who supported Issa’s contention that the issue was one of religious freedom, not women’s health.
The Democrats held an unofficial hearing on February 23, where Ms. Fluke criticized the lack of coverage of contraception by her Georgetown University insurance policy as harming female students.
Conservative commentators jumped on Fluke as a symbol of “sex-crazed co-eds” who wanted taxpayers to “pay for us to have sex”. Then Limbaugh piled on, repeating that fabricated version of this health-care issue, and escalating the attack on Fluke. On his February 29 broadcast, getting her name wrong, he said: “What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.”
The next day, March 1, Limbaugh described Fluke as “an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman”, who is “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk.” He wondered, “Who bought your condoms in the sixth grade?” Limbaugh liked this so much, the next day, March 2, he repeated it: “She's having sex so frequently that she can't afford all the birth-control pills that she needs. That's what she's saying. . . . I'm not making any of it up.”
Even advertisers who had previously accepted Limbaugh’s crude tirades decided to abandon him for slandering this young woman. Buy now over 50 sponsors of his radio show have canceled their advertising.
On March 3, Limbaugh posted on his website: “I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. . . . in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”
Two days later, Limbaugh explained exactly what he meant: “those two words were inappropriate. They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. . . . The apology to her over the weekend was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do.”
By limiting his apology to “two words”, Limbaugh let all of his other words stand. Rush was apparently upset that saying “slut” might distract anyone from the point he was making: “she and her coed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently.”
What is political talk like in America? Some people talk nasty and nastier, hoping to prevent the next Sandra Fluke from expressing herself. Bigmouths thrive in the silence of others. They can’t be changed by shame or correction. When they get called out by a few, they back off, lie about what they said and meant, and try again.
Some people say “tut-tut”. Romney said, “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.” Boehner let his spokesman say, “The Speaker obviously believes the use of those words was inappropriate.” Since they said nothing more, do they agree that Ms. Fluke needs sex three times a day, but would have used a more refined vocabulary? Rick Santorum said that Limbaugh was “being absurd. But that's, you know, an entertainer can be absurd.” How does that entertainer square with his family values?
We need a functioning democracy, not a political reality show. It goes beyond turning on or off, buying or boycotting someone’s products, acting privately on one’s principles.
Only if we the people speak out, enter the public arena even in the most modest way, let our voices be heard, can we take back our polluted political culture from shouting loudmouths and their sycophants.
Here’s an example to follow. Georgetown University President John DeGioia released a letter with this plea: “In an earlier time, St. Augustine captured the sense of what is required in civil discourse: ‘Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly.’”
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 13, 2012
Here’s how it all began. Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked that Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke testify at a February 16 hearing on the controversial new government rules requiring employers to cover contraception in their insurance policies. Fluke is a law student and former president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. The chair of the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican from California, refused to let Fluke or any other witness requested by the Democrats testify. The only testifiers were leaders of religious institutions who opposed the contraception coverage requirement and who supported Issa’s contention that the issue was one of religious freedom, not women’s health.
The Democrats held an unofficial hearing on February 23, where Ms. Fluke criticized the lack of coverage of contraception by her Georgetown University insurance policy as harming female students.
Conservative commentators jumped on Fluke as a symbol of “sex-crazed co-eds” who wanted taxpayers to “pay for us to have sex”. Then Limbaugh piled on, repeating that fabricated version of this health-care issue, and escalating the attack on Fluke. On his February 29 broadcast, getting her name wrong, he said: “What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.”
The next day, March 1, Limbaugh described Fluke as “an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman”, who is “having so much sex, it’s amazing she can still walk.” He wondered, “Who bought your condoms in the sixth grade?” Limbaugh liked this so much, the next day, March 2, he repeated it: “She's having sex so frequently that she can't afford all the birth-control pills that she needs. That's what she's saying. . . . I'm not making any of it up.”
Even advertisers who had previously accepted Limbaugh’s crude tirades decided to abandon him for slandering this young woman. Buy now over 50 sponsors of his radio show have canceled their advertising.
On March 3, Limbaugh posted on his website: “I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. . . . in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.”
Two days later, Limbaugh explained exactly what he meant: “those two words were inappropriate. They were uncalled for. They distracted from the point that I was actually trying to make, and I again sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for using those two words to describe her. . . . The apology to her over the weekend was sincere. It was simply for using inappropriate words in a way I never do.”
By limiting his apology to “two words”, Limbaugh let all of his other words stand. Rush was apparently upset that saying “slut” might distract anyone from the point he was making: “she and her coed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently.”
What is political talk like in America? Some people talk nasty and nastier, hoping to prevent the next Sandra Fluke from expressing herself. Bigmouths thrive in the silence of others. They can’t be changed by shame or correction. When they get called out by a few, they back off, lie about what they said and meant, and try again.
Some people say “tut-tut”. Romney said, “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.” Boehner let his spokesman say, “The Speaker obviously believes the use of those words was inappropriate.” Since they said nothing more, do they agree that Ms. Fluke needs sex three times a day, but would have used a more refined vocabulary? Rick Santorum said that Limbaugh was “being absurd. But that's, you know, an entertainer can be absurd.” How does that entertainer square with his family values?
We need a functioning democracy, not a political reality show. It goes beyond turning on or off, buying or boycotting someone’s products, acting privately on one’s principles.
Only if we the people speak out, enter the public arena even in the most modest way, let our voices be heard, can we take back our polluted political culture from shouting loudmouths and their sycophants.
Here’s an example to follow. Georgetown University President John DeGioia released a letter with this plea: “In an earlier time, St. Augustine captured the sense of what is required in civil discourse: ‘Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly.’”
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Black and White in Jacksonville
Racial problems will be with us until humans grow out of the need to feel superior to other kinds of humans. Sometimes and in some places racial beliefs become violent expressions of superiority against minorities, as they were in Europe and America for much of the 20th century. Sometimes these judgments about people “not like us” are more quietly held, erupting only occasionally, but persisting below the surface.
So it is important to talk and write about race, to make sure that the pretense that it no longer affects our lives is exploded. The history of race in our town, the story of black and white in Jacksonville from 1825 until today, shapes our present and future. That story is not necessarily a happy one: the KKK flourished in this part of Illinois in the 1920s, attracting many prominent and ordinary citizens. But it is always fascinating and revealing about us and about the larger American story.
One reason to want to find out much more about our history, is that Jacksonville compared well with other American communities. Early in its history, Jacksonville citizens and Illinois College students cooperated to help escaped slaves and to advocate for the end of slavery, even if it meant fighting with some of their neighbors. When many counties across the US enforced “sundown laws” keeping black Americans from living amongst them, Jacksonville’s black and white citizens lived here side-by-side. More recently, integrated athletic teams from Jacksonville High School demonstrated to many nearby segregated Illinois communities that mixing black and white could be normal, on and off the field.
That mixing in Jacksonville was regulated by the racism of stores and restaurants which black families could not enter, of high school dances for white students only, of neighborhood covenants which allowed only whites to buy property. Yet it also included black and white family friendships, educational integration and commercial partnerships. Our town has not been blameless, but Jacksonville’s citizens have leaned in the right direction since our founding.
At this year’s Unity Breakfast in January, Merritt and Larry Norvell offered powerful reminders about the white and black aspects of our past. I thank Mayor Andy Ezard for arranging and hosting this event, which I would like to follow with a broader project of historical collection and display. We have in great riches in Jacksonville to teach ourselves about the history of black and white. Like the Norvells, many people possess invaluable memories of the last 50 or more years of our history, and stories about times much further back. Photographs record moments in that history with great clarity. Personal papers tell about daily life in Jacksonville families.
I propose to gather in a systematic way information about the history of people in our town. In particular, I would like to collect family photographs, interviews, and other records of life in Jacksonville, and make them available to everyone to look at, listen to, and learn from.
“Black and White in Jacksonville” can include everyone who was here, whatever color skin, birthplace, language, or culture. It can be a public-private partnership and could bring together political, educational, and commercial institutions. Such a project should involve people of all kinds, jobs, and backgrounds. It could make Jacksonville even more attractive, to us and to others outside, who might want to see what we have learned.
I am an historian. Dreaming up historical projects is what we do. The roots of this project lie in the 1970s, when Charles Frank, an IC Professor of English, interviewed one hundred of his neighbors and friends. He planned to write an oral history of Jacksonville, and his work will be the foundation of any future local history. The idea of focusing on race came from some of my students, who have been recording interviews over the past five years with some Jacksonville residents about their experiences of race.
A good historical project is a group effort, integrating diverse perspectives, bringing people together who may not have cooperated before. Although this subject matter includes unhappy experiences, talking about them is the best way to create a better, more socially equal, more cooperative future. I cannot predict what surprises, exhibits, or websites might come out of “Black and White in Jacksonville”. I can predict that we will be richer for rediscovering our past so we can more consciously shape our future.
I hope that many of you will contribute to and gain from this project.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 6, 2012
So it is important to talk and write about race, to make sure that the pretense that it no longer affects our lives is exploded. The history of race in our town, the story of black and white in Jacksonville from 1825 until today, shapes our present and future. That story is not necessarily a happy one: the KKK flourished in this part of Illinois in the 1920s, attracting many prominent and ordinary citizens. But it is always fascinating and revealing about us and about the larger American story.
One reason to want to find out much more about our history, is that Jacksonville compared well with other American communities. Early in its history, Jacksonville citizens and Illinois College students cooperated to help escaped slaves and to advocate for the end of slavery, even if it meant fighting with some of their neighbors. When many counties across the US enforced “sundown laws” keeping black Americans from living amongst them, Jacksonville’s black and white citizens lived here side-by-side. More recently, integrated athletic teams from Jacksonville High School demonstrated to many nearby segregated Illinois communities that mixing black and white could be normal, on and off the field.
That mixing in Jacksonville was regulated by the racism of stores and restaurants which black families could not enter, of high school dances for white students only, of neighborhood covenants which allowed only whites to buy property. Yet it also included black and white family friendships, educational integration and commercial partnerships. Our town has not been blameless, but Jacksonville’s citizens have leaned in the right direction since our founding.
At this year’s Unity Breakfast in January, Merritt and Larry Norvell offered powerful reminders about the white and black aspects of our past. I thank Mayor Andy Ezard for arranging and hosting this event, which I would like to follow with a broader project of historical collection and display. We have in great riches in Jacksonville to teach ourselves about the history of black and white. Like the Norvells, many people possess invaluable memories of the last 50 or more years of our history, and stories about times much further back. Photographs record moments in that history with great clarity. Personal papers tell about daily life in Jacksonville families.
I propose to gather in a systematic way information about the history of people in our town. In particular, I would like to collect family photographs, interviews, and other records of life in Jacksonville, and make them available to everyone to look at, listen to, and learn from.
“Black and White in Jacksonville” can include everyone who was here, whatever color skin, birthplace, language, or culture. It can be a public-private partnership and could bring together political, educational, and commercial institutions. Such a project should involve people of all kinds, jobs, and backgrounds. It could make Jacksonville even more attractive, to us and to others outside, who might want to see what we have learned.
I am an historian. Dreaming up historical projects is what we do. The roots of this project lie in the 1970s, when Charles Frank, an IC Professor of English, interviewed one hundred of his neighbors and friends. He planned to write an oral history of Jacksonville, and his work will be the foundation of any future local history. The idea of focusing on race came from some of my students, who have been recording interviews over the past five years with some Jacksonville residents about their experiences of race.
A good historical project is a group effort, integrating diverse perspectives, bringing people together who may not have cooperated before. Although this subject matter includes unhappy experiences, talking about them is the best way to create a better, more socially equal, more cooperative future. I cannot predict what surprises, exhibits, or websites might come out of “Black and White in Jacksonville”. I can predict that we will be richer for rediscovering our past so we can more consciously shape our future.
I hope that many of you will contribute to and gain from this project.
Steve Hochstadt
Jacksonville IL
published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, March 6, 2012
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