Politics and Science

     I sent some questions to City Councilor Bill Gray, who represents Ward 1 in Des Moines, Iowa. The following questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity. Frank Bowers (FB): Did anything unexpected happen this (FY19-20) year, and if so, what? Bill Gray (BG): Shutting down the state impacted us greatly. Just in reduction of LOSST (Local Option Sales and Service Tax) income, Des Moines resulted in a decrease of 18 million in revenue through the end of May. Some taxes and fees have decreased, such as hotel/motel taxes, storm water management and sanitary management, and parking fees. Up until mid-March, we had a good budget- both operational and CIP (Capital Improvement Program)- for FY19-20 and FY 20-21 going forward. FB: What changes are expected between Fiscal Year 19-20 and Fiscal Year 20-21? BG: Our operational budget is going to be fine for the time being. The only furloughed staff are at libraries, which have been closed during...

            Many ideas are great in theory. Communism is great in theory, but not so great in practice.  On the other hand, idealists often push for change, while pragmatists often fail to acknowledge problems or fight hard enough for solutions. When designing policy, remaining pragmatic is important.             I love politics, but I do not love politicians. I deeply admire the people who start social movements to fight for justice, from Jesus, to Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, Jr. Religious heretic Michael Servetus also makes the list. In order to win elections, politicians have to ingratiate themselves to the wealthy and powerful, in which I am not interested. Many of the historical figures who I admire ended up being killed for their advocacy, which is a symptom of the injustice that they were fighting. But fear should not slow the fight against injustice.

             The wealthy and corporations move much of their money to low tax areas. Many corporations in the United States have inverted, meaning their headquarters are officially in other countries with lower tax rates, despite much of their employees and operations being in the United States. The wealthy have stored hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in tax havens with low tax rates. These corporate revenues and tax havens are a serious injustice. The wealthy often advocate for libertarian or even anarchical tax positions, and many believe they know what their tax rate should be. However, merely owning a lot does not make one a tax expert, or know anything about what their tax rate should be. Globalization has allowed for vast amounts of wealth to be created, part of that globalization should be a tax on wealth and financial transactions. Since countries are in competition for tax revenue, this creates a race to the bottom, with ever low...

            I just finished reading “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder. The book contains twenty lessons from the 20 th century. I took away three important lessons, and I would really recommend the book. First, that post-truth is pre-fascism. Truth is important for valid criticism. If there is no basis for real facts or objective truth, then all imperfections are just matters of opinion, with no basis in reality. President Trump’s recent comments on disinfectant highlight his aversion to facts, and demonstrates why they are necessary. Second, democracies can erode and collapse without bipartisan support. There were three waves of democratization in the 20 th century. The first after World War I, the second after World War II, and the third after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of these young democracies reverted to one-party rule, either in the form of fascism, communism, or some other form of authoritarianism. Third, defending institutions is ...

This was published in the Des Moines Register as a Letter to the Editor in early 2020.             It has become a radical idea, in our political discourse, to humanize people who are struggling. People with more resources have the power to decide their own fate, a power every American aspires to have. As a result, we, as a society, tend to treat them with more respect and empathy than we treat people who are fighting to make ends meet. We too often dehumanize the poor, saying that people without resources are lazy or cheating. It’s dangerous to dehumanize people, and it flies in the face of our nation’s values to ignore the dignity of our fellow man. People who work three minimum wage jobs are human. People who rely on food stamps to feed their families are human. People with convictions, people who are addicted, or people who have a mental illness are human. Taking it a step further -- people we disagree with politically or religiously...

            There are two fallacies about capitalism that I think are common. The first goes like this. Communism is collective ownership. The opposite of collective ownership is private ownership. Communism is bad. Therefore, entirely private ownership is good. This is obviously a false conclusion. Because one thing is bad, therefore we cannot conclude that opposite of that thing is good. This is used to justify privatization of services run by the government, but sometimes public services are preferable to private services.             The second argument goes like this: capitalism outlasted communism. So, capitalism will go on forever. Alternatively, capitalism outlasted communism and communism was flawed, therefore capitalism is perfect. Both of these arguments are similarly misguided. Just because capitalism outlasted communism, does not mean that capitalism will go on forever. ...

Electability is on the mind of every Democrat. The Democratic party wants to win in 2020. Voters want to win in 2020, and ideology (from moderate and progressive) is taking a backseat to electability.             But electability is fickle. Trying to calculate who is electable is like trying to calculate whether the stock market will be up or down and by how much a year from now. If anyone knew who would win an election, we wouldn’t need to vote. There are too many variables in play to know who will win an election. Demographics matter, the economy matters, the mood of the country matters, immigration, and voter registration- any of these factors can affect the outcome of any election. People sometimes use polls as a substitute for electability, but the details of a poll matters a great deal, and as we know from 2016, they often are not representative. I support Senator Cory Booker for many reasons. One of them...