Thoughts On Russia Election Systems Hacking Report

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Here are some thoughts on the report that Russia was trying to — or did — hack into our election systems before the election.

1) Why was this a secret? Who from? Obviously it wasn’t a secret to Russia. Maybe they’re keeping the idea that they detected it a secret? (And this tips Russia or whoever off to what we did not detect, by the way.)

2) We only know about hacking that we detect, not that which we do not detect. It’s like the saying that nothing in Washington remains a secret. The response to that is, “except for the things that do. We don’t know about those things.”

3) It shouldn’t matter if election systems are hacked. Our election system should be set up from top to bottom so that you just count actual votes. We used to do that. Now we do not. We believe what we are told the results were. Seriously. that way there is a record of actual votes, that you check whether you detect hacking or not. The way we do things now there’s no way to know who wins elections. If you set the system up correctly then it doesn’t matter if it is hacked. (It matters if someone finds a way to “stuff” a ballot box. But good systems can even prevent that, and that doesn’t decide national or even statewide elections.)

3a) If machines have “paper trails” you could count what’s on the paper and compare it to what the machines reported. We don’t do that. One reason we don’t is because that “costs too much.” (Even when someone raises the money for a “recount” it doesn’t usually involve actually counting the paper records.) Instead, we believe what we are told the results were.

3b) There are still lots of machines out there without paper trails. In Georgia, for example. They are old and very easy to hack. There are real indications they get hacked. There is no way to know. So with these machines there is no way to know for sure what the voters actually wanted. There is no way to know if they were hacked, no way to know if they made mistakes. Just no way to know. Instead, we believe what we are told the results were.

4) The only way to have an honest election is to use paper ballots. These can be tabulated by machines. Then you hand count a large random sample and check that against what the tabulators report. If that count is off by even a single vote, something is fishy and you have to count all the paper ballots. With paper ballots and careful checking you do know who actually won.

5) If you want to know who actually won an election instead of what the “powers that be” tell you, you have to do things that we largely do not do now in too many places. Instead, we believe what we are told the results were.

6) As for messing with the registration lists to keep people from voting, that’s a different problem. (Voter ID laws are also a form of messing with the registration lists to keep people from voting.) Are we hearing about lots of people being turned away at the polling places? If so this form of hacking is also a serious concern. I understand that lots of “provisional ballots” are not counted and this is serious. To solve this stop the laws that make it harder to vote, and just make it easier to vote. And make voting a holiday so people don’t have to leave work, go after work, etc. Make it easier to use verifiable, mail-in ballots.

Update: Hand counts should match what the machines are reporting. If not something is fishy. Unfortunately even “recounts” do not necessarily mean a real hand count. In Wisconsin, 2016 for example. Watch this:

A Small Piece About Having Trouble Writing

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I mentioned the other day that I haven’t been writing.

On July 16,2002 I tried out blogging at a place called “Blogspot”, and ended up writing something almost every day since, sometimes several pieces per day.

But at the end of April I left my position as a “Senior Fellow” at Campaign for America’s Future, and haven’t written much since. I’ve started working at the Center for Media and Democracy and will start writing regularly there at same point. But right now I’m having a problem writing.

The problem has a few causes (I think).

  • I’m overwhelmed with incoming crap, mostly about bad things Trump does. But also so much breaking news about investigations, corruption, collusion with Russia, things like that. So things are moving so fast. I feel like by the time I finish writing a piece, it’s irrelevant.

    I can’t even imagine how it is for people who produce a show like Chris Hayes’ or Rachel Maddow’s. They book guests in advance, do a lot of research to prepare, and then 10 minutes before the show Trump does something really bad or really stupid, or some news breaks about some new connection between Trump and Putin… and all that work is down the drain.

  • A feeling that whatever I write it won’t do any good. I spent year writing warnings that we are on a path that could lead to a Trump. Now we’re there, no warnings are needed. I’m not sure how we get out of this.

    Those are the main reasons. I’m still doing lots of radio shows, and those are just fine. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say.

    My friend (known as) Meteor Blades suggested trying to write small pieces. So this is a small piece about having trouble writing.

    • Job Change

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    Friday, April 28 was my last day at Campaign for America’s Future / People’s Action and the OurFuture.org blog. After a break (and assuming Trump hasn’t killed us all) I will be writing at the Center for Media and Democracy, the organization that investigates and exposes corruption. You know them for ALEC Exposed, KOCH Exposed, SPN Exposed, SourceWatch and other incredible investigative work they do. I will be writing about corruption and democracy.

    Impeachment Is Not Enough

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    The problem with impeachment is it doesn’t really solve our problem. The problem we have goes so far beyond just Trump and into flaws in the the design of our system.

    George Washington established rule by “norms” when he declined to run again for President, saying we are not a nation of kings. So it became a norm that presidents hand over power. In the years since we developed a system of democratic norms instead of laws that can be enforced, with systemic mechanisms to ensure enforcement.

    So now we have a president who has no interest in norms or rule of law, and we have no laws and no systemic mechanisms to do anything about it. He and his cronies are destroying our system of democracy and rule of law.

    These clowns got into office illegitimately and we have no mechanisms to stop the destruction of all the “public structures” We the People own and treasure, from our public land to our public schools to our public infrastructure to our system of checks and balances to our democracy itself.

    They got into office illegitimately using a corporate-and-billionaire-financed propaganda machine (and possibly non-US “dark money” funding sources) spewing lies at us 24/7/365 for decades, massive voter suppression, possible election-rigging, the electoral college designed around maintaining slave states, lies (“I will drain the swamp”) and all the other things they have done.

    And beyond the presidency we have the gerrymandering lock, states populated by cows but with two senators, and other ways they maintain a grip on power when they can’t get the votes.

    All impeachment does is move the incompetent, loathsome Trump out of the way, after he signs the things they want and they are through with his usefulness. But the entire fraudulent crowd will still maintain illegitimate power.

    What we need is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that can sweep away all the corruption, illegitimacy and lies and find ways to restore democracy and return Power To The People.

    An Innovative Solution To Corporate Taxation

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    While we’re talking about taxes…

    Over the weekend The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow interviewed economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, to talk about “A New Way to Make Corporations Pay Their Fair Share.”

    The idea is, as Baker wrote last week in the LA Times, Instead of taxes, make corporations give the government stock,

    If the tax reformers are serious, and I hope they are, here’s one simple way to largely eliminate the gaming opportunities that have made these people rich.

    Instead of traditional taxes, the government could require corporations to turn over a portion of their stock, say 25%, in the form of non-voting shares. The government would benefit from any dividends or share buybacks but would have no voice in running the company.

    This system would eliminate almost all opportunities for gaming since a company would not be able to deny the government its share of profits unless it also withheld profits from its other shareholders. And we would not call that “tax avoidance” but outright theft – the sort of thing that gets people sent to jail.

    This government (We the People) share of corporations would replace taxation, because the government would collect dividends or the value of the share would increase along with the profits (formerly taxable) of the corporation. The government and corporate tax-accounting bureaucracies would be unnecessary. Our democracy would receive revenue so it can do things to make our economy and lives better.

    Why should the government (We the People) have a share of corporations? People generally do not understand what a corporation really is, and this common misunderstanding works to be benefit of those who make money off of them.

    Corporations are entirely creations of government. They don’t exist without government. A corporation is a package of laws designed to accomplish a public purpose.

    Individuals do not generally have the kind of capital available to accomplish large-scale projects like building a series of factories to make cars or airplanes. It’s also risky to sink so much of one person’t holdings into something like that so those with sufficient resources might not do it.

    So government (We the people) created corporations to enable pooling of capital and reduction of individual risk. We (through our government) grant these entities the right to enter into contracts, write checks, hire people, borrow money, file lawsuits, etc. as if they were a “person.”

    A common misconception is that shareholders “own” corporations. They do not, but shareholders do elect the Board of Directors, which hires people to manage the corporation according to the Board’s instructions.

    People tend to think of and talk about corporations as sentient entities. But corporations do not think or decide or act or anything else. The managers of the corporation do that. For example, “Wells Fargo” did not “decide” to commit fraud against their customers, the corporation’s executives — people — did that.

    Another common misconception is that corporations are required by law to do whatever they can to make profits for the shareholders. In fact this is a relatively recent concept that flourished as people’s understanding of the purpose of corporations diminished. In fact government does much to limit what corporations can do while seeking profits. They cannot (aren’t supposed to) kill or injure people to increase profits, cannot poison the air and water, cannot commit fraud, etc.

    So the idea that government should keep their hands off of corporations and not hold some percent of them for the benefit of We the People is really preposterous. This thinking misunderstands what a corporation is, how and why it exists and what its purpose is.

    The goal of Baker’s idea is to create a system where corporations are paying their share to We the People, without all of the incentives to come up with schemes to avoid taxes. Baker’s idea accomplishes that goal. Baker suggests that government hold 25% of corporate shares, but the tax rate has already dropped from 52% to 46% under Reagan to 35% today, and the corporate share of the overall tax burden has fallen from 32% to only 10%. SO perhaps a higher share would be appropriate for restoring revenue and democracy.

    (See Lynn Stout’s The Shareholder Value Myth for a deeper dive into what and why a corporation is.)

    Corporate Tax Cuts Are Really Just Tax Cuts For The Rich

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    Republicans are proposing a huge, huge cut in corporate tax rates. They are also proposing to let giant, multinational corporations keep much of the taxes they already owe on profits they are keeping in “offshore” tax havens.

    Lower tax rates mean higher after-tax profits, which increases the value of stock holdings.

    Who owns corporate stock, and therefore receives the benefits of these tax cuts?

    Do We All Benefit From Corporate Stock?

    Lets look at just who owns corporate stock.

    Republicans like to pretend that all of us are invested in the stock market, if not by directly owning stocks, then through “our” retirement plans. This is usually written by and believed by upper-level, comfortable people that actually do have retirement plans.

    But 45% of Americans have no money for retirement at all. Only 44% of Americans put anything into a 401K if their company offers one — and this number includes workers with only $100 in the plan. Only 18% of Americans are putting money in an Individual Retirement Account (IRA), ehich may or may not hold stocks. Only 4% of private-sector workers have only a “defined benefit” plan, usually called a pension.

    So much for “our” retirement plans. Aside from retirement plans, a 2016 Gallup survey found that only 52% of Americans own any stocks at all – down from 65% in 2007.

    So Who Does Own Stock?

    Here is a chart of who owns corporate stock (and therefore pays those taxes.)

    As of 2007, the top 1 percent owned 50.9 percent of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets. The top 10 percent owned 90.3 percent. Things have only concentrated upward since 2007.

    How much have things concentrated upwards since then? 20 Americans now hold as much wealth as half of all Americans put together and “the 400 richest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the population.”

    People talk about an “upper class” that holds most of the wealth in our society now. Maybe the thinking on this needs to change from a “class” of people to just a few people.

    It is these few people who are the beneficiaries of corporate tax cuts. As tax rates drop the value of their stock holdings rises. The rest of us lose our ability to have good schools, roads, health care, courts, scientific research and all the rest of the things our government tries to do to make our lives better.

    This is who we are talking about when we talk about corporate tax rates. It’s not anonymous, nameless corporation, it is people — just a few people.

    Tax Cuts Defund The Very Things That Boost The Economy

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    After 8 years of complaining about “Obama deficits,” Republicans are proposing huge, dramatic, unprecedented tax cuts, especially for corporations. President Trump wants the rate cut from 35% down to 15%, denying the government $2 trillion of revenue over the next decade. He is also proposing dramatic income tax cuts for billionaires like him.

    Republicans call corporate tax cuts “pro-growth,” saying they will give the economy a boost. Trump’s Treasury Secretary says the plan will “pay for itself with economic growth.”

    So now they’re for “stimulus”?

    But here’s the real question: do tax cuts actually boost economic growth?

    What Tax Cuts Actually Do

    In 2012 the Congressional Research Service looked at the data from past tax cuts and the effect they had on the economy, and issued a report titled, Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945. The summary explained,

    This report attempts to clarify whether or not there is an association between the tax rates of the highest income taxpayers and economic growth. Data is analyzed to illustrate the association between the tax rates of the highest income taxpayers and measures of economic growth.

    And what did the study find?

    There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

    In fewer words: There is no evidence that tax cuts bring economic growth, but they do cause income to concentrate at the top.

    But wait, it’s worse than that. Tax revenues build roads (and bridges and airports and rail systems and and water systems…), educate the population, conduct scientific research, run the courts, enforce regulations, standardize (and enforce) weights and measures, and about a million other things that make businesses prosper.

    If you cut taxes, over time the business environment necessarily gets worse because those roads deteriorate, people are not as well educated, scientific research declines, courts clog up, regulation enforcement declines, along with about a million other things that businesses rely on. If you can’t get educated employees, can’t move goods on crowded and deteriorated roads and your competitors can get away with cheating, your business just isn’t going to do as well as it could.

    Tax cuts defund all of those things that boost the economy and make our lives better. Over time the economy necessarily gets worse.

    Are Taxes Theft?

    Republicans say “taxes are theft.” They say “taxes take money out of the economy.” They say it “takes from those who work and earn and giving to those who don’t.” They say taxation “extracts wealth.” The idea behind this is that government is illegitimate and “uses force’ to “take people’s money” so “they” can have it instead. They argue there are “producers” and “moochers” and the moochers outnumber the producers and take from them.

    These are all actually arguments against democracy. Substitute the words “We the People” for the word “government” in their arguments and you’ll see how this works. The “they” in their arguments isn’t some “other” that grabs the money, it is We the People. The idea of democracy is that We the People have a government and we decide how to allocate the resources of our economy to make our lives better. That means taxing and spending.

    Democracy is taxing and spending. And by definition government sending is on things that make our lives better.

    Are tax cuts theft? Or are they really about theft of democracy from We the People?

    From Tax Cuts Are Theft,

    The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract. Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?

    … The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:

    … But the “Reagan Revolution” broke the contract. Since Reagan the system is working like this:

    Tax cuts eat the seed corn of our prosperity. We shouldn’t fall for yet another Republican con, this time from the con-man Trump.