Isaac Laquedem

The Laquedem Plan to measure and index the minimum wage

In real-dollar terms, the minimum wage of $7.25/hour is at its lowest point since shortly after its creation in 1938.  It has been $7.25/hour since 2009.  One of our major political parties, fearful of directing money to people who might actually need to spend it, has obstructed efforts to raise the wage to $15.

Isaac has devised a plan to satisfy the Republicans' philosophical objections and honor the memory of St. Ronald Reagan, all in one package.  Let's begin by directing our thoughts to the Reagan administration, the Laffer curve, and the large tax cuts of that era.  The theory of the Reagan tax cuts, honored in two later Republican administrations, is that by reducing income taxes on large corporations the tax savings would become free cash that would trickle down to the people who were actually doing the work. 

That didn't happen.

I'd like to suggest a new metric for measuring the minimum wage, which is to measure it not in dollars but in how many hours of work at the minimum wage equals one year of a Congressional salary.

The base Congressional salary (leaders get more) is $174,000/year.  The minimum wage is $7.25/hour.  One year in Congress carries remuneration equal to 24,000 hours at the minimum wage.

Now go back to the first year of the Reagan era.  Congresspeople received $60,662.50/year.  The minimum wage was $3.35.  One year in Congress in 1981 equaled 18,108 hours at the minimum wage.

The facile interpretation is that our Congresspeople are 33% more productive than they were in 1981, because they now earn 33% more than their predecessors did in 1981, in terms of the minimum wage.  We have only to look at the Senate of the last few years to reject an explanation based on productivity.  So let's go back to trickle-down economics.

If trickle-down economics had worked as Reagan and Laffer had predicted, then there would be few - maybe no - minimum-wage jobs remaining, because the price of labor would be higher in real-dollar terms than it was in 1981.  The plutocrats would have taken the dollars showered upon them by the appreciative Solons and spent them pursuing labor, driving up wages.  That wages did not keep up is a strong mark against the Reagan-Laffer theory.

But let us assume, as Mitch McConnell and his merry band of naysayers must, that the tax cuts in fact trickled down.  In that case there would be no harm in raising the minimum wage to a level that assumes that the tax cuts did in fact trickle down.  That level, I suggest, is the 1981 ratio, when the minimum wage was 1/18,108 of a Congressional salary.  Today that's $9.61/hour. 

If Senator McConnell is willing to adopt standard Republican economic theory, then he should be all in favor of raising the minimum wage to $9.61/hour, and to index it to equal at least 1/18,108 of a Congressional salary.  If he continues to oppose raising the wage to keep up with costs, then we should insist that Congress adopt another Republican principle and tie Congressional salaries to productivity.  One refinement would be to provide that if a session of Congress is less productive than the historical average, its leaders should get not more, but less, than the base salary.  It seems unjust to call Senator McConnell a legislator when he's working as hard as he can not to legislate.

For Juneteenth this year, Lift Every Voice and Sing

How can an American not hear without national pride the ascending melody and stirring words, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave," with which each verse closes?  If your great-grandparents were slaves in the "land of the free," you may hear those words differently.  Although The Star-Spangled Banner did not become our national anthem until 1931, Francis Scott Key wrote his stirring words about "the land of the free and the home of the brave" in 1814, when slavery was yet part of our nation.  Key owned slaves himself, black people who were in the land of the free but not free themselves. 

Key alluded to slaves, without irony, in the third verse, which only pedants know.  I'll quote it in its entirety:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Who are the "hirelings and slaves" of Key's verse?  According to Robin Blackburn, a British socialist historian, the slaves of Key's verse are American slaves.  The British army had freed the American slaves that it encountered, some of whom joined the British army to do battle with the nation that had enslaved them.  Key's verses about "the land of the free" ignored the unfree in America, and mocked those that sought the same freedoms that Key himself, as a white slaveowner, enjoyed.

Every American should know Yankee Doodle, the most prominent song of our nation's independence.  Every American should know the first verse of The Star-Spangled Banner and the coldly ironic story behind the other verses.  There's a third patriotic song that every American should know.  It's called Lift Every Voice and Sing.  James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the words in 1899 and his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) set it to music in 1905.  It begins with these three lines:

Lift every voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Unlike the invocation of immediate peril in La Marseillaise, or the florid description of the battle in The Star-Spangled Banner, James Johnson's verse alludes only subtly to the slavery era:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

The college classmate from whom I first heard the song many years ago said it was the black national anthem, and in fact the NAACP had so designated it in 1919.  As an anthem it's a remarkable statement of hope.  It's nearly as remarkable for what it doesn't say: it doesn't wish destruction on anyone, and it doesn't, unlike Key's song, celebrate freedoms that more than half of Key's compatriots couldn't enjoy.

Juneteenth is a fine day to celebrate the end of slavery and to remember what Francis Scott Key was too oblivious to see.

A federal judge says it's "madness" to remove Confederate names from bases because there were good people on both sides. A brave clerk puts him in his place

Laurence Silberman, a federal judge on the court of appeals for the District of Columbia, kicked off this year's Juneteenth week with a screed to his court.  One of the court's law clerks politely set him to rights.

Ten military bases in the United States are named after Confederate officers -- the only instances I'm aware of in which the United States has named military bases after officers of a defeated military opponent, no matter how illustrious.  Our military does not drill at Camp Cornwallis or Fort Rommel.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced legislation to require the military to rename those bases after people who did not rebel against the United States.  Judge Silberman disapproves.

On June 14, Judge Silberman wrote to the judges and judicial clerks in the circuit and described as "madness" Senator Warren's proposal to rename the bases after soldiers who did not fight against the United States.  He described her proposal, which involved no graveyards, as "the desecration of Confederate graves."  He continued, "It's important to remember that Lincoln did not fight the war to free the slaves.  Indeed, he was willing to put up with slavery if the Confederate states returned."  (I've corrected Judge Silberman's errors of capitalization and punctuation.)  He pointed to his own family history as a reason to commemorate both sides of the Civil War: the judge's great-grandfather fought for the Union and the great-grandfather's brother fought for the Confederacy.

One day later a judicial clerk became the first to answer Judge Silberman.  Here are some excerpts from the brave law clerk's response:

I am only one of five black law clerks in this entire circuit.  Since no one in the court's leadership has responded to your message, I thought I would give it a try.  * * *  [M]y maternal ancestors were enslaved in Mississippi. While the laws of this nation viewed my ancestors as property, I view them as hostages. In a hostage situation, when someone does something that leads to the freeing of the hostages, I am not sure if the hostages would be concerned as to whether the person that saved them, actually intended to save them.  My ancestors would not have been involved in the philosophical and political debates about Lincoln’s true intentions. 

It is very clear what the Confederacy stood for.  In 1861, at the Virginia secession convention, Henry L. Benning (for whom Fort Benning is named) in explaining the reasoning for Georgia’s decision to secede from the United States stated, “[it] was a conviction … that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery…[I]t is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back.” Unfortunately, in this scenario, no matter how bravely your uncle fought for the Confederacy, the foundation of his fight was a decision that he agreed more with the ideals of the Confederacy, than he did with those of the Union. And in the end, he chose the losing side of history.

Finally, I will note that the current movement to rename Government owned facilities is in line with your previous opinions on the importance of names and what they represent. In 2005, you publicly advocated for the removal of J. Edgar Hoover’s name from the FBI Building due to the problematic material you came across in your review of his FBI files after his death. You equated it to the Defense Department being named for Aaron Burr.  * * * It is very strange that you would be against renaming our military facilities, since the legacy of the Confederacy represents the same thing.

Thanks to The Intercept for reporting this story.

If this were 1872, the Democratic party's leadership would . . .

The efforts of the Democratic party leadership, abetted by elements of the eastern press, to promote billionaire Michael Bloomberg as the man who can defeat Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination and then go on to expel self-identified billionaire Donald Trump from the White House in the November election made me imagine that, if 150 years ago Daniel Drew (image credit) had connived his way into the Oval Office, the party leadership would have recruited Jay Gould to run for the office, not just to oust Drew but to prevent an actual reformer from winning.

Let's make America great again works . . . only if you first define what was great about the past

A question for people who want to make America great again, the stuff of story and legend: what are you looking forward to?

The Depression as depicted by John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath"? Unsafe food and 12-hour workdays, as described by Upton Sinclair in "The Jungle"? Slavery (oops: I meant "the involuntarily sharing economy"), as limned by Harriet Beecher Stowe in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Or the days of honest graft, as explained by George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall?  Or all of the above?

Equal time for the defense: "Hang In There, Mr. President" (1974)

Richard Nixon inspired not just whimsical songs about the Watergate scandal that brought his presidency to an end, but also songs to rally his supporters.  Henry Tobias wrote this one, which Bernie Knee recorded with accordionist and polka king Frank Yankovic (1915-1998) and his orchestra.  The author wasn't afraid to use the i-word in the lyric:

You've got courage so just reach 'em (Fight! Fight! Fight!)

Let them holler 'Let's impeach him!"  They're wrong, you're right!

It's hard to imagine how the current administration would publicize a song in support of President Trump, as it no longer holds press conferences.  His lawyer Rudy Giuliani could sing it on his behalf, but he's shown a facility for getting his lines wrong.

A look back: Watergate had its own protest songs, including one written by a Congressman

The scandals of the current administration make those of the dim past almost amusing in retrospect.  Even the Watergate scandal and the resulting impeachment effort produced its bits of humor amidst the shadows. One such bit was this whimsical song called "Down At the Old Watergate" by William Hungate (1922-2007), a congressman from Missouri.  He recorded it, accompanying himself on the piano, and set up a phone line where his constituents could call and listen to the recording.  The linked version isn't his own recording - I wish I could find it, as he had it pressed onto vinyl.  It is, however, a reminder of a happier time when partisanship could be expressed through intellect and not just through intolerance.

 

 

 

Brett Kavanaugh's speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee, revised

To be exact, here follows Isaac's take on how Judge Kavanaugh should have begun his second round of testimony to the Judiciary Committee:

Senators, good morning.  I'd like to respond to the recent and very public discussion about my time in high school and college.  I will not ask you to excuse me for what I was as a teenager.  I do, however, wish to apologize to Professor Ford and to the other women whose paths crossed my high school and college groups and who were rightly offended, embarrassed, and scared. 

If we were all to be judged as middle-aged adults by the most offensive of the things we did as teenagers, this room would be nearly empty.  In the 40 years since I entered high school, society has changed.  Forty years ago the rights of landowners to be free of confiscatory land use regulations were conspicuous by their near-absence - until in the 1980s a liberal supreme court adopted conservative positions in the First English, Nollan, and Dolan cases.  Forty years ago none of us would have imagined that two men or two women could be a married couple - a liberal right that a conservative supreme court defined and protected in its Obergefell decision.  And forty years ago conduct of our sons was excused with the glib saying that "boys will be boys," despite the fear and pain that their conduct caused our daughters.

The president did not nominate the 18-year-old or the 25-year-old Brett Kavanaugh to the highest court of the land.  He nominated the 53-year-old Brett Kavanaugh who has a 25-year record as a lawyer, a public servant, and a judge.  You can recommend the appointment of the Judge Kavanaugh of today without endorsing the Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge that are a quarter-century in the past.

Some of you may disagree with the positions that I advocated when I was a lawyer in the Bush administration.  Others of you may disagree with some of the decisions that I've made as a judge.  The questions that I suggest are before you and, if you recommend my nomination, before the full Senate, are whether in my time in the executive branch I honestly and intelligently advocated the positions of the government, and whether in my time on the bench I have honestly and intelligently applied the rule of law to the cases before me.  I believe that you can answer "yes" to both.

Judge Kavanaugh chose a different approach.  He'll likely be confirmed anyway, but he's going to be tagged as the nominee who was combative when he should have been contrite.

Thomas Jefferson: the bogeyman of the Boston brahmin?

Wendell Phillips, the underappreciated author of the fine phrase that graces our federal courthouse, "The first duty of society is justice," was not necessarily a proper Bostonian - the other Boston brahmins thought him a rabble-rouser, which he was -- but he was among the most elegant and entertaining orators of his day.  He would insert dry zingers among his serious points in support of the abolitionist movement and his lampoons of William H. Seward.  He let off one of his best five minutes after he spoke his famous line, when he criticized Massachusetts for having been "hide-bound in the aristocracy of classes for years after" the Revolution, describing his home state's bygone beliefs in these words:

The five points of Massachusetts decency were, to trace your lineage to the Mayflower, graduate at Harvard College, be a good lawyer or a member of an orthodox church, -- either would answer, -- pay your debts, and frighten your child to sleep by saying "Thomas Jefferson."

Misquotation run riot: Hamilton gets credit for Phillips' work because Phillips credited Hamilton for Madison's work

Law and academe share a fondness for citation.  Nothing more interesting than a cliché may be quoted without attributing the quotation to its source.  As the saying goes, "Be original - but find someone who said it first."¹  

The Hatfield courthouse in downtown Portland has an imposing quotation carved high on a wall on the ground floor:  "THE FIRST DUTY OF SOCIETY IS JUSTICE", in majestic capitals, unsourced.  Federal judges cite the saying to remind lawyers of their obligation of professionalism.  But who first said it?  The courthouse wall attributes the saying to "Jury Assembly Room," likely a pseudonym.  I doubt that anyone in the courthouse knows who actually said it.  If you were to ask the courthouse occupants for the name of the author, my guess is that half would confidently attribute the saying to Alexander Hamilton and the other half wouldn't know. 

Alexander Hamilton said and wrote a lot of things, and he's occasionally credited with this fine saying.  He isn't, however, the author -- people wrongly identified Hamilton as the author because the man who actually stated the phrase in a public speech followed it up with a mention of Hamilton.  None of the online information I found that credits Hamilton as the author states where and when he said or wrote it.

The actual author was a prominent abolitionist, Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), who said it in a speech at the old Boston Music Hall on Winter Street on January 20, 1861.  That speech and another that he gave the next month were published later that year.  In that speech, talking of the impending Civil War, he said:

Mr. Seward says, "The first object of every human society is safety;" I think the first duty of society is JUSTICE.  Alexander Hamilton said, "Justice is the end of government.  It is the end of civil society."  If any other basis of safety or gain were honest, it would be impossible.²

There is the original quotation, straight from Wendell Phillips in 1861.  Unfortunately for the reputation of Mr. Phillips, his next two words were "Alexander Hamilton."  HIs actual quotation of Hamilton's words:  "Justice is the end of government.  It is the end of civil society" is taken from Federalist Paper No. 51, and therein lies another irony in the history of this quotation: Hamilton wrote more than half of the Federalist papers, but he didn't write No. 51 -- James Madison wrote No. 51.

The irony? Today some mistakenly credit Hamilton for the words of Wendell Phillips because Phillips mistakenly credited Hamilton with the words of James Madison.

¹  Isaac Laquedem, http://isaac.blogs.com/isaac_laquedem, retrieved March 23, 2018.

²  Wendell Phillips, Disunion: Two Discourses at Music Hall, on January 20th, and February 17th, 1861 (Boston: Robert F. Wallcut, 1861), page 6.