A Hospital Named Ralph

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that the PC's ( Party of Calgary) wants to name a Calgary hospital after King Ralph. For all his, failed, efforts to privatize health care in Alberta. How about this hospital...

Implosion of Calgary's General Hospital

When the Tories blew it up in 1998, for reasons of debt and deficit hysteria, not only was it unneccasary but it created a public health risk, that was little reported at the time.

And it is still is controversial;

Taft accuses the provincial Tories of gutting the Calgary Health Care systems."We are experiencing the terrible consequences of that decision. Blowing up the Calgary General Hospital was a catastrophic mistake and somebody needs to be held responsible. Same with the Holy Cross."

Of course if the Tories really wanted a Klein legacy they could name an airport after him.....Alberta buys new planes for gov't fleet

Also See:

Ralph Klein

Alberta

Health Care

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Klein, hospital, Calgary, implosion, Calgary-General-Hospital, 1998, PC, government, politics, legacy, privatization, healthcare, medicare, Conservatives

We Paid How Much

So it cost Albertans over a million dollars to tell us something we already know and have been telling King Ralph for the past ten years as he has tried to privatize our healthcare system. All this guy has done is waste millions on focus groups, studies, reports, etc. etc. ad naseaum, to try and prove his privatization plans would save healthcare money. Which is won't. So he keeps throwing good money after bad, while that money could have been spent on creating community health clincs with health teams on salary,that would reduce healthcare costs.

Gov't study discredits third-way reforms

There is little to be gained by introducing private insurance and multiple payers into medical care, two key planks in Premier Ralph Klein's 10-point framework for reforming Alberta's health-care system, says a study commissioned by the Klein government. The report, which cost the province $1.3 million, examines the potential effects of offering insurance for prescription drugs, continuing care, "supplemental health products services," and non-emergency health care.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Klein, Healthcare, Medicare, Third-Way, Alberta, Canada, doctors, hospitals,

The Beltway’s Favorite Bogus Budget Model

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, bankrolled by finance moguls, is out to grow its power in Washington.

BY JAROD FACUNDO
AMERICAN PROSPECT
APRIL 10, 2023

ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DOBI
This article appears in the April 2023 issue of The American Prospect magazine. 

American politics often goes like this. A politician proposes ambitious social policy. She’s smacked immediately with a barrage of familiar questions: How much does it cost? How are you going to pay for that? What’s the impact on the economy? Will this stop people from working? Have you considered how this might hurt business?

Those questions, she is told, can be answered by only the smartest economists, who magically all arrive at the same conclusions. They say: We ran the numbers and it doesn’t add up. The costs are too high, and the impact on jobs and growth uncertain. We’re not advocating for policy—we’re just calling balls and strikes, contributing data and knowledge to the debate. Rinse, repeat.

In Washington, a metric ton of policy shops, think tanks, and interest groups advocate for their pet issues, on all sides of the political spectrum. The more inoffensive-sounding their names are, the greater your suspicions should be. The institutions that deny having a political agenda the most are typically the ones most invested in ideological outcomes. And that’s especially true of the self-appointed budget scorekeepers.

One of the most influential players in this space can be found just up I-95 from Washington, in America’s original capital city of Philadelphia. There sits the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Founded in 2016, PWBM has rapidly risen to the top of the pack of outside budget modelers, which run analyses on various policies and release bite-sized summaries of their impacts. You can see its influence across corporate media; its findings are recited as gospel in newspaper headlines, alongside the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates. Combined, they become the prism through which all policy is debated, and lawmakers take notice.

PWBM touts its work as above politics, pointing to instances where Democrats and Republicans alike have disagreed with its findings. That dual-sided criticism gives the organization the ability to posture that it’s a mere truthseeker, not a political animal.

But in a 2020 interview, PWBM’s faculty director, former Congressional Budget Office economist and George W. Bush administration Treasury Department official Kent Smetters, spoke candidly about the model’s deep involvement in the policymaking process. “Policymakers often come to us before they write bills. It’s very clear when our footprint is on those bills, because we give feedback—usually off the record—about what the impacts would be if they try to achieve something one way versus another.”

What’s more, in recent years the Penn Wharton Budget Model has inserted itself further into the corridors of power. In 2020, the organization developed a highly competitive public-policy education program, designed for congressional staffers and other policy professionals. The Prospect obtained documents from the course’s current iteration, which began last October and runs until early May.

Though Penn Wharton has a website dedicated to the seven-month course, several former government officials and policy experts who spoke to the Prospect were unaware of it. Yet they described the course’s existence as emblematic of how interest groups try to ingratiate themselves on Capitol Hill.

At the core, the Penn Wharton Budget Model is a product of the commingling of America’s financial and political elite.

In other words, Penn Wharton consciously and deliberately attempts to set the terms of debate, mainly through heightening fears about deficits, so that any public spending is viewed unfavorably. This helps push policy in a particular direction, one that aligns with the political and financial elites who support and fund the project.

Announcing the creation of the model in June 2016, the former dean of the Wharton School, Geoff Garrett, said, “We’re harnessing the power of information for policy impact and using our analytics expertise to fuel data-driven decision making.” To assuage concerns over politicking, Garrett’s statement added: “We see an opportunity to make a difference at the intersection of business and policy—to help business, legislators and the public make crucial decisions based on rigorous data rather than ideological debate.”

The model, developed by Smetters and former CBO and Treasury officials, had an interactive component, allowing users to download and test specific policies to see the effect on the budget and the economy. A cute animated video beckoned people to get engaged. But the model’s true impact was always pointed toward Washington.

In 2017, PWBM estimated that the Trump tax cuts would increase economic growth, albeit modestly, because they would stimulate private investment. For the record, this did not happen. But the analysis did jump-start the budget model’s rise to prominence. Numerous traditional media outlets highlighted it; then-Vox writer Ezra Klein called the organization “the respected Penn Wharton Budget Model,” at a time when it was barely a year old.

Marshall Steinbaum, an economist at the University of Utah, has a particular familiarity with Penn Wharton. He co-authored a 2017 report for the Roosevelt Institute on the effects to the macroeconomy if the United States implemented a universal basic income (UBI) program. Penn Wharton’s Kent Smetters responded, concluding that no matter how the program was funded, it would result in a lower gross domestic product; that’s economist-speak for “it’s not worth it.”

Steinbaum explained in an interview with the Prospect that the model made two assumptions when analyzing UBI: that increased household income dampens the economy’s labor supply, and that federal budget deficits lead to increasing interest rates. Steinbaum conceded that the Federal Reserve has increased rates lately, but that had nothing to do with budget deficits. “That’s a policy choice,” Steinbaum explained. “Not something that happens automatically.”

The notion that guaranteed income from non-labor activities results in lower labor force participation, Steinbaum said, is a false rationalization for people who believe the welfare state creates a culture of poverty. In fact, one of the citations for Smetters’s analysis was a paper analyzing the labor market effects of the Alaska Permanent Fund, an income-producing social wealth fund for every resident. But the paper concluded that the cash dividend had no effect on employment. Some people on the fringes of the labor market moved from full-time to part-time work, but the impact was not large enough for the original researchers to reach a definitive conclusion. Yet that extraneous result became the basis for Smetters to argue that a nationwide UBI program would have negative macroeconomic effects.
Expand

The Penn Wharton Budget Model leans into the critique that America’s most pressing policy problems are deficits and debt.

The example may seem trivial, because it’s not like Congress is on the verge of passing a UBI for every American citizen. But it matters. Institutions like PWBM and those who rhapsodize about its findings and analyses consider themselves to be the most serious, straight-edged people in the room. Yet if you poke their findings with a stick, they can be just as flimsy as any other pundit’s hot take. These expert conclusions become impenetrable only because of their complex language.

This happens over and over, and across administrations. For example, former President Donald Trump found himself at war with PWBM over his proposed infrastructure plan. Penn Wharton concluded that the $200 billion investment would have no impact on GDP. An independent think tank with actual expertise with transportation, the Eno Center, published a brief deconstructing how Penn Wharton’s analysis was off. But that didn’t matter, because The Washington Post had already run with the blazing headline “The Math in Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Is Off by 98 Percent, UPenn Economists Say,” and the conversation was over.

During the 2020 presidential primaries, Penn Wharton claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) Medicare for All proposal would reduce GDP by 24 percent over 40 years. This was entirely derived from the fact that the plan “lacks a financing mechanism,” leading the budget model to assume that it would be entirely deficit-financed. A note at the top of the analysis stated that “the long-run impact on GDP varies by as much as 24 percentage points,” or all of the projected loss, “depending on how the plan is financed.” Yet the headlines again did away with the ambiguity, asserting that the model showed that Medicare for All would “decimate” the economy. Potential benefits of the plan, like how workers would no longer be spending out of pocket for insurance premiums, thereby leaving them with additional money that could be circulated through the economy, were not integrated into the analysis.

Along the way, PWBM became a favorite adviser of deficit obsessive Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who used its findings as a pretext to stall the social spending measures of the Build Back Better Act. PWBM projected that the total cost estimate would run higher than what the White House predicted, based on assumptions that the package would be permanently extended. The experience of the enhanced Child Tax Credit, which expired at the end of 2021, shows the extreme uncertainty with such a methodology, but it was enough to collapse negotiations. Most of the social spending was eliminated from the final Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Manchin got a taste of his own medicine later. When the budget model scored the IRA, it claimed that the bill would have little effect on inflation. Manchin’s response that he disagreed with PWBM further bolstered the model’s reputation as a neutral arbiter. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) took the opportunity to publish a short press release titled “Manchin Criticizes Budget Model He Once Touted.”

At the core, the Penn Wharton Budget Model is not simply a conservative, or even entirely a Republican, project. It’s a product of the commingling of America’s financial and political elite.

PWBM’s power is derived from its claims to nonpartisanship and its ability to drive its message through the media.

When you trace PWBM’s universe, you find a web of supporters that would make any sane person doubt the model’s supposed nonpartisan stance. Some actors are better than others, but most are cutthroat business executives who have reaped the most from financialization, at the expense of everybody else. They combine with experts from a decade ago who believe that the financial crisis was handled just fine, or that too much was done. Some even had a hand in its creation.

The most benign of the main trio of financial supporters is former Microsoft CEO, and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer. He’s a public supporter of good data creating good government. His $10 million donation went toward creating USAFacts, a trove of standardized government data—the raw material that fuels the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

The bulk of the rest of PWBM’s funding comes from John D. Arnold and Marc Rowan, who have donated $6.6 million and $50 million, respectively, through their philanthropic organizations.

In recent years, Arnold has become an enigmatic darling in liberal circles for his work on drug pricing reform. His charity, Arnold Ventures, has spent more than $100 million on the issue, supporting the most respected patient advocacy groups. But as the Prospect has previously reported, Arnold was financing a consultant group that pared down the scope of how far drug pricing reform would go.

Aside from drug pricing, his interests extend into public-employee pensions. A 2017 Governing article titled “The Most Hated Man in Pensionland” detailed Arnold’s support for “pension reform,” that is, privatizing pensions. Matt Taibbi’s 2013 coverage in Rolling Stone detailed how, as Arnold funded the Pew Research Center, the organization started publishing reports on the unsustainable costs of public pension systems, while omitting the role played by the financial crisis and its actors. The conclusions were correct enough for a surface interpretation, but hollow in explaining the underlying reasons.

Before philanthropy, Arnold made a career out of destabilizing oil prices, earning the moniker “the king of natural gas.” He started his career on Enron’s trading desk on the West Coast, becoming indispensable before the company’s collapse. During Enron’s collapse, public pensions lost $1.5 billion through their investments in the company. Thereafter, Arnold rose once again in oil trading through his energy-focused hedge fund. A 2006 Senate investigation placed the blame for rising oil prices squarely on figures like Arnold, for their role in manufacturing conspiracies that the world was running out of oil.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model’s largest supporter is Marc Rowan, CEO of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. In 2018, Rowan and his wife donated $50 million “to attract and retain world-leading faculty.” As a Penn Wharton alumnus, Rowan said he was “honored” to help “Wharton researchers advance and shape their fields.”

Like many private equity firms, Apollo is known for being ruthless, but it has earned a particularly corrosive reputation. Other private equity firms will try to whitewash their own practices by saying things like “We’re not like Apollo.” Co-founder Leon Black tends to catch the most bullets from the media. But Rowan was another co-founder of the firm; he took over the CEO role from Black in 2021.

If you look at the increasing concentration of hospitals, degradation of quality health care services, decreases in employee wages and benefits, and the shutterings of rural hospitals, Apollo is behind those maneuverings. Numerous Apollo-backed firms, from EP Energy to Phoenix Services to Hexion to Chisholm Oil & Gas, have hit bankruptcy in the past few years. Apollo executives helped invent the practice of winning while losing in bankruptcy, stripping assets out of a dying company and avoiding any legal consequences.


Slides from the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s certificate program, a seven-month course designed for congressional staffers and policymakers





The budget model’s assumptions, which push against higher taxes, public investment, and most other things that anger the rich, fit together nicely with the outlook of a financial services industry tycoon or a billionaire CEO.

Financially supporting a project is not an automatic quid pro quo. But for the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the worldview of its funders is not so different from its list of advisers. External advisers include former House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA). After public office, Schwartz spent six years leading the Better Medicare Alliance (BMA), an insurance industry–backed front group where she served as president and CEO. Wendell Potter, the former insurance industry insider, has said that BMA’s “raison d’etre is to widen the federal spigot of taxpayer dollars” for directing public money away from traditional Medicare and toward Medicare Advantage plans.

Though there is one moderate tax economist with PWBM, UC Berkeley’s Alan Auerbach, there’s also Gregory Rosston, an economist who studied under Bill Baxter, the “total zealot” who rewrote antitrust merger guidelines under former President Ronald Reagan. Former Obama administration alumni and austerity hawks Peter Orszag and Austan Goolsbee are on the external advisory board as well. To Orszag and Goolsbee’s right, PWBM has former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the anti-government conservative who withdrew his nomination to become Obama’s commerce secretary over “irresolvable conflicts” on the scope of the 2009 stimulus package.

Meanwhile, Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), one of the most consistent budget hawk voices in Washington, also serves on the board. CRFB happens to consistently cite the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s findings, as proof of why various pieces of proposed legislation have deleterious effects on the federal budget. CRFB-friendly language about fiscal responsibility and “tough choices,” by the same token, is prominent on Penn Wharton’s frequently asked questions page.

In a 2020 debate with MacGuineas and Larry Summers about federal deficits, Summers, in the nicest way possible, called her economic view of the world idiotic and unsophisticated. “I think Maya’s move to austerity as soon as possible is dangerous and misguided,” Summers said. “I think it’s analytically wrong because it fails to appreciate the big structural changes taking place in our economy.” Summers continued: “If we had the advice that Maya and those like her had consistently recommended from 2010 and onwards, we would have had an even slower than the slowest-in-history recovery since the 2008 recession.”

MacGuineas is of course well compensated to espouse this worldview. CRFB has for years been funded with the fortune of the late Pete Peterson, the co-founder of private equity giant Blackstone and backer of a number of pro-austerity front groups. Peterson spent nearly half a billion dollars in the late 2000s and early 2010s encouraging deficit reduction, particularly through cuts to earned-benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Step deeper inside the Penn Wharton Budget Model maze, and you find its team of experts. It includes the “internationally recognized expert on entitlement reforms” Jagadeesh Gokhale, a Cato Institute and American Enterprise Institute alumnus. His professional work has focused on ways to privatize Social Security. Meanwhile, Cathy Taylor, listed as a “nonresident fellow,” is just an outright Republican activist. She’s the author of Red Is the New Black: How Women Can Fashion a More Powerful America, a book alleging that the Republican Party embodies the values women care about more than the Democratic Party. The book is conveniently not mentioned in her bio on the Penn Wharton site.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model’s certificate program is broken down into six separate sessions. Half of those are electives, selected by those taking the class. Meanwhile, the required classes include “Intro to the Economics of Tax and Spending Policies,” “An Insider View of Policymaking in the White House,” and “How Do Economists Predict the Economic Effects of Policies?”

The Prospect was able to see some of the names of the people inside the course. Most of them were congressional staffers, while others worked for other federal agencies or were policy types not affiliated with the government. Sources told the Prospect that the congressional staffers in the course are typically an even split of Democrats and Republicans. However, this latest cohort had more Democratic staffers than Republican ones, with an ideological range across the caucus, from Squad members to the most conservative.

In the program’s introductory course, an anonymous source described to the Prospect that the instructors emphasized how economists are not concerned with “politics”—which for them was a reference to race, inequality, or gender. Penn Wharton’s Caroline Pennartz said in a statement that PWBM “takes an economic view of public policy rather than a political science or sociological view,” but that studies on their site do incorporate race and gender.

From the very beginning, class participants are drilled with the assumption that all taxes create a loss of efficiency, meaning that any dollar spent toward the government is a dollar never distributed in the economy. This frame of thinking leads one to conclude that hypothetically speaking, a flat tax is actually fairer than a progressive tax system, because such dollars could run further outside of government. (Pennartz said that the course adds the context that flat taxes “are typically perceived as unfair.”)

Notably, the required course “An Insider View of Policymaking in the White House” was taught by conservative Cathy Taylor.

PWBM faculty director Kent Smetters led the final required course, “How Do Economists Predict the Economic Effects of Policies?” Smetters emphasized how the budget model team works closely with lawmakers. “Ninety percent of our time right now is spent on actually just doing private delivery for policymakers who come to us from both [parties],” Smetters said in the lecture. “They come to us typically before they’ve started writing legislation, before they’ve actually introduced something. Relative to the scoring agencies, we’re typically operating on the front end [of policymaking].”

Riffing toward the end of the lecture, Smetters tried downplaying the model’s political influence, but still touted its analytical rigor. He said: “I like to say, [at] the Penn Wharton Budget Model, we’re terrible at politics, good at policy, and we don’t [do] advocacy.”

Other elective lectures included sessions on topics like cryptocurrency, environmental policy, Social Security, antitrust, fiscal imbalances (taught by Jagadeesh Gokhale), prescription drug policy, and others.

The concept of a private institution funded by corporate interests holding classes for policymakers that hew to a particular perspective has an analogue. From 1976 to 1999, the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University held a popular conference for judges, teaching conservative theories about economic efficiency and cost-benefit analysis. According to later research, it had a decided impact on the judges it trained, leading to more conservative rulings. You can see the same potential from Penn Wharton’s indoctrination sessions on economic policy.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model is not necessarily an extraordinary actor in Washington. Different groups have varying degrees of sway over certain lawmakers. Many of them are more narrowly ideologically focused, however; PWBM’s power is derived from its claims to nonpartisanship and its ability to drive its message through the media. Yet it has an implicit motive: Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), sees the budget model as one piece of a larger network in Washington pushing the view that budget deficits are detrimental to the economy.

In the world of budget modeling, some lawmakers take the models too seriously, viewing success or failure through the lens of a budget score. One former staffer for Sen. Sanders, Lori Kearns, explained to the Prospect that ideally, models would be only one input a lawmaker considers when drafting policy.

Bringing economics down from the heavens is an almost impossible task. Unconventional perspectives are smeared. And anybody who questions orthodoxies is automatically cast as an ideological partisan. The entire field protects itself with what the South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang calls an ecclesiastical “language of rulers”—whose entire purpose is to stifle debate. “Once you create this body of knowledge,” Chang said in a 2019 lecture, “you can basically bully other people into accepting your argument because other people cannot understand you.”

The Penn Wharton Budget Model has mastered the language of rulers at a quicker speed than most others. That’s why it has been so successful in its short life span. “The important thing to understand about the Penn Wharton model is that it’s not really supposed to be a model of the macroeconomy. It’s supposed to be a tool by which you could kill progressive policymaking,” Steinbaum said. “So the question [for PWBM] is, what assumptions do you make about how the macroeconomy works such that when you feed a progressive policy into it, it produces a prediction that says it will be bad for the economy?”

Alberta Seperatism Not Quite Stamped Out

Well that didn't take long. Starting with Bouquets of Grey documenting Edmonton East Conservative Campaign Manager Gordon Stamp, a perennial right wing figure here in Redmonton, being an Alberta Seperatiste and saying stupid things in online forums and now he is gone.

And Bouquets got some help from the rest of us in the blogosphere passing on our two bits worth, including yours truly, it got picked up by Paul Wells at Macleans and he forwarded it to Conservative Candidate Peter Goldring and voila Resignation tendered and accepted. Wow faster than you can say Liberal Blog, gotta hand it to Goldring he didn't give Gord his stamp of approval for his off the wall comments. Not like the Liberal spokesman did for Klander.

But true to form some folks think this is censorship and unfair to the Alberta Seperatiste faction of the Blogging Tory's. Such as Candace another Redmontonian whose blog WakingUpOnPlanetX supports Alberta Seperatism is very very upset about this. She equates Alberta Sepratism with the PQ and BQ in Quebec.

So here is a history lesson for Candace, of course its a left wing history lesson, so no apologies for that.

Alberta Seperatism is at its core an anti-semitic, racist, white power movement.
It is not the equivalent of the PQ or Quebec. It is not founded in the radical tradition of prairie populism of the Reil Rebellion contrary to the disingenous statements of Link Byfield. It is based in the right wing of the old Social Credit party and its links to the fascist movement in Canada.

It originates in Alberta not in the dirty thirties but the early 1980's in the last days of the Lougheed government, with the Western Canada Concept (WCC) of rightwhingnut lawyer and defender of fascists Doug Christie. The WCC won a seat in a red neck rural riding, and had an MLA in the Alberta Legislature giving them some political credibility, some, enough for Lougheed to use them as a whipping boy against Ottawa. Which Ralph Klein continues to do today. Any time things got a little outta hand between the Liberals in Ottawa and the Alberta Government the bugaboo of Alberta Seperatism would be raised. Clever ploy that.

The reality is that during the 1980's two major right wing populist parties began in Alberta, both anti-semitic, white power, anti-biligualism, pro religious fundamentalist, pro Celtic Saxon peoples (code for White Power) anti immigrant anti multiculturalism, today add anti-gay. These were the WCC and Elmer Knutsens Confederation of Regions Party. The CRP did not win seats in Alberta but in New Brunswick, as a right wing backlash to that provinces French majority.
Ironic eh.

Members, followers and fellow travelers of these parties, also belonged to farther right groups as well as the Reform Party of Canada when it was formed. By then their rump right wing parties disappeared. Some went on in Alberta to form splinter right wing parties like the revived Social Credit, the Alberta Alliance, the Alberta Seperatist party. But most saw Preston Mannings Reform Party as a big tent right wing party, and joined or promoted it.

The infamous voice of the right in Alberta, and Canada, the Alberta Report promoted Alberta Seperatism and the Reform party in its pages. It also supported right wing religious fundamentalism (either protestant or Catholic or Orthordox), anti abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-feminism, anti-daycare. The Byfield clan who ran the magazine as their personal empire, were also directly politically involved in these campaigns.

Today Alberta Report is no more, run into the ground by the Byfields, not once, not twice but thrice. The final death agony of the magazine is a story to behold, but suffice it to say the monies squirreled away that survived the bankruptcy went to creating a new Alberta Seperatist Foundation, run by Link Byfield and with Stalinist aplomb is called;Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.

It is of course nothing of the sort. It is a front group for right wing lobbying and Alberta Seperatism. Lets us hoist Link by his own petard, by letting him speak for himself as the CCFD. Oh by the way when someone says that they are neither left wing nor right wing, or somehow they want to be politically neutral, they ain't. They are right wing. Thats another clever ruse they use to appear non partisan.

The CITIZENS CENTRE IS NEITHER "RIGHT-WING" NOR "LEFT-WING"

Our mission is to promote responsible government in Canada by advocating honest government, a clear division of power between the federal and provincial governments, and a democratic counterbalance to the increasing power of the courts.

GOALS of the Citizens Centre

To persuade provincial governments to exert their full constitutional leverage in such areas as the Canada Pension Plan, medicare, provincial police, tax collection, gun registration, carbon emissions, urban affairs, environment and grain marketing.

To create demand in Canada for privately-paid medical treatments and regulated private alternatives to the national pension plan, as is found increasingly in all developed countries.

To create pressure for a meaningful reduction in federal fiscal transfers (both direct and indirect), and a permanent reduction in government share of GDP.

* *Ottawa forced its way into the provincial sphere of social and economic development, mainly by abusing its unlimited power to tax and spend, even in areas that are beyond its jurisdiction. Some provinces, notably Alberta and Quebec, resisted. However, Quebec was bought off and Alberta was looted. Alberta's net contribution to federal programs since 1961 is now over $200 billion.

The consequences of allowing Ottawa to negate the original scheme of Confederation have been bad for the whole country, not just Alberta.

It has created costly jurisdictional overlap, political confusion, high taxes, needless eastern dependency and western alienation, and a political culture that no longer understands the principle, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Instead we are constantly told that social entitlements like "free" medicare and unemployment insurance represent the core values of Canadians.

And what is the main political issue that they believe will enhance democracy in Canada? Proportional Representation? Electoral Reform? Parlimentary Reform? Nah......They want Refederation!

To understand what refederation entails, one has to appreciate the fact that Canada is now not only badly governed but also over-governed. Governments at all levels are too big, and they get in each other's way.

For more than a century now, various reform movements have arisen in Canada, particularly in the West, aimed at fixing the problem. They called for more accountability, less interference by Ottawa in local affairs and more equitable economic policies. In short, better government.

But from the time of Louis Riel, through the great Prairie farmers' movements, and up to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the demand for fundamental change has gone largely unanswered. Canada is still dominated by institutions that are out of date, out of step and out of touch.

Marriage Referendum

A fundamental change to the legal meaning of marriage amounts to a constitutional change of great magnitude and importance. Nobody can honestly deny this.

As the Supreme Court acknowledged in December 2003, it affects both levels of government, private and public organizations across Canada, and individual Canadians.

So who should decide the answer?

There are three possible authorities: the courts, Parliament, or the people.

The Citizens Centre believes that the constitution belongs to the people and therefore the people should have the ultimate authority on this issue.

So they want a national referendum on Marriage. And they want to privatize medicare, EI, pension plans, etc. They want a seperate pension fund for Alberta, and its own police. They are following through on Harpers original Firewall Alberta idea. Which once again in their Orwellian speak Link declares is NOT a Firewall nor are they promoting Alberta Seperatism. Talk about convoluted logic.

And the reason? Cause Canada is too liberal for them . No not Liberal, small 'l' liberal, as in libertarian, freedom of choice, freedom of the individual , freedom for gays, immigrants etc.

Now they will talk freedom and freedom of choice but in their Orwellian logic it is exactly the opposite. They want the freedom to be the Christian majority, with their country (seperate Alberta) being a fundamentalist Christian Theocracy at worst, or scratch the surface of Alberta Seperatism, and you find something worse, White Power bigots.

Yep so Candace there you have it. Why Alberta Seperatism is nothing like the Quebec Nationalist movement. It is a modern fascist movement. And if you want to participate in it fine, but lets call a spade a shovel, and you are shoveling B.S. when you promote Alberta Seperatism.

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Alberta Seperatism Not Quite Stamped Out

I AM REPOSTING THIS DUE TO THE FACT THE OLD SHIBBOLETH OF ALBERTA SEPARATISM HAS RAISED ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN WITH THE ELECTION OF UCP
UCP IS THE RESULT OF THESE PAST PARTIES MERGING INTO ONE AFTER THE ELECTION OF THE NDP GOVERNMENT IN 2015

Friday, December 30, 2005

Alberta Seperatism Not Quite Stamped Out

Well that didn't take long. Starting with Bouquets of Grey documenting Edmonton East Conservative Campaign Manager Gordon Stamp, a perennial right wing figure here in Redmonton, being an Alberta Seperatiste and saying stupid things in online forums and now he is gone.

And Bouquets got some help from the rest of us in the blogosphere passing on our two bits worth, including yours truly, it got picked up by Paul Wells at Macleans and he forwarded it to Conservative Candidate Peter Goldring and voila Resignation tendered and accepted. Wow faster than you can say Liberal Blog, gotta hand it to Goldring he didn't give Gord his stamp of approval for his off the wall comments. Not like the Liberal spokesman did for Klander.

But true to form some folks think this is censorship and unfair to the Alberta Seperatiste faction of the Blogging Tory's. Such as Candace another Redmontonian whose blog WakingUpOnPlanetX supports Alberta Seperatism is very very upset about this. She equates Alberta Sepratism with the PQ and BQ in Quebec.

So here is a history lesson for Candace, of course its a left wing history lesson, so no apologies for that.

Alberta Seperatism is at its core an anti-semitic, racist, white power movement.
It is not the equivalent of the PQ or Quebec. It is not founded in the radical tradition of prairie populism of the Reil Rebellion contrary to the disingenous statements of Link Byfield. It is based in the right wing of the old Social Credit party and its links to the fascist movement in Canada.

It originates in Alberta not in the dirty thirties but the early 1980's in the last days of the Lougheed government, with the Western Canada Concept (WCC) of rightwhingnut lawyer and defender of fascists Doug Christie. The WCC won a seat in a red neck rural riding, and had an MLA in the Alberta Legislature giving them some political credibility, some, enough for Lougheed to use them as a whipping boy against Ottawa. Which Ralph Klein continues to do today. Any time things got a little outta hand between the Liberals in Ottawa and the Alberta Government the bugaboo of Alberta Seperatism would be raised. Clever ploy that.

The reality is that during the 1980's two major right wing populist parties began in Alberta, both anti-semitic, white power, anti-biligualism, pro religious fundamentalist, pro Celtic Saxon peoples (code for White Power) anti immigrant anti multiculturalism, today add anti-gay. These were the WCC and Elmer Knutsens Confederation of Regions Party. The CRP did not win seats in Alberta but in New Brunswick, as a right wing backlash to that provinces French majority.
Ironic eh.

Members, followers and fellow travelers of these parties, also belonged to farther right groups as well as the Reform Party of Canada when it was formed. By then their rump right wing parties disappeared. Some went on in Alberta to form splinter right wing parties like the revived Social Credit, the Alberta Alliance, the Alberta Seperatist party. But most saw Preston Mannings Reform Party as a big tent right wing party, and joined or promoted it.

The infamous voice of the right in Alberta, and Canada, the Alberta Report promoted Alberta Seperatism and the Reform party in its pages. It also supported right wing religious fundamentalism (either protestant or Catholic or Orthordox), anti abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-feminism, anti-daycare. The Byfield clan who ran the magazine as their personal empire, were also directly politically involved in these campaigns.

Today Alberta Report is no more, run into the ground by the Byfields, not once, not twice but thrice. The final death agony of the magazine is a story to behold, but suffice it to say the monies squirreled away that survived the bankruptcy went to creating a new Alberta Seperatist Foundation, run by Link Byfield and with Stalinist aplomb is called;Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.

It is of course nothing of the sort. It is a front group for right wing lobbying and Alberta Seperatism. Lets us hoist Link by his own petard, by letting him speak for himself as the CCFD. Oh by the way when someone says that they are neither left wing nor right wing, or somehow they want to be politically neutral, they ain't. They are right wing. Thats another clever ruse they use to appear non partisan.

The CITIZENS CENTRE IS NEITHER "RIGHT-WING" NOR "LEFT-WING"

Our mission is to promote responsible government in Canada by advocating honest government, a clear division of power between the federal and provincial governments, and a democratic counterbalance to the increasing power of the courts.

GOALS of the Citizens Centre

To persuade provincial governments to exert their full constitutional leverage in such areas as the Canada Pension Plan, medicare, provincial police, tax collection, gun registration, carbon emissions, urban affairs, environment and grain marketing.

To create demand in Canada for privately-paid medical treatments and regulated private alternatives to the national pension plan, as is found increasingly in all developed countries.

To create pressure for a meaningful reduction in federal fiscal transfers (both direct and indirect), and a permanent reduction in government share of GDP.

* *Ottawa forced its way into the provincial sphere of social and economic development, mainly by abusing its unlimited power to tax and spend, even in areas that are beyond its jurisdiction. Some provinces, notably Alberta and Quebec, resisted. However, Quebec was bought off and Alberta was looted. Alberta's net contribution to federal programs since 1961 is now over $200 billion.

The consequences of allowing Ottawa to negate the original scheme of Confederation have been bad for the whole country, not just Alberta.

It has created costly jurisdictional overlap, political confusion, high taxes, needless eastern dependency and western alienation, and a political culture that no longer understands the principle, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Instead we are constantly told that social entitlements like "free" medicare and unemployment insurance represent the core values of Canadians.

And what is the main political issue that they believe will enhance democracy in Canada? Proportional Representation? Electoral Reform? Parlimentary Reform? Nah......They want Refederation!

To understand what refederation entails, one has to appreciate the fact that Canada is now not only badly governed but also over-governed. Governments at all levels are too big, and they get in each other's way.

For more than a century now, various reform movements have arisen in Canada, particularly in the West, aimed at fixing the problem. They called for more accountability, less interference by Ottawa in local affairs and more equitable economic policies. In short, better government.

But from the time of Louis Riel, through the great Prairie farmers' movements, and up to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, the demand for fundamental change has gone largely unanswered. Canada is still dominated by institutions that are out of date, out of step and out of touch.

Marriage Referendum

A fundamental change to the legal meaning of marriage amounts to a constitutional change of great magnitude and importance. Nobody can honestly deny this.

As the Supreme Court acknowledged in December 2003, it affects both levels of government, private and public organizations across Canada, and individual Canadians.

So who should decide the answer?

There are three possible authorities: the courts, Parliament, or the people.

The Citizens Centre believes that the constitution belongs to the people and therefore the people should have the ultimate authority on this issue.

So they want a national referendum on Marriage. And they want to privatize medicare, EI, pension plans, etc. They want a seperate pension fund for Alberta, and its own police. They are following through on Harpers original Firewall Alberta idea. Which once again in their Orwellian speak Link declares is NOT a Firewall nor are they promoting Alberta Seperatism. Talk about convoluted logic.

And the reason? Cause Canada is too liberal for them . No not Liberal, small 'l' liberal, as in libertarian, freedom of choice, freedom of the individual , freedom for gays, immigrants etc.

Now they will talk freedom and freedom of choice but in their Orwellian logic it is exactly the opposite. They want the freedom to be the Christian majority, with their country (seperate Alberta) being a fundamentalist Christian Theocracy at worst, or scratch the surface of Alberta Seperatism, and you find something worse, White Power bigots.

Yep so Candace there you have it. Why Alberta Seperatism is nothing like the Quebec Nationalist movement. It is a modern fascist movement. And if you want to participate in it fine, but lets call a spade a shovel, and you are shoveling B.S. when you promote Alberta Seperatism.

What Debate?

So is there going to be a debate on the Third Way which is still a mote in Ralphs eye?

Medicare advocates stage protest at legislature
Opponents of Alberta's proposed 'third way' health care system protested on the steps of the legislature Thursday on the first working day of the spring session. Even before the protest got underway, health minister Iris Evans was confronted by demonstrators who grilled her about the 'third way.' Klein has declined to release any details of his proposed health reforms, though he has indicated it will involve a role for private and public medicine. Evans ensured the protestors that the government isn't planning to do away with public medicine. "I want you to just hear that at the start but then come and we will talk."

Talk about what? There is no bill there is no legislation. And Evans maternal patting of protestors on the head is disingenuous.

Evans sees private health services within a year

Pay for faster health access, Evans says

Yeah let's talk about that Iris. As I said here the Third Way will not be debated in public, in the legislature. It will be snuck in the back way through orders in Cabinet.

EDITORIAL: Lots of questions
Edmonton Sun, Canada - 9 Feb 2006
Near the end of her editorial board meeting with the Sun yesterday, Health Minister Iris Evans was asked about the timeline for implementing the government's so-called Third Way health-care reforms. Evans said she hoped the changes would be in place within a year.

I have to agree with this guy about the whole Third Way legislation discussion which isn't happening.

We need more medical doctors and fewer spin doctors when it comes to health reform.
– Paul Hinman is Alberta Alliance leader and MLA for Cardston-Taber-Warner

I know, I know frightening when even the right wing rump party challenges the PC's, Party of Calgary, about its intentions.



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A Vision Of Things To Come

Ralph Klein, Preston Manning and Mike Harris have all touted their "Third Way" for Health Care reform in Canada as NOT being modeled on the US but on Europe and the UK. Well lets look at the success the UK is having with its third way model of public private healthcare delivery. Opps better not. Blair faces inquiry into NHS crisis


One of the problems of the GP contract - like so many Labour health reforms - was the number of other radical changes, some of them contradictory, being pursued at the same time. The prime minister has still not learned. In an address to the New Health Network think-tank yesterday he listed four big reforms which the government is pursuing. This month marks the nationwide introduction of payments by results, the biggest change since the NHS was launched 58 years ago, under which finance flows to hospitals, ambulance services, primary care and mental health teams according to the numbers of patients treated, rather than a block contract. On top of that, the government is expanding patient choice, introducing more independent providers and promoting GP commissioning. He could have noted two other reforms - both currently unnecessary - involving radical restructuring of primary care trusts and strategic health authorities. Right goals, too many wrong results


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When Hasn't He?

Gee another rhetorical question as a headline. Is Klein prepared to be the bad boy of Confederation? When hasn't he been?






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Who Pays for the Third Way

After the success of electrical deregulation,he said sarcarstically, which has seen consumers and business paying some of the highest rates in Canada for their utilities, King Ralph promises more of the same with his Third Way in Healthcare in Alberta. Klein said the plan could ultimately lead to the government spending less and consumers spending more on health care. Yep another privatization myth bites the dust.

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“Absurdly Unconstitutional”: Trump Bypasses Congress From His Private Golf Club

As stimulus talks collapsed, the president signed a series of executive actions that appear untenable and would likely have limited impact on workers struggling during the pandemic-induced recession.

BY CHARLOTTE KLEIN AUGUST 9, 2020

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020.BY KEVIN DIETSCH/UPI/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

President Donald Trump responded to collapsed stimulus talks with a series of executive actions undermining Congressional power that are unlikely to provide substantial economic relief and may face legal challenges. Trump said he would bypass Congress during a news event held at his private New Jersey golf club, where members cheered him on as he signed orders on unemployment, evictions, students loans, and payroll tax, which he claimed “will take care of pretty much this entire situation,” according to the Washington Post.

It was the second such event in two days, with Trump giving “paying members a front-row seat to a campaign rally, a news conference and the official signing of executive orders all wrapped up into one,” noted the Post. The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman questioned the optics of Trump, who has essentially been a bystander to stimulus discussions happening in Washington, addressing an economic relief plan in such a setting. “Some of [the members looking on] are holding glasses of wine as people are facing the threat of eviction or getting laid off,” she said on CNN, adding that the strategy could backfire if he doesn’t follow through. The actions include an eviction moratorium, additional unemployment benefits, a temporary delay of payroll tax collection for people who earn less than $100,000, and an extension of student loan relief through year’s end.

https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/1291875753626394627

Yet much of what Trump announced on Saturday appears untenable, legally fraught, or limited in its impact on workers. “Even conservative groups have warned that suspending payroll tax collections is unlikely to translate into more money for workers,” writes the New York Times’ Jim Tankersley. “An executive action seeking to essentially create a new unemployment benefit out of thin air will almost certainly be challenged in court. And as Mr. Trump’s own aides concede, the orders will not provide any aid to small businesses, state and local governments or low- and middle-income workers.”


“If job growth slows further, and millions of unemployed Americans struggle to make ends meet," Tankersley added, “he will need to make the case for why the symbolism of acting alone won out over the farther-reaching effects of cutting a deal.”


Trump said that if reelected in November, he would extend the payroll tax deferral, “make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” which funds Social Security and Medicare benefits, and find a way to “terminate” what is owed. That probably won’t happen—or shouldn’t, as it would undermine power vested in Congress to make laws about taxes and spending. “Major changes to the tax code fall entirely to Congress, so Trump alone cannot waive Americans’ tax debts or enact permanent changes to tax law,” the Post notes.

In addition to the measures being problematic expansions of executive power, they also “provide little real help to families,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement. The president’s orders will not provide a second round of stimulus checks—the first of which came as part of a relief bill, signed into law by Trump in March—that the Times notes lawmakers were pushing for. Without more federal funding, state and local governments will likely have to cut their budgets and lay off employees, increasing unemployment among the 30 million or so Americans already out of a job. Trump wants to repurpose federal money “to essentially create a $400-a-week bonus payment,” something that might not even be deemed legal and, even if it is, probably won’t put cash in the pockets of unemployed workers anytime soon.

“My constitutional advisers tell me they’re absurdly unconstitutional,” Pelosi said of Trump’s actions during an appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” though she did not commit to taking legal action. “Right now,” she added, “the focus, the priority has to be on, again, meeting the needs of the American people.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd asked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro why Trump spent the weekend at his golf club rather than negotiating. “Look, I understand you guys don't like each other, Nancy Pelosi and the president,” Todd said. “Where is he? Why isn't he involved?” Navarro responded that Trump is “the hardest working president in history.”

Why are the US news media so bad at covering climate change?


The US news media devote startlingly little time to climate change – how can newsrooms cover it in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences?
Kyle Pope and Mark Hertsgaard

Mon 22 Apr 2019

 

A firefighter sprays water as flames from the 

Camp Fire consume a home in Magalia, 

California, in 2018 Photograph: Noah Berger/AP

Last summer, during the deadliest wildfire season in California’s history, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes got into a revealing Twitter discussion about why US television doesn’t much cover climate change. Elon Green, an editor at Longform, had tweeted, “Sure would be nice if our news networks – the only outlets that can force change in this country – would cover it with commensurate urgency.” Hayes (who is an editor at large for the Nation) replied that his program had tried. Which was true: in 2016, All In With Chris Hayes spent an entire week highlighting the impact of climate change in the US as part of a look at the issues that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were ignoring. The problem, Hayes tweeted, was that “every single time we’ve covered [climate change] it’s been a palpable ratings killer. So the incentives are not great.”

The Twittersphere pounced. “TV used to be obligated to put on programming for the public good even if it didn’t get good ratings. What happened to that?” asked @JThomasAlbert. @GalJaya said, “Your ‘ratings killer’ argument against covering #climatechange is the reverse of that used during the 2016 primary when corporate media justified gifting Trump $5 billion in free air time because ‘it was good for ratings,’ with disastrous results for the nation.”

When @mikebaird17 urged Hayes to invite Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, one of the best climate science communicators around, on to his show, she tweeted that All In had canceled on her twice – once when “I was literally in the studio w[ith] the earpiece in my ear” – and so she wouldn’t waste any more time on it.

When @mikebaird17 urged Hayes to invite Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, one of the best climate science communicators around, on to his show, she tweeted that All In had canceled on her twice – once when “I was literally in the studio w[ith] the earpiece in my ear” – and so she wouldn’t waste any more time on it.

“Wait, we did that?” Hayes tweeted back. “I’m very very sorry that happened.”

This spring Hayes redeemed himself, airing perhaps the best coverage on American television yet of the Green New Deal. All In devoted its entire 29 March broadcast to analyzing the congressional resolution, co-sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, which outlines a plan to mobilize the United States to stave off climate disaster and, in the process, create millions of green jobs. In a shrewd answer to the ratings challenge, Hayes booked Ocasio-Cortez, the most charismatic US politician of the moment, for the entire hour


Yet at a time when civilization is accelerating toward disaster, climate silence continues to reign across the bulk of the US news media. Especially on television, where most Americans still get their news, the brutal demands of ratings and money work against adequate coverage of the biggest story of our time. Many newspapers, too, are failing the climate test. Last October, the scientists of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report, warning that humanity had a mere 12 years to radically slash greenhouse gas emissions or face a calamitous future in which hundreds of millions of people worldwide would go hungry or homeless or worse. Only 22 of the 50 biggest newspapers in the United States covered that report.

Instead of sleepwalking us toward disaster, the US news media need to remember their Paul Revere responsibilities – to awaken, inform and rouse the people to action. To that end, the Nation and CJR are launching Covering Climate Change: A New Playbook for a 1.5-Degree World, a project aimed at dramatically improving US media coverage of the climate crisis. When the IPCC scientists issued their 12-year warning, they said that limiting temperature rise to 1.5C would require radically transforming energy, agriculture, transportation, construction and other core sectors of the global economy. Our project is grounded in the conviction that the news sector must be transformed just as radically.

The project will launch on 30 April with a conference at the Columbia Journalism School – a working forum where journalists will gather to start charting a new course. We envision this event as the beginning of a conversation that America’s journalists and news organizations must have with one another, as well as with the public we are supposed to be serving, about how to cover this rapidly uncoiling emergency. Judging by the climate coverage to date, most of the US news media still don’t grasp the seriousness of this issue. There is a runaway train racing toward us, and its name is climate change. That is not alarmism; it is scientific fact. We as a civilization urgently need to slow that train down and help as many people off the tracks as possible. It’s an enormous challenge, and if we don’t get it right, nothing else will matter. The US mainstream news media, unlike major news outlets in Europe and independent media in the US, have played a big part in getting it wrong for many years. It’s past time to make amends.

If 1.5C is the new limit for a habitable planet, how can newsrooms tell that story in ways that will finally resonate with their audiences? And given journalism’s deeply troubled business model, how can such coverage be paid for? Some preliminary suggestions. (You can read this story in its entirety atColumbia Journalism Review or The Nation.)

Don’t blame the audience, and listen to the kids. The onus is on news organizations to craft the story in ways that will demand the attention of readers and viewers. The specifics of how to do this will vary depending on whether a given outlet works in text, radio, TV or some other medium and whether it is commercially or publicly funded, but the core challenge is the same. A majority of Americans are interested in climate change and want to hear what can be done about it. This is especially true of the younger people that news organizations covet as an audience. Even most young Republicans want climate action. And no one is speaking with more clarity now than Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Villaseñor and the other teenagers who have rallied hundreds of thousands of people into the streets worldwide for the School Strike 4 Climate demonstrations.

Establish a diverse climate desk, but don’t silo climate coverage. The climate story is too important and multidimensional for a news outlet not to have a designated team covering it. That team must have members who reflect the economic, racial and gender diversity of America; if not, the coverage will miss crucial aspects of the story and fail to connect with important audiences. At the same time, climate change is so far-reaching that connections should be made when reporting on nearly every topic. For example, an economics reporter could partner with a climate reporter to cover the case for a just transition: the need to help workers and communities that have long relied on fossil fuel, such as the coal regions of Appalachia, transition to a clean-energy economy, as the Green New Deal envisions.

Learn the science. Many journalists have long had a bias toward the conceptual. But you can’t do justice to the climate crisis if you don’t understand the scientific facts, in particular how insanely late the hour is. At this point, anyone suggesting a leisurely approach to slashing emissions is not taking the science seriously. Make the time to get educated. Four recent books – McKibben’s Falter, Naomi Klein’s On Fire, David Wallace-Wells’s The Uninhabitable Earth, and Jeff Goodell’s The Water Will Come – are good places to start.

Don’t internalize the spin. Not only do most Americans care about climate change, but an overwhelming majority support a Green New Deal – 81% of registered voters said so as of last December, according to Yale climate pollsters. Trump and Fox don’t like the Green New Deal? Fine. But journalists should report that the rest of America does. Likewise, they should not buy the argument that supporting a Green New Deal is a terrible political risk that will play into the hands of Trump and the GOP; nor should the media give credence to wild assertions about what a Green New Deal would do or cost. The data simply does not support such accusations. But breaking free from this ideological trap requires another step.

Lose the Beltway mindset. It’s not just the Green New Deal that is popular with the broader public. Many of the subsidiary policies – such as Medicare for All and free daycare – are now supported by upwards of 70% of the American public, according to Pew and Reuters polls. Inside the Beltway, this fact is unknown or discounted; the assumption by journalists and the politicians they cover is that such policies are ultra-leftist political suicide. They think this because the Beltway worldview prioritizes transactional politics: what will Congress pass and the president sign into law? But what Congress and the White House do is often very different from what the American people favor, and the press should not confuse the two.

Help the heartland. Some of the places being hit hardest by climate change, such as the midwestern states flooded this spring, have little access to real climate news; instead, the denial peddled by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh dominates. Iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers has an antidote: “Suppose you formed a consortium of media that could quickly act as a strike force to show how a disaster like this is related to climate change – not just for the general media, but for agricultural media, heartland radio stations, local television outlets. A huge teachable moment could be at hand if there were a small coordinating nerve center of journalists who could energize reporting, op-eds, interviews, and so on that connect the public to the causes and not just the consequences of events like this.” Moyers added that such a team should “always have on standby a pool of the most reputable scientists who, on camera and otherwise, can connect natural disasters to the latest and most credible scientific research”.

Cover the solutions. There isn’t a more exciting time to be on the climate beat. That may sound strange, considering how much suffering lies in store from the impacts that are already locked in. But with the Green New Deal, the US government is now, for the first time, at least talking about a response that is commensurate with the scale and urgency of the problem. Reporters have a tendency to gravitate to the crime scene, to the tragedy. They have a harder time with the solutions to a problem; some even mistake it as fluff. Now, with climate change, the solution is a critical part of the story.

Don’t be afraid to point fingers. As always, journalists should shun cheerleading, but neither should we be neutral. Defusing the climate crisis is in everyone’s interest, but some entities are resolutely opposed to doing what the science says is needed, starting with the president of the United States. The press has called out Trump on many fronts – for his lying, corruption and racism – but his deliberate worsening of the climate crisis has been little mentioned, though it is arguably the most consequential of his presidential actions. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil has announced plans to keep producing large amounts of oil and gas through at least 2040; other companies have made similar declarations. If enacted, those plans guarantee catastrophe. Journalism has a responsibility to make that consequence clear to the public and to cover the companies, executives, and investors behind those plans accordingly.

If American journalism doesn’t get the climate story right – and soon – no other story will matter. The news media’s past climate failures can be redeemed only by an immediate shift to more high-profile, inclusive and fearless coverage. Our #CoveringClimateNow project calls on all journalists and news outlets to join the conversation about how to make that happen. As the nation’s founders envisioned long ago, the role of a free press is to inform the people and hold the powerful accountable. These days, our collective survival demands nothing less.

This article is excerpted from a piece published by Columbia Journalism Review and the Nation. The Guardian is partnering with CJR and the Nation on a 30 April conference aimed at reframing the way journalists cover climate change.More information about the conference, including a link to RSVP, is here.