January 23, 2004

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  January 23, 2004

  OP-ED COLUMNIST
  

  The Other America

  By BOB HERBERT
  
  
  
  
  
  

  ither the president doesn’t get it, or he is deliberately ignoring the hard times that have enveloped millions of Americans on his watch.

  
  

  “For the sake of job growth,” said Mr. Bush, to the loud applause of the Congressional bobbleheads at his State of the Union address, “the tax cuts you passed should be made permanent.”

  
  

  Job growth? That’s the weirdest thing Mr. Bush has said since he told a CNN discussion group, “As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards.”

  
  

  Nearly 2.5 million jobs have been lost since Mr. Bush became president, and the most recent employment statistics have made a mockery of the claim that tax cuts for the rich would be the engine of job growth for the middle and working classes.

  
  

  Two days after the speech, Eastman Kodak announced plans to cut its work force by as much as 23 percent — 12,000 to 15,000 jobs — by the end of 2006. The news sent tremors through Rochester, where Kodak has its headquarters. More than 21,000 Kodak workers and their families live in and around Rochester.

  
  

  The economy created a meager 1,000 jobs in December. Moreover, according to a report released Wednesday by the Economic Policy Institute, there has been a nationwide shift of jobs from higher-paying to lower-paying industries. In New Hampshire, where the Democratic presidential candidates are locked in a fierce primary fight, the wages in industries gaining jobs are 35 percent lower than in those losing jobs. New Hampshire is one of 30 states that have fewer jobs now than when the recession officially ended in November 2001.

  
  

  When millions of families are suffering in the midst of what is billed as a robust recovery, we should start looking closely at the possibility that the system itself is breaking down.

  
  

  This goes far beyond the issue of employment. The Times ran a front-page article on Wednesday about Gov. George Pataki’s proposed state budget. The ominous subheadline read: “Plan Relies on Gambling to Aid Poorest Schools.”

  
  

  I wrote a story last week about the tens of thousands of low-income youngsters in Florida who are eligible for a children’s health insurance program but are being put on waiting lists. State officials say they can’t afford to insure the kids now. In California, an estimated 300,000 eligible children are being shunted to similar waiting lists. No one knows when they might get coverage.

  
  

  President Bush got at least one thing right on Tuesday night, when he said, “Americans are proving once again to be the hardest-working people in the world.” Those who are fortunate enough to be employed often have to work long hours, or string together two and three jobs to make ends meet. They are working harder and harder just to keep from falling behind.

  
  

  The Bush administration has offered up a perverse acknowledgment of this struggle: a proposed change in Labor Department regulations that would enable employers to deny overtime pay for millions of workers.

  
  

  Most of the Democratic presidential candidates, especially Senator John Edwards, have been hammering at these issues for some time. In his “Two Americas” speech, Senator Edwards says there is:

  
  

  “One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. . . . One America — middle-class America — whose needs Washington has long forgotten. Another America — narrow-interest America — whose every wish is Washington’s command.”

  
  

  The interests of the great corporations and the wealthy, privileged classes are not the same as those of American working families. And because the power of government has shifted so radically in favor of the interests of the former, there is little left but indifference to the needs and aspirations of the latter, who just happen to be the vast majority of Americans.

  
  

  In Monday’s column I incorrectly wrote that treason was among the charges lodged against Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. He was accused of treason by his critics, but he was actually charged with violations of the Espionage Act.  

  
  

   

  
  

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  January 23, 2004

  
  

  OP-ED COLUMNIST

  
  

  Democracy at Risk

  
  

  By PAUL KRUGMAN
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  he disputed election of 2000 left a lasting scar on the nation’s psyche. A recent Zogby poll found that even in red states, which voted for George W. Bush, 32 percent of the public believes that the election was stolen. In blue states, the fraction is 44 percent.

  
  

  Now imagine this: in November the candidate trailing in the polls wins an upset victory — but all of the districts where he does much better than expected use touch-screen voting machines. Meanwhile, leaked internal e-mail from the companies that make these machines suggests widespread error, and possibly fraud. What would this do to the nation?

  
  

  Unfortunately, this story is completely plausible. (In fact, you can tell a similar story about some of the results in the 2002 midterm elections, especially in Georgia.) Fortune magazine rightly declared paperless voting the worst technology of 2003, but it’s not just a bad technology — it’s a threat to the republic.

  
  

  First of all, the technology has simply failed in several recent elections. In a special election in Broward County, Fla., 134 voters were disenfranchised because the electronic voting machines showed no votes, and there was no way to determine those voters’ intent. (The election was decided by only 12 votes.) In Fairfax County, Va., electronic machines crashed repeatedly and balked at registering votes. In the 2002 primary, machines in several Florida districts reported no votes for governor.

  
  

  And how many failures weren’t caught? Internal e-mail from Diebold, the most prominent maker of electronic voting machines (though not those in the Florida and Virginia debacles), reveals that programmers were frantic over the system’s unreliability. One reads, “I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded.” Another reads, “For a demonstration I suggest you fake it.”

  
  

  Computer experts say that software at Diebold and other manufacturers is full of security flaws, which would easily allow an insider to rig an election. But the people at voting machine companies wouldn’t do that, would they? Let’s ask Jeffrey Dean, a programmer who was senior vice president of a voting machine company, Global Election Systems, before Diebold acquired it in 2002. Bev Harris, author of “Black Box Voting” (www.blackboxvoting.com), told The A.P. that Mr. Dean, before taking that job, spent time in a Washington correctional facility for stealing money and tampering with computer files.

  
  

  Questionable programmers aside, even a cursory look at the behavior of the major voting machine companies reveals systematic flouting of the rules intended to ensure voting security. Software was modified without government oversight; machine components were replaced without being rechecked. And here’s the crucial point: even if there are strong reasons to suspect that electronic machines miscounted votes, nothing can be done about it. There is no paper trail; there is nothing to recount.

  
  

  So what should be done? Representative Rush Holt has introduced a bill calling for each machine to produce a paper record that the voter verifies. The paper record would then be secured for any future audit. The bill requires that such verified voting be ready in time for the 2004 election — and that districts that can’t meet the deadline use paper ballots instead. And it also requires surprise audits in each state.

  
  

  I can’t see any possible objection to this bill. Ignore the inevitable charges of “conspiracy theory.” (Although some conspiracies are real: as yesterday’s Boston Globe reports, “Republican staff members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media.”) To support verified voting, you don’t personally have to believe that voting machine manufacturers have tampered or will tamper with elections. How can anyone object to measures that will place the vote above suspicion?

  
  

  What about the expense? Let’s put it this way: we’re spending at least $150 billion to promote democracy in Iraq. That’s about $1,500 for each vote cast in the 2000 election. How can we balk at spending a small fraction of that sum to secure the credibility of democracy at home?  

  
  

   

  
  

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  • 11:08 am
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