What's at Stake in the 2020 Election?

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What’s at Stake in the 2020 Election?

A Project of Gettysburg DFA ‘

Leon Reed, Project Leader and Editor Contributing Writers Mark Berg, Sandy Busche, Kathy Ciolino, Jeff Colvin, Tom Deloe, Jeanne Duffy, Jenny Dumont, Carolyn George, William Gilmartin, Elaine Jones, Anne Bucher Lane, Will Lane, Steve Niebler, Leon Reed, Todd Rowley, Jenine Weaver, Judy Young

October 2020

Contents Introduction 1. The 2020 Election a. Biden Speech Raises the Stakes, William Gilmartin b. A Democratic Election?, Tom Deloe c. Some Republicans Putting Country Ahead of Party, Tom Deloe d. The Soul of the Nation, Elaine Jones e. What’s at Stake for Millennials?, Leon Reed f. Stand Back and Stand By: “Militias” and the Rest of Us, Jenine Weaver

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2. Our Constitutional System a. Law and Order Cannot be Used to Divide Us, Todd Rowley b. Liberty, Jenny Dumont c. Checks and Balances, Leon Reed d. Tyranny of the Minority, Mark Berg e. Covita: The Man on the Balcony and the Rule of Law, Leon Reed

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3. Our Political and Government System a. Republicans Don’t Have a Plan, Mark Berg b. It Didn’t Start with Trump: Rebuilding the Civil Service, Leon Reed c. How Republicans Might Approach a Second Term, Mark Berg d. Good or Bad Government?, Jeanne Duffy e. We Will Never Trust You, Jenine Weaver f. Redistricting, Steve Niebler g. Managing the Pandemic, Leon Reed h. The Postal Service, Carolyn George i. Racial Justice, Leon Reed j. What Will the New President Do First?, Leon Reed

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4. National and State Issues a. Healthcare part 1, Jeanne Duffy b. Healthcare part 2, Jeanne Duffy c. HEROES Act, Sandy Busche d. Healthcare, Tom Deloe e. Child Care, Kathy Ciolino f. Gun Reform, Judy Young g. Climate Change, Tom Deloe h. Fair Housing, William Gilmartin i. Homeless in Trump’s America, Jenine Weaver j. Arms Control and World Peace, Jeff Colvin k. Let’s Make the World Safe Again l. National Defense and Foreign Policy, Leon Reed

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5. Candidates a. Rep. Joyce’s Votes on Healthcare, Jeff Colvin b. Rowley for Congress, Anne Bucher Lane c. Drop the Politics, Will Lane d. The Congressional Candidates in their own Words, Leon Reed Writers

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“That we here highly resolve … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, PA November 19, 1863 Introduction President Lincoln’s immortal words, spoken in our hometown 157 years ago, ring as true today as they did during the Civil War. Citing other words from the same speech, the 2020 election will go a long way to determine “whether that nation … can long endure.”

There has never been an election where the choices were more obvious and more stark. On one hand is a decent man who has respect for Congress and our alliances, a commitment to democracy, an instinct to surround himself with the best people and rely on their expertise, and an intent to serve as president of all the people. In an October 6 speech in Gettysburg, he cited Lincoln’s references to “angels of our better nature” in calling for an end to the division and a return to bipartisan cooperation.

On the other side of the ballot is a man who has derided the opposing political party as “traitors” and “scum,” shown indifference to the suffering bof millions of his fellow citizens, refused to denounce violent white supremacists, undermined our constitutional system and our alliances, politicized and destroyed the credibility of our federal agencies, surrounded himself with third rate sycophants, and refused even to acknowledge that we face serious health, economic, and racial justice crises. He has attacked the basic framework of democracy.

This small collection of essays represents the efforts of a few of our fellow citizens to describe the implications of this election. Essays in this collection address the election itself; threats to our constitutional system; and the structure and capabilities of our governments. The report also discusses how the election will affect specific issues and the positions and qualifications of specific candidates. Most of the essays are written by residents of the Gettysburg area. But we are also pleased that 13th district congressional candidate Todd Rowley joined this project.

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Chapter 1: Election Biden Speech Raises the Stakes, Aims for Bipartisan Work on Equality for All, William Gilmartin “We have too bright a future to have it shipwrecked on the shoals of anger and hate, and division.”

With those words former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. came to Gettysburg on October 6 to deliver a speech to the nation on the need for political unity to advance the causes of equal justice under law and economic equality. The stakes are very high in the upcoming election, but Biden’s speech rose even higher than the current political discourse to make an argument not for party but for freedom, equality, rule of law, and common decency in our nation.

Biden acknowledged that some may call him naïve, but from the start of his presidential campaign, he has consistently and unashamedly called for a return to bipartisanship in governing. He believes that in his heart and soul, and he has lived that in his time in the Senate and to the extent possible as Barack Obama’s Vice President. In fact, Biden was the facilitator for many Obama-McConnell compromises on budget bills.

I also worked in the House of Representatives during years of heightened political activity, which was usually confined to the campaign trail. When elections were over, Congress went to work.

Appropriations bills were passed every year; and agriculture, defense and other authorization bills were passed every year. Housing legislation would emerge every three years or so. All these bills, which included some hard-fought amendments, were eventually worked on and passed by bipartisan majorities.

Starting with the proposition that public service is a good thing, Biden makes the case that after elections are over, officials from both parties owe it to themselves and the people of this nation to work together on “the peoples’ business.” But, too often, Biden said, public life is seen “not as an arena for mediation of our differences, but rather as an occasion for total, unrelenting, partisan warfare.”

I believe it makes no difference when that constant warfare started or who started it, it must end now.

And, Joe Biden’s October 6 speech spells out the dangers of continued division in our country, as well as the goals we all say we share that will take bipartisan cooperation to achieve. There is “no need for armed militias roaming America’s streets and we should have no tolerance for extremist white supremacy groups, menacing our communities,” just as “violence and looting cannot be tolerated.”

In terms of our nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden decried the politicization of simple common-sense public health advice. Saying that “[w]earing a mask is not a political statement. It’s a scientific recommendation,” he calls for “a national strategy that puts politics aside and saves lives.” Again, a simple prescription but one with enormous rewards for the people of our nation.

Improving economic opportunity for all is another means of combatting the division in our society, and Biden echoed Abraham Lincoln’s call for the country to provide everyone “an open field and a fair chance.” Heeding that call, Biden says “That’s what we are going to do in America. We are going to build together.”

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I believe Biden’s Gettysburg speech will be remembered for its optimism in the face of abject negativity from the current Administration. Without once mentioning the president, Biden has illustrated with simple eloquence the heart of “this battle for the soul of our nation.” As president, he pledges to “embrace hope, not fear. Peace, not violence. Generosity, not greed. And light, not darkness. I’ll be a president who appeals to the best in us, not the worst.”

All this will take a monumental leap across the political divide in our country and in our institutions.

I am confident that Joe Biden will make every humanly possible effort to do just that. The alternative of non-stop bickering and mindless hatred, leading to perpetual stalemate, political paralysis, and deadly violence is not tenable and can only lead to disaster for our democracy and our very way of life.

A Democratic Election?, by Tom Deloe Adapted from “A Nightmare Scenario,” September 10, 2020, Gettysburg Times.

People are finally paying attention to the rise of authoritarianism here in the U.S. They are right to be concerned.

Scholars have seen worrisome signs. President Trump has dismissed nonpartisan career officials and replaced them with loyalists. He has fired independent inspectors general. He has denied Congress’s right and duty to investigate members of the Executive Branch. He has used the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement officers of the Executive Branch as a private army.

He has packed the courts. He has used the government to advance the interests of himself and his family, some of whom he has installed into government positions. He has solicited help from foreign governments to get reelected. And he and his allies are trying to undermine our election by preemptively saying the Democrats are committing fraud. They are also slowing down mail service when voters need to be able to mail in their ballots.

Democracy is a fragile concept. Our democratic governance is not set in stone. Yes, we have laws and the Constitution, but many acts of governing are based on informal rules or norms and the goodwill of reasonable people. This election cycle will test that good will in terms of a central democratic tenet – the peaceful transition of power. The question looms: will President Trump accept the results of the 2020 election? Right now there is plenty of evidence that he may not.

In early October, President Trump trailed Vice President Biden by double digits according to the website FiveThirtyEight average of polls. He trailed by more than five points in Michigan and Wisconsin, two States central to his 2016 victory. He also trails in Florida and Pennsylvania, although he is within the margin of error in those states. In response, the President is not trying to expand his base. Instead, he is discrediting the 2020 election, dividing the country, and telling voters that mail-in voting will result in voter fraud. In other words, the election will be rigged and therefore illegitimate.

Several months ago, the Transition Integrity Project set out to build a series of war games to play out the November election. They recruited accomplished Republicans and Democrats, media experts, pollsters, and strategists. Each was assigned to “Team Trump” or “Team Biden” and asked to “game out” a range of transition and election strategies.

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Four scenarios were presented: 1) a narrow Biden win, 2) a big Biden win, 3) a Trump win in the Electoral College accompanied by a popular vote loss, and 4) an uncertain election outcome. With the exception of #2, the exercises resulted in catastrophe with violence in the streets and a Constitutional crisis. Team Trump’s tactics were ruthless and often unconstitutional. They repeated unsubstantiated claims of mail-in ballot fraud and barely disguised their call for violence against Biden supporters. They also intimidated mid-western states to authorize rival Electoral College electors even when voters had selected Biden.

Team Biden also encouraged supporters to take to the streets, but they urged protesters to be peaceful. However, desperate Democrats, stunned by another election where the winner loses the popular vote, also urged states to send alternative slates of electors to Congress for the Presidential vote. They even floated the idea of a California secessionist movement unless Republicans would agree to statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Neither the Legislative nor the Judicial branch was effective in resolving the crisis. The Legislative Branch was gridlocked as Democrats and Republicans could not agree on how to proceed. Both parties appealed to the courts, but the judicial system avoided rendering decisions that seemed political rather than judicial in nature. Also, there was no guarantee that either side would even accept a ruling from the Supreme Court.

Team Trump denied the legitimacy of the election from the start. Under their strategy the President had to be forcefully ejected from the White House on January 20th. Before that ejection the President pardoned himself and family members and burned incriminating documents.

Is this nightmare scenario one we can expect? Not necessarily. There are preventive measures we can implement. State and Federal officials should commit to protecting the integrity of the electoral process by developing detailed and accurate information about voting, including mail-in voting.

States should establish in advance, on a bipartisan basis, standards for adjudicating competing claims about how to allocate electoral votes.

The military and law enforcement officers should prepare for the possibility that politicians will seek to use their powers against their opponents. To avoid being put in that position, law enforcement and military leaders should decide in advance what they will and will not do.

We need to do everything in our power to avoid this nightmare scenario. This is where ordinary people can play a crucial role. Massive, non-violent demonstrations to save our democracy and the rule of law could have an enormous influence. These demonstrations would need to be nonpartisan and may be our best hope of retaining our democratic system.

For over 200 years our country has experienced a peaceful transition of power. That is what separates us from totalitarian regimes. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke near the beginning of the Civil War, and noted that Americans who disagreed on almost everything else could still agree to defend their country. We just may need to do that to save our democracy.

Some Republicans Putting the Country First, by Tom Deloe Adapted from the column “Lincoln Project: Holding Republicans Accountable,� Gettysburg Times, August 11, 2020.

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For reasons still not entirely clear, the Republican party and its elected officials have been remarkably pliant about President Trump’s abuses of power. It is easy to become cynical when looking at our politics and the state of our political system. Lying politicians, attacks on our Constitution, and constant fighting are now the norm. Politicians seem more concerned with their reelection than solving the nation’s problems. We are now suffering through the corona virus pandemic, a deep recession, and protests against racism. There seems no end to the nightmare. But then along comes the Lincoln Project. Suddenly there is a flicker of light amid the darkness. Maybe we can start to believe in this system again.

But not all Republicans have turned a blind eye. The Lincoln Project is a political action committee formed in late 2019 by a group of prominent Republicans and former Republicans. Their goal is to defeat Donald Trump and his supporters in the US Senate. Founders include some you may know, and others you may not. George Conway is the husband of Kellyanne Conway, Advisor to President Trump. Steve Schmitt was the campaign manager for John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign.

John Weaver oversaw McCain’s 2000 campaign, Michael Steele was RNC chair, and Rick Wilson is a media consultant. On their website they describe the Project as “Protecting democracy and defeating candidates who have abandoned constitutional oaths.”

The group has produced a number of anti-Trump, pro-Biden media advertisements. They are produced at lightning speed, catching the public debate as it is happening. They hammer President Trump using his own words and actions. This is powerful media designed to upend President Trump and his campaign. On May 4, 2020, the group released a video called, “Mourning in America.”

Styled after Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” ad in his 1984 campaign, it focused on President Trump’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis. It asserted that the country is “weaker, sicker, and poorer” under Trump’s leadership. The images are powerful and shocking.

In early June, they released “Mattis,” detailing retired General Mattis’s criticism of President Trump for his attacks on protesters on Lafayette Square and his photo op at St. John’s church. The video asks, “Who do you trust: the coward or the commander?” It criticized the President for “dodging the draft” and “hiding in a bunker firing off tweets.” Needless to say, this is hard hitting stuff.

These ads are designed to get under the President’s skin, and they seem to have done just that. He called the founders “losers” and “Republicans in name only.” Others like Jeet Heer have come to the President’s defense, writing in The Nation that the ads are “hard line military aggression.”

So why should a few ads against the President give us hope for our democracy? Whether you agree with them or not, these Lincoln Project individuals have chosen country over the Republican party and democratic principles over demagoguery. They seemingly have nothing to gain from this choice.

They will receive no material gains nor any plum political appointments. They will be shunned for their disloyalty to the Republican party – the very party that they have spent their whole careers building. Their future with the Party is grim, and retaliation is quite possible whether President Trump wins or loses in November.

The Lincoln Project should give us hope. These individuals have decided to put the country and democracy ahead of their own political fortunes. They show us that there are still people who will stand for their principles and fight for them. You may disagree with their goals, but it is rare to see this kind of courage in our politics today.

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More recently, prominent Republicans, including former senior Trump officials and several hundred former defense and foreign policy officials, have pronounced Trump unfit for office.

So, I say, “Thank you Lincoln Project”. You have shown us that there are still people who honor our Constitution and our democracy and are willing to fight for it. Maybe there is still hope for our Constitution and political system even in these dark times.

The Soul of the Nation, Elaine Jones What’s at Stake in the Election for President? Candidate Biden said it best in his speech at Gettysburg on October 6—"the soul of the nation.” Everything we value as true Americans is at stake: honesty, integrity, justice, and the safety of all our people. It’s how we view the world, through a partisan lens that believes all things are political, or a global view that believes that everyone deserves the same opportunities and fairness no matter their race, religion or station in life.

Do we all have the same bite at the apple, or do those who have the most get to devour the whole bushel?

Do we take a clear stand against white supremacists who spew hatred and threaten those who proclaim that “Black Lives Matter” with rifles and torches, or do we stand back while our President says there are “good people” on both sides? Do we ignore the racism in our criminal justice system, and dismiss the wanton violence against blacks as the work of a few bad apples?

Do we want four more years of a President that stokes an environment where hate thrives, or believe in the alternative who demonstrates his love and support for all Americans no matter their background or party? In Biden’s words, “We are facing too many crises, we have too much work to do, we have too bright a future to have it shipwrecked on the shoals of anger and hate and division.”

Can we tolerate the continued lack of leadership and disregard for the masks and other steps needed to get control of the coronavirus or will we elect a real leader who pledges economic relief to all who suffer from this pandemic and commits to a real plan that shows how we can stop this plague once and for all?

We need to hear the clarion call that rang out in Gettysburg, “Today, once again, we are a house divided, but that, my friends, can no longer be…. We need to revive the spirit of bipartisanship in this country, the spirit of being able to work with one another.”

Who we are as a people and as a country is what is at stake in this election. Stand up and be counted.

What’s at Stake for Millennials?, Leon Reed In all likelihood, the president elected in 2020 may well be the last president elected from the baby boom (Trump) or earlier (Biden) generation. The question for younger voters is what does the 2020 election have to do with us? The answer is, more than you can imagine. This election will go a long way toward determining whether people 30 years from now might be living in a world whose geography, governments, and culture people living today might recognize or whether it might more closely resemble “The Walking Dead” – or “Hunger Games.”

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Donald Trump’s administration is dedicated to looking backward. He promises to bring back the industries that were the backbone of the 1950s economy (coal, steel, and autos) while sabotaging the green industries of the future. He also wants the regulatory, environmental, and civil rights policies of that bygone era as well.

His actions have placed enormous strain on our democratic institutions, threatening our free elections. His tax policies and regulatory policies have increased economic inequality and made it more difficult to pay for the education needed to prepare for the jobs of the future. His administration badly botched the response to the pandemic, which has created enormous economic harm, and his administration intervened to abolish the Affordable Care Act, denying parents the ability to keep their children on their insurance until age 26 and ending guaranteed coverage for people with preexisting conditions.

The Democratic platform goes a long way to create a fairer, safer, and more sustainable world.

Economy. In the economic sphere, Biden supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 and wants to create green manufacturing jobs with a $2 trillion investment in green energy.

His termination of the Trump tax cuts will go a long way to reducing income inequality. His plan calls for major investments in green technology, AI, and biotech.

Educational opportunity. In college affordability, he would provide two years at any community college tuition free, reduce loan payments and increase opportunities for loan forgiveness for existing student loans, and expand Pell grants. He would also provide universal pre-school.

Racial justice. Biden has said he believes that racism exists in the U.S. and must be dealt with through broad economic and social programs. On criminal justice, Mr. Biden proposes policies to reduce incarceration, eliminate cash bail, address race, gender and income-based disparities in the justice system, and rehabilitate and restore rights to released prisoners. He also argues that some police funding should be redirected to social services like mental health. His plan calls for major investments in and increases in federal purchases from minority owned businesses.

Climate. The fact that vice president Biden declined to support the Green New Deal has been a primary argument that he’s a status quo candidate. But Biden has called climate change an existential threat, and he will use his international skills to rally other nations to expand the scope of their climate change efforts. Though he does not embrace the Green New Deal, he is proposing a $1.7T federal investment in green technologies research, to be spent over the next 10 years, and wants the U.S. to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Healthcare. Mr. Biden says he will expand the ACA, which was originally passed when he was vice president, and implement a plan to ensure that an estimated 97% of Americans have insurance coverage. Though he stops short of the universal health insurance proposal advocated by Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives, Vice President Biden promises to give all Americans the option to enroll in a public health insurance option similar to Medicare, and to lower the age of eligibility for Medicare itself from 65 to 60 years old.

Trump policies. Biden also promises immediately to undo some of the most notorious Trump policies, including the separation of families at the southern border, the travel

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restrictions on majority-Muslim countries, and the attempted termination of the DACA program.

The Bully Pulpit. Perhaps most significant is the national tone a Biden administration will set. The past five years have shown the toxic effect on our civic life and politics that a man such as Donald Trump can have. He has encouraged extremist groups and stoked hatred toward government officials, the media, Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, mayors, and governors. He has blamed victims of police shootings and praised white supremacists who committed acts of violence. He has created a ridiculous caricature of the opposition Democrats (“they want open borders,” “Cory Booker will destroy the suburbs,” “they hate police,” “Democrat mayors encourage looters,” etc.). Joe Biden will restore a sense of decency and calm and will speak out against efforts to take away healthcare, as well as against white supremacists, and others who have done so much to coarsen our civic life.

Stand Back and Stand By: “Militias” and the Rest of Us , Jenine Weaver Moving back home to Adams County from Baltimore County was a culture shock. I had forgotten that people still openly carried assault rifles and smiled at each other during KKK rallies (held in Gettysburg in 2016). I forgot people flew the Confederate flag from their homes and cars. To be honest, I thought that was as bad as it would get. I was wrong. Since the murder of George Floyd and Trumps re-election campaign, Adams County has become a tourist attraction to hate groups and vigilantes.

On July 4th, Gettysburg was flooded with men brandishing guns and white supremacist signs. I have pictures of neo-Nazis, KKK, the 1%ers, and the Bugaloo Boys. These groups, along with hundreds of armed vigilantes, were supposedly in Gettysburg to protect statues, but they had plenty of resources to harass black people in town who hadn’t come within a mile of a monument. On July 4th, I was thankful my SUV windows were tinted dark so they could not see my kids. On July 10, we saw some of the same people back on the square, armed to the teeth, to “protect businesses” from a group of BLM sympathizers who had been protesting peacefully for weeks. And the police largely treated these out-of-town protestors as welcome guests, if not partners.

These local activities fit in a national pattern of heavily armed “militias” threatening state legislatures and armed vigilantes nationwide turning out to intimidate peaceful protestors. Despite the FBI findings that these groups represent a serious threat, the president continues to cover for them.

Then at the presidential debate, when asked to denounce white supremacy, Trump responded by saying, "Stand back and standby.” On live TV, he gave hateful, violent vigilantes instructions to wait for his call to action. For two days I was sick. I couldn't function. My only thought was if Trump loses, my children will be hunted by the groups that were here on July 4th. How do I protect them?

How do I fix this? I felt hopeless. I was scared.

My mind wandered from being scared of the possible violent reaction if he loses, to being horrified at the idea of him winning. If he wins, will he use those hateful followers to create a dictatorship? Will we be the next Germany? I'm scared of both options, but I feel safer with Joe Biden. He might not be my ideal candidate, but he won't declare war on my children for their skin color.

So What's at stake? My children's lives. Vote Blue.

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Chapter 2: Constitution Law & Order Cannot Be Used to Divide Us, Todd Rowley I spent nearly 30 years in public service as a law enforcement officer, having the honor and privilege of serving over 24 years as an FBI Special Agent defending our Constitution and protecting the American people. The oath I took was to protect and defend our Constitution which never included any allegiance to any individual; but rather an allegiance and commitment to seeking the truth, justice, and equality for fellow citizens. I chose a life in public service as a law enforcement officer because I wanted to help people. The majority of the brave men and women serving in law enforcement have this same motivation and desire.

The "law and order" the president speaks of today does not reflect the principles of the rule of law I had the responsibility and duty of upholding and that has guided our democracy for nearly 250 years. To be an advocate of law and order, one must first respect our laws and secondly, respect the brave men and women who the citizens have entrusted with the responsibility of providing law and order in our society. Over the past nearly four years, we have observed repeatedly the president demean and belittle our law enforcement agencies and intelligence community, and its personnel.

The president seems to believe his mantra of "law and order" can be used to pit law enforcement against the citizenry to achieve a desired political outcome. Our law enforcement and intelligence community personnel must remain apolitical, independent and non-partisan, and never used by any political party in power against opponents or the American people. We cannot forget that the brave men and women serving in law enforcement are fellow citizens - fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who face many challenges and place themselves in harm's way to protect and serve their communities.

Our fundamental constitutionally protected rights - the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, and the right to bear arms - freedoms of which neither can be allowed to intimidate fellow Americans or weaken our trust in law and order. There is no justification for looting, arson, and the destruction property - violence perpetrated no matter the extremist group responsible. Just as there is no justification for firearms to be used to intimidate fellow citizens in our open, public places. As Americans, just as we must support fellow citizens - African Americans and communities of color by recognizing their struggle for racial and social justice, we must also support our law enforcement.

Despite the rhetoric we hear, this does not have to be an either-or proposition. I believe in my fellow citizens in PA-13 that we can support the struggle for justice and equality in our society, as well as law enforcement.

As we have seen recently with the arrests of American citizens plotting an act of domestic terrorism targeting a sitting governor and law enforcement officers, the president's rhetoric does have tremendous influence. Having law and order in our country is a good thing. But when it is used as a political wedge to cause fear and divide us, it only weakens us as a country and erodes the principles of our democracy.

I believe the hardworking families of Adams County and across PA-13 deserve truthful, competent leadership that seeks to make us safer, not fearful; that unites us, not divides us.

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Liberty, by Jenny Dumont Leon invited me to write a little piece on what’s at stake during this election. It’s such a big question, where do I even start? The first thing that came to my mind was liberty. For women, it may be losing freedom of choice over their reproductive systems. For asylum seekers, it could manifest as detention. For those who are vulnerable, it could mean harming their ability to move around their communities because of how poorly the pandemic has been handled.

Liberty used to be synonymous with The United States of America to many. It’s at the core of our beliefs. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” asserts our Declaration of Independence. How many people have been greeted by the ultimate beacon of liberty in New York? Our First Constitutional Amendment grants us freedom of speech.

To me, there is no other umbrella term for what is at stake in this election. The etymology of “liberal” traces it back to the Latin liber, ‘free (man).’ Coincidence?

Checks and Balances, by Leon Reed One thing on the ballot in 2020 is the basic concept of checks and balances and with it, the viability of our democracy.

The Constitutional Convention was one of the most divided assemblies ever. There wasn’t even agreement that a new constitution was needed. People who wanted a stronger federal government disagreed with those who didn’t, those who favored a strong executive were opposed by those who opposed ANY executive, small states faced off against big states, northern and southern states, etc.

But they all were concerned about the example of the Roman Republic and worried that their Republic might become a tyranny. The solution they came up with was checks and balances.

In Federalist #51, Madison explained why. … But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. … Ambition must be made to counteract ambition… [This is] particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.

Despite obvious problems, Madison’s construct of checks and balances has worked remarkably well.

The three branches of government have indeed served as checks on each other. There have been periods (the 1870s through perhaps the inauguration of William McKinley in 1897, the 1920s, and the brief “post-Watergate/post-Vietnam” period in the early to mid-1970s) where Congress dominated a series of weak chief executives. There were also presidents (Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Lincoln, for example) and periods (the “imperial presidency” period from World War II through the early 1970s) where the president dominated Congress. But the legislative branch has often served as a check on Executive power, and for the most part the federal judiciary has maintained its apolitical stance. People have accepted the results of the electoral college, and the over-representation of small,

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rural states in the U.S. Senate. The decennial census results and resulting reapportionment of power have worked smoothly, for the most part. Fundamentally, people accepted that Madison’s system was fair and the various branches of government accepted their role in a triangulated government.

But, while the authors of the Federalist Papers anticipated the advent of a president who aspired to be a tyrant, they never could have imagined a branch of government which essentially yielded its role in the constitutional scheme.

From the “Last Great Senate”1 of the mid-1960s through the late 1970s, when Congress passed sweeping civil rights, safety, and environmental legislation; helped create the national consensus and then cut off funding that brought the Vietnam war to an end; passed sweeping limitations on presidential powers such as the War Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act; and created important investigative committees like the Church committee and the Watergate committee, the Senate has steadily yielded power to the president. It has abandoned or been unable to enforce its control over war-making, tariffs, federal spending, and congressional oversight. Recently, the Senate majority leader has openly conceded that he won’t even bring a matter to the floor until he knows the president will approve. This isn’t a co-equal branch of government, it’s a minor subordinate bureau under the president.

This erosion of Congressional power comes at a time when there has probably never been a greater need for strong checks and balances. The current president is the first president ever who made no appeal at any time in his presidency to the other party, instead condemning them as “scum” and “traitors.” He has refused visibility into his financial affairs, including a plain, black letter law requirement to release his tax returns. He has repeatedly defied the constitutional construct, citing non-existent national security needs to place unilateral tariffs on our closest allies (normally a congressional prerogative), inventing a national emergency to use non-existent authorities to build a wall along the southern border that Congress refused to fund, refusing to participate in routine congressional oversight by ignoring requests for information and witnesses. He has also used the powers of his office to retaliate against federal career employees who challenged him or otherwise incurred his wrath.

The justice system has been thoroughly corrupted, and the courts are under attack as seldom in our history. The Republican judges project has yielded the most ideological judiciary in our lifetimes.

Even so, the president has criticized judges, jurors, and verdicts on the rare occasions they don’t follow his wishes, pardoned associates who obstructed justice and lied to investigators on his behalf, and demanded investigations (and even prosecutions) of his political adversaries. The attorney general has regularly undercut the prosecutors in his own department and launched politically motivated investigations.

If Trump wins, we can confidently expect even further erosion of checks and balances. If Biden is elected and, as seems likely if he wins, the Democrats also control the Senate, it is likely that legislation will be quickly passed to ensure future executive branch compliance with requests for information and to further restrict executive ability to ignore congressional appropriations. But like many aspects of our democracy, the system of checks and balances relies in great part on the three branches acknowledging the powers of the other two. The assault on the system of checks and balances illustrates how vulnerable our democratic systems and institutions are.

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From the title of the book by former congressional aide Ira Shapiro.

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Tyranny of the Minority, by Mark Berg Adapted from a column in the Gettysburg Times, January 1, 2020.

“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State.” (U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 1) With that single sentence, the framers of the Constitution doomed our country to a tyranny of the minority: less than half of the country’s population is represented by 82 out of 100 senators. Along with gerrymandering, the electoral college, the filibuster, and the Republican court-packing project, this represents one of several constitutional provisions, laws, or practices that guarantees gridlock, creates a large structural advantage for the most reactionary segments of the country, and paves the way for autocrats such as Donald Trump. While constitutional amendments aren’t likely to move forward in our severely divided system, there will inevitably be a reconsideration of some of these rules in a Biden presidency.

So how did the Senate wind up being structured that way? During the summer of 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia established equal representation for each state in the Senate, but representation in proportion to population in the House of Representatives; it was called the “Great Compromise.”

In the weeks before the framers agreed to the compromise, the delegates from the states with large populations argued that each state’s representation in the Senate should correspond to the size of the state. They endorsed James Madison’s Virginia Plan, which was the basis for several of the clauses in the Constitution. Under this plan, both the Senate and the House would base their membership on the same proportional “right of suffrage” (i.e. the number of senators from each state would be determined by its population of free citizens and slaves). In that case, large states stood to gain the most seats in the Senate. As justification, they noted that their states contributed more of the nation’s financial and defensive resources than small states, and therefore were entitled to a greater say in government.

Small-state delegates, fearing the effects of majority rule a/k/a/ democracy, demanded equal representation in Congress as specified in the Articles of Confederation, an agreement among the 13 original states in 1777 that served as the first constitution; some framers threatened to withdraw from the convention if a proportional representation measure passed.

Connecticut’s Roger Sherman suggested that Congress represent the people as well as the states, and proposed that House representation be based on population, while in the Senate, the states would be represented equally. Benjamin Franklin agreed that each state should have an equal vote in the Senate except in matters concerning money. On July 16, the delegates narrowly adopted the mixed representation plan which gave each state two senators.

The Constitution’s bias toward small states is more problematic now than it was 233 years ago because it accurately reflects the issues separating the two parties, including cultural, racial, and religious diversity, and a changing economy. As small and large states separate further along those lines in the years ahead, the constitutional compromise that provided each state two senators will exacerbate growing tensions.

An analysis of Senate votes between 1901 and 2018 found that senators voting in the majority now represent a historically low proportion of the country’s population, even though Democrats won the

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popular vote for senators by more than 8 percent over the last six years. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court by a vote of 50 to 48 – one Democrat voted with the Republicans – representing 44 percent of the country’s population. Gorsuch was confirmed by 54 senators representing only 45 percent of the population. Similarly, circuit court judges, several other of President Trump’s nominations, the 2017 tax cuts, and ten laws rolling back Obama-era regulations passed with 50 senators representing 43 percent of the population voting in favor.

The House is somewhat more of a democracy. Democrats have faced an uphill battle since a Republican wave in 2010 enabled the GOP to gerrymander the congressional maps in a majority of states. For example, an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice of the 2012 mid-term election showed that in states where Republicans controlled redistricting, their candidates won 53 percent of the vote but took 72 percent of the seats.

In 2018, Democrats won a majority of House seats for the first time since 2008. Their candidates won 52 percent of the House vote nationwide, taking 53 percent of House seats. Republicans on the other hand have often won a larger percentage of House seats than their percentage of the vote; in fact, they have secured House majorities while winning less than 50 percent of the vote in four elections since 2000.

Conservatives write about the Constitution as if it came from God on stone tablets. The truth is, the Constitution is the product of extraordinary men, products of their time.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions.

But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Covita: The Man on the Balcony and the Rule of Law, Leon Reed Everyone understands that something is wrong. Even Trump’s supporters know this isn’t the way the government is supposed to work. Demanding 100% loyalty to the president from people who swore an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. Firing inspectors general (IGs) who dare to investigate actions taken by the Administration. Routinely interfering in the judicial process to reward allies and punish political opponents. Overruling the technical judgment of scientific and economic agencies and forcing them to water down their recommendations. Demanding the prosecution of current and past political opponents. Illegally delaying weapons aid to pressure a foreign country to provide equally illegal aid to his campaign.

Some of Trump’s supporters think this breathtaking level of abuse of power is justified because extraordinary measures are necessary to root out the “Deep State.” But the vast majority of people recognize that we are in new and alarming terrain.

But there are fundamentals of a healthy democracy that have been almost obliterated. These include: 1) a non-partisan, expert civil service, military officer corps, and intelligence community; 2) routine visibility into the president’s behavior, health, and activities through medical reports, financial disclosures, divestiture of business interests, and vigorous oversight by Congress and by agency IGs; 3) expert scientific and statistical agencies that describe our world, analyze economic conditions and

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control the economy; estimate future economic growth and crop yields; predict the weather and conditions such as tides, beach erosion, and storm damage; distribute aid according to eligibility formulae, not political support; cure diseases, approve new drugs and therapeutics, and prevent the spread of diseases; and d) a non-partisan Department of Justice, FBI, and US attorneys who investigate and prosecute crimes without regard to politics.

After three years of intimidation, retaliation, and blatant interference, much of this traditional structure lies in tatters. The intelligence community doesn’t brief the president about Russia or other topics that might anger him. Health agencies such as the FDA and CDC have repeatedly buckled to White House demands. Environmental and civil rights agencies have been stripped bare, and DHS agencies are comfortable committing crimes against humanity . The administration has repeatedly interfered in the census with the objective of ensuring that minorities are undercounted. The federal government has repeatedly threatened to or actually denied federal aid to cities and states led by Democrats, a blatant violation of law.

But even with the backdrop of increasingly autocratic behavior over the entire term of his presidency, the behavior he showed in late September and early October is shocking: •

• •

Trump has refused to condemn right wing violence and has been cited as an inspiration by mass murderers around the world. But the exposure of a plot to kidnap and possibly kill the governor of Michigan (and make war against one of the States, and therefore against the United States) represents a new low. The president made not a word of praise for the FBI and no calming words for the public. Instead, he launched attacks on both the FBI director and the governor of Michigan.

He has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and undermined the credibility of our election process with accusations of voting corruption.

He demanded that his attorney general prosecute the former president, his past political opponent, and his current opponent.

These Presidential actions are in violation of norms and tradition. Every time the president reaches a new low, he sets a new precedent of acceptable behavior. If both parties act this way, American democracy is at an end, but if only one does, the other party could be at an enormous disadvantage.

Rebuilding the independence and competence of the federal agencies, creating a structure that protects IGs and other critics, and removing the atmosphere of fear could be a generation’s work.

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Chapter 3: Our Political and Government System The Republicans Don’t Have a Plan, by Mark Berg Adapted from “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail,” Gettysburg Times, August 4, 2020.

One of the main issues that will be settled by this election is how we will deal in 2021 with the emergencies inherited from 2020. Our country is dealing with three crises simultaneously: the Covid19 pandemic (220,000 deaths and counting), an economic collapse caused by the pandemic (economy contracted 33% in the first quarter), and civil unrest. It’s reasonable to expect our national leaders to lead us through these trying times. That leadership begins at the top, the presidency, and it requires decisions based on a plan of action to meet these crises. Instead, we are given tweets, bragging, and a denial of responsibility.

We shouldn’t have expected Trump and his administration to make any plans. If Trump had paid attention when he was a student (undergraduate, not MBA) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, he would have learned the importance of planning. Planning requires reading up on an issue and having discussions with people who know more than you do. But in interviews before becoming president, Trump said he does not need to read extensively because he reaches the right decisions “with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I had, plus the words ‘common sense,’ because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.”

He also said reading long documents is a waste of time because he absorbs the gist of an issue very quickly. “I’m a very efficient guy,” he said. “Now, I could also do it verbally, which is fine. I’d always rather have – I want it short. There’s no reason to do hundreds of pages because I know exactly what it is. Do me a favor: Don’t send me a report. Send me, like, three pages.”

Trump is skeptical of experts because “they can’t see the forest for the trees.” He believes that when he makes decisions, people see that he instinctively knows the right thing to do: “A lot of people said, ‘Man, he was more accurate than guys who have studied it all the time.’ ” So, we shouldn’t be surprised now when Trump is asked what he would do in a second term, and he never talks about his plans, or even if he has any. Republican senators say there has been little discussion about what Trump’s second term would look like, other than the assumption he might have a chance to appoint another Supreme Court justice and fill other judicial vacancies.

When asked about his plans during a recent interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump just rambled on. “Well, one of the things that will be really great, you know the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I’ve always said that. But the word experience is a very important word. It’s an, a very important meaning.

“I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, seventeen times. All of a sudden, I’m president of the United States. You know the story. I’m riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say, ‘This is great.’ But I didn’t know very many people in Washington. It wasn’t my thing. I was from Manhattan, from New York. Now I know everybody, and I have great people in the administration.

“You make some mistakes. Like, you know, an idiot like Bolton. All he wanted to do was drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to drop bombs on everybody. You don’t have to kill people.”

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Candidate Trump told us, “I alone can fix it.” He just never told us what “it” is or how he’d do it.

He’s still not telling us what he’ll fix or how. Neither has he revealed any plans regarding the environment (climate change is a hoax), the economy ((just cut taxes), health care (“nobody knew how complicated it is”). However, it seems Trump has settled on a strategy for his reelection campaign: provoke violence by sending federal law enforcement agents to confront protesters in cities with Democratic mayors, exacerbate tensions, and then claim to have restored law and order.

This is not a plan, unless his plan is to further undermine democracy.

Reflecting its leader, the Republican party simply declined to adopt a platform for the 2020 campaign. The party is so bereft of ideas, or so terrified of standing up for something that might subsequently anger the president, that they present themselves to the world as a party that stands for nothing but its own perpetuation in power It Didn’t Start with Trump: Rebuilding the Civil Service, Leon Reed Rebuilding the severe damage done to our professional civil service and overall capabilities and credibility of our government agenciess will be one of the primary challenges for Joe Biden if he is elected in 2020.

Between 1933 and 1980, the federal government put together the efforts that tamed the Great Depression, won World War II, created a network of international organizations that maintained stability for more than 50 years, rebuilt Europe, developed and produced the atomic bomb, built the hydroelectric dams like Bonneville and Grand Coulee, explored the universe, developed the Internet, fought and won the Cold War, eliminated many dreaded childhood diseases, built the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon and brought him home safely, brought electricity to rural parts of America, and built the St. Lawrence Seaway. Oh, I know, you’re going to say, “Hey, Rockwell International and Grumman built the equipment that put the man on the moon.” But it was the federal government that put those efforts together.

The federal government also established national centers of expertise in medical research, diplomacy, intelligence and law enforcement, agricultural research, and many other areas. It has been popular to deride government employees as lazy bureaucrats or deep state, but they are the top people in their field and we rely on them for weather forecasts, disaster relief, protection of national parks and forests, climate change research, control of infectious diseases, management of Social Security and Medicare, investigating crime, and making sure people pay their taxes.

The federal government also established numerous organizations that were the international gold standard for accumulation and analysis of data on labor force, disease, population, weather, economic activity, agriculture, and many other topics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census, NOAA, CDC, and other agencies provide the basis for us to understand our world. Nobody invested in a new factory, planted a crop, planned a new school or subdivision, or planned a family picnic without relying on federal statistics. We would not have weather forecasts or the means to control an Ebola pandemic, or air travel, or safe food and water, without “federal bureaucrats.”

The attacks on the “Deep State” aren’t a new thing. It started with resistance in the south to civil rights legislation and George Wallace’s famous derisive comments about “pointy headed federal BYOO-ruh-krats” and continued through Reagan’s contemptuous comment that “government is always the problem.”

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But these attacks, over time, have led to a serious erosion in capabilities. Virtually all of the services mentioned in this article come in the category of “non-defense discretionary spending.” (The other categories are ‘defense” and mandatory spending such as Social Security and Medicare.) Nondefense discretionary spending has declined from nearly 10% of GDP in 1970 to roughly 3% today.

Federal capabilities have also suffered from ideological attacks that have cut funding and hamstrung agencies that are unpopular with some special interests, such as Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), IRS, civil rights enforcement, the EPA, food safety inspection, national parks, and the Census.

The Trump administration has brought these capabilities to a new low. There have been waves of forced retirements and retaliatory firings of the senior civil servants we rely on for continuity.

Continuing budget cuts and assigning leadership of agencies to industry lobbyists hostile to the agency’s mission have virtually eliminated some capabilities. Most agencies now have been thoroughly politicized. We are now seeing regular White House interference in routine agency functions and retaliation against civil servants who don’t loyally support the president. These actions have consequences. For example, we learned recently that intelligence officials don’t brief the president on anything about Russia or anything else that night make him angry. Imagine if nobody had told JFK about Soviet missiles in Cuba because they knew he might get angry and have them fired.

Cuts in safety inspections make our food less safe. Cuts in the IRS mean tax cheats don’t get caught.

Turning new airplane certification over to the manufacturer led to the 737 MAX fiasco and has threatened the survival of U.S. airliner production. Repeated political interference in the Census could give us an inaccurate count and, if the Trump administration is successful, give a permanent electoral advantage to red states.

Today we are facing four great emergencies – an international crisis of confidence in the United States, the Corona virus, the cratering of the economy, and the broad problem of systemic racism.

We don’t have a coherent plan for any of them. And we have created a federal capability almost perfectly configured to mishandle any emergency. We’ve seen the results of a president completely unsuited to the job, who has basically decided we don’t need allies, that he can bully the pandemic away and sweet talk the economy back to full employment, and that the solution to systemic racism is to have more militarized police arrest and tear gas more people. We have also seen the consequences of interference and bullying the federal workforce: agencies such as CDC that repeatedly modify or delay their guidance, agencies whose capability has eroded so severely that they’re marginally competent to carry out their mission. It will be the work of decades to rebuild the essential functions we rely on.

The Republicans Approach to a 2nd Term, Mark Berg Adapted from “The Republicans are right – far right,” Gettysburg Times, September 20, 2020) The Republicans are trying to convince voters that the Democratic Party has shifted far left, into socialism and away from the mainstream. During the Republican convention, Trump accused Biden of having "the most extreme set of proposals ever put forward by a major party nominee." The fact is, it’s not the Democratic Party that has shifted, it’s the Republican Party.

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A study of public support for major pieces of legislation over the past twenty-five years shows that only about a third of voters supported the GOP’s 2017 tax bill; support for the Republicans’ proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was less than 25 percent.

On the other hand, legislation proposed by Democratic administrations and legislators reflects the wishes of the voters, our mainstream beliefs. Support for thirteen pieces of legislation garnered between 40 and 85 percent. Dodd-Frank Financial Reforms Bill (60 percent); Expanded Minimum Wage (80 percent); Assault Weapons Ban (80 percent); Brady Bill (85 percent); Clean Air Act Amendments (nearly 80 percent).

During that time, the Republican Party became the Plutocratic Party, representing government of, by, and for the rich and large corporations, handing them almost complete power over its legislative agenda. The GOP is now further from the center of American politics than any previous political party. Through gerrymandering, restricting voting rights, suppressing the vote, and packing the courts with ideologues regardless of their judicial qualifications, they have brought about a tyranny of the minority (four of the five conservative Supreme Court justices were appointed by presidents who had received a minority of the popular vote).

The responsiveness of government to ordinary citizens has weakened. Republicans and their allies – the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth, the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- have become fixated on tax cuts, even willing to cut back on popular social and safety-net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to pay for them. They tried – are still trying – to strip health insurance from millions of Americans.

They have appointed the most consistently anti-consumer, anti-labor, and anti-environmental advocates to positions throughout governments at all levels.

The GOP now faces the problem Harvard political scientist Daniel Ziblatt calls “the conservative dilemma.” The top 1 percent went from 11 percent of national income in 1980 to 20 percent in 2016, and the bottom 50 percent fell from 21 percent of national income in 1980 to 13 percent in 2016.

How do you keep your party from being voted out of office by the 99 percent banding together to get some of their money back into their own pockets? How do you keep winning elections while cutting taxes for the rich while making life harder for the middle and lower classes by cutting back on social and safety-net programs? The dilemma sharpens as inequality widens.

Trump offered “massive tax relief to all working people” that would not add to the debt or the deficit.

It would, and it did. The Tax Policy Center reported about 65 percent of taxpayers saw their tax bills shrink, but, of course, high-income people profited the most. Furthermore, after 2025, all individual tax cuts are set to expire, while the corporate rate cuts are permanent. As a result, by 2027 a large majority of people making less than $200,000 will either see little change in their tax bill or a tax increase compared to what they paid before. And the tax bill did not "pay for itself" through enough economic growth to bring in revenue to offset what has been lost from the tax cut; the federal budget deficit increased in each of Trump's first three years.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that the Republicans have managed to convince their “base” that they are standing up for them. In their book, Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, Harvard political science professors Jacob Hacker and Paul Piers wrote, “Outflanked by the left, their survival depends on introducing or highlighting other social divisions.

And these divisions couldn’t be trivial or temporary; they had to be strong enough to attract durable political support from the working and middle classes.” These divisions include racial, ethic, and

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religious differences; the call of nationalism; opposition to immigration; and sectional loyalties.

These divisions “draw a sharp line between ‘us’ and ‘them.’”

They didn’t do it alone, of course; they had help from talk radio, Facebook, Fox News, the NRA, and other right-wing groups, using anger and resentment to deflect attention from severe income inequality and its corrosive effect on our democracy. They have opened a Pandora’s Box of divisive issues that split ordinary citizens from each other while the party continues to protect the rich and powerful.

If the most recent party gathering, the 2020 Republican convention, is any indication, all the Plutocratic Party has to offer voters is fear; that’s not a hopeful vision for the future of America.

Good or Bad Government, Jeanne Duffy Based on a column in the Gettysburg Times, August 18, 2020 The Covid-19 public health crisis has laid bare many interconnected problems in our country, including the glaring inadequacies and unfairness of our overly complicated, expensive healthcare system, a growing number of people in poverty, especially in communities of color, increased domestic abuse and gun violence, and highly flawed policing systems across the country. On top of this bleak picture, we have the fear and anxiety that a dysfunctional government has created—fear and anxiety that also affect people’s health.

Since the days of Ronald Reagan, the GOP has bought into the mantra “government is the problem.”

Newt Gingrich, and then the “Tea Party,” seized upon this view, calling for the downsizing and defunding of government, and lower taxes.

Nobel prize winning economist, writer, and political commentator Paul Krugman has called out the problem with this point of view. In his words, “A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government.” Gerrymandering began to flourish, the balance of power in Congress and state governments was destroyed, with the GOP gaining majority rule, and political extremism took an upper hand. But the Trump administration probably has done more than any past administration to turn Krugman’s prophecy into reality. It has slashed budgets of agencies (making them ineffective), put people in charge of agencies who want to destroy them, done away with regulations that protect the American people and our climate, and doggedly pursued the abolition of the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions more people without healthcare. And the second pandemic relief package remains stalled for another month. This is bad government indeed.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Krugman adds. For starters, we need to restore a balanced government by voting in more Democrats at every level. With a unified Democratic Party under the Biden/Harris ticket, and down-ballot Democratic candidates (like Todd Rowley for Congress and Rich Sterner for State Senator) who believe in healthcare as a human right, ending racial and economic injustice, and protecting all people and their environment, we could have a better America down the road. But everything depends on high voter turnout. If you believe that the role of government is to enable all its citizens to live healthy and productive lives, vote for Democrats in this election, up and down the ballot, for this is what the Democratic Party stands for.

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We’ll Never Trust you Again!, Jenine Weaver In 2016, I refused to vote for Hillary Clinton. Voting for “politics as usual” goes against the America we need. I couldn’t fathom voting Blue no matter who. Then Trump. I knew he was a horrible person, but I was not prepared for the prejudice and pure hate that he encouraged. His words echo in my memory, “Many good people … on both sides.” “Stand back and stand by” as he spoke directly to white supremacist groups. How could the most powerful person in our country encourage racism, hate, and violence on live tv? This is not my America!

I’ve never considered myself a Democrat, I’m a supporter of humanity, fairness, and equality.

However, after meeting local Democrats and their progressive stances in Gettysburg, I decided for this election, I have to vote with the Democrats and against Trump.

The local Democrats have been supporting missions to solve poverty and dismantle systemic racism.

They stand to promote inclusion and support projects to make a difference. These Democrats showed me that I’m included, that they see the cycle and struggle of poverty, and that Black voices are heard.

They stand proudly on the Lincoln square in support of these causes.

So, What’s at Stake? We, the impoverished, the suppressed, and the misunderstood are voting with you. We are fighting Trump with you. If Biden wins, we need you to keep fighting with us! Your battle is won but our war continues. You cannot be complacent. You cannot denounce our ways. If Biden wins and you forget about us…..we will never trust you again. Meaning, the next time there is a dictator-to-be in office, we will not fight with you. We will let America burn. Then we will rebuild the America we know we deserve.

So what’s at stake? The support of the poor for the Democratic Party.

Redistricting, by Steve Niebler Let me begin with a disclaimer: while I chair the local gerrymandering reform group known as Fair Districts Adams County (FDAC), the following thoughts are my own. They have not been reviewed and/or approved by FDAC. Having said that, here we go!

Our State Legislature, one of the largest and most well-compensated in the country, has once again failed to deal even ineffectively with gerrymandering reform. They stalled and fiddled around long enough that it is now too late to put a Constitutional amendment before the State’s voters in time to use the 2020 Census results. Sad but true.

There has been a lot of activity over the past several years on the part of thousands of citizens across the Commonwealth in an effort to move meaningful gerrymandering reform forward. It was especially important to settle this now because Pennsylvania is expected to lose a seat in the House of Representatives, which will require district maps to be redrawn. Sadly, our Legislators haven’t done much with any of the proposals. In 2018, the PA Supreme Court got so frustrated with them that they ruled that new Congressional boundaries needed to be drawn. They were and our Congressional delegation is now evenly split, 9 – 9 Democrats and Republicans as opposed to the previous 13 – 9 in favor of the Republicans. This even split of the Congressional delegation far more accurately reflects the voter registration and population of the State.

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You would think that this would demonstrate to the Legislators that fairly drawn district boundaries lead to fair elections. You would be wrong! There are still a number of House and Senate members who are angry that the Supreme Court intervened. One State Representative has stated that this action caused him to “disengage” from the entire gerrymandering reform effort. And just recently, several State Representatives have introduced HR 1044, which calls for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Wecht for, among other things, his judicial overreach on this issue. It’s not hard to overreach when no one else is even reaching!

There are two bills, HB 2638 and SB 1242, currently before the House and Senate, known as the Legislative and Congressional Redistricting Act (LACRA) that would provide for clear, measurable district-drawing criteria and shine some light on the whole district-boundary-drawing process. Are they moving along? Yes, but quite frankly, neither is moving at breakneck speed and it isn’t likely that they’ll pass in the few days that the House and Senate are in session yet in 2020. Senator Mastriano, a member of the Senate Local Government Committee, voted against reporting the bill out of committee. He was one of three who voted not to report the bill out. Four voice messages left with his Harrisburg office to learn his reasons for not voting to support the bill have not been returned.

And, finally, the Legislature has passed a proposed Constitutional amendment to gerrymander the Pennsylvania courts. The amendment needs to pass the legislative session again next year and then the voters will have their say. It’s extremely frustrating to work to rid us of gerrymandering only to have the Legislature vote for more of it.

Pennsylvania needs serious legislative reform, staring with gerrymandering. We probably won’t get it anytime soon as our House and Senate members just don’t seem to be interested.

What’s likely to occur is that we’ll follow the same process in 2021 that we followed in 2001 and 2011: The House and Senate Majority and Minority leaders will make up four of the five members of the committee required to draw new distinct lines. They won’t be able to agree on a fifth member so one will be appointed by the State Supreme Court. The difference this time is that the Court will be controlled by Democrats rather than Republicans as it was before. It’s very naive to believe that Democrats won’t engage in the partisan gerrymandering that Republicans engaged in the last two times we redrew district boundary lines. So, unless Republicans in the House and Senate “see the light” in next few weeks and get on board with meaningful gerrymandering reform, their future hold on districts is certainly likely to change. And not in ways they may like.

As those great philosophers, John Lennon and Paul McCartney might say: “Ob la di, ob-la-da, life goes on, bra.”

Managing the Pandemic, Leon Reed Have you ever noticed that if you’re debating with a Trump apologist and mention the lies, 100% of the time the rejoinder will be “Oh yeah, well Obama promised we could keep our insurance plan.”

And, if you’re discussing our response to the pandemic, all you’ll hear is “China travel ban” or “ventilators.”

If you keep using the same example, that probably means you don’t really have a point.

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The nation knows – or used to know – how to organize a national crash program. Assemble the top experts and listen to them; this doesn’t just mean “the doctors:” the president should consult with hospitals,small business, labor, hospitals, research labs, first responders, medical equipment manufcdturers …. Be candid with the American people. Develop a national strategy, guidance, requirements, and priorities and communicate them with the governors, producers, hospitals (In the case of a health emergency), research institutes, and the public. The Trump administration did none of these things.

President Trump was aware that this was a serious threat in January and continued to treat it as a hoax for another two months. Indeed, as recently as October 10, he was repeating that “someday, it will magically go away.” Imagine if, on December 8, 1941, FDR had gone before Congress and instead of “a day which will live in infamy,” had said, “so let’s be patient and someday, as if by magic, the Japanese will go away.”

Far from relying on the experts, Trump has denigrated them, forced them to the sidelines, and, on several occasions, forced them to withdraw or water down their guidance.

Even the two things they brag about, “the China travel ban” and “ventilators,” show the incompetence of the federal response. The “travel ban” was intended to keep the virus out but would do nothing to prevent spread. Citing the “ban” as an effective response that prevented the spread of the virus reflects a basic misunderstanding of the biology of the virus and the status of the spread.

The president frequently describes the ventilators as a great success, but it provides a different example of the incompetence of our response. Early on, everyone was panicked about a shortage of ventilators and the administration instituted a crash program. Now we’re producing a surplus of ventilators. This what happens when there is no central management and no requirements process.

While it is good that there are enough, when resources are in short supply, producing too many is nearly as bad as too few.

But more serious yet is the misinformation coming from the White House on a daily basis and the useful information that has been suppressed. By denying the seriousness of the threat, politicizing the basic belief in the seriousness of the threat as well as the simple act of wearing a mask, and continuing to host super-spreader events, he has done more to spread the virus than any other person.

His only strategy appears to be to demand “just open up.” A federal government eager to see things “return to normal” would create a model testing and contact tracing program, advocate for maximum safety measures, and provide detailed guidance and resources to small businesses, restaurants and bars, sports leagues, churches, schools and colleges, and other institutions struggling to reopen safely. The Trump administration has done none of these things, leaving American school systems and other institutions on their own while demanding that they open up.

Biden was an early voice calling on the administration to take things seriously. He will organize the effort and develop a national strategy, with guidance for all sectors, including schools. He will consult with the government medical experts but also with other stakeholders such as small businesses, medical suppliers, hospitals, and workers. One key element is free, national testing and another is to guarantee sick leave for essential workers.

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Save the Mail: Postal Service, Carolyn George Regardless of your politics, here in the U.S. you’ve had postal service your whole life. The mail is so easy to take for granted that we don’t even think about it. It’s just there. Even now, when we use the internet for commerce and communication way more than we use old-fashioned mail, we’d probably notice if all of a sudden we never got any mail any more.

But guess what? The day of No More Mail could come as soon as this fall.

Can you even begin to imagine what your life would be like without mail service? Do you get any of your prescriptions by mail? Did you receive your census survey in the mail? Have some of you already voted by mail in the upcoming primary election, sparing you a potentially risky in-person visit to the polls? And although some of the greatly increased online ordering we’ve done since midMarch has been delivered by UPS and FedEx, as much or more has been hefted to our doorsteps by our overworked and at-risk mail carriers.

How the USPS has gotten to the point of imminent bankruptcy is a complicated story, with plenty of blame to go around. In brief, though, the USPS has not been taxpayer-funded for the past fifty years.

Congress’s instructions to the Postal Regulatory Commission have made it challenging, if not outright impossible, for the USPS to maintain solvency. For one thing, it is required to advance fund its pension obligations for nearly a century, something no business would do.

Back in April, a bipartisan group of top lawmakers in the House of Representatives called on congressional leadership to provide emergency funding for the Postal Service in light of the agency’s financial crisis and the public’s vastly increased reliance on the mail during the coronavirus pandemic. The White House blocked the request. President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin have made it clear that they want the Postal Service to go bankrupt and for its operation to be privatized.

Since then, the postmaster general has issued order after order to make the postal service more inefficient and less responsive: banning overtime, ordering postal trucks to leave at a certain time even if it means leaving mail at the post office undelivered, removing sorting equipment, etc. A court found these actions unjustified and ordered them reversed but the damage in some cases was done.

At the time, critics highlighted the impact of these changes on the integrity of mail in ballots. But another impact of making the postal service less efficient could well be to reduce its business and pave the way for privatization.

How you feel about privatization of a public service is likely to depend on whether you’re in line to reap any of the profits. Most of us are not. The costs of privatization will be serious, particularly for people in rural areas whom the postal service is required to serve. Profit making services like Fedex and UPS will cherry pick the profitable routes and either abandon or charge a surcharge for lowvolume, difficult to reach locations.

The agency President Trump has called a “joke” may not be so much of a joke to many of us. If you’re not laughing, you may want to let your legislators know. The fight to save the postal service doesn’t end on election day.

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Racial Justice, Leon Reed. The Biden campaign has adopted a widespread series of proposals to promote racial justice. This paper touches briefly on some of Biden’s proposals in only a few key areas: jobs and investments, affordable housing and community development, law enforcement, education, and presidential leadership.

Economic. Biden’s plan will promote both employment opportunities and investment opportunities for minority entrepreneurs: • Increase federal contracting and investment funds • Increase SBA and Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) funding • Promote investment in minority-owned businesses and equal access to capital.

• Fight for equal pay.

• Incentivize small employers to start a pension plan • Increase minimum wage.

• Promote increased diversity in the workforce.

Affordable housing and community development. Biden’s housing plan will promote home ownership, the primary means of promoting stability for families and promoting generational wealth. The plan will encourage construction of affordable housing, eliminate discrimination in sales and lending, and make it easier to buy a new home.

• Refundable tax credit for first home purchase.

• Direct funding and tax incentives to increase construction of affordable housing.

• Strengthen Community Reinvestment Act. • Eliminate discriminatory zoning.

• Roll back Trump actions to weaken fair lending and fair housing protections.

• Homeowner and renter bill of rights.

• Broadband to every household • Implement Clyburn 10-20-30 plan to target funds to communities suffering persistent poverty.

Law enforcement. The popular comment “99% of police are good and decent men, it’s just a few bad apples” misses the point. The problem is not a few racist cops; the problem is a system that trains and socializes police to see white males as citizens and black men as perps unless they prove otherwise. White men aren’t pulled over because they “matched the description” or “stared at me in a strange way.” Police recruitment and training needs to be reoriented. Among Biden’s proposals: • Expand DOJ powers to investigate charges of police misconduct.

• Provide grants to increase community policing.

• Investment in public defenders.

• End cash bail and jailing people for failure to pay fines.

• Restore the rights of formerly incarcerated individuals.

• Reduce prison populations.

Education. The educational achievement gap is both a symptom and a cause of poverty.

Many underprivileged children arrive in school already disadvantaged because of a lack of preschool, may lack Internet connectivity, and may not have a strong educational support structure at home.

Minority students in poor neighborhoods may attend highly segregated, poorly funded schools that the best teachers flee. Students of color are far more likely to be disciplined and expelled, which increases the risk of dropout. Biden’s plan includes:

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• • • • • •

Universal pre-K. Eliminate funding gap between wealthier and poorer school districts.

Expand opportunities for student loan forgiveness.

Free college tuition (2 and 4 year public universities) for anyone earning less than $125,000.

Increase Pell grant funding.

Massive investment in HBCUs, including lab facilities and incubators

The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division played an important role in fighting discrimination by investigating reports of violations and prosecuting or negotiating consent decrees.

The division has been neutered under President Trump and reinvigorating it will be a lengthy project.

Restoring the Voting Rights Act will be a top priority for Congress. It will ban many of the voter suppression measures that have become so common since the Supreme Court repealed most of the Voting Rights Act. Bully pulpit. A president cannot change the hearts of men overnight. But his (or her) behavior does set a national example. Trump’s refusal to denounce white supremacists, his encouragement of violent right wing terror groups, his frequent criticism of black mayors and cities with large black populations, his repeated referral to prominent black politicians (especially black female politicians) as “dumb” or ”crazy,” his criticisms of American congressmen “telling us how to run our country,” has sent a strong signal to racist groups that the president is on their side.

What Will the New President Do First?, Leon Reed It is WAY premature to start thinking about a President Biden and a majority leader Schumer. Polls look good now and it has become popular to write articles with titles like “The Trump Presidency is Over,” and “The Trump White House Unravels.” But in this year, the election won’t be secure until the elected president raises his hand and takes the oath from Chief Justice Roberts.

But it’s not too early to think about the long list of things being promised and the high expectations being raised in the campaign. Even before the pandemic, the recession, and the recent attention to our country’s longstanding policing and racial inequality problems, there was a long to do list for the next president and Congress. Obviously, many hope for enactment of some or all of the “progressive agenda.” But there’s more: undoing the damage to our civil service, environmental regulations, checks and balances, tax structure, budget, alliances, and many other things done by recent Republican administrations; legislation to restrain presidential abuses of power; and procedural changes to restore democratic principles, restructure and rebuild our foreign policy, civil rights, and law enforcement, etc.

And now given even greater urgency would be additional measures to deal with the major emergencies facing the country: managing the effects of the pandemic, economic recovery, and dealing with systemic racism.

The point of the old saying “when you’re up to you’re a** in alligators, it’s hard to remember you set out to drain the swamp” is that the important things can be shoved aside by things that appear to be urgent, whether they are important or not. And the new president won’t lack for urgent things that must be addressed “right now,” including additional pandemic relief measures, a new civil rights agenda, and economic recovery.

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The list below summarizes some of the specific reforms that many hope will be taken up the new Congress.

The Alligators: Dealing with Current Emergencies First Things First. Priority must be placed on confirmation of the new president’s appointments, including judges. If the Democrats control the Senate, the president and Senate leadership must decide by the first day Congress meets whether to drop or change the filibuster.

New Civil Rights Agenda, Limits on policing, police oversight, expansion of voting rights, limits on mass incarceration, investment in minority neighborhoods, support for HBCUs, educational achievement gap, investigate patterns and practices, promote affordable housing, end discrimination in lending and home sales …..

Economic Recovery. Extend unemployment pay, paycheck protection, eviction/ foreclosure protections, aid to state/local governments, aid to small businesses, extended food stamps…

Fight the Pandemic: Create an effective Pandemic Coordination Council; develop and articulate national strategy for fighting disease, population protection, safe reopening of schools and businesses; restore the independence of the CDC and FDA; develop effective testing and remediation policies; national coordination of supplies and equipment; ensure timely production and rollout of vaccines and therapeutics; etc.

The Swamp Part 1: Undoing the Damage to the Political System and Economy: Tax reform, restoring the voting rights act, undoing deregulation (environmental standards, safety and inspection), restructuring ICE/CBP, restoring funding for housing and other “discretionary” programs, restoring/rebuilding civil service, DACA and doing something about the people who have been locked up at the border, re-establishing judicial appointment process, rebuilding national parks, restoring the ACA and adding a public option.

Restraining Presidential Abuses and Profiteering. Develop and pass legislation to require disclosure of tax returns and other financial records, prevent self-dealing, divest business interests, prohibit profiting from government business.

Restraining Abuses of Power. Require compliance with congressional oversight; reinforce whistleblower and IG protection; limit abuses of national emergencies act; create further restrictions on reuse of appropriations; limits on pardon power; ensure statutory independence of IGs, DOJ, intelligence community, CDC/FDA, Census/Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), etc.

The Swamp Part 2: Restructuring the Government and the Economy The Progressive Agenda. Medicare for all, free college/college affordability, guaranteed job, guaranteed housing, student debt forgiveness, Green New Deal, gun safety legislation, immigration reform, banning for profit prisons, climate change Foreign Policy/Defense. Define new national security strategy. Re-establish relations with allies, restore arms control agreements, rebuild diplomatic service, restore Iran nuclear deal; restructure intelligence; reduce defense spending; end endless wars, get North Korean nuclear arms program under control, address Saudi war in Yemen; re-think troop deployments in the Middle East and Africa and Middle East peace process; rethink nuclear force modernization and “Space Force.”

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Appropriations/Taxes. Restructure/reduce defense spending, spending on discretionary federal programs (national parks, health, housing, cancer research, public health, education, highways, space, ……), estate tax, income tax, trump tax cuts, wealth tax, transaction tax.

Procedural Changes. Address the filibuster, electoral college, decide about expanding courts, clean up redistricting/prohibit gerrymandering, ban voter suppression measures.

Many of these reforms would require legislation. Some are just agency decisions. Some involve regulatory change or federal government management decisions. A few involve congressional rules changes while a few would require constitutional amendments. But all of them, no matter how widely supported, require some amount of the two most irreplaceable commodities in politics: time and political capital.

This is especially true of legislation. There is not just the matter of assembling a majority; it’s also an issue of the time on the floor needed to debate a complicated and controversial bill. Additionally, even a popular president has only so much political capital and every major piece of legislation consumes some of it.

The degree of gridlock we’ve suffered recently is unusual, but in most Congresses legislation is slow to move through and there is a limited capacity for major legislation. This is especially true when margins in the Senate are close. Generally, presidents who get a lot of legislation passed have large majorities in both Houses. From 1935 through 1939, FDR enjoyed comfortable 2:!+ majorities in the Senate and 3:1 majorities in the House of Representatives. In the “Great Society” 89th Congress (1965-1967), LBJ enjoyed 2:1 majorities in both the House and Senate, with an additional increment of progressive Republicans to support his initiatives. That Congress enacted major legislation like Medicare, Medicaid, Freedom of Information, cigarette labeling, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Voting Rights Act, National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Act, Historic Preservation Act, and many others.

The only recent presidents who were successful legislatively without large majorities in both Houses were Reagan, who had just won a landslide; George W, Bush, who benefited from the impulse to “rally ‘round the flag” after 9/11, and Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, who compromised with the opposing party majorities in both Houses.

In contrast, even if election night 2020 is a great night for Democrats, it’s likely that their margin in the Senate, if they have one, will be only a few seats. Even if the Democrats defended every seat they hold (unlikely) and won half the Republican seats on the ballot (impossible), that would still leave the party with only a 57-43 edge in the Senate. If they have a majority at all, a narrow 52-48 majority seems most likely.

Complicating the challenge of setting priorities is the fact that if Joe Biden is elected, we will have a president who is probably more centrist than much of his House caucus, many of his voters, and, presumably, many of his appointees. Obviously, any legislative changes would require the president’s assent before they move forward. Vice president Biden has already endorsed some parts of the progressive agenda, but the jockeying to set priorities will be intense. Preceding the question of how much of this agenda will be approved by Congress is how much will be adopted and pushed in the first place. In the event that Biden is elected along with a Democratic Senate, the real fight will be the tug of war to set priorities for the new administration. It’s not too early to start that conversation.

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Chapter 4: Issues What’s at stake for Healthcare? – Part 1, Jeanne Duffy For healthcare, just about everything is at stake, and, as usual, it’s complicated.

Trump is now hell-bent on killing the entire Affordable Care Act, and although many Republicans would like to do the same, they are fearful that this might hurt their re-election chances due to the large number of people (a minimum of 20 million) who would lose their healthcare. (Already, millions who before the pandemic had had healthcare insurance through their employer have lost that, making the prospect of the total number of uninsured astronomical.) Due to this election concern, hearings on the Supreme Court case on the ACA, a moving target, has been changed again to just after the election (November 10), protecting Republican incumbents who really would like to see the ACA destroyed.

The ACA ended some of the most egregious practices of many private insurance companies. At the top of the list is the ability to deny coverage or make its costs skyrocket for people with preexisting conditions. One in two Americans has a preexisting condition, ranging from migraine headaches to cancer (Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services). While Trump has off and on promised to restore that protection, without other protections (for insurance companies) that the ACA has in place, insurance companies would revolt.

There’s more, which many people now take for granted. The ACA includes coverage for 10 essential benefits that must be offered by all individual and small group health insurance plans—from maternity to substance abuse treatment and prescription drug coverage. If the ACA is gone, private insurance companies won’t have to offer those benefits and insurers will undoubtedly cut back..

The ACA limits annual consumer spending on in-network essential health benefits covered under most health plans. For 2020, these out-of-pocket maximum limits (which exclude premium costs) are $8,150 for an individual and $16,300 for a family (HHS.gov). GONE are these caps on consumer costs.

If the ACA goes, people on Medicare would lose the closed “doughnut hole,” having to pay full price for pharmaceuticals when their payments have reached a certain level.

This is just a snapshot of protections created by the ACA that would end. Along with these protections, the Medicaid expansions across the country created through the ACA would be defunded by the federal government. To date, 39 states have adopted a Medicaid expansion (Kaiser Family Foundation). As of mid-1919, 765,600 Pennsylvanians got coverage through our Medicaid expansion. State expansions have largely been very successful in getting comprehensive healthcare coverage for people who had no other options.

What else is at stake in this election as part of healthcare? Medicare and Medicaid could face drastic cuts that Trump continues to pursue (originally, to make up for lost tax revenues due to the massive giveaway to the top 10% earners in the country, and now, to reduce the ballooning deficit due to incompetent leadership during the pandemic).

Republicans have never had a plan for healthcare, other than to return to the pre-Obama days of a free-market, largely unregulated, healthcare system when insurance companies could drive very sick

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or injured people to bankruptcy. Trump has made over 15 promises that he has a “great” healthcare plan to replace the ACA. It has never seen the light of day. (Oh, yes, Trump did have one plan that was implemented for a short time: a cheap healthcare insurance that paid for hardly anything and became known as the “skimpy” plan. It was denounced by the Pa insurance commissioner as being worthless.) Going back in history to long before Trump, Republicans have earned the label of “the party of No Care.”

In contrast, Democrats running for office in this election—from Biden/Harris to “Down Ballot” candidates in our district, Todd Rowley for Congress and Rich Sterner for Pa Senate—all believe in healthcare as a human right and making healthcare coverage comprehensive, affordable and accessible to everyone. From Biden on down, they have been hard at work in outlining their plans.

None of the Democratic candidates in our neck of the woods, including Biden/Harris, intends to fly in the face of people who are afraid of losing their existing health insurance – so forget the Republican label of “socialism,” which has been misused so frequently as to be ridiculous.

Democratic candidates are working on a solution that would shore up the ACA (reinstating critical cuts made by Republicans) and improve it. They are considering adding a public option, which may involve Medicare or Medicaid. In addition, Governor Wolf has a team that has nearly ready a staterun exchange on the ACA that promises to bring costs down, expand enrollment periods, and make other improvements. The exchange will be up and running for enrollment in December—UNLESS . . .

If the lawsuit to abolish the ACA (on tortuous grounds) is successful whenever it is finally decided, nearly all plans Democrats have for improving the ACA are for naught.

This brings us to the complication of an imminent Supreme Court nomination. So close to the election, the country lost a champion of women’s rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For a long time, we have known that to replace her, Trump would nominate a person who would please his fundamentalist Pro-Life Base. Thus, reproductive rights, supported by the vast majority of people in our nation, are in serious danger. These rights include not only the right to an abortion, but also the availability of free or low-cost contraception (a key to reducing abortions), and healthcare for hundreds of low-income women who depend on Planned Parenthood clinics for much of their healthcare, particularly women living in rural areas. Reproductive rights are a health and economic issue, affecting millions of women, but especially those who are financially insecure.

Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s first choice to replace RBG, may be nominated before the election and even put on the bench before the November 10 Supreme Court hearing on the ACA’s legitimacy.

Barrett has expressed her discomfort with the ACA and would likely vote to abolish it.

What can we do? Our only hope is for you, me, and the nation (especially swing states like ours) to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. The replacement for RBG is likely out of Democrats’ hands given the current makeup of the Senate, but we must prevent yet another arch conservative from further packing the highest court in the land and destroying its integrity and desperately needed balance.

What’s at Stake for Healthcare?—Part 2, Jeanne Duffy The Essential Health Benefit (EHB) requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ensure that people in individual and small group health insurance markets have comprehensive coverage for the

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services they need. Affected markets include not only plans on the federal (healthcare.gov) and staterun ACA exchanges, but also new employer plans since 2010 and others purchased outside the ACA. What are all the covered essential benefits that could be lost if the ACA were destroyed?

Healthcare.gov lists them as follows: 1.

Ambulatory patient services (outpatient care you get without being admitted to a hospital)

2.

Emergency services

3.

Hospitalization (like surgery and overnight stays)

4.

Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care (both before and after birth)

5.

Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment (this includes counseling and psychotherapy)

6.

Prescription drugs

7.

Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices (services and devices to help people with injuries, disabilities, or chronic conditions gain or recover mental and physical skills)

8.

Laboratory services

9.

Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management

10. Pediatric services, including oral and vision care

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2017 analysis, 1 in 3 people live in states that would have opted to remove benefits like maternity care, rehabilitative and habilitative care, and mental health/substance abuse treatment from its EHB had the Trump Congress been successful in taking down the ACA that year. And 1 in 6 people live in states that would likely have eliminated any formerly mandated essential health benefits. As a result, people would have to pay as much as $1,000/month more for expensive premium riders in order to get coverage for such benefits.

About half the population under the age of 65 has pre-existing medical conditions ranging from asthma to diabetes and cancer. Today, having had a Covid-19 infection would likely be considered a pre-existing condition. Without the ACA, people with chronic conditions would very likely be discriminated against by insurance companies. Coverage could either be denied or their premium and other out-of-pocket costs would skyrocket.

The ACA has caps on annual health expenses, and insurance companies can no longer stop paying for your healthcare once you had reached their designated lifetime limit. These consumer protections would disappear along with the ACA. Federal subsidies for poorer people on the ACA exchanges would of course end. On average, the subsidies covered $525 of a $612 monthly premium in the 39 states that use the federal marketplace (Department of Health & Human Services). Of the estimated 21 million people who could lose their health insurance if the ACA goes away, 9.2 million have received federal subsidies.

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Medicaid has been called the “workhorse” of the ACA, as many people became enrolled through the ACA’s Medicaid expansions. With the loss of the ACA and the generous federal subsidy for exchanges (starting this year and onward, 90% of the costs), few states would be able to pick up the federal portion of their Medicaid expansion costs. The Urban Institute claims that Medicaid enrollment would drop by more than 15 million people, including three million children in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The opioid addiction began to grow astronomically about the time the ACA was implemented. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) estimates that roughly 800,000 people with opioid addiction found treatment through the Medicaid expansions. Loss of Medicaid insurance would have tremendous negative effects for these people, especially in Pennsylvania, which was hard-hit by the addiction.

The ACA also affects Medicare in many ways. It has lowered the costs of preventive care, including free annual wellness visits and diagnostics for diabetes. Without the ACA, prescription drug costs would go up. The “doughnut hole,” or coverage gap, which the ACA sought to eliminate by 2020, would once more widen. The ACA has also been aggressive in cutting costs in the program.

According to the KFF, undoing those cuts could increase the program’s overall costs by hundreds of millions of dollars, resulting in higher-cost premiums for as many as 55 million Medicare recipients.

Last but not least, the ACA required that young adult children be covered by a parent’s health insurance until the age 26. This has been a very popular benefit that many insurance companies may do away with if the law is struck dead.

Aside from all these benefits of the ACA that are at risk, there is the risk of the higher costs of medical care for the uninsured as well as healthcare providers. Doctors and hospitals would lose revenues as the costs of care for people who cannot pay could increase by as much as $50.2 billion (NY Times report). As premiums rise even more, coverage is denied due to pre-existing conditions, and more people become uninsured, insurers will see lower revenues. It’s not a pretty picture for anyone.

HEROES Act for the Health of America, by Sandy Busche Based on a column in the Times, July 9, 2020.

For at least five months after its passage in May by the House, Senate Majority Leader McConnell continued to refuse to take up a COVID-19 relief bill. Many states across the country are facing devastating budget deficits because of low sales tax returns among other reduced revenue streams.

With most budgets due on or before July 1, they are faced with crippling and unnecessary uncertainty.

Pennsylvania faced a July 1 budgetary deadline, but the General Assembly wisely bought the commonwealth some time by recently passing an interim budget that funds education, debt service, and pension obligations fully for the next year. The bad news is that for every other part of the budget, including Medicaid, the money will run out at the end of November. Lawmakers hope that by then, they will have a clearer picture of what to expect regarding revenue, which is certain to fall short of what is needed. They are also counting on knowing what to expect from the federal government to help fill that gap. It is critical that Congress and the President pass another Covid-19 relief bill to help Pennsylvania’s families and the rest of the country weather this economic crisis.

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As you might remember, Congress has twice taken desperately needed action to shore up the national economy in the face of the global pandemic. Early in March, they passed the Families First Act. This act increased the funds that the federal government sends to the states to help with the administration of Medicaid. The Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) increased by 6.2%, bringing millions of dollars into Pennsylvania as people lost their employer-sponsored health insurance and Medicaid enrollment soared. Later in March, Congress passed the CARES Act, which provided aid directly to American workers. The act created Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a new program that provides unemployment benefits to people who do not normally qualify for unemployment income—e.g., self-employed individuals, gig workers, and clergy members.

Now is not the time for Congress to take its foot off the pedal. In fact, the House of Representatives showed that there is more work to be done when, in May, it passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, commonly known as the HEROES Act. This relief bill combines some of the most successful parts of the two previous relief efforts. First, the unemployment benefits from the CARES Act would be extended through January 31, 2021.

Critically, as in the CARES Act, workers traditionally left out of unemployment insurance would be covered through March of 2021.

Medicaid, which is so important during this health crisis and which is a big part of Pennsylvania’s budget, would get a bump in funding too. Remember the FMAP? The HEROES Act increases the percentage increase from 6.2% to 14%. For Pennsylvania, that would mean around $1.7 billion more dollars to pay hospitals and providers for public health needs, including treating Medicaid patients.

(Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, 4/21/20).

But Medicaid funds alone will not be enough. Separate aid to states will also be necessary to help state budgets stressed by these unusual times. The HEROES Act includes $500 billion in direct aid to state governments and $375 billion to help local governments, which have also seen a decrease in revenue.

Last, but by no means least, there is testing. One of the most important ways to get a handle on the spread of Covid-19 and drive down illnesses and fatalities is by testing and tracing so that people who are infected can take the proper precautions to get well and avoid infecting those around them.

The HEROES Act provides $75 billion for coronavirus testing and tracing measures nationwide. It also would guarantee that all Americans could receive free Covid-19 treatment. (Grace Segers, politics reporter, CBS News, 5/15/20) Some would protest that another big relief bill will further increase the enormous federal deficit.

“How can we let this happen?” We can and should because our federal government’s number one priority is taking care of its citizens. What is more important than their health?

There has always been a double standard regarding the federal deficit. As columnist Paul Krugman explains, “The problem is the selectivity of deficit hysteria, which somehow kicks in only when a Democrat is president or progressives propose spending that would make American lives better.”

(The New York Times, 10/28/19) Krugman concludes, “Selective hysteria has done enormous harm.

Those who propagate it, when social changes need to be made, should be called out for their bias.”

The HEROES Act will increase the federal deficit, but now more than ever, working families should have the economic and health security they need. We know that the HEROES Act will not pass the Senate exactly as it was constructed in the House. But we need to call on our Pennsylvania Senators to pass a Covid-19 relief act that will increase FMAP, provide much needed aid to states and local

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municipalities, and provide funds for testing so that our commonwealth can move ahead to finish its budget.

Trump’s Health Care Plan, Tom Deloe Originally published in the Gettysburg Times, September 21, 2020 Amid the worst pandemic since 1918, President Trump once again stated during his recent Town Hall meeting in Pennsylvania that he will unveil his new health-care plan in the next few weeks. This supposed new plan will replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which the President has railed against for over four years. Please do not get excited by this announcement. The President has promised a new health-care plan at least 15 times and never delivers according to the Washington Post.

So far the president’s only proposal to overhaul the health-care system has been to ask the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act. That would leave 23 million people without health insurance during a pandemic. It would also place those of us with pre-existing conditions in the hands of the insurance companies. That may mean we go back to the pre-ACA days where insurance companies could deny health coverage.

Please do not believe the president’s promises on health care. Time and again he has raised false hopes of “a phenomenal plan” only to never deliver. Clearly his health-care plan is to take healthcare away Child Care, Kathy Ciolino Adapted from a column in the Gettysburg Times, August 27, 2020 During the Covid19 Pandemic, we have learned that some services are essential for the safety, health and wellbeing of the citizens of our state and nation. Hospital workers, from custodial staff to doctors, became appreciated for their essential work. Law enforcement, ambulance drivers, grocery workers, sanitation workers were needed and valued during the lockdown.

However, no economic recovery will occur without adequate childcare services. As the country continues to get back on its feet, we must acknowledge the important role of childcare workers. Any employees, who have young children, are dependent on safe, high quality childcare so that they can return to work without concern or distraction. Many citizens have felt that this was only the concern of those parents who needed child care. However, having this essential service will be key to the nation’s economic comeback. A high-quality childcare system provides for a strong workforce today and helps to develop the workforce of tomorrow.

In Pennsylvania our economy has lost an estimated $3.4 billion dollars a year because of a lack of childcare. This represents $591 million in tax revenue for the state. This was reported in a study done by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce and the Early Learning Investment Commission, before the present crisis. The study found that one of the top barriers to a reliable workforce is the availability of dependable childcare. Without good childcare, workers are more often late or absent from work. They can be distracted and worried about their children. Workers reported that they turned down promotions and training opportunities because of childcare needs.

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At the height of the lockdown 80% of licensed childcare programs in the state were closed. Most of these programs work on a very slim financial margin. Parent payments represent 75% of the income to centers. Without this income, childcare workers were laid off and it was difficult for the centers to pay rent and utility bills. In Pennsylvania, 30% of the centers that had closed have reported that they will not reopen.

Through the federal aid packages that were awarded to Pennsylvania, $104 million was allotted to assist Early Childhood programs. Local programs received some relief. These funds were used to pay employees, acquire proper health and safety equipment and re-open.

Fortunately, The Adams County Community Foundation came to the aid of local families and childcare centers with an assistance package. They provided $12,000 to the YWCA to cover the unforeseen costs that occurred as they opened their center to serve essential workers. The Foundation’s Adams County Grants program also provided scholarships for parents who may be unable to pay for childcare. The Robert C. Hoffman Trust provided funds to the Y for basic supplies as they reopen.

What happens when these assistance packages run out? Should directors need to consistently be searching for funds to keep their program solvent?

Before the pandemic, many childcare programs in Adams County had long waiting lists for a space at their center. Parents needed to put together a patchwork of providers to care for their children while they work. This might have included grandparents and other family members. This will not be possible in the Covid 19 era. Now, as children return to school on a part time basis, families must scramble to find safe and reliable childcare. Centers that reopen will need to reduce their class sizes and implement adequate safety procedures and equipment to keep everyone healthy. This will be costly.

The important role of high-quality childcare will continue well past the end of the pandemic. It is essential that lawmakers establish consistent support for adequate childcare programming for the success of our economy and to promote the best development of our youngest citizens.

What will childcare funding look like in the future? Will Pennsylvania join other states in the country that provide free early childhood programming for all four-year old’s? Will there be programs to support children from birth to 4? Most of the industrial nations of the world make quality childcare a priority. Will businesses find ways to subsidize programs or assist employees with childcare costs?

Many large companies have childcare programs on their premises as a way of improving the productivity of their employees. Will childcare workers be paid appropriately for the essential service they provide?

Perhaps the silver lining of this strange and difficult year will be that we will establish better ways to provide for the essential childcare needs of our community in the future.

What’s at Stake…for Gun Reform, Judy Young On November 3rd we will elect candidates who have the power to make us safer. While today’s public health focus centers on Covid-19 for good reason, in the long run gun violence is the greater threat to public health in the U.S. We have 4.4% of the global population in the US, but we own 42% of the world’s guns. While we in the U.S. lost 30 people per day to gun homicide in 2012, only 3 people died from gun homicide daily in similar developed nations whose populations together add

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up to slightly more than the U.S. (3 is the daily gun homicide number in Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland combined). We don’t just have twice the number of gun homicides as other nations, we don’t even have just ten times their number, we have fifteen times their number. And homicides only account for one-third of U.S. gun deaths. Two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are deaths by gun suicide. The combined numbers are staggering. Our guns are now killing 40,000 of us each year. Everytown for Gun Safety now reports 100 gun deaths daily in America. In addition, 200 of us are seriously wounded in gun violence daily. Many lives are at stake on November 3rd.

The scope of this tragedy is preventable through common sense legislation. Currently in Pennsylvania background checks are not required for the private sale of long guns, including AR15s. This means that private sales of long guns to violent felons and convicted domestic abusers are legal here. In other states even the private sale of handguns, the weapon of choice in most gun violence, does not require a background check. Closing these loopholes in our national and state background checks will save thousands of lives yearly. Universal background checks are like a vaccine against gun violence. And over 90% of Americans want universal background checks. In fact, many people are unaware that loopholes remain in current background checks law. But the loophole is killing our first responders in PA. Because long guns can be legally purchased without background checks in private sales here, 50 percent of PA police officers killed in the line of duty in the last ten years were killed by long guns. Firearms assaults against police officers occur approximately every two days in PA. First responder lives are at stake on November 3rd.

Suicide prevention is also possible through sensible gun reform. Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) legislation waits for action both in Congress and in our PA statehouse. Gettysburg for Gun Sense (GGS) is a signatory of the Common Agenda to End Gun Violence in PA, which calls for both universal background checks and the passage of ERPO in the commonwealth. The ERPO policy sets up a process for family members to petition a judge to temporarily remove firearms from a loved one who is a danger to themselves or others. In states that have passed ERPO laws, research shows a decline of 14 percent in gun suicides, as well as a decline of 13 percent in mass shootings. The PA District Attorneys Association is among many groups supporting the passage of ERPO in PA. Gun violence in Adams County is almost exclusively gun suicide, so GGS is especially concerned about the need for ERPO legislation. Adams County lives are at stake on November 3rd.

Gun sense candidates support Universal Background Checks and ERPO policies. GGS endorses policies rather than politicians, but candidates’ stands on gun sense are clear from their websites, and can also be found on sites like gunsensevoter.org What’s at stake for Gun Reform on November 3rd?

Thousands of lives are at stake on November 3rd. Please be a gun sense voter.

Little Time and No Planet B: Climate Change and 2020, Tom DeLoe We are experiencing record fires in the West. The South is being inundated with a record number of hurricanes. Last August, Death Valley, California, experienced the highest temperature ever recorded. Climate change is here. For a long time, many scientists thought that climate change would be a slow process and would not demand immediate action. But today, amid extreme weather events and worsening scientific forecasts, the dangers of delayed actions are clearly mounting.

At the same time, a mini-revolution of climate change denial has been taking place in the Trump Administration for almost four years. They have initiated an unprecedented number of regulatory and policy rollbacks. The World Resource Institute in April 2020 listed these four:

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1. The Administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in November 2019. The US joined Iraq, Iran, and Turkey as non-signatories. President Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and has completely disregarded the mounting scientific data. This is abdication of U.S. leadership. China and the European Union will now shape climate change policy, and they will take advantage of the financial opportunities as they transition to clean energy.

2. The Administration has loosened emission standard for cars and trucks. The result will be an additional 64 metric tons of gas emissions yearly or the equivalent of another 140 million cars on the road.

3. The Administration has dismantled the clean power plan. This will result in increased carbon emissions and less emphasis on renewable power like wind and solar.

4. The administration has decimated the Environmental Protection Agency. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and environmental specialists have left the Agency either through furloughs or voluntary resignations. The Agency staff is now reduced to Reagan-era levels. As a result, the Agency is now a weak link to address the climate crisis.

We cannot afford this kind of denial because our timeline for significant action is short. The objective of the Paris Climate Agreement is to limit CO2 emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. According to the Global Carbon Project, if decarbonization had begun globally in the year 2000, an emission reduction of 2% a year would have been sufficient to keep temperatures below the recommended 2 degrees Celsius of warming. Now we need approximately a 5% reduction. If we wait another decade, it will be about 9% a year.

A reelection of Donald Trump would put off decarbonization efforts until at least the mid-to-late 2020s. It would encourage other countries to do nothing as well. Also, the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be both economically and politically to meet the Paris Agreement goals.

Vice President Biden has a plan to transition us to renewable energy sources beginning with his election. He has pledged to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. His plan is to create clean energy technologies and new industries to address the threat. His plan calls for the U.S. to lead and rally the rest of the world to address the climate crisis.

Another four years of climate change denial by a Trump Presidency may mean we could hit an irreversible tipping point which could doom us to catastrophic sea-level rise. That is unacceptable.

There is no plan B. Climate change must be addressed, and only former Vice President Biden will do that.

Trump’s Mean-Spirited Attack on Federal Housing Measures, William Gilmartin Donald Trump’s usual racist dog whistles have given way to full-throated, shameless racist TRAIN whistles as the election of 2020 approaches. Nowhere is this more evident than in his appeal to “white suburban housewives” (his words) when he speaks of Joe Biden who, Trump alleges, “will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream.” He amplifies and underscores this hateful message by saying “[Senator] Cory Booker will be in charge of forcing low-income housing into our beautiful suburbs, bringing with it drugs and crime.”

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Why is Donald Trump using such alarmist language, even forecasting “an invasion of low-income people into our suburbs”? He is railing against language included in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Obama Administration regulations implementing that language, which the Trump Administration has now canceled.

Here are the facts on this crucially important issue. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 for the first time prohibited racial discrimination in all forms of housing transactions, from rentals to mortgage transactions and everything in between. We are all familiar with those prohibitions, and even though discrimination still exists, fair housing enforcement is carried out in various ways. What you may not be aware of is that the Act also requires governmental entities receiving federal funding to “affirmatively further fair housing” through meaningful actions to overcome the Jim Crow legacy of segregation, both de facto and de jure, unequal treatment, and the historic lack of access to opportunity in housing.

The Obama regulations to implement this part of the Fair Housing Act were put forth in 2015 after extensive consultation and negotiation with all affected parties. Many localities resisted what they felt were burdensome paperwork requirements and less than clearly stated goals and targets to satisfy the requirements of the regulations. When the final rule was announced there was widely held support for the regulations, including local government organizations such as the U.S. Conference of Mayors and real estate organizations such as the National Association of Realtors.

In July of this year the Trump Administration replaced the regulations with a weak set of guidelines and set of best practices, but with no enforcement mechanism. Localities who receive federal funding for community and economic development will continue to be free to thwart the goals of the Fair Housing Act, by prohibiting affordable housing development except in less than desirable locations in their jurisdiction or even blocking the development of affordable housing altogether.

Perhaps even worse than the effect of weakening the opportunity for affordable housing for the millions in need is the undisguised racism that Trump’s use of this issue is unleashing in the campaign unfolding before us. He who claims to have done more for minority Americans than anyone is now boldly using the specter of a “low-income invasion of the suburbs” to scare and further divide Americans in a year in which the state of race relations is front and center on the national stage. This is surely “leadership” of the worst kind, and we can and must do better.

Joe Biden is strongly committed to enforcing the statutory requirement to affirmatively further fair housing. What’s more, Joe Biden is committed to ensuring federal housing aid for all those in need.

Currently, through Section 8 and public housing programs we serve about one in four families or individuals who are eligible for such aid under federal law. Joe Biden is the first national candidate I am aware of who would make housing assistance an entitlement just like food stamps. Housing is a basic human need and it should be free of racial discrimination and economic barriers for all Americans.

Homeless in Trump’s America, Jenine Weaver There’s never a good time to be poor, especially if you are homeless. But for those living on the bottom rung of the ladder, there is at least some assistance: SNAP, some housing assistance, and, in this area, the phenomenal generosity of our nonprofits, churches, and individuals.

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In many ways, living one rung up the ladder makes for an even more insecure. This includes single parents and families where the “breadwinner” works at an insecure, minimum wage job or people who are vulnerable to layoff or losing their business in an economic downturn.

But if there’s never a good time to be in this position, going through this condition in Donald Trump’s America is a particularly bad time.

Five years ago, I was not eager to return to Adams County from Baltimore County. I didn't want to move back to the country. But I found myself single, jobless (regardless of college degrees) and homeless. I spent 7 months in a homeless shelter in 2015/2016 with my 4 kids. Three years later, I had my own business, qualified off of Housing Assistance and I was awarded the "Rising Phoenix" award from SCCAP for becoming self-sufficient.

A year later, I stare at my apartment, my children, and that award, and my main feeling isn’t pride, it’s a fear of moving out of income based housing when the economy is unstable.

The PTSD of being homeless is paralyzing. At a time when I can financially support my family, I should be celebrating moving into my own home. But I'm not. I'm paralyzed with fear of buying a home and the economy failing or COVID shutting down our lives due to Trump's incoherent decisions. He has no plan to control the COVID virus and no plan other than reckless disregard of the virus for economic recovery. Meanwhile, my children go to school under impaired conditions because there is no plan, other than the homegrown efforts of local school boards, to open and operate safely.

If the world around me fails, I could end up homeless again, this time in a social environment that is hateful and possibly with the local shelters closed and others overwhelmed. I can't risk it. I want to break the cycle of poverty. I want to move out of a home that is controlled by the government. I want my own house! But I can't risk it. Trump's America is holding me hostage.

I'm voting for Biden so I can move forward with my life and show my kids the American Dream of building your own success.

What’s at Stake for World Peace in this Election?, Jeff Colvin Frankly, just about everything, and, as usual, it is complicated.

In addition to President Trump’s dismissive attitude towards Russian interference in the 2016 election, his ill-advised actions and statements with respect to arms control, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), international cooperation, science, the rule of law, and the norms of democratic governance have raised alarms not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Here the focus is only on what President Trump has done with two major arms control treaties that have underpinned the stand down from the Cold War, INF and NEW START. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was the arms control treaty signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War. This treaty was a major accomplishment of President Reagan, and helped set in motion the events that followed, leading to the end of the Cold War and even the end of the Soviet Union itself. The treaty was still in force when Donald Trump became President in January

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2017. Then, President Trump announced on October 20, 2018 that the U.S. would withdraw from the treaty. On February 1, 2019 the U.S. formally suspended the treaty, starting a six-month clock until treaty withdrawal. In response, Russia also suspended the next day. The U.S. formally withdrew on August 2, 2019.

Many of the same arguments that were made in justifying U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty seventeen years earlier by President George W. Bush were made again this time. In particular, the Trump Administration charged that Russia was developing nuclear-capable ground-launched cruise missiles that have a range that is prohibited by the treaty. Russia countered this argument by claiming the treaty covered only ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles, and that expansion of NATO forces into eastern Europe was a threat to them. Instead of engaging the Russians in negotiating a new INF treaty that would take account of these more recent technological and political developments, President Trump decided instead to simply scuttle the treaty.

Every U. S. President since the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War has engaged the Russians in arms control negotiations, and several important treaty agreements have been signed.

All of these treaties have been aimed at avoiding the apocalypse of nuclear war, which was always present as a possible endpoint of the Cold War conflict, and continues to be of concern. All Presidents, that is, until President Trump.

This is a particularly worrisome matter because the newest strategic arms control treaty, NEW START, a signature accomplishment of President Obama, expires in February 2021. Treaty provisions, however, allow a five-year extension. Russia has already indicated their interest in extending this treaty. President Trump has already claimed that this treaty is one of several “bad deals” President Obama negotiated, yet he has made no move to negotiate a better one. This is a worrisome development, because allowing the treaty to expire puts the world right back into an escalating and unstable nuclear arms race. It will ultimately be up to who is President in 2021 to either let the treaty expire or extend it to buy time to negotiate a new one. President Trump cannot be trusted to make the right judgment on this matter of paramount importance. Joe Biden can.

The choice in this election is clear. Nothing less is at stake than world peace.

Let’s Make America Safe Again , Jeff Colvin Adapted from an article in the Gettysburg Times, March 20, 2020 In 1963 Premier Nikita Krushchev for the Soviet Union and President John F. Kennedy for the United States signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This first nuclear arms control treaty banned the testing of nuclear weapons in the earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Not only was this event a significant advance in arms control, but it was a spectacular personal victory for Dr. Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet scientist who was the creator of the Soviet nuclear weapons capability. He had grown deeply concerned about the adverse environmental and health effects of radioactive fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons testing. As a technical advisor to the Soviet delegation he convinced the Soviet negotiators to revive an old American idea of treaty monitoring by “national technical means” that was ultimately the key to concluding the agreement.

“National technical means” of treaty monitoring meant that each side would be allowed to deploy earth-orbiting artificial satellites instrumented to detect clandestine nuclear explosions. Technical

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advances that had already been made by the early 1960’s in remote imaging technology — — in optical light and in x-rays and gamma rays — — as well as in satellite launch technology, made such treaty monitoring possible. The idea was that technology made it no longer necessary to rely totally on blind trust in verifying treaty compliance. Sakharov effectively used arguments based on technology to advance the cause of arms control.

Since this first significant nuclear arms control treaty between the Soviet Union and the U. S., every subsequent U. S. President has engaged the Russians in arms control negotiations, and several important treaty agreements have been signed. All of these treaties have been aimed at avoiding the apocalypse of nuclear war, always present as a possible endpoint of the Cold War conflict between the Soviet Union (and now Russia) and the U. S. All Presidents, that is, until President Trump.

This is a particularly worrisome matter because the newest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by President Obama and Russian President Medvedev on 8 April 2010, expires in February 2021. Treaty provisions, however, allow a five-year extension. Russia has already indicated their interest in extending this treaty. President Trump has already claimed that this treaty is one of several “bad deals” President Obama negotiated (Reuters, 9 February 2017), yet he has made no move to negotiate a better one. We need to be worried about this approaching treaty expiration date, because allowing the treaty to expire puts us right back into an escalating and unstable nuclear arms race. It will ultimately be up to who is President in 2021 to either let the treaty expire or extend it to buy time to negotiate a new one. Let’s hope it is not President Trump, because there are three reasons why his judgement cannot be trusted on any matter concerning Russia.

First, President Trump displays a dangerous disdain of expert advice, and an alarming ignorance of science. According to numerous interviews with former staff published in The Atlantic magazine (see, for example, the article by Eliot Cohen in the October 2017 issue and the one by Jeffrey Goldberg in the October 2019 issue) and in newspapers and, most recently, in a book entitled “Trump and His Generals” by Peter Bergen, he has discontinued regular intelligence, military, and foreign policy briefings and ignores written staff briefings on complex issues like arms control. At the same time, he has taken actions in direct contradiction to expert advice, like withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement (I wrote about this in a Gettysburg Times OpEd published on 27 September 2018) and the Paris Climate Agreement; precipitously withdrew U.S. troops from northern Syria, putting our Kurdish allies at risk of annihilation and undermining the NATO alliance; and upended the military justice system by pardoning convicted war criminals.

Second, the President continues his refusal to acknowledge that Russian intelligence ran a massive and well-organized disinformation campaign during the 2016 election campaign with the express goal of helping him get elected. Inexplicably, he has also continued to be dismissive of the threat to peace and security posed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and their armed incursion into Ukraine.

Yes, sanctions on Russia have been tightened, but this was done in a bipartisan effort in Congress, not because President Trump pushed for it. Indeed, President Trump has no coherent foreign policy strategy with regard to Russia, at least not one that he has articulated.

Third, there is the President’s propensity to act only in his own personal business and/or political interests, or, worse, to conflate his personal interests with the national interest. His using Congressionally approved military assistance to Ukraine as leverage to get the Ukrainian government to announce investigations of one of his political opponents — — an act that sparked his impeachment — — is only the latest example of his behavior in this regard. We should all be

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alarmed at the numerous times he has said that people who do not show personal loyalty to him are committing treason.

Any one of these reasons is cause for concern about President Trump’s judgment on any matter concerning Russia. Taken together, these three reasons present us with an unassailable case that his judgement cannot be trusted. With respect to issues of nuclear arms control, this puts the U. S. in a very dangerous situation. Let’s Make America Safe Again: do not re-elect President Trump in 2020.

Trump and National Defense, Leon Reed Trump supporters frequently cite “what he’s done to restore our national defense” as a reason to support the president. For those who equate levels of defense spending with “supporting the military,” this analysis makes some sense. But a broader view of the components of military readiness show that the Trump administration has been a disaster for the military.

Military strength certainly in part has to do with weapon systems. But even in this era of increasingly technological warfare, national security still comes down to the concepts military theorists from Caesar’s times wrote about: national will, strategy, leadership, training, morale, alliances, geopolitical strength, diplomacy, and, of course the best equipment and supplies. When viewed through this lens, Trump’s presidency has been one disaster after another for the military.

He has criticized and undermined military leadership, calling his leading generals and defense leaders “weak.” He has shown no respect for military heroes, insulting Senator McCain (and all other POWs) and characterizing soldiers who died in battle as “suckers.” He has retaliated against military officials who earned his disapproval, including LTC Alexander Vindman and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis He has repeatedly intervened in the chain of command, perhaps most notably when he pardoned (and celebrated) a SEAL team member who was accused by his team members of serious war crimes – and retaliated against the lawyer who had done his duty by prosecuting him. Adding insult to injury, he called the military justice system “deep state.”

He has attempted to use the military for political purposes, including the march through Lafayette Square to St. John’s Church, an attempt to deploy airborne troops to deal with civil unrest.

The Trump administration has also battered our alliances. Trump appears to have contempt for democratically elected leaders and nothing but admiration for autocrats. He has continuously undermined the NATO alliance to the point that European leaders openly talk about a future where it is impossible to rely on the United States. One likely result of a second Trump term would be the end of the NATO alliance.

His friendship for dictators has repeatedly put our troops in bad positions. Because Turkish dictator Erdogan wanted it, he ordered our troops to stand down in place as the Turks moved in to conduct ethnic cleansing against our Kurdish allies. Our hasty pullout allowed Russia to fill a power vacuum in the middle east for the first time in nearly 50 years.

And as a result of his unexplained relationship with Putin, he declined even to show any curiosity about reports that Putin had put a bounty on the head of American soldiers. In most respects, the

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world is a more dangerous place and America’s position is weaker than when Trump took power.

Our decision to walk away from the Iran nuclear agreement left us isolated and freed Iran from its obligations to constrain its nuclear program. When it didn’t prove very easy to negotiate a new deal, as Trump promised, our allies refused to support further efforts to crack down on Iran.

The situation with North Korea is even worse. Trump made significant concessions, including granting Kim face-to-face meetings that his father and grandfather had urgently desired for the previous 70 years as well as cancellation of joint military exercises. The result has been a strain with our South Korean and Japanese allies and an accelerated North Korean nuclear program.

It seems certain that as long as Trump is president, our defense policy will be confused and only occasionally will be aimed at pursuing America’s national interests. Donald Trump’s financial needs and his admiration for strongmen will always be paramount to our interests. He occasionally talks about “ending endless wars,” but his foreign policy isn’t guided by any principle and he is just as likely to start a new war as he is to end an ongoing war.

With the very possible exception of George H.W. Bush, Joe Biden will probably be the most qualified president to deal with foreign policy on his first day in office. He knows world leaders and is experienced with world affairs. His record is mixed – he supported the war in Iraq, for example – but in Obama’s administration his was the strongest voice for ending middle east military engagements. He is a longstanding supporter of the troops and will respect the chain of command. He will restore relations with our allies and restore America’s moral leadership in the world.

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Chapter 5: Candidates Rep. Joyce’s Vote on Healthcare, Jeff Colvin Based on a Times column, July 27, 2020 On the campaign website of our Congressional Representative, John Joyce, he says the following concerning health care: “I will finish what President Trump has started and fight to dismantle Obamacare completely. We need a system that relies on the private sector and that doesn’t artificially inflate the market with subsidies that only increase prices.” His stance in defense of the private market is perhaps not surprising when you consider that, according to the Federal Elections Commission, Rep. Joyce gets more than 60% of his campaign contributions from corporate PACs, including big banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It is just astonishing that in the midst of a raging pandemic exacerbated by the criminal negligence, brazen mendacity, gross incompetence, and breath-taking ignorance of President Trump and his sycophantic toadies, that Rep. Joyce would want to invalidate the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), thereby causing millions to lose their health insurance and millions more to lose protections for pre-existing conditions.

It is time to give the lot of them the boot. Fortunately, we have another choice. Todd Rowley is a candidate in the November election for the Congressional seat currently held by Rep. Joyce.

According to his campaign website, he believes that “universal, affordable, quality healthcare is a basic human right”. He supports many of the same enhancements to the Affordable Care Act that are in former Vice President Joe Biden’s health care plan and in the proposed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act (HR1425), including expanding subsidies to make health care more affordable for more people, adding a Medicare-like public option, and lowering drug prices.

I have always been a health-care voter, but the pandemic has helped to put healthcare at the top of my priority issues list. How about you? Will you join me in being a health care voter?

Rowley for Congress, by Anne Bucher Lane Whoever stole our Joe Biden and Rich Sterner signs last night mercifully left our Todd Rowley for Congress sign, which makes me hopeful that they consider this decent, honorable, intelligent, experienced man worthy of their vote, as I do. Here are some reasons why this candidate should be supported by folks on all sides of the current political divide: • Mr. Rowley is a former local, state, and federal law enforcement officer, having served in those capacities for nearly 30 years, a certified EMT, and a retired special agent for the FBI; • Unlike his opponent, Dr. John Joyce, he has promised to protect the Affordable Care Act with its provision to cover people with pre-existing conditions; • He supports the U.S. rejoining the International Climate Agreement and seeking ways to actively address climate change; • He vows to support small businesses and to aggressively seek creative economic opportunities for people of the 13th Congressional district; • He supports funding for quality public education at all levels.

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These are only a few of the many reasons why Todd Rowley is an impressive and worthy candidate. I encourage you to learn more about this man by checking his website— toddrowleyforcongress.com – and to vote for him on Nov. 3.

Drop the Politics, Will Lane What in the world is going on with Republican politicians in Pennsylvania? I was dismayed to read some time ago in the Gettysburg Times that most Republican state legislators approved a resolution to end the state of emergency declared by Governor Wolf in March to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. And the courts upheld their action.

And many of the same legislators, notably our own State Senator Mastriano, have compounded this blunder by campaigning publicly for people to refuse to wear masks. Egged on by these politicians, mask-wearing has now become a culture wars flash point, with periodic confrontations between minimum wage store clerks and angry Mastriano fans who have been brainwashed that “masks are tyranny.”

There ought to be a special word for politicians who in the midst of a national health crisis are willing to play politics to try to gain short-term advantage over a governor of the opposing party.

Most Republicans I know personally seem to fully understand that we are in a national emergency not unlike a war, but the politicians of the Republican party—our own State Senator Doug Mastriano among them—see things differently. They see a chance to score points against the governor in a time when we are all weary of the pandemic and anxious to return to something a little closer to normal.

According to a Times article, a study conducted by public health researchers concluded that the lockdown ordered by Governor Wolf saved an estimated 6,200 lives in Philadelphia alone. Though the lockdown has been difficult and damaging to many, shouldn’t we be grateful for the lives it has saved? Though no one knows exactly what will happen in the future, shouldn’t we be grateful that new cases in Pennsylvania continue to fall at a time when they seem to be rising sharply in some states that did not take strong preventative measures or opened up too quickly?

This pandemic thing could be with us for a long time. It’s time for the Republican party to drop the politics and rejoin the effort to keep our communities safe. Or for the voters to restore common sense in the state legislature.

The Congressional Candidates in their own Words, Leon Reed The “Public Opinion” newspaper of Chambersburg asked the same questions to the two candidates for the 13th Congressional district, the incumbent, Rep. John Joyce and challenger Todd Rowley. The answers provide a stark contrast.

Important issues. Both candidates list healthcare as one of two critical issues, but Rowley supports the ACA while Joyce supports repeal of the ACA and supports the non-existent Republican health care plan.

Rowley’s second issue is funding to promote economic recovery while Joyce addresses “threats at home and abroad.”

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Right path. Neither candidate says America is on the wrong path, but Rowley addresses serious issues such as the pandemic, rebuilding the economy, and climate change while Joyce condemns radicals who threatened “America’s values and our Constitutional rights” and cites his work to “rebuild the military” (though he is not on the Armed Services committee or any military-related caucus).

Systemic racism. Rowley discusses the problems caused by racial and social injustice and the importance of addressing the issue. Joyce condemns racism but then argues that it doesn’t exist and that “we are united by our common identity as Americans and our hard-won Constitutional rights.”

Covid handled well? Rowley states that it wasn’t and describes the importance of addressing the issue. Joyce mentions the CARES Act and attacks China.

Anything else voter should know. Rowley describes his pride in public service and promises to serve the 13th district. Joyce runs through a litany of right wing litmus tests (pro-life, school choice, 2nd amendment), repeats his support for the military, and claims he will defend social security and Medicare.

The summary of their views presents a stark contrast.

• While both claim to support affordable health care,” Todd Rowley supports and wants to improve the ACA while Rep. Joyce favors repeal of ACA and claims the non-existent “Republican plan” will protect the public.

• Mr. Rowley expresses concern about economic recovery while Rep. Joyce repeatedly denounces “violent radical leftists.”

• Mr. Rowley acknowledges that systemic racism is a problem we must address. Rep. Joyce makes an obligatory denunciation of racism but then denies it exists. (“we are united by our common identity as Americans and our hard-won Constitutional rights.”)

• Mr. Rowley argues that Covid is a serious problem that must be handled more effectively.

Rep. Joyce refers to amorphous “challenges,” praises the previous CARES Act (while opposing new funding), and blames China.

• Rowley describes his pride in public service and promises to serve the 13th district. Joyce runs through a litany of right-wing litmus tests (pro-life, school choice, 2nd amendment), repeats his support for the military, and claims he will defend social security and Medicare, though this latter claim is undermined by his 100% support of an administration that is threatening both.

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Writers Mark Berg is a community activist in Adams County and a proud Liberal. His email address is MABerg175@Comcast.net.

Sandy Busche is a member of the Gettysburg DFA Healthcare Task Force.

Kathy Ciolino is a former teacher and elementary school principal. She is co-chair of the Birth to Five committee and a member of the Gettysburg DFA Education Task Force.

Jeff Colvin has spent his professional career as a research physicist, first at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the two US nuclear weapons design laboratories. He lives in Gettysburg part-time and is an active member of Gettysburg DFA Government Accountability task force.

Tom Deloe is a retired public health officer in the US Department of Health and Human Services. He lives in Gettysburg.

Jeanne Duffy, Ph.D., has served as a college professor, an analyst and project manager for several large companies, and a college administrator in charge of foundation and government support. She is Chair of Gettysburg Democracy for America’s healthcare taskforce.

Jenny Dumont is an associate professor of Spanish at Gettysburg College and is the Chair of Gettysburg Rising Carolyn George has lived in Adams County long enough – over forty years now – to forget that she's not native here, but that's still a lot of years' worth of knowing and caring about this place.

Newly retired, Carolyn's "Make the World a Better Place" endeavors seem to be coalescing around food: volunteering at the Adams County Farmer's Market and joining the ranks of The Gleaning Project's enthusiastic volunteer farmworkers. It helps her remember that Mother Nature may have the last word about many of our current affairs.

Bill Gilmartin’s career in Washington included working for the House Appropriations Committee and serving as President Clinton’s HUD Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations. He also worked as a lobbyist for local governments, colleges, and non-profit associations.

Elaine Jones worked for a variety of nonprofits and is a member of the Upper Adams School Board. She is former chair of Gettysburg DFA and is a member of the Education Task Force.

Anne Bucher Lane is a retired Dean of Gettysburg College.

Will Lane is a retired writing instructor at Gettysburg College, the former chair of DFA, and the chair of Green Gettysburg.

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Steve Niebler is a lifelong Adams County resident and community activist, engaged in a variety of local efforts, still trying to make the world a better place. He worked as a human service agency administrator for 34 years.

Leon Reed is a retired US Senate Banking Committee aide and US History teacher and is an author of five military history books. He volunteers at the national park visitor center and is the chair of Gettysburg DFA. Todd Rowley is a retired police officer and FBI agent and is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 13th District of Pennsylvania.

Jenine Weaver is a community activist and the principal of Weaver Accounting Services.

Judy Young is a retired United Methodist pastor and a member of Gettysburg for Gun Sense.

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