The Senate voted 81-19 yesterday to accept the $858 billion Obama/McConnell tax deal. California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer voted with the majority but for varying reasons. Boxer attributes her support to provisions that will extend breaks for alternative energy sources. Feinstein says that while she doesn’t like the bill, she’s voting in the affirmative because it will create much needed jobs. Both of these positions hold an element of truth, but in the final analysis are, in tamed vernacular — equine feces!

A little simple arithmetic will help to appreciate the insanity of what these politicians would have us believe. Taking Feinstein’s rationale, she’s in favor of the “deal” because economists told her it would increase the GDP by .6 to 1.2 percent, which she claims will translate to 600 thousand to 1.2 million jobs. So in other words, it makes sense to the Senator to add $858 billion to the deficit in order to sustain jobs at a best-case rate of $715,000 per job. Does that make any sense at all?

Math for Senator Boxer’s justification is even worse, since she claims the energy provisions will only result in “tens of thousands of jobs.” Although to be fair, she does also identify help for the middle class as another motivator.

The problem with both of these positions isn’t really the math; it’s the fact that they’re really nothing more than an exercise in rhetorical gymnastics used to justify support for a bad piece of legislation. While this deal is being spun as “temporary,” the tax cuts are anything but. Set to expire in two years — during a presidential election — the politicians who lacked the will to terminate them now are not going to do so then. If they really were intended to be temporary, they would have been extended for a single year, where there was at least a chance of it happening. The sad truth is that this deal will seriously impact a federal deficit that’s already teetering at record highs, and it will do so for dubious benefit.

Center to the “deal” are the unemployment benefit extensions that the Republicans have held hostage pending the approval of tax cuts for the wealthy. Few disagree with the need for this action that will enable those who have not yet exceeded the 99-week maximum to continue receiving payment. Economists all agree that it is of the highest order of economic stimulus, returning as much as $1.90 for every dollar spent. But the 13-month extension accounts for only $56 billion of the package, and although it may be the right thing to do, it does nothing to address long term unemployment issues.

Other items included in the remaining $802 billion also have legitimate justifications.  For instance, the reasoning behind extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, which is the single largest piece of the tax deal pie, is sound. The situation is that 70% of the GDP is fueled by consumer spending, and because the middle class has been so severely squeezed by the recession, if their taxes were to increase, it would translate directly into a reduction in GDP. And when the GDP drops, jobs go with it.

The 2% reduction in payroll taxes follows the same logic as the extension of the middle class tax cuts. The money will mostly go to people who have already tightened their belts in order to make ends meet and will therefore be spent immediately and returned into the economy. Estimates actually place the return as high as $0.90 for every dollar spent, which is more than double the estimate for the general tax cuts. But at a cost of $120 billion, there are much more effective ways to use the money. And none of the other possibilities have the potential downside of tying Social Security to the general fund, which could lead to future arguments to dismantle the program.

Provisions included to extend certain tax credits follow the same reasoning, with each putting money in hands that will spend it. And the provision that will allow businesses that make investments in 2011 or 2012 to accelerate deductions by expensing 100% in the current year is really more of a shift than an outright loss of revenue.

But the sound reasoning and rationale component of the deal ends prior to evaluating the tax cuts for the top 2% and the estate tax reduction for the top one-tenth of 1%. Both of these upper crust tax cuts will reduce federal revenues, thereby adding to the deficit and requiring further indebtedness to foreign nations, like China. But they will do so, not for the purpose of stimulating the economy, as the money is much more likely to be saved. Neither will the savings be extended because the recipients have been hurt by the economic collapse and are in need. No, the tax cuts for the rich are included strictly because they are the ransom demanded by Republicans in order to do what’s right.

The sole justification for the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, beyond the fact that the Republicans demand it, is because the money belongs to these people. That’s it. Ask any Republican — it’s their money and the government doesn’t have the right to take it. Never mind that the wealth people accumulate is not created in a vacuum. That wealth is the fruit of both their individual efforts and the societal system that ALL Americans work to support and maintain. Never mind that taxation is the means by which the citizens of a free society fund the government in order to provide the services required to sustain that system and enable the accumulation of wealth.

This is the classic “redistribution of wealth” argument, and it’s as invalid now as it was the first million times it was spoken. Those who present the “redistribution” argument choose to give credit disproportionately to the individual, which is obviously nonsense. It takes an entire society to sustain a system of opportunity. The problem in America today is that too many of the wealthy and would-be wealthy want to extract the benefit of our democratic society but don’t want to pay back into its sustainment.

This is precisely the reason that our infrastructure is crumbling and the wellbeing of the average American is in serious decline. The problem that’s taken root in America over the past 30-plus years is unethical redistribution of wealth — from working Americans to the top 2%. It is that concentration that’s behind the recent collapse and the present stagnation. We are experiencing the result of over-extraction of wealth. It is therefore the responsibility of the system — the one that so many people have used to accumulate said wealth — to adjust and bring back employment and prosperity to those who have been exploited.

America needs jobs, and we need fair taxation. The Obama tax deal delivers neither. Working Americans will be glad to pay more taxes — if they are just allowed to work and share in the huge increases in productivity that have lined the pockets of the wealthy. Make no mistake about it: there is no justification, rational or moral, for the Republican-demanded tax cuts. They’re nothing but the looting of America by the new Robber Barons.

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Did Barbara Boxer do any homework before her senatorial debate with Carly Fiorina on Wednesday? Boxer did hold her own and responded fairly well to most of Fiorina’s truth stretching assertions. But when her opponent is running on her record as a business leader, and that record earned her a place as one of the “20 Worst CEOs of all time,” the door was wide open for Boxer to clearly show what an abysmal leader Fiorina was.

Senator Boxer did take every opportunity to point out Fiorina’s woeful record on jobs, the one where she actually shipped 30,000 overseas. She even mentioned Fiorina’s very personal contribution to the American vernacular, coining the term “right-shoring,” a euphemism for firing Americans in order to send their jobs to a foreign land. Of course, Fiorina was laser focused on the “shoring” part but never really got it “right,” since as also pointed out by Boxer — Hewlett Packard lost more than 50% of its stock price under Fiorina’s control.

But Boxer missed the opportunity to elucidate how well aligned Ms. Fiorina is with the conservative extreme. She has spoken at Tea Party rallies and stated that she agrees with their views. She’s even a member of the tax-cuts-pay-for-themselves voodoo contingent of the Republican Party. Fiorina stated in a CBS interview that, “you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs.” Never mind that even conservative economists no longer support such nonsense.

For whatever reason, Boxer also failed to support her own record for voting in favor of the Stimulus, and allowed Fiorina’s statement that it had, “manifestly failed,” to stand. Without doubt one of the easiest assertions to refute, being that the Stimulus has been a huge success by every objective measure, nevertheless Fiorina’s fact-free spin went unchallenged.

Part of the problem was the format for the debate. It allowed for response and rebuttal but provided no means for redress of erroneous claims made during a rebuttal. Fiorina used this to her advantage by using rebuttal time to introduce new points when she had no real argument for the topic at hand.

Fiorina was allowed to characterize her support of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy as good for the middle class. Boxer would have been well served to illuminate the fact that it’s Democrats who have drawn the line in the sand and support the extension for all but the top 2%. Fiorina used a similar tactic when speaking about the estate tax. Of course, she referenced it as the “death tax,” and drew alarm to the 55% rate. But where she really left the truth behind was in associating the tax with the 88,000 family farms in California. Boxer should have made sure that the facts of the matter were voiced, that the experts all agree that there’s not been a single “family farm” hit by the estate tax. She should also have added that the Democratic plan to deal with the expiring cut would lower the top rate to 45% and only apply to estates over $7 million, which would apply to .25 percent of estates.

Boxer also allowed Fiorina to demonize federal employees by associating the increase in their number with the loss of jobs in California. It would have been nice if Boxer had mentioned that the increase is almost entirely related to temporary census positions, which hit its 564,000 job high in May. Although Boxer did take advantage of the opening to hammer on Fiorina’s offshoring record one more time: she introduced Fiorina’s characterization of the recent aid bill to save teacher’s jobs as a “disgrace,” and added that Fiorina was likely opposed because, “we paid for it by stopping some tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas.”

Another well delivered blow by Boxer occurred in her rebuttal to Fiorina’s response to a question regarding the apparent conflict between her accepting a $21 million severance package and yet taking a strong position that teacher jobs should be tied to performance. Fiorina attempted to dodge the question by offering several statistics regarding HP’s growth under her tenure, failing to mention that the growth was the result of a failed merger. But Boxer responded with a body blow, stating that, “I think we are entitled to our opinion but we’re not entitled to our own facts. The facts are there was a $21 million severance check, and my understanding is that it was taken after my opponent was fired.”

But Fiorina scored points on Boxer’s legislative record. Citing the fact that only 4 bills bearing Boxer’s name have been signed into law, she asserted that Boxer was an ineffective legislator. Boxer did rebut by stating that the objective is not to get your name on legislation, and offered Senator Russ Feingold as an example, stating that the campaign finance legislation commonly known as McCain-Feingold does not bear his name. She didn’t mention that Feingold too only passed 4 bills during his tenure, or that the reason his name was missing was that it was the House version that was signed into law. The fact is that Boxer has a well-deserved reputation for carrying liberal causes as well as for working across the aisle. She needs to build a case that she can recite in a succinct manner.

As Boxer stated, Fiorina is the candidate of Big-Oil and Big-Coal. She danced around the topic of global warming, offering possibly the evening’s most twisted stretch of double-talk. According to Fiorina, the solution to global warming, “lies not with a single state taking action on its own, but rather with global action.” So, evidently there’s really no reason for any entity to take a first step until we get everyone in line to make a change. Sounds like a good capitalist position — after all we can’t address the environment and be competitive with polluters like China at the same time.

In the end, it was likely more Fiorina’s exposing herself as a died-in-the-wool capitalist Republican that will sway more votes toward Boxer than anything else. It’s difficult to understand how a politician could think it advantageous to use China as an example of how to create jobs. But of course, it’s all a part of her one-trick-pony approach to all thing economic: cut taxes and regulations and all will be well — it’s the same prescription offered by all of her Republican cronies — a race to the bottom for American workers and the environment be damned.

In the latest round of campaign numbers released yesterday, Meg Whitman reported that her spending had topped $99 million. Undoubtedly displeased by the lack of a “Buy It Now” button for the governor’s office, $91 million of that total came from Whitman’s own money. But being a billionaire, with wealth estimated by Forbes at $1.3 billion, there’s no question that the former CEO of eBay can afford the expense. The real question is, “can California afford Meg Whitman?”

With California sitting at over 12% unemployment and facing a $20 billion budget shortfall over the next 18 months, Whitman is running as the person who can cure these economic woes. In order to accomplish this, she intends to focus on three key initiatives: creating jobs, cutting spending, and fixing education.

Having no prior experience in government service, the Whitman campaign is relying mostly upon her record at eBay to substantiate claims that she has the savvy to succeed were others have failed. Spot on is Whitman’s focus on job creation, and her campaign wants voters to believe that she is the person who can make it happen. They claim that since Whitman’s time at eBay resulted in a growth of employees from 170 to over 15,000, she alone has the experienced required.

But is this prima facie evidence that Ms. Whitman can create jobs in California?

Unlike her Republican counterpart running for Senate against Barbara Boxer, there is no doubt that Whitman knows how to run a company. She did preside over a period of extreme growth for eBay, but one has to ask themselves, how much of that growth was due to Whitman. When she arrived at eBay, although small, they had tapped into a previously undiscovered niche in Internet commerce. They already had a successful product and were set to expand. Whitman did a commendable job of overseeing the expansion, but to give her credit over product and timing is naïve.

As CEO, the job is largely strategic, and a sound argument can definitely be made that many of Whitman’s efforts in that area were less than successful. In fact, her single biggest strategic move was the purchase of Skype at a price of $2.6 billion. Yet she pushed this through without a clear concept of how eBay would make money from the endeavor. The company was forced to write down the value of Skype in 2007 to a little more than half of what it had paid — $1.4 billion. Another of Whitman’s acquisitions, StumbleUpon, was left for her successor to lift into the black. But having no real fit with what eBay does, Skype was finally sold and StumbleUpon was spun off.

So, if a candidate has no government experience, has only created jobs in an environment of rapid growth, and is arguably a bit weak in the strategic leadership department, what exactly are voters to believe makes Meg Whitman a good candidate for governor?

More about that in Part 2 — a look at the Whitman job plan.

Long a bastion for Democratic voters, the Bay Area will carry the torch into the November election, hoping to put a democrat in the governor’s office and prevent Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat from falling into Republican hands. Carly Fiorina is threatening to give Boxer a serious challenge, but a video released on Sunday may help to tilt the scale.

The short video on YouTube, created by Brave New Films, shows Fiorina singing praises for the Tea Party and stating that she agrees with their views. Of course this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but in a state where 45% of registered voters who identify with a party are Democrats, and even the Republicans voters tend to be more moderate, strong Tea Party ties may not be advantageous.

A Rasmussen poll from July 14 shows Boxer maintaining a small lead at 49% support compared to Fiorina’s 42%. But a 7% lead does not a victory make, especially in a midterm election where conservatives are more motivated and likely to visit the polls. Barbara Boxer is counting on Democratic strongholds, like Contra Costa County where Democrats are a majority at 50.21% and nearly outnumber Republicans 2 to 1.

As evidenced by Fiorina’s support of the Tea Party, her politics are far from finding resonance with normal California attitudes. But these are not normal times, and Fiorina’s banter touting her business acumen and ability to balance budgets may fit well in the present economic climate. California is broke and struggling, and with unemployment currently at 12.3%, unsuspecting voters just might be swayed by Fiorina’s surface credentials.

But the surface is really all Carly Fiorina has. Even without looking at her Tea Party ties or her anti-abortion stance, a closer look at her business resume should leave any voter questioning both her abilities and her character. Fiorina acknowledges that jobs are a major issue for California, but when it comes to job creation, how much trust should voters place in a person who laid off over 30,000 workers and sent a massive number of jobs to China while heading HP?

Actually, the entire notion that Fiorina is a business professional who’s savvy and capable is suspect, to say the least. True, she was the CEO of HP, but during her tenure, not only was she the champion of hacking jobs, but she also presided over a 52% drop in stock price. In fact, Ms. Fiorina’s leadership record at HP was so abysmal that she was chosen as a member of the Conde Nast Portfolio magazine’s “20 Worst CEOs of all time.”

On the 20 Worst list, Fiorina joined the likes of Dick Fuld of Lehman Bros, Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, and Martin Sullivan of AIG, all of whom showed their abilities and character while driving the country to the brink of economic collapse. Other of Fiorina’s notable “20 Worst” alumnus include Ken Lay of Enron and Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom. The folk at Portfolio had this to say about Fiorina: “a consummate self-promoter, Fiorina was busy pontificating on the lecture circuit and posing for magazine covers while her company floundered. She paid herself handsome bonuses and perks while laying off thousands of employees to cut costs. The merger Fiorina orchestrated with Compaq in 2002 was widely seen as a failure. She was ousted in 2005.” Of course, Fiorina did receive a $40 million golden parachute to leave HP — a slightly better deal than that given the thousands of employees whose jobs she cut.

Fiorina really is a garden variety one-trick pony, typical of her conservative brethren. Regardless of the issue, she offers but one tack — cut. In business that meant jobs, which she so eloquently referred to as “right-shoring.” But in government, she’s already pulled out the conservative playbook; we can create jobs and restore vibrancy to the economy, all we have to do is hack spending and cut taxes.

And the really good news is that Fiorina agrees with other Republicans who recently informed us that we don’t need to pay for tax cuts. Yes sir, the deficit reins supreme, so spending must be offset, but Fiorina subscribes fully to the Republican gospel concerning the budget magic of tax cuts. Falling in behind Senators, Mitch McConnell and John Kyl, Fiorina stated in a CBS interview that, “you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs.” Of course, such myths have been soundly disproven and all empirical evidence is to the contrary, but what the heck — this is politics!

The plain truth is that Carly Fiorina was a terrible CEO and would make an even worse Senator. She cares not about jobs, at least not American jobs, as evidenced in a 2004 speech defending HP’s practice of off-shoring, where she told the crowd, “there is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.” Which is true, but is it the ideology voters should value in an elected official?

In the end, voters will have to judge whether or not Fiorina is right for California, but when you add up her position to repeal healthcare, her denial that climate change is a serious national issue, her sitting out 15 of the last 23 elections, including the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and her position on abortion — and then couple them with her elitist attitude on jobs and her belief in voodoo tax cuts, it seems that Carly Fiorina is better suited to serving time in a mental institution than in the United States Senate.