This Open Source Coder Wants to be a Congressman
wired.com
wired.com
I applaud anyone who's willing to roll up their sleeves and get involved with the democratic process. It's the only way we're ever going to get this country moving again.
That being said, however, it's generally not a great idea to build a campaign around issues that 99% of the electorate has never heard of and/or cares nothing about. NJ-2 is pushing 9% unemployment -- all those jobless people are going to be worried about things other than Bitcoin or patent reform. Not to mention their friends and families, and all the people who aren't unemployed but are teetering on the brink.
Cole's campaign site (http://coleforcongress.com/) is long on bio and short on issue positions, so it's possible that Wired is misrepresenting his platform, of course. (I hope they are! I'm a Democrat, I would love to see the Dems pick this district up.) But it's also possible that they are not; not articulating issue positions cuts both ways.
This is a classic mistake that techies keep making when throwing their hat into the ring -- assuming that the issues that techies are buzzing about are the same ones that everyone is buzzing about. (For an example, look back to the 2002 campaign of Tara Sue Grubb in North Carolina: http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/08/54693, http://books.google.com/books?id=5DMSVPEv86gC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA...) Maybe that's true in a few tech-heavy districts, but in the vast majority it's very, very far from the mark. And being out of touch with what your would-be constituents are buzzing about is not how you win elections.
"Cole is quick to downplay his alligence to the tech industry, which is increasingly under fire for being out of touch with the rest of the country. “Software developers aren’t the only ones under represented in congress,” he says. “Teachers, people in business other than CEOs, service workers, lots of people don’t have a voice in government because it’s really expensive to run a campaign."
The US Chamber of Commerce doesn't represent non-CEO businesspersons, it represents businesses-qua-businesses (and, increasingly, businesses of a very particular political preference set, which is why the CoC has been harshly criticized for many of its political stands by a number of large businesses that don't share its particular political orientation.)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/01/10/260572933...
I'll admit I'm a little surprised there wasn't some legal ramification
I'm not sure I agree. I think that this industry provides tremendous potential to bring real change to our society. Politics does not. Maybe politics has potential in some remote, hypothetical scenario, but in the real world it is more of a dead end, than anything. Imagine how much the potential of someone like a Gates or Jobs would have been wasted, had they pursued politics, rather than the things they actually did, that changed the world.
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Thinking like this is why we have a gigantic, anti-Constitutional federal government. Why can't he work on infrastructure in NJ at the state or local level? Why can't he work on jobs programs and economic incentives for businesses in NJ?
Climate change is the only thing listed that needs action above a state level.
Because nobody else does. If your state's legislators aren't bringing federal money into your state while all the other states' legislators are passing federal programs funded by your state's taxpayers, you are going to alienate your constituents and lose your seat. Nobody is interested in less federal funding unless it also means lower federal taxes.
The problem is fundamentally that some states aren't pulling their weight, paying substantially less in federal taxes than they receive in federal funding, and those states' legislators (who incidentally are largely Republicans) have absolutely no interest in turning off the federal spigot. So if you're from the North East or the West Coast, you can't really do much to keep Uncle Sam's hand out of your pocket, at which point it becomes extremely attractive to put in for your own boondoggles to try and claw some of it back.
It's not ideology, it's political arithmetic. If you don't like it, figure out how to prevent the South from diverting such a massive quantity of federal dollars into their defense contractors.
Except for the crazy Republicans (governors mostly) who voted not to accept federal dollars for public transit funding or who voted not to expand Medicare coverage "Because its part of Obamacare and thats bad!" The Federal government would have paid for it?!?!
Moreover, if they implement the program then it's permanent. Their own federal legislators could no longer go to Washington and argue for repeal because they'll have the constituents in their own districts up in arms if they try to cancel a program their constituents are already receiving benefits under. Whereas if the governors refuse the money then the state's federal legislators will have every incentive to fight to have the money stripped from the budget in future years.
The response from Blue State governors should be to refuse federal "Homeland Security" money. Give their own legislators cover to repeal that. I mean really, how many police departments legitimately need more SWAT teams?
I know Dave personally and will say that if the healthcare.gov debacle bothered you, there is probably not another person in the world with as clear a view into that dysfunction and with the passion to end it.
I would love to hear about his experience with the healthcare.gov mess and his thoughts on how to avoid these problems in the future. There are dozens of similar extremely important federal governmant IT project experiencing similar problems.
“I’m running to tackle the issues that most affect families in South Jersey, like too few jobs, too high student debt, the need to act on climate change and the opportunity to make vital investments in education and infrastructure,” he says. “On those and many other issues, the leadership of the House of Representatives have obstructed any attempts at moving our country forward.”
And why does he repeatedly belittle coding?
“I’d been involved with computers since I was a little kid,” he says, “but what I learned in college is that there were a lot opportunities to apply problem solving at a larger level."
“Software developers aren’t the only ones under represented in congress."
You would think in an interview with Wired you could be a little less the generic politician. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts on healthcare.gov or, as he wants to represent Atlantic City, online gambling. Hopefully that would elicit responses other than cliches.
Because most people aren't coders, and tech is going through a wave of bad PR right now. You wouldn't go around touting a career as an exec at BP right after the big oil spill, either.
The same reason other articles on HN in recent days/months/years have: People spend their efforts on sexting apps and Candy Crush ripoffs instead of tackling "real change".
It's hard, complex, and I don't really blame young talent for going after the big money... but it can look pretty frivolous at times.
Software changes things a lot. Efficiencies let people spend their time, money, and energy on bettering their lives in other ways.
Or it just offloads a function that we used to do without perceptible effort (remembering phone numbers, land navigation)
Or it does give us time, which we then spend on software's other products (social media, sexting apps, Candy Crush, etc..), which are compelling to our brain, but whose betterment of our lives is arguable. (Says hypocrite posting on HN)
The issue for a lot of folks is that there are a bunch of solvable, real world problems, that a traditional meatspace hacker might have tackled, but much like the financial industry, the easy money of software app. startup culture is perceived to be sucking the air out of other forms of hacking.
And I have no idea how you can read that article and think he's belittling coding. The first quote is about applying problem solving learned while coding to bigger problems on the national scale. If you read past the first sentence in your second quote, he's just naming other under-represented groups he hopes to cater towards. In education, he talks about teaching computer science at a younger age.
He gets asked about being the only developer in Congress if he were to win and the response is “Software developers aren’t the only ones under represented in congress." In other words being a developer is not important.
He describes being programmer since child hood then in the same sentance says “what I learned in college is that there were a lot opportunities to apply problem solving at a larger level." In other words there are more important thinks than programming.
So the Wired reporter is all about isn't it cool that your a developer running for Congress and all he wants to do is change the subject. Move along - nothing to see here.
I completely understand that being a nerd programmer is not the classic political profile and there may be a backlash against techies going on. What surprised me was in an article on tech-friendly Wired it was downplayed so much.
It's not unlike the "equality means I lose" mindset of the "men's rights" asshats.
An incredibly even handed statement about how it's not just software developers, but entire classes of workers who have no actual congressional voice, and the interest in trying to apply problem solving on a system level somehow reduces the importance of programmers?
My district as a whole has not weathered the recession as well as many employed in our profession have. That's my top focus. I'm happy to engage a debate on how we do that or hear your thoughts.
I am not diminishing the work developers do in any way. I think the article's mention of "downplaying" just serves to put that in context of the issues I'm focusing on. Being a developer, having had the chance to work with an incredible team and contribute to growing a new company, give me important experience and a novel perspective compared to those who usually run for office at this level. I've tried to capture that here: https://medium.com/p/ce7c0dc63aaa
As for something unique, I have actually worked on government IT systems, as well as private sector ones. Go watch a Congressional hearing on a tech issue. Tell me you think more of us shouldn't be sitting in that room setting the record straight. Congress should represent all people, and include all professions like engineers and developers, not to mention people under 40.
Also, we're just a few weeks into the campaign, but next week I'll be posting a more detailed policy platform on http://coleforcongress.com, so I hope you'll sign up and stay engaged.
To the cynics, as I said in the comments of the article:
> Yes, the influence of money in elections is corrupting, but I refuse to give up on the idea of representative democracy. I'm willing to fight for it, even if the deck seems stacked. I see no shame in giving it my all.
> And it's a simple formula for how we win: less money from more people vs more money from less people. If people like you and me who recognize the system is broken put our necks on the line, work together, and contribute what we can, we will win. There are more of us who want to fix the system than those who benefit from it.
> So why not join me? http://coleforcongress.com
- Raise the national minimum wage and index it to the cost of living increases
- Extend unemployment benefits to workers who have lost their jobs and haven't been able to get back into the workforce
- Provide tax incentives to businesses that hire long-term unemployed workers and prohibit discriminating against the long-term unemployed when hiring
- Establish a work-sharing program that allows workers to collect unemployment assistance when employers choose to reduce hours instead of layoffs
- Provide incentives to employers for hiring unemployed veterans
- Support workers' rights to organize through the Employee Free Choice Act as well as trade laws that protect labor
- End tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas
- Fund school construction and modernization projects including urgent repairs, energy-efficient upgrades, and wiring for high-speed internet access
- Establish a National Infrastructure Bank to invest in infrastructure repair and expansion projects that will create millions of jobs nationally and open new economic opportunities
What do you think will work?
If a minimum wage is appropriate, this seems right. I tend to think a minimum wage is appropriate in the current situation. It does risk eliminating jobs at the low end.
"Extend unemployment benefits to workers who have lost their jobs and haven't been able to get back into the workforce"
Probably also a good idea - I don't think "they need a kick in the pants" is a very good model of those people.
"Provide tax incentives to businesses that hire long-term unemployed workers and prohibit discriminating against the long-term unemployed when hiring"
I like the first half of that - and maybe go further and outright pay a portion of wages as companies retrain these people. We have to make it desirable to hire them. An actual cost-benefit analysis should be done, though...
The second half worries me a bit. Trying to get companies to act outside of their interests is always messy (which certianly isn't to say it should never be done, mind...), and it's inviting litigation. I don't really think more work for lawyers is the kind of jobs program we want.
"Establish a work-sharing program that allows workers to collect unemployment assistance when employers choose to reduce hours instead of layoffs"
Interesting, and probably a good move making hours slightly closer to fungible for both parties.
"Provide incentives to employers for hiring unemployed veterans"
Probably not a bad thing (and probably easy to sell) but I'm curious what those incentives would look like.
"Support workers' rights to organize through the Employee Free Choice Act as well as trade laws that protect labor"
Interesting. We've definitely shifted away from organized labor as a country, for good and ill. I personally prefer employee ownership (startups and co-ops) to unions, where that makes sense... and would like to see unions made less necessary (like most concentrations of power) - but that isn't to say this couldn't be a good move.
"End tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas"
Also curious what that looks like.
"Establish a National Infrastructure Bank to invest in infrastructure repair and expansion projects that will create millions of jobs nationally and open new economic opportunities"
An interesting thought. Certainly, it makes sense to build infrastructure while money is cheap.
"What do you think will work?"
One thought I had on the international stage, which isn't really relevant to the House but I figure I'll mention it anyway, is that while I think the WTO's push to reduce trade barriers generally makes sense, we might want to globally (possibly in the context of the WTO) come up with a framework for permitting certain types/sizes/scopes of barriers based on the differences between countries in things like worker protections, environmental regulation, taxation, &c (including enforcement of same), with a goal of checking somewhat the downward pressure. Not anywhere near a trivial task, of course.
I'm also a big fan of the idea of a low (~7k or so) basic income, but I'm not sure whether pushing that makes sense.
So I'm Walmart (or some other large retail employer). What stops me from simply cutting every full time employee down to part time because I know the government will pay the difference in their salary?
Also curious why you think the minimum wage is a national issue? Why shouldn't each individual state or even city decide what minimum wage makes sense for them?
I do like the anti-discrimination for long-term unemployed and the National Infrastructure Bank (New Deal 2) though.
Presumably you think that you actually need those workers in your stores doing work, otherwise you'd just lay them off.
With both politicians and business leaders lobbying for the expansion of H1B and related work visas, the nature of how those visas are currently used, and the repeated findings that there isn't a STEM shortage I wonder where you stand on such things.
To provide some topics you can reply to:
* H1B visas should be a last resort. They should either be more expensive or more restrictive.
* H1B visas should not have citizenship tied to the employer, if they are that badly needed their citizenship should be fast tracked
* Employers should be more incentivized to provide training programs for US citizens before hiring foreign workers
* Similar to Obamas focus on creating a university rating, a school should also need to report foreign student graduation rates and if they stay to work on a foreign worker visa. There are graduate programs that merely exist to allow foreign students a way into this country which ultimately drives up the cost of education, displaces citizens from the classroom, and then once they graduate they get the job that the citizen isn't qualified for (because she was priced out and displaced)
Absolutely agree with you. That they are reeks of indentured servitude.
When you start thinking globally, term like 'foreign worker' would start sounding ridiculous to you. And protectionist policies probably would stop making any sense as well.
On the other hand, naturalization should take some time. Fast track citizenship doesn't make much sense, as it does take some time to get the culture of the place [e.g to serve public duties, like jury duty, etc].
It seems like fixing this is a prerequisite to fixing many other broken aspects of the govt.