Another Lie Continued
Yesterday I took Paul Krugman to task for misleading readers on the comparison between Argentina and the United States. Soon after publishing I received an email from Don Luskin who provided me with an interesting link and a challenge to obtain more detail about Argentina. The link was to a piece by Paul Krugman showing that even Krugman felt that the Argentina problem was all about a bad currency arrangement. Boy is it nice when Paul Krugman proves himself wrong!
I still decided to do a little more research—something that Paul Krugman seems either unwilling to do, or unwilling to tell readers about. Be forewarned, I am about to provide a massive data dump (if you just want the conclusion scroll to the last paragraph).
The first link is from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and it makes clear one other thing. The reason that the debt in Argentina was so bad was that: “(a) the stock of government paper held by banks, part of which was "forced" on their balance sheet by the government, and (b) the significant proportion of dollar-denominated loans extended to borrowers with peso-denominated income.” Clearly these are not true in America. Read here.
Next I looked to The Economist since it is always a trustworthy source. Unfortunately people will have to register and pay to read the article I have found. This article proposes solutions, but implies the bottom-line that the currency peg to the dollar was a mistake for the reasons that the AEI sites. Here it is.
I found this essay, likely by college student, which makes the conclusion that pegging to the dollar was the real problem. While the source is dubious, the message is clearly stated and consistent with what I have found elsewhere.
I was confident at this point in the bad comparison by Paul Krugman. However, in reading I discovered that one consistent message about Argentina did show up. There WAS too much foreign debt. In fact, Argentina was in debt to foreigners to the tune of 50% of GDP. I wanted to be sure that this would not be a problem in the US. Interestingly enough, US debt held by foreigners IS on the rise. And recent numbers are not great. But here is the interesting thing—the trend started long before Bush came to office.
I found this research paper from the New York Federal Reserve Bank that shows that US foreign debt increases began under Clinton (1999 to 2001), and at least one third of the explanation is a strong dollar policy at the time—which we all know is not the case anymore. That is one third of the effect, another third of the effect is attributable to changes in current accounts—it’s the TRADE deficit stupid!
And just in case you want some data on the trade deficit. What this data says to me is that the trade deficit was going the wrong way long before Mr. Bush took office: here and here. Two more related links about the current accounts problem which clearly started under Clinton: here and here.
That all being the case, back to Argentina. In yet another NY Fed article the case is made that the financial crisis in Argentina cannot be solely explained by a deficit since Argentina still had the assets to pay off the debts. This article blames it on panic on the part of lenders.
What is the point of all this research? Can any conclusions be drawn?
The fundamental differences between Argentina and the US center on the nature of the debt in each country. The difference, to be more blunt, is between the Peso and the US Dollar. Here is an article that sets out to show what limitations there are on data about who owns American debt. In doing this, the author provides some interesting insight. The US dollar is not truly comparable to the Peso. When Argentina incurred debt it was in dollar denominated accounts. This meant that in order to repay the loans, Argentina would need to convert Pesos to Dollars while maintaining a Peso to Dollar exchange rate. When the economy began to look bad, no one wanted to buy Pesos with US Dollars at the pegged rate. This left Argentina with a tough choice: devalue or default. How is this different from the US? US debt is denominated in US Dollars. No matter the exchange rate with other currencies, the money we owe is in US Dollars. Therefore, foreigners and citizens holding US debt are in the same boat. They all need the same thing to happen. They all need the US Dollar to remain stable in order to repatriate the investment. The interesting thing is that many foreign nations use US debt as a way to manage the value of their own currency against the Dollar. Do you think anyone is using Argentina’s debt as a currency rate management tool? To put it another way, what was the big fear, that so many made a big deal about in the 1990s, of paying off all of the US debt? That the Federal Reserve would no longer have a strong way to manage the money supply. What do I mean? The US Treasury issues bonds to borrow money. The Fed manages money supply by buying or selling these securities. There are other ways to manage the supply, but this is the preferred method. Since the Fed can print money, they simply print more when they want to purchase more bonds. When they want to tighten the money supply they sell the bonds they own and burn the money. How does this apply to other central banks? They do a similar thing. When they want to strengthen their currency against the US Dollar they sell US bonds for their currency and burn the money. As I asked earlier—do you think anyone was doing that with the Argentina Peso? The answer is conclusively no. And this is the fundamental difference that Paul Krugman hopes that you will not figure out. Shame on Paul Krugman!
Jul 18, 2003
Another Lie?
Paul Krugman accuses President Bush of telling another lie in his state of the union speech:
Here's another sentence in George Bush's State of the Union address that wasn't true: "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations."
The premise of the accusation is that large budget deficits ARE passing things on to future generations and burning a hole in the social security "surplus".
I will give Krugman this: spending needs to be reined in. We are out of control and it is time to stop the free spending that goes on. However I think that Krugman is playing that familiar game of "I have a PhD in Economics so just believe me."
He is wrong. Let me explain. To begin with he makes a faulty comparison between Argentina and the US. He says: "Right now the U.S. government is running deficits bigger, as a share of G.D.P., than those that plunged Argentina into crisis." What really plunged Argentina into crisis? One argument is that Argentina used a faulty premise for money supply. They made the issue of money supply independent of elected officials by pegging it to the dollar. While it is a good thing to take money supply away from politicians, the peg to the US dollar may have been faulty. Argentina does NOT share a common economy with the US and consequently this was inefficient. This may not be the definitive answer, but my point is that a responsible economist should know that the issue is still open to research and debate.
But this is not the only problem with the comparison. Let's make some economic comparisons (all of my facts are from the 2002 CIA World Fact Book).
GDP:
Argentina: $391 Billion
US: $10 Trillion
GDP growth rate:
Argentina: -14.7%
US: 0.3%
GDP composition
Argentina:
agriculture: 5%
industry: 28%
services: 66%
US:
agriculture: 2%
industry: 18%
services: 80%
Population Below Poverty Line
Argentina: 37%
US: 13%
Unemployment
Argentina: 25%
US: 5%
Budget
Argentina (2000): $48 billion with $44 billion in revenue
US (1999): $1.7 trillion
Import/Export
Argentina
Imports: $20.3 billion
Exports: $26.7 billion
US
Imports: $1.148 trillion
Exports: $723 billion
What is the point of all this data? To prove that Argentina does not equal the US for more reasons than the reason that Krugman gave: "The reason we don't face a comparable crisis is that markets, extrapolating from our responsible past, trust us to get our house in order." The reason people invest in America includes a good track record, but it also includes the robustness of the US as an investment. This is the strongest, healthiest, most dynamic economy in the world when assessing the last 50 years of economic history.
A few other faulty comparisons: When people pull their money out of Argentina, where do they park the money? The most likely target is the US. Argentina is a borrower from the IMF, the US IS the IMF. Argentina is politically unstable--when was the last time there was a coup de tat in the US, or a military junta ruling the country? The world financial centers are New York, London, and Tokyo—none are located in Argentina.
Krugman sounds like the doomsday forecasters of the 1980s. They predicted that there was no way to end deficits. Then, miraculously, in the 1990s the budget balanced. I prefer the optimistic view that the economy of the US is incredibly dynamic and we should free it to do it's thing. Sure, I do think Bush and Republicans are irresponsibly spending too much, but tax cuts are not the problem.
There are other problems with Krugman’s piece, but in general he makes the mistake of using his liberal/socialist worldview to interpret events. While it is true that debt is always paid in the future, if that debt is thanks to spending us out of a recession that if ignored could become a depression (though I doubt it), then it is not a bad thing to run debt for. Krugman just wants a new angle for criticizing tax cuts and I refuse to allow that to go unanswered.
UPDATE: I have a follow-up to this piece available above.
Paul Krugman accuses President Bush of telling another lie in his state of the union speech:
Here's another sentence in George Bush's State of the Union address that wasn't true: "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations."
The premise of the accusation is that large budget deficits ARE passing things on to future generations and burning a hole in the social security "surplus".
I will give Krugman this: spending needs to be reined in. We are out of control and it is time to stop the free spending that goes on. However I think that Krugman is playing that familiar game of "I have a PhD in Economics so just believe me."
He is wrong. Let me explain. To begin with he makes a faulty comparison between Argentina and the US. He says: "Right now the U.S. government is running deficits bigger, as a share of G.D.P., than those that plunged Argentina into crisis." What really plunged Argentina into crisis? One argument is that Argentina used a faulty premise for money supply. They made the issue of money supply independent of elected officials by pegging it to the dollar. While it is a good thing to take money supply away from politicians, the peg to the US dollar may have been faulty. Argentina does NOT share a common economy with the US and consequently this was inefficient. This may not be the definitive answer, but my point is that a responsible economist should know that the issue is still open to research and debate.
But this is not the only problem with the comparison. Let's make some economic comparisons (all of my facts are from the 2002 CIA World Fact Book).
GDP:
Argentina: $391 Billion
US: $10 Trillion
GDP growth rate:
Argentina: -14.7%
US: 0.3%
GDP composition
Argentina:
agriculture: 5%
industry: 28%
services: 66%
US:
agriculture: 2%
industry: 18%
services: 80%
Population Below Poverty Line
Argentina: 37%
US: 13%
Unemployment
Argentina: 25%
US: 5%
Budget
Argentina (2000): $48 billion with $44 billion in revenue
US (1999): $1.7 trillion
Import/Export
Argentina
Imports: $20.3 billion
Exports: $26.7 billion
US
Imports: $1.148 trillion
Exports: $723 billion
What is the point of all this data? To prove that Argentina does not equal the US for more reasons than the reason that Krugman gave: "The reason we don't face a comparable crisis is that markets, extrapolating from our responsible past, trust us to get our house in order." The reason people invest in America includes a good track record, but it also includes the robustness of the US as an investment. This is the strongest, healthiest, most dynamic economy in the world when assessing the last 50 years of economic history.
A few other faulty comparisons: When people pull their money out of Argentina, where do they park the money? The most likely target is the US. Argentina is a borrower from the IMF, the US IS the IMF. Argentina is politically unstable--when was the last time there was a coup de tat in the US, or a military junta ruling the country? The world financial centers are New York, London, and Tokyo—none are located in Argentina.
Krugman sounds like the doomsday forecasters of the 1980s. They predicted that there was no way to end deficits. Then, miraculously, in the 1990s the budget balanced. I prefer the optimistic view that the economy of the US is incredibly dynamic and we should free it to do it's thing. Sure, I do think Bush and Republicans are irresponsibly spending too much, but tax cuts are not the problem.
There are other problems with Krugman’s piece, but in general he makes the mistake of using his liberal/socialist worldview to interpret events. While it is true that debt is always paid in the future, if that debt is thanks to spending us out of a recession that if ignored could become a depression (though I doubt it), then it is not a bad thing to run debt for. Krugman just wants a new angle for criticizing tax cuts and I refuse to allow that to go unanswered.
UPDATE: I have a follow-up to this piece available above.
This Guy Gets It
If you are still not sure about the entire Iraq deal then you needed to see Tony Blair's speech to Congress yesterday. In case you missed it, all I am going to say is read the speech!
If you are still not sure about the entire Iraq deal then you needed to see Tony Blair's speech to Congress yesterday. In case you missed it, all I am going to say is read the speech!
Jul 17, 2003
Drugs--The Legal Kind
Robert Novak never fails to get good reporting into his editorial pieces. It is for this reason that I make him a regular read. Today he has a piece on how the pharmaceutical industry seems unable to get the votes they need to win on current legislation in spite of large donations to Republicans.
There are two completely unrelated points to be made about this article.
First, this is the proof that money does NOT control all politics. In reality perception of voter interests is far more powerful than money. That is the real news in the story. I can remember Al Gore making a big deal during the 2000 Presidential campaign about "Big Pharma" and the control that it has on Republicans. This story is enough proof for me that John McCain and Al Gore must be high on drugs.
Second, there is an ironic twist that proves that some conservative politicians do not understand the free market. Here is the revealing quote:
Demand for re-importing American drugs, at a dramatically lower cost to consumers because of Canadian price controls, is no longer confined to Democratic politicians from northern border states. The bill pushed by Emerson is sponsored by Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican with a 95 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating.
Now pay attention because you have to think to get this. The argument is that if the drugs are this cheap in Canada, let's force the drug companies to be more competitive with pricing here by allowing arbitrage to have an effect (arbitrage is the process whereby capitalists take advantage of gross price disparities to make a profit and thereby bring the overall market into equilibrium). Sounds good? But the reason the prices in Canada are lower is NOT because of the free market, but because of "Canadian price controls"! If you don't know what price controls are then you need to go back to watching the Jerry Springer show and stop voting! It is a liberal back door to price controls in America! Since they assume that the public would never vote for a price control out right, they instead promote a system for allowing the Canadians to set the prices. Shame on conservatives for joining in!
Robert Novak never fails to get good reporting into his editorial pieces. It is for this reason that I make him a regular read. Today he has a piece on how the pharmaceutical industry seems unable to get the votes they need to win on current legislation in spite of large donations to Republicans.
There are two completely unrelated points to be made about this article.
First, this is the proof that money does NOT control all politics. In reality perception of voter interests is far more powerful than money. That is the real news in the story. I can remember Al Gore making a big deal during the 2000 Presidential campaign about "Big Pharma" and the control that it has on Republicans. This story is enough proof for me that John McCain and Al Gore must be high on drugs.
Second, there is an ironic twist that proves that some conservative politicians do not understand the free market. Here is the revealing quote:
Demand for re-importing American drugs, at a dramatically lower cost to consumers because of Canadian price controls, is no longer confined to Democratic politicians from northern border states. The bill pushed by Emerson is sponsored by Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican with a 95 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating.
Now pay attention because you have to think to get this. The argument is that if the drugs are this cheap in Canada, let's force the drug companies to be more competitive with pricing here by allowing arbitrage to have an effect (arbitrage is the process whereby capitalists take advantage of gross price disparities to make a profit and thereby bring the overall market into equilibrium). Sounds good? But the reason the prices in Canada are lower is NOT because of the free market, but because of "Canadian price controls"! If you don't know what price controls are then you need to go back to watching the Jerry Springer show and stop voting! It is a liberal back door to price controls in America! Since they assume that the public would never vote for a price control out right, they instead promote a system for allowing the Canadians to set the prices. Shame on conservatives for joining in!
Recession Long Gone
The National Bureau of Economic Research has determined that the recession is over. I have long being saying that the economy is fine. The problem is that the people who ARE unemployed are the educated and talented and this is disconcerting to friends and family. Furthermore it is the white collar middle class that accounted for the biggest increase in new investors in the stock market during the 1990s. Consequently it is this same group that still hasn't returned to the stock market in droves and therefore keeps the value of the market down.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has determined that the recession is over. I have long being saying that the economy is fine. The problem is that the people who ARE unemployed are the educated and talented and this is disconcerting to friends and family. Furthermore it is the white collar middle class that accounted for the biggest increase in new investors in the stock market during the 1990s. Consequently it is this same group that still hasn't returned to the stock market in droves and therefore keeps the value of the market down.
Jul 16, 2003
Republicans are Wimps
Republicans and the White House need to stop running scared on the issue of Iraq and weaknesses in the arguments for war. Instead of looking like we are afraid to answer the questions we should turn the table.
PRESS: You have not yet found conclusive WMD proof, what do you have to say?
WHITE HOUSE: Has anyone ever had any proof that there was NOT a WMD program? We believed there was, and Saddam had every chance to prove to the world that he was willing to play by the rules of the international order--he blew it and we have no regrets. Next question.
PRESS: But aren't you embarassed?
WHITE HOUSE: Aren't the Democrats embarassed that Saddam fell so fast? Aren't the French embarassed that there is evidence they were signing oil deals with Saddam? Aren't the opponents of war embarassed that they never raised doubts about the WMD intelligence but only argued that it was not our right to overthrow a dictator? Next question.
Republicans and the White House need to stop running scared on the issue of Iraq and weaknesses in the arguments for war. Instead of looking like we are afraid to answer the questions we should turn the table.
PRESS: You have not yet found conclusive WMD proof, what do you have to say?
WHITE HOUSE: Has anyone ever had any proof that there was NOT a WMD program? We believed there was, and Saddam had every chance to prove to the world that he was willing to play by the rules of the international order--he blew it and we have no regrets. Next question.
PRESS: But aren't you embarassed?
WHITE HOUSE: Aren't the Democrats embarassed that Saddam fell so fast? Aren't the French embarassed that there is evidence they were signing oil deals with Saddam? Aren't the opponents of war embarassed that they never raised doubts about the WMD intelligence but only argued that it was not our right to overthrow a dictator? Next question.
Albright on Iraq
Albright said on the Newshour (I paraphrase without a transcript): 'I always understood the why for war with Iraq, I just didn't understand the why NOW...'
With all due respect Madame Secretary, did you miss 9/11?
This is my point about Iraq and the axis of evil and what it all had to do with Osama. The statement attributed to Osama is that when people are faced with a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse they will pick the strong horse. Osama believed that he would be the strong horse. I think we have mostly put that to rest.
Albright said on the Newshour (I paraphrase without a transcript): 'I always understood the why for war with Iraq, I just didn't understand the why NOW...'
With all due respect Madame Secretary, did you miss 9/11?
This is my point about Iraq and the axis of evil and what it all had to do with Osama. The statement attributed to Osama is that when people are faced with a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse they will pick the strong horse. Osama believed that he would be the strong horse. I think we have mostly put that to rest.
Nuke the SOTU Controversy
State of the Union speech delivered January 28, 2003.
The IAEA makes its report to the United Nations Security Council that the claims by British Intelligence about purchasing Uranium from Niger are "not authentic" on March 7, 2003.
War begins in Iraq on March 19, 2003.
Exactly how does the faulty Uranium claim become THE justification for war with Iraq?
State of the Union speech delivered January 28, 2003.
The IAEA makes its report to the United Nations Security Council that the claims by British Intelligence about purchasing Uranium from Niger are "not authentic" on March 7, 2003.
War begins in Iraq on March 19, 2003.
Exactly how does the faulty Uranium claim become THE justification for war with Iraq?
Iraq
I have just posted comments on 9/11, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. My point being to place comments on Iraq in perspective.
I agree with those who say we will be in Iraq longer than implied and that this will require more soldiers than was initially hoped for. I don't feel that this is a criticism of going to war with Iraq.
I agree that the Uranium mistake looks bad. Examples of intelligence errors can be found throughout history and consequently I am unwilling to translate the current snafu into a conspiracy. Do we really want to bring out the lists of mistakes? It appears that our intelligence people underestimated Osama bin Laden before 9/11, does anyone for a moment believe that we let that happen? Or have we forgotten the stories a while back about Bush being briefed in August of 2001 about the possibility that terrorists might try to hijack airplanes? We can take these intelligence failures back through every presidency. Mistakes of judgment? Happens all the time.
But where I differ is the implication that this somehow means that we made a mistake in going to war with Iraq.
In my opinion the war was always about one thing: the axis of evil. And for me the axis was always something different than the way it came to be spinned. Yes, I am saying that Bush got it right by accident. The real thread that binds the axis of evil is a willingness to defy US policy in a way that defies all civilized conventions while holding hostage the economic interests of the world.
To make my point lets actually discuss why others failed to make the axis list. Syria is clearly a sponsor of terrorism. They make life really hard for Israel. If Syria were gone the Israelis and Palestinians would settle out of court. Yet, Syria has been very adept at not channeling these actions towards the US. In fact, they make efforts at diplomatic overtures to the US all of the time. How about Libya? After Reagan scared the bejeezers out of Khadafi he began singing a new tune. He has handed over the accused in the Lockerbie case and offered a settlement to the families. He wants to rejoin the civilized world. How about Cuba? Without a doubt they are a thorn in our side. But beyond long speeches by Castro, they have been relatively benign since the end of the Cold War.
Members of the Axis have clearly done the equivalent of telling the US to go fly a kite. Iran is the truest sponsor of terrorists in the tradition of Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. The mullahs have clearly rejected any attempts by moderates to try and reenter the civilized world. In essence Iran is the pattern for what Osama would like to establish in Saudi Arabia. They are openly building a nuclear power plant in spite of having free flowing natural gas; they sponsor various terror groups, and destabilize the region. North Korea adheres to a similar pattern. They defy the trend of the fall of communism. They refuse to enter the normal world. They openly build missile technology that finds it way to some of the most troublesome countries (Iran and Iraq to name a few). And on top of it all they seem determined to make the US the focus of their rhetoric. How about Iraq? You fill in the facts. But the point is that the fact that Uranium was or was not purchased was not the reason for war. The reason was to make clear that we would act against countries that were openly defiant of international norms, demonstrated a rhetorical desire to confront the US, and backed up the rhetoric with actions. In this sense Iraq's unwillingness to fully cooperate with inspectors was enough. It was not necessary that the inspectors would have discovered anything.
Why does this defiance matter? It encourages the likes of Osama bin Laden by demonstrating that US power and influence can be defied without repercussion. This emboldens Osama to defy the US in the same way.
It is also interesting to point out that there is an element of national economic interest involved that is not just a matter of safety. I don't deny that Iraq and Iran clearly have an influence on the safety of the world oil supply. And what of North Korea? Forget that they are trying to make missiles that can reach the US and realize that they already have missiles that can strike Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Why don't you explain the world economic interest involved? While this is not enough to justify action by itself it is the reality that puts the argument for action over the top.
And how about human rights? This is the icing on the cake. And just to be clear, I love icing--I am like Homer Simpson when it comes to icing. But I would be satisfied with my cake, and generally I need some cake with my icing. I will leave it at that.
The justification for war with Iraq was legitimate. Saddam posed a clear and present danger to the stability of the international order. Let's stop trying to score political points and work together to get Iraq on it's feet so we can come home.
I have just posted comments on 9/11, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. My point being to place comments on Iraq in perspective.
I agree with those who say we will be in Iraq longer than implied and that this will require more soldiers than was initially hoped for. I don't feel that this is a criticism of going to war with Iraq.
I agree that the Uranium mistake looks bad. Examples of intelligence errors can be found throughout history and consequently I am unwilling to translate the current snafu into a conspiracy. Do we really want to bring out the lists of mistakes? It appears that our intelligence people underestimated Osama bin Laden before 9/11, does anyone for a moment believe that we let that happen? Or have we forgotten the stories a while back about Bush being briefed in August of 2001 about the possibility that terrorists might try to hijack airplanes? We can take these intelligence failures back through every presidency. Mistakes of judgment? Happens all the time.
But where I differ is the implication that this somehow means that we made a mistake in going to war with Iraq.
In my opinion the war was always about one thing: the axis of evil. And for me the axis was always something different than the way it came to be spinned. Yes, I am saying that Bush got it right by accident. The real thread that binds the axis of evil is a willingness to defy US policy in a way that defies all civilized conventions while holding hostage the economic interests of the world.
To make my point lets actually discuss why others failed to make the axis list. Syria is clearly a sponsor of terrorism. They make life really hard for Israel. If Syria were gone the Israelis and Palestinians would settle out of court. Yet, Syria has been very adept at not channeling these actions towards the US. In fact, they make efforts at diplomatic overtures to the US all of the time. How about Libya? After Reagan scared the bejeezers out of Khadafi he began singing a new tune. He has handed over the accused in the Lockerbie case and offered a settlement to the families. He wants to rejoin the civilized world. How about Cuba? Without a doubt they are a thorn in our side. But beyond long speeches by Castro, they have been relatively benign since the end of the Cold War.
Members of the Axis have clearly done the equivalent of telling the US to go fly a kite. Iran is the truest sponsor of terrorists in the tradition of Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. The mullahs have clearly rejected any attempts by moderates to try and reenter the civilized world. In essence Iran is the pattern for what Osama would like to establish in Saudi Arabia. They are openly building a nuclear power plant in spite of having free flowing natural gas; they sponsor various terror groups, and destabilize the region. North Korea adheres to a similar pattern. They defy the trend of the fall of communism. They refuse to enter the normal world. They openly build missile technology that finds it way to some of the most troublesome countries (Iran and Iraq to name a few). And on top of it all they seem determined to make the US the focus of their rhetoric. How about Iraq? You fill in the facts. But the point is that the fact that Uranium was or was not purchased was not the reason for war. The reason was to make clear that we would act against countries that were openly defiant of international norms, demonstrated a rhetorical desire to confront the US, and backed up the rhetoric with actions. In this sense Iraq's unwillingness to fully cooperate with inspectors was enough. It was not necessary that the inspectors would have discovered anything.
Why does this defiance matter? It encourages the likes of Osama bin Laden by demonstrating that US power and influence can be defied without repercussion. This emboldens Osama to defy the US in the same way.
It is also interesting to point out that there is an element of national economic interest involved that is not just a matter of safety. I don't deny that Iraq and Iran clearly have an influence on the safety of the world oil supply. And what of North Korea? Forget that they are trying to make missiles that can reach the US and realize that they already have missiles that can strike Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Why don't you explain the world economic interest involved? While this is not enough to justify action by itself it is the reality that puts the argument for action over the top.
And how about human rights? This is the icing on the cake. And just to be clear, I love icing--I am like Homer Simpson when it comes to icing. But I would be satisfied with my cake, and generally I need some cake with my icing. I will leave it at that.
The justification for war with Iraq was legitimate. Saddam posed a clear and present danger to the stability of the international order. Let's stop trying to score political points and work together to get Iraq on it's feet so we can come home.
Afghanistan
Am I the only one who as noticed that the stories on Afghanistan have gone away? Is this because Iraq is more interesting? Or is this because things are really improving? Take a look at this compilation of Afghan news stories and this one. On the one hand the news is good in the sense that there really is an absence of significantly bad news. Yet, on the other hand a US soldier did die in late June and it went unnoticed. It is possible that Afghan news stories have gone away because Iraq provides much more to talk about. It is also possible that Afghanistan is improving and opponents of President Bush would prefer to ignore the story.
I believe that Afghanistan has become nothing more than a policing operation. There is still room for things to fall apart, but it has been a success. We have denied terrorists the comfort of free movement. We have removed a destabilizing presence. And we have made it clear that we will act to protect our interests.
Am I the only one who as noticed that the stories on Afghanistan have gone away? Is this because Iraq is more interesting? Or is this because things are really improving? Take a look at this compilation of Afghan news stories and this one. On the one hand the news is good in the sense that there really is an absence of significantly bad news. Yet, on the other hand a US soldier did die in late June and it went unnoticed. It is possible that Afghan news stories have gone away because Iraq provides much more to talk about. It is also possible that Afghanistan is improving and opponents of President Bush would prefer to ignore the story.
I believe that Afghanistan has become nothing more than a policing operation. There is still room for things to fall apart, but it has been a success. We have denied terrorists the comfort of free movement. We have removed a destabilizing presence. And we have made it clear that we will act to protect our interests.
Vietnam
It is time to put the ghosts of Vietnam to rest. Why did we lose the war? We failed to take the war to the enemy.
I propose as reading (the movie was terrible) the book We Were Soldiers Once...And Young. Even in this story, at the very beginning of the war it was obvious that we failed to do this. Unfortunately you sort of need to read the entire book until the end to get the import of this claim.
We never invaded North Vietnam. Why? We were afraid that China or Russia would become involved. That is the real history lesson. Why did Russia fail in Afghanistan? They were unwilling to invade Pakistan for fear that we would become involved. In this sense each was really a battle in a greater Cold War.
If you are unwilling to eliminate the power broker it is unlikely that you can break the will of the soldier. Because new soldiers will be found. Money is available for arms and advisors are available to train. The book implies that there is often ignored evidence that the Chinese actually had soldiers operating along side the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Even this was ignored so as to avoid official direct confrontation.
I don't dispute that the lack of public support back home was significant, or that the press made it sound much worse than it was. But, I think we do ourselves a history lesson disservice by not recognizing the role of the defend only strategy. We extrapolate the wrong lesson and wring our hands over the wrong issues in the case of the war on terror.
It is time to put the ghosts of Vietnam to rest. Why did we lose the war? We failed to take the war to the enemy.
I propose as reading (the movie was terrible) the book We Were Soldiers Once...And Young. Even in this story, at the very beginning of the war it was obvious that we failed to do this. Unfortunately you sort of need to read the entire book until the end to get the import of this claim.
We never invaded North Vietnam. Why? We were afraid that China or Russia would become involved. That is the real history lesson. Why did Russia fail in Afghanistan? They were unwilling to invade Pakistan for fear that we would become involved. In this sense each was really a battle in a greater Cold War.
If you are unwilling to eliminate the power broker it is unlikely that you can break the will of the soldier. Because new soldiers will be found. Money is available for arms and advisors are available to train. The book implies that there is often ignored evidence that the Chinese actually had soldiers operating along side the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Even this was ignored so as to avoid official direct confrontation.
I don't dispute that the lack of public support back home was significant, or that the press made it sound much worse than it was. But, I think we do ourselves a history lesson disservice by not recognizing the role of the defend only strategy. We extrapolate the wrong lesson and wring our hands over the wrong issues in the case of the war on terror.
September 11th
I am going out on a limb here, but the underreported story is that there has not been another terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Why is it underreported? Because you have to go out on a limb to report it. If there is an attack tomorrow then I look like a fool. But even if there was an attack tomorrow, I still feel that we are getting to the point that we can safely say this: something is working. Osama, if alive, is on the run. The best he could do is bomb a target in Saudi Arabia using the old method of driving up in a truck. What does this mean? I think it means that the Bush strategy on terrorism is working. What is the strategy? 1)Make things at home more secure, 2)Take the war to the enemy.
No matter the conflict in history there are nations involved. Ultimately these nations need to be held responsible.
I am going out on a limb here, but the underreported story is that there has not been another terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Why is it underreported? Because you have to go out on a limb to report it. If there is an attack tomorrow then I look like a fool. But even if there was an attack tomorrow, I still feel that we are getting to the point that we can safely say this: something is working. Osama, if alive, is on the run. The best he could do is bomb a target in Saudi Arabia using the old method of driving up in a truck. What does this mean? I think it means that the Bush strategy on terrorism is working. What is the strategy? 1)Make things at home more secure, 2)Take the war to the enemy.
No matter the conflict in history there are nations involved. Ultimately these nations need to be held responsible.
Jul 11, 2003
Gay Marriage
Can I just ask one question? If legalizing Gay Marriage doesn't serve to make people any less disgusted with Homosexuality, what will the Gay and Lesbian movement do next? If most Americans still look down on the behavior, what will be the next government policy to remedy this problem?
The gay movement assumes that marriage is some magic elixir that will end prejudice. In fact it will not. It may enable entitlement to social programs that should never have been there in the first place, but it will not end prejudice.
Recently there has been a proposal by Michael Kinsley that we get the government out of the business of sponsoring marriage. A follow-up by John O'Sullivan proposed a modified alternative of Kinsley's proposal.
Now back to my question: will this solve anything? No. The real problem, as I have stated before, is that homosexuals are upset with prejudice. The rest of the rhetoric doesn’t make sense. Sometimes the argument is that the benefits of marriage are a right, but that doesn’t hold water either. What right?
Kinsley actually gives the most honest assessment and proposal I have seen in a while. He clearly identifies why government is involved. There are certain points of the marriage contract that allow the greater society to benefit from the marriage contract being legally enforced by a third party. If there were an independent entity that could have that legal weight (namely churches, which would present a particular constitutional problem) I would not object to the privatization of marriage. Kinsley is correct that each of these things could be separately contracted and legalized. For instance we could begin to involve the government in the protection of children regardless of marriage. In fact, this is already happening because of people living together. Similar discussions could be had on each of the other points.
O’Sullivan follows up with a version that places church marriages in competition with civil marriages and partnerships to determine a winner. Churches would be free to define marriage however they wanted to. Besides raising the constitutional question of who defines a legal “church”, there is actually Supreme Court precedent that currently limits the rights of churches to marry whomever they please. This gets messy really fast. Does this precedent go away? Even if the government is out of the marriage business, do they still declare who churches can and can not marry?
The problem is not that this is necessarily a bad idea, but that it doesn’t solve the real problem. Let’s just assume for a second that we ‘privatize’ marriage as proposed under either proposal. And for the sake of argument let’s just say that we can all agree that polygamy, polyandry, incest, and weird stuff done with animals would still be banned. What will the gay movement do when they realize that people still look at a gay man with that odd look that denotes prejudice? What will they do when some teenagers in Wyoming kill a homosexual teenager in a cruel and horrible way? What will they do when prejudice doesn’t go away? Will they force churches to recognize gay marriages? What will be next?
I wish individuals like Andrew Sullivan would address this question.
There is a lot of tense debate about what is marriage and whether marriage would destroy the basis of society. But I think the real question is to ask how marriage will really achieve the goal that the gay movement has.
The gay movement advocates that marriage is a right. Okay, which of the Declaration of Independence rights does this “marriage right” fit under? Life? No, I think gay men are free to be alive. Liberty? There is no reason to believe that the founding fathers were talking about gay marriage, or any marriage for that matter. The same man who gets all the credit for the Declaration of Independence also gets much credit for the Bill of Rights—anything in there about marriage? Nope. Freedom of speech, religion, the press, bearing arms, from unreasonable criminal procedures maybe, but nothing about marriage—gay or straight. Pursuit of Happiness? This must be the one. Since marriage will make me happy I must have a right to it. Okay, jokes about married men not really being as happy as they thought they would be aside, we need to address this. Jefferson was modifying what John Locke really said. Pursuit of Happiness was originally Property. I for one think he did a great disservice by changing the words. I also think this was a subtle recognition, on his part, that slavery would be inconsistent since slaves were denied this basic right. Of course there are those who simply think that he was trying to spin the words and meant the same thing—pursuit of happiness only being possible by means of possession of property. On the issue of property I think gay couples have the best argument. After all many of the contractual advantages of marriage that government can grant are related to property and economics. Tax filing status and inheritance laws are two simple examples. But domestic partnership legislation in many states already attempts to address these inequities. If this is the only reason to pursue equal protection through marriage then maybe we should simply remove the government from this particular aspect of marriage or grant the same economic benefits to anyone who wants to contractually share financial liabilities. Even with all of that said, as a married person I am not sure that there are all that many property rights to get all that excited about. Tax filing status? It can be argued that in some cases I might be better off if I didn’t share the liability of my spouse. Inheritance? How about the flip side, inherited liability? I am convinced it is a wash. Not to mention that a simple will can achieve the same inheritance protection—therefore nothing is denied.
The real “right” is some nebulous right to share and express love or to be “normal”. As so many heterosexual couples who live together like to argue a certificate is not necessary to express love. Since I actually disagree with these couples, I admit that it does conjure up a level of commitment that is non-existent without the social pressure of marriage. But, where is the social pressure coming from?
The social pressure comes from established cultural tradition that says that marriage means some life long contract that is hard to break. Where did that tradition come from? The same religion and culture that says that homosexuals have no part in marriage! How can the homosexual movement advocate for access to a cultural norm that is so tightly bonded with a belief that homosexuality is a sin? Am I the only one who sees that there is something very illogical about all of this?
Which brings me back to the original question: what is next? Gay marriage will not cause people like myself to stop seeing homosexuality as a sin. While I agree that I cannot legislate MY morality, what will happen when my morality doesn’t change just because the government allows gays to marry? Will gays be satisfied? I personally doubt it. Some honest individuals may very well close up shop, but the movement leaders will never be satisfied. Name one civil rights movement that has declared victory and closed up shop. While individual gays may be satisfied, the gay movement will not.
Can I just ask one question? If legalizing Gay Marriage doesn't serve to make people any less disgusted with Homosexuality, what will the Gay and Lesbian movement do next? If most Americans still look down on the behavior, what will be the next government policy to remedy this problem?
The gay movement assumes that marriage is some magic elixir that will end prejudice. In fact it will not. It may enable entitlement to social programs that should never have been there in the first place, but it will not end prejudice.
Recently there has been a proposal by Michael Kinsley that we get the government out of the business of sponsoring marriage. A follow-up by John O'Sullivan proposed a modified alternative of Kinsley's proposal.
Now back to my question: will this solve anything? No. The real problem, as I have stated before, is that homosexuals are upset with prejudice. The rest of the rhetoric doesn’t make sense. Sometimes the argument is that the benefits of marriage are a right, but that doesn’t hold water either. What right?
Kinsley actually gives the most honest assessment and proposal I have seen in a while. He clearly identifies why government is involved. There are certain points of the marriage contract that allow the greater society to benefit from the marriage contract being legally enforced by a third party. If there were an independent entity that could have that legal weight (namely churches, which would present a particular constitutional problem) I would not object to the privatization of marriage. Kinsley is correct that each of these things could be separately contracted and legalized. For instance we could begin to involve the government in the protection of children regardless of marriage. In fact, this is already happening because of people living together. Similar discussions could be had on each of the other points.
O’Sullivan follows up with a version that places church marriages in competition with civil marriages and partnerships to determine a winner. Churches would be free to define marriage however they wanted to. Besides raising the constitutional question of who defines a legal “church”, there is actually Supreme Court precedent that currently limits the rights of churches to marry whomever they please. This gets messy really fast. Does this precedent go away? Even if the government is out of the marriage business, do they still declare who churches can and can not marry?
The problem is not that this is necessarily a bad idea, but that it doesn’t solve the real problem. Let’s just assume for a second that we ‘privatize’ marriage as proposed under either proposal. And for the sake of argument let’s just say that we can all agree that polygamy, polyandry, incest, and weird stuff done with animals would still be banned. What will the gay movement do when they realize that people still look at a gay man with that odd look that denotes prejudice? What will they do when some teenagers in Wyoming kill a homosexual teenager in a cruel and horrible way? What will they do when prejudice doesn’t go away? Will they force churches to recognize gay marriages? What will be next?
I wish individuals like Andrew Sullivan would address this question.
There is a lot of tense debate about what is marriage and whether marriage would destroy the basis of society. But I think the real question is to ask how marriage will really achieve the goal that the gay movement has.
The gay movement advocates that marriage is a right. Okay, which of the Declaration of Independence rights does this “marriage right” fit under? Life? No, I think gay men are free to be alive. Liberty? There is no reason to believe that the founding fathers were talking about gay marriage, or any marriage for that matter. The same man who gets all the credit for the Declaration of Independence also gets much credit for the Bill of Rights—anything in there about marriage? Nope. Freedom of speech, religion, the press, bearing arms, from unreasonable criminal procedures maybe, but nothing about marriage—gay or straight. Pursuit of Happiness? This must be the one. Since marriage will make me happy I must have a right to it. Okay, jokes about married men not really being as happy as they thought they would be aside, we need to address this. Jefferson was modifying what John Locke really said. Pursuit of Happiness was originally Property. I for one think he did a great disservice by changing the words. I also think this was a subtle recognition, on his part, that slavery would be inconsistent since slaves were denied this basic right. Of course there are those who simply think that he was trying to spin the words and meant the same thing—pursuit of happiness only being possible by means of possession of property. On the issue of property I think gay couples have the best argument. After all many of the contractual advantages of marriage that government can grant are related to property and economics. Tax filing status and inheritance laws are two simple examples. But domestic partnership legislation in many states already attempts to address these inequities. If this is the only reason to pursue equal protection through marriage then maybe we should simply remove the government from this particular aspect of marriage or grant the same economic benefits to anyone who wants to contractually share financial liabilities. Even with all of that said, as a married person I am not sure that there are all that many property rights to get all that excited about. Tax filing status? It can be argued that in some cases I might be better off if I didn’t share the liability of my spouse. Inheritance? How about the flip side, inherited liability? I am convinced it is a wash. Not to mention that a simple will can achieve the same inheritance protection—therefore nothing is denied.
The real “right” is some nebulous right to share and express love or to be “normal”. As so many heterosexual couples who live together like to argue a certificate is not necessary to express love. Since I actually disagree with these couples, I admit that it does conjure up a level of commitment that is non-existent without the social pressure of marriage. But, where is the social pressure coming from?
The social pressure comes from established cultural tradition that says that marriage means some life long contract that is hard to break. Where did that tradition come from? The same religion and culture that says that homosexuals have no part in marriage! How can the homosexual movement advocate for access to a cultural norm that is so tightly bonded with a belief that homosexuality is a sin? Am I the only one who sees that there is something very illogical about all of this?
Which brings me back to the original question: what is next? Gay marriage will not cause people like myself to stop seeing homosexuality as a sin. While I agree that I cannot legislate MY morality, what will happen when my morality doesn’t change just because the government allows gays to marry? Will gays be satisfied? I personally doubt it. Some honest individuals may very well close up shop, but the movement leaders will never be satisfied. Name one civil rights movement that has declared victory and closed up shop. While individual gays may be satisfied, the gay movement will not.
Mr. Optimism
Every time I begin to fret about the economy I just go and read some commentary by Larry Kudlow or watch his show Kudlow and Cramer. His website links to his commentary, but I generally read him here or here.
Every time I begin to fret about the economy I just go and read some commentary by Larry Kudlow or watch his show Kudlow and Cramer. His website links to his commentary, but I generally read him here or here.
Jul 10, 2003
Write the Check and Bush will Sign!
I like this piece comparing Bush to Reagan on the issue of spending. The comparison reveals the truth about Bush being a big spender on anything Congress wants to spend on. I have made this point before right here. In fact, he is so bad I am beginning to disbelieve the argument that he does not want to embarass fellow Republicans.
I like this piece comparing Bush to Reagan on the issue of spending. The comparison reveals the truth about Bush being a big spender on anything Congress wants to spend on. I have made this point before right here. In fact, he is so bad I am beginning to disbelieve the argument that he does not want to embarass fellow Republicans.
Should Conservatives Leave the GOP?
National Review has raised the question of whether conservatives should leave the GOP. They raise some very good concerns. Regular readers will recognize that I am similarly concerned. The Republican Party is as close as we get to a Conservative party in American politics, but it fails to be Conservative when it counts. I have always believed that the key to the American political system is that the major parties attempt to build coalition parties by appealing to as many disparate interests as consistently possible. When I was in school my professors of political science liked to make comparisons between the proportional parliamentary systems of Europe and the American system. Often I found this comparison seemed to reveal a preference for the European system since it tends to include lesser parties. However, I found this somewhat ignorant of reality. In the end the European result is no different than in the US. The view of the lesser party is still negotiated away in a governing coalition. So if the compromise is before the election or after the election is there really a difference? I don't think so. The American system is admittedly a little more gradual, but the effect is the same. So when a Ross Perot comes on the political scene what was the response? Both major parties moved to seize the Perot issues that they felt were most naturally their issues—this resulted in a move to the middle of American politics. Is it any wonder then that in 2000 the significant third parties were on the fringes? Perot's party became a party for an extreme version of Conservatism with the nomination of Pat Buchanan, the Greens produced an extreme brand of liberalism, and the Libertarians arguably mixed the individual liberty extremes conservative and liberal ideals. Where will the next move be? If the parties are smart they will try to compromise to bring in those extremes. There is evidence that the Democrats are doing just that. Green activists frustrated by electoral failure are returning to the campaign of the most liberal Democratic candidate—Howard Dean. I admit I am over-generalizing, but the trend is in this direction. Republicans on the other hand are still fighting the Ross Perot threat. Bush is moving to the middle in a way that carries a very high risk that conservatives will break away if he is not more careful. He hopes to keep them in place by cutting taxes, spending on national defense, and making statements against abortion. For me the chink in the armor is the spending. But there is the potential for more problems as the National Review points out.
Is there a solution? One of the problems that conservatives have is that if we left the GOP we would have a hard time organizing. Greens have a clear vision, as do Libertarians. How do you start a party around the ideology of: 'keep it old'? There are parties out there that have tried by focusing on one issue or another (peruse this list to find many of the parties). The interesting thing is that National Review founder Bill Buckley has established a pattern. As I understand the history, he was key to organizing the Conservative Party of New York State. Election laws in New York allow the Conservative Party to be on the ballot for every election for every office. Many times they simply nominate the Republican candidate to be their candidate and the votes for the candidate are summed across various party nominations in order to determine the vote. This has the effect of allowing the party influence to be known while still allowing the election to gain a consensus. It also has allowed the Conservative party to threaten to nominate another candidate if the Republican candidate ignores all conservative issues. Of course it still means that you end up with moderate Republicans but at least it is understood what the stakes are. Unfortunately, not all states have written their election rules in such a way as to make the New York model work everywhere. If conservatives are frustrated with Republicans, then we should make it our cause to replicate nationally what has been done in New York. Along the way we need to define Conservatism and find a way to include existing fringe Conservative parties if possible. And like the Conservative Party of New York we should recognize that the party we will most often negotiate with would continue to be the Republican Party. I challenge National Review to put their heart where their words are and start the effort—take the Conservative Party national.
National Review has raised the question of whether conservatives should leave the GOP. They raise some very good concerns. Regular readers will recognize that I am similarly concerned. The Republican Party is as close as we get to a Conservative party in American politics, but it fails to be Conservative when it counts. I have always believed that the key to the American political system is that the major parties attempt to build coalition parties by appealing to as many disparate interests as consistently possible. When I was in school my professors of political science liked to make comparisons between the proportional parliamentary systems of Europe and the American system. Often I found this comparison seemed to reveal a preference for the European system since it tends to include lesser parties. However, I found this somewhat ignorant of reality. In the end the European result is no different than in the US. The view of the lesser party is still negotiated away in a governing coalition. So if the compromise is before the election or after the election is there really a difference? I don't think so. The American system is admittedly a little more gradual, but the effect is the same. So when a Ross Perot comes on the political scene what was the response? Both major parties moved to seize the Perot issues that they felt were most naturally their issues—this resulted in a move to the middle of American politics. Is it any wonder then that in 2000 the significant third parties were on the fringes? Perot's party became a party for an extreme version of Conservatism with the nomination of Pat Buchanan, the Greens produced an extreme brand of liberalism, and the Libertarians arguably mixed the individual liberty extremes conservative and liberal ideals. Where will the next move be? If the parties are smart they will try to compromise to bring in those extremes. There is evidence that the Democrats are doing just that. Green activists frustrated by electoral failure are returning to the campaign of the most liberal Democratic candidate—Howard Dean. I admit I am over-generalizing, but the trend is in this direction. Republicans on the other hand are still fighting the Ross Perot threat. Bush is moving to the middle in a way that carries a very high risk that conservatives will break away if he is not more careful. He hopes to keep them in place by cutting taxes, spending on national defense, and making statements against abortion. For me the chink in the armor is the spending. But there is the potential for more problems as the National Review points out.
Is there a solution? One of the problems that conservatives have is that if we left the GOP we would have a hard time organizing. Greens have a clear vision, as do Libertarians. How do you start a party around the ideology of: 'keep it old'? There are parties out there that have tried by focusing on one issue or another (peruse this list to find many of the parties). The interesting thing is that National Review founder Bill Buckley has established a pattern. As I understand the history, he was key to organizing the Conservative Party of New York State. Election laws in New York allow the Conservative Party to be on the ballot for every election for every office. Many times they simply nominate the Republican candidate to be their candidate and the votes for the candidate are summed across various party nominations in order to determine the vote. This has the effect of allowing the party influence to be known while still allowing the election to gain a consensus. It also has allowed the Conservative party to threaten to nominate another candidate if the Republican candidate ignores all conservative issues. Of course it still means that you end up with moderate Republicans but at least it is understood what the stakes are. Unfortunately, not all states have written their election rules in such a way as to make the New York model work everywhere. If conservatives are frustrated with Republicans, then we should make it our cause to replicate nationally what has been done in New York. Along the way we need to define Conservatism and find a way to include existing fringe Conservative parties if possible. And like the Conservative Party of New York we should recognize that the party we will most often negotiate with would continue to be the Republican Party. I challenge National Review to put their heart where their words are and start the effort—take the Conservative Party national.
Buzz Charts
I like this chart about the lack of inflation coming after cuts in income taxes (I also think it is worth taking a look at the website of the chart creator). Let me give my take on the real problem with the economy right now. Take a look at this article first. The problem is that the people who have lost jobs are disproportionately high-income college graduates. This has a numbing effect on the rest of the country. To begin with these people are disproportionately stock market investors who belong to the classification called 'upper middle class'--their stock market investments are largely retirement accounts. They have college degrees. They mostly jumped into computers in some way or another and their family members consider them the 'smart ones'. They earned high incomes and now that they are out of work they are willing to eat up savings, or run up debt, in order to wait for the right job rather than work at Wal-Mart. What impression does this behavior give family members? If my most successful sibling can't find a job, what should I conclude? How about the friend from high school who was doing well and now is unemployed? Is it any wonder that the stock market was hit so badly? The scary thing about this is that the fate of the economy can swing based on what economists call expectations. Simply put, if we all 'think' there is a recession our fears will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And on the political front? Because the actual unemployed people are already mostly Republican they are being patient with Bush. But if a Ross Perot appeared on the stage you can be sure that Bush would lose a lot of votes thus ensuring another Democratic minority mandate.
I like this chart about the lack of inflation coming after cuts in income taxes (I also think it is worth taking a look at the website of the chart creator). Let me give my take on the real problem with the economy right now. Take a look at this article first. The problem is that the people who have lost jobs are disproportionately high-income college graduates. This has a numbing effect on the rest of the country. To begin with these people are disproportionately stock market investors who belong to the classification called 'upper middle class'--their stock market investments are largely retirement accounts. They have college degrees. They mostly jumped into computers in some way or another and their family members consider them the 'smart ones'. They earned high incomes and now that they are out of work they are willing to eat up savings, or run up debt, in order to wait for the right job rather than work at Wal-Mart. What impression does this behavior give family members? If my most successful sibling can't find a job, what should I conclude? How about the friend from high school who was doing well and now is unemployed? Is it any wonder that the stock market was hit so badly? The scary thing about this is that the fate of the economy can swing based on what economists call expectations. Simply put, if we all 'think' there is a recession our fears will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And on the political front? Because the actual unemployed people are already mostly Republican they are being patient with Bush. But if a Ross Perot appeared on the stage you can be sure that Bush would lose a lot of votes thus ensuring another Democratic minority mandate.
Jul 9, 2003
Term Limits
About a month ago I read a piece by David Frum where he mentioned how he had come to be in favor of Congressional term limits. He credited a policy paper from the Cato Institution for his conversion. I took the invitation and read the paper--a very LONG paper. I agree that the paper is enlightening, but not to the same conclusion that it lead David Frum. The paper argues FOR term limits in order to increase Democracy, however I think the arguments used are weak.
A little background. Term limits, put simply, limit the number of terms an elected official can serve in the same office. My own journey on the issue of term limits really began when I realized that Ronald Reagan was term limited and Republicans would have to choose from a less than stellar field of candidates for replacement. It seemed the bitter fruits of a constitutional amendment after FDR's four terms. Politicians had reacted to FDR's virtual control on all power with a new rule to make it never happen again. While I am not sure of the historical arguments made at the time it would have been helpful for the policy paper to go back and contrast the history of that movement.
Admittedly, the policy paper only focuses on legislators by making the simple point that there is something inherently different about the executive and the legislature. I first started thinking specifically about Congressional term limits when Newt Gingrich included it in the Contract With America. As a Conservative Republican I was all for it. In my opinion it was a subtle rhetorical tool within the Contract. The message implied: 'throw the bums out!' And as a bonus, if we lost the 1994 Congressional Elections the message would be clear that had the rules of term limits been in place we would have won. This would further embolden party activists to stay involved. I was for it. I was tired of Democratic control of Congress. There seemed no way to defeat them in an election so I wanted a way to force the power brokers from power. But then we won the election.
In the years since many Congressional Republicans have retired because of a campaign promise they made to term limit themselves regardless. The irony to me has been that these have been the best, brightest, and most conservative members. Conservative in the sense that they understood that the power of the Federal Government and it's officials needed to be controlled. They understood that their word meant something. Yet, it was like unilateral disarmament. No career politicians retired out of shame to match the standard. And these great leaders have mostly disappeared into think tanks or Corporate America. Enforced term limits would have, of course, leveled the playing field and removed the career politicians but I stand by this: do we want to discard the good ones in order to rid ourselves of the bad ones? I for one do not.
The problem is clearly identified in the paper: entrenched legislators appear to wield a disproportionate influence on the outcome of legislative action. But, after reading the paper I am no longer convinced that term limits are the solution.
You see there is the possibility that the facts as presented are misleading. Sure there is no problem with the emotion that we should 'throw the bums out', but I am not convinced that the empirical data as presented proved any adverse effect to the voter electing the legislator.
The main data could be summarized as follows. Legislators seem to get more money appropriated as their length of service in legislative bodies increases. Further this increase is not just straight line—it appears to be exponential. On top of this there is evidence that long serving legislators fail to have strong opponents at election time in spite of not necessarily representing the true political position of the majority of voters they serve. Today we can see anecdotal evidence of both findings. Robert Byrd gets way more spending directed at West Virginia than is to be proportionately expected. Senators Kennedy, Helms, Thurmond, and Hollings might be examples of long serving legislators at political extremes relative to voters. And while the study did not take it this direction, one might sight choices like the choice voters made in South Dakota in 2002 in order to hopefully keep Senator Daschle in power in spite of being a Republican state.
The problems I see in the paper are as follows. It ignores the political reality of voter turnout. It does not address the question of whether or not term-limited legislatures have actually produced a result of less spending. It ignores the effect of one party states. And the argument is that the primary goal is to produce electoral egalitarianism, yet I wonder if this is really as democratic as argued.
The reality is that the electorate does not necessarily reflect the results of polls. If I ask all people if they favor X without asking the same people if they are voters I might distort the outcome. Furthermore, if I ask only the registered voters the same question without qualifying the likelihood that they actually WILL vote I once again can be in error. But, even if we assume that good methodologies were used in this respect, is it really inconsistent of a voter to want to get rid of the bums yet vote for their own legislator? This behavior can actually be consistent with the concept of acting in my own self-interest. Removing my ability to act in this way limits my freedom. Even ignoring this the political reality is that many voters are not aware of the positions of a politician. In fact, they vote based on the encouragement of political organizations that they trust. The ability of a politician to manipulate these organizations is most significant in legislative races where the district is not covered by natural media markets.
If term limits will produce less pork barrel spending then why not show actual evidence of this? In 1998 there may not have been enough data. But, today there should be evidence. I suspect that the data would not prove the hypothesis presented in the paper. Why? I think two seemingly unrelated points in the paper give us the answer. In one place the author argues that term limits will bring fresh faces into politics because more seats will be openly contested. This seems like a populist idea that I can favor. Yet, in another place in the paper the author responds to the complaint about losing experienced politicians to term limits by pointing out that experienced politicians simply exchange seats in different bodies when term limits take effect. Is there a contradiction here? Yes. Each body has fresh faces, but in terms of the overall political map the faces are all the same, only the offices have changed. This implies to me that there would be no difference in the pork barrel effect since party power and lobbyist power is a continuing effect regardless of particular office. It may be a little more complicated but I still can influence spending by calling in favors that extend over multiple offices served, thereby capitalizing on my experience. In effect the career politician is still a career politician. If this were not true there would be a strong disincentive for politicians to make office switches in spite of no term limits.
What about one party states or districts? This distorts the analysis in a way that the author failed to address. Something like 20-30% of politicians on either side of the aisle may be a believer in ideological principles. The other 40-60% of politicians are in politics because they love the stuff (my numbers are not empirical, but there is likely some true proportion like this). No matter what the 40-60% of politicians that are true believers will join the party most likely to reflect their views and will only be elected if they are either really charismatic or happen to live in a district that disproportionately has the same political views. The other politicians make a choice at some point in life. They choose a party based on the likelihood of election. In a two party state this means that they come down about half and half and you get interesting politicians who sometimes have a mixed bag of political views. These are prime targets for party jumping. In a one party state these politicians join the party in power in mass. This causes political distortions. The biggest distortion is that the party in power has greater influence on controlling the competitiveness of elections. The party can keep back strong primary challengers by awarding alternative positions of power from which to gain name recognition for future challenges. Meanwhile there is no hope for the opponent from the opposition party since there is little organization and voter registration follows the same pattern as the registration of politicians. Much analysis of Congressional elections shows that the reason incumbents do so well in reelection is because the party disproportionately controls that district and is able to control the internal competition. Very few districts have equal party registration and therefore are unlikely to offer a high level of competition. Because of this long serving incumbents are more than likely from a district that is non-competitive. The paper avoided looking for data on this. Short serving incumbents, the ones with the competitive elections, are more than likely from districts that are drawn to be competitive. The point being that a 98% reelection rate for House members is somewhat misleading. If anything it is not a case for term limits, since the party distribution would be the same and therefore ensure the same favors taking place, but a case for changing the way that we draw Congressional districts (I offer the contrast of Senate party control with that of House party control as evidence).
Which brings me to what is the real purpose of term limits. I will be honest. I was in favor in 1994 for one reason: I wanted to get rid of Democratic control of Congress by any means available. And more recently, until I read this paper, I was opposed since I like having Republicans in control (at least more than Democrats). No other reason. Nothing idealistic about that. But now I have a reason. The case in the paper is that it is needed to level the playing field for the voter. If we all have term-limited legislators then we will all have the same access to things like pork barrel and influence since there will not be experience disparities. But if that is the case why not adopt the model of one term only? Why not one political office during any citizen’s lifetime? Why is three terms in the House appropriate? The real argument is egalitarian in nature. I reject the notion that I can’t choose to accept a legislator that is not in 100% agreement with me and not be making a good decision. At the end of the day even blacks voted for Strom Thurmond. Why? Because they concluded that the issue of race was a big enough issue that Strom would never have enough power to independently influence, but he could have enough power to bring back the pork to South Carolina. Voters do this all the time. Why take away the freedom to make this choice? Why take away the advantage that this can offer to my district? When the paper was written in 1998 California had yet to complete the transition to term limits. Does anyone want to use their fiscal crisis today as an argument that term limits worked in either the legislature or the governorship? I personally think that term limits were irrelevant in this crisis, but what is relevant is that spending patterns did not trend downward with term limits, and I would guess pork barrel spending was no lower than without term limits. Furthermore, I would guess that there are still disparities, but that the disparities are more consistent with party distribution than with individual districts.
The case for term limits is a good one when you are left out of power. In power it is harder to buy. Is this hypocritical? Yes. I admit it. But, on principle a true conservative or libertarian should ask the question of why the founders left out a term limiting provision. They surely could see that long serving Members of Parliament and Prime Ministers in England had as bad an effect as the King. Surely the problem we see today is not a new problem for a Republic. I think that they believed that the separation of powers would solve this problem well enough. Or maybe they felt it was a necessary evil. Whatever the case may be the arguments in this paper are not compelling enough of a reason to undo what the founders put in place.
About a month ago I read a piece by David Frum where he mentioned how he had come to be in favor of Congressional term limits. He credited a policy paper from the Cato Institution for his conversion. I took the invitation and read the paper--a very LONG paper. I agree that the paper is enlightening, but not to the same conclusion that it lead David Frum. The paper argues FOR term limits in order to increase Democracy, however I think the arguments used are weak.
A little background. Term limits, put simply, limit the number of terms an elected official can serve in the same office. My own journey on the issue of term limits really began when I realized that Ronald Reagan was term limited and Republicans would have to choose from a less than stellar field of candidates for replacement. It seemed the bitter fruits of a constitutional amendment after FDR's four terms. Politicians had reacted to FDR's virtual control on all power with a new rule to make it never happen again. While I am not sure of the historical arguments made at the time it would have been helpful for the policy paper to go back and contrast the history of that movement.
Admittedly, the policy paper only focuses on legislators by making the simple point that there is something inherently different about the executive and the legislature. I first started thinking specifically about Congressional term limits when Newt Gingrich included it in the Contract With America. As a Conservative Republican I was all for it. In my opinion it was a subtle rhetorical tool within the Contract. The message implied: 'throw the bums out!' And as a bonus, if we lost the 1994 Congressional Elections the message would be clear that had the rules of term limits been in place we would have won. This would further embolden party activists to stay involved. I was for it. I was tired of Democratic control of Congress. There seemed no way to defeat them in an election so I wanted a way to force the power brokers from power. But then we won the election.
In the years since many Congressional Republicans have retired because of a campaign promise they made to term limit themselves regardless. The irony to me has been that these have been the best, brightest, and most conservative members. Conservative in the sense that they understood that the power of the Federal Government and it's officials needed to be controlled. They understood that their word meant something. Yet, it was like unilateral disarmament. No career politicians retired out of shame to match the standard. And these great leaders have mostly disappeared into think tanks or Corporate America. Enforced term limits would have, of course, leveled the playing field and removed the career politicians but I stand by this: do we want to discard the good ones in order to rid ourselves of the bad ones? I for one do not.
The problem is clearly identified in the paper: entrenched legislators appear to wield a disproportionate influence on the outcome of legislative action. But, after reading the paper I am no longer convinced that term limits are the solution.
You see there is the possibility that the facts as presented are misleading. Sure there is no problem with the emotion that we should 'throw the bums out', but I am not convinced that the empirical data as presented proved any adverse effect to the voter electing the legislator.
The main data could be summarized as follows. Legislators seem to get more money appropriated as their length of service in legislative bodies increases. Further this increase is not just straight line—it appears to be exponential. On top of this there is evidence that long serving legislators fail to have strong opponents at election time in spite of not necessarily representing the true political position of the majority of voters they serve. Today we can see anecdotal evidence of both findings. Robert Byrd gets way more spending directed at West Virginia than is to be proportionately expected. Senators Kennedy, Helms, Thurmond, and Hollings might be examples of long serving legislators at political extremes relative to voters. And while the study did not take it this direction, one might sight choices like the choice voters made in South Dakota in 2002 in order to hopefully keep Senator Daschle in power in spite of being a Republican state.
The problems I see in the paper are as follows. It ignores the political reality of voter turnout. It does not address the question of whether or not term-limited legislatures have actually produced a result of less spending. It ignores the effect of one party states. And the argument is that the primary goal is to produce electoral egalitarianism, yet I wonder if this is really as democratic as argued.
The reality is that the electorate does not necessarily reflect the results of polls. If I ask all people if they favor X without asking the same people if they are voters I might distort the outcome. Furthermore, if I ask only the registered voters the same question without qualifying the likelihood that they actually WILL vote I once again can be in error. But, even if we assume that good methodologies were used in this respect, is it really inconsistent of a voter to want to get rid of the bums yet vote for their own legislator? This behavior can actually be consistent with the concept of acting in my own self-interest. Removing my ability to act in this way limits my freedom. Even ignoring this the political reality is that many voters are not aware of the positions of a politician. In fact, they vote based on the encouragement of political organizations that they trust. The ability of a politician to manipulate these organizations is most significant in legislative races where the district is not covered by natural media markets.
If term limits will produce less pork barrel spending then why not show actual evidence of this? In 1998 there may not have been enough data. But, today there should be evidence. I suspect that the data would not prove the hypothesis presented in the paper. Why? I think two seemingly unrelated points in the paper give us the answer. In one place the author argues that term limits will bring fresh faces into politics because more seats will be openly contested. This seems like a populist idea that I can favor. Yet, in another place in the paper the author responds to the complaint about losing experienced politicians to term limits by pointing out that experienced politicians simply exchange seats in different bodies when term limits take effect. Is there a contradiction here? Yes. Each body has fresh faces, but in terms of the overall political map the faces are all the same, only the offices have changed. This implies to me that there would be no difference in the pork barrel effect since party power and lobbyist power is a continuing effect regardless of particular office. It may be a little more complicated but I still can influence spending by calling in favors that extend over multiple offices served, thereby capitalizing on my experience. In effect the career politician is still a career politician. If this were not true there would be a strong disincentive for politicians to make office switches in spite of no term limits.
What about one party states or districts? This distorts the analysis in a way that the author failed to address. Something like 20-30% of politicians on either side of the aisle may be a believer in ideological principles. The other 40-60% of politicians are in politics because they love the stuff (my numbers are not empirical, but there is likely some true proportion like this). No matter what the 40-60% of politicians that are true believers will join the party most likely to reflect their views and will only be elected if they are either really charismatic or happen to live in a district that disproportionately has the same political views. The other politicians make a choice at some point in life. They choose a party based on the likelihood of election. In a two party state this means that they come down about half and half and you get interesting politicians who sometimes have a mixed bag of political views. These are prime targets for party jumping. In a one party state these politicians join the party in power in mass. This causes political distortions. The biggest distortion is that the party in power has greater influence on controlling the competitiveness of elections. The party can keep back strong primary challengers by awarding alternative positions of power from which to gain name recognition for future challenges. Meanwhile there is no hope for the opponent from the opposition party since there is little organization and voter registration follows the same pattern as the registration of politicians. Much analysis of Congressional elections shows that the reason incumbents do so well in reelection is because the party disproportionately controls that district and is able to control the internal competition. Very few districts have equal party registration and therefore are unlikely to offer a high level of competition. Because of this long serving incumbents are more than likely from a district that is non-competitive. The paper avoided looking for data on this. Short serving incumbents, the ones with the competitive elections, are more than likely from districts that are drawn to be competitive. The point being that a 98% reelection rate for House members is somewhat misleading. If anything it is not a case for term limits, since the party distribution would be the same and therefore ensure the same favors taking place, but a case for changing the way that we draw Congressional districts (I offer the contrast of Senate party control with that of House party control as evidence).
Which brings me to what is the real purpose of term limits. I will be honest. I was in favor in 1994 for one reason: I wanted to get rid of Democratic control of Congress by any means available. And more recently, until I read this paper, I was opposed since I like having Republicans in control (at least more than Democrats). No other reason. Nothing idealistic about that. But now I have a reason. The case in the paper is that it is needed to level the playing field for the voter. If we all have term-limited legislators then we will all have the same access to things like pork barrel and influence since there will not be experience disparities. But if that is the case why not adopt the model of one term only? Why not one political office during any citizen’s lifetime? Why is three terms in the House appropriate? The real argument is egalitarian in nature. I reject the notion that I can’t choose to accept a legislator that is not in 100% agreement with me and not be making a good decision. At the end of the day even blacks voted for Strom Thurmond. Why? Because they concluded that the issue of race was a big enough issue that Strom would never have enough power to independently influence, but he could have enough power to bring back the pork to South Carolina. Voters do this all the time. Why take away the freedom to make this choice? Why take away the advantage that this can offer to my district? When the paper was written in 1998 California had yet to complete the transition to term limits. Does anyone want to use their fiscal crisis today as an argument that term limits worked in either the legislature or the governorship? I personally think that term limits were irrelevant in this crisis, but what is relevant is that spending patterns did not trend downward with term limits, and I would guess pork barrel spending was no lower than without term limits. Furthermore, I would guess that there are still disparities, but that the disparities are more consistent with party distribution than with individual districts.
The case for term limits is a good one when you are left out of power. In power it is harder to buy. Is this hypocritical? Yes. I admit it. But, on principle a true conservative or libertarian should ask the question of why the founders left out a term limiting provision. They surely could see that long serving Members of Parliament and Prime Ministers in England had as bad an effect as the King. Surely the problem we see today is not a new problem for a Republic. I think that they believed that the separation of powers would solve this problem well enough. Or maybe they felt it was a necessary evil. Whatever the case may be the arguments in this paper are not compelling enough of a reason to undo what the founders put in place.
Jul 8, 2003
Democracy
There is often a quip made about how democracy is like sausage -- if you saw how it was made you wouldn't eat it. I think this gets thrown around far too often without anyone really pondering the metaphor. Would I really not eat sausage? Okay, they grind up meat, fat, ligaments, cartilage, and just about anything that is left over after they make all the expensive cuts of beef, pork, turkey, etc. They then take that meat and stuff it in a cleaned out intestine after adding whatever seasoning and coloring is necessary to make it have it's final appearance and taste. Now it is demystified, do you really not want to eat it? I still eat it. The point is that I don't mind looking under the hood (oops, I'm mixing metaphors). I realize that there is a process of give and take that produces final results. In fact, understanding the messy process that politics is, makes me more patient with some of the dumb compromises that are produced. Sure, like some kinds of sausage, I do not like some of the outcomes, but that doesn't make me sick about the process.
Let's take for example the current legislation on Medicare reform and a prescription drug benefit. At the end of the day this can only pass if there is a compromise with some Democrats. The thing is a mess. I don't like it. But, I don't like it because I long ago decided that it didn't matter what the flavor of the sausage was, I would not like Medicare reform. Too many Conservatives are bemoaning the process when in reality it is the flavor of sausage that is bad.
Why? Because it is a mistake.
The government should never have been in the business of ensuring medical coverage to anyone. Sure, we don't want old SICK people wandering the streets. But, medical coverage was once a pay as you get sick proposition, then someone came up with the idea of insurance against the bad things, and somewhere along the way it was discovered that it was not a good financial proposition for businesses to sell insurance to old people. After all, they tend to get sick and suffer from bad things like cancer and heart problems at relatively high rates. People felt bad for the old folks and decided that we should care for them. While not a bad motive, it was a bad idea. A young person like myself wonders: 'how did all the old people get along before Medicare?' It appears that they simply passed away, skipping the expensive procedures, or relied on family members to care for them.
Does the government have to solve everything? That is the real problem. At least Liberals are honest--they want the government to solve everything and they campaign on this. Granted many of them lose the vision and try to act like they care about deficits or personal liberties or something else. But at the end of the day they want to solve problems with government solutions. They are convinced that they can fix anything with a law and some money.
I attended a high school that was famous for having some really rough and tough students. Our football team would literally kick ass every year, as did our wrestling team. Sports that did not depend on brute force, like baseball and men's volleyball, were somewhat less successful. Granted we were also famous for our high school marching band, but we had to do something with all the nerds. Anyway, after one particular football game, where we beat the snot out of the opponent, some dumb students decided to stone the opposing teams bus. They also stoned the other teams band bus. Some kids got hurt. Existing rules were put into place to punish our school. Most notably, we were banned from playing night games. It all seemed appropriate and the principle suspended the offenders (who by the way were mad because they had been kicked out of the game by school officials for drunkenness, etc.). The State Representative from the district where the stoned high school was from proposed legislation to require that the state guarantee the safety of all students. Students from the victimized high school appeared to testify for the bill. I was a legislative intern and organized some of our own students to testify against this measure (yes, all the band nerds). I give the entire back-story to make two points. The State Representative was desperate to look like she was doing "something" to protect the people of her district. There was a problem, and she was going to solve it. But the problem was already dealt with. There was no need to do anything. Fortunately, the legislation died.
Like Bob the Builder, if there is a problem Liberals can fix it. This was the crux of the liberal democratic coalition that FDR used to build his tent. LBJ successfully added new groups under the tent with the only requirement for entry being suffering at the hands of tradition. Medicare is the offspring of the orgy in that tent. I may be mixing all kinds of metaphors again, but the point is simply that Medicare was meant to fix things.
Politicians like to show voters that they are doing something. This is why Liberals and being lifelong politicians are such a natural match. The problem is for Republicans. Conservatives don't think that government should try to fix every problem. We realize that there will be some suffering along the way, but we hesitant to disrupt existing systems. We elect Republicans, but we are not enough in numbers that the Republican politician can simply sit in Congress and vote no on every measure and hope to be reelected. The swing moderate voters out there would interpret that as Republicans doing nothing.
This was the electoral secret to Newt Gingrinch's Contract with America. It was a plan for doing SOMETHING. For 30 years voters went to the polls and were faced with a choice. Liberal Tom says he will do something, Conservative Bob says there is nothing to do. But I would like to see the freeway expanded and that takes money... hmmmmm... I guess I will vote for the Liberal and hope that he doesn't get out of control. It goes a lot deeper than this, but let's go on. Newt came along and proposed an agenda for doing SOMETHING. Voters now had a reason to vote for Republicans and the landscape changed.
Let's look at another example. Why are Republicans so sure that Ross Perot voters would have mostly voted Republican? Because Ross Perot was not pushing a Liberal agenda, but an agenda period. He wanted to do something, but he seemed grounded in much of the same vision that the Contract with America espoused.
Consequently, the smart Republicans find a way to appear active in doing SOMETHING. Today Bush is ready to sign anything on Medicare so that come election time he can prove that he has done SOMETHING. Tax cuts are something as well. His tax cuts have never been about sound theory, just about doing something. Organizing the Department of Homeland Security? Doing something.
The problem is that there are consequences to doing something. There are costs. Which brings me back to the real point. Medicare was a bad idea to begin with. To make changes to the system here or there is just like debating whether to build a skyscraper with 50 stories or 60 stories. If the skyscraper is a bad idea it doesn't matter how many stories it has.
Medicare is bad idea because it distorts the economy. It distorts the investment in medical research. A simple example of this distortion. There would be little discussion about Do Not Resuscitate orders and assisted suicide if there was no Medicare. Simply put, many elderly people would conclude that their time has come and they would simply not go to the hospital. Is this harsh? Absolutely. But by making the point to spend as much as possible to save the oldest people we then created a new moral dilemma about when to stop. Why not remove the distortion and allow the individual to conclude that it is not worth the financial burden to family? As it is there is no reason for an elderly person to worry about a burden on people they love since the costs are diffused to the point that the family considers the Medicare a right.
And what does this have to do with the sausage? I can't expect President Bush to resist the temptation to improve the sausage. But at the end of the day I don't like the sausage--no matter the flavor enhancement.
There is often a quip made about how democracy is like sausage -- if you saw how it was made you wouldn't eat it. I think this gets thrown around far too often without anyone really pondering the metaphor. Would I really not eat sausage? Okay, they grind up meat, fat, ligaments, cartilage, and just about anything that is left over after they make all the expensive cuts of beef, pork, turkey, etc. They then take that meat and stuff it in a cleaned out intestine after adding whatever seasoning and coloring is necessary to make it have it's final appearance and taste. Now it is demystified, do you really not want to eat it? I still eat it. The point is that I don't mind looking under the hood (oops, I'm mixing metaphors). I realize that there is a process of give and take that produces final results. In fact, understanding the messy process that politics is, makes me more patient with some of the dumb compromises that are produced. Sure, like some kinds of sausage, I do not like some of the outcomes, but that doesn't make me sick about the process.
Let's take for example the current legislation on Medicare reform and a prescription drug benefit. At the end of the day this can only pass if there is a compromise with some Democrats. The thing is a mess. I don't like it. But, I don't like it because I long ago decided that it didn't matter what the flavor of the sausage was, I would not like Medicare reform. Too many Conservatives are bemoaning the process when in reality it is the flavor of sausage that is bad.
Why? Because it is a mistake.
The government should never have been in the business of ensuring medical coverage to anyone. Sure, we don't want old SICK people wandering the streets. But, medical coverage was once a pay as you get sick proposition, then someone came up with the idea of insurance against the bad things, and somewhere along the way it was discovered that it was not a good financial proposition for businesses to sell insurance to old people. After all, they tend to get sick and suffer from bad things like cancer and heart problems at relatively high rates. People felt bad for the old folks and decided that we should care for them. While not a bad motive, it was a bad idea. A young person like myself wonders: 'how did all the old people get along before Medicare?' It appears that they simply passed away, skipping the expensive procedures, or relied on family members to care for them.
Does the government have to solve everything? That is the real problem. At least Liberals are honest--they want the government to solve everything and they campaign on this. Granted many of them lose the vision and try to act like they care about deficits or personal liberties or something else. But at the end of the day they want to solve problems with government solutions. They are convinced that they can fix anything with a law and some money.
I attended a high school that was famous for having some really rough and tough students. Our football team would literally kick ass every year, as did our wrestling team. Sports that did not depend on brute force, like baseball and men's volleyball, were somewhat less successful. Granted we were also famous for our high school marching band, but we had to do something with all the nerds. Anyway, after one particular football game, where we beat the snot out of the opponent, some dumb students decided to stone the opposing teams bus. They also stoned the other teams band bus. Some kids got hurt. Existing rules were put into place to punish our school. Most notably, we were banned from playing night games. It all seemed appropriate and the principle suspended the offenders (who by the way were mad because they had been kicked out of the game by school officials for drunkenness, etc.). The State Representative from the district where the stoned high school was from proposed legislation to require that the state guarantee the safety of all students. Students from the victimized high school appeared to testify for the bill. I was a legislative intern and organized some of our own students to testify against this measure (yes, all the band nerds). I give the entire back-story to make two points. The State Representative was desperate to look like she was doing "something" to protect the people of her district. There was a problem, and she was going to solve it. But the problem was already dealt with. There was no need to do anything. Fortunately, the legislation died.
Like Bob the Builder, if there is a problem Liberals can fix it. This was the crux of the liberal democratic coalition that FDR used to build his tent. LBJ successfully added new groups under the tent with the only requirement for entry being suffering at the hands of tradition. Medicare is the offspring of the orgy in that tent. I may be mixing all kinds of metaphors again, but the point is simply that Medicare was meant to fix things.
Politicians like to show voters that they are doing something. This is why Liberals and being lifelong politicians are such a natural match. The problem is for Republicans. Conservatives don't think that government should try to fix every problem. We realize that there will be some suffering along the way, but we hesitant to disrupt existing systems. We elect Republicans, but we are not enough in numbers that the Republican politician can simply sit in Congress and vote no on every measure and hope to be reelected. The swing moderate voters out there would interpret that as Republicans doing nothing.
This was the electoral secret to Newt Gingrinch's Contract with America. It was a plan for doing SOMETHING. For 30 years voters went to the polls and were faced with a choice. Liberal Tom says he will do something, Conservative Bob says there is nothing to do. But I would like to see the freeway expanded and that takes money... hmmmmm... I guess I will vote for the Liberal and hope that he doesn't get out of control. It goes a lot deeper than this, but let's go on. Newt came along and proposed an agenda for doing SOMETHING. Voters now had a reason to vote for Republicans and the landscape changed.
Let's look at another example. Why are Republicans so sure that Ross Perot voters would have mostly voted Republican? Because Ross Perot was not pushing a Liberal agenda, but an agenda period. He wanted to do something, but he seemed grounded in much of the same vision that the Contract with America espoused.
Consequently, the smart Republicans find a way to appear active in doing SOMETHING. Today Bush is ready to sign anything on Medicare so that come election time he can prove that he has done SOMETHING. Tax cuts are something as well. His tax cuts have never been about sound theory, just about doing something. Organizing the Department of Homeland Security? Doing something.
The problem is that there are consequences to doing something. There are costs. Which brings me back to the real point. Medicare was a bad idea to begin with. To make changes to the system here or there is just like debating whether to build a skyscraper with 50 stories or 60 stories. If the skyscraper is a bad idea it doesn't matter how many stories it has.
Medicare is bad idea because it distorts the economy. It distorts the investment in medical research. A simple example of this distortion. There would be little discussion about Do Not Resuscitate orders and assisted suicide if there was no Medicare. Simply put, many elderly people would conclude that their time has come and they would simply not go to the hospital. Is this harsh? Absolutely. But by making the point to spend as much as possible to save the oldest people we then created a new moral dilemma about when to stop. Why not remove the distortion and allow the individual to conclude that it is not worth the financial burden to family? As it is there is no reason for an elderly person to worry about a burden on people they love since the costs are diffused to the point that the family considers the Medicare a right.
And what does this have to do with the sausage? I can't expect President Bush to resist the temptation to improve the sausage. But at the end of the day I don't like the sausage--no matter the flavor enhancement.
Jul 3, 2003
Independence Day
I love this country.
Two days ago I met a co-worker who left the Former Soviet Union 12 years ago and came to America. She misses home and made the comment that somehow her mind likes to only remember the good things about Ukraine. But, is she happy here? An emphatic yes.
My wife is an immigrant. A few years ago we attended her swearing in ceremony. The hall was filled to capacity with new Americans with their family and friends in attendance. When the National Anthem was sung my wife noticed a new citizen near her crying--he was not the only one.
A few years ago I was putting my garbage and recycling out. A Vietnamese man came along on a bike and asked if he could rummage through my recycling. I said sure. We talked and he introduced himself as a former officer in the South Vietnamese Army. What did he think of America? He loved it.
I was in a taxi once with a taxi driver from the Sudan. In his motherland he was the CFO of a company. In America he is a taxi driver--he loves America.
Each of these stories are about people who have voted with their actions to declare that America is a great place. I know from witnessing my wife's experience that it is not easy to leave familiar surroundings and come to a new country. But, I also know that there is a lot about this country to like.
When I think of what America is, I see a country where ideals and dreams are able to become reality. We are wealthy and we are free. I am grateful to be here and I hope that I can do my part to share the blessings of this country with the rest of the world. Pursue your dream and you too will improve this country and improve the world.
Happy Birthday America!
I love this country.
Two days ago I met a co-worker who left the Former Soviet Union 12 years ago and came to America. She misses home and made the comment that somehow her mind likes to only remember the good things about Ukraine. But, is she happy here? An emphatic yes.
My wife is an immigrant. A few years ago we attended her swearing in ceremony. The hall was filled to capacity with new Americans with their family and friends in attendance. When the National Anthem was sung my wife noticed a new citizen near her crying--he was not the only one.
A few years ago I was putting my garbage and recycling out. A Vietnamese man came along on a bike and asked if he could rummage through my recycling. I said sure. We talked and he introduced himself as a former officer in the South Vietnamese Army. What did he think of America? He loved it.
I was in a taxi once with a taxi driver from the Sudan. In his motherland he was the CFO of a company. In America he is a taxi driver--he loves America.
Each of these stories are about people who have voted with their actions to declare that America is a great place. I know from witnessing my wife's experience that it is not easy to leave familiar surroundings and come to a new country. But, I also know that there is a lot about this country to like.
When I think of what America is, I see a country where ideals and dreams are able to become reality. We are wealthy and we are free. I am grateful to be here and I hope that I can do my part to share the blessings of this country with the rest of the world. Pursue your dream and you too will improve this country and improve the world.
Happy Birthday America!
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