Obama reportedly in his State of the Union address tonight will call for a freeze in domestic discretionary spending over the coming 3 years. "Sheer madness!" screams liberal "Nobel Laureate" economist Paul "Enron Consultant" Krugman. Doesn't he realize you don't dampen demand (i.e., by cutting federal spending) in the middle of a recession? Cool your jets, Krugman. That $15 extra per paycheck for the so-called stimulus bill and this fiscal year's double-digit percentage increases in federal agency budgets (as the same time households and state/local governments are having to live within their budgets) haven't done much for the economy, except increase the amount of interest necessary to service the national debt, a cost that is literally hundreds of billions of dollars, and perhaps crowd out investment dollars which could go to the private sector instead of propping up progressive policy overspending. If Krugman wants to start about streamlining government operations, laying off white-collar/non-operational positions in the federal bureaucracy, shuttering redundant facilities and offices, freezing government compensation, and revising unsustainable gold-plated federal government worker plans, I'm willing to listen (I don't expect to hear him champion this approach). (Krugman does float one interesting idea, which is to cut business employee-related tax burden, although I would argue a permanent payroll tax cut is a better concept because job creators do not respond to what they regard as temporary/teaser tax gimmicks.)
But Obama is talking about freezing $477B out of a $3.5T budget, roughly 14% of the budget. Keep in mind that keeps a baked-in ongoing trillion dollar deficit (and even assuming the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the current year, we are still looking at roughly half that amount as a permanent deficit--not to mention, is it really smart economics, if unemployment remains sticky for the rest of the year, to allow taxes on job creators to be automatically raised at the end of the year?) Say, if we're talking about holding agencies to their same budget numbers next fiscal year instead of, say, a 4% increase, 477*.04=$19B savings. If Obama really expects American voters to believe that $19B in the face of a $1T deficit constitutes his best effort at squeezing savings out of a bloated budget, I would like to sell those voters a Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska.
Keep in mind the progressive Democratic Congress had already been extraordinarily generous in their omnibudget for the current fiscal year, allowing some agencies up to double-digit percentage increases. Obama putting the domestic budget on a diet after this year's record budget is sort of like an obese person deciding to have a Lean Cuisine for lunch after eating a (swimming champion) Michael Phelps breakfast ("three sandwiches of fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, mayonnaise, an omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, and three chocolate-chip pancakes"). The response of the true fiscal conservative is not simply to stabilize the diet of a top-heavy bureaucracy: the agencies need to lose to lose some weight, i.e., should restrict normal calorie intake (smaller budgets and reduced staffing) and do some exercises (become more productive).
But I see it more cynically than that. I see Barack Obama as simply trying to pay lip service in a political version of Democratic good cop/bad cop, knowing that his partisan progressive colleagues have no intention of backing away from their strongest hand in decades to permanently expand the federal government footprint. They are more than willing to sacrifice centrist colleagues, e.g., the Blue Dog Dems. The progressive intent is very clear: despite resistance to previous entitlement legislation (e.g., social security and Medicare), these programs have become the sacred cows of American politics, with even modest reforms (like recalibrating increases to inflation versus labor costs) rejected, despite a collapsing ratio of active workers to retirees and actuarial considerations (e.g., increased longevity). That is why the Democratic Party Health Care Bill is so important to the statist progressives: once you have people dependent on federal programs, it's very difficult to get them weaned off. Look at how hard it was to get welfare reform passed; it took the 1994 election, restoring control of the House to Republicans for the first time in decades, to get Clinton to consider signing the legislation, and that remains a sore point within the progressive community today.
Reagan and subsequent Republicans have been unable or unwilling to simplify administrative structures (e.g., after Jimmy Carter and the Democrats split off energy and education). For example, it isn't clear to me conceptually why we need separate departments of energy, transportation and the interior; departments of defense, veteran affairs, and homeland security; departments of agriculture, commerce, and labor; or departments of health and urban services, housing and urban development, and education. It would take a politicians with profiles in courage and my strong commitment, willing to take on inevitable unpopularity (e.g., who empathizes with the business owner having to lay off workers when a company is losing money?) and demagogic attacks by ideologues to do the right thing on behalf of future generations. It's about time we saw politicians with guts to say "no".
Another Example of Obama Phony Fiscal Conservatism:
Freezing Pay of White House $100K-plus Officials
It sounds good on paper: Obama, for the second year in a row, will freeze salaries for roughly 1200 White House officials and negate bonuses for probably up to an estimated additional 1800 bureaucrats. The missing part of the picture which listeners to the State of the Union Address may not realize is what Obama, of course, does not mention at all:
Courtesy of USA Today & OPM Data
So there are over 380,000 federal government workers earning at least $100K getting regular/step increases in pay (and possibly merit bonuses or raises), Cadillac health care plans, virtually guaranteed job security, and gold-plated retirement benefits, while private-sector companies have had to lay off workers, freeze or cut pay and bonuses, and lower 401K employer matches. Obama's "pay freeze" is little more than a cynical, misleading politically symbolic act which I regard as a progressive decoy tactic in class warfare. Obama's lip service to fiscal conservatism insults the intelligence of the American people.
I personally despise Obama's nuanced positions, just like (see above) where he freezes a FRACTION of total government expenditures, expecting voters to infer he is making more than a token effort, or he'll offer investment tax cuts for certain small businesses which blatantly violate the concept of the rule of law. One of the things I hope that the GOP will seriously consider in this fall's election is making complexity of government--manifestly obvious to most taxpayers in increasingly convoluted tax returns--an issue.
Political Cartoon
John Deering points out the fact that (just like in closing Gitmo), the devil (of health care reform) is in the details. No doubt "math is hard" not only for Barbie, but for progressives, not only in calculating glacier meltdowns but also for the Obama Administration members on Sunday talk shows giving different numbers on jobs "saved" or "created" by the ineffectual, so-called stimulus bill. (Simple math problem: divide $787B by the number of jobs saved/created; compare to the average American household income. How efficiently does government make jobs versus legitimate job creation in the private sector?)
Musical Interlude: My Favorite George Harrison Tunes
I continue my Beatles' series with guitarist George Harrison, starting with my personal favorite Beatles' song he wrote and recorded, "Something". [There is a second Harrison-penned song which will be included in a future Beatles interlude segment.] I first sang it with my high school choir, but in particular, I remember one night when a girlfriend came over to my place, the song came over the radio, and I sang it to her; there was something magical about that moment in time. I was also a fan of his post-Beatles' projects; I really like the simple love song "You" (awesome bridge and sax), and my beautiful niece Claire, as a little girl, loved to dance to "Got My Mind Set on You", but if you ask me for my favorite...
The Beatles, "Something"
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe her now
Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
Don't want to leave her now
You know I believe her now
You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around now it may show
I don't know, I don't know
Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
Don't want to leave her now
You know I believe her now
Harrison, "What is Life"
What is Life
What I feel, I can't say
But my love is there for you anytime of day
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make everything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What I know, I can do
If I give my love now to everyone like you
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make ev'rything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What I feel, I can't say
But my love is there for you any time of day
But if it's not love that you need
Then I'll try my best to make everything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
(fade:)
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me who am I without you by my side
