A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
English proverb
Sunday Talk Soup
I don't intend to turn this blog into a partisan rant; in fact, as any faithful reader knows, I have been sharply critical of Republicans and media conservatives: I have an Eisenhower skepticism of the military-industrial complex, I believe in cutting budgets until it hurts, and when it comes to the federal government, I believe in minimalism, manageability and simplicity. I am by nature a problem solver; I do have core conservative principles, but I operate in a practical world with competing interests. But there are some things that drive me up the wall, and I don't care if it's Nancy Pelosi or Sarah Palin: I strongly dislike political spin, posturing and talking points.
Failed Presidential candidate John Kerry (D-MA) made yet another appearance in Meet the Press, and it was more of the usual ideological talking points about the GOP holding the tax cuts "hostage", how Obama inherited the "worst crisis" ever, etc. I'm not going to repeat Kerry's predictable partisan rant, which was not original, merely a stitched together medley of familiar talking points we've heard literally hundreds of times before by Obama, Pelosi and others; the broadcast is available via an iTunes video podcast. Refuting Kerry chapter and verse is not worth my time and effort because I've already addressed each point multiple times in over 700 posts to this blog. But I get fed up with David Gregory's feeble attempts to cross-examine progressives like Kerry, not to mention Republicans (including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) whom also talk political spin and have a difficult time translating the GOP case in practical terms.
First of all, Mr. Kerry: let's deal with your preposterous charge that the GOP is holding the tax cuts "hostage". The fact of the matter is that President Obama, you and the rest of the super-majority in charge of the Congress and the White House at the beginning of 2009 knew that the tax cuts were expiring at the end of this year. You had only 40 GOP senators in opposition and at least 3 of those (Specter, Collins, and Snowe) would probably have gone with making the middle class tax cuts permanent (for some minor concessions) at the time; but you felt, like a procrastinating student, you could wait until the last minute and the winds would be at your back. Never mind the fact that Obama's "95% tax cut" promise was at risk. No, you had to do a super-sized stimulus, health care, climate change, and every other pent-up Democratic legislative priority; the delayed priority may have still worked if the stimulus had worked as advertised. A second tactic would have been to push this initiative through the budget reconciliation process, but the Democrats were obsessed with using the process to pass health care "reform".
The fact is, and even Kerry's rewriting history cannot hide it, the expiration period was a Republican concession to win bipartisan approval, and the Republicans tried--and failed--to make all the cuts permanent before the 2006 elections, handing control of the Congress to Democrats.
The progressive Democrats never wanted the tax cuts for upper tax brackets in the first place, despite the fact that the top wage earners pay twice the tax burden relative to their share of national income. And they go through polemical analysis trying to preposterously scapegoat Bush for the struggling economy over the past decade. The Fed has a lot more direct influence over the economy, and the chairs over the past generation, Greenspan and Bernanke, were both nominated both by Republican and Democratic Presidents. The GSE duopoly, implicitly guaranteed by the US taxpayers, had gained a dominant position at the expense of the private sector, expanding under decades of Democratic control over Congress, which also pushed for approvals of nontraditional, risky loans as deliberate policy, which contributed to the real estate bubble (along with easy month policy from the Fed). Banking, in fact, is one of mostly regulated businesses, and the failure to assess systemic risk was shared by multiple parties. The real estate bubble started under the Clinton Administration; Bush also inherited the bursting of the stock market and an implosion of one of the crown jewels of the American economy: the high tech sector where purchases, borrowing from the Bush years, were accelerated into the latter years of the Clinton Administration as companies booked duplicate orders to guarantee fulfillment, misleadingly affecting business growth projections. Then came the 9/11 and the corporate scandals which also had their roots during the Clinton Administration and a manic stock market. Not to mention that there have been structural changes where certain types of manufacturing were no longer competitive, i.e., low-skill labor became more of a commodity in the global marketplace.
Am I saying that Bush didn't make mistakes? No. He vastly increased domestic spending, which I believe was probably an attempt to co-opt the Democratic opposition; he aided and abetted federal empire building (e.g., TSA and Homeland Security) and instituted unsustainable pay raises and bonuses for federal workers; he did not use the veto to keep federal spending under control; he instituted a massive new entitlement (Medicare prescription drugs) without proper funding; he played budget games with war spending; and he didn't bring to Washington the same kind of bipartisan deal making that marked his 6-year tenure as Texas governor. However, the Democratic criticisms of Bush's record are disingenuous and politically convenient; in fact, while criticizing Bush's fiscal record, they gloss over the indisputable facts that they wanted MORE spending, not LESS spending (on nearly every part of the federal budget except perhaps for national defense)
Going back to Kerry's talking points, the GOP insistence on extending ALL the Bush era tax cuts is nothing new, not some last-second obstacle; it has been GOP policy for the last several years. What we are talking about is not the GOP holding tax cuts (actually, a continuation of tax policy over the past decade) "hostage"; we are talking about a political party (the Democrats) pushing a partisan bill (once again), refusing to bargain in good faith with the Republicans, just weeks after the biggest House turnover in 70 years. The issue is not about whether or not the 2% need the extra income related to the 4.6 points; it has to do with the adverse effect of marginal tax increases on economic growth and investment, which are directly related to private sector expansion (including job growth).
The Democrats are trying to push unemployment compensation out of fresh federal debt (once again) instead of using unallocated 2009 stimulus funds. Doesn't anyone remember the Jim Bunning kerfuffle just a few months ago over precisely the same issue? (The Republicans also have principled objections regarding the amount and tenure of unemployment compensation, based on moral hazard.)
The bottom line is that Democrats, as has been the custom over the past 2 years, are continuing to try to ram partisan bills down the nation's throat and crying foul because the GOP, a month away from taking power in the House of Representatives, objects to it. The fact that the GOP is blocking partisan measures is nothing new; in fact, Obama and the rest of the Democrats have constantly harped on cohesive GOP opposition. The record shows that the Republicans have provided significant bipartisan support to several major Democratic-sponsored initiatives (e.g., Medicare and civil rights). I argue that the unified GOP opposition has more to do with process, a conscious and deliberate attempt by the Dems to run up the score with minimal, if any, political concessions while they've had huge majorities in Congress.
Finally, Mr. Kerry, it's time to man up. The American people are sick and tired of the same old, same old excuses over lack of performance on the economic front, which was job #1 after the 2008 election. The President and the Democrats sold the nation that a massive stimulus that only disbursed a small fraction over its first 6 months would be economic Miracle Grow. The President, in the middle of one of the toughest recessions, consciously made a decision not to hire experienced businessmen into his administration. The Democrats argued transfer payments and bailouts were stimuluses and subsidy-intensive green initiatives and overly expensive boondoggles like high-speed trains were the way to go, not broad-based initiatives. They bailed out GM and Chrysler on the grounds of being a previously undeclared "too-big-to-fail" (while, of course, the banks got read the riot act)--no doubt the fact that the auto companies employ union members played a prominent part.
No, the only "solution" the Democrats have provided to date is adding over $3T to the national debt over the past 2 years and one of the weakest job creation records following a recession on record. They want to blame Bush for their own lack of performance, which is utterly pathetic; as the saying goes, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. They "underestimated" how tough it would be? As sports announcers would say, let's go to the video tape--Obama pushed the stimulus in February 2009, saying we couldn't afford to do nothing; he repeatedly talked down the economy during his first several weeks in office, obviously trying to set voter expectations. But it wasn't the first time we've seen a housing bubble and correction, Obama didn't inherit the tsunami itself but its aftermath (with a fully functioning banking system), and he didn't inherit 21% interest rates. What Obama and the Dems did was to engage in picking winners and losers, threaten tax increases and new mandates and regulations on high-income individuals and businesses, attack businesses for "greed", manipulate the bankruptcy courts, ban offshore drilling (using one of the few offshore oil well failures in years to justify), etc. And they can't explain why American businesses look to invest abroad (with much lower business taxes and a more business-friendly government--go figure!)
What would have worked? Think of everything the Obama Presidency has done and reverse it: don't pick winners and losers, don't hassle businesses from their core functions, make business taxes more globally competitive, cut down uncertainty over things like 2011 tax rates, limit spending, streamline operations, etc.
California's Attempt to Regulate Video Game Sales? Thumbs DOWN!
My nephews, when they were younger, were disappointed in their uncle: they were singularly proud of their video game exploits, but to be frank, games bore me silly. I was mildly amused when Pong and Breakout were the rage, but as I write this, I haven't played a PC game for months.
Around election day, the Supreme Court heard arguments on appeal from the State of California, which in 2005 passed into law age-based restrictions on the purchases of video games featuring violence. This has long been a cherished goal of progressives, based on dubious research. In fact, the video game industry has established a rating standard which is more effective in deterring purchases or rentals by minors than similar ones developed for music CD's. Intermediate courts (rightly) held that the restrictions violate the First Amendment, pointing out no comparable restrictions in other media (e.g., novels) and adult materials had traditionally been restricted.
I'm not going to debate the subjectivity of classifying pornography, the merits of obscenity guidelines or statistically relevant links between pornography and criminal sex behavior; but I don't believe in progressive empire building to regulate the private behavior of other people. George Wills, one of my favorite conservative commentators, wrote a recent relevant column where he discussed a history of similar moral panics wanting to establish restrictions on comic books, music, and other media. I find it hard to believe that the Supreme Court would want to open Pandora's box, go down the slippery slope to all sorts of new restrictions on individual liberties.
Political Humor
`I am writing a cable about [meeting so many talented people], which I'm sure you'll find soon on your closest website." - Hillary Clinton, joking at a State Department Social for Kennedy Center Honorees with an obvious reference to the WikiLeaks exposure
[Bill Clinton just learned that Julian Assange has been charged with rape for allegedly having consensual sex without using a condom in Sweden. Bill made a mental note not to visit Sweden in the future...]
An original:
- Jay Leno has a running joke about how fat and lazy Americans have become. For instance, he mention of a drink Krispy Kreme was test-marketing that tasted just like its famous doughnuts; how lazy are we that we don't even bother having to chew our doughnuts? So I'm waiting for Jay to follow up with a remark about NASA's announcement last week it had found alien microbes in a California lake mud using arsenic (versus phosphorus) as a building block. I mean, how lazy do we have to be to find aliens without even going outside our own orbit?
Musical Interlude: Holiday Tunes.
Barbra Streisand, "Sleep in Heavenly Peace (Silent Night)". One of my sisters once characterized my taste in music by explicitly referencing Barbra Streisand. Please... The lamest verse in the history of pop music: "Love, soft as an easy chair..." I didn't even realize until recently she had released a second Christmas album in 2001. I used to be a fan of Barbra Streisand (and, for that matter, Bruce Springsteen) until she started using her celebrity status to promote her boorish, strident, predictable political views (pervasive on most college campuses). If my blog attracts readership, it's because of content and word of mouth, not based on my own scholarly work. But the fact remains that the lady has great pipes, and I judge vocal performance on its merits...
When I looked for an embeddable Youtube video of this song, from one of the first (if not the first) Christmas albums I ever purchased, I was put off by posted predictable critical comments referencing Barbra's Jewish heritage (from both sides) and her singing this tender carol. There is something universal and timeless over the celebration of new life and the future, in a simple lullaby. As a Christian, I honor and respect Streisand's religious roots, and she performed the song respectfully and beautifully.
