Quote of the Day
There is just one life for each of us: our own.
Euripides
Josh Kraushaar, National Journal, "That Vision Thing": Thumbs UP!
The "vision thing" was made famous by George H.W. Bush. If anyone had "the resume" to be President over the past 50 years, Bush had it: a genuine WWII hero, a successful (millionaire) self-made businessman, Congressman, UN Ambassador, diplomat to China, CIA director and two-term Vice President. During the 1988 GOP Presidential campaign, there was general sense of Bush having paid his dues. The Reaganites, of course, never ever fully forgave him for classifying Reagan's supply-side economics as "voodoo economics"; although Texas Democrats characterized Bush as an extremist conservative during his two failed Senate campaigns in 1964 and 1970, Reaganites suspected that he was more of a moderate Republican like his father, a two-term Connecticut US Senator. Bush knew, of course, the key to success in the 1988 campaign was to dance with the one who brought him (i.e., the Reagan conservatives); there were 2 decisions he made to shore up his support with Reaganites: the "read my lips: no new taxes" pledge; and the Palin-like swerve selection of junior Indiana Senator Dan Quayle as a running mate. (To many of us, Bush had largely undermined his own experience argument for the Presidency with the selection of the largely unknown Quayle, not unlike McCain's disastrous selection of another unknown, Sarah Palin, in 2008.)
The "vision thing" was made famous by George H.W. Bush. If anyone had "the resume" to be President over the past 50 years, Bush had it: a genuine WWII hero, a successful (millionaire) self-made businessman, Congressman, UN Ambassador, diplomat to China, CIA director and two-term Vice President. During the 1988 GOP Presidential campaign, there was general sense of Bush having paid his dues. The Reaganites, of course, never ever fully forgave him for classifying Reagan's supply-side economics as "voodoo economics"; although Texas Democrats characterized Bush as an extremist conservative during his two failed Senate campaigns in 1964 and 1970, Reaganites suspected that he was more of a moderate Republican like his father, a two-term Connecticut US Senator. Bush knew, of course, the key to success in the 1988 campaign was to dance with the one who brought him (i.e., the Reagan conservatives); there were 2 decisions he made to shore up his support with Reaganites: the "read my lips: no new taxes" pledge; and the Palin-like swerve selection of junior Indiana Senator Dan Quayle as a running mate. (To many of us, Bush had largely undermined his own experience argument for the Presidency with the selection of the largely unknown Quayle, not unlike McCain's disastrous selection of another unknown, Sarah Palin, in 2008.)
After Bush's deft leadership in coordinating one of the largest international efforts in the first Gulf War, liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, he seemed politically invulnerable. But the economy had gone into a popularity-sapping recession; earlier a Democratic majority Congress was unwilling to agree to spending cuts to close the budget deficit, and Bush tried to find a pragmatic middle ground with a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts, but conservative Republicans, feeling betrayed by the tax hikes, spurned the package. Bush ended up having to settle for the Democrats' toxic economic brew of growth-stemming tax hikes and deficit-growing spending hikes--and a furious party base and American voters, holding Bush, not the Democrats responsible for credibility-undermining tax hikes.
The problem with the broken tax pledge is obvious; Bush was seen as oddly out of touch (e.g., his surprise over supermarket scanners), almost disinterested in domestic policy issues, and without a compelling narrative for his Presidency beyond pragmatic competence. He himself notoriously referenced the "vision thing".
Kraushaar makes an analogous observation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The former Milwaukee County executive has expressed in very tactical short-term budgetary terms the need for government union givebacks, e.g., to keep from laying off employees. He has spoken obscurely of the need to curb collective bargaining because of financial issues of local executives, presumably other than the increased contributions for health care and pension. The Democrats and the unions respond with a predictable rope-a-dope defense--they claim they are ready to give in on "5 and 12": just don't do away with their collective bargaining rights, as if these rights consisted of nothing more than bull sessions where workers were allowed to vent about their jobs and had nothing to do with cost containment for the Wisconsin taxpayer.
Here is my perspective/critique on Walker's approach:
The problem with the broken tax pledge is obvious; Bush was seen as oddly out of touch (e.g., his surprise over supermarket scanners), almost disinterested in domestic policy issues, and without a compelling narrative for his Presidency beyond pragmatic competence. He himself notoriously referenced the "vision thing".
Kraushaar makes an analogous observation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The former Milwaukee County executive has expressed in very tactical short-term budgetary terms the need for government union givebacks, e.g., to keep from laying off employees. He has spoken obscurely of the need to curb collective bargaining because of financial issues of local executives, presumably other than the increased contributions for health care and pension. The Democrats and the unions respond with a predictable rope-a-dope defense--they claim they are ready to give in on "5 and 12": just don't do away with their collective bargaining rights, as if these rights consisted of nothing more than bull sessions where workers were allowed to vent about their jobs and had nothing to do with cost containment for the Wisconsin taxpayer.
Here is my perspective/critique on Walker's approach:
- You never start a negotiation with your "final offer". I don't think Scott Walker's after-the-fact claims of Obama's hypocrisy (i.e., federal employees don't have the same collective bargaining rights that Obama is accusing Walker of stripping: why are state employees "more equal", Mr. President?) or the fact that federal employees pay twice the contribution rate as the 12% in Walker's proposal aren't very effective in this case: if anything, it raises questions about Walker's exemptions for police and firefighters and why he settled for 12% versus 25% share of health care costs. You point out federal compensation is well-above the private sector even without comparable collective bargaining...
- You don't assume the voters are familiar with executive budgets, the details of public union negotiations, etc. What you want to do is to simplify the message and answer from a position of strength, not get baited into playing defense against union counter-charges. For example, you provide comparative charts of total public sector compensation and state revenue growth and argue that the cost trend is unsustainable; you point out things like only one of 3 public sector workers are represented by unions, and you have to compete against high-growth states with more flexible arrangements with their workers. You find ways to tie the collective bargaining reforms with other public policy reforms, e.g., keeping the best-performing state employees vs. union-mandated seniority rules for layoffs; paying the best teachers more, but getting rid of the ineffective ones, etc.
- You point out the real issue is not the state unions vs. Scott Walker, but state unions vs. the Wisconsin taxpayer. Do we really expect Democratic elected officials to strike the best deal for the taxpayer against the unions, whose members worked for their election? You point out the positive aspects of reining in counterproductive collective bargaining, e.g., how Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was able to transform child protective services.
- Translate austerity measures in terms of public services. You don't try to use layoffs in a carrot-stick scenario. "I don't want to layoff people, but I will if I have to" is not a good message. If you lay off people, either you affect services or you don't. If you don't affect services, why aren't you doing the layoffs anyway? In other words, it seems to suggest Walker is negotiating not based on principle (of cost-cutting) but for political horsetrading. Walker needs to speak in terms voters understand, e.g., we need to reduce operational hours of the DMV, merge schools, eliminate university programs or sports, freeze information technology projects, etc.
Government Shutdown? 1995 Redux? Don't Count On It...
The Democrats think they have the GOP backed into a corner on the federal budget. They are almost giddy over the idea of luring Speaker Boehner into a Gingrich v. Clinton-like standoff against Obama; why, that wily President will certainly force Boehner to blink first, and Obama will coast to an easy reelection next year.
There are a few things wrong with that picture. First, these budget fights are occurring because the super-majority Democrats of the 111th Congress did not pass a budget for the existing fiscal year. Second, the 1995 standoff wasn't over a $1.65T deficit, with trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. And that's with a chronic entitlement unfunded liability problem and an unconstitutional health care bill with Enron-style accounting gimmicks. Third, after raising domestic spending by nearly a quarter over 2 years, the Democrats are trying to lock in the increase, disingenuously arguing just a few billion dollars in cuts will crimp an almost $14.6T economy and devastate employment by hundreds of thousands of workers (although massive budgets have had, at best, modest effects in job gains); in fact, polls show independents leaning towards blaming Democrats.
In fact, President Obama's leadership style is much different than President Clinton; who can forget when Obama was reminded about the historic 1994 mid-term election putting the GOP in control of the House for the first time since the 1950's, suggested that if he had been in the White House then, the result would have been different? Clinton in his long tenure as Arkansas governor had passed a number of budgets; Obama had only known a super-majority and for all practical purposes needed only modest (if any) GOP support.
The Democrats think they have the GOP backed into a corner on the federal budget. They are almost giddy over the idea of luring Speaker Boehner into a Gingrich v. Clinton-like standoff against Obama; why, that wily President will certainly force Boehner to blink first, and Obama will coast to an easy reelection next year.
There are a few things wrong with that picture. First, these budget fights are occurring because the super-majority Democrats of the 111th Congress did not pass a budget for the existing fiscal year. Second, the 1995 standoff wasn't over a $1.65T deficit, with trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. And that's with a chronic entitlement unfunded liability problem and an unconstitutional health care bill with Enron-style accounting gimmicks. Third, after raising domestic spending by nearly a quarter over 2 years, the Democrats are trying to lock in the increase, disingenuously arguing just a few billion dollars in cuts will crimp an almost $14.6T economy and devastate employment by hundreds of thousands of workers (although massive budgets have had, at best, modest effects in job gains); in fact, polls show independents leaning towards blaming Democrats.
In fact, President Obama's leadership style is much different than President Clinton; who can forget when Obama was reminded about the historic 1994 mid-term election putting the GOP in control of the House for the first time since the 1950's, suggested that if he had been in the White House then, the result would have been different? Clinton in his long tenure as Arkansas governor had passed a number of budgets; Obama had only known a super-majority and for all practical purposes needed only modest (if any) GOP support.
Political Humor. This is a periodic reminder you can find digests of daily late night jokes from websites like newsmax and, of course, from late night show websites.
"The Senate has sent President Obama a spending bill that gives the government enough money to keep going for two weeks. Our Congress has the financial planning skills of a college sophomore." - Conan O'Brien
[The Congress wanted to spend more money, but the Treasury ran out of paper...]
The man who shot Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, said he should be released from jail because he can’t remember committing the crime. Then Lindsay Lohan said, “What necklace? - Jay Leno
[In the spirit of Simpson Defense Attorney Johnnie Cochran: "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit", Sirhan Sirhan argued, "If I cannot remember the crime, I shouldn't have to serve the time." To which the parole board responded, "Not hearing for the Kennedy murder any regret, we've decided parole conditions haven't been met."]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Bee Gees/Yvonne Elliman, "Love Me". This was the second Yvonne Elliman/Bee Gees hit (the other being "If I Can't Have You"). What man could possibly resist beautiful Yvonne singing this song to him? Who wouldn't get lost in those gorgeous eyes? (She reminds me of the first girl I ever kissed.) On the Bee Gees' own take, Barry's falsetto and lilting phrasing of the brilliant bridging verses ("Never even try to see things her way...") perfectly frame Robin's plaintive vocals.
