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Saturday, June 20, 2009
Finally: Courageous Black Author Tells Truth About American Racism
Posted by on 6.20.09 @ 4:40PM
Interviewed by a Canadian civil right activist, author Kevin Jackson exposes the unspeakable evil of rich white Texas Republicans -- not!
Rubin Says: NOT Obama
Posted by on 6.20.09 @ 11:23AM
Jennifer Rubin has a brilliant column at Pajamas Media, arguing that being "not Obama" is a very good political strategy for down-and-out Republicans. From a conservative standpoint (which is of course different than a Republican standpoint), I now find myself in agreement -- especially after being persuaded by Rubin's very well-argued column. I've always been of the "you can't beat something with nothing" school, and while I have never refrained from criticizing that which I disagree with, I've always thought of the criticism as a secondary duty rather than a primary occupation. But I've just recently noticed what seemed an odd thing: Every week for months now I've told myself that it's time to start highlighting the good conservative alternatives to Obama's Mussolinism. Yet every week, day after day, I find myself utterly engaged in criticism and opposition. It's just that Obama is doing so many things so fast in so many ways to undermine so many of the basic foundations of our republic, and is doing so much to undermine the basic equations of ordered liberty, that I feel it necessary to try to fight off all the awful changes (or, rather, add my tiny voice to those trying to fight them off) and haven't had time for my planned magnum opus showing all the good, forward-looking, effective solutions that conservatives offer.
What's more, I think the fighting back, the criticism and opposition, are working better than would any focus on the many legitimate positive offerings available. Not working WELL yet, mind you, but at least keeping conservatives in the game and motivated.
But while I had sort of begun to notice my own months-long bent towards opposition, I had not figured out in a coherent way why this was happening. Now Jennifer explains it, and explains it superbly.
I'll put it in military terms: Sometimes you just have to dig in, defensively, and endure the barrage while sending frequent guerilla sorties out to do damage. Or, to cite an athlete I absolutely abhorred, sometimes Muhammah Ali's rope-a-dope tactics are the only way to win: Cover up, let the other guy punch himself into exhaustion, all the while throwing fewer punches in return but making those punches really count. I just watched, a few weeks ago, a replay of the entire Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle. I was surprised to see that Ali DID throw a number of punches from his defensive crouch -- he did not JUST cover up while Foreman exhausted himself -- but he only punched when a clear opening was there and he could at least nick the younger man. Well, that seems to be the best option for conservatives right now: Defending that which we hold dear, and counterpunching at every GOOD opportunity.
Until we gain actual ground back (now back in military-analogy mode) in an election, going on the offensive doesn't make much sense. Conservatives are "not Obama," as Jennifer says -- and for now, that's plenty good enough, even though we know we have lots of positive things to offer.
Gotta' Love Those Dems on Health Care
Posted by on 6.20.09 @ 8:23AM
The House Democrats have unveiled their health care takeover bill. Responsible as always, they don't see any need to estimate the cost.
House Democrats on Friday answered President Obama's call for a sweeping overhaul of the health care system, unveiling a bill that they said would cover 95 percent of Americans. But they said they did not know how much it would cost and had not decided how to pay for it.
The proposal would establish a new public health insurance plan to compete with private plans. Republicans and insurance companies strenuously oppose such an entity, saying it could lead to a government takeover of health care. The draft bill would require all Americans to carry health insurance. Most employers would have to provide coverage to employees or pay a fee equivalent to 8 percent of their payroll. The plan would also end many insurance company practices that deny coverage or charge higher premiums to sick people.
"Health insurance for most American families is just one big surprise," said Representative George Miller of California, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. "When you go to use it, you find out it's not quite as it's represented, and you spend hours on the phone with exclusions and discussions and referrals to other legal documents that you didn't have at the time you purchased it."
The 852-page House bill, as expected, is more expansive than the legislation taking shape in the Senate, where work on the issue bogged down this week after early cost estimates came in far higher than expected. The initial price tag for a measure drafted by the Senate Finance Committee, for example, was $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
Similar sticker shock could hit House members when they see the cost of their bill, which incorporates many ideas from health policy experts about how to fix the health system.
Kind of has a nice ring to it: "they said they did not know how much it would cost and had not decided how to pay for it." Just minor details, so why let them get in the way!
As I've said before, it's only money. Don't worry, be happy.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Posted by on 6.20.09 @ 7:29AM
So Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demands that protestors desist from their demonstrations and give proper obedience to their self-selected rulers. Reports the New York Times:
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly cut off any compromise over the nation's disputed elections on Friday. In a long and hard-line sermon, he declared the elections valid and warned of violence if demonstrators continue, as they have pledged, to flood the streets in defiance of the government.
Opposition leaders who failed to halt the protests, he said, "would be responsible for bloodshed and chaos." The tough words seemed to dash hopes for a peaceful solution to what defeated candidates and protesters call a fraudulent election last week, plunging Iran into its gravest crisis since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
"Flexing muscles on the streets after the election is not right," he said, before tens of thousands of angry supporters at Tehran University. "It means challenging the elections and democracy. If they don't stop, the consequences of the chaos would be their responsibility."
But opposition leaders, who stayed home Friday, called for yet another huge rally on Saturday afternoon, setting the stage for a possible showdown between protesters and security forces, perhaps a violent one.
The sermon put Ayatollah Khamenei, who prefers to govern quietly and from behind the scenes, at the forefront of a confrontation not only among factions of the government but among Iranians themselves.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's dictatorial pronouncements give him the look of the Shah some three decades ago: an elderly thug surrounded by a rapacious elite who'd grown increasingly out of touch with the people he desired to rule. Popular protests helped sweep away the Shah, his pampered military brass, and Savak, his secret police. Let's hope the same will happen to Khamenei, the self-interested mullocracy which he represents, and its jack-booted enforcers like the so-called Revolutionary Guard.
The point is, the real issue is not the election, in which no one really represented the Iranian people and their desire for liberty, and subsequent back-mosque maneuvering amongst the power brokers, such as the eminently opportunistic Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. It is the entire system, in which a repressive and unelected elite make the most important political decisions and use force to crush any opposition. The Iranians are entitled to create their political system, whatever it looks like, rather than have one imposed upon them, like the present one.
In this we should sympathize with the Iranian people and do what we can to help them. But that mostly means us, not the U.S. government. Twitter adjusting its maintenance schedule to ensure maximum availability for Iranian protestors is one example. Abundant and continuing press coverage is another. Sharing methods of circumventing official censorship from Chinese dissidents is yet another. Presumably there are additional means of directly empowering those opposing Iran's reigning autocracy.
Unfortunately, warn Iranian activists, the worst thing the Obama administration could do is turn what is presently the Iranian autocracy versus the Iranian people into a contest between the U.S. and Iranian governments. No one really doubts where Washington stands, and its previous record, a la the Shah, brought to power in a U.S.-supported coup against a democratically government, is not particularly helpful. It is critical to keep the focus on the Iranian people.
Overthrowing the system will not be easy. But the Iranian people succeeded against the Shah, and the end came surprisingly quickly. Hopefully the current system is equally brittle. There are some divisions within the elite; perhaps unity will similarly break within the security services. Hopefully the Iranian equivalent of the Iron Curtain can finally be brought down.
Friday, June 19, 2009
House Dems' Health Care Plan Includes Gov't Plan
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 6:28PM
While until this point most of the health care focus has been on the Senate side, today the House Democrats released a draft of their own plan. I just read through the outline, though you can check out the full 850 pages here. The short version is that there's a reason that liberals like it -- it reads like their Christmas wish list. The trouble is, that it doesn't explain how Democrats expect to pay for the legislation. And if the Congressional Budget Office's valuation of the various Senate bills is any indication, the price tag will be off the charts. Okay, so here are more details.
Most significantly, the House bill includes a government plan at a time when there's an emerging consensus that there's not enough votes to get one through the Senate. House Democrats claim that the plan would be "self‐sustaining ‐‐ financed only by its premiums" and thus be on a "level playing field" to compete with private insurers. Of course, in real life, we have to assume that the government plan will ultimately have access to general government revenues if it's in any danger of failing. A good example is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Though they operated as private companies, they benefited from the implicit backing of government, which allowed them to become the dominate players mortgage market. While the companies' Democratic defenders brushed aside conservative critics who claimed it was in effect a government enterprise, when push came to shove, government did step in to bail out the companies because they had a piece of a majority of mortgages in America. When private insurers can't make a profit they go out of business. But who in reality thinks the government plan will be allowed to fold if it's losing money? Is government going to close a plan that provides health insurance to tens of millions of Americans or is it going to pump general revenues into saving it? Anybody who is being intellectually honest knows the answer to that. Private insurers trying to compete against a government plan would be like a gambler trying to beat the house -- over time, the house always wins.
The bill also calls for the creation of a national, government-run insurance exchange, in which individuals would receive government subsidies to purchase either the government plan or chose among government-designed private plans. The subsidies would be on a sliding scale and go up to 400 percent of the poverty level ($43,000 for an individual or $88,000 for a family of four), which is at the midpoint of the range being advanced in the two Senate bills. One key fact worth highlighting: "Over time, the Exchange will be opened to all employers as another choice for covering their employees." This directly contradicts President Obama's pledge that everybody who is happy with the health care they receive can keep it. About 63 percent of covered Americans get their insurance through their employers, meaning that encouraging employers to dump workers into the government run exchange will effectively threaten the current health care plans of most of the covered population.
The plan would also bar insurers from excluding those with preexisting conditions or charge them different rates based on their health status, and it would create federal mandates forcing individuals to purchase health care and empoyers to cover their workers or pay a tax.
Curiously the plan calls for, "More training of primary care doctors and an expansion of the pipeline of individuals going into health professions, including primary care, nursing and public health..." But the biggest problem in attracting more medical students to go into primary care is that Medicare has driven down reimbursement rates for physicians, and instead of dealing with this problem, the bill would actually exacerbate it by allowing the government plan to reimburse doctors at rates "similar" to Medicare levels. Typical liberal thinking -- government policy creates a problem and the solution is yet more government.
The plan also calls for a massive expansion of Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty level. "Recognizing the budget challenges in many states," the outline reads, "this expansion will be fully federally financed."
Of course, this triggers the question: "financed how"? The federal government, as you know, is not awash in cash these days. Well, the outline conveniently leaves out that tricky financing part. Though we now know that among other new taxes, they are considering a national sales tax (or VAT), a prospect that I wrote about earlier.
U.S. or Them on NATO
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 4:49PM
The eloquent Doug Bandow makes a number of serious miscalculations over NATO in our fledgling conversation (Defending the European Weenies/Avoiding Disaster with NATO/ Where's the Disaster?).
First off, he plays Moscow's "blame the victim" game over the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, as an argument against NATO expansion. It is a brave man who trusts the word of the unelected and unaccountable European Commission, especially over a matter as serious as war and peace. It is hugely convenient for the Commission to lay the blame for the August War at the door of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili; after all, the Russians are in permanent violation of the EU-negotiated ceasefire, which the EU conveniently ignores so long as Russia supplies it with much-needed helicopters for the French colonial (sorry, EU) mission to Chad.
Although it is completely un-testable, it is worth pondering whether Russia would've invaded Georgia if Germany and France hadn't colluded with Moscow to deny Georgia NATO's Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest Summit in April 2008 (which Britain, America and the Baltics supported).
Who cares about little Georgia? Expand the argument a little further and there are large parts of 'Europe-proper' that can be written off. There are two realistic futures for Europe: (1) a Europe of free and self-determining nation-states allied with the United States and anchored to Euro-Atlantic institutions; or (2) a Europe divided among those whom Russia considers in its zone of privileged interests and those who are not, who are ruled under the iron fist of a supranational, incompetent, militarily inept and corrupt European Union.
Mr. Bandow is correct that Kosovo didn't really "matter" to America and that the U.S. had no overriding strategic interests in stopping the mass killing of Kosovar Muslims in 1999. President Clinton could have easily adopted the tone that President Obama is taking today toward the Iranian protestors being brutalized by the killing merchants of the atomic ayatollahs; more so considering Kosovo's relative lack of importance to U.S. strategic interests compared to Tehran. However, if America won't stand for freedom, then who will? It should also be remembered that it was the Europeans who proclaimed, "This is the hour of Europe. It is not the hour of the Americans," in 1991 when they took control of mediation efforts in Yugoslavia. The rest is history.
It is equally unfathomable to argue that Europe should fight Islamist extremism alone. 9/11, 7/7, 3/11 are all graphic and tragic examples of the West's generational long struggle against this ideological threat. The United States will need to fight this menace on a bilateral, multilateral and -- where necessary -- unilateral level. Therein lies NATO's inherent value, and the purpose of Rep. Turner's NATO First Act: reinforce NATO as the centerpiece of America's multi-layered European alliance architecture.
It's Only Words
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 4:46PM
Last month we heard from the New York Times about the poll testing by the firm ecoAmerica that found the term "global warming" is no longer useful or scary enough for alarmists to use:
The problem with global warming, some environmentalists believe, is “global warming.”
The term turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.
Now comes the Washington Times today with another report from Democratic advisers who confirm ecoAmerica's findings, and suggest that other terms being used to push a cap-and-trade emissions reduction scheme are hurting their cause also:
House Democrats neared a deal Thursday on a bill to combat global warming, but a top party strategist warned that to sell any plan to voters they'll need to change the way they pitch it -- including curbing the use of the term "green" jobs and even talk of "global warming."
In a strategy memo, Democratic think tank Third Way and top party strategist Stanley Greenberg warned Democrats that swing voters don't care about fighting global warming, and said terms like "cap-and-trade" are useless. Instead, the memo suggests that Democrats tap into Americans' optimism that clean energy can help improve the faltering economy.
"For most voters, global warming is not significant enough on its own to drive support for major energy reform," the memo says. "So while it can be part of the story that reform advocates are telling, global warming should be used only in addition to the broader economic frame, not in place of it...."
But the strategists, in their memo, said the term "cap-and-trade" is "worse than meaningless" and is unfavorable to voters. Instead, Third Way and Mr. Greenberg's firm argue for terms like "clean energy" and for branding the push against global warming under a new slogan of "Get America running on clean energy."
What a farce. These clowns won Oscars and Grammys based on "global warming"; they pushed "cap-and-trade" because they said it promoted a "market-based" reduction plan; and they embraced "green" jobs because it implied the best of both worlds -- high employment and a clean energy economy.
Now that they've captured all the government power, the terms they used to win their trophies are -- as I wrote last month -- a giant boat anchor. They can't lie with the old terms any more so they have to make up new ones. And like the phony language they use, their cap-and-trade plan is also "worse than meaningless" -- it's destructive.
Obama's "Deeper Wisdom" on Iran
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 4:30PM
My piece today in which former Iranian political protester Amir Fakhravar calls on President Obama to speak up more forcefully for those fighting for freedom in Iran has drawn some pushback.
Andrew Sullivan writes:
Actually, of course, (Obama) did state his support for nonviolence and freedom of expression. And when you see Khamenei's attempt to play the foreign interference card this morning, you see the deeper wisdom of Obama's approach.
Far from showing the "deeper wisdom" of Obama, Khamenei's statements serve to reinforce a point made by Fakhravar, who told me, "Whether Obama says anything or not, Iran is still going to play that game."
Meanwhile, Daniel Larison, in his typically condescending tone, barks,"Philip Klein thinks that what is needed is a lot more cheap talk that will get people killed because some Iranian activist says it sounds like a good idea."
It pretty ridiculous for Larison to dismiss Fakhravar as just "some Iranian activist." Fakhravar was in and out of Iranian prisons since high school as a result of his pro-democracy activism, and was subject to torture in Iran's most notorious prison (you can read more about his experiences at Amnesty International, far from a neocon source). And this is about more than "cheap talk," it's about the American president using his microphone to stand up for democracy and human rights.
The article I wrote this morning was a reported piece based on my conversation with Fakhravar. Personally, I think there is worthwhile debate to be had over the proper U.S. response, and earlier today, I linked to Spencer Ackerman's interview with noted Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji, who said that Obama shouldn't meddle, though he added that Obama "cannot stay silent on human rights issues." Iran is a very complex story that we're all doing our best to comprehend at a time when the flow of information out of the country is limited and scattered. What bothers me is this false consensus among the "responsible" set that Obama is doing exactly the right thing, and that anybody who disagrees is completely ignorant. In reality, opinion on this among people in the know is not monolithic. Fakhravar says that President Bush's pro-democracy rhetoric gave him hope when he was in an Iranian prison, and he told me that the protesters he's in touch with in Iran want Obama to speak up. I thought it was important to bring his voice into the debate.
Try Ricci At Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 3:55PM
Steve Sailer has a good suggestion for Republicans who are afraid to take on Sonia Sotomayor directly but still want to make themselves useful at her confirmation hearings:
[A] lengthy hearing over Sotomayor would be the best opportunity for the GOP to begin the process of enlightening the public that Obama isn't the post-racial President that David Axelrod has spun him as. Clearly, the New Haven firefighter reverse discrimination case of Ricci v. DeStefano should be central to the hearings.
Yet, old-fashioned chivalry and post-modern sensitivity both dictate that a bunch of white male conservative Senators like Jeff Sessions can't be seen asking too many probing questions of a lady/minority. The GOP needs a bad guy to pound in these hearings, but Judge Sotomayor isn't a guy.
So, the GOP Senators should subpeona a witness on the Ricci v. DeStefano case. They should subpeona and then roast alive on the witness stand the defendant, beady-eyed New Haven mayor John DeStefano, who engineered cheating Ricci and company out of their promotions. This will associate DeStefano's petty political machinations to please his main black supporter with Sotomayor, Obama, and racial preference supporters in general.
For examples of the kind of questions they could flail DeStefano with, just refer to the Supreme Court's oral questioning in the case. For example, Mayor DeStefano's city attorney claimed that the city had strong evidence for discarding the test as invalid after finding out the results by race. But Justice Samuel Alito pointed out the preposterousness of that claim in a scalding rhetorical question:
"[The city] chose the company that framed the test, and then as soon as it saw the results, it decided it wasn't going to go forward with the promotions. The company offered to validate the test. The City refused to pay for that, even though that was part of its contract with the company. And all it has is this testimony by a competitor, Mr. Hornick, who said—who hadn't seen the test, and he said, I could do a better test—you should make the promotions based on this, but I could give you—I could draw up a better test, and by the way, here's my business card if you want to hire me in the future.
“How's that a strong basis in the evidence?"
Now, what are the odds Republicans will want to have that kind of fun?
Tax Policy and Economic Crisis
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 2:01PM
U.S. tax policy is extremely foolish on several counts. One of the most important, it now appears, is creating perverse financial incentives and thereby contributing to last year's economic crisis.
The International Monetary Fund has completed a study of the U.S. economy and crash. Reports former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett:
The most important problem identified by the IMF is the favorable tax treatment of debt and the punitive taxation of corporate equity in our system. This problem is exacerbated by a higher corporate tax rate in the U.S. than exists in most other countries, which magnifies the benefits of debt relative to equity.
The basic problem is that corporate profits are taxed twice: first by the corporate income tax and then again by the personal income tax when net profits are paid out to the corporation's owners, the shareholders. As a consequence, the total tax rate on corporate profits is very high.
At the margin, profits earned by a corporation face a tax as high as 44.75%: 35% at the corporate level and another 15% at the individual level on the paid-out profits. But the maximum rate of 15% on individuals is only temporary and will expire at the end of next year. When that happens, dividends may be taxed as high as 39.6%, raising the combined tax on corporate profits to 60.74%. (The current top rate of 35% on individual incomes also expires next year.)
The Obama administration has proposed capping the tax on dividends at 20%, but this measure is not yet in law and may end up being sacrificed to pay for health reform or deficit reduction. The maximum tax rate on corporate profits would rise to 48% if it is enacted.
Some economists would say that the true rate is even higher because the capital gains tax is another layer of taxation. If we assume that the value of a share of stock is just the capitalized value of the future flow of dividends, then a stock price rise mainly results from a belief by investors that future dividends will be higher. Since those dividends will be taxed twice, one can argue that the capital gains tax is really a third tax on the same profits.
By contrast, debt is much more lightly taxed because interest payments are fully deductible against the corporate income tax. Moreover, purchasers of corporate debt are often tax-exempt entities such as pension funds, charitable institutions and sovereign wealth funds.
The result is that while corporate equity is heavily taxed, the tax system provides an effective subsidy for debt-financed investments. According to the study, the average effective tax rate on equity is 24%, but the rate on debt is -46%.
This wide spread led to the creation of exotic financial instruments designed to capture the tax benefits of debt while retaining the ownership rights of equity. These hybrid instruments are necessarily highly complex, making it hard for investors to judge their value and credit-worthiness. Thus, tax considerations helped fuel the growth of debt and the creation of difficult-to-price assets that are at the heart of the economic crisis.
There's more to the economic crash, obviously, but this is just further evidence of the need for systematic tax reform and relief. We need to reduce and symplify taxes. Alas, that isn't likely, to put it mildly. to be on the agenda over the next four years.
Where's the Disaster?
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 1:50PM
Sally McNamara makes the usual misguided charge of "isolationism" for my suggestion that it is time for Europe to defend itself. That would surprise the nation's founders, who believed in an active America, just one which did not unnecessarily tie its future to the policies of other nations.
As a prescient George Washington warned: "Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities."
Ms. McNamara allows that the Europeans aren't doing much on defense, but predicts "disaster" if America pulls its troops out of Europe. Yet she doesn't demonstrate from what that disaster will stem.
She says Europe matters to us. Of course it does. But what does that have to do with an American defense guarantee of a continent with a larger GDP and population larger than our own? From whence do the dire threats come which Europe cannot handle? Russia, reeling from the financial crisis and possessing less than a tenth of Europe's GDP and a third of the population, is in no position to attempt a blitzkrieg to the Atlantic. Missile proliferation could be addressed outside of NATO. Islamic extremism is something the Europeans have to fight on their own-after all, it is related to their own immigration policies and demographic trends, not foreign armored divisions.
She worries that Europe won't do a good job defending itself. Just look at Kosovo, she observes. But the mere existence of a problem does not mean America must act. If the Europeans did not believe it to be in their interest to resolve that tragic but geopolitically minor civil war, there was no need for Washington to intervene. Kosovo never mattered to the U.S. and certainly did not warrant war by the U.S. Instead of treating NATO as a means to prevent war, war became the means to save NATO, perverting its very purpose.
Finally, Ms. McNamara notes that "those East of Berlin need, want and in some cases crave NATO's sacred Article V guarantee." True, but so what? Security guarantees should not be tossed about like chocolates as gifts for friends. Rather, a promise to go to war should be reserved for defending America.
It is hard to discern the security justification for Washington promising to go to war over nations that were not only once part of the Soviet Union, but also part of the Russian Empire. Even worse is threatening a confrontation with a nuclear-armed state over issues along its border. Such a risky strategy reduces rather than enhances U.S. security.
Withdrawing U.S. forces would threaten disaster? No, disaster would be going to war against a nuclear power on behalf of unstable, irresponsible states unrelated to our own defense. For instance, Spiegel online reports on the result of an EU commission investigating the Georgia-Russia war:
The confidential investigative commission documents, which SPIEGEL has obtained, show that the task of assigning blame for the conflict has been as much of a challenge for the commission members as it has for the international community. However, a majority of members tend to arrive at the assessment that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili started the war by attacking South Ossetia on August 7, 2008. The facts assembled on Tagliavini's desk refute Saakashvili's claim that his country became the innocent victim of "Russian aggression" on that day.
In summarizing the military fiasco, commission member Christopher Langton, a retired British Army colonel, claims: "Georgia's dream is shattered, but the country can only blame itself for that."
Would we really be better off having issued an Article V guarantee to this country and this government? No. To the contrary, that truly would have been "a recipe for disaster."
Foreign policy should change to fit circumstances. During the Cold War a host of friendly, war-torn states needed defending. Today they are capable of defending themselves. It's time to cut our foreign welfare dependents loose.
Avoiding Disaster with NATO
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 12:27PM
[The following is a guest post by Sally McNamara, a Senior Policy Analyst in European Affairs at The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Sally writes in response to this morning's post by Doug Bandow.]
Doug Bandow's piece "Defending the European Weenies," would be more appropriately titled, "Isolationism rocks." Although he is correct that the Continental Europeans aren't doing enough or spending enough on defense, he’s wrong to assume that NATO doesn't add to U.S. national security. His proposal to take every American troop out of Europe and close every American base is a recipe for disaster.
Strategically and tactically, Europe matters as much to the U.S. as any other geographic area. A resurgent Russia, missile proliferation, and Islamist extremism are just a handful of transatlantic challenges which requires America to have mutually reinforcing alliances. The old days, where bipolarity meant a large amount of predictability are long gone. NATO is the centerpiece of its multilayered European alliance architecture, which includes a Special Relationship with Great Britain and (hopefully) an upgraded security pact with Poland and the Czech Republic.
There's no doubt that those East of Berlin need, want and in some cases crave NATO's sacred Article V guarantee. But what was the point of winning the Cold War only to throw it all away 20 years later? And let's not forget that Article V has only ever been invoked once -- by the United States on September 12, 2001.
Mr. Bandow's idea that Europe can take care of itself is wrong-headed in the extreme. The European Union was unable to dispatch a few hundred bureaucrats to Kosovo on time last year, and that's after NATO did all the heavy lifting. If a Milosevic-type character fancies his chances at ethnic cleansing the Balkans once again, we can be sure that the reams of paper used on condemnatory statements will increase Brussels' carbon footprint ten-fold, but we can be equally sure that the blue-helmets of the EU won’t be going over the horizon anytime soon.
Rep. Turner's 'NATO First Act' skillfully analyses how NATO should fit into the global strategic environment. Committing to missile defense, opening NATO's door and maintaining a U.S. presence on European soil significantly advance American security.
Doug Bandow's arguments betray a dangerous streak of withdrawal making the rounds in Washington. Europe needs to take note. Between the sad state of European defense budgets and German troops safely ensconced in the North of Afghanistan, America is growing tired of carrying the world’s security burden with just a few reliable allies at her side. It is time for the Germans, French and Italians to take the lead of the British, Dutch and Poles in Afghanistan and step up to the plate.
IG-Gate: Domino Theory
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 11:59AM
Whatever the final consequences of IG-Gate -- and I'd say odds are pretty good of at least one administration official going to federal prison before all is said and done -- the investigation could have serious near-term repercussions for the Democrats:
Describing the probe into the dismissal of the AmeriCorps inspector general, one Capitol Hill source on Thursday compared Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's demand for facts in the case to a row of dominoes ready to tip over. . . .
In background discussions Thursday, several GOP strategists spoke of the contrast between Democrats' effort to impose new government "reforms" while, at the same time, the Obama administration appears to be muzzling inspectors generals, who are tasked with providing independent oversight to prevent waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies. . . .
Grassley's team on the IG probe is led by Charles Murphy, a veteran Capitol Hill investigator. Both Grassley and Murphy were unavailable for comment Thursday, but sources with knowledge of the investigation expressed confidence in the meticulous research of Murphy's team. . . .
Every political reporter in Washington is sniffing around this story now, and I just got off the phone with Matthew Vadum, who's catching the Acela train to New York for a 5 p.m. live appearance on "The Glenn Beck Show."
Mr. Oblivious: The Blindingly Obvious Problem of Dan Larison
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 11:43AM
So over in the precincts of the American Conservative, where Dan Larison is completely mystified by the idea that something is askew when judging people by skin color, and sees nothing amiss at a Supreme Court nominee's dalliance with folks who cheer on Puerto Rican nationalists with a proclivity for violence, Mr. Paleo has struck again.
This time, our friend Dan is having trouble with the concept that both Iran and Poland are populated by human beings.
In the Larison worldview, apparently, a human in Iran is not the same as a human in Poland. (This, perhaps, is related to his views on race?) No explanation here about a seemingly observable fact that both Poles and Iranians appear to have the same body parts, have the same need for air, water, and food and just maybe the same craving for freedom. Certainly there's not a whiff of a Larisonian thought that what we are witnessing in Iran has been spotted before -- and not just in 1980s Poland. That this is not a Polish problem or an Iranian problem but an unfortunately very, very human problem. Not a clue that fanaticism, bullying or just plain power-mad egomania are in fact common problems that have appeared all too often all over the planet throughout history precisely because they are problems evidenced by human beings. A Genghis Khan here, a King George III there, a Napoleon or Stalin or Hitler or Kim Jong Il or Saddam or Iranian Mullah or, yes indeed, just the jerks who run the Cripps and the Bloods or the Mafia -- our friend Dan sees them all and misses the obvious. Like a hormone-charged teenager, a proclivity to alcoholism or a relentless desire to eat everything, this is the same problem over and over and over again all through the centuries. Whether presented in the name of religion (the latest round of Mullahs) or Empire (the particular madness of King George) or racial superiority (Hitler and that pesky Aryan race thing, the Hutu ethnic hatred for Tutsis in Rwanda) or turf (perhaps best exemplified by the old severed-horsehead-in-the-bed routine favored by Godfather Don Corleone) or even just plain barking looniness (current awardee: Kim Jong Il) -- there is not a thing new to be seen in Iran anymore than there was in Poland. You might even say this is blindingly obvious to some.
What is new in a historical sense is the idea of freedom, of basic human rights, something that has been slowly evolving over the centuries in response to all of the above. As things have worked out, America -- a nation built on the idea of freedom -- has become what Ronald Reagan liked to call the Shining City on a Hill, borrowing from John Winthrop (who in turn borrowed from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount -- Matthew 5:14). It certainly does not make America perfect, an impossibility for precisely the same reason we have bad guys in the world -- the good guys are human too. We stumble around, sometimes we are clueless, weak, timid, filled with a touch too much hubris or just plain would prefer to keep our heads down and look the other way -- just go about our lives and wish only to be left alone.
But the hard fact is that it always seems to be that unless we in America -- which specifically means the human who holds the title President of the United States -- holds that torch of freedom high, the world winds up in Big Trouble. At the moment, with the latest batch of bad guys turning up as the rulers of Iran, it is important for President Obama not to flinch. To -- gasp! -- do exactly what Reagan did, who did what Truman, FDR and Wilson and Lincoln and Washington did. (Alas, Larison views Lincoln as a tyrant -- a tough sell unless you're John Wilkes Booth.) Or for that matter, Eliot Ness. Visibly stand up for freedom. Brother Dan over there at the AC apparently would prefer to just go to the mall. I understand the motivation. But in the end, the bad guys will go to the mall too -- and not to shop.
House Dems Mull VAT to Pay for Health Care
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 11:34AM
David Hogberg reports that House Democrats are considering a value added tax (VAT) of perhaps 1.5 percent to pay for health care legislation, and his report is now being confirmed by the Associated Press. Few things would be more destructive during a time when the economy is shrinking and shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month than to create a national sales tax.
But as Hogberg notes, a VAT is more pernicious:
Unlike a sales tax that applies only to the point of purchase, a VAT taxes the value added at each stage of production. Thus, if the VAT rate is 5% and a producer of raw materials, a manufacturer and a retailer each add $1.00 of value to a product, then each owes the government five cents.
Not only would a VAT be disasterous economic policy, but it's a regressive form of taxation since lower-income workers tend to spend a higher proportion of their income. Politically, it would represent a gross violation of President Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans -- this would be a tax hike on every American. And even if it starts at just 1.5 percent, it opens the door for further hikes down the road as the federal government's finances grow more unsustainable. I hope Democrats do formally propose it though, because there would be no better way to demonstrate to Americans that they are actively seeking to turn our nation into a European socialist state.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Takes on Tax Evasion
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 10:46AM
Does anyone else find this to be, er, just a bit shameless and unseemly on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's part? Announced the Treasury Department today:
As part of the Obama Administration's aggressive efforts to enforce U.S. tax laws and reduce offshore tax evasion, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the conclusion of negotiations with Switzerland to amend the U.S.-Switzerland income tax treaty to provide for increased tax information exchange. Official signing of the protocol is expected in the next few months.
"This Administration is committed to reducing off shore tax evasion to help ensure that all U.S. taxpayers are playing by the same rules," said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. "This treaty will increase our ability to enforce our tax laws and will help bring an end to an era of offshore accounts and investments being used for tax evasion."
Tax evasion. Such an ugly thing when other people do it!
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 10:11AM
- The DC Examiner as the answer to left-wing blogs (The Washington Independent)
- Geithner apparently finally realizes that his Senate interlocutors are blustering, corrupt imbeciles and not to be feared (New York Magazine)
- Why is the Economist thriving while all the other newsweeklies are dying, asks the Atlantic? Um, maybe because it's killing them.
- Russell E. Saltzman on being an old father (First Things)
- A roundtable on CEA chair Christin Romer's thoughts on the stimulus and economic outlook (Economist)
- Why did the Washington Post just get rid of Dan Froomkin and his White House Watch? (Hot Air)
Khamenei Digs In
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 9:36AM
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today denied that the Iranian election was rigged and warned the protesters to cut it out. “Street challenge is not acceptable,” the New York Times quoted him as saying, citing a BBC translation. “This questions the principles of election and democracy.”
Nick Kristof sees this as an ominous sign. "Khamenei's tough speech and the Basij's boldness give me a v bad feeling that Iran is headed for a Tehran Tiananmen," he wrote on Twitter. Kristof, you may recall, was at Tiananmen during the Chinese crackdown.
That Old Obama Administration Tax Problem
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 8:09AM
Yet another Obama administration nominee has a tax problem. Reports the New York Times:
President Obama's choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.
The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant.
Ms. Marshall, who was the social secretary in the Clinton White House, notified the Obama administration about the late filings before she was nominated on May 14. She has since provided written answers to questions about the matter from Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, which will hold a hearing on the appointment next Wednesday. The post requires Senate confirmation.
Tax issues have bedeviled several high-level Obama appointees and cost the administration at least two of its picks.
Ms. Marshall may fare better because, after ultimately filing the 2005 and 2006 federal and local paperwork, she was entitled to $37,259 in refunds, according to data she provided to Mr. Lugar.
What makes this one different from the other cases is the fact that Marshall and her husband were owed substantial refunds. Though it is curious that they didn't notice not receiving their refunds two years in a row.
Oh well. It doesn't really matter since the job of those in the administration is to raise taxes. It is the rest of us who are supposed to pay them.
About that Promise to Change Washington
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 7:42AM
Says President Barack Obama: Never mind!
When President Obama arrived at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for a fund-raising reception on Thursday night, the new White House rules of political purity were in order: no lobbyists allowed.
But at the same downtown hotel on Friday morning, registered lobbyists have not only been invited to attend an issues conference with Democratic leaders, but they have also been asked to come with a $5,000 check in hand if they want to stay in good favor with the party's House and Senate re-election committees.
The practicality of Mr. Obama's pledge to change the ways of Washington is colliding once more with the reality of how money, influence and governance interact here. He repeatedly declared while campaigning last year that he would "not take a dime" from lobbyists or political action committees.
So to follow through with that promise, Mr. Obama is simply leaving the room.
For the first time in eight years, Democrats have a president of their own to preside over their political fund-raising activities. And Mr. Obama's rules have hardly stopped the bustling intersection of money and politics. Not only are members of Congress already engaged in their next races, but legislative battles over health care, energy and financial regulation have also put a premium on access and influence for many lobbyists and their clients.
So much for "change."
Talking Health Care on MSNBC
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 7:03AM
Here's a clip from my brief appearance on MSNBC yesterday, discussing the week's setbacks for Obamacare.
Progressive Activists Julius & Ethel Rosenberg Were Executed on This Day in 1953
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 7:00AM
All those who value America's liberties should solemnly observe that on this day 56 years ago the Communist traitors Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.
It is unclear how many American lives were lost as a result of their actions.
The left had denied the guilt of its slain martys for decades, arguing that they were condemned to death in a wave of anti-Communist hysteria. Even nowadays after their co-defendant Morton Sobell admitted the Rosenbergs (or at least Julius--Ethel might have been a silent observer or accomplice after the fact) were Soviet spies, the Rosenbergs' children and a few diehard nutters continue to defend them.
Robert Meeropol, a son of the Rosenbergs, now runs the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that, in Meeropol's words, was created to enable radical left-wing activists "to rally around the children of this era's targeted activists."
On the website's "Our Story" page, he dances around the question of his parents' treachery and demonstrates that he hates America as much as his parents did. Using wording one might expect to find at the website of the Communist Party USA, Meeropol, who embraces convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, writes
In recent years, we have witnessed the most rapid and widespread erosion of our civil liberties since the 1950's. Those who speak out in opposition to our criminal war abroad and the growing repression at home are condemned as "traitors" and treated as enemies of the state. These conditions are familiar to anyone who lived through the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950's.
The Rosenberg Fund puts on a celebrity-studded performance every year called "Celebrate the Children of Resistance." The list of America-hating performers and celebrities who have participated in the event in recent years is telling: Angela Davis, Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte, and Howard Zinn.
Speaking Up for a Free Iran
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 6:40AM
Over on the main site, I have an article up based on an interview I conducted with former Iranian political prisoner Amir Fakhravar, in which he argues passionately in favor of President Obama publicly supporting those Iranians struggling for freedom and democracy. Fakhravar also pushes back against the idea that any U.S. support for Iranian protesters would backfire by making it easier for the Islamic regime to portray the demonstrators as tools of America. Elsewhere, noted Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji talks to Spencer Ackerman. In contrast to Fakhravar, Ganji doesn't want Obama to meddle for the most part, but he does say that, Obama "cannot stay silent on human rights issues.” Meanwhile, today the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill introduced by Democratic Rep. Howard Berman and Republican Mike Pence in support of Iranian freedom fighters.
Defending the European Weenies
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 5:40AM
You'd think that congressmen would worry more about American taxpayers than our European "allies," who prefer to rely on our defense subsidies while funding their generous welfare states. But Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) would put the European weenies first.
A congressional effort aims to halt future closures of U.S. military installations in Europe if the measure becomes law.
Dubbed the NATO First Act, House Resolution 2797 would "fortify America's trans-Atlantic security links with our European allies and partners," according to a press release from Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, a co-sponsor of the bill.
More so, the bill calls for maintaining the current basing arrangement of U.S. military installations in NATO-member countries in Europe unless a host nation requests closure or the U.S. secretary of defense determines such facilities unnecessary.
The bill has been referred to the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. Congressmen successfully added language from the NATO First Act into the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, according to congressional staffer speaking on background Wednesday.
What European country is going to say please, please, take your defense guarantee and generous spending in support of the local economy and go home? U.S. bases should be established to benefit the security of America, not Europe. But from whom is Washington defending the Europeans? And with both a population and economy bigger than that of the U.S., why shouldn't the Europeans defend themselves?
Instead of allies, the U.S. has accumulated deadbeat clients, the international equivalent of welfare queens. Even before the financial crisis it was time to close those bases in Europe and to bring the troops home. But with America awash in red ink, it is well past time to suggest that the Europeans take over responsibility for their own defense instead of continuing to rely on American taxpayers.
Our Wonderful NATO Allies
Posted by on 6.19.09 @ 5:13AM
The U.S. defends Europe against threats unknown. In return, the Europeans help America, well, kind of, in Afghanistan.
German troops already have become famous for getting fat on sausages and beer while serving in Afghanistan's north where they are not needed. Now reports the Australian:
Taliban or no Taliban, Germans take a bit of home with them when they serve in trouble spots. Even their carefully sorted rubbish is dumped in wheelie bins before being sent from Afghanistan to Germany for recycling.
Now Germany's most senior officer has warned soldiers not to get too cosy or become too soft.
"We cannot guarantee soldiers that they will have an all-round feel-good experience," said General Wolfgang Schneiderhan.
His outburst follows complaints made by German soldiers to the official ombudsman about their tours abroad. Some have grumbled about unsuitable sleeping bags for their Congo peace-keeping mission - "there is no reason why this issue should have come before parliament", said General Schneiderhan - while others moaned about the long hours, a lack of childcare for their families at home and poor medical care.
Army doctors in particular say that they are on the brink of leaving because pay and conditions are so bad.
So many have returned to civilian life that there is a shortage of medics in the field.
"We have to tell a professional soldier who complains about his third tour of overseas duty that he has to get a grip - this is his profession," said General Schneiderhan. "Perhaps the problem is down to the general tendency in society to delegate responsibility to someone else, or perhaps it is the stress associated with change."
On the one hand, I suppose it is nice that Germany is no longer big on military prowess. Still, it is more than a little irritating to think that America is expected to defend the Germans while they focus on such important tasks as getting their recyclables back from Afghanistan to Germany!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Rehabilitation of the Community Reinvestment Act
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 9:59PM
The formidable Sean Higgins of Investors Business Daily wrote a straight news story today regarding the Obama administration's new effort to rehabilitate the awful Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
Yahoo! Finance picked up the story.
Why is the Obama administration standing by this disastrous legislation even though it played a role in the subprime mortgage mess?
Judicial Watch Investigates Sotomayor's Radical Friends at LatinoJustice
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 9:33PM
Judicial Watch has released a report on LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund or PRLDEF), the racist left-wing group that at one time had Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on its board.
The Judicial Watch report, available here, notes that the group has long been been involved in the racial grievance industry and took many controversial positions while Sotomayor was deeply involved with it. (The report quotes my research at page 1.)
Excerpts:
In 1980, when then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch criticized a Supreme Court decision that upheld racial quotas, the PRLDEF signed a statement characterizing the comments as "''ill-informed, rhetorically excessive and unnecessarily divisive." [...]
In 1981, the PRLDEF applauded a decision by a federal judge that forced teachers at an Ann Arbor Michigan elementary school to undergo "consciousness raising" about a dialect spoken by young black children called "Black English." The training program cost taxpayers $44,000. The civil rights attorney who handled the case, Gabe Kaimowitz, worked for the PRLDEF. He said his intent was to make the lawsuit the "basis of suits against schools in Chicago and New York, and to extend the suit to embrace not only poor blacks but poor Puerto Rican students," who supposedly spoke a dialect known as "Spanglish." [...]
In 1988, the PRLDEF engaged in a battle with the New York City Police Department over its "racist" promotion exam, ultimately presiding over a radical redesign to allow more minorities to achieve a passing grade. According to The New York Times: "The new test, a four-part exam prepared with the help of an expert designated by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund...involved changes in format, including the addition of open-book questions and a video portion."
In 1990, the PRLDEF attacked then-New York Mayor David Dinkins after the mayor labeled three Puerto Rican "nationalists" who shot five members of Congress in 1954 "assassins." The radicals were members of a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN). The PRLDEF said the mayor's comments "lacked sensitivity." Reuben Franco, President of the PRLDEF said: "[Mayor Dinkins] doesn't recognize that to many people in Puerto Rico, these are fighters for freedom and justice, for liberation, just as is Nelson Mandela, who himself advocated bearing arms.'' [...]
Of course, ACORN has already endorsed Sotomayor's nomination for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.
Black is White and Up is Down and Obama Isn't a Thug
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 7:04PM
I try really really hard to avoid the term "Orwellian," but I can't help it here: This is Orwellian word use on steroids to the googleplex degree. Byron York reports that the White House is calling the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin an act of "political courage." When thuggery is called courage, when corruption is called integrity, when ignoring the spirit of the law is called judiciousness.... well, then, that's when this firing becomes defensible. This is a sinister White House.
Just a note: How simple would it have been to give a nice (non-pecuniary) inducement to entice Mr. Walpin into retirement, considering that he almost retired on his own five months ago anyway and had said he would reconsider his status at the end of the month? Easy as winning a poker hand when being deal four aces, that's how easy. But instead these thugs at the White House fired the guy, without proper notice. What are they trying to hide? Perhaps they fear he will stay on and be around to expose the corruption when they try to send contracts through ACORN or turn various grantees into a political army. That's what they are surely trying to hide.
These people must, by all legal means, be stopped. Cold. They are dangerous.
D.C. Elections Board vs. Founding Fathers
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 6:55PM
On Tuesday, the Washington, D.C. Elections Board struck down a referendum proposal on recognizing gay marriage in the district, brought by a coalition of local pastors. The grounds for denying the ballot petition: that a referendum vote on this issue constitutes an act of prejudice, violating the district's 1977 Human Rights Act.
Here's a little taste of the idealism that you'll find inside:
To secure an end in the District of Columbia to discrimination for any reason other than individual merit, including, but not limited to, discrimination by reason of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, familial status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, disability, source of income, and place of residence or business.
I can understand the district's fear of what venerable sources of wisdom in governance John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the Federalist's Publius called "tyranny of the majority" -- when the rights and freedoms of a few are steamrolled by the dictates of an unenlightened or oppressive many. Given a not-so-distant past that saw a whole class of people subjugated and mistreated merely on account of their race, it's not hard to at least comprehend the reasoning behind a legislative check on this sort of behavior; a limit, in Mill's words, on "the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own."
But Mill, Tocqueville, and Publius, who cautioned just as strongly against the "tyranny of the magistrate," would be doing barrel rolls in their graves if they caught a spectral wind of these latest proceedings. The decision issued by the Board goes on to explain not only its rationale, but its incredibly political motives:
This legislative initiative is significant for several reasons. First, it unequivocally declares that the District is a jurisdiction that affords full faith and credit to valid same sex marriages. Second, it is consistent with recent efforts by the Council to eradicate impermissible discrimination on the basis of same-sex discrimination by
putting same sex couples on a par with heterosexual couples in numerous provisions of District law.
In other words, this decision is not about bypassing bigotry, it's about jumping the gun. Since 2008, DC has had on the books an advanced domestic partnership law, which allows for what are essentially civil unions for same-sex couples, complete with nearly all the legal benefits and privileges awarded to marriages. A bill that would limit marriage proper to one man and one woman was introduced in Congress on May 22 of this year.
Legislatively speaking, it's a fair fight, with strong voices on both sides of the issue. And in most states, the scuffle has been allowed to play out between courts, legislatures, and referenda, and sometimes with surprising results, as with California's Prop 8. So why does allowing the people to decide what makes a marriage suddenly become anathema when the issue hits our nation's capital?
The Election Board's vote may mean a political win, but not without the creation of a political monster. As the Alliance Defense Fund's Brian Raum pointed out, the ruling essentially invalidates the marriage statutes that have existed since the district was formed. And the potential misapplications from here on of the human rights law are legion--ballot initiatives on anything from the age for buying tobacco to educational standards for teachers could run afoul of broadly interpreted discrimination standards.
And don't even get me started on reversible plaid bucket hats.
Meanwhile, marriage advocates have filed an appeal on the ruling in DC Superior Court, asking for an expedited appeals process as the clock ticks down to July 6, when a bill signed by the mayor recognizing out-of-state marriages takes effect.
Something tells me that this match has a few rounds in it yet.
The Stars Align Against Burma's Junta
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 6:50PM
The Burmese generals who misrule their country are a superstitious lot. Long-time dictator Ne Win reportedly ordered everyone to start driving on the right (drivers were using the left side in the former British colony) after his astrologer told him to "think right."
Ne Win is long dead, but the autocrats who succeeded him apparently also look to the stars for guidance. And the signs are not good.
It cannot have pleased Myanmar's ruling family: the collapse of a 2,300-year-old gold-domed pagoda into a pile of timbers just three weeks after the wife of the junta's top general helped rededicate it.
There is no country in Asia more superstitious than Myanmar, and the crumbling of the temple was seen widely as something more portentous than shoddy construction work.
The debacle coincides with the junta's trial of the country's pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after an American intruder swam across a lake and spent a night at the villa where Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for most of the past 19 years.
After two weeks of testimony that began May 18, the trial has been suspended as the court considers procedural motions - and as the junta apparently tries to decide how to manage what seems to have been a major blunder, drawing condemnation from around the world.
The superstitious generals may be consulting astrologers as well as political tacticians for guidance. That would not be unusual for many people in Myanmar, formerly Burma.
I'll save the thugs a trip to the astrologer. The stars say they should stop killing and imprisoning people who only want to be free. If the generals did so, the stars further promise that Burma would benefit from the same opportunities enjoyed by free societies around the world.
Deregulating Responsibility
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:17PM
So the new regulations proposed by the Obama administration call for three new regulatory supervisors: Financial Services Oversight Council, to coordinate heads of existing regulatory agencies to identify systemic risks; the National Bank Supervisor, which will regulate federally chartered banks; a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, to prevent mortgage and credit card dealers from confusing clients, and added powers for the Fed to regulate non-bank financial entities. These are all added to an already bewildering lineup of regulators -- reading through the Treasury Dept.'s white paper, I read of at least three that I had never heard of before.
I have a question about this proposed overhaul. In general I think that simpler regulations are better than complicated regulations, even if they are more restrictive, because at least then at least the regulators can clearly identify illicit actions, and the regulated can't waste everyone's time trying to game the system with complicated maneuvers.
I wonder, though, whether we're reaching a point where more added regulators and regulations make things so complicated that they are actually counterproductive by their own standards. If you are a systemically important bank, under the proposed system there would be at least a half dozen big time regulators watching your moves. Do you develop a check-the-box mentality? Do you start to think to yourself, "well, if I'm not getting in trouble for it, I must be fine"? (Obviously this is a gross simplification and anthropomorphization.)
Remember, the argument for increase regulatory powers for the Fed was that the Fed should have supervision over any firms it might be later called upon to bail out. The flip side of that argument, however, is that if the Fed has been supervising you all along and you become insolvent, you can expect the Fed to bail you out.
Government Watchdogs
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:09PM
What no one says, or dares say, is that the vast overweening government "regulators" are being invented because of one trait -- the American propensity for dishonesty, be it banker, broker, mortgager, or the recipient of any of their ministrations.
The one cure for what ails us is simple -- honesty. Its lack has plunged us into recession and there isn't a big enough watchdog anywhere on the White House lawn to bring the matter to bay.
A Voice Against Communism
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 3:25PM
Congratulations to Dr. Lee Edwards for the latest happenings with regard to the Victims of Communism Memorial.
The Diversity That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 3:07PM
The Saudi law firm of Salah Al Hejailan clearly got some bad info on how far the shores of American identity politics extend. Consider this bit from a recruiting letter the firm recently sent out:
We are interested in recruiting one senior Anglo-Saxon lawyer (with 7+ PQE), preferably with Saudi, but at the very least with GCC work experience to play a corporate/commercial role in ourJeddah office. By Anglo-Saxon we mean of Caucasian ethnicity as opposed to lawyers from the MENA or Asian Sub-Continent who happen to have UK or US nationality/qualifications.
That affirmative action is a negative, friends.
Are Americans Too Shallow To Enjoy 'Serious' Movies...
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 2:21PM
...or are many of Hollywood's message movies simply dull or hectoring duds?
Scott Stein argues, with wit, that it's the latter.
Daschle Urges Obama To Drop Government Plan
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 2:04PM
Tom Daschle, the man originally tapped to lead President Obama's health care push, is now urging him to drop the idea of offering a government-run plan.
According to ABC, the former Democratic Senate Majority leader had this to say:
"While I feel very strongly that consumers should have the choice of a national, Medicare-like plan, my colleagues do not. . . But we were concerned that the ongoing health reform debate is beginning to show signs of fracture on the public plan issue, so in order to advance the process of developing bipartisan legislation and to move it forward, it's time to find consensus here," Daschle said.
"We've come too far and gained too much momentum for our efforts to fail over disagreements on one single issue," he said.
This is significant news not merely as a result of his relationship to Obama, but because Daschle is somebody who is recognized for his network on Capitol Hill, his ability to shepard legislation through Congress and strike compromises. If he is coming out and saying this publicly, it's a pretty good indication that Democrats simply do not have the votes to pass legislation that would include a government plan.
While this is a positive devolopment for those of us who oppose government health care, I should emphasize that this doesn't mean that we're in the clear. One of the things that supporters of free market health care have feared all along was that Democrats were merely using the government plan as a bargaining tool, so that when they drop it, they can say, "Ok, we gave up something we really wanted, now let's strike a deal." They will use this to label anybody who doesn't go along as an obstructionist. But a "compromise" that still provides subsidies for individuals to purchase government-designed health care plans on a government-run exchange, imposes mandates on individuals and businesses, and steps up regulation, is not much of a compromise. It's a major victory for the left.
That's why this language by Bob Dole is troubling:
"I had a lot of trouble with [individual] mandates just as Tom had trouble with the public plan. ... But if we can't compromise, how do we expect anyone else, how are we going to get a bill passed," Dole said. "We weren't going let two or three issues derail our total effort."
Fortunately, Dole isn't in office anymore. If Obama follows Daschle's advice and drops the government plan, Republicans shouldn't simply roll over. That provision would have made it easier for government to takeover the health care system, but it is far from the only way.
CRA is Back
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 1:29PM
From the white paper on new regulations for the financial sector:
Rigorous application of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) should be a core function of the CFPA. Some have attempted to blame the subprime meltdown and financial crisis on the CRA and have argued that the CRA must be weakened in order to restore financial stability. These claims and arguments are without any logical or evidentiary basis. It is not tenable that the CRA could suddenly have caused an explosion in bad subprime loans more than 25 years after its enactment. In fact, enforcement of CRA was weakened during the boom and the worst abuses were made by firms not covered by CRA. Moreover, the Federal Reserve has reported that only six percent of all the higher-priced loans were extended by the CRA-covered lenders to lower income borrowers or neighborhoods in the local areas that are the focus of CRA evaluations.
The appropriate response to the crisis is not to weaken the CRA; it is rather to promote robust application of the CRA so that low-income households and communities have access to responsible financial services that truly meet their needs.
One of the most vocal proponents of the argument blaming CRA for distorting the housing market was Peter Wallison of AEI. Wallison summarized his arguments in a feature in our February issue entitled "The True Origins of This Financial Crisis." I can't help but feeling that Wallison was one of only a handful of people the administration had in mind when they wrote this section.
With that in mind, I have a few questions.
Is this accusatory language appropriate? Although I personally don't agree with Wallison's narrative about the CRA because of the evidence provided in this Fed study, I think it's a bit ridiculous to assert that the argument that the CRA was a problem was "without any logical basis." If the CRA had in fact operated on a larger scale, there is no doubt it would have introduced important distortions into the market. Also, if you read his essay, Wallison considered the CRA's effects in conjunction with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's, which were much more damaging. By the way, this regulations proposal doesn't do much to address the enormous failures caused by Fannie and Freddie.
Furthermore, the argument that the CRA wasn't forcing banks to take on risky sub-prime loans hinges on the fact that sub-prime loans issued by CRA-regulated firms and private actors have defaulted at similar rates. There are two possibilities here: 1) the CRA helped some low-income folks who otherwise wouldn't have been able to buy houses to procure mortgages during the boom. Now some unknown percentage of those same folks are likely facing underwater mortgages, have already defaulted, or are otherwise in a tough spot. 2) The CRA got some mortgages to folks who would have got them without the CRA anyways.
So the CRA was either potentially harmful or useless. Does it make sense to include provisions for expanding a harmful or useless measure in a regulatory overhaul?
Liberals Push Panic Button on Health Care
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 11:20AM
After yesterday's news that the Finance Committee would be delaying its health care legislation while they try to slash $600 billion from a draft of the bill that was priced at $1.6 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office, liberal journalists are getting nervous.
Ezra Klein warns:
Health reform is, I think it fair to say, in danger right now. The news out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee was bad. The Congressional Budget Office had scored a partial bill and the result was a total fiasco. But the news out of the Finance Committee is much, much worse.
And Jonathan Cohn, who has been much more optimistic (from a liberal point of view) throughout the Democrats' health care push, sounds the alarm:
Attention fellow liberals who want health care reform: You are in danger of losing the fight for universal health insurance. And it's not only--or even primarily--because of the public plan.
It's because of the money.
On the flip side, based on my conversations, there's a growing sense among Republicans on the Hill that the tide is beginning to turn in their favor the more details come out, and the more we learn how much this will actually cost.
Bank Investors Lose $93m to Gov't
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 10:50AM
Among the banks returning TARP funds to the federal government this week was BB&T, which considering the libertarian convictions of recently departed president John Allison, surprisingly accepted bailout money even though BB&T did not need it. In a December interview with The Charlotte Observer Allison explained why he took the funds:
ALLISON: We took it for two reasons. One, there was a lot of regulatory pressure on the large banks to take TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program). They very strongly -- very strongly -- encouraged banks our size to participate. And, if you allowed your competitors to get it and you didn't, it would hurt you relative to your competitors, so you had an obligation to your shareholders to take it. ... It would be like the original [economic stimulus] program, where they gave everybody up to, I think, $600. Well, you could have been opposed to that, but if they were giving everybody else $600, why wouldn't you take yours?
However, we still would have rather there not been a program. The net effect has been negative to us. A lot of banks have been helped that otherwise we would have been able to acquire. [The government was] supposed to give the money to very healthy banks, but they're also giving it to banks that are very marginal.
OBSERVER: What are you using your TARP money for?
ALLISON: Just for general purposes. We're still growing our lending business, [but] we already had enough capital. The other thing is, the Treasury is encouraging banks to acquire marginally healthy banks, and TARP money could be used for that purpose. [But] we already had enough money to do acquisitions.
Now upon repayment, it appears BB&T regrets it accepted TARP money:
Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the federal government, BB&T Corp. - a longtime opponent of big government - repaid the money with interest Wednesday....
BB&T said it accepted TARP loans despite the bank's philosophy because regulators strongly urged it to. The bank said Wednesday that it had paid $93 million in interest on the government loan and indicated that it wasn't happy about the expense or the distraction.
"This was, in fact, an excellent investment for the American taxpayer," chief executive Kelly King said in a statement - subtly refuting critics who called the TARP loans a bailout.
Does the RICO Act apply to the federal government?
Sin Is
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 10:47AM
TER!!!
Yes, put those three parts of the word together and it spells "sinister." And that's what this Obama administration has become. Apparently there is not one, but instead there are three, IGs being hounded by this corrupt White House. (Hat tip to Dan Riehl and Moe Lane.) This comes on top of a witness who is contradicting the White House claims about AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin (both links from us at the Washington Times). Re Walpin, it helps to read his two reports, which are both very very well done indeed, both of which blow the whistle on cronies of the president either for borderline fraud or for bad mismanagement. Michelle Malkin, to her credit, has been all over this. So has Byron York, who adds another big piece to the story today, showing how blatantly evasive the White House is being. I got some pushback last night on deep background -- and, to be honest, it does seem to me that on one level this anti-Walpin thing came from the Corporation for National and Community Service's board, based largely on a May 20 meeting where Walpin seemed confused. But the White House knows the rules on IGs, and absolutely nothing that my pushback source gave me came even close to adding up to adequate grounds to summarily dismiss in IG. The White House seems, to me, to have tried to take advantage of uncomfortable relations between a part-time board and a fulltime IG -- gee, as if THAT is an unexpected situation, an IG bothering a board! That's what IG's DO, fergoshsakes. The fact remains that this IG issued TWO very SOLID reports that embarrassed Whtie House cronies, at an agency that already has some scary overtones because of the president's expressed desire for a domestic corps as big and strong as the US military, an agency with close ties to ACORN and of deep interest to the First Lady. This is sinister. The Prowler, to his credit, has more on this. John Fund rightly tries to light a fire under Joe Lieberman to exhibit his deservedly praised conscience and do a full investigation.
This is important stuff. And while my deep background pushback last night impressed me as sincere and well-motivated, it was far, far, far less than impressive in terms of providing anywhere near enough grounds to treat Mr. Walpin this way.
Everybody who cares about integrity in government should keep pounding on this issue -- HARD.
UCC's Thomas Still Silent on Wright, as Spectator Attacked by Church
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 10:45AM
So. This fine day finds the official website of the United Church of Christ headlining “The American Spectator Gets It Wrong.”
Really?
In the aftermath of the UCC’s Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s much-noted statement that “them Jews” around President Obama (this would presumably be White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and advisor David Axelrod) were keeping Wright, the President’s controversial former pastor, from speaking to the President, the UCC’s Blogger-in-Chief the Reverend Chuck Currie quickly put up a statement. As you can see, Currie pointedly and quite correctly condemned Wright.
Alas, the denomination president, the Rev. John Thomas, shimmied. Instead of saying a word about Wright he issued a mushy statement, quoted in full in Currie’s post, about the UCC and the Jewish people. Clearly, as any reader of both statements can see, the difference is quite vivid. I congratulated Currie for speaking up forcefully on behalf of our common denomination, observing that Thomas as church president should have said the same.
This morning Currie denies there is any split between him and Thomas on this -- yet, curiously, Thomas is still quieter than the proverbial church mouse on the subject of Wright. It should be noted that when l’affaire Wright surfaced last year, Thomas hesitated not at all in showing up in Wright’s Chicago pulpit to defend Wright. Indeed, the UCC website headlined it this way “Church leaders defend Jeremiah Wright against ‘character assassination.’”
Interestingly, Thomas was quickly out of the box with a statement condemning the Holocaust Museum shooting. He rightly pulled no punches: "This attack on the Holocaust Museum will only heighten fears of increased anti-Semitic violence against Jews in our country. This is why we must stand with people of the Jewish faith in denouncing this brutal act." The UCC statement also repeated support for hate crimes legislation, which, of course, is predicated on the notion that a bigoted thought (hatred for a group) should be prosecuted.
Wright expressed identically the kind of bigoted thought shared by the Holocaust shooter, which spurs the felt-need for hate crime legislation. And from the president of the UCC on such an obvious moral issue inside his own denomination? Deafening silence. No wonder Chuck Currie is antsy over there. The American Spectator got Jeremiah Wright and John Thomas exactly right.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 9:59AM
- George loves cigarettes and derides the president in bow-tied prose (Washington Post)
- Rove ochestrates the GOP's opposition to Obama care from the WSJ (WSJ)
- Jesse Walker on liberals' self-serving paranoia (Reason)
- The financial regulations proposal in very short story form (EconLog)
- Netflix's prize offering seems to be close to paying off (Wired)
- Obama's female appointees and nominees keep falling down and breaking bones... coincidence? (NY Times)
The Worst Financial Tsuanmi
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 6:01AM
As Congress considers wrecking the economy through health care "reform" and anti-energy "cap and trade," it is worth remembering the even bigger fiscal problem looming in the future: Medicare and Social Security. They threaten to overwhelm us with $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
Reports the National Center for Policy Analysis:
The 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports show the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars! That is about seven times the size of the U.S. economy and 10 times the size of the outstanding national debt.The unfunded liability is the difference between the benefits that have been promised to current and future retirees and what will be collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premiums. Last year alone, this debt rose by $5 trillion. If no other reform is enacted, this funding gap can only be closed in future years by substantial tax increases, large benefit cuts or both.
Social Security versus Medicare. Politicians and the media focus on Social Security's financial health, but Medicare's future liabilities are far more ominous, at more than $89 trillion. Medicare's total unfunded liability is more than five times larger than that of Social Security. In fact, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2006 (Part D) alone adds some $17 trillion to the projected Medicare shortfall - an amount greater than all of Social Security's unfunded obligations.
Instead of coming up with ways to spend even more money while cutting or even eliminating economic growth, legislators should be dealing with this looming financial disaster.
I Thought Global Warming Meant "Warming"
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:34AM
Apparently Global Warming doesn't really mean "warming" as most of us would understand it. At least, the temperatures haven't been cooperating. Reports the Daily Telegraph:
For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend "climate change". In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow for 60 years.
There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people.
So, Congress is considering legislation to destroy the economy in order to stop global warming, even as colder temperatures are driving down food production. Something seems wrong with this picture!
AmeriCorps Scandal Won't Go Away Soon
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:34AM
The situation in Iran and other news had kept me from looking into the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin until yesterday, when Michelle Malkin's column slapped me in the face. Wow.
Just a quick preliminary survey of what's already online convinced me that this story will likely still be making headlines a year from now. As Quin Hillyer said, it makes TravelGate look tame, and the fact that the FBI is reportedly investigating the involvement of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson -- an Obama ally and target of one of Walpin's reports -- indicates a potentially serious scandal in the works.
The White House has pushed back hard against the 75-year-old IG, seeking to portray him as senile and incompetent, but Walpin seemed sharp in a Fox News interview with Glenn Beck yesterday. Byron York of the Washington Examiner scored an exclusive with a report from one witness at the May 20 meeting where an administration official claims Walpin was "confused."
As York explains, a report in the Sacramento Bee that morning had broken new accusations in the case, the board members in the meeting were confrontational, and the witness didn't get any impression that Walpin was "disoriented," as the adminstration now claims. Complaints against Walpin by the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Lawrence G. Brown, appear "contrived" and "false," according to The Washington Times.
The problem for the administration, however, is not Walpin. Even if the inspector general were a doddering old fool, as the White House seems eager to imply, a federal investigation is still a federal investigation --and woe unto the administration official who does not cooperate to the full satisfaction of federal investigators. (Ask Scooter Libby about that.)
At this point, every communication between Brown and other officials about AmeriCorps, Mayor Johnson and Walprin's dismissal is evidence, and any monkey business with evidence in a federal case is a serious crime. Communications among officials trying to figure out how to slow an investigation or "spin" the scandal can easily result in charges of obstruction of justice and/or conspiracy.
Federal investigations are sticky like flypaper. It was the accusation that Mayor Johnson had destroyed e-mails relating to Walpin's investigation that reportedly got the FBI sniffing around in Sacramento. And lots more folks might soon be sniffing around.
Tidbits of news reported by the Bee -- "Chris Young, the mayor's former special assistant, left City Hall last month for a job as an associate under Jeff Bleich, a special counsel to the president" -- could arouse curiosity. Bee columnist Marcos Breton says of Mayor Johnson, "There is seemingly always a skeleton poised to fly out of Johnson's closet." With so many Washington journalists interested in this case, how long before one of them books a flight westward and starts filing stories with a Sacramento dateline?
It's not just journalists and FBI agents sniffing around AmeriCorps, however, and Mayor Johnson isn't the only one who's being scrutinized. Buried in the last paragraph of today's New York Times story is this paragraph:
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who has taken up Mr. Walpin’s complaints, has asked the Obama administration to provide further information about the dismissal. On Wednesday, Mr. Grassley asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to look into whether Mr. Brown’s complaint was appropriate. He also wrote to Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, asking questions raised by [presidential special counsel Norman L.] Eisen’s letter.
Holder and Craig are not rookies on the scandal-management circuit, of course, but Grassley is no rookie senator, either. And the Wall Street Journal's John Fund notes that at least one of Grassley's Senate colleagues may soon take an interest:
Here's hoping that Senator Joe Lieberman, who has shown streaks of independence in the past as chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, is willing to hold a hearing on the firing and give Mr. Walpin a chance to defend himself.
Grassley has other questions, too, as Ann Sanner of the Associated Press reported:
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa requested that Alan Solomont, chairman of the government-run Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs the AmeriCorps program, provide "any and all records, e-mail, memoranda, documents, communications or other information" related to contacts with officials in the first lady's office. . . .
Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, Jackie Norris, is expected to join the national service corporation as a senior adviser on June 22.
One way or another, this story could take a long, long time to play out. They say the weather in Sacramento is lovely in June.
When is Health Care Reform not Health Care Reform?
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:17AM
When it is hiding pork.
Sen. Enzi points to the $4 trillion Kennedy bill:
Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Senate's only accountant, today criticized wasteful spending in a health care reform bill released by HELP Committee Democrats this week.
"The Kennedy-Dodd bill will pave sidewalks, build jungle gyms, and open grocery stores, but it won't bring down health care costs or make quality coverage more affordable," Enzi said.
"In a time of record debt and deficits, how can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?
"We need to root out the waste, fraud and abuse that is driving up health care costs - not create a whole slew of new wasteful programs," said Enzi, the only Senator to serve on the HELP, Finance and Budget Committees, which share jurisdiction over health care reform.
The HELP Committee Democrats' bill would: ·
Establish a "Community Makeover Program" to spend billions to beautify streets, up to $10 per person in selected communities; ·
Fund a federal government program to build new sidewalks and bike paths, and put up street lights; ·
Finance new grocery stores and farmers' markets; ·
Revoke employers rights to provide free wellness benefits to employees; ·
Mandate that a new Washington health police bureaucracy dictate what local restaurants can offer their customers; and, ·
Subsidize community projects like building jungle gyms in parks.
It must be genetic. Legislators can't keep pork out of military appropriations. They can't keep it out of health care reform. They can't stop even when the U.S. is running a nearly $2 trillion deficit.
Taxes, Taxes, and More Taxes
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 5:08AM
That's what we face if Congress passes health care "reform." At least Charlie Rangel of the House Ways and Means Committee seems somewhat honest in this regard. His committee has issued a paper listing different options for raising $600 billion.
The Ways and Means option would raise more than half the needed revenues from limiting the tax exclusion for employer-provided benefits to 110 percent of the actuarial model of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard option. Coverage excluded from tax would be limited to $17,240 for families and $6,800 for individuals beginning in 2013, indexed for inflation in future years with a 50-50 blend of general and medical inflationary increases. That option alone would raise $306 billion.
The Ways and Means paper assumes the entire $600 billion in new taxes would begin to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013. A 2 percent surtax on individuals earning more than $200,000 and households with $250,000 or more in adjusted gross income would raise $256 billion.
That would be in keeping with President Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on all but the wealthiest households, and the 2013 effective date assumes the nation would be out of recession. But many small-business owners are already chafing at seeing the top tax rates hiked to 36 percent and 39.6 percent in 2011 under Obama's budget plan.
Rangel's paper couples the 2 percent surtax with a 0.375 percent increase in the Medicare tax on both employers and employees, estimated to raise $344 billion -- also likely to cause problems with the small business lobby and perhaps liberal interest groups that argue it is a regressive tax. Currently, employers and employees each pay a 1.45 percent tax to fund Medicare; the 1993 budget bill repealed the cap on income subject to the Medicare tax.
The options paper appears to recognize that raising the Medicare tax might be politically untenable. If that is the case, as a fallback the Ways and Means document suggests a number of revenue-replacing options, including limiting the tax exclusion and a $200 billion proposal to add a new 3 percent payroll tax on employers' healthcare spending. The paper argues that employers would essentially come out even, because they would be saving money on employees' health care under the overhaul bill.
President Barack Obama's promise about not raising taxes on most Americans looks increasingly tattered. But then, it's hard to believe that anyone ever took that promise seriously.
How's the Stimulus Working?
Posted by on 6.18.09 @ 4:45AM
Sen. Tom Coburn attempts to help answer that question. He's published a helpful study taking aim at many of the projects being funded by the "stimulus" bill. Reports Sen. Coburn:
Earl Devaney, head of the Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board, estimates that at least $55 billion of the money may be lost to waste, fraud and abuse.2 Unfortunately, we all have come to expect waste and mismanagement when Washington spends money. But this time the expectation must be different. When ordinary Americans are laid off or lose their jobs, they are losing more than just income. They are losing their health insurance, as well as their ability to pay their mortgages, to send their kids to school, or even provide necessities like food and shelter.
This report is an attempt to look beyond the statistics of jobs created or even money wasted. It, instead, provides a closer examination of 100 projects, programs and missteps - worth $5.5 billion - some even in my own home state of Oklahoma, that are likely to fail the expectation of out of work Americans who were hoping this bill would create good jobs that they are desperately seeking so that they can provide for their families once again.
Sen. Coburn promises to keep issuing reports in the future. He is one of the public servants who truly lives up to that name.
Unfortunately, the better the job that Sen. Coburn does, the more depressing the results. But remember: It's only money. Don't worry, be happy.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Obama Names Brokaw to Commission
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 10:50PM
It makes perfect sense that President Obama has appointed left-wing newsman Tom Brokaw to the 2009-2010 President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
Of course Brokaw's ties to ACORN aren't nearly as strong as the president's, but he's definitely in the same ideological camp.
AmeriCorps and ACORN Go Way Back
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 8:02PM
The cynical, politically motivated, and apparently illegal firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin shocks the conscience.
I'm not going to examine here the circumstances surrounding the termination of Walpin but I do wish to remind readers that AmeriCorps has long been ripe for abuse.
ACORN took advantage of the federal agency a decade ago. As I wrote previously, ACORN, which is now notorious for its commingling of funds within its network of affiliates, used government resources to promote legislation.
A congressional report noted that there was "apparent cross-over funding between ACORN, a political advocacy group and ACORN Housing Corp. (AHC), a non profit, AmeriCorp [sic] grantee" that is a major affiliate of ACORN.
The government-funded AmeriCorps, which promotes public service, suspended AHC's funding "after it was learned that AHC and ACORN shared office space and equipment and failed to assure that activities and funds were wholly separate."
The report noted that, "AmeriCorps members of AHC raised funds for ACORN, performed voter registration activities, and gave partisan speeches. In one instance, an AmeriCorps member was directed by ACORN staff to assist the [Clinton] White House in preparing a press conference in support of legislation." ("Report on the Activities of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities During the 104th Congress," Report 104-875, January 2, 1997)
Aware of this kind of abuse, earlier this year Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) tried to block ACORN from using AmeriCorps funding to promote its own political objectives, but ACORN allies, including Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), helped to defeat Vitter's legislation.
Incidentally, as I write this, ACORN donors are celebrating the 39th birthday of the radical activist group at a $250 a ticket gala reception at the National Education Association. Center for American Progress president John Podesta, SEIU union boss Andy Stern, and corrupt former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros are expected to attend.
The Crash of Clinton Care
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 5:51PM
I'd been meaning to take issue with Matthew Cooper for saying it is "total revisionism" to blame the Clintons' hardball tactics for sinking their own health care reform bill. Ramesh Ponnuru has already said what there is to say, including Cooper's snide aside about Republican opposition to the public option.
Cooper: "And now that the outlines of a real plan are on the table we see the wolves gathering, first in opposition to the very seensible idea of a public plan-because Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich HATED their health insurance when they were in government-and then surely later to the whole cost of the package." Ponnuru: "The federal employee health benefits plan provides employees with a lot of options, but none of them is government-run."
The only thing I'd add is that one need not be "naive about the way Washington works" to understand that Democrats who had been serving on Capitol Hill for decades had no desire to be dictated to from a president who had just arrived from Little Rock. The Clintons' mistakes were far from the only thing that doomed their health plan, but those Democratic committee chairmen might have been able to craft a bill less vulnerable to interest group opposition than Hillarycare.
Baucus Heads to the Cutting Board
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 4:15PM
Per the Hill, I see that Max Baucus said the Finance Committee was going to rewrite its health care legislation to cut $600 billion from its price tag after they were told by the Congressional Budget Office that the draft they were considering would cost $1.6 trillion. Contrary to the Roll Call report I cited earlier, Baucus is being vague on whether committee members would begin marking up the bill before or after July 4 recess. Either way, this is clearly a set back for Democrats.
House GOP Releases Awful Health Care "Plan"
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 3:53PM
Rep. Dave Camp and other House Republicans today released an outline of an alternative health care bill. It's true that a Republican plan isn't going anywhere, and anything coming out of the House as opposed to the Senate matters even less. But when the minority party presents an alternative, it's at least an opportunity to highlight a different vision for reform. Unfortunately, this effort by Republicans fails miserably short by offering more government while doing nothing to foster a free market for health care in this country. In fact, it doesn't even use the word "market" once.
For starters, the Republican proposal aims to reinforce the employer-based insurance model by maintaining the tax exclusion and simply creating a new one for individuals. While this is fairer than the current system, it would still preserve the system in which most people get their insurance through their employer, limiting their choice, hindering their ability to take insurance with them from job to job, and driving up costs because people have the notion that somebody else is paying all the bills.
The proposal also creates a raft of new subsidies, including: "immediate substantial financial assistance, through new refundable and advanceable tax credits, to low- and modest-income Americans"; "To help those aged 55 to 64, the plan increases support for pre- and early-retirees with low- and modest-incomes"; "Gives financial help to caregivers who provide in-home care for a loved one."
Any truly free market reform would find some way around the thousands of benefit mandates states put on health coverage, which according to the Council of Affordable Health Insurance, help drive up the cost of policies by 20 percent to 50 percent. But instead of taking aim at this problem (many free market reforms involve allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines), the plan creates a new federal mandate allowing parents to keep children on their policies until they are 25. These so-called "slacker mandates," which already exist in some states, sound benign actually drive up the cost of insurance.
And that isn't even the only form of regulation in the GOP proposal It also, "Encourages states to create a Universal Access Program by establishing and/or reforming existing programs to guarantee all Americans, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses, have access to affordable coverage." The problem with "guaranteed issue" laws is that they've led to a mass exodus of insurers in states that have adopted them, because when government says insurers have to take on riskier patients, they have to jack up prices on everybody else to recoup their costs. This means that healthier people tend to stop buying insurance, and insurers run for the hills. Once go down the road of "guaranteed issue," the only way around this problem is to either adopt an individual mandate forcing people to buy health coverage -- which creates other problems -- or just increasing government subsidies.
The outline also offers some of the same vague promises as the
Obama administration, such as cutting down on "waste, fraud and
abuse" and "improv[ing] Americans’ lives through effective
prevention, wellness, and disease
management programs, while developing new treatments and cures
for life- threatening diseases."
There is some more positive language in the bill, such as a mention of medical liability reform, health savings accounts, and allowing Medicaid and SCHIP beneficiaries to obtain insurance outside of a government plan. But there aren't any more details, so its hard to say what that would mean.
The outline does not provide any numbers, either cost estimates or any mention of the value of the various subsidies and tax credits offered.
Perhaps I'm making a mistake by evaluating the plan based on how market-friendly it is, given that it isn't being sold that way. In fact, the word "market" doesn't appear once in the outline or press release.
Obama, Lord of the Flies
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 12:18PM
The media coverage of President Obama's televised fly-swatting is getting out of hand.
The Health Care Express Hits Major Roadblock
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 11:53AM
Roll Call is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee is delaying the markup of its health care bill -- scheduled for next Tuesday -- until after the July 4 recess. The reason why this is major news is that Congress was already looking at an ambitious timeline to get health care legislation passed by July 31, before lawmakers go on summer recess. Now the earliest the Finance Committee will begin to rewrite its bill would be July 6, meaning they'll have less than a month to: finalize their proposed legislation, merge it with the bill currently under consideration by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduce it to the broader Senate, debate it, and pass it.
I'll have to make some calls to get a better sense of how the change came about, but my guess is that the major factor was the news that the Congressional Budget Office was set to put a $1.6 trillion price tag on a draft of the Finance Committee bill. Coming on the heels of the major embarassment this week when the CBO estimated that just a part of the HELP bill would increase the deficit by $1 trillion over 10 years, Democrats likely decided to delay the unveiling of another massive bill until they could find a way to improve the CBO score.
UPDATE: The Hill reports that Finance Committee chair Max Baucus says their bill will be rewriten to chop $600 billion off of its price tag, but he was vague about whether this would delay markup until after July 4.
Shrill, Too Shrill
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 11:48AM
The criticism leveled against us, and by extension other conservative magazines, by Rod Dreher, who in this context speaks for a broader set of critics, is that by using harsh and inflammatory language to condemn Barack Obama and the liberals in power, we look intemperate in comparison and thereby actually advance their cause. Furthermore, engaging in this kind of rhetoric leaves us unable to identify the weaknesses in our own thoughts.
Are we, in fact, too outspoken in our anti-Obama rhetoric? Now from time to time, on the blog or in a web article, in the heat of the moment we might call some of Obama's policies socialist, corporatist, or even fascist. Although there is definitely an element of truth to all those accusations, we would probably be better off dialing it down a bit. However, any reader who follows us would know that we said all the same things of Bush, too.
In the case that Rod refers to, though -- the head for James Srodes's piece in the May issue that said "Obama's National Socialism" -- I don't agree that it was at all inflammatory or base-baiting. The article laid out the case why Obama's preferred policy mirrored that of Hjelmar Schacht's, which was I believe the first large-scale use of Keynesian-style stimulus. The head was in small script on the corner of the cover. It needed advertisement on the cover because it was a feature, and I think there are plenty of much more inflammatory ways we could have plugged it. For instance, we could have written "Obama's Favorite Economist: Hitler, page 22," or "Obama's Nazi Economics, 22" I really think that writing "National Socialism" is not a particularly provocative way to introduce such a naturally uncomfortable topic.
Dreher premises his larger point on a statement Bob Tyrrell made in last Saturday's New York Times article on conservative magazines. Dreher criticized Bob's statement that "Our major concern is that conservative philosophy permeate the country, and if the Republican Party doesn't want to go along with it, that's their business." In Dreher's view, this statement reflects an unyielding dedication to Reagan-era conservatism in the face of changing circumstances. He condemns this attitude because
The trick is to work hard to think through our own biases and emotions, and always to keep watch on our own minds, tongues and consciences, so that we speak the truth that is, not the truth that suits us emotionally, or that suits the people who buy what we're selling.
[...]
It is more important to serve God and to save your soul than to see your political party take power.
But Rod just quoted Bob saying, "if the Republican Party doesn't want to go along with it [a kind of principled conservatism], that's their business." Clearly we're not beholden to a political party.
It might hurt the Republican Party if we were so shrill and doctrinaire as to look like crazed wingnuts. But A) the fate of the Republican Party is not our concern, B) we're not shrill, and C) we're not doctrinaire -- the June issue's cover, with the giant subtitle "Time to Be Pro-Mexico" advertising a pro-immigration feature, I think pretty clearly shows we're not riling up the base (in fact we've received a lot of letters from readers outraged by that article).
Definitely there is a line to be walked to maintain our credibility. But calling out the government's clear excesses, even if no one in the mainstream is willing to, is not out of bounds. If Obama -- or any Republican, for that matter -- engages in Schacht-style stimulus, Mussolini-style corporatism, or European-style socialism, it's up to us to call it like we see it.
ADDED:
I guess I should make one more point regarding Dreher's specific question, "I would be interested to hear what Lawler thinks of the real substance of that post of mine, which was about the way we talk about the other side in American political discourse, and the temptations it poses."
I think credibility matters. I think it's a good thing when liberal magazines catch the "conservatives" in Congress in shenanigans or doing things that destroy liberty. But I can't separate the useful criticisms from the looniness on, for instance, the Huffington Post, so I don't read it. As long you base your rhetoric only on ironclad fact, as was the case with the Srodes piece, you will maintain your credibility and be useful not only for combating the left's missteps but also for both sides to read. Is there a danger that there will be outlets on the right that go completely overboard a la Daily Kos during the Bush years? Absolutely. But reasonable people on both sides know better than to get caught up in thinking about them too much, and I'm not sure how much value there is in launching a crusade against them when the press on the left is providing cover for their politicians to do some really dubious things while they're in power.
Gallup: Americans Trust Doctors More Than Politicians
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 10:43AM
With the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee holding its hearing today on remaking the U.S. health care system, Gallup is out with a new poll finding that Americans trust doctors and hospitals with health care reform more than any politicians. At the same time, though President Obama is actively deceiving Americans when it comes to costs, choice, supporting what works, and the involvement of government, people still find him far more credible than Republicans. Putting everything else aside, that may prove the difference in the health care fight. If Americans believe President Obama when he says that he's going to cut costs, cover everybody, improve the quality of care, allow everybody to keep their current insurance, while averting tax increases, rationing, or a government takeover, the actual facts may not matter.
Malkin on Walpin-Gate
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 10:25AM
Michelle Malkin has more. Watch the Michelle Obama connection.
Re: Democratic Senator Hits White House
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 10:05AM
This Walpin-Gate scandal deserves to get more and more attention. EVERY single senator who voted for the Inspectors General Reform Act ought to be asked, repeatedly, why they aren't demanding an investigation of the president for the firing of Mr. Walpin. As Jake Tapper reports, the White House is now playing hardball against Mr. Walpin. Herewith, a warning: The White House is playing with fire in going this route. I won't detail why right now, but trust me on this -- and watch this space, and watch the Washington Times for more. The White House is acting like thugs. Their thuggishness must not be allowed to stand.
Iranian Soccer Team Goes Green
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 9:32AM
Players on the Iranian soccer team wore green bands during their World Cup qualifying match against South Korea, in what is being seen as a sign of them showing solidarity with the protesters. The game ended in a draw, and now Iran, ironically, will need a North Korea win to have a chance at making the World Cup.
Murder Still Isn't Pro-Life
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 9:13AM
Daniel Larison and Scott Richert sound the right notes in arguing that there is no pro-life justification for George Tiller's murder, bringing up some points I didn't cover in my rejoinder to Jacob Sullum. Tiller's murderer neither had the civil authority to wield the sword on behalf of the common good nor was he acting in defense of himself or his extended family. The tragedy of legal abortion is that those who have these duties are complicit: the government permits abortion and, since Roe v. Wade, has called it a constitutional right; the mother of the child is the one seeking the abortion; the father is all too often, though certainly not always, the one paying for or otherwise promotion the abortion.
These facts are relevant even when considering another commonly heard rationale for antiabortion violence: the "Good Samaritan" acting in defense of unborn children who have been abandoned unto death by their parents and government. After Tiller's murder I received an email asking, "If your neighbor's house is being invaded by a deranged killer, and you have a gun, you would use it, right?" And indeed, I hope I would act to disable a would-be killer terrorizing my neighbor if I was able to do so.
But in the case of abortion, it is my neighbor who is inviting in the killer. There is no moral certainty that they will not seek another one or use an abortifacient, whereas I can be morally certain I'm actually going to save my neighbor's life if I'm successful according to my correspondent's example. Most importantly, we live in a community where virtually everyone understands that invading a home and killing its occupants is wrong, probably including the killer himself. No one would confuse my actions to save my neighbor with the actions of the home invader.
None of that is true with abortion. In this country there are millions of otherwise decent people, with good intentions and of sound mind, who do not see anything wrong with abortion. There are millions more who have moral qualms about abortion but would be confused by violent acts by avowed pro-lifers against abortionists, hardening their hearts against the unborn rather than forming their consciences against abortion. And the people who most need to have their consciences formed against abortion are the mothers who seek them, the fathers who pay for them, and the government officials who act to legalize or subsidize the practice. In addition to not having any right or duty to dispense lethal violence, Tiller's murderer is likely unleashing greater evils than the evil he sought to prevent.
Sometimes violence, even lethal violence, is justified. But a real pro-life ethic seeks to limits the use of violence, put strict conditions on when and by what authority the taking of a life can occur, and to keep private individuals from being able to easily make decisions about who lives and who dies. However reprehensible Tiller's line of work was, there are many things that can be said about a fanatic gunning a man down in cold blood while he is at church. "Pro-life" isn't one of them.
UPDATE: The Weekly Standard carries an interesting article about the thinking of antiabortion killers.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.17.09 @ 8:55AM
- Obama joins Bush Sr. on the sidelines of important revolutions -- a mistake (Boston Globe)
- About those surprisingly pro-Obama articles coming out of the Vatican newspaper (National Review)
- Rod Dreher responds to my criticism (Crunchy Con)
- Robert Stacy McCain and Conor Friedersdorf are embroiled in another tug-o-war over who owns conservatism
- More faux-conservatism from David Frum's site: cut taxes, oppose gay marriage and affirmative action (New Majority)
- Obama's health care plans would have done better if he'd figured out a way to pay for it beforehand (Politico)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Democratic Senator Hits White House on IG Termination
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 6:32PM
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), an early Obama supporter in 2008, has issued a statement saying that the White House did not follow the law in removing Gerald Walpin:
The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service. The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal. ‘Loss of confidence' is not a sufficient reason. I'm hopeful the White House will provide a more substantive rationale, in writing, as quickly as possible.
For What It's Worth
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 6:23PM
Nashville blogger A.C. Kleinheider's reluctance to run with the Sherri Goforth racist email story strikes me as reasonable.
Dear Leader Obama Wants to Seize More Companies
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 6:17PM
President Obama is demanding dangerous, sweeping new powers to seize financial services companies.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the proposal expected to be unveiled tomorrow will be "the most significant new regulation of the financial industry since the Great Depression, including a new watchdog agency to look out for consumers' interests."
The plan would give the government "new powers to seize key companies -- such as insurance giant American International Group Inc. -- whose failure jeopardizes the financial system." The news report notes that "[c]urrently, the government's authority to seize companies is mostly limited to banks."
Isn't this too cute by half? The left plunges the country into financial crisis through a number of measures such as the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and by pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and others to lend to the uncreditworthy, and now offers to save the country through more Big Government regulations.
President Obama, by the way, personally contributed to the increasingly hostile environment for banks when he represented the plaintiffs in the 1995 class action lawsuit Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank. The suit demanded that the bank grant mortgages to an equal percentage of minority and non-minority mortgage applicants. Under pressure, the bank settled the case three years later after agreeing to beef up its lending to unqualified applicants.
Health Care on the Hill
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 5:22PM
Earlier this afternoon, I spoke with a senior Republican staffer on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee about where things stood on Capitol Hill on the health care front.
Today, members of the HELP committee have been meeting to walk through the legislation (aka as the Kennedy bill, after the committee's chairman), which they will begin to rewrite tomorrow, as part of what's called the markup process.
The Finance Committee is scheduled to begin the markup of its bill next week, meaning that we should expect to have a draft this week, perhaps Thursday.
The source said that Republicans will be expressing their concerns about the inclusion of a new government run plan, an employer mandate, and the cost of the legislation. The idea is to demonstrate how the actual details of the bill differ from President Obama's speech to the American Medical Association yesterday. Specifically, showing how the plan won't be deficit neutral, it won't preserve people's ability to keep their own health care, and will indeed lead to rationing of care.
Also, I asked about the provision in the health care bill that I've been covering that would kill the Safeway health and wellness program that Obama touted in his AMA speech. By way of background, Safeway has succeeded in reducing its health care costs by providing financial incentives to employees who lead healthier lives, including lower insurance premiums for those with lower weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. As written, the Kennedy bill would kill it, because it bars insurers from charging different premiums based on health status. According to my source, there's talk of changing the language in the bill to grandfather in programs such as the one Safeway runs, but of course that would still bar other companies from adopting similar programs.
Despite all of the speed bumps ahead, Democrats are insisting that they will be able to rewrite the two major bills in the Senate, merge them together, and pass a unified bill by roughly six weeks from now, before August recess.
Report: Kennedy Bill Would Actually Cost $4 Trillion
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 3:40PM
Yesterday, the CBO estimated that the current Democratic Senate health care bill would increase the defict by $1 trillion over 10 years while leaving 30 million uninsured, forcing the White House to distance itself from the legislation. While liberals have tried to emphasize that the CBO provided only a partial analysis of the draft legislation from Ted Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation will only serve to drive the bill's ultimate cost higher. For instance, because it was only working with a draft of the bill that had holes in it, the CBO did not estimate the costs associated with increasing Medicaid elgibility to 150 percent of the poverty level, or the full cost of providing subsidies to individuals with incomes at up to 500 percent of the poverty level to purchase insurance through state-run exchanges. Once this is taken into account, liberals are right that the final CBO estimate will reflect more people being insured, but the cost of the legislation will go up as well.
Health Systems Innovations Network, a consulting group, went ahead and estimated the full cost of a bill that included the subsidies and Medicaid expansion, and reduced the number of uninsured by 99 percent. With these assumptions, they estimated (pdf) the cost at a staggering $4 trillion over 10 years, resulting in the shift of 79 million Americans to government-run health care. The report does not include possible tax increases or spending offsets, but notes that, "this would be a challenging proposal to finance with budget neutrality."
President Obama, in a speech to the American Medical Association on Monday, declared of the price tag of health care legislation: "it is a cost that will not – I repeat, not – add to our deficits."
UPDATE: I just spoke with Steve Parente, principal at HSI, who explained that the main reason why the group's estimate is so much higher than the CBO is that it assumes more people will buy coverage with government help. "We see a lot of people taking advantage of that subsidy, because it goes so far up the income threshold," Parente said. To be clear, 500 percent of the poverty level translates into income of $110,000 for a family of four. He also said HSI would revise the estimate if a new version of the legislation proposed new cost savings. However, he said it's difficult to estimate savings from the adoption of information technology and increased prevention. IT, for instance, could turn into an "unfunded mandate" on doctors and hospitals, while not all forms of prevention are created equal. Flu shots, for instance, are relatively cheap, but providing mammograms to some age groups can be quite costly.
This Makes Travelgate Look Tame
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 2:01PM
This business of President Obama firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin should be a huge controversy. See here and here and here and here. And here. And we at the Washington Times will have a lot more on this; actually, we already have lots more, but will be printing it in coming days.
Here's the thing: There is no reason, none whatsoever, for CNN and MSNBC, along with CBS and The NY Times, not to be putting this on the front page. An independent inspector general embarrassed some close allies and/or fundraisers of the president, so the president fired him without stating a cause. This is, on its face, a scandal. It is worse than Travelgate because it involves an official protecting the public fisc against waste and corruption. It is worse than the US Attorney "scandal" under Bush because, unlike US Attorneys, IGs are NOT political appointees who can be fired at will -- and because the quid pro quo, or rather dismissal pro quo, here is far more direct than it (allegedly) was with regard to the dismissed USAs.
At the very least, the intellectually honest (usually) left-leaning editorialists at the Washington Post should be yelling (in print) about this abuse of power by Obama. WHERE ARE THE WATCHDOGS of the establishment media? Oh, that's right: They are no longer watchdogs but lapdogs, and particularly slobbering ones at that, waiting for Obama's order for them to fetch his slippers while they hope to be thrown a bone for their slavish devotion to him.....
Burn Baby Burn!
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 1:16PM
Via Madyar, video of protesters lighting a poster of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on fire.
Obama and Iran
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 1:08PM
I agree wholeheartedly with Phil about the inadequacy of President Obama's response to the Iran situation and what he should say -- he should condemn the crackdown without endorsing the protests or any Iranian political faction. (It's a little early in this struggle to compare Mir-Hossein Mousavi to Lech Walesa.) But his continued insistence on engagement may be less a reflection of stubbornness or ideology, though both are surely factors, than a realization that we don't have many good options.
The Iranian regime has been discredited in the eyes of its own people and many of its own supporters, something more dangerous to its legitimacy and continued hold on power than a hundred Washington denunciations. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has revealed himself as a thug and corrupt dictator to people who were once inclined to support him. Nothing could do more to undercut the protesters, rally Iranians behind their government, and allow Ahmadinejad to divert attention from his deepening failures than U.S. military action.
The United States is not in a good position to wage a third war in the Middle East. Even some supporters of targeted military strikes concede we might not be able to hit all potential nuclear sites and could accelerate the process toward nuclearization as an unintended consequence. Obviously, there are many options between war and coddling the mullahs. Ronald Reagan forcefully condemned the Communist suppression of Solidarity -- and continued to talk with the Soviet Union. We rightly condemned the Communist butchery in Tiananmen Square, but George H.W. Bush did not break off relations with China. Eisenhower continued to talk to Kruschev after the Soviets gruesomely put down the Hungarian revolution in 1956.
No one knows what the future holds for Tehran. But that future belongs to the Iranians, who are losing confidence in the ayatollahs and the revolution of 1979. Let's put pressure on the government of Iran where we can and deal with them where we must. For now, though, we must most of all let the future unfold.
UCC Split Over Response to Wright Anti-Semitism?
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 12:54PM
The United Church of Christ's Blogger-in-Chief did a good thing the other day, and it should be noted. Upon hearing the news that UCC minister Jeremiah Wright, the ex-pastor of President Obama, had blamed "them Jews" in the White House for his inability to speak with the man he calls "a son" to him, Currie immediately posted this:
These remarks today from Rev. Wright are despicable and anti-Semitic. I would sincerely hope that the national officers of the United Church of Christ will condemn Rev. Wright's words in the strongest possible language.…I can say safely that Rev. Wright's words do not reflect the feelings of the people of the United Church of Christ.
Rev. Currie is correct. The words of Jeremiah Wright, and the quite obvious gut-level sentiments behind those words, most assuredly do not represent the UCC grassroots. As someone who is a lifelong member of the faith descended from the Pilgrims, as well as a local and Penn Central Conference Board member, I can say emphatically that Currie is correct.
The problem here is that this is precisely the kind of thing that should have come from the denomination president, the Rev. John Thomas. Instead, the UCC website seems only to have a statement of Thomas thoughts issued after Wright's words that expresses mush like this:
"The General Synod of the United Church of Christ has consistently called on its members to speak and act in ways that honor God's enduring covenant with the Jewish people..." Etc, etc. etc. Yada, yada, yada. Moral courage this is not.
There is nary a mention of Wright by Thomas, much less the explicit condemnation Currie has put forward. Currie even felt compelled to say that his views "do not reflect any position taken by the national offices of the United Church of Christ."
That is correct. And shameful. Apparently the "drum major for justice" at the top of the UCC decided to muffle the drum. Kudos to Currie for doing the right thing on Wright.
A Tale of Two Presidents
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 12:20PM
If you have a few moments, watch or read Obama's statement on the events in Iran yesterday, and then read this transcript of Ronald Reagan's 1982 radio address on the Polish Solidarity movement.
An excerpt from Obama's statement:
Obviously all of us have been watching the news from Iran. And I want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football -- or discussions with the United States.
Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television. I think that the democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.
My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place. We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can't state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election. But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it's important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.
And here's Reagan:
Yes, I know Poland is a faraway country in Eastern Europe. Still, this action is a matter of profound concern to all the American people and to the free world....
The Polish military leaders and their Soviet backers have shown that they will continue to trample upon the hopes and aspirations of the majority of the Polish people. America cannot stand idly by in the face of these latest threats of repression and acts of repression by the Polish Government.
I am, therefore, today directing steps to bring about the suspension of Poland's most-favored-nation-tariff status as quickly as possible. This will increase the tariffs on Polish manufactured goods exported to the United States and thus reduce the quantities of these goods which have been imported in the past.
The Polish regime should understand that we're prepared to take further steps as a result of this further repression in Poland. We are also consulting urgently with our allies on steps we might take jointly in response to this latest outrage. While taking these steps, I want to make clear, as I have in the past, that they are not directed against the Polish people....
Surely, it must be clear to all that until Warsaw's military authorities move to restore Solidarity to its rightful and hard-won place in Polish society, Poland will continue to be plagued by bitterness, alienation, instability, and stagnation.
Someone has said that when anyone is denied freedom, then freedom for everyone is threatened. The struggle in the world today for the hearts and minds of mankind is based on one simple question: Is man born to be free, or slave? In country after country, people have long known the answer to that question. We are free by divine right. We are the masters of our fate, and we create governments for our convenience. Those who would have it otherwise commit a crime and a sin against God and man....
I join with my countrymen, including millions of Americans whose roots are in Poland, in praying for an early return to a path of moderation and personal freedom in Poland.
On Iran, Obama is Acting Like Bush
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 12:15PM
There's been a lot of debate over what the proper response by the Obama administration should be to the events in Iran. One side believes that President Obama should make a statement in solidarity with the protesters, while others argue that doing so would backfire by allowing the Iranian regime to portray the opposition as a tool of the United States. I see this as a bit of a "false choice," to use an Obamaism. I don't see why Obama can't forcefully condemn the brutality of the crackdown on protesters without explicitly endorsing Mousavi or the protests themselves.
But even if there is a case to be made for America butting out of developments in Iran as events unfold, it's hard to make a convincing case that if the dust settles with the current regime intact, protests put down, that America should still pursue engagement. Practically speaking, the Iranian regime has only become more hawkish and defiant, so there's no plausible reason to think that negotiations can accomplish anything. But beyond that, engagement would implicitly acknowledge the election as legitimate, and America would be siding with a totalitarian regime over the Iranian people.
And that brings me to my headline. While it goes without saying that President Bush, at least in his first term, approached foreign policy a lot differently than Obama, our new president is rivaling our old one when it comes to stubbornness. One of the biggest criticisms of President Bush was that he was unwilling to ever admit that he was wrong, and that he was reluctant to change his policies, no matter how strong the evidence that they weren't working. Most prominently, for years he fought efforts to increase the number of troops in Iraq, and it wasn't until nearly four years into the war, when Republicans had lost control of Congress, that he finally initiated the surge strategy. As Vice President Biden said on "Meet the Press" this Sunday, "Look, the decision has been made to talk." As if, once the decision has been made, it can't be reversed, even if the facts on the ground change significantly.
Perhaps Obama is just waiting to see how things develop before he decides for sure whether he'll pursue engagement, and maybe if the current Iranian regime survives, the president will ultimately buckle under political pressure and shelve his call for talks. But if the ongoing events in Iran do not make him rethink his strategy in dealing with the oppressive government, then he will be no different then Bush in allowing a blind commitment to ideology prevent him from admitting he was wrong and changing course.
White House Throws Kennedy Bill Under Bus
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 10:07AM
Following the CBO analysis of the so-called "Kennedy bill," the White House has decided to distance itself from the legislation. To recap, this is the bill that originated from the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee chaired by Ted Kennedy. The general road map for health care in the coming months was that HELP would release a liberal bill, then the Finance Committee would come up with a more moderate version focused on costs, and then they would merge them together and pass one bill next month, before the August recess, then wait until fall to reconcile that with whatever comes out of the House.
Today, Jake Tapper reports:
Kennedy?
Kennedy who?
"This is not the Administration’s bill," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement following the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of Sen. Ted Kennedy's health care reform legislation, "and it's not even the final Senate Committee bill."
The CBO found that the cost of just a portion of the bill would be $1 trillion over 10 years, and that it would only reduce the number of uninsured by 16 million or 17 million, meaning it would still leave 30 million uninsured (using the most commonly cited measure for the number of uninsured, 46 million).
It's true that the Kennedy bill isn't the final Senate bill, but it clearly is one of the major versions of health care legislation, and the White House just ran away from it as if it were a new book by Jeremiah Wright titled, "Them Jews." It also was the product of months of effort by leading Senate Democrats. Is it possible that we can start to see friction develop with Congress as President Obama takes a more active role on the health care push? Remember, one of the things that hurt HillaryCare in 1993/94 was feeling by the members of Congress that everything was being dictated to them by the White House.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 9:45AM
- Michigan needs some tough love (Wall Street Journal)
- Remember, the government is force. Twitter levels the playing field (The American Scene)
- Democrats want help from Republicans with the hard parts of health care reform -- just not the parts that make you look good (EconLog)
- Stefan Karlsson goes back through Paul Krugman's writings, and finds some pretty damaging things (Stefan Karlsson's Blog)
- Twitter puts off a scheduled maintenance to keep Iranian tweets coming (TechCrunch)
Puppycide
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 1:47AM
Few would criticize an officer of the law forced to shoot an attacking, vicious dog in the line of duty, but it has become increasingly clear over the last two years that police forces are completely out of control when it comes to how they deal with man's best friend. It's a vulgar embarrassment to conscience and decency and it needs to stop.
The Problem of NATO Expansion Reaffirmed
Posted by on 6.16.09 @ 12:28AM
Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama unreservedly supported the country of Georgia last fall in its war against Russia. Now a European commission is preparing to place most of the blame for starting the war on Georgia and its impulsive, authoritarian president, Mikhail Saakashvili.
The confidential investigative commission documents, which SPIEGEL has obtained, show that the task of assigning blame for the conflict has been as much of a challenge for the commission members as it has for the international community. However, a majority of members tend to arrive at the assessment that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili started the war by attacking South Ossetia on August 7, 2008. The facts assembled on Tagliavini's desk refute Saakashvili's claim that his country became the innocent victim of "Russian aggression" on that day.
In summarizing the military fiasco, commission member Christopher Langton, a retired British Army colonel, claims: "Georgia's dream is shattered, but the country can only blame itself for that."
Another commission member, Bruno Coppieter, a political scientist from Brussels, even speculates whether the Georgian government may have had outside help in its endeavor. "The support of Saakashvili by the West, especially military support," Coppieter writes, "inadvertently promoted Georgia's collision course."
Letting Georgia into NATO would reduce U.S. security by effectively turning American decisions involving war and peace over to a small, irresponsible country half a world away. Not a good idea.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Still Unenlightened
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 11:42PM
Boarding the flight for Dallas at Heathrow, I saw a stack of American Spectators free for the taking. I saw on the cover a story titled, "Obama's national socialism." I picked up the magazine anyway, and was glad I did, because there's always something worth reading in the Spectator.
[...]
[W]hat if you were a normal person looking for something to read on a long flight, and you eyeballed that magazine near the gate. Would you think a magazine that called Obama an exponent of "national socialism" had anything interesting and important to say to you? Or would you be more likely to think it was a scream-sheet of the loony right, one safely ignored?
James Srodes's piece, "The National Socialism of Obamanomics," was a judicious and thoughtful take on the similarities between the economics policies engineered by the Nazi central banker Hjalmar Schacht and those implemented by Obama and his economic team today. He referenced two new books, both of which are very well respected and mainstream: Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance and Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction. Furthermore, Srodes's piece, published in the May issue, followed on the heels of an article by David Leonhardt published by the New York Times on March 31st that drew the connection between Obama's policies and Schacht's even more explicitly. "Every so often, history serves up an analogy that’s uncomfortable, a little distracting and yet still very relevant," Leonhardt wrote. "...No sane person enjoys mixing nuance and Nazis, but this bit of economic history has a particular importance this week." He then presented the successes of Schacht's stimulus policies as historical precedent validating the theory behind the Obama stimulus.
So is Dreher prepared to deride the work of Liaquat Ahamed, Adam Tooze, and The New York Times for looking like "scream-sheets of the loony right"? If not, he should back off his criticism of Srodes's article.
Rod goes on to say,
These guys [like the Spectator's R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.] act like there is only one conservatism, and Ronald Reagan is its prophet....
Until and unless conservative magazines and opinion leaders are willing to undertake a serious rethinking of what it means to be a conservative in 2008, it is unreasonable to expect that they will offer any enlightenment or guidance.
Well if "rethinking what it means to be a conservative" means no longer publishing undeniable and uncontroversial observations that happen to reflect poorly on the liberal leadership, then I hope we never do offer the kind of enlightenment or guidance Rod's looking for.
CBO Says Dem Health Care Bill To Increase Deficit By At Least $1 Trillion
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 5:50PM
The CBO has just released its initial cost estimates on the Democratic health care proposal coming out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chaired by Ted Kennedy, and found that it would increase deficits by at least $1 trillion. I say "at least," because there are major provisions of the bill that have not been finalized and which were not included in the cost, such as a massive expansion of Medicaid eligibility:
These new figures do not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the draft legislation, for several reasons. The estimates provided do not address the entire bill—only the major provisions related to health insurance coverage. Some details have not been estimated yet, and the draft legislation has not been fully reviewed. Also, because expanded eligibility for the Medicaid program may be added at a later date, those figures are not likely to represent the impact that more comprehensive proposals—which might include a significant expansion of Medicaid or other options for subsidizing coverage for those with income below 150 percent of the federal poverty level—would have both on the federal budget and on the extent of insurance coverage.
In addition, the CBO report undercuts President Obama's insistence that those who like the coverage they have can keep it, as it projects millions of Americans would lose their current coverage:
When fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million or 17 million.
"Down With Dictator"
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 4:47PM
Via Andrew Sullivan by way of Madyar, riveting video of an Iranian crowd chanting "Down with Dictator."
Images from Tehran
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 3:44PM
The Boston Globe's The Big Picture has a lot of stunning, high-resolution photos from today's rally and riots in Tehran. They are well worth viewing.
Sea Change?
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 2:41PM
By some accounts on Twitter, the protests today in Tehran today drew over a million people, and published reports said they crowd stretched 5 miles long. This photo, too big to publish on the blog, gives a sense of the magnitude of the turnout. And as you can see by the photo below, things are getting bloody. Too early to know whether we are seeing the beginning of another revolution that will seriously threaten the wicked regime in power, or a shorter-lived outburst of opposition that will soon be put down.
Obama Touts Safeway Health Program, But Dem Bill Would Kill It
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 1:24PM
President Obama had this to say in his just completed speech to the American Medical Association:
Building a health care system that promotes prevention rather than just managing diseases will require all of us to do our part. It will take doctors telling us what risk factors we should avoid and what preventive measures we should pursue. And it will take employers following the example of places like Safeway that is rewarding workers for taking better care of their health while reducing health care costs in the process. If you're one of the three quarters of Safeway workers enrolled in their "Healthy Measures" program, you can get screened for problems like high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And if you score well, you can pay lower premiums. It's a program that has helped Safeway cut health care spending by 13% and workers save over 20% on their premiums. And we are open to doing more to help employers adopt and expand programs like this one.
But as I reported last week, the CEO of Safeway said the company would have to end the program if the current Democratic proposal in the Senate were enacted. The problem is that the legislation includes a policy known as "community rating" which bars insurers from charging people different premiums based on their health status. Therefore, an insurer (or business) cannot give discounts to those who weigh less, don't smoke, maintain lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and so on.
Duch: Children Were 'Smashed'
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 11:47AM
The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, or "Comrade Duch" as the wicked-but-apparently-repentant jailer of Pol Pot's regime is nicknamed, continues with a finding from the war crimes court that his 10-year detainment before trial violated his rights. But the seemingly forthright, brutal testimony continues:
Duch said there "was a bad smell" in Tuol Sleng and told judges he felt shame when he remembered the abuse of prisoners.
However, he added that he avoided the holding area because he did not want inmates -- most of whom were fellow Khmer Rouge cadres -- to recognise him.
"Those people who were there and were being mistreated were people who I knew before. So I would be shocked if I could see them," Duch said.
"I closed my eyes, closed my ears. I did not want to see the real situation... You could say I even betrayed my friends. That was beyond cowardice," he added.
Shown a list of children executed at his prison on suspicion of espionage, Duch told the court many more undocumented children were killed after they had accompanied their parents to Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21.
"Most of the women at S-21 were arrested because their husbands were arrested," Duch said.
"The children were separated from their mothers and those children were smashed. Because they needed the mothers to be separated so they could be interrogated, those children were smashed," he added.
"Smashed" was a word commonly used by top Khmer Rouge officials to eliminate even those under the slightest suspicion of disloyalty, but as you can see even those who were no threat at all were killed. I'm sure some will disagree, but this period and place represent a time where the only explanation can be is that demonic forces took control.
Two-State Solution, Many Problems
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 11:42AM
When I read the coverage suggesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's endorsement of a demilitarized Palestinian state was a major breakthrough in the "peace process," it struck me as the usual wishful thinking. The initial Palestinian reaction seems to confirm this view. Israelis and Palestinians are still very far apart on what a final agreement would look like, and it isn't clear that any Palestinian authority exists that is currently capable of delivering a lasting settlement.
Mousavi Resurfaces
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 11:29AM
CNN just showed footage of Mir-Hossein Mousavi talking to supporters in a massive demonstration in Tehran today.
Here's an AFP photo:
I found the above image on Twitter, which has proven absolutely indispensable in following developments in Iran, especially over the weekend as the U.S. cable news channels dropped the ball in covering this major international news story. Twitter has been one of the few forms of media that has been able to get through the restrictions the totalitarian regime have put on free speech (through jamming cell phone service, texting, Facebook, etc.). For those who haven't embraced Twitter, here's a website that makes it easy to keep track of the reports being sent by individuals tweeting inside Iran. Lots of gripping stories, for instance from one Twitter user identified as an Iranian student at the University of Tehran, in a dormitory under attack:
my friend saying more than 100 students arrested, I can't confirm this but the numbers are high
they used some kind of riot control gun in their last attack, never seen it before
bastards just attacked us for no reason, I lost count of how much tear gas they launched at us!
to other sources: this isn't the police! police is still outside! we're under attack by Ansar-Hezbolah.
You can follow his updates here.
As I documented last week, Mousavi shouldn't be mistaken for a genuine reformer. But it's become clear this weekend that he's tapped into a sentiment among the Iranian youth and become a symbol of their desire for change. As long as the current regime is left intact, nothing can really change in Iran. And right now, it's hard to say whether these protests will be sustained and present a real threat to the regime, as I hope they will. Some have argued that even if the regime is preserved, this public reaction may force it to moderate. But if the brutal response over the weekend is any indication, the regime seems more likely to respond to this challenge by imposing even tighter control on society. Either way, this is a story worth following very closely.
Health Care Politics and the Immigration Precedent
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 11:15AM
While Democrats still have the power and the momentum in the health care debate, and the odds are in favor of at least some form of legislation getting passed, there's also an increasing possibility that this whole thing can come apart, and I think a good parallel is the Bush administration's push for comprehensive immigration reform.
Obviously, there are significant differences in the circumstances, not the least of which is President Obama's clout. But the dynamics are similar in this sense. During the immigration debate, you had Democrats in Congress who weren't eager to give President Bush a legislative accomplishment on a significant issue and then the conservative base was angry about what it saw as a Republican sell-out on an amnesty bill. Eventually, everything unraveled.
As I reported last week, we've moved beyond the happy talk stage of the health care debate and some of the familiar fault lines are beginning to form. The American Medical Association has come out against a government-run plan (at least in its pure form), business groups are worried about the employer mandate, and Republicans are starting to raise a fuss about how Democrats are trying to ram through legislation. So, if Democrats want to pass something, it's quite likely at this point that they'll have to drop the government-run plan (which Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, said they don't have the votes to pass). However, from the mindset of liberal activists, including those who plan to spend $82 million to push for health care legislation, if Congress ditches the government plan, they'll be left with legislation that provides subsidies for individuals to purchase private insurance. To liberals, this isn't real reform, but merely pumping more money into a broken system. If Democrats try to reassure the base and urge liberals to accept the best deal that can pass, those lawmakers will sound a lot like the Republicans who tried to convince the conservative base that the comprehensive immigration reform didn't represent amnesty and would be a step forward on border security and enforcement. So, if you combine more or less unified Republican opposition with an uprising among the liberal base over a compromise on the government plan, you begin to see how this health care push can explode before it even comes to a vote.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 10:41AM
- It hasn't been such a good run for democracy lately, but Iran's changing that a little (Washingotn Post)
- Jeffrey Rosen: Maybe Sonia Sotomayor isn't dumb after all (The New Republic)
- Gary Becker plays the "Fatal Conceit" card on Obama (Becker-Posner Blog)
- The Weekly Standard's push against public health care (The Weekly Standard)
- The Obama administration starts redistributing jobs without regard to expertise or experience (Long or Short Capital)
The NY Times Finally Notices My 'Cell Phones for the Poor' Scoop
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 10:19AM
In October, a truck driver traveling through a low-income district of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a billboard advertising a program that offered free cell-phones for the poor. The truck driver tipped me, and I reported it on my blog.
Sunday, the New York Times finally did a feature story about Lifeline, a federally-subsidized, federally-mandated program.
The blogosphere is excited about this story. Do I get any credit for my scoop? Of course not. Because I suck.
Trading Day
Posted by on 6.15.09 @ 9:37AM
It's nice to see Paulson & Bernanke successfully shepherded at least one American through the financial crisis!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Iranian Americans Protest Iran's Election Results in DC
Posted by on 6.14.09 @ 4:48PM
Hundreds of Iranian Americans, shouting “Democracy” and “Where’s my vote?” marched in Washington on Sunday to protest the election results in Iran.
The demonstration began outside the Iranian Interests Section in Washington at 11 am, but after about an hour a police officer asked that the group to disperse. Instead, a number of DC police cars escorted the protesters as they marched down Wisconsin Avenue, through Georgetown, and eventually ended at the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.
The views among those who gathered were not monolithic by any means. Some people I spoke with supported Mir-Hossein Mousavi as an incremental step toward change in Iran, while others believed that the entire Islamic regime needed to fall altogether for real change to occur. A smaller contingent waved the Shah-era Iranian flag and argued that the current regime needed to be replaced by a monarchy. At times, the exchanges between the Mousavi supporters and pro-Shah individuals turned heated. But at the minimum, there was a general consensus that the election in Iran on Friday was a sham.
“We want to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and say we reject the results,” said Babak Talabi, of McLean, Virginia, who helped organize the protest. “We expect the governments in the West and the news outlets in the West to reject the ‘official’ results.”
Talabi was born in Shiraz, Iran and moved to America in 1987, when he was seven years old. He said the protest came about spontaneously, through Facebook and text messaging. It was partially an outgrowth of an effort, called “Our Campaign,” to get Iranians living in America to cast absentee ballots in the Iranian election.
He said they were making four demands on Iran: to release all political prisoners; reopen all forms of media that were shut down in the past few days including cell phone service, text messaging, Facebook, and the internet; investigate fraud in Friday’s elections; and hold new, fully transparent, elections.
“The freedom and democracy of the Iranian people has been demolished, and this is one major step, one major last stand that we have to do to show that we are not happy, and we are not going to take it anymore,” said Mason Darvishin of Great Falls, Virginia.
Darvishin, who said he moved from Tehran 27 years ago, when he was 10 years old, said that while Mousavi may not be ideal, he’s an improvement over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Mousavi is a liberal individual within the group of this regime and any step forward for the Iranian people is better than dealing with somebody like Ahmadenijad, who has set us 10 steps back,” he said. “So we would like to do this in a smooth transition, in a democratic way, and getting the moderates in front, slowly, inside of the regime without going through bloodshed of a revolution.”
A younger female who asked not to be identified made a similar point more concisely. “Right now, Mousavi equals democracy,” she said as she marched holding a photo of Mousavi with the caption, “Elected president by the people of Iran.” She added, “Baby steps.”
Another female demonstrator who asked not to be identified because she’s scheduled to visit Iran in a few weeks went further, saying while Mousavi is better than Ahmadenijad, the whole regime needs to collapse for real change to happen. She said she’s been in touch with cousins in Iran over the past few days. “They’re not going to stop protesting,” she said. “They’re calling this Iranian Revolution 2.”
Eric Foulidi, who said he was born in Iran but moved to America 40 years ago, held a Shah-era flag and said that the younger Mousavi supporters were naïve.
“Thirty years ago our young people made a mistake and brought this regime,” Foulidi said. “Thirty years later, today, another young people of Iran is making another big mistake.”
He continued, “Everything is corrupt over there. Mousavi is corrupt. We know that from 10 years ago. And these young people who are 20 or 25, they don’t know that. I don’t know what’s happening in their mind to think Mousavi is going to change anything. It’s not going to happen.”
Instead, he said he supported a kingdom, which he insisted could be democratic.
“Iran and the Middle East needs a monarchy,” he said. “It cannot be presidential over there. The culture in the Middle East does not like presidential. It’s not Europe, it’s not America.”
Yet another protester, Saed Salehinia, shouted “down with the Islamic Regime of Iran,” but wanted to replace it with what he said would be a “free, secular, and socialist” government.
“Mousavi is not a reformer,” Salehinia said. “People who say that, they are either charlatans or ignorant. Mousavi was in power for 10 years and he was in charge of the biggest political massacres in first 10 years of Iranian government.”
Salehinia said he was jailed three times by the Islamic government while living in Iran, but escaped through the northwest border in 1997 and was granted asylum in the United States. He identified himself as a member of the Workers Communist Party of Iran.
Note: Below, I posted a video I shot of protesters marching down Wisconsin Ave. You can hear people driving north honking in support of the demonstrators, and can see a police vehicle in the background escorting the group. Quite a contrast between a free society that welcomes people’s rights to voice their opinions and the images coming out of Iran of the brutal Iranian regime beating down protesters.
Paul Krugman and the Limits of Monetarism
Posted by on 6.14.09 @ 4:10PM
Paul Krugman is a liberal, an advocate of what I call neo-Keynesian economics, who has argued that the Obama administration's deficit "stimulus" spending program should be even bigger than it already is. With all caveats, then, consider what Krugman says about our current economic situation:
The risk of a full, all-out Great Depression - utter collapse of everything - has receded a lot in the past few months. But this first year of crisis has been far worse than anything that happened in Japan during the last decade. . . . The risk for long stagnation is really high.
The thing about Japan, as with all of these cases, is how much people claim to know what happened, without having any evidence. What we do know is that recessions normally end everywhere because the monetary authority cuts interest rates a lot, and that gets things moving. And what we know in Japan was that eventually they cut their interest rates to zero and that wasn't enough. And, so far, although we made the cuts faster than they did and cut them all the way to zero, it isn't enough. We've hit that lower bound the same as they did. Now, everything after that is more or less speculation. . . . The size of the shock to our systems is going to be much bigger than what happened to Japan in the 1990s. They never had a freefall in their economy - a period when GDP declined by 3%, 4%. It is by no means clear that the underlying differences in the structure of the situation are significant. What we do know is that the zero bound is real. We know that there are situations in which ordinary monetary policy loses all traction. And we know that we're in one now.
That's from an interview with the British Observer. At least on this one point, Krugman is exactly right. If the secret to ending a recession is for central banks to lower interest rates, what do you do after you've already cut the rate to zero and there's still no recovery?
The problems confronting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be unprecedented, but they have long been anticipated by critics of monterarism.
If all you've got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, and for a central banker, every economic problem looks like a currency problem. Of course, to a neo-Keynesian like Krugman, every problem looks like an argument for more economic intervention by the federal government.
At some point, however, advocates of different government policies must confront economic reality. There exists a real economy with real problems that cannot easily be remedied by government policy changes. And if Krugman's gloomy forecast is on-target, perhaps it's because he has finally realized that the fundamentals suck.
Who Are the Poor Democrats Going to Stick with the Medical Bill?
Posted by on 6.14.09 @ 9:28AM
To the uninitiated, health care "reform" sounds like a good thing. Of course, "reform" is in the eye of the beholder. In practice, most Americans would not like the sort of "reform" being plotted by the Obama administration: politicizing the medical system, turning coverage and treatment decisions over to government.
It turns out that Democratic politicians aren't so certain they like "reform" either. For even the Democrats seem to realize that ultimately someone has to pay the increased cost. And hiking taxes doesn't bode well for their futures.
Reports the Los Angeles Times:
Behind the open brawling over how to rebuild the nation's healthcare system, another struggle is beginning that may be the toughest test for the drive to cover millions of people without insurance and improve medical care for all: who should pay the eye-popping bill.
President Obama and his congressional allies -- who are also struggling to hold down the national debt after years of deficit spending and new outlays to combat the recession -- have pledged to raise more than $1 trillion over the next decade to offset the costs of what would be the biggest health overhaul in generations.
But the prospect of new taxes, new fees for businesses and cutbacks in other government spending has set off a furious behind-the-scenes struggle that is reviving the old maxim attributed to the late Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana: "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree."
Faced with a proposal to increase the tax on liquor and soft drinks, for instance, the liquor lobby sent Anchor Brewing Co. of San Francisco to see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). The milk industry objected too, saying it would have to raise the price of chocolate milk.
And when congressional Democrats started warming up to the idea of curbing the tax break for employer-provided health benefits, the labor movement attacked one of the idea's leading champions, liberal Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"I suspect what will emerge as the toughest issue for lawmakers is not the ideological debate about the role of government, because there is some consensus there about the need for a centrist approach. Rather, it will be how to pay for the plan," said Drew Altman, president of the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. "The bottom line is there is no slam-dunk, easy way to do this."
To date, interest groups remain reluctant to appear intransigent and risk getting shut out of negotiations.
But the jockeying is expected to become public soon.
And it's already worrying Democrats on Capitol Hill, where there is little consensus about how to come up with hundreds of billions of dollars.
Well, there's always the option of "taxing the rich." After all, that's how we are going to pay for the $13 trillion in bail-outs so far. And the nearly $800 billion so-called stimulus package. And the more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security. What's the problem with hitting the rich up with a few more trillion? "Taxing the rich" is what makes America great, right?
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