Extortion? Blackmail? Or the normal political process?

So, I've seen someone suggest that Harry Reid and the Democrats in the US Senate¹ are guilty of extortion or blackmail, because they won't agree to take up any government funding bills from the House that don't also completely fund the "Affordable Care Act."  I just want to say that, whether or not you agree with what they're doing, that characterization is obviously preposterous. 

Just as the House has the power of the purse, the Congress as a whole has to agree on all appropriations.  If Senate Democrats really think that immediate and full funding of that particular law, despite the fact that the infrastructure is clearly not ready for, and despite the fact that the President has already unilaterally (and almost certainly unconstitutionally) suspended parts of it for a year, is the way to go, they've got the right to use that as a negotiating position. 

And it is uncivil to call the Senate Democrats and their supporters, "economic terrorists" or "blackmailers" just because they are taking a position that they feel is in the best interest of the country, regardless of whether or not I agree with them.  Obviously, that goes for the President (against whom there has also been a lot of name-calling by people who simply have a different opinion on what the best course of action for the country is) as well.  (Of course, nothing he's said is really relevant yet anyway, because the Senate hasn't actually taken up any of the spending bills that the House has passed, so there's nothing for him to sign or veto yet.)




¹ - OK,  I'm pretty sure that this person was actually talking about the Republicans in the House.  Which changes exactly nothing, about this commentary, other than whose Ox is being gored...

"Deliberately sabotaging America's economy..."

What was that line that Mr. Kristof used?   About politicians threatening default, using a "potential catastrophe as a source of bargaining power in a game of extortion: We don’t want anything to happen to this fine American economy as we approach the debt limit, so you’d better meet our demand." That whole column, of course, was a plea for us to understand that this kind of tactic (known to normal people as "negotiation") is some beyond-the-pale behavior indulged in by Republicans and Republicans only.  Democrats would never play games with the debt limit.

So, here's a Senatorial example of "play[ing] politics with the debt limit":

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.  The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure...

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.  I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.

Which Senator was that who was "engaged in deliberately sabotaging America’s economy and damaging our national security"?

Senator Barack Obama, 3/16/2006.  He was arguing against raising the debt limit, and he was joined in voting against that raise of the limit by every single Democratic Senator.

In which Barack Obama makes a comment which which I agree. At least in part...

According to a report in The Hill of an Obama campaign appearance...

"We’ve got a politics that's stuck right now. And the reason it’s stuck is because people spend more time thinking about the next election," [LB:  said the campaigning President] "than they do thinking about the next generation," [LB: already saddled with a mountain of debt to which this President's policies have greatly contributed.]

Shocker: Recipient of PBS funds thinks PBS should receive taxpayers funds

In his "documentary" An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore (ironically, in my opinion) quotes Upton Sinclair in saying that "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I'm reminded of that again today.

Ken Burns:

Over the course of a year, 91% of all U.S. television households -- 236 million people -- tune into their PBS-member station. Federal funding accounts for about 15% of the money necessary to make public broadcasting possible. For every dollar in federal funding invested in local stations, they raise an additional $6 on their own, including contributions from millions of people who voluntarily support their community-based work. It's such a tiny, tiny part of the federal budget, approximately 1/100th of 1%, that you have to question, why pick on that?

...

In an increasingly difficult world to navigate, with multiple media outlets and a constant onslaught of viewpoints, PBS remains our shared space, one where we can experience the best in arts and education, public affairs, history, science and journalism.

It is a place where we can all feel at home.

Listen, I've loved a lot of Ken Burns' work. And I've supported it, with my dollars, that I've chosen to allocate towards copies of several of his films. And The Civil War is a seminal achievement.

And yes, the PBS portion of the federal budget hardly even qualifies as a rounding error.

All that said, in a world with 500 cable channels, including several dedicated to history and documentaries, if we can't even cut back on a luxury item like PBS, how can we even begin to think that we're serious about our budget?

I tweeted the following on Friday, as I saw that the President, and many of his supporters, seemed to think that Governor Romney's comments in the debate were a political plus for the President.

Fact: Sesame Street sells a ton of merchandise, does not NEED taxpayer support

Fact: PBS support in the Federal government is essentially a rounding error to the real financial crisis - eliminating is purely symbolic

Fact: PBS is a luxury frill in a budget as far out of whack as ours is. Even if the cut is purely symbolic, it's a good symbol...

Seriously, if the suggestion that we cut even something as self-evidently unnecessary as PBS generates enormous resistance, how do we start?

And what does it say about Barack Obama that, with all the momentous issues facing the next President, he chooses to spend a week campaigning in defense of spending taxpayer dollars on a childrens' television show that's wildly profitable even without them?

Three political gifts for Romney-Ryan

Does the new Bob Woodward book shine a glaring light on the limitations of President "Dunning-Kruger" Obama? Jen Rubin suggests that the answer is, "yes."

But the most alarming news for the Democrats, I think, came in the early release of excerpts from the new book by The Post’s Bob Woodward, “The Price of Politics.” The day after former president Bill Clinton spoke, reminding us of a gregarious, deal-making and effective president, and the day of Obama’s big speech to plead for four more years, comes an account that suggests the president failed to lead in the debt-ceiling fight, has been manhandled by Congress and is frankly not well liked.

The retelling of the debt-ceiling negotiations, and of Obama’s decision to up the ante by $400 billion on taxes, reminds us that Obama, in essence, spiked the deal.

...

Mostly what comes through in the initial excerpts is the arrogance, a man whose self-image is vastly out of kilter with his abilities. “Woodward’s portrait of Obama, sketched through a series of scenes from meeting rooms and phone calls, reveals a man perhaps a bit too confident in his negotiating skills and in his ability to understand his adversaries.” He considered the speaker a Republican rube. He treated business leaders disrespectfully as well

...

It is not merely a portrait of a man who failed in his most critical domestic challenge; it is a portrait of someone unable to do the job. By putting meat on the bones of the Republicans’ arguments, Woodward, maybe more than Jerusalem and God, has created a whole new problem for the president’s effort to persuade voters to keep him on for four more years.

DNC pre-game report

As I’ve already noted, my exposure to the events in Charlotte this week will be, if for no other reason than to keep my blood pressure reasonable, limited.  But I’ve got a couple of thoughts on what’s going to happen as they get underway.

• In contradiction to Jonah Goldberg’s prediction, I think we do get the “four more years” chant, on more than one occasion.  The awkward questions that this ought to raise in response won’t be asked by the media.
• Any mention of the national debt will be made in the context of what a problem George W. Bush and the Republican Congress left.  No member of the mainstream press will opine, or ask  any question which implies, that this is not the correct framework for thinking about the debt.
• The Democrats will repeatedly, and loudly, proclaim a position on abortion which is far further from the consensus of American public opinion than that held by the Republicans.  They will do this while calling the Republicans’ position “radical.”  At no time will any member of the mainstream media reveal this, nor challenge them on it.
• The Democrats will convey the message, both implicitly and explicitly, that "real women" have to hold certain positions on certain issues.  The mainstream press will never think to call this position, that women are limited in their thought processes by biological determinism, "sexism."
• The Democrats will convey the message, both implicitly and explicitly, that African- Americans have to hold certain positions on certain issues.  The mainstream press will never think to call this position, that people with dark skin are limited in their thought processes by biological determinism, "racism."
• The Democrats will be addressed by a graduate student whose claim to fame is that she previously appeared before Congress to insist that the Federal Government mandate that all insurance policies cover birth control, and, in the process, provoked an intemperate remark from a radio host.  Their advocacy of this position is indicative of either a) their serious lack of understanding of the American body politic or b) mine.  
• Some people will defend Sandra Fluke, and the contraceptive mandate, as a shining example of "separation of church and state."  Those people have a radically different understanding of the Constitution and the first amendment than I do.
• The Democrats will claim, repeatedly, that the stimulus bill and other economic measures passed by the Democratic Congress in 2009 and 2010, and signed by President Obama, left the country better off than it would have otherwise been.  The impossibility of proving counterfactuals leaves this as a position that, though wildly improbable, is not necessarily false.  There might actually be some questioning from the media on this, but it will be largely in a helpful, share-with-our-viewers kind of way, with no significant challenges.
• Joe Biden's convention speech will be filled with the kind of blatant factual errors that the mainstream "fact checkers" tried - incorrectly - to portray Paul Ryan's speech as containing.  The "fact checkers" won't find anything worthy of comment.
• The storyline going in to the Convention is “Democrats dispirited, unenthusiastic.”  That sounds like the media actually sharing negativity about the Democrats, but that’s not the correct understanding.  (The Republicans are living up to the “stupid party” nickname by gathering and sharing these stories.)  The proper frame for understanding the “enthusiasm gap” stories appearing today is as background context for Friday’s “Democrats united and enthusiastic after great convention” stories. 

Niall Ferguson: "If the young knew what was good for them they'd join the Tea Party"

The thing that most concerns me, as look out across the political landscape, is that any of this is considered controversial.

“It is surprisingly easy to win the support of young voters for policies that would ultimately make matters even worse for them, like maintaining defined benefit pensions for public employees,” he says in an article ahead of the lecture.

He adds: "If young Americans knew what was good for them, they would all be in the Tea Party."

Professor Ferguson argues the true size of government debt in Western democracies is many times larger than "deeply misleading" figures issued in the form of bonds because they do not record unfunded liabilities of social security and health care schemes.

"The last corporation to publish financial statements this misleading was Enron," he wrote.

Well, yeah.

It's horrifying how many people - how many voters - don't understand, or believe, that...

The Tragedy of the Commons - Federal Budget version

The always brilliant Walter E. Williams on the intractability of our budget problems...

We can think of the federal budget as a commons to which each of our 535 congressmen and the president have access. Like the cattlemen, each congressman and the president want to get as much out of the federal budget as possible for their constituents. Political success depends upon "bringing home the bacon." Spending is popular, but taxes to finance the spending are not. The tendency is for spending to rise and its financing to be concealed through borrowing and inflation.

Does it pay for an individual congressman to say, "This spending is unconstitutional and ruining our nation, and I'll have no part of it; I will refuse a $500 million federal grant to my congressional district"? The answer is no because he would gain little or nothing, plus the federal budget wouldn't be reduced by $500 million. Other congressmen would benefit by having $500 million more for their districts.

What about the constituents of a principled congressman? If their congressman refuses unconstitutional spending, it doesn't mean that they pay lower federal income taxes. All that it means is constituents of some other congressmen get the money while the nation spirals toward financial ruin, and they wouldn't be spared from that ruin because their congressman refused to participate in unconstitutional spending.

Read it all.

And remember - if something cannot continue, it won't...

For what it's worth...

CNBC:

The majority of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics believe that the federal deficit should be reduced only or primarily through spending cuts.

The survey out Monday found that 56 percent of the NABE members surveyed felt that way, while 37 percent said they favor equal parts spending cuts and tax increases. The remaining 7 percent believe it should be done only or mostly through tax increases.

There's no guarantee that they're right, of course. Economists can be wrong just like everyone else. But it's another data point...

"Spending, not entitlements, created huge deficit"

How is it that the Federal Debt is going to rise more in Obama's first four years than in Bush's eight? Well, a lot of it has to do with the recession and the counter-cyclical fiscal policies in place (economy shrinks, tax revenues drop, direct transfer payments [welfare, food stamps, unemployment, medicaid] increase). But certainly not all.

Byron York:

There is no line in the federal budget that says "stimulus," but Obama's massive $814 billion stimulus increased spending in virtually every part of the federal government. "It's spread all through the budget," says former Congressional Budget Office chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin. "It was essentially a down payment on the Obama domestic agenda." Green jobs, infrastructure, health information technology, aid to states -- it's all in there, billions in increased spending.

"Can't be...won't be..."

Glenn Reynolds:

Debts that cannot be paid, won’t be. Commitments that cannot be honored, won’t be. Guarantees that can’t be followed through on, won’t be.

It cannot be said often enough. If there's not enough money to pay for everything, something won't get paid. There is no "money tree" on which grows the wealth that will pay for the public union pensions and health care, for Social Security and Medicare. When the money runs out, which it will if the spending trajectories aren't changed, people aren't going to get paid, regardless of what commitments have been made, regardless of what obligations have been agreed to.

In his excellent Economics course for the Teaching Company (which I cannot recommend highly enough), Professor Timothy Taylor, in the first lecture, describes economists as "people who insist on taking trade-offs seriously." When I look at the world, and, in particular, at the points of view of all of my "progressive" friends, what I see is a refusal to even recognize many of the trade-offs that they want to make. In their utopian view, you can have high minimum wages, high spending on education, and welfare, health care for everyone, social security and medicare, strong unions and still have a thriving, active, high growth private sector economy to fund all of it. You can have stringent environmental laws to the point where you even regulate the carbon dioxide that we all exhale, you can outlaw nuclear power and coal-burning and imported oil and still have hospitals and lights and ambulances. You can promote multi-culturalism, sexual promiscuity, gay marriage, tax incentives that discourage men from marrying and supporting children, disparage American culture and capitalism, and still have a stable, wealthy and productive civil society.

Well, the world does not work that way.

The bad luck Presidency

Obama: I reversed recession until 'bad luck' hit

At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program "reversed the recession" until recovery was frustrated by events overseas. And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a "debacle."

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.

If I were to make a list of the things that have derailed this recovery, none of those items would be on it. I'm willing to concede, for the sake of discussion, that there's been some impact to the US economy from the destruction in Japan. It's not obvious to me that that the European situation, beyond giving a foretaste of what we're headed for in the absence of a course correction, has had much tangible impact. And if the "Arab Spring" has had a negative impact on the US economy, I suspect it pales in comparison to the Cash for Clunkers program, in which the United States transferred tax dollars from less wealthy to more wealthy and paid for the destruction of billions of dollars worth of US assets at the same time.

Bad luck? "The Fault, Dear Barack, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." At a time when our debt was already bad, we increased it with a poorly designed "stimulus" that utterly failed to spur aggregate demand. At a time of high cyclical unemployment, we implemented plans and policies which inevitably increase the cost of hiring and firing, and therefore increase structural unemployment. At a time when financial markets are scared to invest, we add an enormous law filled with regulations of every aspect of the business, a law which will require years of implementation before people really understand all of the implications. At a time when we need businesses to get back to the business of business, hiring people and selling product, we unleash harsh rhetoric against the business community. To quote the always quotable C.S. Lewis,

we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

Lewis was not talking about business or the economy, but it couldn't be more on-point if he had been. We laugh at prudence and fiscal rectitude and are shocked to find Fannie Mae and Lehman Brothers in our midst. We castrate businesses with excessive regulation and bid them be fruitful and hire.

Bad luck? To the extent that you were elected in 2008, President Obama, yes, we've had bad luck.

Oh, and, of course, we have to close with the Heinlein quote:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

The dangers of poll driven politics

It has long been known that the answer to a question depends, in many cases, on the circumstances under which it is asked. Successful salesmen are always asking "yes" questions - that is, questions that virtually require the potential customer to answer "yes." Successfully framing the issue is the first and most important part of making a sale. This is why polling is more art than science. Consider, for example, this discussion of polling techniques between Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Wooley on the brilliant 80s British TV show Yes (Prime) Minister:

Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

There have been many psychological studies which demonstrate that peer pressure can influence people to give incorrect responses on even fairly straightforward factual questions.

Which is why this kind of thing is so concerning.

A CNN/ORC International Poll released Wednesday also indicates that the public doesn't want the super committee to propose major changes to Social Security and Medicare or increase taxes on middle class and lower-income Americans.

Well, of course it doesn't. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to increase taxes on the middle class. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to cut Social Security, because of the millions of people currently dependent on it. In a vacuum, of course people don't want to cut Medicare, because of the millions of people currently dependent on it.

But none of those is really the question, is it? My response to someone that posted this yesterday on facebook, with the comment that, "OK Leaders, there are your orders. Get 'er done!" was, "You understand that you can't actually fix the problem that way, right? You understand that even confiscatory taxes on the wealthy and deep cuts in all discretionary budgets won't even close the current deficit, never mind the projected deficits that the rising costs of entitlements create?"

FBF: The position that politicians should somehow ignore the public and do as some see as "the right thing" seems pretty idealistic.

Me: I agree that it's unlikely that they'll "ignore the public." But some of them will - some always do. The key thing is that this is a Republic, not a Democracy, so they're elected to defend the Constitution and represent our interests, even when that's not what we want. (Obviously, most of the time that's not what happens. "Representing our enlightened best interests" and "pandering to the popular will" never been, are not now, and never will be synonymous. Sometimes, the latter looks like the former, and everything's spiffy.

But right now, we're caught in a trap that our elected representatives have built over the years. Every time the government creates an "entitlement," it also creates a client cohort dependent upon it. Every program that the government funds will have voters receiving those funds. Eventually you reach a point where the math just doesn't work anymore, where, in Margaret Thatcher's memorable phrase, "you run out of other people's money." If the public says "don't raise tax rates on anyone other than the rich AND don't cut Social Security AND don't cut Medicare" - well, guess what? That simply doesn't work as public policy, and the public's got to be educated and enlightened or imperiled.

Or ignored.

I'm not suggesting ignoring, because the will of the people matters. But if the will of the people is for an unachievable combination of programs that can't be sustained, the will of the people is going to be thwarted, one way or another. Right now, the people can't have all of what they say they want, and the longer we go before that's made clear and the problem is addressed, the more painful the eventual reality is going to be.

If you ask people what they're looking for in a car, you'll get a long list, including things like safety, style, fuel economy, price, acceleration, towing capability, loading capabilities and the like. But people seem to understand that they can't have all of them. There are trade-offs to be made. If you want spectacular fuel efficiency, you're not going to be able to tow your boat to the lake. If you want a lower price, you're not going to have a super sports-car.

There are trade-offs that have to be made at the national level, too. If we want a cradle-to-grave welfare system, guess what? It has to be paid for. And there's not enough money in the pockets of the "rich" to pay for it all. So poll results like the above CNN poll are not useful. They're not helpful. They offer a bunch of a la carte options that people can't actually simultaneously get. They present "or" choices as "ands." You can have a cradle-to-grave welfare state which provides all things for all people OR you can have low middle class tax rates and economic freedom. One or the other. Not both. The math doesn't work.

One of the reasons that approval ratings are so low for politicians right now is that the government has built a power-structure which rewards short-term thinking and behavior that damages the country. But another reason is that we, as a society, have been told for the last forty-plus years that we can have everything. We can have food, housing, clothing, education, retirement, all at someone else's expense.

The real world doesn't work that way. And the bill's coming due...

Obama: "Downgrade was my fault..."

Ok, that's not a direct quote. He didn't say it in exactly those words. But what else could this mean?

On Friday, we learned that the United States received a downgrade by one of the credit rating agencies — not so much because they doubt our ability to pay our debt if we make good decisions, but because after witnessing a month of wrangling over raising the debt ceiling, they doubted our political system’s ability to act. The markets, on the other hand, continue to believe our credit status is AAA. In fact, Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about good investments, said, “If there were a quadruple-A rating, I’d give the United States that.” I, and most of the world’s investors, agree.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem. The fact is, we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us that we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction. That was true last week. That was true last year. That was true the day I took office.

He took office 931 days ago. Knowing, according to Obama himself, that "we need a balanced, long-term approach to deficit reduction." During those 931 days, he has proposed and authorized new spending of trillions of dollars. The US government debt has increased at an annualized 13% rate since his inauguration. During the first two years of his administration, his party controlled the Congress. And, despite the fact that "we didn’t need a rating agency to tell us" that there was a problem, he has done not one thing, not a single one, that didn't make the problem worse rather than better.

So obviously, he's implicitly confessing that he and his party should get the lion's share of the credit for the downgrade.

On which point he's clearly correct...

Meltdown

Allahpundit:

The Democrats’ strategy, led by President Present, is to sit back and let the tea party bleed some of its popularity on an aggressive “tough choices” agenda and the occasional serendipitous (for Democrats) political overreach. That way, when the real battle finally begins over entitlements, independents will be more suspicious of the tea-party brand than they were before. It’s a gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy given the magnitude of our spending problem, but it’s not stupid. It may have worked to some extent here.

Let me just say this - if the American electorate lets them get away with this gutless, cynical, irresponsible strategy, then that electorate deserves the economic catastrophe that results.

I haven't read any Heinlein, but I love this quote, and it's been circulating a lot recently. For good reason.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

In many ways, the worst excesses of Rand's looters are being played out before our eyes...

Tweet of the day

“If the Tea Party is to blame for the downgrade, the doctor is to blame for your lung cancer.”

(H/T Instapundit)

'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'

Commentary on a couple of different current events from Rudyard Kipling.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
...
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Yes, it dates to 1919, but that actually makes it more relevant than otherwise. Universal truths, and the costs of losing sight of them, or misunderstanding them, or failing to acknowledge them, are as relevant today as ever. (And yes, there are many more stanzas, but these two seemed remarkably on point today...)




(Wikipedia: "The "copybook headings" to which the title refers were proverbs or maxims, extolling virtues such as honesty or fair dealing that were printed at the top of the pages of 19th-century British students' special notebook pages, called copybooks. The school-children had to write them by hand repeatedly down the page.")

Apparently, it wasn't actually important before...

Philip Klein makes another of the excellent points that keeps getting missed in the finger-pointing over the debt downgrade...

For his first two years in office, Obama’s party controlled both chambers of Congress – for part of that period, he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. During that time period, he and his fellow Democrats could have passed his supposedly ideal, long-term, deficit-reduction package -- one that represented a “balanced approach” between spending cuts and tax increases. It also could have delayed the deficit reduction for several years, so it wouldn’t have affected the current weak economy or the “investments” he considers crucial. Forget about actually accomplishing serious deficit reduction -- he didn’t even attempt it.

Instead, they used their power to force through another entitlement to worsen the long-term debt situation, and to increase structural unemployment in the midst of the worst cyclical unemployment in decades. (Oh, yeah - there was also a transfer of tax dollars to the wealthy and the concomitant destruction of millions of dollars of American assets, raising prices on used cars for years into the future.)

The debt and the deficit weren't on their list of concerns. And we'll all be paying for that now...

Obama partisans ignore facts when bashing Bush

I've written about some of this before...

Byron York:

Revenues fell in Bush's first two years because of a combination of the tech bust and the start of the tax cuts. But then things took off. After taking in $1.782 trillion in tax revenues in 2003, the government collected $1.88 trillion in 2004; $2.153 trillion in 2005; $2.406 trillion in 2006; and $2.567 trillion in 2007, according to figures compiled by the Office of Management and Budget. That's a 44 percent increase from 2003 to 2007. (Revenues slid downward a bit in 2008, and a lot in 2009, when the financial crisis sent the economy into a tailspin.) "Everybody talks about how much the Bush tax cuts 'cost,'" says one GOP strategist. "We're saying, no, they led to a huge increase in revenue."

...

None of this is to say that George W. Bush had a good record on spending. He didn't, and he's fair game for criticism. But is it honest to condemn reckless spending in "eight years of Republican rule" when Democrats controlled the Senate for four of those years and the House for two? Is it honest to talk about the "cost" of the Bush tax cuts when federal revenues increased significantly while they were in effect? And is it honest to refer to Bush's ballooning deficits when deficits actually trended down for much of his presidency -- at least before Democrats won control of Congress?

There are a couple of very important points in there. The issue of the "cost" of the tax cuts cannot be overstated. Everyone on the left that wants to point the finger of blame at Bush always starts with the "the Bush tax cuts cost $x billion dollars, and that's the source of the deficit" argument. Blaming the Bush tax cuts for the deficit assumes that, were they not in place, everyone would have made the same amount of money, the economy would have grown at the same rate, and that tax revenues would, therefore, have been higher by an exactly predictable amount. I don't buy any of those assumptions. It's a fundamentally dishonest way to start the discussion.

The other key part of the debate that gets ignored by the finger-pointers on the left is that deficits did shrink through the middle of Bush's Presidency. The current deficit explosion dates to the election of a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2006. Again, none of this exonerates Bush or the Republican Congress, because they were not good stewards. But the Democrats have been much, much worse...

Worldview

There are some interesting points in this Wall Street Journal interview with Eric Cantor.

Obama and the Narcissism of Big Differences

The "philosophical starting point" of today's Democrats, as Mr. Cantor sees it, is that they "believe in a welfare state before they believe in capitalism. They promote economic programs of redistribution to close the gap of the disparity between the classes. That's what they're about: redistributive politics." The Virginian's contempt is obvious in his Tidewater drawl. "The assumption . . . is that there is some kind of perpetual engine of economic prosperity in America that is going to just continue. And therefore they are able to take from those who create and give to those who don't. We just have a fundamentally different view."

...

Mr. Cantor quit the talks in late June amid Democratic tax demands, which he considered non-negotiable. Their position, he says, was that "we can't do this unless you Republicans are going to relent on revenues." His truculence did not endear him to Washington—though of course no one likened Mr. Obama to a terrorist for similarly refusing to give on any part of his new health-care entitlement, which was not even in the vicinity of "the table."

...

In private, however, the debate always returned to the status of the top marginal rate for individuals earning over $200,000 and $250,000 for couples—aka the Bush tax cuts for people who do not own private aircraft. Mr. Cantor argued that some large portion of the income that flows through the top bracket comes from "pass-through entities"—that is, businesses—and "to me, that strikes at the core of what I believe should be the policy, and that is to provide incentives for entrepreneurs to grow."

By contrast, he says, "Never was there ever an underlying economic argument" from Democrats. "It was all about social justice. Honestly, one of them said to me, 'Some people just make too much money.'"