Detailed Abstractions

Well.  It’s official.  Not only do we have an economic crisis, but now we have an economic debate crisis…. apparently that is.

Why is it so important?

Easy… because without being able to spend more money than we can realize in revenue through taxation, we’re all going to die.  Just look around, this theoretically historically unprecedented permanently damaging possibility is sure to end the Republic as we know it:

President who tells us our senior citizens and military members will not get paid….

Bernake warns of catostrophy…

For others, our national security is at stake…. in fact, Al Qaeda itself might attack just because of this!

& on and on….

 With all of that looming, it’s not wonder someone has to be at fault….

There are alternative answers to defaulting itself, for instance let’s get rid of the ceiling altogether.  Or maybe, since a five dollar treasury bond and a five dollar bill are virtually the equivalent, why not give out more IOUs in a different form thereby removing the need for the ceiling in the first place?

But those ideas are centrist, so largely ignored and with a problem this large… someone has to be to blame.

So who is at fault?

Maybe the Tea Party’s fault?  Or maybe, like much of everything else, it’s Bush’s fault?  How about Governor Norquist?!?!

Or maybe there is no maybe.  Ask the brilliant policy minds over at The Rolling Stones, and they’ll tell you, that without question it’s the GOP’s fault.

For the logic minded, one might contend that the President, who refused to pass this perfect budget a year ago when his party controlled both legislative houses shares some blame.

But what do I know…. according to some Barack supporters, his only problem is being too much like the Big Gipper, the famous “let’s raise taxes” President…

The issue is, when you push predictions of doom and gloom for some scenario, blame has to be affixed quickly and preferably without relation to actual facts as that just muddies the waters.  Nope, the goal for almost every writer, seems to be scare tactics followed by blame.

There are a couple who have offered advice.  HBR for one had an interesting post about needing a moderator, perhaps Adam Smith.  It’s not an unpleasant thought and certainly a brilliant economic mind serving as moderator cannot help, but what most struck me about their advice is the same thing that struck me about most of those pieces blaming this or that: it misses who is truly responsible.

For when HBR states the Debt Ceiling Debate needs a moderator, I have to stop and say, they already do: the American public.  Certainly one could make the argument that the current moderators are abdicating their responsibilities and I might agree, but as much as one can delegate tasks, authority and responsibility cannot be delegated.

So sure, the public collectively can give moderator powers to Adam Smith or someone similar but alive, however the responsibility for the consequences of that process will still be the American people.

So…. is there a debate crisis?

Maybe not… as while many of us individually and seemingly ever single writer might view this whole process as out of control; seeing the whole thing as a demonstration in nothing more than the problems with this country, these are just mere opinions.

In all honesty, I’m sympathetic to that view.  However, the market place of ideas is free.  & If you analyze politics like one does the market, with the idea being the result cannot be wrong as the market is not wrong…

Then I think based upon the current political result I would submit a large enough percentage of voters have already cast their vote to continue the political infighting, applaud Pyrrhic victories, and any number of other actions which are designed to benefit their collective and not the average individual.

As proof of this reality, see incumbency rates, or polls which say cut things, but say no to all questions about what to cut, the current press articles being created because people are buying them, and more.  But even without those facts, the logic is simple: the current debate has to be ok with society at large because a free people is watching it happen and doing nothing, in a concerted effort, to substantially change anything.

So by virtue of its mere existence, it is the correct debate needed at this time.

& if it’s not?

Well, as Lincoln stated <paraphrased here>  ”As a nation of free men, we will live forever, or die by suicide.”

In the current political landscape which is America, with admissions from Senator Dodd for not reading the financial regulation he helped author (here), or Senator Baacus admitting he hadn’t read the health care reform bill he helped craft (here), you would be hard pressed to find a situation in which any politician seemingly cares about going overboard with their rhetoric, but the tax debate seemed to spark rhetoric like that only seen during war time.

Senator Menendez thinks things are sooooo bad, he calls the dealing with the GOP similar to dealing with terrorists (here):

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on Friday compared the tax-cut fight with Republicans to negotiating with terrorists…

& not to be outdone, Senator McCaskill thinks pitchforks and violence are needed (continued):

…while Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri suggested Americans might need to “take up pitchforks” if Congress renews tax breaks for the wealthy….

& let’s not forget, Senator Brown… who thinks paying people to stay home is the beginning of job growth (here):

….extending unemployment benefits that creates economic activity that creates jobs, not giving a millionaire an extra ten or twenty or $30,000 in tax cuts that they likely won’t spend,” Brown said….

No worries that Sen. Sherrod et al are wrong on the facts (here):

After the dividend tax rate came down, average dividends among the top 1% surged to $52,814 in 2004 and $83,072 by 2007. Reported dividends of the top 1% in 2007 were twice as large as the previous peak in 2000….

&

Average capital gains among the top 1% rose from $145,433 in 2002 (in 2008 dollars) to a record $427,930 in 2007….

But it does make one wonder where you go from there with their party leader has made a deal with terrorists & those deserving of pitchforks? (here):

An excellent publication overall, the Economist, is using their online debates to ask a question which doesn’t seem to have any useful answer (here):

This house believes that America’s political system is broken.

The current debaters are Matthew Yglesias, defending the motion and Peter Wehner arguing against.   In their second round of the debate, the house is winning with a full 75% agreeing to a broken US political system.

I say it doesn’t seem to have any useful answer as the most likely result from such a poll will be based mainly upon emotions.  Since most lay people don’t typically sit around and try to analyze political systems, the answers from the majority of respondents will have to fall back on other knowledge and human behavior demoonstrates this is likely to be emotions.  IE – if I like what’s going on, no fixing.  If I don’t like what’s going on, it needs fixing.

Reminds me a little of an argument I’ve seen a number of times in the health care debate.  Invariably, someone will put up a poll telling me how many people think their health care costs are too high.  & my retort stays the same, with some variation of Socratic questioning like… ”So?  Did you expect to see a poll that said most Americans want to pay more for anything?”

But I digress, the question has been asked and for Mr. Yglesias, things aren’t going well.  His baisc argument starts something like this:

American political institutions are in a period of crisis. The source of the crisis is relatively simple. Our institutions work only when leaders can reasonably expect broad bipartisan co-operation, but the emergence of more ideologically rigorous parties makes such co-operation extremely unlikely…

Which might make for a good thesis, assuming you can prove that broad bipartisan co-operation is indeed a requirement (hell, prove it’s useful…) as well as proving that more ideologically rigorous parties have come into existence.

His proof?  In the short, yet varied history of the US, he points to the last few election cycles – excluding all information about 9/11 and two wars and the nominal fact that the higher the consequence of any legislation the more ferocious the public debate – he starts his historical research by going all the way back to President Bush the younger; who entered the presidency with:

…an unprecedentedly weak electoral mandate. More voters marked their ballots for Al Gore than marked their ballots for Mr Bush. The median voter in the election supported Mr Gore. But thanks to a combination of litigation, stubbornness and the perversity of the electoral college, Mr Bush succeeded in prevailing and becoming president….

Just a quick note here – is it a little odd to start an arguement to theoretically prove that idealogically rigirous institutions are harming us, by being idealogically rigid… but whatever.

He contends that the result of the weak mandate  and an inability to overcome a Senate fillubuster worked well:

…This led to a fair amount of legislative co-operation in the first Bush term. A series of important changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act were approved; an extremely costly new prescription drug benefit was added to Medicare; income taxes were steeply cut—all on an at least somewhat bipartisan basis….

Somewhat bipartisan?  Like idealogically rigirous, “somewhat bipartisan” is undefinable in any concrete terms, but a quick look on just the tax cuts seems to indicate consistent partisan fighting.

What we know?

The cuts themselves were passed in two bills.

1. Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 &
   1. Senate vote here, House vote here
2. Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.
   1. Vote totals here

In 2001: only 1 Republican voted against it in the Senate out of 33 nay votes (the other nays were Democrats), and in the House, all but one of the 154 nay votes were cast by Democrats.  & of course out of the yea votes, while less one sided, still doesn’t appear to be bipartisan.  In the Senate, 12 of the 58 yea votes were cast by Democrats and in the House 28 votes our of 240 yea votes were cast by Republicans.

& 2003?  I guess Mr. Yglesias would also be surprised to learn that in the 2003, the tax debate was even more lopsided (more…)

It’s a truism of real leaders since the dawn of time; they find themselves, not from true success and stable times, but rather from adversity and chaos. When faced with those seemingly insurmountable odds, it’s the strongest who remain calm, read the landscape, and discover new answers from which they can seek out continued success.

Though under great stress, we humans tend towards the flight or flight response. True leaders however, can use these difficulties against themselves to provide both motivation and a sense of urgency to gain the ingenuity required for such challenges.

This is understood well in society. Like business leaders who understand innovation can be helped significantly by design constraints (here):

Great designers understand this. Charles Eames says design is all about innovating around constraints. And it’s the constraints – the scarcity – that fires the designer’s creativity. Smart business people “get it” too. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos embraces self-imposed scarcity saying, “One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”

They understand that principle of economic scarcity. As do military leaders. Sun Tzu notes in the Art of War:

For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.

For President Obama, the Tea Party & the Republicans taking back control of the House of Representatives could give him the opportunity to display true deft.

Assuming it does happen as predicted (here via the Philly Inquirer) however, the President is accorded a tough task ahead.

He would now have the body responsible for appropriations bills (all spending bills much start in the House & they are very important. For instance, they can kill health care by simply not funding it….) mainly in place due to running against him. Secondarily, while they don’t wish to be seen as obstructers, their willingness to work with Obama will be small even without their election strategy. Because any bill passed, regardless of how/why, if it turns out to be a good or well liked idea, Obama will naturally take credit to further his chances for re-election in 2012.

& the Democrats know that neither the President nor health care is a selling point for this election, even if they are communicating differently. The facts are that se hasn’t really made many direct candidate speeches, just backyard BBQs in key districts in key states. They are essentially, and correctly, playing against their weakness – his popularity.

Not a bad strategy in the short term, but I think people have heard him speak enough and any celebrity (yes, while the President is certainly more important and more powerful than any normal celebrity, s/he is still a celebrity) runs the risk of over saturation.

Irregardless, with Obama, the question is can he live inside those constraints?

What we know is given a new landscape, the answer for tomorrow’s question will not be the same answer as today’s. I think if he can push himself with a sense of urgency, surveys the landscape to see what he has and what he can accomplish with what he has. Then uses both the sense of urgency and strategic thinking by changing his game plan when the field of battle changes…. well, then we’ll see a real leader who may live up to his Nobel Peace Prize (here).

Or said more succinctly, it’s a crappy state of affairs you might find yourself in Mr. President, but challenges is how leaders prove themselves.

Honestly, I don’t think he’ll be able to do it. I think he’s too insecure (here) about himself and his handlers seem to know little more than an approval ratings drop equals time for Obama to give more speeches. & I don’t honestly think that’s likely to change…. but predictions are better left to Ms. Cleo.

What is likely however is the people around him understand exactly this point.  They do know it. The question is whether their emotions towards their beliefs (see: Confirmation Bias here & here) combined with the difficulty of telling a President who gives great speeches to shut up. Not to mention game theory predicts leaders to surround themselves with “yes men”.

All of that makes significant and required change seem unlikely, but I’d never count out someone who made it to the Presidency, nor, the team that helped him get there.

So Mr. President, here’s your chance.

Wow… Mr. Harry Reid (note, it’s proper to call him the honorable Mr. Reid, or Senator Reid, but I think both connote an aspect of respect that simply isn’t deserved)… apparently, while serving as Senate Majority leader since the 2006 elections and as a Senator since 1986 (here) has this to say recently (here):

…“I had nothing to do with the massive foreclosures here,” Reid said during an appearance on the ABC News/Washington Post “Top Line” program, adding that he also had no part in contributing to the state’s dismal unemployment figures….

So apparently, one of the most power leaders in the western world has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s going on…

Meh – With leaders like this…. who needs tyrants?

Well, the verdict is in. The Republicans are being cast as the party of no.  The party without ideas.  The party of obstruction.

Please make no mistake about it, this marketing push isn’t really about obstruction, but about the upcoming elections.  Just as President Clinton did brilliantly prior the 1996 elections when he cast all Republicans as following Newt Gingrich and obstructing spending laws, the Obama administration is moving forward in much the same pattern.

This is possible because the White House, regardless of occupant, has historically been able to control the news cycle.  In my opinion, this should be an indictment on journalism as a whole when alternatives which exist aren’t being reported, but simply put:  when the President talks, news happens.  When your normal representative talks, you’re lucky if you even hear about it.

It worked during the Clinton Administration on spending, it worked during the Bush (43) Administration on the Patriot Act, & it certainly might work again this time. Irregardless, the campaign is back and in high gear (here via USA Today):

…”Too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress,” Obama said. “And that has very real consequences.”…

Or here via NY Times blog, here via WaPo, & on and on and on…

From a critical point of view however, obstructionist should not automatically be a pejorative.   Without analyzing what exactly is being obstructed, this is little more than name calling.

As an example, if say in the 1940s Congress was actively trying to “obstruct” the internment of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans, this would not only be a moral good, but any thoughts to compromise solely to be seen as a non-obstructionist would be wrong.  What would be a compromised alternative?  House arrest?

Additionally, we have to be on the lookout for the differences between the marketing of bills and their actual language.  Think of the new health care legislation.  President Obama’s promises of more health care for all at cheaper prices, simply don’t seem to be fulfilled by the 2500 page law passed… or maybe they are being fulfilled, but like the Patriot Act, no one really knows what the new legislation actually means (here via Cato):

…The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care.

The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact….

Or on yesterday’s Meet The Press Rep. Van Hollen stated (transcripts here via MSNBC):

…The frustration is there are lots of important bills to push for jobs that are sitting over in the Senate.  But it’s not the fault of the Democratic leadership in the Senate.  I mean, frankly, you know, John Cornyn and his allies have been trying to block a whole lot of very important jobs measures.  We in fact sent a piece of legislation over very recently that would remove these perverse tax incentives to ship American jobs overseas, that give American corporations a bonus if they ship American jobs overseas….

Just like health care, the basic idea that our representatives are working on private job creation incentives is a good one.  But just like the Obama Administration’s promises on health care, Rep. Van Hollen is selling us a job creation bill which has little chance of actually creating jobs.

To translate – what they mean by “removing incentives” is to increase taxes on businesses who outsource.  Now, some may want this to happen for various reasons, but the economics are pretty straight forward.  Tax increases have never increased jobs & forcing a tax such as this could actually result in companies simply moving their head quarters as well.

To be fair, there are bills I don’t believe the Republicans should block, for instance the extension on unemployment benefits (though it seems likely to pass soon: here via The Hill).

Yes, the point isn’t that the Republicans are doing the right thing and the Democrats are failing at every single step, the point is only intended to remind us of the old saying about representative governance:

The people will get the government they deserve.

& so long as we allow marketing campaigns to have more force in elections than critical analysis does, we will likely continue to be disappointed.

More bad news for Obama & the Democrats for 2010 elections.  Via The Atlantic here:

Chris Cillizza’s Morning Fix reports new data from Gallup showing that independents now favor a generic Republican candidate for Congress over a generic Democrat by 12 points….

& as is continually the case with this congress, more bad news for freedom.  Via The Hill here:

The 30-second campaign ad could become a thing of the past for third-party groups if the Democrats’ campaign finance legislation becomes law.

Media strategists argue the new disclosure requirements would eat into the majority of their ad time….

& while we’re talking about lack of freedom…. what might Kagan do about this “disclose” act?  Via Reason.com here:

As solicitor general of the United States, Elena Kagan argued in front of the Supreme Court that the federal government had the constitutional authority to ban certain political pamphlets. She also strongly implied that some political books, if they were partisan enough, could also be censored…..

Does is matter that she’s against free political speech?  Unlikely…. via Yahoo News here:

…Kagan’s performance in the Judiciary Committee drew praise from Democrats and compliments even from some critics, putting her on a path to confirmation by the full Senate sometime in July.

“She will be confirmed. I believe she will be confirmed,” said Republican Orrin Hatch, a member of the Judiciary Committee, predicting there would be at least some Republican support…..

& least we forgot, there’s still an oil spill…. which is being screwed up by the same government that is promising to “fix” healthcare….  Via The Heritage Foundation here, all kinds of people are offering help, but we’re still considering it:

In total, there have been 27 countries and 5 international organizations offering boom, dispersants, skimmers, vessels, bird rehabilitation equipment as well expertise. Along with the other important action items for the administration to undertake, accepting international assistance must be a more urgent priority. The Department of State has a chart that lists the equipment and expertise sitting on the sidelines with most of the status orders “under consideration.” Owners of the equipment have been rapid in their response to government queries but the equipment remains idle. It simply needs to be better….

Not to mention the economic killing impact the asinine moratorium is having:

Meanwhile, the Gulf continues to suffer. It’s not just government incompetence when it comes to the environmental cleanup; the administration’s policy decisions are making the economic harm much worse – especially the offshore drilling moratorium. Although the ban was only meant to affect those rigs operating in water 500 feet or deeper, it has led to a de facto ban on shallow water drilling….

Butler said that only one of his four drill rigs are operating; all four were drilling before the spill. Spartan has six contracts that would put his entire fleet back to work, but he can’t get going until the permits come through, he added. The week before last, Butler said he had to lay off 72 employees. Come Tuesday he’ll have to let another 140 go. “That’s 140 families, is how I look at it,” Butler said….

Not only incompetence in the clean-up, idiocy in quickly implemented, but poorly thought out regulations (DA post here), The Atlantic takes all this and poses an interesting moral question here:

In this video from Climate Desk partner Need to Know, Atlantic correspondent and oil expert Lisa Margonelli talks to Jon Meacham about halting drilling in the Gulf. She explains her view that Americans don’t have a right to drive cars and use gasoline unless we’re willing to drill for it in our own backyard….

For good news – research conducted on parents and children in reference to video games demonstrates that most parents actually don’t need government help.  Via The Technology Liberation Front (here):

• 93% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented
• 64% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives
• 86% of the time children receive their parents’ permission before purchasing or renting a game
• 48% of parents play computer and video games with their children at least weekly
• 97% of parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play
• 76% of parents believe that the parental controls available in all new video game consoles are useful

It might be scary to those in government who are continuing to try to push more laws concerning how parents raise their children as it discounts the need for those laws, but for us normal folk – it gives us what we see everyday:

Once again, these findings illustrate that parents are parenting!