Talking Points and the Major Media

This Post continued from here, here and here.

Ah, another "tributary of Washington politics" splashes out of the shadows into the light of day. Politico again has the story, this time about an "off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList" where only left leaning media participate. Note the referrence to some participants as "policy wonks." Where policy wonks appear, can administration or Democrat officials be far behind?

For the record, Ezra Klein (no relation) breaks the formal Code of Silence of list-participants to insist,"Government employees have never been, and are not now, allowed on the list." Immediately thereafter hushed Silence became the rule again. Perhaps Mr. Klein suddenly became aware of a government threat to impose a 90% tax rate on his earnings? We'll probably never know.

See previous posts in this long-running series here.

OUTRAGEOUS!

I'm not talking about the AIG bonuses. I'm talking about Congress.

Our humble House of Representatives, public servants all, just passed a 90% tax on bonuses paid by companies that have accepted bailout money from the government. It is not likely that this 90% tax will pass the Senate, and therefore not likely it will become law. But the mere fact that the House passed this bill at all is outrageous: an affront to our Constitution, our commitment to the rule of law, our distinctively American culture, and our fundamental way of life.

The vote was a staggeringly impossible 328 to 93 in favor of the tax. To their credit, 87 House Republicans voted against the bill, versus only 6 Democrats; but to their shame, 85 Republicans voted with the majority in favor of the bill. Who would have supposed that an American political body, the envy of the world for its supposed commitment to liberal (in the classic sense) ideals, would choose so decisively to trash those liberal ideals?

Is the bailout/bonus tax constitutional? The tax is worded as a general tax on all bonuses paid in 2009 and beyond by companies who received Federal bailout money, and as such is probably prima facie constitutional. But the demagoguery accompanying passage of the bill makes it explicitly clear that the Congressional intention was to confiscate the $165 million in bonuses paid by AIG, which is clearly unconstitutional.

I have no doubt that legal scholars, Ivy League law journals and opinion makers in general will be able to parse the question and produce a cacophony of answers in favor of both sides of the issue. Then, ten years down the road the Supreme Court will weigh in on this legal mish-mash, and by a stalwart and uncompromising 5-4 vote end the controversy by deciding either for or against the proposition. I am equally sure that the Court's final judgment will include no less than 7 separate concurring and dissenting opinions, none of which will adduce any consistent principle in common with the others.

So, whether it's constitutional is really not the question. The question is whether the citizens of these United States want to live in the kind of country that would do this sort of thing.

Let's be clear right up front: at no time have our Representatives in Congress voiced anything like a claim that these AIG bonuses were illegal, nor has any Attorney General of the State or Federal governments alleged anything approaching an indictable offense under law.

To be continued ...

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Who's in Charge and What's the Game?

Larry Kudlow, NRO Economics Editor, said yesterday, "Incidentally, has anybody asked Team Obama why it is more than willing to break mortgage contracts with a bankruptcy-judge cram-down, but won't cram-down compensation agreements for AIG, despite the fact that the U.S. government owns the company? Kind of odd, don't you think? "The Wall Street Journal editors get it right when they ask: Who's in charge and what's the game plan? The whole AIG story is an outrage." I think the Wall Street Journal editors should have asked, "Who's in charge and what's the game?" For it is all indeed a game, a political game. But what kind? And what are the stakes? David Freddoso, again on NRO, indicates where the answer might be found. Today, when Democrats were in the Financial Services Committee room hearings, they angrily ripped Mr. Liddy, the government installed CEO of AIG, for paying the infamous bonuses to executives at the company. But curiously, some of these Democrats, wiping the righteous sweat off their brows, left the Committee hearing before it was over TO BLOCK (on a party-line vote) a bill that would have required AIG to refund the bonus money to the government, and to get specific approval from the Treasury Secretary for any future bonuses. This follows on the heels of the fact that this past February, again in a party-line vote, Democrats voted explicitly TO INCLUDE in the Stimulus Bill a provision allowing these very bonuses that they so vehemently oppose whenever they have a convenient microphone, TV camera, or reporter in front of them. What gives? As the old saying goes, follow the money. Fox Business News tells us that Senator Chris Dodd, who introduced the amendment to the Stimulus Bill allowing the AIG bonuses (it's even called the "Dodd Amendment"), was the largest single recipient of AIG campaign contributions last year. And guess who was second? Our President, Barack Obama. In fact, between them, President Obama and Senator Dodd received more than $200,000.00 of the total $420,000.00 AIG gave to all political parties in 2008. Obviously when Stimulus Bill time came they were concerned about their good friends at AIG, and made sure their bonuses were protected by an amendment that really had nothing at all to do with stimulus, unless the intent was to stimulate future campaign contributions. And also obviously, they were surprised by the political blow back that occurred when the bonuses were actually paid. This has put Mr. Obama and Dodd (and the rest of the Democrats who received contributions from AIG) in a severe ethical bind. How long should a bought and paid for politician stay bought and paid for? Or, to put it another way, what are the circumstances under which a politician may consider himself released from his political debts? Whatever the ultimate answer to these important questions, we will have to endure this ridiculous political theater for a while, as the Democrats apparently believe that the age-old political tactic of distracting the voters with irrelevancies will work once again. So expect another week or more of Democrat spotlighting what they insist is the greed, avarice, unconscionable conduct and/or malfeasance of AIG. Thereafter, (hopefully) another target will appear for the Democrats to demagogue (hey, we haven't talked about Rush Limbaugh in a while!), and this particular fiasco, and the Democrat involvement, will then be swept quietly off the political stage. via email

The Ancient Kingdom

You know for many years there has been a theory in some quarters that economic freedom would necessarily direct a society from dictatorship to democracy. The idea is that if the proper economic conditions could be supplied, then a love of freedom would explode in whatever cultural milieu those conditions were planted.

By and large, this theory is considered to be nonsense. The evidence, it is said, is overwhelming that no such causal connection exists between the conditions of economic freedom and the desire for political freedom.

Far be it from me to insist that they – whoever they are – are wrong. I just think that real world events might cast some light on the original thesis. Let's take a brief look at China.

China is a country whose public discourse is calcified in an ideology that regards freedom and capitalism as bad, and this discourse is backed by the overwhelming power of a totalitarian government. However, it is also a society that soto voce encourages freedom and capitalism. Then, in the face of a worldwide economic recession that normally should give rise to harsh police state methods to calm popular unrest, this regime enacts tax cuts and other incentives for individuals to save, invest and produce, policies that are in direct contradiction to the government's claim of supremacy over the individual.

This seems to be the growth of political freedom in a soil that ought not permit such things to grow. By catering to the Chinese people's obvious desire for economic freedom, the government seems to be acknowledging that which was enshrined in the Constitution of the United States, that it is the people who drive the government, not the other way around.

It also looks like there may be a growth in China of something very much like the noble class in old England, which at a certain point insisted on their rights and forever thereafter prevented the Crown from reclaiming its absolute authority. These individual rights were then passed on to the commoners, and led to the revolutionary changes of the 18th and 19th centuries. In other words, man's evolution in the west began with the primacy of government over the affairs of man, evolved into a notion of primus inter pares, and ended (one hopes) with the subordination of government to man. Might not the same be happening in China?

I do not entertain a starry eyed hope for freedom in China. But I do think that the events of today offer a possibility of hope – that someday freedom shall ring, long and loud, in that most silent of places, the ancient kingdom of China.

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The Constant Gardener

This Post continued from here.

As I said, the economic crisis we are now in presents a golden political moment for those of us who care about our country. But first we must isolate the problem.

As the economic growth of America has surged ever upward these last twenty years, I have heard more and more conservatives question the quality of that growth (Liberals too, but they merely mouth political talking points. They are too uninterested in the science of economics to have any helpful opinions about the matter). The main point, I take it, is that as the economy has grown, personal incomes (in real terms) have remained flat. This is an excellent and worrisome point. But the analysis I have seen always seems to miss the obvious point: as economic growth has surged these last decades, so too has the regulatory state. The cost of doing business has gone upward, ever upward, to comply with regulatory rules, paperwork requirements, tax code minutia and securities laws, and businesses have had to compensate with evermore efficient ways of doing what they are supposed to be doing, making a profit for the shareholders. In this effort, the American worker has been nothing short of amazing. It has been remarked over and over, but is still little noticed, that the increase in productivity per worker over the last twenty years has been unprecedented in the annals of history.

But the American worker can only do so much, because the loss of business efficiency due to ever more nit-picking regulations is compounded by the loss of business opportunities as more and more of the economy is sequestered from economic activity. Energy is the prime example. Our richest and cheapest resource, coal, is under constant assault of environmental regulations and agencies from the Federal level down to the local zoning codes. Our fields of oil and natural gas lie fallow off our coasts, in Alaska, and in shale oil deposits in the once entreprenurial West. Nuclear energy, the cheapest, cleanest, safest technology the world has ever seen, has been tied up in litigation and regulation induced constipation since the 1970's. While France – yes, France! – becomes the world leader in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology.

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Since cheap available energy is fundamental to jobs and opportunity, the effects of government regulatory growth in this area are incalculable. But the same holds true in other areas of the economy. Development of new life-saving drugs; improvements in agriculture and distribution networks; residential and commercial construction methods and techniques, all of these and more are tied up in ever-more stifling regulations, all of these and more are restricted, modified, distorted, and often prohibited by ever-more intrusive public policy initiatives imposed and enforced by the Regulatory State.

Let me make it clear that, to paraphrase a famous carpenter, we will always have the Regulatory State with us. The Regulatory State is like kudzu, ultimately ineradicable. But every good gardener knows that cutting back weeds will never suffice forever. Tomorrow, next season, next year, there will always be more weeds to pull. But the gardener who is constant in his craft does not despair but rather takes pleasure in clearing his garden, again and again, because that is what a gardener does who loves his garden.

Those who care about an America strangled by the Regulatory State should be constant gardeners as well. The task will not be easy. Republicans have too long neglected this task, and a gardener who finally turns his attention to cleaning up a neglected garden always faces hard, tough work. And worst of all, Republican inaction these many years has produced weeds that have mutated into a more feral variety: a generation of madly reproducing bureaucrats who consider their power, position and future growth to be an entitlement. The bureaucrats today are more numerous and stronger than those in the past, and they will fight, tooth and nail, to protect themselves, and they will have many allies in Congress and the Media.

But rooting out the Regulatory State from the common ground of American culture is work worth doing, and it is a fight worth winning. And there is no better time to begin this hard work than now, when the winds of economic woe blow hard against the very foundations of the Washington bureaucracy.

via email.

Comic Books and Science Fiction

My parents were never entirely satisfied with me. Among many other reasons, I had this penchant for comic books and science fiction. I was on the cutting edge in buying the early Marvel comics before they became cool, and my science fiction tastes ran predominantly to the (subsequently determined) masters of the genre: Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury. But these early indications of an innate sense of good taste and selection did not impress my parents.

They considered these things childish, silly, trivial and otherwise a waste of time. They wanted me to put away childish things and grow up, to give up my fantastical worlds and begin engaging the real world. However, I resisted them well into my late teens, because to me the comics and science fiction were such marvelous imaginative works by truly creative people who all attempted in their own ways to answer the question "What if?"

Pick a scenario, grant a new assumption, invent a possibility, and what might happen? How would people be affected? What would the world and life look like? And my favorites all had interesting, educational, and often profound (but always entertaining) answers to these questions. Moreover, in engaging these authors, I felt my own imagination thriving, as I learned more and more to try thinking outside the box, no matter what medium or discipline I might thereafter engage.

But never, in all my fantastical musings, did I ever let go of the fact that these were all imaginative creations. They were not real prophesy (although hubris made some think they might be prophets, and Mr. Heinlein certainly had a nice run of prophesy in the mid to late 1950's). They were attempts to stretch the mind, while entertaining the reader.

Now, however, I have a better appreciation for what concerned my parents. This is because of the insanity exhibited by supposed grown-ups over the issue of Global Warming aka Climate Change aka Gaia Hysteria.

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I read the intense speeches by world leaders, I see the alarming reports of near catastrophe, I watch the terse statements on TV news shows, and my head spins. I am listening, in real time, to a science fiction story, a riveting scenario of world-wide apocalypse, but one where all the "writers" do not understand that it's merely a "What if?" scenario. They think it's real! And apparently so do most of the "readers."

It's Orson Welles all over again and we are being attacked by Martians, but the producers of the story do not intend it to be a hoax. It's as if NBC News suddenly broke into my regularly scheduled program to report in all seriousness that Dr. Octopus has taken over a water-front warehouse and threatens New York City with holocaust. Or that Dr. Doom has stolen the Silver Surfer's powers and was at this very moment surfing through the clouds over the Atlantic to wreak vengeance on Reed Richards. Or that a Star Child has been spotted above our communications satellites and is preparing to ignite all of our nuclear bombs to eradicate the human race and start everything over.

I want to shout, "Look! If you want to read good science fiction about man-made Climate Change and the end of the world, spend a few dollars on Gregory Benford's Timescape. There is a book to take you out of your milieu, and make you think and wonder about 'What if?' There is a book to expand your mind, and put you on the road to really and truly thinking independently from the crowd, not only about climate change, but also about time itself, and the sheer aloofness of time to the small destinies contained within its webs."

And then I want to go on and urge people that when they are finished with Timescape to take their lessons learned and enjoyment of a story well told, and file them both away. Get back into the real world, where real people have real problems. And one of those problems is most decidedly NOT how to satisfy the utopian desire to change the climate of this world we live on. We are too small; we are too powerless; and all we can do is what our ancestors have always done: accept what Nature gives us or withholds, adjust our plans accordingly, and pray to the God we believe in to sustain us through the day and help us tomorrow.

Amen.

Posted by: Whitman, via email.

Farewell Sidwell

Growing up is hard to do, and I worry about the Obama children. In addition to normal problems, they must make the adjustment from private to public life, and more particularly from their comfortable Chicago school to toney Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D. C., a private establishment for the care and education of young men and women. My specific concern is that coming from Chicago, the young Obama ladies may not have learned, as their current classmates certainly have, that they should not hang out with the wrong sort of people.

In this case, the wrong sort would be those children at Sidwell who benefit from D.C.'s school voucher program. This has been an amazingly successful program that for more than six years has subsidized the poor and impoverished of Washington so that their children might get an education comparable to that usually reserved for Washington elites.

These voucherized children are not in any sense bad; it's just that they are so temporary. Mr. Obama's compatriot from Illinois, Senator Dick Durbin, recently sponsored legislation to effectively close down D.C.'s school voucher program this year. As a result, all of these children will soon be sent back through the metal detectors of the public schools.

A sense of stability is what a young child needs these days, and to lose friends in their first year in Washington could be quite traumatic for the Obama children. I therefore hope that their parents have given them the appropriate instructions about the right and wrong sort of people, as defined, of course, by their kindly old Uncle Durbin.

via email.

The Constant Gardener*

Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, said last November, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before." Truer words were never spoken, although the cynicism behind the words was palpable. That is because his point was that a crisis can be used to enact radical politicial reforms, even if those reforms would have little or nothing to do with either the causes of the crisis or the resolution thereof. This is crisis in the generic sense, as simply that which can be used to hype the necessity of a pre-existing agenda. "Please note," says the empresario, "there is nothing up my sleeve. Now, pick a crisis, any crisis. Don't show it to me. And ... voila! It's time for change."

But a crisis does not have to be used cynically. A crisis can be used in it's best sense: as a time when deep issues that are normally overlooked reveal themselves. Historical examples abound. The bombing of Pearl Harbor focused the American people on the dangers of isolationism, and galvanized a nation to a necessary war. Nearer to home, the horrors of 9/11 awoke the nation to its false sense of security, and to the necessity of taking affirmative action abroad. And the devastating economic effects of 9/11 enabled President Bush to highlight the long running Republican argument that taxes were a burden on the economy, and to therefore enact the most significant tax cuts since the 1980's.

But my real point is about something that has been too long overlooked. It is not remembered that Ronald Reagan came into office with three major problems to fix: world-wide Soviet aggression, third-world style inflation brought on by high-taxation and loose monetary policies, and economic stagnation and loss of liberty engendered by the growing bloat of government bureaucracy. Reagan, however, had an almost mystical ability to choose the fights he could win. And early on in his administration he recognized that reining in the entrenched regulatory bureaucracy of Washington was not a winnable war.

He feinted here and there with new rules restricting the bureaucracies, downsizing, and various reforms, but by and large he only paid lip-service to true regulatory reform. Ultimately he left the Washington bureaucracy problem for another day, another administration, another political moment. And the Department of Education, among others, still stands to this day, larger and more intrusive than ever.

But let's take a moment to praise Reagan, not bury him. Two out of three ain't bad, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude. It is to the current generation's shame that Reagan left a task worth doing, and Republicans have instead taken the easy road of riding the political benefits of an end to the Cold War and seemingly unstoppable economic growth.

It's wake up time. The economic crisis we are now in presents a golden political moment for those of us who care about our country.

To be continued ...

*Kudos to John Le Carre for the inspiration of the phrase.

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A Brief Chat

It's early. I sip my coffee sitting on the old flowered divan and gaze out at the perimeter. All is quiet. "No thanks to you," I mutter at my black dog, mostly Labrador. Frederick (pronounced Froderick) flicks his eyes towards me, wrinkling his brow, but otherwise remains comfortably curled on the khaki throw-rug.

"You know," I begin easily, " It probably wouldn't cost that much to bribe some lowly bureaucrat at the city Dog Registry. They can't be paid that much, and I am sure they have families to provide for. After all, Dog Registry bureaucrats can't grow on trees; they must reproduce and multiply somehow, and the traditional family, expensive as it may be, is the most likely template."

I realize I may be losing Frederick (pronounced Froderick) with my interesting, but digressive, extemporaneous disquisition. I catch him suddenly with the intensity of my gaze. "A $25.00 bribe. Maybe $30.00, but I don't think much more. And certain official government certified Dog Registry papers could be changed, from 'Inside Dog' to 'Outside Dog.'"

With an unexpressed "urp?" Frederick's large head lifts abruptly to look at the thermometer hanging outside the window. It is the old-fashioned mercury type, rusted by the years. 10 degrees, Fahrenheit, it silently attests.

Ah, I have his attention.

Posted by: Longfellow via email.

Republicans: Back to the Future?

Boy, that didn't take long. Republican leadership, newly installed and hopeful of turning around the devastation wrought by the leadership of the last eight years, took about one month to take a giant step backward. The Politico tells us today: "In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, [Republican RNC Chairman Michael] Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an 'entertainer' whose show is 'incendiary' and 'ugly.' " What is Mr. Steele thinking about? Did he watch the CPAC speech by Limbaugh? Has he listened to his show? What about Rush Limbaugh is "incendiary" and "ugly?" His remarks on Saturday and every other time I have listened to him are upbeat, optimistic, insightful, and honest. He does pointedly criticize the Liberals and liberal culture, frequently with humor and irony, but most often with devastating analysis. He definitely frustrates Democrats, especially when they try to marginalize him, but I hardly think that constitutes him as "incendiary" much less "ugly," at least not in any society that pretends to a devotion to free speech. Unfortunately, I am afraid this misstep by Mr. Steele shows that he will be played by Democrats and the Liberal Media just like his predecessors. And that is because he, like them, just can't follow what the Liberals are trying to do. When he is asked about Rush Limbaugh, they are not trying to engage in a political debate about the Republican party and the ideas it represents. They are trying to trivialize and marginalize any voices which oppose them. So, they state that Rush is a wacky neanderthal right winger, and Mr. Steele thinks that he's got to distance the Party from being labeled extreme and disses Rush Limbaugh. But the correct answer is very simple: Rush Limbaugh is not the leader of the Republican party, and does not pretend to be. He is a powerful voice for conservatism, and he speaks for many, many people, and as such, Mr. Steele respects and welcomes his help in the national debates, and also in the Republican Party discussions of the issues. If the media has any specific problems with things Rush says, then Mr. Steele should direct them to voice their concerns with Rush. But as for the Republican Party, it is glad to have him. Period. That's it. That's the response. Why would the Republican Party throw a powerful media voice like Rush under the bus? Rush does not claim to be the head of the Republican Party. That is Mr. Steele's job, and if he is to be more effective than the leadership preceding him he is going to have to man-up and meet these media goons with a forthright defense of the Party. And that includes a refusal to allow the media to dictate who is and is not an "acceptable" member of the Party. via email.