High Noon and the Debt Limit Debate

It is once again high noon in Washington D.C., where the real target ends up not being Gary Cooper and Ian MacDonald, but the American public.  There we are standing idly by while the Republicans and Democrats load their six-shooters full of rhetoric.  One cannot help but think that the bullets will never hit their mark, but end up clipping innocent bystanders, foolish enough to look out the window (or live in a house with no doors).

Ironically, both sides profess to speak on our behalf.  The Republicans have artfully called any revenue generating ideas as a “tax hike”.  The Democrats have argued against cuts to the social programs.  I’ve got to admire that in this case both parties are scaring the crap out of the same demographic (the middle class).

In order for me to fully understand the context of these debates, I have to translate them to my life and what I’ve experience in the great Democratic experiment.  When Obama says that the costly government stimulus act saved jobs, I know empirically that is the truth.  I had to lay off people due to the financial meltdown.  And I would have had to lay off more people if things had gotten any worse: Good people, who worked hard and established credibility in their field.    It was an agonizing, sleep depriving process.  But when after TARP and the Bailouts helped the anemic Stock Market tick up a point or two….I knew I had a good chance of keeping those people and saving their jobs.

To expand my understanding of this deficit debt/ceiling opera I try to put it into the context of everyday, middle-class house finances.  I consider programs like Medicaid, Teacher Salaries, Policeman salaries, etc necessary items, like the Electricity bill, the Food bill, phone/cable/internet bill and so on.  

And I think; “Well, if I was unable to pay these things, I could take the very hard route and go without.” 

But electricity, food, etc are pretty essential.   I would have to raise more money to pay for them, perhaps get another job.  In this analogy a new job for the country would be innovation and new technologies in this country.  And while we have some of that, so far it is only yielding the equivalent of…a paper-route let’s say.  Not quite enough to cover these essential core expenses.

So how else can I raise money?   Am I giving away money?  For example, let’s say that I took on a renter a few years back; let’s call him Chevron.  He was having a hard time, so I gave him a temporary break on the rent.  We agreed that he could 60% until he got back on his feet.   

Now that I think about it.  He’s doing alright.  There’s a new Mercedes parked in his parking spot…and I think he’s put on an addition to his room.  In fact he is making more money now then in his entire career history.  I am proud of him.  He really turned things around.    So, I am sure he will understand that I now need to charge him the full rent, so I can pay for the lights and keep food in the fridge.  Right?  It only seems fair.

Pretend we have another renter that is a little more of a problem.  His name is “Top one-hundredth of one percent” (or at least that’s what Mother Jones calls him.)  Let’s just call him Todd.  Todd is kind of a jerk.  A decade ago he complained that rents we’re too high and that we didn’t need the money.  He was right; we had a surplus at the time, so we gave him a break.  Now there is no surplus, but he has the gall to tell us that if we raise the rent back to normal prices, he isn’t going to hire anyone to clean the yard and fix the windows he has broken.  He is holding us over a barrell because if the house looks bad, it continues to lose value.  He calls raising the rent a “job-killer”. 

Funny thing is he hasn’t hired anyone to fix the broken windows so far, with the cheap rent and all (Todd is a devious son of a bitch, broken windows allow him to pay less of the air conditioning bill)  I asked an economist friend of mine about this inconsistency and he indicated that in the last 30 years there is no proof that raising the rent on Todd has ever resulted in a repairman, house cleaner, investments in workforce of anykind.  We should doubt the circular logic of this veiled threat.

This simplified analogy seems pretty straightforward to me (but I’ve been eating a steady diet of migraine meds.  Talking dust bunnies seem straightforward to me).

Boiling it down, if one (whether a person or a country) cannot afford the basic necessities, you have cut back on the things you do not need.   I get that, and it seems the Federal government and many state governments have done that.  If you still find yourself short “scratch”, you look for another job.  And if that is not available, you have to stop giving away money.     

Now you could sell drugs to raise cash, and certainly our government has had success with that when funding anticommunist in Central America.  But then you fall in with a less then desirable crowd.  Really, it‘s no fun hanging around people in the illegal drug trade.  They’re always nervous and twitchy.  And sometimes downright mean.  At least that’s what I gather from watching The Wire.

Response to the Response to the State of the Union

"...the state of the Union is strong..."

Since 1790 Presidents have been getting in front of the Congress to deliver their summation on current events since 1790.   Franklin Roosevelt was the first President to use the phrase, "State of the Union".  In recent political history the State of the Union speech (or SOTU if you're into the brevity thing) has been a chance to lay down the gauntlet and bait the opposing party.  But every now and again a President uses the SOTU to rally the Congress on both sides of the aisle.  I think President Obama was shooting for the latter.

During his 2nd SOTU President Obama weathered the high road and maintained the recent and rare civility in the Capital.  In trying to rally the nation he said the word "future" 15 times.  He said "change "10" times.  He mentioned China 4 times.  And he said something about a 3 to 4 hour work day.   His speech was clearly an attempt to inspire the nation and recognize our ability to be stronger than our problems, and collectively united while individually diverse.

With his approval points rising, the SOTU was a good opportunity for the President to remain presidential and ride a positive trend.  And he did just that.  Granted he has confused a lot of people with the dual approach of spending cuts and investments in our country.  But as I told a dear friend, a progressive centrist is going to "contain multitudes".

But we now turn to the rebuttals.

In 1966, Senator Everett Dickson gave the first response to the SOTU given by LBJ starting a rebuttal tradition.  The point at which we decided that the president's rah-rah speech needed a rebuttal might have been the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning.  Of course, given what LBJ was trying to get done in 1966 (Civil Rights reforms, Welfare Reform, South East Asia reform) perhaps a rebuttal was more than necessary.

In 2011, we introduced not one rebuttal from the opposing party, but two.  Representative Paul Ryan (WI) spoke on behalf of the Republicans.  Michele Brachman, also Republican but fan of Tea parties spoke on behalf of the Tea Party.  I guess Joe Lieberman was looking forward to retirement an opted out of a rebuttal from independents. We might very well consider nipping this in the bud, before the State of the Union itself turns into a week long debate exercise.   This could get carried away.  I did see that Sarah Palin tried to turn her response into a game of acronyms, but the mainstream press has pretty much moved on. 

In his Republican response, Paul Ryan emulated the Capital civility. Ryan came out praising the president for his remarks on the Tucson tragedy.    He clarified that all of the economic woes were not created by the present administration.  Ryan's speech was very deferential to the President, even indicating that "the President came into office facing a severe fiscal and economic situation."  For a few moments, it almost looked like Ryan had an Obama-crush.

Ryan scores points for not putting all the economic woes on the doorsteps of the Whitehouse.  America's short memory undermines the credibility of the electorate.  We are like an easily dog, chasing its tail for momentary bliss, while being stung by a swarm of bees and putting the blame on a neighborhood cat.  Life is what's happening when you're burying a bone. 

But then Ryan's sense of linear argument quickly evaporated.  It was as if someone told him, at line 24, you need to ignore cause and effect and just start concluding that 2 + 2 = 17.

Instead of identifying that the severe fiscal and economic situation required drastic spending measures to avoid an all out depression and complete collapse of the economy, Ryan choose to argue that President Obama failed to deliver on his promise to create more jobs. Obama might have saved a house from burning to the ground, but he didn't stop the dog from running away: Hence failure.

Ryan also indicated that the stimulus failed.  But that is inconclusive.  If nothing was done, we'd be criticizing a 'do nothing" President who stood by and failed to save the country.  It is going to get harder and harder for Republicans and Tea Party candidates to argue that the stimulus failed, when the NASDAQ charts above 12,000 points (hitting 11,989.83 at close on Thursday).   The stimulus hasn't failed.  The bailouts haven't failed.  In fact as the bailout money has been paid back American has either come out ahead on those investments or at least broken even.   And if you think hard about what it was like in February 2009, you have to remember that we were desperate and in dire straits as a nation.

Of course Ryan had to address the Health Care Reform.   The Republican Party beats on the Health Care Reform like an heirloom Bohkara rug.  Even when the President concedes that improvements need to be made to the law, like malpractice deterrence and unnecessary IRS forms, the Republican brusque the entreaty aside and stick to the script; "it increases costs, kills jobs, encourages baby-seal bashing, etc.etc".

Health care would have costs risen regardless; with or without this reform.  I think it specious at best to indicate that it is the problem behind job growth.   It might serve as a nice excuse but Corporate America is not hiring because it wants to maximize profits and resort to maxing out the current workforce.  Look at the stock market.  It continues to soar because corporations are profitable and still sitting on trillions of excess capital.  Corporate America will create new jobs when it absolutely has to and when it can no longer double up responsibilities on existing staff, or remain competitive.  Health Care Reform is not the impediment to lowering the national unemployment rate.

Ryan concluded the rebuttal by confusing the financial meltdown remedies with the cause of the economic crisis itself.  Lack of Federal fiscal oversight initiated by Clinton and endorse by Bush led to unregulated markets which created the fiasco.  Restoring federal oversight to appropriate levels is not building big government, but just putting the right controls back in place.  If someone steels your car, it is not bureaucracy to install an expensive alarm system and park in a secured garage.  It's common sense.  And to claim that it impedes entrepreneurialism in the car theft business is...well actually a good thing.

Despite the occasion distortion of fact or convenient gloss over true cause and effect, Ryan did his best to echo the President's message of hope, collaboration and "can-do" success.  It was actually gratifying to see a civil and articulate response.

Luckily for America, we also got to hear the Tea Party's Rebuttal from Michele Brachman. 

Representative Brachman was polite to begin her speech by clarifying that she was not there to compete with the Republican response.  It was almost a "well if you have to qualify..." moment.  Admittedly her accent threw me off, and while her presentational skills were on par with a timeshare salesman, her over rhythm was just a bit off.  I don't know...may that just how it is in Minnesota?  But on content alone, Bachman embarked on an impassioned speech full of factual anomalies.

Bachman proposed that Obama's primary goal upon getting elected was to create jobs and decrease the deficit.  However, in January 2009 the primary focus was to thwart a spiraling debt crisis.  Bachman conveniently forgets that while today's primary goals are job creation and debt reduction, in 2009 we were just looking hoping to avoid wide spread wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Oddly looking just left off camera, Bachman then drew an argument that high unemployment rate was Obama's fault and has remained unchanged for 20 months.    She even had a chart outlining the increase in unemployment over the last 10 years.  She ignores the fact the unemployment rate rose more in the last 7 months of Bush's presidency (3.7 percent from May 2008 to Jan 2009) than Obama's 24 months in the presidency (2.1 %)  And despite her claim that is has remain unchanged in 20 months, it has actually gone done, albeit slowly and not at the rate to get good folks back to work. 

Now we won't get into the effect of the "just say no" Republican majority.  Because we need to look forward not past.  But like Ryan, Bachman confused facts and cause and effect.  She chose to ignore the strides we have made as a country over the last two years which helped us avoids far dire and disastrous results.   

Together Ryan and Bachman choose to ignore the lessons of history which tell us that national spending is the solution to overcome and avoid a depression (just look at the Hoover legacy).   And they choose the temptation of negative rearview analysis over forward looking solutions.  Sadly these arguments will not stand the test of time.  However, they might stand with the equally misinformed and the danger there is that while solutions are gained, no one will recognize them against the haze of half-truths and distortions.

Luckily one cannot consistently argue that something is not working, when key indicators indicate that these solutions are working (notwithstanding unrest in Egypt, which set the markets back today).  Empiricism might be the salve to our national misunderstanding.  It will be interesting to see how opposition forces bend reality.  I am sure soon they will start taking credit for it.  Despite a quantifiable record,   In the meantime we cannot lose sight that these problems took time to create and were legion.  The solutions as well must be large and will take time to succeed.

God bless America and the men of Iwo Jama.

 

The Tragedy of Politicized Politics

I'd like to think of myself as a dedicated consumer of  current events.  I do my best to stay informed and solicit information from a wide array of resources (though admittedly pretty much the  The New York Times, NPR and Google).  That is why ultimately I am very confused about the recent stories surrounding the tragedy out of Tucson this week.

I had occasion to hear about the shootings on the radio this Saturday.  Listening to public radio as they gave an account of the shootings, like most, I was saddened at the comprehensive and senseless violence. 

Later in the day, while putting away Christmas decorations, I checked Google News to see if there were any other developments.  I was pleased to see that Gifford's condition was stable, though saddened to hear of the other victims of the shooting.  And then I started to see articles about how the right wing pundits were crying  foul at being blamed for the tragedy.   First I saw an article about Rush Limbaugh.  Then another about Sarah Palin.  And so on.  It occured to me that blaming Rush & co would be stupid distraction from tragic import of these events..

Certainly I have been troubled that the tone of political rhetoric in the last few years was somewhat atavistic.  We continually seem to approach politics like a "zero sum" game in America, where only one side can be right, and the other clearly wronged headed and bent on the destruction of the country.  This rhetoric or demagoguery cannot serve or sustain us in the long term.  It does not aid our Democratic process, but only functions  to perpetuate intractable ideologies (and increase ratings, lecture fees or book sales).  With so many people out of work, losing their homes or just plain feeling the stifling pressure of bad "times", it seems we can least afford to indulge in "politics as contact sport" as we meander into the 2nd decade of this century.  So I try to ignore the divisive entertainment and find optimism and a silver lining.

But using the Tucson tragedy as opportunity poke the eye of the Right-Wing pundits is in bad taste and would be counter-productive.  Who were these people making these base accusation?   Where are  the articles, editorials, news clips?  What were their names and what were these pinheads saying? 

I searched all the news outlets I could find.  I've carefully combed the New York Times, the editorials.  I've reviewed the Washington Post; Fox News, CBS news, etc, etc.  I've been on the lookout for some snarky Keith Doberman rants.  Or some self-righteous Anderson Cooper asides.  But I cannot seem to find any.    Yet, aside from numerous Facebook comments, I am hard press to find any journalist or pundits who are placing the blame for this tragedy on the door-step of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Sarah Plain.

I am however seeing a lot of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Plain complaining about being castigated with the mantle of responsibility for these actions.   In fact, I see far more articles and commentary on the defense of the right wing in light of these events, than any left wing commentary blaming them.   It is as if in preparing for the defensive, they have gone on the offensive.

Do they in fact feel guilty that they have stoked the heated political rhetoric to dangerous levels?  Could they be ashamed of these efforts?  Is this a matter of "If the shoe fits, throw at the first person coming through the door?"   Perhaps they are breathing a sigh of relief as the suspect in this case does appear to be for all intents and purposes, "apolitical".  I can imagine that they are hoping against hope that nowhere in his possessions does he have a foot-locker full of Glenn Beck books, and Sarah Plain bumper stickers.

Yet by calling attention to the issue of how deplorable it is to politicize this tragedy, aren't they by virtue politicizing it themselves? 

Perhaps I am wrong.  Perhaps I have not dug deep enough find these journalist and pundits who are blaming Sarah Plain.  Granted it's not a fulltme job for me, I do have to work and help raise a family.   Could it be that Palin is upset that people have pointed out the web-site with cross-hairs over Congressional districts?  It was a stupid thing to put on a web-site.   Given these events it is unfortunate as well.  But did she really think people would not comment on it?  You've got cross-hairs...and there was a shooting.  What did she expect??   But pointing that out simply affirms that is in poor taste.  It is not an accusation that in doing so Palin have given the green-light to these shootings.  

Nor is it a green-light for Palin or anybody else to claim victimhood and attempt to eclipse the attention on the real tragedy.   To do so, it would seem to me, would be to truly try and politicize these events.

"Rise above the crowds and wave through the toxic clouds..."

Congress resumes this week, and "we the people" will have to slog through re-heated leftovers of bipartisan politics for a short time.   That's all well and good I suppose, as there are plenty of leftovers after the holidays, and in the time of austerity, they shouldn't go to waste.  But it is sort of predictable, scripted and uninspired.

Right out of the gate, the House will submit a bill to repeal the Healthcare legislation.  You might wonder if there heart is really in it.  But they are committed despite two key contradictory realities:
            1) The political mandate of the November election prioritized economic growth over healthcare repeal and
            2) It will not survive the Senate or a Presidential veto.  

But they have to do it.  They have thrown the gauntlet and would only look like cowards if they don't put up.  It is not inspired or revolutionary politics but simply scripted, like the Hills or that show about Operation Repo.  Sadly Healthcare reform actually conflicts with the Republican's "Reduce Spending" mantra, as it would add $375 billion to the deficit between 2012 and 2021 (according to the CBO).  But they cannot pull back now.  "Obamacare" has such a catchy ring to it, and given that the GOP is not known for it's creativity they have to milk this for all it is worth, while muttering in there beer and quietly contemplating what Quentin Tarantino's granddaddy says:

 "The less a man makes declarative statements,                  
the less apt he is to look foolish in retrospect."

The Republicans have an opportunity to put on the big-boy (and girl) pants and champion bi-partisan efforts to solve the countries woes.  But they won't do that, because they are presently all slack-eyed and atavistically kicking the Democratic Party.  Like too many of us, they view this as a "zero sum" game.  We're right, you're wrong.  (Forget the people that are really losing).   The Democrats aren't much better.  You can predict that they will whine, and complain, but never really get angry enough to fight venom with venom.  In the end those of us leaning left will smirk and laugh at the back of the class with John Stewart and feign an aloof, "I'm too cool for school" hipness.  The right will laugh at the courser humor offered by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, the veritable bullies of the classroom.   Of course people will still be out of work, and corporations will still sit on a trillion dollars worth of capital waiting for the right business climate.  And if Fox news and the Republicans can convince the nation that all we need to do is wait two more years and elect a Republican president, then they will be sitting pretty.  But folks will still be out of work. 

The real priority wanted by the American people is economic stimulus.  Not to appear completely obtuse to the needs of the populace, they are repackaging Heath-care Reform as a "job killer".  (Political discourse is so visceral these days).  The conveniently ignore that accessibility to health care will inspire entrepreneurialism, and jobs.  So they twisting their agenda to align with the woes that the electorate really wants to address.  If the electorate's top priority was the threat of extra-terrestrial visitors, the Republican would claim that Obamacare was secretly sending little green men open invitations to camp out on the South Lawn.  But here is where the Republican rhetoric starts to run headlong into fact.  While the country was stalling, and the Republican kept popping the clutch, they could blame the Democrats.  As the country starts moving again, they cannot cry Chicken Little and maintain credibility.

 When the unemployment rate decreases, and the healthcare bill is still intact, they will drop the issue entirely: Like they have with the World Trade Center mosque issue.  One moment it is a terrorist camp next it is simply an Islamic Spa off

Chambers Street

and everyone went home happy.

Luckily, this is where empiricism comes in.  And perhaps we can to see something improvised and off-script. 

Wall Street Investors (for all their short-comings) won't let Corporate America sit on that trillion dollars forever.  They will either force them to start buying other companies (which might mean more job-loss) or produce more products (build more factories-construction jobs), increase output (sales jobs), etc, etc.

And let's be honest, people like making money, as opposed to losing money (which was sooo 2008) or just flat lining money (which was basically 2009 and 2010 rounding out the "lost decade").  So folks want to start making money, and the economic climate for 2011 will encourage that.   Growth will be up, and the upper and middle class will feel some relief.   Both parties will claim credit for the changes, in their snarky, myopic ways (but in our hearts we will know that change came at the expense and efforts of everyday Americans).

Empiricism, as Bill Clinton extolled in the election, will eventually carry the day.  When it does, let's hope that skewed perspectives of the last few years hasn't permanently damaged our ability to read fact for fact, and accomplishment for accomplishment: Though I fear that it has. 

And let us not forget that any pain and any progress was born on the backs of the many, many good people who lost their jobs, endure flat-lined salaries, put up with miserable jobs or bosses due to lack of options, lost their homes, their savings, the education opportunities for their children, and the basic option to dream a little American dream.   People who least can afford to play a "zero sum" game.

But most likely we will.  Because it's just a bummer to dwell on that.  And it makes for a poor script.