The presidential races are clarifying for both parties. John McCain is now odds on for the Republican nod, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the two left standing for what could be a cliffhanger for the Democratic mantle.
On the Republican side it appears the party establishment has wisely chosen electability over purity. While ideologues like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and George Will still excoriate McCain for his past apostasies on immigration and taxes, a growing army of officials are coalescing around the Arizona Senator. He indeed is more moderate than Huckabee and Romney in some respects, and his appeal to independents makes him a better choice in November of a year in which the populace appears leaning a bit leftward.
Mike Huckabee's continued presence in the race helps McCain and hurts Romney, for his popularity with doctrinaire conservatives keeps such voters from jumping to Romney against a man whose conservative credentials they have never completely trusted. Looking at the 21 states up for grabs in six days, only a miracle will avert a near-landslide McCain triumph. He won't have the delegates in hand to clinch, but he will be close enough to place the nomination in easy reach and force Romney's withdrawal to avoid further embarrassment. Eight years later, McCain will finally savor his vindication, and the Republicans will at last begin rectifying the terrible mistake they inflicted on the nation in 2000.
As for the Democrats, Clinton still enjoys the national lead and has enormous institutional strengths, but Obama is closing on her. Obama has collected some important endorsements lately, most particularly that of Ted Kennedy. As part of her earlier inevitability strategy Clinton frontloaded most of her endorsements, and one announcement after another for Obama in recent days has contributed to an aura of momentum for the Illinois senator.
The withdrawal of John Edwards from the race will have a strong impact, but it will vary from state to state in Tuesday's 22-state Democratic marathon. It appears his former supporters in the South may trend to Clinton but in the West to Obama. Keep in mind that heavy voting by mail is already ongoing and will likely break for Clinton since a good deal of it went in before Obama's recent upswing.
Tomorrow's debate ought to prove crucial for many undecideds. The two candidates finally have each other where they want them: a one on one without distractions. Clinton has been looking forward to this eagerly. She feels she can cement her credentials based on her encyclopedic policy knowledge and show Obama to be a relative lightweight. Obama will try to deliver enough specifics to blunt her wonk offensive while outshining Clinton in the vision and inspiration departments. Going negative is playing with fire for both at this point, but Clinton will need to draw a contrast on experience once again and Obama will need to question some of Clinton's record and paint her as captive to the past. The hard part for both of them will be to make these points without seeming unkind enough to inspire backlash.
As for February 5, practically anything can happen in this race. Either could score a fairly decisive win or it could be pretty evenly split. As of today Clinton would have the edge but I'll be watching the latest surveys carefully to see whether Obama's improving picture looks like it will be enough to carry him over the top.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
State of the Union
"And so long as we continue to trust the people, our nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and the state of our union will remain strong." Thus spoke President Bush as he neared the conclusion of his seventh and last State of the Union Address on Monday night. The three attributes he referred to in his lackluster performance are forlorn enough.
Prosperity? Inflation-adjusted wage growth has been flat for all but the most wealthy during his tenure, the savings rate is negative, six million more lack health insurance than when he took office, home foreclosures have jumped 79% to set an all-time record, and this year promises to be worse.
Liberty? With wholesale and deliberate violations of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments, habeus corpus set aside, the Justice Department politicized, the Executive Branch refusing to answer subpoenas and the president invalidating whole sections of laws without the use of the veto, the march of liberty has been decidedly backward these past seven years.
Strength? It is difficult to see how the addition of $3.5 trillion to the national debt, the diplomatic alienation of much of the world or the commitment of the bulk of American land forces to a senseless invasion and occupation in the Middle East for five years with no end in sight have made the nation stronger. America is weaker for these misjudgments, not stronger.
No, as bad as these are, they are only symptoms of a worse problem, the problem of ignoring his own advice in the first clause of the sentence quoted above. "...so long as we continue to trust the people..." That is Bush's most egregious shortcoming. He never has trusted the people, preferring instead to go with his oft-cited "gut," his preconceptions, and the advice of an inner circle that similarly ignores the popular will in favor of a reliance on ideological dogma spun in such a way as to make it seem compatible with that will.
Consider the popular will as ascertained by the polling partnership CNN/Opinion Research and compare it to the policies the president has advocated or adopted.
67% disapprove of Bush's conduct of affairs in Iraq. 28% approve.
59% do not believe removing Saddam Hussein was worth it. 32% do.
68% say the country is on the wrong track. 19% say it's on the right track.
69% believe waterboarding is torture. 29% do not think so.
58% say America should not use waterboarding. 40% feel we should.
57% believe a woman should be able to get an abortion if she wants one.
25% oppose abortion in most cases. 15% say it should never be allowed.
54% support civil unions with the same rights as married couples for gays. 43% do not.
53% favor federal money for stem cell research. 41% oppose it.
63% agree the government needs a warrant to spy on people. 33% do not.
57% oppose giving telecomm companies immunity for unwarranted spying. 33% do not.
Much of the public was, for a time, enamored of a president who knew his own mind and could not be swayed by popular opinion. He made a virtue of being undemocratic, as it were. But finally the public, driven by events, has come to appreciate the wisdom of its own judgment. That is why Mr. Bush's approval rating stands at 31%. That is why the Republican candidates running for president hardly ever invoke his name. And that is why the president can deliver a State of the Union Address...and no one cares.
Prosperity? Inflation-adjusted wage growth has been flat for all but the most wealthy during his tenure, the savings rate is negative, six million more lack health insurance than when he took office, home foreclosures have jumped 79% to set an all-time record, and this year promises to be worse.
Liberty? With wholesale and deliberate violations of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments, habeus corpus set aside, the Justice Department politicized, the Executive Branch refusing to answer subpoenas and the president invalidating whole sections of laws without the use of the veto, the march of liberty has been decidedly backward these past seven years.
Strength? It is difficult to see how the addition of $3.5 trillion to the national debt, the diplomatic alienation of much of the world or the commitment of the bulk of American land forces to a senseless invasion and occupation in the Middle East for five years with no end in sight have made the nation stronger. America is weaker for these misjudgments, not stronger.
No, as bad as these are, they are only symptoms of a worse problem, the problem of ignoring his own advice in the first clause of the sentence quoted above. "...so long as we continue to trust the people..." That is Bush's most egregious shortcoming. He never has trusted the people, preferring instead to go with his oft-cited "gut," his preconceptions, and the advice of an inner circle that similarly ignores the popular will in favor of a reliance on ideological dogma spun in such a way as to make it seem compatible with that will.
Consider the popular will as ascertained by the polling partnership CNN/Opinion Research and compare it to the policies the president has advocated or adopted.
67% disapprove of Bush's conduct of affairs in Iraq. 28% approve.
59% do not believe removing Saddam Hussein was worth it. 32% do.
68% say the country is on the wrong track. 19% say it's on the right track.
69% believe waterboarding is torture. 29% do not think so.
58% say America should not use waterboarding. 40% feel we should.
57% believe a woman should be able to get an abortion if she wants one.
25% oppose abortion in most cases. 15% say it should never be allowed.
54% support civil unions with the same rights as married couples for gays. 43% do not.
53% favor federal money for stem cell research. 41% oppose it.
63% agree the government needs a warrant to spy on people. 33% do not.
57% oppose giving telecomm companies immunity for unwarranted spying. 33% do not.
Much of the public was, for a time, enamored of a president who knew his own mind and could not be swayed by popular opinion. He made a virtue of being undemocratic, as it were. But finally the public, driven by events, has come to appreciate the wisdom of its own judgment. That is why Mr. Bush's approval rating stands at 31%. That is why the Republican candidates running for president hardly ever invoke his name. And that is why the president can deliver a State of the Union Address...and no one cares.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Republican Dynamics
Why do the Republicans seem to be in such a quandary this primary season, with none of their candidates a good fit for the party? Each seems to have major drawbacks and is mistrusted and severely criticized by many within the GOP itself. The answer lies in the nature of the Republican coalition, a coalition often likened to a stool with three legs. The three legs that hold up the structure are economic conservatives, defense conservatives and social conservatives. None of the Republican candidates running for president are solid conservatives in all three legs, and that makes each of them anathema to at least one segment of the party's coalition.
Ronald Reagan assembled the modern Republican coalition in his successful run for the White House in 1980. In doing so he overturned the New Deal Democratic coalition that had dominated American politics since its establishment by Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. The Reagan realignment fractured the New Deal coalition by appealing to the religious right. He was able to draw fundamentalist religious working class voters to his side on social issues, undermining their previous support for the Democrats which had hinged on their economic interests. Democrats who have stayed in their party's fold have never understood this. How could people vote against their own economic interests, they wonder. Well, for the obvious reason: they are social conservatives first and economic populists second. The religious/social conservatives feel this set of issues is more important to them than economic issues are.
What do the three groups want? Economic conservatives equate laissez-faire economic policies with freedom. They also believe government should be smaller and less intrusive. They believe tax cuts, as a general rule, are always good, and government regulations are more or less always bad. And they believe in supply-side economics, the idea that more money at the top means more investment which will drive the economy and provide jobs. These views are most popular with the business community.
Defense conservatives are most worried about geopolitics and external threats. They see the world as a dangerous place inhabited by rogues and enemies who cannot be reasoned with and must be met primarily with force. No amount of military power is ever really enough. They want bigger government when it comes to defense issues. Recalcitrant foreigners must be brought into line. Defense neoconservatives even believe that military force ought to be used to pre-emptively remake the world into a safer place, and that the application of U.S. military power can accomplish this. This group doesn't really believe in smaller government. They want bigger government, especially when it comes to defense issues and anything related to them.
Social conservatives believe that traditional, patriarchal, authority-based morality is what holds society together, and they fear that it is weakening. The authority they refer to is usually the fundamentalist evangelical interpretation of Christian scripture. They are suspicious of the separation of church and state, seeing it as the vehicle by which other competing versions of morality, or no morality at all, will triumph in society. This will lead to anarchy and sin, in their view. They often feel that government ought to be in the business of enforcing their view of religion and a moral society on the nation, for society's own good, because of their belief that theirs is the only true moral and religious conception, and because they feel that their faith commands them to spread these views. Social conservatives don't necessarily want smaller government either. They want less government action in some matters and more in others when it comes to support for their issues.
So how do the Republican presidential contenders measure up? Mitt Romney subscribes to economic conservatism, though he is criticized for allowing some government fees to go up in Massachusetts. He campaigns as a defense conservative too. But he took some tolerant social views in his state, de-emphasizing abortion and once campaigning as a defender of gay rights. As a Republican candidate in perhaps the nation's most liberal state, such stances were probably necessary to get elected. But the price is that social conservatives don't trust him. Compromise on somebody else's issues, they feel, not ours.
John McCain is a strong defense conservative. But he has shown a willingness to compromise on the other two legs. He opposed the Bush tax cuts, for instance, and economic conservatives will not let him forget it. Despite a consistent pro-life position, he is also attacked for supporting comprehensive immigration reform and fundraising reform: stances that social conservatives despise as coddling criminals on the one hand and restricting their right to promote their divinely ordained views on the other. Many social conservative websites are currently full of "Stop McCain!" injunctions.
Mike Huckabee is the great favorite of strong social conservatives. He is a former fundamentalist pastor who supports their issues and speaks their language, advocating creationism and saying that the Constitution should follow the Bible. But his comment that President Bush's foreign policies smack of "arrogance" and "a bunker mentality" has raised doubts among defense conservatives. Yet this is nothing compared to the horror in which he is held by economic conservatives. As Governor of Arkansas Huckabee was not averse to hiking taxes when he felt there was need for it. His frequent populist rhetoric about tailoring economic policy to the needs of the working class wins him additional loyalty among blue collar social conservatives but has spurred untrammelled enmity among business leaders.
Rudy Giuliani is best known as a defense conservative. He also runs as an economic conservative. But his credentials are unacceptable to social conservatives. His acceptance of abortion rights and former advocacy of gun control make him persona non grata with that group.
Finally, Ron Paul. He is certainly his own case. His libertarian views are popular with economic conservatives and his social opinions are welcome to social conservatives. But his foreign affairs position against the Iraq War makes him an enemy to defense conservatives.
In sum, there is no candidate in the Republican field who satisfies all three legs of the coalition triad. They have all alienated at least one important constituency group. Whoever is nominated will be faced with a difficult task in uniting the necessary elements behind him for victory in November. One dire possibility for the GOP is that depending on who the Republican nominee is, these dynamics may provide the Democrats with an opportunity to win back social conservatives on economic issues.
Ronald Reagan assembled the modern Republican coalition in his successful run for the White House in 1980. In doing so he overturned the New Deal Democratic coalition that had dominated American politics since its establishment by Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. The Reagan realignment fractured the New Deal coalition by appealing to the religious right. He was able to draw fundamentalist religious working class voters to his side on social issues, undermining their previous support for the Democrats which had hinged on their economic interests. Democrats who have stayed in their party's fold have never understood this. How could people vote against their own economic interests, they wonder. Well, for the obvious reason: they are social conservatives first and economic populists second. The religious/social conservatives feel this set of issues is more important to them than economic issues are.
What do the three groups want? Economic conservatives equate laissez-faire economic policies with freedom. They also believe government should be smaller and less intrusive. They believe tax cuts, as a general rule, are always good, and government regulations are more or less always bad. And they believe in supply-side economics, the idea that more money at the top means more investment which will drive the economy and provide jobs. These views are most popular with the business community.
Defense conservatives are most worried about geopolitics and external threats. They see the world as a dangerous place inhabited by rogues and enemies who cannot be reasoned with and must be met primarily with force. No amount of military power is ever really enough. They want bigger government when it comes to defense issues. Recalcitrant foreigners must be brought into line. Defense neoconservatives even believe that military force ought to be used to pre-emptively remake the world into a safer place, and that the application of U.S. military power can accomplish this. This group doesn't really believe in smaller government. They want bigger government, especially when it comes to defense issues and anything related to them.
Social conservatives believe that traditional, patriarchal, authority-based morality is what holds society together, and they fear that it is weakening. The authority they refer to is usually the fundamentalist evangelical interpretation of Christian scripture. They are suspicious of the separation of church and state, seeing it as the vehicle by which other competing versions of morality, or no morality at all, will triumph in society. This will lead to anarchy and sin, in their view. They often feel that government ought to be in the business of enforcing their view of religion and a moral society on the nation, for society's own good, because of their belief that theirs is the only true moral and religious conception, and because they feel that their faith commands them to spread these views. Social conservatives don't necessarily want smaller government either. They want less government action in some matters and more in others when it comes to support for their issues.
So how do the Republican presidential contenders measure up? Mitt Romney subscribes to economic conservatism, though he is criticized for allowing some government fees to go up in Massachusetts. He campaigns as a defense conservative too. But he took some tolerant social views in his state, de-emphasizing abortion and once campaigning as a defender of gay rights. As a Republican candidate in perhaps the nation's most liberal state, such stances were probably necessary to get elected. But the price is that social conservatives don't trust him. Compromise on somebody else's issues, they feel, not ours.
John McCain is a strong defense conservative. But he has shown a willingness to compromise on the other two legs. He opposed the Bush tax cuts, for instance, and economic conservatives will not let him forget it. Despite a consistent pro-life position, he is also attacked for supporting comprehensive immigration reform and fundraising reform: stances that social conservatives despise as coddling criminals on the one hand and restricting their right to promote their divinely ordained views on the other. Many social conservative websites are currently full of "Stop McCain!" injunctions.
Mike Huckabee is the great favorite of strong social conservatives. He is a former fundamentalist pastor who supports their issues and speaks their language, advocating creationism and saying that the Constitution should follow the Bible. But his comment that President Bush's foreign policies smack of "arrogance" and "a bunker mentality" has raised doubts among defense conservatives. Yet this is nothing compared to the horror in which he is held by economic conservatives. As Governor of Arkansas Huckabee was not averse to hiking taxes when he felt there was need for it. His frequent populist rhetoric about tailoring economic policy to the needs of the working class wins him additional loyalty among blue collar social conservatives but has spurred untrammelled enmity among business leaders.
Rudy Giuliani is best known as a defense conservative. He also runs as an economic conservative. But his credentials are unacceptable to social conservatives. His acceptance of abortion rights and former advocacy of gun control make him persona non grata with that group.
Finally, Ron Paul. He is certainly his own case. His libertarian views are popular with economic conservatives and his social opinions are welcome to social conservatives. But his foreign affairs position against the Iraq War makes him an enemy to defense conservatives.
In sum, there is no candidate in the Republican field who satisfies all three legs of the coalition triad. They have all alienated at least one important constituency group. Whoever is nominated will be faced with a difficult task in uniting the necessary elements behind him for victory in November. One dire possibility for the GOP is that depending on who the Republican nominee is, these dynamics may provide the Democrats with an opportunity to win back social conservatives on economic issues.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
South Carolina and Beyond
Barack Obama rolled to a landslide win in today's South Carolina Democratic primary, garnering 55% of the vote to 27% for Hillary Clinton and 18% for John Edwards. Obama scooped up 25 convention delegates while Clinton added 12 and Edwards got 8. The overall delegate count now stands at 249 for Clinton, 167 for Obama and 58 for Edwards. The win was essential for Obama's campaign; a loss in a state where more than 50% of the Democratic voters are black would have boded seriously ill for the Illinois senator.
Instead, his victory re-establishes his momentum and could serve as a bridge to the 22 critical Super Tuesday contests on February 5, only ten days away. But enthusiasm in the Obama ranks should not blind them to the reality that they still face an uphill task in the week and a half ahead. Obama appears to be running behind in all the major Super Tuesday states except his own Illinois. That will have to change dramatically for him to win the nomination.
We know we can't completely trust polls after Clinton's surprise win in New Hampshire or Obama nearly doubling his expected margin of victory in South Carolina but we can't completely ignore them either. An average of several surveys shows Clinton up by 12 in California and 18 in New Jersey. Single recent polls have her ahead by 26 in New York, 37 in Massachusetts, 6 in Georgia, 13 in Missouri, 14 in Tennessee, 10 in Arizona and 15 in Alabama. The most recent head count in Illinois has Obama up by 29 on his home turf, so at least that looks safe for him, and Georgia appears pretty gettable. But the rest might be very tough, and he must win several of them. Can he do it?
Here's why he can. First, Obama is the "hope" candidate, and his South Carolina romp restores that in a big way. Polls before Iowa actually showed Clinton ahead among South Carolina blacks. His Iowa win turned that around. Once people came to believe he really had a chance, supporters flocked to him. Exit polls indicate Obama took the African-American vote 81-17 in the Palmetto State. Second, he has demonstrated an ability to appeal beyond just African-Americans. He ran equal to Clinton among South Carolina white men, for instance, and he won Iowa which is 93% white. Third, he delivered one of his patented scintillating speeches in claiming victory tonight while Clinton was in a Tennessee town hall meeting with so little of interest to say that the networks cut away. The contrast couldn't have done her much good. In his concession speech, John Edwards made a rousing case for continuing to fight for his issues. Why Clinton didn't take advantage of the free air time to do likewise is baffling. Fourth, with Edwards' prospects waning, where will his partisans go? Some will no doubt remain loyal, but a good case can be made that many will defect to one of the leaders, and that Obama will get the lion's share of these. Fifth, he can match Clinton dollar for dollar in the money battle.
Here's why he can't. First, momentum has been an overrated commodity this primary season. Obama seemed to have it after Iowa but couldn't translate that into victory in New Hampshire or Nevada. McCain looked like he had it after New Hampshire but couldn't stop Romney in Michigan. Second, blacks make up only 11% of the population in the Super Tuesday states. Hispanics comprise nearly 14%, and if Nevada is any indication most of these will vote for Clinton. Third, Clinton leads nationally by 9% but by 19% among whites. Obama has to whittle that number down considerably and he doesn't have much time to do it. Fourth, the longer Edwards stays in, and he says it's all the way to the convention, Obama will be denied the opportunity to get the full benefit of those of his supporters who are anti-Hillary. Besides, even if all the Edwards voters in California, New York, Masachusetts and New Jersey switched to Obama it wouldn't be enough by itself to give him the lead in those states. Fifth, if Obama can match Clinton in dollars, then so can she match him. As the candidate trying to come from behind, it would really help him to have the advantage rather than just parity.
So which will it be? I tend to think he probably won't quite make it. Watch the crowd attendance and the polls over the next few days. He needs to show a bounce. If he shaves his national deficit from 9% to 5 right away then his chances are starting to look good. If he only picks up one or two points then he's likely to fall short. The stakes are high for the Democrats in November, since Obama does better in head to head polls against both McCain and Romney than Clinton does.
Instead, his victory re-establishes his momentum and could serve as a bridge to the 22 critical Super Tuesday contests on February 5, only ten days away. But enthusiasm in the Obama ranks should not blind them to the reality that they still face an uphill task in the week and a half ahead. Obama appears to be running behind in all the major Super Tuesday states except his own Illinois. That will have to change dramatically for him to win the nomination.
We know we can't completely trust polls after Clinton's surprise win in New Hampshire or Obama nearly doubling his expected margin of victory in South Carolina but we can't completely ignore them either. An average of several surveys shows Clinton up by 12 in California and 18 in New Jersey. Single recent polls have her ahead by 26 in New York, 37 in Massachusetts, 6 in Georgia, 13 in Missouri, 14 in Tennessee, 10 in Arizona and 15 in Alabama. The most recent head count in Illinois has Obama up by 29 on his home turf, so at least that looks safe for him, and Georgia appears pretty gettable. But the rest might be very tough, and he must win several of them. Can he do it?
Here's why he can. First, Obama is the "hope" candidate, and his South Carolina romp restores that in a big way. Polls before Iowa actually showed Clinton ahead among South Carolina blacks. His Iowa win turned that around. Once people came to believe he really had a chance, supporters flocked to him. Exit polls indicate Obama took the African-American vote 81-17 in the Palmetto State. Second, he has demonstrated an ability to appeal beyond just African-Americans. He ran equal to Clinton among South Carolina white men, for instance, and he won Iowa which is 93% white. Third, he delivered one of his patented scintillating speeches in claiming victory tonight while Clinton was in a Tennessee town hall meeting with so little of interest to say that the networks cut away. The contrast couldn't have done her much good. In his concession speech, John Edwards made a rousing case for continuing to fight for his issues. Why Clinton didn't take advantage of the free air time to do likewise is baffling. Fourth, with Edwards' prospects waning, where will his partisans go? Some will no doubt remain loyal, but a good case can be made that many will defect to one of the leaders, and that Obama will get the lion's share of these. Fifth, he can match Clinton dollar for dollar in the money battle.
Here's why he can't. First, momentum has been an overrated commodity this primary season. Obama seemed to have it after Iowa but couldn't translate that into victory in New Hampshire or Nevada. McCain looked like he had it after New Hampshire but couldn't stop Romney in Michigan. Second, blacks make up only 11% of the population in the Super Tuesday states. Hispanics comprise nearly 14%, and if Nevada is any indication most of these will vote for Clinton. Third, Clinton leads nationally by 9% but by 19% among whites. Obama has to whittle that number down considerably and he doesn't have much time to do it. Fourth, the longer Edwards stays in, and he says it's all the way to the convention, Obama will be denied the opportunity to get the full benefit of those of his supporters who are anti-Hillary. Besides, even if all the Edwards voters in California, New York, Masachusetts and New Jersey switched to Obama it wouldn't be enough by itself to give him the lead in those states. Fifth, if Obama can match Clinton in dollars, then so can she match him. As the candidate trying to come from behind, it would really help him to have the advantage rather than just parity.
So which will it be? I tend to think he probably won't quite make it. Watch the crowd attendance and the polls over the next few days. He needs to show a bounce. If he shaves his national deficit from 9% to 5 right away then his chances are starting to look good. If he only picks up one or two points then he's likely to fall short. The stakes are high for the Democrats in November, since Obama does better in head to head polls against both McCain and Romney than Clinton does.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
EPA Enters Twilight Zone
The Environmental Protection Agency has been in the news lately. In the past that introduction would have been the prelude to a story about a major polluter being brought to trial or the discovery of toxic dumping into a stream. Nowadays it's just one more instance of the Agency itself being sued for preventing environmental protection.
Recent actions include a Supreme Court decision that the EPA cannot shirk its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, another that it must actually enforce the Clean Air Act mandate that power plants must upgrade their pollution controls when they expand, and most recently a suit filed by the State of California spearheading an effort by seventeen states, demanding that they be granted waivers allowing them to require stricter controls on automobile greenhouse emissions than the EPA wants to enforce. In the last case, EPA Director Stephen Johnson denied a request of a type that has been routinely approved in the past, and despite the findings of his agency's own scientists that the states' proposals were justified.
In our Orwellian Bush World where nothing means what it says this has become commonplace. It's also an indication of how far things have lurched to the Right. The EPA was born on December 2, 1970 when President Richard Nixon, hardly an icon of the Left, signed it into existence. Bipartisan support lasted about ten years, until the Reagan Administration took office. The Agency has been under assault ever since by self-described advocates of freedom, as though the freedom to poison people's air and water was any more of a fundamental right than the freedom to drop arsenic into their coffee.
The Bush Administration realizes that most Americans appreciate their natural wonders and do not want to eat, drink or breathe poison, so their doublespeak machine has outdone itself in inventing names that obscure the real intent of their policies. An initiative to permit greater discharges of mercury into the atmosphere was labelled the Clear Skies Act. Another to accelerate the cutting of old growth trees was styled the Healthy Forests Act. Their park protection plan has cut park protection by 40%.
The President makes the case that the United States cannot afford to invest in supposedly prohibitively expensive environmental controls or it will be unable to compete with foreign countries, especially China. In a strange juxtaposition of word and fact, China now ranks second in the production of solar cells (behind Japan) while the United States has slipped to fourth. The U.S. government spends $1.5 billion a year on renewable energy research while the Chinese government has budgeted $200 billion over the next 15 years. It appears the U.S. may indeed find itself unable to compete, although not in the way in which it expects.
Meanwhile we have in the EPA a federal agency whose professional employees work at futile cross purposes with their politically appointed superiors, and an agency formed to clean up the environment that exerts its power to protect polluters and prevent the enactment of environmental protections. It's a shame Rod Serling is no longer with us. The irony of all this is worthy of a Twilight Zone episode.
Recent actions include a Supreme Court decision that the EPA cannot shirk its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, another that it must actually enforce the Clean Air Act mandate that power plants must upgrade their pollution controls when they expand, and most recently a suit filed by the State of California spearheading an effort by seventeen states, demanding that they be granted waivers allowing them to require stricter controls on automobile greenhouse emissions than the EPA wants to enforce. In the last case, EPA Director Stephen Johnson denied a request of a type that has been routinely approved in the past, and despite the findings of his agency's own scientists that the states' proposals were justified.
In our Orwellian Bush World where nothing means what it says this has become commonplace. It's also an indication of how far things have lurched to the Right. The EPA was born on December 2, 1970 when President Richard Nixon, hardly an icon of the Left, signed it into existence. Bipartisan support lasted about ten years, until the Reagan Administration took office. The Agency has been under assault ever since by self-described advocates of freedom, as though the freedom to poison people's air and water was any more of a fundamental right than the freedom to drop arsenic into their coffee.
The Bush Administration realizes that most Americans appreciate their natural wonders and do not want to eat, drink or breathe poison, so their doublespeak machine has outdone itself in inventing names that obscure the real intent of their policies. An initiative to permit greater discharges of mercury into the atmosphere was labelled the Clear Skies Act. Another to accelerate the cutting of old growth trees was styled the Healthy Forests Act. Their park protection plan has cut park protection by 40%.
The President makes the case that the United States cannot afford to invest in supposedly prohibitively expensive environmental controls or it will be unable to compete with foreign countries, especially China. In a strange juxtaposition of word and fact, China now ranks second in the production of solar cells (behind Japan) while the United States has slipped to fourth. The U.S. government spends $1.5 billion a year on renewable energy research while the Chinese government has budgeted $200 billion over the next 15 years. It appears the U.S. may indeed find itself unable to compete, although not in the way in which it expects.
Meanwhile we have in the EPA a federal agency whose professional employees work at futile cross purposes with their politically appointed superiors, and an agency formed to clean up the environment that exerts its power to protect polluters and prevent the enactment of environmental protections. It's a shame Rod Serling is no longer with us. The irony of all this is worthy of a Twilight Zone episode.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Crash 3
People like to say that history repeats itself. It never exactly does, but broad themes do recur. The current recession and market crash is a case in point. It bears similarities to previous meltdowns in 1929 and 1987. Debt, speculation based on paper appreciation, and inadequate regulation were the culprits in all three cases. Laissez-faire Republican policies were the abettors. The American people were the victims.
1929 was the year of the Great Crash and the start of the Great Depression. The 1920s were a period of tremendous economic expansion. The stock market grew at the phenomenal rate of 20% to 30% per year. Share prices ballooned out of all proportion to their price to earnings ratios. Values became driven by psychology rather than by account sheets. Investors continued to bid prices up in the belief that they could never fall. The longer one waited to buy the more profit one missed. People borrowed to pay for all the attractive new consumer durables-- automobiles, radios, refrigerators, washing machines--and that great engine of expanding wealth, stocks.
The brokers and banks worked out a plan to sell to those who had run out of ready cash. "Margin buying" allowed would be investors to pay as little as ten percent down on securities. The remainder would be paid for out of the stocks' future appreciation in value. So brokers made commissions, banks made loans, and average folks made, for the first time, capital gains in the market. Everybody won. That is, until the consumer market reached saturation with the new appliances and sales fell. The smart money got out early and raked in huge profits before the crash. But most people were caught unprepared when stock prices went into free fall and began to "correct" to reflect their true values. Paper millions disappeared overnight, panicked citizens made bank runs, cleaned out banks called in loans that no one could pay and foreclosed on property they could not sell, employers slashed staff, and before long 50% of the work force was unemployed or underemployed. There had been few regulations to require sound buying, lending or consumer protection practices. The nation paid in misery for most of the 1930s.
The 1980s ushered in the administration of a new disciple of deregulation. It was the era of leveraged buyouts, junk bonds, corporate raiders and yuppies. Like the title of the Twenties musical, in the financial world it was "Anything Goes." On the theory that benefits would trickle down, the tax structure was slashed for Wall Street and the safety net was slashed for Main Street. As with the previous house of cards, the day of reckoning eventually came. The market lost 20% of its value one day in 1987. Program buying, leveraged loans, including many to family farmers who had borrowed on the expected appreciation of their land or crop prices and real estate deals all went south. The real disposal income of the majority of the American public has not improved since before 1980.
In the 2000s we have been treated to another administration dedicated to the propositions that regulations and consumer security are evil and that what's good for business is good for America. Housing prices have skyrocketed based on the speculative notion that they can go only up and never down. Millions have joined the frenzy to buy, figuring that the cost will only be higher next year and that the debt incurred can be paid by future appreciation. Second and third mortgages are common. The nation is awash in debt at all levels, personal, trade, and governmental. Consumer debt and the wealth gap have reached historic proportions. Home prices have outpaced wages to such an extent as to be unsustainable.
Rather than provide affordable housing, the administration did little but spread bromides about free markets and the structural soundness of the American economy. For its part, the financial sector instituted new forms of margin buying: the subprime and adjustable rate loans. When prices inevitably began to tank due to sheer unaffordability, millions have been left with loans they cannot pay off. As in 1929, these millions face imminent foreclosure and lenders face billions in loans they cannot collect. To save themselves they are now scurrying for bailout loans to Middle and Far Eastern banks and potentates who have amassed troves of dollars from trade surpluses and US Treasury securities. The American stock market has lost over 2,000 points and foreign markets have sustained losses of five to six percent in a single day. Based on this recurring cycle of myopia one thing seems clear: we don't learn from history.
1929 was the year of the Great Crash and the start of the Great Depression. The 1920s were a period of tremendous economic expansion. The stock market grew at the phenomenal rate of 20% to 30% per year. Share prices ballooned out of all proportion to their price to earnings ratios. Values became driven by psychology rather than by account sheets. Investors continued to bid prices up in the belief that they could never fall. The longer one waited to buy the more profit one missed. People borrowed to pay for all the attractive new consumer durables-- automobiles, radios, refrigerators, washing machines--and that great engine of expanding wealth, stocks.
The brokers and banks worked out a plan to sell to those who had run out of ready cash. "Margin buying" allowed would be investors to pay as little as ten percent down on securities. The remainder would be paid for out of the stocks' future appreciation in value. So brokers made commissions, banks made loans, and average folks made, for the first time, capital gains in the market. Everybody won. That is, until the consumer market reached saturation with the new appliances and sales fell. The smart money got out early and raked in huge profits before the crash. But most people were caught unprepared when stock prices went into free fall and began to "correct" to reflect their true values. Paper millions disappeared overnight, panicked citizens made bank runs, cleaned out banks called in loans that no one could pay and foreclosed on property they could not sell, employers slashed staff, and before long 50% of the work force was unemployed or underemployed. There had been few regulations to require sound buying, lending or consumer protection practices. The nation paid in misery for most of the 1930s.
The 1980s ushered in the administration of a new disciple of deregulation. It was the era of leveraged buyouts, junk bonds, corporate raiders and yuppies. Like the title of the Twenties musical, in the financial world it was "Anything Goes." On the theory that benefits would trickle down, the tax structure was slashed for Wall Street and the safety net was slashed for Main Street. As with the previous house of cards, the day of reckoning eventually came. The market lost 20% of its value one day in 1987. Program buying, leveraged loans, including many to family farmers who had borrowed on the expected appreciation of their land or crop prices and real estate deals all went south. The real disposal income of the majority of the American public has not improved since before 1980.
In the 2000s we have been treated to another administration dedicated to the propositions that regulations and consumer security are evil and that what's good for business is good for America. Housing prices have skyrocketed based on the speculative notion that they can go only up and never down. Millions have joined the frenzy to buy, figuring that the cost will only be higher next year and that the debt incurred can be paid by future appreciation. Second and third mortgages are common. The nation is awash in debt at all levels, personal, trade, and governmental. Consumer debt and the wealth gap have reached historic proportions. Home prices have outpaced wages to such an extent as to be unsustainable.
Rather than provide affordable housing, the administration did little but spread bromides about free markets and the structural soundness of the American economy. For its part, the financial sector instituted new forms of margin buying: the subprime and adjustable rate loans. When prices inevitably began to tank due to sheer unaffordability, millions have been left with loans they cannot pay off. As in 1929, these millions face imminent foreclosure and lenders face billions in loans they cannot collect. To save themselves they are now scurrying for bailout loans to Middle and Far Eastern banks and potentates who have amassed troves of dollars from trade surpluses and US Treasury securities. The American stock market has lost over 2,000 points and foreign markets have sustained losses of five to six percent in a single day. Based on this recurring cycle of myopia one thing seems clear: we don't learn from history.
Monday, January 21, 2008
George W. Bush's Worst Legacy
By any measure besides winning reelection, the presidency of George W. Bush has been a disaster. His economic policies have been disastrous. His foreign policies have been disastrous. His environmental policies have been disastrous. His approaches to science, education and unifying the American people have been disastrous. Even his management of disasters has been disastrous. I'll go into specifics and touch on all these topics in the future, but there is an aspect of his tenure that is potentially worse than any of these. That's because as bad as these other performances have been, they are all correctable.
A new administration could, for example, restore fiscal sanity and begin reversing the $4 trillion in federal debt Bush will have amassed by the time he leaves office. A new president could return to basing decisions on facts and scientific research rather than the fixed prejudices of ideologues. A reasonable president could extricate our forces from Iraq, act in such a manner as to regain the respect and friendship of most of the world, and get Congress to adopt sensible environmental and energy policies. But it will be much harder to correct the horrendous damage he has caused to our foundational principles. It is conceivable that this damage will not be undone. And if not, America will become something other than it has always been, and will stand for the same thing most powerful nations have always stood for, not right, but power itself.
Bush's most dangerous role has been to use fear to get the American people to do and support many things they would never otherwise have done or supported. Franklin Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and Bush has brought the import of this warning home to us in our own time. He has used fear to subvert the Constitution and our civic morality. He has used it to aggrandize his power, start an unprovoked war and secure the suspension of inalienable rights. He has effectively fanned it to equate disagreement with disloyalty, and to scare millions of Americans into accepting these impositions as natural and necessary. The first danger is that these erosions may become the norm. The second is that they demonstrate all too easily the vulnerability of the American people and system to the power of fear, and may serve as a road map for further incursions by future like-minded authoritarians. The slippery slope beckons.
Consider what has already been given up. This president speaks of a permanent "generational" state of war without end. He claims that his therefore permanent war powers extend to arresting people without charges and holding them indefinitely without trial, access to legal counsel, the right to face their accusers and call witnesses in their behalf. The presumptions are wholesale violations of the 5th and 6th Amendments in the Bill of Rights. He has directed government agencies to spy on Americans and conduct warrantless searches without probable cause in violation of the 4th Amendment and the FISA Act. At first he lied about doing this and admitted it was illegal. Later he admitted doing it but said it is legal.
He has required Americans to sign a loyalty pledge to him in order to attend his speeches, and has directed that those wishing to peaceably assemble to voice their opinions can only do so in fenced areas far from his person. These are violations of the 1st Amendment.
He selectively cherry-picked intelligence and fabricated other intelligence to falsely identify a foreign country as a threat and stampede the American people into supporting an unprovoked invasion of that country, an invasion his vice president and other members of his administration had signalled their intention to launch some three years before he took office, and which was secretly discussed in his first cabinet meeting after taking office. His administration then bypassed normal procurement procedures and awarded secret no-bid war contracts to politically favored corporations, including one formerly headed by his vice president.
He procured a resolution from the United Nations to require the accused country to open itself to inspection for weapons of mass destruction. When the country complied and none were found he ordered the international inspectors out and attacked anyway. This is a violation of the U.N. Charter, to which the United States is a founding signatory.
He sanctioned the use of torture against detainees, a violation of the 8th Amendment and the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners, which has been ratified by the United States.
He, his vice president, his domestic affairs advisor, and the vice president's chief of staff conspired to disclose the name of an undercover CIA operative for political advantage. This violates US statute. When the chief of staff was convicted of obstruction of justice for committing perjury about his involvement, the president commuted his sentence.
When he signs laws passed by Congress, he claims the right to issue signing statements which change the meanings of those laws. He has exercised this "right" over 800 times. Congress may pass any law, but the meaning of the law is what this president says it is. If this authority becomes accepted and established there will be no need for a Congress or a Supreme Court. This practice violates the Separation of Powers written into Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the Constitution by usurping the constitutionally mandated powers of Congress and the Judiciary.
It is of the greatest importance to American freedom that the next president disavows these practices, reverses them and works to foster a national consensus that such abuses are not justified and must never be repeated. The people must be watchful and insistent. If these practices stand the consequences will be dire indeed.
A new administration could, for example, restore fiscal sanity and begin reversing the $4 trillion in federal debt Bush will have amassed by the time he leaves office. A new president could return to basing decisions on facts and scientific research rather than the fixed prejudices of ideologues. A reasonable president could extricate our forces from Iraq, act in such a manner as to regain the respect and friendship of most of the world, and get Congress to adopt sensible environmental and energy policies. But it will be much harder to correct the horrendous damage he has caused to our foundational principles. It is conceivable that this damage will not be undone. And if not, America will become something other than it has always been, and will stand for the same thing most powerful nations have always stood for, not right, but power itself.
Bush's most dangerous role has been to use fear to get the American people to do and support many things they would never otherwise have done or supported. Franklin Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and Bush has brought the import of this warning home to us in our own time. He has used fear to subvert the Constitution and our civic morality. He has used it to aggrandize his power, start an unprovoked war and secure the suspension of inalienable rights. He has effectively fanned it to equate disagreement with disloyalty, and to scare millions of Americans into accepting these impositions as natural and necessary. The first danger is that these erosions may become the norm. The second is that they demonstrate all too easily the vulnerability of the American people and system to the power of fear, and may serve as a road map for further incursions by future like-minded authoritarians. The slippery slope beckons.
Consider what has already been given up. This president speaks of a permanent "generational" state of war without end. He claims that his therefore permanent war powers extend to arresting people without charges and holding them indefinitely without trial, access to legal counsel, the right to face their accusers and call witnesses in their behalf. The presumptions are wholesale violations of the 5th and 6th Amendments in the Bill of Rights. He has directed government agencies to spy on Americans and conduct warrantless searches without probable cause in violation of the 4th Amendment and the FISA Act. At first he lied about doing this and admitted it was illegal. Later he admitted doing it but said it is legal.
He has required Americans to sign a loyalty pledge to him in order to attend his speeches, and has directed that those wishing to peaceably assemble to voice their opinions can only do so in fenced areas far from his person. These are violations of the 1st Amendment.
He selectively cherry-picked intelligence and fabricated other intelligence to falsely identify a foreign country as a threat and stampede the American people into supporting an unprovoked invasion of that country, an invasion his vice president and other members of his administration had signalled their intention to launch some three years before he took office, and which was secretly discussed in his first cabinet meeting after taking office. His administration then bypassed normal procurement procedures and awarded secret no-bid war contracts to politically favored corporations, including one formerly headed by his vice president.
He procured a resolution from the United Nations to require the accused country to open itself to inspection for weapons of mass destruction. When the country complied and none were found he ordered the international inspectors out and attacked anyway. This is a violation of the U.N. Charter, to which the United States is a founding signatory.
He sanctioned the use of torture against detainees, a violation of the 8th Amendment and the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners, which has been ratified by the United States.
He, his vice president, his domestic affairs advisor, and the vice president's chief of staff conspired to disclose the name of an undercover CIA operative for political advantage. This violates US statute. When the chief of staff was convicted of obstruction of justice for committing perjury about his involvement, the president commuted his sentence.
When he signs laws passed by Congress, he claims the right to issue signing statements which change the meanings of those laws. He has exercised this "right" over 800 times. Congress may pass any law, but the meaning of the law is what this president says it is. If this authority becomes accepted and established there will be no need for a Congress or a Supreme Court. This practice violates the Separation of Powers written into Articles 1, 2, and 3 of the Constitution by usurping the constitutionally mandated powers of Congress and the Judiciary.
It is of the greatest importance to American freedom that the next president disavows these practices, reverses them and works to foster a national consensus that such abuses are not justified and must never be repeated. The people must be watchful and insistent. If these practices stand the consequences will be dire indeed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)