I should preface this by saying that I don't feel that strongly about gay marriage. But I do feel strongly in favor of democracy and allowing votes to stand and I don't understand the basic framework of the gay marriage legal debate as it was argued in Perry v. Schwarzenegger before Judge Vaughn Walker. Well, I understand it -- I am a lawyer -- but I don't understand why the pro-prop 8 people bought into the legal framework.
As I see it, the issue should not be whether marriage should be considered a fundamental right or whether states have a rational basis to infringe that right. The case should never even reach that issue. The first issue for me is whether a right is being infringed at all. I don't see how gay people have a different right than straight people. Rights are held by individuals and as far as I can tell everyone has the same right to marry which is now and always has been severely restricted. Every unmarried person over 17 years of age has the right to enter into a legal state of matrimony with another person if that person is:
- Human
- Of the opposite sex
- Unmarried
- Over 17
- Not a close relative
- Not taking part in a sham marriage for immigration purposes
- Present for a ceremony
- Medically compatible and
- Willing to marry them
Everyone has the same right, gay or straight. Love has nothing to do with it legally. No one has ever had the right to "marry whomever they love." Moreover, no one asks whether you are gay when you get married. All gay people have the right described above.
So if everyone has the same right how is it that gay people are being discriminated against because they're gay? How are they being discriminated against at all?
If people want to create a new right to marry people of the same sex, that could be done in the legislature which is the branch of government designed to make the tough ethical calls. But that has not been done.
So what I don't understand is why the defense team at trial accepted the framework of the plaintiffs and argued about whether there was or was not a rational basis for infringing on the rights of gays. Why even concede that any right has been infringed?
Putting that aside and addressing the reasoning the court did conduct, one thing seems quite clear which is that society has a "rational basis" for constructing marriage the way it has. The reason society has marriage and preserves it for people of the opposite sex is to celebrate the kind of relationship that society has traditionally been built on -- an often tough relationship that is worth celebrating. It's done a lot for us, so we want to celebrate it. That is its rational basis just as the rational basis of Columbus Day is to celebrate the achievements of Columbus, the celebration of which is neither irrational nor intended to discriminate against people who prefer Ponce de Leon.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Should we be trading with China?
I just got back from a trip to China. I already love Hong Kong, and I wanted to get a first hand look at mainland China as it emerges as a major player on the world economic stage. The business press often presents an alluring view of China. I had read it all and was eager to learn more.
When I got to my hotel room in Shanghai I fired up the laptop to visit Facebook and Twitter and let everyone know I was here. Facebook and Twitter did not load. I tried to Google and was redirected to Google Hong Kong. I realized that the government was watching, and manipulating, the information I was able to receive in my hotel room. That was my first reminder that China's form of government has a substantial dark side. In general, China in person proved to be much less exciting and much more depressing than I had hoped. I have been thinking a great deal about our relations with China since then and have come to some conclusions below.
Over the past twenty years, the consensus view was that we should trade with oppressive states such as China because trade would help them down the path toward economic and political freedom. In the end, the political systems of all countries (more or less), would come to resemble western free market democracies and we would achieve a prosperous global peace. Richard Pipes postulated a direct connection between economic freedom and political freedom in Property and Freedom. Francis Fukuyama foretold global progress toward a universal acceptance of capitalist liberal democracy in The End of History and the Last Man. We enthusiastically embraced trade with China on these theories.
Our trade deficit with China has ballooned from $2 billion in 1989 to $250 billion in 2009. In that space of time, China rose to become the second largest national economy in the world. For perspective, our deficit with Japan was $45 billion in 2009 and was ~$88 billion pre-recession (it has been above $50 billion per year for 20 years). Our deficit with South Korea was $20 billion in 2009. (Trade data here.) So we are borrowing $250 billion per year to support the Chinese economy. China has been almost humorously unsubtle in devising the unfair and self-interested policies that govern foreign businesses in China.
We have accepted trade deficits with partners to help them grow. We wanted Japan to thrive after World War II so we supported it. We wanted South Korea to be a shining example in Asia of the virtues of capitalist liberal democracy so we have accepted trade deficits with them. We do this from time to time to effect change in the world. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, their economies were small enough that the US economy could tolerate a deficit with them without suffering undue stress.
Economists have varied opinions about the impact of trade deficits, but it cannot be denied that in the broad sweep of history every country with substantial trade surpluses (Japan, Korea, Germany, the United States before 1970) has gotten stronger and more prosperous while countries with substantial deficits have not. So perhaps despite theoretical debate we can say that, for practical purposes, the proof is in the pudding.
The size of our trade deficit with China is unprecedented. Because it is unprecedented, its effects are hard to predict. Economists and economic observers offer conflicting assessments of our deficit with China and our trade deficit in general. Some say that trade deficits drive growth. Almost all agree that trade deficits create currency insecurity. Some, including Andy Grove, say that deficits, by exporting jobs that would once have been held by America’s middle class, change America’s basic class structure, enriching the elite and undermining the middle class (here), and will ultimately stifle America’s ability to continue to innovate (here). There is a good overview by Tim Duy here of these lines of reasoning. These are not AFL-CIO representatives who are self-interestedly seeking wage protection for their union members. These are intelligent, disinterested American observers and they have become “free trade heretics.”
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the heretics are right: working within China’s mercantilist trade scheme – which requires not only a massive flow of capital to them but also a massive flow of technical know-how to them -- may be a horrible strategic error with significant negative implications for our basic social structure in the United States as well as on our ultimate ability to remain globally competitive. The theories that led us to trade with China in the first place were, it appears, sadly mistaken. The clash of civilizations theory of Samuel Huntington appears, in the end, to have been closer to the mark. Instead of capitalism influencing nations, nations appear to have inherent cultural predilections that do not change, whether they are heavily engaged with international business or not. International business can make them a wealthier version of whatever they were before, but it does not appear to change them otherwise. Certainly it does not appear to be changing China with respect to political freedoms.
At the very least, we can conclude that open trade (one way open trade) with China is economically risky.
In addition to the economic issues though, there is an ethical issue here. China controls the information available to and the basic freedoms of its workers, it oppresses its workers and by trading with China we help the governing regime do that. The government controls its currency, preventing currency markets from correcting trade imbalances. The average new college graduate in China makes 2,000 yuan per month. That’s about $300. Factory workers make less than $200 per month. These people are very poor and, despite some limited signs that they are starting to speak out and strike for higher wages (but primarily against foreign companies), they have very limited political freedom. At the same time, there is a Ferrari dealership in Shanghai. The Chinese elite are getting rich. The Chinese elite make their millions off the sweat of the Chinese people. And then they control what those people think, what they say, what they can see and what they make. By refusing to increase the value of the Yuan, China keeps its workers’ wages low (measured on an international scale), keeping the elite in business.
When does labor become slave labor? If we do not believe that trading with a country tends to make that country more free, when is a country so oppressive that we should not trade with them? Especially when that trade makes the regime more secure and creates risks for our economy? Should we trade with countries that keep millions of workers in conditions of poverty, oppression and ignorance? How oppressive does a regime have to be for trade to be ethically wrong and politically counter-productive? What we have in China is a massive population enslaved by an elite that keeps them in ignorance and keeps their wages low. What should we do now that Plan A hasn’t worked?
I believe we need to explore putting China on a trade balance program where we adopt a trading scheme designed explicitly to yield a balanced trade relationship that does not allow uncompensated technology transfer from the US to China. Our goal should be to achieve a balanced trade relationship within 5 years.
My second choice would be to declare defeat in our quest to influence China and withdraw from China trade altogether. It would be an economic shock but we were affluent before trading with China. We can be affluent again without someone sucking all of our capital and technology out of our country.
When we look back on this period economically, strategically and ethically I believe we will conclude we should have acted sooner.
When I got to my hotel room in Shanghai I fired up the laptop to visit Facebook and Twitter and let everyone know I was here. Facebook and Twitter did not load. I tried to Google and was redirected to Google Hong Kong. I realized that the government was watching, and manipulating, the information I was able to receive in my hotel room. That was my first reminder that China's form of government has a substantial dark side. In general, China in person proved to be much less exciting and much more depressing than I had hoped. I have been thinking a great deal about our relations with China since then and have come to some conclusions below.
Over the past twenty years, the consensus view was that we should trade with oppressive states such as China because trade would help them down the path toward economic and political freedom. In the end, the political systems of all countries (more or less), would come to resemble western free market democracies and we would achieve a prosperous global peace. Richard Pipes postulated a direct connection between economic freedom and political freedom in Property and Freedom. Francis Fukuyama foretold global progress toward a universal acceptance of capitalist liberal democracy in The End of History and the Last Man. We enthusiastically embraced trade with China on these theories.
Our trade deficit with China has ballooned from $2 billion in 1989 to $250 billion in 2009. In that space of time, China rose to become the second largest national economy in the world. For perspective, our deficit with Japan was $45 billion in 2009 and was ~$88 billion pre-recession (it has been above $50 billion per year for 20 years). Our deficit with South Korea was $20 billion in 2009. (Trade data here.) So we are borrowing $250 billion per year to support the Chinese economy. China has been almost humorously unsubtle in devising the unfair and self-interested policies that govern foreign businesses in China.
We have accepted trade deficits with partners to help them grow. We wanted Japan to thrive after World War II so we supported it. We wanted South Korea to be a shining example in Asia of the virtues of capitalist liberal democracy so we have accepted trade deficits with them. We do this from time to time to effect change in the world. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, their economies were small enough that the US economy could tolerate a deficit with them without suffering undue stress.
Economists have varied opinions about the impact of trade deficits, but it cannot be denied that in the broad sweep of history every country with substantial trade surpluses (Japan, Korea, Germany, the United States before 1970) has gotten stronger and more prosperous while countries with substantial deficits have not. So perhaps despite theoretical debate we can say that, for practical purposes, the proof is in the pudding.
The size of our trade deficit with China is unprecedented. Because it is unprecedented, its effects are hard to predict. Economists and economic observers offer conflicting assessments of our deficit with China and our trade deficit in general. Some say that trade deficits drive growth. Almost all agree that trade deficits create currency insecurity. Some, including Andy Grove, say that deficits, by exporting jobs that would once have been held by America’s middle class, change America’s basic class structure, enriching the elite and undermining the middle class (here), and will ultimately stifle America’s ability to continue to innovate (here). There is a good overview by Tim Duy here of these lines of reasoning. These are not AFL-CIO representatives who are self-interestedly seeking wage protection for their union members. These are intelligent, disinterested American observers and they have become “free trade heretics.”
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the heretics are right: working within China’s mercantilist trade scheme – which requires not only a massive flow of capital to them but also a massive flow of technical know-how to them -- may be a horrible strategic error with significant negative implications for our basic social structure in the United States as well as on our ultimate ability to remain globally competitive. The theories that led us to trade with China in the first place were, it appears, sadly mistaken. The clash of civilizations theory of Samuel Huntington appears, in the end, to have been closer to the mark. Instead of capitalism influencing nations, nations appear to have inherent cultural predilections that do not change, whether they are heavily engaged with international business or not. International business can make them a wealthier version of whatever they were before, but it does not appear to change them otherwise. Certainly it does not appear to be changing China with respect to political freedoms.
At the very least, we can conclude that open trade (one way open trade) with China is economically risky.
In addition to the economic issues though, there is an ethical issue here. China controls the information available to and the basic freedoms of its workers, it oppresses its workers and by trading with China we help the governing regime do that. The government controls its currency, preventing currency markets from correcting trade imbalances. The average new college graduate in China makes 2,000 yuan per month. That’s about $300. Factory workers make less than $200 per month. These people are very poor and, despite some limited signs that they are starting to speak out and strike for higher wages (but primarily against foreign companies), they have very limited political freedom. At the same time, there is a Ferrari dealership in Shanghai. The Chinese elite are getting rich. The Chinese elite make their millions off the sweat of the Chinese people. And then they control what those people think, what they say, what they can see and what they make. By refusing to increase the value of the Yuan, China keeps its workers’ wages low (measured on an international scale), keeping the elite in business.
When does labor become slave labor? If we do not believe that trading with a country tends to make that country more free, when is a country so oppressive that we should not trade with them? Especially when that trade makes the regime more secure and creates risks for our economy? Should we trade with countries that keep millions of workers in conditions of poverty, oppression and ignorance? How oppressive does a regime have to be for trade to be ethically wrong and politically counter-productive? What we have in China is a massive population enslaved by an elite that keeps them in ignorance and keeps their wages low. What should we do now that Plan A hasn’t worked?
I believe we need to explore putting China on a trade balance program where we adopt a trading scheme designed explicitly to yield a balanced trade relationship that does not allow uncompensated technology transfer from the US to China. Our goal should be to achieve a balanced trade relationship within 5 years.
My second choice would be to declare defeat in our quest to influence China and withdraw from China trade altogether. It would be an economic shock but we were affluent before trading with China. We can be affluent again without someone sucking all of our capital and technology out of our country.
When we look back on this period economically, strategically and ethically I believe we will conclude we should have acted sooner.
Why You Don't Hear Much about the Shanghai World Expo
Why you don’t hear much about the Shanghai World Expo
I recently spent some time in China and went to the Shanghai World Expo. Before I went to the Expo, I had wondered why I hadn’t heard more about it in the Western travel press. It’s supposed to be a world expo, right? Surely there was something remarkable about it?
Well, the reason you don’t hear much about it is that it’s an awful experience and perhaps also because it suggests some uncomfortable truths about the government of China that many people would like to sweep under the rug. Not only is the experience awful but the very concept of it is awful. So my advice is: don’t go.
Here’s why the experience is awful. It is, as you know, in Shanghai, on the East side of the Huangpo. So at this time of year it’s quite balmy. The new subway doesn’t conveniently connect to the expo. The closest you can get by cab is maybe three quarters of a mile from the expo itself. So you trudge through the heat, buy your tickets and finally get to the area where the pavilions are. The pavilions are large buildings that each country has set up. The general idea is that you go in the buildings and see whatever it is each country wants you to see. We got in line for the Australian pavilion. I had heard something good about it. It was a long line.
So this is the main problem: the lines are absurdly long and the Chinese are not good at lines. 99.999% of the visitors to the Expo are mainland Chinese. Some cultures are queuing cultures (US, UK, Canada, Japan) and some are not (Mexico, Italy, apparently China). So you have thousands of sweaty people in a long line trying to somehow get past you or get a two foot edge so they can get into the pavilion 30 seconds before you. When the line is over an hour long, that gets extremely tiresome.
Then you get inside and find the second problem. Inside, there is another long line that, in the case of Australia, leads up to a theater where you see a movie on a rotating screen. The movie is about how Australia is a nearby island that is a nice place whose people care about the environment and want to be good friends with China. It’s about 5 minutes long and, yes, is as insubstantial as it sounds. So the second problem is that you have waited all this time for nothing. Unlike expos in centuries past, where people have demonstrated new technology and products, this is apparently one where people share fatuous movies about how much they like China.
When you’re done with the movie, you go to the souvenir stand where they have stuffed koala bears. That’s probably the best part.
So, who’s up for the Saudi Arabia pavilion? Uhmmm…how about nobody. We realized after Australia that you could go into the gift shops without waiting in line so we just went to a few gift shops.
OK so the Expo is not a great experience for Western tourists. What of it?
Here’s the ethical problem with the Expo. The audience for the expo are the Chinese people. The Expo is not about the world coming together to share ideas, it is about the Communist Party of China, abetted by the nations of the world, making a statement to the Chinese people. Look at this in context: the Chinese people only get the information that the Communist Party wants them to get. You can’t get Facebook in China. You can’t get Twitter in China. Certain Amazon.com detail pages are blocked in China (like this one). They imprison people who speak out against the government. The goal of the Communist Party (which is no longer “communist” in any economic sense and should really be called the Chinese Fascist Party), is to stay in power. They want to avoid another Tiananmen Square incident and they want to avoid getting kicked out like their cousins the Communist Party of Russia. So they also manage a year round propaganda effort communicating the idea to the Chinese people that the Party is taking the country to new heights. The Expo is part of that effort.
This may be an elaborate metaphor, but imagine a villain who falsely imprisons some innocent people. At first a few try to escape, but they are killed. The remaining innocent people hope that the sheriff will find out about this and save them. One day the villain has the sheriff over to tour his house and have dinner, just to show the prisoners that everyone who might save them is friends with the villain, and they might as well get on board. (In the movie version, one of the prisoners would slip the sheriff a note as he leaves the dinner – “HELP US!”)
I am not saying that most people in China consciously hate the regime there. Like the people of North Korea, they are to a large extent brainwashed. They are not a free people, and they do not have access to information the government does not provide. So they might think they love the regime or if they have complaints they might not voice them. There is no way to know what they think, or what they would think given information and the freedom to speak. They are prisoners of a ruling junta which is sad. The junta has done some things that have helped the Chinese people, but still the people are prisoners.
Should we be party to that? Should we be party to the manipulation of the Chinese people? Should we, as the sheriff, tour the villain’s house and smile, showing the prisoners that everyone in the world, including the world’s flagship for freedom, supports the villain? The Expo is a way to pander to the Communist Party of China by helping it manipulate the Chinese people. In my view, we should not be a part of it.
I recently spent some time in China and went to the Shanghai World Expo. Before I went to the Expo, I had wondered why I hadn’t heard more about it in the Western travel press. It’s supposed to be a world expo, right? Surely there was something remarkable about it?
Well, the reason you don’t hear much about it is that it’s an awful experience and perhaps also because it suggests some uncomfortable truths about the government of China that many people would like to sweep under the rug. Not only is the experience awful but the very concept of it is awful. So my advice is: don’t go.
Here’s why the experience is awful. It is, as you know, in Shanghai, on the East side of the Huangpo. So at this time of year it’s quite balmy. The new subway doesn’t conveniently connect to the expo. The closest you can get by cab is maybe three quarters of a mile from the expo itself. So you trudge through the heat, buy your tickets and finally get to the area where the pavilions are. The pavilions are large buildings that each country has set up. The general idea is that you go in the buildings and see whatever it is each country wants you to see. We got in line for the Australian pavilion. I had heard something good about it. It was a long line.
So this is the main problem: the lines are absurdly long and the Chinese are not good at lines. 99.999% of the visitors to the Expo are mainland Chinese. Some cultures are queuing cultures (US, UK, Canada, Japan) and some are not (Mexico, Italy, apparently China). So you have thousands of sweaty people in a long line trying to somehow get past you or get a two foot edge so they can get into the pavilion 30 seconds before you. When the line is over an hour long, that gets extremely tiresome.
Then you get inside and find the second problem. Inside, there is another long line that, in the case of Australia, leads up to a theater where you see a movie on a rotating screen. The movie is about how Australia is a nearby island that is a nice place whose people care about the environment and want to be good friends with China. It’s about 5 minutes long and, yes, is as insubstantial as it sounds. So the second problem is that you have waited all this time for nothing. Unlike expos in centuries past, where people have demonstrated new technology and products, this is apparently one where people share fatuous movies about how much they like China.
When you’re done with the movie, you go to the souvenir stand where they have stuffed koala bears. That’s probably the best part.
So, who’s up for the Saudi Arabia pavilion? Uhmmm…how about nobody. We realized after Australia that you could go into the gift shops without waiting in line so we just went to a few gift shops.
OK so the Expo is not a great experience for Western tourists. What of it?
Here’s the ethical problem with the Expo. The audience for the expo are the Chinese people. The Expo is not about the world coming together to share ideas, it is about the Communist Party of China, abetted by the nations of the world, making a statement to the Chinese people. Look at this in context: the Chinese people only get the information that the Communist Party wants them to get. You can’t get Facebook in China. You can’t get Twitter in China. Certain Amazon.com detail pages are blocked in China (like this one). They imprison people who speak out against the government. The goal of the Communist Party (which is no longer “communist” in any economic sense and should really be called the Chinese Fascist Party), is to stay in power. They want to avoid another Tiananmen Square incident and they want to avoid getting kicked out like their cousins the Communist Party of Russia. So they also manage a year round propaganda effort communicating the idea to the Chinese people that the Party is taking the country to new heights. The Expo is part of that effort.
This may be an elaborate metaphor, but imagine a villain who falsely imprisons some innocent people. At first a few try to escape, but they are killed. The remaining innocent people hope that the sheriff will find out about this and save them. One day the villain has the sheriff over to tour his house and have dinner, just to show the prisoners that everyone who might save them is friends with the villain, and they might as well get on board. (In the movie version, one of the prisoners would slip the sheriff a note as he leaves the dinner – “HELP US!”)
I am not saying that most people in China consciously hate the regime there. Like the people of North Korea, they are to a large extent brainwashed. They are not a free people, and they do not have access to information the government does not provide. So they might think they love the regime or if they have complaints they might not voice them. There is no way to know what they think, or what they would think given information and the freedom to speak. They are prisoners of a ruling junta which is sad. The junta has done some things that have helped the Chinese people, but still the people are prisoners.
Should we be party to that? Should we be party to the manipulation of the Chinese people? Should we, as the sheriff, tour the villain’s house and smile, showing the prisoners that everyone in the world, including the world’s flagship for freedom, supports the villain? The Expo is a way to pander to the Communist Party of China by helping it manipulate the Chinese people. In my view, we should not be a part of it.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Convention Impressions II: What and Who Can Win in Washington State in 2010
At the recent convention, candidates and speakers broke into three groups -- unity people (Sam Reed, Doc Hastings), jobs people (Rossi, Romney) and rights people (Malkin, Didier). What issues will work in Washington in 2010?
We all like jobs and we all like rights. I'd like to order a jobs and rights sandwich. But it's worth thinking about what sort of rhetoric is likely to lead the party out of the cold electoral penalty box in which it resides.
Washington State
One fact worth noting up front: if we get the votes of 100% of the Republicans in the State of Washington, and no one else, then we get our heads handed to us on a platter. And that's a lot worse than winning. In this respect, our highly educated blue state is most similar to California, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
In light of that, it is also worth learning from the fact that Scott Brown, who recently won the kind of victory we want here in the Senate, was a pretty middle of the road conservative. He was not, for example, adamantly pro-life. He was strong on fiscal issues, he was practical, he endorsed conservative values. But he did not campaign with red-faced speeches about "reversing the slide to tyranny." He was not an angry candidate. Chris Christie, who beat Corzine in New Jersey by four points to win in that Democratic state, also did not run as pro-life. He was strong on fiscal issues, otherwise pretty middle of the road and appealed to centrist voters who wanted to get the budget under control. Carly Fiorina beat Chuck Devore in her California primary with a middle of the road campaign that was long on fiscal issues and pro-business.
Now, I support Rubio over Christ (not Jesus, but Charlie). I am a Reagan conservative. And, like Reagan, I like to win. Here's my analysis from the point of view of succeeding with the Washington electorate as a whole (and remember firing up 1,000 die hard Republican delegates is not similar to firing up the electorate as a whole).
Bad and Good Issues in Washington
Bad issues and tendencies --
1. True anger is unpopular. Angry candidates always, always lose. Be positive. It can work to be offended or to get steely or to get your back up, but if you are a political candidate and you come off as white knuckle angry, you're going to be making speeches to your family in the kitchen for the next couple of years and not on C-SPAN. Americans tend to elect people who appear to be in control of themselves and who have a positive view of fellow Americans and our shared future. They don't elect people who grip the podium and yell "when I get to DC, there's going to be HELL TO PAY!!!"
2. As an issue in blue states, Abortion is a vote loser. Sorry but it's true. Neither Scott Brown nor Chris Christie ran pro-life campaigns. As a practical matter, Roe v. Wade is just not going to be overturned. Let's not sacrifice our whole national future for this will o' the wisp. The thing about dying on your political sword is that at the end of it, you're dead. If you want to run like Jim DeMint or Sam Brownback, you are going to have to move to South Carolina or Kansas.
3. Hyperbole is bad. If you say "we're here in defiance of tyranny" the average voter doesn't know what you are talking about. This is simply not China, it's not the Soviet Union and no one in the middle 80% of the electorate thinks it is. So if you say it is then you come off as crazy or as a manipulator. Candidates can and should argue for liberty and criticize Democrats for paying insufficient attention to liberty and for being utilitarians, but keep it realistic. Point out specifically where liberty is being violated, and do so in a realistic way. Oh and by the way, the word "defiance" sounds a lot like the word "defence" if you speak quickly (if you have a tendency to speed up in your delivery when making speeches), consider another word. Or better yet, skip it entirely and go for one of the winner issues (below).
4. Small point but something to watch out for -- it appears to be popular to discuss how you or your parents achieved financial success. This can cut both ways in a stump speech. What it can sound like is that you have made your bundle and now you want to keep it, and that is why you want low taxes. That is, it can appear that you are opposed to high taxes for selfish reasons. The better approach is to favor low taxes because they create opportunity and they create jobs. Like, for other people! The most successful wealthy candidates have been Democrats (Roosevelt, Kennedy, etc.).
5. Fringe issues are losers. Don't talk about auditing the Federal Reserve. You sound like you want to go back to the days of Andrew Jackson. And no one wants to go there with you or really knows what you're talking about.
Good issues and tendencies --
1. The economy -- jobs, low taxes, bailouts and health care -- is a great issue. This is a strong point for GOP candidates, as usual. The Dems will say they are just trying to clean up Bush's mess but I think that's wearing thin. However, I would warn that Bush is not totally forgotten and many candidates are leaving open a hole in their argument by following the traditional playbook. They are saying they want lower taxes and a lower deficit but they aren't saying how they want to cut spending. Reagan was able to get away with that by saying he was going to cut waste. But after Reagan, Bush and Bush II all dramatically increased deficits, I think the electorate has caught on here and...it certainly blew up in the face of John McCain. His tax-cutting rhetoric simply didn't sell to a public made skeptical by the Bush formula of tax cuts and huge deficits. GOP candidates have to start owning up to what spending they want to cut if they want to "cut taxes and reduce the deficit." Mark Ryan has some good thoughts here. Also, candidates who speak against bank bailouts should be prepared to say whether they would have allowed the banks to go under. Still, this is a good issue.
2. This year, candidates should hammer corrupt public sector unions and their connections to Democrat politicians, including the card check issue. In general, there appears to be a growing recognition that the benefits enjoyed by state employees are out of whack, and that the system of having unions elect politicians who then make deals with the unions simply does not work. I personally think that SEIU and ACORN overstepped and that the public is starting to really resent them. I would campaign against SEIU all day long.
3. Very closely related issue: School choice and merit pay for teachers could work well. Teachers are certainly tarred by the government union brush now.
4. Homeland Security should be strong for GOPers this year. Obama and his Antiterroist chief John Brennan are weak on this issue. They insist on pretending, for PC reasons, that Islam has nothing to do with it. They will never mention Islam even in the Hassan case. It's insane and the public knows it's insane (see a good run down of the issue by Joe Lieberman here). We have to recognize that Islam is at the heart of the global terrorism problem today, even as we remain open and fair to moderate Muslims.
Wildcard issues --
1. Immigration. I think we need to get tough on this, but it can be a difficult issue depending on the district. Anyway, no one spent a lot of time on this.
CANDIDATES
SENATE
CLINT DIDIER had a strong personal appeal. He is just a charismatic guy. And he certainly seems like he's giving it to you straight from the heart. However, he is deeply embracing Bad traits 1 (anger) and 3 (hyperbole). If anyone could scare Washington into re-electing Patty Murray, it would be Clint Didier. Not to mention the fact that, for better or worse, being from East of the Cascades is a real weakness in a state wide race. My hope is that Clint can mature his rhetoric a bit and play an important role in state or national politics one day because he is very likable, like a Reagan. But for now this is one of the angriest guys I've ever seen. I thought he was going to burst like Bruce Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk. That's fun, but it doesn't win political races, certainly not in Washington. Against Patty Murray I would say he is a twelve point loser.
PAUL AKERS doesn't fit into the above rubric very well because he spends 60% of his speech talking about lean manufacturing. I'm sorry, are we electing a VP of Operations here? It's bizarre he's still in the race. Drop out Paul. You're not a natural politician. Try to get appointed to something.
DINO ROSSI came off well and had a lot of fans in the audience. A reporter at the Seattle Times said he thought most people supported Didier. I didn't see that. I thought the majority supported Rossi. But it was probably within ten points. Dino talked about the economy, earning good points for going to Good issue #1. Unfortunately, he had to spend some time talking to the audience about why he didn't get into the race earlier. I would drop that part of the speech. Maybe he didnt' get in earlier because the race is not until November. Why bother? Anyway, Dino was effective on the economy and healthcare and communicated a passion for running for Senate. He effectively went after Patty Murray for being weak on the budget and for indulging in too many earmarks. I think if he goes against Patty Murray, he will win by at least 4 points. I expect Dino will win the nomination but Clint will run Dino down a bit before he does.
House of Representatives --
I'm not going to cover every race, but I will comment on the 3rd because it seems most interesting. There the major candidates appear to be Jamie Herrera, David Castillo and David Hedrick. Herrera had a lot of support around the convention (or a lot of stickers anyway), and she's attractive. I take it she is the frontrunner. However, In this blogger's view she didn't deliver a strong performance. Her delivery seemed young as if she was a candidate for student body president. Her policies seemed pretty mainstream but with a tinge of Bad trait #3 (hyperbole) when she talks about our nation being on the precipice (I believe it was that our "freedoms are imperiled" but she said it a few different ways). Finally, the whole thing just seemed a bit canned. Some candidates come off as having a great deal of intellectual depth that informs their speeches. She does not. She sounds like someone you would hire into a very junior position. Not congress. I'll tell you, those arguments sounded a lot more sincere coming from Clint Didier. I thought he was going to kill the next person who taxed him.
David Castillo came off fairly well but no slam dunk. Scored some solid points on economics, then veered off to tell us about how he made money (risky point, see Bad #4) and a bunch of details about his sympathetic family life (that stuff never works well on me, I always find it manipulative). He then talked about his government experience assuming we had heard of him and knew what it was. He should work on that. But he came off as passionate without being angry and he hit the economics points (Good #1). So he did pretty well.
Davdi Hedrick was just a wild card libertarian. He violated Bad rules #3 (hyperbole) and 5 (fringe) by focusing on the Federal Reserve. That said, he was funny, seemed smart and seemed to believe in what he was saying. He was not angry. He said "I have heard democracy described as two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." Good one. That may have been the best line not uttered by Mitt Romney. He was a very engaging and passionate speaker. I think he has a future even though I suspect Castillo will win this primary in a squeaker.
Other Quick Impressions --
James Watkins -- Watkins came off as a very promising newcomer. Level headed but passionate, strong on Good issues and making an efective case for residents of the 1st district. Inslee has taken 66%+ the last few elections, so it will be tough but maybe this is the year.
Doc Hastings -- Very good. I had never heard him speak but he was a unity speaker. He compared 2010 favorably to 1994 for the Republicans. He was very specific with detailed facts. That was much more compelling than some of the high level speeches most people were giving. If you bring some statistics and details to a speech it will be much more compelling. Doc Hastings knows that and it showed.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers -- Her speech seemed very polished and strong. Glad we have her.
Doug Cloud in the 9th came off as angry. He used too many violent images in his speech (grabbing taxes by the back of their heads and smashing their faces into concrete? Holy cow...).
I wish all the candidates success and hope the party enjoys another 1994!
We all like jobs and we all like rights. I'd like to order a jobs and rights sandwich. But it's worth thinking about what sort of rhetoric is likely to lead the party out of the cold electoral penalty box in which it resides.
Washington State
One fact worth noting up front: if we get the votes of 100% of the Republicans in the State of Washington, and no one else, then we get our heads handed to us on a platter. And that's a lot worse than winning. In this respect, our highly educated blue state is most similar to California, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
In light of that, it is also worth learning from the fact that Scott Brown, who recently won the kind of victory we want here in the Senate, was a pretty middle of the road conservative. He was not, for example, adamantly pro-life. He was strong on fiscal issues, he was practical, he endorsed conservative values. But he did not campaign with red-faced speeches about "reversing the slide to tyranny." He was not an angry candidate. Chris Christie, who beat Corzine in New Jersey by four points to win in that Democratic state, also did not run as pro-life. He was strong on fiscal issues, otherwise pretty middle of the road and appealed to centrist voters who wanted to get the budget under control. Carly Fiorina beat Chuck Devore in her California primary with a middle of the road campaign that was long on fiscal issues and pro-business.
Now, I support Rubio over Christ (not Jesus, but Charlie). I am a Reagan conservative. And, like Reagan, I like to win. Here's my analysis from the point of view of succeeding with the Washington electorate as a whole (and remember firing up 1,000 die hard Republican delegates is not similar to firing up the electorate as a whole).
Bad and Good Issues in Washington
Bad issues and tendencies --
1. True anger is unpopular. Angry candidates always, always lose. Be positive. It can work to be offended or to get steely or to get your back up, but if you are a political candidate and you come off as white knuckle angry, you're going to be making speeches to your family in the kitchen for the next couple of years and not on C-SPAN. Americans tend to elect people who appear to be in control of themselves and who have a positive view of fellow Americans and our shared future. They don't elect people who grip the podium and yell "when I get to DC, there's going to be HELL TO PAY!!!"
2. As an issue in blue states, Abortion is a vote loser. Sorry but it's true. Neither Scott Brown nor Chris Christie ran pro-life campaigns. As a practical matter, Roe v. Wade is just not going to be overturned. Let's not sacrifice our whole national future for this will o' the wisp. The thing about dying on your political sword is that at the end of it, you're dead. If you want to run like Jim DeMint or Sam Brownback, you are going to have to move to South Carolina or Kansas.
3. Hyperbole is bad. If you say "we're here in defiance of tyranny" the average voter doesn't know what you are talking about. This is simply not China, it's not the Soviet Union and no one in the middle 80% of the electorate thinks it is. So if you say it is then you come off as crazy or as a manipulator. Candidates can and should argue for liberty and criticize Democrats for paying insufficient attention to liberty and for being utilitarians, but keep it realistic. Point out specifically where liberty is being violated, and do so in a realistic way. Oh and by the way, the word "defiance" sounds a lot like the word "defence" if you speak quickly (if you have a tendency to speed up in your delivery when making speeches), consider another word. Or better yet, skip it entirely and go for one of the winner issues (below).
4. Small point but something to watch out for -- it appears to be popular to discuss how you or your parents achieved financial success. This can cut both ways in a stump speech. What it can sound like is that you have made your bundle and now you want to keep it, and that is why you want low taxes. That is, it can appear that you are opposed to high taxes for selfish reasons. The better approach is to favor low taxes because they create opportunity and they create jobs. Like, for other people! The most successful wealthy candidates have been Democrats (Roosevelt, Kennedy, etc.).
5. Fringe issues are losers. Don't talk about auditing the Federal Reserve. You sound like you want to go back to the days of Andrew Jackson. And no one wants to go there with you or really knows what you're talking about.
Good issues and tendencies --
1. The economy -- jobs, low taxes, bailouts and health care -- is a great issue. This is a strong point for GOP candidates, as usual. The Dems will say they are just trying to clean up Bush's mess but I think that's wearing thin. However, I would warn that Bush is not totally forgotten and many candidates are leaving open a hole in their argument by following the traditional playbook. They are saying they want lower taxes and a lower deficit but they aren't saying how they want to cut spending. Reagan was able to get away with that by saying he was going to cut waste. But after Reagan, Bush and Bush II all dramatically increased deficits, I think the electorate has caught on here and...it certainly blew up in the face of John McCain. His tax-cutting rhetoric simply didn't sell to a public made skeptical by the Bush formula of tax cuts and huge deficits. GOP candidates have to start owning up to what spending they want to cut if they want to "cut taxes and reduce the deficit." Mark Ryan has some good thoughts here. Also, candidates who speak against bank bailouts should be prepared to say whether they would have allowed the banks to go under. Still, this is a good issue.
2. This year, candidates should hammer corrupt public sector unions and their connections to Democrat politicians, including the card check issue. In general, there appears to be a growing recognition that the benefits enjoyed by state employees are out of whack, and that the system of having unions elect politicians who then make deals with the unions simply does not work. I personally think that SEIU and ACORN overstepped and that the public is starting to really resent them. I would campaign against SEIU all day long.
3. Very closely related issue: School choice and merit pay for teachers could work well. Teachers are certainly tarred by the government union brush now.
4. Homeland Security should be strong for GOPers this year. Obama and his Antiterroist chief John Brennan are weak on this issue. They insist on pretending, for PC reasons, that Islam has nothing to do with it. They will never mention Islam even in the Hassan case. It's insane and the public knows it's insane (see a good run down of the issue by Joe Lieberman here). We have to recognize that Islam is at the heart of the global terrorism problem today, even as we remain open and fair to moderate Muslims.
Wildcard issues --
1. Immigration. I think we need to get tough on this, but it can be a difficult issue depending on the district. Anyway, no one spent a lot of time on this.
CANDIDATES
SENATE
CLINT DIDIER had a strong personal appeal. He is just a charismatic guy. And he certainly seems like he's giving it to you straight from the heart. However, he is deeply embracing Bad traits 1 (anger) and 3 (hyperbole). If anyone could scare Washington into re-electing Patty Murray, it would be Clint Didier. Not to mention the fact that, for better or worse, being from East of the Cascades is a real weakness in a state wide race. My hope is that Clint can mature his rhetoric a bit and play an important role in state or national politics one day because he is very likable, like a Reagan. But for now this is one of the angriest guys I've ever seen. I thought he was going to burst like Bruce Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk. That's fun, but it doesn't win political races, certainly not in Washington. Against Patty Murray I would say he is a twelve point loser.
PAUL AKERS doesn't fit into the above rubric very well because he spends 60% of his speech talking about lean manufacturing. I'm sorry, are we electing a VP of Operations here? It's bizarre he's still in the race. Drop out Paul. You're not a natural politician. Try to get appointed to something.
DINO ROSSI came off well and had a lot of fans in the audience. A reporter at the Seattle Times said he thought most people supported Didier. I didn't see that. I thought the majority supported Rossi. But it was probably within ten points. Dino talked about the economy, earning good points for going to Good issue #1. Unfortunately, he had to spend some time talking to the audience about why he didn't get into the race earlier. I would drop that part of the speech. Maybe he didnt' get in earlier because the race is not until November. Why bother? Anyway, Dino was effective on the economy and healthcare and communicated a passion for running for Senate. He effectively went after Patty Murray for being weak on the budget and for indulging in too many earmarks. I think if he goes against Patty Murray, he will win by at least 4 points. I expect Dino will win the nomination but Clint will run Dino down a bit before he does.
House of Representatives --
I'm not going to cover every race, but I will comment on the 3rd because it seems most interesting. There the major candidates appear to be Jamie Herrera, David Castillo and David Hedrick. Herrera had a lot of support around the convention (or a lot of stickers anyway), and she's attractive. I take it she is the frontrunner. However, In this blogger's view she didn't deliver a strong performance. Her delivery seemed young as if she was a candidate for student body president. Her policies seemed pretty mainstream but with a tinge of Bad trait #3 (hyperbole) when she talks about our nation being on the precipice (I believe it was that our "freedoms are imperiled" but she said it a few different ways). Finally, the whole thing just seemed a bit canned. Some candidates come off as having a great deal of intellectual depth that informs their speeches. She does not. She sounds like someone you would hire into a very junior position. Not congress. I'll tell you, those arguments sounded a lot more sincere coming from Clint Didier. I thought he was going to kill the next person who taxed him.
David Castillo came off fairly well but no slam dunk. Scored some solid points on economics, then veered off to tell us about how he made money (risky point, see Bad #4) and a bunch of details about his sympathetic family life (that stuff never works well on me, I always find it manipulative). He then talked about his government experience assuming we had heard of him and knew what it was. He should work on that. But he came off as passionate without being angry and he hit the economics points (Good #1). So he did pretty well.
Davdi Hedrick was just a wild card libertarian. He violated Bad rules #3 (hyperbole) and 5 (fringe) by focusing on the Federal Reserve. That said, he was funny, seemed smart and seemed to believe in what he was saying. He was not angry. He said "I have heard democracy described as two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." Good one. That may have been the best line not uttered by Mitt Romney. He was a very engaging and passionate speaker. I think he has a future even though I suspect Castillo will win this primary in a squeaker.
Other Quick Impressions --
James Watkins -- Watkins came off as a very promising newcomer. Level headed but passionate, strong on Good issues and making an efective case for residents of the 1st district. Inslee has taken 66%+ the last few elections, so it will be tough but maybe this is the year.
Doc Hastings -- Very good. I had never heard him speak but he was a unity speaker. He compared 2010 favorably to 1994 for the Republicans. He was very specific with detailed facts. That was much more compelling than some of the high level speeches most people were giving. If you bring some statistics and details to a speech it will be much more compelling. Doc Hastings knows that and it showed.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers -- Her speech seemed very polished and strong. Glad we have her.
Doug Cloud in the 9th came off as angry. He used too many violent images in his speech (grabbing taxes by the back of their heads and smashing their faces into concrete? Holy cow...).
I wish all the candidates success and hope the party enjoys another 1994!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
2010 Washington State Republican Convention: First Impressions
I was hoping that this weekend’s Republican State Convention would be a good opportunity to meet other Republicans and get fired up for the upcoming election season. It was. Luke Esser and team did a great job accommodating 1,179 delegates (a 100% increase in attendance over the previous non-presidential convention), which reflects the enthusiasm of Republicans across the state in 2010. There were many first time delegates and there was a legion of great candidates; everyone thinks we can win in 2010.
In forthcoming notes I want to discuss the rhetoric of the candidates and the candidates themselves. For now, let me briefly recap the events and comment on just one issue, which is the schedule of the convention and what it tells us about the purpose of the convention. This sounds dry but it became an important issue for many.
In terms of their ideas of what the convention was about, delegates seemed to break into two groups. One group essentially saw the convention as an opportunity to see candidates firsthand, network with other grassroots Republicans, and plan for the upcoming year. I’ll call these people the Conventioneers. The other group hoped the convention would be more like a constitutional convention or a debating society where a platform would be drafted and negotiated in detail. I’ll call these people the Debaters.
If you’ve been to political conventions before, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the Debaters were somewhat disappointed by the amount of actual debating that occurred.
Here’s how the whole thing worked, which is fairly representative of these things generally. On the first day, there were classes -- how to use new media, how to manage a political campaign, etc. This is learning time and social time. That night, there was a dinner. Dino Rossi was there and Michelle Malkin set the audience on fire. After dinner, prominent candidates hosted open gatherings in hotel rooms. As a friend of mine said, “this is where the fun begins.” Well, truth be told it doesn’t get very crazy but prominent elected officials are around and they were all very friendly and approachable. Rob McKenna had a room and was very friendly to everyone. Dino Rossi had a big room and, with his wife Terri, was very social and tirelessly posed for photos with delegates and guests. Clint Didier had a “tailgate party” to which he wore his two (three?) superbowl rings (which look huge even on his huge hand). Cathy McMorris Rodgers was there. Don Benton was there. I’m sure there were a hundred important people I didn’t even recognize. People took this time to meet each other, share ideas and compare notes from different parts of the state.
The next day, Saturday, is/was the big meeting where candidates give speeches, the keynote speaker speaks (Mitt Romney was great; his speech is accurately recounted here http://wp.me/pjvHX-Te) and the platform is passed. Then everyone goes home. The platform part starts in earnest around 2. Then the whole thing ends at 5 sharp. So there isn’t much time to debate the platform. Thus the disappointment among the Debaters.
In fact, precious little real debate occurred at all since mostly we debated the rules that would govern the debating and then we debated which issues we should probably set aside to debate later and then after that we basically ran out of time. Oops!
Trust me, I don’t want to hear again about Robert’s Rules of Order for quite a while.
Here is my perspective, though. My perspective is that the Debaters are not being realistic about the schedule or about the true importance and purpose of conventions. To debate the platform from the ground up, including every amendment, would require weeks. Even a single proposition could take hours to debate among over a thousand participants. We could have spent a summer in Vancouver and, while Southwestern Washington is a nice place, we’ve all got other plans this summer.
Some argued that debating the platform was “the people’s business that we were sent here to do.” I would disagree. Everyone knew that there was a platform committee. They took months to draft a platform. Everyone knows that it is unrealistic to draft a new platform on the spot in open debate. Our actual responsibility is to elect sensible people to the platform committee and then to accept their work unless they have clearly failed to represent the party well. Really there is no other way to do it. I think 90% of the delegates thought that the document was representative of the state of the party today and that relitigating all the various issues that were no doubt debated in the platform process would be pointless. The fact that large groups are bad at crafting documents is, after all, why the convention has a platform committee (and is why legislative bodies generally have committees).
So I think the Debaters were being unrealistic about the schedule and about our role. But also I would argue that the Debaters have an unrealistic understanding of the real purpose and true potential of conventions in general. The reality is that state platforms are not read by normal human beings (the kind of voters who actually wind up swinging elections in the real world). Therefore, platforms do not generally have a major impact on elections in the United States. That’s the fact.
What does have a major impact? The energy and message of the grassroots party organizers and influencers These are the people who are going to have and distribute yard signs, donate money, doorbell, speak with their neighbors, write blogs, organize events, tweet and in a thousand ways help the party actually win.
What matters coming out of a convention is that those influencers are fired up, informed, have plans, and perhaps have made a few new contacts in the party with whom they can coordinate. That is the important thing about a convention. The platform, assuming it does an adequate job representing the party, is not.
So my conclusion is that the Debaters both had an unrealistic idea of what can be accomplished at a convention and a very weak sense of the real life relative importance of the things that happen at a convention. The Debaters might think the social part of the convention was annoying or irrelevant (compared to the “substantive issues” of the platform) but they’re missing the point. The mingling may be “where the fun begins,” but it may be the most impactful part of the event, too.
That said, I do think the platform process can be improved. It might be better to make drafts of the platform public on WSRP.org at various stages. Feedback could be solicited from the community. Conceivably a system could be set up to track delegates, systematically tally their feedback to early drafts and expand the circle in some formal way. I would be all for that. I would also support moving from a system with one representative per Washington county, which is absurdly antidemocratic, but I’ll talk about that in my next post. Finally, I think the rules should just call for an up or down vote on the platform. We should be straight about whether we want extensive debate or not. If it’s just not on the table, then the Debaters shouldn’t be teased by rules suggesting that the broader community can reopen and debate every issue.
Thanks for reading, pals, and, as Secretary of State Sam Reed said at the convention, “stay united!”
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
McGinn lame ducks himself
Honestly, I voted for Mike McGinn. I did so because he seemed much smarter, frankly, than his opponent. Having a dumb mayor certainly seems bad. But smarty pants has unfortunately decided that being an outsider is what he wants to be, and that he would like to go back to being a gadfly instead of being mayor.
He laid the groundwork by alienating the city council on the seawall issue and coming off as a guy who doesn't play well with others.
He finished the job on April 22 by vetoing Tim Burgess's anti-aggressive panhandling measure, which said that people, in the words of the PI, "can't block someone, use threatening or aggressive gestures or profane language, solicit someone using an ATM or repeatedly solicit someone who has already said 'no.'"
Seems pretty reasonable and inoffensive, no?
McGinn then brought together all the ACLU and other apparatchiks, who represent about 5% of the vote, to celebrate his veto. This is going to go down very poorly in the next election. You can't completely abandon the regular person. And the regular person wants to be able to walk around downtown without being accosted.
The rest of McGinn's term will be a lame duck waiting game trying to figure out who the next mayor will be. Perhaps Tim Burgess?
He laid the groundwork by alienating the city council on the seawall issue and coming off as a guy who doesn't play well with others.
He finished the job on April 22 by vetoing Tim Burgess's anti-aggressive panhandling measure, which said that people, in the words of the PI, "can't block someone, use threatening or aggressive gestures or profane language, solicit someone using an ATM or repeatedly solicit someone who has already said 'no.'"
Seems pretty reasonable and inoffensive, no?
McGinn then brought together all the ACLU and other apparatchiks, who represent about 5% of the vote, to celebrate his veto. This is going to go down very poorly in the next election. You can't completely abandon the regular person. And the regular person wants to be able to walk around downtown without being accosted.
The rest of McGinn's term will be a lame duck waiting game trying to figure out who the next mayor will be. Perhaps Tim Burgess?
Monday, March 29, 2010
Exposed: Democrat Dirty Tricks in Olympia
The Seattle Times reports today that the Public Disclosure Commission has reported that there is "no evidence" that in 2008 Dino Rossi in any way coordinated his campaign with the election spending of the Building Industry Association of Washington and that the claims against him and their timing were, clearly, politically motivated.
The Times: "when either party abuses the public trust it should be called out. This was a case of the Democrats abusing the legal and regulatory process, not once, but several times."
I couldn't have said it better myself. I only wish the paper could have dug a little more to determine who was behind the strategically timed dirty trick. Presumably King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas was in on it, at least implicitly, since with no evidence at all she approved the Rossi deposition to be scheduled days before the election. Kallas certainly should not be re-elected, but how much further does this go?
Well at the very least it's fair to presume that the claimants (Washington legal insiders Robert Utter and Faith Ireland) and their attorney, ambulance chaser Mike Withey were in on it. But they're essentially tools, apparatchiks with little to lose.
Wouldn't it be surprising if Christine Gregoire and her 2008 campaign manager Kelly Evans knew nothing about this?
The Times: "when either party abuses the public trust it should be called out. This was a case of the Democrats abusing the legal and regulatory process, not once, but several times."
I couldn't have said it better myself. I only wish the paper could have dug a little more to determine who was behind the strategically timed dirty trick. Presumably King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas was in on it, at least implicitly, since with no evidence at all she approved the Rossi deposition to be scheduled days before the election. Kallas certainly should not be re-elected, but how much further does this go?
Well at the very least it's fair to presume that the claimants (Washington legal insiders Robert Utter and Faith Ireland) and their attorney, ambulance chaser Mike Withey were in on it. But they're essentially tools, apparatchiks with little to lose.
Wouldn't it be surprising if Christine Gregoire and her 2008 campaign manager Kelly Evans knew nothing about this?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Mom Rule of Constitutional Interpretation
Today the Seattle Times came out defending Attorney General Rob McKenna joining Florida's lawsuit over the healthcare bill. They pointed out that Florida is footing the bill and that if you take a step back for a second it does seem kind of crazy that the healthcare bill is an expression of Congress's power to "regulate commerce." Kudos to them for being fair.
I would suggest here a principle of constitutional hermeneutics. If you interpret a clause in such a way that you could not with a straight face explain your interpretation to your mother or your 4th grade English teacher, then you have gone too far.
Do you want to tell your mom that you believe that the right to "regulate Commerce...among the several States" includes the right to force every citizen to buy insurance? I don't, brother.
I would suggest here a principle of constitutional hermeneutics. If you interpret a clause in such a way that you could not with a straight face explain your interpretation to your mother or your 4th grade English teacher, then you have gone too far.
Do you want to tell your mom that you believe that the right to "regulate Commerce...among the several States" includes the right to force every citizen to buy insurance? I don't, brother.
Fantasy is easier to sell than truth -- in the short term
To the Liberal Democrat, history is always in the midst of an incomplete progression toward a utopian end. History is a story with a happy ending and we are all always making progress through that story. In the fullness of time, with occasional and minor setbacks caused by ignorance, we will achieve, in the Liberal view, a society where all needs are met equally for everyone, where there is no lack and no unfairness. In the end our long struggle will bring into existence the kind of perfect society humans have been fighting for and dreaming of forever.
To the conservative, there is no perfect society but the United States of American pretty much is about as close as we’re going to get to the society humans have been fighting for and dreaming of forever. The culture and economic success of the United States of America are precious and unique achievements that must be protected from destruction by those who do not understand what makes them precious and unique. Two of the most important characteristics of this culture are individual freedom and opportunity. To the extent we can use new tools and theories to better secure these or to improve our lives in other ways, we should, but above all else we should safeguard this unique American life.
To accomplish Liberal goals it is important to keep expanding, in George Will's phrase, "the network of dependency" (on government) and essentially keep voting new gifts to people while taking a larger and larger share of money away from the people who, in an above average way, contribute to and earn money from the economy.
To accomplish Conservative goals we need to above all prevent anyone with bad ideas from messing up the system. And secondly, we need to make things even better where we can without messing up the underlying goodness.
It is harder to get people to vote for a Conservative platform because it is, obviously, not as full of goodies.
Now, that said, Conservatism does have certain advantages. The main advantage of Conservative policies is that they work. The qualities of individual opportunity and liberty are so psychologically important to humans that when you remove them from a society, things tend to go quite poorly but when you design an economy and political system taking them into account, things can go quite well.
I hope we can make this case well enough that we don't need to learn the lessons of Liberalism and of the late 1970s again the hard way.
Now, that said, Conservatism does have certain advantages. The main advantage of Conservative policies is that they work. The qualities of individual opportunity and liberty are so psychologically important to humans that when you remove them from a society, things tend to go quite poorly but when you design an economy and political system taking them into account, things can go quite well.
I hope we can make this case well enough that we don't need to learn the lessons of Liberalism and of the late 1970s again the hard way.
Obama in 2012: Either an Idiot or a Genius
By getting his bill passed, Obama has avoided the debilitating fate of being perceived as an inexperienced incompetent who wasted America's time. He should be delighted that it passed, and he is.
Many clever ruses were employed not only to get the bill passed but also to optimize the bill’s impact on his and his party’s electoral success, not least of which is pushing much of the tax pain until after the next presidential election. I have to say, that was brilliant. You have to give David Plouffe some credit. I wish he was on our side, except that I wouldn’t want anyone that dishonest on our side.
Here is the major ramification: the 2012 election, one way or another, will now not be particularly close: Obama will be, by then, either an idiot or a genius. If the economy keeps going despite Obama’s massive new deficits, then Obama will win easily. It will not be close. The objection to a massive new entitlement or a massive stimulus bill is that it is too expensive and will therefore hurt the economy. So if the economy goes sour the Dems will pay the price. But if the economy does not and it turns out that the system can, in the end, support more spending and larger deficits, then Obama wins.
The Democrats complained about Reagan’s deficits. Kennedy, Carter, Mondale, Lester Thurow, Pat Schroeder and Howard Metzenbaum predicted that Reagan would ruin the economy. The Reagan administration set the economy on a course for multiple decades of prosperity and now Reagan is a genius, no one has heard of Howard Metzenbaum and Lester Thurow is a nobody.
In theory, the government can only borrow so much. If it borrows too much, then there is nothing left over for corporations to borrow so the economy goes bad. Or if that doesn't shut things down global financial markets may lose faith in the ability of the government to repay its borrowings, which will drive up interest rates and depress the economy. If the government tries to avoid its debts by devaluing its currency, it will lead to inflation. By whatever theory you like, there is a point at which you have borrowed too much. Just ask Greece. The trouble is that no one knows where that point is. Paul Krugman doesn’t know. Paul Volcker doesn’t know. Alan Greenspan doesn’t know.
Similarly, there is some point at which taxes are too high and people lose incentives to work and invest. So the economy goes bad. We’re not sure when that happens either or how to measure its exact effects, though there is a general notion that we probably reached that point under Jimmy Carter and that the UK definitely reached that point pre-Margaret Thatcher.
But the bottom line is that no one can exactly predict the economy's tolerance for high taxes or high deficits. Chloride is a caustic chemical that can be used to make poison gas. But if you put it together with Sodium to make salt, then in reasonable quantities it makes our food taste great. At this point with respect to major economic phenomena, no one knows what "reasonable quantities" are but we are making some major, and some would say (count me among them), unnecessary bets as to what they are not.
The key is that everyone is on the record. Obama and Krugman are on one side saying that the proposed deficits and necessary taxes (which have not been fully specified) can and will be fully compatible with a successful economy. The Republican Party says they are incompatible. We will find out soon enough. If things go well it will not be a defense to say that whether it went well or not it was an unnecessary risk at a bad time to take an economic risk. If everything works out, no one will care about that. Obama and Krugman will be geniuses.
But if things do not go well and this blows up in our collective face then Obama is Carter 2.0.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The best thing I've heard about the health care bill
From Cynthia Lummis on Twitter (@cynthialummis): Pelosi wins, American loses.
A Guide to Local District Party Meetings and A Brief Record of Saturday's 46th District Meeting
Taking a break from healthcare for a minute. Spent my Saturday morning at the 46th District Caucus. Have you thought about going and wondered what local party meetings are all about? Well I’ve been to several now and here’s how it works.
Mostly, they’re formally structured events focused on a particular bit of business, usually electing some subset of the group to be delegates to a county assembly or some such. Sometimes there is also a speaker, usually a candidate , who will make a speech, but usually not. Sometimes the two activities are combined, as in: “we’re going to hear our speaker and then we’re going to elect delegates to the county convention.” That covers the typical agenda. It usually takes place in the basement of a church, or in the gym of a school, and lasts about an hour.
The meetings follow Robert’s Rules of Order, which many people seem to be quite expert in, so there is much discussion of “motions” and “seconds” and “amendments” and so on. This aspect gets quite pedantic, but serves to keep the meeting on topic and to make sure things don’t get wildly out of hand.
Though open to all Republicans, the meetings are generally small and the attendee profile skews to Retirees, who probably have a bit more time to deal with local party administrative matters now that they’re not dealing with kids and work. There is also usually a little group of Activists. The Activists often have an eager glint in their eye and want you to sign something. Then there are usually one or two newcomers attending their first District level meeting, mostly there out of curiosity and looking a little confused. Finally, there are the party Veterans who actually manage the day to day rubber meets the road workings of the party. This local organizing function can be very important in getting out the vote and is handled by some very dedicated people. In the 46th District of Washington, this role is for true optimists since we haven’t had an elected Republican since 1983! But you can count me as one of the optimists, too.
The elections are generally not heavily contested. Basically, the Chairman has usually identified who should be on the committee (or whatever it is) and that person is usually approved. So the process is often somewhat formal and perfunctory, like many corporate annual meetings if you have ever been to one of those. The tension of these events, if there is any, is that a lot of Newcomers come hoping to find a debating society and others, the Activists, are looking to make political news by getting the District Caucus to formally adopt some sort of political motion endorsing their group’s views. So usually toward the end of the meeting the Activists make a motion to try to consider a resolution, which they have written up for the occasion. To understand the tone of these resolutions by the way, you have to imagine combining a somewhat fringy agenda, verbose and coded verbiage, and an air of determined pointlessness since nothing done at the District level actually matters except the election of representatives to the County level.
So the “excitement” is that the Veterans want to do the official business and get out of there without embarrassment and the Activists want to make resolutions. The Newcomers are often the people in the middle whose votes are necessary to save the District from the embarrassing proposal of the week.
At yesterday’s 46th district meeting in particular, the main business was to elect 20 delegates and 10 alternate delegates to the State Convention in Vancouver in June. In a written document distributed to everyone in attendance, Chairman Bob Guthrie endorsed 11 people who had been helpful to the party. Then nominations were taken from the floor such that we wound up with 25 candidates for 20 spots. The Chair’s candidates had a major advantage (they were all voted in) so the real issue was over the remaining nine spots. Each candidate who was present spoke for about 30 seconds, usually saying where they live or what they do or just saying their name and talking about their previous party involvement. No one really said anything ideological or very political. One woman basically just said that she was 100% Irish -- and she got elected! It’s funny how these things work, I guess.
While the party Veterans counted the votes, former State Senator George Scott said a few words recalling a bit of the 46th District’s history. That was actually quite interesting, and I have started to read his book about Washington state politics, A Majority of One: Legislative Life.
Ralph Kosche, who is the District’s representative to the party platform committee, also said a few words and encouraged people with platform recommendations to email him but unfortunately I can’t remember the email address. It was something like 46thgopplatform@gmail.com. But I’m not sure. If anyone remembers, please let me know!
When the votes were all counted, we had 20 delegates and 10 alternates. I was the #1 alternate. Yes, number 1!
At the very end, the Activists won a (very) modest victory, getting the group to adopt a resolution basically restating the 10th Amendment.
I do feel that perhaps things could be improved in two ways.
First, there should probably be some way to help people get informed about things that are going to happen in the meeting. So if there is going to be a resolution considered it should be available at a web site. If we’re going to elect representatives, maybe they should have to say something about themselves online. What the District representatives do at the state convention is vote on the platform mainly. So it would be helpful to know whether a given representative is a middle of the road Slade Gorton Republican or a Reaganite or a Glenn Beck Tea Partier. Coming out of yesterday’s meeting, there is no way at all to know what the representatives believe. So they may or may not really be representative of anything. That can be improved.
Second, maybe local party enthusiasts should have a debating society if that’s what some people want. There should be a website where people can voice their opinions and which is unofficially associated with the District.
Hey look. I just created one, a Google Group called Unofficial WA GOP 46th District Discussions. Maybe that will be helpful.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Would Exile Be Cruel and Unusual?
Why do we have prisons in the US? I mean jails sure, to hold overnight drunks and such, but why prisons to hold people for long periods of time? We spent $68 billion on prisons and jails last year. There has to be a cheaper way and, if we have to waste money somewhere, why waste it here?
What if we sent people to prison in Mexico? Or Gambia? I am sure Mexico and Gambia would be happy to build prisons to our specifications, treat our prisoners as we require under the terms of a contract, open their prisons to inspections, etc. And I am sure we could cut costs by 50% at least.
For a lot of convicts, we might not need to send them to prison at all. What if we just said that for certain crimes the punishment is exile from the United States, for a period of time or for life? You can live wherever you want, but not here.
We could make a deal with countries to send convicts there. We would have a treaty with the receiving countries establishing a minimum standard of treatment for exiles. Exiles would get citizenship in the new country.
This would cost something. We might have to pay Gambia or New Guinea or whomever $100,000 per convict or so. But we would save a lot of money. We probably spend that in a single year housing and guarding each convict.
Is this cruel? Is it unusual? Well, it’s certainly not historically unusual. Exile is a traditional punishment going back to the ancient Greeks.
Is it cruel? Well, compared to what? Compared to being in prison for ten years? I am not sure it is crueler than that. That’s pretty awful. And I bet exiled convicts would more often abandon crime than people who go to US prisons. US prisons are great places to meet other criminals and learn from them. Sometimes what you need is to get away from it all.
Leaving Fantasyland, Please Return Your Rose Colored Glasses
What if we had household elections? Every two years, someone could run for CFO. The CFO would decide how we spend and make our money. People would, in running for office, make speeches, perhaps after dinner, about trips to Maui, a new Mercedes, a new house in Fantasyland and higher allowances for the kids. Another candidate might run suggesting we get a house in Realityland and live more modestly. The Fantasyland candidate would criticize this candidate as being pessimistic, cheap and probably lacking in human kindness. The most optimistic candidate would win a lot because people love to hope for great things.
Politicians, especially Democrats but really almost all mainstream politicians today, are Fantasyland candidates. They love to hope for great things and they love to make big promises. And they love to get elected!
Unfortunately, great things don’t always happen, or sometimes the future turns out not to be as crazy awesome as we had hoped. Many of our past expectations about the present were based on a vision of a crazy awesome economy. Oh well. Our heart was in the right place.
The trouble with the Fantasyland candidate is that the family that elects him or her winds up poor. After a few fun years they spend themselves into debts they can’t pay. They wind up worse off than the Realityland candidate family.
Politicians, when they create a government program, do not really know if it will be affordable. They don’t know what it will cost in the long run and they don’t know what the economy will be like then either. It is up to voters to be vigilant and work to terminate or reduce the scope of programs that force us to spend more than we can afford, even on appealing items. That can be unfun (we would like to be the type of family that goes to Maui every year), but it is necessary.
We Americans need to move to Realityland. To do this, we need to be more skeptical of the promises of political candidates, and we need to reverse the Washington budgeting mindset. Today, in Washington we determine what we need to spend and then figure out what taxes should be. That way taxes always go up because there are always cost over-runs. This doesn’t work because there is no end of awesome sounding programs politicians can think of, just as there is no end to the ideas we could come up with to spend our own personal money.
The way it should work is that we figure out what tax rate is reasonable for the product called Government. Then we figure out how we are going to spend the money we actually expect to get. By definition under such a system there would be no such thing as “mandatory” spending. All spending commitments would be made on an “assuming we can” basis.
We should agree on a reasonable tax rate and structure that allows for economic freedom, incentives to work and a private economy. We should agree that the federal government budget must be balanced every year. And then we should spend only the money we receive. The tax code should rarely change.
If you and I agreed to take that trip to Hawaii every year, we might find we can’t really afford it. In that case, we would change plans. Would we be disappointed? Of course. But that’s reality. We would adjust.
Today, the federal government spends $33,000 for every household. The average household makes $50,000. Does $33,000 seem like a lot to you in that context? Does that seem reasonable? Not to me. It seems pretty out of control to me.
What seems reasonable? Hmmm…$18,000 per household? Almost 40% of household income? That seems reasonable, and sustainable, to me.
This would require us to cut current federal government expenditures approximately in half. There would be, necessarily, no sacred cows here and we would have to reduce the size of Social Security, Medicare and the Military.
I loved Top Gun and I am glad we won WWII. But we would have to stop being policeman to the world. Goodbye bases protecting Japan, Korea and Europe. Protect yourselves, guys, and thanks for all the gratitude.
Social Security and Medicare would become safety net programs for the poor, like welfare.
Why would we have to do this? Is it because we hate people? Is it because we’re pessimistic?
It is because it is too expensive to do otherwise. That’s what we have learned in recent years. Sorry. That’s the reality of it all.
Politicians, especially Democrats but really almost all mainstream politicians today, are Fantasyland candidates. They love to hope for great things and they love to make big promises. And they love to get elected!
Unfortunately, great things don’t always happen, or sometimes the future turns out not to be as crazy awesome as we had hoped. Many of our past expectations about the present were based on a vision of a crazy awesome economy. Oh well. Our heart was in the right place.
The trouble with the Fantasyland candidate is that the family that elects him or her winds up poor. After a few fun years they spend themselves into debts they can’t pay. They wind up worse off than the Realityland candidate family.
Politicians, when they create a government program, do not really know if it will be affordable. They don’t know what it will cost in the long run and they don’t know what the economy will be like then either. It is up to voters to be vigilant and work to terminate or reduce the scope of programs that force us to spend more than we can afford, even on appealing items. That can be unfun (we would like to be the type of family that goes to Maui every year), but it is necessary.
We Americans need to move to Realityland. To do this, we need to be more skeptical of the promises of political candidates, and we need to reverse the Washington budgeting mindset. Today, in Washington we determine what we need to spend and then figure out what taxes should be. That way taxes always go up because there are always cost over-runs. This doesn’t work because there is no end of awesome sounding programs politicians can think of, just as there is no end to the ideas we could come up with to spend our own personal money.
The way it should work is that we figure out what tax rate is reasonable for the product called Government. Then we figure out how we are going to spend the money we actually expect to get. By definition under such a system there would be no such thing as “mandatory” spending. All spending commitments would be made on an “assuming we can” basis.
We should agree on a reasonable tax rate and structure that allows for economic freedom, incentives to work and a private economy. We should agree that the federal government budget must be balanced every year. And then we should spend only the money we receive. The tax code should rarely change.
If you and I agreed to take that trip to Hawaii every year, we might find we can’t really afford it. In that case, we would change plans. Would we be disappointed? Of course. But that’s reality. We would adjust.
Today, the federal government spends $33,000 for every household. The average household makes $50,000. Does $33,000 seem like a lot to you in that context? Does that seem reasonable? Not to me. It seems pretty out of control to me.
What seems reasonable? Hmmm…$18,000 per household? Almost 40% of household income? That seems reasonable, and sustainable, to me.
This would require us to cut current federal government expenditures approximately in half. There would be, necessarily, no sacred cows here and we would have to reduce the size of Social Security, Medicare and the Military.
I loved Top Gun and I am glad we won WWII. But we would have to stop being policeman to the world. Goodbye bases protecting Japan, Korea and Europe. Protect yourselves, guys, and thanks for all the gratitude.
Social Security and Medicare would become safety net programs for the poor, like welfare.
Why would we have to do this? Is it because we hate people? Is it because we’re pessimistic?
It is because it is too expensive to do otherwise. That’s what we have learned in recent years. Sorry. That’s the reality of it all.
A Fix For the Economy: Buy Mortgages Down by 33%
OK. I have an idea.
Here’s the problem. 25% of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages right now. That’s unbelievable. It’s horrible. I’m surprised things aren’t much, much worse in the general economy.
From 1996-2006, home values skyrocketed. In California they approximately tripled. In Washington they more than doubled. A lot of people received the magical gift of massive new equity in their homes. Let’s look at an imaginary couple, Bob and Sue, who bought a house in 1997 for $500,000, putting down $50,000 and borrowing $450,000. By 2002, that home could easily have been worth $800,000. Bob and Sue were worth $50,000 when they bought the house, plus their cash on hand, investments if any and, let’s say, an IRA. Suddenly, they had $350,000 in their house (plus their cash on hand, investments if any and their IRA). We’re rich! We’re rich!
Bob and Sue could borrow against their new equity, refinancing their $450,000 mortgage into a new $750,000 mortgage, giving them $300,000 in cash after they pay off the old mortgage. Times a million couples in the US, that bought a lot of vacations, remodels, cars, evenings out, feel good contributions to the Sierra Club, espresso machines and snazzy new outfits. Good times.
Now the market has changed. Bob and Sue’s home is worth let’s say $550,000. Oops. They’re way underwater. Not only is there no more money available in the refinancing well, but their “net worth” is negative (and plus -- their jobs are less secure in the new economy). Yikes. It’s a financial nightmare. People living financial nightmares usually aren’t in the mood to spend.
Bob and Sue’s situation is common. It’s easy to see why consumer spending, which is 70% of the economy, declined.
It’s also easy to see why banks aren’t lending very much, despite the TARP money. Firstly, Bob and Sue are not going to be inclined to borrow any time soon and their credit rating is horrible anyway (even if they haven’t missed payments, they’re overleveraged). Beyond that, the value of real estate is now perceived, rightly, as insecure. Lending now against real estate is like catching a falling knife. Banks can hope we’re at the bottom, but what if we’re not? What happens to the bank’s money then? Will there be TARP money to save them again if the market goes down another 30%? Maybe yes, maybe no, right? So banks are reluctant to lend and if they do, they want 33% down, not 5-10% down. The only entity doing any mortgage lending these days is the federal government. Banks won’t lend until the economy is looking good.
OK so we’re basically hosed, right? Bob and Sue feel poor. They are either going to walk away from their house and destroy their credit rating, in which case they won’t spend, or they will continue under the burden of their inflated mortgage, in which case they also won’t spend. If real estate appreciates at 3.5% per year going forward, Bob and Sue will have $50,000 of equity in their house again in 9 years. They will feel poor that whole time.
That is bad because despite their foibles, Bob and Sue drive the economy. Bob and Sue are us. If they don’t spend, we get the Great Depression II. Whether you like Bob and Sue or not, it’s in your interest to have them be happy and to have them feeling kind of affluent. This is the key to our economy.
Today we’re basically like a teenager who had a large drunken party while his parents were away and woke up with his house trashed, his Dad’s car crashed and “IDIOT” written on his forehead in Magic Marker.
It’s like Barney Frank slipped us a roofie.
Is there any way to uncrash Dad’s new car? My idea has its risks, but I think would be better than 9 years of a zombie economy.
What we need is for Bob and Sue’s mortgage to be $500,000, 33% below its current level of $750,000. This would restore their $50,000 in equity. We need Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction. We need to make it like last night’s party never happened.
Like the solution to so many problems, it can be done but it’s not cheap. What I propose is that we buy down all residential mortgages in the US by 33%. Yup, you heard me. The total value of US residential mortgages is $11.3 trillion. So this would require $3.8 trillion. It would not be easy but it would be possible.
At the same time we would have to change the rules around mortgage lending to make sure we never did that again. We would have to establish minimum credit standards that make it much more likely that if someone borrows against a house, they’re good for it. This is what most countries do. Is it harder to buy a house in Italy than in the US? Yes. Did they have a crazy mortgage real estate bubble? No. (I can’t believe we’re taking economic lessons from freakin’ Italy. Ugggh.)
Some of this money would be a windfall to Bob and Sue. Real estate prices might decline as the market became more liquid (more people would sell because they wouldn’t fear a short sale on their house like they do now) but Bob and Sue would definitely benefit. Is that fair? Do they deserve it? Not really, I guess, but at least we get our economy back.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Smoking Laws in Seattle Parks: It Starts With Smoking, But Where Does it End?
In Griswold v. Connecticut, Justice Douglas found that “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance” and that create “zones of privacy.” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 479, 484 (1965).
Of course there is a general spirit of privacy and liberty in the Bill of Rights. And I think we can correctly surmise that the framers did not feel it necessary to enumerate every possible scenario they wanted to cover with the Bill of Rights. Therefore, it is right to act and legislate in a general spirit of liberty, a value which is also celebrated in other founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence itself, proclaiming the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
In general in the United States we celebrate the best of our way of life when we restrict one another as little as possible.
Recently, at least one non-elected official in Seattle has moved clearly against that principle. Seattle Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher apparently -- and I did not know this -- reigns over our parks with a god-like authority little known in modern Western government. He recently over-ruled the Board of Park Commissioners (which had recommended smoking sections in parks) and unilaterally imposed a total ban on smoking in parks because of health reasons and because it “set a bad example for children.”
I don’t think I have to point out that this, if we let it stand, is just the beginning. Is there anything you do that Timothy Gallagher might think is a bad example for children? What if there are fat people in the park? What if people in the park are eating transfats? What if people in the park look like they didn’t shower today? What if people are skipping in the park?
With the attempt to federalize healthcare we should anticipate rules and legislation on a national level outlawing more and more personal acts that may arguably in some sense impose costs on society at large. Should you pay a tax if you consume more than 2,000 calories per day or if you do not exercise in a given week? Should you require a relationship license if you have a tendency to enter into destructive relationships that leave both people needing psychiatric therapy? We will get all this and more unless we resolutely defend a zone of privacy, and unless we subject restrictions on personal behavior to a very exacting degree of scrutiny.
Gallagher’s autonomy is disconcerting. I would go so far as to say that his attitude toward governance makes him a dangerous person to have in public office. His policy is ill-considered and is characteristic of a dangerous trend among Democratic politicians to achieve a gloriously perfect world by making decisions for people. This type of law-making is un-American and dangerous and we should make sure it stays un-American.
The American tradition respects individual privacy and freedoms. Let’s keep the freedoms and throw out the Liberal nanny state politicians.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Apparently Italians Love to Convict Americans of Crimes
Having convicted Amanda Knox of murder and 23 CIA agents of fighting terrorism over the past year, Italy today continued its rampage against American citizens by convicting 3 Google execs because someone uploaded a mean video to YouTube. When the Italian police asked Google to take the video down, Google did. But the Italian court decided that was not fast enough and they should never have allowed it to be posted in the first place (are they too dense to realize that would be practically impossible?).
The Google story:
The Amanda Knox story in case you haven't seen it:
This kind of vindictive xenophobia can go both ways, amici.
Let's not go to Italy any time soon. It's a riskier place than it seems.
The Google story:
The Amanda Knox story in case you haven't seen it:
This kind of vindictive xenophobia can go both ways, amici.
Let's not go to Italy any time soon. It's a riskier place than it seems.
Proposed Themes for the Republican Party in 2010-2012
I have previously thrown in my $0.02 regarding things the Republican Party needs to focus on less.
I want to talk about what we should support, both in terms of what is right to support and what will help Republicans win in 2010 and 2012. I think the Economy will be issue #1 followed by Security and Immigration, and I have a few specific planks to recommend in support of these themes.
People are unhappy about the recent economic downturn. This is something we need to focus on. To win, the Republican Party needs to sell four ideas simultaneously:
Economy 1: Eliminate the Corporate Income Tax
Coolidge was right. The business of America really is business. All our third world relief efforts, education, help for the poor, medical care, sports programs, environmental programs, pensions, parks, schools, tenured professorships, public transportation, even protestors…everything ultimately is paid for because someone somewhere made a product or service and made a profit. The more business thrives, the more options we have. Business is what puts food on the table for everyone.
The less money the government takes out of our businesses the more money businesses have to invest in research to make our economy more competitive. Let’s lower corporate taxes.
My proposal is to eliminate the corporate tax and make the United States an international tax haven. Sounds crazy but corporate taxes only bring in 9.8% of federal receipts. We can simply shift that revenue over to the other taxes on a progressive basis such that the burden of the new income tax is allocated in proportion to each tax bracket’s likelihood of benefiting from the reduction in the corporate tax. Not only would this make our corporations more productive, it would greatly reduce corporate costs by eliminating the burden of preparing quarterly tax reports, and it would attract considerable investment from foreign corporations looking for a secure tax haven.
Eliminating the corporate income tax would be much more impactful than reducing it to a nominal rate because a complete elimination by definition eliminates the work that goes into preparing taxes. Even if the rate is miniscule you still have to file a return and figure out all the deductions, etc. It is a huge burden whatever the rate.
At the end of the day, it is people who get and spend money, who benefit from corporations, so why don’t we just simplify things and stick with one tax -- the tax on the people (as much as it pains me to say that, it makes sense in this context).
Economy 2: Switch from the Personal Income Tax to a National Sales Tax
This is an idea with some bipartisan support actually (though when Democrats advocate a sales tax or a VAT they usually intend it to be additive to the income tax). Taxes create disincentives. Our current tax system reduces incentives to earn money. This makes the economy smaller. A Sales Tax creates disincentives to spend money but does not punish making money or saving money. We need people to save more money. Eliminating the personal income tax would substantially reduce the burden of preparing taxes for individuals ad S-Corporations. See Rudolph Penner’s paper for lengthier discussion here.
Economy 3: Fix our broken trade relationship with Asia
See previous analysis here.
Economy 4: Make Life Less Complicated for Businesses -- Start by Ending Sarbanes-Oxley
This is simple. We need to eliminate any regulations that cost more than they are worth. I will start with one: Sarbanes-Oxley. Sarbanes-Oxley requires US firms to file various onerous reports with the government about their financial controls and reporting. It costs US businesses billions of wasted dollars per year and discourages foreign firms from listing in US stock exchanges. We need to reduce red tape for US businesses and we should start with this over-reaction to the Enron scandal.
Economy 5: Reduce the burden of securities lawsuits by creating a special process for securities lawsuits
The cost of raising capital is increased dramatically by the prospect of class action securities lawsuits that allege fraud whenever companies disappoint investors. This is a ridiculous indulgence. Few of the companies that get sued actually ever committed any fraud. They typically pay off the class action lawyers to avoid an expensive trial. It’s a big business for the lawyers but a difficult burden for US business, especially younger businesses. Congress under Article I can designate special courts and procedures for special subjects, granting them "subject matter jurisdiction," as was done for bankruptcy cases. This should be done for securities lawsuits, such that there would be federal securities courts whose proceedings are much like an administrative hearing or arbitration than a full jury trial. The goal should be to speedily, at minimum cost, resolve any allegations and only proceed to a larger case when plaintiffs show that theirs is a case of deceit by a criminal organization and not a mere error or oversight on the part of a well intentioned company. In the case of an oversight, there would be no damages.
Economy 6: Instead of increasing SBA loans, invest in Venture Funds
Obama is putting another $30B into SBA loans and he thinks this will help fund startups. It is sad how little he knows about business. No start ups get SBA loans. Certainly not the ones that create real value, like say Google or Amazon.com. Real technology ventures take equity in their early stages. If we are going to help business along, we should invest in venture funds. Here’s the other good part: we will get the money back and then some.
Economy 7: Balance the Budget
Republicans have for years advocated for low taxes and we have always wound up with high deficits. This rhetoric doesn't work anymore, and accounts for a lot of the Tea Party fervor. We need to make the case that we will achieve a balanced budget. This means we must reform Medicare and Social Security and make tough choices in doing so. I think we should start with Mark Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future.
Economy 8: Reduce the Burden of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Malpractice lawsuits are a large part of our growing health care cost problem. There are two types of damages in malpractice cases, compensation for costs and punitive damages. The punitive damages are a large part of the total cost of malpractice claims. Punitive damages at the end of the day do not restore the health or costs of the plaintiff and serve, in theory, only to make the world safer by changing the behavior of doctors, both the specific doctor before the court and other doctors. There are easier ways to achieve this.
I propose that the government should handle claims of medical negligence in administrative hearings. If negligence can be established, actual cost damages can be assessed plus some allowance for the plaintiff's legal costs. If negligence is extreme, the government, instead of assessing punitive damages, can take action against the accused doctor's license and/or subject the doctor to criminal proceedings in the rare case where that would be appropriate. It is possible that in the case of extreme negligence some sort of whistle blower reward could be established for claimants. However, that would be much cheaper than punitive damages. Moving against a doctor's license would be a significant disincentive for bad behavior, but a much, much cheaper one than the one we have today.
Issues That Are Not Strictly Economic in Nature
Immigration
Immigration of skilled workers, i.e. doctors and engineers, should be open. It is a tremendous gift to us when the most skilled workers from other countries come to contribute their knowledge to our economy. Immigration of unskilled workers, on the other hand, is a corrupt bargain between the wealthy, who want low wage workers, and Democrats, who want reliable voters. Who gets the short end of the stick? Low skilled Americans, and that disrupts our society. The burdens of low skilled Americans are quite sufficient without having to compete against people who grew up with even lower expectations. The American poor should not be ground into the dust, as they have been, by this corrupt bargain. We must take a stand for skilled immigrants and against low skill immigrants. There was a time when we needed low skill workers -- or whatever workers we could get. That moment in history has passed.
In addition to reducing immigration of low skill workers, we should assert our right to make cultural choices in selecting types of immigrants to the US. Inevitably, if we change the cultural mix of our citizenry we will change the nature of our culture. Since culture is so profoundly important to the life of any society, it is not wrong or racist, indeed it is wise and essential, to express cultural preferences in managing the evolving makeup of our citizenry. The reality is that if we wanted the USA to be more like a given other country, the easiest way to accomplish that would be to import a large number of people from that country. At one point in history we believed that people were generic and fungible, and they would over time, perhaps generations, embrace the successful American culture that we enjoy and hope to preserve. But the advocates of multiculturalism and of racial grievance politics have shown quite clearly that we should not count on any melting pot effect. Therefore, we should ask ourselves whether there are any groups that -- given that there is no melting pot -- culturally might tend to push our nation in an unwelcome direction. The experience of our European allies suggests that any large influx of Islamic immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan or Northern Africa would be extremely undesirable and should simply be disallowed. Immigrants from Europe, Australia, Korea, China, India and certain islands in the West Indies have been our most successful immigrant groups. Their immigration should be prioritized over others.
Security 1: Recognize That Our Conflict with Islamic Jihad is a War
The number one issue internationally is Islamic Jihad. We can effectively attack Democratic policies of political correctness that reduce our ability to be effective in the War on Terror.
Trying to handle Islamic warriors as regular domestic criminals is silly and naive and people rightly oppose it. Trying to cover up Islamic terrorist activities such as the attack by Major Hasan at Fort Hood (the government report on the attack did not mention his Islamic views) is a huge mistake. The Obama administration and all democrats are deservedly vulnerable on this issue.
Security 2: Energy independence
Energy independence is part of security. Some portion of every dollar we send to Saudi Arabia for oil comes back as a roadside bomb. Replacing gasoline and jet fuel with a realistic alternative (not wind power, but natural gas and nuclear) should be the next American Manhattan Project.
Security 3: The F-35 Fighter Program
With respect to other nations, such as Russia, we must take a more firm stance. Obama tried to follow his liberal instincts and befriend Iran and Russia. Didn’t work. They are as hostile as they were before. China is developing an advanced fighter. You never know what is going to happen in the future. It is better to be safe than sorry. We need to ramp up F-35 production, which Obama recently cut back.
I want to talk about what we should support, both in terms of what is right to support and what will help Republicans win in 2010 and 2012. I think the Economy will be issue #1 followed by Security and Immigration, and I have a few specific planks to recommend in support of these themes.
People are unhappy about the recent economic downturn. This is something we need to focus on. To win, the Republican Party needs to sell four ideas simultaneously:
- To heal the economy we must heal business. Just handing out money to people or growing the government (Obama's strategy) will not solve America's problems.
- The Republican Party has a plan to make businesses more successful
- While still watching out for things that concern people, like economic fairness and the environment,
- And not allowing the budget deficit to get out of control (like we did last time)
Economy 1: Eliminate the Corporate Income Tax
Coolidge was right. The business of America really is business. All our third world relief efforts, education, help for the poor, medical care, sports programs, environmental programs, pensions, parks, schools, tenured professorships, public transportation, even protestors…everything ultimately is paid for because someone somewhere made a product or service and made a profit. The more business thrives, the more options we have. Business is what puts food on the table for everyone.
The less money the government takes out of our businesses the more money businesses have to invest in research to make our economy more competitive. Let’s lower corporate taxes.
My proposal is to eliminate the corporate tax and make the United States an international tax haven. Sounds crazy but corporate taxes only bring in 9.8% of federal receipts. We can simply shift that revenue over to the other taxes on a progressive basis such that the burden of the new income tax is allocated in proportion to each tax bracket’s likelihood of benefiting from the reduction in the corporate tax. Not only would this make our corporations more productive, it would greatly reduce corporate costs by eliminating the burden of preparing quarterly tax reports, and it would attract considerable investment from foreign corporations looking for a secure tax haven.
Eliminating the corporate income tax would be much more impactful than reducing it to a nominal rate because a complete elimination by definition eliminates the work that goes into preparing taxes. Even if the rate is miniscule you still have to file a return and figure out all the deductions, etc. It is a huge burden whatever the rate.
At the end of the day, it is people who get and spend money, who benefit from corporations, so why don’t we just simplify things and stick with one tax -- the tax on the people (as much as it pains me to say that, it makes sense in this context).
Economy 2: Switch from the Personal Income Tax to a National Sales Tax
This is an idea with some bipartisan support actually (though when Democrats advocate a sales tax or a VAT they usually intend it to be additive to the income tax). Taxes create disincentives. Our current tax system reduces incentives to earn money. This makes the economy smaller. A Sales Tax creates disincentives to spend money but does not punish making money or saving money. We need people to save more money. Eliminating the personal income tax would substantially reduce the burden of preparing taxes for individuals ad S-Corporations. See Rudolph Penner’s paper for lengthier discussion here.
Economy 3: Fix our broken trade relationship with Asia
See previous analysis here.
Economy 4: Make Life Less Complicated for Businesses -- Start by Ending Sarbanes-Oxley
This is simple. We need to eliminate any regulations that cost more than they are worth. I will start with one: Sarbanes-Oxley. Sarbanes-Oxley requires US firms to file various onerous reports with the government about their financial controls and reporting. It costs US businesses billions of wasted dollars per year and discourages foreign firms from listing in US stock exchanges. We need to reduce red tape for US businesses and we should start with this over-reaction to the Enron scandal.
Economy 5: Reduce the burden of securities lawsuits by creating a special process for securities lawsuits
The cost of raising capital is increased dramatically by the prospect of class action securities lawsuits that allege fraud whenever companies disappoint investors. This is a ridiculous indulgence. Few of the companies that get sued actually ever committed any fraud. They typically pay off the class action lawyers to avoid an expensive trial. It’s a big business for the lawyers but a difficult burden for US business, especially younger businesses. Congress under Article I can designate special courts and procedures for special subjects, granting them "subject matter jurisdiction," as was done for bankruptcy cases. This should be done for securities lawsuits, such that there would be federal securities courts whose proceedings are much like an administrative hearing or arbitration than a full jury trial. The goal should be to speedily, at minimum cost, resolve any allegations and only proceed to a larger case when plaintiffs show that theirs is a case of deceit by a criminal organization and not a mere error or oversight on the part of a well intentioned company. In the case of an oversight, there would be no damages.
Economy 6: Instead of increasing SBA loans, invest in Venture Funds
Obama is putting another $30B into SBA loans and he thinks this will help fund startups. It is sad how little he knows about business. No start ups get SBA loans. Certainly not the ones that create real value, like say Google or Amazon.com. Real technology ventures take equity in their early stages. If we are going to help business along, we should invest in venture funds. Here’s the other good part: we will get the money back and then some.
Economy 7: Balance the Budget
Republicans have for years advocated for low taxes and we have always wound up with high deficits. This rhetoric doesn't work anymore, and accounts for a lot of the Tea Party fervor. We need to make the case that we will achieve a balanced budget. This means we must reform Medicare and Social Security and make tough choices in doing so. I think we should start with Mark Ryan's Roadmap for America's Future.
Economy 8: Reduce the Burden of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
Malpractice lawsuits are a large part of our growing health care cost problem. There are two types of damages in malpractice cases, compensation for costs and punitive damages. The punitive damages are a large part of the total cost of malpractice claims. Punitive damages at the end of the day do not restore the health or costs of the plaintiff and serve, in theory, only to make the world safer by changing the behavior of doctors, both the specific doctor before the court and other doctors. There are easier ways to achieve this.
I propose that the government should handle claims of medical negligence in administrative hearings. If negligence can be established, actual cost damages can be assessed plus some allowance for the plaintiff's legal costs. If negligence is extreme, the government, instead of assessing punitive damages, can take action against the accused doctor's license and/or subject the doctor to criminal proceedings in the rare case where that would be appropriate. It is possible that in the case of extreme negligence some sort of whistle blower reward could be established for claimants. However, that would be much cheaper than punitive damages. Moving against a doctor's license would be a significant disincentive for bad behavior, but a much, much cheaper one than the one we have today.
Issues That Are Not Strictly Economic in Nature
Immigration
Immigration of skilled workers, i.e. doctors and engineers, should be open. It is a tremendous gift to us when the most skilled workers from other countries come to contribute their knowledge to our economy. Immigration of unskilled workers, on the other hand, is a corrupt bargain between the wealthy, who want low wage workers, and Democrats, who want reliable voters. Who gets the short end of the stick? Low skilled Americans, and that disrupts our society. The burdens of low skilled Americans are quite sufficient without having to compete against people who grew up with even lower expectations. The American poor should not be ground into the dust, as they have been, by this corrupt bargain. We must take a stand for skilled immigrants and against low skill immigrants. There was a time when we needed low skill workers -- or whatever workers we could get. That moment in history has passed.
In addition to reducing immigration of low skill workers, we should assert our right to make cultural choices in selecting types of immigrants to the US. Inevitably, if we change the cultural mix of our citizenry we will change the nature of our culture. Since culture is so profoundly important to the life of any society, it is not wrong or racist, indeed it is wise and essential, to express cultural preferences in managing the evolving makeup of our citizenry. The reality is that if we wanted the USA to be more like a given other country, the easiest way to accomplish that would be to import a large number of people from that country. At one point in history we believed that people were generic and fungible, and they would over time, perhaps generations, embrace the successful American culture that we enjoy and hope to preserve. But the advocates of multiculturalism and of racial grievance politics have shown quite clearly that we should not count on any melting pot effect. Therefore, we should ask ourselves whether there are any groups that -- given that there is no melting pot -- culturally might tend to push our nation in an unwelcome direction. The experience of our European allies suggests that any large influx of Islamic immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan or Northern Africa would be extremely undesirable and should simply be disallowed. Immigrants from Europe, Australia, Korea, China, India and certain islands in the West Indies have been our most successful immigrant groups. Their immigration should be prioritized over others.
Security 1: Recognize That Our Conflict with Islamic Jihad is a War
The number one issue internationally is Islamic Jihad. We can effectively attack Democratic policies of political correctness that reduce our ability to be effective in the War on Terror.
Trying to handle Islamic warriors as regular domestic criminals is silly and naive and people rightly oppose it. Trying to cover up Islamic terrorist activities such as the attack by Major Hasan at Fort Hood (the government report on the attack did not mention his Islamic views) is a huge mistake. The Obama administration and all democrats are deservedly vulnerable on this issue.
Security 2: Energy independence
Energy independence is part of security. Some portion of every dollar we send to Saudi Arabia for oil comes back as a roadside bomb. Replacing gasoline and jet fuel with a realistic alternative (not wind power, but natural gas and nuclear) should be the next American Manhattan Project.
Security 3: The F-35 Fighter Program
With respect to other nations, such as Russia, we must take a more firm stance. Obama tried to follow his liberal instincts and befriend Iran and Russia. Didn’t work. They are as hostile as they were before. China is developing an advanced fighter. You never know what is going to happen in the future. It is better to be safe than sorry. We need to ramp up F-35 production, which Obama recently cut back.
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