Detroit's Bankruptcy is the First Domino
It is likely that few people understand the political and national significance of Detroit, Michigan's declaration of Chapter 9 bankruptcy this past week. It is very easy and convenient to dismiss Detroit as a unique case - a once-proud national city that has lost over half its population over the past decade and is a poster child for what can wrong in a city - middle-class flight to the suburbs, the loss of a once-large industrial base, corrupt politicians and mismanagement of city services.
But that is far too convenient a story. Detroit is not the first municipal bankruptcy and will not be the last. The reasons and the numbers associated with them are staggering.
In 1994, Orange County, California went through a municipal bankruptcy process after making very poor borrowing and investment choices. At the time, this was the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, with $1.7 billion in debt to be resolved. Orange County proved to be an outlier and no other major municipal bankruptcy followed for the next 14 years (there were some smaller ones in small towns, but nothing anywhere close to Orange County.)
Over the past few years, three significant but not large California towns have filed for bankruptcy. Vallejo filed in 2008 followed by Stockton and San Bernadino in 2012. These three filings all had one thing in company - the cities were awash in funded pension obligations that they could not meet. Many in political circles and the media attributed this to be a uniquely Californian problem, a by-product of California's uniquely generous public pension scheme, large number of public employees and overall poor financial management.
Detroit's filing, a whooping $20 billion bankruptcy that crushes the size of all previous municipal bankruptcies, follows the same pattern as California. Detroit has a mere $3.5 billion in bond obligations - the rest of the debt are massive unfunded pension liabilities. Starting to see a pattern here?
Forbes documented a list of cities in similar situations to Detroit that may ultimately be the next victims of Chapter 9 bankruptcy filings. Forbes estimates that there are over $1.4 TRILLION in unfunded municipal retiree benefits across the country, with New York City leading the way with $330 billion in liabilities alone. Chicago has $63 billion in unfunded retiree liabilities. And so on. Virtually every northeastern and midwest city has a problem of unfunded retiree liabilities.
All of these funding needs obviously do not come due at once as public sector retirees draw on pension and health care benefits over long periods of time. So one might mistake this as a very slow moving crisis which will have limited political impact over the next few years.
But Detroit's bankruptcy accelerates things. Immediately following Detroit's filing, the major credit rating agencies began rapidly downgrading the credit rating of cities with unfunded liabilities. This means that borrowing costs for major cities will shoot up - after all, post-Detroit and knowing what I just said, would you want to own bond obligations from New York or Chicago? Municipal bankruptcies will accelerate and the effects will not be good.
A look back at the three cities in California who led the way shows that city services are still horrible, their economies are stagnant and populations are leaving en mass for better opportunities.
Detroit pensioner-receivers appear likely to only receive 15 to 20 cents on the dollar post-bankruptcy on their pension obligations. Municipal pensions are NOT backstopped by a pension guarantee board like corporate pensions, so those folks are on their own in bankruptcy court. A 15 to 20% payout would be devastating to retirees. Imagine you are a retired municipal refuse worker who receives a $40,000 per year pension that you live off of, are 70 years old and have been retired for 10 years. Suddenly having your income cut to $6,000 per year and your health care benefits cancelled would be destroyed. Whether you believe that he or she should have received such a generous benefit is irrelevant at that point - the worker would struggle to go back to work and would have no mechanism to pay rent or utilities or buy groceries.
I believe that this will be a meaningful, perhaps defining issue in 2016, and no one has been out in front of the issue like Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. He fought the unions to reduce state-funded pension and health care liabilities. This fight led to a recall election that Walker narrowly won, as well as tons of insults hurled at Walker, including that he was trying to take away hard-earned benefits from teachers and fire fighters.
But Walker has a great narrative now - a guy who fought powerful unions, almost ending his political career to save the state from financial ruin. "Is it really better for the state to promise benefits to workers that it cannot provide?" Walker can say, "is it really better for public employees to promise them benefits and then cut them off after they are retired, while devastating government?"
It's a pretty powerful argument. Walker is one to watch in 2016.
For Shame
The House of Representatives this week voted to continue to allow the government gathering of metadata, such as your personal cell phone records. This assault on civil liberties is shameful and bipartisan.
An unusual coalition of Neocon Republicans and Obama loyalists garnered 217 votes (134 Republicans and 83 Democrats), overcoming the votes of libertarians and liberals who support civil liberties (94 Republicans and 111 Democrats) to vote to continue to allow the practice.
None of those 217 deserve our support in 2014.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Friday, July 19, 2013
Reflections from a Camden City Bus
My life can be a little self-contained. Sure, I'm well traveled,
having visited 6 continents and lived in 7 states. I've lived in the
slow-moving small town south, in the hyper aggressive big city
northeast, in the laid back west coast and many places in between.
But most of my life follows a particular pattern. I hang out in upper-middle class neighborhoods. I eat at nice restaurants. I work in an office and I live in a neighborhood where I forget to lock my doors a lot of days and it doesn't worry me when I do.
Sometimes, random events in life disrupt your routines in ways that you don't expect. And sometimes you learn things from that seemingly random disruption that you would have never learned as a part of your routine.
Such was the case on Saturday night. My wife and I had just had a fun day in New York City and were riding a comfortable evening BoltBus (a very nice Greyhound bus line in the Northeast US that provides direct transit between major cities, for those of you from elsewhere) back to the New Jersey Philadelphia suburbs. Late in the ride, it became evident that we had accidentally boarded the wrong bus as we whizzed by our stop at the Cherry Hill Mall (if you aren't form New Jersey, Cherry Hill is the famous destination of Harold & Kumar in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, despite the fact that there has never been a White Castle in Cherry Hill.) The driver informed us that we were on the "express" bus and that he wasn't allowed to stop until 30th street station in New Jersey.
With a car at Cherry Hill Mall and a physical presence at 30th street station in Philadelphia, I quickly scoured the internet for a transportation plan to rectify the situation. What I found was the 406 bus from Philadelphia to Cherry Hill, which was not a direct route but got me back to the car. Off we went!
The 406 bus route winds through part of Philadelphia, a large portion of Camden and ultimately on to Cherry Hill. It goes through some pretty rough urban neighborhoods in Camden and basically the entire ridership of the bus on this particular Saturday night consisted of myself, my wife and a group of Camdenites that didn't own cars. They were mostly working class or unemployed and all African-American.
"They let Zimmerman off!" proclaimed a heavy-set woman on the bus part way into the ride, sharing the news that broke that day. I could not have been in a better location to gauge and understand the black community's response to the verdict.
What impressed me on bus 406 was how complex and nuanced that response was. There were no calls for violence and retaliation. To be sure, it was a more liberal than average crowd and most disagreed with the verdict, but the responses were rational. One man said, "I get he might not have been guilty of murder, but he had to be guilty of SOMETHING. I mean, the 911 operator told him to stop following Treyvon and he didn't." fair enough. Another man recalled growing up in rural South Carolina and how they "castle law" there allowed his mother to shoot a crack addict that was breaking into their storage shed without fear of retaliation. "Okay, that makes sense" said another passenger, "but Treyvon wasn't on Zimmerman's property. It's different if someone comes on your property." So it is. "Why does everyone assume that a black boy in a hoodie is a criminal?" asked one woman, "well, I heard a bunch of black kids had broken into homes nearby" said another man on the bus, "that doesn't make it right!" shot back the woman. No, it doesn't.
The discussion quickly turned into a broader political discussion and talked turned to Chris Christie. "Chris Christie cost my wife a ton of money", said a man whose wife was a teacher in the Camden Public Schools, "He raised the fares on this bus!" exclaimed another man, referring to the New Jersey Transit fare hikes that Christie pushed through as part of his push to eliminate the budget gap, his first year in office, "couldn't rich people just afford to pay a little bit more in taxes?" "Yeah" said another man, "but they'd never pay, they'd just move to Pennsylvania" reflecting a frequent talking point of the GOP in the state. "I like Christie" declared a woman with a young child, "but only because he is pro-life."
Black voters and the black community in general tend to get painted as a monolith. They are obviously a voting block that has gone heavily (and increasingly) Democratic in the past two election cycles. What was reconfirmed for me that night in Camden was that such a view is a dramatic oversimplification. Black voters, like any group, have a complex set of political leanings that run the gambit of electoral politics. Their views are varied and nuanced. Some even vote Republican, but almost none are straight-line liberals.
Perhaps rather than choosing political sides in things like the Treyvon Martin case, both parties would be better served by taking a little time to understand the underlying social nuances in a case like this. And Republicans would certainly be wise to start inviting them to their party.
By the way, I agree with the man on the bus. Treyvon Martin does not appear from the evidence to have been guilty of murder. But he was guilty of SOMETHING, most likely criminally negligent homicide, a less severe felony. Had the prosecutor charged him with this more appropriate crime, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Or perhaps not.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
But most of my life follows a particular pattern. I hang out in upper-middle class neighborhoods. I eat at nice restaurants. I work in an office and I live in a neighborhood where I forget to lock my doors a lot of days and it doesn't worry me when I do.
Sometimes, random events in life disrupt your routines in ways that you don't expect. And sometimes you learn things from that seemingly random disruption that you would have never learned as a part of your routine.
Such was the case on Saturday night. My wife and I had just had a fun day in New York City and were riding a comfortable evening BoltBus (a very nice Greyhound bus line in the Northeast US that provides direct transit between major cities, for those of you from elsewhere) back to the New Jersey Philadelphia suburbs. Late in the ride, it became evident that we had accidentally boarded the wrong bus as we whizzed by our stop at the Cherry Hill Mall (if you aren't form New Jersey, Cherry Hill is the famous destination of Harold & Kumar in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, despite the fact that there has never been a White Castle in Cherry Hill.) The driver informed us that we were on the "express" bus and that he wasn't allowed to stop until 30th street station in New Jersey.
With a car at Cherry Hill Mall and a physical presence at 30th street station in Philadelphia, I quickly scoured the internet for a transportation plan to rectify the situation. What I found was the 406 bus from Philadelphia to Cherry Hill, which was not a direct route but got me back to the car. Off we went!
The 406 bus route winds through part of Philadelphia, a large portion of Camden and ultimately on to Cherry Hill. It goes through some pretty rough urban neighborhoods in Camden and basically the entire ridership of the bus on this particular Saturday night consisted of myself, my wife and a group of Camdenites that didn't own cars. They were mostly working class or unemployed and all African-American.
"They let Zimmerman off!" proclaimed a heavy-set woman on the bus part way into the ride, sharing the news that broke that day. I could not have been in a better location to gauge and understand the black community's response to the verdict.
What impressed me on bus 406 was how complex and nuanced that response was. There were no calls for violence and retaliation. To be sure, it was a more liberal than average crowd and most disagreed with the verdict, but the responses were rational. One man said, "I get he might not have been guilty of murder, but he had to be guilty of SOMETHING. I mean, the 911 operator told him to stop following Treyvon and he didn't." fair enough. Another man recalled growing up in rural South Carolina and how they "castle law" there allowed his mother to shoot a crack addict that was breaking into their storage shed without fear of retaliation. "Okay, that makes sense" said another passenger, "but Treyvon wasn't on Zimmerman's property. It's different if someone comes on your property." So it is. "Why does everyone assume that a black boy in a hoodie is a criminal?" asked one woman, "well, I heard a bunch of black kids had broken into homes nearby" said another man on the bus, "that doesn't make it right!" shot back the woman. No, it doesn't.
The discussion quickly turned into a broader political discussion and talked turned to Chris Christie. "Chris Christie cost my wife a ton of money", said a man whose wife was a teacher in the Camden Public Schools, "He raised the fares on this bus!" exclaimed another man, referring to the New Jersey Transit fare hikes that Christie pushed through as part of his push to eliminate the budget gap, his first year in office, "couldn't rich people just afford to pay a little bit more in taxes?" "Yeah" said another man, "but they'd never pay, they'd just move to Pennsylvania" reflecting a frequent talking point of the GOP in the state. "I like Christie" declared a woman with a young child, "but only because he is pro-life."
Black voters and the black community in general tend to get painted as a monolith. They are obviously a voting block that has gone heavily (and increasingly) Democratic in the past two election cycles. What was reconfirmed for me that night in Camden was that such a view is a dramatic oversimplification. Black voters, like any group, have a complex set of political leanings that run the gambit of electoral politics. Their views are varied and nuanced. Some even vote Republican, but almost none are straight-line liberals.
Perhaps rather than choosing political sides in things like the Treyvon Martin case, both parties would be better served by taking a little time to understand the underlying social nuances in a case like this. And Republicans would certainly be wise to start inviting them to their party.
By the way, I agree with the man on the bus. Treyvon Martin does not appear from the evidence to have been guilty of murder. But he was guilty of SOMETHING, most likely criminally negligent homicide, a less severe felony. Had the prosecutor charged him with this more appropriate crime, perhaps the outcome would have been different. Or perhaps not.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Monday, July 1, 2013
The Inevitable March Towards Universal Gay Marriage Continues
A Measured Set of Supreme Court Decisions, Public Opinion Ahead of Law
The supreme court, in a pair of twin rulings last week, came down modestly on the side of gay rights but stopped short of overriding public opinion in two important ways of advancing a political agenda from the bench.
The first ruling, by a 5-4 majority (which seems to be the norm for the last 30 years in decisions of a controversial nature) struck down the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes. This means that legally married gay couples in states that permit gay marriage now have access to federal deductions and benefits associated with being married, rights previous denied to them under DOMA. The reasoning of the court was two-fold - first, a traditional conservative argument around federalism that essentially stated that definition of marriage has been historically the province of states and that on 10th amendment grounds there was no enumerated power for the federal government to overrule state judgement on that issue. Interestingly it was 4 liberal judges joined by moderate opinion-writer Anthony Kennedy that overruled 4 conservatives on what would seem to be a judicially conservative view but for the social politics around gay rights.
The tenth amendment text in question is as follows:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The second reason given by Kennedy's opinion, and perhaps the more intriguing one, was the notion that the clause in question violated the equal protection principle articulated in the 14th amendment. This is a fascinating argument, as the 14th amendment is clearly targeted at state laws. Text is below:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The supreme court, in a pair of twin rulings last week, came down modestly on the side of gay rights but stopped short of overriding public opinion in two important ways of advancing a political agenda from the bench.
The first ruling, by a 5-4 majority (which seems to be the norm for the last 30 years in decisions of a controversial nature) struck down the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage as between a man and a woman for federal purposes. This means that legally married gay couples in states that permit gay marriage now have access to federal deductions and benefits associated with being married, rights previous denied to them under DOMA. The reasoning of the court was two-fold - first, a traditional conservative argument around federalism that essentially stated that definition of marriage has been historically the province of states and that on 10th amendment grounds there was no enumerated power for the federal government to overrule state judgement on that issue. Interestingly it was 4 liberal judges joined by moderate opinion-writer Anthony Kennedy that overruled 4 conservatives on what would seem to be a judicially conservative view but for the social politics around gay rights.
The tenth amendment text in question is as follows:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The second reason given by Kennedy's opinion, and perhaps the more intriguing one, was the notion that the clause in question violated the equal protection principle articulated in the 14th amendment. This is a fascinating argument, as the 14th amendment is clearly targeted at state laws. Text is below:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The ruling seems contradictory. The ruling struck down a federal law, and, believe it or not, there is nothing in the constitution that expressly forbids a federal law that does not protect citizens equally. There are constitutional protections that prohibit voting rights discrimination on the basis of race (15th amendment) and that prohibit slavery (13th amendment) and specifically enumerated rights that cannot be denied by the federal government (articulated in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments), but nothing that prohibits a federal law from unequal treatment. What would have made far more sense than striking down the federal law under an equal protection argument would have been to strike down state laws prohibiting gay marriage as an equal protection violation imposed by the states.
The 10th amendment violation would have been sufficient to strike down the provision in question. That Kennedy chose to reference equal protection likely foreshadows a building majority on the court around the equal protection of gay marriage equality itself. But the court is taking a measured pace - by passing on the opportunity to make a national ruling relative to California prop 8. The court let stand a lower court ruling striking down the prohibition on gay marriage in California by ruling that the state Republicans making the appeal did not have standing to appeal - an intellectually devoid argument since it chose to rule in the DOMA case under very similar circumstances (the Republicans defended that case as well since the Obama administration chose not to defend the law), but a clever dodge nonetheless. This leaves the overall question of the constitutionality of gay marriage for another year and another court, but the 14th amendment argument in the DOMA ruling clearly projects a likely outcome when that day comes. Kennedy simply decided to let the court of public opinion form a little more before the Supreme Court intervenes.
And the court of public opinion is moving. By a massive majority, the American public now favors gay marriage. A just-released Gallup poll shows national support at 55% for and 40% opposed, an epic turn in the past 17 years since Gallup first started polling the issue, when support was at less than half that level. 55% is far more support than any Presidential candidate has received since Ronald Reagan in 1984. In other words, 55%-40% is a landslide. And the opponents are dying. The only demographic group (unless you count conservatives or Republicans as their own "demographic group") that still opposes gay marriage are those 65 and over, and only 51% of seniors now oppose it.
It is highly likely that we will see gay marriage in every state outside of the south (where majority opposition still exists) in the next 5 years.
Politicians in both parties had better get on board or history will remember them harshly. This is not a Republican/Democratic issue, as bipartisan support for gay marriage bills in places like New York State has proved. It is a right/wrong issue.
The one thing that surprised me about the Supreme Court ruling was that the court elected NOT to strike down the provision of DOMA that permits states to not recognize gay marriages from other states. This creates a legal and administrative mess, is unprecedented in US marriage law (states recognize marriages of first cousins from other states, of minors from other states and so on) and is black letter unconstitutional, in my opinion. The relevant section of article 4, section 1 of the constitution is below:
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.
Perhaps this is more judicial restraint in letting the political process play out. But it is wrong on the law.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Is President Obama the Worst Ever on Civil Liberties?, The Demise of Blue America is Overblown
Liberals Should Stop Defending This Awful Record
I guess that I shouldn't be surprised at some level of reflex partisan defense of the Obama administration. After all, a big part of politics is supporting your team and liberal Democrats, particularly for Senators from blue states and Representatives from heavily-Democratic areas such as urban centers.
But any basic level of intellectual honesty or ideological consistency should prohibit the defense of President Obama surrounding the combined revelations over the past month that: a. The IRS targeted Tea-Party affiliated groups for extra scrutiny relative to tax-exempt status, b. The Justice Department has been snooping very broadly around the records of journalists relative to investigations surrounding leaks and c. That the NSA has been reviewing phone records of just about every American (as well as possibly search engine results and other meta-data) as part of terrorism investigations.
Taken on their own, there are arguments that could be made for each individual action. Tea Party groups ARE more likely to be political in nature than, say, a charity aimed at helping homeless children and perhaps deserves more individual scrutiny as to whether they are truly political organizations (which would not be tax exempt) or civic and charitable organizations (which would be.) Leaks surrounding national security ARE a crime and the Justice department had warrants for all of the records it examined. The government (supposedly) looked only at phone records not phone calls themselves and had warrants to do so - and by the way that program was started during the Bush administration.
But taken collectively, they paint a chilling picture of an administration with no respect for individual liberties. The past almost 12 years since the awful events of 9/11 have been a scary one for civil libertarians like myself. The flag-waving banner of "national security" has been used to trump all kinds of basic American rights in the name of security. This has led to an erosion of basic search and seizure rights, rights that should be every bit as sacred to us as the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
"I don't have anything to hide, why should I care" said a friend of mine at dinner the other day, a common sentiment among those defending the government. And if you assume that the government is acting nobly in the interest of national security and will always do so, perhaps you would be fine with that. I am not a terrorist, have no terrorist ties and would never be flagged in a terrorism investigation, right?
But what if, today, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, the governments intentions were less benevolent? Do you want the government to know that a cheating spouse has been calling his lover and be able to use that information for blackmail? Do you want the government to know that you are looking for a new job on monster.com and be able to tell your present employer? How would you like your mother to know about the porn site that you accessed a year ago?
Maybe other people are saints and would be fine with every American knowing everything that they had done. Maybe they've never cheated on their spouse, looked at porn, looked for another job or any of the many other legal activities that people don't necessarily want publicized. I'm personally not at all comfortable with the government knowing my every action and having that kind of power over me.
Ben Franklin once famously said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Could Ben Franklin have anticipated Al Qaeda terrorists? Of course not. But he lived in a pretty dangerous time too. And he understood a little bit about doing things that you don't necessarily want to make public.
So President Obama, who ran on a pro-civil liberties platform, has been an utter disappointment in both continuing and expanding the reach of government into people's private lives. Is the worst ever on civil liberties? Probably not. Pro-slavery President's such as Washington and Jefferson would have to rank lower (actually enslaving people is a lot worse than looking at their phone records.) FDR and Truman would have to rank below too (internment camps are a lot more intrusive than snooping.) But certainly W. and Obama rank near the bottom in the modern era.
What a shame. And a shame that liberals should start speaking up against.
Some of My Exes Live in New York
A popular view among economic conservatives of late has been that blue America is collapsing. Old liberal states and cities (those in the mid-west, Northeast and west coast, essentially) are failing, with population fleeing the crushing burden of taxes, regulation and runaway pension costs to seek greener pastures in the new powerhouses of red America (basically the Southeast and Texas.)
While it is an undeniable fact that no state has grown as fast as Texas in the past decade, I wanted to examine the premise that the old cities and states are dying.
Let's look at the facts.
First, my tip of the hat to conservatives...recent population growth has definitely been weighted towards bluer areas. Here are the top 10 states by population growth, along with their political alliances, over the past couple of years:
(1) North Dakota (red state)
(2) Texas (red state)
(3) Utah (red state)
(4) Colorado (swing state)
(5) Alaska (red state)
(6) Florida (swing state)
(7) Washington (blue state)
(8) Virginia (swing state)
(9) Georgia (red state)
(10) South Dakota (red state)
So, of the top 10, only 1 blue state makes the list and 3 swing states with 6 red states being among the fastest growing.
However, if I look at longer-term trends, the picture is less clear. Looking at the era since the current modern political divide basically started, basically since Reagan-Republicanism dawned, we can look at the long term trends. Using census data from 1970 to 2010, we can examine how electoral votes (which relate to proportion of population) have shifted.
From the 1970 census, the largest states and their share of the electoral vote were as follows:
(1) California - 45 votes
(2) New York - 41 votes
(3) Pennsylvania - 27 votes
(4/5) Illinois - 26 votes
Texas - 26 votes
Regionalizing things more, votes broke down like this:
New England (CT, RI, NH, VT, ME, MA) - 37 votes
Northeast Corridor (MD, PA, MD, NJ, NY, DE, DC) - 101 votes
Southeast (VA, WV, NC, SC, GA, TN, KY, FL) - 87 votes
Deep South (AL, MS, AR, LA, OK) - 40 votes
Mid-West (OH, MI, IL, IN, MO, WI, MN, IA) - 126 votes
Southwest (TX, AZ, NM, CO, UT, NV) - 50 votes
"Flyover" States (ND, SD, MT, WY, KS, NE, ID) - 30 votes
West Coast (WA, OR, CA) - 60 votes
Non-continental states (AK, HI) - 7 votes
In the 2010 census, 40 years later, here are the largest states:
(1) California - 55 votes
(2) Texas - 39 votes
(3) Florida - 29 votes
New York - 29 votes
(5) Pennsylvania - 20 votes
Illinois - 20 votes
The same regionalization produces the following split:
New England - 33 votes
Northeast Corridor - 79 votes
Southeast - 106 votes
Deep South - 36 votes
Mid-West - 101 votes
Southwest - 75 votes
"Flyover" States - 27 votes
West Coast - 74 votes
Non-continental states - 7 votes
The big gainers over that 40 year period were the Southeast (increasing from 87 to 106 votes), the Southwest (increasing from 50 to 75 electoral votes) and the West Coast (increasing from 60 to 74 votes), whereas the biggest losers were the Mid-west (from 126 to 101 votes) and the Northeast (from 101 to 79 votes.)
In aggregate, this would at least partially bear out the Republican theory of shift to more conservative states. But if that is the case, why did the most liberal region of the country actual rank among the biggest gainers, driven by California? Why did the deep south, the most conservative area, actually lose ground? And why did the Southwest post gains across the board, with more liberal states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, gaining as much as conservative places like Utah and Texas?
The answer is that demographics shifts are more complex to explain than basic political theory would explain.
Texas has grown for a couple of basic reasons - the oil boom in Texas has created economic growth and a huge influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico has driven up its population. In fact, the illegal immigrant driver is primary in the population growth of most of the southwestern and west coast states. Texas and California share nothing in common politically or economically, except for a large influx of Mexican immigrants. Similarly, immigration from Cuba (legal in this case), is the primary driver of Florida's massive rise in population.
Other state's growth is more driven by local immigration, that is, people moving from other states. The Dakotas have been beneficiaries to the fracking boom and have drawn large populations from the rest of the country (well, large, compared to the base population for the Dakotas.)
While the Northeast and Mid-west have seen their populations rise in every census (Michigan being the exception, largely because of the fading jobs from the auto industry in Detroit), they have not been rising as fast as these other states because there has been no industry or immigration catalyst in these states (they don't share a border and their economies are more developed already and their cities more populated already.)
So while it is true that places outside of the Northeast and Mid-west are growing faster than those areas, their demise is highly overrated. New York is still the financial center of the world, home to the world's largest companies and far and away the largest city in the US.
One final point on those hoping for a political sea-change based on population growth - as populations in these states are growing, they are becoming more liberal. Virginia is now a swing-state, as are North Carolina and Florida. Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico appear to be largely in Democratic hands now. And I firmly believe that Texas will become a swing state in our lifetimes, unless Republicans massively shift their appeal to the immigrant population there.
The country always changes. In 1850, the largest US cities were New York, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans. These days, only New York and Philadelphia remain on that list, with Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas filling in the roster - Chicago a product of growth in the 1900s, Los Angeles a product of growth in the latter half of the 20th century and Dallas a product of growth over the past 20 years. Where the largest cities in 2050 or 2100 will be is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't bet against New York being on that list.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
I guess that I shouldn't be surprised at some level of reflex partisan defense of the Obama administration. After all, a big part of politics is supporting your team and liberal Democrats, particularly for Senators from blue states and Representatives from heavily-Democratic areas such as urban centers.
But any basic level of intellectual honesty or ideological consistency should prohibit the defense of President Obama surrounding the combined revelations over the past month that: a. The IRS targeted Tea-Party affiliated groups for extra scrutiny relative to tax-exempt status, b. The Justice Department has been snooping very broadly around the records of journalists relative to investigations surrounding leaks and c. That the NSA has been reviewing phone records of just about every American (as well as possibly search engine results and other meta-data) as part of terrorism investigations.
Taken on their own, there are arguments that could be made for each individual action. Tea Party groups ARE more likely to be political in nature than, say, a charity aimed at helping homeless children and perhaps deserves more individual scrutiny as to whether they are truly political organizations (which would not be tax exempt) or civic and charitable organizations (which would be.) Leaks surrounding national security ARE a crime and the Justice department had warrants for all of the records it examined. The government (supposedly) looked only at phone records not phone calls themselves and had warrants to do so - and by the way that program was started during the Bush administration.
But taken collectively, they paint a chilling picture of an administration with no respect for individual liberties. The past almost 12 years since the awful events of 9/11 have been a scary one for civil libertarians like myself. The flag-waving banner of "national security" has been used to trump all kinds of basic American rights in the name of security. This has led to an erosion of basic search and seizure rights, rights that should be every bit as sacred to us as the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
"I don't have anything to hide, why should I care" said a friend of mine at dinner the other day, a common sentiment among those defending the government. And if you assume that the government is acting nobly in the interest of national security and will always do so, perhaps you would be fine with that. I am not a terrorist, have no terrorist ties and would never be flagged in a terrorism investigation, right?
But what if, today, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, the governments intentions were less benevolent? Do you want the government to know that a cheating spouse has been calling his lover and be able to use that information for blackmail? Do you want the government to know that you are looking for a new job on monster.com and be able to tell your present employer? How would you like your mother to know about the porn site that you accessed a year ago?
Maybe other people are saints and would be fine with every American knowing everything that they had done. Maybe they've never cheated on their spouse, looked at porn, looked for another job or any of the many other legal activities that people don't necessarily want publicized. I'm personally not at all comfortable with the government knowing my every action and having that kind of power over me.
Ben Franklin once famously said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Could Ben Franklin have anticipated Al Qaeda terrorists? Of course not. But he lived in a pretty dangerous time too. And he understood a little bit about doing things that you don't necessarily want to make public.
So President Obama, who ran on a pro-civil liberties platform, has been an utter disappointment in both continuing and expanding the reach of government into people's private lives. Is the worst ever on civil liberties? Probably not. Pro-slavery President's such as Washington and Jefferson would have to rank lower (actually enslaving people is a lot worse than looking at their phone records.) FDR and Truman would have to rank below too (internment camps are a lot more intrusive than snooping.) But certainly W. and Obama rank near the bottom in the modern era.
What a shame. And a shame that liberals should start speaking up against.
Some of My Exes Live in New York
A popular view among economic conservatives of late has been that blue America is collapsing. Old liberal states and cities (those in the mid-west, Northeast and west coast, essentially) are failing, with population fleeing the crushing burden of taxes, regulation and runaway pension costs to seek greener pastures in the new powerhouses of red America (basically the Southeast and Texas.)
While it is an undeniable fact that no state has grown as fast as Texas in the past decade, I wanted to examine the premise that the old cities and states are dying.
Let's look at the facts.
First, my tip of the hat to conservatives...recent population growth has definitely been weighted towards bluer areas. Here are the top 10 states by population growth, along with their political alliances, over the past couple of years:
(1) North Dakota (red state)
(2) Texas (red state)
(3) Utah (red state)
(4) Colorado (swing state)
(5) Alaska (red state)
(6) Florida (swing state)
(7) Washington (blue state)
(8) Virginia (swing state)
(9) Georgia (red state)
(10) South Dakota (red state)
So, of the top 10, only 1 blue state makes the list and 3 swing states with 6 red states being among the fastest growing.
However, if I look at longer-term trends, the picture is less clear. Looking at the era since the current modern political divide basically started, basically since Reagan-Republicanism dawned, we can look at the long term trends. Using census data from 1970 to 2010, we can examine how electoral votes (which relate to proportion of population) have shifted.
From the 1970 census, the largest states and their share of the electoral vote were as follows:
(1) California - 45 votes
(2) New York - 41 votes
(3) Pennsylvania - 27 votes
(4/5) Illinois - 26 votes
Texas - 26 votes
Regionalizing things more, votes broke down like this:
New England (CT, RI, NH, VT, ME, MA) - 37 votes
Northeast Corridor (MD, PA, MD, NJ, NY, DE, DC) - 101 votes
Southeast (VA, WV, NC, SC, GA, TN, KY, FL) - 87 votes
Deep South (AL, MS, AR, LA, OK) - 40 votes
Mid-West (OH, MI, IL, IN, MO, WI, MN, IA) - 126 votes
Southwest (TX, AZ, NM, CO, UT, NV) - 50 votes
"Flyover" States (ND, SD, MT, WY, KS, NE, ID) - 30 votes
West Coast (WA, OR, CA) - 60 votes
Non-continental states (AK, HI) - 7 votes
In the 2010 census, 40 years later, here are the largest states:
(1) California - 55 votes
(2) Texas - 39 votes
(3) Florida - 29 votes
New York - 29 votes
(5) Pennsylvania - 20 votes
Illinois - 20 votes
The same regionalization produces the following split:
New England - 33 votes
Northeast Corridor - 79 votes
Southeast - 106 votes
Deep South - 36 votes
Mid-West - 101 votes
Southwest - 75 votes
"Flyover" States - 27 votes
West Coast - 74 votes
Non-continental states - 7 votes
The big gainers over that 40 year period were the Southeast (increasing from 87 to 106 votes), the Southwest (increasing from 50 to 75 electoral votes) and the West Coast (increasing from 60 to 74 votes), whereas the biggest losers were the Mid-west (from 126 to 101 votes) and the Northeast (from 101 to 79 votes.)
In aggregate, this would at least partially bear out the Republican theory of shift to more conservative states. But if that is the case, why did the most liberal region of the country actual rank among the biggest gainers, driven by California? Why did the deep south, the most conservative area, actually lose ground? And why did the Southwest post gains across the board, with more liberal states like Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, gaining as much as conservative places like Utah and Texas?
The answer is that demographics shifts are more complex to explain than basic political theory would explain.
Texas has grown for a couple of basic reasons - the oil boom in Texas has created economic growth and a huge influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico has driven up its population. In fact, the illegal immigrant driver is primary in the population growth of most of the southwestern and west coast states. Texas and California share nothing in common politically or economically, except for a large influx of Mexican immigrants. Similarly, immigration from Cuba (legal in this case), is the primary driver of Florida's massive rise in population.
Other state's growth is more driven by local immigration, that is, people moving from other states. The Dakotas have been beneficiaries to the fracking boom and have drawn large populations from the rest of the country (well, large, compared to the base population for the Dakotas.)
While the Northeast and Mid-west have seen their populations rise in every census (Michigan being the exception, largely because of the fading jobs from the auto industry in Detroit), they have not been rising as fast as these other states because there has been no industry or immigration catalyst in these states (they don't share a border and their economies are more developed already and their cities more populated already.)
So while it is true that places outside of the Northeast and Mid-west are growing faster than those areas, their demise is highly overrated. New York is still the financial center of the world, home to the world's largest companies and far and away the largest city in the US.
One final point on those hoping for a political sea-change based on population growth - as populations in these states are growing, they are becoming more liberal. Virginia is now a swing-state, as are North Carolina and Florida. Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico appear to be largely in Democratic hands now. And I firmly believe that Texas will become a swing state in our lifetimes, unless Republicans massively shift their appeal to the immigrant population there.
The country always changes. In 1850, the largest US cities were New York, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans. These days, only New York and Philadelphia remain on that list, with Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas filling in the roster - Chicago a product of growth in the 1900s, Los Angeles a product of growth in the latter half of the 20th century and Dallas a product of growth over the past 20 years. Where the largest cities in 2050 or 2100 will be is anyone's guess, but I wouldn't bet against New York being on that list.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
The Incredible Shrinking Obama Presidency, How Illegal Immigrants Are Like Amazon.com Customers
It's Been a Bad, Bad Month for Obama
Republicans aren't stupid. Well, most of the time, at least. Have you noticed how the noise over Benghazi has quieted down? Sure, there are still Republicans repeating the talking points, but they are by and large beginning to realize what I have been saying for weeks - there is no real scandal there and the American people don't particularly care.
On the IRS scandal, which I believe to be real, the President is looking more and more out-of-control. He has claimed that he found out about the scandal from the press accounts, in spite of evidence that higher-ups in the Obama administration knew of the issue last year. The untenable nature of the President's position on this issue is clear to me - my greatest fear is not that he is lying and knew about the issue - my greatest fear is that he is telling the truth and that he is not in control of his administration. Either way, Democrats trying to defend the scandal as not that big a deal should exercise some caution - poo-pooing the use of the IRS to cause problems for political opponents is tantamount to walking away from being the party of civil liberties.
The most chilling issue of all, in my opinion, is the investigation of reporters over leaks of classified information. While I call this an issue and not a scandal, as it does not appear that there were any laws broken and the investigations were all conducted within the bounds of the law as it is understood, applying legal pressure to reporters for doing nothing other than listening to sources and reporting what they say is chilling. Let me be fair - there are definitely times where national security concerns compel the government to go after those who work in government and leak classified information. That is fair game. But investigating reporters and seizing their records and e-mail for doing nothing more than reporting what is leaked to them is essentially criminalizing journalism. There is good reason that all of the press, liberal, conservative and moderate are united against the Obama administration is simple - regardless of your political persuasion, if you are reporter, you don't like to see Freedom of the Press trampled upon.
The common thread between the IRS and AP/Fox News events is a disrespect for constitutional liberties - Freedom of Speech in the first case and Freedom of the Press in the second. President Obama has a horribly weak record on civil liberties - he has extended the Patriot Act, used drone strikes on US Citizens, kept GITMO open (in spite of his half-hearted protestations that Congress has stopped him from closing it, he hasn't even released prisoners that have been cleared) and now used the heavy hand of the government to attempt to intimidate political opponents and journalists.
The man who promised the most open, transparent administration ever and to change the way that Washington did business is a long way from living up to his promises.
On Immigration and Internet Taxes
Millions of people ignore a clearly written law in the United States. Everyone is in alignment that there needs to be reform of the law, but some protest that those who broke the law in the past shouldn't be given a pass or rewarded for their illegal activities.
Am I talking about immigration reform? No, I'm talking about order stuff from amazon.com.
Sales tax laws are clear in every state that has a sales tax (New Hampshire and Delaware residents, you are off the hook) - if you order from amazon.com, you must submit the sales tax that is owed on the out of state purchase to your local state government. You thought internet sales were tax-free? Wrong. The law only states that in states where it doesn't have a physical presence that Amazon itself does not have to collect the tax on behalf of the state government. You still owe it. So if you are among the millions who have ordered from Amazon and not sent in your tax payment, you are a criminal. You broke the law. Should we come and throw you in jail for your crimes?
I explain all of this to debunk the notion of illegal immigrants as criminals. Yes, in the technical sense, that word is true - entering the US illegally is a crime and a criminal, by definition is someone who commits a crime. But that definition applies equally well to Amazon.com customers. In fact, the reasons for breaking immigration laws are typically a lot more noble than the reasons for breaking our tax laws. In the case of immigration, most illegal immigrants are breaking the law to provide food and shelter for their families. in the case of Amazon, most people are breaking the law because they are too lazy or too cheap to pay an extra 5 or 6% on their purchase.
So let's get over this righteous indignation about illegal immigration and work on solving the problem. And the solution has to involve a legal, dignified path for the 11 million already here without their papers. Let's hope that conservative leaders like Marco Rubio, who has seen the light on this issue can convince enough Republicans to join him to make this effort happen - an effort that has the support of not just liberals and Democrats but Republicans like George W. Bush and John McCain.
It is time to bring people out of the shadows.
Republicans aren't stupid. Well, most of the time, at least. Have you noticed how the noise over Benghazi has quieted down? Sure, there are still Republicans repeating the talking points, but they are by and large beginning to realize what I have been saying for weeks - there is no real scandal there and the American people don't particularly care.
On the IRS scandal, which I believe to be real, the President is looking more and more out-of-control. He has claimed that he found out about the scandal from the press accounts, in spite of evidence that higher-ups in the Obama administration knew of the issue last year. The untenable nature of the President's position on this issue is clear to me - my greatest fear is not that he is lying and knew about the issue - my greatest fear is that he is telling the truth and that he is not in control of his administration. Either way, Democrats trying to defend the scandal as not that big a deal should exercise some caution - poo-pooing the use of the IRS to cause problems for political opponents is tantamount to walking away from being the party of civil liberties.
The most chilling issue of all, in my opinion, is the investigation of reporters over leaks of classified information. While I call this an issue and not a scandal, as it does not appear that there were any laws broken and the investigations were all conducted within the bounds of the law as it is understood, applying legal pressure to reporters for doing nothing other than listening to sources and reporting what they say is chilling. Let me be fair - there are definitely times where national security concerns compel the government to go after those who work in government and leak classified information. That is fair game. But investigating reporters and seizing their records and e-mail for doing nothing more than reporting what is leaked to them is essentially criminalizing journalism. There is good reason that all of the press, liberal, conservative and moderate are united against the Obama administration is simple - regardless of your political persuasion, if you are reporter, you don't like to see Freedom of the Press trampled upon.
The common thread between the IRS and AP/Fox News events is a disrespect for constitutional liberties - Freedom of Speech in the first case and Freedom of the Press in the second. President Obama has a horribly weak record on civil liberties - he has extended the Patriot Act, used drone strikes on US Citizens, kept GITMO open (in spite of his half-hearted protestations that Congress has stopped him from closing it, he hasn't even released prisoners that have been cleared) and now used the heavy hand of the government to attempt to intimidate political opponents and journalists.
The man who promised the most open, transparent administration ever and to change the way that Washington did business is a long way from living up to his promises.
On Immigration and Internet Taxes
Millions of people ignore a clearly written law in the United States. Everyone is in alignment that there needs to be reform of the law, but some protest that those who broke the law in the past shouldn't be given a pass or rewarded for their illegal activities.
Am I talking about immigration reform? No, I'm talking about order stuff from amazon.com.
Sales tax laws are clear in every state that has a sales tax (New Hampshire and Delaware residents, you are off the hook) - if you order from amazon.com, you must submit the sales tax that is owed on the out of state purchase to your local state government. You thought internet sales were tax-free? Wrong. The law only states that in states where it doesn't have a physical presence that Amazon itself does not have to collect the tax on behalf of the state government. You still owe it. So if you are among the millions who have ordered from Amazon and not sent in your tax payment, you are a criminal. You broke the law. Should we come and throw you in jail for your crimes?
I explain all of this to debunk the notion of illegal immigrants as criminals. Yes, in the technical sense, that word is true - entering the US illegally is a crime and a criminal, by definition is someone who commits a crime. But that definition applies equally well to Amazon.com customers. In fact, the reasons for breaking immigration laws are typically a lot more noble than the reasons for breaking our tax laws. In the case of immigration, most illegal immigrants are breaking the law to provide food and shelter for their families. in the case of Amazon, most people are breaking the law because they are too lazy or too cheap to pay an extra 5 or 6% on their purchase.
So let's get over this righteous indignation about illegal immigration and work on solving the problem. And the solution has to involve a legal, dignified path for the 11 million already here without their papers. Let's hope that conservative leaders like Marco Rubio, who has seen the light on this issue can convince enough Republicans to join him to make this effort happen - an effort that has the support of not just liberals and Democrats but Republicans like George W. Bush and John McCain.
It is time to bring people out of the shadows.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Why the IRS Scandal is Real and Benghazi Isn't
It has been a good week for the GOP. Once-disgraced South Carolina ex-Governor Mark Sanford completed an unlikely political comeback, winning a special congressional race against Elizabeth Colbert-Busch (sister of liberal-who-plays-a-conservative-on-tv comedian Stephen Colbert), they got their Benghazi hearings and the IRS admitted to making a mistake in flagging groups that contained the name "Tea Party" for further review of tax status.
Let's deal with these issues one at a time:
(1) The Sanford Win
Democrats certainly thought they had a shot in this race, particularly after Sanford was reported to have violated a restraining order by his ex-wife, and poured money into the campaign. The National Republican Campaign Committee had pulled funding for Sanford, perhaps because they thought he was a losing cause and perhaps because they simply didn't want to be affiliated with him given the potential for future scandal.
That Sanford won isn't totally unexpected, this is a heavily Republican district after all, that elected Tim Scott, now the Tea Party-affiliated Senator from the state (appointed by conservative Governor Nikki Haley to fulfill the term of Jim Demint, who had moved on to The Hertiage Foundation, a conservative think tank. That he won by 9 points is a repudiation of the notion that Democrats can compete in conservative districts.
Sanford was about the worst possible GOP candidate, laden with scandals past and present. He ran a horrible campaign, debating cardboard cutouts of Nancy Pelosi, rather than presenting a real message for why he was being elected.
But in the end, it didn't matter - the district basically broke the way it was designed to and elected Sanford.
Whether Sanford himself will be an asset or a liability to the GOP remains to be seen. That his election shows the difficulty that Democrats will have picking up House seats in 2014 is unquestionable.
(2) Benghazi
My Republican friends are really upset about Benghazi. They just aren't really clear about why. House hearings this week called into question the extent to which talking points given to the press in the aftermath of the attack on our embassy in Libya had been edited by administration officials. I'm just not sure what the scandal is.
Let's assume that the worst of the (as yet unproven) GOP allegations are true. As near as I can tell, they are essentially that:
a. The embassy in Libya had asked for additional security prior to the attack
b. The Obama Administration had failed to provide the additional security requested
c. The Administration knew that the attack had been a terrorist plot, but knowingly put forward a story that the attack may have been about an internet video
Point a is fairly established fact. The embassy in Libya HAD asked for additional security, as had virtually every other embassy in the Middle East, Africa and even Europe. The Obama administration had requested an increase in the operating budget for embassy security operations, which was summarily denied by the Republican House. So points A and B seem squarely on the GOP's shoulders.
Point C may have some merit. While the national security apparatus certainly didn't provide decisive answers about the source of the attack in the initial aftermath, it certainly seems the administration downplayed the potential role of Al Qaeda in the attack, relative to what was provided by the security community.
My question is - so what? That Presidents frame security in terms favorable to them is hardly new ground in Washington - does anyone remember the run-up to the Iraq War? That the President's advisors framed the issue the way they did did not impact any matter of policy or contain a request of Congress to authorize a particular option.
So at the very worst, we are talking about playing politics around national security issues, a distasteful practice, undoubtedly, but hardly an impeachment-worthy scandal.
(3) The IRS Scandal
Of all the news this week, this is by far the most chilling. After pressure from conservative groups, the IRS admits to flagging tax-exempt applications from groups containing the name "Tea Party" for further review.
First, a bit of context. In order to have tax-exempt status, an organization's primary purpose must be the promotion of social welfare. A limited amount of political advocacy is allowed, but political advocacy cannot be the organization's primary purpose. For example, the Nature Conservancy, a group that primarily uses donor funds to purchase unspoiled wilderness for the purposes of preservation (a promotion of social welfare) but also advocates for better control of global warming (political advocacy) is tax exempt but the Sierra Club, a group that primarily advocates for stronger environmental legislation (political advocacy) does not qualify.
That some of the "Tea Party" groups engage in political advocacy is unquestionable. That some even PRIMARILY engage in advocacy and therefore would be ineligible for tax exempt status is likely. That the reason for their flagging was the use of the words "Tea Party" in their name is chilling.
While the IRS states that this was used as a "shortcut" and not because of "political bias", this is a pretty thin explanation. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, in this case a duck being a political witch hunt, it is probably a duck.
Not since the Nixon administration has the IRS been weaponized against political opponents. The Obama Administration needs to condemn this action unambiguously and fire the administrators involved. If this is tied back to the higher levels of the Obama Administration, that WOULD be a real scandal, unlike Benghazi.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Let's deal with these issues one at a time:
(1) The Sanford Win
Democrats certainly thought they had a shot in this race, particularly after Sanford was reported to have violated a restraining order by his ex-wife, and poured money into the campaign. The National Republican Campaign Committee had pulled funding for Sanford, perhaps because they thought he was a losing cause and perhaps because they simply didn't want to be affiliated with him given the potential for future scandal.
That Sanford won isn't totally unexpected, this is a heavily Republican district after all, that elected Tim Scott, now the Tea Party-affiliated Senator from the state (appointed by conservative Governor Nikki Haley to fulfill the term of Jim Demint, who had moved on to The Hertiage Foundation, a conservative think tank. That he won by 9 points is a repudiation of the notion that Democrats can compete in conservative districts.
Sanford was about the worst possible GOP candidate, laden with scandals past and present. He ran a horrible campaign, debating cardboard cutouts of Nancy Pelosi, rather than presenting a real message for why he was being elected.
But in the end, it didn't matter - the district basically broke the way it was designed to and elected Sanford.
Whether Sanford himself will be an asset or a liability to the GOP remains to be seen. That his election shows the difficulty that Democrats will have picking up House seats in 2014 is unquestionable.
(2) Benghazi
My Republican friends are really upset about Benghazi. They just aren't really clear about why. House hearings this week called into question the extent to which talking points given to the press in the aftermath of the attack on our embassy in Libya had been edited by administration officials. I'm just not sure what the scandal is.
Let's assume that the worst of the (as yet unproven) GOP allegations are true. As near as I can tell, they are essentially that:
a. The embassy in Libya had asked for additional security prior to the attack
b. The Obama Administration had failed to provide the additional security requested
c. The Administration knew that the attack had been a terrorist plot, but knowingly put forward a story that the attack may have been about an internet video
Point a is fairly established fact. The embassy in Libya HAD asked for additional security, as had virtually every other embassy in the Middle East, Africa and even Europe. The Obama administration had requested an increase in the operating budget for embassy security operations, which was summarily denied by the Republican House. So points A and B seem squarely on the GOP's shoulders.
Point C may have some merit. While the national security apparatus certainly didn't provide decisive answers about the source of the attack in the initial aftermath, it certainly seems the administration downplayed the potential role of Al Qaeda in the attack, relative to what was provided by the security community.
My question is - so what? That Presidents frame security in terms favorable to them is hardly new ground in Washington - does anyone remember the run-up to the Iraq War? That the President's advisors framed the issue the way they did did not impact any matter of policy or contain a request of Congress to authorize a particular option.
So at the very worst, we are talking about playing politics around national security issues, a distasteful practice, undoubtedly, but hardly an impeachment-worthy scandal.
(3) The IRS Scandal
Of all the news this week, this is by far the most chilling. After pressure from conservative groups, the IRS admits to flagging tax-exempt applications from groups containing the name "Tea Party" for further review.
First, a bit of context. In order to have tax-exempt status, an organization's primary purpose must be the promotion of social welfare. A limited amount of political advocacy is allowed, but political advocacy cannot be the organization's primary purpose. For example, the Nature Conservancy, a group that primarily uses donor funds to purchase unspoiled wilderness for the purposes of preservation (a promotion of social welfare) but also advocates for better control of global warming (political advocacy) is tax exempt but the Sierra Club, a group that primarily advocates for stronger environmental legislation (political advocacy) does not qualify.
That some of the "Tea Party" groups engage in political advocacy is unquestionable. That some even PRIMARILY engage in advocacy and therefore would be ineligible for tax exempt status is likely. That the reason for their flagging was the use of the words "Tea Party" in their name is chilling.
While the IRS states that this was used as a "shortcut" and not because of "political bias", this is a pretty thin explanation. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, in this case a duck being a political witch hunt, it is probably a duck.
Not since the Nixon administration has the IRS been weaponized against political opponents. The Obama Administration needs to condemn this action unambiguously and fire the administrators involved. If this is tied back to the higher levels of the Obama Administration, that WOULD be a real scandal, unlike Benghazi.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Why Can't the Third World Get It Together?, Why Calling Out Bigots Isn't Anti-Freedom, Is Obama a Lame Duck?
Why Do Some Nations Fail?
I apologize to my dear readers for the lack of recent writing. I have been sitting on the beach in Jamaica, enjoying the sunshine and pondering the issues of our world (okay, I didn't spend most of the time pondering, I probably spent more time swimming and drinking, but I did think enough to get the idea for this post.)
One of the things that always strikes me when I visit a place like Jamaica is the poverty there. The per capita GDP in Jamaica is just over $9,000 compared to close to $50,000 for the US and an average of $32,000 for the Euro-zone. Even second-world countries like Russia and Brazil have per capita GDP's in the $12,000 to $15,000 range. So, despite some wealthy land owners, Jamaica is poor, very poor.
But why? There are tremendous natural assets in the country. It has some of the most coveted beach-front property and nicest weather in the world, leading to a very robust tourism industry. It has natural resources with huge natural bauxite deposits that has led to a robust export-industry. It has a great climate for agriculture, leading to strong production of sugar, bananas and plantains. Yet it is very poor.
The answer is all about infrastructure. Education is a mess in the country, with only 73% of kids making it through primary school, with less than 50% graduating from high school and even fewer enrolling in college. The system of finance is poor, with a far less robust system for accumulating and effectively distributing capital than the first world.
A country realizing its economic potential always comes back to a few things, but I'll remind the reader, as these are the investments that should guide our government. What is required for economic success is:
(1) A robust system of property rights, including intellectual property (i.e. patent law)
(2) A complete end-to-end system of finance that effectively distributes capital to good ideas from venture capital to bond markets to banking, which includes credible financial controls (i.e. you can trust financial statements from potential investments)
(3) A solid system of physical infrastructure - roads, bridges, trains, ports, etc.
(4) An educational system that equips the workforce with needed skills
(5) Strong investment in basic scientific research
In the US, for all our issues, we still compare favorable to most of the world on these measures, although our physical infrastructure and investment in basic science could use some work.
Calling Broussard a Bigot Isn't Anti-Free Speech
People get confused about what free speech means sometimes. Our first amendment, which I hold very dear, ensures that people are able to express their points of view without interference from the federal government. Unlike, say, Germany, where you can be arrested for saying you support the Nazis, in the US, the government won't come arrest you for saying you like Adolf Hitler.
What free speech is NOT is a license to say things free from criticism.
Following Jason Collins announcement that he is gay, a significant event in that he is the first man in a major team sport at the top level to come out of the closet in the US (albeit Collins future prospects in the NBA were unclear as he is at best, an aging sixth man without a contract), ESPN Analyst Chris Broussard stated:
"If you're openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that that's a sin. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, I believe that's walking in open rebellion to God and Jesus Christ."
Broussard is certainly entitled to his opinion. He is legally entitled to express it. But I'm not obligated to show him any respect. Nor is ESPN obligated to continue to employ him.
I apologize to my dear readers for the lack of recent writing. I have been sitting on the beach in Jamaica, enjoying the sunshine and pondering the issues of our world (okay, I didn't spend most of the time pondering, I probably spent more time swimming and drinking, but I did think enough to get the idea for this post.)
One of the things that always strikes me when I visit a place like Jamaica is the poverty there. The per capita GDP in Jamaica is just over $9,000 compared to close to $50,000 for the US and an average of $32,000 for the Euro-zone. Even second-world countries like Russia and Brazil have per capita GDP's in the $12,000 to $15,000 range. So, despite some wealthy land owners, Jamaica is poor, very poor.
But why? There are tremendous natural assets in the country. It has some of the most coveted beach-front property and nicest weather in the world, leading to a very robust tourism industry. It has natural resources with huge natural bauxite deposits that has led to a robust export-industry. It has a great climate for agriculture, leading to strong production of sugar, bananas and plantains. Yet it is very poor.
The answer is all about infrastructure. Education is a mess in the country, with only 73% of kids making it through primary school, with less than 50% graduating from high school and even fewer enrolling in college. The system of finance is poor, with a far less robust system for accumulating and effectively distributing capital than the first world.
A country realizing its economic potential always comes back to a few things, but I'll remind the reader, as these are the investments that should guide our government. What is required for economic success is:
(1) A robust system of property rights, including intellectual property (i.e. patent law)
(2) A complete end-to-end system of finance that effectively distributes capital to good ideas from venture capital to bond markets to banking, which includes credible financial controls (i.e. you can trust financial statements from potential investments)
(3) A solid system of physical infrastructure - roads, bridges, trains, ports, etc.
(4) An educational system that equips the workforce with needed skills
(5) Strong investment in basic scientific research
In the US, for all our issues, we still compare favorable to most of the world on these measures, although our physical infrastructure and investment in basic science could use some work.
Calling Broussard a Bigot Isn't Anti-Free Speech
People get confused about what free speech means sometimes. Our first amendment, which I hold very dear, ensures that people are able to express their points of view without interference from the federal government. Unlike, say, Germany, where you can be arrested for saying you support the Nazis, in the US, the government won't come arrest you for saying you like Adolf Hitler.
What free speech is NOT is a license to say things free from criticism.
Following Jason Collins announcement that he is gay, a significant event in that he is the first man in a major team sport at the top level to come out of the closet in the US (albeit Collins future prospects in the NBA were unclear as he is at best, an aging sixth man without a contract), ESPN Analyst Chris Broussard stated:
"If you're openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that that's a sin. If you're openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, I believe that's walking in open rebellion to God and Jesus Christ."
Broussard is certainly entitled to his opinion. He is legally entitled to express it. But I'm not obligated to show him any respect. Nor is ESPN obligated to continue to employ him.
Broussard is a bigot, and we should say it. It is not intolerance to shun the intolerant. Saying that we have to listen to Broussard's point of view and respect it is absurd. If an ESPN analyst said that the reason that there are far more white quarterbacks than black despite African-American's overall dominance in the NFL because black people are stupid, he would be fired and shunned, not congratulated on expressing his point of view.
You may not consider what Broussard said as equivalent to racism but I do. And calling bigots bigots is an important part of driving the social conditions that don't tolerate homophobia. If homophobia becomes as socially unacceptable as racism or Nazi-party membership, that will be progress. The bigots will have a right to speak but we will all ignore them.
By the way, kudos to Kobe Bryant for his strong statement of support for Collins. Kobe, for all his personal shortcomings, showed real leadership in his unequivocal support. He is still a major superstar and the rest of the NBA looks to the response of players like Bryant.
Lame Duck Already?
Presidential second terms tend to be more quiet because, almost by definition, Presidents are lame ducks from the day of their second inauguration. President Obama has seemed more lame than most in the start of year 5 of his Presidency.
Gun control? He couldn't even get a bill passed that was sponsored by 2 NRA members and supported by 90% of the Senate.
Immigration reform? We can hope, but don't bet on it.
Sequester replacement? He is nowhere.
Climate control? Is anyone even TALKING about it?
The President's lack of a relationship with congressional leadership is showing, including in his own party. It's an open question whether the President will get anything significant done in term number 2.
Blame the GOP all you want, but President Clinton had the same issue in the last 6 years of his Presidency, but got things done by tracking to the center.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
