Bipartisan Gridlock Is Striking the Right Balance
To the casual observer and most members of the mainstream media, or political system looks an utter mess as it relates to the federal budget. In the past two years, we have almost shut the government down just to agree to pay our bills, we have gone down to the wire to agree to a tax policy for this year and we have implemented across-the-board spending cuts without rhyme or reason and trade-offs of government programs.
Taking a step back, while the process is certainly not working perfectly, the split control of the budgeting process between House Republicans and the President is producing positive results.
First, let's think about the deficit. The only modern role model for a balanced budget that we have is during the Clinton administration. During that time period, spending averaged between 19% and 20% of GDP and taxation also averaged between 19% and 20% of GDP. The tax side was achieved through the 1993 tax hikes, which included an increased gas tax and increased income taxes, including the creating of a 39.6% bracket for those making over $250K. The revenue side was contained by cuts to defense and welfare reforms, as well as a booming economy that led to low costs of things like unemployment benefits.
Fast forward to 2011. Revenues had fallen to 15.4% of GDP, a Post-World War 2 low. This was a combination of the Bush tax cuts and the Obama payroll tax cuts, which created historically low tax rates and, through various exemptions and deductions, excluded a large percentage of the tax base. Spending, meanwhile, had grown to 24.1% of GDP, increased by heightened military spending, new Medicare drug benefits, extended unemployment benefits, homeland security spending and growing entitlement costs as boomers retired (Obama's stimulus package and Bush's TARP program had both largely concluded their costs by this point.) Essentially, up 4-5% of GDP in spending, down 4-5% of GDP in revenue from when we were in balance.
Those of us who would take a rational, fact-based approach, would say that we clearly had a problem of wanting the government to do a whole bunch of new things (drug benefits, wars) combined with more expensive existing things (Medicare, Social Security) while paying less for them. Not a sustainable path. The obvious path would be to try to get back to Clinton-era levels of taxation and revenue. That sounds easy but isn't - we were still entangled in Iraq and Afghanistan, entitlements were going to inherently be more expensive if nothing systemic was done and people had reset the baseline in their mind and would consider Clinton-era rates a massive "tax hike".
The gridlock in 2011, while walking on the edge of a knife, produced a spending agreement that substantially reduced federal discretionary spending out of the gate and produced the sequester. The recent fight between the President and congress produced higher tax rates, both a repeal of the Obama payroll tax cut and a partial repeal of the Bush tax cuts for higher earners. The sequester further reduced spending.
So what has happened? The 2013 budget year, which runs October 2012 - September 2013 paints an incomplete picture as the changes are only partially implemented (the tax hikes will only be effective for 9 of the 12 months and the sequester spending cuts for only 7 of the 12 months.) Even so, in fiscal 2013, revenues have risen to 17.8% of GDP and spending has fallen to 23.3% of GDP. Next year, revenues will further rise to 18.7% of GDP and spending will further fall to 22.6% of GDP, leaving a deficit of only 3.9% of GDP, versus the 2011 level of 8.7% of GDP.
In other words, the range of budget fights have increased taxes by 3.3% of GDP and cut spending by 1.5% of GDP. That's fairly balanced, although there is clearly more work to do. The big area of spending opportunity is clearly entitlements, which to-date have been untouched. There are also still large opportunities in the defense budget, which is still running way above 1990s era levels.
But what about the arbitrary nature of the spending cuts? While there has been a lot of hand-wringing over the across-the-board nature of the cuts, this is not that different from what happens in private industry all the time. If you work in a private corporation, have you ever experienced a travel ban or a freeze on all raises? These are private sector examples of exactly the same behavior - it may not be the most precies way to cut spending, but it is simple to implement and allows each department manager to make trade-offs within the budget that they know the best. The sequester isn't a bad thing in this regard.
We are making progress on the budget. But Congress and the President must be willing to make some uncomfortable choices about entitlements over the next few years. Entitlements are sucking up more and more federal money as the population ages and Medicare inflation continues to rise.
Rob Portman: Late to the Party, But Right
Rob Portman's revelation that he has a gay son and that he has come to support gay marriage is courageous for a man who is viewed as a leading elected conservative. His personal story of coming to understand his son's orientation and reconciling it with his previous held religious and social beliefs is insightful and touching.
Portman may be late to the party, but to his credit, he is but a few months President Obama in coming around.
What is most fascinating to me about Portman's shift is that there isn't much anger among prominent conservatives on the issue. While there are still screaming so-called "values voters", more and more young conservatives are embracing the notion of the GOP as the party of liberty and realize that embracing that notion means providing liberty to everyone, not just straight people.
While I could criticize Portman for not coming forward with these views last year when he was a contender for the VP spot, I could make the same criticism of President Obama for not supporting this view in 2008, when gay marriage support would have been a clearer political negative.
I welcome Rob Portman to the fold of those fighting for marriage equality and hope more conservatives follow his and Dick Cheney's lead on this issue.
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Showing posts with label Rob Portman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rob Portman. Show all posts
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Sunday, August 5, 2012
A Bad Week for Romney, Does He Need a Game Change?
Obama Lead Widens
Days Until the Election: 93
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.8% (+3.5% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
The last time that I actually flipped a state on my electoral vote projection was June 30th. For a race that is supposed to be neck-and-neck and back-and-forth, that is pretty remarkable...5+ weeks of essentially the same map. And the map is not so kind to Mitt Romney - it shows a pretty resounding victory for President Obama. Not quite the 365 to 173 whacking that he gave to John McCain in 2008, but a large enough cushion that if the election were being held today, Obama advisers wouldn't be worried about a state here or there.
No states flip this week either, but the trend is decidedly for the President over the course of the past week. He picks up 3.5% in the average of national polls and moves up the strength of several states. For the first time in a long time, he now has 271 electoral votes in either the "safe", "strong" or "likely" category for him. This is big because it means that the President could lose every single close state - North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada, and still win the electoral college 271 - 267.
The reason for this, of course, is the state of Ohio, which now sits in the Likely Obama category. It is virtually impossible for a Republican to win without Ohio. No Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio, going all the way back to the founding of the party in 1856. Romney HAS to win there to open up the map to possible paths to 270 for him. If he loses in Ohio, as the present polling would indicate, it's game over early on.
Romney's bad week has been the result of several things. His first foreign trip was more or less a disaster as he offended the Brits by saying they might not be prepared for the election, offended Muslims across the world by saying that Palestinian poverty was the result of an inferior culture (no, that isn't taken out of context) and his campaign advisers offended the Polish by cursing at reporters during a trip to a sacred burial site. In short, Romney looked not ready for prime-time on the world stage, and not appearing Presidential is an important defect for a challenger.
Also starting to move the polls is massive spending by the Obama campaign. Ironically, after caving into the congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all incomes this year, Obama is campaigning hard on NOT extending the cuts again. And it seems to be working. You may call it cheap class warfare (and I have at times), but the theme of "Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy" combined with "the rich need to pay their fair share" and "Romney is a repeat of the Bush policies" are having a meaningful impact on the race.
Finally, the economic news has been relatively good. It certainly hasn't been the V recovery that I had hoped for (and erroneously predicted) 3 years ago, but the stock market is double what it was then and we had another month of significant, although not stellar job growth.
Put it all together and Romney has some work to do after the Olympics to regain a solid footing in the race. Things are certainly not insurmountable for him at this stage - after all a 3.8% lead can evaporate in a few days if the right events happen, but he has to be careful not to let this race get too far away from him given the strength of the coffers and strategy of the Obama campaign.
Game Changing or Safe VP Pick?
Romney's inability so far to close the gap has many among the GOP faithful calling for a bolder pick for his VP. Rob Portman and Tim Pawlenty are the two heavy favorites for the nod and both represent very safe picks - unexciting but unoffensive soldiers who possess solid, but not radical, conservative credentials and would widely be seen as qualified to be President on day one.
The call is for a pick like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan, Rubio for his youth and the energy of support for him from the Tea Party, Ryan for his conservative budget credibility, something which could be a big help for Romney, who has struggled to articulate any kind of cohesive economic and budget philosophy.
My bet is still on the safe picks and probably rightly so. I've made this point before, but it bears repeating - I cannot think of a single winning Presidential Candidate who won because of his VP pick. VP picks generally can only hurt not help, so the first principle should be to do no harm.
Pawlenty seems like the best choice of the bunch. Outside the beltway, conservative but mainstream, has run things and therefore buttresses the Romney argument of executive experience. And he is not at all gaffe-prone. But it's Romney's call, obviously, and how and what he decides will be our first big reveal into how he might govern.
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Days Until the Election: 93
Projected Popular Vote Total: Obama +3.8% (+3.5% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 332, Romney 206 (unchanged from last week)
The last time that I actually flipped a state on my electoral vote projection was June 30th. For a race that is supposed to be neck-and-neck and back-and-forth, that is pretty remarkable...5+ weeks of essentially the same map. And the map is not so kind to Mitt Romney - it shows a pretty resounding victory for President Obama. Not quite the 365 to 173 whacking that he gave to John McCain in 2008, but a large enough cushion that if the election were being held today, Obama advisers wouldn't be worried about a state here or there.
No states flip this week either, but the trend is decidedly for the President over the course of the past week. He picks up 3.5% in the average of national polls and moves up the strength of several states. For the first time in a long time, he now has 271 electoral votes in either the "safe", "strong" or "likely" category for him. This is big because it means that the President could lose every single close state - North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa and Nevada, and still win the electoral college 271 - 267.
The reason for this, of course, is the state of Ohio, which now sits in the Likely Obama category. It is virtually impossible for a Republican to win without Ohio. No Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio, going all the way back to the founding of the party in 1856. Romney HAS to win there to open up the map to possible paths to 270 for him. If he loses in Ohio, as the present polling would indicate, it's game over early on.
Romney's bad week has been the result of several things. His first foreign trip was more or less a disaster as he offended the Brits by saying they might not be prepared for the election, offended Muslims across the world by saying that Palestinian poverty was the result of an inferior culture (no, that isn't taken out of context) and his campaign advisers offended the Polish by cursing at reporters during a trip to a sacred burial site. In short, Romney looked not ready for prime-time on the world stage, and not appearing Presidential is an important defect for a challenger.
Also starting to move the polls is massive spending by the Obama campaign. Ironically, after caving into the congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all incomes this year, Obama is campaigning hard on NOT extending the cuts again. And it seems to be working. You may call it cheap class warfare (and I have at times), but the theme of "Romney is an out-of-touch rich guy" combined with "the rich need to pay their fair share" and "Romney is a repeat of the Bush policies" are having a meaningful impact on the race.
Finally, the economic news has been relatively good. It certainly hasn't been the V recovery that I had hoped for (and erroneously predicted) 3 years ago, but the stock market is double what it was then and we had another month of significant, although not stellar job growth.
Put it all together and Romney has some work to do after the Olympics to regain a solid footing in the race. Things are certainly not insurmountable for him at this stage - after all a 3.8% lead can evaporate in a few days if the right events happen, but he has to be careful not to let this race get too far away from him given the strength of the coffers and strategy of the Obama campaign.
Game Changing or Safe VP Pick?
Romney's inability so far to close the gap has many among the GOP faithful calling for a bolder pick for his VP. Rob Portman and Tim Pawlenty are the two heavy favorites for the nod and both represent very safe picks - unexciting but unoffensive soldiers who possess solid, but not radical, conservative credentials and would widely be seen as qualified to be President on day one.
The call is for a pick like Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan, Rubio for his youth and the energy of support for him from the Tea Party, Ryan for his conservative budget credibility, something which could be a big help for Romney, who has struggled to articulate any kind of cohesive economic and budget philosophy.
My bet is still on the safe picks and probably rightly so. I've made this point before, but it bears repeating - I cannot think of a single winning Presidential Candidate who won because of his VP pick. VP picks generally can only hurt not help, so the first principle should be to do no harm.
Pawlenty seems like the best choice of the bunch. Outside the beltway, conservative but mainstream, has run things and therefore buttresses the Romney argument of executive experience. And he is not at all gaffe-prone. But it's Romney's call, obviously, and how and what he decides will be our first big reveal into how he might govern.
If you like this site tell your friends.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Everything You Need to Know About the British Elections, The Tea Party Losses Yet Again
The British Parliamentary Elections
Ah, Mother England. It could be the United States of America in 1992. The United Kingdom is in the middle of what has been possibly the wildest, most unpredictable elections in its history. I don't write a lot about foreign elections, but let me attempt to recap.
The Labour Party, which has been in power since Tony Blair's rise to power in 1997 is under fire, not only from the other so-called "major" party in the UK, the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, but from the upstart Liberal Democratic Party, which had, up until very recently, been considered a joke in British politics.
The Labour Party was widely considered to be in trouble, facing the same headwinds that all incumbent governments across the world face of ugly economics, high unemployment and growing government debt. But it was assumed that Gordon Brown's Labour might lose to David Cameron's Tories (Conservatives), not to the much-mocked LDP.
That all changed in the first-ever U.S.-style televised debate between the three parties, when the charismatic LDP leader Nick Clegg, mopped the floor with the two so-called "major parties". The LDP briefly surged to a lead....at least until everyone realized that their policies were a little nutty.
Now, with the LDP peaking too soon and the Conservatives stuck in the mud, Labour has a chance for a big comeback. Enter Gordon Brown's "bigot-gate", where, while not realizing he was on mike, Prime Minister Brown accuses a grandmother of being a bigot, for reasons which aren't very clear to me. The lady had just had a wide-ranging conversation with Brown. She did at one point reference immigration, but the quote was simply "and you can't even talk about the immigrants". For all I know, she could be a bigot, but her words certainly weren't sufficient to make that determination. Brown shows his detachment from the common (wo)man. Labour continues to languish.
So where does that leave us?
Here is my aggregation of the British polls going into the election tomorrow. I'll caveat this with the fact that I am not nearly as familiar with British polling as with American polling, so I would anticipate that the margin of error on my projections could be larger than normal:
Conservatives = 35.5%
Labour = 27.7%
Liberal Democrats = 27.5%
Minor Parties/Undecided = 9.3%
So, it looks like a fairly good margin of victory in the popular vote for the Tories, and a very close second/third finish between the incumbent Labor party and the LDP. The LDP has been fading in late polling and the Conservatives coming up.
But, wait. The British have almost as screwed up a system as our electoral college. The winner of the popular vote does not necessarily win the election. Instead, each parliamentary district is awarded to a party, with the winner of the majority of seats becoming Prime Minister. If not party wins a majority of seats, you have a "hung parliament" and the parties would have to form coalitions in order to get the majority required to form a government.
Because of the concentration of the LDP support, while they may get about the same number of votes as Labour, they are almost assured to win less seats. Based on my projections and past election results, I attempted to model the number of parliament seats that would be won by each party. Here are the results:
Conservatives = 282 Seats
Labour = 258 Seats
Liberal Democrats = 81 Seats
Other Minor Parties = 29 Seats
Needed for Prime Minister's Seat: 326
So, the likely result will be that there will be a hung parliament, with the LDP playing king-maker, able to make either Labour or the Tories the party in power. Politically, they are closer to Labour, but Clegg has run on such an anti-Labour platform, that an alliance with the Conservatives is possible.
If the Conservatives can get to approximately 40%, they might take an outright majority of the seats.
Two points here
1. This will be a very interesting election
AND
2. The British election system is even more in need of reform than the American system
Stay tuned...
GOP Shuns the Tea Party in Indiana
In the Indiana Republican Senate primary to replace retiring Sen. Evan Bayh (D), former Senator and mainstream conservative Dan Coats has beaten back the tea-party movement to claim the GOP nomination.
Also, yesterday, incumbent Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) easily beat back a tea-party challenge (actually 3 of them) to be renominated for the Senate by the GOP.
In Ohio, Rob Portman won the GOP nomination, as the tea party couldn't even field a favorite of theirs to run.
This builds on the earlier tea-party loss in the GOP primary in Illinois?
The meaning of all of this?
1. The GOP nationally sees a huge opportunity and is in it to win it. Wingnuts need not apply.
2. As I've said for months -- the media is wrong, the tea party movement is a joke with no traction. They have not won a single election yet and so far have only been able to torpedo the GOP chances in races that they got involved.
But wait, you say, what about Florida and Marco Rubio? Let's set the record straight on this one -- Marco Rubio has been very careful not to claim membership in the tea party. He has carefully and smartly kept his distance. And Charlie Crist was ousted for being perceived as too close to President Obama and being an insider in an anti-incumbent year. I said the tea party movement was a joke, not that Republicans didn't truly dislike President Obama.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
Ah, Mother England. It could be the United States of America in 1992. The United Kingdom is in the middle of what has been possibly the wildest, most unpredictable elections in its history. I don't write a lot about foreign elections, but let me attempt to recap.
The Labour Party, which has been in power since Tony Blair's rise to power in 1997 is under fire, not only from the other so-called "major" party in the UK, the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, but from the upstart Liberal Democratic Party, which had, up until very recently, been considered a joke in British politics.
The Labour Party was widely considered to be in trouble, facing the same headwinds that all incumbent governments across the world face of ugly economics, high unemployment and growing government debt. But it was assumed that Gordon Brown's Labour might lose to David Cameron's Tories (Conservatives), not to the much-mocked LDP.
That all changed in the first-ever U.S.-style televised debate between the three parties, when the charismatic LDP leader Nick Clegg, mopped the floor with the two so-called "major parties". The LDP briefly surged to a lead....at least until everyone realized that their policies were a little nutty.
Now, with the LDP peaking too soon and the Conservatives stuck in the mud, Labour has a chance for a big comeback. Enter Gordon Brown's "bigot-gate", where, while not realizing he was on mike, Prime Minister Brown accuses a grandmother of being a bigot, for reasons which aren't very clear to me. The lady had just had a wide-ranging conversation with Brown. She did at one point reference immigration, but the quote was simply "and you can't even talk about the immigrants". For all I know, she could be a bigot, but her words certainly weren't sufficient to make that determination. Brown shows his detachment from the common (wo)man. Labour continues to languish.
So where does that leave us?
Here is my aggregation of the British polls going into the election tomorrow. I'll caveat this with the fact that I am not nearly as familiar with British polling as with American polling, so I would anticipate that the margin of error on my projections could be larger than normal:
Conservatives = 35.5%
Labour = 27.7%
Liberal Democrats = 27.5%
Minor Parties/Undecided = 9.3%
So, it looks like a fairly good margin of victory in the popular vote for the Tories, and a very close second/third finish between the incumbent Labor party and the LDP. The LDP has been fading in late polling and the Conservatives coming up.
But, wait. The British have almost as screwed up a system as our electoral college. The winner of the popular vote does not necessarily win the election. Instead, each parliamentary district is awarded to a party, with the winner of the majority of seats becoming Prime Minister. If not party wins a majority of seats, you have a "hung parliament" and the parties would have to form coalitions in order to get the majority required to form a government.
Because of the concentration of the LDP support, while they may get about the same number of votes as Labour, they are almost assured to win less seats. Based on my projections and past election results, I attempted to model the number of parliament seats that would be won by each party. Here are the results:
Conservatives = 282 Seats
Labour = 258 Seats
Liberal Democrats = 81 Seats
Other Minor Parties = 29 Seats
Needed for Prime Minister's Seat: 326
So, the likely result will be that there will be a hung parliament, with the LDP playing king-maker, able to make either Labour or the Tories the party in power. Politically, they are closer to Labour, but Clegg has run on such an anti-Labour platform, that an alliance with the Conservatives is possible.
If the Conservatives can get to approximately 40%, they might take an outright majority of the seats.
Two points here
1. This will be a very interesting election
AND
2. The British election system is even more in need of reform than the American system
Stay tuned...
GOP Shuns the Tea Party in Indiana
In the Indiana Republican Senate primary to replace retiring Sen. Evan Bayh (D), former Senator and mainstream conservative Dan Coats has beaten back the tea-party movement to claim the GOP nomination.
Also, yesterday, incumbent Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) easily beat back a tea-party challenge (actually 3 of them) to be renominated for the Senate by the GOP.
In Ohio, Rob Portman won the GOP nomination, as the tea party couldn't even field a favorite of theirs to run.
This builds on the earlier tea-party loss in the GOP primary in Illinois?
The meaning of all of this?
1. The GOP nationally sees a huge opportunity and is in it to win it. Wingnuts need not apply.
2. As I've said for months -- the media is wrong, the tea party movement is a joke with no traction. They have not won a single election yet and so far have only been able to torpedo the GOP chances in races that they got involved.
But wait, you say, what about Florida and Marco Rubio? Let's set the record straight on this one -- Marco Rubio has been very careful not to claim membership in the tea party. He has carefully and smartly kept his distance. And Charlie Crist was ousted for being perceived as too close to President Obama and being an insider in an anti-incumbent year. I said the tea party movement was a joke, not that Republicans didn't truly dislike President Obama.
If you like this site, tell your friends.
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