Politics, Government & Public Policy: May 2005 Archives

USA Today writes about a poll showing that a majority of Americans may vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008. However, I think the results are less significant than the article presents.

For the first time, a majority of Americans say they are likely to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. ...

Voters under 30 were by far the most likely to say they would support a woman for president. More than half of them said they were "very likely" to vote for a woman, compared with less than one-third of those 50 and older. ...

•Strongest support from those with the lowest income. Sixty-three percent of those with annual household incomes of $20,000 or less were likely to support her, compared with 49% of those with incomes of $75,000 or higher.

First, the poll was of "all Americans", not likely or registered voters, and this is reflected in the age and income breakdown. Young people don't vote as much as older people, and (I think) very poor people don't vote as much average people. Second, the poll was taken over a weekend, when Democrats typically poll much stronger than Republicans. John Hinderaker at Power Line also points out that it took Kerry a long time to get his negatives this high. From the article:

In the poll, 29% were "very likely" to vote for Clinton for president if she runs in 2008; 24% were "somewhat likely." Seven percent were "not very likely" and 39% were "not at all likely" to vote for her.

Alexander K. McClure points out that New England liberals don't tend to win elections, but it's important to remember that Hillary is from Arkansas. [Xrlq writes in the comments that she's from Park Ridge, IL, but she did live in Arkansas for a while.] She's New York to the core, but I'll bet she can dig into her roots at the right time and summon up some good-old-girl uh, charm. Well, assuming she has any charm at all, which hasn't yet been evident to me.

McQ is the only rightist (I think?) I've seen who looks worried about the poll. He notes that the article says:

Clinton commands as much strong support - but more strong opposition - as George W. Bush did in a Newsweek poll in November 1998, two years before the 2000 election. She is in slightly stronger position than then-vice president Al Gore, the eventual 2000 Democratic nominee, was in 1998.

I think the "more strong opposition" is key, and I highly doubt many of the 39% who said they wouldn't vote for her are going to change their minds. Good impressions can be lost very quickly, but bad impressions last. Once the campaign starts the negatives for both candidates are going to skyrocket, and I doubt whoever the Republican is will start as far in the hole as Hillary.

The article quotes two political pundits, one from Hillary's political action committee and one from Emily's List, a leftist group that works hard to get leftist women into office and keep right-wing women out. No one from the right was consulted on the importance of this survey. I sincerely hope the left is drinking the kool-aid and that Hillary is nominated in 2008.

Peggy Noonan has a great piece about how pompous our politicians have become. This is why I hate award shows in which a group gives its members awards and we're supposed to care.

Why do they do this? Is their egomania not part of a trend? Have you noticed that every announcement now made on television has become an Academy Awards show in which the speaker announces that he is the winner? I often watch cable news during the day, and in the past year I've been taken aback by what happens when a local police chief announces the capture of a serial killer who's been murdering people for 30 years. The police chief does not say, "We finally got him." Instead he gives a long speech congratulating himself, lauding law-enforcement personnel, complimenting his department, congratulating investigators and their families, and nodding to the district attorney, the attorney general and the governor. Sometimes the police chief's voice shakes, so moved is he by the excellence of himself, his colleagues and his bosses. Then he announces a bad guy got caught. The only thing he never says is, "Sorry it took 30 years!" The only question he doesn't want to hear is, "Didn't you get tips on that guy in 1978?" ...

I think everyone in politics now has been affected by the linguistic sleight-of-hand, which began with the Kennedys in the 1960s, in which politics is called "public service," and politicians are allowed and even urged to call themselves "public servants." Public servants are heroic and self-denying. Therefore politicians are heroic and self-denying. I think this thought has destabilized them.

People who charge into burning towers are heroic; nuns who work with the poorest of the poor are self-denying; people who volunteer their time to help our world and receive nothing in return but the knowledge they are doing good are in public service. Politicians are in politics. They are less self-denying than self-aggrandizing. They are given fame, respect, the best health care in the world; they pass laws governing your life and receive a million perks including a good salary, and someone else--faceless taxpayers, "the folks back home"--gets to pay for the whole thing. This isn't public service, it's more like public command. It's not terrible--democracies need people who commit politics; they have a place and a role to play--but it's not saintly, either.

Instead of Campaign Finance Reform, how about a law that prohibits anyone from revealing the name or face of a politician? We can assign them all numbers and they can release position papers to their hearts' content, but no public fame or recognition whatsoever.

Well ok, I'm the one who called Howard Dean a "proven loser", but my predictions (and others') of his inefficacy at the head of the DNC are certainly coming true. What's surprising is that Mr. Dean isn't even raising money for the Democrats, which is the least they expected him to accomplish, even if he couldn't garner new Democratic voters. Robert Novak has a great piece about how Democratic politicians are scared of Mr. Dean's distemperment.

Dean's election by the DNC membership was a case of the inmates seizing control of the asylum. After the 2004 election, party leaders spent more than three months in a fruitless effort to find an alternative to Dean. Their fears of money drying up under Dean have largely been realized, but they have deluded themselves into thinking the former Vermont governor who screamed his way out of any hope for the 2004 presidential nomination was under firm restraint. ...

He was not. He has described the Republican leadership, in various venues, as ''evil,'' ''corrupt'' and ''brain-dead.'' He has called Sen. Rick Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, a ''liar.'' ...

Dean's deficiencies as face and voice of the Democratic Party were supposed to be overcome by his legendary prowess, evident by his run for president, raising funds in small packages. That so far has proved a grievous disappointment. First-quarter figures show the DNC received only $13 million from individuals, compared with $32 million raised by the Republican National Committee. Overall figures were $34.2 million by the RNC, $16.7 million by the DNC.

Dean has not always kept himself faithful to the Democratic message. On Feb. 23 at Cornell University, he blurted out that Social Security benefits -- if the system is left unchanged -- 30 years from now will be 80 percent of what they are now. That was a shocking departure from the party line that nothing has to be done.

As they say, read the whole thing. So what does the populist left think of Mr. Dean's chairmanship? It seems that Kos likes him because he flies coach, but what about his job performance? I can't find much about Mr. Dean via Google from Josh Marshall either.

The Pew Research Center has a new study out that categorizes Americans into nine political groups. Take the test and then compare your category to the others. No surprise: I'm an "Enterpriser". My main problem with the test is that it asks whether immigration is good or bad, but makes no distinction between those who come here legally and those who come illegally. (HT: Conservative Politics: US.)

But will President Bush have the guts? That's not to say I want him to veto it necessarily, but when the editors of the National Review and the New York Times both agree that the highway bill is a huge, steaming pile of grade F snausage, it's hard to disagree. That up to 40% of the money isn't even spent on highways or transportation ("Two typical examples are a program to combat adolescent obesity, and funding for a magnetic-levitation demonstration." -- NR) is a pretty strong sign that as much as I believe we should be spending money to combat congestion, this bill is so wasteful that it'll do more harm than good. (HT: Ryan Woodhams.)

I've advocated a "sunset amendment" to the federal Constitution whereby all acts of Congress would automatically expire after, say, 6 or 10 years unless purposefully and individually re-authorized. Somehow though I missed that President Bush is proposing a sort of independent commission modelled after the BRAC process to evaluate federal programs and eliminate them pending Congressional approval.

The Bush administration, for one, is hoping Congress will at least create the conditions for making more tough decisions such as base closings in the future. In its latest budget, it has proposed a pair of commissions that would be assigned to evaluate government programs for effectiveness and efficiency. An eight-member, bipartisan "Sunset Commission" would review every one of the federal government's 1,200 programs to see if they should be retained, restructured or terminated. Congress would establish a timetable for the reviews, and any program recommended for elimination by the panel would automatically sunset unless Congress took action to continue it.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me. As John fund points out in that article, BRAC has worked amazingly well as a (largely) apolitical process, and this Sunset Commission could help lower the equilibrium point of government waste. Naturally, the usual statist suspects are opposed. Rolling Stone magazine mischaracterizes the proposal as the end of government regulation -- if only!

The administration portrays the commission as a well-intentioned effort to make sure that federal agencies are actually doing their job. "We just think it makes sense," says Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which crafted the provision. "The goal isn't to get rid of a program -- it's to make it work better."

In practice, however, the commission would enable the Bush administration to achieve what Ronald Reagan only dreamed of: the end of government regulation as we know it. With a simple vote of five commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight -- the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission.

Oh please, I'm sure Congress would just sit by and do nothing if the commission proposed eliminating those agencies. The Sunset Commission would derive all its power from Congressional approval, and wantonly unpopular acts would be impossible. However, mildly, locally unpopular acts, such as military base closures, would be much easier. These are things that people are in favor of generally, even though no one wants to lose their military base; by putting decisions in the hands of a less political entity, Congress can insulate itself from having to pick who loses and can then approve of what's in the best interests of the country as a whole.

Plus, despite what Rolling Stone says, the commission members would be picked by the President and Congress together, not just by the President.

Newsmax has an article explaining how the Sunset Commission would likely be used, and it isn't all that terrifying.

A Congressional Budget Office review found that in fiscal 2005, Congress appropriated more than $170 billion for programs whose spending authorizations had expired, meaning there had been no review of whether the money was being well spent.

The average federal program duplicates five others. By a recent count, there are 64 separate welfare programs and 163 job-training programs.

A Sunset Commission to combat this inefficiency is "a simple concept," said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, a longtime advocate of such an oversight committee.

"Each and every federal government agency must justify its existence – not its value when it was created 100 years ago, or 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago. They must prove that they deserve our tax dollars today."

Such a commission would introduce a sort of competition into the bureaucracy that would be good for everyone, including our public sector employees. And besides, if the Sunset Commission doesn't work out, it can always eliminate itself.

It's interesting that the mere thought of reducing the size of government induces panic among some people.

Conceivably, the Sunset Commission could dismantle every regulation enacted by Congress by a group of men appointed by the president. This is in complete violation of the separation of powers defined in the Constitution. It seems impossible that Bush could get away with such nonsense, but never underestimate how selfdestructive Congress is. It seems absurd that the White House could write this into a budget and think it could really be enforced, but they cannot be so stupid as to believe this is legal. This is an underhanded powergrab. There is no reason to believe there is anything benign about the attempt to create and budget this the Sunset Commission.

Conceivably -- except that Congress would have to approve of the eliminations, and Congress itself already has the power to eliminate any programs it wants. All this agency would do is handle some of the research and paperwork to streamline Congress' job and help reduce the political gamesmanship.

What's odd is that even venerable outlets like Mother Jones, which should have a keener understanding of the political process, oppose the Sunset Commission because they think it violates separation of powers.

If passed, these commissioners would very likely be lobbyists, who would happily strip away the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, etc. Bye-bye worker protections. Bye-bye highway safety commission. Bye-bye— "But wait!," you cry. "Doesn't this violate the separation of powers!? Why should the executive branch be able to disintegrate agencies created by Congress? Surely the Supreme Court would knock this little measure down in a heartbeat." Ah, now we're starting to see what's at stake in the court battles. Contrary to the grand belief out there that the Democrats are opposing "people of faith," (yes, that's it, Dick Durbin, devout Catholic, is declaring a war on faith) the real problem is that nominees like Janice Brown would happily carry the administration's water over little anti-consumer, anti-worker moves like this.

The hilarious thing is that the "agencies created by Congress" are -- by this logic -- already violating the separation of powers doctrine by making regulations in the first place. These agencies derive power from Congress, and so would the proposed Sunset Commission. It's really pretty simple, and it shouldn't take a Supreme Court Justice to understand.

The Cato Institute was supporting this idea three years ago in 2002, and says that the Sunset Commission shouldn't just focus on eliminating programs, but on transitioning them into the private sector.

A final amazing note -- to me -- is how many leftist mouthpieces duplicate Osha Gray Davidson's Rolling Stone article in its entirety:
Democrats.com
Axis of Logic
True Blue Liberal
LibertyPost
Proud Liberal
truthout
ReclaimDemocracy, which at least includes a disclaimer.
Paganality
Smirking Chimp
rense
Dialogic
... and many more.

I don't read many lefty sites, and maybe this is why. I've never seen an article just reposted without comment on so many sites before. Bizarre. Is this normal, or does the Sunset Commission strike close to the lefty heart?

I attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Los Angeles Air Force Base location in 2003, and I'm pleased to see that the Defense Department has decided not to close it in the most recent round of Base Realignment And Closure (commonly called BRAC). LAAFB generates a huge number of high-paying aerospace and defense jobs in my area, and it would have been a blow to the economy to lose it; plus, all the major defense contractors are located nearby, so it wouldn't have made sense, even though Los Angeles is an expensive place to operate. Here's the complete list of bases affected.

The thing to realize, unfortunately, is that military bases don't "generate revenue", despite what Jeb Bush might think. Bases only move revenue from one place to another -- generally from the tax bucket paid into by the nation as a whole to a concentrated community. By reducing the number of unneeded bases, we can save more money for the contributing group than we were "generating" for the receivers, due to the waste associated with every government program. Still states are shelling out big bucks to save their bacon (and I'm glad mine wasn't thrown into the fire).

Zap at Also Also has a detailed description of how BRAC decisions are made.

Update:
John Fund explains that many base closures lead to increased prosperity.

James Courter, a former New Jersey congressman who chaired a 1993 base-closing commission, told me that he heard every dire prediction imaginable that communities that lost their bases would die. "In fact, those places that planned ahead, aggressively sought out alternatives and improved their economic incentives often came out ahead of where they were," he says. ...

Keith Caudle, a former Air Force colonel who was serving as McClellan's commander when it closed for good in 2001, credits his base's success story to forward-looking decisions to transfer the entire base to the county in one piece for nothing. The results can be so positive, he says, that "some communities ought to be out there begging the military to close their bases."

It makes sense, but I'm sure the transitions are scary.

Rock the Vote sinks to new depths of innanity with its bizarre line of youth-targeted "I <3 Social Security" gear. I don't see any thongs for sale, despite what Michael Medved said, but the t-shirts and hats are pretty moronic. It's stupid enough that RtV pushes ignorant kids to vote on issues they don't understand -- and always to the left -- but now they're encouraging us to "love" a giant, blood-sucking, government welfare program? Ridiculous. If any of these kids actually wants to get any SS money they should jump behind President Bush's reform package, but that's hardly the line RtV is spewing. Better yet, get a job you bums.

One of the most gratifying and amusing things about the present -- certainly cyclical -- Republican ascendancy is how frustrated the left has gotten with the effects of their sweeping electoral losses. The most obvious example is the froth over the Republicans' petty insistance on Constitutionality in the Senate which gets them indirectly labeled terrorists for daring to obstruct the obstruction of the minority Democrats. The Dems claim to be protecting the American people by thwarting the will of their elected representatives, which is so thick with irony as to be pretty much beyond comment.

More subtle, and yet closer to home to whatever dozen people watch it, is the rebalancing of PBS. Mick Arran claims that "PBS is about to become a fully-owned subsidiary of the Bush Administration", which is hyperbole that's apparently intended to elicit outrage from his readers. In actuality, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, only controls a small portion of PBS's budget, and he isn't seeking to merge PBS with the RNC, he just wants to ensure that public money is used in a way that relfects the will of the majority of Americans. The alternative is that eventually the public will begin to question how its tax dollars are used, and PBS may be defunded entirely as Newt Gingrich tried to do in 1994. I'd be glad to see that happen -- what business does the government have paying for television? where's that in the Constitution? -- but supporters of PBS who want to keep the station around should learn to keep a finger in the air.

How about the demise of the old "politics stops at the waters' edge" philosophy that so quickly fell out of favor once Democrats lost influence and control over foreign policy? What other instances of Democratic floundering and frustration have you seen or read about?

The New York Sun has a brilliant editorial that muses on the irony and disingenuousness of politicians who think nothing of aborting babies but supposedly worry about the future Social Security benefits of retirees who won't even be conceived for years.

"There would be at least a 28% benefit cut for a worker who is born five years from now, who retires at age 65, and who has average career earnings," the [Senator Chuck] Schumer [D-NY] press release warns. "There would be at least a 42% benefit cut for a worker who is born five years from now, who retires at age 65, and who has career earnings that are 'the equivalent' of $59,000 in 2005."

Notice those key words "born five years from now." Senator Schumer, to judge by his votes in the Senate, doesn't buy into the idea that unborn children or fetuses or embryos, call them what you will, need to be protected against being harvested and destroyed for stem-cell research or being destroyed by their parents as a method of birth control. This same senator who opposes banning late-term abortions - in other words, who votes as if he doesn't believe an unborn child has a right to life - thinks that children who are four years away from even being conceived, let alone born, have some claim on Social Security benefits indexed to wages rather than prices.

Well said, and ingeniously connected. (HT: James Taranto.)