Politics, Government & Public Policy: January 2006 Archives

Shortly before last year's State of the Union address I wrote that President Bush is a "uniter", as demonstrated by him receiving an absolute majority of the popular "vote" in the 2004 presidential election.

Sure, we're more polarized than ever, and many Democrats think President Bush is the worst thing since Hitler, but the thing to realize is that President Bush is reducing the number of Democrats. He received nine million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000, and many of those people were Gore voters who decided to switch sides. Our parties may be more polarized than ever, but because of President Bush more Americans are uniting under the Republican banner than ever before.

I think it's fair to expect presidents to attempt to appeal to everyone in the population, but no one (except Saddam Hussein) can win 100% of the vote. For a politician, winning an absolute majority is about the best that can be expected -- President Clinton was elected twice with mere pluralities, after all.

However, I think it's disingenuous to expect judicial nominees to be "uniters". There are two aspects of being united: the first is that the politician must create a vision that appeals to a broad range of people, but the second is that the people must have desires that are reasonably satisfiable and not mutually exclusive. No politician, no matter how gifted, can unite pro-choicers and pro-lifers, for instance, so one side will ultimately lose. In our system of government, for better or for worse, the side with the fewest number of adherents is the side that loses when interests conflict. In the case of judicial nominees, the President has to nominate someone, and the conflicting desires of the electorate prevent him from unifying everyone with his choice. Those in the minorty should realize that this is how democracy is supposed to work.

But I digress. Critics of the President aren't exactly decrying him for making a divisive nomination, they're denigrating Samuel Alito for not being a "uniter".

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said later, "I must say that I wish the president was in a position to do more than claim a partisan victory tonight."

"The union would be better and stronger and more unified if we were confirming a different nominee, a nominee who could have united us more than divided us," Mr. Schumer said, according to The Associated Press.

Winning popular approval for your ideas is a political concern, not a legal concern. When the country is united it is generally because the desires of the population happen to line up in a particular way due to circumstance, not because some politician thinks of a brilliant idea that satisfies everyone who used to disagree. Justices, and judges, are expected to rule based on the laws that are created by politicians, not to be politicians themselves.

I don't get all the hub-bub about Joel Stein's recent admission that he doesn't support the troops.

And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

I think he's exactly right. Our troops are all volunteers, and it's totally disingenuous for someone to claim that they "support" the troops and yet think their mission is evil and imperialistic. Why would you support a volunteer engaged in such actions? It's nonsense. Even though I think Joel Stein is wrong in his assessment of the war and foolish for admitting his true feelings about the troops, I've got to tip my hat to him for being honest while most of the people on his side wrap themselves in hypocrisy.

With the Republicans in the House getting ready to elect a new majority leader -- who will hopefully rein in the outrageous spending spree that's taken place during the past five years -- it's fitting to remember once again that the only way to curb the influence of money in politics is to reduce the amount of money controlled by politicians. Unfortunately, both parties these days seem more interested in redistributing money to their supporters than in serving the voters.

Most local governments don't spend lavishly on gifts, but many are investing in taxpayer-funded lobbying. The number of companies hired to pursue earmarks has doubled since 2000, many of them retained by universities or cities to pursue federal dollars. Now the feeding frenzy has escalated to the point that some lobbyists, including many who used to work on Capitol Hill, are approaching local officials and suggesting they have the juice to get them an earmark, providing the lobbyist gets paid a hefty fee.

In 2004, Culpeper County, Va. (population 40,192), was hoping to build a local sports complex when the local newspaper reported it was "approached by a representative of Alcalde and Fay, a Northern Virginia lobbying group, who expressed optimism that funds for the $3.5 million sports complex could be tied to one or more federal appropriation bills." The lobbying group recommended a $5,000-a-month retainer, for a total of $90,000 over an 18-month contract. As Ron Utt, a former federal budget official now at the Heritage Foundation, points out. "Alcalde & Fay are, for all intents and purposes, selling federal taxpayer money for just 2.6 cents on the dollar. What local government wouldn't consider such an offer from a lobbyist?"

Politicians have long used taxpayer money to buy votes from those who pay less taxes, but now it's becoming an industry! What's more, politicians appear to be benefitting themselves by serving as lobbyists after retirement!

Some universities end up employing or being run by the very people who bring them this largesse. Last month Democratic former senator Dennis DeConcini was given a prestigious appointment as a regent of the University of Arizona. Mr. DeConcini retired from the Senate in 1995 after being tarred as one of the "Keating Five," a group of senators who improperly intervened with federal regulators on behalf of corrupt savings-and-loan owner Charles Keating. Mr. DeConcini then became--no surprise--a Washington lobbyist. He now admits he needs to be brought up to speed on education issues. But he had a ready explanation for his appointment: "I used to be very close to the universities. I was able to secure them millions of dollars when I was in the Senate."

The office of Gov. Janet Napolitano, who appointed Mr. DeConcini as a regent, agrees with his assessment. Spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer told the Arizona State University newspaper that the former senator "was selected for his experience on Capitol Hill, where he helped Arizona universities secure federal funding for research."

Greg Patterson, a Republican former Arizona state legislator, calls the DeConcini appointment outrageous: "Imagine if a former senator was appointed to the board of Boeing and said 'Golly, I don't know much about planes, but when I was in the Senate, I got Boeing a ton of contracts and now I've got this really cool job.' "

The only way to reduce this corruption is to reduce the power and funding of government. Rather than redistributing money from one person to another, the government needs to be restricted to providing core services.

Certain trends have been favoring the left for the past several decades. In the early 1960s, transfer payments (entitlements and welfare) constituted less than a third of the federal government's budget. Now they constitute almost 60 percent of the budget, or about $1.4 trillion per year. Measured according to this, the US government's main function now is redistribution: taking money from one segment of the population and giving it to another segment. In a few decades, transfer payments are expected to make up more than 75 percent of federal government spending.

Currently the federal government consumes about 20 percent of the GDP, which is another way of saying that about 20 percent of Americans' income, on average, is paid in taxes to the federal government. According to the Government Accountability Office, that is on course to rise to 30 percent by 2040. Most of that 30 percent would be redistributed as payments to other Americans, rather than spent on standard government services like law enforcement, transportation, defense, national parks, orspace exploration.

We're decending into European-style socialism, slowly but surely, and if we don't act to reverse our collapse then their fate certainly awaits us.

Despite the fact that black Americans get very little from the Democratic Party even though they vote for the Democrats 90% of the time, Senator it's Hillary Clinton who says Republicans who are running the House of Representatives like a "plantation".

Clinton, who is seeking re-election this year, said during a Martin Luther King Day event in Harlem this week that the House "has been run like a plantation," in that "nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."

Clinton appeared briefly in Washington Wednesday at a Democratic event, but quickly slipped out a back door far from reporters. On Tuesday night, she adamantly stood by the comments, saying "top-down" decision-making by GOP congressional leaders was bad for the country.

Aren't House members pretty much all at the "top" of the national decision-making structure? How does Hillary expect Congress to be run? Would "bottom-up" decision-making mean that the minority party (the "bottom"?) sets the agenda?

Stephen Moore has a great article explaining exactly why the House Republicans need to change their leadership team in the wake of Tom DeLay's resignation. John Shadegg is the newcomer who reflects the small-government values that put Republicans into the majority in 1994, and if he doesn't win or make a good showing it seems inevitable that the profligate spending of the Bush years will continue into the forseeable future.

Win or lose, Mr. Shadegg's candidacy will be a measuring rod of just how much trouble congressional Republicans really think they're in. It will also serve as a leading indicator of whether House conservatives will devote the next nine months of this term to slamming the brakes on a domestic legislative policy that has careened off course. The era when Republicans promised to make government smaller and smarter by abolishing hundreds of obsolete federal agencies seems a distant memory now in this era of Bridges to Nowhere. In the last five years, Republicans have enacted the largest increase in entitlement spending in three decades, doubled the education budget, nearly tripled the number of earmarked spending projects, and turned a blind eye toward the corrosive culture of corruption on Capitol Hill that seems so eerily reminiscent of the final days of Democratic rule in the House. ...

The Armey-Gingrich political coups were instigated by a gang of rebellious House conservatives and triggered a domino effect of momentous political changes. For years, Republican House leaders had suffered from Stockholm syndrome, becoming subservient to their captors, the Democratic majority. That gave way to Messrs. Gingrich and Armey devising a D-Day-type battle plan for the hostile takeover of the House in the '94 midterms. Its Republicans ran on Reaganite economics and a reform agenda of bringing squeaky clean ethics to Capitol Hill in the wake of House Democratic banking and post office scandals. Delusional Democrats thought they could merely cover the reek of scandals with disinfectants and then move on--a catastrophic blunder that Republicans may now be in danger of repeating.

House conservatives in alliance with ethics-minded GOP moderates intent on cleaning up the party's stained image are undoubtedly the force to prevent that from happening. But will they? The right-leaning Republican Study Committee has a decisive voting bloc to elevate one of their own to majority leader. Or they can cut separate deals to advance their own short-term political ambitions. Mike Pence, head of the House Republican Study Committee notes: "The political reality is that conservatives are the majority of the majority party in the House." Mr. Shadegg may not win this race, but if the conservatives don't embrace his message of reform and renewal, voters might demote them to majority of the minority.

I sincerely hope that the House Republicans are made of stern enough stuff to resist the lure of corruption that accompanies the power they've enjoyed for the past decade.

On page 32 of IRS publication 525 we are instructed:

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner.

So, presumably the IRS won't turn you over to the cops if you declare income from theft?

Youngsters like myself may find it hard to believe, but many Congressional Democrats haven't always been in favor of abortion-on-demand like they are now. Jill Stanek wrote an article last September that focuses specifically on Senator Dick Durbin's abandonment of his principles, but she also mentions a good number of other Democrats who became pro-abortion when they perceived the political winds shifting.

When Durbin was running for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he boasted to a prospective pro-life vote that he served for five years as master of ceremonies at the annual Roe v. Wade observance at the state capitol, served as master of ceremonies at Springfield Right-to-Life's annual banquet, opposed abortion-on-demand and didn't even believe the right to abortion was constitutional.

Durbin won. In 1983 Durbin wrote a constituent that he hoped for Roe v. Wade's overturn so "states would be allowed to regulate ... abortion."

In 1983, Durbin responded in a pro-life questionnaire that he opposed all abortions except to save the life of the mother. ...

... Durbin made a bid in 1989 for vice chair of the House Democrat caucus, the No. 4 leadership position. But he lost – decisively.

Meanwhile, House comrade Dick Gephardt, who renounced his pro-life position in 1986, ascended to House Majority Leader that same year. In fact, most pro-life Democrats with aspirations defected during the 1980s, including Gore and Clinton.

And Durbin. Between 1989 and 1996, Durbin amassed an 84 percent pro-abortion voting record.

In 1996, he won his bid for U.S. Senate.

As senator, Durbin has maintained a 100 percent pro-abortion voting record, also utilizing his now renowned debating skills to aid and abet the abortion lobby.

Did he change his mind? Or were his principles always for sale?

I don't doubt that many Republican politicians would also be willing to sell-out their various principles in order to stay in office, which is why it's so important for the electorate to do its best to keep its thumbs on its leaders.

Francis W. Porretto has a great essay up about the Conservative-Libertarian schism, what it means, and how to resolve it. I think he's spot-on in many ways.

Many conservatives find themselves at odds with the official positions of the Republican Party on one or more important points. Yet most of those persons would not be comfortable with “pure” libertarianism, and for good reasons. It’s too wholesale. It attempts to answer every question, to be all things to all men. And it fails to recognize where it ceases to provide palatable answers.

Please don’t mistake me. I think the libertarian political philosophy, where applicable, is a very good one. It’s more accurate in its assessment of human nature and its controlling influences, and leads to better societies and better economic results, than any other political concept ever advanced. But the “where applicable” part is very important; in fact, it’s the most important part of this paragraph, as it explains in near-totality the “conservative-libertarian schism.” ...

Libertarianism is a philosophy. Conservatism is not. Strictly speaking, conservatism is a set of preferences, some of which are political in nature, about certain kinds of social phenomena and changes to them. ...

I hope to see a continuing refinement of libertarian-conservative or “fusionist” thought. I do what I can to advance it. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, and others of greater stature than myself are also working on it, from their particular perspectives. It is the most important effort under way in political thought. Unless it succeeds, and allows us to build a single front—united on critical matters and tolerant of divergence on lesser ones—with which to oppose the statism and special-interest-propelled panderings of the Left, freedom in America is doomed. Libertarians will have to face an accelerating loss of the freedoms they cherish. Conservatives will have to face the ongoing reduction of their bastions, as the power hungry, ideologically propelled forces of the Left eat into their numbers via the schools, the media, and the awful power of their patented divide-to-seduce technique.

Using his definitions I suppose I'm philisophically libertarian with conservative preferences.

The New York Times' new public editor, Byron Calame, has written an editorial questioning the timing of the NYT's revelation of the top secret NSA surveillance program and why it coincides so closely with a book due to come out by one of the reporters involved, but implicit in Mr. Calame's writing is a disturbing, silent support for the leakers who violated national security and revealed the program.

Taken at face value, Mr. Keller seems to be contending that the sourcing for the eavesdropping article is so intertwined with the decisions about when and what to publish that a full explanation could risk revealing the sources. I have no trouble accepting the importance of confidential sourcing concerns here. The reporters' nearly one dozen confidential sources enabled them to produce a powerful article that I think served the public interest.

It's not Mr. Calame's job or the Times' job to determine what national security secrets should be kept or revealed for the public interest. That's what we elect politicians for, none of whom on either side of the aisle appear to have tried to stop this program.

With confidential sourcing under attack and the reporters digging in the backyards of both intelligence and politics, The Times needs to guard the sources for the eavesdropping article with extra special care. Telling readers the time that the reporters got one specific fact, for instance, could turn out to be a dangling thread of information that the White House or the Justice Department could tug at until it leads them to the source. Indeed, word came Friday that the Justice Department has opened an investigation into the disclosure of classified information about the eavesdropping.

And, needless to say, Mr. Calame and the Times oppose prosecution of these leakers, despite the severity of their crimes. Why? It doesn't take a genius to figure it out: journalists depend on criminals and leakers to get their information so they can make money and get famous.