Politics, Government & Public Policy: August 2006 Archives
I've only been following the "secret hold" on the porkbusting database story peripherally, but I'm as unsurprised as anyone that the Senator holding up the bill is Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R-AK). (In case you missed it, the "bridge to nowhere" debacle was over the $223 million of taxpayer money Stevens earmarked to connect the mainland to Alaska's Gravina Island -- population 50.) Ted Stevens is the king of pork, so it's only natural that he'd want to kill a $15 million database that will allow the public to easily search federal contracts and expenditures. Hey Senator, time to retire.
Update:
I changed the title of the post because now it lookes like ex-Klansman Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) also has a hold on the bill. Again, not surprising, since you can hardly drive through West Virginia without seeing 100 structures named after the old man and paid for by federal tax dollars.
I've been following Tradesports odds on Republicans keeping the House and the Senate, and the numbers don't look quite as bleak for the GOP as Albert R. Hunt suggests. Says Mr. Hunt,
Barring an unexpected and big event, Democrats will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November and conceivably the Senate, too. Whether it's a tsunami or just a powerful wave, the political dynamics are moving in that direction, or more accurately, against the Republicans and President George W. Bush.Democratic insiders, who months ago thought their chances of winning a majority in the House were no better than even, and that the Senate was a lost cause, have become far more optimistic. Now, they say, winning the House is a lock, and the Senate is within reach. ...
More telling is that the smartest Republican political minds agree. ``The issue matrix and political dynamics are not good for us,'' says Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican. ``Only some big national or international event before the election can change that.''
Presumably the stupid Republican political minds are those who disagree, but in any event, the bettors on Tradesports (whose only incentive is to be right) don't see the House as a "lock" for the Democrats.
The bettors give Republicans only a 46% chance to retain the House, but that's a far cry from certainty for the Democrats. However, unlike the Senate which has remained a steady bet for the GOP, the House numbers have been trending downward for a long time.
The title of the New York Times article is "Bush Argues Democrats Don’t Understand Threat to U.S.", but from the President's remarks it seems that he doesn't understand the threat that Democrats pose to America.
President Bush seized today on Democratic calls for withdrawal from Iraq to make an election-year case that his political rivals did not properly understand the threats to the nation and would create a more dangerous world. ...In general, however, Mr. Bush struck a different tone than the vice president has used in recent weeks, including Mr. Cheney’s suggestion two weeks ago that implied that Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut primary against Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut would embolden "Al Qaeda types."
In response to a question today. Mr. Bush said he agreed with that analysis, but added: "We’ll continue to speak out in a respectful way, never challenging somebody’s love for America when you criticize their strategies or their point of view."
When a person or a party consistently advocates strategies designed to weaken our country and turn over American security to pathetic "international" bodies, why shouldn't we question their patriotism? When a person or party is eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq and thereby strengthen not just "al Qaeda types" but Iran, Russia, China, and all the rest, shouldn't we wonder whether they want what's best for America? When a person or party sits idly by for a decade while Americans are murdered, kidnapped, and blown up by the hundreds, isn't it legitimate to ask if they really love our country?
It's not that Democrat politicians don't understand what's at stake in the War on Terror, it's that they care less about American victory than about their own jobs. They picked the wrong horse in the political race -- most of them decades ago -- and they fear that they can't switch now without losing their seats. Sure, they know it's bad when Americans get blown up, but it's better than the alternative in which Democrat Senators and Representatives have to find work in the private sector.
Bruce L. Benson has a great article explaining how environmental groups use lawsuits to raise money rather than to cure environmental ills.
Private prosecution of crimes has a long and sordid history, and that history isn't over. Bounty hunters no longer hound innocent people to death as some did in England in the mid-18th century, but environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have modified the tactic. They use "citizen suits" to reap rich rewards for themselves with little positive impact on the environment. ...An indication that self-interest, not environmental stewardship, propels these suits comes from comparing citizen suits filed under two different laws. Between 1995 and 2002, 1,371 citizen suits were filed under the under the Clean Water Act but only 143 under the Clean Air Act. Do environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund think that water violations are more serious than air pollution? Probably not. They do know, however, that the Clean Water Act mandates record-keeping that makes suing under it easy and allows large fines that make settlements lucrative; the Clean Air Act does not.
Another sign that the goals are financial, not environmental, is that the Clean Water Act suits are disproportionately targeted at private firms, not municipal governments. Yet municipal governments generate much more water pollution.
Trial lawyers are the financial engine behind most of the crazy, hypocritical (Al Gore) leftist causes these days, and environmentalists are no different.
New data was released today [August 2, 2006] by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis on federal employee wages and benefits. The data for 2005 shows that compensation for the average federal civilian worker ($106,579) is now exactly double the average compensation in the U.S. private sector ($53,289). ...The federal pay advantage has been soaring in recent years. The ratio of average federal to average private compensation increased from 1.51 in 1990, to 1.68 in 2000, to 2.00 today.
Phenomenal.
Dennis Cauchon does a pretty good job explaining the differences between cash accounting and accrual accounting and why the federal deficit is much higher than anyone thinks.
The federal government keeps two sets of books.The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.
The culprits are Social Security and Medicare, which Congress and the American public refuse to recognize as the costs they really are. Still, as some point out, we aren't really obligated to make future Social Security payments, so maybe it's right not to count them yet.
The retirement programs do "not represent a legal obligation because Congress has the authority to increase or reduce social insurance benefits at any time," wrote Clay Johnson III, then acting director of the president's Office of Management Budget, in a letter to the board in May.
So the explicit escape plan is to radically cut Social Security and Medicare. Too bad the public and Congress aren't yet ready to face facts.
