Politics, Government & Public Policy: December 2010 Archives
To President Obama, everything is about Obama.
It is the president's favorite rhetorical pose: the hectorer in chief. He is alternately defiant, defensive, exasperated, resentful, harsh, scolding, prickly. He is both the smartest kid in class and the schoolyard bully.There are many problems with this mode of presidential communication, but mainly its supreme self-regard. The tax deal, in Obama's presentation, was not about the economy or the country. It was about him. It was about the absurd concessions he was forced to make, the absurd opposition he was forced to endure, the universally insufficient deference to his wisdom.
He really does project arrogance and irritation every time I see him.
President Obama calls tax-rate-maintaining Republicans "hostage takers" and then explains how he'll only compromise when the "hostages" are threatened.
"It's tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed," President Obama said at his Tuesday press conference. "In this case, the hostage was the American people," Obama said.
Isn't the standard doctrine to not negotiate with hostage-takers even if that refusal results in the deaths of the hostages? If you negotiate, you only encourage terrorists to take more hostages. The idea is that in the long run refusing to negotiate will save more lives because it will discourage future hostage-taking.
President Obama's doctrine announces to the world that he's willing to appease hostage-takers, which makes hostage-taking a very attractive strategy for his enemies. I hope the President doesn't treat his own analogy of Republicans::hostage-takers too seriously, because it would be disastrous for America if he were so quick to appease real terrorists.
What a fantastic birthday present!
So you know how everyone has spent the couple of years wondering where the Tim Geithner-signed bills are? Apparently the printing presses have rebelled against Geithner!
CNBC sources claimed that printers have produced 1.1billion of the new bills - but those bills are unusable because of a creasing problem.The paper folds over during production - revealing a blank, unlinked [uninked? -- MW] portion of the bill face.
After printing, officials discovered that some of the new bills have a vertical crease that, when the sides of the bill are pulled, unfolds and reveals a blank space on the face of the bill.
At first glance, the bills appear completely printed - but they are not.
Those tricksy pressesses! You can join the rebellion by buying your very own Tim Geithner TAX CHEAT! stamps now now now! Order soon to guarantee delivery by Christmas.
President Obama has pushed Congressional Democrats under the (already crowded) bus and reached a deal with Republicans to maintain the existing income tax rates and even throw in a few substantial cuts.
Here are details of the emerging deal:
- Extends unemployment insurance for 13 months. Two million workers in December, and 7 million over the next year, would have lost benefits otherwise.
- Provides a one-year, 2 percentage point reduction in employees' Social Security payroll taxes, lowering the rate from 6.2% to 4.2%, at a cost of $120 billion.
- Keeps the Earned Income Tax Credit and American Opportunity Tax Credit increases from last year's economic stimulus law, for another $40 billion in tax cuts for families and students.
- Allows businesses to write off 100% of their capital purchases next year.
- Sets the estate tax at 35% for two years, with a $5 million exemption on assets that's higher than last year's $3.5 million. The rate came down under Bush's policy from 55% before 2001 to 45% in 2009 before expiring this year. It was set to return at 55% next year.
- Protects millions of taxpayers from seeing their taxes raised in 2010 and 2011 under the Alternative Minimum Tax.
I think the President is making a huge strategic miscalculation though:
Obama stressed that he didn't like two elements of the deal -- the temporary extension of tax cuts for upper-income Americans, which he said would have cost $700 billion if stretched for the entire next decade, and making the estate tax exemption more generous for the same time period.In two years, he said, "It will become apparent that we can't afford these tax cuts any longer." The White House said it expects a vigorous debate about that during the 2012 presidential election.
So... during the 2011 campaign either a) the economy will be recovering strongly, or b) the economy will still be struggling with anemic growth. In which of these scenarios does Obama envision an American public eager for tax hikes that "we can't afford"?
Speaking of things "we can't afford", you'll notice that this deal does nothing to reduce spending, the deficit, or the debt. Tax cuts are good, but repeat after me: the real problem is that we spend too much.
Despite Barack Obama's claim in 2004 that "There is no Black America or White America or Latino America or Asian America, there is just the United States of America.", those fractured Americas have existed for decades in the form of majority-minority Congressional districts. These contorted districts are gerrymandered to surround a population that -- as the term implies -- consists mostly of racial minorities. The purpose of these districts is to take advantage of racial cohesion within these minority communities to guarantee the election of minority Congressmen. To this end the majority-minority districts are very successful.
One side-effect of majority-minority communities is that minority politicians do not need to appeal to a broad range of voters, only to people who are generally like themselves. This means that when a Congressman from a majority-minority district wants to run for higher office in a statewide election -- such as Governor or Senator -- that politician has no experience with the statewide electorate. Worse, because that Congressman has spent his career adhering to the preferences of his minority constituency he has very likely taken positions and cast votes that are unappealing to the statewide electorate. Thus, while majority-minority districts cause there to be more minority Congressmen than there would otherwise be, they actually hinder the development of minority politicians at the higher levels. The districts are honeypots that attract talented minority candidates and then trap them, preventing them from reaching higher office.
And so, the Democrats' diversity problem.
Of the 75 black, Hispanic, and Asian-American Democrats in Congress and governorships, only nine represent majority-white constituencies--and that declines to six in 2011. Two of the party's rising black stars who sought statewide office this year were rejected by their party's own base. And when you only look at members of Congress or governors elected by majority-white constituencies (in other words, most of the governorships and Senate seats, and 337 out of 435 House seats), Democrats trail Republicans in minority representation.In fact, Republicans experienced a diversity boomlet this year. Cognizant of their stuffy national image, party leaders made a concerted effort to recruit a more diverse crop of candidates. That resulted in more than doubling the number of minority elected officials from six to 13--and a ten-fold increase (from one to 10) in the number of minorities representing majority-white constituencies.
The numbers reflect an inconvenient reality--even with their more diverse caucus, Democrats face the same challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating, and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in majority-white suburban and rural districts. The vast majority of black and Hispanic members hail from urban districts that don't require crossover votes to win, or represent seats designed to elect minorities. They are more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult to run statewide campaigns.
These are far from trivial facts. This means Democrats lack a bench of minority candidates who can run for statewide office, no less national office. Most Democratic minorities make a career in the House, accruing seniority and influence but lacking broad-based political support.
It should be no surprise to readers of this blog that the unintended consequences of majority-minority districts outweigh the benefits the districts were supposed to create. Diversity of all kinds is extremely valuable, but often the medicine can be worse than the disease.
