Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

Conspiracy Theories

I’m not much for conspiracy theories.

In my long-ago days in City Hall,   we often encountered folks–sometimes they were neighborhood activists, sometimes representatives of organizations aggrieved about some action–who were absolutely convinced that city officials had cleverly and surreptiously implemented a plan to screw them. What they didn’t understand was that we lacked the cunning and imagination needed to carry out the nefarious plots they attributed to us. As a former co-worker used to say,  incompetence explained so much more than conspiracy.

But just because most accusations of intentional conspiracies tend to come from paranoid folks doesn’t mean that  bad behavior is never intentional.  (As the old saying goes, even paranoids have enemies.)

Which brings me to an unsettling theory advanced by Robert Reich in a recent blog post.

Robert Reich, as most readers know,  was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration. He now teaches at Berkeley. His politics tend to be considerably to the left of mine; that said, however, his is a credible and very respectable voice, and he is not given to conspiracy theories.

Reich writes about persistently high unemployment, and the unwillingness of Congressional Republicans to do anything about it. These are facts. Unemployment remains high, and the House GOP remains stubbornly opposed to even the most reasonable measures to address that problem. The question is, why? Reich dismisses the notion that Republican obstinacy is entirely due to hatred of President Obama (aka the black guy in the White House).

First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get — which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives’ corporate sponsors happy.

Second, high unemployment fuels the bull market on Wall Street. That’s because the Fed is committed to buying long-term bonds as long as unemployment remains high. This keeps bond yields low and pushes investors into equities — which helps boosts executive pay and Wall Street commissions, thereby keeping regressives’ financial sponsors happy.

Third, high unemployment keeps most Americans economically fearful and financially insecure. This sets them up to believe regressive lies — that their biggest worry should be that “big government” will tax away the little they have and give it to “undeserving” minorities; that they should support low taxes on corporations and wealthy “job creators;” and that new immigrants threaten their jobs.

I suppose this theory doesn’t really amount to a conspiracy, but it does suggest that the GOPs blocking maneuvers are prompted by actual reasons, no matter how much their behavior resembles a two-year-old’s tantrum.

If Reich is correct–and I’m still dubious–members of the House GOP are both smarter and much more despicable than I had previously imagined.

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If Only Today’s Crackpots Would Listen

This morning’s comic strip, Non Sequitor, explains ideology. And Fox News. And the Tea Party.

Unfortunately, a stubborn insistence on an alternate reality is more and more likely to do irreparable damage to the real world we occupy.  A couple of days ago, William Ruckleshaus, Lee Thomas, William Riley and Christine Todd Whitman made precisely that argument in the New York Times. All were EPA administrators in Republican Administrations, back when the GOP was a political party rather than a cult.

They point out that there is no longer any credible debate about the reality of climate change (the operative word here being “credible.”) And they endorse President Obama’s climate plan.

 The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”

A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington. Dealing with this political reality, President Obama’s June climate action plan lays out achievable actions that would deliver real progress. He will use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants and spur increased investment in clean energy technology, which is inarguably the path we must follow to ensure a strong economy along with a livable climate.

……

Mr. Obama’s plan is just a start. More will be required. But we must continue efforts to reduce the climate-altering pollutants that threaten our planet. The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.

If only the petulant ideologues would listen. But we live in a world best explained by the Non Sequitor cartoon linked to above.  The party that gave us Bill Ruckleshaus and Christine Todd Whitman no longer exists; for its current manifestation–the Party of No–blocking anything and everything that Barack Obama proposes is far more important than saving the earth.

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Texas Republicans Have a Great Idea

Republicans in the Texas Legislature want Wendy Davis to pay for the second special session called by Governor Rick Perry. Their logic is irrefutable: her 11-hour filibuster prevented them from passing their pet anti-choice policy.  That forced Governor Perry to call a  separate session so they could complete their culture-war agenda. Since it was her fault, she should pay.

I think the Texas GOP’s idea is well worth applying to another legislative body–the one that meets in Washington, D.C.

Why shouldn’t We the People require repayment, not just for the GOPs incessant filibusters ( conducted by weenies who don’t even have to match Wendy Davis’ marathon performance–who just have to intone “you don’t have 60 votes”), but for all the other childish antics done solely to prevent Congress from getting the people’s business done. (I think we’re up to 40 votes to repeal Obamacare now…The Congressional Research Service calculates that it costs $24 million to run the House for a week, so the first 33 votes cost taxpayers approximately $48 million. It breaks down to around $1.45 million per vote.)

At the very least, the Party of No should have to pay salaries, utilities and other overhead costs of keeping the Capitol Building open  week after unproductive week.

Wendy Davis was trying to prevent a bad bill from becoming law. These childish Congresscritters are not only taking votes they know to be utterly meaningless,  they are refusing to do their duty to vote on nominees to fill judicial and administrative vacancies.

When my children were toddlers, and they threw tantrums, they lost privileges. Pretty soon, they stopped throwing tantrums. I see no reason why we shouldn’t take the same approach when Congress misbehaves.

Want to argue the merits of a bill? Fine. That’s why you’re there. No penalty.

Want to stamp your foot and refuse to allow the grown-ups to do the nation’s business? That’s a no-no. Here’s a bill for what it will cost you.

Yes, indeed…those assholes in Texas may accidentally be on to something….

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Pissing on Democracy

Democratic theory is actually pretty simple; voting is a substitute for physical struggles for power, but it only works when the fight is fair. The loser in any election abides by the decision because the winner abides by the rules.

What we are seeing now is a situation where the losers refuse to play by the rules.

In Washington, the GOP’s antics have been the equivalent of a big “screw you.” The party has said, in effect, “we don’t care that the people voted for this President, despite our best efforts to keep his supporters from the polls. We are taking our ball and bat and going home–we are refusing to play the game.” In this case, of course, the “game” is governing the nation, and their childish behavior has made that nearly impossible.

In Indiana, where the Republicans won almost every office, they are determined to strip the one Democrat who did manage to win office of the authority to do her job.

Most recently, in yet another in a series of power grabs, the State Board of Education voted (8 to 1, with Glenda Ritz being the 1) to authorize Dan Elsener to spend money from the Board’s budget and work with the Governor’s office to hire the Board’s staff. According to several people, despite the fact that the Superintendent has often come from a different political party than the Governor, this is the first time in Indiana history that money budgeted for the State Board will not be controlled by the Department of Education.

As one observer wrote, “Obviously, a State Board with its own staff using a budget of $3,010,716 each year could become a power center independent of the State Superintendent and the Department of Education. Apparently, the Governor has quietly put this seismic shift into motion.”
Ever since the voters elected Glenda Ritz (by a margin exceeding that of Governor Pence, it might be noted), the administration and the Republicans have worked to overturn the results by reducing the powers of the office.

Like the current Superintendent or not, this is most definitely not the way the system is supposed to work. The message being sent is clear: we’ll respect election results and the democratic process when we win.

When we lose, we’ll play dirty.

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How Far It Has Gone….

As Maddowblog has noted,” this has simply never happened before. There is no precedent in American history for Congress approving a massive new public benefit, a president signing it into law, the Supreme Court endorsing the benefit’s legality, and then having an entire political party actively and shamelessly working to sabotage the law.”

The law, of course, is the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.”

It isn’t only the 39 votes to repeal the ACA–votes for repeal that GOP Congressmen know are entirely symbolic and will die in the Senate.  As several media sources have reported, Republican Congressmen are now refusing to help constituents who call their offices with questions. “We know how to forward a phone call,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). He added, “[A]ll we can do is pass them back to the Obama administration. The ball’s in their court. They’re responsible for it.”

Then there are the Governors, like Indiana’s own Mike Pence, who are refusing to participate in Medicaid expansion, even though such refusal costs their state millions of federal dollars it would otherwise receive. (I won’t even dignify the Pence Administration’s recent bald-face lies about projected costs of individual health insurance policies.)

My question is: why?

The GOP has no alternative plan to offer, possibly because the ACA was the GOP’s approach, back when the party was composed of adults focused upon solving real problems. They don’t even pretend to have a different solution to a healthcare crisis that threatened to destroy  the American economy while leaving fifty million Americans uninsured.

They don’t want to solve the  problem. They just want to undo the solution that was cobbled together by that black guy in the White House and ushered through the process by the woman who was briefly Speaker–the solution that was acceptable to the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies that had to be placated if anything was to be done.

I have real problems with Obamacare as policy, but I recognize that it is infinitely better than nothing. I also recognize that it is the best we could do politically. I am absolutely incapable of understanding what motivates these people who simply want to repeal it, without putting anything in its place. They clearly don’t give a rat’s you-know-what about the people who had no access to healthcare before the ACA. They don’t care about the small businesses that couldn’t compete for good employees because they couldn’t afford to offer healthcare. They don’t care about the fact that 50% of the personal bankruptcies that cost businesses dearly and are a drag on the economy are a result of medical costs incurred by uninsured and underinsured Americans. They don’t care that before the ACA, America was spending 2 1/2 times more than the next most expensive country for a system ranked 37th in the world.

All they seem to care about is beating that guy in the White House. If people have to suffer or die as a consequence, that’s tough. If the economy has to take a hit, so be it. Nothing, evidently, is as important as thwarting Barack Obama.

That’s how far it has gone.

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