Category Archives: Random Blogging

From the Mouths of Babes….

Okay, so maybe not babes. Actually, graduate students.

Where I teach, at SPEA-IUPUI, students have the option of enrolling in “Directed Studies,” essentially, tutorials in which a professor supervises student research that culminates in a relatively lengthy and (hopefully) analytical paper on a subject that the student wishes to explore.

I recently worked with a student who wanted to understand why lower-income Americans so often vote against their own economic self-interest.

The paper he turned in gave evidence of considerable research, and it made a number of very good points. He gave me permission to share a couple of his more intriguing conclusions.

For example, he looked closely at Paul Ryan’s 2012 proposed budget, and the analysis of that budget by the Congressional Budget office. As widely reported, the plan proposed massive savings to be generated by “adjusting” Medicaid and turning Medicare into a “voucher” system. It also dramatically reduced corporate and individual tax rates, while purportedly “growing overall revenue…What was not included, however, was the way Mr. Ryan intended to grow this revenue.”

These specifics would seem to be particularly important, since the plan made very clear that tax receipts would plummet and defense spending would increase. As my student recognized, however,  actually identifying specifics–in this case, specifying the programs that would be cut and the extent of those cuts–would spell political doom.

“This is an example of calculated policy ambiguity. When presented to less educated voters or those who do not possess the means or time to fact-check its claims, it appears as a viable way to aid our country in the face of mounting debt. However, when examined closely it reveals a strategy of political gamesmanship and a budget plan that would hurt most those its simplified talking points are aimed to attract.”

A second tactic pinpointed in the paper revolved around the deliberate use of religion to divert focus from bread-and-butter issues–the use of hot-button “wedge issues” to obscure the economic harms likely to flow from other, less emotionally-freighted policies and positions. The paper cited research showing that religiosity is more important than income, sex, age or ethnicity in predicting support for conservative causes.

So. Bright shiny objects (Stop the “homosexual agenda”!! Birth control means sex without consequences!! War on Christmas!!) plus “calculated economic ambiguity.”

Sounds about Right.

There Must Be a Pony Here Somewhere

As if the posturing and idiocy of the shutdown weren’t enough, Ed Brayton quotes Ezra Klein on the GOP’s opening debt limit gambit.

The House GOP’s debt limit bill — obtained by the National Review — isn’t a serious governing document. It’s not even a plausible opening bid. It’s a cry for help.

In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, Rep. Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan, the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, rewriting of ash coal regulations, a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, an overhaul of the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services Block Grant, more means-testing in Medicare, repeal of the Public Health trust fund, and more…

House Republicans are walking into the debt-ceiling negotiations with an opening bid that makes them look ridiculous. This looks like an Onion parody of what the House’s debt-ceiling demands might be. It’s a wonder it’s not written in comic sans.

Words fail.

While there have been recent signs that Boehner may be retreating from the Tea Partiers’ insistence on pushing the world economy into depression if they don’t get their way, this opening demand would seem to prove a point often made by people who object to the “plague on both your houses” or “they all do it” constructions so beloved by the media–the so-called false equivalency.

Perhaps over time, we can count on both political parties to be equally irresponsible, but right now, no one can beat the GOP for sheer lunacy.

At their most idiotic, next to this, Democrats look like statesmen.

It’s Not a Game!

Or is it?

From Talking Points Memo:

The reason Congress is mired in repeated fiscal crises is that Republicans have thwarted budget conference negotiations since April, when the two chambers passed their own deeply divergent budget resolutions. Senate Democrats have requested conference negotiations 18 times and Republicans have denied their request each time.

“After blocking Senate Democrats’ attempts to start a budget conference 18 times over the past six months, Republicans are now scrambling to start a conference committee with mere minutes to go before a government shutdown,” said Senate Budget Chair Patty Murray (D-WA).

I am so tired of self-important bloviators engaging in PR and theatrics at the expense of governing. I’m furious with self-described “patriots” and “Christians” who pontificate about the Constitution and morality, and then proceed ignore both and to play games with the lives and health of ordinary Americans.

And I’m frustrated that the rest of us can’t seem to do anything about it.

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Sunday Sermon

I was reading a paper sent to me by a member of our Center’s National Advisory Board, and was struck by the following paragraph:

Democratic modes of association are not given by nature; on this the historical record could not be clearer. Rather, they are built, and much of the construction work is done by people who share an understanding of what kind of polity they are trying to create. These people are not born grasping the difficult political principles of limited government, civil rights and liberties, toleration and equality before the law. These are social, moral and cognitive achievements.

Those “social, moral and cognitive achievements” are missing from the zealots who are currently holding Congress–and the American government–hostage.

We ordinary Americans will bear the brunt of their absence.

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Abandon Hope….

Every time I tell myself that Americans have gone through nutty and mean-spirited periods before, and we’ll come through this one, I encounter something that dashes my all-too-fragile hopes.

This time, it was a link sent by a colleague who is equally depressed at the seeming inability of our lawmakers to respond appropriately to facts and evidence.

According to new research by Yale Law Professor Dan Kanan, we’re pretty much doomed.

Okay, that isn’t really the title of his paper. The title is: “Motivated Numerancy and Enlightened Self-Government,” but it might as well be “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Live Here.” Kahan measured the impact of political passion on people’s ability to think clearly, and he found that partisanship can undermine even the most basic reasoning skills.

Even people who are normally very good at math, for example, can totally “flunk” a problem they would ordinarily be able to solve, because the correct answer would contradict their political beliefs.

This research is further confirmation of work done by another researcher, Brendan Nyhan, who teaches at Dartmouth. He’s the one who reached the conclusion that facts don’t matter to people who are deeply invested in an ideology; when people believe something that isn’t so, giving them facts that correct their error just makes them cling more strongly to their original belief.

Death panels, anyone?

Denial, as my grandfather used to say, isn’t just a river in Egypt.

It does appear that this unfortunate aspect of the way the human brain works is limited to beliefs in which we are emotionally invested. You think if we put valium in the drinking water, and everybody chilled out a bit, we could improve policymaking?

Just a thought….

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