Category: national politics & policies

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ideological culture national politics & policies Popular too much government

Greenlighting Socialism

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New Green Deal, socialism

Can we blame U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), really? 

A decade of quantitative easing, along with trillion-dollar annual deficits run up recently by congressional Republicans, have paved a debt-ridden road upon which she hopes her massive Green New Deal (GND) might glide.

We can derisively point to the now-withdrawn FAQ, which the congresswoman’s staff “accidentally” posted on the Web and sent out to reporters. It was “unfinished,” and “erroneously” said the GND would be “guaranteeing . . . Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.“

But of course, read the actual totalitarian-esque House Resolution — calling for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era” and labeling it “a historic opportunity” — and tell me the silly FAQ isn’t accurate.

The GND promises to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs . . . provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people . . . and . . . counteract systemic injustices.” It must, of course, after wiping out tens of millions of jobs in private health insurance (2.6 million) and fossil fuels (10 million).

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been so kind as to announce he will bring the GND to a vote in the Senate. Put Senators on record. And more than 100 Democrats in Congress, including four declared presidential candidates — Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — have endorsed the Green New Deal resolution.

Give AOC her due. She has brought fresh young energy to old-fashioned socialism. 

And leading Democrats out of the shadows.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New Green Deal, socialism

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ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

Hat Hate

MAGA, white, hat

I will concede — at least “arguendo”  — that President Trump is awful. But I will not concede that he is uniquely awful. His Tweets and signature verbal provocations aside, he is arguably better than his predecessors.*

Arguably.

Which means that his cribbed campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” affixed to an ultra-simple red hat, is the last thing we should fixate on. 

You know, as a symbol of “hate.”

Even Andrew Sullivan, in lambasting the media — and the left in general — over their insane over-reaction to the Covington kids’ non-existent “racism” and “disrespect” (“The Abyss of Hate Versus Hate, Intelligencer), could not help himself when it comes to the MAGA hat. Amidst his defense of the lads, Sullivan wrote that “they should not have been wearing MAGA hats to a pro-life march.”

Why not? Mr. Trump has taken pro-life action.

“They aren’t angels,” Sullivan went on, “they’re teenage boys.”

The President is no angel either. But he was duly elected. And he hasn’t started any unconstitutional wars** or suppressed the freedom of the press.

MAGA is said to be a statement of “white supremacy,” but, well, there are non-whites who find that absurd. For good reason. 

This all indicates a deeper problem: an over-indulgence in symbolism — real and contrived.

In the immortal words of “motorist” Rodney King, “can we all JUST get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids?”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Admittedly a low bar.

** Unlike other presidents we could name.

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Accountability ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

The Obstruction

building a divide, wall, immigration, ideology, Trump, Pelosi

The federal government “shutdown” — now on reprieve — has been and continues to be a rather strange charade. Various political players make motions towards one another, and we, the people, are supposed to guess the real meaning. 

Which is usually conceived as

  1. All about President Trump’s “Wall”;
  2. All about the Pelosi-Schumer commitment to never letting Trump get away with his Evil Agenda; or
  3. The great huge, honking divide in America that grows every day.

I suspect it is about all these things and more — which is easy to say, since these three issues are intimately related.

 And as if playing a subtle joke on us all, the standoff that appears as obstructionism is about a proposed obstruction at the southern border: literally a “Mexican standoff.”

Meanwhile, a different security measure has received attention.

Americans have, rather spontaneously, been taking canned and packaged foods, and even fresh produce, to unpaid but “forced-to-work” TSA agents. A heartwarming story. Sure. But the Transportation Security Agency, cobbled together in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, is spectacularly ineffective, an example of “security theater.” TSA agents repeatedly fail internal tests.

Congress could, of course, take this opportunity to disband this airport security worker agency. If managed by the airlines or any entity but the federal government, TSA wouldn’t have suffered through the shutdown. 

Tragically, Congress long ago ceased being functional, responsible, or even the eensiest, teensiest bit respectable. And a divided public stands little chance of forcing a change. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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building a divide, wall, immigration, ideology, Trump, Pelosi

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Service Sans the Smile

registration, draft, selective service, slavery

“A personal commitment of time, energy and talent to a mission that contributes to the public good by protecting the nation and its citizens, strengthening communities or promoting the general welfare.” That’s how the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS) officially defines service. 

“It’s time to talk about a culture of service,” Commission Chairman Joe Heck told reporters Wednesday at the release of an interim report, “where Americans not only aspire to serve, but face no barriers.”

Remove the impediments where possible, sure.

But the Commission, as created by Congress, is primarily charged with looking into whether draft registration should continue, and if so, whether to expand it to women.*

Face it, military conscription doesn’t have anything at all to do with “service.” Not by the NCMNPS’s own definition — or any reasonable one. Surely the commissioners weren’t thinking that “personal commitment” could simply be coerced. 

The NCMNPS is also “exploring what a program that requires every American to complete a dedicated period of military, national, or public service might look like.”

Stop. It won’t resemble freedom. 

Why even consider coercing young people? The All-Volunteer Force is working well and creating a massive civilian chain-gang will be expensive. 

“There is an overwhelming desire to serve,” Chairman Heck confirmed. But he explained that while young people “want to do it. They just don’t want to be told to do it.”

Sounds 100-percent American to me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Nearly four decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the current male-only registration program specifically predicated on women being blocked from combat roles. All those roles are now open to women. Eventually, a case will get back to the High Court, which will very, very likely strike down a registration program that does not include young women.

You can share your own opinion with the Commission here.

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registration, draft, selective service, slavery

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national politics & policies political economy Popular

Re-Packaging Nonsense as Wisdom

green new deal, AOC, money, folly

When committed to folly, clever people make it look wise.

An article last week in Forbes, “The Green New Deal: How We Will Pay For It Isn’t ‘A Thing’ — And Inflation Isn’t Either,” by Robert Hockett, says that “how could we pay for it?” challenges have already been answered best by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

She demands to know why only “useful ideas,” like hers, get challenged that way. “Where were the ‘pay-fors’ for Bush’s $5 trillion wars and tax cuts, or for last year’s $2 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires?”

Where? Here!

And anywhere there’s common sense.

Hockney has his own retort, though, retrieving from the peanut gallery of economics an idiocy called “Modern Monetary Theory” (MMT). 

“Congress will authorize necessary spending, and Treasury will spend,” he writes. Government funds are “never ‘raised’ first” because “federal spending is what brings that money into existence.” 

Look, the United States has indeed come to rely upon debt financing. But it wasn’t always the rule. More importantly, the widespread and long-term effects are where post-gold standard monetary creation gets tricky. 

So are MMT advocates. Tricky, that is. What they hide are the dispersed costs, many of which we pay in higher prices.

Their main “contribution” — as stated in the National Review, of all places, yesterday — is that “When a government issues its own currency, as our federal government does, it is in a financial situation different from those of most institutions or households.”

Not really. When a household writes checks it knows will bounce, it does pretty much the same thing.

When governments rely upon debt money, someone is still getting ripped off. With government, though, it isn’t the businesses holding bad checks, it is all of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. This episode of Common Sense has been corrected from the email version: the author of the Forbes article is not the painter David Hockney.

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green new deal, AOC, money, folly

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies too much government

First Things First

Surely there’s something good in the first legislation put forth by the brand-new Democratic House majority — though nothing jumps to mind. 

The 571-page smorgasbord bill “addresses voting rights, corruption, gerrymandering and campaign finance reform,” writes Thomas Edsall in The New York Times, “as well as the creation of a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis — a first step toward a ‘Green New Deal.’” 

H.R. 1 would mandate that states adopt automatic voter registration, a step too far. It establishes a system of public subsidies for candidates running for Congress, with taxpayers forking over a six-to-one match on donations of $200 or less. 

The legislation also empowers* the Federal Election Commission, including by ending its supposedly “neutral” composition, i.e. an equal number of Democrat and Republican commissioners. This would either allow the FEC to be more “decisive” or unleash the dogs of partisan political witch hunts . . . depending on the case and/or your politics.**

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), the lead sponsor of the legislation, bill it as the best way “to rescue our broken democracy.” 

“It should be called the Democrat Politician Protection Act,” argues Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Washington Post. 

David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, tells NPR, “A lot of [H.R.1] looks to be unconstitutional.”

No problem, for one provision calls for a constitutional amendment to partially repeal the First Amendment, so to authorize Congress to regulate campaign spending and speech.

Remember: the First Amendment is a single sentence, a mere 45 words.

Succinct and effective.

The former does not apply to this new bill, and the latter, I hope, does not apply to this new Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Let’s not give greater power to the FEC, which, according to a federal judge, “acted arbitrarily and capriciously and contrary to law” in the 2016 election.

** Of course, for Ross Perot in the 1990s or Libertarians, Greens and independents today, that “bipartisan” make-up isn’t neutral but stacked like a Star Chamber

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folly ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

Skepticism in Order

denier, climate change, globlal warming, skepticism, science

It is not a question of “belief,” says Anastasios Tsonis. 

In “The overblown and misleading issue of global warming,” this emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee explains that in a “scientific problem ‘believing’ has no place,” going on to clarify: 

“In science, we either prove or disprove.”

And regarding climate there is no “settled science.” Lacking unquestionable experimental context — “we have only one realization of climate evolution” — no matter how strong our opinions, skepticism is always in order.

But let us admit the obvious, the “global warming”/“climate change” debate has been frustrating for just about everybody. And much of this is the result of dogmatism.

“The fact that scientists who show results not aligned with the mainstream are labeled deniers is the backward mentality,” Tsonis insists. “We don’t live in the medieval times, when Galileo had to admit to something that he knew was wrong to save his life.”

He argues that our lack of knowledge means that we should be circumspect about whether humans have caused the bulk of recent climate change. “Climate is too complicated to attribute its variability to one cause. We first need to understand the natural climate variability” — which, he says, “we clearly don’t.” 

Tsonis concludes talking about problems more urgent than climate change. We can (and should) quibble with his list, but we should be open about our reasoning.

One reason for concentrating on these other issues is that we might be more likely to gain clarity on them.

And thus might be able to do something not foolish.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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denier, climate change, globlal warming, skepticism, science

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media and media people national politics & policies video

Suppressed Data Trends

One thing you notice when engaging in public policy discussions is the misuse of statistics in a particular way: truncating a timeline of data, to focus almost exclusively on short-term trends rather than a more meaningful long-term (“secular”) accounting of trends.

For example, you will often see proponents of state aid discuss the decrease in poverty after the War on Poverty began. And there definitely has been. But when we look at long-term trends, we see a long history of diminishing poverty levels in America, and improvements were more dramatic before, not after, the increase in welfare state spending in the 1960s.

Another trend line you might notice regards crime. Some folks focus on very recent upticks in some violent crimes, and demand that we “do something.” But the longer-term trend has been for a reduction in almost all forms of crime since the early 1990s.

What if something similar has been going on in “climate change”/“global warming” politics and reportage?

Along with even more disturbing near-term mis-reporting.

Tony Heller from RealClimateScience.com.

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national politics & policies too much government

PayGo Piffle

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, #PayGo, austerity, spending

Republicans are especially good at deficit spending. Give them control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, and watch the money flow! It happened under George W. Bush, and now under President Donald Trump.

But note: the Democrats have gained control of the House of Representatives. We might see some restraint on government growth, if for no better reason than “divided government,” in which the two major parties can more effectively do damage to each other’s spending.

Nancy Pelosi, again Speaker of the House, has a monkey wrench to throw into Republican spending plans, not excluding that much-promised, little acted-upon Trump promise, “The Wall.” 

It is called “PayGo,” or, in the Twittersphere, #PayGo.

Not something new (Democrats have used it before), the House rule aims to limit any new expenditures to equal cuts in old spending.

Effective? Well, in capping the deficit at a trillion dollars annually . . . until they vote for exceptions to the rule. 

And effective enough to annoy Republicans!

And now, to rile up progressives, too.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has made a big deal about her opposition. She has opposed Pelosi’s attempt to re-establish the rule. 

Heedless of any danger that could result from further adding to the now-$22 trillion national debt, progressives scorn the idea of fiscal responsibility as “austerian,” claiming the whole idea was somehow disproven by “economic history,” in the Tweeted words of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

The “real” beneficiaries would be the corporations, progs say, and that PayGo would work against the “progressive agenda” of increasing government programs without limit.

Typical political piffle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, #PayGo, austerity, spending

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Accountability general freedom meme moral hazard national politics & policies

Madison on Perpetual War

James Madison, quote, freedom, war, warfare

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

—James Madison, Political Observations, Apr. 20, 1795 in: Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, vol. 4, p. 491 (1865)