When I was a kid, I got in a lot of fights in school. Partially because, in a small town in Maine, that was kind of what you did, and partially because that was how I was taught to react to bullies. In fairness, I may have misinterpreted what "stand up to" means and not understood the subtle conflict between "stand up to" and "choke until he turns blue." I think it's a toe-may-toe/to-mah-toe sort of thing.
In the constant quest for civilization, and the effort to minimize the number of school shootings, we, as a society have moved away from the self-help against bullying strategies and, instead, moved towards passing laws that prohibit bullying. Laws often inclued rules against cyber-bullying, bullying students regarding race, gender, and sexual preference issues, or any other number of subjects. Some of these laws even make such behavior a potential criminal offense. These laws work a lot like harsh sentences against sex offenders, they target behavior everyone hates, they are incredibly popular, they do nothing at all to change behavior, they ruin lives, they're based on misinformation, and they make other societal problems worse. In short, they're bad policy.
Anti-bullying statutes are bad policy precisely because of their popularity. I understand that in a Democracy, one often thinks that popular policies must be good policies. Vox populus vox dieux, the popular voice is the voice of G-d. But, the reality is that huge groups of people often make as bad or worse decisions than any one of them, and that policies supported by "common sense" often lack any sense at all.
I did a bunch of policy work when I worked for the DA's office and did work with bullying statutes. One of the things I most hated was that they were all painfully vague. Part of the reason, I suspect is because bullying is a lot like pornography, difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. Try, right now to come up with a real definition of bullying that is both specific and comprehensive; you'll find it almost impossible, and if you do come up with a good one, you should call the Governor's office immediately, because he could use it. Almost inevitably, bullying statutes include some prohibition against insulting people for belonging to a protected class, in some states that just includes race, religion, and national origin, but in California it includes almost everything.
One problem with such prohibitions is that simply insulting someone is free speech and probably protected. And, while lives can be destroyed by mere insults, the actual behavior in question is more difficult and the facts more nuanced, generally, than can be easily summed up by legislators.
Another problem with such laws is that they criminalize behavior that should be a disciplinary issue. The difference between disciplinary and criminal actions are serious. Disciplinary actions are dealt with by school authorities, on school grounds, and create school records. Criminal actions are dealt with by court authorities, in courts of law and create criminal records. Criminal actions are far more likely to result in expulsion or suspension. Criminal actions have a profoundly negative impact of graduation rates, and, criminal records can affect whether students get accepted to universities or hired for jobs far more easily than disciplinary ones.
Additionally, most of these bullying laws are reactions not to actual trends but to perceived trends. We hear a lot of stories about the horrors of bullying on the news, and one group did a survey that suggests that one-in-six students in the US are so afraid of bullies that they've skipped school in the last thirty day. The first of these in anecdotal, and not actual indicative of meaningful trends. The second of these is because such studies are deeply flawed, in that they simply presume student honesty. There are different ways to collect data which permits corrections for accuracy, but that isn't how we study bullying in this country.
If people seem interested, I'll do a future policy bite on the data collection issue, but the key point is that such studies presume that children give more accurate answers if surveys are anonymous, and a couple studies suggest that A) they don't and B) if you know the student's name you can check their school records to see if the the things they say are factual.
But, Anti-Bullying laws can get around all these problems because they're popular. A lot of popular policies are bad. But those policies can afford to be, because there's the will to pass them even if they are bad. If they were good policies that actually stopped bullying, we'd pass less of them and they'd become less popular. It's a vicious circle.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Scary Palin
Sarah Palin scares me. I mean that. I find her honestly frightening. The fact someone that deranged, misguided, and phony could get as close as she did to being the Vice President of the United States gives me nightmares. According to the book Game Change, it's likely that she actually hurt John McCain's chances of being elected more than she helped. Apparently, there were people who believed that Obama was a Communist Kenyan Muslim who still didn't vote for McCain because they were so concerned about the possibility of this bubblehead being able to Nuke Canada.
But her ignorance isn't what scares me, nor is her near complete political uselessness as a flag-waver. By far, the thing I find creepiest about Sarah Palin, is the fact that people insist on taking her seriously, on any scale and for any reason.
I understand there are people who think she nutter-butter, but pay attention to her because she "leads" a group, but, the reality is that she only leads the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party in the same way that the fastest lemming leads the pack*. If she substantially changed tack or course in such a way where she ceased to sound like she understood foreign, monetary, or legislative policy, she'd be tossed aside like the drivel-spewing geyser of stupid that she is.
I understand that tea-partiers tend to vote for the people whom she endorses and that people watch her on Fox News, but to think either of those is about her influence is to invert cause and effect. Tea-partiers vote with her because she's good at selecting for whom those folks vote; Fox News spends a lot of money for her appearances because she says exactly what Fox watchers want to hear.
*Yes, I understand lemmings don't really charge off of cliffs, but I'm speaking about metaphorical lemmings** here.
**Appologies to any lemmings offended by this parallel
But her ignorance isn't what scares me, nor is her near complete political uselessness as a flag-waver. By far, the thing I find creepiest about Sarah Palin, is the fact that people insist on taking her seriously, on any scale and for any reason.
I understand there are people who think she nutter-butter, but pay attention to her because she "leads" a group, but, the reality is that she only leads the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party in the same way that the fastest lemming leads the pack*. If she substantially changed tack or course in such a way where she ceased to sound like she understood foreign, monetary, or legislative policy, she'd be tossed aside like the drivel-spewing geyser of stupid that she is.
I understand that tea-partiers tend to vote for the people whom she endorses and that people watch her on Fox News, but to think either of those is about her influence is to invert cause and effect. Tea-partiers vote with her because she's good at selecting for whom those folks vote; Fox News spends a lot of money for her appearances because she says exactly what Fox watchers want to hear.
*Yes, I understand lemmings don't really charge off of cliffs, but I'm speaking about metaphorical lemmings** here.
**Appologies to any lemmings offended by this parallel
Thursday, October 17, 2013
The Inevitable Entangling of G-d and Man: Why Religion Will Always Influence Politics
According to The New American Center in Esquire, a USA Today-esque blur of infographics about what the majority of Americans believe, the center feels that religion should have no role in public life. Of course, the poll question is in nearly absolute terms, so, it's difficult to answer or say where you lie if you believe in a more nuanced version than yes or no, but, I digress.
Let's begin by dismissing entirely that this country is, or was ever meant to be a Christian country. There were settlements by religious groups on this continent which would later become states, and some of those were founded by members of particular religions, such as the Puritans and the Quakers. However, to say that those individuals define the intent of the founders when creating the nation that followed them is like saying that Samuel Morse's intentions when inventing the telegraph is the best way to look at the intended uses for the internet.
I understand that John Adams was very much a Christian, and he wrote some of the Federalist Papers. But I also understand that Thomas Jefferson was a diest, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Things get even more awkward when you consider that Thomas Paine, who never held public office in the US greatly affected the founders and their philosophies. Paine was an atheist. He believed there was no G-d. Some letters between Paine and Jefferson suggest Jefferson may have been an atheist also, but he may have just been trying to influence his friend through empathy.
Additionally, one of the first treaties ever passed by this country after the ratification of the Constitution was an overture to a group of Muslim Pirates, and began with "Whereas the United States is, in no way, a Christian nation." I also understand that, at this point in history, several states had official religions, and they did, but not all of them did, and none of them required actually attending services or similar. And, even if they did, the intentions of one or some members of a group of thirteen groups isn't really indicative of the intentions of all of them.
But I digress. The Religious Right in this country, and some portion of the Gospel Left, feel that we have lost our way. They feel that religion should have a greater role in public life. I use the language above because the Religious Right is a group defined by a particular ideology, whereas the Gospel Left is more of a philosophy that plays out in practice very differently from place to place. But, what I will say, is that in both groups, Churches are very political places.
I don't mean that Priests and Ministers in both groups tell people whom to vote for or discuss ballot measures from the pulpit, but, there is a huge difference between not endorsing a candidate and not talking about religion, there is also a lot of time spent at churches in both groups that isn't listening to the sermon.
Firstly, Churches are important to these groups because church is where the entire community gets together, meets up, and talks about life. If politics is a tool we use to solve our problems, church is one of the tools those groups use to define their problems. Further, politics is tied up in complicated ideals, big words with capital letters like "Justice," "Freedom," "Truth," and "Morality." For a lot of people, those words are deeply tied to religious concepts. Religion both gives us a sense of what those words mean and define our takeaways.
Let me provide an example: Most everyone knows the story of Sodom and Gammorrah, two cities that G-d decided were awful places. Because G-d (hereinafter G) hated the two cities he told Abraham (hereinafter Abe) that he wanted to destroy them. Abe then challenged G to prove that there weren't ten good men between the two cities, and that, if G did, he had to save the cities. G admitted that he may have jumped to judgment, and he'd give them a test.
G sends to angels (hereinafter Bill and Ted) disguised as men to visit the cities. Sodom has a law prohibiting taking in strangers, which seems pretty intense to me, but G doesn't smite whole cities for nothing. Bill and Ted go to Sodom where Lot offers them a place to crash with his family. Bill and Ted go to Lot's house and then all the men in the city besides Lot come banging on the door demanding Bill and Ted perform sexual favors upon them. Lot says, don't take my houseguests, take my teenaged daughters instead, which also seems pretty messed up to me, but, maybe there was something else going on. The crowd demands Bill and Ted. Bill and Ted invoke divine power to destroy the city.
Lot, his daughters, and his wife flee the city but are told they can never look back. Lot's wife does, dies in a biblically horrific manner, and no one else is caught thinking about the good times they had at some point in their homes. Lot's daughters then decide on their own that Lot should have sons because he's such a badass, so they rape their own father and become pregnant.
The takeaways from this story are myriad and varied. A friend of mine once said the only moral lesson he understood was "the oldest gets to ride daddy first." There is a large portion of American Christianity who believes the story is an admonition against homosexuality. When I studied the Torah, we discussed the idea that the story stands for the importance of standing against law to serve justice. The first thing you read isn't about Lot or Sodom, it's Abe and Big G and Abe telling the creator of all things, and eternal badass that he's being a dick, and then Big G says, "you might be right." So there's a lesson there, that even G-d can make mistakes, and it's isn't wrong to make them, but it's wrong to stand by them when you know they're wrong.
The story of Lot, Bill and Ted, his daughters, and a big stack of dead neighbors is, in Torah study, usually seen as a story about hospitality, there's a numerical equivalence that's significant as well, but very boring to explain. Some Jews say that Lot was wrong to put his own daughters in harm's way to save two strangers, maybe there's a lesson on hospitality there, or maybe that just justifies his own daughters raping him.
But, again, I digress, the point being that this one story, told badly and in three paragraphs is a potential repository dozens of possible interpretations, and we haven't even discussed Lot's wife yet. But, whether you believe it's a lesson about civil disobedience, homosexuality, or that G-d is a total dick will probably affect where you stand regarding a demonstration by homosexuals demanding their right to be married and recieve all the tax benefits of that. So, I'm not convinced you can meaningfully divorce religion entirely from politcs, because religion will always enlighten politics.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that there's a prayer that opens every day of congress, thought, I really dig the chaplain who used that opportunity to admonish the right wingers who refused to fund government. I'm a little uncomfortable that most federal swearings-in involve a bible. I'm tired of the Religious Right going off on the war against the most popular holiday of the year, the amount of talking heads who feel that G-d has a place in the legislature, or that religious freedom means the right to impose you will on someone else's internal plumbing.
But, I still feel that all those statements are different than, "I don't think religion has any place in American Public Life."
Let's begin by dismissing entirely that this country is, or was ever meant to be a Christian country. There were settlements by religious groups on this continent which would later become states, and some of those were founded by members of particular religions, such as the Puritans and the Quakers. However, to say that those individuals define the intent of the founders when creating the nation that followed them is like saying that Samuel Morse's intentions when inventing the telegraph is the best way to look at the intended uses for the internet.
I understand that John Adams was very much a Christian, and he wrote some of the Federalist Papers. But I also understand that Thomas Jefferson was a diest, and he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Things get even more awkward when you consider that Thomas Paine, who never held public office in the US greatly affected the founders and their philosophies. Paine was an atheist. He believed there was no G-d. Some letters between Paine and Jefferson suggest Jefferson may have been an atheist also, but he may have just been trying to influence his friend through empathy.
Additionally, one of the first treaties ever passed by this country after the ratification of the Constitution was an overture to a group of Muslim Pirates, and began with "Whereas the United States is, in no way, a Christian nation." I also understand that, at this point in history, several states had official religions, and they did, but not all of them did, and none of them required actually attending services or similar. And, even if they did, the intentions of one or some members of a group of thirteen groups isn't really indicative of the intentions of all of them.
But I digress. The Religious Right in this country, and some portion of the Gospel Left, feel that we have lost our way. They feel that religion should have a greater role in public life. I use the language above because the Religious Right is a group defined by a particular ideology, whereas the Gospel Left is more of a philosophy that plays out in practice very differently from place to place. But, what I will say, is that in both groups, Churches are very political places.
I don't mean that Priests and Ministers in both groups tell people whom to vote for or discuss ballot measures from the pulpit, but, there is a huge difference between not endorsing a candidate and not talking about religion, there is also a lot of time spent at churches in both groups that isn't listening to the sermon.
Firstly, Churches are important to these groups because church is where the entire community gets together, meets up, and talks about life. If politics is a tool we use to solve our problems, church is one of the tools those groups use to define their problems. Further, politics is tied up in complicated ideals, big words with capital letters like "Justice," "Freedom," "Truth," and "Morality." For a lot of people, those words are deeply tied to religious concepts. Religion both gives us a sense of what those words mean and define our takeaways.
Let me provide an example: Most everyone knows the story of Sodom and Gammorrah, two cities that G-d decided were awful places. Because G-d (hereinafter G) hated the two cities he told Abraham (hereinafter Abe) that he wanted to destroy them. Abe then challenged G to prove that there weren't ten good men between the two cities, and that, if G did, he had to save the cities. G admitted that he may have jumped to judgment, and he'd give them a test.
G sends to angels (hereinafter Bill and Ted) disguised as men to visit the cities. Sodom has a law prohibiting taking in strangers, which seems pretty intense to me, but G doesn't smite whole cities for nothing. Bill and Ted go to Sodom where Lot offers them a place to crash with his family. Bill and Ted go to Lot's house and then all the men in the city besides Lot come banging on the door demanding Bill and Ted perform sexual favors upon them. Lot says, don't take my houseguests, take my teenaged daughters instead, which also seems pretty messed up to me, but, maybe there was something else going on. The crowd demands Bill and Ted. Bill and Ted invoke divine power to destroy the city.
Lot, his daughters, and his wife flee the city but are told they can never look back. Lot's wife does, dies in a biblically horrific manner, and no one else is caught thinking about the good times they had at some point in their homes. Lot's daughters then decide on their own that Lot should have sons because he's such a badass, so they rape their own father and become pregnant.
The takeaways from this story are myriad and varied. A friend of mine once said the only moral lesson he understood was "the oldest gets to ride daddy first." There is a large portion of American Christianity who believes the story is an admonition against homosexuality. When I studied the Torah, we discussed the idea that the story stands for the importance of standing against law to serve justice. The first thing you read isn't about Lot or Sodom, it's Abe and Big G and Abe telling the creator of all things, and eternal badass that he's being a dick, and then Big G says, "you might be right." So there's a lesson there, that even G-d can make mistakes, and it's isn't wrong to make them, but it's wrong to stand by them when you know they're wrong.
The story of Lot, Bill and Ted, his daughters, and a big stack of dead neighbors is, in Torah study, usually seen as a story about hospitality, there's a numerical equivalence that's significant as well, but very boring to explain. Some Jews say that Lot was wrong to put his own daughters in harm's way to save two strangers, maybe there's a lesson on hospitality there, or maybe that just justifies his own daughters raping him.
But, again, I digress, the point being that this one story, told badly and in three paragraphs is a potential repository dozens of possible interpretations, and we haven't even discussed Lot's wife yet. But, whether you believe it's a lesson about civil disobedience, homosexuality, or that G-d is a total dick will probably affect where you stand regarding a demonstration by homosexuals demanding their right to be married and recieve all the tax benefits of that. So, I'm not convinced you can meaningfully divorce religion entirely from politcs, because religion will always enlighten politics.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that there's a prayer that opens every day of congress, thought, I really dig the chaplain who used that opportunity to admonish the right wingers who refused to fund government. I'm a little uncomfortable that most federal swearings-in involve a bible. I'm tired of the Religious Right going off on the war against the most popular holiday of the year, the amount of talking heads who feel that G-d has a place in the legislature, or that religious freedom means the right to impose you will on someone else's internal plumbing.
But, I still feel that all those statements are different than, "I don't think religion has any place in American Public Life."
Friday, October 11, 2013
One of these things is not like the other: The Limitations of Personal Liberty.
There's a popular conceit that laws restricting gun ownership, drug use, and gay marriage are all similar intrusions on personal liberty. It's a popular conceit, and the idea seems attractive. It also has the beauty of combining the interests of people from both ends of the political spectrum. On the other hand, there's a fundamental problem with the conceit: The reasons to restrict gun ownership, drug use, and gay marriage aren't the same.
Gay Marriage is the ultimate personal issue, two people decide they want to get married, and society may object. Objections are based on antiquated ideas of religion, cultural normalcy, or personal morality. Previously, there have been laws prohibiting interracial marriage (to prevent "mongrelization of the white race"). Certain cultures don't permit interreligious marriage (to prevent the children from being raised [INSERT OTHER RELIGION HERE]). But, the reality is that all of these are about imposing society's judgment on what is fundamentally a personal decision.
There are two justifications for criminalizing drug use: the harms to the user, and the collateral harms of others caused by users. I'm not convinced that the harms inflicted on users of drugs is a valid basis for a law. If adulthood doesn't mean the right to make bad decisions, then we're a nation of children. The reality is that a person can suffer permanent injury boxing, doing gymnastics, skydiving, or skiing, but none of those are illegal. I realize that drugs are immediately harmful, but so are cigarettes, alcohol, and fatty foods, but there is no law prohibiting or restricting the right to smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey, or grab a double double with animal fries.
The more compelling justification for criminalizing drug use is the collateral harms. Junkies can neglect children due to drug use. The secondary criminal impacts of drugs are about the violence related to the illegal drug trade, crimes committed by junkies to pay for drugs, or other such issues. The problem with the collateral issues theory, is that all of those behaviors we don't like are already illegal. Further, many of these issues are actually amplified by the criminalization of drugs. The most obvious example is violence.
There's an interesting thing about illegalizing a consumer good. Consumer good prices are set by intersections of supply and demand. Criminalization does nothing to affect demand, but artificially sets supply at zero. When supply is insufficient to fill demand, there is either a shortage (which increases price), people find substitute products (unless it is an inelastic market), or a black market fills the gap. The nature of addiction reduces the availability of meaningful substitutions. This keeps prices artificially high, and means that a black market will supply the demand.
The drug trade isn't violent by nature. It's violent because people will use violence to protect money and power. Further, the criminalization of drugs makes it more difficult for junkies to get treatment. The criminalization of behavior creates a cultural taboo around that behavior. It makes people less likely to have discussions with their kids. It makes people less likely to admit to their problems. It makes kids less likely to get help when a friend is having an overdose. It means that people who have substance abuse problems can end up being criminally prosecuted for their medical problem. So I'm not a big fan of the collateral damage justification for the criminalization of drug use. Mostly, because the harms of criminalization seem as bad or worse than harms of drug use.
Laws regulating, restricting, an otherwise addressing firearms, be they by requiring registration, criminalizing ownership or sale of certain firearms, or requiring background checks by purchasers of firearms are about the collateral consequences of firearms. Advocates for gun rights argue that the collateral issues of guns and drugs are the same. I think there's a difference, however, and here's why: The very intended purpose of a firearm is to kill. The use of a firearm for its intended purpose will be fatal to something. Further, fully legal ownership of a firearm can hurt or kill someone without the owner having committed any separately criminal act.
Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. But you have every right to punch yourself if you want to.
There are other issues with gun control, questions regarding what laws there should be, what the goals should be of such laws, and what laws are most effective at containing the dangers of firearms from hurting innocents. But, when you're simply discussing the underlying reasons: Gun ownership is very different from other personal liberties.
Gay Marriage is the ultimate personal issue, two people decide they want to get married, and society may object. Objections are based on antiquated ideas of religion, cultural normalcy, or personal morality. Previously, there have been laws prohibiting interracial marriage (to prevent "mongrelization of the white race"). Certain cultures don't permit interreligious marriage (to prevent the children from being raised [INSERT OTHER RELIGION HERE]). But, the reality is that all of these are about imposing society's judgment on what is fundamentally a personal decision.
There are two justifications for criminalizing drug use: the harms to the user, and the collateral harms of others caused by users. I'm not convinced that the harms inflicted on users of drugs is a valid basis for a law. If adulthood doesn't mean the right to make bad decisions, then we're a nation of children. The reality is that a person can suffer permanent injury boxing, doing gymnastics, skydiving, or skiing, but none of those are illegal. I realize that drugs are immediately harmful, but so are cigarettes, alcohol, and fatty foods, but there is no law prohibiting or restricting the right to smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey, or grab a double double with animal fries.
The more compelling justification for criminalizing drug use is the collateral harms. Junkies can neglect children due to drug use. The secondary criminal impacts of drugs are about the violence related to the illegal drug trade, crimes committed by junkies to pay for drugs, or other such issues. The problem with the collateral issues theory, is that all of those behaviors we don't like are already illegal. Further, many of these issues are actually amplified by the criminalization of drugs. The most obvious example is violence.
There's an interesting thing about illegalizing a consumer good. Consumer good prices are set by intersections of supply and demand. Criminalization does nothing to affect demand, but artificially sets supply at zero. When supply is insufficient to fill demand, there is either a shortage (which increases price), people find substitute products (unless it is an inelastic market), or a black market fills the gap. The nature of addiction reduces the availability of meaningful substitutions. This keeps prices artificially high, and means that a black market will supply the demand.
The drug trade isn't violent by nature. It's violent because people will use violence to protect money and power. Further, the criminalization of drugs makes it more difficult for junkies to get treatment. The criminalization of behavior creates a cultural taboo around that behavior. It makes people less likely to have discussions with their kids. It makes people less likely to admit to their problems. It makes kids less likely to get help when a friend is having an overdose. It means that people who have substance abuse problems can end up being criminally prosecuted for their medical problem. So I'm not a big fan of the collateral damage justification for the criminalization of drug use. Mostly, because the harms of criminalization seem as bad or worse than harms of drug use.
Laws regulating, restricting, an otherwise addressing firearms, be they by requiring registration, criminalizing ownership or sale of certain firearms, or requiring background checks by purchasers of firearms are about the collateral consequences of firearms. Advocates for gun rights argue that the collateral issues of guns and drugs are the same. I think there's a difference, however, and here's why: The very intended purpose of a firearm is to kill. The use of a firearm for its intended purpose will be fatal to something. Further, fully legal ownership of a firearm can hurt or kill someone without the owner having committed any separately criminal act.
Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. But you have every right to punch yourself if you want to.
There are other issues with gun control, questions regarding what laws there should be, what the goals should be of such laws, and what laws are most effective at containing the dangers of firearms from hurting innocents. But, when you're simply discussing the underlying reasons: Gun ownership is very different from other personal liberties.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Playing Chicken: Why Federal Default Would be Terrible.
On the vast majority of bonds in the world there is a section that describes what you do should the bond go into default. When I say the vast majority, I mean all of them, except one, American Treasury Bonds. The American Treasury Bond is the secure investment of choice in the world. When markets seem untrustworthy, Treasury Bonds are the investment of choice. People say to buy gold when you're unsure of the security of investments, but gold fluctuates, sometimes wildly. The US Treasury Bond, however, is solid. When international treasury markets went into freefall near the end of the George W. Bush Administration, and the T-Bill was offering zero percent interest, that didn't change anything. They were still the most popular secure investment in the world.
The value of the US Treasury Bond has given America a number of advantages in international trade. It's part of the reason why international commodities markets use the dollar as the standard. It's why the US has been able to incur debt and face relatively few consequences for it. It's why the US has never had a crisis preventing it from borrowing money it needs, and it's why our money has suffered relatively little inflation over the last three decades. There are other reasons for all of these things: Our strong economy, our vast wealth, and decisions by policy makers (for example: Alan Greenspan spent over a decade doing everything he could to prevent inflation as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank). But the power of the treasury bond has been a keystone that affected all of those.
And right now, the extreme right wing of the Republican party wants to stop that. We have a good thing and they want to end it because they think it would hurt Barack Obama. For the first time in American history, someone in the federal government is discussing the possibility of not paying all of the country's debts promptly. That's what House Republicans will do if they don't increase the debt ceiling. They've talked about how we could just pay the most important debts, and that it would force us to balance the budget and one of them thinks it would stabilize world markets.
The first two are totally wrong. The Federal government issues two million or more checks a day. Logistically, making sure we pay all the bills we have to is unrealistic. The budget has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. Congress already passed laws spending the money. The debt ceiling is simply the means of paying debts already incurred. The third is somewhat accurate in the same way that dropping a nuclear bomb would stabilize a piece of land. Stability does mean that there is little to no change, I suppose. A glowing chunk of volcanic rock with no life doesn't change much. But, I don't think that's a good thing.
So what would happen if we defaulted. First, our credit rating would drop from AAA+ to something substantially lower than that. Probably a lot lower than that. Secondly, the federal courts would fill almost immediately with millions of lawsuits and class action lawsuits against the federal government seeking payments with interest. That sudden flurry would would glut our already overcrowded federal court system to the point that it would probably shut down. This would basically prevent federal suits to protect civil rights, might affect the prosecution of federal crimes, and would probably make it impossible for people living on military bases or in the District of Columbia to get divorces.
Neither of those matter as much as what happens next. First, international securities markets would go into freefall. Predictions suggest that the drop would be thirty or more times worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2009. Investment shift to low-risk investments. This would have been Treasury Bonds once, but now will probably be gold, silver, and other precious metals. The price of gold will probably spike to something no one has ever thought about. Since gold and silver are important for making computers, cell phones, and certain car parts, the prices of those goods will probably skyrocket.
The interest rate for the government to borrow money will jump. That will probably cause inflation, weaken the dollar, and stagnate the economy further. The economic harm to the US will probably be worse than the great depression, and last a lot longer, because we can't borrow money to fund infrastructure to get out of it anymore. Likely, the dollar will go into an inflationary collapse that might double the cost of almost everything you buy, but your pay won't increase. People in the bottom 25% of the economy will have trouble getting enough food. There will probably be riots in the streets and crime rates will definitely increase. My guess is that homicide rates would increase from 6 per 100,000 average in America to at least 9, and possibly enter double digits for the first time in over a decade.
Lest you think I'm being histrionic, the only one of those statements I haven't picked up by being conservative in selecting statements by major figures in economics and finance is the statement about homicide rates. So, this isn't exaggeration. It's basic fact.
So, for the people who call me a liberal, because I tend to bash House Republicans, the issue is not that I have some political agenda. The issue is that I just care about reality, and reality seems to have a statistical liberal bias.
The value of the US Treasury Bond has given America a number of advantages in international trade. It's part of the reason why international commodities markets use the dollar as the standard. It's why the US has been able to incur debt and face relatively few consequences for it. It's why the US has never had a crisis preventing it from borrowing money it needs, and it's why our money has suffered relatively little inflation over the last three decades. There are other reasons for all of these things: Our strong economy, our vast wealth, and decisions by policy makers (for example: Alan Greenspan spent over a decade doing everything he could to prevent inflation as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank). But the power of the treasury bond has been a keystone that affected all of those.
And right now, the extreme right wing of the Republican party wants to stop that. We have a good thing and they want to end it because they think it would hurt Barack Obama. For the first time in American history, someone in the federal government is discussing the possibility of not paying all of the country's debts promptly. That's what House Republicans will do if they don't increase the debt ceiling. They've talked about how we could just pay the most important debts, and that it would force us to balance the budget and one of them thinks it would stabilize world markets.
The first two are totally wrong. The Federal government issues two million or more checks a day. Logistically, making sure we pay all the bills we have to is unrealistic. The budget has nothing to do with the debt ceiling. Congress already passed laws spending the money. The debt ceiling is simply the means of paying debts already incurred. The third is somewhat accurate in the same way that dropping a nuclear bomb would stabilize a piece of land. Stability does mean that there is little to no change, I suppose. A glowing chunk of volcanic rock with no life doesn't change much. But, I don't think that's a good thing.
So what would happen if we defaulted. First, our credit rating would drop from AAA+ to something substantially lower than that. Probably a lot lower than that. Secondly, the federal courts would fill almost immediately with millions of lawsuits and class action lawsuits against the federal government seeking payments with interest. That sudden flurry would would glut our already overcrowded federal court system to the point that it would probably shut down. This would basically prevent federal suits to protect civil rights, might affect the prosecution of federal crimes, and would probably make it impossible for people living on military bases or in the District of Columbia to get divorces.
Neither of those matter as much as what happens next. First, international securities markets would go into freefall. Predictions suggest that the drop would be thirty or more times worse than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2009. Investment shift to low-risk investments. This would have been Treasury Bonds once, but now will probably be gold, silver, and other precious metals. The price of gold will probably spike to something no one has ever thought about. Since gold and silver are important for making computers, cell phones, and certain car parts, the prices of those goods will probably skyrocket.
The interest rate for the government to borrow money will jump. That will probably cause inflation, weaken the dollar, and stagnate the economy further. The economic harm to the US will probably be worse than the great depression, and last a lot longer, because we can't borrow money to fund infrastructure to get out of it anymore. Likely, the dollar will go into an inflationary collapse that might double the cost of almost everything you buy, but your pay won't increase. People in the bottom 25% of the economy will have trouble getting enough food. There will probably be riots in the streets and crime rates will definitely increase. My guess is that homicide rates would increase from 6 per 100,000 average in America to at least 9, and possibly enter double digits for the first time in over a decade.
Lest you think I'm being histrionic, the only one of those statements I haven't picked up by being conservative in selecting statements by major figures in economics and finance is the statement about homicide rates. So, this isn't exaggeration. It's basic fact.
So, for the people who call me a liberal, because I tend to bash House Republicans, the issue is not that I have some political agenda. The issue is that I just care about reality, and reality seems to have a statistical liberal bias.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
On The Importance of Outcomes: Why Being "Right" Doesn't Matter that Much.
I heard an interesting interview with Richard Dawkins on the radio Monday. I was driving to an interview at a wine bar, and Dawkins was on a radio call in show I listen to on NPR. He was doing his usual thing where he dumps on religion both conceptually and culturally, and said that it should be child abuse to teach children to follow their parents' religion. In fairness, he said similar things about Santa Claus. This isn't the interesting part.
The interesting part is that the host asked Dawkins a question. Apparently a series of recent (or relatively recent) studies suggest that people who are religious tend to be happier, more well balanced, and deal with stress better. The question regarded those studies, the host asked something along the lines of, "If there are such health and life benefits of religion, isn't it worthwhile to practice religion whether or not there's evidence to support it.
Dawkins dodged the question by saying that whether the person is healthier or happier doesn't actually change whether the belief is right. It was at that moment, when I wrote off Richard Dawkins entirely as a great thinker or someone with anything to say outside of his particular scientific fields. I realize that may seem harsh, but it also seems obvious. Here's why: I hate people who dodge direct questions and use that opportunity to spew talking points. I hate it when politicians do it, and I hate it even more when allegedly great thinkers do.
I'm gong to tell you a secret about the world. It's complicated, and circumstances vary wildly. There exists no philosophy or belief system which will not be challenged at some point by the world. I'm against the death penalty. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to kill someone who had committed a horrible crime against someone I loved. It means that society should act with greater restraint than a person in personal crisis brought on by grief. Dawkins has a personal philosophy, that there is no G-d, there can't be one, and that refusal to believe in G-d is good. When faced with a challenge to his belief, "But what about happiness?" He didn't accept that criticism, nor did he acknowledge that failing of atheism. He, rather chose that opportunity to ignore the meat of the question and focus on an alternative value.
Even if you are right, there are sometimes measurable advantages to being wrong. If that's the case, maybe being right doesn't matter. Ignoring this fact is a terrible way to live your life. It's also a terrible way to govern, and I point this out because it's how the extreme right is governing right now. The extreme right is arguing that it's unfair to require individuals to get health care now, but not require employers to provide it until next year. In theory, that's true. However, it's better to have our federal government working with one bad law than have it not working.
Period. There's no debate. It doesn't matter if Ted Cruz is right, what he's doing is awful. And it's time we stop having the debate. I don't care about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I care about having a government that won't default on its debts.
Tomorrow I'll try to do the piece on what happens if we default.
The interesting part is that the host asked Dawkins a question. Apparently a series of recent (or relatively recent) studies suggest that people who are religious tend to be happier, more well balanced, and deal with stress better. The question regarded those studies, the host asked something along the lines of, "If there are such health and life benefits of religion, isn't it worthwhile to practice religion whether or not there's evidence to support it.
Dawkins dodged the question by saying that whether the person is healthier or happier doesn't actually change whether the belief is right. It was at that moment, when I wrote off Richard Dawkins entirely as a great thinker or someone with anything to say outside of his particular scientific fields. I realize that may seem harsh, but it also seems obvious. Here's why: I hate people who dodge direct questions and use that opportunity to spew talking points. I hate it when politicians do it, and I hate it even more when allegedly great thinkers do.
I'm gong to tell you a secret about the world. It's complicated, and circumstances vary wildly. There exists no philosophy or belief system which will not be challenged at some point by the world. I'm against the death penalty. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't want to kill someone who had committed a horrible crime against someone I loved. It means that society should act with greater restraint than a person in personal crisis brought on by grief. Dawkins has a personal philosophy, that there is no G-d, there can't be one, and that refusal to believe in G-d is good. When faced with a challenge to his belief, "But what about happiness?" He didn't accept that criticism, nor did he acknowledge that failing of atheism. He, rather chose that opportunity to ignore the meat of the question and focus on an alternative value.
Even if you are right, there are sometimes measurable advantages to being wrong. If that's the case, maybe being right doesn't matter. Ignoring this fact is a terrible way to live your life. It's also a terrible way to govern, and I point this out because it's how the extreme right is governing right now. The extreme right is arguing that it's unfair to require individuals to get health care now, but not require employers to provide it until next year. In theory, that's true. However, it's better to have our federal government working with one bad law than have it not working.
Period. There's no debate. It doesn't matter if Ted Cruz is right, what he's doing is awful. And it's time we stop having the debate. I don't care about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I care about having a government that won't default on its debts.
Tomorrow I'll try to do the piece on what happens if we default.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Your Parallel is Wrong: The Truth About the Debt Ceiling
There are a couple of popular memes about the debt ceiling. It popped up last time and has popped up this time, mostly among people who voted for extreme-right-wing representatives. They mostly fall into two camps: One compares Government-level economics with home-economics, and says that at some point when you're spending money you should spend less. The other one often involves visceral descriptions involving sewage or flooding.
The first example goes something like: When your credit card is maxed out, and you're living in a mansion and driving a luxury car and you can't afford to pay the bills, you shouldn't take out another credit card, you should downsize. This is a bad comparison for two reasons, first, it ignores the differences between personal and national economics, and two, it's not about the debt ceiling.
National economics and personal economics are fundamentally different. One of the reasons is that at home, you can't choose your pay rate. But the government can. Congress can increase tax rates, it can create new taxes, it can close tax loopholes, it can do a number of things to raise revenue. Further, it's done those things before. We pay less in taxes than any other industrialized country. We also pay less in taxes overall than we have at any other time in the last hundred years. I say overall, because some individuals are paying vastly more than they would have in the early twentieth century, but, as a percentage of GDP, we pay less.
Republicans like to say that increasing taxes kills economic growth. That's a lie. Regressive taxes kill growth. Similarly, the wrong taxes may kill growth. But Progressive taxes don't kill growth. The nineteen fifties ushered in the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in America. Further it created a rising tide that actually lifted all boats. It was the largest increase in the size of the middle class and the greatest creation of middle class wealth annually in any country in human history. The wealthiest Americans at the time were paying over ninety-three of their income in tax.
Let that sink in, if you made over $120,000, every dollar over that you made was taxed, and you got to keep around a nickle. That high-nineties figure was a compromise. There were forces pushing for keeping it all. One of the reasons this worked is because of the deeply progressive nature of the tax. Progressive taxes tax the rich more than they tax the poor. Regressive taxes do the opposite. Regressive taxes hurt growth because keeping money in circulation--that is, spending it on stuff, rent, food, durable goods, and so on, is the most effective way to grow the economy. Investment in pure assets, like stock, bonds, and so on doesn't help the economy. It basically locks that money in a safe. Poor people spend more of their income on stuff, so increasing their disposable income is good for growth. Rich people eventually accumulate all the stuff they need, and then they spend excess on investment vehicles, which can fund businesses, when you are buying stock during an IPO or similar, but usually, just takes money out of circulation.
So, really, the Home Ec. example ignores that you could just earn more money.
The Second example usually involves a house filling with something awful (floodwater, raw sewage, human waste, etc) and describes the house as constantly filling, and describes the debt ceiling as adding another floor on the top. This parallel has two problems. One is that it misdescribes how debt works on a national level. The other is that it doesn't describe the debt ceiling.
Pick a country, any country in the world. That country owes someone money. Owing money when you're a country can be bad or not. Part of what determines whether or not national debt is bad is the amount of debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. This is really important because GDP increases with economic health. That twenty-plus year economic growth the US went into in the fifties? GDP increased every year. In a reasonably well managed economy, GDP will continue to grow. So, debt could constantly increase, and, provided it does so at a rate slower than economic growth, that isn't bad.
I dismissed both parallels as not describing the debt ceiling, let me explain what that means. The debt ceiling isn't some hard limit of how much debt the country can have. Those decisions and numbers were already made when Congress made its most recent round of appropriations. The debt ceiling is a totally arbitrary figure having to do with the amount of money that government can pay as opposed to cash it has on hand at the moment. It's totally arbitrary, and has no direct connection to the debt.
Also, even if the budget were perfectly balanced, there would still be points where the government spent money it didn't have. The government cuts millions of checks per day, but taxes aren't collected on a daily basis. Sometimes more money goes out than is coming in at that moment. On the other had, if we do hit the debt ceiling, the country will stop being able to issue those three-to-four-million checks per day, and bills just won't be paid.
What the first meme describes isn't a debt ceiling, it's the intial appropriate process. What the second meme describes, that's really about deficit negotiation, which is part of the budgeting process. But, neither one describes the debt limit.
But, by all means, lets continue to send around misinformation regarding an absolutely critical issue to demean and denegrate its importance, because that always leads to valuable public debate.
The first example goes something like: When your credit card is maxed out, and you're living in a mansion and driving a luxury car and you can't afford to pay the bills, you shouldn't take out another credit card, you should downsize. This is a bad comparison for two reasons, first, it ignores the differences between personal and national economics, and two, it's not about the debt ceiling.
National economics and personal economics are fundamentally different. One of the reasons is that at home, you can't choose your pay rate. But the government can. Congress can increase tax rates, it can create new taxes, it can close tax loopholes, it can do a number of things to raise revenue. Further, it's done those things before. We pay less in taxes than any other industrialized country. We also pay less in taxes overall than we have at any other time in the last hundred years. I say overall, because some individuals are paying vastly more than they would have in the early twentieth century, but, as a percentage of GDP, we pay less.
Republicans like to say that increasing taxes kills economic growth. That's a lie. Regressive taxes kill growth. Similarly, the wrong taxes may kill growth. But Progressive taxes don't kill growth. The nineteen fifties ushered in the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in America. Further it created a rising tide that actually lifted all boats. It was the largest increase in the size of the middle class and the greatest creation of middle class wealth annually in any country in human history. The wealthiest Americans at the time were paying over ninety-three of their income in tax.
Let that sink in, if you made over $120,000, every dollar over that you made was taxed, and you got to keep around a nickle. That high-nineties figure was a compromise. There were forces pushing for keeping it all. One of the reasons this worked is because of the deeply progressive nature of the tax. Progressive taxes tax the rich more than they tax the poor. Regressive taxes do the opposite. Regressive taxes hurt growth because keeping money in circulation--that is, spending it on stuff, rent, food, durable goods, and so on, is the most effective way to grow the economy. Investment in pure assets, like stock, bonds, and so on doesn't help the economy. It basically locks that money in a safe. Poor people spend more of their income on stuff, so increasing their disposable income is good for growth. Rich people eventually accumulate all the stuff they need, and then they spend excess on investment vehicles, which can fund businesses, when you are buying stock during an IPO or similar, but usually, just takes money out of circulation.
So, really, the Home Ec. example ignores that you could just earn more money.
The Second example usually involves a house filling with something awful (floodwater, raw sewage, human waste, etc) and describes the house as constantly filling, and describes the debt ceiling as adding another floor on the top. This parallel has two problems. One is that it misdescribes how debt works on a national level. The other is that it doesn't describe the debt ceiling.
Pick a country, any country in the world. That country owes someone money. Owing money when you're a country can be bad or not. Part of what determines whether or not national debt is bad is the amount of debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. This is really important because GDP increases with economic health. That twenty-plus year economic growth the US went into in the fifties? GDP increased every year. In a reasonably well managed economy, GDP will continue to grow. So, debt could constantly increase, and, provided it does so at a rate slower than economic growth, that isn't bad.
I dismissed both parallels as not describing the debt ceiling, let me explain what that means. The debt ceiling isn't some hard limit of how much debt the country can have. Those decisions and numbers were already made when Congress made its most recent round of appropriations. The debt ceiling is a totally arbitrary figure having to do with the amount of money that government can pay as opposed to cash it has on hand at the moment. It's totally arbitrary, and has no direct connection to the debt.
Also, even if the budget were perfectly balanced, there would still be points where the government spent money it didn't have. The government cuts millions of checks per day, but taxes aren't collected on a daily basis. Sometimes more money goes out than is coming in at that moment. On the other had, if we do hit the debt ceiling, the country will stop being able to issue those three-to-four-million checks per day, and bills just won't be paid.
What the first meme describes isn't a debt ceiling, it's the intial appropriate process. What the second meme describes, that's really about deficit negotiation, which is part of the budgeting process. But, neither one describes the debt limit.
But, by all means, lets continue to send around misinformation regarding an absolutely critical issue to demean and denegrate its importance, because that always leads to valuable public debate.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
What We're Really Talking About when We Don't Talk about Obamacare.
Discussions of the shutdown inevitably involve the Affordable Care Act. Any attempt to draw a parallel to the Republicans' shutdown inevitably draws a response from someone talking about aspects of the Affordable Care Act that they don't like. In fairness, the law has drawn legitimate criticisms that it doesn't do enough, doesn't go far enough, isn't fair enough, and has problems. But, you'll notice I haven't talked about it much.
There are reasons for that. I haven't talked about it, because it doesn't matter. I know that sounds crazy. But, the reality is that the Shutdown isn't legitimate whether or not you're in favor of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is law. It passed in both houses of Congress. It was challenged in Court, and mostly upheld by the Supreme Court (there was a section that required the expansion of Medicare which was struck down because of Federalism). Bills have been written to repeal it over 40 times and they haven't passed, even if they did, they'd be vetoed.
But now, the House Republicans have decided to shut down the federal government until they get their way. You don't get to do that, because, if you did, there'd never be government. Everyone faces some federal law they hate. Probably lots of them. I, for example believe that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is a terrible law. I think it's destroying our country and doing nothing to make us any safer. But, were I in public office, I wouldn't get to shut the federal courthouses down until it was repealed. I'd have to try and build consensus, get a coalition together, and convince the President to sign it.
I also dislike Reorganization Plan Number 2 of 1973. I'm not alone. there are a number of people against federal drug laws, either generally (who favor decriminalization) or specifically (medical marijuana) don't like the law. If I were in Congress, I would try to defund the Drug Enforcement Administration. I might also try to repeal that law, and do away with them entirely, but I don't have the right to shut down government because I don't like the law.
At some point, I will write a couple policy bites talking about the Affordable Care Act, probably three or four talking about what it does, why, and why those are good or bad policies. But right now it doesn't matter, because the fight itself is illegitimate. And I'm not going to legitimize an illegitimate tactic by letting it succeed.
I don't care what anyone thinks about the Affordable Care Act. The Shutdown is bad. It is currently hurting or about to hurt: Everyone who wants to take a vacation to a national park, recipients of WIC and food-stamps, every family with a kid in Headstart, every federal employee, every business catering to federal employees, every person with a case in federal court, medical research, scientific research, the safety of our food, the cleanliness of our water, the quality of our interstate highways, the safety of air travelers, and the list goes on and on and on.
This isn't about the Affordable Care Act. It's about the fact that it's not okay to take hostages when you can't get what you want through Democratic means.
There are reasons for that. I haven't talked about it, because it doesn't matter. I know that sounds crazy. But, the reality is that the Shutdown isn't legitimate whether or not you're in favor of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is law. It passed in both houses of Congress. It was challenged in Court, and mostly upheld by the Supreme Court (there was a section that required the expansion of Medicare which was struck down because of Federalism). Bills have been written to repeal it over 40 times and they haven't passed, even if they did, they'd be vetoed.
But now, the House Republicans have decided to shut down the federal government until they get their way. You don't get to do that, because, if you did, there'd never be government. Everyone faces some federal law they hate. Probably lots of them. I, for example believe that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is a terrible law. I think it's destroying our country and doing nothing to make us any safer. But, were I in public office, I wouldn't get to shut the federal courthouses down until it was repealed. I'd have to try and build consensus, get a coalition together, and convince the President to sign it.
I also dislike Reorganization Plan Number 2 of 1973. I'm not alone. there are a number of people against federal drug laws, either generally (who favor decriminalization) or specifically (medical marijuana) don't like the law. If I were in Congress, I would try to defund the Drug Enforcement Administration. I might also try to repeal that law, and do away with them entirely, but I don't have the right to shut down government because I don't like the law.
At some point, I will write a couple policy bites talking about the Affordable Care Act, probably three or four talking about what it does, why, and why those are good or bad policies. But right now it doesn't matter, because the fight itself is illegitimate. And I'm not going to legitimize an illegitimate tactic by letting it succeed.
I don't care what anyone thinks about the Affordable Care Act. The Shutdown is bad. It is currently hurting or about to hurt: Everyone who wants to take a vacation to a national park, recipients of WIC and food-stamps, every family with a kid in Headstart, every federal employee, every business catering to federal employees, every person with a case in federal court, medical research, scientific research, the safety of our food, the cleanliness of our water, the quality of our interstate highways, the safety of air travelers, and the list goes on and on and on.
This isn't about the Affordable Care Act. It's about the fact that it's not okay to take hostages when you can't get what you want through Democratic means.
Friday, October 4, 2013
This is Why we Can't Have Nice Things: A Case Against Stopgap Funding.
House Republicans have been launching a bunch of individual bills trying to fund certain parts of the federal government as stopgaps until they can negotiate an end to the government shutdown. So far these stopgaps have included the National Park Service, Capitol Police, the NIH, civilian intelligence agents, and more. While each of these stopgap measures would alleviate some degree of the pain of the shutdown, I agree with the President that these measures shouldn't pass through Congress nor should the President sign them into law.
I know that sounds terrible, and it is. But a lot of people seem to think this is some sort of political negotiation. It's not. In a political negotiation two sides who want different things are willing to concede and sacrifice to get something in the middle. The House Republicans are a splinter faction who has decided actual compromise itself is impermissible. They want the Affordable Care Act repealed, and they're unwilling to do anything which won't make that happen.
The paleoconservative extreme right wing house Republicans aren't politicians. They're terrorists. They've decided that they want to shoot Obamacare in the face in public on video, and they've taken every federal paycheck, every federal job, every federal employee, and every federal service hostage to do so. The stopgaps are like getting a terrorist to release one hostage out of dozens. It seems like a good thing, that hostage is safe, and, in movies, they cut deals like that all the time.
The real world isn't like movies, however. If you've ever spoken to a real hostage negotiator, you'll find out that they're not usually action heroes. They're usually clinicians. They will, sometimes, negotiate the release of one individual, if that individual has a medical condition or similar, but, the vast majority of the time, it's better to leave everyone together, becuase, when you get the terrorist to release a single hostage, the remaining hostages increase in perceived value to the terrorist, and their release becomes harder to negotiate. So, those stopgap measures would only make the overall shutdown longer and more painful to everyone not specially exempted.
But, there's another reason not to pass the stopgaps. Here, the splinter faction is less than fifty representative. They all come from secure, gerrymandered districts and have almost no chance of facing consequences of this action. However, the other hundred plus House Republicans are going along for fear of primary challenges from the right. Those hundred are vulnerable to pressure from the public, and, frankly, in this country, the public tends to take what it's given, but an angry public that knows this is the Republicans' fault may well start calling and writing representatives and making demands that their government actually govern.
Each stopgap makes public outcry less likely. So, unfortunately, it will just make the overall shutdown longer and worse.
There's a third reason here. It's because the Republicans are the party of hypocrisy. By which I mean, they allegedly believe in small government. They don't. They believe in government deciding who can't get married (gays), they believe in government deciding whether women can get abortions (no), they believe in government intervention in many of the most personal and private decisions of life. They just don't believe in government intervention in the lives of the rich. If you really don't like government, and you choose to run for public office and draw a paycheck, you're a hypocrite.
But that hypocrisy is a little beside the point. What's important here is that the Hezbollah-like splinter faction House Republicans want the shutdown.* They're giddy. They're talking about the shutdown on Fox like it's a good thing. They're vomiting forth talking points, and looking forward to detonating their bomb-vests and killing government. So, any stopgaps merely free them from any feelings of guilt for their actions.
So, unfortunately, the programs we like can't be spared, or we risk prolonging this stupid shutdown. They way to end it isn't to do so peacemeal until it stops bothering us each as individuals. The way to end the shutdown is to increase the pressure on political talking heads. They way to end the shutdown is to write letters, make phone calls, and spread the word.
Truth to power.
*I apologize to any members of Hezbollah who are offended by this parallel, or their friends and family. Hezbollah is involved in a much more complicated set of political realities, and most members of Hezbollah probably aren't hypocrites.
I know that sounds terrible, and it is. But a lot of people seem to think this is some sort of political negotiation. It's not. In a political negotiation two sides who want different things are willing to concede and sacrifice to get something in the middle. The House Republicans are a splinter faction who has decided actual compromise itself is impermissible. They want the Affordable Care Act repealed, and they're unwilling to do anything which won't make that happen.
The paleoconservative extreme right wing house Republicans aren't politicians. They're terrorists. They've decided that they want to shoot Obamacare in the face in public on video, and they've taken every federal paycheck, every federal job, every federal employee, and every federal service hostage to do so. The stopgaps are like getting a terrorist to release one hostage out of dozens. It seems like a good thing, that hostage is safe, and, in movies, they cut deals like that all the time.
The real world isn't like movies, however. If you've ever spoken to a real hostage negotiator, you'll find out that they're not usually action heroes. They're usually clinicians. They will, sometimes, negotiate the release of one individual, if that individual has a medical condition or similar, but, the vast majority of the time, it's better to leave everyone together, becuase, when you get the terrorist to release a single hostage, the remaining hostages increase in perceived value to the terrorist, and their release becomes harder to negotiate. So, those stopgap measures would only make the overall shutdown longer and more painful to everyone not specially exempted.
But, there's another reason not to pass the stopgaps. Here, the splinter faction is less than fifty representative. They all come from secure, gerrymandered districts and have almost no chance of facing consequences of this action. However, the other hundred plus House Republicans are going along for fear of primary challenges from the right. Those hundred are vulnerable to pressure from the public, and, frankly, in this country, the public tends to take what it's given, but an angry public that knows this is the Republicans' fault may well start calling and writing representatives and making demands that their government actually govern.
Each stopgap makes public outcry less likely. So, unfortunately, it will just make the overall shutdown longer and worse.
There's a third reason here. It's because the Republicans are the party of hypocrisy. By which I mean, they allegedly believe in small government. They don't. They believe in government deciding who can't get married (gays), they believe in government deciding whether women can get abortions (no), they believe in government intervention in many of the most personal and private decisions of life. They just don't believe in government intervention in the lives of the rich. If you really don't like government, and you choose to run for public office and draw a paycheck, you're a hypocrite.
But that hypocrisy is a little beside the point. What's important here is that the Hezbollah-like splinter faction House Republicans want the shutdown.* They're giddy. They're talking about the shutdown on Fox like it's a good thing. They're vomiting forth talking points, and looking forward to detonating their bomb-vests and killing government. So, any stopgaps merely free them from any feelings of guilt for their actions.
So, unfortunately, the programs we like can't be spared, or we risk prolonging this stupid shutdown. They way to end it isn't to do so peacemeal until it stops bothering us each as individuals. The way to end the shutdown is to increase the pressure on political talking heads. They way to end the shutdown is to write letters, make phone calls, and spread the word.
Truth to power.
*I apologize to any members of Hezbollah who are offended by this parallel, or their friends and family. Hezbollah is involved in a much more complicated set of political realities, and most members of Hezbollah probably aren't hypocrites.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Republicans on Fiscal Policy; or Why I Hate Political Messaging.
Republicans
are only the party for fiscal responsibility when they don't control
the Executive branch. Before Reagan, the national debt was less than
one trillion. Under Reagan, it ballooned to over four trillion, despite
a general economic boom in the US and no wars. George H. W. Bush
managed to ratchet it up to around seven, though, in his defense, he did
have a war in a foreign country and a
recession, and, in fairness, he had to pay interest on Reagan's four
trillion, which, over four years, at six percent is more than an
additional trillion dollars right there.
Despite the debt Clinton had been left by his two Republican predecessors, he ran a budget surplus over all, and actually left the national debt smaller than he found it, both as a percentage of GDP and in overall dollars. George W. Bush took less than 180 days to blow the surplus. He then added even more to the national debt than Reagan did. W. couldn't even blame the Democrats, because, for six of his eight years, the Dems didn't have control of either house of congress, nor did the liberals have control of the Supreme Court.
But the same party, often the same people, Mr. Boehner who racked up those massive debts, are now claiming to be fiscal hawks. It isn't about spending, debt, or money. It is about opposition to the Democratic President, regardless of reason. The Affordable Care Act will save money over the next twenty years, and likely also increase the tax base, but the Republicans don't want that.
They're liars. They lie because they don't have a real argument and they don't have a real plan. So they use deceit and misinformation. I'm not permitting it anymore. I'm going to tell the truth about something the Republicans are lying about. Because someone has to. If, at some point, the Republican party becomes less of a national embarrassment, I'll start talking about something else.
Despite the debt Clinton had been left by his two Republican predecessors, he ran a budget surplus over all, and actually left the national debt smaller than he found it, both as a percentage of GDP and in overall dollars. George W. Bush took less than 180 days to blow the surplus. He then added even more to the national debt than Reagan did. W. couldn't even blame the Democrats, because, for six of his eight years, the Dems didn't have control of either house of congress, nor did the liberals have control of the Supreme Court.
But the same party, often the same people, Mr. Boehner who racked up those massive debts, are now claiming to be fiscal hawks. It isn't about spending, debt, or money. It is about opposition to the Democratic President, regardless of reason. The Affordable Care Act will save money over the next twenty years, and likely also increase the tax base, but the Republicans don't want that.
They're liars. They lie because they don't have a real argument and they don't have a real plan. So they use deceit and misinformation. I'm not permitting it anymore. I'm going to tell the truth about something the Republicans are lying about. Because someone has to. If, at some point, the Republican party becomes less of a national embarrassment, I'll start talking about something else.
An Open Letter to the House Republican Caucus.
Dear House Republicans,
You don't get to shut down the government and then say you want to reopen only the parts you like. You see, we live in a democracy. That means that in order to get the benefits of government that you want, you have to accept the portions you don't.
I, for example, am done with school and don't have kids, but that doesn't mean I get to stop paying for public schools. I have to accept public schools as part of the same society that gives me fire protection, laws, and roads, which I do want.
I know that being a grown up is hard, and it's easier to just pitch a tent in mom's backyard and complain that the other kids don't want to play with you. But the reason those kids don't want to play with you is that, whenever they win a game, you take your ball and go home.
Cope!
Sincerely,
Cassady Toles, JD
You don't get to shut down the government and then say you want to reopen only the parts you like. You see, we live in a democracy. That means that in order to get the benefits of government that you want, you have to accept the portions you don't.
I, for example, am done with school and don't have kids, but that doesn't mean I get to stop paying for public schools. I have to accept public schools as part of the same society that gives me fire protection, laws, and roads, which I do want.
I know that being a grown up is hard, and it's easier to just pitch a tent in mom's backyard and complain that the other kids don't want to play with you. But the reason those kids don't want to play with you is that, whenever they win a game, you take your ball and go home.
Cope!
Sincerely,
Cassady Toles, JD
Remember when we had Government? I Miss those Days.
"The
shutdown is the ultimate example of the triumph of politics over policy.
A group of paleoconservative representatives within the conservative
party has come up with the clueless idea that shutting down the
government will change the outcome of a law passed years ago. It won't.
Those same paleoconservatives are convinced that they can manipulate message to manufacture a good out of something terrible. They think that Amercians' suffering is unimportant. It's not.
This happens when a splinter group cares only about perception and messaging, in other words, politics. If they cared about reality and law and governance, or policy, this wouldn't happen. Because good policy is good politics and terrible policy is terrible politics.
This is why we can't talk about gun legislation; messaging. This is why we can't decriminalize marijuana; messaging. This is why the federal sentencing guidelines are so harsh; messaging. I'm tired of messaging; messaging battles are the reason why people have started believing that they're not just entitled to their own opinion, they're entitled to their own facts. This is the reason why people believe they're not just entitled to their own opinion, they're entitled to have their opinion respected. This is the reason why people believe they're not just entitled to their own opinion; they're entitled to impose their opinion on others and ignore laws which don't acknowledge their opinion.
Policy is important. It's more important than politics. It's time someone admits that."
Those same paleoconservatives are convinced that they can manipulate message to manufacture a good out of something terrible. They think that Amercians' suffering is unimportant. It's not.
This happens when a splinter group cares only about perception and messaging, in other words, politics. If they cared about reality and law and governance, or policy, this wouldn't happen. Because good policy is good politics and terrible policy is terrible politics.
This is why we can't talk about gun legislation; messaging. This is why we can't decriminalize marijuana; messaging. This is why the federal sentencing guidelines are so harsh; messaging. I'm tired of messaging; messaging battles are the reason why people have started believing that they're not just entitled to their own opinion, they're entitled to their own facts. This is the reason why people believe they're not just entitled to their own opinion, they're entitled to have their opinion respected. This is the reason why people believe they're not just entitled to their own opinion; they're entitled to impose their opinion on others and ignore laws which don't acknowledge their opinion.
Policy is important. It's more important than politics. It's time someone admits that."
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