Morning Fog

Buying Votes - Cash for Clunkers

It's official.  The "Cash for Clunkers" program is a "success," with so many buyers rushing to take advantage of it that, after only a few days, Congress is already preparing to steal money intended for energy loan guarantees to keep the spigots running.  (Not to worry, they'll "seek to replenish" the energy program money later.)

A while back, I panned this program as a really, really bad idea.  Now, I have to admit I'm surprised that so many people are rushing to take advantage of the program.  What the surging throng proves to me is that there's a lot of money out there in people's pockets, so they could have bought a new car any time.  But free money is always popular.  The main positive result is that dealers appear to be happy with the increased traffic in their showrooms.  Taking that into consideration, I have to say...

It's STILL a bad idea.  I don't see why all of us need to pay to reward those who probably would have bought a vehicle anyway, or to doubly reward those who bought gas-guzzlers and got a tax writeoff for it.  I believe the car-maker bailouts were probably justified, but having done that, do we really still need to do more for the automotive industry?   

Fuel consumption savings were originally cited as a rationale for the plan, but no one is talking about that any more, and in any case, the fuel economy standards for the rebates range from moderate (for the best case scenario of a passenger car with very high fuel consumption getting turned in for another passenger car with much better mpg) to a joke (in the case of light trucks).  So it's not about saving gas.

No, the goal is votes, and every incumbent Congressman who supports the program is hoping to buy himself a few votes with your and my money.  Back in the heyday of political machines in cities like Chicago or Tammany Hall in New York, as I recall votes could be bought for five bucks or so.  Isn't $4500 a little steep? 

If we're going to proceed with the plan and pour more money into it, the least Congress might do is to streamline the paperwork and payment process.  But this is the same government that devised the program to distribute those rebate cards for digital TV converters, when you had to apply and wait weeks (or months). I predict efficiency won't suddenly overwhelm the process.

Confirming Our Justices

A couple of weeks ago I lamented that the process of Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominees had become so political, and such a minefield for the candidates, that it was next to useless as a method of vetting the would-be Justice's qualifications. 

As the process of confirming Sonia Sotomayor winds down to its inevitable conclusion, the party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee only serves to highlight the degree to which this is true.  With the exception of Senator Lindsey Graham, evidently the only committee member that realizes his party lost the election, Republicans on the committee decided to throw a childish tantrum and voted "no" on Sotomayor.   (Democrats have behaved similarly in the past.) 

It's not just politics by politicians, though; now the National Rifle Association seeks to usurp the Constitutionally-mandated prerogatives of the Senate by warning that Senators' votes pro/con on Sotomayor will become a part of its rankings as to who's gun-friendly.  This in effect seeks to substitiute the NRA's narrow-issue legal judgment for that of our elected representatives.

In today's paper, I thought the usually perceptive David Broder, in his column entitled "Past the Judicial Wars" was going to offer some original thinking on how to get out of this blind alley.  No such luck.  Broder notes that the senior Democrat and Republican on the Judiciary Committee seem to have taken the high road and suggest that's the answer.  Unfortunately, the fact that only these two most senior Senators have performed their duty conscientiously shows how bad things have become; we have a right to expect that they all would do so, and in the past, most did. 

So the problem remains; how might the Senate be liberated to consider a Supreme Court nominee on his/her merits? 

Texting Is Dangerous? Who Knew?

Tonight's news featured another of those studies that demonstrate the obvious.  Research performed by the Virginia Tech University Transportation Institute, recently released, shows that texting while driving is dangerous - drivers who do it are 23 times more likely to have an accident than the "normal" driver; by comparison, cell phone use enhances the driver's chance of an accident by "only" fourfold, which is about the same as driving drunk.

I suppose it's helpful to have these numbers from the study, so that we can set up a hierarchy of dangerous driving habits.

But seriously, who did NOT know that texting while driving was dangerous?  (Possible exception: teenagers, who can be forgiven because their brains aren't formed yet.)  Intuitively, the rest of us realize it's the worst of all possible combinations:  hands not fully available for driving (as in shaving or eating), eyes not on the road (as in reading or hunting for something in your purse), and the mind completely distracted (as in cell phone use).   Worse yet, to me, is that texting is so utterly trivial.  Conceivably you could get an emergency message, or an important business call, or a change of time on an appointment, via a cell phone, but by text?

Safety experts say that when statistics like this are publicized, and particularly when laws are passed banning certain behavior (about a dozen states now ban texting while driving), people sit up and take notice. I haven't noticed any such effect in cell phone use, though maybe that's because most jurisdictions, lackadaisical legislators have only got around to banning hand-held cell phones.  But let's hope the safety guys are right. 

The Supreme Court On Speed

Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him?  About now, he could be saying to The Supreme Court, in his calm, grandfatherly way, "now there you go again" -- for the Nine Supremes lately handed down a decision that flies in the face of reason, and makes something complicated out of something intuitively simple.

The case was Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, in which the plaintiff asserted a Sixth-Amendment right to be "confronted by the witnesses against him;" in this case, the technicians and experts who build, calibrate, and use the instruments that are used these days to detect speeders, drug users, and drunks.  The Court agreed, 5-4, in an opinion written by Justice Scalia, a proponent of "strict constructionism."

Some writers have already pointed out that this ruling potentially complicates the administration of the law, could entail considerable expense for states, might clog the courts, and may provide a gold mine for lawyers.  Perhaps so; as an optimist, I'd prefer to think that over time, the generally high accuracy of these devices would lead to so extremely few acquittals that even most ambulance-chasers wouldn't think it worthwhile to call for these "witnesses."

In the same article (link above), it's asserted that the Justices made the right legal call.  I have to disagree.  I understand, of course, that a court's decision may result in changes that aren't practical, or cheap, or even fair (and Melendez v. Massachusetts is none of those).  But here I think the reading is just wrong.   The language of the Sixth Amendment calls for an accused in criminal cases to be able to confront "witnesses against him."  Can any reasoning being really look at a breathalyzer (e.g.) and consider it in any way a "witness"?  It's an instrument, a tool, not a "witness."  The fact is, there are no witnesses, but that doesn't mean a crime can't have been committed, and detected.  If a crime is captured on film and the perpetrator clearly identifiable, would it really make a difference if the accused questions the manufacturer of the camera?  The "confrontation" would be handled easily by giving the offender a paper printout of the device's results.  With this ruling, Scalia and the majority justices have "made law" as surely as any "activist" judge. 

The fundamental fault here is the literal reading of the Constitution espoused by Justice Scalia.  Failure to consider that words and conditions change results in inanity. Under a literal reading, no doubt, if Melendez were a woman, the court would have ruled differently, since the Amendment refers only to witnesses against him.  It's as foolish an approach as taking every word of the Bible literally.

Pay-Go Should Go

Back in the 1990's, President Clinton managed to eliminate the budget deficit.  One big factor was a rule the Congressional leadership miraculously put into effect requiring that any new entitlements or tax cuts must be "paid for" by a corresponding cut in some other program (in effect setting a no-growth limit on the budget).  The requirement, which came to be known as "pay-go," was allowed to expire in 2002 to allow more leeway for Bush's tax cuts.  Deficits, of course, rapidly expanded. 

Now pay-go is back, in a full-grown legislative version that was passed by the House earlier this week.  Unfortunately, however, the miracle didn't last.  Rather than maintaining the fairly pristine and universal requirements of the original, lawmakers of both parties have loaded up this version with several loopholes exempting significant portions of the budget.   (One example:  Medicare payments to doctors are exempt from pay-go, even though we are currently in the midst of health care reform, medicare is a key element of health care costs, and the most contentious issue of reform is how to pay for it.) 

Political observer David Broder points out that such loopholes, and the lack of a cap on existing spending categories, could mean that pay-go this time around may actually work to increase the deficit.  Broder quotes Cong. Steny Hoyer as saying that the loopholes were necessary to get the bill passed, but what's the point of passing a bill that doesn't have the teeth to do what it's designed to do?  One answer:  symbolism.  Congress will be on record as having "done something" about the deficit.  It's a political gesture but it has little practical effect; it only lulls the public (and the Congressmen themselves) into thinking something is being done. 

Meantime, the passage of pay-go-lite is cited by some as one indication of the power of the fiscally conservative Democrats known as "blue dogs."  Yet it's not much more than a token nod to them.  I'm all in favor of working to reduce the deficit, but the only way pay-go would work is to make it fully inclusive.  All programs must be on the table.

RNC-y Dink - Michael Steele On Health Care Reforms

We haven't heard publicly from Michael Steele, Republican National Committee Chairman, in quite some time.  That's not necessarily a bad thing!  But now he's back at center stage (or trying to be), being loosed on an unsuspecting public by the GOP as a part of a new blitz to stop health care reform.  Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, whose last public appearance giving the GOP's official response to President Obama's February 24 address to Congress thrust him into well-deserved oblivion for the past six months, is reportedly going to be part of the same effort.

I've remarked before on the bizarre attitude of the Republican Party in opposing all change in health care, an issue on which people overwhelmingly say they want reform.  I leave it to the party to figure out whether that makes political sense or not, but it is interesting that the heavy artillery (Cheney? McCain? Limbaugh?) is being left in the shed for the effort, and the popguns like Jindal and Steele are being deployed for the opening salvos.  It's possible the bigger guys do see some contradiction in too publicly opposing a popular effort.

Anyway, in an appearance at the National Press Club today, Steele made one thing abundantly clear:  his party has no new ideas to offer.  Fear?  Not new, but of course they've got that:  Steele called Democratic plans "reckless" and claimed we should all "be scared to death."  (Wait, maybe that's something for the GOP to build a concept on:  Dead people don't need health care, so why improve our system?)

The doughty RNC Chairman suggested that reform was proceeding in too much of a "rush."  That's a familiar refrain; we know from the last administration, when Republicans controlled Congress for six years, that there was no rush about health care reform. 

New solutions?  Steele, perhaps forgetting who won the election, suggests we should scrap all those silly Democratic ideas, and instead "reduce medical malpractice lawsuits, make it easier for self-employed individuals to buy health insurance and encourage businesses to set up programs that reward employees who ... take ...measures to improve their health."  These are old Republican suggestions; I doubt even most Republicans think they would be effective (but remember, Republicans oppose reform); but if they did, they ought to have enacted them in the Bush years, when the GOP could, if it wished to do anything about bringing change, have dictated the terms.

Regrettably - for themselves and perhaps for all of us too - the Republican Party seems bereft of solutions, continuing to trot out a handful of rinky-dink halfway measures while refusing to involve itself constructively at the legislative level, and not-so-secretly wishing the whole issue would go away.

More Designs By Committee

I've never been much impressed by committee efforts.  Maybe a little brainstorming for ideas on a problem but from there on, I say, put one or two people in charge and let them run with it.  The result won't satisfy everyone but it will be done, it's more likely to be coherent, and it will be relatively speedy.  The U.S. Congress, one of the world's largest committees, has provided some excellent examples this week of the problems with a committee approach.

1.  Defense Secretary Gates wants to put a stop to production of F-22 fighters and use the money that would be spent on them for expenditures more relevant to today's warfare.  Who's standing in the way?  Congress, or certain members thereof, who would rather preserve themelves in power than spend our defense dollars effectively.

2. Much criticism of the health reform plans being floated now centers on the fact that they do nothing to control the rising costs of Medicare.  Who's standing in the way?  Congress, or many members thereof, who have the amazingly sweet and largely unpublicized privilege of increasing Medicare payouts in their districts, and would rather garner votes than see the country have a viable health care system.

Who originally said that "all politics is local?"  It's often true, but the system that makes it possible for a small district's representative to the national legislature to continue to harbor petty parochialism and inflict it on the nation seems increasingly, frustratingly, anachronistic in the 21st century. 

Historically, of course, there were a lot of political leaders back in the late 18th century who thought the country could work as a loose confederation of states without a national government.  (Actually, many still seem to believe this.)   We probably wouldn't have a federal government if some clever politico of the 1790's hadn't hit on the idea that it could be a bonanza of some other state's or locality's money from which a smart or powerful legislator stood a chance of grabbing more than his own state's share.  Since then, Congressmen have been stampeding the trough like a bunch of shoppers at the original Filene's Basement. 

Nothing has changed since those days (unless it's gotten worse) so maybe that's why the whole idea that we should continue to pay for more and more unneeded and outmoded airplanes just to keep a company and its Congressman afloat seems so....well, so eighteenth century. 

I've always thought the musical "L'il Abner," despite its limitations as high art, truly captured some truths about social issues.  (Who can forget Jubilation T. Cornpone?)  When I contemplate these political shortcomings, the lyrics that always come to mind are those of "The Country's In The Very Best of Hands."  You can see them here .  Maybe the best line here is, "As long as no one knows where noone stands, the country's in the very best of hands."  The flood of pork depends very much on a Congressional shell game, and the public's failure to focus on it.

Two or three decades from now, perhaps, some President will run once again on a platform of badly needly reform, reform as clearly needed as rationalization of our health services system or war funding is now.  That future "big idea" will be a reform of how Congress works, and getting pork off the menu in the cafeterias at the House office buildings.  Until then, there doesn't seem to be much way to get things done without it; but I don't believe we can truly afford it much longer.

Designed By A Committee

Once again I return to the process, not the substance, of how the Senate confirms Supreme Court nominees.  The headline of the day seems to be "Sotomayor Avoids Pointed Queries," but any of us could have written that headline days ago.  We all knew that would happen; it's a direct result of the way the Committee has distorted the confirmation procedure. 

I've said that before, but today's tale regarding questioning by the Demublican Senator Arlen Specter is a classic illustration of the problem.  Specter presents a long list of questions about the nominee's views on a variety of issues, each potentially representing a vote against the candidate if she answers the "wrong" way.   Naturally, nominees and their political handlers have learned the price of honesty, so for decades now, no nominee, whether proposed by a Republican or a Democrat, has any choice but to "avoid queries."  That's what makes the process such a travesty.  Specter himself admits that Sandra Day O'Connor was the last nominee who actually answered questions; and that was in 1981, folks!

"Is there anything the Senate or Congress can do if a nominee says one thing seated at that table and does something exactly the opposite once they walk across the street?" laments Specter.  No, Senator, but it's not a bad thing, because the alternative is that the nominee answers each question about her views on the issues straightforwardly, the Senate renders its thumbs-up/thumbs-down based on these political criteria, and in the end, it's the legislative branch that has pre-cooked the Court's views (or attempted to).  As Sotomayor tried to point out, that's not separation of powers.

Another time-waster increasingly used by Senators over the years is to pose hypothetical questions.  Again, it seems Sotomayor's replies to these has been sensible; that she'd need to know the details of the case.  In law, precedents can be brought to bear, but each case is dealt with in terms of its own unique facts.  That's especially true for The Supremes, who don't hear a case unless it presents an issue they think is unique (or requires revisiting).

I'm tempted to think Specter is tilting at this windmill precisely because he wants to play up how pointless the exercise has become.  But his advocacy of having Supreme Court proceedings televised casts doubt on that theory; the Supreme Court is not, or at least should not be, the Court of Public Opinion. 

Postal Service: Slouching Towards Oblivion

We've all heard, certainly, about the increasingly desperate situation of the U.S. Postal Service.  Revenues are down because of less mail traffic, and we're told something has to give (maybe several things).  The USPS appears to have won its fight to change the way its pension obligations are paid; it is also arguing for cutting service to five days a week, while also reviewing several thousand post offices for possible closure.  Yet even these steps are unlikely to solve anything.  It's uncertain what the real cost savings of these steps will be, and the decline in pieces mailed is unlikely to abate as people increasingly switch to different technologies. 

Some of these band-aid solutions, I fear, could just accelerate existing trends.  For example, the idea of five-day delivery.  Surveys suggest that people are not too perturbed about this prospect, but I've always thought that six-day delivery was one of the areas where the USPS had a clear advantage over its rivals.  More seriously, cutbacks in delivery can easily become a slippery slope.  As people and businesses register that their packages, bill payments, and other mail can't be sent, delivered, processed or moved on that extra day, I'd expect them to migrate increasingly to alternatives.  

It's a lot like what has happened in public transportation in some areas - the frequency and reliability of service are a key element in maintaining volume.  When that bus runs only once an hour instead of once every 30 minutes, or stops running entirely at 7:00 pm, people start making other arrangements.  No doubt economists have a name for this phenomenon; it definitely exists.

I don't pretend to have a better answer; only the suggestion that it's a more difficult problem than it seems, and it's unlikely to be solved with a few tweaks here and there.   I suspect the answer lies in recognizing that our whole concept of "mail delivery" must change in rather far-reaching ways; we may as well begin to consider a new structure now.

A New Justice

I haven't read or heard anything yet about Sotomayor's first day before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  No doubt the network news this evening will spare 60 seconds or so for it, when they get done with yet another rehash of Michael Jackson trivia, and of course I can get all kinds of buzz online if I want, but actually it's a conscious decision to avoid immediate exposure to the political circus the confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice has become.

As the trend to make confirmation a political football has grown stronger over recent decades, my concern has been that ultimately, the process would lead to politicization of the Court's legal decisions.  That time seemed to come definitively when the Supreme Court injected itself (well, more precisely, allowed itself to be drawn) into the U.S. Presidential election of 2000.  Not just that, however.  Increasingly we see that issues the Court has decided in the past (like Roe v. Wade) or those that it is likely to address in future, become political ones, with one side or another in Congress always prepared to turn one or another issue into a litmus test for confirmation.

The Founders wisely did not make Supreme Court Justice an elective office.  Possibly working from the "greater idiot" theory, they did include a role for Congress.  This can be forgiven, since they probably had no inkling of how far off course the confirmation process could go.  But I'd certainly like to see us get back to a more honest procedure in which the Committee focuses on the judicial qualifications of a nominee, the scope of his/her arguments and opinions, without so much concern about his/her personal views or their political coloration.  The decisions we depend on the Supreme Court for are legal, not political ones; and while of course there's no way completely to separate one from the other, those to whom the confirmation decision is entrusted should try.  Much harder.

That's the new justice we need.