Morning Fog

Busting The Filibuster?

Many thoughtful observers have considered the current state of the U.S. Senate and concluded that it is an increasingly inefficient body in which getting anything done is nearly impossible. 

That slothful state is not due exclusively to the existence of, and abuse of, the tradition of the filibuster.  Limiting the use of the filibuster (if not completely eliminating it, which is probably a step too far), however, could go a long way to making the Senate functional again.

"Filibuster Reform At Last," by Katrina vanden Heuvel, outlines a proposal that could move us in that direction.  Without sacrificing the filibuster as a tool, it might be possible, as she puts it, to "prevent a single senator from wielding the filibuster against the entire body and would allow the majority to challenge the minority without wasting precious floor time." 

Such a plan would be of benefit to both parties whenever they are in majority status.  Vanden Heuvel's article unfortunately treats the issue as one that would benefit liberal causes, mainly (apparently) because she suggests that Democrats still have the requisite votes to be able to approve these changes, which on January 5, the opening day of the new Congress, would not require a 2/3 vote but only a majority.  The author claims that there is strong support for such a move, the best chance for Senate reform "in a generation."  I hope she is right; I fear she is not.   

Congress: The Freshman Class Arrives

In politics as in other areas of "news," the last few days of the year are often a period when not much is going on, and the media are hard-put to fill their space.  That's probably how the Washington Post came to feature a story about freshman Congressman Mike Kelly on its front page a couple of days ago.  

It is nevertheless an interesting piece that tells us a lot about the continual waves of political change that erode the cliffs of entrenched incumbency.  Such change is one of the strengths of our system. Kelly represents in microcosm two conflicting trends in our politics:  Change is possible, and possibly constructive; but outsiders usually have to become insiders -- i.e. to understand their new environment -- to make it happen.

Kelly comes to Washington on a mission to "fix" it.  That's a sentiment that many in his home district and in the country, might agree with -- even across party lines.  He hopes to apply his business acumen to making the government run better.  Good, but the test of his success will be how quickly he grasps the fundamental differences between running a small business (which is a big business in his home town) and making a government work. 

Business lessons can be applied in government with good effect (the example of businessman-turned-Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is instructive).  It helps a lot, though, if the businessman in question recognizes early on that he is no longer responsible only to himself; no one elected him to run his automobile dealership.  Kelly's initial formula for his political debut is for government to "kill more than it eats."  This sounds like a plan for raising taxes, which clearly isn't what he means (in fact he really means to suggest that government must do with less). 

More to the point, though, it suggests that so far, he hasn't grasped the essence of his new environment.  In business, "killing more than you eat" is not a bad trope and is applied to customers and competitors equally; but it's rare (not to mention erroneous and politically suicidal) for a politician to consider his constituents, his country, or its resources as game on the hoof.  If the government hunts, it does so not to "feed" itself but to feed the people - the same ones who constantly demand food, and who are also the game in Kelly's analogy.    

Second, business has a potential to offer creative, practical solutions to problems but it doesn't have all the answers.  Kelly comes to Washington blaming the government for the near-loss of his Cadillac dealership in Butler, Pennsylvania (he also sells Chevrolets).  Wrong!  The government made it possible for a badly led business (GM) to restructure itself while blaming the government for changes; the changes may or may not rescue GM from its own folly, but had the restructuring not taken place, Kelly's GM dealership would very likely have been worth near nothing a few short years hence. 

I wish Mr. Kelly well in his quest to fix Washington, because he sounds as if he might be a moderate pragmatist if he masters his orientation lessons.  As for cutting back, perhaps he would like to begin by rejecting the "government-issued" Blackberry he's been given.  I personally was surprised at the revelation (if true) that Congressmen are provided these toys at government expense. 

In my own government service, before blackberries ceased being a fruit, it was strongly and officially urged that I acquire a cell phone so I could be contacted 24/7 about, and respond to, anything from crises to routine questions within my purview.  The government specifically declined to pay for that service, however, even though I felt no need for a cell phone for personal use.

Safe Food - Can We Afford NOT To Have It?

Food safety has been a big issue lately, as some of the Bush Administration's chickens (i.e. the gutting of regulatory agencies and an endemic lack of concern about effective oversight in the most basic processes of food production) came home to roost in the form of illnesses and death in a number of food categories -- eggs, spinach, jalapeno peppers, lettuce, peanuts.

This is an area where Republican legislators make no bones about their interest in undercutting recently passed legislation by denying or cutting funding for effective regulation.  (The same process led to many of the problems we've experienced in food safety.) 

Currently, the new Republican chair of the appropriations subcommittee that has to authorize the FDA's funding (Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia) is justifying his concerns about "possible overreach" on the basis of competing demands for limited funds.  That's an easy course when the economy is still widely viewed as weak.

The fact is, though, that a shortage of funds is not the real problem.  When the economy was booming, Republicans still failed to enact rules to enforce penalties for gross health code violations.  And when the economy is regaining momentum (as it is doing now), they'll still be engaged in foot-dragging and obstructionism on anything involving possible limitations on businesses' "right" to do as they see fit, regardless of the consequences for public health.  Since they tend to be staunch friends of business, these party dogmatists might want to consider that the U.S. is a major exporter of agricultural products, and that as our produce gets an ever more degraded reputation abroad, our markets shrink. 

As with health care, education, feeding the hungry, and other issues, it's just plain ridiculous to say that we "can't afford" to do far better in all these areas, because most other developed countries with per capita GDP and incomes DO afford them, surpassing us in providing basic essential government services to their citizens.  Even one food-health scare, of the kind we've had several of recently, would be nearly unthinkable in most of Europe or in Japan. 

Politicians who deny reality with the "we can't afford it" mantra are pushing us down the road toward developing-nation status.  Some may be too ignorant to see it; others may act out of venality (wasn't that rat-infested peanut factory in Georgia?), but it's a shame that such out of touch, head-in-the-sand types still exist, let alone get elected to Congress.   

The GOP needs to foster more original thinking on such issues, and to break out of thrall to business interests.  That would help the party to regain long-term political competitiveness, and help the nation to maintain its international competitiveness too.  Otherwise, countries more successful in controlling their food supply and agricultural production are going to eat our lunch (though in a literal sense they wouldn't, because they'd be concerned about whether it was safe for consumption). 

Gainful Employment

"Gainful employment" -- a long-winded way of saying "job" -- usually is considered a good thing.  To the for-profit higher education industry, however, gainful employment is a dirty word (OK, two dirty words) these days.  The industry is spending big bucks to fight what it calls the "Department of Education's gainful employment rule," with heavy television advertising and full-page newspaper ads.  (Note: such is the case in Washington DC, anyway. Sometimes I suspect we in the nation's capital are subjected to more paid political cause advertising than many other markets.) 

When an industry association starts spending a lot of money to "inform the public" about an impending danger from the government, it's usually time to be suspicious.  Of course we all know that our elected officials and government workers are constantly out plotting to do things against the public interest (don't we?), and we should appreciate the trade associations that are so assiduous in defending our rights (shouldn't we?).  Not really, unless we're paranoid.  Actually it's a better-than-even bet that the industry's real concern is either regulation they don't like, or something that might affect their profits. 

So when I started seeing the blitz of ads against "gainful employment," run by the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, criticizing the power-crazed government's plan to restrict freedom of choice in education, I started to look into what might be the real problem.

It seems that a variety of studies have suggested a host of problems in the for-profit education sector:  Foremost is generally higher prices than equivalent private nonprofit or government schools (for 4-year degree programs, the average for-profit student paid 31,000, but only 17,000 at private nonprofits and 12,000 at government institutions.  Also, the APSCU schools' graduation rates are much lower; and degrees take longer. 

We might agree that some of this difference is due to the different nature of the students in for-profit education -- many are working and devote only part time to studies; others don't pursue four-year degrees.  But beyond these generic measures, the more serious problem may be one that investigative reporters have found:  recruiters for the private schools often misinform prospective students about the type of education they will receive, or about the actual job prospects in the field they plan to study.  (In one case I saw, convicted felons who did not hide their criminal records were told they could take courses and get jobs in police work or security.) 

The Department of Education's planned rulings would tighten up some of these practices in order to keep people from being bilked. Seems reasonable to me.  (You can see the DoEd's description of its plan at http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/department-track-implement-gainful-employment-regulations-new-schedule-provides-)   

As in so many cases where abuses are discovered, the APSCU's reaction to its members' being called to task has been to deny the problem is widespread and to try to misrepresent what's being done to correct it.  The industry says it's just a "few bad apples" and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan agrees.  But the industry group leaves unsaid what, if anything, it would do to correct the problems; instead it just argues against any new regulation, while trumpeting that "the proposed rule would force thousands of programs to be shuttered and deny over two million students the opportunity to achieve their dreams."

Which begs the question:  Gosh, if the abuses are limited to just a tiny sample of the entire private-sector education industry, why would the consequences of fixing them have such dire effects?  And the second question:  Why doesn't the APSCU outline its own procedures for correcting abuses?  Or the third:  Why didn't they have procedures in place earlier, so the government could survey the industry and conclude it was clean, well-policed, and needed no regulation?      

Liberals' Turn To Misread Election Results

After the U.S. elections in November, I opined that it was inevitable that both parties would tend to read the wrong messages from the results.  The Republicans were a little quicker to leap to the wrong conclusions, boasting that voters had totally rejected equitable health care, were in favor of more Bush-style deficit spending, and wanted government turned over to the wealthy.  All about 95% wrong, of course.

Now Democrats are trying to catch up in the race to ignore reality; they began with a low drone of grumbling about "compromise" on taxes as if any other course of action were really possible; now we hear that liberals are concerned about several points: that Obama may work with Republicans and "shore up the middle;" that the deficit commission recommended Social Security cuts; and that the President might "cut out his core constituency." 

Here, I would have to say the left wing's fears are well grounded.  If Obama is politically savvy he will move in those directions.  The most liberal wing of the party seems deaf and blind to the fact that political success is incremental, and lies usually in hewing closely to a moderate course.  In fact, the "core constituency" of either major party IS the middle; the more extreme elements on both sides, that like to think of themselves as the "core," are really the fringes.  "Base" is a slightly more accurate term, because cognate phrases like  "baser instincts," "basement," or even "lean toward second base" give us a better sense of what we're dealing with.  The base is an anchor; and an anchor inhibits movement.

The "base" tends to exhibit similar procedural thinking, whether it's right or left.  For example, both will argue that we can deal with our deficit simply by swearing allegiance to labor union expectations (Democratic base) or turning ourselves over to be managed by an oligarchy of CEOs (Republican base).  To me, it seems obvious that neither of these approaches can possibly work.

Musings: Secrets And Our Right To Know Them

From the very personal level all the way up to the transactions of high muckety-mucks and higher-muckety nations, people, governments, and corporations all keep secrets.  Some keep them better than others but I think ultimately most beans get spilled - the variables are in the when, where, and how.

I have argued that Wikileaks and Julian Assange have done damage to the U.S. national interest (not to mention other interests); and that the leaks should be prosecuted.  I suspect that lowly private Bradley Manning, who is the prime suspect in providing the huge cache of documents to Assange in the first place, will face a more stringent justice than Assange. 

And that's not necessarily off the mark:  Manning's offense is of the first water - shall we say, "first degree leakage" -- while Assange's is less direct.  I recall the big flap when a then-anonymous government official outed CIA officer Valerie Plame to columnist Joe Novak.  No one thought to prosecute Novak, though technically the offense was defined as "publicizing" such information, and it was clearly Novak who had publicized it, once he was privy to it.  Of course that was a single fact, and here instead we have... a LOT of information.

Journalists inevitably argue that once such information is available, the public has a right to know.  Daniel Ellsberg thinks so, too.   On the large scale of things, they're right.  That's the essence of freedom of the press.  Ellsberg's revelations have long since been forgotten; the harm they probably did was kept quiet and not acknowledged, which will be the case this time, too.  That's why Assange can claim to a television reporter that there is not one confirmation that anyone has died as a result of the leaks.  Of course not; no one is going to confirm, which would only risk further damage.  So Assange may be prosecuted somewhere for something, but it's unlikely to be very successful.

In some other areas, the media's insistence on the public's "right to know" is probably less solidly grounded.  The first amendment freedom of the press has essentially a political character, just as the Second Amendment has essentially a militia character.  "Right to know" can be turned into a ridiculous shadow of itself when it's imputed to everything.   

So I'm always dumfounded, for example, by reports about how criminals have been caught; often they detail exactly how the evil-doer gave himself away.  In one recent case, a Washington Post reporter's home was burglarized by a guy who recorded his deed on the Facebook page of his victim, and the reporter wrote a column about it.  Does the criminal have a right to know?  Are we conducting training to make better crooks, or might it not be better to leave them in the dark about what they did wrong?  We'd like to think the bad guy is stupid and will soon be caught, but I'm recalling a similar case of a bank robber in England at least a year ago, and I can't remember seeing news that he was ever apprehended.

Terrorists, too, can benefit from just keeping up with the TV news, as our media reps insist on airing everything:  how things are being done, what is working and what isn't, which airports are least secure, and the like.  One recent example: Reports that up to 70% of test runs with clearly visible weapons in luggage escape detection.  Here again, I think the main beneficiaries of this kind of revelation are probably the terrorists.

So yes, nearly everyone, and every organization, has secrets.  Often there are perfectly good reasons not to reveal every detail of everything.  (Note to secret-stashers:  Usually, the desire to keep something under wraps only because it might be embarrassing is NOT a legitimate reason!)  Purposeful leaks will surely, and should, continue to be prosecuted by keepers of the official order.

Meanwhile, corporations seem to do somewhat better in keeping their secrets than other holders of sensitive materials.  Can anyone tell me, for example, how to get an honest description of a cell phone contract from a wireless carrier's representative?  Now that would be very much in the public interest.

Warner's Wiggy Regulation Reduction

Mark Warner, Senator of Virginia, is the kind of Senator that anyone who longs for less partisanship in our politics would like to see more of.  He's a Democrat, a successful businessman who made his fortune building Nextel, and has a reputation for being generally pragmatic, rather than partisan, a style that made it possible for  him to break legislative logjams and get some things done when he was Governor of Virginia a few years ago.

New Senators look for ways to brand themselves, choosing an issue by which they can be known.  It appears that Warner has chosen the "reduction of government regulation"for this purpose.  Not a bad cause, at first glance; certainly no one in this country would be sorry to see less red tape, although Warner's claim that a major cause of businesses' failure to invest right now is their fear of "stifling" new rules and regulations from government.  I think it's more likely that they are just taking some time to figure out what new legislation means for them.

Still, as I said, it's not a bad cause, and potentially a nonpartisan one.  But I'm a skeptic about the way Warner says he'd accomplish the goal:   A regulatory "pay-go" under which every government agency introducing a new regulation would have to get rid of one regulation of approximately equal cost (presumably, cost in lost time).   This is an idea familiar from the days when Pres. Clinton succeeded in balancing the budget by requiring any new spending to be matched by an equal amount of cost reductions -- so we know it works in that context. 

Reducing government regulation would be welcome, I'm sure, but I just don't see how pay-go could accomplish it.  The whole process seems cumbersome and time-consuming.  Warner claims it's working in Britain, but we're not Britain. 

Examples: What would define a "regulation" - if one rule has 15 subparagraphs, is that one regulation or 15?  Second, the opportunity costs would seem to be almost impossible to gauge; it's unimaginable to me how anyone could determine that 2011's regulation B, for example, is equivalent to Regulation A from 2003.  Third, it seems it would be awfully easy for government agencies to play shell games with the rules. Last, if we want to reduce red tape, will a one-for-one swap (new regulation for old regulation) work, or shouldn't we shoot to reduce their numbers?  Talk about a can of worms! 

Procedural issues aside, it also seems to me Warner is forgetting one Big Fact:   It's not government agencies that create all these regulations; it's the legislators (Warner presumably included, though perhaps more frequently our representatives in the House) who write and approve complicated, often poorly written laws, attempting to legislate for or about tiny specific pockets of our population.  Then they leave agencies to try to write rules to carry out Congress's intent.  

So:  Simpler, clearer rule-making?  Absolutely.  But Warner's plan doesn't do him justice.  Let's look for a way to get simpler, clearer law-writing.  I think if he focuses on the issue that way, he may be just the man to get the job done. 

The Constitutionality Of Health Care

Opponents of the health care plan signed into law earlier this year have finally found a judge to say that the "universal mandate" that is the centerpiece of making universal health care affordable is unconstitutional.

No big deal, really, at this point, since other judges elsewhere have ruled that it is constitutional.  I won't belabor the point.  I don't see a problem of constitutionality; this is no different from requiring people to have automobile insurance; if they don't, they pay a fine.  In the latter case, by happenstance, it's the states that levy this requirement.  But the federal government's powers, despite the best efforts of selective readers of the Constitution, don't rest solely on interstate commerce; and economic pressures would likely push most states to require health insurance even if the US government doesn't.

This decision, however, points again to the hyperpoliticization of our courts at all levels.  Appointments to the federal courts have always been political to a degree; it cannot be otherwise.  But once appointed, judges were once supposed to rise above politics to interpret law in a (more or less) unbiased manner.

Here, we are told, the Virginia judge appointed by Bush happens to be the one to declare the universal mandate unconstitutional, while other justices elsewhere who declare it OK just happen to have been appointed by Democrats.  What's wrong with this picture?  Plenty.  Can it be fixed?  I'm doubtful, when the Roberts Court itself has in recent years chosen to forfeit its credibility by exercising obvious partisanship in several key decisions. 

It's been obvious since the health care bill was signed that it would be challenged, and would end up in the Supreme Court.  With the current Court, there is little doubt what the verdict would be.  Yet Supreme Court decisions ought not to be so predictable.  Unfortunately, as the final paragraph of the above-referenced article notes, the fate of the health-care law in the courts will depend heavily on the political climate of the moment. 

 

Tax Cuts - In The Sweet Spot

When it comes to controversial matters between two or more parties, people often say that you know you're doing something right when everybody is mad at you.  If that's true (and I believe it is), Obama must have it just about right regarding the hotly debated issue of the tax cuts.

On the left, as has been clear for several days, Democrats have expressed dismay over the deal Obama struck with Republican leaders, which extends the George W. Bush tax cuts across the board, for rich and poor -- and they are still putting up a brave fight against it.  (Brave, but ultimately useless; if they succeed, won't Republicans simply do what they want a couple of months hence?)  

On a more personal level, Charles Schumer, often depicted as a master of practicality, is reportedly particularly incensedby the "deal."   But as this article makes clear, Schumer's main - dare I say only? - reason for wanting to continue the fight, which he recognizes could only endure for a month or two, is to "score some points" in public opinion against the Republicans.  In this, he apes the Republicans themselves, demonstrating his willingness to ignore the country's best interests (economic recovery) in favor of political rectitude. 

Meanwhile, arch-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer has been heard from, arguing that Republicans, in agreeing to Obama's deal, have helped both to give him more stimulus spending and a means toward winning a second term.  In this, I think he's probably correct, and we might ask why the GOP would agree to such a thing, if the answer weren't already provided in another piece today:  Republicans are just about wetting-their-pants desperate to extend the tax cuts for the richest Americans.

All in all, the grousing from both sides of the fence is beginning to make it look as if Obama has found the right place to be.  While Democratic legislators are still more interested in playing to the gallery of their home district constituents, Obama seems to be thinking beyond party orthodoxy and in terms more Presidential.  It's a transformation every modern President has made at some point in his term, except George W. Bush.

All that being said, however, doesn't change the fact that everything being agreed to here -- the Republican insistence on extending tax cuts even for the wealthy, the Democratic backhanded acceptance of extending tax cuts for everyone else, and the concept of pouring more money into unemployment benefits, necessary as it may be just now -- leads to a worse deficit and a more severe problem for the future.

Terrorist Hostage-Taking

Over the weekend, I was thinking that I should write a post about the ongoing political battle over whether to renew the George Bush tax cuts for the "wealthy," meaning those earning more than $250,000 per year.   The Republicans were insistent that they would countenance NO reimposition of previous tax levels on the highest income earners -- not at the $250,000 level, and not even at the $ 1,000,000 level.  And to ensure that they got their way, they said they would refuse to deal on any other issue -- not on a clear need like the extension of unemployment insurance (which after all, benefits only the poorer of cour citizens), nor on matters of national security like START -- until the renewal of all Bush tax breaks was assured. 

Looking at the problem, the image that popped immediately into my head was that the Republican party was holding the majority of the American people hostage.

Even though I didn't get around to writing that post, I'm pleased to see that President Obama has confirmed my view and now is describing his "compromise" with the Republican side using exactly that term:  It was hostage-taking.  We, the American people were the hostages.

I'd also have to agree with Obama on his argument to the complaining liberal wing of his own party:   it's great to be firm with hostage-takers unless/until the hostage's well-being is being threatened.   As indeed it was.  The President needs to act on behalf of all Americans, and he has done so.  This isn't the first case of political hostage-taking in our legislative history, but certainly one of the most egregious, and I have no doubt Republican leaders would have been all too willing to cut off unemployment benefits if their sugar daddies couldn't keep their tax benefits. 

It's OK, though, for Democratic liberals to complain a bit, and to put up resistance, because it may (may!) make some voters realize whom they have just put in charge of the henhouse.