Morning Fog

Washington DC - Ukrainian Spoken Here

In a conversation with a friend this morning, I said Ukraine's position in the geographic and strategic shadow of Russia meant that it may need to reconcile to being a nation with somewhat less than full freedom - like Finland, if you will.

Later, it also occurred to me how that analogy might also be extended to the District of Columbia, where in effect, the rest of the nation bullies the DC into accepting less than complete political rights. 

The people of DC still have no voting voice in Congress - a single representative in the House without a vote, and no Senator representing them (Wyoming, with a smaller population, has two).  Further, they put up almost constantly with outrageous interference in local matters by Congressmen who by definition come from somewhere else (Moscow, maybe?).

It's nice to talk of our support for democracy abroad; I feel certain we will eventually apply some sanctions to Russia; but wouldn't it be nice if we could get our own house in order too?  It would give us a firmer leg to stand on.

 

Entitlements - A House Of Cards?

Shortly after my last post ("Those Pesky Entitlements"), the House of Reprehensibles voted to undo the tiny cuts that Congress had agreed to only a few weeks earlier as part of the big "bipartisan" budget deal.  The Senate, perhaps the slowest-moving force on earth short of geologic change, approved the same unraveling of the carefully wrought deal just a day later. 

On this general topic of entitlement enablers, read Ruth Marcus's "Bipartisan Caving on Military Pension Cut."  

It's all timely further proof, if any were needed, that there is no cure in sight for our burgeoning outlays for senior, military, and corporate entitlements.  These programs are a "house of cards" - not in the sense of a fragile, easily collapsible structure (far from it) - but in the sense of the popular Netflix series, which draws a realistic portrait of how things get done in Washington.

There is no harm - in fact, a lot of good - in guaranteeing that our senior citizens (broadly defined, i.e., to include veterans) should benefit from a system that helps them maintain quality of life in retirement.  However, we need to do a far better job of defining what contribution that requires from them.  And equally if not more important, we need a system by which those contributions are sequestered from Congressional meddling.   How different a picture of Social Security might we have today if the so-called "trust fund" had actually been established and insulated from Congressinal robbery?    

Those Pesky Entitlements

Regular readers will know that Morning Fog has usually defended the expansion of social benefits, including the most recent major effort in the health care arena.  It's a matter of principle but also of national pride. 

In health care, for example, it seems inhumane and immoral to let people die because they have a serious health condition for which they could not afford insurance (that's principle); and we are a rich nation whose people can and do spend billions on pure triviality, so we should not be behind so many others (as we now are) in such areas as infant mortality, hunger, or availability of health care (that's national pride).

But regular readers will also know that Morning Fog supports rationalizing the cost structure of our "entitlements," from social security and medicare to military pensions and subsidies for big oil and big agriculture.  These costs must be reduced and they can be, if we really focus on doing so.   But politicians of both right and left have shown little interest in this. 

Republiconomic commentator Robert Samuelson has written an interesting piece about the costs of entitlements.  Repeating the timeworn truth that we all know (but do not heed), that these programs absorb an increasingly large amount of our national budget, he suggests that while both parties are to blame for ignoring the issue, Democrats should be more interested in controlling costs, because, as the party that believes government does have a purpose, "their unwillingness to discuss Social Security and Medicare benefits candidly is the crux of the budget stalemate. This refusal is rich in irony: The pro-government party in rhetoric has become an anti-government party in practice."

I can buy that -- rich in irony, yes.  I have a few little qualifications, such as Samuelson's omission of the entitlements he likes (military and industry also need to be controlled) and his touching concern for the Democrats' political health ...  but yes, absolutely, the Democrats' responsibility is to find ways to make these programs cost less; they cannot refuse to do so. 

Their problem, however, will be that their political opponents will resist real cost-cutting because the "end of government" is exactly what they seek -  except of course those military and commercial entitlements, which they will seek to increase. 

The sad fact is that we won't be able to deal successfully with government costs until both major parties are prepared to do their share. 

Coburn's Timing

Even before I'd read through the article announcing Senator Tom Coburn's intention to retire "early next year," my first thought was, why wouldn't he retire just a few months earlier, and save the people of Oklahoma the cost of a special election?

Well, it turns out, according to those "in the know," that Coburn himself, as a true honest conservative, would probably prefer to announce his retirement date early, so that an election could be scheduled and held at the same time as the general election in November 2014.  Good for him! 

So, maybe Coburn would choose to do that, if it were up to him.  But the Republican governor of his state may have other ideas.  Cost or not, some say that Republicans may prefer a special election because turnout is usually lower, and lower turnout often benefits Republican candidates.  I wouldn't think that it would really matter much -- a Republican candidate in Oklahoma?   And in any case, it's a bad deal for the people.

Coburn can't completely control this decision, but he can affect it -- if he announces his resignation date early, the door would at least be open for the current Governor of Oklahoma to get the special election scheduled right along with the general election.  Let's hope he does so. 

Democrats Go Nuclear

Over the past few days hardly anyone (except me, until now) has failed to weigh in with an opinion about the Democrats' move in the U.S. Senate to eliminate the filibuster as tool the opposition can use to block Presidential appointments endlessly. 

The use of the term "nuclear option" is very apt for this maneuver, because in the system of mutually assured destruction that is enshrined in the Senate's ancient rules, the Democrats - mostly some of the younger ones, as I understand it - have launched the missiles, and Republicans' immediate response was to threaten retaliation as soon as they get their hands on the trigger again.

Many commentators have pointed out that Democrats can hardly be blamed for reacting with impatience to extended Republican obstructionism; but most also caution that tossing aside a rule that has protected either minority party from being railroaded is the greater danger because it threatens the stability of our entire system of government. 

It's difficult to choose a side here.  On the one hand, Americans are an impatient people.  We get tired of our wars after a few months, we buy window coverings from places with names like "Next Day Blinds," and we just want our government to get things done, NOW, without worrying too much about the process.  Those who concern themselves at all with "government gridlock" will I suspect conclude that there's no harm in trying to shake things up a bit. 

On the other hand, of course, we see the prospect of further dysfunction in our government (yes, really, it probably IS possible!) as the parties continue to seek to grind each other into dust while the business of government goes unattended.  Not a pleasant prospect.

Ultimately, I think I come down on the side of change.  The Senate rules have long been antiquated and out of step with the current century (or even the last one).  It was time for change.  Republicans, in choosing to become the party of No in the fond belief they had found a clever way to starve government without having to do anything legislatively, willy-nilly chose disequilibrium.   It could be argued that conservatives, if anyone, should have sought to preserve the longstanding traditions of the Senate, rather than pervert them into a travesty.   Was it in fact the Republicans who initiated nuclear war, and the Democrats who are now retaliating?

All that said, the Democrats' action is impetuous.  I suspect there could have been less drastic solutions, such as for example setting an upper limit on the term over which a filibuster (or other hold) might be exercised in the case of Presidential nominations; or, rather than letting themselves by stymied by the threat of a filibuster, moving ahead with a vote for cloture and forcing a filibuster.  Such compromises may yet become the new norm around which politicians of moderation and good will can coalesce. 

     

Government Shutdown - How Dumb!

Dumb?  You thought I was talking about Congress, didn't you?  Well, that would certainly be appropriate, but no, I think that particular cesspool of ignorance has been pretty well covered in many comments over the past couple of weeks.  

So, no, I'm referring to the reactions I'm seeing - ad infinitum - of "average Americans" ("we have met the enemy and he is us" - Pogo) and of the media who "cover" them.

Today we saw people upset about the World War II Memorial being closed due to the shutdown.  The closure makes sense to me.  It might seem that there is no reason to "close" an open-air monument, although I think there's also a counterargument that National Parks personnel need to be there to protect the monument from vandalism, crowd damage, and for visitor security. 

After all, it wasn't so long ago that a deranged Chinese woman threw green paint all over several national monuments.  And ... look!  Right there on TV, it looks like someone defecated on the WW II memorial !!...oops, no, my bad, that turns out to be someone claiming to be a U.S. [I stress the U.S. though he apparently prefers to ignore it] Senator by the name of Cruz...

But let's look at the people.  Ripping up barricades and carrying them to dump in front of the White House.  Again, an argument for basic civics in schools.  Dump them in front of Congress, dummies!  I forgot though - Congress is farther away.  And look, there's none other than Sarah Palin, urging them on, and that Cruz thing.  We see why people might have been misled.  These two politicians epitomize the GOP mantra - "my way or the highway," and the people be damned.  Rotary International has a motto - "Service Above Self."  These two self-promoters (and several others) have it just backward, self above service.

Our media deserve plenty of blame too.  In covering this entire mess, they have generally gone for the low-hanging fruit.  The politics of it all is too difficult to explain, or too boring, so they focus instead on inanity.  People whining, for example, about museums being closed.  Or dead veterans' families being "denied" burial benefits (they weren't denied, they're just postponed).  And on, and on.  They forecast the impending effects of a debt default - on people's 401(K)s!  So is the government supposed to be responsible for maintaining the value of people's investments now?  I can't imagine either Democrats or Republicans endorsing that.  Investment by definition means risk.  So what about the real dangers of a default, the destruction of confidence in the dollar, economic downturn, and the like?  Again, maybe too complicated for today's "reporters" whose "beat" seems to be exclusively "human interest."

It's said people get the government they deserve.  Maybe the media too.

U.S. Foreign Policy Interests - The Remedy for 'Trouble at the Core'

Today's Washington Post editorial  laments that in his speech at the UN, Obama failed to list the "promotion of democracy" as one of the U.S.'s "core interests."  It claims that Obama is abandoning a longstanding U.S. policy dating back for decades, and that his omission "diminishes the U.S. soldiers and diplomats who have sacrificed to far higher purpose...."

In my opinion, that's pure fantasy.  First let's be clear that the phrase "promotion of democracy" carries an unwritten tail: "...in other countries."  Was that truly a policy espoused by Roosevelt or Kennedy?  Only as a myth to drag us into war.  Maybe they believed the propaganda they fed the troops, that we were fighting for "democracy," when in reality we were fighting to preserve our (and Europe's) preeminence in the global balance of power.  And yes, also because we were appalled at the inhumanity we saw in Nazi Germany - but that's human rights, not democracy.  It was nice that Europe was mostly democratic, but didn't we also fight with that famous democrat Joseph Stalin?  Did we promote democracy abroad in those days?  How could when only some of us had it at home until the mid-1960s?

No, the concept of actively imposing democracy upon other countries came rather later, perhaps with Reagan.  He had some success in deposing dictators peacefully (Marcos), while "promotion of democracy" still remained a potent excuse for going to war.  But I suspect Roosevelt and Kennedy did so cynically, while later exemplars from Reagan to Bush II came to actually believe the myth. 

To make "promoting democracy" a core of our foreign policy is to announce to other nations that we intend to meddle in their government even when they pose no risk to us.  We didn't much like it when the Soviets made the promotion of communism one of their core interests.  Our real power to inspire -- the reason that "farmers in Venezuela and Indonesia ... hung pictures of JFK on their walls" -- was not because they expected us to come in and hand them democracy on a platter, but because we represented a shining example -- something we don't and can't do if we insist on "promoting democracy" as a core interest. That makes us a global threat. 

We promote democracy by our example; we promote it by furthering human rights; certainly we promote it by applauding and preferring democratic solutions (e.g. free elections) when those are initiated by governments that think of them and institute them on their own.  But the concept has been extended and mythologized too far -- our real interests lie in political, military, and economic factors. 

If Obama can succeed in restoring balance and realism to our foreign policy, it could be his most lasting legacy as President.    

Sacred Cow, Tip Of An Iceberg - Part One

A piece this weekend focused initially on the status of one of the U.S. military's sacred cows, the base commissaries.  For the unititiated, these are in effect, taxpayer -subsidized supermarkets on military bases that sell groceries to military personnel - and only military personnel - at a discount. 

The commissary is really an anachronism, in two ways:  First, such stores date back to times when military bases were often located far from population centers.  That's still true of some bases today, but the civilian environment has changed:  Even pretty small towns have modern supermarkets these days.  Second, it's one of the many special military benefits that remained unchanged when conscription was abandoned in the 1970s and military pay was upped .. and upped some more .. to make it more competitive with the civilian labor market with which it was competing.  (According to this same article, for example, the average enlisted man/woman's compensation is higher than 90% of what his/her civilians peers with equivalent education and experience receive.)

The cost of commissaries is only the tip of an iceberg - the rising cost of military pay and benefits - which I hope to get to in another post.

As for the commissary issue itself, though, there are some pretty simple solutions available.  First, if private grocery chains shy away from opening stores on military bases on a non-profit basis (and who could blame them?), maybe the answer is a coop arrangement.

Further: a community needs test makes a lot of sense.  Some bases (like Joint Base Myer-Henderson near me in Arlington, Virginia) are vest-pocket size and offer dozens of choices of grocery stores within a mile or two of the front gate.  Really, there isn't much reason such bases should have commissaries.  Others are sprawling facilities that house populations of several tens of thousands, and it's only natural that our servicemen and -women would want a grocery store in their community, just like any suburban household in the civilian world has.  They should have it, but need it be operated on a subsidized basis?  

Ah yes, there's that discount issue.  Military folks are up in arms on the web this morning about the potential loss of this small part of their entitlements.  That's natural.  Civilians scream if the mortgage deduction is threatened, and oldsters get agitated if anyone even talks about changes to Medicare or Social Security.  In all three cases, however, change has to happen.   Clearly, in light of the anachronistic nature of the commissary system, we should be taking a good hard look at whether our military members really still need subsidized groceries.

 

The Sorry State Of Judicial Appointments

President Obama has withdrawn the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia circuit -- at her request, after a long wait of two years, and two Republican filibusters.    It seems simple enough.

But the simple part is the Republican opposition.  Simple-minded, that is, because it rests purely on charges of "judicial activism," a sin that lies strictly in the eye of the beholder, and is mostly meaningless, since it can only truly be defined as "judicial decisions the beholder doesn't like." 

It has no doubt occurred to these GOP stalwarts who have delayed and thwarted any number of judicial and governmental appointments far past the time for reasonable debate, that they thus make it more difficult for the President to enact any policy agenda.   They're gleeful on that score. 

They can't be unaware, either, that their action in sabotaging these appointments prevents courts and agencies from getting the people's business done.  But they're uncaring on that point.  Numerous examples, from unemployment insurance through stimulus and health care, gives us little reason to expect they would give a fig about that!

What may have occurred to them, too, deep in their subconsciouses, is that their unprincipled obstruction will inevitably be reciprocated when the shoe is on the other foot and a Republican President seeks to make similar appointments.  This will continue a vicious cycle of ever-lengthening delays.  No doubt these Republicans will, when the time comes, argue otherwise, for their nominees are n-e-v-e-r guilty of judicial activism. 

It's a cycle that ultimately is destructive of trust in government -- not only because of delays and inefficiencies, but in a more subtle way.  Let's look at Ms. Halligan's particular offense against judicial lethargy:  She pursued a suit against gun manufacturers as a part of her work as solicitor general of New York, and/or as a member of the Manhattan district attorney's office.  

It's common, but erroneous, for members of Congress to associate the policy with the individual in government who was assigned to execute it.  In my own experience, this mistaken approach is also common in diplomacy, where the Senate has a similar role in consenting to Ambassadorial appointments, and often blocks some excellent appointees only because 15 years previously it fell to them to implement a policy some Senatorial "beholder" didn't care for.

A key principle of modern government is that most officials/managers remain above the political fray -- they perform their functions regardless of shifts of the political wind, even when that may mean supporting initiatives they don't personally support.  But it's not about personal views.  Absent that principle, we ultimately end up with a spoils system.  That's a flaw we resolved back in the late 19th century, under President Chester Arthur, I believe.  Let's not undo that progress. 

Another Ryan Budget Harks Back To Yesteryear

Congressman Paul Ryan apparently didn't learn much from his failed campaign for Vice President last year.  I say that because he has now formulated another budget proposal based on ideas of social contract that are peculiarly outside the American mainstream.  (Wisconsin politicians are rather famous for this, actually.) 

I must agree with columnist Ezra Klein's assessment of Ryan's new budget - it's an effort to radically alter the American people's relationship to their national government, cloaked in the hot-button language of contemporary budgetary concerns like reducing the deficit and cutting entitlements.  

Ryan is already known (from his last budget effort) for his naive faith in small communities of a kind that haven't existed since the 19th century.  Like many Republicans he also has an unlimited optimism about the benefits of private enterprise -- if only we could prevent the federal government from "interfering" in the idyllic operations of small communities and businesses, we'd be living in paradise.

Free enterprise is indeed an engine of growth and the foundation of our economy, no argument there.  But its proponents tend to forget, in singing hosannahs to its merits, the ugly side, namely its tendency, toward monopoly, oligarchy, and economic self-protection when left to its own devices.  Whether it's the meatpacking industry of the late 19th century, or the banking/finance sector of the early 21st, there are far too many instances of business running amok to be ignored.   It's all very well for large U.S. corporations to be repatriating jobs to the U.S. right now, but as one exec said, that makes a lot of economic sense "at this time" - meaning that there will be no hesitation about offshoring jobs again when times change.  That's where government comes in:  Not to "take over," as Ryan seems to believe, but to set ground rules that aim to protect the individual from being taken to the cleaners socially, financially, ethically, or otherwise.

A similar negative tendency is endemic to the sort of small communities Ryan swoons over.  Small communities historically have tended to gravitate toward control by a small majority, sometimes even by a minority, which can lead to egregious violations of the rights and privileges of "the others."  Racial segregation is one example from history; abuse and discrimination against immigrants is a more contemporary one.  Again, here's where government comes in:  the individual rights defined in the Constitution are national; it should be self-evident that they must be defined and applied nationally, rather than differently by hundreds or thousands of Janesvilles. 

Naturally, in a democracy, our budget principles and priorities are, and should be, determined by the way we choose to define government's appropriate role.  Ryan's approach is idyllic, but in the end, impractical and antidemocratic.