I May Regret Saying This

So after the dust has settled from the November election, I've had time to reflect on things.

I have a sense of relief in regards to the Presidential election. Don't get me wrong, I voted for the other guy, and think he would do a better job - but a sense of relief all the same. "Why is that?", I wondered. I think it's because I no longer have to be a proxy punching bag for my guy in the White House.

George W. Bush, I believe, is this generation's Harry Truman. Reviled on his way out of office, and looked back on history with a grudging nod of respect. 40 years from now (y'all can harass me in 40 years if I'm wrong on this), I predict history will look on George Bush and note a number of shortcomings - but will generally look upon him favorably...all things considered.

They'll see that he did what he thought was right, not politically expedient. This can be both admirable and frightening. Admirable in that we want a leader who leads, and doesn't stick his/her finger in the air. We all know the mobs are fickle at best, dangerous at worst. We want someone who will stick to his guns.

However, Dwight Eisenhower (a man I hold in high esteem) once said that "governments had to be concerned with public opinion and, as much as possible, must never be thought to be wrong in vital decisions." Like him or not, President Bush didn't pander. He seemed to have a refreshing disregard for the public opinion. Refreshing, of course, if you agreed with what he was doing. He infuriated many because, I think, people either disagreed where he was going, or perhaps were inclined to support him, but didn't because he didn't appear to care if the public was on board with him - he was going to do what he thought was right, whether or not the people were with him.

So, he rebuilt Iraq at the cost of American lives and treasure. The trauma that has come out of that exercise is reflected in his low approval ratings. The same low approval ratings Truman had when he (and his party) were tossed out by the American people after he rebuilt Europe via the Marshall Plan.

*****************
One other source of comfort. When you're in the minority (said one Congressman after his party lost the majority on The Hill), "we give them the gavels, they give us the grenades." When you're in charge, you have to be responsible. When you're in the minority, you can lob grenades and kibitz.

I think I'll hold onto my grenades for now. President-Elect Obama is a pragmatist, I believe (see www.dickmorris.com/blog/2008/12/05/obama-tries-the-parliamentary-system/#more-506). A lefty, to be sure, but a pragmatist. Which means whatever scary left proposals he may have, he'll have to trim them back a bit to get the "blue dogs" in the House to go along with it. If he doesn't, then I'll throw the grenades.

Religion & Education

So there I was, driving into work this morning. Waiting at a light behind an SUV with surfboards strapped to the top (picture me jealous), I read the bumper sticker affixed to the window: "Religion is a crutch for those who cannot think for themselves."

No longer jealous of this driver, I thought: "If that's correct, then education must be a crutch for those who cannot think for themselves."

(note the correct usage of the "if/then" structure)

Is It So Hard?

So there I was, sitting in the stands of the night show at the Polynesian Cultural Center, waiting for things to get underway. Having been thoroughly luau'd about 30 minutes before, my body was moving quickly into full food-coma mode when I heard an oft-spoken piece of instruction preceding most performances: "Please refrain from using flash photography during the performance, as it can be dangerous to the performers."

I leaned over to the hot gal sitting next to me and whispered, "I wonder how long it will take for folks to ignore that?" Sure enough, the lights dimmed, the performance began, and the dancers and singers were greeted with a virtual strobe light coming from the audience.

Ushers began walking up and down the aisles with largely lit signs reading "no flash photography"...to no avail. It's almost as if the sign invited more flashes. I leaned back for a few moments in my chair, and pondered the scene before me.

A simple request was made. A portion of the scofflaws present may have not understood why a blinding light flashing in the eyes of Tahitians twirling and throwing flaming sticks might be dangerous - but there are always stupid people out there, and there's not a whole lot we can do about that.

But for those who either heard the "flash photography can be dangerous to the performers" warning, or simply chose not to concern themselves with the safety (or the audience's enjoyment) of the show, I was compelled to ask myself: Is it so hard to follow the rules?

This is a question I often asked myself during the last 10 years of working for a lawmaker. For those who haven't worked in the business of lawmaking, it's hard for you to grasp the excruciating amount of work that goes into crafting a law that is designed to protect people from themselves, and the selfish acts of others.

Let's take, for example, the school zone speeding laws. Rather simple, I think: "slow down when children are present." That really shouldn't require a law. It's common sense and courtesy. But noooooo, too many people like to think of themselves as the exception to the rules (again, there are people out there who are simply stupid, but there's not much we can do about that). But, because there are so many self-declared "exceptional people" out there, we've got to write laws that define when a school zone begins, where it ends, how slow you must go in it, and during what periods of time and season this speed limit will be enforced. Then we've got to outline the proper ways of enforcing this law. How large the fine should be? Can cops use photo radar? If so, does a cop need to be present? Do the cops need to put out signs some distance ahead of the zone warning people of the photo radar? What if the person driving the car does not own the car? Who's liable for the ticket? Who's insurance gets dinged? Then there's the court system, tracking the fine, setting the bail, processing the paperwork. Then we have to raise taxes to pay for all of this enforcement.

All of this (and more) because people out there think they are the exception to common sense rules. And even with all of this, people speed through school zones.

Multiply this scenario thousands of times over, and you wonder why we have so many laws, and our government is so huge. For every law that has been written, there have been hundreds of cases of people willfully (and knowingly) violating common sense, and putting other people at risk in the process. (Again, I must repeat, there are stupid people out there who just don't know they are violating common sense. But for those who aren't really stupid....)

Just as the photographers in the night show were asked to: 1) not do something; and 2) given a legitimate reason not to do it. Nevertheless, they continued to fire off flashes.

And, at the end of the day, I wonder how many of those flash pictures actually turned out. In a large, dark arena, shooting from a distance with flash at a stage that is blazingly bright...I wonder if any of those shots really turned out. Or, if they could have simply spent $15 bucks, bought the DVD of the performance, and contributed to the student-performer's educations.

Morons.

The one up-shot of all the flashes was that they kept my food coma from overcoming me.

da surfer - Laniakea Beach

Every surfer wants a pic of himself (or, herself) riding a wave. Perhaps its so they can prove to their future grand kids that they were once cool. Or maybe it's just so they can pin it up on their wall and remember the good old days. Regardless of the reason, it's usually a picture of the surfer getting barreled, riding the lip, or making a cutback turn. For me, it's a walk on a beach.

I'll grant you, I don't have any other pictures of me surfing (at least, none that I'll show any of you), but this one captures so much...to me. Perhaps it's not worth a thousand words to all 1 of you who may read this blog, but it's worth much to me because it involves many stories.

This is the North Shore. Just a few days earlier, the 1st heats of the 1st event in the North Shore's Triple Crown were held at Haleiwa just beyond the trees there in the mid-ground (above my head). The world's top surfers converged on that spot to secure the 1st jewell in the crown. The 2nd Event is to take place next week at Sunset Beach, perhaps 4 miles behind me (and the person who took the photo). The 3rd Event is in early December at Banzai Pipeline just 3 miles behind me.

Driving down from Laie, you can't see Pipe from the road, but you can see Sunset and Waimea Bay (a big wave surf spot) and they were remarkably flat. I was getting worried because this was my last day in Hawaii, and last (and only) chance to surf the North Shore. This is on every surfer's to-do list. It was not an option for me to come back from Hawaii without surfing it. I would have to have missed my flight, sleep on the beach, and hitch a ride back into town to get a flight back. But Laniakea looked great. All the others were flat, but Laniakea was firing.

Arriving at Surf and Sea surf shop in Haleiwa, I was given a stern warning about the dangers of surfing the North Shore, and the expense of replacing a broken rental board. I was already concerned about surfing a reefy spot, a new spot, on an unfamiliar board, with much faster and heavier waves than I was used to. This guy at the rental spot added to my anxiety 5 fold.

As is my practice when I get to a new spot, I spent some time sitting on a rock observing the scene. Where were the waves breaking? This was pretty easy because the waves all break at the reef (whereas in Oregon, the break moves with the sand bar). Where are the crowds of surfers? Predictably, they're at the primary break. There are a few, however, hanging out at a secondary break. It appeared that the primary break wave had a hard time connecting with the secondary break wave. And, there were a few surfers parked out at the secondary wave. That's my spot, I knew. I didn't want to get in the way of the locals on their wave, and I didn't want to get in the way of any pros who might be out there.

Localism is something big in surfing, but also big in life. Rule #1 in surfing is to respect the locals. I feel that it if I want to impose myself on the people who's backyard I am paddling into, it is my responsibility to prove that I am worthy. And since I knew I wasn't worthy, I took the secondary break, was quite happy with the hour or so I was able to spend out there catching a handful of waves with other haole tourists, and paddle back in to be with my hot fiance again, returning my rental board to the shop in one piece.

Ah, good times.

Conservatism & Liberalism

Like many of you, I'm sure, I've got a stack of old books from college that I paid way too much for at the beginning of the semester, only to be offered way too little in return at the end. Instead of selling the $70 books back for $5, I chose to keep many of them. And, in doing so, I have a stack of books that I haven't looked at since...except one. One that holds within the following quote:

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites; in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the councils of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

Edmund Burke, a British Member of Parliament during the period of the American Revolution, said this. His observation frames perfectly the battle between conservatives and liberals in America today.

I submit as both praise and condemnation of conservative thought, those who inhabit the spectrum of conservative thought begin with the premise that government, in all forms (except, perhaps, a theocracy), is bad, ruinous, tyrannical in nature, doomed and designed to rob from man individual rights, liberties, and freedoms.

Praise be owed to the conservative thinkers out there who seek to defend the rights of individuals to choose their own futures, their own fortunes, and, in some cases, their own failures. As French President Sarkozy reminded Americans during his speech before Congress (Nov. 7, 2007), in America "the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent. America embodies this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance." This first and rare second chance at success is due much to those conservative thinkers who seek to protect the right of the individual to pursue his own dreams unfettered.

Condemnation also be owed to those in that school of thought who are so reluctant to give up any rights owed to the individual, that they ignore the realities of the unchecked "men of intemperate minds" (Burke). To paraphrase slightly our English friend Mr. Burke, "It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that when morons repeatedly speed recklessly through a school zone, the government must write a law, hire cops, patrol streets, levy fines, employ a legal system with clerks, lawyers, bailiffs, judges, and restrict the freedom of not only said moron (with tickets, revocation of drivers license, and/or jail time), but also everyone else who might want to drive over 15 mph in a school zone...during the summer, when no children are in sight. This all paid for by money that was taxed from my wallet."

I submit as both praise and condemnation of liberal thought, those who inhabit the spectrum of liberal thought begin with the premise that government is an equal, if not better, tool of restraining appetites and passions than self-imposed discipline.

Praise goes to the liberal-minded thinker who recognizes the need for government to act as a check to men who do not put chains on their own appetites. Those who recognize that while the freedom of speech is dear, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is probably something government should seek to prohibit; that while the right to bear arms is indeed an individual right, lunatics and criminals (felons) should be prohibited from possessing such (however feeble it may seem to actually enforce these laws).

Condemnation goes also to the liberal-minded thinker who view government in all its blessed largesse as the answer to all of society's problems. If they're unemployed, give them money (as if the possession of money is the answer; "give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish"); or, perhaps, making traffic move at 15 mph (on all roads) so as to prevent any chance of a fatal collision.

All told, however, few conservatives and few liberals are truly deserving of condemnation for their philosophy's sins because, for the most part, most conservatives allow and recognize the need to put SOME restraints on personal liberties for the good of the whole; and most liberals also recognize that simply giving things away and regulating individual liberties does not often (or ever) solve the underlying problem.

No, we who wander somewhere in what I call "The Realm of Reason" recognize that with the shifting character of the American citizen comes the need to adapt the government in order for society to exist (again, see Burke). Burke clearly defines the formula that balances the ability of man to restrain his own passions (exercise responsibility) with the need for government to do it for him. Without which, society cannot function.

We (huggers of the middle ground - both moderate conservatives and moderate liberals) are not deserving of the condemnation described above. That condemnation is laid squarely at the feet of the absolutist conservatives and liberals. Those who have departed from rational discussion on any issue brought before them (that, in the case of absolutist conservatives, would limit, in any way, individual liberty; or, in the case of absolutist liberals, leap at every opportunity to lunge government into every facet of our lives); these are they who deserve condemnation, for they are those who depart from "The Realm of Reason."

We must guard against these people. Observed Jay Winik, "In the vortex of this debate, once the battle lines were sharply drawn, moderate ground everywhere became hostage to the passions of the two sides. Reason itself had become suspect; mutual tolerance was seen as treachery. Vitriol overcame accommodation." This was written in the beginning pages of his book on the Civil War. (Winik thoroughly demonstrated, by the way, that it was Lincoln, REMAINING IN THE MIDDLE - and earning the scorn of nearly everybody - who kept this country together.) Those who hold the sentiments of vitriol and suspicion for those who have differing opinions (conservatives vs. liberal), are those who can bring us down. These are they who deserve condemnation.

With Burke's remark, then, we see a moral imperative. Man (and women, my dear ladies who are reading this) must be responsible. As Mr. Sarkozy suggested, "America's strength is not only material strength, it is first and foremost a spiritual and moral strength." Morals place chains on our passions. Morals teach us (as individuals) to help the poor so that government doesn't have to. Morals teach us to to be sober of mind, not reckless in deed, etc.

Morals also teach us that work is good, and sloth is not. Merely thinking moral thoughts is not enough. For those of us who squat in the middle ground (both conservatives and liberals), who look at the nutjobs not only on the other side, but also on our own side, and do nothing other than silently condemn them - we, too, are guilty of something. We are guilty of sloth. We are guilty of allowing the lunatics run the asylum.

The politicians who pander to the lunatics in their party (even if only in word, and not in deed) do it because those lunatics are generally the only people who donate to campaigns, volunteer to knock on doors, show up at rallies, spend time stuffing envelopes, making phone calls, and posting yard signs.

__________________________________

The Point (a few):

1) be responsible, so government doesn't have to do it for you (and thereby rob you of your freedoms).

2) be reasonable and respectful of those who are on the other side of the spectrum; they, like you, are helping to keep Edmund Burke's balance.

3) fight the lunatics on your side, and on the other side, by getting involved. Volunteer to make a few phone calls on behalf of a candidate (or cause) that resides within "The Realm of Reason." Don't allow the rare Lincolns of the world be viciously attacked from both sides because you won't speak up and do.

Senate 2 - House 0

When the anthrax was mailed to Capitol Hill shortly after 9/11, some of you may recall that there was a little scuffle between the Senate and the House on the Thursday of that week. The nastiness was sent to the Senate offices, the Senate and House leaders convened a meeting in the Capitol and came to an agreement. The House leaders came out to brief the press indicating that as of noon on Thursday, Congress was going to shut down and go home for the weekend to allow for the offices to be scrubbed. Shortly thereafter, the Senate leaders came out to brief the press. They state, "we don't know why the House is going home. The anthrax was mailed to the Senate side, and you know what? We're going to stay here for the rest of the week and continue the business of the people."

The Senate, at the time, was run by the Democrats, the House by the Republicans. Many commentators saw that conflict (the Senate Dems making the House R's look bad) as a partisan one. However, having worked on the Hill, I knew very good and well that it had nothing to do with the R's vs. D's, and had everything to do with the Senate vs. the House. As silly as it sounds, this was an opportunity for Congressional leaders to set partisanship aside, for something much more important on the Hill - to chalk up another point for the Senate over the House. Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees? Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins? Beavers vs. Ducks? Republicans vs. Democrats? Ha! I laugh. Senate vs. House has been going on for well over 200 years, and it has played out in all it's glory over the last couple days.

You think I'm kidding? Ask anyone who's ever worked on the Hill. The rivalry is fierce. Most on the Hill will agree the rivalry played itself out during the anthrax episode. Some, myself included, will agree that it played itself out again during this bailout process.

At this point, I will not argue the merits of the actual bailout package. As I stated clearly in previous commentaries, my gut instinct is to let folks (everyone) sleep in the beds they made. In the long run, that may actually teach the market not to get too irrationally exuberant the next time the immutable laws of the market economy dictate that the herd mentality of the market (you, me, Bob, wall street traders, and fat cats included) will thrust itself toward the latest market trend. Or, it might not. I don't know. What I do know is that I've heard enough certifiable smart people on both sides of the issue argue both sides of this issue. When that happens, and I don't know enough to override anyone, I call it a draw, and move on to the next topic.

The next topic is the President's proposal. Barely three pages long, but sweeping in implication and precedent, the President and his economic team were roundly criticized for the "blank check" nature of the proposal. I had a different theory than the "blank check." I figured the President knew that Congress was going to want to take a crack at it, and add what they thought should be the appropriate amount regulation and safeguards to ensure that the tax payers weren't going to get hosed in this deal. The House conjured up a bill, put it to a vote, and it went down in flames (this process deserves its very own commentary, but I'll spare you that).

Enter the Senate. They saw that the House put the meat on the bones of the President's proposal, but blew it in the end. So, the Senate put some more safeguards on it, then added a few other things to ensure passage.
_______________________________________________

Let's talk about the big two add on's that most are aware of. (I'll set aside the insignificant ones like the wooden arrows thing because in the grand scheme of things, it's peanuts. Lame and annoying, but meaningless.)

Big Addition #1: the Tax Extenders package. Many criticize this one because it increases the overall "cost" of the bill to $800 and some billion (instead of the $700 billion). This criticism is based on the assumption that tax cuts are a liability to the federal treasury's balance book. The Wall Street Journal article below clearly demonstrates that tax cuts can actually bring in more money than "cost" money to the Treasury. The other problem with criticizing the addition of the "tax extenders" package is that this package of tax cut extensions (the tax cuts and incentives were set to expire) was something the Senate was already going to pass and move to the House anyway. In fact, last week, the Senate did pass it and send it to the House (the House killed it). This was a chance for the Senate to try it again, emphasizing the need for tax relief in tough economic times.

Big Addition #2: County Payments. Way back when the western states were brought into the union, deals were struck. In the case of Oregon, the federal government told the state, we're going to own over half of your land, and you won't be able to derive property taxes from us (the federal government), and thereby support your schools, law enforcement and other basic municipal needs. But we (the federal government) will sell timber cutting contracts to your local businesses, and require them to send a percentage of their profits to the county governments so they can operate. That was the deal. We're not cutting trees anymore (in any significant amount). People are unemployed, and the Counties have lost over 50-80% of the general budget (depending on the county). Those dollars went to schools, roads, and law enforcement. So, we cooked up this County Payments program that would cut a straight check to the local counties at an amount equal to the deficient timber operations taking place in their communities. In other words, if no trees were being cut, we'd give them all the money they would have gotten had we cut trees. If some trees were cut, we'd only give them some money. And if a normal amount of trees were cut, we wouldn't give them any additional money. This program kept the counties above water. Treading water. The County Payments is expiring. Counties are already starting to lay off entire road departments (not paper pushers - they're already gone, but the guys who actually fill the pot holes, etc). Sheriffs in some counties now only have 1 or 2 deputies. All of the counties in Oregon (including Multnomah) have been screaming for the extension of this program (in addition to the counties all over the western United States - though, Oregon is the biggest beneficiary). 3 Counties in Oregon, if memory serves, will go insolvent with out it. We passed the bill several times in the Senate only to have it stripped by House leadership (Pelosi - she's got a philosophical problem with tying any amount of federal money to something rooted in cutting trees. The cutting of trees, of course, is an discourse for another time). This bailout bill was the one vehicle that we could stick the county payments extension on, that we know the House couldn't strip it out of. Why?

This takes us back to the Senate versus the House. By all measures, the Senate version of the bailout bill is much better than the House version, which was easily better than the original proposal by President Bush. The Senate saw the House meltdown on their version, so the Senate dropped all talk of Republican vs. Democrat, and saw a chance to stick it to the House. (Hence, my subject line of Senate 2 - House 0.) The Senate acted swiftly and decisively by improving the House bill, passing it 74-25, then promptly adjourned and went home. All the Senators are on planes right now, flying back to their home states. By doing this, they are forcing the House to pass the Senate bill as it is, or be blamed for another meltdown and crisis.

The House will vote tomorrow, and no one is quite sure what the vote count is right now. But, if the House doesn't pass it, the House will look like collective fools. When the House blew it last time, Wall Street lost 777 points in one day (granted, it recovered some of that back the 2nd day). Accurately or not, the people of the nation blamed the House for that, and they'll do it again.

p.s. Pray for the Chicago Cubs. They're down two games in a best of five series. Any team can have a bad century. No team should have two.
___________________________________________


REVENUE REVELATION (The Wall Street Journal, New York )

House and Senate GOP conferees finally agreed yesterday on extending the 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains for two more years through 2010. This means you can expect lots of media and liberal rhetoric about "the deficit" and "the rich," but the real news is how well these lower rates have been soaking the rich to fill government coffers.

The latest evidence is Treasury's monthly budget report for May that tax receipts were up by $137 billion, or a remarkable 11.2%, for the first seven months of Fiscal 2006 through April. That's more than triple the inflation rate. And it comes on top of the $274 billion, or 14.6%, increase in federal revenues for all of Fiscal 2005, which ended last September 30.

The current revenue rush also refutes the prevailing Washington consensus that the federal deficit is the result of the Bush tax cuts. In fact, this revenue tsunami is the direct result of the expansion that took off in earnest at about the time the 2003 tax cuts passed. Lower tax rates have since had precisely the result that supporters predicted, though don't look for that story on page one any time soon.

This explains why tax-cut opponents have tried to change the subject from the sluggish growth they first expected, to the "jobless recovery" that soon became the 4.7% unemployment rate recovery, to lagging wage growth that is also now increasing. The latest liberal themes are allegedly rising "inequality" and allegedly exorbitant executive compensation. These are subjects for other editorials, but their current political and media prominence means the critics are conceding that they can't credibly call the tax cuts an economic failure. So they have to find other election-year talking points.

This revenue wave has also come as a shock to the estimators at the Congressional Budget Office, whose May analysis is full of implicit amazement, not to say chagrin, since they predicted nothing of the sort. As recently as March, CBO was still advertising an expected increase in the baseline for individual income tax receipts of only $76 billion and merely $24 billion in corporate tax receipts for all of Fiscal 2006. Yet in only seven months, individual income tax revenues have already climbed by $56 billion and corporate receipts by $40 billion.

This revenue inflow also means that federal taxes as a share of the economy are now almost back to their post-World War II average of roughly 18%. That share will continue to increase if the economy continues to grow, as more taxpayers get wealthier and are thrown into higher tax brackets. The only reason the federal deficit continues to exist is because Congress continues to spend more than 20% of GDP.

So far in Fiscal 2006, spending is still rising by 7.6% overall. Defense is rising by only about 6%, but Medicare is speeding ahead at nearly 14%, thanks to the new prescription drug benefit. As ever, the real budget problem is spending, especially on entitlements. The solution there is restraint and reform, not higher taxes. At least Republicans can finally point to a policy victory this year, one that should push any big tax increase well past the next election. (May 10)

The Markets

As the beloved Peggy Noonan observed today, "the huge and sprawling financial system of Wall Street is maintained essentially on faith, mood, and assumption." That may explain why, over the last two days, the market has (after plummeting in previous days) sky rocketed over 800 points at the mere mention that the federal government may step in and help out.

I say "may explain" because I don't really know. I am by no means a finance expert. I did get a B in my economics class at college, but who remembers that stuff? So, on this topic, I claim "average Joe" status (and, as an average joe, I acknowledge that there are probably all sorts of holes in my logic and conclusions on this topic). Wrapped in my average Joe status, I can't help but to conclude that the people who made their beds need to sleep in them. Not just the heads of these investment banks, and other pin-stripped suit wearing folks sitting in board rooms. I include their willing accomplices, the average consumer who sought to undertake financial responsibilities they could not fulfill (*as noted below, there are purely innocent victims in this).

The underlying problem, of course, is not the housing market. It's the free market itself. The market is not infallible because it not only allows people to succeed, but also to fail. You'll notice some cycles in the market. About every 8-10 years, there's a huge downturn on Wall Street. Right now, it's the housing market that's causing serious problems. But, you all recall 9 years ago or so something called the "tech bubble" popped. And, I bet if I wasn't too lazy to Google the 1992 recession, I'd find that some other trendy market buy led to the '92 recession.

Throughout all of this, Alan Greenspan's use of the term "irrational exuberance" in 1996 to describe the market boom in the tech stocks - those words are echoing through my mind. That now famous term denotes what our dear Peggy Noonan put in more simple terms: the market is largely based on the psychology of people.

So, let's look at the current crisis we're in. It began with the perfect storm of financial troubles from 1999-2001. 1) The market's "irrational exuberance" for tech stocks peaked, and began to crumble, reaching it's apex during the Gore/Bush election race; 2) Enron and a handful of other large companies began to meltdown due to internal corruption; 3) 9/11 terrorist attacks put our economy on its heels.

In order to keep the economy from completely collapsing like it did in the 1920s, President Bush directed 3 actions that were the exact opposite of what took place in the 1920s: 1) he lowered taxes; 2) lowered interest rates; and 3) increased federal spending. This produced the shortest-lived, and shallowest recession in the post-world war II economy.

Step 1 actually increased dollars into the US Treasury. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, the government raked in more dollars by cutting taxes (see Wall Street Journal article below). These increased revenues somewhat offset Step 3, increased government spending; but not entirely. (Conservatives may wonder why President Bush went along with Congress' - a republican Congress, I might add - drunken spending spree. I think his fiscal conservatism is something he had to give up in order to keep Congress focused on his #1 priority, the War on Terror. That's just my theory, though.) Even though the US government raked in record revenues, Congress was outspending that pace on the war and on increased domestic obligations. Hence, increased deficits. I'm not sure, however, how much that has to do with the Housing Market bubble.

Step 2, however, planted the seeds for the Housing Market bubble. With such low interest rates, home loans became deceptively within the reach of those who really were not financially capable of meeting those obligations. I began hearing the term A.R.M. on radio advertisements. I google'd it to find out what it means. "Adjustable Rate Mortgage". My first reaction was, "well, that'd scare the hell out of me."

I understand that undertaking a home loan involves signing ridiculously large amount of documents and contracts that no person could possibly read. They have to trust the lender they are working with. And even though I accept that I'm a financial moron, even I know that signing onto a payment contract when my month to month payments can increase or decrease depending on factors outside of my control - that's just scarey. I kinda like to know how much is coming into my bank account each month, and how much is going out of it.

But, even with the obvious risk of the ARMs (recognizing that ARMs are probably only 1 part of the entire picture; but perhaps a symptomatic part), lending institutions offered them, and consumers ate them up. The irrational exuberance for home buying began. After a while, the market figured out that consumers were offering to pay far more money for tangible assets (homes) of far too little value. The market for homes began to weaken. Like the housing boom began, it fell apart - with a herd mentality. ARMs jumped, home owners defaulted, "for sale" signs popped up in neighborhoods, and property values of "innocent" home owners began to fall (thereby putting these innocent home owners at risk). This also sent shockwaves through every type of housing-related businesses (people in businesses like construction lost their jobs, etc). Congress stepped in and initiated a bailout of many home owners who defaulted on their loans. This action drew howls from all the home owners who met their obligations. But Congress' collective retort was, "if we don't bail them out, then your property values will continue tank with them. This bailout is the lesser of two evils."

In doing this, however, the federal government only addressed the home owners, and did not seek to address the other half of the crisis: the financial institutions who hold propterties that are worth far less than what they have sribbled down in their books. This problem became evident in recent months, the market caught on in recent weeks, and those investment banks who held the loans began to crumble.

Cue bailout from the federal level. Everyone in DC, from the executive branch, and R's and D's in the legislative branch - just about everyone says we gotta bail them out to prevent a major economic melt down. And they may be right.

But, I'm an average Joe. And my (in addition to many others) inclination is to let them sleep in the beds they made. They being, all of them, and all of us. All of them (irresponsible consumers and lenders) will suffer most. All of us (responsible consumers and lenders) will suffer some too. But the market must suffer, because that's what we all get for standing by as our brothers, cousins, neighbors, fellow church members, and co-workers undertake financial obligations we knew they couldn't pay back...and we didn't even seek to lend them friendly advice.

This macro situation (bailout or blood-letting) reminds me of Edward N. Luttwak's article "Give War A Chance" pasted below. Sometimes, it's better just to let the ugliness run its course, than to continue putting band-aids over the problem (with the best of intentions) and hoping it goes away. The tough love response of "that'll learn ya" may actually mitigate the market's cyclical inclination toward irrational exuberance, better than bailing them out. Without this tough love, I don't think the market will learn their lessons about the dangers of "irrational exuberance", and next time, the crash will be much worse.

***************************************************
REVENUE REVELATION (The Wall Street Journal, New York )

House and Senate GOP conferees finally agreed yesterday on extending the 15% tax rate on dividends and capital gains for two more years through 2010. This means you can expect lots of media and liberal rhetoric about "the deficit" and "the rich," but the real news is how well these lower rates have been soaking the rich to fill government coffers.

The latest evidence is Treasury's monthly budget report for May that tax receipts were up by $137 billion, or a remarkable 11.2%, for the first seven months of Fiscal 2006 through April. That's more than triple the inflation rate. And it comes on top of the $274 billion, or 14.6%, increase in federal revenues for all of Fiscal 2005, which ended last September 30.

The current revenue rush also refutes the prevailing Washington consensus that the federal deficit is the result of the Bush tax cuts. In fact, this revenue tsunami is the direct result of the expansion that took off in earnest at about the time the 2003 tax cuts passed. Lower tax rates have since had precisely the result that supporters predicted, though don't look for that story on page one any time soon.

This explains why tax-cut opponents have tried to change the subject from the sluggish growth they first expected, to the "jobless recovery" that soon became the 4.7% unemployment rate recovery, to lagging wage growth that is also now increasing. The latest liberal themes are allegedly rising "inequality" and allegedly exorbitant executive compensation. These are subjects for other editorials, but their current political and media prominence means the critics are conceding that they can't credibly call the tax cuts an economic failure. So they have to find other election-year talking points.

This revenue wave has also come as a shock to the estimators at the Congressional Budget Office, whose May analysis is full of implicit amazement, not to say chagrin, since they predicted nothing of the sort. As recently as March, CBO was still advertising an expected increase in the baseline for individual income tax receipts of only $76 billion and merely $24 billion in corporate tax receipts for all of Fiscal 2006. Yet in only seven months, individual income tax revenues have already climbed by $56 billion and corporate receipts by $40 billion.

This revenue inflow also means that federal taxes as a share of the economy are now almost back to their post-World War II average of roughly 18%. That share will continue to increase if the economy continues to grow, as more taxpayers get wealthier and are thrown into higher tax brackets. The only reason the federal deficit continues to exist is because Congress continues to spend more than 20% of GDP.

So far in Fiscal 2006, spending is still rising by 7.6% overall. Defense is rising by only about 6%, but Medicare is speeding ahead at nearly 14%, thanks to the new prescription drug benefit. As ever, the real budget problem is spending, especially on entitlements. The solution there is restraint and reform, not higher taxes. At least Republicans can finally point to a policy victory this year, one that should push any big tax increase well past the next election. (May 10)

*********************************************************************

Foreign Affairs July/August 1999
Give War a Chance By Edward N. Luttwak

Premature Peacemaking:

An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

Since the establishment of the United Nations and the enshrinement of great–power politics in its Security Council, however, wars among lesser powers have rarely been allowed to run their natural course. Instead, they have typically been interrupted early on, before they could burn themselves out and establish the preconditions for a lasting settlement. Cease–fires and armistices have frequently been imposed under the aegis of the Security Council in order to halt fighting. NATO’s intervention in the Kosovo crisis follows this pattern.

But a cease–fire tends to arrest war–induced exhaustion and lets belligerents reconstitute and rearm their forces. It intensifies and prolongs the struggle once the cease–fire ends—and it does usually end. This was true of the Arab–Israeli war of 1948–49, which might have come to closure in a matter of weeks if two cease–fires ordained by the Security Council had not let the combatants recuperate.

It has recently been true in the Balkans. Imposed cease–fires frequently interrupted the fighting between Serbs and Croats in Krajina, between the forces of the rump Yugoslav federation and the Croat army, and between the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in Bosnia. Each time, the opponents used the pause to recruit, train, and equip additional forces for further combat, prolonging the war and widening the scope of its killing and destruction. Imposed armistices, meanwhile—again, unless followed by negotiated peace accords—artificially freezeconflict and perpetuate a state of war indefinitely by shielding the weaker side from the consequences of refusing to make concessions for peace.

The Cold War provided compelling justification for such behavior by the two superpowers, which sometimes collaborated in coercing less–powerful belligerents to avoid being drawn into their conflicts and clashing directly. Although imposed cease–fires ultimately did increase the total quantity of warfare among the lesser powers, and armistices did perpetuate states of war, both outcomes were clearly lesser evils (from a global point of view) than the possibility of nuclear war. But today, neither Americans nor Russians are inclined to intervene competitively in the wars of lesser powers, so the unfortunate consequences of interrupting war persist while no greater danger is averted. It might be best for all parties to let minor wars burn themselves out.

The Problems of Peacekeepers:

Today cease–fires and armistices are imposed on lesser powers by multilateral agreement—not to avoid great–power competition but for essentially disinterested and indeed frivolous motives, such as television audiences’ revulsion at harrowing scenes of war. But this, perversely, can systematically prevent the transformation of war into peace. The Dayton accords are typical of the genre: they have condemned Bosnia to remain divided into three rival armed camps, with combat suspended momentarily but a state of hostility prolonged indefinitely. Since no side is threatened by defeat and loss, none has a sufficient incentive to negotiate a lasting settlement; because no path to peace is even visible, the dominant priority is to prepare for future war rather than to reconstruct devastated economies and ravaged societies.

Uninterrupted war would certainly have caused further suffering and led to an unjust outcome from one perspective or another, but itwould also have led to a more stable situation that would have let the postwar era truly begin. Peace takes hold only when war is truly over.

A variety of multilateral organizations now make it their business to intervene in other peoples’ wars. The defining characteristic of these entities is that they insert themselves in war situations while refusing to engage in combat. In the long run this only adds to the damage. If the United Nations helped the strong defeat the weak faster and more decisively, it would actually enhance the peacemaking potential of war. But the first priority of U.N. peacekeeping contingents is to avoid casualties among their own personnel. Unit commanders therefore habitually appease the locally stronger force, accepting its dictates and tolerating its abuses. This appeasement is not strategically purposeful, as siding with the stronger power overall would be; rather, it merely reflects the determination of each U.N. unit to avoid confrontation. The final result is to prevent the emergence of a coherent outcome, which requires an imbalance of strength sufficient toend the fighting.

Peacekeepers chary of violence are also unable to effectively protect civilians who are caught up in the fighting or deliberately attacked. At best, U.N. peacekeeping forces have been passive spectators to outrages and massacres, as in Bosnia and Rwanda; at worst, they collaborate with it, as Dutch U.N. troops did in the fall of Srebenica by helping the Bosnian Serbs separate the men of military age from the rest of the population.

The very presence of U.N. forces, meanwhile, inhibits the normal remedy of endangered civilians, which is to escape from the combat zone. Deluded into thinking that they will be protected, civilians in danger remain in place until it is too late to flee. During the 1992–94 siege of Sarajevo, appeasement interacted with the pretense of protection in an especially perverse manner: U.N. personnel inspected outgoing flights to prevent the escape of Sarajevo civilians in obedience to a cease–fire agreement negotiated with the locally dominant Bosnian Serbs—who habitually violated that deal. The more sensible, realistic response to a raging war would have been for the Muslims to either flee the city or drive the Serbs out.

Institutions such as the European Union, the Western European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe lack even the U.N.’s rudimentary command structure and personnel, yet they too now seek to intervene in warlike situations, with predictable consequences. Bereft of forces even theoretically capable of combat, they satisfy the interventionist urges of member states (or their own institutional ambitions) by sending unarmed or lightly armed “observer” missions, which have the same problems as U.N. peacekeeping missions, only more so.

Military organizations such as NATO or the West African Peacekeeping Force (ECOMOG, recently at work in Sierra Leone) are capable of stopping warfare. Their interventions still have the destructive consequence of prolonging the state of war, but they can at least protect civilians from its consequences. Even that often fails to happen, however, because multinational military commands engaged in disinterested interventions tend to avoid any risk of combat, thereby limiting their effectiveness. U.S. troops in Bosnia, for example, repeatedly failed to arrest known war criminals passing through their checkpoints lest this provoke confrontation.

Multinational commands, moreover, find it difficult to control the quality and conduct of member states’ troops, which can reduce the performance of all forces involved to the lowest common denominator. This was true of otherwise fine British troops in Bosnia and of the Nigerian marines in Sierra Leone. The phenomenon of troop degradation can rarely be detected by external observers, although its consequences are abundantly visible in the litter of dead, mutilated, raped, and tortured victims that attends such interventions. The true state of affairs is illuminated by the rare exception, such as the vigorous Danish tank battalion in Bosnia that replied to any attack on it by firing back in full force, quickly stopping the fighting.

The First “Post–Heroic” War:

All prior examples of disinterested warfare and its crippling limitations, however, have been cast into shadow by NATO’s current intervention against Serbia for the sake of Kosovo. The alliance has relied on airpower alone to minimize the risk of NATO casualties, bombing targets in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo for weeks without losing a single pilot. This seemingly miraculous immunity from Yugoslav anti–aircraft guns and missiles was achieved by multiple layers of precautions.

First, for all the noise and imagery suggestive of a massive operation, very few strike sorties were actually flown during the first few weeks. That reduced the risks to pilots and aircraft but of course also limited the scope of the bombing to a mere fraction of NATO’s potential.

Second, the air campaign targeted air–defense systems first and foremost, minimizing present and future allied casualties, though at the price of very limited destruction and the loss of anyshock effect.

Third, NATO avoided most anti–aircraft weapons by releasing munitions not from optimal altitudes but from an ultra–safe 15,000 feet or more.

Fourth, the alliance greatly restricted its operations in less–than–perfect weather conditions. NATO officials complained that dense clouds were impeding the bombing campaign, often limiting nightly operations to a few cruise–missile strikes against fixed targets of known location. In truth, what the cloud ceiling prohibited was not all bombing—low–altitude attacks could easily have taken place—but rather perfectly safe bombing.

On the ground far beneath the high–flying planes, small groups of Serb soldiers and police in armored vehicles were terrorizing hundreds of thousands of Albanian Kosovars. NATO has a panoply of aircraft designed for finding and destroying such vehicles. All its major powers have anti–tank helicopters, some equipped to operate without base support. But no country offered to send them into Kosovo when the ethnic cleansing began—after all, they might have been shot down. When U.S. Apache helicopters based in Germany were finally ordered to Albania, in spite of the vast expenditure devoted to their instantaneous “readiness” over the years, they required more than three weeks of “predeployment preparations” to make the journey. Six weeks into the war, the Apaches had yet to fly their first mission, although two had already crashed during training. More than mere bureaucratic foot–dragging was responsible for this inordinate delay: the U.S. Army insisted that the Apaches could not operate on their own, but would need the support of heavy rocket barrages to suppress Serb anti–aircraft weapons. This created a much larger logistical load than the Apaches alone, and an additional, evidently welcome delay.

Even before the Apache saga began, NATO already had aircraft deployed on Italian bases that could have done the job just as well: U.S. a–10 “Warthogs” built around their powerful 30 mm antitank guns and British Royal Air Force Harriers ideal for low–altitude bombing at close range. Neither was employed, again because it could not be done in perfect safety. In the calculus of the NATO democracies, the immediate possibility of saving thousands of Albanians from massacre and hundreds of thousands from deportation was obviously not worth the lives of a few pilots. That may reflect unavoidable political reality, but it demonstrates how even a large–scale disinterested intervention can fail to achieve its ostensibly humanitarian aim. It is worth wondering whether the Kosovars would have been better off had NATO simply done nothing.

Refugee Nations:

The most disinterested of all interventions in war—and the most destructive—are humanitarian relief activities. The largest and most protracted is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). It was built on the model of its predecessor, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA), which operated displaced–persons’ camps in Europe immediately after World War II. The UNRWA was established immediately after the 1948–49 Arab–Israeli war to feed, shelter, educate, and provide health services for Arab refugees who had fled Israeli zones in the former territory of Palestine.

By keeping refugees alive in spartan conditions that encouraged their rapid emigration or local resettlement, the UNRRA’s camps in Europe had assuaged postwar resentments and helped disperse revanchist concentrations of national groups. But UNRWA camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip provided on the whole a higher standard of living than most Arab villagers had previously enjoyed, with a more varied diet, organized schooling, superior medical care, and no backbreaking labor in stony fields. They had, therefore, the opposite effect, becoming desirable homes rather than eagerly abandoned transit camps. With the encouragement of several Arab countries, the UNRWA turned escaping civilians into lifelong refugees who gave birth to refugee children, who have in turn had refugee children of their own.

During its half–century of operation, the UNRWA has thus perpetuated a Palestinian refugee nation, preserving its resentments in as fresh a condition as they were in 1948 and keeping the first bloom of revanchist emotion intact. By its very existence, the UNRWA dissuades integration into local society and inhibits emigration. The concentration of Palestinians in the camps, moreover, has facilitated the voluntary or forced enlistment of refugee youths by armed organizations that fight both Israel and each other. The UNRWA has contributed to a half–century of Arab–Israeli violence and still retards the advent of peace.

If each European war had been attended by its own postwar unRwa, today’s Europe would be filled with giant camps for millions of descendants of uprooted Gallo–Romans, abandoned Vandals, defeated Burgundians, and misplaced Visigoths—not to speak of more recent refugee nations such as post–1945 Sudeten Germans (three million of whom were expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1945). Such a Europe would have remained a mosaic of warring tribes, undigested and unreconciled in their separate feeding camps. It might have assuaged consciences to help each one at each remove, but it would have led to permanent instability and violence.

The UNRWA has counterparts elsewhere, such as the Cambodian camps along the Thai border, which incidentally provided safe havens for the mass–murdering Khmer Rouge. But because the United Nations is limited by stingy national contributions, these camps’ sabotage of peace is at least localized.

That is not true of the proliferating, feverishly competitive nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that now aid war refugees. Like any other institution, these NGOs are interested in perpetuating themselves, which means that their first priority is to attract charitable contributions by being seen to be active in high–visibility situations. Only the most dramatic natural disasters attract any significant mass–media attention, and then only briefly; soon after an earthquake or flood, the cameras depart. War refugees, by contrast, can win sustained press coverage if kept concentrated in reasonably accessible camps. Regular warfare among well–developed countries is rare and offers few opportunities for such NGOs, so they focus their efforts on aiding refugees in the poorest parts of the world. This ensures that the food, shelter, and health care offered—although abysmal by Western standards—exceeds what is locally available to non–refugees.

The consequences are entirely predictable. Among many examples, the huge refugee camps along the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Rwanda stand out. They sustain a Hutu nation that would otherwise have been dispersed, making the consolidation of Rwanda impossible and providing a base for radicals to launch more Tutsi–killing raids across the border. Humanitarian intervention has worsened the chances of a stable, long–term resolution of the tensions in Rwanda.

To keep refugee nations intact and preserve their resentments forever is bad enough, but inserting material aid into ongoing conflicts is even worse. Many NGOs that operate in an odor of sanctity routinely supply active combatants. Defenseless, they cannot exclude armed warriors from their feeding stations, clinics, and shelters. Since refugees are presumptively on the losing side, the warriors among them are usually in retreat. By intervening to help, NGOs systematically impede the progress of their enemies toward a decisive victory that could end the war. Sometimes NGOs, impartial to a fault, even help both sides, thus preventing mutual exhaustion and a resulting settlement. And in some extreme cases, such as Somalia, NGOs even pay protection money to local war bands, which use those funds to buy arms. Those NGOs are therefore helping prolong the warfare whose consequences they ostensibly seek to mitigate.

Make War to Make Peace:

Too many wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention. Unlike the ancient problem of war, however, the compounding of its evils by disinterested interventions is a new malpractice that could be curtailed. Policy elites should actively resist the emotional impulse to intervene in other peoples’ wars—not because they are indifferent to human suffering but precisely because they care about it and want to facilitate the advent of peace. The United States should dissuade multilateral interventions instead of leading them. New rules should be established for U.N. refugee relief activities to ensure that immediate succor is swiftly followed by repatriation, local absorption, or emigration, ruling out the establishment of permanent refugee camps. And although it may not be possible to constrain interventionist NGOs, they should at least beneither officially encouraged nor funded. Underlying these seemingly perverse measures would be a true appreciation of war’s paradoxical logic and a commitment to let it serve its sole useful function: to bring peace.

Edward N. Luttwak is Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A pox on both your houses: Co-sponsorship and Earmarks

So there I was, watching coverage of the presidential race (for effect, picture me reclining back in my chair tossing fist fulls of popcorn into my mouth) shortly after the Governor Palin VP pick by Senator McCain. With Gov. Palin coming onto the scene, it became somewhat natural for reporters, pundits, and armchair quarterbacks like myself to compare her relatively short record in public service to Senator Obama's.

Sen. Obama got his first start in the public arena in the Illinois State Legislature. Republicans like to remind everyone of his high rate of voting "present" instead of aye or nay. The reason this type of non-vote is allowed is because sometimes legislators find themselves voting on items in which they have a conflict of interest. Voting present is intended to allow a legislator in such a position to record that he was there for the vote, but did not want to inappropriately influence the outcome of the issue. More often than not, however, it is a tool used to dodge an uncomfortable vote. So, Republicans like to show Sen. Obama's extraordinary use of this parliamentary tool (130 times) as an example of his inability to take on tough issues.

For a long time, I hadn't heard any direct response from the Obama camp on this issue - they would change the topic, or make a counter accusation on Sen. McCain...until that day (spoken of at the top of this e-mail) when I was leaning back in my chair, and I finally heard the response. During the dueling spokesmen on t.v., I heard the accusation hurled at the Obama guy. I leaned forward and listened keenly, popcorn in hand, hoping for a good response. "During his time in the Illinois State Legislature, Senator Obama co-sponsored over 60 pieces of legislation."

That's a near quote. This weak response had me "spraying diet coke from my nostrils and scattering popcorn across the carpet in great gusts of mirth" (to borrow a phrase I adore from Henry Kisor). As any keen C-SPAN junkie would know, co-sponsoring legislation means another legislator authored the legislation, and you said, "me too." That's all a co-sponsorship requires. For you to say, I support this bill too.

Disappointed at this utterly weak response that I had been waiting for, for well over 6 months, I drowned my sorrows over the poor political theater by finishing off my fictional popcorn. Since then, I've heard that lame response a couple more times, which means this is not just a random spokesperson's weak reply, but it's a campaign talking point.

Curious, as I am in the lamest ways, I wondered how many bills Sen. Obama has actually authored (in other words, sponsored) in the last 2 years of his time of the US Senate. I looked it up. 129 bills! But, before I got impressed, I took a quick look at these.

Stats: Of the 129, 11 of them are of the "Resolution" variety. Meaningless bills that, for example, honor "a pioneer in the field of organic chemistry." Members of Congress do these all the time, but they are not laws. Just statements that honor someone or something. That leaves us with 118 bills.

Of those 118 that remain, 58 are amendments to actual bills. Now, amendments can actually be significant, but in most cases, they are minor tweeks to actual bills under consideration. That leaves us 60 actual bills that Senator Obama authored in a two year period as a US Senator. That's not bad. Let's see what happened to those bills. To keep score, I'll put them in order of the legislative process:

Introduced: 60 bills
Assigned to a Committee for Hearing: 60 bills
Hearings Held: 4 bills
Floor Debate: 3 bills
Approved by Senate and referred to House: 0
Public Law: 0

None of them became public law.

Let's look at the Amendments he submitted, and their steps:

Introduction: 58
Vote: 17* (amendments don't generally go through committee)
*Unanimous Consent (UC) or "voice vote": 17

I add the "UC and voice vote" category because these types of votes are afforded to those amendments that either aren't controversial, significant, or substantial enough to actually require aye's and nay's. Translation: they were technical amendments/tweeks, not significant reforms, improvements, or proposals.

So, of the 118 attempts Sen. Obama has made to craft public law, NOTHING significant has been accomplished. ZERO are law today.

I do not take issue here with the substance he has proposed. He may have the greatest ideas in the Senate. But he has either shown no interest, or no ability to actually accomplish anything during his time in the 110th Session of the Senate. I'm sure he's co-sponsored bills that have become public law. But he hasn't written any.

____________________________________________

Senator John McCain vs. Earmarks. Earmarks have long been described as one of the chief evils that besets our national budget. The root problem with our national budget is that we spend more than we take in. So, as the renowned earmark fighter, Sen. McCain (and others in this particular camp), would have you believe, if these millions of dollars of pork projects went away, a large part of our national budget woes would go away.

Let me explain what an actual earmark is. This may sound elementary to many, so forgive me if I'm covering familiar ground. I've found over the years that earmarks are misunderstood by many. Most understand them to be add-ons to the budget. This is not so.

First, Congress essentially does two things: 1) write laws/programs; 2) write budgets. Before one penny can be spent, there must be a law written that says a penny can be spent for a specific purpose.

For example (and, I'm making this program up...though, there probably is a program like this out there), let's say that Congress feels it is in the national interest for the US Department of Transportation to conduct safety inspections on all bridges in the national Interstate system. Congress must first write "Authorization" for the US Department of Transportation to engage in this activity. The law would read something like this: "The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) shall conduct safety inspections of all bridges on the national interstate system. In conducting these inspections, the US Department of Transportation is authorized to spend up to $150 million."

That is the Authorization (or, the laws/programs) side of what Congress does. Now Congress has to actually fund it.

The budget writers (or, Appropriators) first look at the law that authorizes the program. How much are we allowed to give the USDOT to do this task? Answer, $150 million. But, the budget writers know they don't have $150 million to dedicate to this program. They only have $100 million. Implication? The USDOT won't be able to inspect $50 million worth of bridges. Some bridges will be left out.

Well, Senator so and so realizes that the bridge in his state will fall pretty low on USDOT's priority list, and probably won't be inspected. The people in his state realize this too. All of the voters in that state call up Senator so and so, and demand he do something about it. "Our bridge must be inspected! I want to know I am driving my children across a safe bridge!" So, Senator so and so writes a little line into the budget to make sure his bridge gets inspected. "Of the $100 million the USDOT will use to inspect bridges, they shall spend $500,000 of that on the Portland/Vancouver interstate bridge."

Quite literally, what follows is a description of what the actual language looks like in the budget bill: The program title centered on the page, followed by a brief paragraph describing the purposes of the bridge inspection program, noting the total dollar amount to be allocated to accomplishing its purposes. Following that paragraph will be a series of bullet points listing all of the earmarks, including our fictional example:
- $500,000 Portland/Vancouver I-5 Interstate Bridge

Let's say that all of the earmarks total up to be $40 million worth of earmarks. That means that $60 million is left over for the bureaucrats (not a derogative term) to determine which bridges will be inspected.

So, you see in our example that earmarks are not "add-ons" to the budget, but rather the micromanagement of where exactly the dollars get spent.

Sometime, Congress will earmark projects that would otherwise be really low on the priority list for the agencies. In those cases it could be argued that it is wasteful spending because it could have gone to a much more worthy project. But those earmarks are authorized by law, and only serve to micromanage where the agencies spend it.

Back to Sen. McCain, the earmark fighter. The wisdom of earmarks (Congress micromanaging budgets) can be argued both ways. However, one thing cannot. Eliminating earmarks does not save the US Treasury 1 penny. All the elimination of earmarks does (in a fiscal sense) is leave the detailed spending decisions entirely in the hands of the Federal Agencies (mostly located in DC) who may or may not know which bridge really needs an inspection (again, debatable).

To suggest that fighting earmarks saves us money is a really double-jointed stretch of the truth.
_________________________________________

The point of all this?

A pox on Obama for claiming he has accomplished anything of significance as a legislator; and a pox on McCain for claiming that stopping earmarks actually saves us real money.

Best wishes!