Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Why can't Chuck Grassley just say no to Trump?

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a longtime GOP leader in the Hawkeye State, tells National Review Online that he is open to hearing Donald Trump’s case for the presidency. But that’s where his enthusiasm ends. “I’ll listen to anybody,” he says, “but I wish that General Petraeus would get interested. I’ve only had one person in Iowa ask me about Donald Trump.”

Obviously, this is a long way from being a full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump on Grassley's part. But given that Donald Trump is a reality TV host who has lately been doubling- and tripling-down on "birther" accusations against President Obama, would it hurt Grassley to skip the politeness and say flatly: "This guy has no credibility"? Is he being overly polite, or is the Republican party that far gone these days that even the worst conspiracy-driven vanity candidates must be given a respectful hearing?

Today in inequality reading: Kevin D. Williamson

The numbers generally cited in support of this argument do not actually tell us much about what has happened to the incomes of wealthy households over time. That’s because the people who are in the top bracket today are not the people who were in the top bracket last year. There’s a good deal of socioeconomic mobility in the United States — more than you’d think. Our dear, dear friends at the IRS keep track of actual households (boy, do they ever!), and sometimes the Treasury publishes data about what has happened to them. For instance, among those who in 1996 were in the very highest income group isolated for study — the top 0.01 percent — 75 percent were in a lower income group by 2005. The median real income of super-rich households went down, not up. The rich got poorer. Among actual households, income grew proportionally more for those who started off in the low-income groups than those that began in high-income groups.
Kevin D. Williamson, via nationalreview.com

This piece appeared a day ago and I've been waiting to see a good blogospheric response to it. I'm still waiting. All the data I've looked at in recent months suggests that income mobility is as stagnant as wages in the lower quintile—and, in fact, what makes the income inequality problem a problem is that there's not much chance you're going to be able to work your way out of those lower quintiles.

But I'm not an economist: I rely on economists to make sense of the data for me. And I'd really like to know if Williamson's right or wrong about this, or if this information looks different within a larger picture. Anybody out there?

Listening to my iPod songs, A-Z

Started my iPod from the beginning of the song list this morning. There's 5,000 songs on there, so this project might take ... awhile. Here's the first 10 selections:

• "Abandon Love," by Drakkar Sauna.

• "Abigail, Belle of Kilronan," by Magnetic Fields.

• "About A Girl," by Nirvana.

• "About Face," by Grizzly Bear.

• "About Her," by Malcolm McLaren.

• "Abracadabra," by Judee Sill.

• "Absolutely Cuckoo," by Magnetic Fields.

• "Acapulco," by Neil Diamond.

• "Accidents Will Happen," by Elvis Costello & The Attractions.

• "Ach, Elslein, liebest Elslein," King's Singers.

 

Monday, April 11, 2011

Congress and war

What dirty hippie said this?:
"The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."
Just George Washington is all. Conor Friedersdorf notes: "So 218 years ago, the ratification of the Constitution having just occurred, the first president of the United States insisted in the face of raids on the homeland, and the virtual certainty of future attacks, that he couldn't commit to a military response without the permission of the United States Congress."

I'm sure John Yoo, Dick Cheney, and (cough, sputter) Barack Obama would be happy to set George Washington straight. One of those three actually used to talk the same way.

Deborah Solomon is gone, but her spirit still lives at the New York Times

I rejoiced when Deborah Solomon's needlessly inane interviews disappeared from the Sunday Times Magazine. Unfortunately, they've been replaced with ... needlessly inane interviews. Take this Q&A with CBS anchor Katie Couric:
Since your new book, “The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives,” is about great advice, imagine that your boss, Les Moonves, called you on Christmas 2009 and said: “Charlie Sheen was just arrested for holding his wife at knife point. He has a history of this sort of behavior with women, but he makes a ton of money for the network.” What do you tell him?
Fire him.

Have you told him as much?
No. He hasn’t really sought my advice on Charlie Sheen. I hope what Charlie Sheen did wouldn’t be consistent with the values of this network. That’s probably an unrealistic response, but that’s my initial gut reaction. Luckily, that’s not my job.

Did you feel less proud going to work at CBS knowing that he was essentially a colleague?
I don’t really consider Charlie Sheen a colleague.
You know, this is inane bullshit. I wouldn't pick Katie Couric as one of the top five people I'd like to interview, but this is like if I asked Andrew Goldman--the interviewer--if he was less proud going to work at the New York Times because he once had Manny Ramirez as a colleague. After all, the Times owns a chunk of the Boston Red Sox, and Ramirez won the World Series MVP playing for the Red Sox, and Ramirez just retired after failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs. Why won't Andrew Goldman stick up for the integrity of the New York Times?!

That's ridiculous. And it's ridiculous the New York Times--which is better than this in so many ways--keeps giving space to pointless provocation. It's an insult to the interviewees, and it's an insult to the readers.

Single-Tasking Sundays: Week Two

"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

Our second Single-Tasking Sunday occurred the same day Virginia Heffernan's column, debunking the notion of Internet addiction, appeared in the New York Times. New pastimes have often drawn widespread condemnation, she noted, but today's Web-enmeshed folks are merely finding new ways to play, do some intellectual exploration, and (yes) waste time that might be used clearning house.

At first, this might seem to rebuke my efforts to create a day each week that isn't dominated by the Internet and electronic doo-dads. I don't think so, in part because I believe Heffernan is largely correct.

After all, I spent a day last week hosting a Facebook thread about Paul Ryan's proposed budget, a sometimes fierce blow-by-blow that featured contributions from really smart and passionate people from coast-to-coast--some of whom I have never met in person, but whose place in my circle of online friends I find nonetheless enriching.

And on Saturday night, we hosted--in person--new friends here in Philadelphia whome we'd most likely never met without Facebook. They were friends of a Facebook friend, another man whom I've not met in "real life," but whose interactions I've valued. He recommended we me Joe and Stephanie, Philadelphia residents whose daughter is just a little younger than our son. It's been a real pleasure getting to know them. And I can provide several more examples of how Facebook and Twitter have widened our circle of attachments here and thus rooted us more deeply in Philadelphia. Many of the good things that have happened in my life have been connected, in some way, to the rise of the Internet during my adult life.

However....

There is one thing the Web does not give me, and that is a few moments of quiet, a chance to sit, to watch people walk by my front door, to be bored, to be at a momentary loss for what to do next. It is always there--especially in this still-young era of the mobile Web--coloring in the blank spaces.

I don't know how to explain the worth of my one-a-week down time, then, except to note that I find it valuable. So many days of the week, I wake up and plunge straight into cyberworld, sometimes not coming up for air again until it is time to sleep. The self-enforced day off from that world distrupts the pattern, lets me think more clearly, lets me think without distraction, and gives me space to think about how to live more intentionally the other six days a week.

Heffernan suggests it's not such a bad thing to be distracted from our most depressive and anguished thoughts by an immersive pastime--and, true, angst is way overrated-- but I can't help but suspect that complete and total distraction is somehow hollow. Perhaps I'm a Puritan after all.

But I don't think so. I do not rebuke the blessings of the Internet--I'm not wearing the Information Age equivalent of a hair shirt--but neither do I surrender completely to its charms. One day a week spent drying off next to the digital pool isn't the first step toward giving up swimming. It's an attempt at balance, an effort to ensure that the fingers of my experience (to stretch a metaphor way too far) aren't always pruney.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Paul Ryan's budget

Ben and I discuss it in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:
Credit Paul Ryan for bravery: He has done what Republicans avoided doing for decades -- show exactly how the party would cut government.

Americans may not like taxes, but they do like government services.

Just don't give Ryan too much credit.

Why? Because his proposal is not entirely honest. Ryan presents cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell Grants as a means to preserve the safety net for America's poorest. But many of Ryan's conservative allies see the proposal as an opening gambit to undo the welfare state entirely and turn the clock back to the 1920s, when the sick and elderly suffered needlessly. Back down, and it won't be long before we're debating whether the programs should exist.

Why? Because Ryan's diagnosis is wrong, treating government spending as though it is the main cause of America's recent financial troubles.

That's wrong: Wall Street went on a gambling spree and finally lost -- threatening to unmake the world financial system when it did so.

Spending on social programs was not the problem.

Why? Because to the extent that a long-term deficit does pose a problem, it's not entirely a spending problem. It's a paying problem: Americans aren't financially supporting the government we get.

Personal income tax rates are among the lowest they've been in 70 years; major corporations like GE pay little or no tax at all. Writer Bruce Bartlett notes that in 2011, federal revenues will only consume 14.4 percent of GDP -- below the postwar average of 18.5 percent, and well below the 20-percent-plus that accompanied the surplus years of the late 1990s.

Ryan's proposal hurts the poor. It benefits the rich. And according to Ryan himself, it doesn't balance the budget until 2040. That's not a path to prosperity for anybody except the already prosperous. This proposal must be defeated.
Ben is more enthusiastic. I think a welfare state should be sustainable, and I think Democrats have real work to do to address that issue. But I think Ryan's budget really begins a discussion that goes all the way back to the 1930s and 1960s—do we really want to have a welfare state at all?

The people's work

So: Who thinks voters gave the GOP control of the House in order to shut down government over abortion?

Why police officers shouldn't use Facebook

I think it's interesting that the common departmental response to officers posing as vigilante power abusers on Facebook isn't to try to curb the officers' attitudes—but to get them to stop posting to Facebook.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Congressman Kevin McCarthy's mighty big bootstraps

Last week I noted that the Koch brothers believe in the power of hard work and free enterprise because they turned themselves from millionaires into billionaires—seemingly missing the point that it's lots easier to become a billionaire if you start out with some word ending in "illionaire" as a description of your monetary worth.

Via Adam Serwer, I note that GOP Congressman Kevin McCarthy has a similar story to tell.
FOX: Sure. Such a good point. You would actually know something about the American dream because going... in the Wayback Machine for a moment... you won the California lottery.

McCARTHY: On my first ticket. I was 19. I won the lottery. I could do one of two things: I could become Charlie Sheen and throw a big party, but I chose to invest in the market, and after a while... I decided to invest in the American dream and open my own small business. [Despite] the challenge of government regulation, luckily I was successful, and at the end of two years, I then had enough money to pay my way through college.
He was a deli guy, so I wonder what kind of "challenges" government regulation posed. Did the government put its boot on his neck by forcing him to put unused meat in the refrigerator?

More seriously, it does seem to be a theme among Corporate Republicans that even in instances where they clearly benefitted from great luck or great genes, well, they believe that it was their own virtue that really carried the day. That's simplistic. Success is probably often a matter of both luck and hard work—and one without the other probably doesn't offer much long-term reward, generally speaking. Acting as though the stool only has one leg is foolish.

My Glenn Beck prediction

I've already said this on Twitter, but want to preserve this at the blog so that I can say "I told you so" in about two years.

My prediction is this: Within two years, Glenn Beck remakes himself as a David Brock/Arianna Huffington lefty 'disillusioned' with the right. He'll be so good at it that liberals will ... like him. Beck's left himself plenty of escape hatches along the way, with the "rodeo clown just trying to understand stuff" routine he does. He'll say: "Well, I understand now! And once Fox realized I was going places that weren't in line with GOP orthodoxy, they got rid of me!"

When I fall for this, I ask that one of you slap me. Hard.

'Never in history has liberals abstaining from a vote lead to a more progressive government'

Adam Serwer casts his lot with the lesser of the two evils:
Liberals may ultimately come back to the Democrats, but this isn't merely out of blind loyalty or because they're easily manipulated by cheap Democratic fearmongering. It's because the consequences of Republican dominance are anything but abstract.
And that makes sense. But there has to be something better for liberals than hoping for better Democratic governance and shrugging our shoulders when we don't get it. (Read Serwer's post, and that's more or less what his position amounts to.) On the civil liberties front, there are plenty of allies across the political spectrum—including, yes, the libertarian-oriented right—that a coalition that exerts real pressure and that can cause real pain ought to be possible. Perhaps I'm too optimistic. But seeing "civil liberties" as the cause of a narrow portion of the Democratic base, I think, is viewing things too narrowly—as is the idea that those of us who care about such issues find our natural home in the Democratic Party. I'm certain that's no longer the case.

Finding a positive way forward—one that's realistic and and create real change in favor of civil liberties—doesn't appear to be an easy project. I'm not interested in spending my days going to Green Party rallies. But I'm not interested in lending legitimacy or support to a president who doesn't deserve it, either.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The end of Barack Obama

First, do no harm.

That's where I start with my philosophy of governance. Maybe it sounds conservative. I don't think conservatives would have me as one of their own, though, because I think it is also wise—where possible—for republican government (as the servant of the community) to provide services we can't otherwise provide for ourselves. A safety net for the poor. Universal healthcare. NPR. Stuff like that.

But a government charged with providing such services to—and on behalf of—the citizens has a basic obligation that supersedes those: Do no harm.

Do not torture people.

Do not lock away people without due process of law.

Do not eavesdrop on people without a warrant.

Do not subject people to cruel and unusual punishment.

Do not deprive people of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

If a government cannot do those things, the rest—the social services, the safety net—is just a payoff. If a government cannot do those things, then it is probably no longer a government that derives its power from its citizens, but instead is (or is on its way to becoming) a government that rules its citizens. It's not always easy to tell the difference between the two, but the distinction is there—and it is important.

I have lost confidence in the ability of Barack Obama to first do no harm.

He is in charge of a government that—despite promises to end torture—is clearly trying to break the will of one of its own citizens in a military brig.

He is in charge of a government that prosecutes suspected terrorists in whichever format seems most likely to guarantee a win for prosecutors, instead of giving every suspect equal access to the law.

He is in charge of a government that seeks ever more-expansive ways to spy upon its citizens. He is in charge of a government that claims the right to kill a citizen without any kind of legal proceeding. He is in charge of a government that proclaims itself legally immune from efforts to hold it accountable for transgressions. And he is in charge of an administration that reserves to itself the right to make war without permission from Congress.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because I was mad. I was mad at George W. Bush for doing everything I've listed above, plus a few other things. I was kind of mad about Republican governance that seemed interested, mainly, in catering to the interests of the rich, but I was mostly mad about how the Bush Administration had reserved to itself unlimited, abusive wartime powers—in the name of prosecuting a war without end. Obama seemed to promise more than that.

He has delivered, on these matters, almost exactly what came before. I can no longer trust Barack Obama, or the Democratic Party, to be truly on the side of civil liberties.

Adam Serwer, a liberal, wrote: "Point is, though, if you voted for Obama in 2008 expecting a restoration of the rule of law, a rejection of the Bush national-security paradigm or even a candidate who wouldn't rush headlong into wars in Muslim countries expecting to turn back the current of history through mere force of will, then you don't have a candidate for 2012. You probably don't have a party either." He is right.

Conor Friedersdorf, a conservative, wrote: "Since his January 2009 inauguration, President Obama has embraced positions that he denounced as a candidate, presided over a War on Drugs every bit as absurd as it's always been, asserted the unchecked, unreviewable power to name American citizens enemy combatants and assassinate them, and launched a war without seeking Congressional authorization. His attorney general's efforts to live up to his boss' campaign rhetoric have been thwarted at every turn. And presiding over the disgraceful treatment of Bradley Manning, he has lost the right even to tout his record on detainee policy. On civil liberties, President Obama cannot be trusted." He is right.

For a long time, I have paused before the decision I find I must make. Democrats are awful, but Republicans are worse. They'll do all of the above—gleefully, without any pretense of a furrowed brow—and they'll do it while doing everything they can to exacerbate inequality between the very rich and the rest of us.

After the darkness of the Bush years, I came to convince myself that the lesser evil is, well, less evil. At some point, though, the lesser evil is still too evil to support. I don't believe Barack Obama is evil. I believe he is better than his opponents—but not in the critical realm where the "do no harm" rule applies. And I do not believe he is good enough.

The president has announced his re-election campaign. At this point, he will not have my vote. He has until November 2012 to earn it back. I do not expect he will.

Who wins under Paul Ryan's budget plan?

Chait: "Americans overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Ryan understands he can only make his plan acceptable if those cuts are seen as necessary to save the programs.

And certainly some level of cutting is necessary. But Ryan's level of cutting goes far beyond what's needed to preserve those programs, and it does so in order to clear room for a very large, regressive tax cut. He is making a choice -- not just cut Medicare to save Medicare, but also to cut Medicare in order to cut taxes for the rich."

Barack Obama and Bradley Manning

A petition: "President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions—and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day."

Can Obama be trusted on civil liberties?

No: "Since his January 2009 inauguration, President Obama has embraced positions that he denounced as a candidate, presided over a War on Drugs every bit as absurd as it's always been, asserted the unchecked, unreviewable power to name American citizens enemy combatants and assassinate them, and launched a war without seeking Congressional authorization. His attorney general's efforts to live up to his boss' campaign rhetoric have been thwarted at every turn. And presiding over the disgraceful treatment of Bradley Manning, he has lost the right even to tout his record on detainee policy. On civil liberties, President Obama cannot be trusted."

Monday, April 4, 2011

Adam Serwer on Obama's failures

Co-sign.: "Point is, though, if you voted for Obama in 2008 expecting a restoration of the rule of law, a rejection of the Bush national-security paradigm or even a candidate who wouldn't rush headlong into wars in Muslim countries expecting to turn back the current of history through mere force of will, then you don't have a candidate for 2012. You probably don't have a party either."

Corporate America has a smaller tax bill than you do

Nancy Folbre: Tax Havens and Treasure Hunts - NYTimes.com:

"Our budget deficit would be smaller – and pressure to cut social programs lower – if corporate tax revenues had not declined over time relative to gross domestic product and relative to individual income tax revenues.

Corporate America is a world leader in creative tax minimization. As David Kocieniewski reported in The New York Times, General Electric used some particularly innovative strategies to take advantage of overseas tax havens, including “offshore profit-shifting.”

The Boeing Corporation, a major federal contractor, has had a net rebate in federal taxes over the last three years, and a total tax rate of 4.5 percent over the last five years, though the company points to pension contributions and research credits that have reduced the bill.

In 2008, the Government Accountability Office reported that 83 of the 100 largest publicly traded corporations in the United States had subsidiaries in jurisdictions listed as tax havens; it cautiously emphasized that this did not prove that their decisions to locate there were motivated by tax minimization."

Single-Tasking Sundays: Week One

The first Single-Tasking Sunday is over, and I think I can call it a success. I confess to using my phone to make a call and peak in the world on Sunday morning, but otherwise managed to keep the day clear of e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other electronic distractions. In the morning, we had breakfast and read the papers. (Actual papers.) Around midday we did some housecleaning. In the afternoon, my wife and I went to see a movie and have dinner. Very relaxing all around.

In some respects, it wasn't an extraordinary day. It was just ... quieter. Two moments stood out for me.

• We took a brief break from our mid-day chores. Often, these 10-minute breaks involve iPhones, iPads, and all manner of diddling around—to the point that chores are never returned to. On Sunday, I just sat. We had a Billie Holiday album playing on our sound system, and so I listened. Music is often background noise for me; on Sunday, for a few minutes, it moved to the foreground.

• At dinner, I found myself talking to my wife, instead of fiddling with my iPhone. (I left it at home to ensure some discipline.) Sure, there were moments of silence, but I didn't fill them with my usual e-diddling. We just took in each other's company.

I'm not sure what will come of this exercise in electronics-free Sundays. But if all I get are a few stolen moments of silence and serenity, that will probably be enough to justify this exercise.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Today in inequality reading: Real economic stability

New York Times:
"But many of the jobs being added in retail, hospitality and home health care, to name a few categories, are unlikely to pay enough for workers to cover the cost of fundamentals like housing, utilities, food, health care, transportation and, in the case of working parents, child care.

A separate report being released Friday tries to go beyond traditional measurements like the poverty line and minimum wage to show what people need to earn to achieve a basic standard of living.

The study, commissioned by Wider Opportunities for Women, a nonprofit group, builds on an analysis the group and some state and local partners have been conducting since 1995 on how much income it takes to meet basic needs without relying on public subsidies. The new study aims to set thresholds for economic stability rather than mere survival, and takes into account saving for retirement and emergencies."

As it happens, I've been thinking a lot about this National Affairs essay by Yuval Levin, which suggests tearing down much of the American welfare state and replacing it with a "true" safety net that offers government support for the real hard cases. The proximate cause of this is that the federal government is spending way more than it takes in, but there's a larger philosophical justification:
Because all citizens — not only the poor — become recipients of benefits, people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens, and to approach the social safety net not as a great majority of givers eager to make sure that a small minority of recipients are spared from devastating poverty but as a mass of dependents demanding what they are owed. It is hard to imagine an ethic better suited to undermining the moral basis of a free society.

There's something very seductive about this vision—but only if people who do work hard and honestly stand a reasonable chance to provide for themselves and their families. And that doesn't seem to be the case, according to the Times' report:
According to the report, a single worker needs an income of $30,012 a year — or just above $14 an hour — to cover basic expenses and save for retirement and emergencies. That is close to three times the 2010 national poverty level of $10,830 for a single person, and nearly twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

A single worker with two young children needs an annual income of $57,756, or just over $27 an hour, to attain economic stability, and a family with two working parents and two young children needs to earn $67,920 a year, or about $16 an hour per worker.

That compares with the national poverty level of $22,050 for a family of four. The most recent data from the Census Bureau found that 14.3 percent of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2009.

Two notes:

• Median household income in 2009 was around $50,000 a year. That means half of all households were making less than that. I presume there are a number of four-person families in the lower half of all American households. And since the sustainability number is actually north of the median number ... well, I'm going to presume that most American families aren't earning enough to sustain themselves without some form of government subsidy—at least if we accept the Wider Opportunities for Women study. Yikes.

• As Paul Krugman notes this morning, the GOP plan for getting the economy moving involves ... lowering American wages. That's good for business, but not so good for workers.

I'm all for retooling the safety net if the market provides a reasonable living for its participants. That doesn't seem to be happening right now. And it's not, frankly, how the market seems inclined to act.