Road to Nowhere

Republicans Unveil Alternative Budget that Looks Strangely Familiar

I will begin by admitting that I was not the first to think of the correlation, but it is so fitting that it is worth repeating - maybe at length. Do some of these diagrams in the Budget Proposal from the Republicans released today look a little like the underpants gnomes business model. And isn't it missing a little bit of the details like an explanation for how, or really, any numbers at all?

The Republican Road to Recovery is a very pretty document with nicely laid-out fonts and pretty charts with cute children and 'alternative energy' photos neatly cropped inside randomly arranged and sized circles. However, its lack of substance both in terms of numbers and in terms of charts that actually explain anything is astounding. I think the charts in the "budget proposal" are actually meant as an extended index throughout the document so that if you are foolish enough to think it is an actual budget, you can have an aid in keeping up with where in the document you are actually reading. Seriously, the bubbles are actually just the headings in most places. Except for when they are blue bubbles. As far as I can tell, if the bubble is blue, it means, "NOT!"

So what is this proposed budget and what does it mean? In many ways, it reads like a platform guide for a political party. As though the budget is running for office and the Republicans' have outlined its policy stances. Yet those policy stances, as is true of many politicians, have no numbers and no real expected consequences attached to them. The Republican Road to Recovery then, in short, is bloated rhetoric. How surprising.

Yet there are some very interesting passages that play out in the "budget," pointing fingers at the Democratic majority and President Obama are trying to slip one by the people by passing the currently proposed budget. Some of my favorite include:

Universal Health Care vs. Universal Access - the kind of access of course that comes with getting a tax rebate for purchasing health insurance from an existing company. But the real kind of health reform that is needed in this country, the kind that is more likely to come through universal health care, comes in the form of real change in the system - not giving people enough money to promulgate the currently failing regime. We need health care that focuses on preventative health, and we need insurance companies that act with the patients' best interest in mind, rather than bottom lines, which is why our system will not work until we are working with nonprofit health insurance.

Fuel Costs vs. Alternative Energy - the Republican plan as outlined in the budget (keep in mind again that this is the budget and not talking points) involves increasing drilling in ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf. Of course, alternative energy is not a viable source - its given a whole paragraph under energy policy - because the Democrats don't like windmills in their "own backyard" and nuclear power is being blocked by the Democrats. Since the 1970's there have been a couple of times when the Republicans have had enough people "in power" to open a nuke plant. If it was so important to your energy policy, why not do it then?

Financial Crisis - my favorite part, "Instead of continuing to bail out Wall Street and nationalizing the financial system, Republicans want to ensure that this crisis never occurs again...Our plan would first perform a thorough stress test to determine whether a financial institution is healthy, troubled, or insolvent. For troubled firms, some portion of the firm’s toxic assets would be insured, but such insurance would be self-financed by the industry itself in the form of premiums. For insolvent firms, either the FDIC or a Resolution Trust Corporation-type entity would restructure these firms in receivership by selling off their assets and liabilities, reappointing private management, while protecting depositors." Doesn't this sound an awful lot like something Geithner just set as the plan?

So where did this "budget" come from? Well, first of all, to be fair, this is a blueprint. Yes, this is not the actually Republican Alternative Budget, but a blueprint toward recovery. But apparently, this is the rushed response to a question from Obama as to where the Republican alternative to the budget was. I guess Republicans are not the "party of No," they are the party of "holy crap we have to get something out before we look like we haven't been doing anything, does anyone know how to design a brochure that we can put out to explain what our grievances with the current budget proposal are?"

The Road to Recovery is more like the Road to "why we don't like the budget as it is."

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Today's Political Thought
The 90% excise tax has been dropped as a maneuver to deal with the AIG bonuses. What will come next in the Financial Institution Fiasco?

Capped Contributions

Campaign Finance Reform on the Horizon as Congress Considers Optional Public Financing

The only news on this today so far is covering Sam Waterston's involvement with the plan, but word on the street is that on Wednesday, Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) will be releasing a proposal to overhaul campaign contributions in a voluntary program titled the "Fair Elections Now Act," that would make congressional elections ::gasp:: fair.

Amidst discussions about the interplay between legislators' response to AIG's needs (as well as other government entities) and AIG's previous campaign contributions, it has come finally to the center of some legislators' attention (and more importantly their legislative agenda's) that it is time to begin reforming campaign finance for Congress. Of course, there is also discussion about reforming the presidential campaign finance system, a system already in place that was famously rejected by Barack Obama in his 2008 election for president because he was outraising his competitor by vast margins (insert random article talking about Obama's rejecting of public finance here).

Obama's Money
McCain's Money

What will this new legislation mean for our elections? Potentially, if widely accepted by congressional candidates (as the system is voluntary), the following could come from this system:

1. Electeds beholden only to their electorate - money raised by campaigns must come from their state. Currently, candidates can accept money from all over, meaning the means for election (the media and communications necessary to win an election) can come from all over the country, where special interest can influence a state's electeds with money.
2. A potential decrease in negative campaigning - with a limited campaign war chest for elections, candidate's will be more likely to focus on their positive message, rather than focusing on the negative message regarding their opponent(s).
3. Better Legislation - with elected officials that are in office because they are good for the people, rather than the system, legislative priorities will shift - lending to a government that will not provide a safety net for incompetent or dangerous companies that are hurting our people now (read here: the AIG / Banking Fiasco).

I will say that with regards to the final point above, I do believe that original loosening of the restrictions on banking was done with the best of intentions for the government and its people, but that the continual deregulation that led to this ridiculous current position of our financial system could have been avoided had that deregulation been stopped (which more legislators - not beholden to financial lobbyist - might have fought).

Anyway, long and short of it is this:
If we truly see a campaign finance reform system presented on Wednesday that is actually palatable to congressional candidates, we may have the opportunity for the people to recapture their lost government; leading to a renaissance of government that could catapult us into a new era. This may be an idealistic, or even idiotic belief, but I am content to play a fool if the potential for a reformed and truly democratic republic is possible.

I wish we were organizing tea parties around this issue rather than the budget...

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Today's Suggested Reading
I just started this book today but it is already turning out to be fantastic in the first 75 pages. This account of human history is along the lines of Jared Diamond in its excellent depiction of the human development arc.
NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Robert Wright

Legislative Lashings?

Congress Bares its Teeth at AIG, Misses the Point

The Congress OK'd a Punitive Excise Tax on bonuses paid to AIG executives worth over $250,000 today to attempt to regain the $165 Million paid out beginning at the end of last week. I've covered this over the last two days and wish that this issue would go away just a little bit.

Democrats, led by Representative Charles Rangel of New York, pushed the bill through the House with astounding numbers on both sides of the aisle, the greatest act of bi-partisanship in this session. Yet there were six Democrats that were political strong enough to stand up to this ridiculous piece of legislation that is purported to retrieve taxpayer money, but is, in fact a, politically speaking, cowardly move to make some kind of movement on the AIG situation without actually solving anything. Way to go, Congress. Way to respond to a symptom and not the illness.

But Congress isn't alone on this one. President Obama echoed an eagerness to sign such a bill once it reaches his desk in cooperation with Congress' and the People's Outrage. Meanwhile House Republicans are seeming to take the stand that I am in this mess: Stop trying to CYA and fix the problems! And the Democratic-controlled House is saying that this measure is the only solution to the problem, apparently unaware of any kind of discussions that are currently going on in committee regarding the return of the bonus millions to the people.

But the real issue here is that while these executives have done really terrible things and they don't deserve the money that they are receiving, it is not okay for Congress to rip those bonuses out of executives' hands through an excise tax. This is where the Executives of AIG should throw a Tea Party, not those fools angry about the government's marginal increase in spending. These bonuses were offered to keep AIG afloat, before the U.S. Government stepped in and as pointed out by some, including Rush Limbaugh, it's not right for Congress to start a pitchfork raid of these people who were promised these bonuses.

It is a complicated issue, the AIG disaster, and there are many people to blame for this situation. But it's my opinion, as I've said for the past couple of days, to move past punishment and focus on fixing the problem. But I guess if we want to focus on getting our elected officials to punish AIG, they are doing a fine job of that. Let's punish them into oblivion and hopefully we can crash the whole system - isn't that why we bailed them out in the first place?

**UPDATE: From Rep Campbell, an interesting viewpoint about Californian's and the Bonus Excise Tax

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Today's Political Thought
We currently have a fracturing Democratic Senate Caucus that will leave three voting factions - instead of having a third party, we'll just have two Democratic Parties and one Republican?!?!