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?!?!

AIG: Ain't It Grand

Financial Crises lead to Financial Arms Race. But who will have the bigger guns?

AIG is the topic of today with many stories popping up from the news to the blogs for the overwhelming response from pundits and politicians regarding salary bonuses to executives of the company - bonuses that were promised last year, before the company ended up being owned by the U.S. Government. Freshman Representative Peters of Michigan has proposed legislation that would effectively tax those bonuses at 95%, with the remaining 5% to be taxed by state and local government nixing those bonuses in their entirety. Which has caused other financial institutions to consider pay loopholes that will help their executives dodge dealing with this abusive taxation of bonuses.

At the same time, a document is floating around Washington, and now on the web, that ties the potential risks of an AIG collapse to the global financial system (wonderfully recapped by the NYT). In this document, AIG lays out a doomsday scenario for its collapse that could nearly be set off by a sneeze in Asia, and end in the collapse of many Nations' Financial Markets. This is more-or-less simplified by two different scenarios began by the same lack of confidence.
1. Investor Confidence drops - In this case, a government cashes in on AIG's holdings and in the face of being accountable for the insurance written in that state, AIG is forced to cut itself into oblivion.
2. Policy-Holder Confidence drops - In this case, life-insurance policy holders cash in on their policies at a rate too high for AIG to handle at the present moment, leaving AIG in a position where it would have to liquidate subsidiaries to payout to policy holders.

I was in a bank in September where a woman was desperately trying to pull the money out of her bank account because she thought the bank was going to collapse.

Here's what we're talking about: A Financial Arms Race
To discuss Arms Races, you can use some great little tools that have been developed, namely, Game Theory's Prisoner's Dilemma. What we are seeing right now is an iterated non-zero sum game in which one player (in this case there are a very many players that act independently, though often in the same ways essentially being balanced with the U.S. Government / The People on one side and The Financial Institutions on the other) responds to the other in a reciprocated fashion in order to either punish or subvert the other player in the hopes of eventually pushing the loser into a stalemate or checkmate (the case where one player has no potential reciprocation for your opponents' last and final play).

Potential devastations of Arms Races, as demonstrated abundently during the Cold War, include Mutually Assured Destruction MAD which is the basis of the movie Wargames. The basis of MAD is that when a game is played out over and over again the players will continue to arm themselves to the teeth in anticipation of, and because of rumors that there will be, a threatening action by the opponent. So the government is threatening to restrict pay, the companies change pay structure. Eventually, however, one of two things will be reached:
1. the Equilibrium - This would be the point where delicately balanced relationship between the two sides leads to a mutual benefit
2. the Devastating Global Collapse - basically, all of the worst parts of the AIG Paper.

So let's put the two pieces together from above and think about what is coming in the next few weeks / months and consider that maybe it's time we reconsider our stances on things to reach that equilibrium instead of focusing on punishment and working towards a devastating collapse

The Opinion:
1. People: Do not try to cash out your life-insurance policy
2. Countries: Do not attempt to seize AIG's Assets in your country
3. AIG: Renegotiate and stop doing things that are going to piss off your stock holders
read here: the U.S. Government / The People
4. Realize that this game doesn't have a particular end in sight, so stop trying to make the final move and thus escalating the fight more quickly but instead realize that if we do lose, it's going to be a really big loss. So let's compromise a little bit so we can all get through this. Someone's gotta be the bigger man here and step down a little bit.

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Today's List
Here's a List of Games in Game Theory. When you think about the choices you make in your life, it's amazing how most of them can be simplified to one of these.

Party Plasticity

Steele Continues to get Pounded, Obama Meets with "New Democrats," Senate Dems Waver in Support of EFCA, and Arlen Specter Might Become a Democrat!

Well, it's for sure been an exciting week for politics. The GOP is not alone in its quest to redefine itself as President Obama finally identifies himself as a New Democrat. This paves the way for unifying a party that has such broad boundary lines, that lying somewhere in the middle will help bring together a party that's definition at this point in time is not the Republicans.

So what else is going on while Obama tries to win over centrist Dems in the House? Centrist Dems in the Senate, not actually paying attention to the legislation that they are debating (like Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, and Mark Udall) are stalling on legislation like EFCA. EFCA, is good legislation that, while painful for Republicans and union-busting businesses, is good for the working class (see my previous posting on benefits of EFCA). It's a little frustrating when your party has started to ignore its loyalists in pursuit of the middle. It would help if we got that third party now!

But the greatest news of the day comes from a wrap-up put together by DailyKos suggesting that Arlen Specter may switch parties for EFCA. Now, clearly there are places where Democrats and Specter have disagreed in the past, but all-in-all, during the last half of his 28 years in the Senate, Specter has made some bold moves against his own party's stances and if you look at his key issues, he's more liberal than many of our sitting Democrats.

So, on behalf of the Democrats, I welcome you Senator. Please come join us in 2010 and we promise we'll keep you in your seat! You should see what happens when you have Union money behind your campaign! Especially in PA!

Meanwhile, GOP Chairman Michael Steele is getting slammed again. This time for wavering on Abortion (see: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And of course this posting that covers how the Republicans would oust him, and there are many more. Steele...I think it may be the end of the line for you.

I will be out of town for the next couple of days to return on Tuesday

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Today's Political Thought
Even if Specter moves to the left on EFCA, it will take 60 votes to end a Republican Filibuster...
You do the math on EFCA, here's 2007's votes
Even if we get Franken in MN, look at the 2 Colorado Senators, Conrad and Nelson above. EFCA isn't looking healthy!

Going Galt

Atlases of our Society are pissed and are considering societal fissure

I have to start this by saying that I was really hoping to cover the EFCA. I was also urged to cover the budget today, all of which I will dedicate great care in dealing with this week...but I have to take some time to really flesh out this phenomenon - and this is my format for that.

To begin, an operational definition (note: this definition has been derived from readings that are generally from the persuasion of the oppressed and therefore intimate a personal tie to the phrase) is provided:

Going Galt: (verb)
1. to lead the oppressed creative and successful individuals of a society to begin a new society that is not socialist in nature.
2. to remove oneself from an oppressive state that has actively taxed (literally or metaphorically) you as a producer of wealth within that society

I want to start by talking about the issue that is at hand that leads those who are considering going Galt to do so. This seems to have something to do with the income tax increase of 3% on any income over $250,000 that has been proposed by the oppressive, and now apparently Socialist, Democrats. For those of you out there who do not understand the tax tables that you have your CPA handle each year, that means that you get taxed one rate for your income of $250,000 and then a 3% higher rate for your income that is over $250,000. So if you make $255,000, you will get taxed 3% more on $5,000, not on $255,000. So stop trying to figure out how to make less than $250,001 a year.

Now that we've covered that and already 20% of you have stopped going galt, let's talk about another side of this very complicated polyhedron - I want to talk about patriotism. The reason I want to talk about patriotism is because apparently those of you going galt have very loose definitions of patriotism, namely that if we're following you, you are patriotic, and if we disagree with you, then you're going to shove off and start a new country. That's not patriotism, and I'm pretty sure that Democrats stuck around for a couple of years while your boy Bush played War with our Tonka toys in the Middle Eastern sandbox.

I'll tell you something else, how much of that 3% that you are going to get taxed do you think is going to go to socialized medicine and other social programs instead of trying to pay down a very expensive war that we've carried on now for a seven years?

Here's the deal. You are not going to leave the country because;
1. You still hold out hope that your bitching and moaning is somehow going to turn back time on this issue and we'll forget that we need the money in the first place
2. Your special ass isn't going to make any money in a new country since you'll have no industry and no real capital as you're not really going to get a really good trade value with U.S. Currency then.
3. Your CPA will find some more loopholes for you and you'll end up not really paying much more anyway.

Finally, I would like to say something to Representative John Campbell (R-California) who posted a delightful little plea on The Hill Blog and Townhall.com begging that Obama reconsider the 3% increase in income tax:

I'm not going to worry about the potential collapse of the world because of a slight increase on income taxes. Your friends are not going to disappear off of the face of the planet, we're not going to see a mass exodus of people making over $250,000 and they are not nearly ready to commit to leaving this country, nor are they going to fold their businesses in revolt. They are going to continue to make money and building industry and providing jobs because they can't really do it anywhere else (and certainly not as well as here). Let's cut the end-of-the-world, fear-mongering rhetoric and let's start talking about solutions.

Tomorrow, EFCA and what it's potential pros and cons may be...

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Today's Suggested Reading
"Don't Think of an Elephant"
George Lakoff
Summary Blurb: "...much of the success of the Republican Party can be attributed to a persistent ability to control the language of key issues and thus position themselves in favorable terms to voters. While Democrats may have valid arguments, Lakoff points out they are destined to lose when they and the news media accept such nomenclature as "pro-life," "tax relief," and "family values," since to argue against such inherently positive terminology necessarily casts the arguer in a negative light."
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236646413&sr=8-1

The RNC's New Bag. NOT!

RNC Chairman Michael Steele tossed about like rag doll. Meanwhile, conservative entertainer Rush Limbaugh continues to spew extreme values.

It's time for a little disclosure. I am a pretty strong Democrat. And by that I mean that I have worked in Democratic politics for a couple of years now and I want everyone to know before reading this that I may display a slant to this opinion. Please note: there is a slant to all opinion

Rush Limbaugh. You are the undisputed king of the Conservative movement. Please continue your ranting tirades through the airwaves. Please continue to spew your hyper-conservative grumblings and point your finger at those who mock you from centrist or just left of centrist (and even sometimes just right of centrist) viewpoints. More fuel for the fire baby!

Has anyone in the RNC considered that maybe Michael Steele is what you need for this party right now? You have elected a leader that wants to broaden the base of your supporters, thereby increasing your electability and your response is that Conservatives will not donate to the RNC?

So, what? Your small group of conservatives (current polls putting you at about 25% of the country) are going to elect individual's with a majority? Yeah, last time I checked majorities in a two candidate system need 50% + 1. With a third candidate, you'll need at least 34%. Sounds like ya'll are gonna get a little screwed.

I am a strong Democrat and I believe that the Democratic Party's platform falls in line with my own beliefs. But I want another party in this country. I think that both the Democrats and the Republicans have widened their platforms to accept more of the electorate and I wish that my party would lean a little bit more to the left, just as you, Mr. Limbaugh, want the Republicans to lean to the right. But that can't happen before a strong third party assumes the vacuum of elections or else your opposition will defeat you. Besides the partisan issues, then an even larger part of this country will be unrepresented in politics.

But maybe that's what it will take for the 35% or so of you out there that have no party affiliation to come together and start fighting the two poles of politics in the United States instead of whining that you don't fit into a party.

So the Opinion:
1. Get rid of Steele - He's making you electable and likable;
2. Swing further to the right - As long as you have a minority in opinion polls and are being referred to as "in exhile" you should definitely not consider making your party more palatable as that would cause people to agree with you;
and 3. Where's our third party? - I thought we might get a third party but I suppose the two are entertaining enough that a third would actually make politics serious in this country and people would actually get to vote on candidates they agreed with.

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Today's Political Thought
According to FEC Guidelines, a minor party must receive 5% or more of the total vote in a presidential election to be eligible to receive public funding for the next presidential election.