Bartlett on Gingrich

Bruce Bartlett has a good op-ed in the NY Times on Gingrich's efforts to stupidify congress.  What struck me was the ending line:

It is essential that Congress not cripple what is left of its in-house expertise. Gutting the G.A.O. and abolishing the C.B.O. would be acts of nihilism. Any politician recommending such things is unfit for office.

Acts of nihilism are pretty much all Republicans can manage.  Consider the attempt to default on America's debt, or the intent to revoke health care reform without an alternative solution.  On too many fronts Republican ideas have been proven decisively wrong:  Lassez-faire markets and the wall street debacle, climate change and the increasing frequency of catastrophic weather events, trickle down economics and the most unequal society in living memory, the George W Bush administration...  Rather then acknowledge failure, Republicans resort to wholesale denials of reality and nihilism.  Gingrich isn't exceptional in his need to dumb things down, he is typical of the Republican party.

Paul Starr Op-Ed

The O linked to a Paul Starr Op-ed today.  A lot of it is a digest of Remedy and Reaction, but with some extra musing about the paring of Obama and Romney:

If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama face off in the 2012 presidential campaign, America will witness the singular spectacle of two candidates getting very little love, and plenty of hate, for the same signature achievement: reforming health care.

Both overcame long odds to pass legislation, Romney in Massachusetts, Obama at the national level. Even the specifics of their reform laws are similar: Both include subsidies for private insurance, the establishment of insurance exchanges and a mandate for individuals to maintain a minimum level of coverage. Each man expected to reap credit for his effort. But neither has gotten political mileage out of it; in fact, both may have lost more ground than they picked up.

In another era, we might be celebrating the remarkable fact that both a Democratic president and a leading Republican challenger arrived at fundamentally the same approach to fixing our health-care system. That is not the America we live in now.

Worth reading.

If you wonder why enactment was delayed until 2014, Starr gave these reasons in R&R:

• Delaying enactment reduced the CBO cost, which covers the next 10 calendar years
• The decision to give states the responsibility for creating exchanges meant giving them time to enact legislation
• IRS said it would be confusing and chaotic tax-wise if programs incepted mid year or inconsistently across states

• Dems did not want enrollment occurring in Nov 2012 during election.  Medicare Part D blew up in someone's face in 2004(?).

 Starr implied that the real problem was Obama's failure to anticipate right wingers' willingness to turn on their own ideas in order to score political points.  That's what makes the prospect of a race between Obama and Romney so ironic.

Andrew Bacevich Column

There is a posting at Tom Dispatch of an Andrew Bacevich op-ed, on why the political posturing threatening to cut military spending is a farce.  I don’t agree with everything Bacevich says, but he is always worth reading.

Cortright & Company Editorial

I finally got around to reading the editorial from Joe Cortright & company in last week’s Oregonian.  I liked the substance and philosophy behind it.  Particularly the proscription to attend to details:

Statistics can too easily mask the story that we really need to understand: what makes each company and each worker in the Portland region successful -- or not. We need to ask why a company founder came to or stayed in Portland, what prompted her to start her company and what factors made her successful -- and what would make her leave or quit. We need to understand what makes a successful worker want to be here, what will make them stay and what will improve his value to the company and the broader society. Those stories -- which will have different nuances for each profession and industry -- can't be told by the statistics alone, regardless of how we slice and dice them.

I consider myself a successful worker, here are my answers to the questions posed.  What made my wife and I move here was the progressive social culture and political values, the relatively low cost of living, and the perception that Portland Public Schools offered acceptable educational opportunities for our kids.  What would make us leave is Portland’s peculiar relationship with the past.

While Portland’s nominal political values are unabashedly progressive, there is knee-jerk parochialism when it comes to growth and development.  From Memorial Coliseum to the proposed Wood Village Casino and many things in between, it seems that every proposal for economic development is met with fear and loathing.  Portland suffers from a form of collective hoarding syndrome.  It risks drowning under mounds of once useful but now purposeless buildings and structures, preferring mindless nostalgia to the uncertainties of change.  I don’t see how the city can thrive in the 21st century with that attitude, it affects everything from jobs to education.

Anna Griffin on Oregon Unions

Anna Griffin put out a sharp column criticizing public employee unions in Oregon and particularly Portland.  The short version:

Back before government started regulating industry and muckraking
reporters decided that 18-hour workdays weren't healthy, union
organizers were the true reformers.

They kept factories safe,
made whistle-blowing possible and generally looked out for the little
guy.

[...]   

Yet public employee unions now seem to block change more than promote
it.

How fair is this?  Griffin cites four examples to back up her claim.

First, deputies and corrections officers stopped Multnomah County from changing the County Sheriff's position to one appointed instead of being elected.  That qualifies as blocking change, but is it blocking a reform?  That looks more to me like a turf battle, the kind that afflicts any large bureaucracy.  Ted Wheeler wanted a sheriff subordinate to the county commission, the sheriff and his people wanted to retain independence.  Where is the reform?

Second, Portland police and civilian oversight.  Griffin is on firm ground here, sadly.  The union under Westerman was nuts and an emarrassment to the city.  I give this one to Griffin with an asterisk for the fact that union leadership makes a big difference, for better or for worse.

Third Griffin cites the Portland teachers union for balking at reopening their contract and accepting a salary freeze.  The union may be harming the public good, but I don't see this is a reform issue.  I've heard of many large corporations where there was no union and management unilaterally announced wage freezes.  That may have been for the good of the company but was it reform in any meaningful sense?  Griffin could actually make a much better case against the teachers.  They oppose switching class schedules from a 5/7 (teach 5 out of 7 periods and take 2 for prep) to a 6/8.  The 6/8 allows more total sections and increases the potential offerings of a school without increasing cost, it is also the norm in the metro region outside of PPS.  There is also the union's opposition to charter schools.  Either of those make a more compelling case for obstructing reform then seeking higher wages.  I'll give a point here because the teachers union is obstructing reform, even if it isn't for the reasons Griffin gives.

Finally, Griffin cites state employees for opposing cuts in benefits.  At first blush this looks like a fight over pay, like the teachers union issue above.  However I think the pension issue deserves special consideration.  The pension plan essentially acts as deferred compensation, it allows the state and municipalities to put people on the payroll now and pay later.  That is a terrible practice policy wise, it allows agencies to avoid balancing their budget and saddle future taxpayers with deferred compensation payments.  I'd say ending that constitutes reform.  The fight over health care benefits is not as that is paid up front.  So half a point here.

Griffin says that 3 points make a trend, by that measure she comes up short at 2.5.  I wish she used a finer brush in painting her criticism of the unions.  There are real problems that have to be confronted, using loose rhetoric doesn't make that task easier.

Good Op-Ed

I don't have as much time for reading as I used to, but this piece by Andrew Bacevich stood out enough that I remembered it a week later. As good a short wrap up of Bush's administration as I've seen.

Context and Brooks, an Op-Ed

David Brooks has an op-ed in the NY Times pooh-poohing Obama's rhetoric during his recent trip abroad. Brooks sniffs because

The great illusion of the 1990s was that we were entering an
era of global convergence in which politics and power didn’t matter.
What Obama offered in Berlin flowed right out of this mind-set. This
was the end of history on acid.

Since then, autocracies have
arisen, the competition for resources has grown fiercer, Russia has
clamped down, Iran is on the march. It will take politics and power to
address these challenges, the two factors that dare not speak their
name in Obama’s lofty peroration.

First off, Brooks has a pathetic memory if all he remembers of the 90's is Francis Fukuyama. That text served more as an instructional punching bag then a foundation for policy, it was interesting to think about how and why it was wrong. It was certainly not relevant to resolving the Bosnian civil war, the most prominent foreign policy challenge of that decade.

Second, Brooks' list of what changed since the 90's is garbage. Autocracies have always been around. Chavez now runs Venezuela but Milosevic is dead. Russia has tightened, China has loosened. Iran is on the march now? When was it not on the march? Doesn't seem like they move very fast, does it? Brooks can't bring himself to note the biggest change in the world since the 90's was in America's foreign policy, even as he claims the difference is as stark as an acid trip compared to reality.

What is naive is to think American policy could undergo such a shift without radically changing the rest of the world.

Krauthammer op-ed

This crap op-ed by Charles Krauthammer got me thinking about the nuclear club.  He claims the successful program in North Korea, and ongoing work in Iran mark the "end of the era of non-proliferation."  Really?  Let's look at the numbers:

Country/Year of successful weapon test

• US, 1945
• USSR, 1949
• Britain, 1952
• France, 1960
• China, 1964
• India, 1974
• Israel, prior to 1979
• South Africa, 1979
• Pakistan, 1998
• North Korea, 2006

Nearly every decade since the creation of the bomb has seen a nation, quietly or loudly, enter the nuclear club.  And with the arguable exception of Britain every one of those countries conducted the R&D work in strictest secrecy.  Secrecy in this context is not a sign of nefariousness, it is simply the way successful nuclear weapons programs get done. 

The idea that Iran's program marks some huge breach with the past is absurd, it would be a greater discontinuity if countries stopped trying to get nuclear weapons.

Snarkage:  Krauthammer on regime change:

Total safety comes only from regime change. During the Cold War, we worried about Soviet nukes, but never French or British nukes. Weapons don't kill people; people kill people. Regime change will surely come to both North Korea and Iran. That is the ultimate salvation.

Regime change equals remaking a country into Britain or France!  TOTAL SAFETY!

Rubin Op-Ed

Via Foreign Affairs

Michael Rubin has a generally wrong op-ed in the WSJ, but it has a few nuggets worth considering.  His thesis in a nutshell:  Democratic presidential candidates pose as realists, but their emphasis on diplomacy as opposed to military force makes them idealists.  Rubin implies this makes them more dangerous then the fantasist George Bush.

The problems with this thesis are clear.  Neither of the Democratic candidates have indicated a desire to disband the U.S. military.  They have not even indicated a desire to reduce military funding from it's current astronomical levels.  In fact, the only policy proposal from a Democratic candidate that Rubin cites is Obama's advocacy of aggressive diplomacy with Iran.

What is Rubin's take on Iran?

Attacking Iran isn't a viable option because it would likely only delay, not eliminate, Tehran's nuclear program. Risking the blowback from an attack would only be productive if there was a strategy to use the interim period to end the threat posed by the regime's ideology. Until there is a regime-change strategy, a military strike would merely allow politicians to put off conducting a serious national security debate.

In other words, to topple the government of Iran. 

PURE REALISM, BABY!!

Snarkage:  Rubin pushes the combination of threatening military force with diplomacy.  Is there a better example of successfully executing this strategy then Bill Clinton with North Korea and Iraq?  Is there a better example of the perils of this strategy then George W. Bush?

Continuity in the White House?

Via Foreign Affairs daily opinion roundup:

Philip Stephens has an op-ed in the Financial Times suggesting that the next President will have significant continuities in policy with the Bush Administration, if only because there are too many problems to solve in the course of a single term.

If you allow problems to define you then I suppose he's right.  I'd hope for more though, a lot more from whoever is next to sit in office.  The key challenge Stephens dances around is rejecting the factionalism that developed under Bush and regaining control of the bureaucracies.

Throughout Bush's term he was constantly overwhelmed and outmatched by events on the ground.  This was only partially due to his incompetence.  Another factor was the lack of control and direction given to the bureaucracies that make up the federal government.  Cabinet members and their subordinates were free to pursue whatever agenda they wanted, so long as they observed the Golden Rule:  Do not make George Bush look bad.  Disband the Iraqi Army?  Give the leader of North Korea the finger?  Badmouth Western Europe?  Sure thing!  Allowing the departments to pursue their own agendas meant allowing them to define their own problems, all of them vying for attention and resources.  A more unified administration would force policies to match given resources, based on the President's priorities.

I think any of the current candidates including McCain would bring a more unitary style of management.  That in itself would mark a dramatic change from Bush- a President defined by their policies, rather then their problems.

Surprisingly smart op-ed on Afghanistan

Courtesy of Foreign Affairs:

Benjamin Friedman has a good op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor.  He criticizes the field of presidential candidates for seeking to expand the western troop presence in Afghanistan, either through NATO or the American military. 

His point in a nutshell- foreign military power is no substitute for a legitimate federal government.  The US doesn't need a large occupation force to conduct anti-terrorist operations, and military forces are terribly ineffective at nation building.  Hence sending in more troops is a waste of lives and money. 

Friedman does not dwell on the political calculus that encourages both parties to support escalation, but it's not hard to see.  First there is a perception that while Iraq is 'lost' Afghanistan can still be 'won', and having more troops there increases the chance of winning.  Afghanistan is salve and distraction from our losses in Iraq.  Escalation also serves as political cover; candidates who would withdraw troops from Iraq can still claim the mantle of militarism by sending them elsewhere.  There is a third reason for sending troops to Afghanistan, one that somewhat undermines Friedman's argument.

I'd argue that eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan are more important to America's national security then Iraq.  First, Pakistan is an unstable country with nuclear weapons.  Anything is possible there, and a significant area troop presence creates options.  Second, the worst people are there.  Osama Bin Laden and his followers, the people who actually did attack the U.S., are there.  More troops permit more effective cordon and search operations.  In sum, Afghanistan and Pakistan possess real WMD, and real people who have demonstrated the will and ability to launch attacks on U.S. soil.  Iraq (and Iran) possess neither.

That's a relatively small problem though, because that only works if you think military forces in Afghanistan won't be used for nation building, and they almost certainly will be.  It's worth thinking about what that is likely to accomplish.

Good Krugman column

Paul Krugman has a good op-ed in the NY Times describing in broad terms the problems in the financial sector. The money quote:

We were partying like it was 1929 - and now it's 1930.