Tag: reactions

Abolish Earmarks

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photo credit: Skrewtape

For some time I have been internally conflicted on the issue of congressional earmarking. Many people, including such diverse characters as President Obama and Congressman Chaffetz, have been vocal about calling for an end to earmarks. Others such as my own Congressman, Rob Bishop, reply that earmarks are not an addition to the total size of our federal expenditures – but simply a direction regarding the spending of money already appropriated. Believers in small government who make that argument say that our focus should be on reducing total expenditures rather than shutting down the earmarking process. Personally, I would like to see an end to earmarking and a significant reduction in total spending. (Earmarks alone are an insignificant portion of our spending.)

Tags earmarks, Elevated, government, Jason Chaffetz, Jim DeMint, money, Obama, reactions, Rob Bishop, thoughts

General

A New View on the Flag and Pledge of Allegiance

Post author By David
Post date January 6, 2010
12 Comments on A New View on the Flag and Pledge of Allegiance

photo credit: eschipul

I had some interesting thoughts this morning after reading an article I would normally not bother to read. It was talking about a specific historical flag, but my thoughts were turned to the flag generally and then to the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s the statement that got my brain moving:

The flag is an American flag — 13 stripes, a blue square canton with 13 white stars surrounding an American bald eagle. So far, this flag isn’t strange for its day. In the 19th century, almost anything goes in handmade national flags. (emphasis added)

Suddenly I am released from the idea of a standardized flag and considering the flag more abstractly as a representation of something to believe in. The nation represented by all those handmade national flags was the same, and the symbolism of that nation was consistent across flags (stars, stripes, red, white, and blue), but people felt free to add things to the flag that helped represent their feelings regarding the nation (an American bald eagle in the field of blue being an apparently common addition back then).

Tags Elevated, flag, liberty, reactions, thoughts

National

Howard Dean is Right

Few people would predict that I would agree with Howard Dean as often as I do, fewer still should be at all surprised that I agree with him when he says of the Health Care Bill:

This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill.

Then again, I also agree with President Obama when he said:

the federal government “will go bankrupt” if Congress does not pass a health care bill

Of course we begin to disagree from there because I’m confident that we will go bankrupt at least as fast with his health care bill (any version of it) as we will if we do nothing. We need reform, but we don’t need this reform. Once again I agree with Howard Dean’s take on the cost issue:

He said he also doesn’t see cost-control measures but, rather “a whole bunch of bureaucracies and a lot of promises.”

While we disagree with what health care reform this nation needs I was dismayed by the truth pointed out by Chris Cillizza as he explained why he feels confident that despite all the wrangling, Congress will pass a health reform bill:

The broad strategy adopted by the White House toward health care is based on a single fundamental belief: coming out of this extended fight with nothing to show for it amounts to a political disaster not just for the President but for congressional Democrats as well.

“It’s a huge problem if nothing gets passed,” said one senior Democratic strategist. “Huge.”

Howard Dean is right about the dangers of that strategy:

We’ve gotten to this stage … in Washington where passing any bill is a victory, and that’s the problem. Decisions are being about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons, and that’s never a good sign.

I even agree with Howard Dean that there are some good elements in the current Health Care Reform bill. At least, I agree with him if Section 9002 is still in the bill. (As an aside, when did they return to the term “health care reform” from the more accurate “health insurance reform” that they had begun using earlier this year?)

I still contend that the only proper way forward on health care reform (and the only possible way forward when debate over this bill finally ends – regardless of the outcome) is to stop trying for some sweeping omnibus overhaul bill and pass individual pieces of legislation to take baby steps forward. If this bill passes the very first baby step forward will have to be the repeal of the individual mandate.

Tags health care, Howard Dean, legislation, reactions

General

Questions of Legitimacy

I found Power, Authority, Legitimacy at Electric Politics to be a very interesting article. It talks about these three important elements to effectively government and how they interact with each other. The focus is on legitimacy, but George Kenney also explains how power and authority can be in place without bestowing any legitimacy.

As I started reading, before Kenney began speaking about the United States government, my thought was that our government is suffering from issues of legitimacy not unlike Mexico or Iran. There is no doubt about the authority or the power associated with our government, but legitimacy is definitely a question.

Nowhere do we see intelligent discussion regarding whether the government of the United States is legitimate or, if not, to what degree it is not, how it got that way, and what should be done about it.

Despite that claim in the article I think that the discussion has been happening on a small scale for some time although I’m not sure the discussion has been framed with the term “legitimacy.” I also think that it is being discussed more broadly and more openly. Kenney also makes this claim which might explain why I see the discussion differently than he does:

American voters have done their job: they’ve elected politicians who promised to satisfy their preferences. But politicians haven’t delivered. Should we blame the voters? That’s one approach . . . Another approach is to blame our leaders. . . All such complaints, though, have to do with either power or authority.

I am among those who has talked about whether the federal government has the authority to do what they are doing and what they propose to do going forward. When Mr. Kenney talks about authority he is not talking about theoretical authority, which is what I am questioning. Instead he is talking about functional authority, which is not in doubt. As the only government operating in the entire United States and with no state governments putting up any real challenge to their mandates, the federal government unquestionably has the functional authority to do what it is doing.

Tags connections, discourse, government, reactions, thoughts

culture

What Are Your Fundamental Assumptions?

Post author By David
Post date December 3, 2009
17 Comments on What Are Your Fundamental Assumptions?

photo credit: quarksteilchen

In the midst of a recent comment the author revealed a fundamental assumption that he and I don’t share that clearly explains why we have differing views on government:

Federal mandates are about the only power the government has to prevent a race to the bottom. . . THE only way to get some states to do what needs to be done is to simply mandate it. The race to the bottom has got to end.

I should start by saying that federal mandates truly are the only power that government has to prevent a race to the bottom – also that I don’t think such mandates are sufficient to prevent such a race (in other words government is powerless to stop that race). After exploring the assumptions that serve as the foundation for that statement about a race to the bottom I quickly concluded that I could not accept that view of the world for myself.

The view that government must use federal mandates to prevent a race to the bottom seems to be built on the belief of Thomas Hobbes that people are basically selfish and evil. People who act as Hobbes expects will naturally engage in a race to the bottom on any issue. It is possible to believe that states will engage in a race to the bottom while still thinking the people are not basically selfish but to hold that combination of beliefs requires a belief that politics is basically corrupt and that it is mainly those who would engage in a race to the bottom who hold public office.

Tags Elevated, federalism, political philosophy, reactions, thoughts

General

2074 Pages of Loopholes

With Thanksgiving weekend behind us all politically interested people can look forward to the Senate opening work on the healthcare bill. According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

. . . senators {will} work on weekends if necessary to hammer out compromises on thorny issues like a government-run insurance plan, abortion coverage and holding down costs.

“The next few weeks will tell us a lot about whether senators are more committed to solving problems or creating them,” Reid said.

I make no pretense that I have abandoned my day job and any semblance of a life to read through the entire 2074 pages of H.R. 3590 but I have read through the entire 13 page index of the bill and looked up a number of sections that either looked interesting or concerning to me. Of course my first question is how will this affect my health insurance situation (that may give some insight into the 12 sections I reviewed). The real question in this debate is whether there will be anyone who takes the time in the coming weeks (according to the story linked above we may expect up to 3 weeks of debate) to read the entire bill and break down what it actually means for consumers and the nation – going beyond the party-line soundbites that we will no doubt be subjected to constantly through the media for as long as the debate lasts.

After reading through my chosen sections I found seven that were interesting enough for me to write about them. (For anyone who is curious, there are approximately 350 sections to the bill – 50 times what I am doing today.) I will review them in the order they appear in the bill.

Tags Bob Bennett, Harry Reid, health care, issues, legislation, Orrin Hatch, reactions, senate

General

Of Big Tents and Purity

It’s a busy holiday time so I’ll spend more time quoting and less time expounding. Back in May, Jim DeMint expressed the very opinion I still hold about How Republicans Can Build a Big-Tent Party by holding to one key principle:

There is a question Republicans do need to ask: What is it that binds our party together?

. . . Moderate Republicans are right to remind conservatives that they cannot build a center-right coalition without the center part. And conservatives are right to remind moderates that Republicans only succeed when we rally around clear principles.

The real mistake is that Republicans became more concerned with staying in D.C. than reforming it.

Despite notable successes at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave., it seems to me that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration forgot a simple truth. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you aim for principled reform, you win elections in the bargain; if you just aim for elections, you get neither.

No Child Left Behind didn’t win us “soccer moms,” but it did cost us our credibility on locally controlled education. Medicare prescription drugs didn’t win us a “permanent majority,” but it cost us our credibility on entitlement reform. Every year, another Republican quality was tainted: managerial competence, fiscal discipline and personal ethics.

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom.

(emphasis mine)

We’ve been discussing the ideas of purity, conservatism, inclusiveness, and intra-party division a lot in the last few months. I believe, along with many of you, that holding to principle and being inclusive are not mutually exclusive goals. There must be strong poles to hold the tent up, or to put it another way, there must be something in the tent that makes people want to enter. I agree with Senator DeMint that freedom would be a very enticing offering – but we have to find a way to articulate the vision of freedom and not allow the message to by framed in negative terms by those who disagree with our vision.

Tags ideals, Jim DeMint, parties, reactions, Republican, Wall Street Journal

State technology

Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

Post author By David
Post date November 6, 2009
4 Comments on Constituent Communication Can Innoculate Against Insiderism

When I wrote about a legislator’s role as an information analyst the comments initially centered on Sen. Bob Bennett because of a quote I had used despite my desire to not single anyone out. Later in the comments on that post I made this statement that deserves to be elevated to its own post here:

In my opinion, the best defense against staying too long and becoming part of the problem is to maintain communication with constituents that is open enough for the constituents to indicate when the officeholder is compromising too much (or not enough in some rare cases) and the integrity to step aside when the officeholder finds that they consistently cannot act in accordance with the feedback they are receiving from constituents in good conscience.

Now that Senator Bennett has demonstrated a refusal to maintain open communication with constituents I am singling him out and exposing his refusal to communicate openly.

Tags 2010, Bob Bennett, civic participation, connections, discourse, Orrin Hatch, reactions, senate, twitter

National

Our National Emergency

I was surprised when I learned that Obama declared swine flu a national emergency late on Friday. My first thought was that I had not heard anything to suggest that things were any worse than they had been previously. Looking closer at the announcement the article states that “Swine flu is more widespread now than it’s ever been and has resulted in more than 1,000 U.S. deaths so far.”

While we don’t like the idea of 1000 deaths it’s important to put that into context by noting that the seasonal flu results in 36,000 U.S. deaths each year – that’s an average of 3,000 deaths per month year round. During the flu season that amounts to more than 1000 deaths per week. To really put that into context it should be noted that the seasonal flu produces that many deaths despite the fact that a vaccine is widely available while the swine flu vaccine is barely coming into circulation now.

That is enough information that there are many people who will shout that this is not an emergency – some will even say that this is a scare tactic or power grab by the administration. Going back to the actual declaration I have concluded that there really is a national problem.

The White House on Saturday said Obama signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements.

The very real problem that this declaration of emergency addresses is a problem of over-regulation. The government should never regulate something to the point of interfering with the benefits of whatever they are regulating – as they have done with the medical system. (I would call this an emergency except that “emergency” suggests serious immediate consequences if we do not take immediate action whereas a lack of immediate action does not have particularly immediate consequences.)

Tags Deseret News, media, Obama, reactions

General

We Should Make That Illegal

Post author By David
Post date October 21, 2009
13 Comments on We Should Make That Illegal

I heard a report of a store robbery this morning and the description of the perpetrator sounded very familiar – dark clothing, dark beanie hat, you know the drill. As I heard it I discarded the remote possibility that there is one man or a small group that use that outfit as their signature in committing these felonies. This led me to a new conclusion (I’m amazed nobody has thought of this before) – the availability of dark clothing, especially dark t-shirts and dark beanie hats, induces people to commit robberies.

We should make the production and sale of those clothing items illegal and remove the temptation to commit these robberies.

Tags funny, reactions, thoughts