So goes the Senate, so goes the country?

Now Democrats are getting challenges from their left flank the way that Republicans are getting from the far right. Soon the moderates of both parties will be gone. Congress is beginning to look like European parliaments, with their ideological conservative and socialist parties.  Some say that this is not a bad thing as it simply reflects the country. I don’t buy that. Sure, there are differences between ths suburbs of Indiana and downtown San Francisco - but there is a vital center of Americans, who tend to be moderate in most matters. In fact, the proportion of Americans who describe themselves as “independents” is growing rapidly, even as the percentage of Americans who are registered as either Democrat or Republican is going down.  The Senate, however, does not reflect this growing trend. Rather it reflects Cable TV. And so, nobody can agree on anything.

Houston, we have a problem.

It used to be that when Congressmen and Senators got to Washington, they would work with the other side and get things done. Now, with all the grandstanding on 24 hr news channels, they’re politicing, not governing. So, perhaps we should call their bluff on this grandstanding. If Republicans want to filibuster, let them. Let them stay up all night if thats what they want to do. (My gut is that they neither have the energy to do it, nor the guts to do it on TV). If progressives on the left want to push the Democratic Party out of the national mainstream at a time when the President is already having problems with his message, let them. They can put up primary fights across the country and lets see how the electorate reacts.

But for God’s sake, do something. Maybe we need total war before sheer exhaustion, or sheer shame, will get Washington governing again.

Published in:  on March 2, 2010 at 8:53 pm Leave a Comment
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If Washington won’t govern, who will?

There’s a real breakdown in the system of governance in this country. Our Congressmen seem to have forgotten why they were sent to Washington. The latest betrayal of trust is by Senator Shelby who is holding up the confirmation of all of the President’s appointees. This is obscene. Congressmen were sent to Washington to conduct the nation’s business, but are actually too busy playing partisan politics (or grabbing pork for their home state) to ensure their continued tenure in power. Shelby demonstrates yet again that Washington needs fixing and now. Redsitricting is one mechanism. Force Congressmen in the House to face an electorate that looks like the country as a whole and not some gerrymandered invention of a district designed to keep them in power for ever. In the Senate,  it is time to end the filibuster. Passage of bills should need a majority in the Senate not a supermajority, which should be reserved for important constitutional issues. The filibuster worked only if it wasnt abused. Those days are now behind us. Democracies dont just function because they are a good idea or a moral form of government. They work because elected officials play both by the rules and the spirit of the system. This is not happening. Politicians need to be made more accountable to their electorate and stripped of their individual ability to cynically hold up the nation’s business for their own narrow interests. If Congressmen are not interested in governing, they should come home and let us send others to Washington who honestly are.

Published in:  on February 9, 2010 at 10:45 am Leave a Comment
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All Saints Day

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints. They played a good game and deserve their first Superbowl victory. The city does too. It will be one long Mardi Gras in the French Quarter this year.

Published in:  on February 8, 2010 at 11:22 am Leave a Comment

Debt & Deficits are only symptons. (Lack of) governance and complacency are the causes

Larry Summers asks how long the world’s largest debtor country and can remain the world’s most powerful country. His point is well taken. Great powers dont borrow themselves into their greatness. Given this basic reality, we have to assume that the US is heading for a fall. But the US has it in its ability to fix its fiscal issues. Get a control over the costs of the future: health expenses, medicare, social security. It could make the decisions on higher taxes versus lower spending that will bring some form of balance once the current crisis has abated. But there seems no will to try and do this. And thats the problem. Neither the Democrats nor the GOP are taking responsiblity for the overall situation.

Why?

Because Congressmen are playing to their core constituencies only and not thinking of the bigger picture.

And why is this?

Because their districts back home have been gerrymandered so that their party will win no matter what. Their real political concern are challenges that come from further to the left or the right of their own parties. Given this, there is no incentive or even attempt at reaching a compromise with the other side. This is a problem that now pervades everything in Washington. Lack of honest democracy leading to a lack of national governance.

Perhaps a bigger question is why doesnt the public as a whole address this? After all, this is not new. Could it be because the nation as a whole is still complacent that the US will remain number one by right, and that the country doesnt need to get its act together to meet the challenges of the future? That is a dangerous assumption. We are now dealing with a world where rising powers are hollowing out our very industrial base (let alone national wealth). At least during the Soviet days, we had a focus that united us into taking tough decisions. Perhaps the pain of a long recession, or a rising China, will knock us out of our complacency and make us force Washington to take the tough choices necessary to secure America’s long term future.

Published in:  on February 4, 2010 at 9:27 am Leave a Comment
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Budget deficits across the Western world

The Economist put this out today. I wonder what the comparable figures are for Brazil, Russia, India & China (not to mention the Gulf). This is not sustainable

Incidentally, note that Britain went from the biggest surplus to the biggest deficit in just 10 years. Shades of Iceland?

Published in:  on February 2, 2010 at 12:59 pm Leave a Comment
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US retreats from the moon as China forges ahead

The Administration’s budget today contains some interesting things when it comes to NASA. It has correctly committed the state space agency in helping commercial rockets reach low Earth orbit. In doing so, it is ensuring American predominance in many of the space industries of the future. But it is also cutting back on the big projects that inspire nations, capitavate the imaginations of its children who will be its future scientists and engineers. America, it seems, is pulling back from its plan to put another man on the moon by 2020. In doing so, it is ceding the moon to China, which has the burning ambition and excitement to get there come what may. This is not about vanity (for either nation). Its about scientific progress and the high ground in future technologies. America’s retreat is a matter of great concern

Published in:  on February 1, 2010 at 9:17 am Leave a Comment
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Coakley’s down. Is Healthcare Out?

The unbelievable, though not unpredictable, has happened. The Democrats have lost the Massachussetts Senate seat of Edward Kennedy, possibly killing his very life’s goal of healthcare.

The healthcare bills up for discussion – both of them – have major problems, most notably they dont bring down the crippling costs of health. But an advanced industrial country should be able to take care of its own.

Rushing something through the Senate is being mooted. The Republicans may have done this if they were in the majority. But that doesnt make it right. In fact, it is not right.

However, the Seante has already voted – legitamately – on a bill. The House Democrats need to take a deep breath and vote the same bill. They need to understand that any short term unpopularity will be vastly smaller than the long term electoral gain they will enjoy for doing something that has elluded politicians for generations.

You may wonder why i, a fiscal conservative, support health care reform. The answer is that we need to get health care cost down as a percent of the nation’s GDP. The current system cannot do that. The new system will not help either initially, but it starts a reform process in place that ultimately will.

Beyond that, this country cannot afford a crippled Administration for the next three years.

Voters gave George W Bush a second term to govern. President Obama deserves at least a second year.

Published in:  on January 19, 2010 at 10:33 pm Leave a Comment
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Will Massachusetts Stick it to Obama (& Kennedy)?

If this were a movie script, it would be rejected for being too unrealistic. But the unbelievable may actually be happning. Tuesday night could see the Democracts actually lose Edward Kennedy’s seat in the Senate, thereby killing his life’s dream of comprehensive healthcare, just when it was inches from the finish line. In doing so, it also promises to torpedo the Obama Presidency and a (short) period of Democrat ascendancy.

Have no doubt,  I have big issues with the healthcare bill – both the House and the Senate versions. Neither really tackle the issue of exploding costs, and as anyone who has read this post knows, long term deficits and national debt are a critical concern of mine. But I also know that an advanced industrial country should also be able to take care of its sick. There has to be a solution here.

I also worry about the country having a wounded leadership at a time when it needs to command authority to deal with the critical economic situation (let alone deal with global threats). The President has staked everything on this, and to lose now would be devastating for him and the country.

The Dems need to do more than soul searching about wasting so many lost opportunities in 2009 (or excommunicate Coakley, whose laziness and highhandedness has been breathtaking). In order to save their political credibility, and that of this Adminstration, they are going to have to figure out a way to pass healthcare without that 60th vote.

Stalling tactics just dont seem right.

If the Democrats can’t hold on to Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat on Tuesday night (and i still cant believe i am even thinking this), the House will have no other choice but to vote the exact Senate bill, line by line. The Democratic Party will need Nancy Pelosi to pull off a legislative miracle one more time. And if the Dems cant stick together on this, heaven help them in the midterms.

Published in:  on January 18, 2010 at 12:54 pm Leave a Comment
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Obama deserves credit for what didn’t happen last year

For all my concern about the ballooning deficit and the long term decline in the dollar, I have perhaps overlooked writing about one of the most important economic developments of the past year. It does not concern an event that happened, but rather an event that didn’t happen. Last November, we were gripped with fear at the prospect of total collapse of the financial system. This did not come to pass. The markets didn’t collapse. Credit didn’t freeze in the way it could of. And a depression didn’t ensue. The President’s economic team, particularly Ben Bernanke, deserve credit for this. Decisive action was needed and the Administration provided it. I still maintain that a lack of a plan to restore long term fiscal balance will burden this country in ways not imaginable at present. But the choice to stimulate the economy in the immediate term (even if I question the need for both monetary easing and a fiscal stimulus) was the right one. It was infinitely better than ideas advocated by some in the Republican Party that would have triggered a Hoover-style collapse. Unfortunately for the President and his team, history tends to overlook events that didn’t happen.

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Published in:  on October 22, 2009 at 1:42 pm Comments (1)
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Who controls the Empire State Building? And have they gone totally insane?

New York’s Empire State Building is often bathed in colors representing important US and global holidays. Red white and blue for July 4th or Memorial Day. Yellow and white for Easter. Purple for Gay Pride. And a host of colors representing the flags of countries around the world to mark their national days. So when the owners of the Empire State Building announce they are going to light up this American icon in the colors of the Chinese flag to mark China’s National Day, should we be surprised? After all, China is one of the world’s great nations.

I suggest we shouldn’t just be surprised, but furious.

It is one thing to celebrate thousands of years of Chinese culture and history. Chinese civilization is one of the great symbols of human achievement. But China’s current National Day (and in this case its 60th National Day) has nothing to do with Chinese civilization but with Chinese communism. This is the day that the Chinese Communist Party celebrates the imposition of its one party rule – and all the horrors that it has wrought, from the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution (killing millions), Tiananmen Square, suppression in Tibet and now a massive military build up to counter the US in the Pacific.

Lets me put this symbolism in some context. New York is building what will be its tallest sky scraper to replace the fallen World Trade Center. It plans on calling it the Freedom Tower – a name that I may find unimaginative but at the same time is certainly representative of the American ideal. It therefore strikes me as highly ironic and totally inappropriate that the city’s current tallest building should be celebrating the exact opposite of freedom.

Who makes these decisions? This is insane.

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Published in:  on September 30, 2009 at 9:38 pm Leave a Comment
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