Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 4
April 25, 2011
Wikileaks and Guantanamo Bay | Michael Tomasky
The big story today in both of our countries is the new Wikileaks tranche regarding treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Guardian puts emphasis on the seemingly indefensible errors like the captive 89-year-old man and 14-year-old boy. The New York Times gives more prominent mention to the 200 or so cases in which high-risk detainees were nevertheless released.
There will be insufferable amounts of political posturing over all this in the coming days. The 200 were released between 2003 and 2009, according to NPR this morning, which, if you think about these things politically, means to you instantly: ah, both administrations. So who released more high-risk people, Bush or Obama?
That's where things are headed on cable TV, especially if it turns out that something can be pinned on Obama, which will produce delirium inside the Fox offices. But given the number of years in question (and we don't know the answer yet as to how many were released when, or at least I don't), it seems likely that more high-risk people were released during the Bush years. And some liberals will pounce on that.
I say we shouldn't rush to make this political. If anything comes through in what I'm reading today, it's that making these risk assessments was an extremely hard job. The New York Times' sidebar story on this illustrates the point with several examples. Here's one:
Said Mohammed Alam Shah, a 24-year-old Afghan who had lost a leg as a teenager, told interrogators at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that he had been conscripted by the Taliban as a driver before being detained in 2001. He had been caught, he said, as he tried to "rescue his younger brother from the Taliban."
Military analysts believed him. Mr. Shah, who had been outfitted with a prosthetic leg by prison doctors, was "cooperative" and "has not expressed thoughts of violence or made threats toward the U.S. or its allies," according to a sympathetic 2003 assessment. Its conclusion: "Detainee does not pose a future threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests."
So in 2004 Mr. Shah was sent back to Afghanistan — where he promptly revealed himself to be Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistan-born militant, and began plotting mayhem. He recorded jihadist videos, organized a Taliban force to fight American troops, planned an attack on Pakistan's interior minister that killed 31 people, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, and finally detonated a suicide bomb in 2007 as the Pakistani Army closed in. His martyrdom was hailed in an audio message by none other than Osama bin Laden.
The article says that the overall recidivism rate for high-risk prisoners released was 25%, which as the article notes is lower than the general recidivism rate among prisoners in the US. Still, if you're talking about terrorism rather than armed robbery of liquor stores, 25% can seem sort of high.
I think these interrogators and analysts (assuming of course that they followed international law and conventions) deserve a measure of understanding. I can't imagine harder work than trying to balance the impulse to let genuinely innocent people go free and the need to protect against plots on the other hand. If you read that Times piece you see several situations in which evidence was murky and contradictory and hard to sort out.
Fair questions arise with respect to repatriation. Suspects from European countries and Saudi Arabia, says the Times, were far more likely to be returned than suspects from Yemen and some other countries:
Most European inmates were sent home, despite grave qualms on the analysts' part. Saudis went home, even some of the most militant, to enter the rehabilitation program; some would graduate and then join Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemenis have generally stayed put, even those cleared for release, because of the chaos in their country. Even in clearly mistaken arrests, release could be slow.
That sounds like politics, and that deserves further questioning. We should know more about this Saudi rehab facility.
An honest inquiry into these errors that tried to assess what actually happened without pinning blame would be instructive. But what we're actually likely to get in the US, if we get anything at all, is a set of hearings in the House of Representatives under Republicans that's going to ignore Bush-era problems and focus completely on Obama-era ones. How many people around Washington today are reading this story and instantly thinking about how it might impact 2012? Enough, believe me.
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WikiLeaks and Guantánamo Bay | Michael Tomasky
The big story today in both of our countries is the new WikiLeaks tranche regarding treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The Guardian puts emphasis on the seemingly indefensible errors like the captive 89-year-old man and 14-year-old boy. The New York Times gives more prominent mention to the 200 or so cases in which high-risk detainees were nevertheless released.
There will be insufferable amounts of political posturing over all this in the coming days. The 200 were released between 2003 and 2009, according to NPR this morning, which, if you think about these things politically, means to you instantly: ah, both administrations. So who released more high-risk people, Bush or Obama?
That's where things are headed on cable TV, especially if it turns out that something can be pinned on Obama, which will produce delirium inside the Fox offices. But given the number of years in question (and we don't know the answer yet as to how many were released when, or at least I don't), it seems likely that more high-risk people were released during the Bush years. And some liberals will pounce on that.
I say we shouldn't rush to make this political. If anything comes through in what I'm reading today, it's that making these risk assessments was an extremely hard job. The New York Times' sidebar story on this illustrates the point with several examples. Here's one:
Said Mohammed Alam Shah, a 24-year-old Afghan who had lost a leg as a teenager, told interrogators at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that he had been conscripted by the Taliban as a driver before being detained in 2001. He had been caught, he said, as he tried to "rescue his younger brother from the Taliban."
Military analysts believed him. Mr. Shah, who had been outfitted with a prosthetic leg by prison doctors, was "cooperative" and "has not expressed thoughts of violence or made threats toward the U.S. or its allies," according to a sympathetic 2003 assessment. Its conclusion: "Detainee does not pose a future threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests."
So in 2004 Mr Shah was sent back to Afghanistan — where he promptly revealed himself to be Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistan-born militant, and began plotting mayhem. He recorded jihadist videos, organized a Taliban force to fight American troops, planned an attack on Pakistan's interior minister that killed 31 people, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, and finally detonated a suicide bomb in 2007 as the Pakistani Army closed in. His martyrdom was hailed in an audio message by none other than Osama bin Laden.
The article says that the overall recidivism rate for high-risk prisoners released was 25%, which as the article notes is lower than the general recidivism rate among prisoners in the US. Still, if you're talking about terrorism rather than armed robbery of liquor stores, 25% can seem sort of high.
I think these interrogators and analysts (assuming, of course, that they followed international law and conventions) deserve a measure of understanding. I can't imagine harder work than trying to balance the impulse to let genuinely innocent people go free and the need to protect against plots on the other hand. If you read that Times piece you see several situations in which evidence was murky and contradictory and hard to sort out.
Fair questions arise with respect to repatriation. Suspects from European countries and Saudi Arabia, says the Times, were far more likely to be returned than suspects from Yemen and some other countries:
Most European inmates were sent home, despite grave qualms on the analysts' part. Saudis went home, even some of the most militant, to enter the rehabilitation program; some would graduate and then join Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemenis have generally stayed put, even those cleared for release, because of the chaos in their country. Even in clearly mistaken arrests, release could be slow.
That sounds like politics, and that deserves further questioning. We should know more about this Saudi rehab facility.
An honest inquiry into these errors that tried to assess what actually happened without pinning blame would be instructive. But what we're actually likely to get in the US, if we get anything at all, is a set of hearings in the House of Representatives under Republicans that's going to ignore Bush-era problems and focus completely on Obama-era ones. How many people around Washington today are reading this story and instantly thinking about how it might impact 2012? Enough, believe me.
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April 22, 2011
Senator Collins: no Ryan plan for me | Michael Tomasky
The first Republican to speak out against the Ryan plan:
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) said Friday that she will not support the 2012 budget passed by the House last week.
"I don't happen to support Congressman Ryan's plan but at least he had the courage to put forward a plan to significantly reduce the debt," Collins said on "In the Arena" a program on WCSH 6, a local NBC affiliate in Portland, Maine.
Not sure how much weight this will carry in the GOP caucus. Probably not much. Collins is also one of the few Republicans on the Hill who has not signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, so she's probably regarded in Republican circles as extremely squishy.
Still it's important. She' a senator after all. And it's big news. Three or four others might follow her: Olympia Snowe, maybe Richard Lugar, possibly Charles Grassley, someone like that. Although, Snowe and Grassley are right now pretty afraid of the rumbustious right wings in their respective states, so maybe not.
I don't think Democrats would be wise to hope many Republicans follow Collins' lead. What Democrats should want is for the Ryan plan to remain "the Republican plan" for as long as possible, like until November 2012.
In a similar vein, I've been reading a lot today about how progressive people ought to show up at GOP town halls this summer and go nutso on them about the Ryan plan the way conservatives did about Obamacare. But that would just scare Republicans off the Ryan plan too quickly, and they'd go back to the more logical posture of just attacking Obama about the economy. Far preferable from the Democrats' perspective that the GOP stays married to Ryan until the bitter end, so the less fuss the better.
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McCain in Libya | Michael Tomasky
It's mostly just a p.r. stunt, right, John McCain's trip to Libya? Permit me to anticipate what our conservative friends will say downthread: see, this is how a real president behaves, and if McCain were president...
Actually, if McCain were president, he'd be no closer to Benghazi than Barack Obama is, for the simple reason that the logistics of putting a sitting president of the United States in a war zone are utterly insane and the Secret Service would never permit it in a billion years (although McCain's vice president might be happy to see him go!).
Furthermore, if McCain were president, either we'd be a) in yet another wildly unpopular ground war, and he'd be plummeting to about 26% in the polls, or b) we'd be doing roughly about what we're doing now.
So it's partisan stunt, this trip, on one level. I have not seen his full comments, but a snippet like this:
"Now we need to increase our support so that the Libyan people can achieve the only satisfactory outcome to this mass protest for universal rights: The end of Gadhafi's rule and the beginning of a peaceful and conclusive transition to democracy that will benefit all Libyans," the Arizona Republican said.
Well, that seems to me to me to skirt the line of criticism of US foreign policy uttered while on foreign soil, which is a huge no-no when a Democrat does it. I mean, it is our policy that this engagement is explicitly not about removing Gaddafi from power. It's one thing for senators to debate this in Washington, but...well, if the shoe were on the other foot, I'm sure Fox News would be reminding us all that it's quite another for a legislator to say it abroad.
Be that as it may, I can respect that McCain does genuinely care about what's going on there, and I suppose it's also good for the Libyan people to see an American there to show support for the anti-Gaddafi cause. But I can't help but suspect that on some level he's there not merely to show US support for the uprising but to subtly undercut the president.
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The sour national mood in the US | Michael Tomasky
This New York Times poll today is really bleak news for Obama:
Americans are more pessimistic about the nation's economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama's first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll...
...Capturing what appears to be an abrupt change in attitude, the survey shows that the number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse has jumped 13 percentage points in just one month. Though there have been encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall, many economists are having second thoughts, warning that the pace of expansion might not be fast enough to create significant numbers of new jobs.
I don't believe your average American does much in the way of sifting through what the leading economists' latest projections are. They do, however, buy lots of gasoline. You cannot underestimate in this country the power of the price of gas to determine people's views on the economy and how things are going generally. I'd say the high gas prices are at least 80% of the dissatisfaction.
There's not a great deal a president can do about gas prices in the short term. Order some releases from the strategic petroleum reserve, maybe take some steps to try to rein in speculation. But it doesn't amount to much, or perhaps to anything at all.
This grim fact is exacerbated by the idea most average folks have that the president ought to be able to do something about gas prices. I mean, he's the president. I heard a woman on NPR the other morning saying, I don't see why he can't just lower the prices.
In theory, a president could. For example, during wartime, governments set prices of everything. And remember, in 1971, Richard Nixon implemented a wage and price freeze for a few weeks. But that required congressional approval. One doubts pretty seriously that Obama could get that on this topic.
Still this is another case of slow-footed political reaction by the White House. Just as with the BP spill. Even if you can't actually do anything, you have to go out in pubic and make it look to people as if you're trying to do something. We gather at this point that Obama finds this sort of activity shallow. Well, bub, some of politics is shallow. It's what you have to.
In the longer term, here's some very sharp analysis by David Roberts of Grist about why Democrats always look ineffective when the subject is the price of gas:
The problem is, whenever gas prices go up, Republicans benefit. They have a simple, powerful message ready to go, right off the shelf: drill here, drill now, pay less. Not enough drilling: that's why gas prices are high. Drilling more: that's how to lower them.
If a Republican is president, congressional Democrats and hippie enviro groups are blocking new drilling. If a Democrat is president, he and his cronies in Congress are pandering to liberals by blocking new drilling. It's the same every time, so it's all but inevitable that as gas prices rise they're trying to tag Obama the "pay more at the pump" president.
In response, Democrats ... flail. Every time. They say "we can't drill our way out," but they pretend like we can get out by punishing commodity speculators, opening the strategic reserve, or implementing "use it or lose it" gimmicks. They accept the fundamental falsehood at the root of the conservative position -- the way to lower gas prices is increase supply of U.S. oil -- and then reject the most obvious implication of that premise, i.e., we should drill more.
That last sentence is the gem here. Very well observed. Roberts then goes on to tout a fine speech by Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman on the subject, arguing that in the long term, the answer is just to be less dependent on oil. Would $4.29 a gallon matter as much if 40% of Americans drove hybrids, and if there were some breakthrough technology that greened the trucking industry? No. But we're a long way away from that. I'm hoping to get my hybrid this summer, if all goes according to plan, so I'll be doing my part anyway.
In the meantime, Obama will run into very serious trouble over this issue if prices haven't leveled off by July and August.
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Friday quiz: here comes the sun | Michael Tomasky
I look out my window as I write these words and what do I see? Green. The leaves have returned to the trees. Down front, by the street, the hostas aren't up just yet, but certain other things whose names I don't know have begun their annual push out of the dark cold ground and up toward our side of the known world.
Yep, it's spring, I've been noticing. And I thought yesterday as I was pondering quiz topics for today, well, yes, spring – celebrated by poets and songwriters and you-name-its since time immemorial. So we will consider some of these metaphorical uses of the season, and a few more practical facts about it, but all in keeping with our animating idea of things an intellectually well-rounded person ought to know a little something about.
Personally, autumn is the season I like best, but I have to say that it's rather nice to hear the birds and see the flowers. Washington is, I have gathered, just about a perfect temperate zone for azaleas, and so everyone grows them, and in mid-to-late May you can drive around the suburbs of Washington and feast your eyes upon a canvas of blazing sharp reds and pinks and magentas and even I, not necessarily a horticultural enthusiast, am kind of blown away. So the season has its merits. Here we go.
1. Spring of course is associated with love. According to Roman mythology, Cupid, the god of desire, angered his mother (Venus) by falling in love with a mortal, Psyche. The marriage hit a bit of a snag because as a mortal, Psyche:
a. could not make love to Cupid
b. could not join him in the pantheon of gods for celebrations and festivals
c. was forbidden to look at him
2. Who wrote these lines:
WHEN that April is, with his showers swoot,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root,
And bathed every vein in such licour,
Of which virtue engender'd is the flower;
When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath
Inspired hath in every holt and heath grove, forest
The tender croppes and the younge sun twigs, boughs
Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run,
And smalle fowles make melody,
That sleepen all the night with open eye,
(So pricketh them nature in their corages); hearts, inclinations
Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages,...
a. Petrarch
b. Geoffrey Chaucer
c. Unknown
3. The following little poem called "Spring" is sung at the end of what Shakespeare play, after the four couples who have fallen in love part ways?:
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
a. Love's Labour's Lost
b. Cymbeline
c. Measure for Measure
4. The last of these four lines has become one of the most oft-quote lines in poetry. Who wrote this:
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
a. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
b. William Wordsworth
c. John Greenleaf Whittier
5. The phrase "spring fever" comes from what fictional character, who said: "It's spring fever, and when you've got it, you want – oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"
a. The Artful Dodger
b. Dorothea Brooke
c. Huck Finn
6. One more piece of poetry. Who wrote:
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
a. Franz Kafka
b. Rainer Maria Rilke
c. Emily Dickinson
7. In probably the most famous line of the Rogers and Hammerstein song "It Might as Well Be Spring," the singer sings:
"But I feel so gay
In a ________ way
That it might as well be spring."
a. Goofy kind of
b. Melancholy
c. Wishy-washy
8. The song that opens "Spring is here/The-e-e skies are blue" culminates in the vocalist doing what:
a. Goin' to the chapel
b. Plantin' all my daisies
c. Climbin' up the mountain of love
9. What sturdy plant with small yellow flowers, often planted along roadways, generally is the first bloomer of spring?
a. Amaryllis
b. Hydrangea
c. Forsythia
10. In April 1968, he launched an "action program" of reforms that included freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of movement:
a. Ho Chi Minh
b. Salvador Allende
c. Alexander Dubcek
11. This delicacy is available only briefly in the northern United States and Canada every spring; the name comes from the distinctive shape.
a. Fiddlehead ferns
b. Large-mouth ramps
c. Gooseneck onions
12. Today is Earth Day, intended to raise awareness of and appreciation for the environment. The first Earth Day took place in 1970, and it was the brainchild of:
a. Germaine Greer
b. US Senator Gaylord Nelson
c. Charles and Maurice Saatchi
Easy, right? Let's look.
Answers:
1-c; 2-b; 3-a; 4-a; 5-c; 6-b; 7-b; 8-a; 9-c; 10-c; 11-a; 12-b.
Notes:
1. I constructed the fakes so that, of the choices, c has the most mythological feel to it.
2. This week's gimme. The lines open The Canterbury Tales.
3. You had to know the plot of the play, which I admit I probably would not have.
4. Would not have known this. Learned something useful.
5. That usage of "fairly" was the tip-off.
6. And that is why I love Rilke! And that also is what modernism gave us, the urge to brood over the pastoral; to ask why and to doubt. I love it.
7. Easy to me, and I think a very well-known lyric, but if you didn't know it, "melancholy" might seem the least likely answer. It's also the most emotionally complex of the three choices, so that'll teach you to dismiss that music as saccharine.
8. "Chapel of Love," the Dixie Cups, 1964.
9. I learned this during our brief tenure as country land-owners.
10. Allende might have tripped some of you up, I was thinking, even though he wasn't in power yet. But it's in here because it was the Prague Spring, of course.
11. I hesitated here because I wasn't sure you had these in England and I wanted to be fair. I poked around online and saw that both Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson have recipes with them, so I figured it's fair. I hope maybe you don't call them something else and this isn't one of those arugula/rocket situations. Toss the question if so. By the way they look like this. Soooo delicious. Just saute in butter with salt and pepper, and garlic never hurts anything of course.
12. Who'da thunk it? A senator?? Yes. We had a better class of senators in those days, believe me. I thought putting in the admen was clever and might have thrown some of you off.
Tell us how you did, and tell us: your most treasured spring memories; anything special you're doing this spring, right now; spring poetry and song and literature and whatever that awakens something in you. I look forward to reading about it.
United StatesMichael Tomaskyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
April 21, 2011
How to succeed in business without really succeeding | Michael Tomasky
When last we checked in with former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, he was assuring America and the world that he always put safety first, after the deaths of those 29 men in that southern West Virginia mine.
Since then he's been doing a lot of bellyaching about the federal investigation into same, and then he retired. Via HuffPo, I see that a site called footnoted.com has dug into some Massey records and found:
As a result of the tragedy at UBB, [federal mine-safety regulators] significantly increased regulatory enforcement in our mines. The increased regulatory enforcement had a significant negative impact our productivity and operating results for 2010. Although revenues increased 13% compared to 2009, due to the UBB tragedy and the significantly increased regulatory environment in which we operate, we had a net loss of $166.6 million for 2010...
...$14.4 million in all, including severance, 2010 bonus payments (yes, he got one), a secretary and office space for up to five years in retirement, two years of health-care benefits, a two-year consulting contract, a free house, reimbursement for $257,111 in taxes on the free house, and even an option on the land next to the free house. Plus, as far as we can tell, he still stands to collect a pension valued at $7 million, and a deferred-compensation account balance of $32.1 million.
A $14.4 million severance package after losing $167 million dollars. That's budgeting that would make Paul Ryan proud.
The one thing that stuck out to me though...only two years of health benefits? Isn't that actually a little parsimonious? Hey don't sweat it Don: in four years you'll be eligible for Medicare, then you can let the taxpayers pay for your heart transplant (I mean, putting one in).
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Government raises taxes on rich - in China | Michael Tomasky
The nation's leaders perceived a growing income gap and cut taxes on the working class and raised them on the rich. This happened, just not in the US. From the Wall Street Journal (sorry, it's firewalled):
BEIJING—China plans to cut taxes for people with lower incomes and raise them somewhat for the rich under new legislation expected to pass shortly, one effort to address a widening income gap thought to threaten the country's social stability.
Proposed revisions to the tax code reviewed by the legislature on Wednesday would raise the lowest level of monthly income that is subject to taxation to 3,000 yuan ($460) from the current 2,000 yuan ($305). The minimum wage of a Chinese worker in Beijing is 1,160 yuan ($178) a month.
The new tax law would reduce the number of marginal tax brackets to seven from nine, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation said in a joint statement on their websites.
The maximum threshold for the bottom two brackets would be raised, so that workers earning up to 4,500 yuan ($690) a month would pay a marginal tax rate of 10%. According to the statement, 94% of Chinese taxpayers fall within that threshold.
Two brackets, with rates of 15% and 40%, would be eliminated, meaning more taxpayers would qualify for the top marginal rate, which will remain at 45%.
Growing income inequalities undermine the Chinese Communist Party's overriding goal of political stability. That fear underpins calls for a "harmonious society" that have defined the leadership philosophy of Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
Go ahead, laugh. It is "red" China after all. But these days of course China is "red" only as pertains to human rights and freedoms and party competition; when it comes to the bottom line, it's as capitalist as the US. And even still they are concerned about inequality. I'll grant you that their inequality is rather worse than ours--wait! Is it?
Here's a list of Gini coefficients for the world's countries, and here's a map. The US and China are in the same ball park. The China Gini number is 41 and the US number 45. Lower is better (Finland is 26), so there is actually less inequality in China than in the US. And these numbers are from the socialistic bleeding-heart publication known as the CIA World Fact Book.
Heaven help us.
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The only responsible budget in town | Michael Tomasky
Matt Miller had another fine column in the Washington Post yesterday, of which several paragraphs are worthy of our attention:
Remember that great scene in the 1980 film classic, "The Shining," when the wife comes upon the typewriter of the Jack Nicholson character, who's supposed to have been working night and day for months on his novel? To her horror, she finds thousands of pages on which Jack has typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," formatted in countless, crazy ways. Suddenly his suspected madness becomes all too frighteningly real.
Well, debt limit mania has driven me to a similar frenzied state. If my wife came across my manuscript it would read, "The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit."...
...It's amazing how some memes, once established as conventional wisdom, are almost impossible to dislodge, however at odds they are with the facts. Griping about this to a Prominent Media Figure the other day, I suggested that maybe if I set myself on fire in Times Square while spouting the truth about Republican debt, the truth would break through.
"Maybe," he said. "But then you'd be seen as the radical."
The classic definition of chutzpah was a kid who kills his parents and then asks for the mercy of the court because he's an orphan. The new definition of chutzpah is Republicans who vote for the Ryan plan that adds trillions in debt and who then say the debt limit goes up only over their dead bodies!
That's $600 billion of debt every year. It would increase the current debt limit, about which Republicans are howling, by about half again the current amount. And why? So the highest tax rate on the rich can be lowered from 35% to 25%.
So here these people stand caterwauling about the debt ceiling while voting en masse last Friday for a budget (Ryan's) that would take the national debt to galaxies heretofore unseen.
I do not understand how people like Ryan and Eric Cantor can get out of bed in the morning and say the things they say.
I do not understand how Democrats can not be saying this all the time every day.
And I do not understand how the Washington media can set terms of debate by which a plan as radical as Ryan's is called courageous.
Actually I understand all these things, for they're very easy to grasp, alas. The top 2% have such a complete grip on Washington - not by conspiratorial design, but simply by the network of lobbyists and PACs that has risen up over the last couple of decades to defend their interests - that whatever serves them is now considered logical and right, and anything that challenges their hegemony is considered radical.
This brings us to the budget plan that, as Miller notes, is actually the most fiscally responsible in town: the proposal of the House Progressive Caucus, which I've been meaning to write about for some time. Now, already, just from your having read the name, I know what's going on out there. Conservatives are loading their guns. Lefthalfback is shifting nervously in his chair. Others are, I hope, curious.
The Prog caucus budget would balance the books by 2021 (Ryan, by 2040, Obama by something in between). It would reduce deficits by $5.7 trillion by then. It would take publicly held debt as a percentage of GDP down to under 65% by then (it is now about 73% and expected to go higher).
How would it do this? Largely through cuts to the military and tax increases. I don't like some of the tax increases, especially the Social Security payroll tax ideas, which you can see on page 3 of the above link if you're curious. But other tax increases are good, like the Jan Schakowsky rates I've written about previously.
Personally, I find this plan somewhat out of balance too. I think they would have gained more mainstream cred if they'd included some cuts to domestic programs and made one gesture that everyone knew was a sacrifice for them, like raising the retirement age.
But this plan at least seeks to balance the budget. And I can respect that maybe mainstream cred isn't their goal. If we have a mainstream that thinks Paul Ryan is serious, who needs it? They want to demonstrate an alternative. Good for them.
Remember: The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit. The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit...
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April 20, 2011
A good Republican idea | Michael Tomasky
When I find a good Republican idea, I am the first to say I agree. Well, it took near on three years, but I am with Ohio Governor John Kasich on pushing his state's colleges and universities to grant degrees in three years rather than four.
First of all, it can save students money and get them into the workforce faster. Second, I've long taken the view that the academic balance between research and teaching is out of whack and professors should do more teaching. That's probably rather Republican of me, but so be it. I am against assaults on tenure. Tenure is vital. But teachers should teach more.
Liberal Georgetown law prof Jonathan Turley doesn't like the idea:
What is missing from such analysis is the process of learning and maturation that occurs in a four-year program. College is not primarily about getting a degree to get better jobs — at least not for educators. It is about producing well-educated individuals with an appreciation for a wide array of knowledge. It should be a time of intellectual awakening for students who are exposed to great ideas and great writers. This exploration can lead students into new fields or simply open up a lifetime interest in learning. "Stripping down" education suggests that some knowledge or course are merely frivolous distractions as opposed to the core classes needed to be functional in society. You can strip down a lawnmower and it will still produce a sharp cut. When you strip down education, you just get a dull graduate.
Well, I think that sounds really good in theory, but the vast majority of students leave even so prestigious a school as the Ohio State University knowing less about the Constitution than Donald Trump does. We have more dull graduates primed to join the booboisie now than H.L. Mencken could shake a stick at. And I think if a young person is interested in awakening intellectually, she or he can manage it in three years rather than four.
So I'm with you, Kasich, on this one matter and this one matter alone, even as I hasten to point out that this idea of shortening college is not Republican at all but grows (as far as I know) out of the Bologna Process, which means that it is not only European but probably in some way socialist.
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