Jonathan Chait's Blog, page 122

The Health Care Judicial Ping-Pong Continues

A Florida judge has ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, and has taken the further step of voiding the entire law (because Congress neglected to include a standard severability waiver.) I think the legal merits of this position are utterly absurd (see Jonathan Cohn's definitive piece on this question.) That aside, the pattern once again has held that every Republican-appointed judge has ruled against the law's constitutionality and every Democratic-appointed-judge has ruled for it. Now, the ultimate arbiter is the Supreme Court, where Republican appointees hold a 5-4 majority, though one of those 5 (Anthony Kennedy) is not a completely down-the-line Republican.

Given this divide, wouldn't it make sense to... let elected officials decide? That's the logic of judicial restraint, anyway, and it's logic conservatives used to employ about a host of topics. But that was before they gained the ability to win huge victories in the courts that they couldn't win at the ballot box.

007's Music Man

[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner]

John Barry has died at age 77. Barry's name is not generally recognized, but he composed the scores for a variety of Hollywood films, including Out of Africa, The Lion in Winter, and, memorably, Dances With Wolves. But he is best known for his work on a number of James Bond movies, from Dr. No to The Living Daylights. There remains a tremendous amount of controversy regarding whether Barry or Monty Norman wrote the original and wonderful James Bond theme; no matter, Barry left his mark on the series.  My favorite work of his is the opening to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which I think rivals the main Bond tune in greatness. R.I.P.

Sharron Angle Moves On

Defeated nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, having failed to knock off wildly unpopular incumbent Harry Reid on account of insanity, is now (per Political Wire) doing things like appearing at a makeup convention to share tips:

Sharron will be sharing her beauty and makeup challenges during the campaign and how she overcame them!

She had confidence that she would look great with 14 -16 hour days & with numerous appearances daily...so can you!

At least she didn't respond to her loss by resorting to Second Amendment remedies.

The Democrats' Strategy Unfolds

Democrats are attacking House Republicans for slashing funds for research, education and science:

In the first major media salvo of its effort to reclaim the House in 2012, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching an advertising campaign against 19 targeted Republican incumbents.

The radio ads, web ads, phone calls and e-mails are aimed squarely at Republicans in mostly Democratic-leaning districts. The message is that these members want to cut spending at a time when it could lead to further job losses.

"But Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle supports a plan in Congress that would cut education by 40 percent," says one radio ad. "And her plan would cut science and technology research by 40 percent, too. Research and development is how we get the new products that create new jobs."

In 1995-1996, President Clinton won the budget showdown by emphasizing what the White House called "M2E2" -- Medicare, Medicaid, education and the environment, all of which came under GOP budget cuts. Obama's message is similar but focused on programs that can be sold (fairly persuasively, in my view) as vital to the economic recovery. The State of the Union address was not really a Kennedy-esque vision for the future but a platform to lay the groundwork for the budget fight. I'm sure Obama understands perfectly well that he won't get Republicans to agree on new investments in science, education and infrastructure, but when they slash those programs, he'll have a message in place to attack them.

Adventures In Freedom Of Speech

Liberals protesters appeared outside the annual Koch brothers right-wing retreat. Bradley Smith believes this violates their fundamental right to be spared from criticism:

The protest was “an open assault on rights of association,” said Bradley A. Smith, a professor at Capital University Law School, whose writings on easing campaign finance restrictions have been influential among conservatives.

The Koch retreat “will harm no one,” Professor Smith said. “They are not going to do any more than talk and listen to speakers. That this alarms these protesters is an ironic commentary on their lack of faith in the American electorate and the power of their own ideas.”

Obviously this argument is ridiculous. To protest a group is not to threaten that group's right to associate. It is to express opposition to the group's ideas.

The really scary thing is that Bradley Smith is a former member of the federal Election Commission and the leading Republican voice on campaign finance law. Smith seems to uphold the view that not only do corporations have a right to spend unlimited funds to influence the political system, with no disclosure to the public and no public funding for opponents, but a further right not to have anybody gather to protest their activities. Free speech!

Shocker: Evan Bayh To K Street

[image error]Evan Bayh announced last year that he would not be seeking reelection, and gave a pious speech deploring partisanship.  "If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months," he announced. And now, just a few weeks into his post-public service life, he has already created a job -- for himself:

Former Sen. Evan Bayh is joining McGuireWoods LLP as a partner in Washington, the law firm will announce on Monday.

The just-retired Democratic lawmaker and former governor will serve as a strategic adviser on policy matters to clients of the firm as well as its consulting subsidiary. Mr. Bayh, a centrist Democrat who was a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee as well as the Banking Committee during his two terms in the Senate, likely will be spending a lot of time on banking policy as well as energy and climate-change policy.

I'm sure his new job will offer plenty of opportunities for bipartisanship.

George Will Still Hates Electric Cars A Lot

George Will again decries electric car subsidies:

The government already offers $7,500 tax incentives for people who buy electric cars such as the $32,780 Nissan Leaf and, more to the point, General Motors' $41,000 Chevrolet Volt. As The Post's Peter Whoriskey reported, these prices are "well above" those of "comparably sized cars with gasoline engines that can cost about $20,000."

Obama's goal of getting 1 million such cars on America's roads by 2015 cannot be met unless innovative government rigs the market. Introduced in 2008, the $7,500 bribe was limited to the first 250,000 cars. Under Obama's stimulus, it was expanded to 200,000 per manufacturer. The Levins, uttering liberalism's timeless rallying cry ("More!") want it to cover 500,000 per manufacturer.

The Levins' applied liberalism is regressive because it conscripts all taxpayers into subsidizing a fortunate few: As Whoriskey reported, the subsidy would flow to "early adopters" of a new kind of car, and they "generally tend to be affluent." But this is "all about economic and national security," says Robbie Diamond, president of the Electrification Coalition.

There is, on the surface, a basic economic logic here. In general, the government should not rig the market to subsidize product A over product B. However, if product B creates the  negative externality of emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then you have a compelling reason to rig that market, one that any economist would grasp.

To be sure, there are numerous possible ways to account for the carbon emission: a tax, a cap and trade scheme, and so on. Given that the first two options are politically off the table, one option now is to directly subsidize electric cars. This does create some windfall beneficiaries, but at the same time it advances the compelling purpose of jump-starting an electric car market, hopefully leading to a large enough infrastructure to allow electric cars to compete on an even basis with gasoline cars.

Now, Will might want to argue that this method of reducing carbon emissions won't work at an acceptable cost. The problem is that Will thinks climate science is a giant hoax. And obviously if you think carbon emissions are harmless, then you won't support any program to mitigate them, because even a dollar spent to reduce climate change is a dollar wasted. So, when Will is instructing his readers to oppose this or that carbon-reduction program, perhaps he should note his scientific premises.

Who Wants To Be Paul Ryan's Press Secretary?

News stories about Paul Ryan have increasingly come to resemble an open competition for the job of Paul Ryan's press secretary. The latest audition, from ABC News, actually compares him to Kevin Kline's character in "Dave," an earnest wonk combing through the federal budget for examples of waste. I am not joking:

Hilariously, the result of Ryan's Dave-like search through the budget -- and the only example of a putative budget savings mentioned anywhere in the piece -- is his claim to have discovered a savings in the student loan program. In fact, this example is exactly the opposite of what Ryan (and the story) proclaim.

The old federal student loan program guaranteed loans made from private banks to students. This gave the banks incentive to shovel money out the door, knowing Uncle Sam would back them up in case of failure, which of course happened constantly. President Clinton cut, and then President Obama eliminated,the subsidy to the banks, saving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Here is the Congressional Budget Office's description:

“Despite the many similarities between the FDLP [Federal Direct Loan Program] and the FFEL [Federal Family Education Loan, aka guaranteed lending] program, the latter is significantly more costly for the federal budget. For example, CBO recently estimated that the President’s proposal to eliminate the FFEL program and replace it with additional direct lending would save the government a total of $62 billion between 2010 and 2020. Although the federal cost per dollar of student loans originated varies from year to year and among different types of loans, a loan made in the FFEL program consistently shows a much higher budgetary cost than if it had been made in the direct loan program…

The higher costs in the guaranteed loan program (on both a FCRA and a fair-value basis) result mainly from the way in which the government compensates FFEL lenders. Payments to those lenders are fixed in legislation rather than set through a mechanism—such as a competitive bidding process—that ties reimbursement to actual costs incurred. In general, those statutory payments appear to exceed lenders’ basic administrative costs and their funding costs under normal market conditions (although during the financial crisis, the payments proved too low to cover the surge in lenders’ borrowing costs). Because FFEL lenders must compete to attract borrowers, any difference between the statutory payments they receive and their basic costs is mostly absorbed by increasing marketing efforts, enhancing the administrative services they provide, or offering other benefits to schools and students. Thus, competition between lenders benefits schools and borrowers rather than lowering costs to the government. In addition, FFEL lenders fund their loans in the capital markets, which introduces additional costs and risks to the program that do not arise when loans are funded through the Treasury.”

Ryan is a fervent ally of the college lending industry. In 2007, he was one of only 71 Republicans to vote against the College Student Relief Act, which would have cut the interest rate on many student loans, including the FFEL program, in half. Inside Higher Ed notedthat the bill would cut “deeply and directly into lenders' profits.” The bill passed the House 356-71, but stalled in the Senate.

So, that's the one idea this fresh-faced reformer comes up with the balance the budget: shovel billions of dollars in extra subsidies to an inefficient and wildly corrupt industry whose water he has faithfully carried. And this isn't an exception --Ryan's record is one of wild fiscal profligacy. I realize he's cute and energetic and exudes an aw-shucks Midwestern earnestness, but the reality bears absolutely no relation to the image.

Life In Ohio, A Continuing Series

Ohio man assaulted with ham sandwich:

The 47-year-old man told Lorain County sheriff’s deputies his live-in-girlfriend hit him with a ham sandwich inside their home in the 2600 block of Royalton Road around 7:10 p.m.





Police scanner traffic indicated the man was unable to provide deputies with a full description of the sandwich, such as whether it was toasted or untoasted.





The man, who, according to a sheriff’s report, was highly intoxicated and had no signs of injuries. The man’s 54-year-old girlfriend told deputies she was going to end the relationship because of the man’s drinking problem. She also told deputies her boyfriend “smacked her in the back of the head,” the report states.





The woman told police she was not hurt and did not wish to press charges, according to the report. The man told deputies he did not hit his girlfriend physically, but rather mentally, according to the report.





The woman called a family member to pick her up.

Deputies located a slice of bread on the floor, but suspect the family dog ate the ham, according to the report. 

Republicans (Secretly) Hate Michelle Bachmann

I think this is encouraging:

When Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was named to the House Intelligence Committee earlier this year, one of her Republican colleagues responded this way: “Is that a punchline?” Another simply said, “Jumbo shrimp. Oxymoron.”

Neither dared to attach his name to his comment.

Obviously, it's kind of scary that a nut like Bachmann has attained a stature such that colleagues don't dare attack her openly. But the fact that Republicans are perfectly clear about what they're dealing with suggests that glimmers of sanity continue to exist in the party, at least in private.

Unfortunately, the message most Republicans get on the record is more in line with George Will's encomium to Bachmann:

For example, appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball" 18 days before last year's election, she made the mistake of taking Chris Matthews's bait and speculating about whether Barack Obama and some other Democrats have "anti-American" views. In the ensuing uproar -- fueled by people who were not comparably scandalized when George W. Bush was sulfurously vilified -- her opponent raised nearly $2 million and her lead shrank from 13 points to her winning margin of three.

Some of her supposed excesses are, however, not merely defensible, they are admirable. ...