REALITY CHECK: Simplifying the Budget Impasse

The debate over whether raising taxes or cutting spending is the way to avoid default has moved into high gear as the President issued a "Grand Compromise" to the Republican Congress that includes significant tax increases, as well as long-term spending cuts. So far, the GOP is having none of it. But I think we can simply the political calculation going on in the halls of Washington:

• IF the US Government goes into default, we will vote everyone out.
• IF the only spending cuts are to take place 2, 3, or 4 years out, we will vote out every Republican
• IF there are tax increases, we will grumble but live with it. Your job is probably safe.
• IF there are ONLY tax increases and no substantive spending cuts, we will vote out every Republican.
• IF Medicare, Social Security, and Military Spending remains off the table, nothing will be resolved and we will vote everyone out.

Hopefully, the President and Congress are keeping these important realities in mind as they play hardball in their negotiations.

We call this kind of thing "Checks & Balances"!

I am sure many will decry today's vote by the House of Representatives to deny the president authority to continue the war in Libya as a political stunt. However, it is an excellent example to our children of the many Checks and Balances that the founders put into the Constitution to ensure each branch had the ability to limit the power of the others. This is exactly how our government is supposed to work:

- Congress declares War
- Congress funds War
- The President wages War
- The President negotiates a Peace
- Congress ratifies the Peace

It is not this action which is an aberration, but rather the last few military operations where Congress minimized it's involvement. Except in times of national emergency - and even then - we need to maintain a balance of power in our government to ensure our freedoms are protected.

FYI: The President is NOT your Friend. And He Shouldn't Be!

It is funny how the flow of politics works. Two years ago, the Democratic Party was literally in lockstep, riding the Tidal Wave of the 2008 elections. Republicans were in disarray, and everything seemed to be coming up Donkey. 2010 is the complete opposite, as Republicans are riding the Tidal Wave and Democrats are in disarray. This has lead some prominent Democrats to criticize or even curse out the president, as he tries to find a modus vivendi with the new Conservative majority.

Here's the reality, legislators of both parties, THE PRESIDENT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. No president is. The whole system is set up to put the branches of government at odds, in order to preserve the rights of the People. So, the Executive SHOULD be looking out for his own ability to govern, and NOT worrying about your ability to get stuff done without him. You've seen what perfect party unity has gotten you - extremely unpopular bills passed despite CLEAR signs that the American people were against you - so maybe it is time for a little disunity to allow sanity to return.

Here's hoping a return to divided government means a return to humble government. And a government where checks and balances are seen for what they are - our most valuable hedge against tyranny (whether of the sinister or the well-meaning).

The TSA's "Grope-Gate" is strengthening the Tea Party

There are times when President Obama looks like a true genius - parsing and analyzing the national mood with piercing insight. And there are times when he truly seems to be tone-deaf to the American people.

"Grope-gate", the policy of enhanced scanning and invasive pat-downs by the TSA at airports, has triggered a chorus of outrage. It started small, with a few malcontents looking to stir the pot on civil liberties issues, but it has steadily grown as anecdotes about hands down pants, medical equipment pulled out and destroyed, and people being threatened with jail or massive fines for attempting to opt out have filled the news. In light of this outrage, a savvy politician had two choices: (1) decry the bad policy and call for change, or (2) release the intelligence that showed why such intrusions were necessary.

Instead, President Obama has supported the invasive procedures without giving any concrete evidence of their necessity (or effectiveness).

The result is likely to be a Republican Congress even more bold and unbending than would have been seen otherwise. The Tea Party rose with a very simple (some would say simplistic) narrative: "Government has gotten too big and wants to intrude into every aspect of your life." Instead of defusing this idea, the TSA policies give a concrete picture to what "government intrusion" looks like - it is agents taking naked pictures of you and making fun of them, or literally feeling you up and punishing you if you say "No." This, more than anything else, is likely to become to defining image of President Obama's America for 2011. And unlike the economy, it is nothing he can blame on anyone else. It was a policy that was ordered under his watch, for conditions that developed under his watch, and a policy which he has publicly endorsed.

Your move, Republicans. Almost anything you can do or say from here will look like the calm and reasonably approach in contrast.

I'll do anything... except the one thing you want me to do

President Obama had admitted that the results of this week's elections were bad for him - a "shellacking" is the term he used. Clearly, the nation wants a change in course from the last 2 years, and has handed the reins of the House to the Republicans. But with a divided Congress, compromise and negotiation will be critical. So, what is the president's idea to start negotiations?

To take the one thing Republicans are sure to want off of the table completely.

"At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans," the president said. "We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children."

Obama noted the importance of extending the tax cuts in the lame-duck session, but focused the address on digging in against the full extension sought by Republicans and some Democrats.

Well, clearly the president is eager to take back the "Party of No" label he had previously stuck onto the GOP. Unfortunately for him, I get the sense that many Democratic congresspeople are more ready to compromise in order to win back the electorate.

Another Obama Administration Gaffe

Am I the only one shocked that the Obama Administration is still making spectacular diplomatic gaffes? This time they flew the Phillipine flag upside down behind their president. This signifies that the nation is at war. Not a small thing.

What if?

One of the differentiating marks of a Moderate over either a Liberal or a Conservative, these days, is the ability to see and the honesty to acknowledge the strengths of both sides. So in that vein, let me ask a question.

Barack Obama ran on a platform of "hope and change," where his core promise was to "change Washington". He noted that the political culture was broken, and pledged to fix it. The last year and a half seems like a bust on that score. Partisanship is worse than ever. Now that it looks like the Democrats may lose the House, Republicans are already talking about returning to the old practice of White House probes and hinting at special prosecutors. This is the new rhythm that has existed since Reagan, where the wrongs of the last majority are used to justify those same wrongs by the new majority over and over.

What if Barack Obama's real legacy of "change" is turning the other cheek? What if he manages to break the cycle by making such tit-for-tat politics unsavory, by letting his enemies destroy themselves as they overplay their hands? In theory, it could work and could lead to a new era free of the hardball politics that have characterized the USA since at least the Clinton era.

Honestly, I remain skeptical. The President has shown himself to be, if anything, an old-school Chicago politician. But if this were his only legacy, it might be one of great service to the American system.

"Pre-existing Condition" Plans began July 1

"ObamaCare" has begun as the requirement for states to offer alternative plans to anyone denied health insurance for a "pre-existing condition" went into effect. If you need health insurance and are in this boat, check out the healthcare.gov website to see what your state offers. For example, my home state is offering a plan to anyone uninsured more than 6 months and unable to get coverage.

Seriously

President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Price for... what exactly?

I am happy that the President has won a Nobel Prize. It is a major honor for any American to win, and I hope that people see it that way. At the same time, I admit to being confused. He has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize yet has accomplished no major diplomatic achievement that I can see. There is no Mideast Peace Agreement, we are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no sense that he has decreased global terrorism - or that it has simply decreased during his tenure, and it does not appear that the "Great Recession" has been alleviated which one could argue would decrease international tensions. The only explanation in the articles I am reading is really a vague allusion.

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.

This seems awfully nebulous to me. Aren't Nobel Prizes supposed to recognize great achievements done by great men? President Obama may be judged as a "great man" someday, but it seems too early in his tenure to be sure now. It seems more like either (1) they had no other contenders, or (2) the Committee has decided the prize is simply a political tool to further their own agenda without regard to its intended use.

Obama: Make the School Year Longer

If President Obama had any hope of recovering his approval rating among teens, he probably just lost it when he announced support for making children go to school longer each day and each year. The reasoning given is that schoolchildren in other developed nations have longer school years, and are learning more than Americans.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

This is not a new idea. When I was in high school, they were talking about year-round schooling and experimenting with alternative school schedules. Very few showed any concrete results. Then again, it does seem strange that we're still observing school schedules based on the corn harvest in parts of the country where you can't find a corn stalk.

Makes you wonder if there is a presidential manikin kept around for photo ops

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Communities who need it most, getting least Stimulus money

I guess we file this under "paving the road with good intentions". Anyone else wondering if rushing that bill through Congress may have caused a few "bugs" to slip though unnoticed?

Altogether, the government is set to spend 50 percent more per person in areas with the lowest unemployment than it will in communities with the highest.
The AP reviewed $18.9 billion in projects, the most complete picture available of where states plan to spend the first wave of highway money. The projects account for about half of the $38 billion set aside for states and local governments to spend on roads, bridges and infrastructure in the stimulus plan.
The very promise that Obama made, to spend money quickly and create jobs, is locking out many struggling communities needing those jobs.
The money goes to projects ready to start. But many struggling communities don't have projects waiting on a shelf. They couldn't afford the millions of dollars for preparation and plans that often is required.

Obama skips National Day of Prayer

I had been struggling with this story, as I am not sure what to say about it. On the one hand, I am saddened to see the National Day of Prayer effectively abandoned by our president. On the other hand, presidents before George W. Bush gave it far less attention, too, and President Obama has never worn his religion on his sleeve.

I guess this post is as much a place for discussion as anything else. What do Mod-Bloggers think? Is this a travesty? Is it restoring the symbolic day to its previous station? Or is it a proper separation of church and state. I look forward to reading your comments.

Calling a spade, a spade

This blog had been largely supportive of President George W. Bush during his years in office. While not all of us supported either the Iraq War or the policies around it, I generally have the president the benefit of the doubt in dealing with a difficult world after 9/11. Most of the pundit class felt free to begin tearing him down as soon as 9/12 was past, and I saw that as disingenuous and naive.

But now, it is time to speak plainly. I condemn the torture policies enacted by President Bush in the wake of 9/11, as shown by recent declassified memos. We knew "something" was going on in Gitmo, but assumed that it was not nearly as bad as what the Left speculated. Instead, it is pretty much exactly as bad as GWB's critics claimed. Regular, intensive, sadistic weatherboarding. Use of subject phobias in methods eerily similar to scenes from 1984. Methods that simply can not be rationalized away as NOT torture. Even in the panicky days after 9/11. And these methods appear to have continued up to a few months before the end of the administration. We have stained the American spirit with these actions in a way comparable to the Japanese internment camps of World War 2. The ends can never justify the means. By meeting evil with evil, you merely increase the darkness and terror in our land.

Being MOD-blog, we try to see both sides. And we have spoken for both sides on this issue. But now it is time to speak plainly, now that all the facts are known. This was a mistake, and a sin of our nation. I challenge anyone who has read the memos to tell me differently. And "You had to be there" is not a sufficient defense.

The Anti-Bush: Trying to do it all

There was one characteristic of President George W. Bush that his opponents never figured a way to effectively combat - his ability to focus all of his attention and power on one issue at a time. While his Democratic opponents were all trying to pull him into battles on health care, defense, immigration, stem cells, abortion, etc., he would pick just one issue and make it his administration's top priority. Every major speech, every major TV appearance, every major article produced would focus on that one issue, until either the president has his way or it became clear that the American people wee not behind him.

President Obama seems obsessed with the idea of being the Anti-Bush, not only undoing moves that the public was never comfortable with (i.e. Gitmo) but also taking opposite stances on nearly everything. One of those moves is trying to attack every issue and every constituency at the same time. Now, in the midst of an economic crisis, not only is trying to tackle military transformation, health care reform, and tax reform, but now also Immigration Reform (which incidentally is one of the few issues that President George W Bush focussed on but had to abandon without having his way).

Perhaps this is a "divide and conquer" strategy to force the opposition to thin themselves out by opposing every Obama priority. But it looks like a desperate man trying to make hay because he knows his time is short. And desperation is never attractive in a leader.

Obama breaks pledge by taxing tobacco?

I am not fan of smoking, but I have always wondered about sin taxes like the tobacco taxes. If you are taxing something, hoping it will make folks stop buying it, shouldn't you plan for that revenue stream to go away? Anyway, it seems a number of people are furious about the president's plan to increase taxes on cigarettes because it breaks a campaign promise that was prominent.

The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

I don't see this as being a major point that can be scored by Conservatives against Obama, but I do see it as potentially undermining him among his Liberal supporters.