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Are Republicans Ready for Prime-Time?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

“High risk” seems to be the consensus term for President Obama’s decision to push for ratification of the new START Treaty during this year’s lame-duck session.   That’s understandable; hardly any Republicans senators are on board, and Republican senators-elect are complaining that no treaty votes should be taken until they have been sworn in (of course, they are complaining about the very existence of a lame-duck session, so that’s not a terribly distinctive argument).  The administration needs 67 votes for ratification, and once Mark Kirk obtains his early swearing-in just after Thanksgiving, there will only be 58 Democratic senators.

But fewer voices are asking if Republican obstruction of START carries any political risks.  There is virtually no evidence that foreign policy had a significant partisan impact on the midterm elections, even amongst the Republican-tilted November 2 electorate; no one can credibly claim any conservative mandate on arms control or other defense policy controversies.  The President has consistently obtained some of his strongest approval ratings on foreign policy and defense issues.  He has a glittering array of distinguished Republican backers for START representing past GOP administrations.  And the argument being made for delay on START by the most visible GOP senators—the treaty needs to be held hostage to higher defense spending (for nuclear modernization)–strikes a discordant note with GOP and nonpartisan demands for immediate reductions in federal spending, not to mention the desire for bipartisanship wherever possible.

Moreover, it’s not clear that Republicans have their own internal act together on defense and foreign policy; there are a host of potential rifts, some left over from the Bush administration, some dating back to the Cold War.  Perhaps the threat to delay START ratification is more of a bluff, and if the administration doesn’t call it, progress on any other legislation during the lame duck session could prove impossible.  The politics of this fight will now become clearer now that the White House has refused to back down.

The big overriding question, of course, is whether bipartisan cooperation will prove possible on any significant issue, with Republicans making full extension of Bush tax cuts and a drive to repeal health reform their top priorities.  There’s some interesting new political science data on the extent to which the midterms increased polarization in Congress (or at least in the House).  According to Adam Bonica, who is using the standard measurement for the ideological positioning of Members of Congress:

77 percent of freshmen Republicans in the 112th Congress will locate to the right of the party median from the 111th. In other words, nearly 8 in 10 incoming House Republicans would have been on the right wing of the party in the 111th Congress.

The problem for Republicans is that their “conservatism” does not necessarily dictate clear positions on many defense policy issues, or on the larger conflict between deficit reduction and other policy goals. But ideology by no means disposes the GOP to cooperate with Democrats, and particularly with the President whose defeat in 2010 is, according to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, their paramount goal.

On the public opinion front, pollsters are beginning to shift from retrospective looks at 2010 voters towards efforts to measure the likely 2012 electorate, which will be much larger, younger, less white, and less conservative. The shift in perspective can sometimes be dramatic.  Public Policy Polling caused a stir by releasing a large batch of state polls of likely 2010 voters showing President Obama trailing a “generic Republican” in all of them, some by big margins.  Then PPP released a poll of Virginians who voted in any of the last three elections, and measured Obama against named potential GOP opponents, and the picture was very different:  Obama not only had a positive (50/45) job approval rating in the Old Dominion, but led (or in the case of Mitt Romney, was tied with) all the Republicans who might run against him.  And this was in a state where on November 2 Republicans knocked off three Democratic House members and nearly beat a fourth.   It’s all about who gets asked, and how the questions are framed.

Why Progressives Should Cool to Global Warming Lawsuits

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Environmental progressives have been urging the federal government to address climate change for more than 30 years. Many of these efforts have focused on setting limits on the emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases collectively referred to as “greenhouse gases” or GHGs. Presidents George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all negotiated international treaties on global emissions, and Congress has considered numerous climate-related bills. None of these efforts, however, has resulted in binding emission caps for U.S. operations, and Senate efforts to pass a “cap and trade” bill have been dropped. As a result, some progressives advocate a new arena for this battle: the courts, with lawsuits against a group of companies to directly force them to reduce emissions.

There are four lawsuits based on the premise that a handful of American companies, all associated with energy use and production, can be held legally responsible for “global warming.” The suits claim that the companies engaged in operations or made products that contributed to the buildup of GHGs in the atmosphere, causing the earth to warm. The cases seek either reductions in emissions or payment for injuries caused by specific weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding, allegedly caused or made worse by climate change. The liability threat for these defendants is massive: billions of dollars in the current suits, injunctions against their operations, and new filings for future weather-related injuries.

For environmental progressives, the real purpose of this litigation is to use the threat of massive liability to force the companies to accept concessions on climate change policy. These lawsuits, first filed in 2004, were born of frustration with the political process, particularly under President Bush, for failing to take steps to combat climate change. Given the seeming demise of climate change legislation in the current Congress, many progressives have found achieving the same – or perhaps more stringent – policies in the courts an increasingly appealing option.

Read the entire memo

A Deficit of Common Sense

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

‘Tis the season for deficit commissions. The past week has brought not one, not two, but three stabs at solving America’s looming fiscal crisis. And just yesterday, the Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion on “The Politics of Entitlement Reform and the Budget Deficit,” featuring a murderers’ row of budget experts across the ideological spectrum. All the activity underscores just how much concerns about the deficit have taken over the Washington conversation.

But will all that hand-wringing lead to anything concrete and enduring? I have my doubts. The substantive merits and faults of the plans aside, what’s striking is, frankly, how unlikely any action seems to be.

Too pessimistic? Perhaps. But at the Brookings event, there was a subterranean motif that tempered any enthusiasm one might have for any ideas put forward. Isabel Sawhill, director of Brookings’ Budgeting and National Priorities project, at one point said, “The public is in denial about the scope of the problem.” Meanwhile, Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute sounded another note of consternation: “Both political parties are afraid to ask the middle class to do anything.”

There, neatly stated, are two fundamental problems that stand in the way of fiscal balance: a public in denial, a politics in retreat. Simply put, the American public simply has no idea how much the government that they like to have around costs. They may profess to hate big government, but ask about cuts to the entitlement programs – by far the largest contributors to our long-term deficit – and what do they say? Hands off! Even 62 percent of Tea Partiers say that Social Security and Medicare are worth the cost of the programs; the general public is even more supportive, at 76 percent.

Recent research by Cornell political scientist Suzanne Mettler underscores the disconnect between the kind of government Americans say they want and the government they actually use. In a recent paper that takes a look at Americans’ relationship with the “submerged state” – federal policies that incentivize and subsidize behavior by individuals – Mettler found that most Americans have little awareness of how the state affects their lives. Most alarming were the results of a survey of program beneficiaries who were asked if they had ever used a government program. Forty-four percent of those collecting Social Security retirement and survival benefits said no; 43 percent who had benefited from unemployment insurance said no; nearly 40 percent of Medicare said no. There’s more: 47 percent who took home earned income tax credit said no; 53 percent of those who took Pell Grants said no; and 60 percent who benefited from the home mortgage interest deduction said no.

So the governed don’t know. What about those who govern? Alas, our political elite seems to have lost all sense of responsibility at steering the ship of state to calmer waters. The fault lies mainly with the right. Yes, Nancy Pelosi’s declaration that Social Security and Medicare cuts are off-limits is easily caricatured as liberalism at its worst, but let’s face it – Pelosi faces a lot of opposition on her side on that front. There is a genuine debate going on under the big progressive tent about just how much entitlements should be touched, if at all, and it’s testimony to the vibrancy – and fractiousness – of progressivism.

Contrast that with the right, which has become an all-tax-cut, all-the-time movement. Grover Norquist, in whose image today’s Republican Party has been modeled, dismissed the Bowles-Simpson report, with his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, calling it “a plan to raise taxes cloaked in the veil of bipartisanship” – this in response to a plan that, by any objective measure, by far does more on the spending side than the revenue side. If their starting point is no revenue increases at all, then the right has all but written the obituary on any attempt to narrow the budget gap.

So there you have: a failure of government, a failure of the governed. Until the American public begins to accept responsibility for the current fiscal straits – and it begins by asking serious questions about what they’d like to see from government and how much they’re willing to pay for it – there really is little hope that we’ll see movement on the issue. Meanwhile, the only institution that can give them that nudge, our political class, isn’t up to the task.

When asked about the worst-case scenario that would finally force policy-makers’ hand to do something, Brookings’ Henry Aaron had a one-word response: “Greece.” Americans may profess to hate European-style states, but the disconnect between their hatred of taxes and love of benefits may well hasten the day of a European-style collapse.

Obama and the Independents: Round Two

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The debate about how Obama can win back Independents continues, and in my mind the big question is this: other than hoping that the economy starts recovering, is there anything Obama and the Democrats can do to win back the true swing voters among the Independents?

Over at The Monkey Cage, John Sides is skeptical that anything other than economic conditions will make a reliable difference:

Here is the bottom line. Voters don’t want style. They want results. Even independents.

Indeed, as Sides shows, the data are pretty clear that “Pure Independents” (the 10-15 percent of the electorate who are truly independent, and not closet partisans) are highly responsive to economic conditions. When the economy is doing poorly, their voting strategy is solidly of the “throw the bums out” variety.

John Judis makes a similar point in The New Republic:

Yes, Obama does have to pay attention to those white working-class voters who shift uneasily from one party to the other, but the way to win them over is to get them jobs—and if that fails because of Republican obstructionism, to make sure that these voters blame the Republicans not the Democrats and his administration for the result. If he can’t do that, his only recourse may be to get on his knees and pray that unbeknownst to most voters and many economists, a strong and buoyant recovery is about to begin.

But new polling from Third Way provides a counter-point, suggesting that it may not be just economic conditions driving the Independents’ swing:

The economy was not the only reason that switchers opted for a Republican candidate this year. For one thing, switchers are solidly middle class (median income range: $50,000-$75,000) and have a fairly positive view of their own personal circumstances—personal impacts from the downturn did not seem to be a driving force behind their votes. 82% of switchers, for example, rate their personal economic circumstances as “excellent” or “good” and 71% say they have suffered no major personal impacts from the recession.

The Third Way poll finds that “switchers” were concerned about the size and scope of government, are “cautious capitalists,” and have genuine concerns about spending and deficits.

Other polling, which I’ve detailed in an earlier post, suggests that Independents are also interested in moderation and compromise:

By a 63-26 margin, Independents want Democrats to move to the center, and by a 50-40 margin, they want Republicans to move to the center. By a 61-32 margin, they agree that “Governing is about compromise” more than “leadership is about taking principled stands.” That puts them a little closer to Democrats (who lean towards compromise 73-21, than Republicans, who are split 46-46 on the question.)

Clearly, the economy is going to be the most important factor in winning back the true independents, and in this I completely agree with Sides and Judis. But the problem remains that there is only so much Obama can do to change the economic fundamentals.

At this week’s PPI forum on “The Restless Independents,” Bill Galston suggested that Obama’s best strategy was to publicly offer an outstretched hand. If the Republicans accept, Obama will look like the post-partisan leader many swing voters hoped he would be; if Republicans spurn him, Obama will still look like the bigger man. I think Galston is mostly right.

But the two obvious challenges with such a pose are that 1) it’s unclear whether there is any realistic compromise Obama can have with Republicans and if he’ll just look pathetic trying; and 2) it’s unclear whether the economic conditions will always trump any perceived moderation, and if so, why bother to compromise when Republicans are clearly in no mood to do so?

My current thinking is that, yes, clearly, economic conditions matter a great deal. If the economy recovers solidly, Obama will be a two-term president. But it’s not the ONLY thing that matters. My guess is that there are at least a few persuadable voters who can be won on some mix of substance and policy, and if recovery is ambiguous (as it’s likely to be) something else might make the difference in 2012. So it’s worth trying to figure out what makes them tick.

I’m increasingly inclined to think that the Democrats would be smart to come up about some wedge issues where they could split the Republican caucus and draw out the crazies who will scare moderate swing voters into voting Democrat again, all while pursuing solid progressive issues that the American public supports and on which Independents look a lot like Democrats. I’m thinking here about issues like immigration reform (supported by 61 percent of Independents), and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  which is also supported by a majority. Independents tend to look a lot like Democrats on the social issues, and the Republican leaners among Independents tend to be more libertarian than your typical Republican. If the nativist, fundamentalist voices dominate the public image of Republican Party, that’s going to be very good for Democrats.

So, yes, if the economy recovers, Obama will win in 2012. But that’s far from a guarantee at this point. For my money, it’s also good to have a Plan B.

Photo credit: oaphoto

Deficit Commission and Defense Spending: A Scorecard

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Fully half – $100 billion – of Deficit Commission Chairmen Erskine Bowles’ and Alan Simpson’s reduction proposals target that infamous five-sided building on the Potomac. In a paper containing at least something for everyone to hate, you can almost hear the battle lines being drawn from parochial quarters: weapons makers, veterans groups, and personnel contractors will all howl as their respective cash cows linger in the cross hairs for uncomfortably long periods.

When parsing Bowles’ and Simpson’s suggestions, it’s worth bearing in mind the authors’ guiding principle: “America cannot be great if we go broke.” In essence, the proposal channels the White House’s own National Security Strategy, “Our economy… serves as the wellspring of American power.”

That’s the bad news: both the Deficit Commission and administration are right, and the country is in a bad spot.  Here’s the worse news, as told in the introduction of the Deficit Commission’s Report: The Problem Is Real; the Solution Is Painful; There’s No Easy Way Out; Everything Must Be On the Table, and Washington Must Lead.

The Bowles/Simpson proposals do deserve serious consideration. They also must be placed in context — first, they are “illustrative” cuts, ones that are on the table and illustrate how the Commission might save $100 million in defense over five years. These cuts are on top of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates plan, announced over the summer, to wring $100 billion out of the Pentagon’s $700+ billion budget over five years, by reducing contractors, saving on personnel costs, and riding herd on and/or canceling over-budget and delayed programs. While many of Gates’ plans coincide with Bowles/Simpson (contractors and V-22 Osprey, for example), reconciling what to do with the savings is sure to cause a fight.  More on that below…

It’s most useful to evaluate the Bowles/Simpson illustrative cuts against three core criteria:

  1. Does a proposal fundamentally weaken the country’s ability to defend itself?
  2. If not, does a proposal fundamentally weaken the country’s core non-military national interests?
  3. If not, does the savings benefit to the country outweigh the parochial interest of the proposed cut?

With that in mind, on balance, most of the Commission’s proposals on Defense spending are quite sensible.  For readability’s sake, I’ll lump several of the proposals into larger categories.

First, a starting point:

A simple way to enforce budgetary discipline at the Pentagon starts with one basic policy adjustment: end the practice of supplemental budgeting. DoD has three budgets, not one: a baseline appropriation, plus two “supplemental” appropriations that are supposed to pay for the war, but do oh-so-much-more. I’ve written about the problem for Forbes.com, and you can see an excerpt here:

Having three budgets is like having three strikes in a baseball at-bat — you have the luxury to swing and miss twice. Projects that don’t make the baseline DoD budget (strike one!) can be considered in either of the additional supplementals (strike two! strike three!) before they’re “out.” Ending the supplementals would be like giving the batter just one strike. By combining all defense spending into one (larger) appropriation each year, the batter has just one swing — miss the first time, that’s it. The practice would force Congress to make hard choices that prioritize the war-fighter.

If we have just one budget, it would be much easier to implement many practices recommended in the Bowles/Simpson plan, such as “reducing procurement by 15 percent” and “reduce ‘other procurement’”.  Procurement is bloated with multiple, supplemental budgets.  Having just one a year forces appropriators to make hard choices.

Savings over five years: $28.5 billion, per Commission estimates.

Next, the low hanging fruit amongst the “illustrative” cuts:

Salary freezes for civilians and military, doubling cuts to contracting personnel and replacing some with civilians. These check all categories without question. The commission could perhaps go even further by advocating a freeze in combat pay as well — Yes, our military has performed heroically in difficult circumstances, but we’re talking about not increasing warzone pay, we’re not talking about eliminating it.  Reducing contractors is a no-brainer.

Troop reductions in Europe and Asia. Europe is the easier sell: Twenty years after the Cold War and with staging needs for Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the American military does not need as extensive a footprint on the European continent.  The Commission proposes reducing American forces in Korea by 17,000 troops, which leave 11,500 by my math. That’s hardly a comforting thought, with an unstable and nuclear-minded North Korean regime in the midst of a power transition.  We would continue to maintain 32,000 in Japan, and it perhaps makes more sense to split reductions between the two countries, even though removing troops from Japan has been a local political hot potato of late.

Modernize TriCare: Let’s be honest: this isn’t a move to “modernize” defense health care, it’s an effort to bring the military’s health system’s co-pays and deductables in line with cost-structures of private insurers.  Does it seem like we’re giving our servicemembers the shaft?  Yes.  But are military health care costs, “are eating the Defense Department alive,” according to Secretary Gates. It’s unfortunate, but servicemembers’ premiums must rise to correct this problem.

Reduce base support, facilities maintenance, retail activities, and DoD schooling: With the exception of closing unused DoD schools, there’s no question these cuts will hurt.  But is reducing the deficit more important?  In these times, yes.

Savings over five years: $45.1 billion, per Commission estimates.

Slightly tougher to swallow:

Weapons Cuts: Not all platforms are created equal: certain are needed for modernization, others for replacement, and yet others to fill niche capabilities.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) takes a beating from Bowles/Simpson, something followers of the program probably suspected.  After all, when procurement of the F-22 was ended last year at 187 planes, DoD proclaimed itself ready to buy 2,443 F-35 JSFs instead.  At the time, 2,443 JSFs seemed a preposterously and unrealistically large number.  It still does, which is why a revised purchase plan, mixing in refurbishments of cheaper F-16s and F-18s while cancelling the USMC’s version of the JSF outright, falls within my comfort level.

We’ve already purchased 288 V-22 Osprey, which is two-thirds of the planned buy, and enough to meet the lion’s share of mission requirements.  Along those lines, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s (EFV) capabilities are ably substituted by other technologies under development, allowing for EFV’s cancellation.

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, Ground Combat Vehicle, and Joint Tactical Radio would be delayed, not canceled, under the Bowles/Simpson plan, which seems reasonable as the Army’s tactical vehicle fleet received an unexpected influx of cash to procure IED-hardened MRAP vehicles for Iraq.

Reduce R&D: This might seem unwise (“Why do we want to cut R&D while we’re dropping weapons? Shouldn’t we invest in developing weapons even if we don’t end up producing them?”), but it’s not as big a deal as it originally seems.  Fact is, by combining the defense budgets and reducing certain weapons buys, R&D organically decreases as a natural function of those actions.

Knowing how Congress works, it’s highly unlikely that these planned weapons buys will be fully endorsed.  But they will likely be negotiated reductions, in order to maintain capability while sending a strong signal that there’s a changing culture of fiscal discipline.

Savings over five years: up to, but probably less than $30.45 billion, per Commission estimates.

Up in the Air:

Secretary of DefenseBob Gates came out with his own plan to trim $100billion from the Pentagon’s budget, which he intended to reinvest in DoD modernization plans. He was coyly getting out in front of Bowles-Simpson, who want to take Gates’ savings and apply them not to modernization, but rather to deficit reduction.

The trick is convincing the Secretary to follow through with these plans, knowing that the Pentagon won’t get to keep all the planned savings. The good news is this fight probably won’t happen, as Gates will likely leave his post before final decisions are made. Savings reinvestments is just one of the reasons the new Secretary’s views on deficit reduction will have to align with Obama’s.

You Can’t Touch This:

The only illustrative cut in the Bowles-Simpson plan that I whole-heartedly disagree with is the notion of canceling the Navy’s Future Maritime Prepositioning Force. These plans are currently under study, and if executed correctly, could end up saving money while allowing the Navy to project force more efficiently in an era of restrained budgets. There’s still work to be done here, and at $2.7 billion in potential savings, isn’t exactly a budget buster.

Photo credit: pingnews.com

The Restless Independents: Can Obama Win Them Back?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On Wednesday, November 17, the Progressive Policy Institute hosted a lively discussion on how Obama and the Democrats could win back independents, who broke so strongly for Republicans in 2010 after breaking solidly for Democrats in 2006 and 2008.

The event featured:  Stan Greenberg, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner; William Galston, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution; Will Marshall, President, Progressive Policy Institute; and Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow, Progressive Policy Institute.

For those who weren’t able to attend, we offer an audio recording:
[audio:https://www.progressivefix.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/11.17.2010Restless_Independents.mp3]

If you want to download as an mp3 to listen to during your commute or your morning jog right-click here and “save link as…”

How To Understand the Independents (and How To Win Them Back)

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For Obama and the Democrats to win in 2012, they will clearly need to win back the “Independent” voters who they lost in 2010. As we know, Independents broke hard for Republicans this time, after breaking hard for Democrats in two previous elections. Clearly they hold the balance of power in American politics.

So who are these Independents? What do they want? And how can the Democrats win them back?

According to Nov 4-7 Gallup Poll, 41 percent of voters now identify themselves as Independents, as compared to 26 percent who identify themselves as Republicans and 31 percent as Democrats. This 41 percent marks a high point in Gallup’s polling results for the last six years. However, since the mid-1970s, the number of self-identified “Independents” as a percent of voters has remained steadily in the 30s, occasionally flirting with the 40 percent mark.

It is obviously difficult to generalize about Independents, since it turns out they are actually quite a heterogenous group. About two-thirds lean to one party or the other, consistently voting for that party about 80 percent of the time. However, they are less partisan than strong partisans, and there are at least a few true independents in the mix: about 10 to 15 percent of the electorate, according to political scientists.

WHO ARE THE INDEPENDENTS?

Pew probably has the best typology of Independents, breaking them up into five categories: “Shadow Republicans” (26 percent of Independents); “Disaffected Republicans” (16 percent); “Shadow Democrats” (21 percent); “Doubting Democrats” (20 percent); and “Disengaged” (17 percent).  As the names suggest, the shadow partisans vote somewhat predictably as partisans, while the Disaffected/Doubting class are slightly less reliably partisan, and the “Disengaged”, while most likely to be “true” Independents, are also the least likely to vote – only 21 percent told Pew they were planning to vote this November.

In 2010, independents broke down as 41 percent conservative, 39 percent moderate, and 20 percent liberal, at least among those who voted. In 2008, independents were 43 percent moderate, 35 percent conservative, and 18 percent liberal, a breakdown that has been roughly consistent for the last 10 years.

Though many Independents may vote like partisans, choosing to identify as Independents rather than partisans is a conscious choice. For some, it may just be because they prefer to think of themselves as “Independent” because it sounds better. It probably also reflects a certain disenchantment with either of the two parties. Accordingly, 64 percent of Independent voters say that “both parties care more about special interests than about average Americans” and 53 percent say that “I don’t trust either party.”

Independents are also more likely than not to be conflicted between the two parties: 58 percent say that ”I agree with Republicans on some issues and Democrats on others.”

Generally, Independents (particularly “true” Independents) are more likely to be younger, more male, less well educated, less well off financially, have less political information, and be less engaged politically. In the past election, Just 31 percent of Independents said that it makes “a great deal of difference which party controls Congress” – as compared to 63 percent for Republicans and 53 percent for Democrats; accordingly, 37 percent of Independents think it makes no difference at all – as compared to only 13 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats.

Finally, it is worth noting that according to Senate exit polls, the five states with the highest percentage of Independent voters are New Hampshire (44 percent); Washington (42 percent); Colorado (39 percent); Oregon (38 percent); and Hawaii (38 percent). Note that none of these are rust belt states, where party loyalty actually seems to run deeper.  Only 28 percent of Ohio voters were Independents and only 23 percent of Pennsylvania voters were Independents.

WHY DID INDEPENDENTS SHIFT TO THE REPUBLICAN COLUMN IN 2010?

There are probably four reasons why Republicans won Independents in 2010, two of which are structural, one of which is performance-based, and one of which is policy-based.

On the structural side, it is very likely the case that the Independents who turned out in 2010 were somewhat different than Independents who turned out in 2006 and 2008.  First, as compared to 2008, turnout in midterms is consistently about two-thirds lower than it is in presidential elections. This means that the mid-term election electorate (including Independents) look older and whiter, and thus typically more Republican (young people, who as noted above are more likely to be Independents, just don’t vote as often.)

Moreover, since Independents in general tend to be less politically engaged, the enthusiasm gap is going to be the most pronounced among Independents. It seems highly plausible, then, that a lot of Independent-leaning Republicans sat out the 2006 and 2008 elections while a lot of Independent-leaning Democrats sat out the 2010 elections, and for similar reasons: their preferred party didn’t seem worth turning out to support.

The second structural reason is that Independents as a category have probably become a little bit more Republican because more registered Republicans have become Independents. Consider Table 1, which takes Gallup data for the last four elections. Between 2004, Republicans fell from 38 percent to 26 percent of the electorate, while Democrats dropped only slightly.

Table 1: Changing Party Identifications

Rep Ind. Dem.
Nov 2010 26% 41% 31%
Nov 2008 28% 37% 33%
Nov 2006 31% 32% 35%
Nov 2004 38% 27% 35%
’04-’10 change -12% +14% -4%

What happened to that 12 percent of the electorate who had previously called themselves Republicans? There is good evidence they started calling themselves Independents, making Independents more conservative on the whole. Now, these were Republicans who obviously felt poorly enough about Republicans in 2006 and 2008 to no longer align themselves, and may have even voted Democrat (or more likely stayed home). But by 2010, they were back to voting Republican, even if they now thought of themselves as Independents.

Of course, this can’t and probably shouldn’t completely explain the shift. Part of it has to do with the economy. When unemployment is near 10 percent, the weakest partisans and the true Independents, who are the most sensitive to economic conditions in their voting (since they have no ideology to base their decisions), are going to punish the incumbent party.

Consider the following:  In 2006, when asked which party can better “improve the job situation,” 43 percent of Independents picked Democrats; just 24 picked Republicans. In 2010, they picked Republicans 40-35. Similar reversals have taken place on “reducing the budget deficit” (44-18 for Democrats in 2006; 44-29 for Republicans in 2010), and “managing the federal government” (38-26 for Democrats in 2006; 42-31 for Republicans in 2010).

In short, Independent voters are performance-based, and when the party in power is not producing jobs, cutting the budget, or generally running things in a commanding way, Independent voters are quicker to turn against the party in power and assume the other party deserves a chance

And finally, on the policy: since almost half of Independents call themselves moderate, a number of them were probably uncomfortable with the liberal direction unified Democratic control was taking government. There were probably some number of genuinely moderate voters who saw Republicans as a correction to Democratic extremism, just as they had recently seen Democrats as a correction to Republican extremism. They might also want divided government.

WHAT DO INDEPENDENTS WANT?

Having noted the heterogeneity of Independents as a category, it is obviously a challenge to make generalizations about what Independents want.

First of all, their top priority, like all voters polled, is “economy and jobs.” More than half (52 percent) of Independents believe that Congress should focus on economy on jobs. Though, interestingly, both Republicans (59 percent) and Democrats (57 percent) put even slightly more emphasis on jobs.

They also want both parties to moderate and compromise. By a 63-26 margin, Independents want Democrats to move to the center, and by a 50-40 margin, they want Republicans to move to the center. By a 61-32 margin, they agree that “Governing is about compromise” more than “leadership is about taking principled stands.” That puts them a little closer to Democrats (who lean towards compromise 73-21, than Republicans, who are split 46-46 on the question.)

The bad news for Democrats is that Independents are skeptical of government. More than four-fifths (82 percent) say they trust government only sometimes or never (up from 71 percent in 2006), 57 percent agree that “the federal government controls too much of our daily lives,” and 55 percent say “government regulation of business usually does more harm than good.”

However, these last two categories are not as overwhelming majorities as one might expect, given the anti-government rhetoric swirling around. And, interestingly, Independents are actually trending downward on both of these questions. In 1995, 70 percent of Independents thought that “the federal government controls too much of our daily lives.”

The good news for the Democrats is that by a 49-32 margin, Independents think that the Democratic Party: “Is more concerned with the needs of people like me.” Independents also are even more secular than Democrats, are tend to look like Democrats on the social issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc.) as well. Like Democrats, they also favor a more balanced approach to national security.

Independents also look a little bit more like Democrats than Republicans on the environment (82 percent of Independents agree that “there needs to be stricter environmental laws and regulations to protect the environment” and 53 percent agree that “protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some job losses”) and immigration (61 percent say they “favor providing a way for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to gain legal citizenship.”)

Finally, by a 50-to-41 margin, Independents say they are “optimistic about the next two years with Barack Obama as president.” So they still haven’t written him off.

A CAVEAT ON “CONSERVATIVES”

Much has been made of the fact that there has been a shift towards conservatism in the electorate, and that the number of Independents identifying themselves as conservatives has ticked up a few points in the last few years. This may partially be an artifact of more Republicans moving into the Independent column, as described above. But it’s also useful to keep in mind that voters pick the conservative label for symbolic as well as substantive reasons.

According to research by Chris Ellis and James Stimson, some people genuinely know what it means to a conservative in the current political debate, and indeed express matching preferences across all issues. But these “constrained conservatives” (as Ellis and Stimson call them) account for only 26 percent of all self-identified conservatives.

More common are the “moral conservatives” (34 percent), who think of themselves as conservative in terms of their own personal values, be they social or religious. And they are indeed right leaning on social, cultural, and religious issues. But they also like government spending on a variety of programs and generally approve of government interventions in the marketplace, hardly making them true conservatives.

And still others, “conflicted conservatives”  (30 percent), are not conservative at all on the issues. But they like identifying themselves as conservatives. To them, it somehow sounds better. Or at least, they like it better then their other choices in the traditional self-identification questionnaire: moderate and liberal.

Finally, a smaller group of self-identified “conservatives” (10 percent) could be classified as libertarian – conservative on economic issues, liberal on social issues.

In other words, just because people identify as conservatives doesn’t mean that they are actually true conservatives. There are numerous reasons why they might identify so. It has long been the case that that the American public, on average, is operationally liberal and symbolically conservative. That is, that when asked about specific “liberal” government programs – be they spending on education, environmental protections, regulation of business – the majority of voters consistently say they approve. But when asked to self-identify themselves as liberals, moderates, or conservatives , many of the same voters say they are “conservative.”

LESSONS AND TAKEAWAYS

How can Obama and the Democrats win back the lost Independents? Since the Independent voters most likely to swing back into the Democratic column are also those who are the most performance-based and the least ideological, it makes sense for Obama to keep focused on economic recovery and let Republicans go pursue an extremist agenda. If Obama and the Democrats can pitch themselves as the hard-working, economy-focused force of moderation while Republicans engage in partisan bomb-throwing, many of the true swing voters who went Republican will surely have a bit of buyer’s remorse. Additionally, many younger Independents, who presumably stayed home in 2010, should come back out in 2012, helping Democrats again.

It is conventional wisdom by now that if the economy is recovering by 2012, Obama will benefit, and Democrats along with him, and this is surely true (assuming nothing else happens to overwhelm that effect). However, there is only so much the president can do to influence the economy, though he can certainly look like he is doing more.

Certainly, to the extent that Independents are distrustful of politics and parties and view both as too extreme, Obama and the Democrats will benefit by showing a willingness to compromise and moving to the political center, which Republicans are increasingly abandoning. A fundamentally moderate public will respond, especially if the economy is improving and it becomes less of an issue, meaning that something else will have to take its place in people’s minds.

If Democrats are willing to take a riskier strategy, they might goad Republicans into a few battles on issues like “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” or even immigration, battles that will draw out the crazy side of the Republican coalition while showing the public and generally socially-liberal Independents that Democrats are on the side of social progress.

Lame Ducks, Unresolved Races, and the 2012 Horserace Begins

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

With the congressional lame duck session underway, ruminations on the midterm elections will yield to real-life events, but the furious partisan spin will if anything intensify.  Republicans will seek to stall action on major legislative items until they swear in their new members in January, but must take some sort of position on the public debt limit, overdue appropriations, expiring tax cuts, unemployment benefits, the START treaty, and other items Democrat will bring to the House and Senate floors.  Recently most of the intra-Republican maneuvering has involved conservative efforts to force the GOP Senate leadership to embrace a ban on so-called “earmarks,” which appears to have succeeded.

It’s the tax cut issue that could be the most complicated and contentious.  The White House’s position (shared by progressive Democrats) has long been that expiring Bush income tax cuts should only be made permanent for middle-class taxpayers (defined, actually, as 98 percent of taxpayers), while Republicans are holding out for a straight and permanent extension.  Polling backs the Democratic position, but the business community is poised to shriek about the negative economic impact of hiking taxes on anyone in a recession, and the small business lobby will claim any personal income tax hike for the top bracket will hurt its constituency badly.  Blue Dog opposition to a partial extension helped delay resolution of the matter until after the midterms, and now Republicans are pressing for a temporary if not permanent extension of all the tax cuts.  The impact on the deficit of any extension is another factor in the debate, though most Republican self-described deficit hawks have long internalized the conservative argument that failure to extend a tax cut is a tax increase and thus should be off the table.

An unwelcome distraction for Democrats is the ethics committee proceedings involving Rep. Charles Rangel of NY, who was found guilty by the panel today of 11 rules violations.

Outside Washington, there is continuing drama in a few unresolved 2010 races.  The main event is in Minnesota, where Republicans appear to be digging in for a long legal battle to prevent the inauguration of apparent gubernatorial winner Mark Dayton.  What they hope to produce is a situation where the newly elected legislature (both chambers were won by the GOP) takes office and works with holdover Gov. Tim Pawlenty (who under state law remains in office until a successor is sworn in) to rapidly enact conservative legislation.  This patent offense to fair play and voter intent is rationalized by Republicans through the inevitable claim that Dayton benefitted from vote fraud, and Pawlenty, who is almost certainly running for president, will undoubtedly welcome the national attention he’d get for thumbing his nose at Democrats.  GOPers also think of this scenario as payback for the 2009 legal battle by Democrats on behalf of Sen. Al Franken.

Aside from Pawlenty’s maneuvers, 2012 speculation has been fed by a batch of twelve Public Policy Polling surveys of 2010 Republican voters (in AK, FL, KY, ME, MN, NV, NC, OH, TX, WA, WV, WI) measuring their early presidential preferences among Mitch Daniels, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence Mitt Romney.   In all twelve, Romney, Huckabee, Palin and Gingrich are in double digits; Pawlenty breaks double digits in his home state of MN (with 19 percent).  Palin leads in ME, OH, TX, WA, WV, and WI; Huckabee leads in AK and KY; Romney in FL and NV; Gingrich in NC; and TimPaw in MN.

Nate Silver of 538 posted an argument that dark horse candidates are very unlikely to break through against the Big Four of Gingrich, Huckabee, Palin, and Romney, while Jonathan Bernstein responded: “Early good polling based on name recognition for weak candidates really is meaningless — see Rudy Giuliani ’08, among many others.”

 

Reviving Jobs and Innovation: The Role of Countercyclical Regulatory Policy – Part I

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Since the Great Depression, the tools of choice for fighting economic downturns have been countercyclical monetary policy and countercyclical fiscal policy. That is, when the economy slowed, economists would recommend cutting interest rates, reducing taxes, and boosting government spending to pump up demand. And for 75 years, those policy measures were enough.

But in the aftermath of the financial crisis, we seem to have almost exhausted the limits of monetary and fiscal policy to create jobs. The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates down to near zero, although it appears ready to try another round of quantitative easing.

Meanwhile, the federal budget deficit hit $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2010. In the aftermath of the midterm election victories of candidates who ran against federal spending, it seems politically unlikely that there will be another round of fiscal stimulus.

Under the circumstances, it may be time to try something new: Countercyclical regulatory policy. That means following a very simple rule: Don’t add new regulations on innovative and growing sectors during economic downturns.

 

The goal: To encourage innovation and job creation by temporarily abstaining from additional regulation on innovative sectors, and perhaps even temporarily abating some existing regulations on innovative sectors (what I call innovation ecosystems).

The keyword here, of course, is ‘temporarily.’ Like countercyclical monetary and fiscal policy, countercyclical regulatory policy is designed to provide a short-run stimulus to the economy by making decisions that can be reversed when the economy improves—the equivalent of a temporary investment tax credit. In other words, countercyclical regulatory policy is not the same as deregulation. It presupposes that regulators stay alert and take care of abuses.

Read the entire memo

Decoupling Taxes on Capital

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The president will meet with leaders from both parties on Thursday to discuss Congress’s unfinished business for the lame-duck session, and the only thing that is clear going into that meeting is that item number one on the agenda (for right or wrong) will be the Bush tax cuts.  Speculation is running high this week that the White House is considering a compromise approach that would extend all of the Bush tax cuts temporarily, most likely for two years.  This comes in place of the previous round of speculation that the president’s strategy was focused on “decoupling” the tax breaks, meaning he would push for Congress to vote separately to permanently extend lower tax rates for all households making less than $250,000 per year, while allowing another vote on a temporary extension of the cuts for the two percent of taxpayers earning more than that.

As both sides prepare to dig in their heels for the coming tax fight, the possibility of policy alternatives has given way to a pure tug-of-war exercise, in which compromise is limited to questions of how long to extend the cuts or whether to draw the line at $1 million rather than $250,000.  The rare occurrence of a fresh approach is too quickly ignored, such as Senator Mark Warner’s op-ed last week calling for the high-income tax cuts to be redirected as targeted tax incentives for business to boost investment and jobs.

Warner’s proposal would likely be a far more effective way to put lost tax revenues into the most productive hands for lifting our economy, but it’s probably not on the table.

Both parties appear hell-bent on confining this battle to the provisions of the original Bush tax cuts, with the winner to be determined by which provisions do or do not get extended.  It’s an unfortunate corner we have painted ourselves into, but there are still important policy issues within this narrow debate that deserve greater attention and vigilance.

In a new memo released today, PPI Senior Fellow Michael Mandel acknowledges that the current tax debate has totally missed the most important big-picture questions about the need to modernize our outdated tax code for what he calls the “supply-chain world” of the 21st-century global economy.  However, Mandel points out specific elements of the Bush tax cuts that could actually help move us closer to the type of tax code we need for today’s economy: namely, the lower rates on dividend income and capital gains rates.

Mandel explains that keeping rates low on income from capital is critical for encouraging investment in critical innovative industries over the long-term, and that raising these rates right now would be a particularly bad idea, because our economy is still languishing in what he calls a “business investment drought.”  Compared to the data on consumer demand, government spending, and even the collapse in housing, Mandel concludes that the real hole in the economy is nonresidential investment, which has plummeted even more sharply than housing.  So while the tax debate has so far focused on the economic impact marginal tax rates would have on consumer spending, Mandel makes the case that we should be looking at the impact that upcoming tax votes will have on investment:

It doesn’t make sense to raise the tax rate on corporate dividends and capital gains in the middle of a U.S. investment drought. That’s true, whether you believe in Keynesian economics, supply-side economics or anything in between.

Taxing capital at too high a rate impairs the environment for innovation, especially in this world of permeable borders and mobile money. In particular, raising the tax rates on dividends is likely to hurt innovative industries such as telecommunications and pharmaceuticals, which tend to pay out dividends at a higher level than other industries.

I have raised similar issues about this potential problem of dividend rates before (mainly here, but also here), but Mandel’s analysis of investment brings the question into much sharper relief.  Unfortunately, the positions of the White House and Congress have been much less clear in this issue.   This year’s tax debate has been an exercise in gamesmanship more than a battle of ideas, so both the president and Democratic leaders have remained a little ambiguous about their proposals for these rates, largely because they don’t fit well with the line-drawing fight over whether the wealthiest Americans should have any of their tax cuts extended.

President Obama has said he supports keeping rates on dividends capped at 20 percent, in line with what the rate will be for capital gains income (both are currently taxed at 15 percent, but the dividend rate is scheduled to more than double in 2011 to 39 percent for taxpayers receiving the bulk of these payments).  Secretary Geithner has said the same.  Both men stopped short of saying outright that the 20 percent rate would apply to all taxpayers, even those making above $250,000, even though the president’s budget for 2011 spells it out explicitly.  The 20 percent rate has also been endorsed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who called it “good policy” to keep the rates in line with capital gains rates:

Changing dividends to 20 percent as opposed to ordinary income rates and keeping it the same as capital gains, I think, is good policy. I’m going for policy. Twenty percent on dividends and capital gains is the right policy.

Senator Baucus and President Obama both deserve enormous credit for “decoupling” good policy from the political gamesmanship over the Bush tax cuts, and Baucus should continue to advocate for the lower dividend rate to be included in whatever compromise proposals get thrown around in the coming days and weeks.  As Mandel writes in today’s memo, “the best we can hope for may be small steps in the right direction” from this Congress toward a smarter tax code that encourages sustainable growth and innovation.  Hopefully Obama and Baucus can avoid taking a step backward on this one.

Taxing Capital in a Supply-Chain World

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

 

The post-election wrangle over extending the Bush tax cuts will take place in the worst possible environment for making good policy: A lame-duck Congress facing an artificial deadline to deal with a highly contentious issue after a nasty election. Even from a substantive policy perspective alone, the debate is a bad one, because there’s no consensus among reputable economists about the impact of lower marginal tax rates—the empirical literature is murky, at best.

The fundamental problem underlying this debate is that the U.S. tax code is an outdated and overgrown morass of bad policy. Our current tax system was designed for a primarily domestic economy. But now we live in a world where the unit of economic value creation is now the supply chain, which crosses multiple national borders and cannot be easily divided into domestic and foreign components. And the whole tax system is increasingly perceived as unfair and complicated, with more and more preferences and loopholes added in. What we really need is a sweeping tax reform aimed at promoting growth and innovation, designed for today’s supply-chain economy and simplified for the benefit of all taxpayers. But we’re not going to get this in the 2010 lame-duck session.

So how can we think about the upcoming tax debate in constructive terms that focus on fostering the kind of meaningful growth and innovation that lead to good jobs and long-term prosperity? We can start by identifying broad principles of what our tax system should look like in order to encourage growth, innovation and jobs, and attempt to apply those principles to the choices Congress must make about extending the Bush tax cuts. In doing so, we can hopefully encourage Congress to take steps that will move us closer to the kind of tax system we need, rather than farther away.

One such principle is the idea that the rates on income from capital investment should be kept low, because it is an important element of the kind of broader tax system we need: one that attracts and encourages capital investment, rather than reducing investment options by raising the cost of capital.

Read the entire memo here

A Plan B for Obama

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

REWRITE THE RULES OF WAR

George W. Bush, in the absence of broadly agreed-upon guidelines for fighting and meting out justice to terrorists, stumbled badly in attempting to write his own rules for the “war on terror.” Barack Obama has done better, but his administration is just as bollixed up over the right way to detain and try suspected terrorists.

Nine years after 9/11, let’s get it right once and for all. Obama should lead an international effort to clear up confusion and ambiguities surrounding terrorism, war, and the “right” to resistance invoked by groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah to justify attacking civilians and using them as human shields.

Specifically, Obama should call for a new Geneva Convention — the fifth — to provide a common legal framework for combating terrorism. This would help the world resolve the “neither soldier nor criminal” quandary that has bedeviled two successive U.S. administrations. More importantly, it would stigmatize the routine use of violence against civilians in fragile or disordered countries around the world.

A tough new anti-terrorism convention would give the international community new weapons in the struggle to discredit violent extremism. By designating mass casualty and suicide terrorism as crimes against humanity, it would take some of the glamour out of violence. It would also provide the legal basis for international tribunals to indict those who recruit the killers and plan the attacks. Finally, leading the charge for a new Geneva Convention would reinforce a core theme of Obama’s foreign policy: restoring U.S. moral leadership within a framework of international cooperation for mutual security.

Because terrorism is a global scourge, it makes no sense for every country to write its own rules for combating and punishing terrorists. It’s time to arm the civilized world with the legal tools it needs to fight and defeat terrorists — in a civilized way.

This piece was originally published in Foreign Policy.

Help wanted: One second-chance job

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Back in March, I stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote this op-ed for the Local Opinion page in the Washington Post. For the first time in a good long while, I wasn’t writing about national security, foreign policy, or the military.  Rather, I penned a piece on a mentoring relationship I have with Tim Cofield, a 55 year old bipolar-schizophrenic with serious substance abuse and housing issues.  This weekend, the Post published an update to that piece about the last eight months of Tim’s life.  Here’s an excerpt:

Tim Cofield needed his public defender again way too soon.  After his release from jail in March, I wrote on this page that Tim would soon be back in front of a judge if he did not get consistent access to substance-abuse counseling, mental health care and stable housing. Tim, who turned 55 on Wednesday, is a bipolar-schizophrenic who has rotated in and out of jail, usually for narcotics and parole violations, for most of his adult life.

Eight months later, Tim still isn’t receiving the care he needs. The result has hardly been surprising. His latest incarceration was from mid-October, when he submitted “dirty urines” at substance tests, until last week. It was the cognac Courvoisier, he told me.

…

It might be unrealistic to think that counseling, mental health services or the long public housing list will be improved overnight, but they don’t have to be. The past eight months convince me that Tim needs to catch one simple break to have a chance at turning his life around immediately: a job.

…
[A] job would mean much more than a few extra dollars in his pocket. A job would give him a stake in his own life. It would build a sense of accomplishment, occupy time otherwise spent with questionable associates and create a reason to save money for long-term goals. Moreover, as Michelle Singletary wrote in The Post just this month, a job would reduce Tim’s and others’ recidivism and crime throughout the community.

Read the entire piece here.

Photo  credit: Rob

The Challenges of Coordinating Cybersecurity

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It goes without saying that National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command are playing a significant role in defending military and government computer networks.  It appears they’re now playing a role defending domestic U.S. civilian computer networks as well.  In past statements, General Keith Alexander – head of NSA and Cyber Command – said that the DoD entities would not be involved in the protection of domestic civilian networks because it is the purview of the Department of Homeland Security.  Despite those statements, a memorandum of agreement released on October 13 announced that the DoD and DHS would coordinate their cybersecurity efforts, collocating personnel.

While the NSA and Cyber Command both fall under the purview of the DoD, their missions are different.  The NSA is a hybrid civilian/military entity whose main function is to gather signals intelligence from foreign communications and provide information assurance to prevent foreign adversaries from accessing classified materials.  Cyber Command is a new, purely military entity that is responsible for providing the U.S. military with both offensive and defensive capabilities in cyberspace.

Because the NSA was at the center of the Bush administration’s domestic wiretapping scandal in the years just after 9/11, its involvement with protecting domestic computer networks makes privacy advocates uneasy. They’re worried that the NSA might use its new role to monitor U.S citizens. However, it’s worth noting that the NSA’s participation with U.S. domestic computer networks is not unprecedented.  In February, the NSA assisted Google in investigating an attack against the company in which it is believed that Chinese hackers stole large amounts of intellectual property as well as information about Chinese human rights activists.  More recently, the NSA was tasked with executing  “Perfect Citizen,” a program that gives NSA access to U.S. critical infrastructure networks in order to detect cyberspace threats. This means NSA would deploy sensors on many large privately owned networks.

Meanwhile, General Alexander stated in September that he did not believe Cyber Command should operate in the civilian sphere. However, that statement contradicts the memorandum of agreement, which specifically directs Cyber Command to locate personnel at a DHS facility to provide support and “operational synchronization.”  It also instructs Cyber Command to coordinate operational and mission planning with DHS and NSA.  Moreover, Cyber Command’s involvement with civilian networks was presaged by the June 2009 DoD memorandum announcing its formation which specifically states that part of its mission would be to protect civilian networks.

The question now is: how much of a role will DoD play? How much of a role should it play? In 2003, a presidential directive established DHS as the agency in charge of coordinating the overall effort of securing civilian networks.  The agency has since written a strategy and will to hire large numbers of cybersecurity professionals over the next few years, indicating the agency will maintain a large role in protecting civilian networks.

But critical cyber experience and technical expertise lies with the military, which would be foolish to ignore.   Furthermore, DHS wants to work with the military, admitting that it has at least contemplated leveraging NSA assets in its efforts to put together a comprehensive plan to protect critical cyberspace assets.  Even so, it’s not that straight forward: as the NSA wiretapping scandal shows, DoD’s involvement in civilian networks would stir civil liberties controversy.

Currently, no overarching cybersecurity strategy exists that clarifies agencies’ responsibilities.  Despite sweeping cybersecurity legislation being proposed in Congress – particularly by Senators Lieberman, Carper, and Collins – the White House must step in to clarify these roles.

photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

The 2012 Campaign Begins

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The post-election interpretive wars have continued and even intensified, but with current and future events very much in everyone’s mind.

Voices of self-restraint among Republicans are very rare.  Highly typical is this take from University of Virginia professor of politics James Ceaser:

Of all the recent mid-term elections, 2010 is the closest the nation has ever come to a national referendum on overall policy direction or “ideology.” Obama, who ran in 2008 by subordinating ideology to his vague themes of hope and change, has governed as one of the most ideological and partisan of presidents. Some of his supporters like to argue in one breath that he is a pragmatist and centrist only to insist in the next that he has inaugurated the most historic transformation of American politics since the New Deal. The two claims are incompatible. Going back to the major political contests of 2009, beginning with the Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey and to the Senate race in Massachusetts, the electorate has been asked the same question about Obama’s agenda and has given the same response. The election of 2010 is the third or fourth reiteration of this judgment, only this time delivered more decisively. There is one label and one label only that can describe the result: the Great Repudiation.

Ceaser goes on to attack any Republicans who would urge a future course that eschews the sacking and burning of Obamaism in all its aspects.

So the triumphalist strain of conservative post-election interpretation is closely linked to a maximalist prescription for Republican behavior now.  That helps explain why Republicans have been generally negative about the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction proposal that was released earlier this week, even though it was clearly tailored (with its heavy emphasis on spending reductions and its crafting of revenue-raising measures in the context of rate-reducing “tax reform”) to appeal to them.

One conservative reaction was especially revealing: that of James Capretta in National Review, which trashed the Bowles-Simpson report for failing to embrace the repeal of health care reform, and indeed, for building on some of the health care cost containment measures in that legislation.  The short-term goal of repealing “ObamaCare,” it seems, is more important to conservatives than the long-term goal of reducing deficits and debt.

But Capretta’s reaction illustrates another problem that will bedevil any bipartisan effort on spending and taxes: the Republican rejection, which began during the Bush administration but became endemic during the health reform debate, of neutral “scorekeepers” like the Congressional Budget Office, which enraged conservatives by accepting some of the cost containment claims of “ObamaCare.”

Among Democrats, as noted in the last political memo, those deducing major lessons from the midterms agree that the Obama administration should change its strategy and its public message, but sharply diverge along the usual ideological lines about which direction Democrats should take.  There is genuine alarm on the Left, on both substantive and political grounds, about the White House’s apparent decision to reach an accommodation with Republicans on an extension of the Bush tax cuts, and strong hostility to the Bowles-Simpson recommendations (for which the President is held accountable, even though he has not embraced the proposals).  For the first time, there is talk, though not that serious yet, of a protest candidate running against the President in the 2012 primaries.

Centrist Democrats seem divided between those who favor a decisive “move to the center” and support the Bowles-Simpson proposals pretty much as drafted, and those with more modest suggestions for changes in Obama’s approach to the opposition and to the major issues.

Aside from impending debates on taxes, health care, and the budget, the 2012 election cycle is already getting underway.  It is beginning to sink in for Democrats that there are structural aspects to the congressional landscape in 2012 that limit possibilities for a “rebound,” even if the economy improves and the expected change in turnout patterns occurs.  Two-thirds (23) of the 33 senators facing re-election that year are Democrats (by contrast, half (19) of the 37 Senate races in 2010 involved Democrat-held seats).  Large Republican gains in control of state legislative chambers means that the House landscape will be significantly tilted in the GOP’s election through redistricting; some estimates of the impact are as high as 25 seats.

The presidential landscape, however, is another matter entirely.  The ultramontanist mood among conservatives right now is not conducive to any trimming of ideological sails in the pursuit of a White House victory in 2012.   There is considerable talk of an Establishment conspiracy to block any nomination for Sarah Palin, which indicates how seriously Republicans take her prospects if she decides to run.  Another antagonist of said Establishment, Mike Huckabee, is in excellent position to once again win the Iowa Caucuses if Palin does not take the plunge.  Mitt Romney remains haunted by his Massachusetts health reform effort, a problem that will grow worse during the upcoming conservative drive to repeal “ObamaCare.”  And time is not on the side of the various dark horse possibilities (Daniels, Pence, Barbour) who may be famous in Washington but not so much in Des Moines or Manchester.

All in all, the impact of the midterms may fade faster than anyone expected as the future needs of the two parties, and of the country, take hold.

How Can the Obama Administration Help Lebanon’s Pro-Democracy Forces? It Can Start By Supporting Their Media.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Just a few years ago, Lebanon appeared to be a foreign policy success for the United States. Outraged by the brutal assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri (likely at the hands of Syria and its allies), the Lebanese people, bolstered by international support, succeeded in expelling Syrian military forces and asserting Lebanese sovereignty in 2005 for the first time in decades. And again in 2009, the Lebanese affirmed their support for the pro-Western ruling coalition, awarding them a solid majority of seats in Parliament during the May general elections.

These days, however, the country looks headed for a frightening crisis. The March 14 coalition, as the ruling group is known, has been unable to capitalize on its popular mandate. This is due in large part to the overwhelming force wielded by Hezbollah – which is funded, trained, and armed by Iran and Syria. But it’s also because U.S. policy toward Lebanon has been unwilling to back up bold words with actions. Far from protecting America’s allies, consecutive U.S. administrations have not only failed the pro-Western government but also empowered its worst enemies.

The slow-burning confrontation is about to reach a boiling point over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, charged with bringing Hariri’s killers to justice. The court, established by agreement between the U.N. Security Council and the Lebanese government, is expected to issue indictments against members of Hezbollah in the coming months. As the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, up to six members are slated to be indicted by the end of the year, including Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah military commander and brother-in-law of the infamous Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mugniyah.

In an effort to preempt what would surely be a massive blow, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has launched a war against the tribunal, and U.S. officials believe that Hezbollah will stop at nothing to prevent indictments from being handed down. The risk of war is palpable, and if Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons — and their Syrian puppets — unseat the elected government and take control over Lebanon, it will be a grave blow to U.S. security and credibility around the world.

It would also bolster the reach and credibility of Iran. Fred Hof, deputy to U.S. Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and point man on U.S.-Syria policy once put it bluntly: “Whether most of his organization’s members know it or not, and whether most Lebanese Shiites know it or not, [Nasrallah] and his inner circle do what they do first and foremost to defend and project the existence and power of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” (He was speaking to the Middle East Institute in the midst of the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.)

The rise of Iranian influence in Lebanon is particularly dangerous at the present moment, when moderate Arab countries are desperately looking for the United States to contain Iran. From the perspective of the United States’ Arab allies, if the world’s superpower can’t contain the mullahs before they have a nuclear weapon, how could they be expected to contain them if they have the bomb?

Given the disturbing drift in American policy since the 2005 Cedar revolution, what is at stake, and the choices we must make to support those seeking our help, Hezbollah’s crimes against us bear repeating.

Accused of terrorism on virtually every continent, Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any terrorist group except Al Qaeda, and today they posses weapons of state.

They murdered 63 people, including 17 Americans and eight CIA officers in our Beirut embassy in 1982. They slaughtered 241 American marines in the Marine barracks’ bombing in 1983, and a year later killed another 18 American servicemen near the U.S. Air Force Base in Torrejon, Spain. Robert Stethem, a US Navy diver, was beaten to death and thrown on the tarmac when Hezbollah terrorists hijacked TWA flight 847. And of course the brutal kidnapping, heinous torture, and eventual murder of the CIA’s Beirut station chief Bill Buckley and Col. William ‘Rich’ Higgins were carried out by Hezbollah terrorists.

Fred Hof was a close friend of Col. Higgins and, at the time, part of a small team that worked every possible angle to free Higgins before his death. “I am one of a small handful of Americans who knows the exact manner of Rich’s death,” he explained years ago. “If I were to describe it to you now – which I will not – I can guarantee that a significant number of people in this room would become physically ill.  When [former Deputy Secretary of State] Rich Armitage described Hezbollah a few years ago as the “A-Team” of international terrorism and suggested that there was a “blood debt” to be paid, he was referring to a leadership cadre that is steeped in blood and brutality.”

It is that ‘leadership cadre’ of Iranian backed terrorists, who have been killing our allies and us for over 30 years, that is today working for Tehran, “maneuvering furiously”, according to the New York Times, to derail the tribunal, and destroy the native forces inside Lebanon seeking to restore self-determination for the Lebanese people.

Lebanon is again at a cross roads, and so is American policy.

How did the situation become so dire, so soon after the West finally helped the Lebanese people shake off the foreign forces driving thirty years of civil war and violence? Is it now too late to stop Iran from successfully exporting their revolution into a country as culturally diverse and multi-confessional Lebanon?

It’s difficult not to lay the blame at the feet of former President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. The Bush administration was eager to hold up Lebanon as an example of its successful Middle East policy: “We took great joy in seeing the Cedar Revolution. We understand that the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the street to express their desire to be free required courage, and we support the desire of the people to have a government responsive to their needs and a government that is free, truly free,” Bush said at the time.  However, when push came to shove, the president did little to help our Lebanese allies when they needed him most.

Judgment day came May 7, 2008. An emboldened Hezbollah, alarmed that the government was moving to control the group’s illicit private communications network, invaded the streets of Beirut and the Chouf Mountains to the south, forcing Lebanon’s democratically-elected leaders to accede to a power-sharing agreement at the point of a gun. The result was yet another capitulation by the Bush administration, which signaled its acquiescence to the Doha Agreement, signed on May 21 of that year, formalizing Hezbollah’s veto over any government decision, including its own disarmament.

But if the Bush administration opened the door to Hezbollah’s takeover of Lebanon, Barack Obama’s administration is holding that door ajar, doing little to support America’s erstwhile allies in the March 14 coalition out of fear that such a move would damage any chance of engaging with Syria.

In an October 18 letter, Congressmen Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Dan Burton (R-IN), chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, protested the administration’s lack of support for moderate elements in Lebanon: “We remain concerned that your strategy of offering diplomatic overtures to hostile regimes has done little to provoke Middle East peace, and has only taken away leverage from our democratic friends and allies.”

For its part, the Administration continues to put the emphasis on reaching out to Damascus, and has gone only so far as to indicate there are limits to America’s patience. “Syria and the United States have taken some modest steps to see if we can improve the bilateral relationship, but this cannot go very far as long as Syria’s friends are undermining stability in Lebanon,“ explained Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, on a visit to Syria earlier this month.

It is vital that the United States reverse these years of drift and act decisively to help the Lebanese people reassert their right to self-determination — because it is in America’s national interest.  The alternative is to give in to the foreign agenda of the Mullahs in Tehran and their terrorist proxy at time when containing Iran’s expansionist ambition is the paramount necessity in the region. So what do we do?

The Obama administration must decide to resist the “resistance,” and lead the West in a program to further empower Lebanese civil society and aid the dormant democratic forces in the country. It is these courageous actors, with the proven ability to lead successful political and media campaigns and expose the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis, who were specifically targeted by Hezbollah in May 2008 — exactly because they are effective. The Lebanese people need to know that the president of the United States supports their pursuit of freedom and democracy, especially as Hezbollah’s role in attacking the state is on the verge of being exposed.

President Obama should immediately look to Lebanon’s pro-democracy media, which has largely been silenced over the last year, intimidated not only by pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, and Hezbollah foes, but hobbled by Saudi patrons who mistakenly thought they could pull Syria away from Iran’s influence. That strategy, like our own outreach to Syria, has proven a disastrous failure, for Lebanon, the region and US national interests. The Obama administration can help take the muzzle off of these Lebanese patriots—like Prime Minister Saad Hariri and head of the Lebanese Forces party Samir Geagea—whose courageous voices are the first defense against Hezbollah’s “resistance.” Let Lebanon speak.

And, the Obama administration must ensure that the Special Tribunal goes forward, prosecuting those it indicts.  America’s $10 million contribution last week is commendable, but it is not enough.  No problem, other than stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, calls as urgently for international focus as does the effort to stop Iran from expanding its sphere of influence and overpowering another people.

The United States must be willing to work with its allies in Europe and the Middle East to support those democratic elements who want to save their country. This policy will not be easy. It may require making the tough decision to give up on forces and programs that have failed to serve as a bulwark against Hezbollah, or it may require a deep reform of the same, but tough choices are what we face.

It was Harry Truman who said “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Those words are as true today under President Obama as when they were uttered in 1947 by a young former Senator thrust suddenly into power, forced to make some of this nation’s most fateful, difficult and ultimately, successful decisions. America is no less the leader of the free world today than we were then, unless we act otherwise.

If the Obama administration takes a bold stand in favor of Lebanon’s independence and starts pressing the Saudis to support Lebanese civil society, it will find that many figures in Beirut, and other countries with a stake in Lebanon’s stability will enthusiastically follow its lead.

But whatever methods it chooses, the administration must make a clear public signal that the United States will not sit on the sidelines while Iran, through its satraps Syria and Hezbollah, successfully exports the Iranian revolution to Lebanon. President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to support democracy and tolerance in the Middle East. The time of decision has come. The President must now put America’s words into action.

A shorter version of this article appeared at ForeignPolicy.com

photo credit: Patrick Makhoul