It’s hardly news that state and local governments around the country are laying off workers and reducing services in the current economic and fiscal climate. But putting aside services for a moment, the sheer impact of public-sector job layoffs is becoming pretty alarming:
Cash-strapped cities and counties have been cutting jobs to cope with massive budget shortfalls — and that tally could edge up to nearly 500,000 if Congress doesn’t step up to help.
Local governments are looking to eliminate 8.6% of their total full-time equivalent positions by 2012, according to a new survey released Tuesday by the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and United States Conference of Mayors.
“Local governments across the country are now facing the combined impact of decreased tax revenues, a falloff in state and federal aid and increased demand for social services,” the report said. “In this current climate of fiscal distress, local governments are forced to eliminate both jobs and services.”
That’s just local governments, mind you, not the states who are themselves facing major layoffs.
Now many conservatives would celebrate this news on grounds that eliminating some of the parasites who work for government will somehow, someway, free up resources for the private sector. I’ve never understood exactly how that’s supposed to look, but as Matt Yglesias points out, it’s a really bad time to experiment with efforts to counter-act a recession by increasing unemployment:
Conservatives have largely convinced themselves that public servants are such vile and overpaid monsters that anything that forces layoffs is a good thing and the moderates in Congress seem scared of their own shadows so nothing will be done. But economically speaking, the time for local governments to try to trim the fat is when unemployment is low and your laid-off librarian, ambulance driver, or guy who keeps the park clean can get a new job where his or her skills will plausibly be more optimally allocated. But guess what produces less social welfare than driving a bus? Sitting at home being unemployed. And so it goes down the line. Dumping people into a depressed labor market all-but-guarantees an increase in idleness along with a drop in revenue for local retailers that will lead to more idleness and waste.
Higher unemployment is simply bad. Deliberately promoting it is worse.
For the first time in my life, I think I agree with John Boehner (R-OH) when it comes to national security. Well, sort of. (And trust me, that’s a tough admission from a guy who wrote this column eviscerating Boehner’s track record on national security.)
Here’s what the Minority Leader said following yesterday’s war funding vote to send $33 billion to support the military deployment in Afghanistan:
“We’ve been through all of this wrangling, and for what? All we’ve created is more uncertainty for our troops in the field, more uncertainty for the Pentagon, and it’s all unnecessary.”
Before you go thinking that I’ve lost my mind, let me explain. Boehner is trying to ding Democrats politically for so much as debating (and then voting against) the Afghanistan supplemental. Essentially, Boehner chafes because Democrats refuse to write the Pentagon a blank check. While I fully support funding troops in the field, you’re about to see why I’m not endorsing Boehner’s blank check by any stretch.
But on the other hand, if you’re sick and tired of having to revisit this “wrangled” vote several times a year, the man might just have a point. And I’ll bet he doesn’t even know it. Democrats would do well to pay attention.
For the third time this year, Congress has appropriated money for Afghanistan. They did it first in the baseline defense budget (“check please!” $549 billion), the “overseas contingency fund” ($129 billion), and now this $33 billion supplemental. That comes to a whopping total of some $711 billion (depending on how you round, of course).
Each of these appropriations not only causes consternation throughout the Democratic caucus, but also reinforces the idea that Pentagon spending is void of any sense of restraint. After all, if you’re trying to sneak a defense appropriation into the first bill and it gets axed, the current system gives you two more chances to slide it in.
The current appropriation is a perfect example — just one month ago it was $30 billion, yet at yesterday’s vote, it grew ten percent to $33 billion. Why does Congress need an extra $3 billion today that they didn’t 30 days ago?
The good news is that Boehner has unwittingly opened the door for a sensible, pragmatic solution to defense budgeting: end the supplemental budgeting process. End the wrangling.
Instead of voting on three separate defense bills that total $711 billion, just vote on one bill that is $711 billion. Not only would it avoid stomach-turning votes for Democrats, a single defense appropriation would limit wasteful spending and prioritize America’s soldiers deployed on the field of battle.
Think of it this way: Once that money is appropriated, that’s it. There’s a definitive bottom line that Congress has to stick to. This forces hard choices about spending priorities based on a set amount. It is not the typical defense budget two-step of what’s available both now and what can be added in the future.
Money would be allocated first and foremost to the warfighter. Faced between the choice of spending money on the weapons, logistics and salaries that our deployed troops need, and buying more of a weapons system we don’t require. What choice do you want your member of Congress to make?
But with today’s three defense budgets, Congress can buy the all the weapons they want, and then appropriate as much as they need for the war.
John Boehner talks about “certainty” for the Pentagon, but he’s only talking about the certainty of spending more, with no sense of discipline. If Democrats are smart, they’ll roll our three budgets into one, and be certain about prioritizing the warfighter and starting to control defense spending.
As you know by now, no climate bill will emerge from this Congress. Most have picked up Lindsey Graham’s metaphor — “cap and trade is dead” — though I prefer to think of a bill as “mathematically eliminated”. In other words, the right reaction is not permanent loss of hope but “wait til next year.” That hope is faint, however, given the likely makeup of the next Congress.
It has not taken long for the process of taking stock and assigning blame to begin. Will Marshall here at Progressive Fix has written on Congress’ failure (and I agree with everything he writes). The New York Times op-ed page has been dominated by pieces on why the bill failed, and who is to blame. Grist summarizes reactions. I don’t have much to add to what has already been said. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, and I think there is plenty of blame to go around. That said, I’m still very optimistic about the prospects for action on climate – and by that I mean specifically a national, comprehensive carbon price – in the relatively near future. I think failure in 2010 is a setback, but will be viewed in retrospect as a minor one. This is little different from the way I felt weeks or months ago, but events of last week seem to have suddenly made me a contrarian. Climate pessimism is the new zeitgeist. So why the optimism? Because changes are coming that make climate action inevitable. The world is moving, with or without the Senate.
Some of these changes are structural. Above all, climate policy has to face physical reality, not just social and political preferences. The science of climate change is clear on the big issues, is constantly improving its predictions, and is deepening our understanding of the climate system. The longer we wait, the more we will know — and the warmer the planet will get. Those skeptical of climate science have played almost no role in the failure of climate legislation this year; they were marginal from the beginning. Better knowledge, and tangible evidence of the consequences of climate change, will make the case for action steadily stronger. Physics, as much as politics, will move the “centrist” position on climate towards action. I hope this will be by way of clear but remote physical evidence, such as melting icecaps, rather than by way of weather disasters or droughts. Demographics point in the right direction as well. Young people tend to be more strongly in favor of limiting carbon emissions (though not all polls agree). As today’s youth start to vote and gain power and influence, legislators will have to respond or choose another career.
Another more or less structural change on the way is pressing need for deficit reduction. As both Tyler Cowen and Nate Silver have pointed out in the last couple of days, this, too, will increase the chances of a price on carbon. Higher taxes are almost a certainty given our debt burden and the plausible range of spending cuts. As Cowen puts it, a price on carbon is the “least bad tax” in the sense that it discourages harmful actions (emitting carbon) rather than productive activity.
Other changes come from policies already in the pipeline. Existing state and federal laws provide some authority for regulating carbon emissions, though results will be more modest and costs higher than they would be with a uniform national carbon price. This is my area of expertise, and we’ve written a lot on the issue at Resources for the Future. The summary is this – the EPA can get modest but meaningful carbon reductions with the tools it has, likely at modest cost. EPA regulations on “traditional” pollutants like sulfur dioxide, which are emitted primarily by fossil fuel (and above all coal) plants will also have co-benefits for carbon emissions. These incidental reductions in carbon emissions will make the goals we need to reach with an eventual carbon price more modest. In the past, health benefits from reduction in pollution from coal has been cited as a secondary reason to price carbon. Now, the tables are turned – moves to reduce these pollutants using existing Clean Air Act authority will have climate benefits. Put it this way – in the long or even medium-term, climate action isn’t dead, but coal is, at least unless carbon capture and storage technology becomes available at modest cost. David Roberts at Grist makes this point, with the added irony that coal will likely be begging for cap-and-trade before long, since it would probably give the industry a handout in the form of allowances that could be sold as plants are shut down.
Finally, there’s the economy. Whether out of opportunism or genuine fear, concerns over the economic impact of climate policy fueled opposition this year. If 2010 politics could be matched with the 2007 economy, I have no doubt that a climate bill (of some kind) would have passed the Senate. The politics will get rosier for climate action, for the reasons I explained above. The economy will strengthen as well, and “jobs” will not dominate politics to the extent that they are the only acceptable justification for policy, and the rhetorical foundation of all opposition to policy. Those that agree with Ross Douthat that “sometimes it makes sense to wait, get richer, and then try to muddle through” will be more prepared to muddle through as we get richer. If the economy does not improve, we have bigger problems – though the one small benefit of our economic troubles is that it has likely bought us a little time on climate. Carbon emissions are down sharply over the last few years. In fact it will be an interesting question to look back once we have some perspective and ask whether the economic crisis was beneficial or harmful in climate terms.
These changes are all inevitable or at least very likely. Together, they will make a carbon price ever more politically possible, and eventually politically necessary. As most people who have considered the climate problem seriously have known for a long time, pricing carbon is the only workable solution. Eventually, it will come.
Of course, whether climate action will happen is easier to predict than how long it will take. I don’t have an solid answer for the latter question. Some of the shifts I mention will take longer than others. Structural changes, like global warming itself and demographic shifts, may take a long time to affect politics. Policies in the pipeline are more well-understood, but many are in the planning stage and could be held up, possibly by litigation. Meaningful EPA regulations on carbon could be in place by late 2011, or might not be effective until near the end of the decade. Economic improvement should, I hope, come more quickly – but there are of course no guarantees, and the “joblessness” of the recovery to date may mean the economy will dominate politics for longer than growth figures would indicate. So I don’t know when we’ll have real climate legislation. My best guess would be 2013 – another presidential & congressional election, presumably a stronger economy, fossil industries under pressure from the EPA and states, and, plausibly, palpable evidence of climate change could all converge to make a comprehensive climate bill politically possible. But that’s only a guess.
A critical look at last week’s events and, indeed, the last few years of congressional inertia is warranted. Pushing for action on climate – whether at the grassroots or in the Capitol – is still desperately needed. The longer we wait, the greater the risk and the higher the cost. But these events are just minor scenes in a story whose end we already know. Climate action may come sooner, or it may come later, but it will come.
Last week, Michelle Rhee, chancellor of D.C. public schools, made national news by firing 241 — six percent — of the District’s teachers deemed underperformers. Rhee’s move came after negotiations in June with the Washington Teachers’ Union that created a merit-based bonus system that permits well-performing teachers to earn up to a 21 percent pay increase. The agreement also allows the District to fire those who did not meet minimum benchmarks. Teacher assessment scores will be based half on student improvement and half on in-class teacher evaluations.
While performance-related pay has been around since the 1700s and affects the pay scale of over 85 percent of private sector employees, the debate over merit pay for teachers is still highly contentious. On one hand, proponents argue merit pay will help cash-strapped schools retain good teachers and shed bad ones. They also argue that this will create a salary scale that is fairer than the system of seniority pay that currently exists in most school systems. On the other hand, opponents contend that merit pay may work for seamstresses, but teaching is too complicated to base quality on student performance on a standardized test.
The argument goes, evaluating teachers based solely on a set of student-achievement benchmarks will incentivize teachers to neglect the essential but non-tested responsibilities of educators. As George Parker, current president of the Washington Teachers’ Union put it, “It [merit pay] takes the art of teaching and turns it into bean counting.” Yet numerous other professions that require complex skills and responsibilities have adopted merit pay with positive results. For example, the department of Homeland Security has recently implemented performance-related pay for security analysts, and few would equate scrutinizing terrorist threats with “bean counting”.
The real question for education policy makers is to what degree can metrics assess the added value of different teachers? Part of the answer to this question relates to the availability of good data. Teacher performance may vary significantly depending on a number of variables such as student household income or the percentage of students with English as a second language. Without significant aggregate databases recognizing and accounting for such variables when developing performance pay systems may be difficult or even impossible. Yet technological advancements in the longitudinal data systems being put in place in states and districts are increasingly allowing for a more granular understanding of where educators do and do not add value to the learning process. Although it’s probably true that the current level of data may not be enough to predict exactly what makes a good teacher, what’s important is to use the data, along with the ways of assessing teacher performance, we have to make a better incentive system for the nation’s educators.
Yet that hasn’t been the case. In 1950, for example, 97 percent of public school teachers were paid based on seniority and education attainment (because data did not exist to fairly reward teachers based on any other benchmarks). But by 2007, 96 percent were still being paid based on these payment schedules; regardless of the numerousstudies that have actually found experience (after the first two years) and teaching certifications are two of the worst indicators of teacher performance.
The blatant disregard of the evidence is not accidental. Several players in education policy—particularly teachers’ unions—have described evidence-based pay as some sort of pedagogical chimera, sucking the lifeblood out of what it takes to be a good teacher. For example, Doug McAvory, general secretary to the National Association of Head Teachers, a teachers’ union in the UK, argues, “The extension of performance-related pay based on pupil progress will further demoralize and demotivate teachers.” Yet given that educators readily embrace handing out grades to seven year olds, the argument that performance metrics might “demoralize” underperforming adult professionals seems unpersuasive. Such arguments do little more than distract educators from the importance of using technology and advanced metrics to create better schools.
ITIF and others have emphasized the importance of an educated workforce to improving the innovative and global competitiveness of the United States, but U.S. students are falling behind when measured against their counterparts in other countries. For example, in 2007, only ten percent of U.S. fourth-graders and six percent of eighth-graders scored at or above the international benchmarks in mathematics. Yet as other nations, such as Finland, South Korea and Sweden, have embraced data-based pay in public schools, United States has resisted.
Educators and policy makers should keep in mind the simple syllogism that there is nothing better than a good teacher and nothing worse than a bad one. As a society, we should do what is necessary to get more of the former and fewer of the latter, whether that requires more money, monitoring or better metrics.
Today’s primary election is in Oklahoma. Both parties have interesting gubernatorial contests, while Democrats have one congressional primary of national interest and Republicans have two.
Oklahoma is a “runoff state,” where majorities are required for party nominations (runoffs will be held on August 24). It’s also a closed primary state. 49 percent of Oklahomans are currently registered as Democrats, and 40 percent as Republicans, though Republican turnout could wind up higher thanks to a surplus of competitive races.
The current governor, Democrat Brad Henry, is term-limited, and the two Democratic political heavyweights who are competing to succeed him are generally in the moderate-conservative tradition he exemplifies. The frontrunner from the beginning has been longtime (1995-present) Attorney General Drew Edmondson, an Okie from Muscogee who is the latest representative of a distinguished political family. Edmondson raised the hackles of conservatives this year by refusing to join the multi-state Attorney General lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of health reform. But he also has been endorsed by the NRA. His opponent, Lt. Gov. Jari Askins, has managed to more or less keep up with the well—financed Edmondson on the money front (in part through a large personal loan to her campaign), and sports a slightly better performance in general election trial heats. One survey suggests that Edmondson is doing a lot better than Askins among strong Obama supporters, union members, and minority voters; in a low-turnout primary that could matter a lot. But in this unusually civil race, the main divide has been geographical: Edmondson is doing very well in the vote-heavy Tulsa area, while Askins’ base is in the more Republican southwest Oklahoma region. Askins’ final ace-in-the-hold is a late endorsement by former Oklahoma Sooners’ football coach Barry Switzer, a huge celebrity in the state; a similar Switzer endorsement is thought to have contributed mightily to Brad Henry’s late surge in 2002.
The polling in this race has shown Edmondson with a marginal lead, however, many of the voters are still undecided. The final Sooner Poll shows Edmondson up 49-33; the final Sooner Survey poll has a much larger undecided vote, with Edmondson leading 38-27. There is no third candidate, so there will be no runoff.
On the Republican side, the gubernatorial primary initially looked like a classic showdown between an “establishment” (if very conservative) officeholder, Congresswoman Mary Fallin, and Tea Party activist state senator Randy Brogdon. Fallin, a fixture in Oklahoma politics (she was Lt. Gov. from 1995-2007 before winning election to the House), voted for TARP. But aside from maintaining a large financial advantage (about 4-1), Fallin worked hard to line up national “validators” of her conservatism, winning endorsements from Sarah Palin, Jeb Bush, Tim Pawlenty and the latest conservative celebrity, Jan Brewer. And it’s thought that Brodgon went a little over the top in accusing Fallin of corruption.
In any event, polls show Fallin poised to win without a runoff. The final Sooner Poll has her up over Brogdon 56-18; the Sooner Survey puts her lead at 50-22. With two minor candidates in the field, Brogdon could theoretically force Fallin into a runoff, but it’s unlikely. His best hope is very low turnout and a good showing in his Tulsa base.
There’s a red-hot Republican primary to succeed Fallin in the House, and a late Sooner Poll shows the long-time front-runner, former state legislator Kevin Calvey running first with 28%, though political newcomer and “conservative outsider” James Lankford is moving up very fast. A runoff between the two is the most likely outcome.
The other congressional district with a lot of activity today is the 2nd district, where Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren (son of former U.S. Senator and current University of Oklahoma president David Boren) has attracted both a primary challenge and a large field of Republican opponents. Boren’s primary opponent, state senator Jim Wilson, has attracted a lot of national netroots support for his criticism of Boren’s conservative voting record, but unfortunately for him, not much money. Boren should win handily. There are six Republicans vying for the nomination in the 2nd, and though this is a nationally targeted race for the GOP, their candidates here are little known and underfunded. A Republican runoff is very probable, though it’s anybody’s guess who will be in it (businessman Howard Houchen is the best-funded).
Despite the Democratic registration advantage, Republicans control both chambers of the Oklahoma legislature, both Senate seats, and four of five House seats. If they can win back the governorship after eight years of Democratic control, and somehow knock off Boren, this would solidify their domination of Oklahoma politics. But Boren’s generally considered a heavy favorite for November, and both Edmondson and Askins are within single digits of Fallin in general election polling.
Looking Forward
Next up on the primary calendar are Kansas, Michigan and Missouri on August 3, and Tennessee on August 5. It’s been an interesting week in Tennessee’s highly competitive Republican gubernatorial primary. Congressman Zach Wamp got some unwanted national attention after suggesting that the Volunteer State might have to secede from the Union if health reform is not repealed. He later retracted the threat, but vowed to fight the feds tooth and nail through steps short of armed rebellion. And then another major candidate, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, in response to right-wing angst over the construction of an Islamic community center in Murfreesboro, allowed as how he wasn’t sure the First Amendment applied to Muslims since Islam may not be a religion, but instead a “nationality, way of life or cult.”
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Does the existence of a whistle-blower website like Wikileaks do more harm or good? Decisions about exposing information to the public depends on nuance and context, and it’s clear that in the wake of this case, Julian Assange, the site’s editor-in-chief and public face, has little appreciation for either.
Wikileaks is, in effect, a conduit for purported whistle-blowers, and describes itself as a “buttress against unaccountable and abusive power” and prides itself on “principled leaking.”
As a vehicle for whistle-blowing, the site has a responsibility to assert editorial discretion about the content it supplies, carefully weighing costs and benefits to the whistle-blowing party, those the information directly impacts and third parties. If Wikileaks is an open-repository for secret information without discretion and vetting, that’s a problem.
Prior to releasing the current military documents, the site should have exercised discretion with the following criteria in mind:
— Does the totality of the information indicate unequivocal, fact-based wrongdoing?
— Is this information new? Does it add to the public debate?
— Does its release endanger or save lives?
— Does its release cost or save public money?
By its own standard, Wikileaks, at best, punted. More likely, it outright failed and discredited itself.
Assange could not make a reliable judgment about the totality of the information he released because he could not have possibly known what exactly he was releasing. With Wikileaks staff reportedly of about five full-timers and a budget of $300,000, it’s difficult to imagine how the site could have shifted through so many documents and assembled a reasonable cost-benefit analysis, even with an “army” of hundreds of part-time volunteers. Rather, he essentially outsourced vetting to The New York Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel, and other websites that have cattle-called hungry readers to sift through the material. Ergo, Wikileaks likely had no idea if it was releasing ironclad evidence of wrongdoing.
Second, as I detailed yesterday, the information was clearly not “new.” It only served to amplify public debate. Further, the information’s release likely endangered American lives, and certainly jeopardized American sources in methods and consequently, its safety.
Finally, it’s unclear about saving public money, unless you argue that ending the war would do so. But that argument, much like the answers to all of the above, suggest that Assange and Wikileaks are motivated much more by activism than journalism. And that discredits any strain of legitimate public service the site hopes to render in the future.
From now on, Wikileaks would do well to know exactly what it’s releasing, know that it’s a new fact, and weigh the balance of lives, security and money.
If it’s Tuesday, there must be another primary election, and today’s is in Oklahoma, where both parties are holding gubernatorial primaries, and there are a couple of congressional contests of interest.
I’ve got a preview up at FiveThirtyEight for those who want a serious run-down. The bottom line is that Attorney General Drew Edmondson is favored to defeat Lt. Gov. Jari Askins for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, in what’s been a very civil contest; while Rep. Mary Fallin is almost certain to defeat Tea Party advocate Randy Brogdon for the GOP nod. Meanwhile, Blue Dog Dan Boren will turn back an underfunded progressive primary challenge, and Republicans will go to runoffs in his district and in Fallin’s.
Oklahoma’s one of those states with a pretty hardy Democratic tradition (registered Dems still outnumber registered Republicans) that’s been trending Red for some time. Hanging onto the governor’s office and a congressional seat, particularly in this kind of year, would be quite an accomplishment. Today’s primary will help determine whether that happens.
The Congressional Budget Office’s long-term budget forecasts on the national fiscal health are highly educated guesswork, but guesswork just the same. The 2030s are pretty far off, and the degree of forecasting uncertainty is higher than it once was. As CBO explains “the current degree of economic dislocation exceeds that of any previous period in the past half-century, so the uncertainty inherent in current forecasts probably exceeds the historical average.” But let’s imagine that the 2030s have arrived, and that CBO’s budget projections have come true. What would America look like?
For starters, Social Security would be flat broke. All U.S. Treasury’s IOUs to Social Security will have been cashed in. Since the Social Security trust funds will be completely depleted and, because Social Security is barred by law from borrowing from the federal government, the program will be unable to meet its obligations. Thus, by the end of the 2030s, payable benefits would have to be cut by 20 percent. Is it possible to imagine that the government will suddenly cut 20 percent of the benefits it hands out? That seems unlikely — the law would be changed and borrowing would resume.
In fact, Social Security’s problems would start much earlier. In 2016, according to CBO, its outlays would begin to regularly exceed its revenues, and consequently Social Security would first start to regularly call in its IOUs. Thus, the Treasury Department would need to borrow billions of dollars each year to pay back what it borrowed from Social Security’s trust funds.
If Social Security is expected to be in bad shape by the 2030s, the big public health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, would be doing even worse. The culprits being an aging population and expanding health care costs, which are scheduled to grow faster than the U.S. economy. By the 2030s the number of people over the age of 65 — the beneficiaries – will have increased by 90 percent while those between 20 and 65 — the contributors — will have grown by a meager 10 percent.
In the 2030s, federal spending on mandatory health care programs accounts for 11 percent of GDP, about twice the level in 2010. Add in Social Security, and the big three entitlements cost about 16 percent of GDP. Keep in mind that primary spending for the 40 year period before 2010 averaged 18.5 percent of GDP. This means that in 2030, the U.S. government will either be unable to direct resources to other priorities (like education,) or will have to increase a tax rate by roughly double that of 2010.
Finally, America in the 2030s will groan under mind-boggling public debt, assuming the country’s fiscal fortunes are calculated by the CBO under what’s called a “current policy” scenario. In this case, the CBO assumes that no major public policy innovations will occur throughout the lifetime of its projection. This scenario reflects the political reality we face today. For example, congress is currently debating whether to extend the Bush tax cuts and “patch” the Alternative Minimum Tax. If political inaction prevails, debt-to-GDP ratio would exceed 200 percent by the 2030s, even with an economic recovery.
It is true that the U.S. holds a privileged position by virtue of the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. But we have no idea how a debt of this magnitude would affect our ability to invest in future growth, and to keep borrowing from abroad. Moreover, in the 2030s, interest payments on the national debt are nine percent of GDP, from just one percent of GDP in 2010. If we continue borrowing at the projected rates beyond 2030, interest spending would exceed total federal revenues 15 years thereafter.
Finally, this grim fiscal portrait of America in the 2030s rests on optimistic assumptions. CBO projections assume that revenue will average around 19 percent of GDP and that long-term interest rates remain low. They also assume away the strong likelihood that America will face another economic crisis or armed conflict between 2010 and 2030.
The key for policy-makers, of course, is to envision a different fiscal future for America – and to act on it just as soon as the economy recovers.
Colorado is without question a key target for the GOP this year. It’s a traditionally “purple” state where Democrats captured the governorship and legislature in 2006, and then carried the state for Barack Obama in 2008. With incumbent Gov. Bill Ritter stepping down voluntarily, and with a competitive Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate between appointed Sen. Michael Bennet and former House speaker Andrew Romanoff, GOPers have definitely been seeing an opening. Polls have been showing close general election races for both the governorship and the Senate.
But somebody up there must not like Colorado Republicans, because they are in the midst of a plague-of-frogs series of misfortunes. As I noted here recently, the campaign of the front-running GOP gubernatorial candidate, Scott McInnis, imploded upon allegations that he plagiarized big chunks of a report he supposedly wrote to justify a very lucrative think-tank contract just a few years back.
As Colorado GOPers tried to figure out what to do, the wingiest nut of them all, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (last seen calling for the President’s impeachment on grounds that he is a “dedicated Marxist”) publicly demanded that the two Republicans officially in the race advance to drop out after the August 10 primary (enabling the party to name someone else), or he’d run for governor himself on the Constitution Party ticket. Presumably the answer didn’t come fast enough, and Tancredo duly announced his third-party candidacy, following that up with a public shouting match with the state Republican chairman.
But the weirdness has not been confined to the gubernatorial race. In the Senate primary, district attorney Ken Buck, a big Tea Party favorite who’s recently moved ahead of “establishment” candidate Jane Norton in the polls, got caught saying this into a live microphone:
[W]ill you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?
Boy, what a quandry for Buck: he now has to eat a big plate of crow to avoid offending his own base, but in doing so he will appear intimidated by a Birther contingent that he obviously considers stupid. And he’s already in some hot water for earlier blurting out that he was a better candidate than Norton because “I don’t wear high heels.”
All in all, it would have been a good week for Colorado Republican officials–and their various candidates–to have taken a vacation.
Democrats like to think of themselves as champions of economic fairness for working families. But for decades now, working class voters – especially white ones – haven’t been feeling the love. Even as their economic condition has deteriorated, they persist in voting against their “class interest” by voting Republican.
Few U.S. political leaders have studied this phenomenon more intently than Virginia Senator James Webb. In a thought-provoking Wall Street Journal article last week, Webb took aim at government policies intended to promote “diversity,” which he says have marginalized many white workers.
Webb acknowledged Washington’s responsibility to redress the wrongs endured by black Americans. But he maintained that affirmative action policies have been expanded to include many people, including recent immigrants, who cannot by any stretch of the imagination claim to be victims of discrimination. Such policies give a leg up to minorities in competition for government jobs and contracts, broadcast licenses, college admissions and even private sector hiring.
“Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years,” Webb wrote.
Excepting programs intended to benefit black Americans, “government-directed diversity programs should end,” he added.
Webb’s criticism of group preferences is reminiscent of President Bill Clinton’s “mend it, don’t end it” approach to reforming affirmative action. Perhaps because of their own humble origins, both men feel viscerally that policies that treat all whites as privileged, regardless of wide variations in their socio-economic background and circumstances, make a mockery of the liberal ideal of equal justice.
That glaring contradiction at the heart of contemporary liberalism offers a more-than-plausible explanation for why non-college white voters spurn Democrats. Liberals generally have preferred other explanations: endemic racism, or the supposed power of cultural issues to trump economic ones. Webb is challenging Democrats to come to grips with the obvious: white working class voters have good reasons for believing the party doesn’t stand for economic fairness for them.
All this is highly relevant to Democrats’ electoral prospects, in the midterm election and beyond. In last year’s big elections in New York, Virginia and even solidly Democratic Massachusetts, only a third of working class whites picked the Democratic candidate. According to a recent Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll, a mere 34 percent of non-college white men and 37 percent of non-college women approve of the job President Obama is doing.
Even among college white men, Obama’s approval stands at 42 percent, and 50 percent for women. In fact, the sharp drop in Obama’s public esteem Gallup seems to be largely due to the defection of white voters, and women in particular, since nearly two-thirds of minority voters approve of his performance.
Obama and the Democrats don’t need to win a majority of white voters, but they can’t afford to lose them by enormous margins, either. To close the gap, progressives must do a better job of addressing the real economic interests of white working class, which after all are not much different than those of working class blacks, Latinos or Asians.
What’s needed is a new agenda for modernizing public infrastructure, expanding access to education and retooling the American economy to win in global competition. The details of that agenda are a subject for another day. But Sen. Webb is right: Progressives should start by tailoring affirmative action policies narrowly to those they were originally intended to help, and let everyone else compete for economic opportunities without government’s thumb on the scales.
The story leading the day in the New York Times and Washington Post details the release of some 90,000 U.S. military documents by Wikileaks. Many of which detail the level of coordination between elements within Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, and the Taliban operating in Afghanistan. In fact, the Taliban and ranking officers within the ISI have worked together is not “news.” Pick up a copy of Steve Coll’s brilliant Ghost Wars, which ably details the relationship. Here’s an excerpt from a PBS Frontline interview with Coll on the topic:
Frontline: You describe [the Taliban] as a client of the ISI.
Coll: They received guns; they received money; they received fuel; they received infrastructure support. They also, we know, had direct on-the-ground support from undercover Pakistani officers in civilian clothes who would participate in particular military battles.
Frontline: Is it a fair characterization to say that the Taliban were an asset of the ISI?
Coll: They were an asset of the ISI. I think it’s impossible to understand the Taliban’s military triumph in Afghanistan, culminating in their takeover of Kabul in 1996, without understanding that they were a proxy force, a client of the Pakistan army, and benefited from all of the materiel support that the Pakistan army could provide them, given its own constrained resources.
The Taliban were important to the ISI in the late 1990s for another reason. The ISI also promoted a rebellion against what it regarded as Indian occupation in Kashmir. The Taliban in Afghanistan provided logistical support, training and other bases that the ISI could use to train and develop its Kashmir rebellion as well.
To sum it up: The ISI has used the Taliban for more than 15 years as a proxy force in Afghanistan. First, they served as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet communism. Old habits die hard, so when the Americans arrived, the ISI viewed collaboration with the Taliban as a natural point of influence that could be used to suit its interest — namely, keeping Afghanistan weak and unstable and impossible to dominate its neighbor.
Some in the blogosphere have treated Wikileaks’ revelation with a yawn. Check out Andrew Exum’s dripping-with-sarcasm post comparing the shock-value of the story to news that Liberace likes dudes. So sure, if you’re in the expert community, it’s easy to brush off as a non-story.
However, getting these stories out to major news outlets has relevance. Spencer Ackerman points out that the Wikileaks information provides a “new depth of detail” about the long-held ties.
More importantly, it raises the issue to a level that people controlling the purse strings can’t ignore. I’ll bet you a crisp dollar bill that John Kerry has read Ghost Wars. I’ll double down on the fact that Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, soon moves lickity-split to convene an oversight hearing that reexamines the $500 million that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just promised to the Pakistanis last week for two hydroelectric projects, a pledge that comes on the heels of a massive $7.5 billion Pakistan aid package. Keep in mind that this assistance was essentially conditioned on strengthening the Pakistani civilian government at the expense of its military and intelligence services and was accepted by the Pakistanis after some rather significant heartburn in Islamabad.
The bottom line is that widespread public disclosure of the depth of the Taliban-ISI contacts ultimately creates leverage for the Americans, and that’s a good thing.
UPDATE: It occurred to me last night that by saying leverage created by the release of classified information was “a good thing” may have tacitly endorsed the idea that I favor future leaks of classified information. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As a veteran of five years inside the intelligence committee, I deplore leaks of all kinds — they harm sources and methods, which in turn jeopardizes the IC and military’s abilities to collect information germane to America’s national security. That leverage was created by the release of information is a fortunate byproduct of the leak. My preference would been to have none at all.
After much self-congratulation over passing a massive financial regulatory bill, the U.S. Senate has punted on pricing carbon. That decision is likely to have a bigger long-term impact on the U.S. economy, and not in a good way.
Senate leaders yesterday conceded they don’t have the votes to put a price on carbon. Instead, they’ll try to pass a pallid energy bill that raises liability caps on oil companies and makes modest gestures toward energy efficiency. Even the catastrophic BP oil spill, it seems, was not enough to overcome lawmakers’ fear of being accused of raising taxes on energy as the economy struggles, even though a carbon price wouldn’t have gone into effect for several years.
Well, there’s always next year — except that the midterm election will likely bring in more Republicans wedded to climate denial and cheap fossil fuels. So the Senate’s failure to act is a costly setback from an economic, security and environmental perspective. It will prolong America’s dependence on oil and fossil fuels, worsen our trade deficit, retard investment in clean technology and low-carbon fuels, and forfeit leadership in energy innovation to other countries. And it means the United States won’t do its part to lower carbon emissions and thereby stop overheating the planet.
All this suggests progressives will have to rethink their approach to achieving a low-carbon economy. Not only is “cap and trade” dead, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said those words are no longer in his vocabulary.
PPI has long considered pricing carbon the sine qua non of progressive energy policy, although we have been agnostic as to how. We helped to design the cap and trade architecture in several pathbreaking legislative proposals (the Lieberman-McCain and Lieberman-Warner bills, as well as Senator Tom Carper’s “4P” bill), and proposed a “tailpipe trading” system to cover auto emissions. We continue to believe that cap and trade offers the twin advantages of environmental certainty — a quantifiable limit on the amount of carbon Americans emit – and strong incentives for companies to invest in energy efficiency and innovation.
At the same time, however, we’ve endorsed a straight up carbon tax, as well as setting a “floor” under oil prices to prevent their volatility from inhibiting investments in clean fuels. The key is to price carbon realistically, by taking into account the “externalities” not included in the price of gas at the pump (or coal for that matter): the hundreds of billions we spend each year to assure access to fossil fuels, as well as the environmental damage done by concentrating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
To free market fundamentalists, ending such implicit subsidies to fossil fuels is tantamount to raising taxes on energy. So be it. We need to raise the cost of burning fossil fuels and lower the cost of low-carbon alternative fuels. This is a matter of urgent national interest, and President Obama will need to propose a new clean energy strategy to the next Congress.
I won’t go through the all the results for Tuesday’s Georgia primary, since an earlier P-Fix post covered the basics. But I will mention a few details that I omitted in the quick piece I did on Wednesday.
In the gubernatorial contest, while Democrat Roy Barnes looks highly competitive for the general election (particularly if the Republican runoff gets as nasty as it looks like it may), it’s worth noting that turnout for the GOP primary was just under 700,000, while turnout for the Democratic side was just under 400,000. While turnout in both parties was terrible, and some of the disparity was attributable to the more competitive nature of the GOP battle (and the attendant television ads), it’s a reminder that this state which didn’t have a Republican governor from the early days of Reconstruction until 2002 now has a decided red tint. To win, Barnes will need to run a very good campaign (he’s certainly reconfirmed his reputation as an outstanding fundraiser), while taking advantage of the opportunities the GOP has created in eight years of lackluster governance of the state, and in the extremism of the primary messages of its candidates this year. If Barnes does win, he would interrupt what would otherwise certainly be a blatant Republican gerrymandering effort, made all the worse by Georgia’s acquisition of an additional congressional district.
A second observation is that this is one GOP primary where geography seemed to matter more than ideology or the association of this or that candidate with the Tea Party or some national conservative figure. I’ve posted a fairly elaborate analysis of this topic at FiveThirtyEight, but suffice it to say that Karen Handel finished first more because she is from vote-rich metro Atlanta than because she was endorsed by Jan Brewer and Sarah Palin. The endorsements definitely helped her overcome a financial deficit by generating free media, but in the end half the primary vote was cast in her base region, and that was the most important difference. And that’s also why she has to be considered a heavy favorite in the runoff, since her opponent, Nathan Deal, did well only in his north Georgia base, which provides a much smaller segment of the GOP vote. It’s a measure of the importance of geography that Handel trounced Deal in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County, home of Deal’s padrone, Newt Gingrich.
Perhaps because of this disadvantage, Deal looks likely to spend the three-week runoff attacking Handel for insufficient conservatism, which won’t be easy given her Palin association and her own harsh record on issues ranging from taxes (she wants to abolish the state income taxes and rely instead on regressive consumption taxes to finance state government) to immigration (as Secretary of State, she initiated a harsh voter ID system that ensnared a good many native citizen voters on primary day). So far Deal has mainly pounded Handel for supporting a rape-and-incest exception to an abortion ban, which used to be an acceptable conservative position, and for making a small contribution to the Log Cabin Republicans back when she was running for office in culturally tolerant Fulton County (Atlanta). Since Handel’s main attack line on Deal has involved ethics allegations, this could be a truly nasty culture-war dominated runoff that could drive up both candidates’ negatives.
In terms of the congressional races, there will be four Republican runoffs on August 10, two in safe Republican districts, one in a safe Democratic district, and one to choose an opponent for theoretically vulnerable Democrat John Barrow (D-GA) (though he is likely to have a big financial advantage and Barack Obama carried his district).
Down-ballot, there will be a highly contentious Republican runoff for Attorney General that could boost statewide turnout. And though it’s not directly connected to the primaries, the general election will be complicated by the fact that outgoing GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue is backing an independent candidate for State School Superintendent because the Republican nominee opposes accepting Race to the Top dollars.
The next primary is in Oklahoma on July 27, where there are competitive gubernatorial contests in both parties.
In polling news, PPP has had some interesting assessments of the Florida governor’s race. The late but free-spending entry of controversial former hospital executive and health reform opponent Rick Scott in the GOP contest has upset a lot of apple carts. A primary survey shows Scott beating long-time front-runner and party warhorse Bill McCollum 43-29, mainly by driving McCollum’s approval ratio among Florida Republicans to a dismal 26-40. But a general election poll shows Democrat Alex Sink beating either Republican (along with independent candidate Bud Chiles). And in the general electorate, Scott’s approval ratio is 23-41 and McCollum’s a truly disastrous 16-51. Like Georgia, this is a state where a Democratic gubernatorial victory could have major implications for redistricting.
In non-candidate polling news, Mark Blumenthal of pollster.com has a solid and very thorough critique of the new Politico “Power and the People” surveys by Mark Penn comparing the views of Americans generally with those of “D.C. Elites.”
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
With today’s New York Times’ article, we may be on the verge of a sea change in political attitudes on defense spending. To be sure, the political dialogue has not fully accepted the necessity of fiscal restraint at the Pentagon, but we’re getting there.
When you hear the likes of Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) say, “defense should be looked at” as a part of deficit reduction and Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) toe a harder-line, something’s up. Okay, Inouye has a long, hard-earned reputation as a defense porker, but the contrast with the conservative Gregg (even if he is from New Hampshire) is notable.
Defense spending has been a counter-intuitive third-rail of its own in domestic politics. Conservatives, allergic to every government program they’ve ever come across, drip with hypocrisy when they can’t seem to get enough pork at the barbecue of weapons systems. And progressives are often skittish about restraining defense spending in order to preserve home-district jobs and out of fear of “weak on defense liberals” charges.
But Erskine Bowles, Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and co-chair of the Deficit Commission, insists, “We’re going to have to take a hard look at defense if we are going to be serious about deficit reduction.”
It’s something your friends here at PPI have been pushing. Will Marshall, PPI’s president, testified in front of Bowles’ commission in late-June and was adamant that “defense has a contribution to make” in deficit reduction.
The hard part, however, is making sure it’s the right contribution. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has said that he’s looking at a whole-sale restructuring of Pentagon spending:
What I’m asking for is not a simple budget cut; [what] I’m talking about is changing the way we do business. It’s taking the savings from that and applying it to long-term investments… This is a lot harder than cutting the budget for one year.”
In doing so, it’s critical to strike a balance between fiscal restraint and maintaining national security. This calls for a nuanced approach that doesn’t just ax a few weapons programs one year and starts all over the next. To keep America safe, strong, and solvent, we need creative ideas for restructuring defense spending.
Continue to check in at ProgressiveFix.com, as PPI plans to issue our own plan in the coming weeks.
Written by Michael Mandel, the memo examines recent employment data that suggests the communications and Internet sectors may be emerging as “job leaders” as the overall economy struggles to recover. It also proposes that regulatory policy, like fiscal or monetary policy, should be sensitive to business cycles.
The memo calls for a “countercyclical regulatory policy,” focusing on the timing, rather than the merits of regulation. It recommends the Federal Communications Commission pause for a two-year period before imposing regulations on the growing communications sector in order to not impair job creation. The memo states: “After that period, the agency should systematically and proactively track down areas of excess and exploitive behavior and target them for selected intense regulation.”
The Progressive Policy Institute’s aim is to modernize regulatory policy for the 21st century by making it more flexible, more responsive to “boom and bust” cycles, and more attentive to growth and innovation.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concern over human rights during her trip to Vietnam, a country she last visited in the waning days of her husband’s presidency. Per the NYT:
Noting Vietnam’s recent jailing of democracy activists, attacks on religious groups and curbing of Internet social-networking sites, Mrs. Clinton said she raised the status of human rights in a meeting with a deputy prime minister, Pham Gia Khiem. … She said the United States would press Vietnam to do more to protect individual freedom. …
Mrs. Clinton’s comments were notable, given that she has played down human rights concerns in visits to Vietnam’s neighbor, China. But her timing, at the outset of the visit, suggested that she wanted to make her point, and move on.
The last line is particularly intriguing, and offers potential fodder to critics from across the political spectrum: from conservatives wed to George Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” to liberal critics to issue-focused NGOs, like Human Rights Watch and Freedom House. Is the Secretary of State just making her point and moving on? Have human rights become simply a talking point, as Secretary Clinton unfortunately suggested before her first trip to China in early 2009?
Despite her regrettable gaffes about China, she’s said that her more nuanced approach is “designed to make a difference, not prove a point.” So what is Secretary Clinton’s approach, exactly?
In Russia, a country desperate for some international respect, a stern human rights stare-down could prove counter-productive. The balance between economics, bilateral security, multi-lateral security, climate change and personal freedoms demands measured engagement. Would, for example, Russia have cooperated on New START or Iran sanctions if the Obama administration issued one human rights tongue-lashing on top of another? Anything’s possible, but such agreements would have undoubtedly been more difficult to come by.
That’s why, in big countries as Will Marshall wrote on this site the other day, Secretary Clinton is focused on building civil societies:
In an important speech that got little attention back home, she unveiled what she called a 21st century approach to promoting democracy by defending civil society. Clinton described an independent civic sector as a nursery for democratic citizenship, no less critical to a free society than representative government and a market economy. And she warned of a spreading global backlash against civil society…. This marks a significant departure from the Bush administration’s approach to democracy, which centered on demands for elections and accountable political institutions. …
Clinton aimed more modestly, but shrewdly, at bolstering a particular aspect of liberty – freedom of association. In authoritarian countries, civil society or “third sector” organizations play an especially vital role in building the infrastructure of liberal democracy. … [Clinton’s approach is] deeply subversive, in that it enables indigenous reformers to carve out space for civic action that is independent of state control. By defending the right of CSOs to organize and operate, and receive international support, the United States and other free countries can promote democracy from the ground up.
It’s in this vein that Secretary Clinton addressed an audience on cyber freedom at the Newseum earlier this year.
Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world’s networks. … They’ve expunged words, names, and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Expect the direct challenging on human rights to continue behind closed doors, but expect the Obama administration to take a more indirect, but ultimately more effective path in public.
It’s hardly news that state and local governments around the country are laying off workers and reducing services in the current economic and fiscal climate. But putting aside services for a moment, the sheer impact of public-sector job layoffs is becoming pretty alarming:
Does the existence of a whistle-blower website like Wikileaks do more harm or good? Decisions about exposing information to the public depends on nuance and context, and it’s clear that in the wake of this case, Julian Assange, the site’s editor-in-chief and public face, has little appreciation for either.
If it’s Tuesday, there must be another primary election, and today’s is in Oklahoma, where both parties are holding gubernatorial primaries, and there are a couple of congressional contests of interest.
The Congressional Budget Office’s 
The story leading the day in the 
After much self-congratulation over passing a massive financial regulatory bill, the U.S. Senate has punted on pricing carbon. That decision is likely to have a bigger long-term impact on the U.S. economy, and not in a good way.
I won’t go through the all the results for Tuesday’s Georgia primary, since an 
With today’s 
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised concern over human rights during her trip to Vietnam, a country she last visited in the waning days of her husband’s presidency. Per