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What’s a President To Do?

Posted on June 17, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

As President Obama struggles though a host of problems, from the Gulf oil spill to the refusal of the Senate to support a new jobs bill or a cap-and-trade system, you can hear Republicans repeating a strange refrain that first became prominent in their rhetoric during the health reform fight: this president is arrogant and perhaps even tyrannical for trying to enact the policy agenda that he campaigned on in 2008 in the teeth of Republican and (in some cases) popular opposition.

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics has been particularly insistent on this line of argument, with “bully” being the latest unlikely epithet employed to attack this embattled president:

For somebody who seems detached from the details of policy and largely uninterested in legislative wrangling, Barack Obama sure does come across sometimes like a political bully. But this is not bullying some obstinate backbench legislator. Instead, this is bullying the American people. With health care reform, he basically told the country that he didn’t care what it thought. The fact that people opposed the bill was proof they didn’t know what they were talking about. Now, apparently, the evolving strategy on energy is the same. Don’t like cap-and-trade? That’s your problem, not his. Plan to vote out Democrats in favor of the idea? Like he cares. He’ll pass it anyway….

Instead of passing unpopular bills through questionable methods over the opposition of the people, maybe the President should get behind proposals that can actually sustain popular support.

Okay, fine, let’s say that Obama should ignore the fact that he was elected on a platform to do all these outrageous things that Jay Cost objects to, and go with the polls which make 2010 “likely voters” the arbiters of what he should do right now. What are those “proposals” the president should “get behind” that “can actually sustain popular support?”

Should he, as he has often been urged by Republicans, forget about “irrelevant” issues like health care costs or climate change and focus strictly on the economy? Let’s say he should; what, specifically, can he do that Republicans in Congress won’t fight tooth and nail? Best I can tell, the GOP’s “strategy” for improving the economy is to slash upper-end taxes while eliminating deficits and debts. This cannot, unfortunately, be done without radical reductions in defense spending, which Republicans do not, by and large, support, or alternatively, big changes in Social Security and Medicare that the public is certain to reject by much bigger margins than health reform or cap-and-trade.

The dirty little secret of Washington right now is that the policies Republicans would follow if they were running things are considerably less popular than those being promoted by Democrats, and as the events of the last year have graphically demonstrated, there is no “half-loaf” compromise approach on major issues that Obama can take that Republicans will accept. So Obama can do what he’s doing, or do nothing. If he’s a “bully” for rejecting complete inaction, then bully for him.

Photo credit: Jurvetson’s Photostream

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Dealing With a Different Wheel

Posted on June 17, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

As we await the next step on energy legislation in the Senate, Ezra Klein makes an extremely important if fairly obvious point about the Obama administration’s apparent determination to get something passed even if it doesn’t include a cap-and-trade system or some equivalent carbon pricing mechanism. If the Senate won’t pass such provisions now, it won’t pass them later, either:

There’s nothing magic about [a House-Senate] conference that allows controversial policies that couldn’t pass the Senate the first time around to pass on the second go. The advantage of a conference report is that it can’t be amended, which means you might be able to sneak in some small concessions to the House that aren’t important enough for anyone to sink the whole bill over. But it can be filibustered. So if you add anything major to the bill that would’ve killed it on the pre-conference vote, it’s a good bet that it’ll kill it on the post-conference vote as well.

Carbon pricing almost certainly falls into that category. It’s not a side policy or a bit of pork. It’s the core of a climate bill. If it doesn’t pass in the original Senate bill, that’s because it can’t pass the Senate. Adding it in during conference won’t change that. It’ll just mean the conference report can’t pass the Senate, either. I can’t see any permutation of this in which a conference strategy for carbon pricing makes any sense.

This doesn’t, of course, mean that Congress can’t pass worthwhile energy legislation this year. But it’s not going to magically become a real climate change bill somewhere down the road, particularly with Republicans now monolithically opposing a cap-and-trade approach they once championed.

It’s fine to wheel and deal on legislation, but sometimes the only deal available is one that turns the wheel to an entirely different outcome. That’s probably where things are headed on energy this year.

Photo credit: Rob Crawley’s Photostream

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

A Deafening Silence on Pricing Carbon

Posted on June 16, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The president had a gilt-edged opportunity last night to show leadership on energy and climate policy. Most everyone who has written about the speech agrees that he let it slip through his fingers.

The president started, of course, with a discussion of the Deepwater Horizon spill and cleanup efforts, only linking the spill to larger questions of energy, energy security and climate towards the end of the speech:

When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill—a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.

Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy—because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.

Great so far. The president then added:

This is why I’m confirming the commitment I made as a candidate to securing America’s future by putting a price on carbon. Doing so would end our dependence on foreign oil, reduce the environmental risks of oil drilling, protect our children from the risk of climate change, and reduce the burden of debt we will pass on to them. Nothing else we can do as a nation would address so many critical problems. For too long we have allowed this policy to be written off because it is politically risky. That must end today. I am calling on the Senate to follow me, the House, and the American people in demanding action. Expedient half-measures will no longer do.

Except he didn’t actually say that, of course. Instead of ending his speech with the call to action it was crying out for, he punted, promising to look at “other ideas and approaches from either party” like new building efficiency and renewable energy standards.

Listening to ideas is a good thing, of course, but disregarding far and away the best one — pricing carbon — is not. The most striking difference between this speech and Obama’s “energy speech” before the 2008 election is the failure to mention a price mechanism for carbon. None of the measures Obama mentioned will do much to address any of the problems he raised, and to the extent they do anything, it will be more costly than achieving the same results with a carbon price. As Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said before the speech, trying to achieve climate and energy security results without a carbon price “would be the equivalent of President Kennedy launching our national effort to put a man on the moon without building a rocket.” (Side note: Whatever those on the left think about Lieberman, he deserves credit for the grunt work and political stand he has taken this year on climate).

I’m unsympathetic to the meme that the president’s reaction to the oil spill itself has been somehow weak — there is only so much he or anyone can do about the unfolding disaster. I do think, however, that he has shown a lack of political courage in passing up the opportunity to call for meaningful action on climate and energy. It’s likely that Rahm Emanuel, ever mindful of votes, simply does not think that there is enough support in the Senate for a real climate bill. He’s probably right, but the president’s failure to go out on a political limb for a carbon price ensures that support won’t materialize, since there’s a climate/energy leadership deficit in the Senate as well (looking at you, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)). The bully pulpit is a powerful tool to move and shape debate. Emanuel should listen to his own advice here and not waste a crisis that presents such a resonant illustration of the value of reducing carbon emissions. This kind of opportunity may not come again.

However cynical it may appear, Emanuel is right that politics only really changes in response to crises. Climate is a slow problem that will generate obvious crises only when it is too late. The only crises we are going to get while there is still an opportunity to act are those that are indirectly related to climate change (like the oil spill) or illustrate its dangers (like Katrina). If even disasters of this scale are not enough to get us to move — and if even leaders of President Obama’s caliber are unwilling to use them as an opportunity to lead — then maybe we have already lost.

Photo credit: Roberthuffstutter’s Photostream

The War on Oil?

Posted on June 16, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

President Obama firmly took charge of the Gulf oil disaster last night. That was something he needed to do. But am I the only one who found his martial tone off-putting?

There were even moments when I flashed back to his predecessor’s portentous declarations about the war on terror.

More than most of President Obama’s major speeches, this one seemed like a performance aimed at achieving a particular political result: belying a media narrative that says he’s lost control of the crisis. His histrionic address from the Oval Office suggested an actor who has read too many critical reviews.

It’s one thing to have the media whip itself into a frenzy over an oil spill that nobody seems to know how to stop. But it’s unnerving when this usually unflappable president loses his sense of proportion. The oil spill already has done immense ecological and economic damage, and it isn’t done yet. The president was right to mobilize his administration to mitigate the damage, and to put the onus on BP to make whole those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by its reckless disregard for safety.

But there really was no need for the president to sound like Churchill after the fall of France. The situation just isn’t that dire. The leaking well will be plugged, possibly in the next several weeks; nature will demonstrate its amazing resilience and self-healing properties once again; and the shrimpers, fishermen, and hospitality workers devastated by the spill will be compensated.

If his hyperbolic language seemed forced and unconvincing, the president at least drew the right lessons from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He challenged Americans to embrace the tough measures necessary to reduce our dependence on cheap fossil fuels, which Obama rightly identified as the real nub of the problem. But when it came to specifics, the president was dismayingly vague. Unaccountably, he did not repeat and drive home the crucial point which he made last week: putting a price on carbon is the sine qua non of kicking our oil addiction.

The president made it amply clear last night that he will not let BP off the hook. But that’s the relatively easy part. Would that he had been as resolute with the U.S. Senate, which has been backpedalling furiously away from the comprehensive energy/climate bill the House passed last year. The smart money in Washington says that any kind of carbon cap or price can’t muster 60 votes in the Senate, and so is dead for this year. That likely means it’s dead for next year too, since Democrats will have, at best, reduced margins in the House and Senate.

Before a national audience, the president missed an opportunity to call out Republicans for their monolithic opposition to pricing carbon. Their stance, a noxious blend of scientific ignorance and anti-tax demagoguery, condemns America to even more abject reliance on fossil fuels, with all the risks that entails, including deep water drilling and a worsening energy trade balance. The president could also have used the occasion to stiffen Democratic spines to take a firm stand for clean energy, and to acknowledge that America will also need more nuclear power to meet rising energy demand without increasing carbon emissions.

Best of all, the president could have threatened to veto any bill that doesn’t include pricing carbon to more accurately capture the true economic and environmental costs of burning fossil fuels.

Fortunately, the game is far from over and the president will have other opportunities to make his stand. Despite all his talk of oil “invasion” and “siege,” kicking America’s oil habit isn’t the moral equivalent of war; nothing is. But as the Gulf calamity reminds us, it’s an urgent imperative for presidential leadership.

Photo credit: Marinephotobank’s Photostream

How to Handle North Korea

Posted on June 16, 2010 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The following is an excerpt from Will Marshall’s column in today’s U.S. News & World Report:

Engagement with North Korea has been a bust—at least in South Korea’s eyes. In sinking the South Korean warship Cheonan, the regime in Pyongyang also torpedoed the South’s “sunshine policy” of humanitarian aid and economic investment in the North. Let’s hope the incident also shatters some illusions in Washington.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said the attack, which killed 46 sailors, has awakened South Koreans to “the reality that the nation faces the most belligerent regime in the world.” Seoul moved swiftly to seal the border, freeze trade, ban North Korean ships from its territorial waters, and designate the North as its archenemy. Bak’s militant response, however, seems to have rattled many South Koreans. Instead of rallying around the government, voters last week handed his Grand National Party a stinging defeat in local and regional elections. The prosperous South may no longer believe that Pyongyang can be tamed by economic blandishments, but young Koreans especially want to defuse the crisis.

The Obama administration is standing in solidarity with South Korea and pressing China to support new United Nations sanctions against North Korea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was recently in Seoul, where she reaffirmed the U.S. policy of “strategic patience.” Officials traveling with her said there will be no push to restart nuclear disarmament talks. “What we’re focused on is changing North Korean behavior,” the Washington Post quoted one official as saying.

Patience, no doubt, is a virtue in dealing with North Korea’s volatile dictator, Kim Jong Il. But it is not a policy. The United States has been trying to change the regime’s behavior since the Cold War ended, with little to show for it. Despite periodic bouts of U.S. engagement, multilateral diplomacy, and economic assistance, things have gotten worse. North Korea has developed and tested nuclear bombs, aided Syria’s clandestine nuclear program, sold missiles to Iran, and run a counterfeit-dollar racket, all while starving millions of its own people.

So what should be the strategic aim of U.S. policy toward North Korea?

Some foreign policy “realists” seem to believe that, if only the United States and its international partners can cobble together the right mix of economic incentives and diplomatic pressure, Pyongyang will eventually come to its senses. But North Korea offers a perfect illustration of realism’s blind spot—its inability to grasp the connection between the nature of regimes and their external conduct.

Read the full column at U.S. News & World Report.

Photo credit: US Army Korea – IMCOM

Divorce Washington at Your Peril, Silicon Valley

Posted on June 16, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley are separated by 3,000 miles and vastly different cultures. But if the Valley itself and, more broadly, the U.S. economy are to thrive, then Washington and Silicon Valley need to appreciate each other more than they currently do. From my perch inside the Beltway, I’d like to offer some words of advice for the Valley.

First, I salute your entrepreneurial and organic spirit. It has helped transform the world and create jobs and wealth. But while Washington doesn’t always understand what Silicon Valley does or needs, you need to abandon the myth that Washington had nothing to do with your creation.

Remember: the Internet emerged from the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Oracle got started doing work for the Central Intelligence Agency and Intel sold much of its early output to the Pentagon. Sergey Brin was working on bibliographic research with an National Science Foundation (NSF) grant when he conceived Google. The founders of Genentech and other Bay Area biotech firms relied in part on federal research money to universities. Granted, these and many other companies became forces in the market independent of government, but does anyone really think that the federal dollars that flowed into Stanford, U.C. Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore Lab had nothing to do with the Silicon Valley of today?

Second, whatever tangential role the feds played years ago, many in Silicon Valley agree with Michael Arrington, editor of the widely read blog Tech Crunch, that it was time for Washington to “just leave Silicon Valley alone.” Oh really? No need for a more generous research and development tax credit? What about intellectual-property infringement? Are the busy people creating and running the companies in the Valley going to lead the charge for cracking down on IP theft in countries like China? What about federal funding for research? I don’t need to tell you that a lot of the best minds and ideas that end up in your companies were trained and/or nurtured at these prestigious California institutions, where federal money flows in from NSF, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and others. Imagine where the Valley will be in the future without the public private/partnerships and government research dollars. The countries with the fastest broadband are the ones in which government invested in the networks.

Third, don’t kid yourselves — while success in the IT industry in the past might have depended on private companies simply commercializing and marketing their good innovations, success going forward depends on robust public-private partnerships. Intelligent transportation systems, the smart electric grid, mobile payments, digital signatures, health IT and, of course, broadband all represent transformative changes in how we live and work. The commercial opportunities for private companies will be huge, but can companies alone lead the way? Probably not. As we have shown in a report, other nations are ahead of us in all these areas and it is because of smart public private IT partnerships. Only when government commits to the historic redesigns of how we travel, communicate, share data, conduct commerce and use energy will the vast commercial opportunities become accessible for Silicon Valley companies.

Fourth, don’t assume that if government simply loosens up H-1B visa restrictions and lowers taxes, everything else will take of itself. Yes, we need to be able to attract and retain the best minds in the world so we are not starved for talent in the U.S. And yes, we should lower corporate taxes to compete for mobile, high-value-added jobs with countries that have lower effective corporate tax rates. We need to make our R&D credit more generous (we now rank 18^th among OECD countries) and should explore tax incentives tied to investment and workforce training workers. But it’s important to note that these countries are matching tax cuts with proactive government efforts to marshal resources to establish leadership in IT and other key economic sectors. Silicon Valley is hanging its fate on a very narrow reed by focusing on worker visas and taxes, and giving short shrift to the many other ways where government plays an integral role in its future.

That leads to the fifth and final piece of advice: Play a more active role in shaping policy in Washington that is good for the country and good for Silicon Valley. Rather than wishing the government would simply cut taxes and leave, get behind government efforts to make innovation a more central part of economic policy. Support more robust investments in national laboratories and university research. Stand up for government efforts to kick start the development of “platform technologies” like the smart grid and intelligent transportation systems. Lead the charge for a better trade policy that defends U.S. innovators against foreign technology mercantilism. Silicon Valley has been the chief beneficiary of Washington’s research and vision, and stands to gain the most from these policies going forward.

Photo credit: caccamo

Alabama Primary Saga Continues

Posted on June 15, 2010 by The Progressive Policy Institute

After the cornucopia of primaries on June 8, the electoral schedule is slowing down for a bit. The next votes are on June 22, with three statewide runoffs (South Carolina, North Carolina and South Dakota) and the Utah primary.

But perhaps the most interesting set of developments over the last few days involves Alabama’s Republican gubernatorial contest, where the extremely narrow margin between second-place finisher Robert Bentley and third-place finisher Tim James has created a legal and political mess.

Alabama is one of those states with a relatively decentralized election system, particularly for primaries. There’s no automatic recount system, and technically, no such thing as a statewide recount. So a candidate like James, who is looking for 167 votes to overtake Bentley, must pursue a recount county-by-county, through county party committees utilizing volunteers, all at his own expense.

As James was gearing up for that effort last week, along came Attorney General Troy King — a Republican who got trounced in his effort to get renominated on June 1 — with an opinion holding that no challenge to the primary results could be launched until a nomination had actually been made — i.e., after the runoff. This Catch-22 situation didn’t persuade James to abandon his recount effort, but it appears that if the recount does put him into the lead, the best party leaders could do for him is to schedule a runoff after the runoff — essentially a round-robin — where he’d face the winner of the contest between Bentley and first-place finisher Bradley Byrne. As Chuck Dean of the Birmingham News says:

That scenario is keeping Republican Party state Chairman Mike Hubbard from getting a good night’s sleep.

“It’s a potential mess,” said Hubbard. “All we can do at this point is follow what the attorney general says is the law and the recommendations of the secretary of state and then see what we see. If the recount shows Bentley still in the lead, then I guess this is all over. If the recount shows James pulling ahead, then all I can say is, hold on.”

The only person enjoying this mess is probably Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ronnie Sparks.

In other runoff news, third-place finisher Henry McMaster has endorsed all-but-certain South Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley in her runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-SC).

Poll Watch

In polling news, Magellan Strategies has a new Louisiana survey out that illustrates the dominance of the oil and gas industries in that state’s economy, with respondents favoring an expansion of offshore drilling by a 72-15 margin.

PPP has released the first major survey of the Illinois Senate race since Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) issues with his military record emerged. It shows Democrat Alexi Giannoulias edging back ahead of Kirk by a 31-30 margin with a big undecided vote.

And a new Battleground poll for NPR, jointly conducted by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, focuses on 70 competitive House districts, sixty of which are currently held by Democrats. It shows Republicans with an overall 49-41 lead in these districts, including a 47-42 lead in Democratic districts. As Stan Greenberg put it: “In a year where voters want change and in which Democrats are seen to be in power, this is a tough poll — about as tough as you [can] get.”

Report: High-Speed Rail Will Accelerate Economic Growth in Surveyed Cities

Posted on June 15, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

A report released yesterday concludes that high-speed trains would significantly boost economic activity and job creation over sped-up conventional Amtrak service. Released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the report examines how the introduction of different types of train service would impact business activity and jobs in two midsized cities – Albany, N.Y., and Orlando, Fla. – and a regional hub, Chicago.

Its findings clarify that the current debate over train speeds is not a dispute over “complementary means to the same end,” but a basic question of national aspirations that goes straight to the heart of 21st-century transportation and economic development.

Simply put, does the country want to pay less for an infrastructure that will make marginal improvements or does it want to spend more in order to multiply its gains?

Incremental vs. High Speed

Incremental improvements on existing railroad rights of way would cost about $15 million-$20 million a mile to build, whereas full high-speed rail (HSR) – with a dedicated right of way – might cost $40 million or more a mile.

Currently only Florida and California are pursuing the full HSR option. Some 15 states are developing projects that would result in what can best be called “higher speed rail” or “improving Amtrak on-time-performance rail.”

Joseph Szabo, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, has thrown his weight behind incremental improvements, saying in recent congressional testimony that trains that operate at 200 mph aren’t really necessary.

The calculations of the Boston consultancy, Economic Development Research Group, who prepared the new report, point to a different conclusion.

For Albany, the report looked at three scenarios in year 2035 – the introduction of marginally improved train speeds (79-90 mph), medium speeds (maximum of 110 mph) and full high speeds (maximum of 220 mph).

The report estimated that annual business sales would increase in the range of $358 to $534 million a year (in 2009 dollars) for incremental and medium-speed service, but would jump five-fold to $2.5 billion a year with full high-speed service.

The employment impact similarly varied, from 3,200 to 4,700 permanent jobs added for incremental and medium-speed service, compared to 21,360 jobs with HSR. Because the quality of jobs would increase with a more mobile workforce, roughly $1 billion a year would be added to Albany wages by 220-mph service.

Transformative Effect

The report attributed fast rail’s transformative powers on Albany to the fact that it would bring the region within the orbit of New York City. The two cities are separated by 140 miles, but Amtrak service currently takes 2 hours 35 minutes.

Reducing travel time to under an hour – possible when reaching a maximum 200 mph balanced with slower speeds in the urban districts – would spark a huge travel flow and make Albany a destination for commuters as well as tourists and business travelers. Connecting Albany to Buffalo, Boston and Montreal with fast trains would create additional opportunities.

This in turn would “support the growth of office activities and services that support state government, emerging nanotechnology, clean energy and computer chip-related industries,” the report concluded.

Growth projections for the three other cities studied:

In Chicago, 220-mph trains radiating to St. Louis, Detroit and St. Paul-Minneapolis would nearly triple yearly business activity to $6.1 billion and more than double employment to 42,200 new jobs compared to 110-mph service.
In Orlando, 220-mph trains from Tampa-St. Petersburg and Miami would bring $2.9 billion in yearly business sales, including 27,500 new jobs, compared to $2.1 billion in sales and 19,900 jobs from service operating at 168 mph.
In Los Angeles, 220-mph service to San Diego and San Francisco would generate $7.5 billion in new sales, including 54,000 new jobs. Because California is only planning a high-speed line, there was no economic comparison to slower service.

The economic benefits of HSR would grow over time as the new service was fully implemented and savings in travel time, expenses and congestion reduction were realized.

The new report is titled “Connecting America with High Speed Rail” and can be downloaded at https://www.usmayors.org/highspeedrail/.

Photo credit: Beto’s Photostream

Head Scarves, Minarets and the Arizona Immigration Law

Posted on June 15, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

I’ve been following the story of a Muslim French woman who was given a ticket in April for driving while wearing her hijab, or veil. She was issued the ticket for driving with obscured vision. Yesterday, it jumped into mainstream American media over at the Washington Post. The story is the high water mark in a public debate on Islam in France that’s been brewing for over a decade.The incident underscores France’s uneasy relationship with its sizable Muslim minority. Depending on your source, 10 to 12 percent of French citizens are of Arab or Muslim extraction, or nearly six million total (it’s difficult to verify these numbers because the French census, rigidly adhering to the country’s secularism, does not permit racial or religious background information from being collected).

French Muslims’ growing prominence has become particularly notable in the south, for obvious geographic reasons. Jean Marie Le Pen’s racist and xenophobic National Front consistently draws its base of support in this region (it’s no coincidence that Le Pen calls Marseille home). If you’re not terribly familiar with French politics, don’t write them off — they’ve been around a lot longer and are much better organized than America’s far-right Tea Party. In the regional elections this March, the party took home 12 percent of the total vote and over 20 percent in Le Pen’s home base.

The National Front creates problems for center-right French President Nicolas Sarkozy, son of Hungarian parents and a first-generation citizen himself. Essentially, Sarko wants to channel France’s xenophobia through a different mechanism — his. Sarko’s ruling UMP party in January offered a draft law to ban the veil and partial ban on burka (the entire Islamic dress for women), which he champions as defending France’s secularism and women’s rights. Sure, that’s plausible, but the debate is really a sop to racists.

What’s difficult about the issue is that I actually think there is a public safety concern. I can see how wearing a veil while driving might reduce your vision in ways a helmet would not — the hijab is loose cloth and could cover one eye while turning your head. A concerted effort should be made to balance religious freedom and public safety, while being mindful that bans on clothing are distinctly ill-liberal. Even conservatives should have a problem with the government telling you want to wear.

France is unfortunately not alone — Belgium passed a similar law (25 percent of Brussels follows Islam, five percent countrywide), and Switzerland (five percent) voted last year to ban construction of minarets on mosques. It would seem, therefore, that Europe is developing something of a trend in largely symbolic anti-Islamic legislation.

But what do head scarves and minarets have to do with the recently signed “immigration law” in Arizona? Just substitute “Hispanic” for “Muslim” and “U.S.” for “Europe” and you’d get the picture. With 15 percent of the country now claiming Hispanic origin, the Arizona law is the same type of symbolic legislative effort that channels voters’ racism. The thing is, some 60 percent of Americans support it nationally.

So where do we go from here? If progressives scream “racism” at the top of their lungs, the legislation’s supporters will concoct non-racial justifications. The best answer, in the U.S. at least, is to pass comprehensive immigration reform before we tread too far down Europe’s path.

Photo credit: DVIDSHUB’s Photostream

More Protection for Money Talking

Posted on June 14, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

One of the more pernicious if deeply entrenched constitutional doctrines in this country is the idea that spending money on political campaigns is inherently an exercise of first amendment free speech rights whose regulation requires the strictest judicial scrutiny. It’s why we do not have any effective national system for campaign finance limitations, and indirectly why at any given time about half the country thinks our politicians have been bought and sold for campaign contributions. Most fundamentally, self-funding candidates can pretty much do whatever they want, and despite the hard economic times, we are seeing self-funders arise this year in extraordinary numbers, particularly on the GOP side of the battlelines.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court seems determined to undo every effort to provide candidates who face self-funders with anything like an equalizer. In 2007, in Davis v. F.E.C., a 5-4 majority of the Court struck down the so-called “Millionaire’s Amendment” to the Feingold-McCain campaign finance law on grounds, basically, that it discriminated against millionaires by allowing the opponents of self-funders higher contribution and spending limits.

By the same dubious logic, the Court may be about to strike down “equalizer” provisions in six state public financing systems (Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin). In a case involving Arizona, the Court has issued a stay on the collection of “extra” public money from candidates facing self-funders until it can hear a constitutional challege to the system. Given the Davis precedent, campaign reform advocates are bracing for a bad result.

Photo Credit: Dbking’s Photostream

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Climate Legislation in the Balance

Posted on June 14, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Expect stern words tomorrow when President Obama speaks to the nation about BP’s failure to stop the Gulf oil spill. He should also use the occasion to deliver a strong message to the U.S. Senate.

The world’s greatest deliberative body has been flailing around energy and climate legislation since the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill last year. You’d think that, with oil still gushing into the Gulf, senators would be moved to do something serious about America’s oil addiction. Instead, the Senate seems headed toward the path of least political resistance.

It’s easy to place sole blame on BP for the spill, but ultimately insatiable American demand for oil played a role in fouling the Gulf. The key to reducing U.S. dependence on oil, and fossil fuels in general, is to put a price on carbon. That would capture both the environmental and the security costs of our thirst for oil, and provide investors with the certainty they need to put money into developing clean fuel alternatives.

An economy-wide cap-and-trade bill at this point is clearly a bridge too far for the Senate. But President Obama made it clear last week that some kind of carbon pricing is still the sine qua none of a serious energy/climate bill.

Republicans, unembarrassed by their “drill-baby-drill” demands before the BP disaster, are standing foursquare for the petro-centric status quo. “We don’t think this is a great time to be socking a national energy tax to the American people,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week.

And even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), poster boy for GOP reasonableness on capping carbon, now says: maybe next year. He’s talking up an “energy only” bill by Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) that includes subsidies for clean fuels but no carbon price to truly galvanize private investment in clean technology and energy.

Thus has the BP spill has not only done grave damage to the Gulf’s ecology and economy, it’s unraveled President Obama’s careful attempts to forge a grand bargain in which some Republicans support a carbon price in return for more support for nuclear power as well as offshore drilling (off the table, at least for now).

It would be a bitter irony if the political fallout from the BP spill wound up perpetuating America’s dependence on oil. To avert that tragedy, the president should make it clear tomorrow that he will accept no bill from the Senate that fails to put a price on carbon.

Photo credit: Valeshel’s Photostream

Is 100% American Content the Best Route for High-Speed Rail?

Posted on June 14, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Obama administration’s determination to enforce 100 percent American content for high-speed train systems is roiling the rail supply industry, with some executives saying the rule would be “impossible” to achieve and others wondering how much it will slow down high-speed rail (HSR) development and add to the sticker price.

“We’re living in a global rail industry,” said an official at a large U.S. transportation manufacturer that depends on foreign parts. “Insisting on all-American content could mean losing 10 years in building our HSR supply chain.”

Karen Rae, deputy director of the Federal Railroad Administration, surprised rail advocates when she announced last month that the White House has decided to enforce the “domestic buying preference” provision of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), which authorized $8 billion in HSR grants to state governments earlier this year.

Rae said at a conference sponsored by America 2050 that the administration had determined there was “enough excess manufacturing capacity in the country” to permit HSR equipment to be made of U.S. content. As a result, the administration did not anticipate issuing exemptions from the domestic buying rule, as permitted under Section 504(2) of PRIIA.

While Rae lauded the decision as a tool “to help reenergize manufacturing in the U.S.,” executives canvassed in the railway supply business say the provision could have the opposite effect.

“We could wind up getting 100 percent of nothing,” said one executive who exchanged candor for anonymity.

Things We Don’t Make Anymore

He and others say the biggest obstacle to American content is simply that this country does not produce some critical components. Take computer chips. They are not made in the U.S. There are American-owned suppliers, such as Intel, but the product itself is manufactured in Asia.

Computer chips are everywhere in modern rail cars, controlling the electric doors, regulating the heat and air conditioning, monitoring the mechanical and electrical systems, managing the P.A. systems and customer-information signs, to say nothing of Wi-Fi and other electronics that would be required in any HSR car order.

Outside of components, the sad fact is that there has not been a builder of passenger cars since Pullman-Standard Co. completed an order for Superliner cars for Amtrak in the 1980s and then went out of business.

In place of Pullman-Standard and other former U.S. manufacturing powerhouses, such as the Budd Co., a number of foreign-based companies have developed facilities to assemble rail cars.

The German giant, Siemens, builds light-rail vehicles (streetcars) from imported parts at a factory in Sacramento. Japan’s Kawasaki assembles commuter railcars in Lincoln, Neb., and New York City subway cars in Yonkers, NY.

French-based Alstom built Surfliner shells for the state of California in Brazil, shipped them to Baltimore and trucked them to a former railroad shop in Hornell, NY, for final assembly.

Bombardier built the shells for Amtrak’s Acela trains in Quebec and then shipped them across the border to a plant in Vermont for finishing. Talgo builds in Spain, but can do final assembly in the U.S.

Morrison Knudsen tried to break into the car-building business 20 years ago, but failed when projects like the proposed “Texas Triangle” HSR line collapsed.

In short, while there are many abandoned manufacturing plants in the U.S., it would take time to convert these plants into usable spaces for HSR equipment. Even more time and treasure would be required to develop a workforce capable of building technology that has more in common with modern aviation than lumbering freight trains.

What’s Consistent with the Public Interest?

China has offered to supply the equipment and engineers to help build California’s proposed HSR line between San Diego and Sacramento. If California accepted China’s offer, would the state have to repay the $2.25 billion it was awarded in PRIIA funding?

The language of the federal law is broadly written. In carrying out a rail project “funded in whole or in part with a grant under this title,” PRIIA calls for recipients to purchase “only unmanufactured articles, material, and supplies mined or produced in the U.S.” or “articles, material, and supplies manufactured in the U.S. substantially from articles, material, and supplies mined, produced, or manufactured in the U.S.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) can waive this rule under three conditions: if the article is unreasonably expensive, if it is not produced in sufficient quantities, or if the requirement is “inconsistent with the public interest.”

It was assumed by the supply industry that the administration would use the law’s exemption liberally in order to expedite development of HSR lines. But Rae said that DOT’s No. 2 official, John Porcari, has been working with the White House to develop plans for 100 percent content and did not plan to issue any waivers.

Unintended Consequences

According to several suppliers, the literal interpretation of PRIIA could actually discourage American companies from entering the HSR field.

“Who wants to go through all these hoops only to find out you’re disqualified because some component is not considered American by a bureaucrat,” asked an executive.

One of the clearest-cut beneficiaries of the rule would appear to be domestic steelmakers supplying new track and structural steel. But who or what is a domestic steelmaker these days? Is it a company that owns plants in the U.S., a company owned by U.S. stockholders, or a company domiciled in the U.S.?

At present, foreign-owned-and-headquartered corporations control more than 35 percent of steel produced in the U.S. What’s more, half of the steel made here originates from raw materials mined outside of the country.

Similarly, GE Transportation, based in Erie, Pa., does a brisk business selling heavy-haul freight locomotives to China, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Creating barriers for foreign suppliers may mean that overseas railroads won’t buy American in retaliation.

Getting Back on Track

The Obama administration would be wise to break free from the protectionist impulses of PRIIA and let all domestic and global rail suppliers compete for HSR contracts. Out of such competition, the best equipment and lowest prices should emerge.

A robust government policy toward high-speed rail would do wonders to revitalize entrepreneurship and encourage the private sector to enter the field.

This is the true challenge facing the Obama administration — establishing a long-term strategy for HSR, including how to finance the system. Parsing what is and isn’t “100% American” isn’t sound policy, it’s crowd-pleasing politics that will only delay the implementation of the administration’s own program.

Photo credit: Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Photostream

Money Talks in the Sunshine State

Posted on June 11, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you want to hear how loudly money can talk in politics, check out the new Quinnipiac survey in Florida. Two very rich men who leapt into statewide contests very late are doing very well.

One of them is Republican Rick Scott, a former for-profit hospital exec who was forced from his job amidst a massive fraud investigation, and then won fame by putting together national-level anti-health-reform ads. He leapt into the governor’s race very late, and now, after a $7 million barrage of ads that mostly express his support for Arizona’s immigration law, he’s leading conservative warhorse Bill McCollum — whose time finally seemed to have come this year after two unsuccessful U.S. Senate races — by a 44-31 margin.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic contest for the U.S. Senate, already roiled by the independent candidacy of Gov. Charlie Crist, billionaire real estate investor Jeff Greene, who got into the race right before the end of qualifying just over a month ago, has moved into a statistical tie with congressman Kendrick Meek. Advised by Democratic bad boys Joe Trippi and Doug Schoen, Greene is playing the outsider card as hard as he can.

Neither of these guys has held public office or has any deep roots in Florida. Both have been questioned about their business ethics. But they’ve got the loot, and while political history is littered with the wreckage of ego-driven campaigns by rich people, more than a few have succeeded. And if you are Bill McCollum or Kendrick Meek, who were both focused on the general election until their rich challengers came out of the woodwork, it’s got to feel like Sisyphus watching that rock roll back to the bottom of the hill.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: turtlemom4bacon

Primary Predictions Revisited

Posted on June 11, 2010 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In my last political memo on June 8, I made some predictions for that day’s primaries. Let’s see how I did.

Arkansas Senate Runoff: Too Close to Call. I questioned the CW favoring Halter over Lincoln, and in the end, Lincoln’s GOTV effort (with a little help from Big Dog Bill Clinton) was just enough.

South Carolina Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Nikki Haley Wins. Actually, I went right over the brink and predicted that Haley would win without a runoff, and she came about as close as possible — with 49 percent of the vote — as she could. In fact, distant second-place finisher Rep. Gresham Barrett immediately came under pressure to drop out and give Haley the nomination without further ado, but it looks like he’ll roll the dice for the short two-week runoff contest, which everyone thinks Haley will easily win (unless those accusing her of sexual misbehavior finally come up with some real evidence).

South Carolina Democratic Gubernatorial Primary: Sheheen/Rex Runoff. I was right in saying that third-place finisher Rep. Robert Ford would do well enough to force a runoff, but didn’t account for one-time front-runner Jim Rex running so poorly that state Rep. Vincent Sheheen was able to romp to victory anyway.

Iowa Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Terry Branstad wins. Check, though his nine-point margin of victory over outgunned conservative Bob Vander Plaats was a lot smaller than the polls suggested, and indicates the residual strength of social conservatives in the Iowa GOP — which will be much more powerful in the context of a presidential caucus.

Nevada Republican Senate Primary: Sharron Angle wins. Check. Angle won very easily, even carrying Clark County (Las Vegas). The real surprise here is that Danny Tarkanian, whom some experts thought might pull an upset in this race, finished a poor third. So Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) got the match-up he wanted.

Nevada Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Attorney General Brian Sandoval wins. Check; the Gibbons Era is over, and Rory Reid begins the general election as an underdog.

California Republican Gubernatorial Primary: Meg Whitman wins. Yep, and she only spent about $80 per vote.

California Republican Senate Primary: Carly Fiorina wins. She even took Marin County, which should have been Tom Campbell Country if any place was.

South Dakota Republican gubernatorial primary: Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard wins. He won more votes than all his opponents combined.

I refused to make any prediction in Maine, where “undecided” was the dominant presence in pre-election polls for both parties’ gubernatorial primaries. In the end, state senate president Libby Mitchell won the Democratic nod, and Tea Party favorite Paul LePage won the Republican nomination. But independent Eliot Cutler will be competitive in the general election.

In other significant developments, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) of South Carolina got knocked into a runoff by tea party avatar Trey Gowdy. California voters approved Prop 14, abolishing party primaries in favor of a “jungle primary” system (like Washington State’s) where the top two finishers among candidates from all or no parties advance to the general election.

The next election day is June 22, when Utah holds its primary, while North and South Carolina, Mississippi and South Dakota hold runoffs.

In Alabama, the third-place finisher in the June 1 Republican gubernatorial primary, Tim James, is pursuing a recount to see if he can overcome Robert Bentley’s 167-vote lead for a second runoff spot against Bradley Byrne. The runoff is on July 13.

In the most interesting poll to be released in the last few days, Quinnipiac finds two self-funding candidates making a big splash in Florida. Former health care exec Rick Scott has ridden a batch of ads (mostly expressing his fondness for Arizona’s new immigration law) to a stunning lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican gubernatorial primary; McCollum had been presumed to be the certain nominee until now. And in the Democratic Senate primary, billionaire Jeff Greene has pulled nearly even with congressman Kendrick Meek.

In more general polling news, DailyKos has terminated its relationship with the Research 2000 polling firm, which had been doing a lot of state ads for DKos. And in a very related development, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver released an updated version of his comprehensive rating of pollsters for accuracy.

Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday

No Quick Fixes

Posted on June 11, 2010September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

“At this point, there are no good solutions — only a choice among painful and distasteful ones.”

Steven Pearlstein’s words in today’s Post make for a glum start to the day, but there’s no better time than the morning to ring the alarm. And when it comes to our economy, you can’t sound the warnings often enough.

Pearlstein notes the infuriating lack of consensus among experts about our economic predicament. Do we spend more stimulus, or start cutting back on spending? Do we worry about deflation or inflation? Do we encourage more consumer spending to speed up the recovery, or should we orient our economy toward more saving and sustainable growth?

There’s confusion on where to go – but everyone can agree on how we came to this pass:

The controlling reality is that the global economic system is rebalancing itself after years in which the United States was not only allowed but encouraged to live beyond its means, consuming more than it produced and investing more than it saved. Now the bill for that is finally coming due — all the clever and seemingly painless ways for postponing that day of reckoning have pretty much been played out.

Pearlstein’s diagnosis brings to mind a headline from last week: “Save Us, Millennials.” Timothy Egan’s blog post covered a Pew survey on millennials, which painted a picture of a generation that is “confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.”

If any generation had a right to be steamed at their predicament, it would be the millennials. Their parents may have given them cars and paid for their tuition, but they also left the kids with crippling obligations. They join an American economy that will be less generous to the children than it was to the parents. And yet the millennials, according to Pew, are “more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures as well as about the overall state of the nation.” (The audacity of hope!)

They’ll need that sunny disposition to weather the coming storm. Egan’s plea seems jokey, but there’s more than a hint of justified desperation there. If we are to emerge from this economic mess, it’s the younger generation that will have to carry us. The bill has come due, and they will have to pay it.

There are no good solutions, as Pearlstein says, and a culture weaned on the happy ending has been throwing tantrums for the past year and a half. There has been not a hint of reflection, no acknowledgment that the American disconnect between what it expects from government and what it expects to be taxed is to blame for our problems. Instead we’ve been treated to a nonstop primal scream session. Thank god the kids are acting like grown-ups.

Photo credit: Lamtastic’s Photostream