The English language can be rather tricky to work with, as anyone whose been in a hurry while using there, their, and they're can tell you. Sometimes however, you don't even have to be in a hurry in order to become more than a little confused. So I found out at least as I found myself working in the wee hours of the morning on a piece for the TFP website entitiled "Capital / Capitol Offenses" detailing some of the things going on in our national legislature in our nation's headquarters. I won't try to explain that confusion to you, as the explanation itself might confuse you.
On the other hand, my guess is that you will find today's release of the TFP "Star" edition far less confusing than any of my efforts. I suspect that without contradiction, I can go even further and predict that far less confusion is also likely to be found in this weekend's edition of Toledo's largest Sunday circulation and Ohio's best weekly newspaper for years; the Toledo Free Press.
It occurred to me that after arguing about the economy for most of the 2012 election season (you know, about 1000 years), the subject had all but disappeared from the national radar screen. Strangely in fact, after ever more promises that it was time to make jobs number one, the president sent home his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
So it seemed only fitting that once more the Commander in Chief failed to submit his budget to Congress on time and asked Congress to kick the can of Sequestration further down the road so that we can talk about gun control and comprehensive immigration reform, that someone needed to write, "Wasn't It The Economy Dummy?".
After all, the Senate hasn't passed a budget since April of 2009, the unemployment rate is still at an unacceptable high, and the only part of the economy that's growing is the deficit. After all the hype in 2012 about creating more wealth in this country (mostly, it appears, so we can tax it), nobody seems to be doing anything about it.
It's only the middle of the week however, and that makes this a week where there's much more to come. The TFP Star edition is only now hitting the streets and we're still days away from a weekend with Toledo's largest Sunday circulation and Ohio's best weekly newspaper ... the Toledo Free Press.
It remains rather quiet here at the 'Just Blowing Smoke' headquarters with most of the staff still out on holiday; and being the end of the year, that would seem to make it an ideal time to pause for reflection on the year past and create some of the time-honored resolutions for the year ahead. While there's certainly been time enough for proper pondering, such continued contemplation has in fact left me more unresolved than ever.
As it is for many around the nation, my attention instead continues to be drawn to so many things left unresolved in 2012. Based on the quantity of press coverage if nothing else, the twin dooms of the Fiscal Cliff and the second coming of the Debt Ceiling probably top this list, though quite frankly I've long since grown tired of hearing about them. For despite the protestations of some of our political leaders, this stopped being about 'regular Americans' some time back and has become (like far too many other decisions turned over to government) little more than a pissing contest between the members of two political parties who seem ill-equipped to compete in such an event. The current two-party system in our
national legislature has become a warning sign that perhaps term limits
once again deserves serious consideration. (Though
I'm still more in favor of abolishing the Congressional Pension System,
which would not only force legislators back into the public sector
fairly quickly, but has the added benefit of putting them into Social
Security.)
How Harry Reid can stand in the well of the Senate and complain about the obstinacy of anyone, when the legislative house that he's in charge of hasn't passed a budget in over three years is quite beyond me. Despite his protestations to the contrary, partisanship in the Senate was not created in 2008. Other Majority Leaders have faced it as well, and managed to find common ground and do their jobs. If you can't Harry, man up and step down. Instead of displaying the wisdom and experience that the longer six-year terms were supposed to grant them, they're instead used to put on 'secret holds' and find ways to dodge existing responsibilities on 'advise and consent' (when the President isn't using every bathroom break to shove in recess appointments).
As for John Boehner, his
fawning and whining approaches at leadership are probably what should
be expected after his teary-eyed acceptance of the leadership position. I
don't question his heart or even his courage, but a leader praised for his experience must ultimately be judged by the
success of his strategies. Boehner's strategies have produced a level of consistent strategic
failure that hasn't been seen in this country since the War of 1812. (US
troops lost almost every battle in this war and Washington DC was sacked and burned
... not that I'm trying to give anyone ideas.) Having won the House in
2010, Republicans gave two years of lip service to those who carried them into the majority, but failed to make substantive gains, which undoubtedly played some part in their lack of progress to reach a majority in the Senate or win the White House two years later. While they retained that majority in the House this year, they have yet to demonstrate the fiscal responsibility that actually know what to do with it or how to sell their efforts to an increasingly angry voter.s
Like the Majority Leader, it seems strange too that the additional 'experience' of the President should once again prove him to be a poor winner. Apparently our commander-in-chief has not only the innocent nature of a child, but the selective memory of one as well. In fact, it might be said that he holds the vindictiveness of a petulant child whose only willing to point out that he won re-election in 2012 and that his party kept control of the Senate when discussing his bargaining position (my ball, my game). All of the talk of compromise is merely paying lip service to the concept however. He he seems incapable of remembering that the election of 2010 turned control of the House over to his opponents (though he did when it first happened), and left it in their hands after this most recent on. His current 'campaign style negotiating' is done in public speeches, and in fact seems to ignore the opposition party unless he's looking for someone to blame his own lack of negotiating skill on. How can anyone call what President Obama offers compromise when his proposals are unanimously voted down by his own party in the Senate.
And so we look at the last days before going off the Fiscal Cliff; most seem to have forgotten that this 'Thelma and Louise' ski jump was created by the very people who ignored it for months while campaigning, and now see it as a Doomsday Clock ticking while saying that they're dead set on avoiding it. Citizens in this country likewise seem perfectly willing to trust that the same leaders who created this no-win game of financial chicken are capable of solving it for longer than the next congressional election cycle (which none of them has actually proved in the last four years).
Haven't the past so-called victories of these three leaders in fact turned out to be Pyrrhic ones, cutting a path or devastation that we're still dealing with. Isn't anyone else tired of the 'Three Card Monties' and proposals where immediate tax increases (and I don't care who they're on) are to be followed someday by budget cuts or savings that never actually come about (or that appear insignificant unless added together for ten years)? Does no one else understand promises agreed to by either house of the current Congress doesn't even obligate the one that takes its seats in a couple of weeks to follow through on?
If taxes need to be raised however (as many are convinced of on the left), then so be it! Let's not pretend however that raising what slick politicians now like to call 'Revenue' (rather than taxes) that don't even keep the government from running deficit spending are anything more than a symbolic gesture however. (Hell, they're barely enough to run the govt. for eight days.) While we're at it, let's recognize that increasing taxes on those who pay most of them is little more than punishment for success. Let's also agree on the simple logic that spreading any these revenue increases over a greatest number of people makes them less of a burden for each to carry in a struggling economy. The "E Pluribus Unum" printed on our currency doesn't translate to 'Let Government Pick'. The burdens and benefits that are our lot were meant to be shared by all; and spreading the tax burden over the whole leaves everyone with some skin in the game. I find it interesting, for example, that the tax cuts we're arguing about continuing were created to expire in the first place (Why is that by the way?), but the increases we're considering are to become permanent. Why couldn't any of those finally agreed upon also have a built-in expiration date, forcing legislators to re-evaluate them again in the future based on what happens with the economy.
Of course the bone of contention for many is that while tax increases are being discussed for implementation immediately, spending cuts are only being hinted at eventually and are to be taken up later. Plans that included both taxes and cuts that Republicans recently proposed, are being rejected out of hand now by the same Democrats who proposed the same thing eighteen months ago. Is this an honest effort to keep us from a fiscal cliff, or a political gamesmanship more interested in punishing an opponent than serving an electorate. Apparently for the President and Majority Leader, contentment means tax increases (and apparently spending increases to go with them) now and any form of fiscal responsibility 'manana'. Many of us are tired of the continued 'Wimpy Economics', long scorned by anyone not part of the Paul Krugman school of economics, and most recently perpetrated by government. We're tired of the fact that this nations needs to borrows forty-six cents of every dollar it spends; a process which only continues to work as long as the Fed cranks out fiat currency 24 hours-a-day, in the hopes of inflating some part of that debt away. Inflated or not however, this debt takes us right into the next of the unresolved issue, the Debt Ceiling.
Yes, from the same leaders that brought you the Debt Ceiling of 2011, we now have the Debt Ceiling of 2012-13. Making no attempt at living with their means and having kicked the can down the road some 17 months ago during a previous deadlocked budget debate (and for no better reason than the cowardly reason that they didn't want to deal with it while running for re-election), the financial geniuses of both parties in Washington tried to rig their last agreement so that the issue wouldn't come up again until the new Congress was seated in 2013. Of course our government is about as good as understanding how fast they spend money as they are about what they spend it on, so the government credit limit is about to be exceeded a little early. Not to fear however, as our Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner (who has some experience with not paying bills .... tax bills) decided he could get us into 2013 by using some accounting tricks that he'd probably have you put in jail for using.
Of course 2013, like 2011, will kick off another in never-ending re-election cycle in the House of Representatives and widen the yellow streak of our elected representatives (especially those most vulnerable for re-election). Already faced with a Fiscal Cliff negotiations that will not make any of them look good and that points rather dramatically to the fact that we spend more than we take in, you would think that sufficient imperative would finally exist to seriously address the root problem. Such thinking would not get you elected however, and would therefore make you wrong. Congress is quite content to ignore Social Security running out of money, as long as it doesn't do so before the election of 2014. Consideration of Medicare and Medicaid budget reform pretty much falls under the same category, which means that as long as the 'Social Safety Net' remains intact for now, nothing substantive will be done to reform their bloated nature or prevent their impending doom. Besides, members of Congress rely on none of these plans themselves, and their cushy pensions and medical plans (also funded by taxpayer dollars) will not be affected; so there's certainly no rush to interfere with seeking re-election contributions. But these are just the entitlement programs.
Corporations who get money to drill for oil or mine coal might see some reductions in their subsidies (after all, what do we need with energy products) as the budget negotiations ramp up. Corporations that get their money not to plant crops or that use those they do plant to produce bio-fuel to replace the coal and oil (creating even greater pollution in the process) will retain theirs however. So too will wind and solar panel farms that can never pay their investments back, and research on things so obscure that even the people doing the research aren't sure they care about. Congress will at least consider reductions in military spending, but not very seriously, and certainly not in ways that will affect influential Congressional districts. We may cut back some equipment orders that are important only if we continue to believe we must poke our nose into the internal disputes of every nation on the planet, but that won't stop us from poking anyway. We will not consider however, whether to remove or even reduce funding to countless military bases that we have around the world. (Can anyone tell me who else has so many worldwide bases? Buehler .... Buehler ...) But of course such bases are vital to the protection of our interests, property, and citizens around the world; unless of course, you're one of the citizens working for the State Department on our property in Benghazi.
Which takes us to yet another unresolved situation. Over three months have passed since the 9/11 attack on the Consulate in Benghazi and the State Department's report has recently been issued, but we still know little more than we did the day after it happened. Why the US outpost remained manned in Benghazi long after everyone else considered it too dangerous (like the British and Red Cross) and pulled out has been made clear. Neither have we a clue of why, if we were going to remain, upgrades to the defensive levels of the facility and to the size of it's protection staff were not made; especially after the Ambassador (one of those killed in the attack) sent multiple requests for such improvement after attacks had occurred only months before. We don't even know who made the decision for a security contingent already in-country to be pulled out a month before the attack. Sure, a couple of people resigned after the report was issued (no one of importance and no doubt all of them managing to keep their pensions), but no one in real authority has yet to speak officially before Congress or the media. When there's a oil spill, we demand that the president of that company appear before Congress; and they had better be properly remorseful, penitent, and contrite when they speak. In this case however, we've not heard from the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, or the President; all of whom evidently had some real-time knowledge of events (or should have), about what decisions were made and why, while four other government employees died in a hours-long gun battle.
So forgive me if I find that I have no desire to make self-serving attempts at self-improvement (no matter how badly they might be required) for 2013. While I could certainly win a bit of approbation for listing a few New Year's Resolutions that I'm probably as likely to fulfill as our elected national representatives are their elected obligations, I choose instead to remain silent at a time when so many are seeking just such praise while leaving so much unresolved.
It seems like everyone is talking about the country going over the Fiscal Cliff; and most of them like to use the same "Thelma and Louise" movie reference for this December 31st event that I've often used for the entire process of how the government deals with borrowing and spending money. Of course I would have thought that going over a cliff was a bad thing (since both Thelma and Louise attained room temperature as a result of this last drive), but maybe I'm just a little confused. Silly me. It appears that both sides preaching their share of doom and gloom only do so they could steal my Hollywood reference to describe what would happen if the country were forced to plummet into the depths of the horrible, the evil ... "Sequester". (The Bastards! I mean geez, it's not like I get a lot of original ideas, and the one I do get they steal.)
Now Sequester, for those of you who have buried your heads in the sand for the last couple of years and don't understand it (which is apparently quite a lot of you), is the agreement to automatic tax increases and budget cuts that Democrats and Republicans consented to when they discovered that they didn't have the testicular fortitude to come up with another piece of duct tape to hold on the budget band aid that holds on the actual band aid that holds in place the government budgeting process. Sequester was meant to be the Armageddon which no one wanted, but which would be required of the nation if the D's and R's once again could not agree on how much money the nation should take in and how much it should spend. This horror would involve the end of previously agreed to tax cuts (you know, passing a tax increase without actually voting on one) and across the board spending cuts (which can be overruled by new legislation passed as soon as possible after the Sequester occurs). This way, legislators of both parties can tell you that Sequester is bad (in spite of the fact the they created it as an alternative in the first place), that higher taxes are bad (in spite of the process letting tax cuts expire), and that spending cuts are bad (in spite of the making them automatically part of the Sequester).
By the way, can anyone tell me why tax cuts are always temporary, but tax increases are permanent? It almost seems that legislators are saying that increasing taxes is good, hence their permanence; and tax cuts are bad and should only be allowed to exist temporarily and when no other alternative exists. Of course, we all know that this can't be the case. After all, they've told us so.
Not surprisingly, much of the current budget jury-rigging came about not because of the Fiscal Cliff negotiations currently stalled; but because of the fact that the annual budget process and the Debt Ceiling have failed to reach any effective conclusion for the last couple of years. The Debt Ceiling, lest we forget, is the credit limit on the ability of the government to borrow. The Annual Budget of course, is the money that the government spends each year. Since we continue to spend more each year than we take in through tax revenues, the need arises regularly to raise the limit of the amount of money that the government is allowed to borrow in order for it to write the checks on money that it doesn't have.
Interestingly enough, the only things that the two parties of experienced legislators (perhaps too experienced, if you know what I mean) were able to agree on during previous Budget and Debt Ceiling debates was to go ahead continue to spend more than we were taking in for a while longer (called 'Kicking the Can'), and to let the country borrow more money than it ever had in the past. (Though curiously these days, most of that debt
is not purchased by the Chinese as politicians on talk shows would
like to have you to believe; but by the Federal Reserve, which simply
goes out and prints more money in inflationary spiral that makes that debt worth less in a process which it also
ignores.) After years of intransigence. obstinancy, and belligerence, these same legislators decided to threaten themselves with the formidable prospect of Sequester in the future in order to convince us that their continue lack of serious action in the present was a plan and not simply a failure failure of leadership.
The result of this lack of fiscal responsibility going into the 2010 election was that Republicans took back control of the House; I suppose in the hope that such Armageddon could be avoided (and scrubbing the Bruce Willis / Ben Affleck shuttle mission). Since then, the House has regularly passed budgets bills that at least attempt to address the reining in of the expansion and out-of-control spending of government, mostly to no effect since the Senate refuses to vote on the House proposals. Of course their efforts at responsibility are performed in so timid a fashion as to be unrecognizable as such, but they should get credit for at least trying. Instead however, its members are pilloried for sending the Senate weak-kneed spending reforms that are demonized by the majority party in the Senate as 'draconian cuts' and attempts to throw mom off a cliff.
Meanwhile, in what is supposed to be the more deliberative Senate, no actual deliberation takes place, mostly because the Senate Majority Leader Reid won't allow it to. (The Senate in fact has failed to pass an annual budget for almost four years, in spite of requirements that it do so.) Out-of-hand rejecting the ideas of the House (too far to the right) and the President (too far to the left), the Majority Leader is apparently incapable of coming up with anything of his own that might be 'just right'. He instead appears content to sit quietly with his gavel and mumble to himself "My Precious" while not Rome, but the entire nation burns around him. (My
personal belief is that Senator Reid's stubbornness may be part of
an advertising contract in which he receives a fee for using his manner and appearance to draw attention to the upcoming release of
"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Adventure", which opens in theaters on December 14th. Unfortunately, this may be a long running contract, as the movie is expected to have two sequels.) Some say in Harry's defense that budgets coming from the House Republicans couldn't be voted on because the R's have thus far refused to compromise by replacing their own ideas with those of the D's; but that seems a rather lame excuse when a bi-partisan effort in the Senate rejected the last proposal of the leader his own Democratic party by a vote of 99 to 0.
So if all of this appears confusing, don't feel bad ... it actually is. You're not alone in having difficulty understanding this confusion of policies, described by terms that tells us that we are now going to go over a cliff in part because we are unable to agree on a budget that keeps us from hitting a ceiling. You're likewise far from alone in confusion over the fact the end of the year will see us being forced into mandatory tax increases and spending cuts by two political parties who will tell you that both of these concepts, singularly or together, are an anathema not to be tolerated and the last thing that they want to see done in this country (except of course, for reaching agreement on any sort of alternative).
The debate over raising the debt ceiling rages on and my patience is about at an end, but apparently I'm not the only one. According to the story in the Kansas City Star this morning the president, "demanded that Congressional leaders come to the White House this morning".
It appears that the leader of the free world is a little peeved that that this problem is not going away in spite of the fact that he has called his political opponents names, castigated both parties in Congress in front of media microphones, and explained his willingness to compromise on everything but the things he's not willing to compromise on (in between fundraisers and rounds of golf).
There are a couple of things however that seem curious by their absence:
1. A plan put forward by the President himself. Oh I know he has delivered an outline, some notes, and a number of suggestions; but I for one have never seen or heard of an actual plan. Neither has he addressed in any meaningful way, a path to reversing the trend of government spending more than it takes in. He, those in the Senate, and much of the mainstream media seem to forget that the reason that we need to raise the Debt Ceiling Limit is that government is spending much more than it receives. No amount of taxation, even if agreed to, is going to solve that problem; and the sooner all the parties involved understand that, the sooner a real solution can be reached.
Because words do mean things and since, at least according to Dictionary .com, Compromise means: "a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc. ..." it would seem that in order to reach any meaningful compromise on such 'plans', fully fleshed out ones by both sides would be required.
2. Absent from these discussions as well is Harry Reid and the Senate. This is not to say that the Senate Majority Leader is invisible, in fact far from it. It's difficult to turn on a TV news broadcast without seeing the Senator from Nevada attempting to strike a pose while delivering strident oratory (mostly vitriolic) about the intransigence of others.
Here's what we don't see from Harry and his colleagues however, a plan of their own or a straight up or down vote on anything that the House has proposed. The man who often called Republicans "the party of no" has yet to put forward a budget alternative himself, while allowing no straight up or down vote on House proposals including the 'Ryan Budget' and the recent 'Cut, Cap, and Balance' proposal.
In fact, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, the Senate has not proposed a budget in over 800 days.
Interestingly enough, Senator Reid is not mentioned in the story demanding the appearance of legislators in the White House today. (Evidently he is busy standing on the curb in front of the Senate and barking at cars as they drive by.) With the apparent inability of the Senate to propose or vote on anything concrete in the way of the national budget however, it would seem that he should be the first one called in to the White House and called on the carpet (unless of course, he already simply following the marching orders of the President).
One has to wonder in fact if the President is seeking to make the position of Senate Majority Leader irrelevant, or if he thinks Sen Reid is incapable of adding anything to the discussion. Perhaps the problem is that after sending out this 'attack poodle' to yip and the crowd and bite a few ankles, the President simply doesn't think that anyone will want to deal with him on substantive issues.
So be careful as you watch the weekend's coverage of this pathetic dance marathon. While the mainstream media seems content to highlight the vitriol, acrimony, and unmitigated nonsense of these discussions, those of us out here in 'fly-over country' need to take note of what can actually be seen ... and what's curious by its absence.
On a more personal note, if you're out there Maureen ... Happy Tweener!
There has been a lot of discussion in recent decades over the Senate's inability to get through the confirmation process for federal appointees. In spite of the fact that the Senate was designed to be a more deliberative branch of the legislature and less prone to quick decisions, both parties have complained about the process when they were in charge of the White House, and both have been guilty of foot-dragging to impede it when they could.
An Associate Press story published in last weekend's in Kansas City Star spoke about a new bi-partisan effort on the part of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) to streamline this process as part of the changes that the Democratic majority is looking to make in the Senate rules.
Reading the article however, I am convinced that the problem has nothing to do with the bi-partisan effort being proposed. Hidden in the fifth paragraph and only lightly touched on, it is in fact set before us in very plain language. There the story states: "Reid noted that they Senate was responsible for confirming 1,215 executive branch nominees and that number keeps rising". Passing over this rather astonishing number without comment, the story goes on in the same paragraph to cite a Brookings Institute study that points out that "the number of core policy positions the president must fill has risen from 295 when Ronald Reagan took office to 422 for Barack Obama".
Not referenced in the article, as it has nothing to do with the Senate effort, is that on top of the increase of those lined up before the Senate, there are over thirty executive branch positions, often known as 'Czars', who do not require confirmation before taking up their responsibilities.
The application of simple mathematics to this growing group of bureaucratic drones shows us an increase in the executive branch counselors of 30% in the thirty years since Reagan took office in 1981. Add in the numbers for the requisite support staff that senior policy advisers and judicial appointees undoubtedly require to perform their authorized functions and multiply the resulting total by the average bureaucratic salary and benefit package in the federal government, and one cannot help but come to the conclusion that we are talking about several hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) each year.
So setting aside the desire for rule changes in Senate committees, we might instead come to the conclusion that the problem with the confirmation process is not the political wrangling that seems to go on regardless of the party in power; but with the sheer magnitude of the list of positions that must be confirmed.
Perhaps without even consciously knowing these numbers before, the problem that many Tea Party members and other Conservatives perceived with the federal government was not with the man sitting at its head (as is often accused), but instead with the number of paid sycophants that the holder of the office surrounds himself with.
Quite frankly, numbers on such a scale smack more of a royal court than that of an elected head of a representative republic. Since both parties have held the high chair in the last thirty years, both must share in the guilt for making it so. The growing layers of bureaucracy not only increase the cost of government at a time when we can ill afford it, but create in these fiefdoms unaccountable to the Electorate a ruling class that's the antithesis of the principles on which this country was founded.
I have no out-of-hand objection to bi-partisan efforts on federal appointments of good candidates or to rules changes in the Senate to improve the appointment process. I would be pleased to discover however, that as part of any effort taken in the plan of Senators Reid and McConnell, they will likewise strive to reduce the number of appointees required to go through the process. I would be happier still to hear that this and future presidents will join this effort and say that they will expedite the process further by either eliminating such positions or failing to fill them.
Very often the problems of government are difficult to see and almost impossible to resolve. In the case of the Senate confirmation process however the issue appears to be large enough to be easily identified (though I would hesitate to use the expression "elephant in the room" by way of description) and the solution equally simple to undertake.
