Monthly Archives: July 2013

Progressive One-Party Rule

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The Democrats have had it with two-party governance, and they’re moving in the Senate to eliminate the Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV)…appears ready to set off an earthquake in the Senate Tuesday by trying to change the body’s rules for confirming presidential nominees, offers a simple explanation of his move: “The status quo does not work right now.”

Of course it doesn’t.  The minority party won’t roll over and give him what he wants fast enough to suit him, so he’s going to seize power’

Reid[] plan[s] to accomplish this Senate change…with a simple majority vote, and not require the super-majority some think should be used to affect a significant Senate rules change.

Not just “some:” Senate rules V and XXII combine to require a 2/3 majority vote to change the rules.  Reid expects to accomplish the rule change on a simple majority of 51 votes by having Joe Biden, wearing his President of the Senate hat, respond to the inevitable challenge to the rule change by ruling—as the VP as President of the Senate has the authority to do—the simple majority vote on the rule change to be in order. Of course Biden’s—the chair’s—ruling can be challenged, but it takes only a majority vote to uphold or deny the chair’s ruling, thus the Progressive power grab will be successful.

Of course, this is only the first move: every other place for filibusters will be overridden in the same manner, as soon as it suits Reid’s, or any other Progressive’s, fancy.

…Reid…on Monday said unless Republicans allow votes on seven of President Obama’s pending nominees, he will trigger the “nuclear option” this week.

In other words, Republicans must voluntarily surrender their power to debate, or Reid will take it from them.

Update (as I write this on Tuesday afternoon): The Republicans have abjectly surrendered.

Republican senators said Tuesday they would drop their blockade of Richard Cordray to be the new head of a consumer protection bureau….

Soon after, the Senate voted 71-29 to head off a filibuster of Mr. Cordray, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats to advance the nomination.”

The RINO John McCain (R, AZ) spearheaded the surrender.

Racist Persecution Persists

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Now the racist persecution begins because of a politically incorrect verdict in a Florida trial.

Former Obama adviser Van Jones declared that “racism won” in the trial of George Zimmerman.

And

Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse fired off an incendiary stream of tweets late Saturday night suggesting that racism and politics prompted the jury to acquit George Zimmerman of all charges.

And

[From an NAACP petition] Attorney General Eric Holder [t]he Department of Justice has closely monitored the State of Florida’s prosecution of the case against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin murder since it began.  Today, with the acquittal of George Zimmerman, it is time for the Department of Justice to act.

Presidents and a “Nation of Laws”

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President Barack Obama says, in the wake of the Zimmerman acquittal, that “we are a nation of laws.”  He says this against a backdrop of having chosen to selectively enforce (i.e., not enforce at all) immigration law is it applies to certain groups of illegal aliens, of having chosen to selectively enforce (i.e., not enforce at all) critical portions of his Obamacare law, having chosen not to pursue legal cases against those pleading out to voter intimidation, and so on.  In truth, he’s not alone in this—most American Presidents have chosen not to enforce this or that law, or this or that portion of a law.  This is done because a given President thinks it’s a bad law, it’s bad public policy to enforce it at this time, it’s bad politics to enforce it at this time, it’s….

This selective enforcement comes despite what Art II, Section 3, says about the President’s duty vis-à-vis Federal law:

…he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed….

There isn’t a caveat here, nor any wiggle room: the President must enforce Federal law.  Period.

What’s a President to do, then, when confronted with a law he (lately) believes illegitimate, or no longer useful, or…?  One way is found in the way some unions (especially police and traffic controllers) occasionally object to a bad contract or bad contract clause: strict, no exceptions enforcement of traffic law or aircraft separation in the two cases suggested.

Especially when confronted with a recalcitrant Congress, what better way to point up the absurdity of a bad law than to strictly enforce it?  Civil disobedience points up such absurdities through the protestors’ deliberate, noisy disobedience of a law and suffering the consequences, with those consequences emphasizing the absurdities.  Presidents have no option for civil disobedience; however, they can achieve the same emphasis, as police and air traffic controllers have demonstrated, by moving in the opposite direction.

An Outcome of Free Trade

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Since NAFTA was ratified, here are some of the results, as outlined by George Schultz, former Secretary of Labor, Treasury, and State; former OMB Director; currently Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution—a guy who might know little about his subject matter.  As of 2010,

  • the three countries [the US, Canada, and Mexico] constitute around one-fourth of global GDP
  • they have become each other’s largest trading partners.

Moreover, the trade is tightly integrated:

  • 24.7% of imports from Canada were US value-added
  • 39.8% of US imports from Mexico were US value-added

The (legal) movement of people among the three of us has burgeoned, also, together with the economic benefits of such mobility.  Tourism:

  • Canadians made 21.3 million trips to the US in 2011 and spent $23.9 billion
  • US visitors made 11.6 million trips to Canada and spent $7.7 billion
  • Mexican visitors made 13.5 million trips to the US and spent $9.2 billion
  • US visitors made 20.1 million trips to Mexico and spent $9.3 billion.

Border-crossing truck shipping:

  • 10.7 million [border crossings] between the US and Canada
  • 9.5 million between the US and Mexico.

And so on.  There’s more concerning energy and energy independence both for NAFTA and for the three of us individually.

Of course some object to the loss of jobs.  But outside the results of the Panic of 2008*, the job losses were temporary for those truly interested in working.  They simply rotated into new jobs generated by the new opportunities flowing from the burgeoning (free) trade.  The increased trade, over all, led to a net increase in employment in each of the three of us.

 

*The results of the Panic, including the loss of job mobility, have naught to do with free trade or specific free trade agreements.  These outcomes stem directly from subsequent Federal policies aimed explicitly at the Panic and not at anything systemic in our economy.

One Aspect of the New Employment Numbers

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It’s temporary work, whether under contract or not.  It’s also part-time, whether under contract or not (OK, that’s two aspects.  Sue me.)

The nation’s unemployment rate still stands at 7.6%, but there is one area showing significant improvement: temporary and contracting work.

An estimated 17 million people are employed in these areas of the labor force, making up 12% of all employed people in the US.

Here’s a clue of why that is:

Full-time workers come with benefits packages that tend to include health care and retirement plans, which come with a hefty price tag for companies still unsure of the economic recovery.

Health care and pensions—for those employers still using these instead of 401(k)-like retirement plans—are horribly expensive.  And no, this isn’t another anti-Obama screed.  Even before Obamacare and public service union pension-caused city bankruptcies, health and pension benefits were horribly expensive.  The Panic of 2008 just brought those to light, and Obamacare only made a terrible health side worse.

And there’s that uncertainty about this failed recovery and when it will start in earnest.  Here’s James Sherk, senior policy analyst in Labor Economics at The Heritage Foundation:

In many cases, employers are not confident to bring in regular, full-time employees because it may hurt the entire firm.  This is the most disturbing trend, due to the weak economy.  It’s an economy and situation where employers aren’t seeing their shelves pick up, so they won’t commit to hiring a full-time employee.

“Hurt the entire firm.”  This is an area where Obamacare exacerbates an already bad situation.  A full-time employee costs the employer a minimum $2,000 in health benefits—that’s the fine the employer pays for not providing benefits that suit the Federal government’s definition of adequacy.  If the business isn’t there to cover that added cost, the employer would be stupid to hire that employee, at least full-time.

Another downside is that part-time workers or contract workers who know their contract expires in a few months (another version of part-time work) have their own uncertainty about the future—their future.  This makes them less willing to spend the money they do earn until they have to.  That reduced demand lowers the ability of employers to sell their product.  Those reduced sales lower the employers’ interest and ability to hire.  That reduced hiring incentive….