Category Archives: morality

The Spending Cuts Achieved by the Tax “Deal”

Posted on by
Reply

Here, in no particular order, are some.

  • tax subsidies for special business interests:
    • wind tax credit $12.1 billion
    • tax break for cellulosic ethanol—$59 million
    • tax break for impoverished producers of Hollywood—$248 million
  • extending extra jobless benefits for another year—$30 billion

Oh, wait—those weren’t cuts….

Just to put a cherry on top, the Congressional Budget Office scores the Senate bill as adding $4 trillion to the national debt by 2022.

Oops.

Update: Sorry, I don’t know what happened.  An earlier iteration of this post led with an inordinate amount of word processing commands before getting to the post itself.

Shameful

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s an example of the Republicans’ shamefulness, and perhaps of their lack of understanding of their shame.

Republicans are more terrified of Democrat threats than they are of the effort required to fight back, to take the initiative, or to do what’s right for our country—the latter two of which are why we hired them in the first place.  Tuesday’s surrender on the tax “deal” came against the backdrop of Democrats saying

they would pin the blame squarely on House Republicans if the tax hikes were not averted.

An aide to the House Republican leadership (carefully not allowing himself to be identified) said what mattered:

We had a bad hand from the start, but we’re avoiding being blamed for taking us off the cliff.

Yeah.  Avoiding blame is what’s important to the current crop of…Republicans.

They aren’t alone in the shamefulness or in the lack of understanding, though.

Senate Democrats overwhelmingly backed the deal, sold on the idea the President got far more than he gave up by getting $620 billion in tax hikes and a net of only $15 billion in spending cuts.

…

The official added that Obama “broke the Republicans’ backs on a 20-year pledge” not to raise tax rates.

“It is one of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple decades,” the official said.

The…Democrats…weren’t interested in what’s best for our country, either.  Their sole goal was to destroy the Republican party.  That was their consequential policy achievement, not the recovery of a failing economy.

Obama’s Freedom

Posted on by
Reply

From a person calling herself Jezebel comes this:

Ugh, you rubber cement-huffing nincompoop….

Anyway, I’m all for Hobby Lobby (and all other organizations that think birth control is totes gross) ignoring the law.  If they keep this up for long enough, we won’t have to worry about the fiscal cliff.

And I suppose that now’s as good a time as any to confess publicly that “Hobby Lobby” is the nickname I’ve given my vagina.

Name calling as pseudo-logic.  How very Progressive of her.

And this pseudo-argument from Think Progress, in their post misleading titled “Hobby Lobby To Deny Contraception To Employees, Ignoring Court Order:”

This ignores two obvious points—first, that Plan B is not an ‘abortion-inducing’ drug, as Hobby Lobby claims, and second, that the company may well end up paying more to avoid covering contraception than they would simply providing access.  It also takes a twisted view on the ‘Freedom of Religion’ argument; the company is actually forcing its owner’s religious beliefs on all employees, no matter their personal religious views.

I’ll ignore their first point as irrelevant (Look! Shiny!) and proceed to their second, which is blatantly cynical.  Think Progress actually is arguing in all seriousness that religious freedom—any freedom—is solely a pecuniary, fiscal thing, having nothing to do with principle or morality.  How little the Left understands individual liberties and duties.  How little the Left understands the threat to their own freedoms Big Government represents.

But their argument begins and ends with a disingenuously false premise.  Of course, the owners of Hobby Lobby are not at all denying contraception to their employees, nor are they imposing their own religious beliefs on anyone.  Those employees remain free to obtain birth control on their own, to obtain contraceptive “coverage” from other insurers, to engage in any other activity, all in accordance with their own religious beliefs.

Moreover, this refusal to participate in the HHS intrusion inflicts no other harm on their employees, either, including the costs of contraception now to be borne by those employees.  Sandra Fluke’s foolish remarks notwithstanding, contraception is freely available, and nearly free, for instance for $7/mo at any Walmart.  Condoms (the forgotten contraceptive) are just as cheap.

Hobby Lobby’s owners are simply exercising their 1st Amendment rights (that conveniently ignored clause that says, “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].”)  They’re simply declining to participate in a market for materials their religious beliefs hold to be immoral, while not at all impacting the ability of anyone else to participate in exactly that market.

But there’s another problem here.  When Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor refused a request from Hobby Lobby for a temporary injunction staying enforcement of HHS’ contraception insurance rule pending adjudication of the primary case, she continued the injustice rather than mitigated it.  In the balance was whether Hobby Lobby’s owners should be forced to suffer enormous economic damage or to violate their religious teachings, and so to suffer enormous moral damage, against whether Hobby Lobby’s employees should be required to go elsewhere for extremely low cost contraception and emergency contraception.  And this balance would have been purely temporary: resolution through the courts is in progress.

Sotomayor’s reasoning is instructive.

While the applicants allege they will face irreparable harm if they are forced to choose between complying with the contraception-coverage requirement and paying significant fines, they cannot show that an injunction is necessary or appropriate to aid our jurisdiction[.]

No.  $1.3 million in daily fines aren’t at all “irreparable harm.”  The moral damage of violating religious principles isn’t harmful at all.  After all, holding at bay that irreparable harm isn’t at all necessary or appropriate to aid the Court’s jurisdiction.  Never mind that it is the purpose of the Court to decide cases in accordance with the law—here the Constitution—and so to minimize overall damage.

And

Even without an injunction pending appeal, the applicants may continue their challenge to the regulations in the lower courts.

But pay, in the meantime, the frightful fiscal or moral cost that Sotomayor so casually dismisses.

Instead, Justice Sotomayor’s ruling said, “Kneel and bend your neck, sucker.  We already know the right answer.”  She carefully chose not to take the low cost—morally, fiscally, or legally—path.

But that’s freedom, Progressive style—Obama style.  Do it our way; we’ll take care of you.  But if you’re really so stupid as to disagree with us, we’ll vilify, demonize, you.  Because, in the first place, logic has no place in the discussion, and in the second place (yes, as in secondarily), your freedom is ours to determine.

Update: A Federal district judge appears to have a better understanding of relative costs and legal efficiency than does our Supreme Court Justice:

US District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff ruled Sunday in favor of Tom Monaghan and his Domino’s Farms Corp., near Ann Arbor.  Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception isn’t health care but a “gravely immoral” practice.

Zatkoff granted Monaghan’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order until a final decision is made in the case.

Filibuster

Posted on by
2

Harry Reid, who was for the filibuster before he was against it, has determined that this hallowed protection of the political minority from the tyranny of the majority must end.  First, some background.

The Senate’s filibuster process is enshrined in two Senate rules, Rules 22 and 5.  Rule 22 says in pertinent part

“Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?” And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn—except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting—then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.

Thus, if only 90 Senators of 100 sitting are present, ending the filibuster would still require 60 votes.

Rule 5 is this, in its entirety:

SUSPENSION AND AMENDMENT OF THE RULES

1. No motion to suspend, modify, or amend any rule, or any part thereof, shall be in order, except on one day’s notice in writing, specifying precisely the rule or part proposed to be suspended, modified, or amended, and the purpose thereof.  Any rule may be suspended without notice by the unanimous consent of the Senate, except as otherwise provided by the rules.

2. The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.

There are three items of interest here:

  • it takes a 2/3 vote of sitting Senators to approve a Rules change
  • a rules change effort requires at least a one-day advance notice
  • rules continue from one Congressional session to another—that’s why they’re called “Standing Rules.”

As Hans A von Spakovsky, writing in the National Review Online, puts it,

[T]he Senate has always considered itself a continuing body, because only a third of its members are up for election at any one time.

Now the move.  Enter stage left, the Progressive Senator from Nevada, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV).  Reid has announced that he will move to alter (eliminate) Rule 22 (the filibuster rule) in the coming Congressional session.  And he’s said he’ll do it

on the first day of the new session

and

it will take only a simple majority of 51 votes to shut down debate on the proposal.

There are three items of interest here, too.

  • a minor point: he cannot do this on the first day of the new session; Rule 5 demands a day’s prior notice—this means he cannot attempt his change until the second day.
  • a critical point: he cannot do this without a  2/3 vote to end debate on his proposed change—no simple majority allowed—unless
  • a critical point: he violates Rule 5 (again) by disregarding the fact that the Senate’s Rules continue from Congressional session to Congressional session.  That’s the only way he can get from a super majority to shut down debate on his Rule change to a simple majority.

There’ a fourth item of interest, too.  This is what Reid said in 2005, when the Republicans were contemplating a similar move:

For people to suggest that you can break the rules to change the rules is un-American. …a rule that now says to change a rule in the—in the—Senate rules to break a filibuster there still requires 67 votes….  But now we’re told that they’re going to…come in here and have the Vice President [preside], and he would just say the Parliamentarian, which would acknowledge that it’s illegal, it’s wrong…he would just overrule.  You would be breaking the rules to change the rules—very un-American.

And

The filibuster is far from a “procedural gimmick.” It is part of the fabric of this institution. It was well known in colonial legislatures, and it is an integral part of our country’s 217 years of history.

…

The roots of the filibuster can be found in the Constitution and in the Senate rules.

…

If Republicans rollback our rights in this Chamber, there will be no check on their power.  The radical, right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want.

And from President Barack Obama, through Dan Pfeiffer, his White House Communications Director:

The President has said many times that the American people are demanding action. They want to see progress, not partisan delay games.  That hasn’t changed, and the President supports Majority Leader Reid’s efforts to reform the filibuster process.

Which follows Senator Obama’s remarks on filibuster in 2005:

What [the American people] don’t expect is for one party—be it Republican or Democrat—to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.

…that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.

Is there any clearer demonstration of the dishonesty of the Progressive Movement in the United States government?

Some Thoughts on a Pseudo-Wonk’s Thoughts on the Coming Fiscal Cliff

Posted on by
Reply

I don’t ordinarily take guys like Ezra Klein seriously.  He is, after all, the pseudo-wonk who claimed in all seriousness, during a December 2010 interview on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown,” that our Constitution doesn’t matter; it’s just an inconvenient scrap of paper too often in the way of the Progressives’ Proper Way:

[The Constitution of the United States] has no binding power on anything.  …the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago….

However, since he is taken seriously by so many on the Left, and he’s just written another tendentious piece of misunderstanding, I find myself drawn to comment.  In writing for Newsday just after Christmas, he made the remarks described below.

I’ll begin by briefly addressing Klein’s windy argument concerning Conservative distrust of Democrats’ spending cut promises.  Klein insists that welching on such promises is a good thing:

The point of austerity is to solve a deficit problem, not yoke the future to the imperfect forecasts of the past.  Once the deficit problem goes away, so too does the reason for austerity.

He also makes his view of the moral appropriateness of breaking promises explicit:

After 1997, spending rose.  But by then, the economy was roaring, and within a few years, we were at surpluses.  So why shouldn’t Congress have been a bit looser with the purse?

And

But if the economy in eight years is far better than we expect it to be today, Congress should change course.  If the cuts to spending don’t need to be so deep, then huzzah! Ratchet them back.

Because—well, Klein never offers a reason.  For him, Big Government spending Americans’ money is the Natural Order.  Big Government is its own raison d’être.

I’ll address his disingenuousness in claiming that leaving more money in the hands of Americans, rather than those of Big Government—reducing government spending, making possible reducing taxes—is somehow austere later.  First, I’ll talk about his outright lie:

[Conservatives’] goal isn’t to reduce deficits.  If it was, they’d be open to tax increases.

And

[Conservatives’] real goal: Not smaller deficits, but smaller government.

Because raising taxes is the One True Way to reduce deficits.

Actually, on one level, Klein’s charge isn’t a malicious slur, at all: Conservatives aren’t interested in reducing deficits; they’re interested in eliminating them altogether.  But Klein wasn’t going there.  Here’s the thing: Conservatives are interested in…reducing…deficits, by cutting spending.  Conservatives also see the optimal long-term path to this—especially in light of Progressives’ view that breaking promises is morally sound—as being to shrink government back to a small, limited entity that the Sovereign people can better control.  The existence of these alternate paths proves the lie in Klein’s charge.

Interestingly, Klein makes his lie as if he believes, in all sincerity, that smaller government is somehow bad.  But one of his movement’s founding forebears, Herb Croly, has already enshrined that concept in the Progressive religion:

To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy.  But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of constructive national democracy….  [T]he average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.

Klein argues, to return to the question of austerity and to questions of spending, taxes, and Big Government:

The point of austerity is to solve a deficit problem, not yoke the future to the imperfect forecasts of the past.  Once the deficit problem goes away, so too does the reason for austerity.

Of course, it should go the other way, too. The Bush tax cuts, which were passed to pay down a surplus, should be rescinded now that deficits have returned.  But Republicans don’t see it that way.

Based on what theory, exactly, should taxes be increased?  Klein declines to offer any support at all for this bald, unsubstantiated claim.  Not the first particle of a fact, not a single line of logic.  Part of his failure, though, stems from his misunderstanding that the Bush tax cuts were intended to “pay down a surplus” (has there been a more cynically offered non sequitur—”pay down a surplus?”) rather than to leave more of Americans’ money in their own hands.  But this is symptomatic of Klein’s blinders (yes, that’s contradictory.  Deal with it).  Big Government is such an obviously positive wonder that explanation seems contained in the statement.

He adds to his curious remark above this:

Rather, austerity is one of many arguments marshaled toward the long-term end of shrinking the size of government.  That’s why a deal that solves the deficit problem and then sees government spending rise in its eight year is a failure rather than a success—it betrayed the actual goal of shrinking the size of the government, even if it succeeded in the putative goal of balancing the budget.

Here’s the cynicism of his austerity claims.  Klein conflates austerity with reduced government spending, austerity with leaving more money in the hands of the individuals otherwise taxed—as though more money in private hands makes somehow for a more limited existence.  No, what is austere is taking money away from those who already are paying far more than their share by raising taxes on them; or taking money away from anyone by raising taxes in the middle of a failed recovery or while deficit spending remains out of control.

He does states a truth, yet fails to recognize it.  A budget that grows government is, rather tautologically, a failure.  One of the points of the goal of shrinking the size of government (beyond facilitating the preservation of individual freedoms and duties) is to exercise better control over its budget—so as to eliminate deficits (not just reduce them), so as to pay down (if not eliminate, from time to time) the debt and keep it under control.

Moreover, Conservatives don’t see the effectivity of raising taxes in times of deficits.  Of course, they don’t—spending cuts also reduce/eliminate deficits, and more efficiently so.  Spending cuts are immediate and direct (note that I’m talking about actual cuts, not the accounting games that both parties play, wherein they claim a reduction in the rise in spending rate is a cut).  Tax increases, though, however well-intended, get diverted into funding another neat program—there’s always a neat program waiting for money—rather than get used to reduce deficits.

But Klein, like all pseudo-wonks of the Left, simply can’t conceive of spending cuts.  He can’t conceive of letting Americans see to their own ends without (his) Big Government hanging over their shoulder making sure that the ends are appropriate and that their satisfaction is via an approved means.

Klein concludes

There’s little doubt that a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts could bring deficits to manageable levels within a few years.  Add in some stimulus and we could even protect the recovery between here and there.  Moreover, since the discretionary spending cuts have already been made, the next set of spending cuts will likely focus on entitlements.

“Add in some stimulus….”  So much for the spending cuts.  He just doesn’t understand the whole premise of reducing spending.  But economics also is more than 100 years old, and so confusing to someone who finds it inconvenient.

And, yes, Ezra, there is considerable doubt that “a mixture of tax increases and spending cuts could bring deficits to manageable levels.”  That’s why there’s this debate in DC.

Finally: shrinking government would accomplish all of this, too, and it would make the manageability of the deficits more permanent.  But Klein ignores the larger point (I’m confident that he sees it, for all his confusion): even a manageable deficit represents debt growth, and our current debt of $161/3 trillion and growing already is at unsustainable levels—interest payments alone currently run to $220 billion/year and that’s only going to get worse as the coming Bernanke Inflation begins to take hold, driving up interest rates.  Imagine the precious entitlements that could be funded with that money were it not wasted on the debt of the profligate.  Imagine the national defense capability that could be had for that kind of money (which would represent a one-third increase in the 2012 DoD budget).  Imagine the real stimulus our economy could have were that money committed to a $220 billion reduction in the taxes Americans pay to Klein’s bloated government.

Spending cuts, though, as the means to eliminate deficits in order to enable paying down national debt, and shrinking government to a proper size so as to maintain that reduced spending and taxation, is inconceivable to today’s Progressives.