Brainstorming

I stumbled across this article at American Thinker today that detailed how Obama won the Presidential election:

Anyone hoping to launch a successful counterattack must first analyze Obama’s campaign and assess the factors that contributed to its success. To assist in such efforts, I have constructed a block diagram [1] of the post-nomination campaign’s components, interactions, and successive stages [2]. A study of this diagram will, I think, reveal interactions that are too complex to be sorted out and comprehended from a verbal description alone.

[...]

The diagram is colored according to the phases of the campaign, which, like a military campaign, can be divided into the resources provided by the terrain, available forces and weapons, strategy and tactics, and objectives to be taken [3].

Click on the link above to actually see the diagram - it’s pretty impressive, honestly.  This got me thinking, though, especially with the LP State Convention coming up - what should be our plan?  What resources does the Libertarian Party have here?  What tools do we have to leverage these resources?  What objectives can we hope to take?  Realistically, we have to accept that, at the present time, our strategic space is very limited.  If we’re lucky, we might match Belgium’s performance in World War 1 - slow the enemy down and remain a viable force through the end.  If we’re unlucky, we might match Belgium’s performance in World War 2 - slow the enemy down for a couple of days but ultimately get overrun.  At the present time, we’re, at best, a minor annoyance for the major parties.  We don’t get enough votes for either major party to bother currying any real favor with us, much less view us as any serious, credible threat.  This means that, unless we identify our strengths and weaknesses and develop an appropriate plan based on our resources and capabilities, we’ll be doomed to continue our string of Luxembourg-esque performances[1].

So, what resources are provided by Nevada to the Libertarian Party, or, really, any third party in this state?

• Voters are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the wild government spending in Washington.  This happens when you rack up trillions of deficit spending and give half of it to bankers and hedge fund managers.
• The economy is dismal.  People are looking for a change.
• After rampant corruption and profligate spending for the better part of a decade, fiscally conservative people have largely given up on the Republican Party.
• The Democratic Party is, understandably, taking the freedom loving, socially liberal minded voters for granted.  Whenever anyone asks the Democratic Party to do anything about, for example, gay marriage or the Drug War, the answer is always “We’ll get around to it.”
• Nevada politics has long had a “live and let live” attitude, which is how we ended up with legalized gambling, legal brothels, some of the most liberal marriage and divorce laws in the country, and no blue laws.  This vein isn’t as deep as it used to be - the recent influx of less libertarian minded residents has drained it somewhat - but it’s still there.  Ron Paul, for example, would have won Nevada during the GOP primaries were it not for some questionable practices at the end.
• The state government has been laughably mismanaged for years, with both parties playing ridiculous games of chicken against a steadily dwindling per-capita tax base.
• Neither party has historically been dominant throughout Nevada’s history, nor does it look like that will change anytime soon.
• Between the remnants of Ron Paul’s campaign in Nevada and various Libertarian-leaning social groups at the university level, there is a large field of activists ready and willing to be tapped, provided the State LP can prove its legitimacy and effectiveness.

What tools can the Libertarian Party bring to bear to maximize its advantages in the state?  Unfortunately, things are much less positive here:

• The biggest Libertarian personality in Nevada is Wayne Allen Root, who has been largely blacklisted by the existing State LP leadership.
• The Libertarian Party in Nevada generally averages about 1-2% of the vote each year in the races that it manages to enter.
• There are fewer than 10,000 registered Libertarians, accounting for less than 1% of the voting electorate.
• The State LP has, at most, a few dozen activists, organized in fewer than half of Nevada’s counties.

On the other hand, we do have a few things going for us:

• Unlike the Independent American or Constitutionalist Parties, we’re not a bunch of whacko millenialists, and, unlike the Greens, we’re not a bunch of tree hugging hippies.  In other words, as far as third parties go, the Libertarians are fairly normal.  This is the conscious result of numerous purges in the State party over the past decade.
• The number of activists with direct ties to the Libertarian Party has doubled since the beginning of 2009.

In short, for the first time in a long, long time, the ground is increasingly favorable for the Libertarian Party here.  Unfortunately, we simply don’t have the tools to usefully exploit that - at least, not yet.  This brings us to what should be our near-term objectives, will will necessarily be limited in scope:

• Prove to Nevada that the Libertarian Party is normal.  Many people shun third parties because they believe that third parties consist of reality-challenged idealogues.  Ron Paul’s campaign was successfully derailed by the media presenting him as a 9/11 truther with Nazi sympathies; much of this was due to Ron Paul failing to control his message and failing to realize that, when someone asks you if you think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, you answer no.
• Become credible.  This is accomplished by gaining significant votes for Libertarian candidates - enough votes to actually swing elections and earn much needed publicity.
• Build a party apparatus.  Right now, the LP in Nevada is a few people that get together for drinks and the occasional meeting.  It needs to be more than that.
• Most importantly, stay on the ballot.  The other objectives will be impossible to meet if we fall off of the ballot for any reason.

This brings me to what our near-term strategy must be:

• Use the Republican Party’s loss of favor to encourage the media to come to Libertarians for a “conservative” voice.  This will increase exposure in the state and curry favor with the media.  If we build up long term relationships with the media, they will be less inclined to completely misrepresent us.
• Contact and work with what’s left of Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty group and the various student organizations in Nevada’s universities to create a like-minded coalition capable of generating voter registrations and attracting the youth (terrible voters but great volunteers).
• Stage successful community outreach programs that highlight the Libertarian agenda.  The various anti-bailout “Tea Parties” taking place around the country would be an excellent starting point.  Small four man protests, on the other hand, should be avoided.  This will almost certainly involve a coalition of like minded groups to pull off.
• Get organized in as many counties as practical.  Currently, there are only local affiliates in four counties, and Nye County’s presently pending affiliation is shaky at best.  This must be addressed as soon as possible, especially since rural races are relatively low hanging fruit, requiring less time and energy to successfully pursue.  This will almost certainly require abandoning, severely reducing, or completely restructuring the current dues-paying load for non-affiliated counties; presently, the total cost to become a member of the Nevada LP is $50 ($25 to the National LP, $25 to the State) for non-affiliated areas.  This is rather steep, especially since the major parties don’t require dues at all to join.
• Raise some money outside of “Welcome to the Party” sources.  The 1776 Brigade is a good start, albeit miserably executed.  There are numerous ways to raise money - banquets, meet & greets, general donations, actually asking people - all methods should be pursued.

These are my thoughts.  Hopefully somebody will be willing to add to them.

[1] - Luxembourg was overrun in both World Wars within a day.

Blogging HR1: Division A, Title 3

Amount Appropriated Thus Far:  $48,588,500,000

I’d just like to start by pointing out that I’m beginning to understand completely why legislators don’t read the crap that crosses their desks.  Maybe it’s the six hours of sleep I got last night, maybe it’s the page after page of interminable “For an additional amount for ‘Random Project That We’re Making Up Now’, $Some_amount_we’re_pulling_out_of_our_asses“, but, whatever it is, it’s absolutely driving me to insanity.  I really can’t begin to describe it.  Just be thankful that I’m doing this, be thankful I haven’t noticed that the Senate has passed their version, and, most of all, be thankful I’m dense enough to not give a flying rat’s ass that the final bill will be entirely different from the one I’m slowly deconstructing here.

With that aside out of the way, Title III–Commerce, Justice, and Science provides additional funding to the departments of Commerce, Justice, and Science, respectively, through three Subtitles.  This is the section where the Department of Commerce receives additional Census funding, which is increasingly becoming somewhat controversial due to the Obama Administration’s sudden interest in the Census process, among other things.

Let’s take a look!

Subtitle A–Commerce

• $250,000,000 for “Economic Development Assistance Programs”, of which up to $50,000,000 can go to “federally authorized regional economic development commissions”.  I’d love to find out what sort of economic development is being assisted here.
• $1,000,000,000 more for the upcoming census in 2010.  Coincidentally, this is another Section 1106-exempt line-item.
• $350,000,000 for salaries and expenses for the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program.  There’s quite a bit of money going to various federal agencies to roll out broadband - it’ll be fun to see who actually gets to take charge on this.
• $2,825,000,000 for Wireless and Broadband Deployment Grants.  I wonder if Verizon will lower my bill now that the taxpayer is paying for their infrastructure upgrades?
• $650,000,000 for the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Program.  Thank goodness - I need to get one of these for my black & white at the cabin!
• $100,000,000 for “Scientific and Technical Research and Services”.  I’m almost afraid to ask what they’re researching…
• $100,000,000 for “Industrial Technology Services”, of which $30,000,000 shall be available for the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership.  You can think of this line item as a straight sales shot to Eureka! Ranch International, a rather successful consulting firm, since the Manufacturing Extension Partnership is a big fan of their Eureka! Winning Ways package.
• $300,000,000 for “Construction of Research Facilities”.  Note that this is not under the Department of Science.
• $400,000,000 for “Operations, Research and Facilities” for habitat restoration and mitigation activities.  That’s right, we’re paying $400 million for buildings so people can restore areas to a pre-building state.  Don’t let the irony hit you on the way out.
• $600,000,000 for “Procurement, Acquisition and Construction” of satellites, with a substantial amount going towards weather satellites.

Subtitle B–Justice

• $3,000,000,000 for “State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance” under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program.
• $1,000,000,000 for “Community Oriented Policing Services”.  Basically, they’re paying a few police officer salaries.  The matching funds requirement and salary limits are waived, which means that this is now a straight-up handout with no strings attached and no limit to compensation.  I see this ending well.

Subtitle C–Science

• $400,000,000 to NASA to study Earth’s climate.  If you’re confused about why NASA gets $400 million and the Department of Commerce gets $600 million to study the same problem, you’re not alone.
• $150,000,000 to NASA for “aeronautics”.  Seriously, that’s all the information we get.
• $50,000,000 to rebuild NASA-owned infrastructure that was wiped out in various natural disasters.  Strangely, this one actually makes some sense.
• $2,500,000,000 to the National Science Foundation for “Research and Related Activities”.  This money goes towards various government-run research grants.
• $100,000,000 to the NSF for “Education and Human Resources”.
• $400,000,000 to the NSF for “Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction”.  Thankfully, this money is “available only for approved projects.”  Glad we have that established.

That’s it, folks.  The Department of Commerce is spending money on sciences, the Department of Science is spending money on grants, and the Department of Justice is making sure that, when the poverty-driven riots begin to break out, that we’ll be able to keep the proles in line.  How cool is that?

(Ugh.)

Previous: Division A, Title 2

Blogging HR1: Division A, Title 2

Amount Appropriated Thus Far:  $34,413,500,000

Title II — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Rural Development marks the true beginning of stimulus spending in the original House bill.  Up until this point, all of the spending has been on administrative overhead and fraud prevention.  Curiously enough, most of the spending in this Title is on loans to low-income homeowners; apparently, there’s a rural version of HUD.  There’s also a surprising amount dedicated towards various IT projects, which, being an IT guy myself, I find strangely exciting, if a little worrisome.  Here’s an itemized list:

• $44,000,000 on “Agriculture Buildings and Facilities and Rental Payments” - interestingly, the funding for this is exempt from Section 1106, which assigns funds for oversight.
• $209,000,000 on “Buildings and Facilities”, for “work on deferred maintenance at Agricultural Research Services facilities”.
• $245,000,000 for “Salaries and Expenses”, for “the purpose of maintaining and modernizing the information technology system” of the Farm Service Agency.  Section 1106 doesn’t apply here, either.  I, for one, would love to work on an IT project with no budget assigned for oversight, especially one with a multi-million dollar budget.
• $350,000,000 for “Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations”, of which $175,000,000 would be used to purchase floodplain easements.  This is yet another appropriation that isn’t subject to Section 1106.
• $50,000,000 to the “Watershed Rehabilitation Program” to fix various structures (levees and the like).  It’s also Section 1106-exempt.
• $5,838,000,000 of direct and guaranteed loans for the “rural community advancement program”, including $1,102,000,000 for rural community facilities, $2,000,000,000 for business and industry, and $2,736,000,000 for rural water and waste disposal, plus another $1,800,000,000 in loans and grants, apportioned out to the various causes listed here.  Instead of Section 1106, the Secretary of Agriculture can assign up to 3% of the money listed here for oversight, loan guarantees, and the like.
• $22,129,000,000 for loans to Section 502 (the Rural Homeownership Loan Program) borrowers. Section 502 loans money to low-income individuals in rural areas for housing assistance - think Little HUD on the Prairie.  This is the biggest spending item in this section.  The good news here is that, if you’re already over your head in mortgage payments, you can dig yourself into a deeper hole by also owing the government money.  Exciting, isn’t it?
• $2,825,000,000 to roll out broadband to rural areas.  Keep in mind that this money would be under the Department of Agriculture - there are numerous departments that will ultimately be responsible for providing broadband to rural areas, a situation that the Senate is working hard to exacerbate.  Amusingly, most of the people this money would “help” don’t even want high-speed Internet access; obviously, spending money on infrastructure that people don’t even want certainly won’t help the popularity of this bill any.
• $100,000,000 for “management information systems” for WIC.
• $150,000,000 for the “emergency food assistance program”.
• $300,000,000 for administrative costs to handle everything listed above.  Section 1106 doesn’t apply here.

So, to summarize, we’re looking at north of $20 billion in housing loan bailouts, a few billion in infrastructure payouts (broadband for the Amish!), and a substantial amount in IT spending.  There are going to be some happy and wealthy IT directors in our federal government for the next couple of years… I wonder what their pension plans look like?

Previous: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle B

Next: Division A, Title 3

Perhaps It’s Not That Important

On one side of the Great Bailout Debate, we have those that claim that tax cuts are pointless.  After all, we cut taxes a bunch of times during the Bush Administration and look where we ended up?  Our infrastructure is in shambles, education spending is sinking, health care is still unaffordable for many Americans, and we’re currently experiencing the worst recession since the ’80s.  Clearly, tax cuts aren’t the way to grow an economy.  On the other side of the Great Bailout Debate, meanwhile, we have those that point to Japan, which followed the Keynesian playbook almost perfectly - it threw itself into debt, spent money on creating jobs, built all kinds of infrastructure… but barely grew at all.  The New York Times (Via Instapundit) is there:

Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan’s troubled experience. While Japan is not exactly comparable to the United States — especially as a late developer with a history of heavy state investment in infrastructure — economists say it can still offer important lessons about the pitfalls, and chances for success, of a stimulus package in an advanced economy.

In a nutshell, Japan’s experience suggests that infrastructure spending, while a blunt instrument, can help revive a developed economy, say many economists and one very important American official: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who was a young financial attaché in Japan during the collapse and subsequent doldrums. One lesson Mr. Geithner has said he took away from that experience is that spending must come in quick, massive doses, and be continued until recovery takes firm root.

Okay, let’s make sure we follow this logic:  Japan racked up some amazing debt - 180% of its GDP, which, were we to match that, would require a staggering $14 trillion increase in Federal debt - on infrastructure spending, hoping to turn around their economy.  The economy didn’t turn around - in fact, growth was stagnant.  So, based on this experience, economists have successfully learned that infrastructure spending works and helps grow economies. If this sounds awfully, shall we say, faith based, well, perhaps this might help:

But some Western economists who have studied Japan’s experience say the stimulus accomplished more than it is now given credit for. At a minimum, they argue, it saved the economy from an outright, 1930s-style collapse.

Moreover, they say, any direct comparison of Japan and the United States is inevitably misleading, because Japan has spent so much more over the years on infrastructure. Having neglected its roads, bridges, water treatment plants and more over the years, the United States is bound to generate a greater payback for such spending than would Japan.

Beyond that, proponents of Keynesian-style stimulus spending in the United States say that Japan’s approach failed to accomplish more not because of waste but because it was never tried wholeheartedly. They argue that instead of making one big push to pump up the economy with economic shock therapy, Japan spread its spending out over several years, diluting the effects.

That’s right - Japan didn’t succeed because they didn’t believe enough.  Apparently, racking up the highest level of debt in the developed world isn’t enough belief.  Of course, if that wasn’t it, there’s always the other old faith-standby:  They were doing it wrong!

Economists said the finding suggested that while infrastructure spending may yield strong results for developing nations, creating jobs in higher-paying knowledge-based services like health care and education can bring larger benefits to advanced economies like Japan, with its aging population.

“In hindsight, Japan should have built public works that address the problems it faces today, like aging, energy and food sources,” said Takehiko Hobo, a professor emeritus of public finance at Shimane University in Matsue, the main city of Shimane. “This obsession with building roads is a holdover from an earlier era.”

See, when you’re praying, it’s helpful to follow the right rituals.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.  But Dave… tax cuts had the exact same results!  All of the arguments that tax cut proponents use are almost identical! That’s absolutely true!  We cut taxes, went further into debt (albeit not as severely as Japan’s) and what do we have to show for it?  By the time the recession ends in 2010 (if that soon), our economy will probably be at about the same size as it was in 2005.  Tax cut proponents offer the same litany of arguments, too.  “We didn’t cut taxes far enough.  We didn’t cut taxes on the right people.  We didn’t decrease spending.  We didn’t cut taxes fast enough.”  On and on they go, each side trotting out their numbers, each side coming up with data samples that sort of prove their point, each side completely missing the big picture:

The simple, sad, honest truth is that, as far as the economy in any reasonably developed country is concerned, the government doesn’t matter.

The trouble with any large, well developed economy is that, short of converting to absolute state-owned communism, the government will never be a big enough player in the economy to truly control it.  Don’t get me wrong - if you throw spending up high enough or increase tax receipts enough, government will still be a big player.  However, there are still far too many little players running around doing their own thing for even the biggest player (which government invariably will be) to have any real, considerable control over the business cycle.  The most government can do is either soften or amplify the cycle a little and, frankly, that’s only true as long as the rest of the players are willing to play along, which isn’t always guaranteed.  Besides, government’s motivation tends to be somewhat mixed - case in point:

In Hamada, residents say the city’s most visible “hakomono,” the Japanese equivalent of “white elephant,” was its own bridge to nowhere, the $70 million Marine Bridge, whose 1,006-foot span sat almost completely devoid of traffic on a recent morning. Built in 1999, the bridge links the city to a small, sparsely populated island already connected by a shorter bridge.

“The bridge? It’s a dud,” said Masahiro Shimada, 70, a retired city official who was fishing near the port. “Maybe we could use it for bungee jumping,” he joked.

Koichi Matsuoka, a retired professor of policy at the University of Shimane in Hamada, said useless projects like the Marine Bridge were the reason that years of huge spending had brought few long-term benefits here. While Shimane has had the highest per capita spending on public works in Japan for the last 18 years, thanks to powerful local politicians like the deceased former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, its per capita annual income of $26,000 ranked it 40th among Japan’s 47 prefectures, he said. He said the spending had left Shimane $11 billion in debt, twice the size of the prefectural government’s annual budget.

Herein lies the rub - government funds tend to get spent on what the politically powerful want, not what people will actually use.  This is why capitalism is so compelling:  Regular businesses can only afford to build what people are willing (or capable) of paying for.  Government spending doesn’t labor under such constraints.  Given a choice between paying for a bunch of junk that nobody but the politically connected want and paying for a bunch of junk that I might actually use from time to time, I know which way my alliegance lies.

Blogging HR1: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle B

Amount Appropriated Thus Far:  $232,500,000

The theme for Subtitle B is transparency - what kind of reporting requirements are people going to be responsible for if they spend some of the stimulus money?  In many respects, this section ties into a point I’ve made a time or two - democratic governments, by their very nature, are inefficient.  You have to keep all stakeholders in account, whether they support you or not, and you have to ensure that everybody knows exactly what you’re doing.  Now we get to witness what, exactly, that means, in four part harmony.

Part 1 - Transparency and oversight requirements: I’m not going to bother doing a section-by-section assessment of this part because, frankly, most of the sections aren’t that interesting.  One item to note, however, is that each Federal agency that plans on spending any stimulus money will have to post their plans on Recovery.gov.  Also, contractors are supposed to come up with fixed price contracts, which should, at least on paper, minimize budget overruns and the like.

Part 2 - Accountability and transparency board: Essentially, this part creates a board whose job is to minimize waste, perform audits of various federal agencies, and periodically report to Congress.  Interestingly, the Chief Performance Officer will be chairing the board, which makes Obama’s last pick for this new position rather striking.  When it’s somebody’s job to make sure that $900 billion is properly spent, it’s probably a good idea to make sure they can handle basic payroll taxes.  Of course, this also raises another question:  Who chairs the board if Obama can’t find a politically palatable nominee for the position?  One moderately interesting section is Sec. 1230, which bumps our funding total up by another $14 million to pay for the board, the Recovery.gov website, inspectors general and travel expenses for the Independent Advisory Panel.

Part 3 - Additional accountability and transparency provisions: Do you think that your company is fraudulently taking money from the stimulus?  Well, here’s the part that addresses how you can file a complaint and what sort of protections you have.  Also, if you have a stimulus-related contract, the Inspector General pretty much owns you, so don’t get in his or her way during an investigation.  Trust me, you do not want to get in the way of the Inspector General.

Part 4 - Further accountability and transparency provisions: This part is also known as the “Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009″, which means that we’ve achieved such a deep acceptance of meta that we’re even allowing legislation to have other bits of legislation inside of them.  Unfortunately, much of this part involves various changes to US Code and, not being a lawyer or possessing even a faint understanding of Federal whistleblower law, I’m pretty lost here.  One interesting section is Section 1273, listed as “Clarification of whistleblower rights relating to scientific and other research”, which launches into a two page definition of “on the basis of religion” that is, if absolutely nothing else, quite exhaustive.  Among other things, you’re apparently not allowed to prohibit discussion of religious content if you allow discussion of political content - at least, I think that’s what it says.  Honestly, reading this part reminds me why I went into IT instead of law.

That’s it!  Next up… Title II, or “The Pork Strikes Back”.

Previous: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle A

Next: Division A, Title 2

Blogging HR1: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle A

In the spirit of Battlestar Galactica, let’s start with a simple counter…

Amount Appropriated Thus Far:  $218,500,000

Like any bad joke, Division A starts with the punchline:

SEC. 1001. STATEMENT OF APPROPRIATIONS.

     The following sums in this Act are appropriated, out of any money
in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2009, and for other purposes.

Considering how we’re swimming in debt at the moment, I’m dying to know what money, exactly, is in the Treasury, much less not appropriated.  But, I digest…

Subtitle A — Use of Funds

The title is fairly self-explanatory - it covers how the “stimulus” money should be appropriated, what level of oversight should be present, and budgets money to accommodate that.  It’s in this area that we see some of the more controversial parts of the bill, including the “Buy American!” clause that Obama recently recanted on (Via Insta) and the preference for shovel-ready infrastructure projects.

Let’s dig in, shall we?

Section 1101 - Relationship to other appropriations: This isn’t the only spending bill that Congress is going to pass this year.

Section 1102 - Preference for quick-start activities: At least half of the money set aside for infrastructure projects will go to projects that can be started within 120 days of the bill being passed.  Wait… no, that’s not a “will” - it’s more of a goal.  So, we hope that at least half of the money set aside for infrastructure projects might go towards… oh, never mind.

Section 1103 - Requirement of timely award of grants: Once the bill gets passed, grants have to be handed out between a month to four months of the passage of the bill, depending on whether the grant is a formula grant or a competitive grant (praise FSM for Wikipedia!) and whether or not a deadline extension is required.  How quickly do the recipients have to spend the money?  Funny you should ask…

Section 1104 - Use it or lose it requirements for grantees: You have a year to set up contracts that burn through half of the money coming your direction, and two years to burn through the rest.  If you don’t pull that off, whatever money you have left gets taken from you and, within 120 days, sent to another federal agency that can spend it in a hurry.  Luckily, this only applies to HUD, the Department of Transportation and the EPA’s “State & Tribal Assistance Grants”, so, unless you’re planning on cleaning something up, building a road, or building some apartments, you can safely ignore this.

Section 1105 - Period of availability: The money will be there until September 30, 2010 unless we say otherwise.  Of course, we’ll undoubtedly be saying otherwise later.

Section 1106 - Set-aside for management and oversight: Up to 0.5% can be used to make sure we’re putting this money where we think we’re putting this money.  I’m a little curious how much oversight half of one percent will buy us - maybe that gets us TARP-level management and oversight!

Section 1107 - Appropriations for Inspector General: Lots and lots and lots of Inspector Generals!  Well, okay, only twenty of them, but it’s still enough to give us the first $193,500,000 of “stimulus”.  If you’re an auditor, consider yourself stimulated!

Section 1108 - Appropriation for Government Accountability Office: You know how we can read the bill online?  Yeah, the office responsible for pulling that off just got a cool $25 mil.  Help them spend it by burning through their bandwidth!

Section 1109 - Prohibited uses: We’re willing to stimulate your economy, as long as it doesn’t involve gambling, aquariums, zoos, golfing, or swimming.  Interestingly, brothels are still on the table.  How stimulating is that?

Section 1110 - Use of American iron and steel: Well, this went away in a hurry… basically, the idea here is that, if you’re spending stimulus money on infrastructure, you better be ready to use US-produced iron and steel, provided it wasn’t more than 25% more expensive than its Chinese equivalent and provided it didn’t completely suck.

Section 1111 - Wage rate requirements: No using slave labor for government projects.  The Civilian Conservation Corps would have troubles working in these conditions.

Section 1112 - Additional assurance of appropriate use of funds: I love this particular clause so much that I’m going to quote it verbatim:

SEC. 1112. ADDITIONAL ASSURANCE OF APPROPRIATE USE OF FUNDS.

None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the

State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless: (1) the use of

such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State

after the date of the enactment of this Act; or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich

no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois. The

preceding sentence shall not apply to any funds provided directly to a

unit of local government: (1) by a Federal department or agency; or (2)

by an established formula from the State.

As Glenn would say, “Heh.”

Section 1113 - Persistent poverty counties: At least 10% of the money in here goes to counties that have been dirt broke for the past 30 years.  I have a sneaking suspicion this is a handout to more rural parts of the Midwest - most urban counties would have enough of a range of incomes to render something like this moot.

Section 1114 - Required participation in E-Verify program: If you’re a contractor, you have to be in the E-Verify program in order to receive any of this money.

Section 1115 - Additional funding distribution and assurance of appropriate use of funds: States have 45 days to request stimulus funds once the Act is approved and they can be requested from either the state legislatures or from their governors.  I wonder if any states will pass?

Well… that’s it.  Come back later for the next exciting installment of Blogging HR1!

Previous: In The Beginning…

Next: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle B

Blogging HR1: In the Beginning…

It’s a slow news day, so I decided I’d try something truly bold and daring:  I would read and blog the House “Bailout” Bill, otherwise known as the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009″.  Luckily for us, it’s available online, so feel free to read along.  I still haven’t decided if I’m going to try to drunk-blog this or something - honestly, that could be kind of fun, but it’s a big bill, so I highly doubt my liver is up for it.

Without further ado… let’s focus on what they’re trying to accomplish here:

SEC. 3. PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES.

    (a) Statement of Purposes.--The purposes of this Act include the
following:
            (1) To preserve and create jobs and promote economic
        recovery.
            (2) To assist those most impacted by the recession.
            (3) To provide investments needed to increase economic
        efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and
        health.
            (4) To invest in transportation, environmental protection,
        and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic
        benefits.
            (5) To stabilize State and local government budgets, in
        order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services
        and counterproductive state and local tax increases.
    (b) General Principles Concerning Use of Funds.--The President and
the heads of Federal departments and agencies shall manage and expend
the funds made available in this Act so as to achieve the purposes
specified in subsection (a), including commencing expenditures and
activities as quickly as possible consistent with prudent management.

Well, there you go.  As long as we’re being prudent about spending nearly $900 billion that we don’t have.  I’d hate to think that we’re being imprudent with that kind of debt load.  Speaking of which…

SEC. 5. EMERGENCY DESIGNATIONS.

    (a) In General.--Each amount in this Act is designated as an
emergency requirement and necessary to meet emergency needs pursuant to
section 204(a) of S. Con. Res. 21 (110th Congress) and section
301(b)(2) of S. Con. Res. 70 (110th Congress), the concurrent
resolutions on the budget for fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
    (b) Pay-as-You-Go.--All applicable provisions in this Act are
designated as an emergency for purposes of pay-as-you-go principles.

Well, okay then.  Glad to hear it’s an emergency.

Here’s how this is going to work… I’m going to go on a section by section basis, give some thoughts on what I think is going on, and then we’ll go from there.  No promises on the accuracy or veracity of my conclusions or opinions, all sales final, no warranty is expressely granted or implied except where otherwise prohibited by law, etc. etc. etc.  I’m not entirely sure how far I’ll get - there’s a lot to read - but we’ll see where this goes.  Posts will generally be organized by division, title, and section.  Alternatively, I may organize them by lucidity and the amount of Prozac that I wish I had at that point.  Frankly, I might just leave it completely disorganized and run like hell.

HR1 is organized in two divisions, namely, Division A (Appropriation Provisions) and Division B (Other Provisions).  Division A has most of the spending, while Division B focuses on tax breaks and various modifications of existing health programs.  Each of these divisions, meanwhile, are organized into titles, which can be thought of as analogous to chapters in a book; these are, in turn, organized in subtitles, which are composed of various sections.  The titles touch on what, broadly speaking, a batch of spending is focused on (i.e. agriculture, defense, energy, etc.) or, in the case of Division B, broad topics of interest (broadband communications, Medicaid, and so on).  The bill itself is 679 pages long, which sounds a lot worse than it really is - the font size and layout is probably closer to a Dr. Seuss book than a Tolstoy novel.  If you open it up in MS Word, it only takes up 268 pages and 114,227 words, which, granted, is still significant, but nowhere near as scary as the news makes it sound.

That’s the general overview… let’s dig into the meat.

Next: Division A, Title 1, Subtitle A

The Business of Legislating

A couple of days ago, Myrna at Reno and its Discontents noted with a certain amount of derision that House Minority Leader John Boehner openly stated that the Republican Party, at least in the House, is “no longer in the business of legislating“:

Let me get this straight, Republican Representatives are no longer in the “business of legislating?” I wonder if their constituents, the ones who elected them to legislate on their behalf, are aware of this? Isn’t legislating a legislator’s job after all? I can’t believe such a bald admission of partisanship wasn’t treated like the heresy it is. Boehner basically told his colleagues that there are not going to the what they were elected to do–LEGISLATE.

When I first read this, I was profoundly confused.  Is there not a large Democrat majority in the House?  Why yes - yes there is.  Is there not a large Democrat majority in the Senate?  Again, yes, there is - in fact, now that Sen. Gregg has left the Senate to become Obama’s Commerce Secretary, there’s a better than even chance that the Senate may end up with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority.  Is there not a Democrat in the White House?  Pretty sure there is.  So, with all that in place… why, exactly, should the Democratic Party work with the Republicans on anything?  They clearly don’t need the votes - in fact, when the House passed their stimulus package, they did so without a single GOP vote.  So, with that in mind… how, exactly, are the Republicans supposed to legislate?

Apparently, there are some Democrats that are in the same position (via HotAir):

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year.

[...]

Since last year, many senior House Democrats — many of them subcommittee chairmen — have grown overly frustrated with how only small and select bands of legislators have been responsible for writing bills, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout as well as much of the $819 billion economic stimulus bill.

Democratic leaders have acknowledged that the “regular order” process of methodically developing and writing bills in subcommittees and committees has been abandoned recently. But they have defended the handling of such sensitive and important legislation by only an exclusive group of leadership and senior lawmakers as a necessary tactic during exceptional times.

That’s right - not only are the Republicans not in the business of legislating, most Democrats aren’t in the business of legislating, and apparently haven’t been for months.  The Democratic leadership in the House managed to draft over $1.5 trillion in spending(!!!) without sufficiently including their own caucus, to say nothing of the Republicans.  I wonder how their constituents, the ones who elected them to legislate on their behalf, will feel when they find out that the people they elected to represent them are being shut out by the very leadership that promised to “end” bipartisan bickering in the first place?

While I’m here and on a small tear, I’d like to point out that, in the history of US government, true “bipartisanship” has always been a rarity.  Whether it was the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, both World Wars, busting the trusts, you name it, there has always - always - been one party fighting for something (whatever that was) and another party fighting against, and, as long as our government is structured the way it is, this will always remain true.  People don’t elect Republicans so they’ll work with the Democrats - if they wanted that, they’d vote for Democrats.  People don’t elect Democrats so they’ll work with Republicans - if they wanted that, they’d vote for Republicans.  As for us Libertarians, well, shoot, we don’t want to work with anybody.

Getting The Week Started Off Right

see more pwn and owned pictures

Yeah… I think that pretty well sums things up.

Detaching from Reality

A random thought that I ran across today:

That philosophy of conscious or unconscious left-wingers is steadily and openly unfolding itself.  It becomes visible as a mixture of coercion, collectivism and lust for personal power poured into the American system of free men.  And it mortgages the next generation to pay for it.  Anyway their new system is satisfying enough to receive the illuminating support of the Communist Front and their fellow travelers.

- Herbert Hoover, “The Real State of the Union“, 1939

Here’s another:

“Interference of the State, the belief in the omnipotence of the State: that is a reaction to market failures,” Mr Putin said in his keynote address at the opening of the four-day meeting. “There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for that.”

Just something to think about while you ponder the results from the House vote for Obama’s “stimulus” plan.

Read more »

Excitement with the NVCLP

Saturday was the Organizing Convention for the Nevada Capital Libertarian Party, and, I’ll have to say, it wasn’t bad.  Some highlights:

• I’m the Secretary!  That’s what happens when you bring a laser printer to a convention, I suppose - everybody figures you’re on the ball and all secretarial or something.  Sadly, it’s not a Secretary-General position, so my world domination schemes will have to wait a while longer.
• The convention was moderately well attended.  We figured we could realistically expect about 10 people and, happily enough, we got 12.  One of those new faces is the Washoe County Rep in our Executive Council, so that’s a good sign.  Fresh blood is always a good thing.  Keep in mind that, no, twelve is not a big number, but it’s a bigger number than we’ve had in this area in a long, long time.  Baby steps, people.
• Robert’s Rules of Order are always fun to watch in action when you’re dealing with a group that’s barely familiar with them.  It’s also amazing how necessary they are, even with smaller groups.
• I finally met some of the people from State - they’re good people.  They’re definitely a good fit for the current state of the party - a little unorthodox but, overall, motivated and hard-working.  Not a single crank or bitter hippie in the bunch.  Again, strange as it might sound, this is progress.

Now that we have something of an organization at play, the next step is to get to work.  This means creating all sorts of committees, organizing the few registered LIBs we have in our area, and growing that number so we can actually get out of the single digit percentage abyss that we’re in today.  For better or worse, nobody’s going to listen to us unless we can muster at least 10% of the vote and, most importantly, do that consistently.  I think we have a good crew, and I think that, with a little hard work and determination, we’ll be able to do it, but it’s not going to be an easy road.

Post-Meeting Madness

Last night was the last meeting for our local affiliate of the Libertarian Party before our Organizing Convention on January 24th.  It was actually rather productive - we changed our affiliate’s name so it doesn’t tick off half of the state and we pulled together a draft of our soon-to-be-adopted bylaws that we could actually live with.  I certainly have no complaints.  Best of all, we pulled all of this off in about two hours.  Any time you’re able to get some Libertarians together and get them to agree to some sort of governance structure in less time than it takes to watch all of the Lord of the Rings is a pretty serious accomplishment for everyone involved.

With that in mind, if you care at all, here’s what you need to know:

• The Organizing Convention is being held on Saturday, January 24th at the Plaza Hotel & Convention Center in Carson City, Nevada, from 1-3 p.m.  More information can be found the Libertarian Party of Nevada web site.
• Our regional affiliate has been renamed - we’re now the Nevada Capitol Libertarian Party.  We’re still affiliating Washoe and Douglas counties and Carson City into one regional affiliate.

All in all, things are looking up for the ol’ LP in this state.

Thus It Begins…

Although it was nice to be away for a few days, sans Internet access and sans work responsibilities, it’s nice to be back.  Honestly, I was starting to get restless by the end of the weekend.  Due in part to that restlessness, I feel like touching on something big - something grand.  Today is a good day for grand ideas - with the year almost over and the economy in trouble, everybody is feeling a little introspective, and I’m feeling no different.

I think… no, I intuit, if it can even be called anything that serious, that humankind is at an inflection point.  Since the 1700’s or so, humanity has become increasingly specialized.  There was a time when it was possible for one man to achieve a solid understanding of all that was knowable; we called this person a “Rennaisance Man“.  Nowadays, it’s almost impossible to achieve this sort of understanding - even individual fields have different specialties that you can drill into and get lost in.  For example, pretend you want to achieve a solid understanding of computers - how they work, how to make them do what you want them to do, perhaps even be able to come up with some new, novel use for them.  It sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  It’s all a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, after all… or is it?  Okay, that’s not fair - quantum computers are still about a decade away from being anywhere close to mainstream; at this point, quantum computing is probably at the same place that the computer that we know and love was in 1950.  Let’s step away from there and just focus on normal, ordinary binary computers.  Now, what branch of computers do you want to focus on?  Do you want to focus on gigantic mainframes, the kind of computers that you see at your mother’s house, or something in between?  How about a cluster of computers like your mom’s, all working together to generate performance that would blow a mainframe out of the water?

Whoa there, you’re thinking to yourself.  Let’s just focus on the kind I see on my desk. Fine - I can work with that.  So, is that a Windows machine on your desk, or are you one of those using a Mac?  Perhaps your IT guy is a real propellerhead and has you using a Linux workstation, of all things, which opens up a huge can of worms.  Okay, okay - you’re probably using a Windows machine, like roughly 90% of the world, give or take.  Fine - Windows XP or Windows Vista?  Or, is your IT department still limping along with Windows 2000?  Windows NT 4?  Or, ye gods, Windows 98?! Okay, it’s probably Windows XP, and even if it’s Windows 2000, the differences are small enough where we can probably safely ignore them for now.  So, what flavor of XP is that on your desk?  Home, Professional, or Media Center?  Wait, are you in a third-world country where Starter Edition is sold?  Are you using a tablet?  If so, that means we’re talking about Tablet Edition… crap, okay, hold on - are you reading this article from work?  If so, you’re probably using XP Pro.  We’ll just assume you’re not using the 64-bit version, since that raises all kinds of fun issues, like Windows on Windows and 64-bit native drivers.  Fine.  Let’s dig into that little machine on your desk…

Let’s start with logging in.  Do you log into your computer with a password and all that good stuff?  Okay, you’re probably using your XP Pro machine in an Active Directory environment - you don’t want to know what understanding that would entail (You in the back with the Novell eDirectory login screen - shut up! We’re trying to keep this simple!).  Seriously, we’re just talking about the login screen here.  Don’t care?  That’s okay - we’ll move on.  Go ahead and log in… now, what do you want to do with your computer?  Maybe you want to play like the big boys with little command-line scripts.  Maybe there’s something about that little black box that you find absolutely mesmerising.  Fine.  Here’s the list of commands for CMD, the default command line in Windows XP.  Have fun.  Not enough control for you?  Okay, well, you can always use Windows Script Host, where we can unleash the object-oriented train wreck that is WMI upon your unknowing soul.  This’ll help with that, by the way.  Wait - you want results in real-time?  Powershell might be helpful, but do you want v1 or are you feeling daring enough to try the latest Community Technology Preview of v2?

Wait - you don’t even know what you want to automate yet.  That’s fine.  Let’s start with something familiar.  Go ahead, play with Microsoft Office.  Perhaps you just want to write a script that automates pulling data from one Excel sheet into another.  Sounds good - that’s what Visual Basic for Applications is all about, after all… or is it?  Perhaps .NET is more to your liking?  Don’t tell me you don’t like Visual Basic… we might have to throw down Visual C#, or worse, Visual C++… oh boy.  Or, you could just make a good ol’ fashioned macro - that could be fun.  I’m not even going to begin to explain what a lambda expression is, or why XML is all over the place now, much less what a singleton is, and if I have to dig into Java and explain beans, I quit.  JSON?  That’s it… we’re done here.

We’re just talking about that computer on your desk, right?  Right off the bat, we’re faced with a conundrum - how deep do we feel like delving?  Are we shifting into programming, or just basic system administration?  If we’re dealing with programming, what are we programming, exactly, and what terminology are we going to be using?  What programming language(s) are we playing with?  What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?  If we’re talking about system administration, how local is it?  What do we need to control, and on how many computers do we need to control it?  How do we feel like exercising that control?  Each of these decisions requires increasingly in-depth knowledge of the platform, and, at each point that we drill down, we take time away from ourselves that allows us to drill out.  The time that you spend staring at all of the namespaces in root/cimv2 is time that you’re not spending working with Powershell cmdlets, which would also be time that you’re not spending working with the VBA class model, which is also time you’re not spending dealing with other platforms entirely.  At each point, your ability to understand the forest is diminished as you delve further and further into it, looking for that one tree that you need to get your job done.

This is just computers we’re talking about.  I’m not even going to touch on economics, physics, chemistry, law, medicine, etc.  The list goes on.  Meanwhile, we have journalists, specializing in their own schools of thought, trying to explain to everyone else these other specialized schools of thought and how they’ll affect everyone else, followed by politicians that are neck-deep in their own highly specialized schools of politics and punditry doing their damndest to prove they matter by writing laws that meddle in fields that even the specialists barely understand.  Take dealer franchise laws, something that’s remarked upon fairly frequently when discussing the Detroit bailout but never really explained.  They nearly sunk Chrysler when DeSoto went under in ‘62.  They cost GM a handsome sum when they canned Oldsmobile.  But, does anybody actually know what one of these laws looks like?

You will now - I present to you Nevada Revised Statute 482.36352:

NRS 482.36352 Termination or discontinuation of franchise: Notice; grounds; protest by dealer; hearing.

1.  Notwithstanding the terms of any franchise, a manufacturer or distributor shall not terminate or refuse to continue any franchise unless it has received the written consent of the dealer or:

(a) It has given written notice of its intention to the dealer and the Director; and

(b) Either of the following conditions occurs:

(1) The dealer does not file a protest with the Director within the time allowed by this section; or

(2) After the dealer has filed a protest and the Director has conducted a hearing on the matter, the Director issues an order authorizing the manufacturer or distributor to terminate the franchise or permit it to lapse.

2.  The notice required by this section must be given to the dealer and the Director:

(a) At least 15 days before the effective date of the intended termination or the date on which the existing franchise is to expire if the grounds for the termination or refusal include any of the following:

(1) Except as otherwise provided in NRS 482.36396 to 482.36414, inclusive, transfer of any ownership or interest in the franchised dealership without the consent of the manufacturer or distributor unless that consent has been withheld without good cause;

(2) Material misrepresentation by the dealer in applying for the franchise;

(3) Insolvency of the dealer or the filing of any petition by or against the dealer under any law governing bankruptcy or receivership;

(4) Any unfair business practice by the dealer after the manufacturer or distributor has issued a written warning to the dealer to desist from that practice;

(5) Revocation of a dealer’s license under this chapter;

(6) Conviction of the dealer for a felony; and

(7) Closure by the dealer for a period longer than 14 days, unless the closure was caused by a force beyond the control of the dealer.

(b) At least 60 days before the effective date of the intended termination or the date on which the existing franchise is to expire if the grounds for the termination or refusal do not include one or more of those set forth in paragraph (a).

Ê The notice required by this section must include a statement of the particular grounds for the intended termination or refusal to continue a franchise.

3.  A dealer who has received a notice pursuant to this section may file a protest with the Director:

(a) Within 10 days after receiving the notice if it states one or more of the grounds specified in paragraph (a) of subsection 2;

(b) Within 30 days after receiving the notice if it does not state one of the grounds specified in that paragraph; or

(c) In either case, within 30 days after the end of any appellate procedure provided by the manufacturer or distributor.

(Added to NRS by 1981, 698; A 1985, 1831; 1999, 2507)

NRS 482.363521 Termination or discontinuation of franchise: Compensation of dealer.

1.  Upon the termination or refusal to continue a franchise, the manufacturer or distributor shall compensate the dealer for:

(a) The dealer’s inventory of new vehicles, including new vehicles not of the current model year if delivered to the dealer during the 18-month period immediately preceding the effective date of the termination or refusal to continue the franchise. As used in this paragraph, a “new vehicle” is one which has not been damaged, materially altered or registered with the Department or with the appropriate agency of authority of any other state, the District of Columbia, any territory or possession of the United States or any foreign state, province or country.

(b) The dealer’s inventory of parts and accessories which:

(1) Have been purchased by the dealer from the manufacturer or distributor; and

(2) Are listed in a current parts catalog of the manufacturer or distributor.

(c) Any special tools purchased by the dealer from the manufacturer or distributor, less a reasonable allowance for depreciation.

(d) Any equipment, furnishings or signs purchased by the dealer from the manufacturer or distributor, less a reasonable allowance for depreciation.

(e) Except as otherwise provided in subsection 4, the fair rental value for 90 days, and any additional period allowed by the Director after considering the difficulty of finding a new tenant for the dealer’s premises affected, after the effective date of the termination or refusal to continue of the portion of the dealer’s place of business that was used by the dealer to sell or service vehicles or other products of the manufacturer or distributor.

2.  Compensation paid pursuant to paragraphs (a) to (d), inclusive, of subsection 1 must be paid in an amount at least equal to the greater of:

(a) The amount actually paid by the dealer for the vehicles, parts, tools and equipment; or

(b) The amount currently paid by other dealers in this State for the vehicles, parts, tools and equipment.

3.  If compensation is paid pursuant to paragraph (e) of subsection 1, the dealer shall allow the manufacturer or distributor paying the compensation the use and possession of the premises affected.

4.  The manufacturer or distributor is not required to pay compensation pursuant to paragraph (e) of subsection 1 if the dealer has been convicted of a crime involving fraud in connection with his application for or operation of the franchise.

5.  This section does not relieve a dealer of his obligation to mitigate damages resulting from the termination or refusal to continue the franchise.

(Added to NRS by 1987, 2200; A 1999, 2508; 2003, 20th Special Session, 300)

So, in short, according to Nevada state law, if GM decides it wants to kill a dealership, they would have to give the dealer two month’s notice, hope and pray the dealer doesn’t appeal to the Director, then buy every car on that lot, every sign at the dealership, all of the tools, all of the spare parts, and then pay rent on that location for three months.  That’s assuming the dealer doesn’t fight it.

Now, multiply those costs by 1,750 and assume that, if Nevada’s business friendly climate is any indication, that other state franchise laws might be far more restrictive.  That’s the law GM has to work with, times fifty.  These are the sorts of laws that journalists have to explain to those that don’t want to read state revised statutes until their eyes bleed.  These are the sorts of laws that federal lawmakers(!) have to contend with when deciding if we should use the federal purse to loan some money.

These are just dealer franchise laws.  These are just the dealers we’re talking about - we’re not even touching on management or labor.  As for labor, you don’t want to know what labor laws in Michigan look like.  Labor Disputes and Employment Relations, anyone?  Check out the section on Solicitation of Strikebreakers to get a general feel for what’s going on there.  It goes on like this.  Does anybody really understand what’s going on?  Are they talking to the people that write the checks?

The world is full of these examples - full of little trees, planted all over the place, each doing a magnificent job of making life ever more complicated and more difficult to fully understand.  This is natural - we have 6 billion people, each of them more educated than ever before, each able to dig deeper than ever before.  Unfortunately, our lives are still organized in a very forest-centric sort of way; our political structures, for example, are built around the idea that it’s possible for a few hundred people to see the forest from the trees and govern appropriately.  Clearly, even under the best of times, this is well-nigh impossible - there’s just too much there there for anybody to really get a solid grasp on.  This is why a hands-off approach to government is necessary - there is simply no way anymore that a government can interfere with much of anything without causing myriad unwanted side-effects that few can foresee, much less understand.  There is risk in this, sure - but it’s not like the choice is between risk-free public government management and risk-full private self-government.  It never was.  Public government has risks - just ask its employees.  Heck, ask those that have to pay for those employees.

Wordpress is telling me that I’ve already cranked out over 2500 words, which means I probably should have stopped a loooong time ago… so I’m done.

We Need More Like This Guy

If you asked me last week about the mayor of London, I probably would have stared at you funny.  The mayor of London?  WHO?! I wouldn’t have been able to tell you his name (It’s Boris Johnson, if you were wondering).  In fact, in the list of “Politicians I give a flying crap about”, the mayor of London would normally rank in the same neighborhood for me as “mayor of Tashkent”, or “Chief Communist Party Official of Tsingtao” or some other, equally irrelevant position.  After all, I don’t live in or near London.  I’m not English.  I’m an American that lives, what, seven or eight time zones over?

Then I saw this video.

Top Gear Season 12 Episode 6 Part 2-2

Did you see that?  He’s actually funny.  He’s charismatic.  He actually has some sense.  I mean, that Margaret Thatcher line was brilliant! Yes, some of his policy decisions leave a bit to be desired - he leans awfully Green for my taste - but he is mayor of London, after all.  This is the same city that charges people a fee for driving downtown - granted, the mayor that came up with that scheme was almost immediately voted out of office, but a majority of Londoners must have thought that mayor had the right idea at one point, otherwise they never would have voted him in to begin with.

Then I read this quote from him in an article in Pajamas Media about men and children:

To all those who worry about the pedophile plague, I would say that they not only have a very imperfect understanding of probability, but also that they fail to understand the terrible damage that is done by this system of presuming guilt in the entire male population just because of the tendencies of a tiny minority.

There are all sorts of reasons why the numbers of male school teachers are down 50 percent in the period 1981 to 2001, and why the ratio of female to male teachers in primary schools is now seven to one. … But it is surely a huge deterrent to any public-spirited man contemplating a career in education that society apparently regards all adult male contact with young people as being potentially a bit dodgy, a bit rum, a bit you know. …

It is insane, and the problem is the general collapse of trust. Almost every human relationship that was sensibly regulated by trust is now governed by law, with cripplingly expensive consequences.

The mayor of London makes the most sense of any contemporary politician I have ever seen.  He’s actually willing to say, up front and publicly, that the whole “child pedophilia” scare might be just a bit overblown.  Show me one - just one - American politician willing to do that.  Here, we’re in a blind rush to see which state can come up with the most restrictive sex crime statutes.  He’s also willing to act like a human being, replete with self-effacing humor and the ability to actually say what he thinks.  Do I agree with everything he says?  No, but, at least with him, I can say that.  I don’t even know what our politicians think, if they think at all.  They say they’re for free markets one day, then throw together numerous bailouts the next.  They say they’re for equal rights, then they cozy up with sketchy fundamentalist preachers.

We need more people like the mayor of London.  We need politicians in this country that are willing to be up front and honest about what they believe.  Trouble is, how can we get people like that in this country?

The First Meeting

Well, the first meeting of the Northern Nevada Libertarian Party completed without incident.  We had seven people show up, which may not sound like much, but was actually pretty impressive considering how it was thrown together in about a week.  In fact, it looks like we might be a little too agile for the state LP; they didn’t get the e-mail out to their mail rolls about the meeting until this morning.

I like catching everyone off guard.  It’s a good thing.  It means we’re doing something right.  Always attack, never react - let the enemy do the defending and the reacting.

Fortunately, it appears we have a good, well grounded group starting.  Nobody was talking about protests or discussing the constitutionality of arcane Federal projects that have been around for over a century - we just all agreed that the government needs to be smaller, that it needs to intrude less in people’s lives, and that as long as we’re all heading in the same direction, we’ll do just fine.  Some, I’m sure, came to that conclusion from a different direction than others, and that’s okay - as long as we all have the same general destination in mind, this will turn out all right.

There will be a meeting on December 10th at 6 p.m. at (I think) the Washoe Flats Steakhouse, where we’ll hopefully be able to build on this last meeting and get to work on dealing with the various arcane details that are part and parcel with developing a new political party.  There’s much to do - mailing lists to compile, state and national bylaws to address, and the small matter of coming up with a coherent political strategy that will satisfy enough people across a number of counties.  I feel confident that we’ll get this done - it definitely appears that each person that was there tonight brought something to the table, and I know there are a number of potential contributors waiting in the wings that will easily add to what we’re looking to accomplish.

We live in exciting times.

Why the Libertarian Party Failed

Or, at least, why it has failed thus far…

There are two comments that, I think, sum up the LP’s problem nicely:

Robert Burr:

2. The Libertarian Party is just too beyond the American mainstream. It is both its blessing and its curse. There is a considerable number of people, anywhere from 10 to 20% of the U.S. population who are loosely libertarian. However, these small “L” libertarians are more moderate than the party and much of its platform. This perpertually dooms the party to appealing to only a small segment of the population. On the reverse side, this has probably also prolonged the party’s lifespan. The LP has been around for 36 years. Compare that to the last effects of the Reform Party, the Progressive Party, etc.

Thomas W Cornell:

Now I know why the UNR group will not affiliate with the Young Americans for Liberty even though that group has now been officially endorsed by Ron Paul.

I am also aware that one of the organizers of the group will not state who she was going to vote for.

I can only assume that the UNR group is just another Republican front like the Republican Liberty Caucus.

The problem with the Libertarian Party isn’t just that it’s not in the mainstream - it’s that it’s a religion. It’s one thing to have extreme views, which the Libertarian Party certainly has plenty of.  It’s quite another to decide that any freedom-loving organization that doesn’t wish to associate with you anymore is an apostate heresy that’s clearly in league with the High Demon Republicrat.  Most political parties are inclusionary - they invite as many different disparate coalitions as possible to join with them, with the hope that they’ll find just enough in common to get some votes and at least satisfy some of the demands of the group.  Not the Libertarian Party, though.  They’d rather be principled, even if it means that their principles will never see the light of day.

This approach is seriously flawed.  Actions speak louder than words.  The only way a political party can display action is by winning elections. Yes, the Libertarian Party can be somewhat disruptive by sponsoring various initiatives such as the usual medical marijuana measures that seem to enjoy success from time to time.  Unfortunately, most of those only occur via voter initiatives, which means that the Libertarian Party platform is effectively locked out of any government that happens to still believe in some sort of representative democracy.  This, for better or worse, includes the ever-growing Federal government, which means that, in the long run, the current LP strategy is a losing one.

The Libertarian Party needs to win elections, and it needs to start doing that sooner than later.  The Libertarians need to realize that it’s okay to settle a little; it’s called picking your battles. The gold standard isn’t coming back.  We’re not privatizing every single roadway.  Mentioning either of those things turns people off just as fast as trying to push “intelligent design” in schools or removing the word “God” from the Pledge of Alliegance.  Instead, let’s focus on issues that really matter to voters.  Reframe the Drug War arguments so they make sense - stop focusing on demand and focus on supply.  You want marijuana to become legal?  Tell the farm lobbies that they’re welcome to grow it as a highly profitable cash crop - this has the advantage of eliminating the drug dealers that make it a “gateway drug” in the first place while also finally giving you the kind of financial backing that you need to get something like this through a legislature or two.  Forget about allowing every single weapon under the sun - urban areas will never allow the legalization of automatic weapons no matter what the Constitution says and there are really good, practical reasons for this.  Instead, push for concealed carry permits - yeah, they require registration, which is unfortunate, but it’s a far better compromise than “ban all handguns”, which is the direction most city councils and their voters take these days, Heller be damned.  For the love of all that is good and holy, stop trying to make monetary policy a central issue. That’s not something you throw at the voters - seeing as neither microeconomics nor macroeconomics are a standard part of any primary education in the United States, you might as well be speaking some obscure Austrian dialect of German for all the good it’ll do you.  Save that plank for once you’re in a position to actually do something about monetary policy, and not a minute sooner.  It’s not like you’re going to overturn the Federal Reserve via voter initiative anyways.

Finally, stop treating the Constitution like it’s the Bible.  Does it deserve more respect than it currently gets?  Of course.  However, the key to actually doing something useful in American politics these days is to acknowledge the simple reality that, at the moment, the Constitution is being interpreted rather flexibly at the moment.  If you really want to do something about that, get yourself elected so that you can pick Supreme Court justices that are a little less inclined to play fast and loose with the interstate commerce clause.  Otherwise, you just sound like that guy at the sporting events that keeps quoting esoteric and obscure rules that the refs are never going to enforce, no matter how loud you yell.

Real change comes from winning elections.  Anything less than this is simply an exercise in feel-good futility.

I’m Back & With A Vengeance

Between moving and work, I haven’t had much time to write anything as of late.  That changes now.

Barack Obama is our new President.  No big surprise there, though, to be fair, I was reasonably impressed with McCain’s performance.  He didn’t run a perfect campaign, of course, but to be able to at least make it competitive during an economic downturn and complete hatred for the incumbent party should be commended.  That said, his election has inspired me to actually get involved in politics again - back in college, I was mildly involved in the College Libertarians and the local Libertarian Pary branch, and I think it’s high time I jumped back in.

This has, sadly, led to a bit of a problem:  How? And, equally importantly, with whom?

The trouble, of course, is that I’m not a Republican - I’m an atheist who believes in a sane drug policy and fiscal conservativism.  Needless to say, the Republican Party ran away from the likes of me the instant they embraced “Compassionate Conservativism”.  Once in a while, they’ll throw the more libertarian-minded people a bone and let Ron Paul get some attention, but therein lies the rub:  I don’t want to be a sideshow.  I’m not a Truther, I don’t believe that if we pack up our military and go home that everyone will just leave us and our friends alone (as if that works in a schoolyard, much less the real world), and I don’t believe that there’s any value whatsoever in exhausting energy on our current government’s variances against the official positions laid forth in the Constitution.  No, we don’t rely on a literal interpretation of the Constitution.  We haven’t since we started having a professional full-time army and never bothered to amend the Constitution to allow that.  Perhaps we should, but we don’t - the sooner we accept reality and find a way to work with it, the better off everyone will be.

So, okay, maybe not the Republicans… perhaps I should sign up for a stint with the old LP?  Sure, their foreign policy is insane, but it’s small enough where my voice would be heard.  Besides, major political parties consist of various disparate coalitions of individuals with entirely different needs and wants - I mean, what does a poor retiree, an environmentalist, and a Hyphenated-American have in common?  Very little, except they all predominately vote Democrat.  Surely that means there’s room in the LP for someone who enjoys fiscal conservativism, social liberalism, and a strong foreign policy.  There’s just one small, tiny problem… what Libertarian Party?

That’s right - the second largest metropolitan area  in the state of Nevada, with over 300,000 residents, does not have an active local branch of the Libertarian Party.  The situation here is so bad that the UNR College Libertarians decided to rename themselves:

I propose we disassociate ourselves with the word: “Libertarian” as I believe that it damages our mission of spreading the word on campus. Not only do our values not fully line with the party; their apathetic, isolationistic, and stubborn attitude is damaging and dangerous towards our cause. The Libertarian Party was an idea that our parent’s generation created, and it has failed. I suggest we find new and more effective ways of transforming our campus, our state, and our nation, and this is why I propose we change our name to that of a national organization we can actually be proud of: Students for Liberty. I suggest we change our club constitution to include our party stance, our goals, and eliminate all ties with that of the Libertarian Party. Through this, under the support of the newly founded Students for Liberty organization, we can effectively become more attractive to like-minded Americans.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Libertarian Party has failed.  Completely, totally, and utterly failed.

Anybody care to speculate on how that happened?

McCain

Okay - I know I said I’d write out the speech I want McCain to give by now.  Unfortunately, I’ve reached a bit of a quandary; I was going to write out a little speech explaining his choice of Gov. Palin, but the SNL thing went reasonably well and she’s starting to actually enjoy being around the press.  So, a good chunk of it has changed, and thankfully for the better because it means that, for the first time in a while, I finally get to use some good football analogies.

For the sake of those of you that are finding this place via Google, I’ll state right here and now that I’m a bit of a college football fan.  I go to every Nevada home game, or at least I have been this year.  I originally got hooked during my Pep Band phase and, though familial and work concerns have interfered from time to time, I’ve made it a point to catch as many games as I can.  Since I root for Nevada, it’s pretty safe to say that we’re the underdog more often than not; we’re what sports analysts call a “mid-major program”, which is a polite way of saying that we don’t have the budget, the facilities, the tradition, or the coaching to consistently hang with big boys.  Over the years, I’ve seen some impressive wins, far more impressive near-misses, and far too many horrendous meltdowns.

When this election season started, I thought for sure that it didn’t matter what Republican candidate was thrown on the ticket - we were in for one horrendous meltdown.  I’m talking USC-Washington State territory here.  The economy didn’t look good, the housing bubble was starting to burst, gas prices were through the roof, Bush was less appreciated than Paris Hilton, Iraq was improving but still rather spotty - by all rights, all the Democrats had to do was field a halfway capable candidate, get their house in order, and then steamroll the poor sap the Republicans were going to throw on the ticket.

The trouble with predictions is they’re frequently wrong - if they weren’t, we wouldn’t even bother having elections or playing football games.  We’d just throw together a couple of fantasy lineups, run the numbers, and pick a winner.  What I didn’t know at the time was that the Democrats were going to blow their load in the primaries.  I also didn’t realize, at least at first, that the Democrats were serious about choosing either a woman that half of the country already decided they hated ten years ago or choosing someone younger than my mother.  I definitely wasn’t expecting the young guy to put up any sort of a fight, nor was I expecting him to have all kinds of fun and exciting connections to racist preachers and erstwhile terrorists.

To put this into football terms, this would be somewhat similar to Nevada going to, say, Texas.  Nobody in their right mind would ever expect Nevada to hold up against Texas.  Nobody with half a clue would expect Texas to throw a red shirt freshman quarterback against Nevada that was as likely to throw the ball to the opposition as to his own team when there’s a perfectly serviceable senior quarterback available that just wasn’t quite as flashy during practice.  I mean, the freshman can play next year - let him learn behind the senior and get some experience as a backup, right?  Certainly nobody would expect the first quarter to go by and find Nevada down by 3…

Then came the convention.  It was to become Obama’s shining moment - the moment when he would rally the base, drive into the end zone, and put this game away once and for all.  It was shaping up to be something special, too, with all kinds of flash and a packed stadium full of fans.  Obama saw the receiver… he threw long…

INTERCEPTION!

Nevada is now up by 4!  The crowd is silent, stunned… mortified by what they’re seeing unfold in front of them.  I thought we already won this thing, they mutter to themselves.  Instead, they’re watching their prize freshman, highly touted by all of the scouts, make unforced turnovers and struggle to move the ball against that was supposed to be a highly mediocre defense.

Then came halftime.  Texas made adjustments.  Nevada was ecstatic.

The third quarter started, and things immediately started to look bad.  Nevada threw in a freshman QB of their own and tried to open up the offense, hoping to catch Texas off guard.  It worked at first, but once Texas realized that the new QB couldn’t read a basic defense, they shut the offense down in nothing flat.  Then, the weather began to sour.  The field was becoming a sloppy, slippery mess.  All Texas had to do was just run the ball, using its superior line against Nevada’s suspect defense.  Sure, it wouldn’t be pretty, but it would be effective; plus, it would keep their freshman QB from being in a position to make any serious mistakes.

The fourth quarter is now.  The weather is clearing a little.  Nevada is still close, but they’re down by about a touchdown.  Their offense is starting to move again.  Obama is fumbling the ball.  Texas’ coaching staff is too busy focusing on the fans and not enough time on the field.  No, Nevada’s chances aren’t good, but they’re a heck of a lot better than anybody expected they would be by this point.

As far as “Texas” fans are concerned, this game shouldn’t be anywhere near this close.  They’re probably right, but it doesn’t matter - it is close, and, as long as they keep playing like it’s not, they’re going to be in for one hell of a surprise when this game ends.

Go ahead, “Texas”.  Keep playing not to lose.  This Nevada fan won’t mind one bit.

Speeches I Wish They Would Give: Obama On Ayers

I know I haven’t posted much - various personal and work-related concerns have pretty well knocked me out as of late.  That said, I have been keeping up on things and, like many others out there, I’ve been getting well nigh burned out on the petty politics that I’ve been seeing.  McCain wants to focus on Obama’s association with Ayers.  Obama wants to paint Palin as a moose-toting, gun-killing idiot savant that is only a heartbeat away from dragging our country into the Middle Ages, where plague was “God’s will”, ‘intelligent’ design was too radical and knowledgy, and contraception meant becoming a castrato.  Personally, I just want this to stop so we can all focus on how Joe the Plumber isn’t really Joe at all - he’s actually a pod-borne replicant from the planet Sn’rl-x who is sabotaging our elections in order to better facilitate the success of the impending and inevitable invasion.

First up, some candid thoughts from Obama about Bill Ayers, former Weather Underground terrorist:

My fellow Americans,

Throughout my campaign, my opponents have tried time and again to paint me as something I’m not.  Time after time, they focus on my friends in Chicago politics - outstanding citizens like Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers - and then attempt to divine conclusions regarding my political leanings and affiliations based on these associations.  They look at Tony Rezko and say that I’m a corruptible opportunist.  They look at Bill Ayers and say that I’m spooning with terrorists during late night trysts while Michelle is commiserating with Oprah and Tyra Banks about all of the ways that men suck.  Only one of these conclusions is correct.  Like all politicians, I am, in fact, eminently corruptible and highly opportunistic.  If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have made it this far.

This brings me to my association with Mr. Ayers.  The time has come for me to finally explain it, once and for all, definitively and clearly.

In politics, there are two kinds of people - those who wish to become politicians because they enjoy the fame, and those who get into politics because they enjoy the game.  I belong to the former category.  For people like me, politics is great.  It gives me a chance to fill stadiums in Germany and be treated like a rock star throughout the world without having to exhibit the slightest discernment of talent.  I don’t have to know how to sing.  I don’t have to know how to play sports.  I don’t even have to look good, though it helps to at least not look like an aging troll like my opponents always do.  Seriously, Edwards’ hair scared the living crap out of me.  The best part is, unlike so many rock stars of time past, I don’t have to slip into anonymity like Ed Espinosa - just by virtue of being here, my name is going to go down in the history books, with other greats like Adlai Stevenson, Walter Mondale, and Bill the Cat.  In the sports world, I would be the quarterback.

There are others, however, who enjoy politics for an entirely different reason.  They prefer to linger behind the scenes, pulling strings here and there, brokering power deals in shadowy back offices.  These are the kinds of people that are most successful when they’re never noticed - people like Karl Rove, Tony Rezko… and Bill Ayers.  These are people who, if you plan on getting anywhere in politics, you absolutely have to go through.  In the sports world, they would be coordinators or scouts, people that don’t get much attention, but if you get on their bad side you’re done.  The reason is simple.  Most people have neither the time or patience for politics.  The few that do, the few that really enjoy politics for its own sake, not as a vehicle for fame and stardom but instead because they find the art and science of politics positively fascinating, are rare.  Rare things have the uncanny knack of becoming valuable, even when they have no discernable benefit to anyone.  Just ask those with radium watches or AMC Pacers.

When I was a younger politician trying to make a name for myself, I had a choice.  I could either become a Republican or I could become a Democrat.  Considering my upbringing and my personal history, the choice was clear - I was definitely not raised in a conservative environment, not by any stretch of the imagination.  So, I became a Democrat, which left the next choice - where do I make a name for myself?  If you’re going to become a famous, powerful Democrat, Chicago is a pretty good choice.  Sure, San Francisco is an obvious liberal stronghold, but just being linked with the Bay Area makes you politically radioactive east of the Sierras.  Chicago, on the other hand, has some natural advantages for someone like me.  It’s urban enough where liberals in Manhattan and San Francisco can feel comfortable associating with me.  It’s blue collar enough to at least not be a hindrance in places like Kansas, South Dakota, or Minnesota.  Best of all, there’s a nearly invincible Democratic machine, continuously groomed and immaculately maintained for nearly a century.  It’s the perfect starting point for a young, ambitious politician like myself.  All I needed to do was ingratiate myself to the powers that be.

Bill Ayers established himself as a political player in Chicago long before I showed up, which meant that, if I planned on becoming a political player myself, I needed to get on his good side and get there fast.  So, I did.  I got involved in education reform, a field that a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago would be understandably interested and active in.  Keep in mind that I didn’t make him a professor - even though he blew up some buildings when I was a pre-teen, somebody still decided it was a good idea to put him in charge of educating people on how to… well… educate people.  Many people far older and, at the time, far more established than me made that decision.  It was my decision to decide whether I was going to play along or if I was going to condemn myself to obscurity by trying to fight him.  Keep in mind that, at the beginning, I was just a lowly college graduate working in non-profit community groups.  Objecting to Ayers’ involvement with projects I was working on would’ve received no publicity and no press.  Who would’ve cared what I thought back then?  It would have been the equivalent of a Walmart greeter expressing disgust with the behavior of Sam Walton - nobody would have cared and it wouldn’t have made a difference.  So, like so many working Americans, I was faced with a choice - I either learn to work with the crazy guy in the office and make the most of things, or I try to be “principled” and either become unemployed or find a different line of work.  Like many working American plumbers, electricians, and drywall installers, I chose to work with the crazy guy.

Now my opponents wish to hold that against me, as if I had a choice whether or not to work with the crazy guy.  Sure, I kind of did - I could either work with Ayers or give up on politics, on fame, on superstardom.  For me, that wasn’t really a choice.  If given the same opportunity, I doubt most Americans would choose differently.

My fellow Americans, I’m sorry I had to work with people that you might find objectionable.  I’m also sorry that you might work with people I might find objectionable, like unlicensed plumbers, independent media, Blue Dog Democrats, or Republicans.  Rest assured, though, that if you give me the opportunity to help you avoid working with undesirable people by tanking the economy and making it damn near impossible for anybody to work at all, I will do everything within my power to avoid working with someone that you might find objectionable.  In fact, with any luck, I won’t have to work with anyone at all.

Against, on the other hand…

Quickish Thoughts

Let’s see here…

1. New job that forbids posting on blogs or message forums while at work, per corporate policy?  Check.
2. Infant at home?  Check.
3. Hour long commute in each direction to work?  Check.
4. Moving soon?  Check.

And people wonder why I don’t post more…

Here are some thoughts that I’d love to spend a little more time developing, but want to throw out there so that way there’s something halfway fresh and interesting:

• Openfire rocks my world.  As far as open-sourced projects go, it’s in pretty solid shape, even if it has the traditional “What the heck is that?!” name going.  Openfire is an open-sourced instant messenger server based on Jabber (the same protocol used by GTalk and later versions of iChat, among others) that can also be used as a gateway for other, more common protocols, like ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and so forth.  What’s nice about Openfire isn’t just that it’s fairly lightweight (uses only 64 MB of RAM by default, unless you configure it to use more), or that it integrates fairly cleanly with Active Directory (yes, you have to look up a few LDAP structures in ADSIEdit, but you only have to do it once).  Openfire can also archive all messages that pass through it into a database of your choosing, including Microsoft SQL Server, which means that you can keep tabs on what employees are chatting about, maintain archives of internal chats, and control who gets access to what on the outside.  Very, very handy, and since it’s legitimately free, even the smallest businesses can implement this without much pain.  The one drawback is that it works best with the corresponding Spark IM client; I say it’s a drawback because, though Spark is fairly functional, it misses a lot of nice yet common features, like the ability to change fonts and font colors.  Normally I wouldn’t sweat that much, but having my default color turn out to be pink with no way to change it is a little obnoxious.  It does do the job, though, so I’m not going to sweat it much, and it does integrate with Openfire’s various features and plug-ins quite nicely.
• I don’t really care what Obama’s or McCain’s health care plans are - if either of them involve spending government money to “fix” health care, we’re going to be in trouble.  Here’s the deal:  Right now, the federal government isn’t just operating at a deficit - it’s hemorrhaging cash in the worst possible way imaginable.  According to the US Treasury, our current debt is, as of October 7th, $10,224,252,192,942.42.  On January 1st, 2008, the debt was $9,229,172,659,218.31.  That means that, in the course of 10 months, we borrowed nearly one trillion dollars.  We increased our debt by over 10% in less than a year, and we still haven’t started paying a dime for the infamous $700 billion bailout of the financial sector.  Since the economy is slipping, tax revenues are only going to go down, which means the debt is only going to get worse unless something is done to either curtail spending (i.e. slashing programs - big ones) or raise revenue (i.e. raise taxes by a lot more than either McCain or Obama can dare suggest).  As McCain was kind enough to point out in last night’s debate, the last president to raise taxes during a recession was Hoover; it would be an understatement to say that didn’t end well.
• Speaking of programs, take a look at this graph from the US Government Accountability Office:
  
  To put that into perspective, our current GDP is roughly $14.3 trillion.  According to the Heritage Foundation, the federal government has been bringing in about $2.5 trillion in tax revenue, or about 17% of our GDP; whether that includes transfer payments like Social Security is unclear.  If that chart is even remotely accurate, by 2016 we can count on spending all of our current federal taxes on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, assuming we only spend what we tax and we don’t increase taxes.

  Needless to say, neither is going to happen - we’re going to borrow like mad and we’re going to have to either raise taxes or start breaking promises.  By 2080, we’re probably going to be doing a lot of both.

  The trouble here is not that health care is broken, or that our bureaucrats spent program money like water, though there is some truth to both of those statements.  The simple truth is that these programs, though sold as “pay-as-you-go” programs where each person pays in and then, after a set amount of time, gets their money back as health care and a nominal retirement, are not really “pay-as-you-go” programs, and never were supposed to be.  Think about it for a minute - do you really think that the first person to receive money from Social Security put anything into it?  How about the first generation?  Do you really believe for even a second that FDR & Friends got together and created a program that nobody could cash out from for 20 years until the first people finally put in enough to get something back?  Of course not, which is why any politician that pretends otherwise is either foolish or duplicitous.  If it was that simple, why get the federal government involved at all?  Why not just say, “Okay, American citizens, you’re hereby ordered to put some of your money in a savings account” and be done with it?

  The answer is simple - that’s not what Social Security and its ilk were ever about.  Ever.

  The point of these programs was to provide a nominal retirement and some basic health care to people that couldn’t provide it for themselves.  It was supposed to be paid for by those that could provide it, which means that every dime your parents put into Social Security went to their parents, and every dime that you’re putting into Social Security right now will go to your parents.  That’s how the system was designed to work, and, as long as people aren’t living for too long and having lots of kids, the system will work just fine.  Of course, as time has passed, we’ve enjoyed longer lifespans, with not-quite-as-long productive lifespans, meaning we’re able to work longer, but not as much longer as we’re able to live.  At the same time, we’re also having fewer children, which means there are fewer taxpayers supporting our social programs.

  So, while the entire model that underpins our current programs, the one that pays for the promises politicians made to our parents 30 years ago, slowly erodes and collapses, what are our current politicians promising?  Obama wants to create a small business health tax break, pay for catastrophic health costs, and create a public national health insurance company that competes against private companies, or at least provides insurance when the private companies refuse to.  Considering how well the last set of GSEs were run, I’m not exactly inclined to support the creation of another one.  McCain, meanwhile, wants to give everybody somewhere between $2,500-$5,000 to offset health insurance costs.  Granted, that’s not quite as spendy as Obama’s plan, but we’re still talking about up to $750 billion (that’s $2,500 times 300,000,000 Americans) that’s going to have to materialize out of thin air.

  We’re spending over $1 trillion a year that we don’t have right now.  How are we going to come up with enough money to meet either of their spending promises?

  The answer:  We can’t.

• Right now, The China Probrem is on, and it’s… it’s pretty messed up.  I can’t do it anymore!

You Heard It Here First

Any blog can give you the big news highlights of the day.  Want to read McCain’s speech?  Be my guest.  Want some early thoughts on it?  Professor Bainbridge to the rescue - or is he?  Perhaps you’re not a McCain fan, or even a fan of conservative political ideology.  No problem - the Huffington Post is there.

So, what are my thoughts?  Who cares?  There are thousands of people far more qualified than myself who can pick apart the speech and overanalyze it into oblivion.  Let them have their moment.  Instead, I will report on the news that really matters - the stuff that absolutely nobody is touching on.  That’s right - I’m here to tell you that there is no body in that tree.

From the BBC:

The suspected remains of a WWII airman discovered in a jungle region of Papua New Guinea have turned out to be the moss-covered branches of a tree.

Hikers on the country’s Kokoda Trail found what appeared to be the remains of a parachutist tangled in wires and dangling in a tree two weeks ago.

Australian and Japanese forces fought several battles in the area in 1942-3.

The Australian military sent a team to investigate the “body” only to discover it was a branch tangled in vines.

Rest easy, my fearless readers.  Wherever there’s a story about corpse-shaped tree limbs, I’m there. Whenever somebody finds a suspicious looking tree limb in Papua New Guinea, I’m there. When the world seems topsy-turvy and upside down, when the forces of darkness are arrayed against you, keeping you away from the news that really matters, I’m there.

In all seriousness, though, after reading the reactions on the Huffington Post to McCain’s speech, I have to wonder - who did they think the audience of the speech was, exactly?  Of course McCain was talking traditional Republican talking points.  He was in a room full of Republicans! In other news, pastors give sermons about God in churches!  Egads.  What, did Obama’s speech really trail off of the usual Democratic talking points?  Sure, he talked about cutting some bureaucracy here and there, but he also talked about nationalizing health care, increasing taxes on the top 5% to the highest rates since the Carter administration (that’s what “I will cut taxes cut taxes for 95% of all working families” plus “If you don’t [have health insurance], you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves” means), legislating equal pay for equal work (define “equal”), and so forth.  Yep, Obama definitely strayed off the beaten path there, let me tell you what.

What’s funny is that, when people talk about “failed Republican ideas”, I don’t think it means what people really think it means.  I don’t think people are really saying, “Gee, you know what - Republicans were wrong.  We need more government.  We need our government to spend more money.  We need government to make more choices for us.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.”  What people are saying is that we need government to actually do what it says it’s going to do, and we need politicians to do something totally and radically out of character for them - do what they promise to do. Ethanol subsidies pointed at corn farmers does not make government smaller, more effective, or even help solve the problem the program is “supposed” to fix.  The PATRIOT Act did not make the government smaller, more effective, or help solve the problem it was “supposed” to fix.  The TSA… you’re kidding me, right?  The list goes on like this, and each of these government programs were created during a Republican administration.  One would think that it would go without saying that, if Republicans start acting like Democrats, people are just going to start electing Democrats - and that’s precisely what they’re doing.  However, people aren’t happy about that - the proof is the record low approval ratings of Congress.  That’s why McCain was stressing the old-hat Republican values - he was signaling to both the American people and the Republican Party that he wasn’t standing for the “Compassionate Conservativism” that Bush Jr. unleashed upon America, but instead for more of a Reaganesque agenda, though hopefully with less Iran-Contra cream filling.

Personally, I’m okay with that.  It’s only when your money is free that it’s possible to talk about social freedom - if everybody’s broke, it won’t matter what legislation is on the table regarding abortions, drugs, or gay marriage.