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

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 »

Let the posturing begin…

Via Washington Post:

The Senate today defied a White House veto threat and narrowly approved a $122 billion war spending bill that calls for combat troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq this summer.

The 51-47 vote fell mostly along party lines, with two Republicans — Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Gordon Smith (Ore.) — joining Democrats in support of the package, which would fund U.S. military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Democrats also attached language that would start troop withdrawals within 120 days of passage, with a March 31, 2008, goal for completing combat operations in Iraq. Some troops could remain in Iraq after that deadline in order to conduct counterterrorism training and security operations.

President Bush has made it very clear that any funding bill that has a timeline in it will be vetoed, and both the House and Senate versions have timelines in them. What this means is that it will take a while for the funding packages to get approved between the two houses, then Bush will veto the resulting bill, which will then lead to further delays in the funding process. As if that weren’t bad enough, Victory Caucus points out that the funding bill isn’t even on the emergency calendar. As has also been widely reported, both the House version and the Senate version are full of plenty of pork to help bribe just enough people to actually get a majority on this, including:

HOUSE
—–
- The effects of Hurricane Katrina on shrimp populations
- Asbesos abatement at the Capitol power plant
- A minimum wage increase
- Peanut storage
… among other things.

SENATE
——
- Sugar beet disaster abatement
- Insect infestation damage reimbursements
- Livestock production losses
… among other things.

Of course, none of these things have anything at all to do with the war or funding thereof and, better yet, none of it is going to get past Bush’s desk since he refuses to sign any funding bill that contains a withdrawal date or provision.

So, what happens now?

- The House and Senate will spend some time after spring break ironing out a unified bill to hand to President Bush.
- President Bush will undoubtedly repeal the bill.
- The House and Senate will posture about how Bush is preventing them from funding the troops, even though they’re the ones that wrote a bill that Bush made abundantly clear will never get past his desk (oh wait, they’re doing that already). Meanwhile, Bush will continue to posture similarly against them.
- Eventually, someone will give.

The only question is… who? Personally, I suspect that, considering the amount of pork they had to throw into their bills to get them off of their own desks, I somehow doubt they’re in anywhere near as strong of a position as they’d like to be on this. Consequently, I suspect this is more symbolic than anything else and is simply meant to appease the Democratic base so they can say, “Well, Bush is still evil and we still can’t defeat him,” or something to that effect.

In the end, though, it’s the troops that’ll suffer.

Energy

According to the Toronto Daily News:

President Bush arrived in Brazil last night, greeted by about 6,000 environmentalist protesters, to finalize an agreement today with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to try to expand ethanol production and use in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Naturally, the farm lobbies are upset:

Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union, which represents smaller U.S. farm interests, warned that Bush’s proposal would redirect resources that could be used to feed a nascent boom in ethanol production at home.

“This agreement is the wrong step in the wrong direction at the wrong time,” he added.

Interestingly, that same article also points out:

Growing production of ethanol, which in the United States is made mostly from corn, has shaken up U.S. agriculture, driving up corn prices and squeezing other crops like soybeans.

It has also prompted cries from livestock owners who are paying more for cattle feed.

I personally believe that subsidizing ethanol production in the United States, especially of the corn-based variety, is nothing more than pork designed to line the pockets of Midwestern voters and agribusiness interests. R-Squared has a good article that mirrors an article from Popular Mechanics from May 2006 - the gist of both articles is that corn ethanol, if it’s a net energy gain at all, is a small enough one that it would take more corn than we can grow right now to make a serious dent in our oil dependence. Furthermore, there are other, better sources of ethanol (sugar beets, sugarcane, sorghum) that don’t immediately impact the cost of staples like meat and corn tortillas.

In short, I think that energy policy is far too important to use as an excuse to line the pockets of large agribusiness so they can provide the most wasteful method of production possible. It also is too important to use as an excuse to engage in protectionist posturing while we embrace this failed idea that national self-reliance is a good thing. Real energy independence is getting our energy from a variety of sources, both internal and domestic, and varying out in as many directions as practically possible, so that market movement in one sector or country doesn’t dictate our energy supply.

New Orleans

Via Instapundit, I came across this gem:

Nagin’s legal looting: Mayor Nagin filed a $77 billion lawsuit against the US Army Corps of engineers for the levees breaking in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, The Guardian newspaper reported.

That works out to $158,869.67 for every one of the 484,674 people who lived in New Orleans as of the 2000 Census.

There are a couple of issues at work here:

1. Our wonderful legal system, which gives no serious penalties for frivolous lawsuits.
2. A system of pork that encourages largess from the federal dole at the expense of the American taxpayer.

I’ll begin by acknowledging that there are moments when large settlements are necessary. Some companies have legitimately believed that legal action against those they harm are a “cost of doing business” - in those cases, it’s vitally important that a system of legal protections are in place that allow people to redress against such companies and provide significant penalties to avoid the “cost of doing business” school of thought. This is why I’m against artificial judgment limits or federally mandated caps. However, there has to be some penalties against those that feel our legal system is a lottery and clog our courts with frivolous suits. That’s why I do favor a loser-pays system, a proven system deployed widely throughout the world, as well as in some states in the US.

Like any good politician, I also don’t like pork. However, I don’t view pork as “any project that disagrees with my goals” since, as far as I’m concerned, part of what breeds corruption in Washington is that there is money to spend to begin with. I do believe we’ll need to keep taxes relatively high to pay off our obscene national debt but, past that, the federal government should not be in the business of providing much in the way of services. Unfortunately, the federal government has done a wonderful job of hooking people on various services, with their inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies, so I do realize that we cannot just abolish all services and call it good - they are there to meet a perceived need, so we must be ready to provide better alternatives in order to sell the American people on the value of freedom.