The nonSTARTer

From Flckr Creative Commons by MuklukA treaty that is a priority of the President, advocated for by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, the Secretary of State, every Democrat in the Senate, the President of Russia, every member of NATO, U.K. leaders past and present, major Israeli lobbies, Republican Cabinet Secretaries Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Colin Powell and the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would seem to be a slam dunk. Yet, in a testament to U.S. policy’s powerful status quo bias, the new nuclear disarmament START treaty is widely considered to be a long-shot for passage because of the objections of one Senator, John Kyl, the Republican whip.

Click to read more ...

Posture not Policy

I consider myself a deficit hawk.  It's really unconscionable to me that we allow our government to run a permanent budget deficit.  It's a sign of the feverish illness in our politics that we rarely agree on something as basic as only spending the money you have.  Now, my proposed solution to the budget deficit- dramatically increased government revenues- isn't broadly popular.  Nonetheless, I feel that I and my conservative fellow policy travelers at least share a common concern for the importance of balancing the budget.  What I hope everyone can understand is that balancing the budget is a long term goal.  For now it's a truly fantastic proposal akin to curing cancer by fiat.  So when I hear that Rand Paul is threatening to filibuster any budget that isn't balanced I am disgusted.  That's the talking point of a liar or a mad man, not the "intellectually honest" politician Dr. Paul is made out to be.

Chris commented that "at least considers [Dr. Paul] not stealing from future generations important."  I'm not impressed.  The budget deficit and national debt is a huge problem that has accumulated over many years, for many reasons.  It's going to take a long time and a lot of painful tradeoffs to even get within spitting distance of a balanced budget- let alone Clinton era surpluses.  Since Dr. Paul obviously doesn't have tax increases in mind, what he is proposing would be nothing less than immediately firing thousands of federal employee, including a huge part of the military, drastically and immediately cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits and probably shutting down government for awhile.  That's the only way to balance the budget immediately without tax increases.  Now, I bet Dr. Paul probably wouldn't that much of a problem with any of that.  I do have a problem with him pretending that balancing the budget can be done by stubborn theatrical tricks without mentioning that you want to perform budget surgery with a chainsaw. 

Dr. Paul offers a ridiculous way to govern, but a fine way to play to the cheap seats.  The complete unravelling of whatever broad appeal he might have had continues apace.

The Trouble With Representative Democracy

The criticism that politicians lack the testicular fortitude to back unpopular or broadly-impacting reforms because they must maintain relations with a local constituency is misdirected. Representative democracy is ill-equipped to deal with long-term issues - like climate change, healthcare, and social security - or acute problems that require a fundamental overhaul, like our financial regulatory system. But the reality of creating a majority coalition among 435 congressmen and 100 senators in a two-party system crippled by partisanship (see stimulus package) is that issues prone to negative-spin, like prison and drug reform, are consciously ignored.

Click to read more ...