Everyone in Washington seems to be excited about the debt deal that Republicans and Democrats were able to shake hands on today. Pundits are prattling, politicians are posturing, and everyone believes that their side won. But as this new video by the Cato Institute points out, there is nothing more than belief about success coming out of this debate.
With Congress finally coming to an agreement that they will come to an agreement later, nothing substantive has been achieved. We have just kicked the “debt crisis” can slightly farther down the road.
Even after the modest reductions in spending resulting from Sunday’s deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, the federal government will still spend $3.5 trillion in 2012 — compared to $2.9 trillion in 2008. But Congressman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) had a big tantrum yesterday that the spending won’t be even bigger: “We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said. Referring to the Tea Party, he lamented that “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.” (The Tea Party doesn’t control either House of Congress; Democrats control the Senate.)
His reference to peaceful Tea Party members as “terrorists” was echoed by Vice President Biden. “Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having ‘acted like terrorists’ in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit.” Although Biden regularly voted to increase the debt limit as a senator when a Democrat was in the White House, he and Obama voted against such increases when Republicans were in the White House, even when such debt ceiling increases were needed to pay for federal programs and wars that Biden had voted for. Unlike some Tea Party Republicans, Biden did not make any constructive suggestions about how to rein in deficit spending when he voted against increases in the debt limit. He simply did so to score partisan political points.
Doyle’s claim that Tea Party members are terrorists was echoed by some intemperate left-wing op-ed writers, like The New York Times‘ Joe Nocera, who claimed today that “Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people.” Curiously, although left-wing journalists depict peaceful Tea Party members as terrorists, they depict violent Greek anti-austerity protesters who oppose cutbacks in deficit spending as “largely peaceful” even when such protesters firebomb banks, resulting in the deaths of innocent people. To them, “peaceful” simply means you don’t question the big-government status quo.
Even with the cuts in the July 31 deal to lift the debt ceiling, America is still spending so much money that its credit rating may be downgraded by Standard and Poor’s. That might wreak havoc on the economy, but The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman called for even more deficit spending in an August 1 op-ed. His frequent lament is that President Obama is insufficiently “progressive,” even though Obama is by any reasonable measure the most left-wing president in history. The federal budget deficit is now $1.6 trillion — compared to $160 billion in 2007. But even increasing the deficit by a factor of ten just isn’t enough for progressives like Krugman.
Richard Cohen’s column today, “Green with Tea Party Envy,” starts off comparing the lack of passion and purpose of President Obama with the Tea Party activists. And he paints a reasonable contrast.
But then Cohen veers off into what liberals like Cohen would refer to as “hate speech.” Here are some examples:
The odd thing about the Tea Party is that it uses Washington to attack Washington. This is a version of Hannah Arendt’s observation that totalitarian movements use democratic institutions to destroy democracy. (This is what Islamic radicals will do in Egypt.)
So the Tea Party activists — a grassroots somewhat amorphous movement with no clear undisputed leadership is a totalitarian movement that can be compared with Islamic radicals.
Odd, because dictionary definitions of totalitarianism seem to describe the opposite of the limited government philosophy of many Tea Party supporters.
Of or relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.
Windows XP usage finally falls below 50% mark: “At the end of July 2011, Microsoft can say that Windows XP finally fell below the 50 percent mark. In other words, Redmond’s decade-old operating system is now used by less than half of all Internet users.”
Facebook Firing: Feds, Managers Navigate ‘New Territory’ In Employment: “The federal agency tasked with enforcing labor law has been fielding complaints from workers across the country who have been fired or disciplined for their work-related indiscretions on Facebook. Although the feds have taken up the cases of a number of jaded workers, others have essentially been told they have no one to blame for their workplace troubles but themselves.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
N.R.C. Lowers Estimate of How Many Would Die in Meltdown: “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is approaching completion of an ambitious study that concludes that a meltdown at a typical American reactor would lead to far fewer deaths than previously assumed.”
Few regulations are more blatantly anti-competitive than occupational licensing. Incumbents place barriers to entry to keep pesky competitors out of the market. Licensed occupations also enjoy an artificial 15 percent wage premium because of the supply restrictions. The Economistrecently ran a column on licensing’s rent-seeking aspects:
But the people who care most about this issue—the cartels of incumbents—lobbied the loudest. One predicted that unlicensed designers would use fabrics that might spread disease and cause 88,000 deaths a year. Another suggested, even more alarmingly, that clashing colour schemes might adversely affect “salivation”. In the early hours of May 7th the bill was defeated. If Republican majorities cannot pluck up the courage to challenge a cartel of interior designers when Florida’s unemployment rate is more than 10%, what hope has America? The Licence Raj may be here to stay.
After Norway adopted gender quotas for corporate boards — requiring companies to have boards of directors comprised of at least 40 percent women — large numbers of inexperienced people ended up as corporate directors. “A study by the University of Michigan found that this led to large numbers of inexperienced women being appointed to boards, and that this has seriously damaged those firms’ performance.”
But this didn’t stop other European countries such as Spain and France from following Norway’s example and mandating 40 percent quotas (Spain’s quota requirement is already in effect, while France’s law goes into effect in 2017). Italy’s Parliament recently passed a 30 percent quota requirement after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had previously opposed such quotas, endorsed them (perhaps as a way of attempting to defuse public outrage over his sexual escapades and his patronizing remarks towards women). The European Parliament has recommended that all member countries adopt such quotas in their national laws.
The July 31 deal to cut federal spending in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling is long overdue, and is an important first step in stabilizing the nation’s finances, as many conservative commentators, such as The Wall Street Journal, have recognized. But the deal is nonetheless being criticized by a few conservatives because it may result in cuts in Pentagon spending in the future. But most of the conservatives I know don’t share this view. They and I are happy with cuts even if they include the Pentagon, since such cuts will be necessary as part of a package deal to get spiraling deficits under control. With a $1.6 trillion deficit, wasteful spending must be trimmed everywhere, and the Pentagon, as one of the largest government departments, cannot be immune. Congress should ignore the whining about defense cuts and pass the deal, unless speedy bipartisan agreement can somehow be reached on even larger cuts. As TheWall Street Journalnotes, the deal is “the debt deal is a rare bipartisan victory for the forces of smaller government.”
PayPal hands over 1,000 IP Addresses to the FBI: “PayPal was attacked by Anonymous last year when they had blocked the Wikileaks accounts transactions. Now PayPal has finally come up with enough evidence to strike back at Anonymous with the help of the FBI. PayPal has come up with a list of over 1,000 IP Addresses left behind when they were attacked by Anonymous.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
July heat in Washington was unprecedented: “Relentless and punishing, July’s heat was unrivaled in 140 years of Washington, D.C., weather record-keeping. The July temperature averaged 84.5 degrees at Reagan National Airport — Washington’s official weather station — more than a degree above July 2010 and July 1993, which previously held the mark for hottest month.”
Insurance / Gambling:
New Internet café tests limits of state gaming laws: “On a recent weekday afternoon inside a West Main Street storefront, a room filled with folding tables and flat-screen computer monitors has drawn about a dozen people — all focused on the spinning and flashing images onscreen.”
Children are messy. That’s why Richard Belanger, one of mankind’s unsung heroes, invented the sippy cup. By taking advantage of surface tension, liquid won’t spill out even if the cup is held upside down. Even the most determined toddler has a hard time making a mess.
A similar bill passed last year, but fell victim to then-Gov. David Paterson’s veto pen. Current Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s stance on sippy cup policy is unknown. He will see some interest group pressure, though:
“I can show you photos of children who go to bed with sippy cups,” said Mark Feldman, executive director of the state Dental Association, which pressed for the bill.
“All you see is little black stumps that is all that is left of the teeth,” he added.
And I can show you a busybody who spends entirely too much time worrying about other people’s children. If his strongest argument is anecdotal hyperbole (possibly photoshopped?), then his case is weak indeed.
Either that, or the ADA felt the need to have a legislative accomplishment to brag about in its newsletter to prove its clout.
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